TYRANT: The Rise (9 page)

John looked at Belt and Belt said, “Let’s do it.”

Jess and Denny took a census of who was saved from the UN prisoner barges, which they code-named “Alcatraz.” The barges were a whopping two hundred and forty feet long by seventy-two feet wide. The shipping containers were about forty feet long and eight feet wide. They stuffed about one hundred and fifty people into each Alcatraz. Only half the containers were actually filled with people, the other containers were filled with polymer boxes and “Martial Law” signs. In total they managed to save about four thousand two hundred people. Many of them ran away and only one thousand two hundred fifty-six stayed and took up residence in shared billets in Gorham.

Denny reported to Nathan’s quarters and presented the census to Nathan, in the form of a neatly scribed notebook with all the figures. Everything was neatly arranged so that Nathan could easily thumb through the notebook and find what he was looking for.

Denny was used to taking good notes and writing up instruction-based literature. His last year in the Navy was serving as a curriculum coordinator for training Seabee Corpsman.

As Nathan thumbed through the pages, he was most interested in the assets. He wanted to know specifically what it was he had to work with, i.e., who could shoot, who could sew, who could cook, etc. In all, he only had thirteen veterans and only two of them were actually grunts. Nathan knew that all thirteen of them would be fine because he knew that they would be able to take orders and know how to carry them out. He didn’t discriminate much on what they did in service, though it was important; he just wanted to know who he could communicate best with, and who he could trust the most.

Nathan placed the notebook in a watertight ziplock bag and stuffed it into one of the pockets of his assault pack. “Thanks, brother! You did a great job organizing all this data.”

“You’re welcome. What do you plan to do with all that information?”

Nathan looked at Denny then peeked out of the blinds of his front-room window. “Jess didn’t share with you?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“I think I like her,” Nathan told Denny.

“In what way?”

Nathan just smiled.

“Oh, c’mon, man, you can’t leave me hanging like that,” Denny pressed.

“She’s hot, smart, and she didn’t tell you what I told her, which earned a little trust, and you know how far trust can go these days,” Nathan shared with Denny.

“So fill me in. What are we up to?”

“I think we should head back to Menard Correctional and find out what’s going on with that prison. Jess said she saw a courtyard full of inmates with a guard in the tower.”

“Yeah, so what’s so weird about that?” Denny inquired.

“Well, she said the guard was a UN soldier and watched her through binos as she stole weapons, and did nothing about it. Apparently he had a rifle slung over his shoulder.”

“Man, I don’t like this. Just because something smells fishy, we’re going back? We lost a good man the last time we went there.”

“I know, but we’ll have more help this time, and what if those are not inmates? What if they’re legitimate UN prisoners like those people in the barges were?”

“Listen to yourself,” Denny said. “We don’t even know if it’s been reinforced since we left. We don’t know if there’s going to be a zealous UN guard this time that’s going to take a potshot at us. What if those prisoners are inmates from before the Flip? What if they’re murderous maximum-security inmates and they get out?”

“I’m not sure of the answers to those questions, Denny, but if we don’t go find out, I won’t be able to sleep knowing that we’ve turned our backs on them. I’m not going to make anybody go. This is a voluntary army I’m trying to organize. If you want to stay, you have my leave.”

“You know I go where you go. I just want to make sure you understand the cost and have taken all other risks and possibilities into consideration.”

Nathan put his hand on Denny’s shoulder and patted him. He walked outside and caught a glimpse of Jess sitting on the hood of an old broken-down car.

“I wonder how many more small communities like this there are still left out there,” Jess said to Nathan as he walked up to her.

“I don’t know. It’s still pretty early in the game to tell.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Nathan took another look at Jessica and asked, “What department did you work at before the Flip?”

“I worked at Menard and Chester PD. Why?”

“We might need your knowledge for the upcoming trip to Menard.”

“So we’re going through with it, eh?” Jess asked inquisitively.

“Only if you want to. I’m going to be taking volunteers from the list you and Denny prepped for me.”

Jess just kind of stared at Nathan.

“What?” Nathan laughingly asked.

“Nothing. What did you have in mind for the trip?” she asked.

“I was thinking of taking as many of the vets as I could muster. Everyone armed with at least a knife, a pistol, and a rifle. I would also like to take a nurse; I noticed we had three of them on the roster.”

“Indeed, we do. Would you like me to arm them and teach them how to shoot?”

Nathan peered into her eyes again and said, “Would you? That would be great. Try to work in whatever you can. We will brief after that and leave at first light.”

Nathan started to walk away then stopped and turned around “Oh yeah, can you look into moving the armory closer to the guard shack, later?”

“Sure thing, boss.”

Nathan smiled at her and walked off into the community and disappeared behind some houses. Jess watched him the whole time and never took her eyes off of him. It wasn’t out of suspicion or anything negative. She felt something between the two of them and it was more than a friendly bonding. She was attracted to Nathan. Everything about him. She liked his green eyes, stubbly face, and big smile. He was smart, kind, and a natural leader. She saw that the people of the community respected him. It wasn’t that kind of respect that is demanded, but earned. Nathan didn’t have to bark orders. He asked people to do things and they were happy to do them. She found that very attractive.

“Hello,” Jess heard as she was standing up from the hood of the car and wiping off her bottom. Jess turned around to see a man dressed in overalls. He was rugged looking and in his thirties.

“My name’s Scott.”

“Jess,” she quickly replied and walked away.

The man pursued her with a volley of questions and comments.

“It’s a beautiful day out here, Jess.”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty nice afternoon.”

“Can I help you with something?” the man asked.

“No, thank you, I’m quite capable.”

“Where are you heading?” the man persisted.

Jess stopped walking and turned around. “Look, I’m going to round up a crew, fetch some firearms, and do some practice shooting.”

Jess then turned from the man and walked away. Jess was watching over her shoulder with her peripheral vision. The man had stopped his pursuit.

Scott kept his distance and continued to watch Jess closely. He walked openly through the community, across streets and through yards. Unbeknownst to anybody, Scott was not a member of the community. He was a member of the Southside Raiders, a group of hooligans from Murphysboro. He’d taken a gamble walking into the camp. He’d sat outside the camp long enough to see where the sentries were posted and where the best point of entry would be. He didn’t know anything about the community, how long it had been there, who was in charge, nothing. He walked in unarmed, hoping nobody would call his bluff on being a community member himself. So far, it had worked.

Scott first approached Jess to put her recognition skills to the test and then tailed Jess to the armory, and nobody in town had stopped to ask him who he was or who he was with.

Scott watched Jess as she rounded up the RNs and LPNs that had registered their assets. Jess walked them up to the armored bus, which they had confiscated from the UN invaders, unlocked it with a key that was in her pocket, and proceeded to pull out several rifles, pistols, and boxes of ammunition. Scott took careful mental notes.

Evening hours had come to Gorham and Scott sat silhouetted by a tree, watching Jess and her group of amateur shooters.

“We need to get these weapons put away,” Jess told the shooters. “It’s getting dark and soon I have a briefing to attend.”

The nurses followed Jess back to the armored bus, where they housed the weapons and ammo. Each nurse patiently stood by with rifles in hand waiting for her to unlock the bus. Jess fidgeted with her key chain and was embarrassed that she could not find the right key. She looked back at the nurses and said, “You guys can stand your weapons against the bus, right there. I’ll get them put away.”

All agreed as they stood their weapons against the bus, with the buttstocks on the ground and muzzles facing up. They walked away as a group while Jess tried to fit every key in the lock. Once she had the right key, she unlocked the door and stepped inside the bus. Upset that she couldn’t identify the right key in the dark, she elected to put it on a separate ring unto itself. She carefully slipped the key off the ring and stuck it in her pocket.

Nathan was setting up for the evening briefing in the old firehouse. He was patiently waiting on his most experienced and trusted members, primarily Jess and Denny. Nathan knew they would be bringing all the vets with them. Jess was the only prior LE, so he wasn’t looking to be seeing any experienced shooters from that profession.

Denny came walking in with a barrage of vets. They each had a rifle that had been assigned to them.

“I count ten. Thought we had thirteen,” Nathan said as he pulled the notebook out of his bag.

“We do,” said Denny. “I imagine Jess is rounding them up.”

No sooner than Denny had said that, they heard the faint sound of the bus as it was being started.

“She’s probably moving it closer to the guard shack,” Nathan said.

The sounds grew chaotic as Denny and Nathan looked at each other the way they always do when something’s awry. They shouldered their rifles and Denny called to the ten vets, “Let’s roll,” as they took off out the door of the firehouse.

They followed the sounds of commotion as they unhitched their horses and headed northeast towards the ruckus. They could only faintly see a pair of lights and hear the engine of the bus as it rammed through yards and through the perimeter fence of the camp. Nathan and Denny, realizing they were well ahead of the rest of the group, came to a stop and watched as the bus exited the camp and drove onto the train tracks, which headed northeast out of town.

When the bus was out of view, Denny said, “Are we going to wait until reveille to hunt it down?”

“Where’s Jess?” Nathan said, choosing not to answer Denny. Instead, he turned the horse around and went looking for Jessica.

“JESSICA!” Nathan yelled as he rode around town.

“JESSICA!” he shouted over and over again, sometimes riding up to people and asking, “Have you seen Jessica?”

Denny had never seen Nathan behave in such a frenzy. Denny would call to Nathan, but he wasn’t hearing him. Nathan ran from house to house, beating on people’s doors and asking them if they had seen Jessica.

Nathan ran back to his quarters and started prepping his assault rig. He was moving quickly, throwing items into his bag that he knew he would need. He grabbed some extra magazines for his AR, a map of the southern portion of the state, some dehydrated venison and beef, zip-ties, camouflaged face mask, and other things he felt he would need. The door flew open and Nathan quickly turned around with a pistol pointed at Denny.

“Whoa,” Denny said with his hands up.

Nathan turned back around and zipped up his assault pack. He began prepping his chest rig with magazines for his AR and his Glock, the preferred choice of both he and Jess.

“What do you think you’re doing, boss?”

Nathan kept prepping as he told Denny, “Jess is gone and I need answers.”

“But tonight?” Denny said as he tried to reason with Nathan. “If we go out tonight, we won’t be able to see the tracks, we won’t be able to detect an ambush. There’s any number of bad scenarios that could spring up. Nathan, it’s not safe to leave the camp after dark.”

Nathan plopped down on the couch and dropped his chest rig at his feet. Denny walked around the recliner and sat down on it.

“We need a plan, and then we go out when we can see,” Denny said.

“You’re right, Den. I’m being irrational and hasty. I guess not having answers makes me feel out of control and I don’t like the feeling of vulnerability. I mean, we don’t know if we were duped or if Jess was taken.”

“We’ll get our answers tomorrow, boss. Let’s stay up for a while and work on this. Maybe develop a plan, as best we can.”

Buchanan had the Black Hawk secured while he, Reynolds, Riley, and the senior enlisted Marines bivouacked for the night. It was Franks’ idea to get the officers together with the senior staff for some bonding time. He thought they could put their heads together and get a better feel for where Reynolds’ head was. Reynolds was still an outsider, and though several of the more seasoned Marines had experience in the trenches with Army dogs, they all felt a little uncomfortable with Reynolds until they knew just what his ideals were.

Buchanan took care of posting “firewatch” around the camp. Weapons Company had the advantage in the darkness with their IR (infrared) night-vision capabilities. They were perched atop every possible position that gave them a perimeter worthy to be called safe. Besides the heavy-guns advantages, there were individual ground units posted about a wide perimeter that made penetrating their temporary base nearly impossible.

Reynolds had offered to assist in the firewatch activities, but Buchanan, Riley, and Franks wouldn’t have it, given the circumstances. The other Rangers were segregated, not because of dislike, but because of distrust. Marines were especially wary of outsiders, but given what had just happened and the state of America, they were especially wary.