Hannah stiffened. “Liam ran into them outside of Champaign.”
“Then you know. They’ve taken over Chicago and most of Illinois. Last night, they breached the Indiana border. A fighting force of over two thousand men poured into Gary. We have reports of dozens of civilian deaths and other atrocities.”
“I caught similar chatter from my contacts this morning,” Dave said. “It’s like a war zone.”
“It’s not like a war zone. It is one.”
Dread scrabbled up the notches of her spine. Via I-94, the city of Gary, Indiana, was less than sixty-five miles from Fall Creek. “You think Poe might invade Michigan?”
“It’s a distinct possibility that we can’t afford to rule out. They may push into Michigan City or head toward Mishawaka.”
“Either city is too close for comfort,” Dave said.
“I agree. Indiana obeyed the President’s edicts and sent their National Guard to aid in the rioting in D.C. They’re vulnerable. Poe is bulldozing through the state with little resistance.”
“Aren’t folks fighting back?” Dave asked.
“They are, but we’re talking small groups and individual homesteads. It happened so fast, the civilians didn’t have time to organize a fighting force. They were taken by surprise.”
“Hot damn,” Dave whispered.
“Take care, Fall Creek,” Hamilton said.
“We will,” Hannah said. “Over and out.”
Hannah and Dave exchanged a heavy glance. Dread curdled in her gut. Threats were closing in from every direction.
War. Tyranny. Human slavery.
How could this be America? How could the tiny town of Fall Creek stand against such evil?
She sensed the danger lurking just outside their line of sight, invisible but ever present, drawing closer and closer, gathering strength and power as it came.
A tsunami of darkness about to crash down upon them, destroying everything in its wake.
The General
Day One Hundred and Three
The General tipped his head back, swallowed the last of the cheap whiskey, and tossed the plastic cup on the concrete floor.
He wanted to wash his mouth out with soap. The whiskey had held none of the complex tableau of rich, dusky flavors of cognac, his beverage of choice. He relished a well-aged cognac rich with spices, leather, citrus, and tannins, like velvet on his tongue.
He glanced at his watch in increasing frustration. He was sick to death of the Fort Custer Training Center in Augusta, Michigan, near Battle Creek.
Fort Custer was the federally owned and state-operated Army National Guard training facility where Governor Duffield had sent him to gather the National Guard to defend Michigan from the Syndicate.
A mere eighty miles from his true destination of Fall Creek.
So close. And yet.
Their departure had been delayed when one of the two Black Hawks requisitioned for the mission broke down. Obtaining the specialized parts in the middle of a worldwide collapse had proved an exercise in frustration and futility.
They were down to one helo.
So be it. They could do plenty of damage with their remaining arsenal.
Five hundred National Guardsmen armed with M4s. Twenty armored Humvees equipped with .50 caliber M2 Browning machine guns, along with additional transport vehicles. Crates of LAW anti-tank rockets and belt-fed machine guns. Modest supplies of mortar and artillery. He’d requested more; the Governor had not yet complied.
No drones, though. Resources were rapidly dwindling: fuel, ammunition, food. Military bases, at least in Michigan, derived their power from civilian power sources. 100% of them were offline.
Communication was failing. Chaos and confusion reigned at every level in the chain of command.
He wasn’t worried. Irritated to all hell, though.
Worse, the paramilitary team he’d sent ahead of him had neither returned nor checked in.
With an irked sigh, he watched the guardsmen organizing the staging area, readying the supplies, and loading them onto the transport vehicles. He kept his own men close.
His most trusted contractors served as his bodyguards. At least ten surrounded him, skilled paramilitary operators dressed in black fatigues, combat boots, and chest rigs, outfitted with Berettas and M4s.
He’d recruited them years ago for his private security firm, conducting special operations off the book for the alphabet agencies who wanted plausible deniability. He’d given it to them.
He’d handpicked former military or law enforcement with black marks in their files. He preferred the morally bankrupt.
They made better soldiers and more efficient killers. Zero moral qualms to take into consideration.
The General cracked his swollen knuckles. His arthritis was acting up again. The stale, chilly air gnawed at him, but he refused to shiver or reveal any weakness.
He was no longer young. Pushing seventy-one, he’d always boasted a rugged toughness, his broad chest sagging only in the last few years. Now, his body ached in too many places to mention.
He missed his cushy office next to the Governor’s at the George W. Romney Building on Capital Avenue in Lansing. The overstuffed leather chair, the whirring generators, and his tumbler of favorite cognac. He missed ice.
War was a young man’s game.
He belonged at the top of the food chain, where he could rest and relax in luxurious comfort—not out here in the wild, enduring cold, hunger, and discomfort.
Those behind expansive desks had earned the right to command death with the push of a button.
Only, there were no buttons to push anymore.
Ah, but he’d chosen this, hadn’t he? He’d let his thirst for vengeance and sense of poetic justice lure him from the sumptuous luxuries of the governor’s office. Simple things—ice on command, power at the flick of a switch—represented the new opulence.
For a purpose, he told himself. A little longer, and he’d return victorious, the man responsible for demolishing the Syndicate.