Hope Of The World Read online

  Hope Of The World

  The World Burns Book 11

  Boyd Craven III

  Copyright © 2017 Boyd Craven III

  Hope Of The World, The World Burns Book 11

  By Boyd Craven

  Many thanks to friends and family for keeping me writing!

  All rights reserved.

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  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  About the Author

  1

  “So, Michael,” Shannon said, taking his hand, “tell me, where are you from exactly? You don’t sound like you’re from this part of the world.”

  “Alabama, ma’am,” Michael said, trying not to get tongue tied around the older and very beautiful DHS woman.

  “You don’t have to call me ma’am… Aren’t you going to ask me where I’m from?” she said, stopping.

  They were both between the rows of APCs, one row off from where Michael had parked their rolling Russian rust.

  “Where are you from, Shannon?” Michael asked, feeling like a piece of sandpaper who was trying to be smooth.

  “Canton Texas, though I went to school up in North Dakota,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze.

  “I’m sorry if I suck at talking to people, I’m not used to this…”

  “Do I scare you?” Shannon asked him, turning to face him.

  “A little bit,” Michael told her truthfully.

  “You’re twice my size, came in here wearing two guns like you know how to use them both, and you’re afraid of me?” she asked, her lips curving up into a smile.

  “Not afraid, ma’am, just a little scared,” Michael admitted. “You’re just so pretty, every sane thought just flies straight out of my head when you’re close by.”

  “Well then, maybe this can help.”

  Shannon pulled him close and kissed him deeply. Michael was almost too startled at first, but he quickly returned the passion. After a few more seconds, they both pulled away.

  “Wow,” Shannon said, flushed and a little bit breathless.

  “Wow is right,” Michael agreed. “So, I don’t have any college education, I actually didn’t even graduate high school.”

  Shannon looked at him surprised, and he started to walk, his hand still linked with hers. She followed, instead of breaking the grip, as Michael led her slowly toward the APC.

  “What’s the plan?” King asked.

  “We’ve got three minutes and forty-five seconds before the HVAC is going to go on the fritz and start venting diesel exhaust from the backup generator. Then the servers are going to open every door and prevent the electronic locks from working. Once the internal sensors show that evacuation has been completed, the computers are going to wipe themselves. This will then effectively become a big, fortified hole in the ground with a big wide open front door,” Caitlin said, her accent muted as she stated the facts in a clinical tone.

  “Good. Bad guys?”

  Caitlin sniffed. “Sugar, trust me, those Jihadis won’t be an issue, nor anybody who dined with them, and as long as Smith’s got his end all figured out, he should have gotten my coded signal.”

  “Do you really think we’ll be able to get all the turncoats outside?” John asked, “or is it one of those ‘get out or die’ situations?”

  “Hon, unless they got oxygen tanks, they’re gonna want to vent this puppy out. It’ll be an hour before they can fix what I did IF the computers were online. They won’t be. They can manually kill the genny, but that’s on the bottom of four, where all the exhaust will be the worst. My best guess is that it’ll be a turkey shoot. Smith’s men should be ready with the heavy stuff with the rest of the Kentucky Mafia ready to capture or kill.”

  “Good, so we’ll be ready with our APC to take out the other armor as needed. Who’s staying out to call the shots if we need artillery?”

  “That would be me,” Tex said sardonically, “but you already know that you’re the one who said I can’t move my ass fast enough.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right…” John said with a grin, and gathered everything he’d been collecting.

  Tex and John had talked with King’s ‘door key’, and they’d taken back some of the gear and supplies they had walked out of the APC with, so they wouldn’t be disarmed when the S hit the F. John looked left to right and then passed out articles of sweats from an oversized duffel that had bulky objects wrapped inside of them.

  “Time?” King asked.

  “Any second—”

  Loud klaxons went off, and everyone in John’s group took a deep breath, wondering if they would be able to smell the exhaust right off. The alarm was loud and deafening. Some people who were still in uniform ran toward the large blast doors, but most people milled about in confusion. It was easy to see who had been based here and in the know, and who were the NATO and uncompromised units. In the mass of confusion, everyone in the group was going to sneak out. At least that was the plan.

  "Go," he said, looking at the group.

  "Let's do it, ladies," Tex said, jumping up wincing and holding his right butt cheek.

  Four of the core group got together with the rest of the Kentucky Mafia, as they’d started to call themselves, and headed for the exit a little ahead of everyone else. Once people saw that they were starting an actual evacuation and that it was a fire drill or real-life fire, they moved too. That was when the smoke from the diesel exhaust got piped throughout the top level. All hell broke loose, and people started to cough and shout and yell. John looked up and easily found the flashing red lights over the large blast door.

  "This way, guys," John said, directing everyone. "Everyone knows their job, let's get ready to do this."

  "You, you got this. We just have to make sure that Michael ain't got stuck with some young thing," Caitlin said with a grin.

  "That boy is going to die a virgin," King said, smiling.

  "I'm that kid's godfather," John said with a snarl. "He's been a little boy ever since I've known him, he's been a little bit of an older boy even now, but until I can get a hold of his mom and dad, he's still a little boy. Do you understand me?" John wasn't smiling.

  Everyone had a good chuckle at that, and they started out with the rest of everyone else. All the new people from the NATO had irregular GHS units crashing at the same site; it was mass chaos. No one had planned for this number of people, they hadn't put together any drills for this number of people, and it showed.

  Before running out into the parking area with APCs haphazardly parked in rows, John's group immediately headed toward their APC, with Tex stopping just a little bit away. Caitlin passed him a handheld radio, and Tex put in the earwig and clipped on the push to talk button and fired it up. He immediately talked to Sgt. Smith, but his words were lost in the crowd of people that were rushing through.

  "Michael, what the hell is going on?" Shannon asked as the alarm sounded.

  "God, that sounds like the fire alarm to me,” Michael said, unsurprised.

  "I'm not here with my regular people, what are we supposed to do?" Shannon asked him, her dark hair blowing in the wind.

  Michael felt conflicted about Shannon, and he was torn. To tell her the truth, or to risk finding out that she was in on everything else? Never before had Cupid shot him, but he�
�d shot him good this time. His biggest worry was that he’d got shot right in the ass. He thought about it for half a second and then motioned her toward the back of APC and opened the door.

  "Shannon, what do you know about this place?" Michael asked quietly, barely overheard over the klaxon of the fire alarm.

  "Not much, I just know that we were told to stand down and to come back to this location."

  "What was your job before you guys were told to come up here?"

  Shannon looked at him thoughtfully for a second, knowing that he had something else on his mind. "You're getting around to something, aren't you?"

  "I'm not actually with the DHS," Michael admitted. "I've been sent here to infiltrate this facility to gauge the involvement of the New Caliphate within branches of our own government."

  Michael stood there for a moment as his words hit Shannon like a bombshell. The horror on her face was almost immediate.

  "You mean, that the DHS… That can't be true," Shannon protested angrily.

  "We've got all the proof we need now," Michael told her, "we’re the ones who pulled the fire alarm."

  "So, you coming out here with me… You mean you were just using me as a… I'm your diversion to get outside?" she snapped before letting one manicured hand fly and slapping him on the cheek.

  "I'm sorry," Michael said.

  "Are you making this up?" Shannon asked, her voice quiet despite the chaos erupting behind them.

  "No, it's the absolute truth. I'm with what people are starting to call the United States militia, otherwise known as the Kentucky Mafia."

  "You mean like Blake Jackson? Like the guy from Rebel Radio and his wife, Sandra?" Shannon asked, flexing her hand to get the pain out.

  "The very same. I don't know how much you've been aware of, but I need to know where you were, what you used to do for the DHS."

  "I was working in northern Texas, attached to an ICE contingent watching for drug runners cutting through New Mexico and Texas," Shannon said angrily.

  Michael watched her face and saw the way she'd reacted to the question, and he knew that she was probably telling him the truth. For now, he would trust, but verify. How he planned on doing that was anybody's guess. But if he could make her a friendly… Michael shook his head. He was thinking like an agent; he wanted to help Shannon out as more than just an asset. She was probably the first person that he'd ever found who had totally blown his socks off.

  "Pretty soon here friends are going to be showing up and if you're not with the Jihadis—"

  "Michael fired it up," John yelled over the shouting people who were starting to swarm the parking lot.

  Michael looked around, and Shannon looked in the direction John's voice had come from. A large group of the Kentucky Mafia was moving through the crowd, headed straight for the APC. Michael jumped inside and held his hand out to Shannon. "Are you with us, or are you with the Jihadis?"

  "I'm with the United States of America," Shannon said haughtily.

  "You get your ass in, sugar," Caitlin said, already pushing the younger woman.

  2

  "Khalid," Hassan said, rushing into the command post, "radio contact in the DHS facility has gone silent."

  "My dear cousin, why is this unusual?" Khalid said.

  "Because I've been unable to reach those loyal with us within the DHS," Hassan said, wiping sweat from his brow.

  "Cousin, you were the director of the Department of Homeland Security, you know all about these facilities. Tell me… what is it that you're worried about?"

  "I am worried that our people have been compromised, captured, or killed. It was very convenient that several days ago two facilities were attacked nearby and there was a lot of new DHS who were assigned to the area to flee there."

  "So what you're telling me, is that somehow the facility was breached?" Khalid asked his cousin.

  "That is the worst case scenario, cousin.”

  Khalid looked at his cousin thoughtfully for a moment, before starting to pace the lobby of the Motel 6 they'd taken as a command post. They were waiting for their agents to escape with the codes needed to disable and gain access to the nuclear facilities where the Air Force was held.

  "Hassan, what is our backup plan if we don't get those codes?"

  "There is no backup plan," Hassan said. "This is the only DHS facility where I had access to the Air Force's mainframes remotely. That's why it is where it is. This used to be an Air Force facility, part of the continuation of operations. I still had access, because not everything was decommissioned before I had this bunker renovated and upgraded. The men that were stationed there were my men, and the fact I can’t get them on the radio, or even secure other secure channels, has me very concerned."

  Khalid started to pace even faster, and his face turned an alarming shade of red.

  "Our advisors from North Korea are starting to defect, our supply chains coming from Mexico in the boats has now been completely cut off, been sank or requisitioned by the cartels or stolen by the American government. Our own men, the men you recruited to our cause, are still with us. For now."

  Hassan looked at his cousin, and after a few moments nodded his head.

  "So we are stuck in the middle of the country with no supplies, no resupply, and no way out?"

  "This is the way it's always been, cousin. I've been here myself for twenty-five years, helping to plan this operation. You know the sacrifices that must be made in the name of Allah. Please, cousin, don't lose faith now."

  Khalid looked at him in surprise. "Faith? You talk to me of faith? You don't even know the word faith. I’ve been doing the work of the Imams for three years, and I have not one shred of faith!" Khalid screamed. "I've been running on faith and conviction in the movement and the cause, and the abilities of the men around us, and in the plan. You tell me to have faith in Allah? You really think he cares that we’re stuck in a nation that hates us and wants to kill us?"

  Hassan looked at his cousin in shock; he’d always thought his cousin was a very thoughtful and religious person. It was how he’d got up through the ranks, how even the hard-core Salafists had accepted the meteor-like rising of Khalid through the ranks of the New Caliphate, winning one battle after another across Africa and parts of the Middle East.

  “If our people could defeat the Americans and Russians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, what is a country that does not know how to fight and survive in the old ways?” Hassan asked, “Khalid, we’ve already crippled or killed nine out of every ten infidels. Even if my men are dead and the plan for the nuclear bases is compromised, there is still hope for us. You may not have faith in Allah, but I do.”

  Khalid stopped pacing and looked at his cousin. A few moments ago he had been nervous and scared to share the potentially bad news. It was definitely not something they had ever thought possible while devising the plan, but if they lost the ability to cut the fangs off the American beast, it might come back to bite them. Fatally, even, if the news from North Korea was any indication.

  “Tell me, Hassan,” Khalid said softly, “if the base is compromised and an enemy force is occupying it, how many men would it take to retake it and get the codes out?”

  Hassan thought for a moment.

  3

  “Patrick,” the president said into his intercom.

  “Yes, Mr. President?” he asked, walking through the doorway that the Secret Service was guarding.

  “Oh, there you are. I thought I had made myself clear that Col. Grady was to be kept under house arrest?”

  “He was, sir.”

  “Was?” the president asked. “Then where is he now, and where are the men who were assigned to watch him until we could have his trial?”

  “Sir… They defected.”

  “Defected, Patrick?”

  “Apparently, the good Col. had even more friends than we could have anticipated. Not only did he have several air drops coordinated in the vicinity of the Homestead, but he also had air drops sending out anti-aircra
ft materials and materials dropped out west where they had a contingent of regulars waiting to reinforce what they are now calling the Kentucky Mafia, or the United States Militia. I believe it was through Col. Grady and Sandra that the small state militias started to band together, and it’s my belief that they, and friends within this own government, have helped him escape.”

  “To where?” the president demanded.

  “Sir, I wish I knew. I would tell you, but I don’t think I have anything other than guesses. I think he quite literally said something like ‘hunt a hole.' The way he and the team that helped him escape vanished, I think it’s likely that they are somewhere nearby. Maybe in one of the old decommissioned cold war bunkers scattered throughout the mountains here.”

  “He wouldn’t stay close. That’s too obvious a place to look. What about my appointment for his replacement?” the president asked.

  “Well, sir… we’re still working on getting the house and senate back together, but the communication issues have been insurmountable thus far. We’re lucky the Supreme Court didn’t lose all members with that low-yield nuclear device. As you know, only two of them were attending when it went up.”

  “Are you forgetting that Martial Law is in effect?” the president asked his oldest friend and aid.

  “No, sir, but it would make the legitimacy of the replacement—”

  “Why wouldn’t it be legitimate?” the president asked Patrick.

  “I’m not saying it wouldn’t be… but public perception is that—”

  “You know what? I’m signing an EO, and I want Malik Jefferson sworn in immediately.”

  “Yes, Mister President,” Patrick said, backing out of the room slowly.