The Battle_No Sanctuary Read online

  THE BATTLE

  No Sanctuary Series

  Book 6

  By

  Mike Kraus

  © 2018 Mike Kraus

  www.MikeKrausBooks.com

  [email protected]

  www.facebook.com/MikeKrausBooks

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without the permission in writing from the author.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  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

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Author’s Notes

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  Special Thanks

  This book wouldn’t be possible without the help and support of my amazing beta reading team.

  Thank you to Angie, Bridget, Caroline F, Caroline S, Christine, Claudia, David, Gari, Glenda, James, Jonathan, Jonna, Julie, Karen W, Karen O, Kelly, Laurel, Lynnette, Mark, Marlys, Mayer, Randy, Robert, Robin, Sarah, Scarlett, Shari and Teresa for your awesome feedback during the beta reading process!

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  Preface

  After leaving the United States reeling from multiple attacks designed to target our primary weaknesses, Farhad Omar is ready to put his final plan into motion. Multiple dirty bombs are primed and ready in dozens of cities across the country where refugees have gathered. The goal? To kill as many people as he possibly can.

  Linda, Frank, Jackson and Sarah worked tirelessly to find the dirty bombs and come up with a way to stop them. Two have already gone off, but the rest have been delayed thanks to signal jammers that are blocking communications in most of the cities. Teams race to find the bombs before they can be manually detonated all while four people pursue the man in charge of this heinous disaster.

  After defusing a bomb in Phoenix, our unlikely heroes head to Washington, D.C. where a fierce attack is under way, directed by Omar at the city itself. With time running out before his forces break through and disable the signal jammers across the country, there is only one choice left: take out Omar before his plan can succeed.

  And now, No Sanctuary #6: The Battle.

  Chapter 1

  “Please be warned that what you’re about to see is graphic, and may not be suitable for all audiences.”

  A young man watches the television screen in the small living room of his off-campus apartment. A stack of textbooks and a laptop computer sit on the table nearby, the battery for the computer nearly drained. The ice in a glass of soda has nearly melted, and condensation from the glass drips off the table to the floor. In the kitchen, the oven ticks as the heating element turns on and off, and on the counter sits a warm tray of once-frozen macaroni and cheese, having long since been forgotten as it slowly thawed.

  He is not concerned with the state of his apartment or anything in it. A young man, living in the country for just over two years, it has been many months since he’s traveled back home to visit his parents. His country occasionally pops up in the news, but in spite of America’s general distaste for his country, the students and teachers he sees on a daily basis have nothing but smiles and curious questions about his foreign lifestyle.

  While the young man often imagines being back home, surrounded by his family, old friends and familiar sights and smells, he never dreamed he would see his country on the television in the state that it is in. The volume on the broadcast is unexpectedly loud, startling him and making him reach for the remote on the table. He knocks the glass over and it tumbles to the carpet, soaking it with watered-down sugar water, but the young man pays little mind.

  Farhad Omar turns down the volume on the television and stares, transfixed in horror, as his home burns.

  “What you’re seeing now is video taken moments ago by civilians trapped in buildings just outside the main government buildings in Tehran. Internet service in the country is very spotty, and most reports making it out of the country are coming from satellite uploads as the main transmission lines have been physically severed.

  “You can see there, near the bottom, several persons from this unknown group as they rig some sort of explosive device to the main security gate. We understand that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of these individuals both in and around the main government buildings. The military’s response was sluggish at first, but they are on the scene and doing their best to stop what appears to be an attempted coup of the Iranian president.”

  A phone rings off to Omar’s side and he reaches for it out of instinct, slides the green answer symbol across the front and puts it up near his ear. Before he can answer, though, the line is filled with the sound of screams, gunfire and chaos.

  “Farhad!” The voice is hoarse and full of pain. Omar’s trance is broken, and he looks away from the television as he recognizes the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Father?!” He presses the phone hard against his ear as his father coughs and speaks again.

  “Listen to me, Farhad. They’ve gotten into the main buildings. The military’s on the way, but I don’t know if they’ll make it in time. Your mother and brothers are here with me. We’re trying to stay hidden, but… I just wanted to tell you we l—”

  The line goes dead. There are no more voices, no screams, no sounds of gunfire and no indications as to what has happened to Omar’s family. His breathing grows quick as he dials the number that called him, only to be met with a notice that it is no longer in service. He tries again, a dozen more times, but the result is the same.

  On the television, the military pours into the governm
ent buildings like water, sweeping away the unknown band of individuals who sought to overthrow and kill the President. Minutes and hours tick past, and the broadcast switches between the cold, formal faces of experts and analysts and scenes of sheet-covered bodies being carried out from the government compound.

  It’s impossible to know who the bodies once were, but Omar doesn’t need to see the images of his family to know that they are dead. Victims of assailants sent by an unknown source, they were once his rock and stable foundation. Now, though? He is alone.

  Chapter 2

  “Hold on!” Jackson’s voice echoed through the cabin of the Humvee as it sped along, bouncing on the uneven terrain of the highway median. Sitting in the passenger seat, Frank held on to his seat with both hands, the expression on his face grim as he tried to keep from being thrown from side to side. In the back, Linda sat sideways in a seat, bracing herself against the front seats and the back door all while silently hoping that the latch wouldn’t fail and send her tumbling out onto the ground.

  The vehicle was one of the last operational ones at Davison, as all of the working vehicles of all types had been taken north to the Washington sanctuary city to help fight off the assault. Jackson had nearly gotten into a fistfight with a group of soldiers who were preparing to get into the Humvee until Linda distracted them and the trio managed to get away before they could be stopped.

  The drive north into Washington was another stark reminder of the reality of the world. Abandoned cars, burned buildings and the smell of smoke and decay were everywhere, and Jackson frequently had to take the vehicle off-road in order to maintain their speed. While the light in the sky was soft, indicating that it was either soon after morning or near the evening, Linda and Frank weren’t entirely certain what time it was anymore. The rapid, rushed trips back and forth across the country and the frantic pace of their efforts to stop the dirty bombs had taken a heavy toll.

  Linda felt the sting of exhaustion in the back of her head, noticing her slowed reflexes and decreased response times. There was nothing she could do about it, though, except to press on and hope that she had enough energy to keep going. She and Frank had both slept for most of the four-hour plane ride to Washington, but “sleep” in the back of a military cargo jet is more like torture than actual rest.

  “Oh my…” Frank whispered from the front and Linda struggled to maneuver around to see through the narrow front windows at what he was gaping at. As Jackson crested a hill, taking them out of a shallow valley, they could see plumes of smoke and an orange glow off near the horizon. Unlike much of the smoke and fire they had seen on the drive thus far, though, what appeared in the distance was fresh and recent, caused by a source that was no doubt still very much present. “Is that… is that the city?”

  “Looks like it.” Jackson shook his head before jolting the Humvee to the side to miss the twisted edge of a crumpled guardrail. “I hope to hell they’ve held out. Frank, try the radio again. Maybe we’re close enough.”

  Frank reached for the radio but Linda shook her head and put a hand on his arm. “It’s no use. Whatever the assailants did in the initial attack knocked the transmitters in there offline. We’re not going to get anything from them until we get close enough for the two-ways to be in range. How much longer till we’re there, Jackson?”

  “Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.” Jackson’s voice raised an octave halfway through his answer as he jerked the steering wheel yet again, sending the Humvee onto the road for a few seconds to avoid a fence before going back into the median. “If we even make it. Whoever was in charge of repairing this piece of crap needs to be taken out and shot.”

  Frank and Linda said nothing as they concentrated on keeping themselves from being slung around the inside of the vehicle while Jackson did his best impression of a rally car driver. Linda kept one hand on Frank’s shoulder as they went along, and Frank reached up and grabbed it, clutching it tightly in his fingers. He and Linda hadn’t gotten a chance to speak privately since boarding the plane in Phoenix, but the moment they had shared while the plane was taking off had been stronger than either one of them had realized.

  Since being woken in their seats by the jostle of the aircraft hitting the ground, they had moved more smoothly as a unit than they had since meeting each other. Working in tandem they had helped Jackson secure the Humvee, helped plot a route north to the city and generally kept each other and Jackson encouraged despite the grim circumstances. Neither of them were sure about what was going on, but both of them were determined more than ever to see things through to the end, if only so that they could find out.

  “All right, ladies.” Jackson swallowed hard as a long, wide turn in the road appeared in the distance. “We’re nearly there. Make sure you’re ready to bail out at a moment’s notice. I’m going to skirt the edge of the barricades and try to get us north and as close to the command center’s location as possible. My guess is that we’ll have to bail out, but we might have to do that early.”

  “Jackson.” Linda patted him on the shoulder and spoke in a calm, steady voice. The Lieutenant was putting on a brave face, but his voice was unsteady. “We’re going to be okay.”

  “It’s not me I’m worried about. If he gets his hand on those codes and shuts down the jammers remotely…”

  “It’s not going to happen.” Frank replied with a matter-of-fact tone. “He will be stopped. We’ll do it.”

  They sat in silence for another moment as they rounded the wide turn in the road, following the highway in toward the sanctuary city. If the smoke and flames from afar had offered a disturbing glimpse of what was to come, the up-close view was far, far worse. Fires were actively jumping between buildings and thousands of flickers of light appeared near the southern and eastern sides, evidence of the people fleeing with flashlights in hand, trying to make their way from the burning portions of the city to the portions still intact.

  There were hundreds of thousands—maybe more—who were undoubtedly trapped in the city, left with nowhere else to go but away from the flames, and unless the military could direct their attention to the fires, the buildings—and the people—would soon be completely obliterated. The moderate-sized military forces that Frank and Linda could still vividly recall avoiding while walking through the city were otherwise engaged, though, and a quick look at the northern edge of the city revealed why.

  Flashes of light and trails of smoke extended from the north beyond the river, signaling mortar and rocket fire that was raining down on the soldiers and civilians. Bursts of orange and yellow light flashed across the buildings as hundreds of attackers and soldiers attempted to suppress each other with small arms fire. Tracer rounds from atop Humvees parked near the edge of the city flew through the sky, setting small fires and punching holes through buildings in an attempt to drive away the attackers. Occasionally, one of the rockets or mortars would make contact with something other than bare metal or concrete, sending a fiery explosion into the air as yet another cache of supplies or a vehicle went up in flames.

  “Have they really been under this kind of assault for four hours?” Frank whistled softly in disbelief.

  “Look at how the fire’s spreading.” Linda leaned forward as Jackson slowed the Humvee to drive over a curb to get around a group of parked cars. “Nearly half of the buildings are in flames. How are they going to get that under control?”

  “Cut a line around the edge of the fire, demo the buildings and stop it in its tracks,” Jackson replied, “but they can’t do that if they’re dug in like that.”

  “Let’s get in there and free them up.”

  Jackson stifled a laugh as he drove around the edge of the city, looking for a clear path in through the barricades. “You expect the three of us in this banged-up old thing with only limited ammunition and weapons to do what, exactly?”

  Linda smiled from the back seat. “Strategy trumps numbers, Jackson. You ought to know better than that.”

  “I’d still rather not go charg
ing in with a rifle and nothing else against what could be hundreds or more enemy combatants.”

  Linda pointed out the window again, highlighting the rows of buildings along the north end of the river. Their windows were still lighting up with yellow and orange flashes, and occasionally trails of smoke came from atop and behind them. “They’ve got half a dozen mortars back there, plus some rockets in the windows. If we can secure a couple of those mortars then we can flip the script and start targeting their buildings. That’ll give the forces inside the city enough of a breather to move up and start taking buildings back, or get some heavy counterfire going.”

  “Huh.” Jackson grunted and nodded slowly. “That could work. They’re going to have more than just a few people manning the mortars, though.”

  “We can handle it. Trust me.” Linda reached forward and adjusted the settings on the radio, turning the volume up so that she could hear the static squealing loudly inside the vehicle. “We need to get in communication with someone, though. If Sarah or someone else is still around, they need to be able to direct units to move in.”

  Jackson keyed the microphone and called out their location and disposition as he flipped through the channels. Finally the static turned into hurried, frantic speech as various units tried to speak to each other and to what was left of the command structure. Jackson was about to radio in when Linda put a hand on his arm and shook her head. “Give it a second; I want to hear what’s going on, first.”

  In between the low quality of the transmissions, the static, the acronyms and the initialisms, Frank couldn’t make out any of what was going on. Linda and Jackson listened intently, though, and when Linda noticed Frank’s confused expression she began whispering to him. “They’re not doing well. Mortar and rocket fire has taken out a lot of their static emplacements and they’re starting to weaken. They also just spotted a small group heading for the command building.” Linda glanced at Jackson and spoke louder. “They must be going for the codes to shut down the signal jammers. We need to get in there right now!”