Thy Kingdom Come: Book One in the Sam Thorpe series Page 8

  The data on Colonel Thorpe began downloading on the screen. Marshall looked out the window and saw his uncle limping back toward the house. His uncle had been thrown from a horse five years ago, and the injury left him with a severe limp.

  Marshall’s fingers trembled as he logged off and shut down the machine. Brushing sweat from his forehead, he pushed the precious laptop under his bed.

  The bedroom door shook from his uncle’s pounding. “Goddamn it, unlock this door.”

  Marshall pulled the door open.

  “What the hell you doing in there?”

  Marshall pointed at the field manual. “I’m studying my lesson for tonight.”

  Thursday night. Four more days to go.

  Sam gathered the men around the conference table, appointed four team leaders, and gave each of them a map. “Tonight we’re going to divide up and put two teams moving into the upper pasture on foot, and two teams will circle around Hill 42 in vehicles and approach the target from the rear.”

  The men leaned forward. Even Buster and his buddy paid attention.

  “Each leader will appoint one man to operate the radio. After thirty minutes, I want the team leader to rotate the duty so everyone will get a chance. Don’t forget to use your proper call sign.”

  Sam looked around, pointing at each man. “And no goddamn speeches. Radio procedures should be brief and to the point. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard guys give soliloquies on the radio. When they get that mic in their hand, they need to tell the world everything they know.”

  Most of the men laughed. Even Buster cracked a smile.

  Sam pointed at the four individuals he’d chosen to act as team leaders. “You four, over here. The rest can relax.”

  When they had gathered around, Sam distributed the mission assignment for the night. He pointed out the roads on the map each of the teams would follow and gave them a time to cross their IP. “I want you to go back and brief your team. Popeye and I will come around to hear your briefing. It doesn’t need to be perfect. This is only practice, but later on it will become serious. We won’t be able to afford any mistakes.”

  The four men briefed their teams, and they did the job well. At the end of the briefing, the men headed outside to begin the maneuver.

  Sam rode in a Jeep and selected Marshall for his driver. He switched on the radio. With his AN/PRC-47 he could monitor both nets. Periodically, he’d try to break in without proper authentication procedures. He was pleased to be stopped by the net control on all but two occasions.

  Marshall waited while Sam finished reprimanding one of the men who had let him on the net without proper authentication, then said, “Y-you really jumped o-on that guy.”

  “We can’t afford mistakes. No way can we allow anyone on the net that doesn’t belong.”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “Too much radio chatter. But it looks like the teams are moving toward their IP in an orderly fashion.”

  “W-what’s an IP?” Marshall shifted the Jeep into four-wheel drive.

  “Initial point. It’s the line at which the team will jump off and spread out toward their objective.”

  The men were able to stay in contact over a distance of approximately two miles. Sam had Marshall drive to the mission site and wait for the teams to arrive. Popeye maneuvered the men, so they arrived at the target in an organized manner. Most of the men used proper blackout procedures and noise discipline.

  When the men returned to the conference room, Sam had them sit down at the table. “I thought you did well tonight. I monitored both nets and didn’t hear much extra chatter.” He stopped and smiled. “Although there sure as hell was some.”

  A few of the men chuckled.

  “When you reached your IP, you spread out into an attack line and moved toward the objective. I noted that many of you practiced your hand signals. I congratulate you for that.”

  Sam stopped to see if anyone had any questions.

  “Enough for tonight. Be here tomorrow night, eighteen hundred hours sharp. The lesson will focus on working with a compass.

  Watching them leave the room, Sam asked himself, Which ones might be candidates to turn against Oliver?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Iam standing outside a window. I see the figure on a double bed, surrounded by flowers—organ music playing in the background. I know the figure—a woman— and I must reach her. “Let me in.”

  My voice makes no sound—my feet are leaden.

  She rises and motions for me to follow, but I cannot move. The figure, clothed in white veils, floats away from the window. I can only raise the window a few inches, not enough to squeeze into the room. The figure walks toward the door. “Wait! Wait for me, please!” I cry.

  She turns, but I can’t see a face—must catch up. I bang on the window and gather all my strength. “Wait! Wait for me…”

  Sam jerked up, his face bathed in sweat. The same dream had haunted him since he was a kid. Always the same: nothing he could do to halt the figure.

  He swung his legs off the cot and pushed himself to his feet, knowing that sleep would not return. It never did.

  He dropped his face into his hands. Heartbreak radiated from every pore in his body when he thought about the accident.

  His sister, Judy, had just turned sixteen; Sam two years younger. She had crushed four vertebrae and severed a portion of her spinal column. The doctors told her she’d never walk again. But Judy wouldn’t listen. She exercised as hard as she could, using the parallel bars, building muscle. She able to move around with a walker but still spent most of her time in a wheelchair.

  Sam had helped with her exercises, read books to her, played games, and enjoyed hanging out with her around the house.

  Those six months were agonizing for both of them. Judy worked as hard as she could, but still she would fall without her walker. Finally, the realization descended on her that the doctors had been right. She would never walk again under her own power.

  Each day her depression deepened. Sam tried to kid her out of it, tried to get her outside, but his efforts had failed.

  “Leave me alone, “she cried. “I know you mean well, but please leave me alone.”

  Then one day in October, the seventeenth—a day Sam would never forget—he walked into her room after school. The shades were drawn. He pulled up one, but she pleaded for him to pull it back down.

  She reached out her hand to him. “Sam, I can’t bear this any longer. One day you’ll leave, and I’ll be alone with them.” Her face became contorted. “You’ve got to go into Mother’s room and get her sleeping pills. I can’t stand the pain, the depression. I’m a cripple. This is no way to live.”

  “No. I love you.”

  “If you love me, you’ll help me. Don’t you see? I can’t go on.” She started to sob. “I can’t…”

  Her tears broke Sam’s heart. He had tried to talk her out of it, but she had been adamant.

  Stepping outside her room, he waited in the hall for a long time. Then he sighed and looked over the railing to make sure his mother was downstairs. He took the pills out of her bathroom cabinet and returned to Judy’s room.

  He’d hated his parents so much that he’d vowed he would never spend another day in their house. That day started Sam on a series of foster homes and military schools for troubled children.

  Now Sam still couldn’t believe what he had done. Forgiveness had not come. He knew it never would.

  Friday night. Three more days to go.

  Sam rotated the men to make sure they could all work together. Also, he hoped to avoid building loyalty. He needed to turn some of them against Oliver.

  Sam spread a map on the table and pointed out key items to check in the legend: color codes, magnetic declination, map symbols, and distances. The pain in his back and side had started to ease, but he still got twinges whenever he tried to lift anything heavy or shifted his body one way or another too quickly.

  “It’s critical that the map
, your compass, and the direction you’re facing are lined up. If you’re looking north and your map is oriented south, you’re gonna get all screwed up.”

  The men nodded.

  “Now, you can tell a great deal from the symbols at the bottom of the map.” He went around the table, asking men to define symbols. Most of them were experienced outdoorsmen, so this part went well.

  Sam spent twenty minutes explaining the few symbols they’d missed. “All right. Everybody outside.”

  The wind had picked up. Sam turned up his collar around his neck.

  He had laid out a compass course earlier in the day using four stakes. Sam gave each team an azimuth and a distance. The teams were to find each of the stakes, mark its number and a code that Sam had written on the stake, then move on to the next stake.

  “Each of you should take a turn leading the team from one stake to the next. If one guy has a problem, help him out. Each team must complete the course within an hour. Don’t be late. Questions?”

  They stared back at him.

  “Okay, get moving.” Sam thought for a moment. “Don’t forget to put your blackout filter over the beam on your flashlight. I don’t want to see any flashes of light. None.”

  It had snowed during the day, then thawed and frozen again, so the ground was icy. Sam heard cursing as men slipped and slid across the terrain. He had little sympathy for these guys.

  Sam cut across the center of the field, taking turns trailing each of the groups, interested in what they had to say. He watched for group leaders.

  By the end of the hour, all four teams had completed the course. Sam called them over to the tall oak tree at the corner of the field. “Any problems?”

  No one raised his hand.

  “Give me your sheets.”

  There was a rustling of paper as each leader handed over his scoring papers.

  “Let’s move to the range.”

  Oliver had constructed a fifty-meter rifle range behind his barn. Large spotlights provided light for night firing. Sam had to admit that the militia had great facilities.

  Snow crunched underfoot as they trudged over to the range. No one said a word. The men did what they were told, but no more.

  Sam slipped on a patch of ice, wrenching his back. He gritted his teeth against the pain and did some quick stretches.

  The range held twelve firing points.

  “All right,” Sam called. “Find a firing point, two men to a point. Then get your weapon out of the arms rack.”

  Sam unlocked the storage locker at the corner of the range and picked out three boxes of ammunition. “Buster, over here. You can help me distribute the ammunition.”

  The big man ambled over and took the boxes from Sam.

  “Three rounds to a man; then two magazines.”

  “Yeah.” Buster opened the boxes and started down the line.

  “After you zero, I want you to fire one magazine at the firing point, step forward four steps, kneel, and reload before firing the second magazine. Second man will count the number of hits.”

  Sam stood well behind the line. While the men hit their assigned targets, he didn’t completely trust all of them. Someone had ambushed him, and he needed to stay alert.

  Actually, all of the men hit the target except Marshall, who missed completely. This led to more harassment, particularly from Buster.

  “Need work, don’t they?” Sergeant Bacher materialized on Sam’s left.

  Sam nodded and kept his eyes down range. “You want to shoot a few rounds?”

  “Sure. Show these guys how it’s done.”

  “I’ve got an empty spot on number twelve,” Sam replied. “Grab yourself some ammo.”

  Bacher lay face down.

  Sam knelt behind him as a spotter.

  Bacher pointed his rifle down range and squeezed off twelve rounds. All ripped into the target near the bulls-eye.

  When Bacher pulled his earplugs out, Sam said, “Good shooting.”

  Bacher stood, brushed the snow off his fatigues, and walked off without saying another word.

  Sam watched him leave. Interesting guy, he thought. What’s his story?

  When the exercise was finished, Sam directed the men to lock the weapons in the racks again.

  “Follow me.” He led them back to the barn and issued a pair of night vision goggles to each of the men. These were an older generation than the ones Sam had used in Iraq. These didn’t instantly adapt to a sudden light source to prevent shock blindness. But Sam had tested them, and they worked.

  The men pulled the goggles over their eyes, some struggling with the placement, then turned toward Sam.

  “These goggles will help you own the night. Make sure they fit properly; keep them with your weapon. Anyone without a pair of goggles during our training sessions will drop down and give me one hundred pushups.”

  That brought some grumbling.

  “That’s enough. Drop down and give me fifty pushups for attitude; then you’re dismissed for the night. Any more bitching, and you’ll owe me another fifty.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Saturday night. Two more days to go.

  Sam planned to review everything from the past week, then take questions. “All right. Listen up. I think we’ve had a good week. We started by learning hand and arm signals; next we compared camouflage to cover; then we moved to map reading before…”

  The door banged open and Quentin Oliver walked in, Specialist Rose shadowing him. Oliver stood to the right of the door, arms wrapped around his body. His eyes darted around the room as if he’d sucked down too much caffeine.

  Uh, oh, Sam thought. Now what?

  Popeye’s eyes got wide. He jumped up and called, “Attention!”

  The men struggled to their feet. Sam stepped back as Oliver stalked to the front of the room. He looked around at the men, then walked up and down between the rows of chairs. The men froze at attention when he stopped in front of them. He eyed each man, shaking his head when he turned away from a few.

  When he finished his inspection, he walked to the front and stood next to Sam. “Be seated.”

  Chairs scraped as the men sat. They leaned forward, most sitting at attention.

  “I’ve been pleased with your progress over the past week. Not as fast as I would have liked, but passable.

  Sam was glad to hear that comment. His cover had held so far.

  “Tomorrow,” Oliver continued, “I will issue uniforms to each of you. I expect you to shine your boots and polish your brass. It’s time we look like a military unit rather than a rag-tag bunch of rookies.”

  The men nudged each other.

  “Soon we will move forward toward our destiny, freeing our fellow citizens from a raw and corrupt government that caters to minorities. The ones of you who remain with me will become the leaders in this world of tomorrow, a new kingdom where whites will reign supreme.”

  He let that sink in, then continued. “This will be the first step in our program to take our rightful place at the head of government. No longer will minorities push us aside and take our jobs. The boots of government have tromped over many of you. Together we must change that. The time is at hand, and you have been chosen to lead the effort. It will require work. We must start, and others will follow.”

  More smiles and nodding.

  Oliver pulled a piece of paper out of his briefcase and handed it to Popeye. “Now it’s up to you to show me what you can do. I’ve prepared an operations order to see how well you organize yourselves. Colonel Thorpe will help me evaluate the exercise.”

  Popeye scanned the paper, his hand shaking.

  Sam moved over to stand beside Oliver and watched Popeye. Not a good sign, thought Sam. The guy will panic under pressure.

  Popeye appointed Horace as the head of one team and Rand in charge of the second.

  Sam wondered how dedicated these two were to Oliver.

  Popeye stepped to the wall and drew down a map. “All right. Gather around.” There w
as more shuffling of feet as the group moved to where Popeye stood.

  Many sneaked glances at General Oliver while they walked to the map. Jeez, Sam thought, Oliver’s really got them under his spell.

  Popeye cleared his throat. “Team A is to take two trucks and maneuver four miles to approach Hill 114 from the west up this road.” His finger traced a farm road on the map.

  Horace squinted at the map, made a note in his book, and nodded.

  “Team B is to take one Jeep and one truck and approach Hill 114 from the east.” He pointed out the road they were to follow. “Once you’re in position, notify me with a double click on your mic. We’ll push off at 1840 hours. Any questions?”

  The team leaders shook their heads and motioned for their men to follow them outside. The group hurried to the weapons racks, grabbed their rifles, and moved outside. Drivers had brought vehicles to the door of the barn, and the men loaded in rapidly. The team leaders took their places in the cabs with the drivers.

  After walking up and down the line of vehicles, Oliver turned to Sam. “What do you think?”

  “Loaded quickly and smoothly. I think we need to concentrate on leadership so the men know who’s in charge of their team.”

  Oliver nodded. Rose blew a whistle and called for the men to disembark from the vehicles, which brought on some grumbling.

  “Knock off the bullshit,” Sam called.

  Popeye gave him a dirty look.

  Rose blew the whistle again. “Inside.”

  The men gathered in a semi-circle around Oliver near the front of the room. He looked at each of the men before he spoke. “You loaded in an orderly manner, ready to go. That’s important. I thought the briefings were done effectively.”

  Sam sensed a collective sigh of relief.

  Oliver looked around. “I was disappointed the other night. You all know better than to drive up to an objective and start walking up the hill. At least you should now if you’ve been listening to Colonel Thorpe this past week.” He paused. “Some have learned that lesson the hard way.”