The Dragons of Men (The Sons of Liberty Book 2) Read online

  Rick had joined about five other men at the electrical panel toward the rear of the room. Each of them quickly determined exactly what the problem was, though they all had differing theories. Judi patted Sarah on the shoulder and shook her head.

  “Don’t you worry either,” Judi said as she removed her tennis shoes, setting them down on the floor next to her before gently massaging her feet. “Our Adam hasn’t let us down yet, has he?”

  Sarah laughed quietly as the subtle tension between her shoulders loosened. “No, I don’t suppose he has.”

  “Well, it’s not him I’m worried about,” Elizabeth Holt said with her warm southern drawl as she lounged in an oversized corduroy armchair—no doubt a relic from the cold war. “I’m worried what I might do to those men back there at the electrical panel if they don’t get the power back up and runnin’ soon. I’ve been waitin’ years to watch Lukas pull his lip over his head and swallow. If I miss it now there’s just no telling what a sweet ol’ lady like me might do.”

  Judah looked up at Sarah as the older women laughed quietly, clearly unhappy and refusing to share their enthusiasm. Sarah had never seen her son as devastated as he had been that morning when Adam left for DC. Judah was a seventeen-year-old boy who had been forced to grow up quickly over the past year and a half since Joe died. Judah had wept with the honest belief that he was never going to see his father again, and his mood had remained somber throughout the day. Sarah patted him on the shoulder softly as he reclined up against the base of the armchair.

  “It’s okay, Judah,” Sarah said, placing her hand on his shoulder. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

  The door at the rear flew open with a bang, causing Sarah to jump with a squeak, though she had not been the only one to do so. Eric Corsa stood in the doorway shouldering two bulging bags and pausing as he scanned over the room quickly. It was a brief and wordless hesitation, but he didn’t need to say anything. Sarah already knew that everything was not, in fact, going to be just fine.

  Eric tossed one of the bags over to Rick, the older man catching it with a grunt.

  “You’ve got thirty seconds to hand those out,” Eric said as Rick drew an automatic rifle from the bag. “Elizabeth, Sarah, Judi—the kids, now! Everyone, on your feet. We’ve got to go!”

  Sarah’s family, Elizabeth, and the strangers in the room looked around at one another worriedly, though they all failed to move.

  “What happened?” Elizabeth demanded after a pause.

  “There’s no time!” Eric shouted as he moved toward the exit at the far end of the room.

  Sarah stood up, Eva and Grace clutching her hands tightly. She was vaguely aware of Judah moving to grab ahold of Judi’s arm.

  “It’s just a power outage,” Rick said, holding the rifle doubtfully. “We’ll—”

  “Not on a night like tonight,” Eric replied coldly without slowing. “Now I said let’s go.”

  “Would you stop for a moment and—” Sarah began.

  Eric turned around quickly, shouting as he did so. “I said get moving or you’re all going to die!”

  “Momma?” Eva cried, clutching Sarah’s arm tighter as tears of horror filled her and Grace’s eyes simultaneously. Sarah’s stomach seemed to climb a ladder through her throat, growing as it ascended and threatened to cut her oxygen off completely.

  “Look,” Eric began, taking a deep breath, “there are no coincidences tonight.” He paused once more, looking at Sarah. For the first time since he started speaking, Sarah realized he too fought to hold back a horror that filled his eyes. “I gave your husband a promise that I’d look after you no matter what. I was upstairs monitoring a battery-powered radio just a few minutes ago. When the power went dead, static filled the speaker at the same moment. I tried to radio Jackson but all the comms are down. A brownout wouldn’t wipe down our communication network. Someone’s scrambling the airwaves and I don’t have anything to descramble the signal and listen in on what’s coming. Now, we’re leaving immediately and anyone else who wants to live had best follow me.”

  Sarah looked over to Rick, who was already handing out guns to the others, alarm and anger now lining his face. She looked down at her daughters, over to Judi and Elizabeth, and finally down at Judah.

  “Okay,” she said as she looked back up to Eric. “Let’s go.”

  Sarah tucked her small Bible away in her back pocket and began to follow Eric. As those in the room scurried about frantically—some joining Eric at the exit while others ran elsewhere—Sarah fought to keep herself together, realizing Judah might have been more right that morning than anyone could have known.

  “ETA to bombing run?”

  “Nine minutes.”

  Jacob Brekor nodded, looking away from the young man beside him to gaze upon the room. Eleven other uniformed men and women spoke quietly through their headsets as they monitored the endless screens in the control room on board the stealth naval ship a hundred miles off the Virginia Coast. They swiped their hands around digital panels in front of them, speaking quietly as they guided the unmanned armies around the East Coast. Each soldier was garbed in white uniforms adorned with the Imperium’s seal on their right breast pockets. Every so often someone would direct their words toward Jacob, giving a vital update to the drone armies that were taking up positions around DC and the other eight coastal cities that were about to be occupied by Lukas Chambers. In all his years preparing the world for the coming era, Jacob had never envisioned a future in which he willfully betrayed Sigmund. Nevertheless, his allegiance had never been truly rooted in Sigmund or the Patriarchs.

  Jacob had long ago submitted himself to a far greater authority and humbly obeyed the commands he could not ignore.

  “What’s the status at Seymour Johnson?” Jacob asked as he paced slowly at the back of the room.

  “Eleven planes were able to take off,” a young uniformed woman replied. “Five Warthogs, two Super Hornets, and four Raptors.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “North to DC. At their current speed, the Raptors will be there in twelve minutes.”

  “Then let’s make sure they do not remain in the air for more than eleven,” Jacob replied as he tapped his earpiece. “Fourth Echelon, this is Eagle Eye. We have eleven enemy aircrafts approaching DC from the south. They are out of range of the Second. Reroute your MIGs from Norfolk and intercept the bogies before they reach Washington air space.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Jamie,” Jacob said, walking up to a young, auburn-haired woman to his right. “Do you have any news regarding who the hell was about to launch nearly sixty fighter jets before we stumbled upon them?”

  It had been quite the surprise to find fifty-nine planes preparing to launch as the Second Echelon moved inland toward Fort Bragg. The planes had ranged from Vietnam era jets to modern day stealth fighters. Jacob had quickly used his fleet of Yellow Jackets to attack the airfield as he cut power and communications to Fort Bragg.

  He had ordered the Russian mercenaries at Reagan International to activate the Graystone device as a precaution. Jacob then proceeded to initiate the activation of the remaining thirty Graystones they had already secured up and down the East Coast, obscuring the entire seaboard in an impenetrable digital canopy. They were key to blinding and disabling any initial resistance that might spring up once Lukas had dissolved the United States. Without the Graystones and Lukas’ survival, Jacob would not be able to follow through with his true mission—the battle that mattered most. Tonight was his responsibility. The days that followed would be a monumental trial of giants, an assessment of biblical proportions, and Lukas had to make it through the coming battle for that test to begin. Still, two questions continued to nag at him as the fight for DC drew near.

  Who had been preparing those planes for launch, and where are they now?

  “No word yet,” Jamie replied. “Perhaps they know we are coming?”

  “Hewitt knows nothing,” Jacob replied. “We were m
onitoring all security cameras at Fort Bragg’s HQ before we cut the power. He’s as oblivious as those listening to Lukas ramble on from inside the Capitol Building. No one knows what’s coming.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” one of the officers said from behind a large curved screen.

  “What is it, Lieutenant Roy?”

  “I just got a system alert that someone is sifting through our live feeds.”

  “One of our men?”

  “No sir. Those on this boat are the only mediators authorized to access our feeds and it’s not originating from here.”

  “Then shut them down!” Jacob bellowed.

  “I can’t, sir,” Lieutenant James Roy replied. “They keep overriding my authentication codes. Whoever it is, they are efficient and they are fast.”

  “Can you tell exactly where it’s coming from?”

  “Momentarily.”

  “Well, bloody make it happen,” Jacob replied harshly. “The future of this world rests on our shoulders!”

  Jacob stepped back and continued his pacing at the rear of the room, muttering to himself as he watched Lukas on the television, waiting for an update from Lieutenant Roy. He had little sleep since leaving DC a week ago, losing his patience as he almost lost his nerve maneuvering around Sigmund. He had watched the Patriarchs like a hawk and doubted they suspected a thing, mostly because he figured he would have been writhing around on the floor in agony if they had known of his intentions. The antidote Jacob had given Lukas had been created in secret, months prior, as a safeguard in the event that Sigmund decided to direct his wrath toward Jacob. The antidote deployed thousands of microscopic nanobots that were meant to spread throughout Lukas’ body before setting off a micro EMP to destroy Sigmund’s will-bending drug. The burst was so minor that someone with a pacemaker wouldn’t have even noticed much more than a jolting hiccup. Jacob had not yet told Lukas of the antidote’s unfortunate side effects, though he hadn’t decided if he would reveal that secret before the great trial was complete. After administering the cure, they had only had ten minutes to formulate their plan from the Oval Office before Jacob left Lukas and Maria to rejoin Sigmund and the others. Since then, Jacob had been forced to keep to himself quietly, joining Sigmund by day as he organized the coup by night.

  Jacob no longer feared the United States military as he once had. Fort Bragg’s secession had already begun to fracture the American armed forces, and he figured they were too busy fighting themselves to realize three armies had approached their coastlines under the guise of shipping freighters. He had managed to convince Sigmund to deploy a detachment of hundreds of drone tanks to subdue those soldiers at Fort Bragg as Lukas stepped down. Still, Jacob needed more than DC to pacify those who might resist in the coming days.

  He needed an example.

  The Imperium would need a public illustration of what would happen should anyone rebel against Lukas, and the images of Fort Bragg’s burning ruins would paint that picture eloquently.

  Lukas was commencing with his resignation speech on screen three when Lieutenant Roy cried out.

  “Sir, I’ve located the source!”

  “Where are they?” Jacob asked. “Offutt? Texas? Bragg?”

  “Sir,” the officer began as he enlarged a screen that displayed a bright room with dead soldiers on the floor and heavily armed men moving about. “They’ve taken the control room at Reagan. They’re trying to take control of the Graystone in DC.”

  Jacob’s ears grew hot as he listened to Lieutenant Roy speak. For days Jacob had believed the Patriarchs or the United States would muster one last defense in an effort to retain the power they were destined to lose.

  He had never imagined they would strike first from the very city Lukas resided.

  “Jam all frequencies over DC, including our own. Activate the Second Echelon and commence the attack on Fort Bragg.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Reroute the Fifth from Baltimore,” Jacob barked, holding himself together as best as he could as he tried not to think about the punishment that awaited him should he fail to protect Lukas.

  You have but one responsibility. Jacob shuddered as he thought back to the extraordinary exchange he had weeks earlier.

  “I want the Fifth’s Yellow Jackets filling the skies over DC as soon as possible. All other divisions, commence with Operation Imperium Rising. Tell the Fourth to destroy any military they see in DC when they’re done with those Raptors. And activate the MIGs hidden at JFK. Roy, I want you to personally guide them over DC and set fire to anything that approaches the Capitol Building. Let’s move, ladies and gents! We’ve got a world to win!”

  “Get down!”

  Bright flashes like distant lightning filled the horizon, followed by three loud whooshes of artillery passing overhead as Sarah dove to the ground, covering her kids with her trembling body. The shells struck Fort Bragg’s Medical Center a few hundred yards ahead of her, exploding with a trio of fiery booms. Black smoke and falling debris quickly replaced the balls of fire, pouring from the gaping holes that now decorated the hospital’s face. The sound of battle and men dying in the distance filled the air—horrific sounds that Sarah knew would haunt her dreams and the dreams of her children for many nights to come.

  If they even lived to dream another night.

  “Get up!” Eric ordered as he jumped to his feet. More flashes and rumbling filled the sky in the direction of the gates a mile and a half behind them. Eric paused as he glanced back at the direction of the battle and then to the twenty or so civilians that surrounded him. Not all had followed him, though most had been frightened enough to flee. The look in Eric’s eyes made it clear to Sarah that the warrior within wanted to be at the front with his brothers, fighting the enemy instead of helping a frightened gathering of inept strangers escape. He hesitated for only a moment before barking orders again. “Alright, we’re driving out of here. There will be vehicles at the medical center’s parking lot. Hit the ground if you hear more artillery. Now move!”

  As the group ran for the burning medical center, random shells passed overhead. Sarah ran with both Eva and Grace clutching her hands. Judah ran up from behind her, his face terrified as he clutched a military rifle Rick had given him. It looked odd in his hands—a weapon designed purely for the killing of men—and Sarah realized in that moment that her children wouldn’t be resigned to the sidelines of this war.

  They’d be the ones who waged it or died trying.

  They reached the parking lot in the medical center, Eric the only one not out of breath. “We need at least five vehicles,” he shouted as he bashed in a window to an ancient SUV from the nineties. “Make sure they’re older. We won’t be able to hotwire any of the newer cars.”

  The group spread out quickly, the sound of shattering of glass barely audible over the distant thunder. It wasn’t long before they were all piling into six vehicles that were running idly, Eric shouting at the others to follow his lead. Eric was the last to load up in a large SUV with Sarah, her kids, Rick, Judi, and Elizabeth crammed in the back. Within minutes they were speeding west through the parking lot.

  “What now?” Sarah asked.

  “The first thing we’re doing is getting as far away from this base as we can tonight,” Eric replied as they approached the exit. The road ahead split to the right and left, and he paused momentarily as though he was deciding which way to go. “We’ll need to clear the….” His words trailed off as he looked in the rearview mirror, his eyes narrowing momentarily before widening in horror. “Everyone down!”

  Time seemed to decelerate as Sarah looked behind them with a curious fright. The first bombs struck the base with a pounding like that of a mad titan’s drum, a blinding light causing the pupils in her wide eyes to constrict. A wave of fire and debris traveled toward them with a reverberation that shook the SUV. Eric floored it through the intersection and up a grassy embankment, crushing small trees as the vehicle sped into a residential area. Sarah cried out to G
od as she shoved her kids down to the floor—waiting for the boom that would inevitably close the curtains to this world. The engine roared and Eric bellowed as a brilliant flash followed by an earsplitting concussion blew the windows out, filling the SUV with the sharp smell of smoke.

  This is it, Sarah thought as she clutched her children. I am about to die.

  She could feel the vehicle shift in midair and hear the snapping of steel. For a moment, the SUV seemed to drift weightlessly through the air before sinking into the ground as it came to a jarring halt.

  Instead of a searing fire, cold water quickly filled the interior as they slowly descended, coming to rest on the right side of the vehicle. It was so unexpected that she cried out in surprise. However, her shock was only momentary. She was still alive and had to protect her children.

  She grabbed Eva and Grace as the frigid pool water leveled off chest deep. Elizabeth and Rick were moving, dragging an unconscious Judi out the shattered back window. Judah was slowly crawling out one of the broken windows. Eric, however, was nowhere to be seen.

  “Eric,” Sarah called out, frantically searching for him. “Eric!”

  Nothing.

  “Rick!”

  “Come on, Sarah!” Rick yelled back. “We have to—”

  “I can’t find Eric!” Sarah shouted.

  “Damn it, Sarah, we’ve got to go!”

  Sarah quickly handed Eva and Grace to Rick through the back window and began crawling over seats toward the front to see if Eric had been ejected through the windshield. As she made it to the driver’s seat, a hand grabbed her from underneath the surface. She ducked down in the water and felt around frantically before a hand clutched her wrist. The fires outside barely illuminated the dark water, but she could see the whites of Eric’s eyes staring back at her as he struggled to free himself. His arm had been trapped between the pool’s tiled floor and the metal frame of the vehicle. She tugged on his free arm, but he didn’t budge. The vehicle lay on his forearm six inches from his hand, and unless they could lift the vehicle, Eric would drown.