Battle Road

  Battle Road

  by

  Frank Gerry

  This book is a work of fiction. Any reference to historical

  events, actual people, or real places are used only in a fictional

  manner. Other names, characters, places, and events are completely

  the creation of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real people,

  living or dead, actual events, and actual places is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Frank Gerry

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the author

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To Janet,

  My North Star

  Preface

  In the spring of 2003, my wife Janet and I visited the memorial for the Battleship Arizona in Pearl Harbor. We were on our honeymoon, having fun and enjoying our time exploring the Hawaiian Islands. Everything about Hawaii is amazing; the sun, the beaches, the mountains. It's breathtakingly beautiful.

  I'm glad we took the time to make the trip over to the memorial. Because it was more than just the solemn experience of paying our respects to those who perished that infamous day. For me it was an epiphany for what it means to be an American.

  While I stood facing the giant white wall in the Memorial, listing the thousands of names of those who died, I began to think of all the men and women who died fighting to establish and defend our country. Actually, I thought of all the people who died face first in some mud soaked battlefield so that I could have fun on an exotic tropical island.

  I thought to myself, what can I do to honor all those men and women. The answer came to me easily. I could honor them by doing my best to participate in the democratic process and to always speak out for what was right. To carry on what they fought for in whatever little way I could.

  The idea for this novel came about from my observations of the political landscape in America during the Great Recession, after our first African American president was elected. It was a time, still is to a degree, of intense anger and fear by certain segments of American society. A political movement was born, which grew out of that anger, the Tea Party.

  While I watched the behavior and the language the Tea Party, I grew more worried by the day. I listened to their members violently shout down opposing viewpoints at town hall meetings. I listened to their leaders vow “No compromise” in the halls of Congress. I saw the growing strength of these Tea Partiers and their attempts to turn back the clock on women’s rights, suppress the rights of gays and lesbians, and further inject their religious beliefs into our nations laws.

  I do not deny these people have a right to their opinions. What concerned me was their undemocratic language, their extremist actions, their hate filled speech, and their apparent unwillingness to engage in political dialogue.

  This book is my way of speaking out. It tells a possible story of what could happen to our country if people stopped talking with one another. If Americans stopped making compromises to live in peace with one another.

  Frank Gerry

  April, 2014

  ONE

  Karl Olsen paced back and forth in a parking spot along Beacon Street in the Back Bay section of Boston. He smoked a cigarette, a Paul Mall, which was nearly out. He didn't go for those wimpy vaporizers that nearly everyone used nowadays. A real cigarette was the only way to get a solid rush of nicotine. He stopped and stood perfectly still for a moment, inhaled the last of the butt, and let out a stream of smoke into the evening sky. His mind wandered off from his task at hand as he began swaying from side to side.

  Darkness had fallen earlier than usual on the overcast November evening. Olson stopped his swaying and stood facing his beat up Suzuki motorcycle, an old electric drive. He noticed some dried encrusted dirt on the side of the battery casing and started rubbing it off with his thumb. He looked around from time to time, trying to adjust his eyes to the dimming light, and keep watch of the sidewalk. His helmet and duffel bag lay on the curb next to him. Three extinguished Paul Malls where strewn about his feet.

  A couple of blocks away, a brisk wind swirled a few reddish brown leaves along the sidewalk as John and Lynne Davidson strode past. The couple were taking their evening walk along Beacon Street. A routine that got them out of their townhouse for some exercise and stress relief at the end of the day. Their usual route took them down to Massachusetts Avenue where they could head over to the Charles River, for a relaxing stroll along the Esplanade, with magnificent night time views of the Cambridge skyscrapers illuminated across the river.

  John Davidson was the larger than life celebrity CEO of Mainstreet Financial, one of the largest financial service conglomerates in the nation. Although Davidson became well known in his earlier years within financial circles across the globe as he built his corporate empire. It wasn't until he hosted his first Christian ministry on prime time TV in the mid 2020's that he became nationally famous.

  Olsen continued chained smoking. He changed his motion back to his original pacing of to and fro. His shoulders hunched as if to ward off the cold. Dressed in a dark red leather motorcycle outfit, he blended into the shadows of the darkening street. Olsen purposely chose the spot to park his bike for the way the nearby streetlight cast it's light. He could see the faces of anyone approaching along the sidewalk.

  At twenty five minutes past four, John and Lynne walked under that streetlight. “Like fucking clockwork,” Olsen murmured to himself. His heart began to beat faster, his breathing more labored. A bead of sweat dripped down the right side of his forehead. He started the engine to his motorcycle as he had planned. The electric motor whirred.

  The Davidson's held hands as they walked past. Enjoying their evening, they took no notice of anyone in particular around them. Their conversation focused on the new mega-church they were building in one of the wealthier suburbs of Boston. John Davidson usually didn't talk with his wife about financial matters or his duties as one of the senior Deputies in the Freedom Party, preferring to keep his work separate from his home life.

  Olsen could feel his heart pounding even harder. He wondered whether he was going to faint. As the Davidson's walked past, he stepped onto the sidewalk and followed the pair. Four, five, six, he counted in his head the number of his footsteps. He pulled down the zipper to the top of his leather suit. Nine, ten, he found himself unable to stop counting. Twelve, he pulled out his silencer equipped 22 automatic handgun from his underarm holster. Fourteen, fifteen. In a blur of motion, he managed to take a few quick steps, put the barrel of the gun nearly to the back of John Davidson's head, and pull the trigger. Eighteen, the pop from the silencers muzzle was barely noticeable. He swung around and slowly walked away.

  Davidson was dead before he hit the sidewalk. The 22 caliber titanium jacketed slug almost certainly having ricocheted back and forth within the mans skull. Lynne Davidson never saw a thing. Her body frozen while she watched her husband collapse onto the concrete.

  Twenty one, twenty two, Olsen continued his counting. He appeared to be in a state of shock as he walked slowly, almost hypnotically, towards his idling motorcycle. He dropped the gun into the street, and just stood there, frozen with a blank expression on his face.

  It was only a matter of a few seconds before the dead mans wife finally realized what had happened. She fell to her knees and began to scream, bringing Olsen back to his senses. A few nearby pedestrians rushed to her aid. Blood smeared across her jacket as she held her husbands head. “Oh my God, help me, Oh my God. John! John!” she cried, tears flowed down her face.

  Time was running out. Olsen knew he had to act fast. They'd
be over head within seconds. As planned, he reached down and pulled out of his duffel bag the brand new Khymat grenade rifle with laser targeting and inserted the circular magazine of armor piercing rocket propelled grenades. The magazine was full with twenty five rounds. “Enough to do some serious fuck'n damage,” he said out loud while admiring the weapon. He was back to his old cocky self.

  He put on his motorcycle helmet, lifted the visor, and switched on the helmets digital camera, transmitting the video back to Command. Then he just stood there, by the side of his bike, waiting a bit anxiously. A few seconds ticked by. Nothing happened. He looked up and down the street, scanning the air. Nothing. He knew it wouldn't be long. He began fiddling with the controls to the targeting system of the Khymat, making sure it was functioning properly.

  Within a minute, the first drone came flying down the street at about twenty five miles per hour, thirty feet above street level. At the same time, a police siren roared in the distance. Olsen readied the Khymat rifle, slowly taking aim against the drone hovering above him. But held off firing. He focused the green luminescent targeting display of the rifle, taking his time adjusting the targeting system in preparation to fire.

  Olsen's primary assigned task was testing the effectiveness of the Israeli made Khymats against Homeland Security's newest reconnaissance drones. The non-lethal drones assigned to patrol city streets. The assassination was important. But testing the weapon was vital.

  This generation of reconnaissance drones were the latest tool in the Department of Homeland Security's arsenal. They were hockey puck shaped flying discs, five feet in diameter by two feet thick. Constructed with an outer layer of dark tinted lexan and equipped with video and infrared camera's, laser targeting, listening equipment, and “smart” programming. Negatively charged plasma, magnetized with powerful lightweight electromagnets provided the lift and thrust for flight. Gone were the old internal combustion engines with rotating propellers. These drones carried no weapons, designed instead to be the eyes and ears for Homeland Security, as well as, the targeting systems for the nations fleet of weaponized attack drones, such as the latest generation of Reapers.

  Olsen prepared to fire. Before he could pull the trigger, he caught sight of more drones flying in fast from both directions of the street. Something was wrong. He swung his head from left to right counting three, four, five of them in all. This wasn't supposed to happen. One drone followed by a backup was the expected response in a situation such as this. The police siren grew louder. Another siren could be heard from the opposite direction. “What the fuck is going on?” he spoke aloud. He targeted the closest stationary drone, acquired the target lock and fired. The tiny missile struck it's prey, penetrating the exterior shell and instantly exploding. The hover drone fell to the street in flames. Before Olsen was able to acquire a target lock on the next drone, it and the other remaining drones began evasive maneuvering.

  This generation of hover drones were programmed to respond to and avoid ground based laser targeting systems. More probable was that by then the drones were being manually controlled by their command center and were issued the instructions for evasive action. A single human pilot located in a far away bunker controlled a dozen or more of the semi-autonomous drones.

  Olsen knew he could shoot down one or possibly two more hover drones in time. Getting all of them was not likely to happen. He had no options left but to try. He stood there sweating, trying to put a lock on one of the drones bouncing back and forth in random patterns. Five seconds passed, no target lock, ten seconds, nothing. At fifteen seconds, bingo, target acquired, he pulled the trigger and the second hover drone fell to it's death. “Fuck yeah!” he yelled.

  Simultaneously, all three remaining drones fired their targeting laser beams at him. Three red dots marked his chest. The hover drones maintained their laser fixes as they maneuvered back and forth. Sweat poured down Olsen's face. He knew he couldn't outrun them on his old motorcycle. Not now. Not on these congested city streets during rush hour. Not with Reaper attack drones on patrol over the skies of New England having certainly been dispatched to his coordinates. His only chance of survival was shooting them all down before Homeland Security arrived or before getting hit by an anti-personnel missile, launched from three thousand feet in the darkness above.

  The screams from Lynne Davidson continued to echo throughout the street. She was inconsolable. Bystanders finally managed to pull her away from her husband and bring her to safety down a flight of concrete steps leading to an entrance to a lower level condominium. Olsen could hear the good Samaritans speaking quietly as they got the victims wife to safety; “Terrorists....... I think there's only one of them.” The rest of the street was deserted, the civilian bystanders having already dove for cover.

  Olsen desperately fired the Khymat rifle again. This time the targeting failed, the grenade veered off it's mark and burst into the red brick exterior wall of the townhouse on the opposite side of the street.

  His options were quickly diminishing. The soldiers should have been here by now, he thought. He knew a single shot by Homeland Security soldiers with the same laser targeted weapons as he held in his hands would send a smart bullet directly into one of the red dots on his chest. The other thought continually filled his mind. The thought of a missile appearing out of the darkness and striking him before he could even blink an eye. His heart began to race harder if that was even possible.

  Olsen fired again. This time it was a lucky shot, hitting another of the hover drones dead center. He took no joy in the sight of it falling to earth ablaze. Again, he wanted to run, get on his bike and take off. He knew he couldn't. The drones would pursue, with lasers trained on him.

  The first Homeland Security military police cruiser with it's sirens blasting screeched around the corner onto Beacon Street. “Oh fucking shit, fuck me!” Olsen stumbled backwards. More sirens could be heard on the way.

  He regained his composure, though continued stepping backwards onto the sidewalk as he managed to fire off a round. It was another good shot, hitting one more of the drones in mid air. One red dot remained on his chest. The cruiser slammed on it's brakes a hundred or so feet from him. The car skidded to it's left before finally coming to a halt.

  Olsen struggled to get a targeting lock on the remaining drone. He spoke aloud, “If I can get that last son of a ......” He stopped in mid sentence. Any hope he had left escaped him as he watched another hover drone fly in low over the Homeland Security cruiser. The two soldiers from the cruiser positioned themselves behind their opened doors with guns drawn. “Drop your weapon and get down on the ground! I won't say this again. You've got three seconds,” the soldier from the drivers side of the car commanded. The second hover drone moved into position, beaming it's targeting laser squarely on Olsen's chest.

  Olsen knew if he got caught, there was no way he could withstand the torture. He would talk. He would tell them everything he knew and more. He spoke aloud, barely perceptible even to himself, “I can't betray them.” His mind suddenly drew a blank trying to remember just who 'they' were. He struggled for another moment trying to remember the names and the faces of his commanding officers and colleagues. There was nothing. It was like the images were hidden behind a curtain. Just out of sight. Suddenly, a fuzzy image of a older man with long white hair seeped into his mind for some reason. But he couldn't make out who it was, it was all a blur.

  He switched the Khymat rifle to full automatic. Then fought to get air into his lungs, before running into the middle of the street and firing a volley of grenades at the soldiers. A barrage of the small missiles smashed into the cruiser, destroying the bullet proof glass and armored plated doors. Metal and glass shards exploded in every direction. The tall soldier on the drivers side was killed instantly with a direct hit to the front of the head. The other soldier, his left leg below the kneecap blown off by a strike to his lower calf, fell to the ground in unbelievable pain. Though in a blink of an eye, the soldier managed to roll over a
nd sit up against the side of the car. Ripping the sleeve of his uniform off to start a tourniquet.

  A second Homeland Security cruiser screeched to a halt behind Olsen, closing off the street. Olsen spun around, firing another volley of missiles. He kept his finger on the trigger this time, emptying the magazine. The police cruiser turned into a mangled burning wreck. Both of the soldiers inside, bloodied and collapsed, appeared dead. “Yeah, you think so motherfuckers! You think you can beat me. Fuck no!” Olsen yelled as loud as he could at the burning car in front of him. His entire body shook as he held the Khymat rifle with one hand in an exaggerated macho manner. “Fucking right.” He shook his head up and down, still yelling profanities as he grabbed his duffel bag to put the rifle away. Two laser beams remained trained on him. It didn't matter. He was out of grenades. His only chance now, he thought, was trying to outrun the drones before a Reaper got into firing range.

  The surviving soldier from the first cruiser managed to quickly tie off the tourniquet to his leg. The blood loss had slowed to a drip. He knew he might just make it if help got to him in time. He also knew he had only seconds before he'd lose consciousness. With all his remaining strength, he stretched his right arm over to where his service weapon lay on the ground, trying as best he could to stay upright and not fall over. His fingers managed to cup the gun and drag it towards him. When it was close enough, he took the gun by the handle, quickly switched off the safety, raised it above his head with both hands, and squeezed off a round through the passenger side door window. He only needed one shot.

  The smart bullet weaved it's way through the darkened city street. A fraction of a second later it landed on one of the red dots marking the assassin's chest. Olson never saw it coming. Blood, shattered bones, and disintegrated organs exploded outward as his body instantly shredded to pieces. Like his first victim, Karl Olsen was dead before he hit the street.