Chapter 5

It was a late morning in early October when our road sensors went off for the twenty-fifth time. The rest had been individuals and small groups escaping their captors or simply looking for greener pastures. One coed group of ten stopped at the Oregon Border and called us or we might never have known they were there. They were all on horseback with horses pulling three wooden wagons of supplies and I don’t think their wagons would have set off the road sensors. I guess the metal in their supplies might have, though.

This time, though, it wasn’t just survivors. There was a military column coming into the state from Arizona. They flew no colors and had no discernable insignias, but they had 12 tanks and 12 Blackhawks on flatbed semis. There were also 11 fuel tanker trucks, and 350 troops in troop transports. It was a long hour before the diverted Avenger was in position to give us more information than what we got from the cameras and scanners at the border when they passed. We did see them laughing at our warning signs, though. I recognized the foreign language they were using on the radio immediately. I didn’t know more than a smattering of Arabic I picked up while I was in Iran, but it was enough to send chills down my spine.

The base immediately went on alert status when we spotted the troops and now the order went out for our troops to depart. Our fleet of sixteen Avengers were armed and launched. The two tanker airplanes were hastily filled and sent to MCAS Miramar near San Diego, as well as twenty Seahawks full of troops and six Apaches. ACAVs and two tanker trucks were loaded aboard our burgeoning fleet of C-5s. We decided against tanks. They had twelve, but we should be able to neutralize them from the air with the six fighters we deployed if we hit them before they expected it.

They had stopped near El Centro for lunch by the time our troops departed, and they sent four ACAVs ahead towards San Diego to scout. In our entire population we had 16 people who spoke Arabic. I suggested that we start documenting what languages we had translators for to save time in the future as I scurried to the jet waiting on me. Four translators were too pregnant to fly so we had them man radios in the control room. The rest were waiting aboard the Lear for me, engines running. One of the translators was doubling as our co-pilot.

We hit them just as they got to the outskirts of San Diego, almost at the El Cajon gang’s old headquarters. Craig and John hung back to see if there was an air response to our attack. We had loaded our jets with half air-to-air missiles and half air-to-ground missiles except for Craig and John. They were armed strictly for air-to-air combat and were ready--and I think eager--for a dogfight. The 16 Avengers each fired one missile, taking out the 12 tanks and the lead and secondary command vehicles. They also hit the first and last semi-tractors pulling the trailers with the Blackhawks. The second volley destroyed the remaining semi-tractors pulling the trailers Blackhawks. Our jets came in and took care of the four scout ACAVs while the Avengers eliminated the final fuel tankers. There were victorious whoops from the fighter pilots after they got their first real “kills.” All those long hours of practice had finally paid off.

With the jets and Avengers keeping watch from overhead, our Seahawks closed in from north and south, pinning the enemy troops on or near the freeway. Most of those troops tried unsuccessfully to hide in the landscaping. If they shot at us we shot back. If they didn’t shoot, we didn’t shoot except for a few of them who were unlucky enough to be close to someone firing at us. More than once the Avengers recorded their troops shooting one of their own when they started firing at us.

Once the shooting had died for a good minute, one of our translators ordered them to move back to the freeway without their weapons. Satisfied that we had them all, they were ordered back into the troop trucks and directed to a nearby shopping center where our snipers covered them. We went through the remaining bodies and made sure each one was really dead with a single shot to the head. I started it, trying to spare the troops, but was quickly joined by a dozen women still eager to extract a measure of revenge for the hell they had endured. Only when we got confirmation from Esperanza Base that we’d seen to each of the scattered IR images did we head for the parking lot and the landing zone that was being held open for us.

The last of the prisoners were being shackled as the whine of our helicopter’s motor wound down. Approaching a truck where the men were still being shackled, I asked through my translator Valerie, “Who is the highest-ranking person on this truck?” Several motioned awkwardly to one man. “What are you doing here?” I asked him angrily. When he spit at me, I had help dragging him across the street where he was shackled to a parking lot light post a good two hundred yards from us. Then we walked away.

I left their troops standing for nearly half an hour, pointedly ignoring them while they glanced nervously across the street. I was surprised that it took so long but it was probably the large number of people so close by that kept the dogs at bay for so long. Forty-three minutes after shackling him to the post he started screaming for us to help him when he saw the dogs circling him.

I’d seen three packs nearby when we flew over. This looked like the biggest pack. I double checked the rooftops behind me to make sure our own sentries were posted. I needn’t have bothered. “He’s saying that this violates the Geneva Convention,” my translator chuckled.

“Ask the rest of the men out there if it’s the same Geneva Convention that prohibits using biological weapons. Then remind them that our new state didn’t sign the Geneva Convention,” I chuckled.

She did, and his frightened screams turned to shrieks minutes later when the first dog darted in to take a test bite to see if it was safe for the others. For five more minutes they continued closing in slowly circling their prey.

“He getting talkative,” Valerie commented, writing. “They were sent here to capture the U.S. and convert it to Islam. They wanted to make sure we were never a threat again. They landed in New Orleans in January and captured the city, eradicating the gangs and taking the women hostage. They arrived with 500 troops, each man bringing the 5 wives he was given. They had people that could control the ship and engineers that could get a refinery working again to provide fuel. They brought mechanics to repair their equipment, along with two Blackhawk helicopters and two tanks they learned to operate before arriving.

“After capturing New Orleans, they began raiding nearby areas until they had extended their zone of control to 500 km. They raided military bases in the area to add to the weapons they brought over with them. Only 87 men are left in New Orleans now, guarding their wives and prisoners. They lost 63 men in their battles with the gangs they fought. The prisoners are forced to grow crops to sustain the community.”

Where have I heard that before?

“They are forced to accept Islam.” That had been SOP for the armies of Islam since they started expanding their sphere of influence in the late 7th century.

With maps of the U.S. showing freeways and military bases, they had worked their way west intending to conquer every place they passed between New Orleans and the Pacific. Then they would work their way up the coast and across to the East coast before completing the circuit back to New Orleans. Along the way they would rest occasionally, allowing time to transport more slaves back to New Orleans. They were expecting another ship with 500 more troops in January to supplement what they had now.

His hasty confession ended when the screams of pain began in earnest as the dogs finally decided that he was fair game. While his dying screams diminished, I had the next man brought to me. “Tell me something he didn’t,” I said calmly, the implied threat hanging ominously in the air.

By dawn, six more men became dogfood. The remaining 82 managed to remember useful details, especially the names of the survivors who were engineers and mechanics. The men who had been most helpful--almost eager to talk--were separated from the rest. One by one I brought them in for a last interview, offering them a chance to pray before being executed. Those who chose to offer their prayers to Allah never finished them. I knew they would bide their time and do the most damage they could when they found an opportunity. “Kill the infidels or die trying,” the unofficial motto of Islamic militants.

Those who offered their prayers to a deity other that Allah were taken aside for further questioning and ended up being a mix of other religions practiced in the Mideast. Two who had been most helpful explained that they were Muslim but had spent several years attending school in the U.S. or Europe before returning home and had a different view of Islam than their die-hard comrades. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been given a choice except to do what they were told to do or die. I let them go with the rest of the captured men we let survive when we sent them, shackled, and heavily guarded, to Esperanza.

We flew our C-5s with eight ACAVs and a tanker truck along with a tanker plane to Baton Rouge, using the airport there to base our operations. Four Avengers were refueled at a municipal airport a mile north of the El Cajon battle site and joined us in Baton Rouge seven hours after leaving El Cajon. Two propeller cargo planes full of food, ammo, and a few hellfire missiles beat them there. Once the Avengers were refueled, they began their round-the-clock surveillance of New Orleans and the enemy camp. The rest of our cargo fleet began bringing in a thousand additional troops and our SWAT gear.

With the Avengers watching overhead we parked the vehicles and walked the last three miles to their camp, pistols drawn and armed with silencers to protect against packs of dogs. It became apparent that the enemy had spent as much effort eradicating them as we had because we only came across three small packs on the hike, and they chose to steer clear of us. By midnight we had 50 snipers in position. Five Islamic guards were outside the warehouse that housed the male slaves and four were outside each of the three warehouses holding the female slaves. Ten sentries patrolled the perimeter of their main base where the wives and remaining men were living.

Shortly after midnight, on my command, each of their sentries crumpled to the ground with little enough noise that no alarms were raised. After substituting our own guards on the warehouses and around the perimeter, we began spreading out through the housing complex. Snipers covered the front door of most houses where men were staying with someone else assigned the duty for a few houses while the snipers got some sleep. Regular troops covered the front and back of each home that had only women inside. Their orders were simple; if they come out with a gun they die. The rest we could round up when things calmed down.

I guess there wasn’t a lot of military discipline among the men as most just strolled to the door and looked outside to see what the whistle I was blowing meant. Only a dozen or so exited the house with their weapons, barely making it through the door before they crumpled to the ground. The ones that came to the door with no weapons were told to stand still in hastily-learned Arabic. Those that obeyed lived--those that moved died.

Our choppers had begun the flight to meet us at midnight and stopped 25 miles away, landing on the open freeways. I advised them to proceed just before blowing the whistle to start the party. The cargo planes and cargo jets took off for the main airport which was about five miles from the compound. With battery-powered portable speakers we began broadcasting orders for everyone to stay inside their house. The few that had run out already had been quickly captured. Once the men were all accounted for, we started emptying the homes of women. After being called into action in Iran to secure a neighborhood in Tehran after a woman wearing a bhurka blew herself and more than twenty other civilians up with explosives hidden beneath her clothing, I was painfully aware just what their clothing could hide.

The women were required to exit the house in nothing but underwear and spin slowly for a distant visual search before they could don the sweats we provided for them. Once dressed, we cuffed their hands behind their back and they were chained together with waist shackles into groups of 25. The most belligerent women were given orange sweatshirts to wear and had their ankles shackled. They were taken away and kept separate from the other women and from the other troublemakers.

Their former hostages were clamoring to find out what happened and even more anxious to be released once they heard. We made them stay where they were, explaining that we didn’t want them outside until we were sure everything was completely under control and we had all the Islamics accounted for. The reason I gave them was a crock. I wanted them locked up until we had a chance to sort former captors from former captives.

The former wives were gathered together for me to address. I explained that we had defeated their army and that they were either dead or our prisoners. I also explained that from now on, they were not allowed to practice their Islamic religion, not even in private in their own homes. We had outlawed Islam because it could and had been twisted to the purposes of some of its followers to provide the pretext for the actions that killed so many billions of people. That edict elicited a loud protest from several of the women. The guards posted around the perimeter had been warned to watch for and identify those women. I knew cameras were being trained on them. Rather than take immediate action, I wanted to give them a little rope and see how many and who would get comfortable enough to protest. I hoped to identify as many potential troublemakers as possible early on.

One woman pushed it, though, exclaiming that she preferred death to being enslaved by infidels. I had Valerie call her bluff, if it was, indeed a bluff. “I’m sorry that you feel that way, but if you honestly prefer death, come up front and stand by that tree,” I challenged her. I raised my pistol and buried a few grams of lead in the trunk of the tree. She stormed forward, slowing noticeably as she neared the tree and nobody stopped her. She stopped one step short of the tree and looked defiantly at me.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she spat. “Just one less ‘raghead’ in the world as far as you’re concerned,” she added.

“I don’t see any ‘ragheads,’” I replied. “I see a large group of women that has just involuntarily been added to our community. If I was so concerned about killing ‘ragheads’, then why are the men who surrendered last night still alive?” I challenged. “I will promise you this, though. For challenging me like this in front of everyone, I will personally make sure that you give birth to many of my infidel children,” I goaded.

“I will not have your children,” she insisted.

I raised my pistol. “You leave me no choice. Choose now--come to me right now and give yourself to me in front of everyone or stay there and die.” She blanched and froze--more from fear than defiance. Another report from the pistol put another slug into the tree next to the last one. “I will count to three. If you are not moving towards me I will only waste one more bullet on you,” I warned. “One, two.” Her right foot moved, then slowly her left, then her right again. I whispered to one of the female troops near me and she hurried away from the raised platform. She was back before the woman reached me and handed me the small bottle I had requested. Two more women brought a wooden table up to the platform and waited for her, grabbing her by the arms while two more women stripped her and threw her across the table, face down, business end towards me.

“In private, each and every one of you is free to tell me exactly what you really think of me without fear of retaliation, no matter what animal or part of the body it is. This woman, however, challenged me in public ... in front of everyone. For that she will be severely punished. I meant exactly what I said about making sure she bears many of my children. That will be her punishment. For wasting my time and your time by taking so long to come up here, she will also face a different punishment,” I explained.

The crowd gasped in unison when I reached for my belt. They watched in rapt horror as I removed the holster, pouches, and pockets. Several women’s legs buckled under them when the report of belt on naked skin and the first hysterical shriek echoed across the complex. By the tenth blow the shrieks were barely more that explosive whispers and her backside from her thighs to her shoulders was striped with wide ugly red welts.

The undercurrent of whimpering from the group of women stopped when I undid my pants. After watching the brutal whipping, they had forgotten the original punishment I had decreed. At least I was slightly civilized about it, using the small bottle of lubricating jelly I’d been given just before she got to the stage. Fortunately for her I was used to having sex several times a day and had gone two days without.

“Uuuuunnnnnggggghhhhh,” I grunted loudly, using her long, beautiful hair as a handle to painfully yank her head back as I spewed my seed into her. Pulling her off the table and onto the floor, I wiped my cock in her hair before motioning to the guards to shackle her hands again and take her away. I just had to figure out what to do with her now that I’d committed to it.

Looking back out over the cowering faces, I saw one face not cowering. If anything, it was surveying, taking stock of us. “It truly is a small world,” I thought to myself, stunned to see a familiar face from halfway around the world. I finished my remarks and had the women divided into groups to be interviewed. We tortured them while they waited to be interviewed by feeding them the same MREs we’d eaten for two days.

One group began interviewing and photographing the 400 or so former male captives in the warehouse while a third, much larger group began photographing and interviewing the just over 2,000 former female captives. Each man and each woman was assigned a number to expedite future identification if necessary. The biggest thing we were trying to find out from the women was if any of the former male captives had been holding them captive prior to being taken by the Islamics, or if they had any knowledge about any of the Islamic women they thought were especially strict fundamentalists or especially proud of the invasion. We also wanted to know if there were any they felt were less than supportive of the endeavor.

Meanwhile I had the familiar face pulled from her group and brought to the house I had been assigned to use for interviews. I had her uncuffed before she was sent in. She was nervous when she saw that she’d been singled out for me to interview. Still, she glanced around quickly, assessing her surroundings before taking the chair I pointed to. Classically, she waited for me to say something.

“So, what can you tell me?” I asked.

“What would make you think that I understood English?” she replied, clearly confused and off-balance.

“A hunch,” I answered, shrugging nonchalantly.

“So, what can you tell me?” I reiterated.

“About what?” she answered evasively.

“Anything you think I should know,” I answered, equally evasively.

“Like what,” she countered.

“Look, we can play this game all day. Why not start by telling me what you have gathered about the size, make-up, and competency of my forces as well as what arms we have?”

“Why would you think I would know any of that?” she replied.

“Because you’re inquisitive. While the other women were cowering, you were still looking around, surveying everyone and everything, assessing the situation, just like you were trained.”

That comment hit a nerve. “Why would you think I was trained?” she asked cautiously.

“Because you obviously made a much bigger impression on me than I did on you, Miriam Weizman,” I chuckled.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember meeting you,” she apologized.

“We didn’t actually meet. I saw you at your work and saw your nameplate on your desk. At the risk of sounding like a total pig, you were turned away from me and it was your ass that caught my attention first. I caught a glimpse of your face reflected from the glass partition and it made quite an impression too,” I answered.

“How could you possibly know me from work?” she asked, even more confused.

“I’m Lt. Mike Miller, U.S. Navy SEAL Team 7. I was in Mossad headquarters for a special briefing on 19 November, right before the invasion of Iran. Twelve hours later, my team was outside Tehran doing recon. We located the targets your people told us about and monitored them, taking them out minutes before the invasion began. That intel let us destroy the Iranian command communications network and it took them three days to recover. By then, the invasion was basically over, and we saved thousands of American lives.”

“That was you?” she gasped, although clearly amused. “There was talk all that morning about an American coming in for a briefing. I doubt if there have been ten people in total who entered that briefing room who weren’t Mossad. I didn’t see you when you went in, but the rest of the women sure did. They were all drooling. By the time you came out, I had to leave, but every woman in the building heard about you and tried to get a look at you when you left,” she said. Miriam was smiling at the memory, but I recognized the sad, almost haunted look in her eyes as she briefly remembered family, friends, and people she worked with BSB. The look went away quickly. Like everyone else, she’d learned not to dwell on the past. Rather, remembering to live in the present. The melancholy could swallow you like a quagmire and was just as difficult to escape.

“You asked about your troops?” she said shaking off the melancholy. “I’ve seen nearly a full battalion, about a 5:1 ratio of women to men which seems to be the ratio the disease left behind. They are remarkably well trained and coordinated--much better than the troops you defeated. I’m surprised at the number of helicopters you have in the air and even heard fighter jets overhead earlier. Some of your helicopter crews only look like they’re 15 or 16 but they don’t fly like it. I’ve noted nothing but complete respect for you from your troops and none of them seem afraid of you, so I think what happened on the dais earlier is out of character for you. By the way, I agree with what you told her, and she is--or was--a wife of the leader of this group.”

“Was, we targeted the two command vehicles in the first missile strike,” I confirmed. I showed her pictures of the 19 men that we spared. She confirmed that she had felt twelve of them didn’t seem comfortable with their situation and didn’t get to know the remaining seven well enough to make a decision. She also confirmed that the women we put in the orange group would be the ones most likely to cause problems, suggesting 23 more to add to the group.

I had them rounded up and added to the orange group that I would personally interview. She reviewed the photographs we had and indicated numerous women she was sure weren’t sympathetic to the cause. I made a note of that in each of their files, the info being sent out over the portable Wi-Fi network we had with us. That way their interviewers had access to everything when those women were questioned. Finally, she pointed out about 30 men she’d heard had been captors before being captured themselves.

“Welcome to Esperanza, I guess we should get you a uniform,” I suggested.

“And perhaps you could help me change into the uniform,” she offered suggestively.

I sent the smirking Valerie to get her a uniform and to find President Miller. “I’ll send President Miller with the uniform,” she replied, grinning knowingly.

“Is she someone else you’ve helped put their uniform on?” Miriam asked smugly, motioning to Valerie.

“No, believe it or not,” I retorted.

Miriam briefed me about the situation in the Mideast. They were training the men for battle, and had sent over half of the fully trained men here. They were, however, still scouring the Muslim world looking for survivors to train. When she’d been sent here they had covered Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and parts of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Their weapons came mainly from what U.S. forces left there, and they were training tank crews and helicopter pilots. She gasped when I told her what we had so far.

“I figured you would have started already,” Stacey pouted playfully when she came in.

“Not without permission,” I reminded her.

“Like we wouldn’t give you permission,” she snorted, rolling her eyes and helping a surprised Miriam take off the sweatshirt.

“Miriam, meet my wife Stacey, President of the Governing Council of Esperanza. Stacey, this is Miriam Weizman, formerly of the Mossad. I saw her briefly when I was there for a briefing several years ago,” I explained.

“I can see why you remembered her,” Stacey jibed, grinning.

“This is what he remembered,” Miriam added, turning her gorgeous naked ass to us and smacking it. Both ladies laughed at the comment.

“Yeah, he is a bit of an ass man ... as well as a tit man, a leg man, a face man, well, you get the idea,” Stacey laughed.

“You don’t mind?” Miriam asked cautiously motioning between herself and me.

“He’s already got 40 wives and made us turn down hundreds more that wanted to be--although they all got permission to see what he was depriving them of. And if he’s busy, most of us amuse each other.”

“Perhaps you will join us?” Miriam offered.

“Maybe tonight, I think one of us should get some work done today,” she teased, playfully sticking her tongue out at me. She surprised Miriam when she kissed her, finally breaking apart and kissing me as well. “Tonight,” she sighed huskily before turning to leave. “By the way, I assume she’s number 41 and you will have number 42 if you keep your translator any longer,” she smirked over her shoulder.

“Fine,” I huffed pretending to be annoyed.

Miriam had just started to undress me when we heard Valerie’s exuberant whoop outside and she rushed in. “Thank you, thank you, thank you” she squealed, throwing herself at me. Once I managed to get my lips unglued from hers, she made the obligatory disclosure that she was pregnant--not that it wasn’t pretty obvious already. I rubbed her slightly swollen belly and groped her ass while explaining to Miriam that the guys agreed to accept as their own any child born to a woman they agreed to marry.

“I don’t think I’m pregnant. I had birth control implants about a week before this all happened and they’re good for a year. I’ve been as careful as I could the last few months, though, and picked up birth control pills when I went out scavenging for supplies,” she explained.

For nearly an hour we fucked and sucked in every conceivable combination. Miriam was definitely a screamer and I had to chuckle thinking about what the women outside waiting to be interviewed had to be thinking. Her screams sounded more like she was in pain than in the throes of ecstasy and the rhythmic thumping of the bed against the bedroom wall while I fucked both women probably did little to reassure them. Valerie cleaned up and dressed when we finished, Miriam’s critical eye looking for any clue that would give away the fact that she’d joined us. Finally satisfied, she suggested that I keep her naked and kneeling next to me to flummox the rest of the women when they came in for questioning. Rather than wearing her new uniform later she suggested sending her back where she could continue to assess the Moslem women. She was using the name Maryam Naser so they would think she was Arabic.

I refused when she suggested that I whip her, too. “He’s never done anything like that before,” Valerie explained. Valerie finally agreed to do it when Miriam insisted. I was stunned that a woman who was so vocal during sex didn’t utter a peep as my belt in Valerie’s hand lashed her backside. I stopped it after five blows but Miriam was satisfied. She and Valerie hugged emotionally before Valerie sent a guard to get another woman for me to question. I just left my belt on the table as an implied threat to the rest of the women.

Miriam’s demeanor did a 180 when we heard footsteps approaching the front door. The happy, horny, confident women suddenly became the epitome of a timid, frightened, morose woman. She did manage a quick smirk when she slurped my cock into her mouth just before the next woman entered. Miriam was right. The sight of her whipped, naked body kneeling between my legs and forced to suck my cock completely unnerved the rest of the women I interviewed. If she wanted to tell me the woman was lying to me she gently closed her teeth around my cock.

One woman in mid-afternoon was still refusing to say much of anything. Miriam’s tongue flicking quickly across the tip of my cock confirmed my suspicions that she was one of the ringleaders. “Yes, I see by your demeanor that you are going to be one of my cows, too. You will be kept in the barn with the other livestock and bred. You will be whipped and raped daily and will bear me many sons and daughters to fight Islam around the world,” I taunted as I approached her. I saw the realization hit her too late that she’d pushed her luck too far.