Phoenix Rising

Book 1: Phoenix Rising

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

"The Land Of The Free" Is No Longer Free The new President of the United States is sharing the wealth, rewriting the Constitution, and changing the National Anthem. America's liberals are thrilled with the election of the first foreign-born candidate. But when President Ohmshidi begins to implement his radical agenda-banning oil production, slashing military budgets, and establishing a "New World Order"-our once-great nation becomes easy pickings for a deadly new wave of Muslim extremists, who rename America. . .the Islamic Republic of Enlightenment. It's Time To Take Back America Enter Jake Lantz, a battle-seasoned army major and ace helicopter pilot who refuses to stand by and watch his country go down in flames. Assembling a ragtag team of action-ready soldiers and patriots, Jake establishes Firebase Freedom-America's last defense against the violent, lawless thugs and "Army of Allah" that has taken over. Jake's mission: Take back America. Give the people liberty-and give the enemy death. . . First Time In Print!

Release date: January 28, 2011

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 353

Sample

Fort Rucker, Alabama—Tuesday, January 10

Major Jake Lantz was thirty-two years old. A helicopter pilot and flight instructor in the Army Aviation School at Fort Rucker, Alabama, he was in the peak of physical condition, recently scoring a perfect three hundred on his latest PT test, maxing out on the three required events: push-ups, sit-ups, and the two-mile run. A not-too-prominent scar on his right cheek, the result of shrapnel wound in Afghanistan, ran like a bolt of lightning from just below his eye to the corner of his mouth. He had blue eyes, and he wore his light brown hair closely cropped, in the way of a soldier.

Jake, who was a bachelor, lived alone in a three-bedroom ranch-style house on Baldwin Court in Ozark, Alabama, the town that proudly bills itself as the “Home of Fort Rucker.” He had kept the heat down during the day to save on his gas bill. Now he shivered as he turned it up.

Stripping out of his flight suit, Jake pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a red sweatshirt, emblazoned with the word ALABAMA across the front. He had not gone to school at Alabama, but had become a big fan of University of Alabama football.

Checking the digital clock on his dresser, he saw that he had but one minute left until the program he wanted to watch came on, so he hurried into the living room, settled down on the couch, picked up the remote, and clicked it toward the TV.

The initials GG appeared on the screen, then the voice-over introduced the show.

The GG monogram moved into the background, and George Gregoire, with his signature crew-cut blond hair, slightly chubby face, and toothy smile, greeted his television audience.

The video was somewhat grainy, obviously taken not by a camera for broadcast, but by a small, personal camera. Nevertheless, it was quite clearly President-elect Mehdi Ohmshidi standing at a podium addressing a rather sizeable crowd. Many in the crowd were holding signs, saying such things as:


Ohmshidi began to speak and because the sound wasn’t of the best quality, his words were superimposed in bright yellow, over the picture.

Ohmshidi’s closing shout was met by thunderous applause and cheers from the audience.

The picture returned to George Gregoire on his New York set.

In freeze-frame, on the curtain behind the speaker’s stand were the words:


“Jake, are you in here?” a woman’s voice called from the front door.

Jake picked up the remote and muted the TV. “In here, Karin,” he called back.

Karin Dawes was a captain, an Army nurse, who was still wearing her uniform. She had short black hair, brown eyes, an olive complexion, and the same body she had when she was a college cheerleader. She was also a world-class marathoner who had just missed qualifying to represent the U.S. in the last Olympics. Seeing George Gregoire on the silent TV screen, Karin chuckled.

“You’re watching Gregoire. Of course, it’s six o’clock. What else would you be watching?”

“You should watch him,” Jake said. “Maybe you would learn something.”

“I do watch him,” Karin said. “As much time as I spend over here with you, how can I help but watch him?”

“Ha! Now I know why you spend so much time over here. Here, I thought it was my charm. Now I find out it’s just so you can watch George Gregoire.”

“I confess, you are right,” she said. She leaned over to kiss him, the kiss quickly deepening.

“Damn,” Jake said, when they separated. “That’s what I call a greeting. Do I sense a possibility that this could go further?”

“How can it go any further?” Karin said. “It’s at least half an hour before Gregoire is over, isn’t it?”

Jake picked up the remote again, and turned the TV off.

“You’re sure I’m not taking you away from George Gregoire?” Karin teased. “I certainly would not want to be accused of alienation of affection.”

“Woman, you talk too damn much,” Jake said, kissing her again. “Besides,” he said, “I’ve got a TV in the bedroom, I can always watch him while . . .”

“You try that, Major, and you’ll have George Gregoire in bed with you before I split the sheets with you again,” Karin said, hitting him playfully on the shoulder. Jake laughed out loud, then put his arm around her as they went into the bedroom.

There was an ease in their coupling, the assurance of being comfortable lovers who knew each other well, and yet their relationship was not so stale that it couldn’t still be fresh with new discovery. Outside, the wind was blowing hard, and Jake could hear the dry rattle of the leafless limbs of an ancient oak.

Afterward they lay together under the covers, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her, his hand resting on her naked thigh. It was, as always, a feeling of total contentment.

“Jake?”

“Yes, my love?”

“Will we always have this? I don’t mean are we going to get married, or anything like that. I just mean, will we always have this sense of joie de vivre?”

“Is there any reason why we shouldn’t?”

“I don’t know,” Karin admitted. “I know I tease you about watching George Gregoire all the time, and about listening to all the right-wing radio shows. But, what if they are right? What if the country has made a big mistake in electing Ohmshidi?”

“There is no what-if,” Jake said. “We did make a big mistake. Well, we didn’t. I’m not a part of the we, because I didn’t vote for him.”

“I didn’t either.”

Jake raised his head and looked down at her. “What? You, Miss Liberal Incarnate? You didn’t vote for him?”

“I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him,” she said. “Not knowing the way you felt about it.”

Jake kissed her on the forehead. “Maybe there is some hope for you yet,” he said.

“But you didn’t answer my question. Will we always have this?”

A sudden gust of wind caused the shutters to moan.

When there was an uncomfortable gap in the conversation that stretched so long that Karin knew Jake wasn’t going to answer, she changed the subject.

“I wonder if it is going to snow.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “It never snows in Ozark, Alabama.”

There were three inches of snow on the ground the next morning as Jake drove the ten miles into Fort Rucker. Because snow was so rare here—it had been fifteen years since the last snow—neither Ozark nor Dale County had the equipment to clean the roads. As a result, Jake drove slowly through the ruts that had been cut in the snow by earlier cars. He returned the salute of the MP at the Ozark gate, then drove down Anderson Road, which, like the streets in Ozark, was still covered with snow.

As chief of Environmental Flight Tactics, Jake had his own marked parking slot, though the sign was covered with snow. He exchanged salutes with a couple of warrant officer pilots as he covered the distance between his car and the front door of the building which held not only the offices of the faculty, but also classrooms for the ground school.

“Major, I thought you told me that it never snowed in Southern Alabama,” Clay Matthews said. Sergeant Major Matthews was Jake’s right-hand man, the non-commissioned officer in charge of EFT

“It doesn’t,” Jake said. “Disabuse yourself of any idea that this white stuff you see on the ground is snow. It’s just a little global warming, that’s all.”

“Right,” Clay said with a little chuckle. “Oh, Lieutenant Patterson called from General von Cairns’s office. The general wants you to drop by sometime this morning.”

“What’s my schedule?”

“You don’t have anything until thirteen hundred.”

“All right, maybe I’ll drop by his office now. I’m not surprised he wants to see me. I told him, he wouldn’t be able to run this post without my help.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I tell everyone about Environmental, too,” Clay said. “You couldn’t run the place without me.”

Jake chuckled. “Yeah, well, the difference is, I’m just shooting off my mouth when I say that about the general. But when you say that about me, you are right.”

Like Ozark, Fort Rucker had no snowplow equipment. But it did have a ready supply of man power and there were several enlisted men, under the direction of a sergeant, clearing off the parking lot and shoveling the sidewalks at the post headquarters. Because of that, Jake was able to walk from his car to the building without getting his boots wet.

Lieutenant Phil Patterson was on the phone when Jake stepped into the outer office, but he hung up quickly, and stood.

“Good morning, Major,” he said. “Just a moment and I’ll tell the general you are here.”

“Thanks.”

First Lieutenant Phil Patterson was a West Point graduate who had recently completed flight school. Jake remembered him when he was a student going through the Environmental Flight Tactics phase of his training. He was a bright, eager, and well-coordinated young man. Patterson had wanted an overseas assignment out of flight school, and was disappointed when he was chosen to stay at Fort Rucker as the general’s aide-de-camp. But, he was a first lieutenant in a captain’s slot, so the assignment wasn’t hurting his career any.

Patterson stepped back out of the general’s office a moment later. “The general will see you, sir.”

Jake nodded his thanks, and stepped into the general’s office. Major General Clifton von Cairns was pouring two cups of coffee.

“Have a seat there on the sofa, Jake,” the general said. Jake had served in Iraq with von Cairns when he had been a captain and von Cairns had been a colonel. That was von Cairns’s second time in Iraq—he had also been there during Operation Desert Storm.

“As I recall, you like a little bit of coffee with your cream and sugar,” von Cairns said as he prepared the coffee.

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

Carrying the two cups with him, von Cairns handed the one that was liberally dosed with cream to Jake. “I’m sorry I don’t have any root beer,” von Cairns said. “That is your drink, isn’t it?”

“I like a root beer now and then,” Jake said.

“Yes, I remember your ‘beer’ run when we were in Iraq,” von Cairns said.

Jake’s preference for root beer was well known by everyone who had ever worked with him. What the general was referring to was the time Jake had made a run to Joint Base Balad for beer and soft drinks. Beer wasn’t actually authorized due to cultural concerns and was officially banned by the military; however the civilian contractors were not constrained by such rules and they were a ready source of supply for the Army. But Jake had come back with only one case of beer and nineteen cases of root beer in the helicopter. He was never asked to make a beer run again.

“How many students do you have in your cycle right now?” the general asked.

“I have twelve.”

“Can you expedite them through? Double up on the flight hours?”

“Yes, sir, I suppose I could. It would mean rescheduling some of the ground schooling.”

“I want you to do that,” von Cairns said. He took a swallow of his coffee before he spoke again.

“Jake, I’m not much for politics—I’ve always thought that as a professional soldier I should leave the politics to others. But I don’t mind telling you, this new man we’re about to swear in scares the hell out of me. I’ve heard some disturbing talk from some of my friends at DA. They are afraid he is going to start cutting our budget with a hatchet. If we don’t get this cycle through quickly, we may not get them through at all.”

“Surely he wouldn’t halt flight training, would he?” Jake asked. “So much of the Army is now oriented around aviation.”

“Did you watch George Gregoire last night?” von Cairns asked.

“I rarely miss it.”

“You might remember when Gregoire showed Ohmshidi speaking to the OWG group, he said, and I quote, ‘the evil of so-called honorable military service .’ This man doesn’t just distrust the military, he hates the military. And he is about to become our commander in chief.”

“I understand, General,” Jake said. “I’ll get the schedules revamped as quickly as I can.”

“You are a good officer, Jake. Would that I had a hundred just like you. It is a pleasure to have you in my command.”

“And I am honored to serve under you, General.”

General von Cairns stood up then, a signal that the meeting was over. Jake stood as well, and started to leave.

“Jake, are you still seeing that nurse? What is her name?”

“Karin Dawes, sir. Captain Karin Dawes.”

“Yes, she is the one I pinned the Bronze Star on last month, isn’t she? She’s a good woman. You could do worse.”

Gregoire held his hands over his head and waved them as he rolled his eyes.

Gregoire changed the tone of his voice, mimicking the excitement.

He was silent for a moment, masterfully playing his audience.

He began to sing,


He began singing Roy Clark’s “Yesterday When I Was Young.”

Gregoire, who was standing now, stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor, silent for a long moment before he spoke again. The camera came in tight on his face so he could give the audience his most sincere look.

“All right, Candidate Lewis,” Jake told his flight student. “We’ve just received word from previous flights that the LZ is bracketed by small-arms fire from your nine o’clock, and shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles from your three o’clock. How are you going to avoid the ground fire?”

“Make the approach below their angle of fire, sir,” the warrant officer candidate replied.

“Make it so,” Jake said, mimicking Captain Picard of Star Trek.

As WOC Lewis started his descent, Jake saw a flock of geese approaching from the right.

“Watch the geese on your three o’clock,” Jake said.

“I see them,” Lewis answered. Lewis pulled the collective to try and go over them, but the geese were making the same maneuver.

“Damn!” Lewis shouted as several of the geese collided with the helicopter. Blood and feathers from those that hit the main rotor suddenly appeared on the windshield. There was also a sudden and severe vibration at the same time they could hear the high-pitched whine of the tail rotor drive shaft spinning without any resistance.

“I’ve got it!” Jake shouted, taking the controls.

There was a loud bang as the tail rotor and a part of the tail fin separated from the aircraft. The center of gravity pitched forward and, without the anti-torque action of the tail rotor, the helicopter began to spin to the right. Instinctively, Jake depressed the left anti-torque pedal to halt the spin, even as he knew that without the tail rotor, it would be ineffective.

The spin was much faster than anything Jake had ever experienced, and earth and sky blended into a whirling pattern that made it impossible to separate one from the other.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Candidate Lewis start to grab the cyclic.

“Hands off !” Jake screamed.

They were about seventy-five feet above ground and had already spun around at least fifteen times. Jake knew he needed to kill the engines in order to lessen the torque, but the engine controls were on the cockpit roof and he had to fight the centrifugal force in order to get his arm up. Finally he managed to kill both engines. The whirling main rotor blades continued to generate torque but, mercifully, without the engines, the spinning slowed.

Then, just before impact, Jake jerked back on the cyclic and the nose of the helicopter came up. Now, with the spin rate down to half what it had been, and with the helicopter level, the Blackhawk made a hard but somewhat controlled landing.

Jake sat in his seat with dust streaming up around the helicopter and the rotor blades still spinning. He waited until the spinning was slow enough that he knew they would not generate lift, then pulled the collective up, putting enough pitch in the blades to slow them until they finally stopped.

“Are you okay?” Jake asked.

“What the hell happened?” Candidate Lewis asked.

“You got hit by an RPG,” Jake said.

“What?”

“A goose, or some geese, took out the tail rotor,” Jake said. “It was the same effect as being hit by an RPG.”

“Damn. I’m glad I wasn’t flying solo,” Lewis said.

“Funny you would say that,” Jake said. “I was just thinking I wish the hell you had been flying solo.”

Although neither pilot was hurt, they were required by SOP to report to the hospital for a physical evaluation. Jake was in the examining room, just zipping his flight suit closed when Karin came in with a worried look on her face.

“I heard you were in a crash!” she said, the tone of her voice reflecting her worry.

“I resent that. I made a controlled landing,” Jake replied. “A hard landing, yes, but it was controlled.”

Karin threw her arms around him. “Oh,” she said. “When I heard you had been brought in I was scared to death.”

“It’s nice to be worried about,” Jake said. “But really, it was no big thing.”

“Hah, no big thing, my foot. I heard some of the other aviators talking about it. You lost your tail rotor but were able to land. Everyone is calling you a hero.”

“A hero?” Jake said. He smiled. “Yeah, I’ll accept that.”

“Well, now, don’t let it go to your head,” Karin teased. “You are hard enough to be around as it is.”

“Really? How do you manage to be around me so much?”

“Because I’m a saint. Didn’t you know that?” Karin asked. She kissed him.

“Careful. What if one of the other nurses came in now and caught you cavorting with a patient?”

“I’d tell them to get their own patient,” Karin replied with a broad smile.

“I’m off tomorrow,” Jake said. “Because of the aircraft incident, I’m supposed to take a forty-eight-hour stand-down. What about you?”

“I’m not off until next Tuesday, but I can trade with one of the other nurses.”

“Come over to the house, we’ll watch our new president be sworn in.”

The pictures on the TV screen, taken from cameras stationed all through the nation’s capitol, showed throngs of people ecstatically cheering as the car bearing President-elect Mehdi Ohmshidi drove by, headed for the capitol steps.

The television reporter was speaking in breathless excitement.

Jake was in his living room, eating popcorn and drinking a root beer as he watched the inaugural proceedings.

Jake had not voted for Ohmshidi, but then he had not really been enthusiastic about the other candidate either. His vote, as he had explained it to Karin, had been more against Ohmshidi, than it had been for Admiral Benjamin Boutwell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jake had often declared that if he had omnipotent power he would replace everyone in government, regardless of their party, with someone new.

Ohmshidi had risen to national prominence as the federal p. . .