The Dead We Honor

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Terrorism & Assassination Thrillers; Vigilante Thrillers

Synopsis

THE FIGHT FOR THE SOUL OF AMERICA BEGINS

Small town America is under attack—but one group of patriots are fighting back—in this explosive contemporary thriller from the bestselling Johnstones . . .

THIS LAND IS OUR LAND
Welcome to Maverick, Iowa. Once a thriving farm community, the peaceful little town is now a bristling hotbed of drugs, crime, and homelessness. Thanks to the misguided policies of a new state governor, the floodgates have been opened to a devastating and very unwelcome wave of newcomers, grifters, fentanyl dealers, thieves, and roving gangs of smash-and-grabbers—and one powerful billionaire who’s buying up the farmland. Lifelong residents watch helplessly as their beloved Main Street becomes a bloody battleground in a divided America. This is more than a culture war; it’s a hostile takeover.
 
But one group of veterans are fighting back. . . .
 
THIS FIGHT IS OUR FIGHT
Returning home for the first time since Afghanistan, war veteran Bryan Branch barely recognizes his old stomping ground. Back in the day, he was the town hellraiser—until the military gave him a sense of purpose and appreciation for our hard-fought freedoms. Now those freedoms are under attack—and this time, it’s personal. As the violence and destruction of Maverick spirals out of control, Bryan enlists the help of his army buddies, a group of veterans whoTcall themselves “The Night Warriors.” They’re armed and ready to clean up the town. But their enemies are armed, too—and ready to blow the whole country straight to hell . . .
 

Release date: February 25, 2025

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

The acrid smell of smoke drifted in through the open windows on a soft summer breeze. Ellen Branch, a lifelong light sleeper, bolted awake. She shook her snoozing husband’s shoulder.

“George. George!”

He stopped in midsnore and mumbled, “What?”

“I smell fire.”

That one word had George up and out of bed, running to the window, and throwing the curtains aside.

“Dear Lord.”

He bolted out of the bedroom in his boxer shorts and scraggly T-shirt faster than she’d seen him move in years. The pounding of his fist on their son’s door echoed down the hallway. George yelled, “Jason, there’s a fire!”

Ellen was on her feet, her face so close to the window her nose left a smudge on the glass. Orange and yellow flames clawed into the night sky, spreading deeper into their corn crop with each passing second. She barely noticed the pounding of feet down the stairs or the crash of the front door as it was flung open in a wild panic. George and Jason sprinted into view, stopping dead in their tracks at the conflagration before them. Their heads turned to the east, and Ellen threw open the window to stick out her head so she could see what they could see.

Making the sign of the cross came naturally to Ellen, though she wasn’t sure at the moment if God was open to her prayers.

The barn was on fire as well. Red embers smaller than fireflies danced in the air and peppered her face.

It was as if the devil himself had come to their home, leaving his hellish imprint on their land.

“Call the fire department!” George shouted up to her. Her gaze was fixed on Jason as he hurried to the barn. He was big and strong, one of the largest men in the entire town, but size and physical power were nothing compared to the destructive force of fire.

She banged her head on the sill when she dipped back inside. The pain didn’t register. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she’d left her cell phone. There it was, on her night table atop a pile of old mystery paperbacks, right where she put it every single night.

You have to calm down, she admonished herself. You won’t be any help if you panic.

That being said, it still took her three times to tap out 9-1-1 on her phone. Her call was picked up right away. She tried her best to describe what was happening and give her address, which eluded her for a frightening moment.

“We’ll have fire on the way, ma’am,” the woman said to Ellen. “Is anyone hurt?”

“Jason,” Ellen whispered.

“Can you please repeat that?”

Ellen went back to the window, searching for her son. He was nowhere to be seen. George had the hose out and was watering the grass between the house and the cornfield.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Ellen said. “My son, he went into the barn, but the barn’s on fire. I can’t see him. I don’t know where he is.”

“Stay on the phone with me. Just describe what you see.”

Four shots rang out. Ellen knew right away it was gunfire and not something popping from the heat of the fire. She dropped the phone on the bed, ran downstairs, and grabbed a shotgun from the cabinet in the mudroom. She made sure it was loaded and stuffed some extra shells in the breast pocket of her sleep shirt.

Without a care for her own safety, she ran through the open front door and stopped beside George.

“Someone’s opening fire,” she shouted above the roar of the conflagration.

George ran the hose back and forth, trying to create a soggy barrier that the fire couldn’t cross.

“I didn’t hear anything,” he said.

That made sense. When Ellen was looking out their second-floor window she had a better visual and aural vantage point than down here on the ground. Now, all she could hear was the insidious fire as it inched their way.

“Where’s Jason?”

“He went to get Jax.”

She looked over to the barn. It was completely engulfed in flame. Squinting, she couldn’t see Jason or his horse silhouetted against the flames.

“Did he make it out?”

George was sweating from head to toe, his eyes locked on the wall of flame. “Darn it, I don’t know.”

The hose slipped from his grasp. He joined Ellen in looking for any sign of Jason or Jax.

“I’ll check the barn,” George said.

“I’ll go with you.”

“It’s too dangerous!”

Ellen nudged him aside when she ran past him, keeping the shotgun level and ready. George caught up to her and eventually passed her, heading for the barn. From the crack and groaning of wood, it sounded like it was about to collapse.

“Jason!” George and Ellen yelled at the top of their lungs. They ran as fast as they could, despite George’s bad knee and Ellen’s hips, which her doctor told her would need to be replaced at some time in the next few years. Adrenaline did what it could, but it wasn’t a fountain of youth.

There were more shots behind them, followed by breaking glass. Ellen cast a quick glance over her shoulder and saw that the windows to their bedroom had been shot out. Without a second thought, she pumped the shotgun and fired. She was too far away to hit anyone near the house, but she wanted whoever was out there doing this to know she was armed and willing to shoot.

George must not have heard the exchange because he kept on running, right until he disappeared into the furnace that was their barn. Ellen pulled up short when a wall of heat sizzling enough to melt iron smacked her square in the face.

More shots rang out by the house.

Ellen returned fire, even though she wasn’t sure they were shooting at her.

She spun back to the barn and shouted, “George! Jason!”

Despite the roiling fire, the interior of the barn was still too dark to see. It was as if a black hole had opened up dead center of the barn, refusing to allow the light to touch its inner depths. The roof, bathed in a spiraling wig of fire, canted to the left. The structure made a rending sound that weakened Ellen’s knees.

Where the hell were George and Jason?

She couldn’t wait outside any longer. The barn was going to collapse any second. If they were both hurt and unable to get out on their own, she had to at least try to help them. It had to be Jason first. She and George had made a pact that if anything should happen to their family, the children should always come first. Jason may be in his midthirties, but he would always be her child.

Ellen dropped the shotgun, took a deep breath, and headed into the fire with her head bowed and one arm draped across her face in a feeble attempt to stave off the heat and smoke. The wood of the barn popped and hissed, while the thrumming tornado of wind and flame threatened to make her eardrums pop.

When she took a breath to call out for her husband and son, the funnel of heat seared her lungs and punched all of the air out of her. The world spun and her vision wavered. Still, she plowed forward.

She pictured Jason on the ground near Jax, passed out from smoke inhalation, George unconscious beside him. Choosing to save her son over her husband would be heart-wrenching, but she knew full well that it was what George would want. Tears stung her eyes as thick black smoke enveloped her like a soft blanket.

The flames were now too bright for her to make out anything. For all she could tell, the entire world was ablaze. Her legs stumbled and she almost fell to her knees. Each inhalation seared her insides.

“Jason! George!” she screamed against the overwhelming pyre of destruction.

Her skin felt as if it were being burned away by an acetylene torch. She could feel her eyebrows and eyelashes reduced to cinders.

As she finally made it through the wide-open double doors, the roof made a sound like a hundred lions bellowing in agony. The left side of the barn filled with flaming boards as the roof collapsed. She felt it all hit the ground, the impact reverberating from the soles of her bare feet to her chest.

It didn’t deter her. If she died alongside Jason and George, so be it. Surviving them was unthinkable at this point. And to think, just ten minutes earlier they were all sound asleep, exhausted from a day’s work but eager, always eager, to start again just before sunup.

Unable to keep her eyes open for more than an instant, Ellen hunched as low as she could. She stepped into the disintegrating barn. Her head smacked into something hard. Before she could wonder what she’d run into, her feet were swept off the ground. Her torso was in the grip of a heavy vise. What was happening?

It wasn’t until she was a good fifty feet from the barn that she realized Jason had ahold of her. He set her down as gently as he could before falling onto his rump, wheezing and holding his chest. Ellen wiped the thick film of tears from her eyes, trying to focus on her suffering son. Both of them coughed too hard to speak.

A hand on her shoulder startled her. It was George. He had his shirt pulled up to his nose as he hacked away. He was on his knees and looked ready to pass out.

The sound of approaching sirens was all Ellen needed to lay down on the hardpacked earth and lay a hand across Jason’s bucking chest.

“I . . . I couldn’t sa . . . save . . . Jax,” he sputtered.

Ellen lamented the loss of his horse. They’d gotten Jax for him on Jason’s twenty-fourth birthday. He loved that horse to no end.

But truth be told, Ellen loved her family more. And she was grateful beyond measure that they were together now, even though they were all in a sorry and serious state.

Red-and-white lights strobed around them. George reached out to grab her hand. Weak as a calf, Ellen did her best to pull him to her.

Men and women suddenly surrounded them, asking questions Ellen couldn’t quite comprehend. The pain hit her a moment later and she once again gasped for breath.

The new kid wiped the sweat from his brow and studied the huge gas tank for a bit. Bryan Branch watched him from behind the plate glass window that separated the office from the shop. He’d shown him how to drain the tank of any last remnants of gasoline just two days before. Now he had to see if the lesson stuck.

“You want to sign the checks?” Lori Nicolo asked as she sidled up next to Bryan. She dropped the pile of checks on his battered and cluttered metal desk.

“In a second,” Bryan said, his attention fixed on the young kid.

Lori peered out the window. “Don’t you think someone should help him?”

“I showed him how to do it twice on Tuesday,” he said to his office manager of the past five years as well as a fellow wounded veteran and so much more. She’d lost an eye in Afghanistan during a nighttime firefight against a band of mujahideen fanatics. It may have taken her out of the shit but it never slowed her down. She’d been to more countries and been involved in more covert scraps than she could count postmilitary. The loss of an eye only added to her will to fight. To most people she was just sweet-but-firm Lori who kept an orderly, Christian home and volunteered at the local animal shelter when she wasn’t organizing fundraisers at the local VFW hall. Originally from Wyoming, she’d settled in Pennsylvania when Bryan decided it was time to set down some roots.

Without her, the place would be chaos, if not out of business.

“Yeah, but that’s serious,” Lori said with a worried frown.

Bryan rubbed the stubble on his chin. “We all have to learn sometimes.”

“But not at the expense of other people. Or a whole damn building.”

When he saw which hammer and chisel the kid picked off the tool cart, Bryan knew she was right. He jumped from his chair and nearly kicked open the door to the shop. With his damaged knee barking, Bryan hustled as fast as he could.

“Don’t!” he shouted.

The kid had the chisel tip against the bottom end of the tank and was about to strike it with the hammer. The instant he saw Bryan, he stopped in midswing.

“Did I do something wrong?” the kid asked.

Bryan swiped the tools from his hand. “Almost. Remember how I told you there were very specific tools for puncturing the gas tanks?”

For a moment, the kid pushed his blond bangs from his face and looked as blank as a sheet of paper. Then his eyes scrunched up and he exclaimed, “Yes! I need to use the ones with the red handles.”

Bryan held the tools in his palms. “You see any red?”

The kid shook his head.

“Exactly. If you used these and they sparked, you’d blow down the whole damn place.” He was trying to be a calm teacher, but his frustration was getting the better of him.

A tow truck pulled up outside the open shop doors. The window rolled down, emitting the sound of laughter. “He almost make this block go kaboom?”

Bryan looked over at his friend and rolled his eyes. “Yep. Tell me I should blame myself.”

Shane Perretti hopped out of the truck, squaring his greasy ball cap on his head. “You should blame yourself. When I started working for you, I wasn’t allowed to touch the gas tanks for a couple of weeks. And I was a grown man who had just served his country.”

The kid was the son of one of Shane’s neighbors. His parents were alcoholics who had basically left him on his own. Shane had asked Bryan to give him a shot for the summer. There was no way Bryan could say no, especially when he saw the deep wounds in the boy’s eyes. He was sixteen and on the verge of going feral. For the first month, Bryan had him doing smaller things around the shop, picking up parts and cleaning up. Now that they were into August, he thought it was time to expand his duties and teach him some things. A little hard work, sweat, and discipline for a couple of months could change his path.

Granted, if they survived.

Bryan set the incorrect tools on a bench. “You got me there.” Then, to the kid, who looked about ready to bolt, he said, “Grab those red-handled tools from over there and let me watch you do it. Sound okay?”

The kid nodded and got the correct hammer and chisel. Bryan and Shane watched him work, giving him pointers along the way. Soon it was done, crisis averted, and Bryan slipped the kid a ten-dollar bill and told him to get five sodas from the deli around the corner.

“One thing’s for sure,” Shane said. “He’ll never forget the right way to do it again. Nearly killing yourself and everyone else has a way of doing that.”

“For the sake of my heart, and my knee, I think I’ll keep him in the sanding room for the rest of the day.” Bryan rubbed his kneecap as they walked back into the cool office.

Lori looked up from her desk and asked Shane if he wanted a coffee.

“Bryan’s getting us all soda,” Shane said, settling into an office chair with cracked leather and foam padding poking out from various cracks.

“Sweet.” She picked up the phone and started dialing. Seconds later, she was in deep conversation with one of their vendors, insisting they make good on their delivery promise or else. No one wanted to find out what Lori’s or else could pertain to.

Bryan flipped some papers around his desk and handed one to Shane. “After your afternoon tea you think you could swing by Bing’s Motors to pick up some things?”

Shane looked at the order form and stuffed it in his jeans pocket. “My pleasure. Hopefully some cars start breaking down. I hate slow days.”

Bryan had known Shane since his second tour in the Middle East. Shane Perretti was in his unit, a hotheaded half-Italian, half–Puerto Rican from the Bronx who seemed to have a sincere death wish. He volunteered for every dangerous assignment the CO could dream up and never flinched when the guano hit the fan. He loved the action so much, Bryan was sure he’d still be serving, toiling away in some backwater for Uncle Sam. His military career was cut short when he was run over by a ten-year-old boy who stole a military Humvee. After double hip replacements, the removal of his spleen, and the installation of a plate in his skull, he was permanently excused from combat.

At least official combat. Shane had saved Bryan’s butt on more than one occasion during secret ops missions they’d undertaken in some of the world’s most dangerous and godless countries. The money was good, the rewards even better, and it kept them sharp. Plus, as the saying went, if you did what you loved, you never truly worked a day in your life. Keeping Shane busy meant helping him channel his controlled chaos, courage, and unique skills to endeavors that did a lot of good in this world that 99.9 percent of the population would never know about.

He also loved driving the tow truck, especially when there were big wrecks. Bryan had long ago stopped trying to figure out his friend.

“If this heat keeps up, there’ll be enough busted radiators to keep you busier than a one-armed wallpaper hanger,” Bryan said. He looked into the shop, watching Whiskey, his first employee when he opened the truck radiator/tow shop, as he soaked a radiator in the stripper tank. Whiskey was a man of few words, and when he did speak with his thick Jamaican accent, Bryan barely understood a thing he said. Luckily, Lori was an excellent interpreter. Bryan knocked on the glass and Whiskey turned around. “Take fifteen. Cold soda’s on its way.”

Whiskey gave him a thumbs-up and set the radiator on a hook so it hung above the tank.

Shane picked up the newspaper from the growing pile beside Bryan’s desk and started right in with his jawing about the wrongs of the world.

“Well, we’re officially done as a country. Did you know that math is racist?”

Bryan was busy signing checks that Lori had put on his desk earlier. “I saw that article. I still don’t understand how these social justice flunkies came up with that one.”

“According to this, we only teach Western math, which is the math of the oppressive, designed to keep down people of color. What in the hell? As far as I remember, the concept of addition and subtraction is pretty straightforward. It’s so agnostic, even Bible thumpers and devil worshippers agree on the black-and-white logic of it.”

“Maybe that’s it. The whole black-and-white logic.”

For a moment, Shane stared at Bryan dumbfounded. Then the corner of Bryan’s mouth twitched, and Shane tore the page out of the paper, crumpling it into a ball so he could toss it in the wastebasket across the room. He missed. “That’s not even worth lining a cat box.”

“Well, I read the paper earlier this morning and it doesn’t get much better. Save yourself the aggravation.”

Shane set his work boots on Bryan’s desk and slapped the newspaper back on the pile. “Math is racist. Unbelievable. Getting to be where breathing is offensive. We made it too easy in this country. Idle time makes for mush brains. If these people really had to struggle to survive, you can bet they wouldn’t come up with horse crap like this.”

Bryan shook his head. “I do agree, things are a little too easy now. Everything folks want is at their fingertips. I think it all happened too fast. As a species, we’re wired to fight and scrap our way through life. At least here, in this country, we live longer and exert ourselves less and less. I guess it only makes sense that some part of our DNA has to create a crisis, no matter how ill informed.”

“Maybe we can create one of those Outward Bound camps where we bring a bunch of these wackos with us next time we go to Yemen. That’ll shut them up.”

“For sure. If they survive.”

The phone rang and Lori picked up. A few seconds later, she called over to Bryan, “It’s Charlotte. She sounds upset.”

Bryan’s wife was no shrinking violet. Just like him, Shane, and Lori, she had served with them in the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan. To say she had a pretty tough skin was an understatement. She was discharged a year before him. They made plans to get married as soon as he got back to the States. They had everything lined up and ready to go until Bryan took on a hail of shrapnel from an IED his buddy had triggered while clearing out a house of suspected rebels. The blast left Bryan with compromised hearing, scars from head to toe, and extensive surgery to save his leg and eventual knee replacement. Charlotte had flown from her home in Pennsylvania to be by his side in Germany, where he was treated at the Landstuhl Medical Center on a US air base. It took months to get him to walk again, longer to overcome the mental damage at seeing his friend reduced to pieces. Almost as soon as they touched down in Pennsylvania, he found himself walking down the aisle in St. Peter’s Church, feeling like the luckiest man in the world, cane in hand and hearing aid in his right ear. Charlotte was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, an angel in white with a will as solid as Mount Everest. Everything he’d become since his wounding was because of her, and he would never forget that.

If she was upset, it was over something serious.

He grabbed the phone, hoping she was okay. “What’s up?”

“I just got a call from your brother.”

“Jason? Why did he call you?”

“He was looking for you. Babe, your mom passed away last night.”

Bryan felt a tightening in his heart that went all the way to his gut. He hadn’t seen his mother since he left for basic training, but the long gap didn’t ease the sudden pain. It did just the opposite. Grief and guilt rocked him to his core.

“Did he say what happened?”

Charlotte sighed heavily. “He said he wanted to talk to you about it.”

“Okay. I’ll call him.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. I’ll call you back after I talk to Jason.”

“Do better than that. Come home and call him.”

She wanted to be his rock again. “I’ll be there soon.”

“I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

He gingerly set down the phone. Lori and Shane stared at him, waiting to hear what had happened.

“Everything okay?” Lori asked.

Bryan ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair and took a deep breath. “My mom passed.”

“Dude, I’m so sorry,” Shane said.

“I’m gonna head on home. I need to talk to my brother to get the details.”

“Take all the time you need,” Lori said, walking over to give him a hug. “We can mind the store.”

“Thanks. I’ll call you both later, clue you in.”

“Don’t worry about us. We’ve got your back,” Shane said.

“That I never doubt.”

That afternoon, after speaking to his brother, Bryan jumped online and made flight, hotel, and car rental reservations. Charlotte left him to himself because she was a mind reader when it came to her husband and knew he needed his space.

The story Jason told had left him feverish. At one point, his cell phone case started to crack because he was squeezing it so hard. He’d always thought he would eventually return to his family home in Iowa, just not under these circumstances.

He and Charlotte had never had kids for a variety of safety reasons. It also made things easier when they had to drop what they were doing and leave. There were no side jobs lined up at the moment, or at least none that had appealed to Bryan and his team of veterans. The world was still a hot disaster, and it would remain so until they were ready for another fray.

Charlotte would do everything she could to be his shoulder to lean on during the next few days. Bryan wasn’t one to show his emotions, but this rocked him to his core. He’d always thought there would be time to mend the broken Branch fences.

Now, it had been taken away.

It was time to go home and not only grieve his mother’s passing but see if he could repair his relationship with his father and brother.

Lori could run the shop just fine without him. He texted her to let her know he would be away for a few days, and she sent him back a heart emoji. Emojis usually exasperated him, but this was an exception.

When all of the plans were completed he went to the bar in their finished basement and poured a healthy serving of Basil Hayden, skipping his usual two cubes of ice. Slumped in his soft leather chair, he fought hard not to knock back the entire glass in one gulp. He didn’t bother turning on the television or radio. He wanted the silence so he could let his thoughts run free.

After the second glass his dark thoughts turned a lighter shade of gray, and he went upstairs to his wife. She was in their bedroom with their large suitcase open on the bed. She wore a formfitting tank top without a bra underneath and very short gym shorts. His heart quickened, as it always did when he saw his beautiful wife, even when he was two whiskeys in and feeling as down as he had in a long while.

“What time do we need to be out of the house?” she asked.

“Right around five.”

“I packed your good suit. You want to grab your toiletry kit from the closet?”

Bryan stood in the doorway, immobile for the moment.

“How many days do you think we should pack for?”

Head bowed, he said, “Three, maybe four.” The words stuck to his tongue. Another Basil Hayden would fix that, help him move closer to slurring, which was where he needed to be.

Charlotte bustled about the room, pulling items from drawers and the closet and packing them expertly. It was one of her many skills. She could cram a week’s worth of clothes in a four-day suitcase and everything would come out without a wrinkle. He remembered how immaculate her rack was at base camp. Everyone asked her what her secret was and to show them how to replicate it.

When she was just about done she sat on the edge of the bed and asked, “You want to talk about it?”

Bryan took a ragged breath. “I’m not sure I should.”

She patted the mattress next to her. “Well, I think you should. Sit. Tell me what happened.”

The bed sagged when he sat. Charlotte put her hand on his thigh and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I can only begin to imagine how you feel, honey. I know you’ve been thinking of patching things up lately. And I know how much you’re beating yourself up about that now.”

Staring straight ahead, he said, “It’s not just that.”

She rubbed his leg. “Then what is it? I’ve never seen you like this before. What happened out there?”

Bile gurgled at the back of his throat. He choked it back, felt the muscles in his jaw working overtime.

“She was killed,” he said, so softly she almost didn’t hear him.

“Oh, Bryan.” When he looked at her there were tears in her eyes. Tears for a woman she’d never even met. “What happened? Did they catch who did it?”

It took him a bit to compose himself enough to tell the story. “According to my brother, some men went to the farm in the dead of night and set. . .