Tumultus (12 page)

Reese moved next to Mac, speaking with the same growing sense of apprehension the other three Dominatus survivors now felt.

“This partner of yours, can he be trusted?  Couldn’t he have been the one who tipped of the New United Nations about when we were leaving?  The one who helped send the drones after us?”

Cooper let out a long sigh and shook his head.

“I suppose that’s possible, yeah.  Then again, I know this man better than I know any of you.  He’s good people. I trust him - absolutely.  Whether or not you trust him, or you trust me, that’s up to each of you.  He’s no more a friend of the New United Nations than any of you.  It would make no sense for him to give us up to them.”

“When is he supposed to be here?”

Bear’s question remained unanswered as Cooper Wyse was again looking out a window at the four remaining horses he had tied up just outside the cabin.  Finally he turned back to Bear.

“First thing tomorrow morning, he’ll be walking in from the south end of the clearing.  His name is Imran.”

Again it was Reese who voiced the concern the others felt.

“Imran?  Is he Muslim?  I thought you said the Muslims who took over Canada were to be avoided - the radicals, the killings, Sharia Law?”

“What I said was that the urban areas should be avoided.  I didn’t say every Muslim in Canada was bad.  Imran isn’t one of those radicals.  In fact, I don’t ever recall him mentioning anything about religion.  He’s just a businessman.  No more.  No less.” 

Cooper’s response did nothing to lessen Bear’s agitation.

“This is bullshit, Mac.  We ain’t been out here a day and I’m almost blown to hell, and we are sitting around here waiting for some Muslim to arrive and show us where to go?  That’s the plan?”

Before Mac could respond, Dublin intervened.

“Stop it.  Sooner or later we are going to have to trust each other.  Either we do that, or we turn around and go back.  I don’t want to do that.  I’m not going to do that.  So, Mac, Bear, Reese…you need to decide if you are going to trust Mr. Wyse or if you want to give this up.  I’m tired of this.  Somebody obviously knew we were crossing those hills.  Ok, fine.  But that doesn’t mean Mr. Wyse had something to do with it, or that this Imran had something to do with it.  Unless I get information that says otherwise, I’m not going to just sit here and accuse someone of something they didn’t do.”

Nobody spoke following Dublin’s rant.

Then the perimeter alarm sounded.

Someone, or something, was outside.

IX.

For a man just over thirty years of age, Imran Senturk had done remarkably well for himself given the challenges of attempting to make one’s way in a world gone mad under the rule of the New United Nations.  Born in a small seaside village just outside of Antalya, Turkey, Imran’s family had enjoyed a reasonably comfortable existence due to his father’s ownership of an apartment complex.  Imran was well educated, enjoyed both his studies and sports, and was regarded by family and neighbors as a boy blessed with wisdom and insight beyond his years.

That life though was irrevocably altered shortly after his fourteenth birthday in the year 2020.  That was the year when the Muslim Brotherhood consolidated its control of every aspect of Turkish politics and culture.  Any who publicly opposed the takeover were jailed, or killed.  For months, tens of thousands were put on trial, and brutal public executions became a daily occurrence. 

Soon after, government officials from the Sharia Compliance Office arrived at Imran’s home, demanding his father no longer charge rent to any tenants who were members of the newly formed Sharia government.   They returned days later to question not only Imran’s father, but his mother, two sisters, and himself about their devotion to Islam, the books they read, the Internet sites they visited, and if they were willing to participate in what was described to them as the Global Jihad program.

Unknown to Imran’s family, Turkish authorities had already been in negotiations with leaders within the then emerging New United Nations.  These negotiations were built upon a relationship that the then American president had forged with Sharia leaders inside Turkey years earlier – a relationship that had played a significant part in events involving Libya, Iran, Egypt, and Syria.  Events that would eventually lead to Israel’s near total isolation from all other nations by 2021. 

The man who became the second in command at the New United Nations was Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s former Prime Minister.  It was Erdogan who was given near absolute authority to crush any opposition to the New United Nations throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and eventually, Europe.

In 2022, a vast immigration of Muslims into Canada was initiated by Erdogan’s Sharia Compliance Office.  It was this forced immigration that uprooted Imran’s family from their village in Turkey and placed them in a massive government housing complex in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Their neighbors within this complex were hundreds of other families from throughout the Middle East.

Just days after arriving in Vancouver, Imran’s family was visited by yet more officers of the Sharia Compliance Office and given direct instructions on how they were to be a part of a massive Islamic insurgency within Canada, an extension of the Global Jihad program they had been informed of already when still living in Turkey.  Imran’s father was promised a larger home as well as a possible position of authority within the Sharia Compliance Office of Vancouver if their work to help Sharia become the dominant authority throughout the area was done well.

Most of the newly transplanted Muslims, as well as Muslims already living in the city complied with the orders, and the streets of Vancouver were witness to repeated acts of brutality and chaos.  This chaos quickly spread to other cities throughout Canada – cities that also had seen a forced immigration of thousands upon thousands of radicalized Muslims.

Non-Muslims were the first to flee these cities, finding homes in the less urban areas of Canada.  Then the moderate or non-practicing Muslims soon followed.  What was left in those cities then were the most authoritarian Sharia Muslims who were allowed to rape and murder any who opposed them.  The new global government did nothing to stop the carnage, but rather was the one to encourage that brutality. 

The New United Nations had promised Recep Erdogan vast nations within which he would be allowed to freely promulgate his Sharia Law beliefs.  What happened in Canada was duplicated in Australia, Sweden, and Spain.  These former nations then became places ruled by the most fanatical of Muslim warlords who in turn fought amongst themselves for further power and influence.  The only condition placed upon these warlords by the New United Nations, was that they supplied the global government with the very things it had banned throughout the world - things ranging from the fossil fuels that powered the airliners that only the ruling class within the New United Nations could use, to the drugs government officials had declared immoral while they themselves consumed them in ever increasing quantities. 

Canada had become a brutal and dangerous place, and it had been Imran’s home for the last seventeen years of his life.  His father and mother were dead, the location of his siblings, if still alive, long unknown to him.  Imran had come to quietly support a growing movement within both Canada and the United States by those that had once called themselves citizens of those former governments, to overthrow the tyranny of the New United Nations.  He had begun to cross the border into what had once been the state of Alaska to trade goods with others like himself who hoped to do the same.  It was during one of those trips he had met a man some had taken to calling the Irish Cowboy – Cooper Wyse.  Like Imran, Cooper had also been looking for a way to help others obtain things needed to defy the authority of the New United Nations.  The two men had been working together for nearly a decade now.  It was to the drop cabin they both used to deliver goods from Canada into Alaska that Imran now found himself walking toward.  This time though, Cooper had told him they would be delivering the goods from Alaska into Canada, and Imran’s help was needed to make that happen as quickly, quietly, and safely as possible.

So lost was he in his thoughts about how he would go about accomplishing Cooper’s request, as well as the difficulty in seeing more than a few feet around him due to the darkness, that Imran failed to notice the large figure that loomed behind him with a gun pointed to his head.

“Don’t you move, little man.  Stay right there.”

Imran’s hand instinctively reached for his own weapon holstered inside his jacket.

“Don’t want to do that.  Keep your hands where I can see them or your brains will be outside your head a lot faster than you can reach for whatever you’re reaching for.”

Imran could see the outline of the cabin some fifty or so yards ahead, though no light was on inside.  He found that odd given Cooper had indicated to him earlier they were to have arrived by now.

“You got a name, little man?”

Imran held both his hands up and asked if he could turn around slowly.  As he did so he heard two more people approaching from his right.

“No turning around.  I asked you if you have a name.”

“Yes, but might I ask who you are as well?  I am not accustomed to meeting uninvited guests out here.  What is your purpose, my friend?”

Imran could hear two more approaching from his left as well.  He was surrounded.

Then he felt something nudge his crotch.

X.

“Brando!  Here!”

The Doberman immediately responded to Cooper’s order, sprinting away from Imran and sitting to Cooper’s right.

Imran felt a wave of relief at the sound of Cooper Wyse’s voice.

“Glad to know it is you, old friend.  And hello to Brando as well, of course!”

To his left, Imran could now clearly see Cooper, along with a very large, bearded man.  To Imran’s right were three others – an older man with short cropped grey hair and glasses, and another man in his late thirties or early forties of medium height and build standing close to an attractive dark brown-haired woman of similar age.

“What are you doing here already?  Any trouble?”

Imran smiled to each of the four others before responding to Cooper.

“Trouble…yes.  Always trouble.  Can we perhaps go inside, Cooper?”

Cooper Wyse turned and began walking back toward the cabin as Brando sprinted ahead in front.  Imran followed as the four others fell in behind him.

Once inside the small cabin, Imran again smiled at the others.  He was again silently shocked at how large the bearded man was.

“Imran, these four come from Alaska. This is Mac, Bear, Dublin, and Reese. Like my message to you said, we need some help getting across the territories and I figured you would be able to provide that help.  Thanks for showing up, even if you getting here early put a bit of a spook in us.”

Imran’s dark, rounded face fell in upon itself with regret.

“Oh, I apologize.  It was…it became necessary you see.  Tomorrow…restrictions have been put in place.  Travel is being regulated.  There is a threat.  Rumors of an invasion by Muslims.”

Bear’s eyes narrowed as he listened intently to Imran’s explanation of his early arrival.

“Muslims?  Ain’t you one of them?  A Muslim?”

The much smaller man glanced nervously toward Bear.

“No, I’m Christian!  My family, yes, we came from Turkey, but I am not a Muslim.  I would not be allowed to live in the outpost…Fort Wilfrid.  The godfather has very little tolerance for Muslims, for Islam.  He barely tolerates any religion, really.”

Mac, Bear, Reese, and Dublin all turned to look at Cooper.  Mac was the first to pose a question.

“What the hell is he going on about Coop?  What is Fort Wilfrid?  Who or what is the godfather, and what is this about some invasion?”