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  Oathkeeper

  Book IV of the Wildfire Saga

  Marcus Richardson

  Copyright © 2017 by Marcus Richardson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Books by Marcus Richardson

  OATHKEEPER

  1. Tycho

  2. Course Correction

  3. Man’s Best Friend

  4. Interrogation

  5. Toys

  6. Homecoming

  7. The Hunt

  8. Safe House

  9. Conversations

  10. Light the Night on Fire

  11. Run and Gun

  12. Liaison

  13. The Hunt Continues

  14. Ambush

  15. Friend or Foe

  16. Breach

  17. Avenger

  18. The Warehouse

  19. Diversionary Tactics

  20. The Viking

  21. Cattle Pens

  22. Exodus

  23. Any Escape is a Good Escape

  24. Road Trip

  25. Reunion

  26. Reinforcements

  27. Death From Above

  28. EVAC

  29. Recuperation

  What’s Next?

  Please Review Oathkeeper

  Author Contact

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Marcus Richardson

  Books by Marcus Richardson

  THE WILDFIRE SAGA

  The Source

  False Prey

  Book I: Apache Dawn

  Book II: The Shift

  Book III: Firestorm

  Book IV: Oathkeeper

  Book V: The Regent

  Book VI: Extraction

  OTHER SERIES

  The Future History of America

  Solar Storm

  Elixr Plague: A Zombie Apocalypse Serial

  For my complete catalog, please visit: marcusrichardsonauthor.com

  OATHKEEPER

  Book IV of the Wildfire Saga

  For Jim.

  1

  Tycho

  Tycho Jackson bent to lift the helmet off the dead body at his feet. He straightened and took a glance around before turning the helmet over in his hands. The workmanship was something else. He smiled—finding brand-new swag was considered lucky.

  “Man, why we gotta do this? Ain’t this what the slaves for?”

  Tycho ignored his underling’s complaint and perched the helmet at a rakish angle on his head. He turned and looked at the young Latino hood.

  “This make me look like John Wayne?”

  The gangbanger stared at him for a moment, then laughed out loud. “Yeah—if John Wayne was black! Man, stop foolin’…”

  Tycho flashed a smile. “Just grab while the grabbin’s good.”

  “Looks like they’re grabbing all sorts of things,” rumbled a deep voice behind him.

  Tycho turned to see where his enforcer, Elijah Stone, pointed with one sledgehammer of a hand.

  A gurgled cry echoed on the breeze. Tycho caught a flash of color as at the corner of the large office building across the trash-choked street. His predator instincts kicked in.

  “Rico, Vasquez, and what’s-yer-face—”

  “Yo, my name’s Diego, esse,” complained the maligned Hispanic newcomer.

  “Whatever—go find out what the hell’s going down over there.” He turned to his lieutenant. “Roundup the others and get this shit picked up.”

  “You the boss…” Elijah said.

  “Why the fuck we gotta do this?” whined a third man.

  “’Cause he’s the one in charge, unless you got a problem with that?” bellowed Elijah.

  Tycho raised his M4 and pulled back on the charging handle. The sound silenced further debate. His men grumbled, but they knew when to obey, especially under Elijah’s harsh stare.

  Rico and his compatriots scrambled across the street and through mounds of uncollected trash. Tycho took a knee behind an abandoned, shot up Ford Focus and placed his captured rifle across the hood, aiming at the corner.

  He’d gotten used to ambushing soldiers at supply drops and cutting them down, but nobody ever stuck around afterward before. This was a surprise and Tycho hated surprises.

  He grinned and aimed down the barrel of his rifle. Tycho preferred to surprise other people.

  “I don’t care if there’s blood on it, hurry the fuck up! Load that shit, we gotta be gone,” muttered Elijah somewhere behind him.

  “Keep it down, E,” he whispered.

  “Sorry, Tycho.”

  Tycho didn’t have to turn to know the huge man waved his arms like the foreman he used to be. Once everyone got sick and the Korean Flu—or whatever the hell folks called it—dropped people like flies, the surviving gang leaders called an uneasy truce in San Diego and banded together. It was the only way to survive the North Korean occupation.

  Tycho grinned again. Before, he was just another two-bit thug with big ambitions, struggling against a chain of command that required him to pay his dues and move up like everyone else. After the Pandemic returned and the North Koreans invaded, Tycho found himself in charge. He joined other captains and discovered there was a new chain of command that led to a ruling body, the surviving leadership of each of the major gangs. They called themselves The Outkast.

  Tycho frowned. Now, instead of leading Crips on raids—there was so much cheddar out there ripe for the taking, his head spun just thinking about it—he found himself in charge of a group of misfits, including everybody from a couple Los Reyes Arroyos soldiers to Elijah, the big mother of a Blood behind him. He even had a few skinheads in his posse, but Tycho was the on Crip on his crew.

  He shook his head. The world was a fucked-up place.

  A scream pulled Tycho’s attention back to the corner. He tightened his grip on the gun and without taking his eyes away from its sights, called over his shoulder, “You better be almost done.”

  Muffled curses and feet scrambling through trash and debris on the ground was his crew’s only response. The rest of his squad took up positions behind abandoned cars and an aid delivery truck they’d ambushed. He didn’t want to admit it, but Tycho felt a trickle of sweat dribble down his spine.

  He glanced at the body in front of the car. The soldier he’d shot during the ambush wore protective body armor as well as the helmet Tycho took as his own. His gear didn’t look like the standard military issue though—the shit this guy wore was jet black and had a fancy tree logo on it.

  Another scream pierced the air. Tycho tried to shrink and make himself as small a target as possible as he leaned across the hood. A quick look to his left and right showed his boys had at last found cover of their own. Tycho grinned. He had a half-dozen stolen weapons of various calibers pointed in the same area.

  Vasquez strutted around the corner, a wide smile splitting his tanned face. “Yo! Jefe, you got to check this shit out.”

  Tycho sighed, the tension evaporating. He stood. “Sit tight y’all, stay sharp,” he said. He’d only known Vasquez for about a week and while he didn’t think the heavily tattooed LRA soldier would turn on him, he didn’t trust him much either. Rico had been with him since the beginning, and Diego, the new guy, had just transferred in from Inglewood so Tycho didn’t trust him at all. Yet.

  Rico and the new guy emerged next, dragging two struggling whites behind them. Even from across the street, Tycho saw the woman was a petite blonde, but she struggled like a wildcat trapped in a wet bag. The man was a lit
tle taller, occupied with straightening his glasses as he shuffled forward, prodded by Rico’s shotgun.

  Nervous laughter fluttered out from behind the cars that surrounded him. Tycho lowered his weapon. “What we got here?” he called out, noticing for the first time how his voice echoed up and down the abandoned street. That was exciting and unnerving at the same time. He was in charge, ain’t nobody threatening Tycho Jackson.

  But he was also alone.

  Vasquez joined Tycho first, looking over his shoulder as Rico and Diego ushered the captives forward. “Found these hijos de puta scopin’ us out. La perra got some nice legs, yo.”

  “Oh, yeah,” somebody in the group said in a fit of excitement. “I say we tear a piece of that off right now!”

  Tycho was under strict orders to bring all suitable captives in—the woman was small, obviously malnourished, and most likely sick—but a blood had to take what he could get. Especially now.

  She wasn’t half bad, in the way a life preserver looks to a drowning man. But he never once thought to break the rules. He’d seen firsthand the results of less intelligent regional captains—like himself—getting a little too big for their britches. It wasn’t time for that, yet.

  “Cut that shit out. Y’all know what’ll happen if you don’t.”

  That shut down the laughter. Nobody wanted to cross The Outkast leadership. They’d seen the heads on stakes. They’d heard the stories.

  Tycho himself wasn’t sure if the rumors were true, but he’d seen enough to know he didn’t want to fuck with the ones in charge, not with a ten-foot pole. If the Outkast said they wanted to take all the women they find and keep them separate and untouched, that’s just what he would do. His life wasn’t worth a piece of ass.

  Still, Tycho wondered why they went through such trouble to find and house a bunch of whiny bitches. There had to be something the captains weren’t told, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what that could be.

  “What we do with him, then?” asked Diego.

  “Please! Please don’t hurt us—” begged the woman.

  Tycho waved Elijah forward to take care of it. The big man pushed through two of the others and buried his fist in the male prisoner’s gut. The slight man doubled over, his glasses skittering off the ground in front of him.

  “Don’t hurt him! Why are you doing this?” the woman screamed.

  Elijah dropped his elbow down on the back of the man’s head and he collapsed with a grunt onto the street. The woman opened her mouth to scream again, but Tycho spoke first.

  “Next time you open your mouth, Elijah here will rip your man’s head off. You stay the fuck quiet, and nobody gets hurt.”

  He smiled as she clamped both grimy hands across her mouth, bloodshot eyes bulging. She did have a nice rack.

  “Yo, Tycho. There’s the signal,” Elijah muttered.

  Tycho turned and peered along the street. Sure as shit, a flashlight blinked three times. Sweeper gave the warning: Someone coming.

  “What do we do with this punto?” asked Vasquez.

  “Fuck it—cap his ass, we got to move,” Tycho said, heading back to pull the armor off the dead soldier. “Y’all know what to do—grab the swag and scatter! Meet back at my place when you’re clear.”

  He didn’t have to say anything else—they all knew looting brought a death sentence if they were caught by the NKors. Little shits considered L.A. their own personal playground.

  Well fuck them, Tycho thought as he ripped the bulletproof vest from the corpse and slung the heavy-ass thing over his shoulder. It was a shame he didn’t have time to search the body more thoroughly. These black-clad soldiers always seemed to have PowerBars and extra ammo on them.

  Privileged fucks. Got what you deserved, he told himself. He whistled and twirled his hand in the air over his head to get his men moving. The last of his crew whooped and hooted as they carried away crates of food, medical supplies, and anything not nailed down.

  Tycho stood in the middle of the street and watched Vasquez and Diego drag the screaming woman into the shadows. She didn’t know it yet—or maybe she did—but her life had just ended. She’d be taken back to the safe house for tonight, then tomorrow he’d haul her skinny ass off to the regional HQ and officially deposited as tribute to the Outkast.

  Tycho didn’t exactly agree with that—he’d rather keep the spoils of war for himself—but he wasn’t in any position to challenge the status quo.

  When I make my move, I’m keeping all the best ass for myself.

  He surveyed the scene of his latest ambush. Darkened buildings lined the street like the walls of a canyon. People abandoned their cars when the traffic backed up in the early days of the Korean Flu, which added to the claustrophobic feel of the place. He’d heard names like Blue Flu, Brisbane Bug, and Scorched Lung tossed around, but that shit happened years ago, back when he was just dropping out of high school. It had come back after the scientists promised it couldn’t. He’d lost his grandmother that time. What would he lose this time?

  Tycho frowned. It didn’t make any sense.

  Then the Koreans showed up and started shooting the shit out of everyone: pigs, Crips, Bloods, the Reyes—everybody. It had been chaos, but Tycho knew how to survive chaos. He’d been in more prisons than most and he’d survived and learned everything he needed to know on the outside—especially in crazy-ass times like these.

  His eyes roamed over the abandoned cars and the old urge to boost one made his fingers tingle. All that phat cheddar just sitting there, waiting to be stolen. And the cars! Mercedes, Beamers, a few Caddies…a lot of rich folk had been out shopping when the shit hit the fan. Maybe he had time to snag one…

  Bright headlights appeared in the distance, like twin stars come to earth. His pulse quickened.

  Time to jet.

  He slung the rifle over his shoulder, grabbed a case of nasty-ass boxed food the military was always trying to pawn off on survivors and made his escape through the shattered front window of a lingerie shop. A wicked grin creased his face as his shoes crunched on broken glass. Panties and bras lay scattered everywhere in heaps where the first waves of looters had come through.

  That shit’s useless now, he thought, proud to have always gone for the high-ticket items like guns, booze, and cars. He’d never stoop so low as to snag fancy underwear for God’s sake.

  As he carried the box of military meals to the back of the ruined store, he heard big diesel engines out in the street. Tycho worked his way into a darkened back room and kicked at the fire door he’d pre-opened for a quick escape. The alley looked deserted, just like he’d left it—clogged with garbage and what smelled like at least a dozen dead bodies. He grimaced at the assault on his nose and stepped through the open door across the alley.

  Tycho stood in darkness and blinked the tears from his eyes. Goddamn that smells bad. He paused, listening. Sure enough, the Koreans were getting closer.

  Tycho headed toward the light at the far end of the ransacked store. He wasn’t even sure what the hell they used to sell here—the only clue it had been a store at all was the cash register, laying in pieces, up by the front door. Or what used to be the front—now it was a gaping hole big enough to drive a damn tank through.

  Tycho laughed at fate as he strolled through the opening and stepped out into the light again. The rich guy who owned this place was probably dead somewhere, rotting in his big fancy house. But Tycho—gutter rat, hoodlum, the petty thief that no one cared about—he was still here.

  Still boosting. He laughed out loud as he loaded the box in his 1970 lime-green Plymouth Barracuda. Elijah sat in the passenger seat, waiting. He reached over and turned the key, bringing the big V6 to life with a throaty roar.

  “That punk dead?”

  “Yeah, put one in the back of his head, just like last time.” Elijah’s face registered no emotion at all. Did the man not even care he’d just ended someone’s life or did he find it at all distasteful? Elijah might not enjoy doing
it—or if he did, he didn’t show it much, unlike the rest of Tycho’s gang. They reveled in death and fear. But Elijah was ever silent, always stoic.

  Scary as hell—that’s what you are.

  Tycho grunted as he got behind the wheel and shut the door. “They better like this bitch we bringing in.”

  “Should make up for last time.”

  Tycho grimaced and looked at Elijah out of the corner of his eye. “Shut the fuck up.” He put the car in drive and peeled out, not caring if the Koreans heard him—they’d never find him in the maze of surface streets, anyway.

  “Just sayin’,” Elijah muttered.

  “Well don’t.” Tycho tried changing the subject from his past failures to present successes. “You get much?”

  Outkast leadership had been lenient the last time. That kind of favoritism wouldn’t be offered again, so Tycho was doubly happy to have come across the young couple—it had been a while since he’d brought in a suitable bitch. They seemed to get all excited about the blondes, too, so maybe his luck had finally changed.

  “Better than last time,” admitted Elijah. “When these fools gonna learn? The more sugar they bring in, the more we take? It’s too easy.”

  A river of ice traveled along Tycho’s spine. The North Koreans had arrived on the scene faster than ever this time. That wasn’t normal, either. “Sump’n tells me it ain’t gonna stay easy forever, E. We need to keep a little extra back for ourselves.”