The Arizona State Guard Trilogy Read online

  The

  Arizona State Guard

  Trilogy

  by

  Jeffrey M. Fortney

  Published by Jeffrey M. Fortney

  Copyright 2017 Jeffrey M. Fortney

  Bloody Border: Original Copyright 2014 Jeffrey M. Fortney

  Target Terror: Original Copyright 2015 Jeffrey M. Fortney

  Freedom’s Forge: Original Copyright 2016 Jeffrey M. Fortney

  1st Edition License Notes:

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this e-book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this e-book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to an online bookstore and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Table of Contents

  About This Book

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  A Note to My Readers

  BOOK ONE – Bloody Border

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  BOOK TWO – Target Terror

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  BOOK THREE – Freedom’s Forge

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Thank You!

  Glossary

  Arizona State Guard Organizational and Rank Charts

  Arizona Revised Statute: 26-174

  About the Author

  Other Novels by Jeffrey M. Fortney

  About This Book

  The Arizona State Guard novels look at what might happen if politics continues to endanger the citizens of the United States of America and its States. The individual novels remain available in e-publication and print-on-demand formats but I thought I'd compile the three books into a single volume to help make them more accessible to new readers. The main Table of Contents at the front of this volume will take you to the title page of each book and other sections within this volume. I hope you enjoy The Arizona State Guard Trilogy and that you choose to read some of my other novels!

  - Jeffrey M. Fortney

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank my wife, our children and their spouses, and our grandchildren for their love and support as I work on various writing projects. They are a continuous source of strength and inspiration to me!

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to William W. Johnstone and his Ashes series!

  A Note to My Readers

  If you are unfamiliar with military terminology, the North American Continent and the State of Arizona, the organization of military units and the Arizona State Guard in particular, military apparatus and ranks, and so on, the Glossary, Maps, and Arizona State Guard Organizational and Rank Charts at the back of the book may be helpful to you.

  BOOK ONE

  Bloody Border

  by

  Jeffrey M. Fortney

  Published by Jeffrey M. Fortney

  (Original) Copyright 2014 Jeffrey M. Fortney

  1st Edition License Notes:

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this e-book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this e-book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Acknowledgments

  I have to thank my darling, Julie, for giving me the time and encouragement to write this new e-novel. Our children and grandchildren deserve my recognition, as well.

  Following the release of my last e-novel, I had planned to take a week or so off to recharge my creative batteries. Strangely, I found myself drawn back to the keyboard...bitten by the urge to write! And then, events in the United States of America and around the globe arose, transforming what had begun as a simple adventure story into something far, far more. I hope you enjoy the result!

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Anson Heinlein, G. Harry Stine (Lee Correy), and Travis S. Taylor; four authors of great ability and wisdom. Thank you, gentlemen!

  Foreword

  For centuries, the Roman Family lived with two simple traditions: their sons were named after Roman emperors and those sons (and, occasionally, daughters) served in their nations' military forces. And so the Roman Family continued on into the 21st Century...

  Chapter 1

  Every action, or inaction, you take has consequences. For example, one day you decided to take a vacation day from work and went to the beach instead. But this was the day you would have met the cute blond at the coffee shop next to your office building. Because you don't meet, the two of you don't get married and have the child who would grow up and discover the cure for cancer. Alas, c'est la vie!

  Elections have consequences as well. Imagine an electorate that is sufficiently un-informed that they vote for someone who looks hot and sounds cool, instead of considering the content of each candidate's character AND each candidate's qualifications for the office.

  So imagine if you will a critical moment in time...the 2000 Presidential Election in the United States of America. In some timelines, George W. Bush won the election by a landslide. In others, the Supreme Court had to validate the election results. In still others, Vice President Al Gore won that election. And in yet another universe, Vice President Harold Pierce, Democrat, defeated Bush and became the 43rd President of the United States.

  Upon his inauguration, Pierce implemented a series of social engineering programs and moved his party's platform against Human Assisted Global Heating or HAGH (pronounced haf) forward. Pierce was half right, the world was getting hotter...temporarily. But that was part of a natural cycle the world had gone through many times over the billions of years of its existence. Unfortunately, Pierce's climate policies proved extremely harmful to the U.S. economy and to support his growing social programs, he and the Democrat-led Congress implemented a series of tax incre
ases that further ravaged the economy.

  The September 11th, 2001 terror attacks merely added to the problems the United States was experiencing. Tens of thousands were killed in New York City, Chicago, Washington D.C., Seattle, and Los Angeles through the use of hijacked aircraft turned into human-guided missiles. More could have died in Dallas-Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, if Texas and Oklahoma Air National Guard units hadn't been called upon to shoot down the airliners targeting those cities.

  President Pierce's next actions did little to further endear him to the American people. On September 12th, Pierce declared martial law and implemented a domestic spying program throughout the United States. He then barricaded himself and his cabinet in the NORAD Command Post under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Then he sent formal letters of apology to Muslim nations around the globe for all of the heinous transgressions perpetrated by the United States. Step one in removing the United States from the world stage.

  In 2008, President Harold Pierce, with the help of the heavily Democrat Congress and a fawning media, accepted and "won" a third term in office, citing FDR's precedent of serving three terms during wartime. And wartime it was until 2010, when Islamic Fundamentalists finally stopped focusing so heavily on the United States and turned their attention to the many nations they had infiltrated throughout the 20th Century. For years, the demographics of those nations had shifted in favor of the ever growing populations of Muslim immigrants.

  President Pierce died in the Mountain White House in 2011 and his Vice President, Henry Quill, assumed the Presidency. Quill's first act was to move back to Washington D.C. His second act was to select Sherrill Carrington to serve as his Vice President. Step two in removing the U.S. from the world stage.

  By 2015, the economy of the United States was in ruins. The "official" unemployment rate was listed as 15% while in actuality, the true number of unemployed and those no longer seeking employment was closer to 50%. Taxes were high on those who worked. The large cities of the East and West Coasts were riddled with crime, drugs, gangs, disease, and homeless people. Many conservative Americans moved away from the cities and returned to what was derisively called "Fly-over Country" in the heartland of the country. In those states, men and women could still find honest work and try to support their families.

  Quill used executive action to open the sovereign borders of the United States to any and all who wished to cross. The Southern States were overwhelmed by lawlessness, burdened by people who could not find employment and soaked up benefits normally reserved for citizens, who brought diseases long since vanquished from North America, and facing a growing army of those who wished to reclaim those states for themselves. Hidden amongst the droves of illegal immigrants were the drug smugglers, the criminals, and, in no small amount, Middle Eastern terrorists.

  When overwhelming proof finally came to light proving Afghanistan was harboring the terrorists who had planned the attacks upon the United States, Quill was forced to send U.S. military forces to hunt them down. More information was discovered proving that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was supplying chemical weapons to the Taliban and other terrorist groups for future attacks around the world. More American forces were committed to stop the proliferation of chemical weapons.

  After years of neglect by uncaring politicians and far too many years holding the barbarians at the gates at bay, the U.S. military services were in shambles. The majority of military personnel were still strongly conservative, driven by their love of country to protect it from those who would attack the U.S. from the outside. One of these brave defenders of the United States was Major Marcus Aurelius Roman, U.S. Army Special Forces.

  Chapter 2

  Nighttime in the mountains of Afghanistan brought the blowing winds that dropped the late-March temperatures even more than normal. The combined U.S. and Afghani Special Operations teams had been observing the village for more than two hours. A U.S. Spec Ops team had been ambushed in that same village the week before. Four personnel had survived the attack and hasty chopper ride back to a combat surgical hospital. One had survived long enough to be evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

  Intel assets had reported that the Taliban ambushers had since returned to this village and Major Roman's team was given the assignment to capture or kill them. With Roman's personnel were twelve members of the First Afghan Special Forces' Alpha Team led by Captain Hamed Nawabi. The men of both teams were carefully positioned around the village to prevent firing into one another and to prevent the enemy from escaping.

  The men were ready to press the attack but something kept gnawing at the back of Roman's mind. He paused to look around the perimeter of the village through his night vision goggles. The infra-red ID tags on the U.S. and Afghan uniforms glowed brightly in his NVGs. That's it! There are too many of the ID tags showing!

  Roman keyed his microphone and spoke softly, "All personnel ping in."

  One by one, dots on his heads-up display flicked off then back on, indicating the location and readiness of each team member. Most of those dots lined up the locations with the infra-red ID tags visible in Roman's NVG...most but not all. There were at least three additional infra-red IDs visible...where there shouldn't be. And there might be others out there but out of sight!

  Roman turned his radio to the area command frequency and keyed his mike, "Imperator, this Centurion!"

  The voice of Imperator, U.S. Special Forces General Mark Barrett, responded almost immediately, "Go, Centurion!"

  "Imperator, are there other operators on the field?" Roman asked.

  "Negative, Centurion," replied Barrett, "the field is all yours. Problem?"

  "Negative, Imperator!" responded Roman. Not for long, anyway.

  "Centurion copies," said Roman. "Legion has the field...operation commences."

  'Legion' was the code name for Roman's team. General Barrett once told Roman and his personnel, "I'd take one Roman's Legion over all of the Roman Legions of the past!" The name stuck and Marcus and his Legion told the General he was their emperor or 'Imperator' and that name stuck as well.

  Roman switched back to his joint op frequency. "Legion, Afghan...we have additional players on the field sporting our jerseys. Cover IF tabs and go to flags. Keep eyes sharp! Go in two mikes!" Roman checked his NVGs and saw the IF tabs go dark to be replaced by U.S. or Aghan flags on each operator's shoulder.

  Two minutes sped by. As the timer on his HUD reached zero, the teams moved in. Where possible, they dropped enemy combatants with a quick bludgeon to the head, pitched their weapons into the ravine, and zip tied their hands and feet then they moved on to another combatant. The teams converged on the hut in the center of the village where their primary targets were supposed to be.

  An explosion to Roman's left lit up the sky and weapons fire rapidly followed from all around. Roman's squad pressed forward, lobbing flash bang and concussion grenades against the enemy combatants. As Roman reached the central hut, he checked his HUD once more. His personnel held the escape corridor from the hut into the mountains beyond. Now to capture and extract, he thought. To his right, Sergeant First Class Aaron Templeton checked the door for booby traps. Finding none, SFC Templeton used his combat knife to cut the rawhide hinges on one side of the door.

  With his personnel in place, Roman signaled Templeton to drop the door. Templeton tugged and the door fell outward to crash on the ground. Two flash bangs flew through the doorway to burst inside. Roman and Templeton jumped into the dimly lit room to find it...empty! Shaken for a few scant seconds, the officer and the non-com quickly searched the room for hidden spaces or spider holes. None!

  "Temp," Roman whispered harshly, "get out! Now!"

  The two raced from the hut staying low and moving along the escape route. As Roman and Templeton passed some of their personnel, those folks fell back with them. The hut suddenly erupted in a ball of fire...knocking Roman and his personnel from their feet. Roman rolled over to check on Templeton who was grunting
to cover his pain. A quick examination showed the NCO had caught a piece of shrapnel in the calf of this left leg.

  Bullets ripped through the air in both directions. Grenades were lobbed, exploded, and sent shrapnel flying in all directions, harming friend and foe alike. Damn...this is getting out of hand...fast! thought Roman.

  "Medic!" Roman called over his radio. A moment later, Sergeant Jaime Lopez scrabbled over. Roman pointed to Templeton's leg then asked for a report.

  Lopez started working on Templeton before replying. "Two others, minor injuries. They're being moved to the extraction point." Lopez used one of the new bleeding control foams on the SFC's wound and gave him a painkiller. The fire fight grew larger and louder. More enemy combatants were taking the field, closing in on the teams.

  Roman checked his HUD once more. The situation was going FUBAR...rapidly! No targets to evac, unknown players on the field, and now taking wounded...for nothing. Roman made a quick decision and keyed his mike. "All personnel...retrograde action. Fall back to extraction point."

  Roman bent over, hefted Templeton onto his shoulders, then rose to his full height of 6 feet. Neither man was small framed or lightweight. Only years of physical conditionings and months of operating at high altitudes allowed Roman to left and carry his senior NCO as he did. With his NVGs, Roman quickly found the infra-red markers his teams had left along their path into the village. Ah...our proverbial trail of bread crumbs, he thought as he moved as swiftly as he could along the trail. He didn't want to jar Templeton needlessly but they had to egress.

  Three more Americans were hit, one seriously. Captain Rafe Harrows stooped and picked up Staff Sergeant Kyle Malone, threw him over his shoulder, and moved out. A grenade spun out of the darkness to land between Harrows' legs. It exploded, severing both of the young officer's legs. As Harrows collapsed, SSG Malone slipped from his shoulders. Two combatants stepped from the shadows to bayonet the officer and non-com.