Phoenix Rising: by William W. Johnstone Page A

him.”
    â€œI can’t say as I disagree with you,” Gurney said.
    â€œWhat about it, Admiral?” Jake asked. “Are you with us?”
    Gurney nodded his head. “Damn right I am. Whatever it is you have planned, count me in.”

C HAPTER S IX
    Dothan, Alabama
    As he shot baskets, sixteen-year-old Troy Jackson bobbed and weaved about on the blacktop pad near the chain-link fence that surrounded the grounds of the Dothan High School. Faking around an imaginary defender, Troy went high for a perfect layup. Troy had been a pretty good basketball player in the pre-O time. He had played on the eighth grade team and the JV team. He would have moved up to varsity the next year, had the country not collapsed under Ohmshidi.
    He had thought his dreams of playing basketball were over, but the movement that had started down in Gulf Shores, Alabama went on to free Mobile, and was gradually moving north so that it now incorporated Dothan as well as several other nearby towns, such as Newton, Enterprise, Ozark, and Troy, even as far north as Montgomery. It was beginning to look as if he might have a chance to play varsity basketball after all.
    He had just rebounded a missed three-point attempt, when he saw a truck coming very slowly up the drive toward the school entrance. The driver, a swarthy man wearing an eye patch, looked like a pirate. Troy paid particular attention to the truck because few trucks came this way, and one didn’t see a pirate every day.
    Troy waved at the driver. Instead of returning the wave, however, the driver looked away. Shrugging it off, Troy returned to his game. With his back to the goal, he dribbled, then pivoted around for a jump shot, getting all net. He smiled at the shot and wished that his father, who had played for Auburn, had seen this one.
    â€œMiss Margrabe! The truck!” a girl’s voice shouted.
    The girl’s shout, and the sudden racing of the engine caused Troy’s attention to be drawn back to the truck. He saw the truck moving swiftly across the grass, heading straight toward the fence that surrounded the school. There were several young students gathered just inside the fence and they turned to look, so surprised by the strange action of the truck that they were frozen into immobility.
    Troy recognized the danger at once. Dropping to the ground he rolled into a tight ball with his arms folded over his head.
    The truck-bomb detonated at the fence.
    Troy felt the shock wave and the heat of the explosion. He was also bruised and cut by the detritus that fell on him, but he was not seriously injured. Eleven school children and one teacher, outside at the time and close to the fence, were not so lucky. They were killed, along with two others who died when the engine block of the truck crashed through the windshield of their car, just because they happened to be driving by on Highway 231 at exactly the wrong time. In addition to those killed, twenty-six children and three adults received injuries ranging in degree from Troy’s minor cuts and bruises, to four who were listed as critical.
    Fort Morgan
    When Jake and Bob returned from their recruiting tour that same day, they landed at the Mobile airport, then flew by helicopter across the bay to Fort Morgan. Bob and Ellen hosted the others for dinner that night, and he and Jake told his guests about their visits with other patriot groups.
    â€œBasically they have all agreed to join us,” Jake reported. “And what we have now is a military force awaiting only the command and structure that is necessary to bring them all together.”
    â€œWe have an air force, an army, and a navy,” Bob said.
    â€œWhat is the size of our military?” Tom asked.
    â€œWe did some figuring on the plane on the way back,” Bob said. “It looks like when we get everyone on board, we’ll have a combined force of a few thousand.”
    â€œA few thousand? That’s not a very large