The Yeoman

Watch Ryder

New book I just threw together during the summer. This is the first draft so expect names, details to change about a bit. It'll be about 55,000 words in entirety and should be part of a three book series. For fans of my other books it does take place in that universe but isn't too sci-fi. It's more thriller and political-intrigue and action

It's also very anti-PC.

Prologue

It was a fine sunny day in the English countryside, the following previous ones of showery drizzle. For several days now the military base, deep in Bedfordshire basked in the heat of late summer.

From the base, situated at the top of a hill the lay of the land was noticeable. Off to the east three distant figures left a blue Ford Escort and entered the ancient forest. A young, confident blonde led the way followed by a slightly older man and a dark-haired woman. All of them were in their twenties and wore the olive drab uniforms of the British Army. Once they were deep in the forest the confident one turned back to the other two.

“This is far enough.” she said smiling her body full of warmth.

“What have you brought us here for?” asked the brunette.

“This wood is an ancient forest, there’s not many left in England these days. It’s perfect for us to make to pact before the old oak trees.”

“A pact?” the young man answered rolling his eyes and looking to the other girl skeptically.

“Well, we’ll be going our separate ways soon, we could end up never seeing each other again. I want us to make a pact, one that helps bring us back together again. That way, no matter what happens, we’ll always find each other again in future times.”

The brunette nodded and grinned in agreement. “Sounds like witchcraft,” she laughed brazenly.

“It’s folk magic, in the olden times people did this all the time. Now what do you both say?”

“You always were the space cadet, but I’m game,” the other woman said.

“Me too,” the man said with a chuckle. “I don’t want us to remain parted forever after the fun times we’ve had. If this pact helps, I’m all for it.”

“Alright! This will take a few minutes.”

The blonde woman smiled again before producing a Wiccan knife and began speaking ancient words and oaths. The atmosphere grew serious though and even the bird song and outside noise grew faint somehow. After facing the oak and raising her hands she spoke some more before making a shallow wrist cut on herself. She wiped her cut on the side of a nearby oak tree. Then made a similar cut on the tall man and finally the dark-haired woman. The ritual concluded with both making separate blood-marks on the oak tree in a manner so that they circled and almost touched one another.

The folk magic concluded with a prayer then the somber feeling in the clearing lifted.

“That was pretty intense,” the man said, accepting a tissue from the witch to dab at his wrist. The brunette did likewise.

“We’re joined now,” she answered. “If there’s danger, strife or troubled times in the world we’ll hopefully be reunited. This is to remain a secret, if we tell anyone outside of ourselves the pact could go terribly wrong.”

They all agreed to this and together they hastened to leave the forest before they were missed. After re-entering the blue Escort they departed the area.
 

The
Yeoman

Chapter 1

Person of Interest

“So what's your business been in Ireland then?” The Junior Commissioner asked the Yeoman.

“Oh not much, just driving around,” the Yeoman answered.

“Just driving around?”

“That’s right.”

“Where did you stay?”

“Various places,” the Yeoman said, “when I was driving around.”

“I was expecting an address? A residence?

There was a long pause as the Yeoman ignored the question.

It was a brightly colored room and the plain day outside might as well have been a world away. For the occupants of the room it was one man in a three-piece suit and the other in well-worn plain clothes. The Yeoman was not in uniform, but he felt as if he ought to be. Outside the steady rumble of heavy goods lorries could be heard. Heysham Ferry Terminal was always busy during offloading, but soon the noise would fade. By that time and for many more hours he could remain detained. He wondered if the anti-terror team rooting into his vehicle outside had found anything. As a reservist member of the Yeomanry he'd be automatically on their radar. It was no secret that the Colonels were disgruntled with the new coalition regime. The registration of his Land Rover Defender would have been tied to his Reservist status, which in turn would have automatically flagged him up as a gun-owner.

“Eric Weyland do you have an address in Ireland?” the small man’s tone became harsher.

The Yeoman shook his head. “I wasn’t expecting a welcoming party on my return to Albion. Neither was I expecting a nameless Commissar to be asking me questions,” the Yeoman retorted.

“My name is Junior Commissioner Brown,” the older man stressed, annoyed at Weyland’s jibe. “Now why were you in Ireland Eric?”

“Just visiting the country,” the man responded.

As the Junior Commissioner looked over the file he turned the pages slowly. His person of interest was thirty-eight years old, a shade over six-foot tall. Unlike a fair few men his age he showed no sign of drugs or drink abuse. His skin and eyes were clear and he moved with an athletic laziness, as if he was conserving his energy until it was most needed.

Weyland knew the border-interrogator had him on ‘suspicion of external activities’. It was a recent law that allowed police investigations for border travelers on the flimsiest whim. Since the great land-slide election of a rabidly left-wing government things had been changing. It had been nearly a year since they took power and already things were going backwards again.
It had been good times for people like Weyland in the past thirty-years. He was born just after the short but decisive Colonels Coup that started the rift throughout the land. A hard-right government that followed, backed by the military. Nearly twenty years of this had undone much of the lunacy of the previous governments. Even so, the rot was so deep the reform was being constantly undermined by scheming politicians. Many made up a supposedly pro-nationalist coalition.

Weyland had heard the call to arms ten years ago on the eve of the brief, but bloody Colonels War. The firmly hard-right-wing government that followed effectively reversed the worst of the issues ailing the island. The professional politicians were done away with, a manufacturing industry was restored and the military reformed to being more resource-orientated and island-centric. Most important of all, a power-base away from London, in northern England, was established. Thus giving the Yeomanry a check and balance on London’s stranglehold.

A Volunteer Force independent from the powers-that-be complimented a mandatory conscription. That became the Yeomanry and, following completion of the conscription system, allowed a new standing army of volunteers. Many of the former conscripts transferred to the Yeomanry rangers, armored troops and air-force but not Weyland. He had a different calling that saw him despatched overseas. Three years passed while he was gone and the winds of change blew once again. The hard-line government, under threat of sanctions from more powerful countries formed a centrist Coalition with other political parties. There were no sanctions against Albion territories but it crippled the ultra-conservative leadership. The left-wing, always masters at winning over the young, had a field day. Once ‘their’ generation came of age the results became clear.

High on the office wall a picture of the new Prime Speaker Veitch grinned down at Weyland like a mocking Hyena.

“So whereabouts in Ireland did you travel Eric?”

“Am I free to leave?” Weyland responded plainly with a bored tone.

“We just have to complete our search first,” the man said smoothly, “Then there’s also the Anti-Terrorist Act that we used to… initiate our inquiries with you.” The Commissioner spoke the last part rather smugly.

Weyland looked down at the black and white slip on the table. It reminded him that, thanks to the new powers granted last year in the parliament, coastal and airport security had the power to detain anyone they felt was under suspicion of what they deemed ‘terrorist activities’. It went on to state that he could be held for a maximum of nine hours and items he held could be confiscated for as long as two weeks.

What perplexed the Yeoman was the fact a junior-commissioner was the man doing the talking. Normally a police sergeant or detective did border interviews. Why such a high-rank?

A uniformed policeman in through the door he’d entered. It led to a corridor and another door barred the way outside.

“He’s got a crossbow under the driving seat!” he said to Brown who looked over at Weyland.

“That’s not against the law,” he replied, causing the commander to shake his head at his underling who stomped out the door, obviously disgruntled that nothing was going down that avenue.

“There’s a bill in parliament being tabled to outlaw those you know?” The interviewer goaded.

“I wonder what they’ll outlaw next? Your own batons perhaps?” he retorted with a smile causing the man to flush.

“Those are already—” the Enforcer began to say before realizing the man meant they’d be outlawed to Enforcers. A notion he found ridiculous.

“Are traveling with your self-loading rifle?” The policeman asked, referencing the weapon every member of the Yeomanry was armed with.

“Of course, it’s stowed behind the driver’s seat.”

“With ammunition?”

“It’s not much good without it now is it?”

The short man perused the shipping manifest before taking a headmaster’s tone. “I don’t have any record from the ferry company of your firearm or ammo.”

“Of course not, it’s not a legal requirement to notify them. I have to leave my vehicle unattended while on that ferry, you can be sure I’m not telling the ferry crew what’s in my vehicle.”

Weyland took out his Firearms Exemption Authority from his wallet with a satisfied smile and slid it across to Brown.

Like many Yeomanry policies counter to Britain’s draconian weapons laws the validity of the authority was to the year 9999. Additionally it was transferable to members of his family, even fellow Yeomanry with an officers signature. In essence it was a theoretically unlimited and a subtle ‘up yours’ to any police harassment. The Commissioner looked at it briefly with disdain before sliding it back across the table.

“I’m gonna be straight with you Weyland, I don’t like you. I’ve read your file, looked at your reports, you have a problem with how this country is being run.”

“This country is being run by traitors and seditious pukes again. A blind man can see that.”

“They were democratically elected! Unlike the coup that messed this country about thirty years ago.”

“That was by consent, endorsed by the working and middle-class folk sick and tired of being abused by the idiots in Parliament.”

“Consent? I didn’t consent or agree!” Brown countered but Weyland spoke as if he’d not even heard him.

“If it wasn’t for the coup there would have been a rebellion from the other factions of the military, then you’d really have seen a bloodbath!”

“What about the police that were executed then? The politicians! The media-directors! The bankers! They lined them up against a wall and murdered them! Those are your Colonels actions.”

“I would have done it differently, sparing them death, but one way or another high-ranking traitors get what they deserve. They were enemy agents and that was proven!”

“You’re crazy, that’s not how we should do things!”

“Yes it is, you’re just too chicken-hearted to accept me telling it like it is.”
“Rubbish. We know you’ve been traveling around Weyland, the Americans, Asia Pacific areas. We don’t want you filling young minds over here with any nonsense.”

“Corrupt is it? The Jade people call it the Divine Mandate, it allows lethal force to manifest against those that wish ill-will on the local populace of a nation or people. People had forgotten this in the West, but not when the Colonels reminded folk of it! Over in the USA they fought a war for seven years to stay free from a tyrannical monarchy. So if that’s nonsense to you then you are obviously a half-wit or just trying to wind me up. Which is it?”

The words flowed like a torrent of water from the Yeoman, stinging Commissioner Brown. The Commissioner knew from the files that Weyland was intelligent, a rabble-rouser and debater, able to speak with others. It was surely why the Colonels had sent him overseas. The question that eluded him, MI6 intelligence and even foreign intelligence was why?

“Why do you plot against this island?”

The Yeoman smiled enigmatically but said nothing, needling Brown who stared hard at the eyes that didn’t even look at him. A glassy-zeal or sheen seemed to radiate from them, something that conventional threats could not blunt. Weyland was a fanatic in his eyes, the sort of man who would kill others and not be afraid to make light of it. There was an intensity to his icy blue eyes, it reminded him of a stormtrooper just on the eve of an assault or perhaps a pilot about to dive-bomb an enemy position. Nothing seemed to sway him. Like a sudden turn of the weather, he was calm again.

“Look, I don’t have a problem with you Enforcers as a rule. I don’t really hate anyone typically, even the traitors, but when things are out of order, Things have to happen.”

The commissioner went passive and held his hands up briefly.

‘Let the fool talk,’ thought the commissioner. ‘He’ll tell us what we know now he’s begun rambling.’

“You know if it wasn’t for people like the Yeomanry we’d have been invaded and conquered by the immigrant hordes many times over. The Colonels know the score and speak out about it.”

“The Yeomanry acts like a private army traipsing about this country though. Most of all though, it’s the fact you have carte blanch to wield military grade weapons. That’s a bit much isn’t it Eric?”

“You only say that because your police tyranny was hamstrung by the Colonels Mr Brown. In the words of my old Colonel ‘Too many traitors in high places, starting from Junior Commissioner upwards.’”

“You don’t think it’s outdated to have a militia bullying the police and shooting them during a coup?”

“It’s never an outdated thing to have protection, the Yeomanry serve as a check-and-balance on the tyrannical powers of the police state.”

“That’s nonsense, the police force protect people, chase criminals and investigate law-breakers.”

“Good, then leave the Yeomanry to be the Yeomanry and concentrate on people actually breaking the law, not this thought-crime and harassment.”

“You know when the firearms laws in this country were lax we had a man go on a spree killing in Wiltshire. He reminded me of a Yeomanry type.”

“He had illegal weapons and was a rogue Gladio operative according to the Colonels. Those were government guys trained to fight if we were invaded, except a few got ideas of their own. One went nuts because his meds were bad and he was spurned by a woman who surprised him in a forest.”

“Rubbish,” the commissioner said.

“If people had the firearm rights we Yeomanry have now, spree killers like him would have been cut to pieces on sight.”

“We don’t trust you Weyland, not me, not the High Commissioners, not the Prime Speaker! We don’t want to take a chance for your Yeomanry to go on the rampage. I don’t understand your stupid gun rights, I think you Yeomanry are a relic, a piece of history from when warfare was a way of life in Europe.”

“The feeling is mutual. Yeomanry can help if the country is ever invaded. A professional police force would likely panic, go home and even collaborate with the enemy.”

“Don’t you insult my police force! The regular army is for anti-invasion measures, not your lot.”

“Our regular army fought for overseas security when we had an empire, then for overseas interests. At least now, following the Colonels War they are overseas keeping the oil lanes clear with the navy. The Yeomanry are more equipped than a regular reservist would be thanks to your gun laws.”

“My police force can do your job, we have firearms too you know.”

“And we could do yours a lot better than forcing people into rooms to be asked stupid questions.”

The officer ignored Weyland and spoke on.

“There’s another bill going through parliament this winter, it’s called the Yeomanry Amendment Act. The High Commissioner personally oversaw it.”

“Are we getting a pay rise?” Weyland asked sarcastically.

“Very funny Weyland, your kind need to be put on a leash. It’s time for checks and balances,” the enforcer smiled with dirty, coffee-stained teeth.

“Oh really?”

“Yes, really, we’re getting new powers you see. All your firearms, munitions, armored cars and aircraft will be licensed and regulated! Every county in Albion is getting a new police chief to oversee and individually authorize each part. It won’t be anything like the FEA licenses or section nine authority permits the Colonels write out like fag-paper either. We’ll be vetting the entire Yeomanry independently and unless it’s essential for target practice all your weapons are gonna be under lock and key. Under OUR lock and key.”

“That’ll never pass in parliament!” Weyland responded sharply. “We get exemption from your daft firearms legislation, we practically have our own section of England anyway. Any policing is done by the Provost not your kind! That’s our Albion Right. Along with freedom of movement, which you are infringing upon right now.”

“Your ‘Albion Right?” the policeman scoffed with a sudden laugh.

“I served my time in the military, then the Yeomanry after that. I earned that right just like my father before me.”

The commissioner went passive.

“It’ll pass Weyland, the Prime Speaker’s party has the majority now in Parliament.” The passive mood changed again as the Enforcer spoke on.
“Territory or no, when it concerns this bill we’ll be coming and going as we please. What’s more is you’ll be lucky if we let half of you own a .22 rabbit rifle privately!” he laughed.

“Well if that comes to pass things will get very interesting plod,” Weyland said with a smile. ‘Plod’ was a slang term not liked by Enforcers.

“What do you mean? Are you threatening me or my men?” Junior-Commissioner said.

“I just said, things are gonna get interesting if you take on my Yeomanry. The Colonels will take you down again if you push us.”

Brown brooded now and stared at the fair-haired Yeoman with angry thoughts. His hazel eyes seemed to cloud and veins showed on a furrowed brow.

“Well the debate has been entertaining, but I have to ask, am I free to leave now?”

This caused the Commissioner to lose his temper. “No! You bloody-well stay here until I say so!”

It was Weyland’s turn to laugh.

“Well in that case, I consider myself a prisoner then. Which means: 62505 Reservist-Corporal Weyland, blood group AB-Negative...” he went on to state his date of birth and said nothing more.

“Don’t give me that military crap! What work have you been doing for the Colonels?! We know you are up to something!”

Weyland’s repeated his prisoner-of-war declaration in a monologue voice and stared into space.

“Weyland! Answer me! If I have to I’ll get a judge to authorize—”

The man could not complete the words, a burst of machine-gun fire interrupted him. The terrorist attack on Heysham Ferry Terminal had begun.

Copyright - Tyler Danann

Watch Ryder

On a slight rise the terrorists overlooked the entire facility from their vantage point. To their left was the ferry docks, the large Stena Traveler was already half-unloaded. The large goods trucks were almost gone and soon the many Albion families would be marshalled off. In the centre was the large concrete plaza for transiting back and forth. Long lines of holiday-makers patiently waited in their cars for the boat to be ready for them. The right-hand area was the administration buildings and the Customs and Excise compound. They knew from prior knowledge only three officers were on duty, with a forth on sick leave. In their crazed and mixed-minds, their dream of a Rabian Caliphate danced over Europe. They were the tip of that spear and now yearned to spill European Christian blood.

Abdul Ephraim and his four suicide-warriors had lain watching the ferry terminal for hours waiting for the moment of attack. Timing was critical. This was not just to be an attack, it was to have a more elaborate touch. Ephraim was armed with an AKM, several grenades and over two-hundred rounds of ammunition. His compatriots were likewise armed except for one armed with a PKP machine gun. Mohammed Ragi would have the special duty for the right-hand section of the operation. More ammunition was on hand in the van.

Ephraim’s handlers, now departed. They had supplied the weaponry and transported them the long way from Northern France. Instead of the heavily policed tunnel with the risk of random searches and checks, a private fishing boat had been used Their own agents had dropped off vehicles for them and it was in one of these, a Mercedes S200 that the handler’s now made their way out of the area. As they drove away around to the private-exit gate the strange-looking man suppressed an excited judder that ran through his body.

“It will be a good day for us Shieda,” he spoke to his female companion.

“The Yeoman will make a good scapegoat for when this makes the news.”

“He wasn’t supposed to be detained though, this will make framing him trickier, Ephraim is up to the job though.”

“Rabian’s are scum, being assigned to them was a slur. We have much better work than agent handling such types.”

“If it means the Yeomanry are demonized by being associated with the Rabians, so much the better. The faster they are disbanded and out of the way is the better.”

“Our media contacts will film the carnage?”

“Yes, but not for a while, I don’t want to risk them getting caught up in it.”

“I wouldn’t want to be that Yeoman, Ephraim has a taste for infidel blood.”

“So do you Zeneth,” Shieda joked.

“I have more class than him though, and I waste less fluids than Rabians usually,” Zeneth laughed as they passed the sign for Heysham ferry-terminal.
All being well they would be back at their safe-house within two hours and enjoying the chaotic news scenes just before tea-time.


“What’s going on? This is your doing Weyland!” the officer whined. More shots were sounding sporadically and he flinched with the sounds.

“Not me or mine, this is an attack! Get down!” Weyland kept low against a wall, making sure he was away from any windows. The next burst from the light-machine gun targeted around their building directly.

The two enforcers searching Weyland’s vehicle had completed their search and were both walking back towards the buildings back entrance. At the first sound of gun shots both were cut down, one died instantly, the other was mortally wounded. He crawled painfully to the faded-red doorway but couldn’t reach the door-handle. The next long burst from Ragi ended his pain and ripped through the single-wall of brick in several areas.

The adjoining building where ferry bookings were processed took the brunt of it and two customers and a member of staff were hit.

The Junior-Commissioner ran to the corridor doorway and raced to the exit. He naively thought the main doors were the target, he was wrong. As soon as he opened up the red doorway he had time to see his two Enforcers laying in pools of blood before he too was struck.

Weyland wasted no time once the bothersome man had left. He knew from experience that Border Custom’s buildings had a small armory. A quick scan of an office-room showed a plain cabinet with serialized weaponry on a sheet of A4 paper. The list showed, two MP5 submachine guns and a Browning HiPower and a HK G36 assault rifle.

The Yeoman tried the handle but it was predictably locked. A nearby key-press was unlocked though and he tried to calmly find the right key. A second burst of machine-gun fire seemed to directly hammer into the main office area.

“They shot me! Your men shot me!” came a voice behind him. Turning he saw the hapless Enforcer officer clutching his arm. He was pale and in a state of shock.

“They aren’t my ****ing men!” Weyland shouted. “If they were I’d already be gone, you’d be dead and there wouldn’t be all this extra racket!”

The commissioner was stunned. He was well used to an orderly life, routine and predictable outcomes. The sudden changes had him almost mentally undone. He reached for him smart phone and tried to dial 999.

“Whoever it is wants us dead and to cause mayhem,” Weyland saw the phone. “Don’t bother, by the time they get here it will be a clean-up job, others will be doing that.”

Weyland considered more conversation, perhaps he could sway the zealous commissioner to his side. Then he dismissed it, like many things Weyland was good at, being a lone-warrior was his forte. He tried the second key and it failed to turn the lock in the safe. As he reached for the third key his arm brushed against his covert body-camera. It was button mounted into his dark green jacket and had activated the moment Brown’s security team flagged him down. It carried on recorded all that Weyland faced. For the Yeoman he absently wondered if it would record his death? He was on an island that either revered or loathed armed citizens, and Heysham was in non-Albion territory and it had plenty of the latter. Then his instincts of defiance kicked in and he felt the spirit of survival call out to him.

Copyright - Tyler Danann

Watch Ryder

Two Rabian riflemen closed the distance towards the waiting parked vehicles and the large ferry ship beyond it. The pair were heavily equipped with grenades and managed to reach throwing range before being spotted.

The marshalling woman in a hi-vis jacket screamed a warning but chaos soon followed. The first grenade landed short of a Ford Focus, blowing its windows out, and sending waves of shrapnel everywhere. The next one rolled under a Toyota Corolla. It was devastating, the occupants were too terrified to leave and blocked in from in front and behind. Then came the explosion followed by more grenades at the other vehicles. Those at the front and rear of the columns drove away at high speed to the very edge of the docks. One car attempted sanctuary on the ferry. As the young couple on board mounted the ramp they smashed head-on into a departing van. For those trying the other direction another pair of Rabian gunmen ambushed them with a salvo of assault-rifle gunfire. Over three hundred people were trapped between the sea and the Rabian positions.

Albion had experienced tastes of terrorism before, but the Rabian ways were a newer, more grisly dish entirely.


Weyland had the G36 out of the armory along with the Browning HiPower. While the G36 used a different caliber to his L1A1 rifle the pistol was in 9mm, matching his CZ 75. Tucking the sidearm behind him in the small of his back he added a couple of spare magazines which went into his jacket pocket.
The Junior Commisioner had resumed calling 999 and was in the middle of a rambling, panic-stricken monologue. When he heard the sound of metallic noises in one of the offices he walked halfway across the main office and noticed the Yeoman.

“What are you doing? That’s restricted weaponry! You can’t touch that!” Brown said with a high-pitched shriek.

A door being kicked in sounded and distracted the attention of the policeman though. As he turned a swarthy-faced Arab entered through the internal office doorway. He was an ugly man with a big weapon. Seeing only the lone man with civilian clothes in front of him he pointed angrily directly at him
“Where’s the Yeoman!” he barked in accented English.

Brown almost soiled himself at the fear that washed over him.

“Tell me or you die Kaffir!”

As the terrorist said this another voice spoke behind him in the Rabian tongue. He stepped through the doorway and focused his attention on the weak-looking man.

The sight of a man holding his life in the balance broke any flimsy loyalty to his detainee.

“He’s over—”

Brown could not complete the words as Weyland opened fire. The machine-gunner took a three-round burst on the chest and the neck. The body armor stopped one of the bullets but the other two tore through his upper-chest and windpipe. Instinctively the stricken Rabian clutched the trigger and a long burst of fire cascaded through the office-complex. Weyland shied back around the corner into the small sub-office corner and stayed low to the ground.

After the deafening roar had subsided he tracked around the corner, aiming at whatever he saw. The untidy office was now a mess, paperwork, plastic and shards of glass littered the place. On the ground was a dying Rabian, slumped over a bloody PKP machine gun. The troublesome lawman was not moving either. He’s been blasted backwards and was face-up with his back awkwardly.

‘So much for your gun control,’ Weyland mused with dark humor.

The other gunfire had subsided and the silence worried him more now. The terrorist had asked for him specifically, meaning he was a target for them. A feeling of combative rage swished about him and the Yeoman moved forwards quietly. By avoiding major noise from the debris he reached the wall that connected to the main corridor entrance. On reaching the corridor door the Yeoman tried a ruse. He fumbled and tried the door a few times while remaining off to the side of it. Swiftly he removed his hand and arm just as a short burst of AK bullets poured through the middle of it.

Going to the floor next to the doorway Weyland jammed his Browning against the bottom of the doors base and aimed one-handed. He fired three times through it into the corridor where danger lurked and was rewarded with a yelp of pain. He fired four more times then ripped open the door, while keeping his body clear. No gunfire came and he jerk-looked around the corner next. No sign of the other Arab was there either but the far door was open and a blood trail was noticeable.

He could hear shouts and screams but Weyland kept his cool, carefully exiting the outer doorway. He saw two armed men distantly firing towards the ferry. They didn’t aim properly and seemed to be spraying their gunfire. Off to his left the man he’d injured moved further and further to the fenceline. From the way he stumbled and clutched at his right arm it looked like he’d been hit twice. Weyland raised his G36 carbine but as he aimed the Rabian unexpectedly fell down. Slowly though the tenacious movements of him crawling towards a van became apparent.

Weyland knew if he pursued the man he’d catch him but if he opened fire he’d risk the other gunmen being alerted. Then there was the casualties being inflicted by them upon helpless civilians. A third choice seemed to taunt at him — escape!

His Land Rover Defender was close to try that option, but the welcoming green machine seemed to take on the stain of cowardice. With no time to dig out his cased rifle in the Defender he moved in towards the gunfire. By circling via the fence he managed to completely re-flank the sound of battle. He was breathing well thanks to the rivers of adrenaline cycling through him. Weyland advanced a little ways further and now faced the opposition on the extreme left of the ferry quayside.

Copyright - Tyler Danann

Watch Ryder

From the ferry area and especially the parked cars it was chaos, people were dead or dying. Five cars were in flames and two more wrecked by explosions. Still the blood-lust of the terrorists was not satisfied. There were still dozens of survivors left and they weren’t done yet. Once they were dead, they could move in against the ferry. Its ramp was still down and made for an enticing sight.

Abu Halabi reloaded for the fourth time, he was halfway through his ammunition panoply and feeling righteous in his killings. His ISIS brother uttered gleeful invocations and prayers as he fired on and on.

“Allah Akbar, Allllaah Akbar,” he said with guttural splendour. Two women, young and old went down as he sent half a magazine into them.

They had made a break for it and now few wanted to run from the cover of their vehicles and were easy prey to the prowling Rabians. As the junior leader of them he mentally felt a rush of excitement. Then the ferry ship’s ramp began closing and he shouted loudly in Rabian to advance on the ship.

“Allah Ak—”

The sudden break in his pattern of speaking caused Halabi to turn, he had time to see his brother slumping over. The terrorist shouted a warning noise before more shots rang out, cutting down the dark-skinned man.

The Yeoman, partly concealed from a low fold in the ground, shot again and again with his G36. His prey fell dying and was partly obscured by a concrete bollard.

Only two minutes earlier he’d crawled low like a frenzied leopard after choosing to take on the gunmen. After being satisfied they were no danger he waited for the moment. With the iron-sights he watched and saw further danger. Another Rabian emerged from their ambush position and Weyland kept his cool, a second man followed him. They were now less brave on seeing their dead comrades. It was one thing to slaughter unarmed civilians but facing armed opponents unnerved them.
Weyland shot the biggest one of the two with three rounds, he went down like a sack of potatoes. The second saw the Yeoman though and fired back at him while howling. An experienced enemy would have rushed for cover to engage in a firefight, the last terrorist charged forwards instead. He made it ten yards across the open ground, firing from the hip before Weyland shot him down. The Yeoman heard impacts nearby but was unharmed by the AKM’s gunfire.

Remembering the last terrorist who had been running away the soldier swivelled to see a distant van racing away to the south. Weyland sent the last of his magazine at it the tiny target but the range was too great and the carbine not up to the task. The weapon held open the bolt on empty and still the dark blue van drove on. Ephraim had escaped and the Yeoman knew he had to be away too, as much as it grieved him to leave without helping the others.

He, like the Rabian swine, had a mission and if he tarried the authorities would surely cast him into detention. The sounds of firing had all ceased He attempted a still picture of the almost vanished vehicle but discovered his body camera had stopped recording. Weyland hoped the battery had only recently failed, not that it would have shown much anyway, given his prone position.

The Yeoman stood up carefully left just as the survivors were emerging from their hiding places. To several it was clear he was the one who had saved them. He waved briefly and called out that help would be on its way before moving rapidly towards his Land Rover. He’d parked it on the very edge of the parking area, keeping it from most of the machine-gun fire. Apart from a bullet nick in the back corner it was unharmed. Before climbing inside he had a sudden thought and retrieved the folder Brown had been glancing at. Inside the front-cover was a picture of him taken from his military record with notes and annotations. Without time to read any more he returned to his vehicle and checked his L1A1 SLR was still in its case. It was, as were about two hundred rounds of ammunition in ten magazines. Weyland stowed the G36 next to it and removed the browning from the holster.

The dead police he drove around sent a weird feeling of guilt and responsibility trespass into him. The memory of the terrorists asking for him in the building made him realize he perhaps was the main reason or at least an influence.

Was he indirectly responsible for their deaths?

Weyland didn’t think so, if the foolish idiot called Brown had not detained him he’d have been on his way south unburdened.
He exited the ferry terminal and turned south-east just as the sounds of the police response unit became audible.

“They’ll be from Lancaster,” he said confidently to himself. “I hope they don’t try and pin all this mess on me.”

As the convoy of police vehicle came into view a feeling of fatalism came over him. A Land Rover Defender a match for few vehicles in terms of speed or acceleration. His mental state was that of a wary wolf and Weyland was prepared to fight if they tried to stop his vehicle. The treatment of the authorities of him was not forgotten, despite their casualties. Weyland suspected the dead or dying Commissioner Brown may have never intended to release him if he had his way.

The lead Enforcer of the police convoy paid little attention to the slow Land Rover trundling along as it approached. They had no report on a green Land Rover, only that shots had been fired and casualties reported at Heysham ferry terminal. They drove past him without slowing down. It was only an hour later when they viewed the surveillance tapes that they saw the Rabians, the carnage and the Yeoman warrior in action. His green off-road vehicle was immediately flagged up for interception.

The Yeoman drove on towards Yorkshire, avoiding the motorways and using only the A-Roads. His vehicle was not registered to his home address. Instead it was listed under the Yeomanry barracks in the next town from him. For now Eric Weyland was off the radar.

Copyright - Tyler Danann

Watch Ryder

Chapter 2

Crossroads

Within two hours of the Heysham attack the media-machine was going into overdrive. Complete coverage was being displayed on all major channels. Emergency services attempted to do what they could be the injuries were nasty. The terrorists had used expanding ammunition making bullet-wounds even more devastating. As they worked and toiled among the vehicles the announced death toll grew and grew.

First it was twenty-eight, then thirty, forty-eight before stabilizing on fifty two fatalities. Over fifty more were wounded, with dozens of them in a serious condition. Goggle-eyed watchers saw the whole circus of reporters, journalists and news anchors go into an emotional roller-coaster as a version of events slowly trickled out.

The surveillance cameras showed a lone, white civilian with an assault rifle opening fire while laying down. The quality of the cameras was less than five megapixels, keeping him from being facially identified. Yet the camera’s did not show his targeting the now dead Rabians, nor did they show him waving to the civilians as he departed.

By the time Weyland had reached his valley farm house the High Commissioner was reporting him as the leader of a terrorist attack. After shaking his head at the news reports coming in on the Freeview TV, Weyland wasted no time. He immediately set up a meeting with the Colonel on the secure line. The duty Yeoman, a Sergeant Chris Payne listened as he delivered his hasty report.

“Things are moving very fast now Eric, Word from the barracks nearest to you is they’ve got two police convoys worth of active firearms guys blockading the place. So don’t show up there whatever you do.”

“By the stars what are they going after us for? It’s Rabian’s that did the attack.”

“They want us dead Eric, they’ll try anything to take us down and making us look bad is the start of it. We might have our own turf, but the police can come and go as they please when they want to.”

“I didn’t think it would be this soon. Dammit I was almost ready to—” He cut himself from saying the rest. That would be for the Colonels ears only.
The Duty Operator hesitated then spoke on.

“Look they want to access the Yeomanry database, but the Company Commander’s not caving-in. He’s at the gate trying to negotiate them to leave. Fat chance of that though.”

“The Enforcers must know they won’t win a fight against us?”

“Probably, but we intercepted another transmission that they are trying to get reinforcements. More than likely regular army guys with a general from London. They’ll bring armor with them to try and crash the gates more than likely.”

“They don’t have the authority though, Albion is separate territory and not under their jurisdiction.”

“The Home Office can over-rule our territory in some cases though. If they hand over a royal search warrant with a general’s authority, they get access. Otherwise we end up with a battle and that could start a civil war.”

“Dammit, this house is compromised then,” Weyland said grimly. His heart felt oppressed, like a weight was falling from London onto his world.

“You have some time, it depends on the Commander, he may purge or safeguard your data. Safeguard your records at your location, bug out from and come quickly to The Estates. DON’T use your main travel vehicle unless you have to, I suspect they have the plates.”

“Roger that, I’ll get on it.”

“Good luck Eric.”

Weyland put the phone down as the feeling of oppression now felt even closer than before. The thought of them searching his house twisted in his guts. The invasion of privacy was one thing but the knowledge that they’d confiscate and possibly ‘lose’ electronic items grinded him even more.

“They aren’t going to invade my world, not like this anyway,” he said decisively then rushed into action. Weyland spent the next thirty minutes packing supplies and gear into his Land Rover. Another fifteen minutes saw a three-quarter ton trailer loaded up as well. He was playing with fire taking the extra time of storing all his valuables and equipment away from the farm house but refused to let them have their way with his gear and possessions.

His farmhouse was part of a twenty acre property and it took him five minutes driving to get to a sprawling forest. It was here that his main cache of stores was hidden. He opened up a carefully concealed hatch in the ground. Using a rope and the ladder he unloaded everything into it. When he lowered down the last box the cache was nearly stacked up to the very hatch itself. By the time he’d climbed back in to his Defender the Yeoman was exhausted. Nearly an hour and a half had elapsed. One last sweep of the house saw him bag up any compromising material. Pictures of he and his fiancée, her jewelry and an office drawer containing all his paperwork went into the a spare duffel back. Opening his gun cabinet he removed his CZ 75 P1 sidearm which went into a military holster.

All that remained was his rifle, the weapons from the ferry port and his bug-out bag and some vehicle stores. He got into his Audi Quattro having loaded most of the gear into the boot. Before he left in the new vehicle he drove his Landrover deep into the woods, far off his land. By using a folding bicycle that was stored in the back he was able to pedal back to his farm house again. Only then was Weyland satisfied to depart.

The Audi’s engine started with a slight delay but that was understandable given his absence while in Ireland. As Weyland left his home behind he wondered if he’d see it again, the world was changing and he felt like being on board a submarine barely eluding a task-force that wanted him dead or alive.

It was a one hour drive to secretive Estates that the Colonels tended to frequent. For the first ten minutes as he made his way down the country lanes he expected to face a police convoy. Once he reached the A1 though all was well. Only when he passed a police convoy going the other way did he relax. His adrenaline slowed and more restful thoughts swam into his mind. Weyland thought of his fiancée down in London and the work she did there. It was dangerous but neither he nor her would have it any other way.

Copyright - Tyler Danann

Watch Ryder

Chapter 2

Crossroads

Within two hours of the Heysham attack the media-machine was going into overdrive. Complete coverage was being displayed on all major channels. Emergency services attempted to do what they could be the injuries were nasty. The terrorists had used expanding ammunition making bullet-wounds even more devastating. As they worked and toiled among the vehicles the announced death toll grew and grew.

First it was twenty-eight, then thirty, forty-eight before stabilizing on fifty two fatalities. Over fifty more were wounded, with dozens of them in a serious condition. Goggle-eyed watchers saw the whole circus of reporters, journalists and news anchors go into an emotional roller-coaster as a version of events slowly trickled out.

The surveillance cameras showed a lone, white civilian with an assault rifle opening fire while laying down. The quality of the cameras was less than five megapixels, keeping him from being facially identified. Yet the camera’s did not show his targeting the now dead Rabians, nor did they show him waving to the civilians as he departed.

By the time Weyland had reached his valley farm house the High Commissioner was reporting him as the leader of a terrorist attack. After shaking his head at the news reports coming in on the Freeview TV, Weyland wasted no time. He immediately set up a meeting with the Colonel on the secure line. The duty Yeoman, a Sergeant Chris Payne listened as he delivered his hasty report.

“Things are moving very fast now Eric, Word from the barracks nearest to you is they’ve got two police convoys worth of active firearms guys blockading the place. So don’t show up there whatever you do.”

“By the stars what are they going after us for? It’s Rabian’s that did the attack.”

“They want us dead Eric, they’ll try anything to take us down and making us look bad is the start of it. We might have our own turf, but the police can come and go as they please when they want to.”

“I didn’t think it would be this soon. Dammit I was almost ready to—” He cut himself from saying the rest. That would be for the Colonels ears only.
The Duty Operator hesitated then spoke on.

“Look they want to access the Yeomanry database, but the Company Commander’s not caving-in. He’s at the gate trying to negotiate them to leave. Fat chance of that though.”

“The Enforcers must know they won’t win a fight against us?”

“Probably, but we intercepted another transmission that they are trying to get reinforcements. More than likely regular army guys with a general from London. They’ll bring armor with them to try and crash the gates more than likely.”

“They don’t have the authority though, Albion is separate territory and not under their jurisdiction.”

“The Home Office can over-rule our territory in some cases though. If they hand over a royal search warrant with a general’s authority, they get access. Otherwise we end up with a battle and that could start a civil war.”

“Dammit, this house is compromised then,” Weyland said grimly. His heart felt oppressed, like a weight was falling from London onto his world.

“You have some time, it depends on the Commander, he may purge or safeguard your data. Safeguard your records at your location, bug out from and come quickly to The Estates. DON’T use your main travel vehicle unless you have to, I suspect they have the plates.”

“Roger that, I’ll get on it.”

“Good luck Eric.”

Weyland put the phone down as the feeling of oppression now felt even closer than before. The thought of them searching his house twisted in his guts. The invasion of privacy was one thing but the knowledge that they’d confiscate and possibly ‘lose’ electronic items grinded him even more.

“They aren’t going to invade my world, not like this anyway,” he said decisively then rushed into action. Weyland spent the next thirty minutes packing supplies and gear into his Land Rover. Another fifteen minutes saw a three-quarter ton trailer loaded up as well. He was playing with fire taking the extra time of storing all his valuables and equipment away from the farm house but refused to let them have their way with his gear and possessions.

His farmhouse was part of a twenty acre property and it took him five minutes driving to get to a sprawling forest. It was here that his main cache of stores was hidden. He opened up a carefully concealed hatch in the ground. Using a rope and the ladder he unloaded everything into it. When he lowered down the last box the cache was nearly stacked up to the very hatch itself. By the time he’d climbed back in to his Defender the Yeoman was exhausted. Nearly an hour and a half had elapsed. One last sweep of the house saw him bag up any compromising material. Pictures of he and his fiancée, her jewelry and an office drawer containing all his paperwork went into the a spare duffel back. Opening his gun cabinet he removed his CZ 75 P1 sidearm which went into a military holster.

All that remained was his rifle, the weapons from the ferry port and his bug-out bag and some vehicle stores. He got into his Audi Quattro having loaded most of the gear into the boot. Before he left in the new vehicle he drove his Landrover deep into the woods, far off his land. By using a folding bicycle that was stored in the back he was able to pedal back to his farm house again. Only then was Weyland satisfied to depart.

The Audi’s engine started with a slight delay but that was understandable given his absence while in Ireland. As Weyland left his home behind he wondered if he’d see it again, the world was changing and he felt like being on board a submarine barely eluding a task-force that wanted him dead or alive.

It was a one hour drive to secretive Estates that the Colonels tended to frequent. For the first ten minutes as he made his way down the country lanes he expected to face a police convoy. Once he reached the A1 though all was well. Only when he passed a police convoy going the other way did he relax. His adrenaline slowed and more restful thoughts swam into his mind. Weyland thought of his fiancée down in London and the work she did there. It was dangerous but neither he nor her would have it any other way.

Copyright - Tyler Danann

Watch Ryder

Chapter 3

The Ministry

The Land Ministry was an ugly building constructed in the name of efficiency during the late nineteen-sixties. While largely civilian various elements of the Ministry of Defense worked there. A multi-sectioned office within it housed a department known as Special Occurrences Task Force. It was seldom known of by most in the mainstream military, even the MOD folks would struggle to gauge what it actually did. Such was the compartmentalization the shadowy group were only fully known within the Ministry of Intelligence. The Ministry of Intelligence did not dwell in the Land Ministry though and far from the masters eye the servants roamed free.

In the years gone by SOTF had shrunk from a Platoon-sized formation with detachments overseas to just four operatives though. Originally it was formed to assist NATO fighting military spies from the USSR. Then after the USSR had collapsed they’d been reorganized to spy on other nations within NATO and beyond. After the Colonel’s Coup they’d turned their gaze inward further. and worked with the aim of building a file on suspected terrorists from native-born Britons. The Colonels War which followed left London unscathed and SOTF began to do the same with the Yeomanry.

Unlike MI5 though SOTF were a military echelon which meant they were much less accountable, could carry side arms concealed, even when off-duty. Such a thing rankled the Land Ministry bosses but section 5 authority came straight from the Home Office.

On the lowest rung of the ladder was Lance Corporal Brian Athered. He was new SOTF, only a month on the job and only had a year’s military service. Wide-eyed and optimistic. The man had light-brown hair, a boyish face and his athletic appearance radiated charisma, catching more than one ladies eye.
Next was Corporal Scott Johnson, a career intelligence operative, a decent-enough soldier but rough around the edges. His drinking escapades were legendary, and usually involved being a vulgar and crude. Heavy set and leaning over two hundred pounds Johnson tended to be the bruiser-type of SOTF, albeit an intelligent one.

The Second-In-Command of SOTF was a striking Sergeant called Deborah Templeton. Some said it was her ruthless ambition that had got her promoted, others that her womanly looks, assets and charms had played a part. She was below-average in height for an army woman, yet muscular and apple-shaped. Her faintly-olive face was attractively beguiling. Soft-features, a slightly aquiline nose and a pair of hazel eyes that had a way of looking through you dominated her looks. Her velvet-voice emphasized a touch of melancholy but it had an authoritarian presence when necessary and if she was pressed too far. Unlike the others who specialized in operational and personnel intelligence matters she was more the experienced covert operative. Since the end of the war, there wasn’t much call for that in SOTF.

The Officer-In-Charge completed the small unit of five personnel. Warrant Officer Danny Atkinson was an old soldier in the Intelligence Corps, he’d seen conflicts come and go several times. With twenty-one years of service he only had a year to go before a quiet retirement. He figured about four more months of riding the desk then his resettlement training and leave would see him away from SOTF. Atkinson was gray-haired and worn-down from a career of hard-work and harder drinking. His big plummy nose was bloodshot and flushed, as was his face. Dark jaded eyes that had seen it all and jaded him immensely looked at things with a cynical prism. In some ways he was like an older version of Johnson but was well over two-hundred and fifty pounds. Being medically down-graded meant fitness was a distant thing for the officer, which was just as well as would struggle to chase anything for long.

All were on first-name terms and military rank was seldom used. In some ways they were like a bubble, remote from their parent unit in Bedfordshire but still retaining their military trappings in other ways. They seldom called in sick, were professionally efficient when it came to casework and got the job done by thinking outside the box.

The radio playing a lame pop tune suddenly interrupted to announce the attack at Heysham. After a minute of listening the pop tune resumed and there was some exchanges between Athered and Johnson.
In Atkinson’s office the secure line rang and email reports came flooding in from JHQ after a minute had passed.

The military, political and authoritarian machine began to turn it’s immense cogs and wheels.

“So much for a quiet few months,” he gloomed before calling in Templeton. She finished what she was doing then sauntered up to his office door. She moved confidently, as a single-woman with no children and worries tended to in Ministry circles.

“‘Debs,” Atkinson said to Templeton. “There’s a situation up at Heysham, the details have just filtered down to us.”

The warrant officer tapped a section of his LCD screen.

“Have the lads start with the Person Of Interest first. It’s a race to get this guy, he’s the priority, we’ve got MI5 and Special Branch in the run as well.”
“Who is it? Some Rabian?”

“Nope, one of those Yeomanry scumbags. Intel is showing he led the attack with Rabian’s though. Then he killed his terror team after they’d slaughtering dozens and dozens. No doubt to make it look like they were the only ones responsible and make deflect attention from the Yeomanry onto the Rabian community.”

“This is gonna get big if a general mobilization is made against them,” Templeton said analyzing the outcomes.

“Well this isn’t official yet, so treat him as Person of Interest, his status will shift to Enemy Outlaw soon though. MI5 and Special Branch are in the run for this one.”

“Will Control let us harry the hare this time Debs?” she asked wishing they’d let SOTF deploy on field operations.

“Hopefully! Let’s show the police how the military can be one step ahead of them in the meantime eh?” He passed her a sheaf of data-requests with a wink. Templeton carefully analyzed them with a hazel-eyed intrigue. The sergeant felt a shiver run through her as she saw the small passport photo paper-clipped in the top right corner. He was a familiar face, all too familiar, one she’d known all those years ago. The name on the form made it clear the man was no twin either. A feeling like her world slowly being shook back and forth began to rattle through her. On the outside her face and body showed little sign of the turmoil starting to develop. Yet inwardly the tough, attractively masculine sergeant was pole-axed.

“I’m on it,” she said, barely keeping her voice from wavering. She left his office and entered the main area where she and the other two men worked. Things were about to get serious, up until now it had been small scraps of data and leads to nowhere they were routinely collating.

“Right, top brass are wanting checks on a POI,” the raven-haired woman announced taking a deep breath as she did so. “Brian, get your Issy turned on.”

“I’m on it,” he responded casually and swiveled his chair to the Internal Security Control terminal. After a moment to log-in he turned to her for search instructions.

“Search protocol under all spectrums, fields and notes as follows…”
Athered nodded as he tapped in a bunch of pre-requisite data.

“Person of Interest — Eric Weyland,” her voice almost wavered. Eric, the one who was so close, yet now so far and a sworn opponent.

Athered hesitated on hearing the ancient-sounding name before entering it and hitting the ‘search’ key. His screen processed the data for nearly twenty seconds then spat out long list of information that scrolled down ten pages.

“Alright, give me a print-out of that,” the woman ordered sharply. She hoped that Athered would not be too interested but as the printer began flaring into action her wishes were not answered.

“Hey he’s former Intelligence Corps!” he quipped with youthful enthusiasm. The data had large notations and circles about various key points. “He went through training nearly thirteen years ago, then left us to join the Yeomanry!”

“Did he now?” Johnson interjected. “That’s bloody rare, most of those Yeoman guys are front-line types, nationalists, ****ed-off Territorials,” he said with a veteran’s opinion. “A neighbor of mine down in Basingstoke joined ‘em, never would have thought it.”

“They get a number of civvies joining now too. After they get vetted for Albion heritage,” Athered said remembering some of the adverts. Since the Coalition formed much of the pro-Albion stuff was now banned.

“Abrasive bastards though for the most part,” Johnson surmised, “but good soldiers I think. They fight for what they stand for, like we do.”

Templeton glared at him after the last sentence. “They’re army rejects if you ask me, nazi-wannabes abandoning a country to try and form one of their own.”

“Not this one,” Athered countered. “He volunteered for courier infiltration in Northern Island, tried SAS Selection and Commando duty. Failed on the continuation training phase, passed Commando training though. It also says—”

Templeton cut him off. “Alright, alright I can read Brian. I don’t need a bloody commentary!” she snapped, the feelings aroused by knowledge almost too much to deal with.

Her words surprised the rookie though. He’d never seen Templeton show her driven-side.

“Sorry Debs, just surprised at his record.”

Deborah Templeton leaned over and snatched the printouts, then stapled them together using Athered’s stapler. She returned to her desk area across the office space. Unlike the two Corporals she had a measure of privacy with a screened off cubical. She was grateful for the seclusion as her face was wracked with worry and emotion. The Sergeant read the sheet and saw much of the tracking data from ten years ago up to present day was speculative. MI6 had caught his trail three times, first in South-East Asia, then in northern India, finally there had been a sighting in Ireland. The Top Secret dossier concluded he was a credible threat to National Security and one of the Yeomanry’s best agents.

Sergeant Templeton was normally an unflappable woman, it was not the conclusion of the dossier that had her rattled though. It was the fact that she knew him, and not just as a former-friend either.

Her memories ran back to the halcyon days of when she’s just turned twenty. She and her former best friend Rebecca Riley had the best posting at a training base. It was a familiar place where they both fitted in like a glove. Together the two of them were like a pair of femme-fatales, unstoppable and already short-listed for promotion to full corporal. Then, that fateful August night her world and Rebecca’s changed. After an encounter at a military summer-show Deborah entered a whirlwind romance with the elusive, but dashing Eric Weyland. The memory train of what happened next almost felt like a knife passing through her heart. After a passionate relationship lasting almost two months young Deborah was sure Eric was the one for her. Then the Colonels War erupted and Weyland quit the regular army to join the legions of former soldiers rallying to their banner. ‘To save the country’ as he called it. Her arguments and pleading with him was to no avail, she hated the Colonels and all they stood for and he did not. She was a selective-universalist supporting the ways of multiculturalism for the west. He was a selective-nationalist, or at least an idealized form of one, and a man that had his way with her.

That was in the past though, the present now threatened her profoundly. If her military overlords or the police authorities knew she’d once been a lover of Weyland her career and life would be ruined. The Yeomanry and regular British Army were bitter rivals and it extended to there being military regulations against current and prior fraternization. Templeton had lied on the declaration form sent out after the Colonels War, she’d even altered records to change her tour of duty dates. Yet now that lie was feeling like a landmine, one that seemed to move from the pavement outside to inside the building.

There was another way though, if Weyland was killed she’d surely stand no risk of any chance of her secret being discovered. She could at last take her revenge as an additional bonus. The Yeoman had broken her heart and soul so long ago, he’d rejected her. Deborah now silently vowed to be an instrument in taking down Weyland.

“Deborah are you ok?”

She looked to the side and saw it was Atkinson, he was near the brew area refilling the kettle.

“Fine, just working on how to get this Nazi ****.”

“That’s the spirit, he killed a lot of people, police and civvy alike. Some might support the Yeomanry, even in our military secretly, but they are a menace as this latest outrage proves.”

“I see it as more than that, this country can’t have two forces dividing us either. The sooner he and the Yeomanry are in the trashcan of history the better.”

“Well there’s a shoot to kill order just gone out. They’ll probably drop it back to Person of Interest after a few days though. It’s probably the High Commissioner getting angry about his man being slotted.”

“His man?”

“Junior Commissioner Brown died at Heysham interrogating Weyland, he and High Commissioner Roberts were close, lovers I think.”

Templeton shrugged indifferently. She was always one for sexual equality, no matter what concept it took.

“Any leads?” she asked softly. “All this data is past records, would be good to have leads to get harrying the hare,” she had a keen look now about her. Atkinson frowned. “We can deploy Brian and Scott! They’ll be good field agents for this.”

“’Debby, that’s more for the police to play with.”

“Come on Danny, we’re the only Intelligence Corps unit fit to track down rogue military and you know it. We’ve got the equipment, the tools that police could only dream of, our vehicles are as fast as theirs are, yet all the time we are stuck in this office. Even MI5 probably hasn’t got a Ferret unit.”

“Since the cut-backs we don’t number even half a dozen. Weyland’s unlikely to head to London, probably on his way to Yeomanry territory in central Yorkshire.”

“Exactly! This is our chance to get on the radar!”

“What do you mean?”

“London is notorious for Yeomanry operatives, it’s how they are staying one step ahead of government operations. MI5 has been trying for months and nothing! We get ourselves a part of the chase and it’ll increase our standing. Who knows? We could end up with a permanent field unit if it pays off. If it doesn’t? Well it’s tax-payers money being well spent.”

‘Some much for any peace,’ the old Warrant Officer mused, he sheepishly nodded.

“Well I wanted a quiet time this year but I’ll put out a field-deployment request to Control and see where it goes.”

“Oh thanks Danny!” Templeton said with a satisfied smile.

“You keep the lads searching for clues on the Issy in the meantime, it might throw something up from the archives.”

Atkinson left and Templeton smiled, the last sentence shuddered her slightly.
“I’ll make it my mission to personally take you down Eric, you and your fascist friends.”

The radio squawked again, it was a counter-broadcast by one of the Yeomanry Colonels. The two Corporals leaned-in to listen to what their response was to the attack. Before Colonel Sandford’s voice could speak another sentence Templeton pulled the radio from the top of the filing cabinet, yanking the plug from the socket.

“No one in here listens to their nationalist crap! From now on we focus, I’m going for a fresh-air break and when I get back I want every report relevant from Issy worked out and on my desk!”

The Sergeant stormed out and when the door had slammed shut the Corporals relaxed.

“What’s gotten into Deborah? Aren’t we supposed to be impartial and not take sides? Isn’t that what caused the Colonels War?”

“What goes on paper and in reality are two different things lad. Politics from the top-down. Atty gets told what’s what, he tells Debs and down to us to comes.”

“Well sure, but I’ve never seen Deborah turn this hardcore?”

“Oh, she is when she goes hard for something, she’s like a woman possessed.” Johnson nodded. “Short of killing her there’s no way to stop her when she gets her claws in.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw that look about her once at a Sergeants Mess function in Germany. She’d only been promoted a month ago, so was pretty green to being a senior NCO.”

“What happened?”

“I was only a Lance-Jack then and was in charge of overseeing the waiters. Anyway, a Sergeant Major, a real rough-arse, didn’t like women in the military at all. He fondled her while she was looking at some pictures in a corridor. It happened really quickly, one minute he was walking past, then next he’d gripped and groped then thrown her down and was off walking again. Only I saw it, but she brushed it off, yet that look in her eye told me another story. I thought the matter was over though. Then in the early hours of the morning the guy was found half-dead in the gutter by the RMPs. Someone had used a heavy baton and cracked his skull open.”

“Stars above! What did the military police do?”

“Nothing, no-one knew or saw a thing, it was a crazy night. For whatever reason the SIB investigation never questioned me, so I didn’t have to make lies or truths. I wasn’t going to put myself forward either. Deborah said she didn’t remember much and had a fairly good alibi,” Johnson smiled warmly with the memory.

“Did he die? The sergeant-major?”

“No, he was given a medical discharged due to his injuries though. He had a habit of having roving hands and bullying ways so there was probably no shortage of suspects.”

“How do you know it was her though?”

“I saw the way she looked at the guy as he was leaving the Mess. She knows I saw it happen too, that’s why when we heard about the guy being discharged she looked at me and smiled.”

“But that—”

“Enough chatter, we have to get reports done, we don’t want you getting a medical discharge now do we?”

Both laughed but inside Athered was concerned SOTF was entering dangerous new waters.


They worked until early evening on the reports and collations. Brian Athered was hatching a plan, one that was as dangerous as being an enemy spy. He worked on old files, catching up on previous work put aside as they waited for other units to confirm data. First Johnson left, then Atkinson. Deborah had a casual desire for the young Lance Corporal, but the new workload and Weyland’s reappearance muted her feelings. She would have worked until ten at night but for the fact she had a sergeants mess function.

“I know I was pushing about that POI, but don’t work too hard Brian. You don’t get paid any extra and no-one gives you any thanks for it,” she said with a faint smile as she left.

“I won’t be long Debby, just finishing up some of the backlog,” he lied.
As soon as she was gone the young man worked for three more minutes. He went over to Johnson’s area where the plate-glass windows were. They gave good views of London but all Athered was interested in was if Templeton had left the building.

Indeed she had, the tiny figure in a pale skirt and dark jacket walked confidently past a crowd at a bus-stop towards the tube station a half-mile away.

She was a desirable woman, but Brian Athered had already been warned the senior ranker was off-limits, besides which, he was already seeing a university student from Estonia. His young blood did occasionally wonder about Templeton though. He could tell there was an experienced prowess about her, a winsome aggression compared to his more gentle blonde girlfriend.

Athered put the thoughts aside and sprang into action. The offices of SOTF were unique in that there was no security camera’s watching over them. The outside corridors had them but even Atkinson’s office was internalized to SOTF. Working fast he unlocked the filing cabinet and found the bulky file he was looking for. Taking it to the photocopier he began to copy the entire thing. After nearly a hundred pages were done he manually ratcheted the mechanical page counter on the photocopier. Then he enclosed the photocopied documents into a new file cover, secured them to it and stuffed the lot into his backpack. Finally he returned the original file to Atkinson’s office, locked the cabinet and put the keys into his hiding place. Now, in his possession was the raw and unfiltered data about the Yeomanry from the Ministry’s number one agent. Instead of having to sift through biased news programs and media articles Athered would have that dangerous entity feared by those in power. The truth!

Athered left the Ministry building without hindrance by the Asian security guard. His flickering fear give way to relief as he rode the tube home. With the data he’d stealthily obtained he was surely breaking the Official Secrets Act, various Army Acts and numerous regulations forbidding classified material from Ministry buildings. The file was classified as Secret, which made him wonder what on earth Top Secret rated stuff would reveal. Athered had that rare combination of a daring nature and an ability to get to the bottom of something, no matter how difficult or formidable.
It wasn’t just the new assignment that had him thinking, but the whole screwed-up situation Britain was in. People seemed careless or too numbed-out on a zillion and one distractions. Everywhere people had their digital distractions glaring about. Even though he was in his twenties and no stranger to the technology, it seemed very odd. After two stops he got out and made his way on foot the short distance to his small apartment.
His girlfriend was already home in the living room studying her books.
He wanted to read the file right away but instead hunger gnawed at him, causing him to resisted the urge to read about the Yeomanry first hand. Natalya had already eaten so he cooked up a microwave meal. As he watched the LEDs count down he thought about when he was a young teenager. Both his parents had put him up for adoption as a baby so foster parents raised him instead. Both he and they were anti-Yeomanry. The Yeomanry defiance that had carved out a vast chunk of England used to bother him, especially when he was younger. Yet now he was more ambivalent about them. Despite a media campaign that seemed to host a smear-story or demonization piece Athered was starting to critically work things out. The Yeoman Colonels, their habits and crimes seemed either exaggerated or justified when weighed against their goals and what they were up against.

On many levels the nationalist ways of Albion’s Yeomanry made sense. They did not want a debt-based, service-driven economy, but instead one that actually minted its own money interest-free to a central bank. The work industry should be home-grown of medium to high-quality and providing jobs to its people. Out-sourcing jobs, importing a majority of food and goods seemed a bad idea given how unreliable it could be in uncertain times. The uncertain times were never far away either.

Athered again delayed reading the file as his routine demanded he turned on his laptop to check on the foreign news. He saw that the Chinese were beginning to draw down their export market. The operative sucked in air through a tooth and nodded. Their middle-class was now coming of age and the factories could barely keep up with demand. Reading between the lines and from analyzing the intel reports at work Athered knew it differently. The USA and Europe’s easy goods days were at an end. The cheap, affordable goods that China was world famous for would slow to a trickle and increase in price. The workshop of the world was about to become the workshop of Asians only. With China’s inroads into the dirty, but resource rich African mines the shortfall in profit could be more than easily ridden out. In the meantime Europe would get poorer and poorer economically as it tried to borrow its way out of debt.

Closing the news window on his machine he finally opened the red folder containing the intelligence dossier he’d smuggled out. It was from an agent code-named Remora. His picture was that of a plain dark-haired fellow. One who could easily pass for Scottish or Irish. Indeed it seemed to prove that they were serious about eliminating low-paid jobs for the masses. Labor exchanges allocated jobs that were needed to an area based on the individuals skill and desire for work. The work shy either starved or needed a very good reason to claim a food and shelter allowance. exemption certainly seemed and hey objected to a society that reveled in having low or even zero-standards.

The Yeomanry Colonels took a lot of stick from the media and most government parties for their immigration and repatriation policy. The general ignorance of most Britons meant they bought into whatever the newspapers told them in print, and whatever they heard their favorite politician ramble on about. Here though, the MI6 agent once again seemed to vindicate the Yeomanry’s declaration. Immigration from Britain was fairly strict for non-Europeans. They had to show essential skills not present in Albion. Even then this was not a certainty of permanent residency as the labor departments were striving to a form of self-sufficiency. When it came to skilled workers that were home-grown. Since the Colonels War ten years ago most of the foreign folks not of European origin had left. Most had voluntarily left with their families, many of these taking the repatriation bonus. Those few hundred that remained were ignored and shunned for the most part. Meanwhile the flood of foreigners already in Britain was poised to increase to a tsunami if the Prime Speaker’s government had their way.

Thinking of this gave Athered pause for concern, but he read on, like many Britons he put such fears to the back of his mind.

When it came to crime and punishment the figures and estimations were startling. Far from the soft and caring ways of the Crown Prosecution Service the tough-love approach was driving down crime. Hanging for capital crimes had been reinstated, along with corporal punishment for underage offenses. Hard labor for non-capital crimes was common, very often this constituted primitive farming and mine reactivation.

One of the big public works programs reinstated by the Yeomanry was mining. During the Thatcherite era the nearly all the coal mines of north-east England had been closed down. Although reasons like efficiency, economy and ‘competition’ with overseas nations were given as a reason the Colonels knew better. The closures were part of a secret agreement to disinherit the working class people. Wages and job security had always been high for miners until the closures. After this suicide and alcoholism had been a scourge. Athered read how already one major mine had been painstakingly reactivated using a prison labor-force. The work had been dangerous and grueling but in some cases former convicts were granted a parole and even a pardon.

Unemployment, which had reached historic highs during previous decades and not dropped much during the Coalition, was incredibly low. The trader reckoned that the Colonels were being economical with the truth. yet even he acknowledged that the Yeomanry’s oversight of Albion was paying dividends. The rest of the dossier read in a similar fashion. Overall, the Yeomanry and their populace of the fledgling nation of Albion were seeing the start of a paradigm shift. Perhaps even the start of a golden age.

“Small wonder there’s such a propaganda war and opposition to the Yeomanry, they have turned their part of the country around compared to the stagnation here!” Athered exclaimed.

“What is it?” his girlfriend said, startled by his sudden announcement.

“The truth! We’ve been lied to about Albion, about the Yeomanry. Here take a look, only you must promise not to tell of it to anyone.”

Natalya understood English to a high standard and agreed to keep it too herself. Her blue eyes widened and she made several gasps and looks in surprise at him.

“Why do they lie to us here? In my country there is no this level of deception?”

“They don’t want us to know, we’d either rise up in order to change Britain to the Albion model or rush to emigrate to Albion.”

“Can you not get the word out?”

“Not like this, It would be traced back to me in a heartbeat. No, when the time is right we must try and give this to the Yeomanry, they’d know who the trader is, or at least have a good idea from all this data.”

“If we do that we’d be outlaws. I’ve still another two years at university,” Natalya said with a worried voice.

“Albion has universities too, they’ve just opened one in York. We can’t move yet anyway, I can do more good from within the walls of the Ministry than outside it. It sound’s crazy but I’ve a feeling we have to bide our time.”

“What do you mean?” she asked in a sultry manner.

“I’m in the middle of a big case, there’s a Yeomanry spy-ring in London, I can help the Yeomanry from the inside, don’t ask me how, I’ll have to figure out a way.”

“I never took you to be a double agent Mr Athered,” his coy blonde woman said with a deeper tone. Her bright eyes enticed him.

“I never thought you’d be one to be my sidekick either Miss Anyanova,” he said softly, drawing her lovely face towards his.

Copyright - Tyler Danann

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As another little Christmas treat here's the trailer! Took me many hours but it's finally ready!