Finest Hour

Books by Dr. Arthur T. Bradley

Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness for the Family

The Prepper's Instruction Manual

Disaster Preparedness for EMP Attacks and Solar Storms

Process of Elimination: A Thriller

The Survivalist (Frontier Justice)

The Survivalist (Anarchy Rising)

The Survivalist (Judgment Day)

The Survivalist (Madness Rules)

The Survivalist (Battle Lines)

The Survivalist (Finest Hour)

The Survivalist (Last Stand)

Available in print, ebook, and audiobook at all major resellers or at: http://disasterpreparer.com

The Survivalist

(Finest Hour)

Author:  Arthur T. Bradley, Ph.D.

Email:  [email protected]

Website:  http://disasterpreparer.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author.

Illustrations used throughout the book are privately owned and copyright protected. Special thanks are extended to Siobhan Gallagher for editing, Marites Bautista for print layout, Nikola Nevenov for the illustrations and cover design, and Parkinson Myers and Vanessa McCutcheon for proofreading.

© Copyright 2015 by Arthur T. Bradley

ISBN 10: 1505887267

ISBN 13: 978-1505887266

Printed in the United States of America

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.”

Vince Lombardi

1913–1970

Foreword

On June 18, 1940, Sir Winston Churchill famously gave a speech entitled “This Was Their Finest Hour.” In it, he referred to the heroism that would be required to prevail in the upcoming Battle of Britain. Less than a month later, Germany initiated the largest aerial bombing campaign to date, their objective to crush the Royal Air Force (RAF) and gain air superiority over the United Kingdom. Such an advantage would allow the Luftwaffe’s bombers to soften the country for a future land invasion.

Having fought in the Spanish Civil War, the Luftwaffe’s pilots were far more experienced than those in the RAF Fighter Command. Their Messerschmitt BF109E was also faster and had a better climb rate than the RAF’s Hurricane Mk I and should, therefore, have dominated the aerial battlefield. These advantages were ultimately sacrificed by a disconnect between the Luftwaffe’s airmen and their esteemed commanders. Poor intelligence, lack of leadership, and the need for exaggeration quickly clouded the Luftwaffe’s understanding of the campaign’s level of success.

Fighting over home territory also provided tactical advantages for the RAF. Pilots shot down were often able to return to their airfields within hours, whereas Luftwaffe aircrews were either captured or perished after parachuting into the English Channel. Perhaps even more important was that RAF pilots were fighting for their families and country. Cities were burning, women and children were perishing, and the responsibility stood squarely on their shoulders to repel the invaders. Winston Churchill eloquently summed up the battle by saying, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

In every person’s life there comes a high point, a finest hour in which they too must rise to their full potential. For some, it comes in the heat of combat, airmen dogfighting their way across smoke-filled skies, or grunts rushing toward the enemy with bayonets extended. For others, it comes when they must prove themselves capable of great sacrifice. Regardless of the outcome, success or failure, the act itself is what ultimately defines the individual.

Chapter 1  

Deputy Marshal Mason Raines steered his newly acquired white Ford F-150 down the long dirt driveway. The first rays of sunlight lit the eastern sky, but dark gray clouds cast a dreary feel to an otherwise beautiful spring morning. He glanced in the rearview mirror, hoping to catch one final glimpse of the family cabin. With the fresh foliage, the trees were thick and lush, and he could just make out soft wisps of white smoke rising from the lodge’s stone chimney. No doubt his father and Samantha were finally awake and cooking breakfast, preparing for a trip of their own.

Having intercepted a communiqué between General Hood and his band of military assassins, the Black Dogs, Mason had decided to travel to the Greenbrier bunker to protect former President Rosalyn Glass. Meanwhile, Mason’s father, Tanner Raines, would return to Washington, D.C., to confront President Lincoln Pike, a man who had already proven himself capable of unspeakable horrors in his quest for unbridled power. Given the overwhelming odds facing both men, it seemed a safe bet that this would be both Mason and Tanner’s last hurrah. Even so, neither had hesitated, agreeing that it was better to go out fighting than lie trembling in a dark cellar, like cowards awaiting the Gestapo.

How a man as hard as Tanner Raines had teamed up with a socially awkward twelve-year-old girl was something Mason had yet to fully understand. It was a pairing as unlikely as that of Felix Unger and Oscar Madison. Perhaps, he thought, it was their contrarian mismatch that made the partnership work so well. The fact that Samantha was the daughter of the previous president, and therefore intimately connected to both of their quests, was hard to discount as pure coincidence. While never one to surrender to notions of predestination, Mason found it impossible to credit their interconnected journeys to anything but the deliberate hand of fate.

Mason’s Irish wolfhound, Bowie, rested in the bed of the truck, doing his best to nod back off to sleep—an early riser he was not. To his left sat a Browning M2 heavy-barrel machine gun, a trophy that Mason had taken from a band of murderous mercenaries, and to his right, a small stack of food, water, and other supplies, including two sets of body armor retrieved from marshals at Glynco. Their journey to the Greenbrier bunker to protect President Glass would be less than a day’s travel, and after having already lost an entire bed full of supplies outside of Lexington, Mason had chosen to be more judicious with his packing this time around.

Leila Mizrahi, a beautiful Mossad operative, sat next to him, tracing her finger across a small paper map. Her calf was wrapped in a clean white bandage, as was her right hand. The gauze on her leg covered a bullet wound suffered only days earlier in a gun battle with one of the Black Dogs. The bullet had nicked her fibular artery, which surely would have proven fatal had it not been for Mason’s impromptu piloting skills. As it was, she had been left with a slight limp and a warning by Dr. Darby to take it easy for a few days. The gash on her hand was less severe but even more debilitating, as she found herself having to perform nearly every action weak-handed.