America- The Eagle has Fallen

by Gordon Ballantyne

  “Any ideas Major?” I asked, turning to the military man who was sitting pensively at the table.

  “Do you know where the pirates are moored and operating out of Captain?” the Major asked Mr. Bujacich.

  “There are only two marinas where they could be stationed,” Mr. Bujacich replied thoughtfully. “The Elliot Bay Marina by the Magnolia Bridge in Seattle and the Port of Everett Marina. We have seen six older yachts around sixty foot with three pirate boats operating out of each marina. There are not that many deep moorages with the dock length to moor that sized boats.”

  “Can you show me on a map where they would be?” asked the Major, producing a map of the Puget Sound.

  “Sure, come on by my boat and I’ll show you on my charts, they will give you a clearer picture,” he replied.

  “If hypothetically a barge with 100,000 gallons of diesel were to show up, where would you put the barge?” asked the Major, looking back at his map.

  “I’d anchor it right in the middle of Gig Harbor Bay,” said Mr. Bujacich. “The Chief has the mouth of the bay blockaded but if one of “his” boats, which are actually my boats, were to mysteriously find such a barge then the blockade guards would let it through.”

  “Where would I find all these Norwegian Vikings?” asked the Major.

  “They all live in Magnolia on an island outside of Seattle. If I was a betting man they will have blockaded the bridge. They are as tight as ticks over there. If you’ve ever seen the show “Deadliest Catch” then you will know who all the ring leaders are. Over half of their boats are tied up in Alaska while the other half that need more maintenance and overhauls are tied up at Fisherman’s Wharf near the Ballard locks in Seattle. The big crab boats can hold up to two hundred thousand pounds of catch in their holds and they used to spend the early fall season tendering our catches to the processing facilities in Alaska before crab season started. We used to have to steam up near Alaska for our catch due to regulations but it is easier to work the river basins where the fish are actually going to spawn instead of trying to intercept them between points A and B.”

  “So diesel, protection, refrigeration and Vikings are our short term problems,” recapped Mr. Stutz. “What are our long term issues and solutions?”

  “Well,” I said. “Washington State accounts for 25% of the nation’s hydroelectric power generation and all the dams predated solid state electronics. The biggest dam is the Grand Coulee on the Columbia that was built by Roosevelt during the Great Depression. 75% of our state’s electricity comes from hydroelectric power. I’m sure the dams can still produce electricity but all the transformers that stepped the power down and converted it to usable AC power will be shot as well as the grid that distributes it. Washington is also the fifth largest petroleum refining state refining all the oil coming out of the Alaska pipeline. With electricity and petroleum we can restart manufacturing, processing, refrigerating and shipping goods across the Pacific Northwest, assuming all the gangs, thugs, warlords and despots out there let us.”

  “Well thank you Cliff Clavin for your obscure knowledge of Washington State trivia,” said Mr. Stutz with a chortle. “So that is our medium term goal. Once the Chief mysteriously finds 100,000 gallons of diesel to trade to the Captain for sushi and the Major finds the Vikings then we can magically rid Tacoma and the Key Peninsula of fucktards and we can turn on all the lights. Sounds like a pipedream on top of a circle jerk to me. Looks like Ginny’s shine has knocked a few screws loose.”

  “A man has to dream Stutz,” I replied with a smile. “This morning my only goal was figuring out how to get laid and now it’s how to save the world. One out of two isn’t bad.”

  “Well you better get your hand off your tiny pecker and get around to seeing the Amazons over at the park. The Major’s Privateers might have to sign on for another mission,” said Mr. Bujacich.

  “I think we all need to go,” said the Major to the group. “We might be able to stave off any conflict with them if a diplomatic solution can be arranged, although I don’t think diplomacy is any of your strong suits.”

  “Fuck you Major, how you ended up with Cindy is beyond me,” said Mr. Stutz with a grin. “Then let’s shake a leg, I’ve got better shit to do than stare at a bunch of women ex-convicts.”

  The four of us loaded into Mr. Stutz’s truck and stopped off at my homestead so the Major could brief his squad and set them up in over watch positions at the entrance to the park for our meeting. My wife provided lunch and I gave Mr. Bujacich and Stutz a tour of my facility. My wife played the usual game of Gig Harbor relations with our guests.

  “I knew your grandfather and grandmother, Belle. They ran Marcus’s Tavern down by Jursich Park didn’t they?” said Mr. Bujacich. “All the captains used to hang out there in the offseason.”

  “Yes,” said Belle. “The tavern was named after my dad Marcus here.”

  “Is that you Bujacich?” Marcus asked walking up to the group shaking hands.

  “Marcus!” Mr. Bujacich said giving Marcus a big bear hug. “Still have the old place on Harborview? Your mom was one of the greats. Her parties during the blessing of the fleet and annual parades were legendary. I have never been so drunk in my life dancing around with the accordions playing their darn Croatian songs. Remember that summer you and your brother worked on my boat and you fell out of the tender?”

  “Sure do!” Marcus replied with a big smile. “That was one hell of a summer. We still own the old place on Harborview but lord knows what kind of shape it’s in now. What are you old boys up to?”

  “Going to see the Amazons over at Kopachuck,” said Mr. Bujacich

  My wife overheard the reply and said, “You four must be the dumbest men on the planet. I’ve seen my husband look longingly in the prison yard, while driving by, thinking how sexually repressed the prison population must be and how he must be the answer to their nightly prayers. Your little sausage factory visit stands about as much chance of success as a snowball in hell. You’ll probably end up starting a war with those ladies and I’d probably be on their side. What makes you possibly think they want or need your help? The whole knight in shining armor meets damsel in distress won’t work. I’m coming with you and will be doing all the talking, you all stand there and look as stupid as you seem to be.”

  “Honey. It might not be safe,” I tried to reason with my defiant wife. “We don’t know what we are walking into.”

  “I have to,” my wife said with her jaw set and little foot hopping. “You four testosterone bulls will be thinking with the wrong heads. I want peace not war. I’m sure the Major’s men will keep us safe. Besides, we’ll just tie Gomez’s dirty skivvies to the truck antenna to be our white flag as the universal symbol of peace and male subservience.”

  “Ok,” I said ruefully. “But at the first sign of trouble you are to fall back to the truck and do exactly what I say.”

  My wife agreed to my rules of engagement but I’m sure her fingers were secretly crossed behind her back. We received a status report from Gunny that his crew was on station, loaded up the pick up and started for the park. My wife held a cardboard box on her lap that she had packed for our meeting.

  “Pretty nice set up there Robertson,” said Mr. Stutz as we were leaving the homestead. “Looks like my chickens are about to start laying. I like the wood gas set up. Can you make me a couple of those gasifiers?”

  “Randy is the engineer, I’ll send him over,” I replied. “I’m sure he can hook you up for a reasonable fee.”

  “Fuck you Robertson,” said Mr. Stutz. “I hope they are homing chickens and all fly back to my store.”

  “I did pay you your five hundred dollars if you recall,” I said with a smirk. “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”

  My wife held out her hand to Mr. Stutz who was seated beside her. “Twenty-five cents please.”

  Old man Stutz dug around in his pocket for a quarter but all he could come up with was a gold coin while swearing under his breath.


  “Honey,” my wife said to me. “Mr. Stutz needs some change or I suppose he can just owe it to me.”

  “You’re a cruel woman Belle and a chip off your old grandma’s block. There’s two things I know about the Klenak clan: don’t bet at cards with them or you’ll lose your shirt and don’t mess with their women or they’ll hand you your lunch. I used to be sweet on your grandmother in the old days but she always said I should never enter a battle of wits unarmed.”

  We arrived at the Kopachuck State Park entrance with a white flag flying high out of the window. The entrance to the park was barricaded off with a substantial wall of trees and abandoned cars. I was a little nervous because we had passed some signs on the way in saying “Warning, no entry, white flags will be fired on.” A guard came forward with her hand up in the universal sign of stop. There were at least ten guards behind the barricade with rifles all trained on us. We stopped and all put our hands out the window.

  The stopping guard came forward and told us all to get slowly out of the truck. “Thanks for the new truck, you illiterate dumb shits. Leave your weapons in the truck, turn around and walk back the way you fucking came.”

  I stepped forward with my hands still in the air. “We are the leaders from Gig Harbor and just want to talk. We mean you no harm.”

  “Yeah,” the tall woman with long black hair of Native American descent said. “Just like every other prick that comes by. We just want to be left alone. There, we have talked, now fuck off.”

  My wife stepped around me and slowly walked up to the guard. She stepped right up to the guard, put her arms around the lady and gave her a hug. The guard stood stiffly for a few seconds but then returned the hug.

  My wife turned to us. “Now, you four just stand there like good little boys while we go have a chat. Honey, move very slowly and get my box out of the truck. That’s a good boy.” My wife turned to the guard and whispered something to her and the guard answered back. “Deirdre and I will be a little while so why don’t you boys go sit on that log over there on the other side of the street and try to not look stupid or embarrass me. Ladies,” she said to the guards. “If any of them twitch you have my permission to shoot their peckers off. I hope you have scopes because they might be hard to find in their current frightened cold water state.”

  My wife followed Deirdre to the entrance guard shack and they both entered. The four of us just sat like four bumps on a log across from the entrance.

  The Major whispered, “This will be a tough extraction if it turns ugly.”

  I replied, “Trust her. All women seem to share a collective brain. They’ll be organizing a bunco party and exchanging recipes in no time. I’m sure her little care package includes all the requisite klatch building tools like wine, cheese and baby pictures.”

  After an hour my wife and Deirdre exited the shack. My wife turned and gave her another big hug which was warmly returned. She pointed at the four of us, whistled and pointed at the truck. We hurried over at her beck and call and quickly piled into the truck.

  “Did you join their tribe?” I asked.

  “I was already in their tribe,” my wife replied. “They wear their brands as a badge of honor joining them in sisterhood. They just want to be left alone. Their rules are simple: No men and no men. They would like the ability to trade with our towns, they would like to see if there is a female reverend to start a ministry and they want to be treated as equals. I’m sure a proclamation of some type at the grange would do wonders and I offered our taxi services to bring any that are so inclined to the grange. These are proud women who won’t put up with any disrespect and it’s up to you four to make sure there isn’t any. It seems the prison system actually provided them some valuable education on independent living. They are already survivors and have natural hierarchies already in place from their time in prison. Bottom line is they are no different from any strong independent women out there who had enough common sense to swear off men.”

  “Good job sweetheart,” I said with affection. “It looks like peace without a shot fired in anger.”

  “Yes dear,” she replied. “If women ruled the earth we wouldn’t be in this mess. Now take me home, I have some dinner to get started. You will be joining us, won’t you?”

  “Will it cost me another quarter?” asked Mr. Stutz with a chuckle.

  “No. I’ll just add it to your tab. Maybe we can have a couple of hands of cards after dinner. I heard you took some of the soldier’s lunch money over there Stutz.”

  “Um no,” said Mr. Stutz. “I once almost lost my finest bull to your grandmother.”

  “Shit!” said Mr. Bujacich. “You must be pretty good at cards Stutz, I almost lost my boat to her.”

  “Oh and gentlemen,” said my wife to the whole crew. “You need to bring your significant others, either wives, daughters or sisters to church next Sunday. You know who I mean; the ones really in charge of your little operations. It is time the ladies all got organized and got this shit running smooth so you jagwhistles don’t fuck it all up again. You would have got your balls shot off today running around half-cocked like you were planning to.”

  We all went back to the homestead and enjoyed a great meal of steak, fried potatoes and corn. The jars of moonshine were liberally handed around. After a dessert of apple cobbler my wife pulled out a deck of cards and asked, “Tell me again, does two pairs beat three of a kind?” The Captain and Mr. Stutz roared with laughter and beat a hasty retreat. We had one of the Major’s men drive them home in Mr. Stutz’s truck since even their incredible constitutions were overwhelmed by Ginny’s white lightning.

  My wife and I were getting ready for bed when I gave her a big hug.

  She said with a sigh, “Can we really turn this thing around honey?”

  “You did a great thing today honey. Edmund Burke once said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” All we can do to eat the elephant, is take one little bite at a time. There is so much pain and suffering in the country right now and all we can do is control what is in our control and hopefully expand from there.”

  CHAPTER 7

  ALARM! I abruptly shot out of bed to the sound of my dogs barking at 2 AM. I shook off the cobwebs and shouted for my wife to get up. I heard gunfire erupting all around the house. I quickly tossed on my gear, grabbed my rifle and ran to the rally point. As soon as I opened the door, bullets began impacting all around me as I dove behind the rally point fortification we had erected. The gunfire was coming at a steady pace from the driveway thumping into the barricade in front of me. I also heard gunfire from the front of the house coming from Mr. Black’s property. The Major, Jacob, my wife and Cindy were trapped at the doorframe I had just dove out from. I looked to my wife and motioned for the lights on three. She nodded and flicked on the floodlights to illuminate the driveway. The Major followed me as I ran to the driveway fortification while my wife, Jacob and Cindy got behind the rally point barrier and began firing at any exposed attackers. I took a round to my right arm as I dove behind the driveway barricade. It felt like I had been kicked by a mule.

  “Jacob! Sniper! My eight o’clock in the cedar tree on three,” the Major yelled back toward the rally point. The Major and Jacob both shot suppressed rounds at the same time and a black-clad sniper tumbled out of the tree. I checked my arm and was relieved to not see arterial blood gushing.

  “Robertson, covering fire!” the Major yelled to me. “Lights out in three, Jacob, start on the left side and I’ll roll them up from the right.”

  I came to one knee and began firing at muzzle flashes until the floodlights went out. I pulled down my monocular and saw the Major working up the attacker’s skirmish line, delivering three shot automatic bursts at the attackers who were trying to get their own blinded night vision gear back online. Jacob and the Major yelled clear and we quickly ran back to the rally point to help our military squad who were pinned down. The Major had us stack up on him at the front corner of
the house and took us right into the attackers’ flank in a skirmish line. The battle was over quickly once we were able to unpin Gunny’s squad and his team advanced through the attackers while they were trying to adjust to the Major’s vector of attack.

  “Report Gunny!” the Major said over the radio.

  “I have one down and one unaccounted for Major, sir.”

  I ran to the rear patio and saw Randy down, he was not breathing. I quickly peeled the vest from his chest and began giving CPR. I glanced up and down his body and did not see any blood seeping from obvious wounds. Finally after two rounds of chest compressions he coughed and began breathing on his own. We found Marcus in the front yard down writhing in pain from a fractured leg he received when he had fallen from the sniper perch on the roof after taking a single shot to his bulletproof vest. My wife and Cindy with Jacob guarding them went to get the doctor and Allison the nurse while Gunny’s men made sure the downed attackers were all dead.

  I sat down heavily on the concrete patio and pulled out my blow out bag to staunch the bleeding from my arm while Gunny’s crew improvised a stretcher using one of the patio chaise lounges for Marcus and Randy, who was starting to come to. The Major was on the radio putting the other three teams on high alert.