The Exfil
John, with Rachel and Kay in tow, loaded their car as quickly as they were able. He had hurriedly thrown their family bug-out bags in the back of the hatch, along with a few extra cans of ammunition for the arms they carried. John was not only a gun guy, but also an ardent prepper and was not one to stock the bare minimum of anything, yet all of his years of stockpiling were about to be shed to the essentials as they rushed from their once happy and peaceful home. No neighbors came outside to bear witness to the aftermath of the violent chaos that had happened in their quiet community.
Rachel took care to shield her daughter’s eyes from the evidence of the firefight she had hoped and prayed would never come, staying relegated to ominous warnings from her husband of what might one day come to pass. With the task at hand done, they left never expecting to see their home again. Though the message had alluded they should exfil on foot, John preferred the mobility and load-carrying ability a vehicle provided, though he wondered where their mysterious backup would link up with them. If he failed to find them, he had every intent of taking the back roads to leave the area, and they would figure out where to go from there.
John need not have worried though, as they had barely left their neighborhood when the familiar ringing of his cellular phone broke the heavy silence in the car.
“Still with us, friend?”
“Yes, we are,” John replied.
“What is your situation?”
John paused for a moment, knowing a cellular phone was easily tracked and listened to. “No casualties, minor injuries, we are exfilling on wheels.”
“Roger that. Leave in the direction you drive to work, over the bridge, continue northbound. We’ll pick you up there. Ditch your phone so you can’t be tracked.” The line went dead.
The phones were immediately erased (thanks to Apple for building that handy feature into them) then discarded out open windows. John continued to drive with his sidearm in his lap and the other firearms well clear of the windows to prevent alarming people who might opt to call their local tip line and report their sighting. The thoughts passing through his mind were multiple. How had this mysterious voice known his location or the path he drove to work? How had they come by their specific intel regarding the raid? And into whose hands was he delivering his family now by blind faith alone? John was placing his trust in his own judgment, as he often did. He could find no motivation for the force that urged them forward now if not to assist them in their escape.
As he crested the overpass heading north, he saw a pickup truck on the side of the road. Apparently broken down, its owner was under the hood, checking the engine. John would not have stopped with his family during normal times, and he certainly did not now. What did pique his curiosity was the radio clipped to the man’s belt. Not a CB, not a ham he was familiar with. It almost had the look of military gear, which sent his alarm bells ringing. Was this a trap? He saw the man look up and reach for the radio as he passed. If he was driving into a trap, he was committed now.
Two miles up the road, a vehicle approached him from behind. The small SUV gained on him, but not in a threatening manner or with any speed differential that insinuated an intent to ram him. He pulled up alongside John’s car, and as John looked over, he could see the driver giving him a thumbs-up. He completed his pass, his hazard lights flashed a few times, then he had the lead of this two-vehicle convoy. The pickup truck, suddenly cured of its ailment, then joined them from behind. Rachel and Kay took in these events in silence, as Rachel held her daughter’s hand in one of her own, and her Smith and Wesson 9 mm in the other.
Their journey continued along the back highways to a larger property than most. As John followed faithfully behind the other vehicle, he noticed the lookout. A young man was hidden away in the wood line that bordered the home. He would have a nearly unobstructed view down the highway in the direction they had come, and John surmised there was probably a similar lookout at the other end of the property. These two men could provide good early warning for the residents of any vehicles entering the area. John’s journey ended at the end of a long driveway that wrapped around behind a large home. The driver of the SUV exited, and John tightened his grip on his CZ while rolling down his window.
“I’m glad to see you made it safely to us, but I figured if you made it through Iraq and New Orleans, you would make your way.” The mysterious voice had a face.
“Thanks for the warning, I doubt we’d have had time to act otherwise. Not to sound rude, but who are you, and who are these men behind me, and who are the two men in the wood line?” John inquired.
Now it was Mark’s turn to be surprised. He hadn’t figured John would notice the lookout, and a quick glance at the wood line confirmed they were hidden as they always were. This guy doesn’t miss much, does he? Mark asked himself rhetorically. “Let’s get you and your family inside, and get this car in the shed out back so it’s out of sight. We’ll make some introductions then decide how to handle the trouble you’ve found yourself in,” Mark replied casually.
With that, John and his family unloaded from their vehicle, holstering firearms as they stepped out. Mark was quick to notice the old Army surplus web belt on John’s waist married to modern MOLLE mag pouches and a Kydex duty holster, while Rachel tucked her shield in a simple IWB holster. Kay clung to her mother’s hand, unsure of her surroundings. One of Mark’s men took the open door as invitation and hopped in the car to move it under cover while Mark led the weary family into the home.
Within minutes, both lookouts checked in, reporting no unauthorized vehicles, nor any sightings of drones or aircraft. The TOC, Army jargon for tactical operations center, likewise checked in, reporting no unusual radio traffic, nor evidence their encrypted comms had been penetrated. Kevin sat at his station and faithfully listened to the largely unsecured comms of the local agency personnel who had discovered the scene at John’s home, much to their dismay. Kevin’s hand flew across his notepad while the computerized system transcribed the raw conversation, and he jotted down what he felt were the more pertinent details for Mark, who preferred the human touch over raw volume of information.
Four casualties, all with multiple gunshots, one apparently executed by a single shot to the head at close range. Inspection of the home indicated very few if any shots fired by the downed agents, with the overwhelming majority of fire being directed at the front doorway from within the home. One agent, one who apparently paid attention to his weapons training, noticed a disparity in the brass cases that littered the living area and the size of the holes in the drywall, concluding that at least two shooters with different caliber firearms had participated in the “attack.” A further search of the house revealed the gun safe they had been ordered to search for, which had been largely emptied of firearms. The only things left were children’s BB guns, also heavily restricted to the point of near total illegality, but not the cache of assault weapons and sniper rifles they had been told to expect.
Their information had come courtesy of another three-letter agency, one that had embarrassingly graced the media several times in past decades with allegations of spying on the American people. It was they, after the laws were passed requiring all civilian-owned firearms be surrendered, who found a way to pry the needles from the haystack. Decades prior, a program was initiated that caused the NICS (the National Instant Criminal Background Check System) to catalog all 4473 forms that were checked against it. While this was in clear violation of federal law, the end was believed to justify the means should an extremely high-profile case merit such measures. Once this was unearthed, it provided an impressive assistance to the search and seizure operation that was taking place all around the country. The government finally had what it had always wanted: a complete record of any and all firearms sold through federally licensed dealers going back decades. While some would inevitably slip through the cracks, the seizures would energize the political base that supported the disarmament initiative and lead to more ti
p-offs and people turning in neighbors.
The empty safe and grizzly scene on the front lawn only meant one thing to the assembled agents: the subjects, John and Rachel Arceneaux, were armed and extremely dangerous. They would report up the chain and move on to the next target on their list.
Mark was sitting in the living room, his unofficial command post and the center of their cell, when Kevin entered and passed him the notes from the radio transcript. He stood by Mark’s chair and quietly regarded their new guests and marveled at how absolutely ordinary they looked. Rachel and Kay could have been any mother and daughter from any suburban neighborhood, but beneath her curly brown hair lay a hard set of eyes. John had the posture and mannerisms of a military veteran, with two dark brown eyes framed by close-cut hair and a short beard. He sat opposite Mark, not relaxing like a man who had just escaped a horrific scene but like a coiled snake. Despite a bit of middle-age spread and years out of uniform, Kevin surmised John was every bit as dangerous as the agent’s accounts over the radio indicated.
Mark broke the silence. “I imagine you have a lot of questions, not the least of which is who we are. We are members of the Minutemen, one of many cells that are spread around the country. We have undertaken the task of spying on the agency assets who are involved in these gun confiscations, and attempting to warn their targets. In the past, we have provided assistance in smuggling the families out of the area, resettling them when we can or changing their identities. Often our…subjects do not reach us and are taken by the agents. To date, you are the first subject who actually fought back against them, and from this radio transcript Kevin intercepted, it sounds as if you won convincingly. Do you want to discuss that?”
John’s eyes darted to his daughter, who sat right next to his wife, holding her arm. Her mannerisms were guarded and anxious, but she could be easily forgiven for that after the morning she had lived through.
Mark understood; they would discuss what happened without her present. “Some other time. Right now, we need to discuss how to handle the situation we all find ourselves in. To date, we have been running an intelligence-gathering operation, occasionally aiding and abetting felonious gun owners out of the area so they could resume their lives elsewhere. Our intent was to fight a cold war against our enemy, though that has heated up considerably in the last few hours. The entire weight of the agency is currently tearing apart the state looking for you, so while I am not opposed to helping you relocate, I’m not sure that you wouldn’t be found at a later date.”
Mark paused for a breath, and John spoke. “I didn’t…do what I did back there to run and hide. I’m tired of hiding. Years ago, I started to hide my political views. I hid the fact that I owned guns. I stopped going to gun ranges even before they shut them all down. I have done literally everything to keep these people off my family’s doorstep so they would leave us in peace, and they came anyway. I struck first because I couldn’t run from this fight, and I don’t think I can run now. If you see the situation differently, please tell me; otherwise my question is what do we do now?”
Mark considered John’s question carefully, as it did not sound rhetorical. Here was a man backed into a corner who had fallen back on his instincts and now was contemplating his next move. And Mark had to admit he wasn’t in favor of John and his family running either.
“The Minutemen have conducted this operation as we have up to now, waiting for someone to strike back. We believe this may have the effect of emboldening others to act if we market it correctly. To put it bluntly, we want to have you stay here and join us and tell your story if you are willing. If not, you are free to leave now or at any time.”
John hung his head. He could almost feel tears of frustration welling up behind his eyes. He wasn’t a fighter, though he would if provoked. What he felt most was guilt that his family had been dragged into this mess. Why hadn’t he just surrendered all his guns years ago? Why hadn’t he just given up like his neighbors did? Now he was a fugitive, his wife and daughter were on the run, and he had destroyed any chance at his family having a normal life. All for what? Not for some chunks of plastic and steel, for his pride maybe?
“I’ll give it some thought. We will take you up on your invitation to stay here for at least the time being and get our bearings. I would like to talk with you more about this proposal, and then with my wife. Either we agree to your terms together, or we both walk.”
Mark nodded his head, understanding the family dynamic as he got to know this man. John could be decisive and painfully direct when the situation called for it, but looked for and trusted his wife’s judgment when time and thought could be afforded to a complex decision.
Mark regarded John and Rachel’s daughter. “Hi, honey, what’s your name?”
“Kay,” said a small voice, wary but not frightened.
“Kay, I have a son about your age. He’s probably out in the backyard with his mother, tending the garden, if you and your mom would like to go meet them.” Mark’s eyes flitted up to Rachel’s, silently communicating that he wanted to speak to John alone.
Rachel picked up on the cue. “C’mon, honey, let’s go make some friends in case we’re here for a little while.”
Mark noted a very different accent from her husband’s. As the ladies filed out of the room, Mark stood and motioned for John to follow him. They stepped out into the foyer, and Mark offered a cigar from his humidor. At the sight of a cigar, John visibly uncoiled, and Mark recognized that he had finally broken the ice a little between him and this enigma who had walked into his home. A quiet suburban husband and father, yet a vicious fighter when provoked, a man who wanted peace but had outfitted his home and family for the fight of a lifetime. And now, here he stood with Mark, toasting the foot of his cigar while regarding him with those dark and intense eyes. It was not a threatening look, but one that almost seemed to cast aside your face and peer into your soul. Mark could imagine those eyes peering down a set of rifle sights at the front door of a home. And Mark asked John what happened…
Memories
“When I got the phone call, I had been expecting it. I’d heard of raids around town, just rumors. There’s a lot of overlap between the prepper, gun, and veteran communities in this area, and we were all worried. Hell, a LOT of us had kept our guns and told the state to cram it. We never really believed they would actually start putting bootheels on doors and dragging people out. And when the rumors started, that’s all we thought they were. But I had this sinking feeling in my gut I just couldn’t shake that this was on the level. Years prior, when those stupid bans started, I hid a gun safe in the wall of my closet because I wasn’t handing those guns over no matter what. But I didn’t raise a fuss; I stopped attending the protests. I kinda feel ashamed for all of that since I was such a big 2A supporter in this area before that, but I felt like I had a bull’s-eye painted on my back, and I didn’t want to bring that home.
“I talked to Rachel about what I had heard, and she thought it was BS too, but we kept hearing it. Then people started turning up missing. Then people started getting cell phone video of these raids and passing it around until their phones mysteriously stopped working. Cell companies said their phones had been hacked and they needed to be fixed, but when they got their phones back, these videos they had shot were gone. People would upload them to social media and they’d get deleted or blocked. It was like a George Orwell novel, and I wasn’t just reading it, I was watching it around me. I got scared, like no BS scared. I talked to my wife about pulling up stakes and leaving town, but she insisted this was our home. I only had one response: if they came for us, I would fight. She just nodded her head. She knew her husband.
“Then the day comes I get this random phone call telling me the storm troopers are coming, ready or not. I’m not mincing words, I jumped them. I didn’t want a fair fight against lopsided odds when the other guys are wearing plates and carrying machine guns. I jumped them; as soon as the first one came through the door, we lit them up. The f
irst three fell over each other trying to back out of that doorway and just kept taking shots. I emptied the whole thirty-round magazine before I saw them fall backwards. Rachel had been shooting too through the walls towards the front door, and that .30-06 just sings going through drywall, doubt it ever even slowed down. When I reloaded and went to check, I find one of these guys still alive, but he’s all sorts of messed up. He’s not pleading for his life or upset his buddies are dead, he’s telling me to lay down my arms and not to resist like he’s arresting me. I put him out of his misery and looked back towards the doorway to see my wife. She looked at me in a way I had never seen before, and I can’t decide if I like it yet or not. She’s seen me take people’s lives, some would say in cold blood while others would say self-defense, and that is something she will never forget about her husband. I wish these men had just left me and mine in peace, but here we are now. And I don’t have the first idea what to do.
“I know what I heard about the Minutemen. Government calls them a terrorist organization, an American insurgency. They’ve been accused of running guns, human trafficking, drugs—you name it, some three-letter agency wants their heads for it. But I don’t get my news from the media, and the alternative media says these guys are like the Robin Hood of the gun community. They’ve been warning people what was coming way before the laws and restrictions, before the confiscations. After their warnings were ignored, they still kept fighting any way they know how to. And all this time I stayed in my quiet little home and minded my business, you guys were risking your asses trying to do the right thing. As if that isn’t bad enough, you’re almost proud of me for abandoning the fight then getting my wife into this crap in the end.
“You think telling this story will get other people to step up to the plate and fight back, maybe change things. Maybe you’re right, but how many people are going to come out on the wrong end of those firefights? How many wives and daughters are going to get hurt because someone decided to be Billy Badass and try to stick it to the man? And how long is this going to go on before the government gets fed up and stuffs a JDAM right through the front door? Don’t you realize who these people are? They throw around million-dollar bombs at toolsheds in the Middle East because they got nothing better to do. And you want a dozen or so guys to become public enemy number one?!” John’s speech wound down, like the last puff of air blown out of a balloon.
American Insurgent Page 2