“Do I even want to know where you learned to make this thing, John?” Kevin asked hesitantly.
“Sure, the internet,” John replied with a humorous smile. “Don’t believe me, Google it. The information wasn’t exactly a state secret after Tim McVeigh pulled this same stunt. They don’t exactly teach this sort of thing in the Boy Scouts.”
Kevin shook his head, surprised at the inventiveness of John and Andy. He knew by now he shouldn’t be surprised when John dredged up some piece of history to provide the solution for a contemporary problem, but his near encyclopedic recounting of historical trivia still took some getting used to. “And the sandbags?”
“To direct the blast. I’m trying to keep this blast from flattening small structures and busting windows in the local community as much as I can. I want all the bang to go straight towards the wall,” John explained. “That, and I’m thinking we hit the compound in one of the corners. Just in case we underestimated the scale of this package a little too much, we’ll be a little farther away from the prisoners in the center. Puts us right by the searchlights in that corner and the guard tower, but I’m sure Andy and I can keep them occupied to give our driver a little cover.”
“It’s pretty audacious, that’s for sure,” Kevin remarked.
“When is the question. What’s going on in the camp?” John asked of Mark.
“The camp is in near full revolt. They’re down to fifty or sixty people, best we can gather. Their guard towers are so hunkered down, when they can convince people to actually man them, they aren’t even shooting at our drones anymore. Shorts has only ventured out of his office twice since Agent Johns showed up on their doorstep. We sighted the ‘supply truck’ entering the camp, and you were right, they are loading up prisoners. We’ll track them and see where they’re going. We’re also relaying what we’re learning to the other cells; we figure the same setup is in place nationwide. What they do with that information is on them,” Mark said. It was apparent by his tone he had mixed feelings about the organization he had so readily thrown his support behind.
The Calm Before the Storm
That night, John sat with his wife and daughter. Dinner had been a welcome change from Andy and John’s improvised rations, a mixture of MREs and Mountain House, or energy bars when they couldn’t spare the time or risk smoke or a flame to cook. Rachel and Vicky had put on quite a spread for everyone at the compound. John had to think, but it sure seemed as though the ranks sitting down to the table had swollen over the past few weeks. Mark correctly guessed his thought.
“We’ve been adding to our numbers. Seems your and Andy’s campaign against the local agency has garnered us a lot of support and emboldened a lot of people. I owe both of you a lot of credit for what you’ve done. It’s been far more effective than I could have imagined,” Mark offered genuinely.
John nodded his head, looking down at his plate distractedly. “I’m just doing my part, Mark. If it weren’t for you, I probably wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“What’s wrong?” Mark asked.
John’s eyes turned up towards Mark. “Just a lot on my mind is all. I’ll be fine by morning.”
Mark opted not to push the issue. After dinner John had insisted on helping his wife clean the table and kitchen. Just a day after nearly losing his life in the altercation with Agent Johns, he did seem to be moving around with less soreness. One had to question how much of that was simply John being John, not wanting to let the discomfort deter him from any task he had set for himself. No one but John knew the agony he felt was less in his ribs and more in his heart.
John and Rachel sat on the back porch with their daughter, watching the stars and ruminating with their full bellies. John’s hand held Rachel’s firmly, as if he was afraid she would slip away while Kay sat in his lap. When the mosquitoes started biting, Kay went inside, leaving John and Rachel. “I want this to be over,” John said somberly.
“I know, love, I do too,” Rachel replied. She had struggled mightily with her emotions when John was away. As much as she calmed him, he calmed her. Their being conspicuously absent from each other’s lives was something neither of them tolerated well. “Will taking down the camp end it?” she asked.
“It will end a battle. I doubt it will end the war. We have to find where the rest of these prisoners are. Mark’s drone operator should have something for us any minute, but based on their direction, I’m guessing Angola,” John said.
“I can’t believe they would put people in there. Wasn’t the ACLU lobbying to have that place shut down years ago. They called it a violation of human rights to subject people to that sort of treatment,” Rachel emphasized.
“They did shut it down, but I suppose they don’t consider gun owners to be people anymore,” John said hotly. “Rachel, I’m afraid what I’ve done is going to destroy more lives than I can live with. Mark and Kevin were filling me in on the operational reports from other cells. Have you been following them?”
“Only what I’ve overheard,” she replied.
“All around the country, people are openly shooting at and resisting agency attempts to confiscate firearms and arrest citizens. A month ago, we must have looked insane to do what we did. Now, it’s like we were just the spark to set fire to the whole forest. This little insurrection is turning into a civil war, and most people don’t study enough history to really respect just how bloody that will be. Neighbors are going to turn on neighbors, family on family; hundreds of thousand will die. That, or the people in power realize the price isn’t worth paying and they do an immediate about-face and call this off. It’s gotten to the point even if we shut down and stopped our assault, this wouldn’t end. It’s grown bigger than us.” John’s words tumbled out, the pain in his voice obvious.
John, history nerd, Army veteran, prepper—he knew what was coming. The civil unrest would spread across the country, grinding society to a halt. Open hostilities would shut down public services and private businesses alike. Grocery stores would not restock; workers would not come to work; utilities would struggle to provide for the public. The end result of every civil war is that the citizenry suffers, and as society breaks down, the death toll always supersedes those lost from direct hostilities. Accounts of the Bosnian War and Sub-Saharan Africa provided a good portrait for what life in America could become in the very near future. This reality caused John such sadness he did not know the words for it. He had lashed out at four men trying to harm his family, and now innocent people would lose their lives because of it.
“John, what happens is not your fault. It is the fault of the people who sent those men to our home that morning. They set men like you on a collision course with their agents, they are responsible for the end result. You can’t take all of this on yourself.” Rachel’s voice plead with her husband, not wanting to see him torture himself with guilt.
John nodded absentmindedly. He knew his wife was right, but he still felt incredible sadness for what would come next. That night, sleep was hard to find for John, but sleep did find him eventually. Rachel stayed up, holding her husband tightly to her. She knew any day could be his last, and she cherished every moment she spent with him. She fell into a fitful sleep huddled up against her husband’s back, with her arms wrapped around him. Her dreams were of war, death, and loss. The war her husband had alluded to played out in her subconscious; the gunshots sounded incredibly real.
It was the sound of gunshots that she awoke to, to find an empty bed. A moment of anxiety gripped her before her waking mind reminded her of her husband’s proclivity for being an early riser, and she quite the opposite. She dressed in the bare minimum to keep from flashing her current housemates and sought her husband. She found him on the back deck of the house, crouched behind his bolt-action rifle. To his left was Andy, to his right was Kevin, all three down in the prone on shooting mats, peering through magnified optics on their long-range rifles. Far in the distance, she could just make out what looked like some sort of metal cans. Ano
ther gunshot rang out, startling her, and one of the cans jumped.
“Kevin, you shoot like you never stopped,” John remarked to Kevin. It was just the night before Kevin had surprised John and Andy with the news that he had been a competitive F-Class shooter years ago. Based on Kevin’s relentless ability to make hits on small targets, he hadn’t lost his touch.
Kevin smiled to himself. “Thanks, John, you two aren’t half bad yourselves. I can see why the agents in that camp have been having such a rough time. Looks like you both shoot right around one MOA.”
John nodded behind his scope. “Yeah, but it’s obvious you shot F-Class. That paint can out there isn’t even giving you a challenge.” John sat up on his heels and unloaded his rifle, taking a break and stretching his back. He glanced behind him to see his wife. “Hey, honey. Did we wake you?”
Rachel smiled and shook her head. Of course the sound of three rifles blasting paint cans off the back porch woke her up, but she couldn’t bring herself to be aggravated with him. She saw a relaxed grin on his face she hadn’t seen in weeks. He wasn’t shooting people with wives and kids this morning, he was just out with his buddies doing some target shooting like he would have been years ago. He didn’t have a care in the world, and for a brief moment she was thankful for that. She blew him a kiss and retreated into the house in search of a cup of coffee.
John returned his attention to the range just as Andy fired his 6.5 Creedmoor, solidly connecting with one of the paint cans at the other end of his Vortex optic. He drew the bolt to the rear, leaving it open and exposing his empty magazine. Kevin fired his last round and likewise left his bolt open. With all three rifles unloaded and safe, the men stood to stretch. “I tell you this much, the older I get, the more it hurts to lie down on a shooting mat,” John groused.
Kevin smiled. “I can imagine, you two have a few years on me. I’m going to head into the shop after breakfast to load some ammo. I could use a hand if you don’t mind. That and put a dry patch through the barrel. I don’t want to mess with it much so I won’t need a fouling shot later.” The three collected their rifles and moved them to the shop, then headed off to the breakfast table.
Mark had silently watched the shooting exhibition from the window for a few minutes, wondering to himself how they had come to the point that even normally pacifist Kevin was ready to head off to battle. He questioned, not for the first time, why other men went off to fight while he stayed behind. Then his mind drifted to the news he had just learned: the final destination of the prison transport they had been surveilling. That was what he was pondering when John caught his glance.
On his way back to the house, John noticed a very worried look on Mark’s face. John motioned Mark towards the workshop and led him through the door, gently shutting it behind him to give the two of them some privacy.
“What’s wrong?” John asked.
“The prisoner transport just pulled into Angola. I’m sick to my stomach at the thought they actually reopened that hellhole and are putting people in there without trial. It’s unconscionable.” Mark’s words just ran out of him.
“It makes sense though—plenty of room to house prisoners. It’s away from the public eye; most people probably don’t even realize it’s come back online. And in the past decade or so, there’s been tremendous pressure on these old maximum-security prisons to close down, so there’s plenty in every state,” John reasoned.
“That’s the maddening part, John. All these bleeding hearts lobbied to have the max-security prisons declared uninhabitable, to crank up the regulations on prisons until no maximum-security institution could possibly operate, which forced their closure and pushed those prisoners into less secure prisons. Then they became overrun and overpopulated, which forced almost every state in the country to massively decriminalize nonviolent crimes. I always looked at that as a victory, but the less secure prisons are wholly incapable of controlling hardened and violent criminals. Escapes became frequent; violence against guards soared; hell, the inmates run those prisons not the guards,” Mark spat. “And now, after our criminal justice system has been stripped to the bone, after all the legislative grandstanding and screaming about poor living conditions and overcrowding, they are cramming tens of thousands of everyday citizens into those same cells because the government demanded they give up their rights or else, and they DARED to say no.”
John hadn’t seen this side of Mark. He was passionate, angry, and distraught. John questioned in his own mind how much of the idea of the man’s sister sitting in a cell with three or four other people weighed on his mind. “The people you’re referring to, Mark, they’ve proven on every other issue to change their stripes at the party’s insistence. Criminals in jail cells bother them, but we are worse than criminals. We dared to question the eminent brilliance and righteousness of the state, and for that we deserve any punishment we get,” John said, his sarcasm as evident as his disdain. John was an ardent Libertarian, some would even accuse him of being an anarchist. His ideal was not one based on an absence of rules, but the absence of rulers. He had always feared that the state would one day amass enough power in the name of “fairness” that it would regress into the same tyranny the colonists had fought. He was saddened at the realization that it had come to pass in his own lifetime.
“Mark, let’s you and me sit and have a really frank conversation.” John started lighting a cigar. He unholstered his sidearm, which he now made a regular habit of wearing, unloaded it, and started to disassemble it for cleaning. “We both agree we have to hit that detention camp. That’s our current end goal. We have nowhere near the numbers to pull that off, and we need an intermediate step to bolster our force and demoralize theirs. I’m figuring taking one of their prison transports ought to accomplish both if we can pull it off. Maybe then we’ll have a fighting chance at taking the camp itself without getting our asses shot to pieces.”
Mark’s eyes flitted up to John’s, the look bordering on panic.
“Now settle your nerves. I don’t think we’re going to meet our maker; I’m just realistic about what could happen. We may not all come home; none of us may. That’s just life. If things look bad enough, I’ll call full retreat and we’ll scatter and return here. What I’m asking you is what then? The natural progression seems to be we go shut down Angola after this local camp, get those people out of there. That’s an operation we have nowhere near the manpower for, and we need a lot of support to even consider it. Maybe more than all the Minuteman cells in the whole state. But even if that isn’t our next move, what is?”
Mark pondered John’s question. He had never considered what their next move was. Truthfully, he hadn’t expected them to get this far. John and Andy had cut a swath through the agency’s local assets, making a run at the camp an actual possibility. But John was right, to go after Angola with its high walls and guard towers with what they had was absolute suicide. “I don’t know, John. Hadn’t gotten that far,” Mark said with resignation.
“Well, do some thinking about it. I hate to break the band up when we have some more concert days ahead of us,” John said easily. His CZ was already cleaned, just a little wipe down and a few drops of oil on the moving parts was all that was needed, and he began reassembling. The double click of his handgun sliding into the holster and the active retention being engaged snapped Mark’s attention back to the present from his musings. John turned on his heel and headed for the door.
“John, what would it take to hit Angola? To have a legitimate chance at tearing that place down and freeing those people?” Mark asked.
“We would need a goddamned army, Mark,” John said as he passed through the doorway.
The Hunter Becomes the Hunted
John found his wife and daughter sitting down for breakfast with an empty chair and full plate between them. He sat, drawing an arm around his daughter’s shoulders and dropping a hand to his wife’s thigh, then turned his attention to the bacon and eggs that set his mouth watering. Vicky, George, a
nd Kevin joined them. Several men filed through the kitchen and took plates out towards the barracks, while one gentleman older than the rest lagged behind. “Mind if I sit with you folks?” the newcomer asked.
John couldn’t get the words out through a mouth full of food, but emphatically waved to an empty chair. Once he got his mouth clear, he asked, “Would you be the gentleman who took that shot at our agent the other night?”
“Yes, son, that was me,” Randall said evenly. He was average height, with white hair and a handlebar mustache. He hardly had the look of a man who would take a shot at a stranger he’d never laid eyes on before, more like your favorite uncle.
John nodded his head. “I’m sure Mark or Kevin already told you we got him later that evening. We were actually on our way to get him when you took a shot at him.”
Randall nodded. “Don’t know what came over me. I saw that guy with government plates on his car and thought of my friend. He spent thirty years of his life protecting this area, and some of his own trainees hauled him off to that damned camp. I guess I’d been holding a grudge,” he said simply.
It was that moment Andy made his way to the table, his eyes searching for coffee. John slid him a cup, which he filled from the pot on the table. He nursed it gingerly as his eyes slowly opened to regard the newcomer to the table. “Do I know you?” he said questioningly.
“Nope,” Randall said simply.
After breakfast, John retreated to the workshop to help Kevin load some match ammo to replenish what they had shot that morning. John had, upon his first trip to this room, immediately noticed the small desk in the corner with the reloading gear. The press was a simple green RCBS single stage, not unlike the one John had at his own bench at home. Kevin had apparently been slowly processing brass for several days, getting ready for the day it would all need to be loaded.
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