The Caliphate Invasion

by Michael Beals

  Heiko and Neil both reached for the sledgehammer at the same time. Dixon closed his eyes. “Come on already. I’ll hold this in place. Who’s going to swing the hammer and who’s going back to Rachel?”

  Neil released his grip on the hammer and stuck out his fist at Heiko. “I don’t get to be a hero too often. Rock, paper, scissors?”

  Heiko just rolled his eyes, snatched the sledgehammer and swung it over his head. The lock’s screen shattered, but so did the tip of the plastic spear. Dixon let out the breath he forgot he was holding. “Can you make another one? We’ll keep prying it open bit by bit. Light taps though. You got that, Thor?”

  It took ten minutes and four broken spear points, but they peeled the aluminum keypad apart without a spark. Dixon reached inside the ruined lock and manually released the valve’s latch. He wrapped a bandana around his face and unscrewed the lid as gently as possible. Neil dragged the hose in place the second the cover was open.

  “Ah, shit. Your hose is too small!”

  Dixon recoiled as the gas stench burned his nostrils. “Yeah, ugh, I thought it would be. No big deal. Just feed the tube in at least two feet.”

  Neil stepped back and shook his head. “This is crazy. We have to do something about all the vapor. Can’t we stuff some shirts or something into the open space and create a seal?”

  Dixon picked up one end of an extra-long jumper cable that was curled around the rubber hose. He’d already cut the clamps off and now secured the exposed copper end to the metal coupling around the tank’s lid with a wad of electrical tape.

  “You mean make a closed-loop system, like with a real fuel tanker? We don’t have the right tools. We’re going to be swimming in vapors no matter what we do. So might as well let the gas disperse rather than backup.”

  Neil snorted, but he shoved the rubber hose down the storage tank anyway. “Whatever we do, let’s just do it fast. I guess it makes sense. We won’t be smoking and our cell phones sure as hell won’t be ringing. We should be fine, right?”

  Dixon pushed Heiko and Neil away. “What’s all this ‘we’ talk? I appreciate your help, but I can take it from here. You guys get moving. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

  They both ignored him and followed Dixon back to the truck. Dixon climbed into the cargo bed but wavered before turning on the pump.

  “You guys have way too much confidence. What we just did was the easy part. Now’s when it gets dangerous. We only have one 20-gallon pump to service six 55-gallon drums. We’re going to need at least 16 minutes to top off our tanks. If we aren’t careful, we’ll build up an epic static charge with that much pump time over a thirty-foot hose and turn this thing into a flamethrower.”

  “Come on, Peter. Your hillbilly fuel transfer system isn’t that complicated. My only question is what’s with the jumper cables?” Neil touched the jumper cable that Dixon had wrapped around the fuel line. He’d secured one end to the storage tank’s lid and the other to the truck.

  “That’s the bonding wire. I’ve got this end clamped to the pickup’s chassis and I’ve grounded the whole truck as best as I could. In theory, the bonding line should catch most of the static electricity generated from the pumping fuel and dissipate the energy into the ground, rather than building up in the hose until it sparks. Now, this isn’t anywhere close to industry standards, but it should work long enough to top off our tanks.”

  Neil dropped his head and rubbed his neck. “Is this another trick you learned in Afghanistan?”

  Dixon stopped chewing his fingernail and grinned. “Hell no. No one’s stupid enough to try this over there. I got the idea from a gang of criminals down in Miami that pulled a similar stunt off for years.”

  “Uh huh. Well, I guess if they can do it, so can we. At least we don’t have to watch out for the cops.”

  “Oh, they weren’t caught. They just made a mistake one day. The police were never able to identify the bodies, but the theory is sound.”

  Dixon flipped on the electrical pump and held the nozzle over the first plastic drum. In a few seconds, they were greeted to the steady splash of diesel rather than an explosion.

  Neil and Heiko slapped each other on the backs when Dixon filled the first container. He shut off the valve and moved to the next, humming the whole time. “Damn, Peter, you really had me worried for a second. This isn’t so hard.”

  Dixon’s tune faded as the crescendo of random gunfire downtown drowned out his melody. “The day’s still young boys. We’re now a bunch of rich folks wandering around the wrong side of town.”

  ***

  Dixon squeezed his binoculars until his knuckles burned white. Beside him in the truck’s cab, Heiko gripped the steering wheel even harder. “Am I going out of my mind? These guys weren’t here when we passed through half an hour ago.”

  Dixon put down the binoculars and quit counting all the armed men and trucks blocking the road five hundred yards to the west. “This isn’t some neighborhood watch banding together nor even a bunch of thugs ganging up. This is something else entirely. These people are too well armed. Too organized. Too…”

  Heiko perked up. “Too self-confident?”

  “Exactly. Scariest thing I’ve seen all day. Let’s turn around. It’s a big city. We’ll find some other way to head west.”

  “How? You said the FEMA people hang out in the east, so that’s a no go. And I know you can’t mean that way.” Heiko tilted his head north. The endless staccato of automatic fire crept closer every minute.

  “So south and deeper into the city? If things are so bad out here in the suburbs, could you imagine what it’s like downtown? Peter, be reasonable. Let’s just take our chances and cross here. What’s the worst that can happen? They make us pay a toll and we lose half the diesel…”

  Dixon tucked his binoculars away. “You’ve been holed up in your hippy paradise way too long if you think that’s the worst thing that can happen.”

  Dixon waved Neil’s truck alongside them and hollered out the window.

  “We’ll head south a few blocks and look for another side street. Speed is our best armor, so don’t slow down and don’t stop for anything. Everyone keeps their weapons up from here on out. I know I’ve been saying avoid contact at all costs, but the rules of engagement just changed.”

  Dixon locked eyes with Rachel in the truck bed behind him. Her green eyes twinkled as she read his mind. “If we’re ambushed, we’re screwed. So our best bet is to shoot first. You see anyone even remotely threatening, then you fire a three-round burst at ‘em. Don’t worry about aiming. Just lay down suppressive fire. As fast as we’ll be moving, simply keeping their heads down for two seconds should be enough to get us out of danger. If we hit a barricade and have to turn around, everyone opens fire in every direction. Even if you can’t see any threats. Any questions?”

  For the first time, the fear in everyone’s eyes gave way to grim determination. Dixon seized the moment before anyone could have second thoughts. “Let’s go! Safeties off, but keep your fingers away from the triggers unless you’re squeezing ‘em.”

  Rachel gave a wicked cheer, but the rest stayed quiet as they barreled south into the heart of the city.

  Dixon’s scavenging party trekked for two miles without hitting an obstruction, but also without luck. Vehicles, sandbags and barbed wire barricaded every side street, both east and west, leading off from the broad central avenue.

  Heiko tapped the brakes as the boulevard curved slightly west, blocking their view of the road ahead. “Do we keep going or what? We’ll be at the big university downtown in a few blocks.”

  Dixon sat sideways in the cab, with his back to Heiko and his rifle tucked into his shoulder. “Goddamnit, don’t stop. We need to look like a shit-kicking A-team on a mission. Not a bunch of lost tourists waiting to be slaughtered.”

  Heiko hit the gas and hunched over the wheel. “Ok. I hope you know what you’re doing. If you ask me, we’re making a mistake. This place looks like a demilitarized zone. We
don’t seem to fit in.”

  “Just stay focused and don’t let your mind get carried away.” As they rounded the curve, Dixon craned his neck at the last major street they crossed. He caught a brief glimpse of another heavily armed checkpoint. Geese roamed freely around the fortifications. Dixon clutched his rifle, trying to keep a tight grip with his sweaty palms. Everything was so familiar. Afghani soldiers used to keep animals around their outposts to warn of infiltrators…

  “Shit! You’re right. These aren’t traffic control points. They’re front-line battle positions!”

  Heiko pointed over the steering wheel and slowed down. “Hey, what’s with the sheets stretched across the road?”

  Dixon had seen this trick before as well. Stringing bed sheets across dangerous crossings was a simple way to evade snipers. A vein in Dixon’s forehead bulged as he took in the strategically placed bags of trash on the median and sides of the street.

  “STOP!”

  Their two-truck convoy squealed to a confused halt in the middle of the intersection. The scar on Dixon’s neck had never before throbbed so hard for attention.

  “Drop your weapons and put your hands up! Right now, everyone!”

  Dixon didn’t see a soul around, but he dived out of the truck and reached for the sky. The rest of his small group picked up on Dixon’s unrestrained panic and slowly followed his lead. All except for Rachel. She jumped off the back of the truck and cradled her rifle.

  “Peter, what the hell has gotten into—”

  He snatched the weapon from her hands, tossed the rifle on the ground and kicked it away.

  Before she could say a word, someone whistled from a pizzeria on the corner. The windows were still intact and clear enough to tell there was no one inside. Had the paranoia finally won out and taken over his brain?

  “If you want to live, have two drivers pull your trucks out of the intersection and into the car dealership down the block. The rest of you: line up, keep your hands high and go into the coffee shop. Two stores down and across the street.”

  The itching on Dixon’s neck faded to a low simmer. Instead of calling the phantom’s bluff, he shot Heiko and Neil a thumbs-up before wrapping an arm around Rachel’s waist and nudging her forward. She showered him with even more luck by not arguing with the “shut up” eyes he drilled at her.

  Dixon craned his neck and searched for the sentry as they passed the pizza joint. There wasn’t any hint of activity from the pristine restaurant. The only thing even slightly out of place was a single piece missing from the redbrick wall, about at waist height.

  A shadow twitched in the hole as they marched past. Dixon risked squatting down and gave a peek inside. The interior of the brick wall had been fortified with sandbags, but Dixon’s gaze fixated on the blue-steel muzzle a few inches from his nose.

  Dixon exhaled slowly as he stared straight down the barrel of a tripod-mounted .50 caliber machine gun. The man behind the gun shot him a wink and jerked his head down the road. Another fellow sat against the far wall with a SAW light machine gun resting in his lap. He held what looked suspiciously like a pair of Claymore mine detonators in his hands.

  “What’s in there?” Dixon jerked upright and shook his head at Rachel. He prodded her along even faster, while doing his best to ignore the shadows moving deep inside every open window in the nearby buildings.

  “Just do what they say. Believe me, we don’t stand a chance against these guys. Maybe they’ll only rob us, but be ready to run if I say so. Don’t hesitate, don’t look back, just beat it and head north if I can make an opportunity. We’ll try to rally at the gas station we came from.”

  As the bell chimed in the coffee shop’s doorway, a young black man grabbed Dixon and patted him down. Dixon could only grit his teeth while his combat folder blade, the closest thing he had to a good-luck charm, disappeared in the guy’s pocket.

  “You won’t be needing this.”

  Four more even younger men and two women, all sporting blue jeans and raggedy t-shirts, covered his people with semi-automatic weapons. Dixon would have never pegged any of the youths as professional soldiers, but those jaded stares and loose stances showed they were no strangers to killing.

  The only other person in the room not holding a gun or holding their hands up ignored the rest. At the far end of the shop, a wiry Korean man chatted in a two-way radio. He spoke English, but the nonsensical code phrases he used might as well have been Chinese. He propped his feet up on a wooden crate of hand grenades while flipping through plastic overlays on the map in his lap. Dixon and his fellow errant children stood around for a good two minutes before the man felt like putting down his map and markers. He cracked his neck and toyed with a cross pendant around his neck.

  “Now that was the craziest thing I’ve seen in days, cruising through no-man’s-land like you owned the city. Which side are you scouting for? You people are far too amateurish to be with those darn Homeland Security psychopaths. You’re sure as heck not with the Latin Knights, which leaves just the skinheads. So what should I make of this? Your clan leader assured us that none of his fighters would cross the border. I’d say this incursion means the ceasefire is clearly broken.”

  Neil cleared his throat. “We aren’t with anyone. We live out in the boondocks. We only came into the city hoping to find some supplies. Maybe medicine.”

  “Oh, common bandits, huh? No gang affiliation?”

  “Of course not! We’re just people!”

  A vicious smile flitted across the local warlord’s face. The grin spread to his fighters as their weapons twitched.

  “So that means no one would come looking if you disappeared?”

  While Neil stammered, Dixon pushed his luck and dropped his hands. He signaled the others to do so as well, then crossed his arms and raised his chin to mirror his captor’s posture.

  “All right. There’s no point in playing games. We’re a recon detachment for the High Springs Minutemen. We’ve spent the last week consolidating control over every farm and small town between the interstate and the Gulf Coast. The boss has been too busy to send anyone to investigate Gainesville, at least until today.”

  The militiaman snorted. “Minutemen? Never heard of you. Everything west of here is an unorganized basket of independent farmers and unincorporated villages just waiting for a stronger force to gobble them up. You expect me to believe this bullcrap?”

  Dixon blinked. Despite his cutesy euphemisms, the stranger had yet to swear. Something was there, but he didn’t have time to puzzle it out. He tried hard not to think about how Rachel was still in the line of fire no matter where he moved to shield her. Instead, Dixon ramped up the self-righteous ultra-confidence in his voice. He even added a double helping of condescension for good measure.

  “Like I give a damn what you believe. We’re here to negotiate trade rights with the strongest faction we can find. I thought that was your group, but I was mistaken. Your ragtag militia couldn’t even pull the trigger on that big ambush you set up around the intersection.”

  Dixon smirked when the Korean guy snarled. Dixon pulled a wildcard out of his ass and pushed harder. “No wonder you’re losing ground to Heinrich and his FEMA thugs. I don’t like him, but I guess he’s the big dog around here. Maybe we should take him up on his alliance offer…”

  “You’ve met Heinrich? Then you know you can’t negotiate with that soulless agent of Satan! The Warriors of Christ own this city!” He aimed his chest-thumping lecture more at his jittery followers than Dixon.

  “We came down here on a mission of mercy, searching for survivors to bring back to civilization, but all we found was this demon horde pillaging the city. Never mind the Latin Knights, skinheads or any other bandit gang. Heinrich and his goons outnumber them 100 to 1, and are twice as ruthless. His make-believe Federal Government is the real enemy. We didn’t slaughter you only because we’re waiting for the next FEMA counterattack. I didn’t want to throw away a perfect ambush on some random interlopers.”
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  Dixon seized the initiative and kept asking questions. “Warriors of Christ? Now I’ve never heard of you. What type of wannabe militia is that?”

  The guards chuckled and stepped forward. Their boss slashed his hand in the air. “Do we look like a fly-by-night operation? This is just one platoon in a massive army. Home base is Lake City, about 40 miles north. With God’s blessing, that small town was untouched by the bombings, but the corrupt and Godless local government wasn’t up to the task of rebuilding. Thankfully, the Preacher and his followers were ready for the end of the world. When the lights went out, he and his Warriors rode out from their compound and brought order to the chaos.”

  “Order and God’s grace!” The other militia fighters chanted automatically.

  Neil and Rachel both giggled, but Dixon’s blood curdled. If this was the same End Timer “church” he’d heard about before the collapse… things just went from bad to batshit insane. He forced himself to remain calm as the cult leader picked up his rifle and kissed the cross stenciled on the buttstock.

  “Interesting. Perhaps God has destined for our paths to cross. The High Springs Confederacy produces far more food than we need. Be a shame to waste it all. A trading partner would be a Godsend. You must have tens of thousands of mouths to feed.”

  The Warrior squinted, but kept his weapon at his side. “Bit more than 60,000, and growing every day, but tell me, are you a believer? A true, born again follower of Christ and not just some heathen who finds God when he’s staring hell in the face.”

  Dixon rolled the dice. Instead of meekness or pleading, he played off the threat and one-upped the warlord’s sneer. “What I believe is that the last thing you need right now is another war on yet another front. You are correct that Heinrich is pure evil and an enemy to us all. Isn’t that enough? God has let us live so far, it wasn’t your decision. He clearly has a plan. What’s yours?”