by Ryan Hyatt
Ray corralled Ed and Raul into the living room, and then he held them at gunpoint as they loaded his pickup truck with his daughter’s belongings. Although a few cars passed, no one stopped to inquire about the surly fellows being held-up by the Marine. Perhaps they guessed that Ray was performing a public service.
As for the captain, he grabbed rope from the bed of his pickup truck and instructed Ed and Raul to take down the ‘Goodies Retail’ sign. They did so without discussion. Ray escorted them back into the house through the front door as they carried the sign, and then he led them into the garage, which was closed. There, Ray turned on a light and told the men to undress. They complied. He tied them together and seated them facing each other, hands and legs clasped in a faux erotic embrace. He grabbed a can of black spray paint he found on a shelf and wrote over the for-sale sign in big black bold letters, “WE STEAL FROM STRUGGLING FAMILIES. COME AND GET US!”
Ray propped the sign in front of his naked captives, and then he opened the garage for people to see.
Ray found Ed’s phone in his pocket and dialed emergency services. He reported a home invasion was underway at their location. Then, Ray smashed the phone and flung its remnants into a bush.
“You haven’t seen the last of us, mister,” Ed said.
“You better hope I have, for your sake.”
The captain waved goodbye to his exhibition of human filth, and then he drove away.
CHAPTER 9
After Liberator footage was leaked to the public, a scrutiny of the day-to-day affairs of Ray’s unit began which, for security reasons, became too dangerous to neglect. Every morning and afternoon Ray and his men came and went from the proving grounds, hundreds of faces were gathered at the gates to watch.
Rocket & Gamble personnel felt it, too. A dozen ardent protestors made their way onto the plant property and had to be forcefully removed. One activist desecrated the company sign at the front of the building by spraying beneath the rocket and dice logo, “DICKHEADS ‘R’ US” in alternating red, white and blue letters. The vandal’s message could not be concealed or removed, and the entire sign had to be replaced in order to address the issue. Employees of all ranks, from managers to secretaries, were approached at grocery stores and church events by friends and neighbors, sometimes strangers, who probed for information about the mysterious weapons program underway which, as the rumors spread, became less a mystery by the day.
Even China, traditionally unshaken by publicity charades, tried to use the growing hysteria over the Liberator program to its advantage. After releasing satellite footage of various Rocket & Gamble sites located throughout the United States, Chinese and Russian officials beseeched the international community to question American officials about the purpose of the new super soldier and for governments to take a strong stance against any acts of aggression the United States might have planned to use the new weapon for. China and Russia’s call for an investigation backfired, however, as polls showed that those nations’ fear of the Liberator strengthened the American people’s resolve to move forward with the program and any plans their government had to use it. More than half of Americans surveyed favored invading oil-rich lands if it helped the United States maintain its standing as the world’s foremost economic and political leader.
Years of Americans’ fears about Chinese and Russian ascendancy seemed to abate, or at least temporarily ease, with the arrival of the Liberator on the world scene. In the midst of such controversy, it was difficult for Ray not to be distracted, as his unit was the starring act in the international drama.
One Friday morning, as Ray tried to get to the proving grounds before the crowds did, he opened the front door of his home and found a teenager standing there. The young man had icy blue eyes and long red hair tied in a ponytail. He wore a tie-dyed tee, brown corduroys and flip flops. He was about to place a brochure in the crack of Ray’s door, and he startled when Ray opened it, perhaps because of the military uniform Ray wore.
“Good morning, sir,” the youth said, with a vague and unplaced foreign accent. “I’m Dave Madrid from Peace Power, a lobby group committed to changing America’s foreign policy. As one of our nation’s fine military men, let me ask you a question, sir. Is there any price not worth paying to get this country off its oil addiction and on the road to a more sustainable future?”
“No comment,” Ray said, and he closed his door and quickly moved past the young man, who just as quickly followed.
“You must agree that at a time like this, with unemployment at an all-time high here at home, the patriotic thing for Americans to do is voice dissent over unnecessary entanglements abroad.”
“Again, no comment,” Ray said.
The youth grabbed Ray’s wrist. Ray turned back toward him, his free hand raised, ready to strike.
“Then you must be part of the problem,” the youth said with a crooked grin. “You must be another dumb Yank. When will people like you finally realize the United States is one sad history of blind leading blind?”
The youth let go of Ray’s wrist, and Ray lowered his fist. It wasn’t the remark that intrigued the captain, nor the callous glimmer in the young man’s eyes. It was the nose and lips. They looked familiar, but in Ray’s haste, he couldn’t recall how. The déjà vu Ray felt was odd, especially toward someone with whom Ray didn’t have much in common.
“You know, not every military man you meet is some mindless meathead,” Ray said. “We’re not all brainwashed by our parents, school and media. It’s not our intention to sell out our country and blindly follow our government. We have faith that our leaders are making the right decisions, but even if they aren’t, we still have a job to do, plain and simple. Most of us go along with our orders not because we’re automatons, but because there is something dearer to us than all of the money and oil and flags and hate in this world. When it gets down to it, we do it for the ones we love. We do it for our families. Period. We go out and we make a living and we come home if we’re lucky. Do you understand me?”
“I guess I pegged you wrong, sir,” the youth said with his crooked grin, and then he glanced at Ray’s house, and he briskly walked away.
As Ray drove to work, he glanced at other houses on his street. None of them had brochures crammed into their doors. He tried dialing the number on the brochure, but it was not in service. Then Ray remembered the same pointy nose and lips on the teenage photographer he saw ‘stranded’ on the side of the road.
Who was the stranger? What did he want? Ray couldn’t think of an answer, and it spooked him.
Arriving at the proving grounds, Ray was glad to find the carnival of the past several days no more. Approximately fifty military policemen were on hand to disperse arriving members of the public. Ray was waved through the gate, and when he came to the hangar, he saw the Colonel’s parked Cadillac limo and Ray’s boss standing next to his Liberator.
“My eight a.m. just arrived,” the Colonel said, and he disconnected from a call and addressed the captain. “So tell me; what the hell am I doing here?”
“I think Huxley, Kim and Mustafa should not have been assigned to my unit,” Ray said.
“Nonsense,” the Colonel said. “I handpicked them myself.”
“Why?”
“I had my reasons.”
“Give me one.”
“Public relations,” the Colonel said. “It’s important that our expeditionary force represents the diversity of the American public, which represents the diversity of the world. We need to seem inclusive, to the enemy and to other nations.”
That might have explained why the Colonel chose David Kim, a Korean American, and Omar Mustafa, a black Muslim, but it didn’t explain why John Huxley was brought on board, Ray thought. A white guy with a shaky trigger, Huxley was about as stereotypical as they come. Let alone there were no women in Ray’s unit. The Colonel probably was hiding something, Ray realized, and that reminded Ray of another matter entirely.
“I think someone is spying o
n me,” Ray said.
“I’m sure a lot of people are spying on you,” the Colonel said, but seeing the seriousness on Ray’s face, he resisted making a joke. “I’ll inform Defense Intelligence. Is that all, captain?”
“For now.”
“Good, then I want you to go home to your family and have yourselves a wonderful weekend,” the Colonel said. “The party here is over. We’re done with our publicity ploys. On Monday you and your men will be transferred to an international location to finish your training in secret.”
“When will we return?” Ray said, and he already felt his first pang of homesickness.
What will I tell Sara?
“In three months you’ll get one week’s leave before your mission begins,” the Colonel said. “Right now, that’s all I can tell you.”
“Okay, I understand.”
“Cheer up,” the Colonel said, and he tapped the Liberator talon behind him. “You’ll be back. You’re practically unstoppable.”
When Ray returned home, it was lunchtime, and Sara was napping. He found Dee on the couch, smiling, happy to see him. He sat next to her and rubbed her feet as he broke the news. Dee’s smile disappeared, but having been with Ray since the start of his military career, she had grown accustomed to getting sudden bad news.
“I’ll be fine,” Dee said. “It’s Sara I’m worried about. This is coming a little sooner than any of us expected. I’ll be honest with you, I still don’t understand why you are going. I read in a magazine today that the Liberator has a nuclear fuel cell? With technology like that, it’s hard to believe this country still needs oil …”
“Wow, really?” Ray said. “I’m not sure if you’re trying to make me laugh, or cry.”
“I’m just trying to make you see straight, but I guess it’s too late for that now,” Dee said. “I only hope your Liberator is as indestructible as they say it is, and you come home in one piece to be with your daughter.”
Dee leaned into Ray, and he folded his arms around his wife. They embraced in silence until Ray received a phone call from Joe Schnell, a representative from Defense Intelligence. Ray excused himself from his wife, and he stepped out on the patio and told Schnell what he knew about the spook he suspected was spying on him.
“They guy on my doorstep had blue eyes and red hair,” Ray said. “It might have been a disguise, but even if it were, he couldn’t conceal the fact he was young, probably in his late teens. Also, English isn’t his first language, although he speaks it fluently and without the slightest hiccup, but I couldn’t place the accent.”
“Sounds spooky to me,” Schnell said. “Okay, Captain, I’ll look into it and let you know what I find.”
Ray returned to the couch.
“You didn’t tell me about a spy,” Dee said.
“Now you’re spying on me, too?” Ray said. “Sorry, babe. I wasn’t sure myself until today.”
“What have you gotten us into, Ray?”
“Nothing I won’t get us out of,” Ray said. “Whoever it is, the military will take care of it.”
Sara entered the living room, and the conversation ended. She was disoriented, not only from waking, but also perhaps because of the change in routine. The sun was far from setting, and yet there was her father, sprawled on the couch, rubbing her mother’s feet.
“Hi, sweetie,” Ray said, beckoning her into his arms.
“Huggy Time!” Sara said, and she jumped on the couch, and the three sat together, arm in arm.
“Let’s have lunch, then go to the park and get some ice cream,” Ray said. “The weather is finally cool enough for a little family fun this weekend. What do you say, Sara?”
“Yay!” she said, and for the little girl, yay it was.
CHAPTER 10
Operation Park Walk, the American military’s official name for the plan to remove the Iranian government and secure its oil fields, was scheduled to be conducted using only one battalion of thirty-six Liberators and ten thousand Marines, an armed force sixteen times smaller than the coalition used to topple the Iraq government during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Furthermore, Operation Park Walk was expected to cost the American taxpayers seventy billion dollars, one-tenth of the initial expense of the Iraq invasion two decades prior, and a majority of that funding was to be reimbursed through oil sold by American contractors and paid off in ten years.
Much of the projected savings for the Iranian invasion was hedged on the expedience the Liberators were likely to bring to the battlefield. The Mama’s Boys, coordinated by Daddy’s Girl, were expected to annihilate the Iranian military along with any resistance swiftly and unequivocally. In addition, the low cost of the war was tied to the basic and brutish designs of the war plan itself, in which little investment was to be made to restore the country through public funds. Instead, oil proceeds were expected to offset the expenditures corporate contractors made to reestablish the Iranian nation once its government had been toppled, removed and recreated. As such, the emphasis from the beginning was to prioritize profit over the Iranian public.
Ray’s unit of twelve Liberators was one of three squads to conduct combat training at three locations around the world from November 2022 through January 2023. The least skilled group, codenamed Cub Scouts, originated from Denver and consisted of recently-recruited Marines who lacked significant combat experience. The middle-skilled group, codenamed Boy Scouts, originated from Seattle and consisted of battle-hardened veterans as well as new Marines. The Eagle Scouts, Ray’s elite unit, supposedly consisted of the most seasoned, battle-hardened and superior troops in the service. As such, they were to lead the most demanding assignments over the course of the Iran invasion.
In addition to these three units, there was a reserve squad in development outside of Fort Lauderdale whose purpose was to reinforce the frontline with fresh Liberators as needed. They were an experimental group managed solely by ACE that required no human pilots, the details of which Ray overheard very little.
Following his farewell weekend with the family, Ray received orders Sunday evening that he and his men were to depart in their Liberators immediately to Kiki, a small island in the South Pacific. There seemed to be no easy astronomical way for Ray to convey the months of separation that awaited him and his daughter, except the mundane marking of days on a calendar. It seemed a dull exercise, but Ray taught Sara how to do so.
“With help from your mother, hopefully it is something that gives you peace of mind, my dear,” Ray said, as he snuggled with Sara in her bed before his departure. He held several books in his hands and asked her, “Which would you like to read?”
“That one,” Sara said and pointed at a tale titled, Charles the Chicken Crosses the Road.
The book’s front cover featured a rooster in a tuxedo scrambling to escape through a gap in a wire fence. Ray flipped to the book’s back cover, and he and Sara gazed at the photo of the author, a fellow Arizonan by the name of Chuck Shaw.
The premise of the book was simple. A chicken named Charles, longing for freedom, cuts loose from his coop and wanders the countryside, meeting a variety of animals along the way. A neighbor eventually traps and returns Charles to his rightful owner. Once returned to the coop, other chickens marvel at Charles’ stories of life outside the pen. A lovely-feathered female, Dawn, promises to help Charles resume his life in the wild as long as he lets her join him. They fall in love and are soon due to have a chick, postponing their romantic getaway. In the last page of the story, Charles and Dawn overlook a glorious sunrise as they wonder when they will be ready to embark on their adventure beyond the farm as a family.
When Ray and Sara finished reading the book, Ray explained to his daughter the significance that the story’s last words were not ‘The End’ but ‘To Be Continued.’
“I wonder where the author will take us from here,” Ray said. “Do you have the next book in the series?”
“No,” Sara said. “There isn’t one.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Too bad,” Ray said. “Maybe there will be a sequel by the time I return from my business trip.”
For Sara’s sake, Ray referred to the invasion of Iran as his ‘business trip.’ She didn’t understand what her father did for a living beyond the fact that somehow it supposedly made her and her mother and the people in their neighborhood safe.
Ray read Sara another book she selected, then a third and a fourth. He might have read to his daughter all evening, so much did he savor those precious moments with her but, at last, duty called and Ray had a job to do.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” Sara said.
“No, sweetheart,” Ray said, as he caressed her hair. “Not for three months. It’ll be the longest time we’ve been apart, but we’ll talk on the Telenet. Mark your calendar, and I’ll be home before you know it. Good night.”
“Okay, Daddy,” Sara said, too tired to argue with him. “Good night.”
Ray and his fellow Eagle Scouts flew their Liberators at dusk Sunday evening to Kiki in the South Pacific. They arrived under the cover of darkness and parked in vehicular mode beneath a jungle canopy on the deserted island. They placed their Mama’s Boys on standby as they slept within their cocoon-like cockpits until sunrise.
When Ray awoke, he was amazed at the paradise to which he and the Eagle Scouts arrived. Mama’s Boy One faced east toward the rising sun and overlooked a horizon of sparkling turquoise water and emerging brilliant light that stretched as far as Ray could see. The captain disembarked from his Liberator and walked the stony steps that wound their way up and around a jetty that led to a dilapidated outpost where he and his men officially were to be quartered. Their temporary home consisted of a bunk hut, a cafeteria that included a hot dog stand and two picnic tables, and a thatched conference room that offered a chalkboard as its centerpiece and probably once served as a missionary schoolhouse. There also was a drinking well and outhouse located next to each other, although Ray hoped that the close proximity of a place where fluids were to be consumed and wastes were to be expelled happened to be a coincidence.