In many cities the police had seen their own family members being hauled off. Like their companions in the military, they had drawn lines in the sand, a major portion remembering and honoring their oaths. However, it was a case of too little too late to stop the problem before the massacres started.
In Some cities, everything had happened to fast for everyone. Those who would have honored their oaths followed orders for just a second too long. They too were disarmed and loaded onto the trains by soldiers, and then there was no local possibility of resistance.
Even in the pentagon individuals had found their security clearances revoked, and were herded out of the building. They assumed it was to be questioned, until they too were herded onto trucks and hauled off. The people behind this desired no answers, for a reason. They were on a list for a reason, every man, woman, and child which were on the lists, were under attack, whether they yet knew it or not.
The powerful men in government had decided long ago on a purge. Various powerful groups who pulled the strings in every large nation had called for worldwide depopulation. This plan spanned generations, not years. International clubs and numerous secret societies kept the notion alive over a long span of time. The plan had been discovered time after time, yet it was far too grand in scope to be easily believed or accepted by the common person.
Even Governors, Senators, Congressmen, and their aides had ended up on the list, and were quietly snatched from their homes to be seen no more upon the Earth. Unknown to many, even the President who had thought himself safe was on the list, and the signatures coming out of his office were never signed by his hand. The puppets strings had been cut, yet the puppeteers still danced.
One could wonder how such a massive thing could slip by over so many years, and no one notice. Improvised and staged terrorist attacks, with amazing timing for events. Virus pandemics designed to scare, but not necessarily kill. Keep the public worried with this hand, and let military contractors make the inoculations with the other, always remembering to smile big and look innocent. The public trusted its government. They wanted to trust the government, as the opposite is such a horrid and despicable, almost unthinkable notion.
What many even 'in the know' didn't realize, was this was happening world-wide and transcended boundaries, religions, or factions. Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Christian..... didn't matter. These men worshiped their own power, and couldn't tolerate any competition from any other god. They had a dream, and this dream didn't include sharing the earth with so many peons.
America was the only problem nation, as the plan was slowly falling apart. The people had not been pacified quite enough before the plan had to be enacted and put into motion. America was fighting back.
People like Joe paid the price for the worlds lack of perception. However, America had awakened, and here these men were losing, and losing badly. These worldwide power brokers were getting desperate. If America won then they lost, and they knew it. Even somewhat depopulated in both civilian and military numbers it was catastrophic to the plan. There were too many weapons of too great a ferocity with which America could strike back if control was lost. It could by itself erase the face of the entire planet if it had to.
America had to fall. It must fall, or everything was for absolutely nothing. They couldn't use nukes, or those powerful individuals in league with them in America would lose faith and strike back. It was about time to crush the waning military might, but not with WMD's, but by sheer force from the inside. The U.N. decided to play an ace. Two major countries with every reason to hate the U.S. were given the responsibility to finish the plan.
….......................................
Joe looked out the window with the carpet pulled back and had an itch between his shoulders, which he knew was not there.
"I wish I knew more about what is happening. I feel something in the air. Something bad. I have this nagging feeling and I don’t know why, but something major is about to happen,” Joe stated forlornly.
20. (Bows at a Gun Party)
Little did Joe know that something major was happening. The Distant Early Warning system, or DEW for short, namely the collection of radar units on the very periphery of our continent designed to provide a wall of early warning protection in case of ballistic missile attack had been intentionally shut down on our northern and southern borders.
Many of these military radar bases were so remote they had no clue what was happening stateside. Most were firmly under government control. The rest were merely erased by ground based portable missile fire. All civilian airports had been shut down under the guise of a terrorist threat and their radar facilities were taken over by Homeland Security. Even the remaining weather radars were taken off-line by well-placed explosives. No clue was to be given for what was coming.
Ship after massive cargo ship had docked in both Canada and Mexico, disgorging their passengers and contents. Planes almost beyond count, both military transport planes and civilian airliners had landed doing the same. The U.N. had started their part of the now forcibly modified plan. Blue hats were in North America, supposedly as a ‘policing force’ to help ‘in this time of trouble’, claiming to bring 'peace' to their supposedly 'beloved' member state.
The truth was they were sent to pacify the rebellion against the plan. Soldiers were pulled specifically from nations who openly hated America, or whose real feelings towards the U.S. were made evident through private talks. They had arrived, and were on the march. They were here to 'help' us.
…..................................
Weeks had passed, and something new had happened. At the end of October with the chill winds blowing occasionally and the temperatures at night dropping like a rock, there was trouble.
A certain someone with two loaded and armed Hummers had learned of a certain farm, which was as yet unpacified, a hotbed of resistance activity. This someone was a Captain who was quite loyal to the powers that be. It was the Captain that Joe had desperately wanted to talk to for an extremely long time.
The Captain had heard of Joe. He couldn't help but to learn of Joe, as his training had made many a soldier worse than just lethal. The confidence and training made them efficient and daring. Cut supply lines. Supply lines didn't matter, as they still ate and drank just fine. Joe had taught the soldiers to be hunters, carefully stalking their prey and ambushing when the moment was opportune. No longer was a military man safe in hiding or in his office. In forest, plains, or city, they would find you and you wouldn't see them first.
Joe had not taught the military men to fight as that was the job of the military. The military had accomplished this task well. He had shown them that people reacted just like deer. He made them excellent deer hunters, capable of tracking down their prey, setting up ambush without being noticed by their prey, and then let their previous training decide the outcome.
He taught them how to keep hydrated and well fed, despite the conditions they faced. He taught them how to design and set traps the Viet Cong would have been proud of. After all, traps are traps, and triggers are triggers. Any trap or trigger can be scaled in size for different prey.
He had merely enhanced what the military had started. The feeling of competence and comfort which came with the training was just a bonus, though it greatly increased the morale of the soldiers. Knowing that they never had to go cold or hungry with food all around them, or that Joe had increased their ability to perceive their surroundings to the point where they sometimes flushed out deer while on patrol made the soldiers feel a confidence they had never felt before.
In a way, they had all become special forces in a limited and odd manner of speaking. Finding confidence and high moral in the troops you face is bad for the moral of the attackers. Sure confidence combined with a feeling of ingrained competence was just plain dangerous.
He also taught them how to use nature against their combatants. A hundred rattlesnakes in a Quonset hut full of relaxing soldiers can be a huge distraction at the ve
ry least. A hungry tiger or grizzly bear led to a camp made an even worse distraction. There were other even less pleasant options.
These troops had become a serious threat to the powers that be. When hit too hard they could disperse like a cloud, leaving everything that might slow them down behind and seemingly fade into the forest. They would disappear only to re-appear later and reacquire what had been lost with the same seeming ease, completely healthy and not even demoralized. It was like punching at smoke… smoke with teeth that bites back.
By this time Joe had taught several thousand U.S. soldiers and had become far and wide a byword among the military. 'Survival Joe' they called the Colonel. He had both the admiration and respect from those who he had taught.
The Captain wanted him bad. Specifically he wanted the fame that would come from either Joe’s death or capture. He suspected Joe was the one who had been on his list which he had assumed killed by a grenade due to the relationship with the man who officially owned the present farm.
He had thought all trouble with this bunch was over, as all were last reported as a confirmed kill at the Littleton farm, due to the air-strike he had called. They had been tracking both the group and the renegade soldiers at the time by infrared satellite. He had been thrilled to get two bird with one stone. It had earned the Captain prestige among his peers.
He had decided to personally erase that nuisance once and for all. He had first dispatched an elimination squad, but it had disappeared followed by their tracking GPS units squelching suddenly. Their last reported location was one Dave Littleton's farm. The renegade soldiers had been tracked to the location as well. The Captain had suspected a problematic failure at that point, and had called for an overwhelming display of force. He had personally commanded the entire farm be leveled with hellfire missiles in the airstrike.
The Captain was good at his job. That is one reason why he had been picked from among the ranks and personally groomed for the job. The other reason he was chosen was that he had no compunction about killing others. He was given command over the entire Midwest section, and even the tin pot General who officially had the command knew not to mess with him. The Captain was favored by those who gave the General his orders. He was personally going to take care of the matter this time. This wasn't a problem for him personally anyway, as he enjoyed his job.
…....................................
As the two Humvees roared into the farm’s front lawn both of the top mounted fifty caliber machine guns immediately opened fire as previously ordered, mowing first through the house and then the outbuildings.
“Should have done this the first time,” the Captain said to himself, loving the roar and the smell of cordite.
He grinned openly at the deafening roar of the weapons, and got a kick out of the shredding and disintegrating buildings. Just the knowledge that not one person in any of the buildings could escape was thrilling. He viewed the raw power unleashed upon the farm as a sign of his personal supremacy.
The farmhouse took one hit too many and started to lean crazily to the right, creaking horribly as the frame buckled. As per his orders the guns only stopped firing for just long enough to reload with new ammunition belts, or to change out the now red hot barrels. The Captain wanted a guarantee that all of the would be terrorists were dead. He especially wanted Joe to be 'unrecognizable except for a DNA match' type of dead. He was going to stop this slaughter of his men, come hell or high water.
When the buildings had been shredded to the point where only something as small as a rat could have survived, the Captain raised his hand in a prearranged signal to stop firing. The signal was childish and unmilitary. With his middle finger vertically aimed at the farmhouse, he flipped off the rodents who he had exterminated.
After the deafening roar of the two big machineguns, the silence was not to be believed. Even through ear-plugs the constant roar had hurt. The Captain thought that it was worth it.
He had sent a message to everyone, everywhere.
I can hunt too.
“Take some pictures. I want to post this online as a reminder to everyone that it is not nice to mess with Uncle Sam.”
…..................................
Joe had been on sentry duty along with Hitch and Daniels, and had sent signal at the first sound of an engine far in the distance.
Everyone on guard duty had ducked into their hidey-holes. The hidey-holes themselves were a type of covered foxhole which were designed using camouflaged space blankets to help kill their infrared signatures.
None were sure whether the space blankets would work, but the idea was to bring the local temperature as close to background as possible, by blocking their body heat.
Keeping the ground wet on the bottom and sides helped absorb the excess reflected body heat, but only for a while. Joe did not expect it to last long before the heat would collect and give them away, despite the reflective blankets. The wet ground would eventually warm, and then the spots would glow red on a forward looking infrared radar, or FLIR, even if they were not in the hole. This could be helpful as well, as it could be used to send a flase signal.
“Chopper coming, probably has FLIR. Wait until it is gone, then get invisible,” Joe screamed, being at the closest end of the belt to the house.
“Get out of there as soon as it is gone! You will be like rats in a trap.”
The chopper roared overhead, and everyone donned their special outfits with space blankets sewn inside. The pilot of the chopper related by radio to the Captain in the approaching convoy that the targets were inside the house, before changing course to a different assigned task. To Joe’s surprise the black helicopter roared away.
“What is going on Daniels? I expected it to turn back and make a strafing run at least.”
Daniels motioned using hand signals that vehicles were approaching, and then everything fell into place. The helicopter was just a scout for a larger ground force.
“Drop everything and get out of the house now!” Joe roared at the top of his lungs.
Hewitt, followed by Cross, Nicolson, Dave, Sue, the two boys, and lastly Zeb all came running to the shelter belt as fast as they could carrying their loads. Each had a rifle, a compound bow with attached quiver full of arrows, and string silencers.
After the promotion, everyone had approached the Lieutenant and had decided that since he was no longer a Sergeant it was just plain confusing to call him Sergeant. This was especially true since he had already promoted Hewitt to Sergeant.
They all agreed to call Joseph Anderson ‘Joe’ and the Lieutenant Josiah Anderson by his shortened middle name of Zeb. No one wanted to call their friend 'Lieutenant' all the time, and the military boys weren’t given a choice. Using the full names of Joseph and Josiah might cause communication problems during an emergency, so was quickly rejected.
Joe didn’t care what anybody called him, and his vote for jackass was rejected. Zeb had agreed to his moniker with a grin, since he hated the rank issue anyway and people were getting used to calling him Zeb. In his mind he still worked for a living.
“Until I met you, only my friends were allowed to call me Zeb. It's fitting don't you think?” Zeb asked the civilians rhetorically.
“Just remember my rank soldiers, or you will eat my boot,” he replied to the military men present.
“Does that include me?” Joe asked innocently.
“Between you and Dave, no-one has a clue what to do about you,” Zeb growled, a disgusted look on his face.
From within the shelter belt, blood pounding in their ears, they watched the convoy of two Hummers approach and drive into the yard. The machine guns on top opened fire at the house, shredding the siding. The fired and kept firing, and firing, and firing, like some militant energizer bunny.
Everyone in the belt felt completely content to let the convoy waste the ammo for two fifty caliber machine guns. Not one in the group wanted to tangle with the two big dogs mounted on the tops of the hummers.
/> “At least they aren’t SAWs. Those things are nasty,” Joe thought to himself.
He went from hiding spot to hiding spot in the belt outlining his plan using the sound cover provided by the unbelievably loud roar from the two big machine-guns. The defenders sat back and waited for the barrage to end, since they were not being fired upon in the shelter belt. Eventually the roar stopped, and Joe signaled the others to be ready.
Joe’s orders were to wait until the soldiers dismounted the Humvees and were in the clear area of the front yard. The civilians were to fire a single arrow from their compound bows then switch to the thirty caliber semi-automatic rifles. The soldiers were to fire several arrows at targets of opportunity, and then switch to their fully automatic poodle shooters.
“Zeb, I am going to circle around the farm from the front and personally take out the leader. He’s mine. You are in charge here.”
“Keep frosty,” Zeb replied, turning back afterwards to monitor the situation in the yard.
“I don’t have any black zippered bags.”
Surviving in America: Under Siege 2nd Edition Page 12