by Jeff Kirkham
“According to Drinkin’ Bro Reggy Ingleson, specialist in the Marine Corps in the sandbox right now, that dirty bomb royally cocked-up the port and pumping station at Abqaiq. Is that even how you say that? Ub-Kack? Ab-cock? Whatever. It’s just another greased Arab shithole now.
“For some reason that bomb gave the stock market whiskey dick, then the lights started flickering in southern California. What do these two things have in common? Who the fuck knows? Anything’s possible at this point…
“A Navy commo babe, whose name I will only mention in the boudoir, called in last night from the fleet in the Persian Gulf and let it slip that they’re steaming toward the Suez Canal. That should get exciting. Kind of makes you wonder about the Israelis and 300 million pissed-off Arabs and what they’re going to do now that the Middle East has become an even bigger dumpster fire. Let it all burn, I say. Let that dumpster burn. But then again, I’m drunk as shit.
“I gotta go now and find a new hole to hide in. If you’re a Drinkin’ Bro in Fort Bliss, give me a call tonight at 6000kHz and let me know if they’re missing their Humvee. Until they hit me with a Tomahawk cruise missile, I’ll be on this freq, every night, dealing you into the truth they don’t want you to hear. Until then, drink on, sweet princes. Fuck censorship and pass the bourbon.”
Interstate 15
Barstow, California
Four hundred semi-trucks with coal trailers stretched from the megalithic roadside McDonalds in Barstow, California, almost five miles down the shoulder of the I-15 Freeway.
The general hedged his bet like a true career Army officer, sending only thirty guys, two M1117s—Armored Security Vehicles—and half a dozen Humvees. Even the M240s, the belt-fed machine guns, had been stripped from the M1117s for this “training mission,” as the general had called it when he telephoned his counterpart in the Utah National Guard. Not a single live round was to be found anywhere on the men or the vehicles, despite the fact that they carried rifles and sidearms. The general wasn’t willing to put his career in the hands of a bunch of weekend warriors running around the West with live ammunition.
Just to cover his own ass, the L.A. mayor sent a Chevy Suburban full of engineers from the L.A. Department of Water and Power to meet the convoy and accompany them to the power plant. The Suburban was black. As it turned out, that would matter more than anyone might have guessed.
At 7:30 a.m., the convoy headed toward Sevier, Utah.
As planned, when the convoy reached the junction of I-70 and I-15 in southern Utah, one of the M1117s and three of the Humvees peeled off with the semis to accompany them to the coal mine. The California governor had spoken with the CEO of SUFCO mine and received approval for his plan to ship the coal to the Delta power plant in the semi-trucks from California. The governor figured he would ask for forgiveness later from the Utah environmental people.
The remaining armored troop transport, the other three Humvees, and the Suburban full of engineers continued on the I-15 Freeway, heading to the Intermountain Power Plant in Delta, Utah.
• • •
Hubb Pizza Co.
Delta, Utah
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center—the consumer advocate group that prides itself on being “the premier U.S. group fighting hate groups”—the State of Utah has thirty-seven “anti-government patriot militias.” Strangely, the SPLC publishes its own intelligence report on these groups and, buried forty-two pages into the report, the Delta Desert Patriots can be found, marking them with an asterisk as a “Right-wing Militia.”
A person could easily forgive the Delta Desert Patriots, and anyone residing in Delta, Utah, for being pissed off. The three-hundred-fifty-mile-long Sevier River flows muddy and sulfurous almost from its beginning in the mountains of Central Utah. The tail end of this river, by the time it gets to Delta, Utah, runs like a stinking river of Maalox. With this lone water source, Delta residents grow a patchwork of thin alfalfa fields that serve as the only buffer between them and a massive, blighted desert.
Calling it a “desert” elicits images of cactus, mesquite groves and plodding tortoises. Instead, the land around Delta looks like Jesus himself salted the ground, killing every living thing.
The Delta Desert Patriots might never have made it onto anyone’s watch list, given that Delta is a smudge on the map, known only for its coal power plant and that it once hosted a World War II Japanese internment camp.
But, on April 12, 2014, the world got an eyeful of the rising anger of the Delta Desert Patriots when federal BLM agents attempted to round up the cattle of Cliven Bundy. Bundy had been grazing his cattle on disputed land claimed by the federal government in nearby Nevada. When several hundred local protestors showed up in the middle of nowhere, armed to the teeth with assault rifles and six-guns, and proceeded to stare down U.S. federal agents, the world took notice. The folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center nearly made a mess in their pants with anti-redneck fervor.
Among those railing against the federal government was none other than David Harold Bundy, son of the then-famous Cliven Bundy. Almost two years after the face-off between the cattlemen and the BLM, federal law enforcement agents closed in on Bundy while he re-roofed his home on the edge of Delta, Utah. They arrested him for his part in the stand-off and quietly whisked him out of town.
While he wasn’t an anointed leader of the Delta Desert Patriots, Bundy was certainly a native son—loved by some and respected by all in the town of Delta. With his arrest, and with the bubbling spread of anti-federal sentiment in the deserts and plains of America, the ranks of the Patriots swelled exponentially. At least in the town of Delta, the militia had gone mainstream.
The same morning that the Intermountain Power Plant began to fail in its job of keeping the lights on in sunny southern California, the leadership of the Delta Desert Patriots met at Hubb Pizza Company, just off the main drag in Delta.
On the agenda for their weekly meeting, the DDP would decide who to back as mayor of Delta in the upcoming elections. Strangely, this decision would largely dictate the winner of the mayoral race. The DDP now boasted over three-hundred-fifty members, which might not seem like much until one considered the size of the town—just thirty-two-hundred souls.
But before talking about local politics, everyone wanted to talk about the teetering stock market and the nuclear event in Saudi Arabia. In preparation for what they hoped might be the collapse of the United States government, the militiamen had spent the day loading and re-loading AR-15 magazines, cleaning their guns, packing and re-packing their “go bags,” and laying out their military gear.
On top of current events, it wasn’t hard to imagine the Feds hitting Delta for reasons limited only by the imagination. After all, within recent memory, federal agents had slipped into town and absconded with David Bundy.
The door to the pizza parlor banged open, like in a Western movie. The men around the table looked up in unison at a wheezing boy standing in the doorway, trying to catch his breath.
“The Feds is here,” the boy shouted as he heaved. “They’re at the Delta Freeze!”
It didn’t make a lick of sense to anyone, but the emotion in the room brooked no hesitation. The men leapt from the bench seats, struggling to get out from under the table. They ambled to their trucks, working to get the blood flowing back into their middle-aged legs.
The militia communications officer jumped into the back of another man’s Ford F-350 and did his job with precision—triggering his preset message tree that would alert all three-hundred-fifty militiamen that an attack on the town was imminent.
Before the main body of the militia could muster, the leadership corps of the Patriots descended on the Delta Freeze in their pickup trucks. To their stunned eyes appeared the exact specter they had long feared and even dreamed about.
Three military Humvees and an M-1117 armored personnel carrier sat neatly parked in the Delta Freeze parking lot. Military men in camo wandered about, eating burgers and sucking on milk sh
akes with M4 rifles slung over their shoulders. It did not come as a shock to the militiamen that a black Chevy Suburban was parked right beside the military vehicles. An invasion of “black SUVs” and dark-souled federal agents had long been prophesied by anti-government pundits.
Clearly, the men in suits sitting at a picnic bench were “the Feds.” And, seemingly, they were there to suppress Delta, Utah at the behest of the federal government of the United States of America.
Without hesitation, the militiamen jumped out of their vehicles, bringing their rifles and handguns to bear. Within about two seconds, the California engineers and National Guardsmen went from eating a greasy lunch to staring down the barrels of a dozen guns. One of the Guardsmen dropped his root beer float. It hit the pavement and exploded, splattering a tan slurry over his spit-shined boots.
“Drop your weapons!” the leader of the Delta Desert Patriots shouted, just like he had heard on TV.
The National Guardsmen were only too willing to comply, given that their rifles were empty anyway.
“You at the picnic table, in the suits, drop your weapons.” The militiaman pointed his AR-15 at the engineers.
The engineers stared blankly. One of them had the presence of mind to put his double cheese burger down on the picnic bench and raise his hands in the air. The others followed suit.
“Drop your weapons!!” the militia boss roared again.
The engineer who had put his hands up replied, “Um, we don’t have weapons.”
The leader of the DDP turned to the man next to him and ordered, “Frisk them… Frisk them all.”
Without firing a shot, the Delta Desert Patriot militia had re-taken their hometown. Now, in addition to twenty-one prisoners, they possessed an armored vehicle, three Humvees, and a stack of M4 rifles, strangely devoid of bullets.
Within the hour, the only way into town and the power plant, Highway 6, was barricaded, armed and dangerous.
Despite exasperated explanations from the California Guardsmen and the electrical engineers, there was no chance the already suspicious militiamen would consider any story other than the one they had first imagined—that military vehicles and government men in suits had rolled into their town uninvited, intent on oppressing the Sovereign Republic of Delta.
There was no chance whatsoever that four hundred trucks, loaded with coal, would be getting to the power plant anytime soon.
• • •
Alameda, California
Three Miles Outside of Alameda Harbor
The helicopter circled the two Muslim villagers and their sailboat once again, and it became obvious that the sailboat was the subject of the helicopter’s interest. The gut-thumping throb of the rotor blades threw the Filipino sailors into a panic—Njay steered the boat while Miguel rushed to complete his ablutions to Allah in preparation for his death at the hands of the helicopter.
Njay shaded his eyes, searching for weapons. He knew little about military aircraft, but the helicopter was painted blue and white and it carried bulbous pods above the landing skids. Unless the pods were bombs, Njay could see no obvious threat. Still, the helicopter circled.
Even louder than the howling rotors, a loudspeaker blared from the aircraft. “Sailing craft, cut your engines immediately. We detect radiation aboard your vessel. Cut your engines immediately and wait to be boarded.”
Miguel paused in his ritual cleansing and shouted something to Njay that he couldn’t hear over the roar of the helicopter. Neither man understood the words from the loudspeaker, but the intent was clear. They were being intercepted. They would not reach Los Angeles. Njay ducked low behind the steering wheel and motored directly toward Alameda Harbor.
Miguel shouted again and pointed off their bow. In the distance, a large boat with a blaring siren and blue lights raced to block their course.
Njay’s loose bowels tightened like an angry snake. He began muttering prayers to Allah, rushed down the narrow stairs and, as the prayer reached its crescendo, pressed the green button.
• • •
Ross Homestead
Oakwood, Utah
Jason hung up and walked out on his deck. He had been on the phone all evening, trying to bring children, family and loved ones to the safety of the Homestead.
It was after 1:00 a.m. and the valley below sulked in a strange pool of darkness, speckled only by a few headlights weaving along the Interstate. The electricity had gone out in Salt Lake City that evening, and what had once been a beautiful view of twinkling lights had become a black crater. He could sense the hundreds of thousands of souls below tossing and turning in their sleep, praying the lights would come back on.
Jason had spoken with Jenna’s brothers. Both Tommy and Cameron were on the road, making a mad dash toward Salt Lake City and the Homestead. Jason had high hopes for Tommy—the run from Phoenix to Salt Lake would take him through four hundred miles of mountains and small towns without any foreseeable obstacles once they cleared the Phoenix metropolis.
Cameron and Anna were a different story. There was no telling if they had left L.A. soon enough, and there were still a number of population centers they would have to traverse, each one a formidable threat. The nuke off the coast was a wild card nobody had anticipated, and Jason couldn’t count the number of factors that might stop Cameron’s family from reaching Utah: civil disorder, traffic, government road blocks, gas shortages, medical quarantines…
Jason previously imagined that the Saudi attack and the stock market halts were worst-case scenarios. Now, with a nuclear detonation off the coast of California, he would have to completely redefine his definition of “worst-case scenario.” There were so many variables it made him dizzy.
Jason inventoried the cities between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City: San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Saint George, Cedar City and Provo/Orem. Six hundred miles, four big population centers and a passel of small towns, any one of whom could block the road. The Virgin River Canyon, between Mesquite and Saint George, would be the ideal place to stop the tide of fleeing Californians entering Utah by closing off the gorge. For about ten miles, the Virgin River ran with a cliff on the left and a cliff on the right and a hundred foot-wide interstate running down the middle. If the good people of Saint George panicked, they would barricade the gorge just as sure as the Pope wears a funny hat. Two eighteen-wheelers could plug up the interstate in ten minutes.
Jason prayed for Cameron and Anna, frustrated he couldn’t do more.
With the power out, it would be hard to call the members of the Homestead—his group of a couple of hundred preparedness-minded friends. There had been two warning emails to their group, one after the dirty bomb hit Saudi Arabia and another when the stock market first halted, but sending emails was probably unnecessary. With the California nuke, Jason expected to see them all by the next afternoon.
They had always joked about being “the Zombie Apocalypse Club,” even throwing a huge “Zombie Apocalypse” Halloween party a couple of years back at the Homestead, complete with army tents, a bio-hazard banner, fire barrels, zombie costumes and military transport to and from the door. But the average member of the Homestead, including Jason and his wife Jenna, didn’t actually believe that American civilization would collapse. They prepared anyway, more as an insurance policy than anything else. Plus, they were all friends, and any excuse to hang out was good enough for them. Shooting guns, baking bread and growing a community garden had always seemed like great fun.
Still, the group had been chosen with care. It took years of nominations and discussion to finally reach the ideal size of two hundred souls. Along the way, folks were encouraged to take professional firearms training, going together in big groups to Front Sight Firearms Training outside of Las Vegas.
Members of the Homestead got into hobbies like beekeeping, ham radio, gardening, canning, and shooting. With all the work they had put into it over the years, it wasn’t hard to attract doctors, nurses and Special Forces veterans like Jeff Kirkham, Chad Wade and Evan Haf
er.
Even this late at night, it was going to be difficult for Jason to get to sleep, but he knew tomorrow would be a ball-buster of a day. He took a final look off the balcony, contemplating the dark void where the Salt Lake Valley slept, wondering if he would ever see it sparkle again.
• • •
Kirkham Residence
Salt Lake City, Utah
“Jeff. I think we should go to my parents’ cabin.” Tara Kirkham planted her feet.
Jeff looked at her long and hard before speaking, thinking through the tactical situation, both on the ground and in his marriage.
“The cabin won’t hold us all and I can’t control the threat angles.”
“Threat angles?” she asked, cocking her head.
“Never mind. I’m saying that I don’t feel like I can do my job at your folks’ cabin.”
“We can all fit in the cabin. It’s small but we’ll make it work. It’s in the woods and that’s better than being near the city. We can pack up our emergency supplies and ride this out with my mom, dad and brothers,” Tara argued.
Jeff shook his head slowly, struggling to find a way around his wife’s reaction to the chaos they had been watching on TV. The power had gone off in the middle of a newscast, suddenly blacking out the television. The outage punctuated the bad news they had just been watching, almost like God alerting them to the chaos that knocked at their door.
“Sweetheart, I would love to protect your family, but that’s a luxury we can’t afford.”
“What are you talking about, Jeff Kirkham? You can’t seriously be thinking about leaving my parents in the woods alone?”
“The tactical situation at your parents’ cabin couldn’t be worse. Plus, the command structure almost guarantees we will not survive an attack.”
Tara looked at him and shook her head. “Sometimes, I just don’t know who you are. My family’s life is on the line and you’re talking about tactical whatever and command structures? I’m talking about my parents and brothers being in danger, Jeff.”