Not My Home

by Ed Hurst

  Arriving at a large storage rental facility, he wondered if he could get in this late. The storage unit was indeed ready, and the night man didn’t seem the least bit perturbed to let him in. That’s when he realized there were a half-dozen cars and trucks moving household goods into two units, right next to the one he was supposed to use. He went around to approach from the other end. There was a bit of tension as he had to wait a before one car was moved out of his way. The driver didn’t seem happy about it. Michael decided the man’s happiness wasn’t his problem, and drove into his unit. After a moment thinking, he simply closed the door behind him and locked it. There was ample room to stack the boxes on one wall. By the time he was finished, it was 2 AM, and the neighbors were still moving stuff around with occasional cursing. That was fine with him. He climbed into the camper and went to bed, fully dressed.

  He was awakened by the sound of the door sliding up. Prepared for a chewing out by the attendant, he was surprised to see Terrell. He glanced at his watch – 8 AM. “Shouldn’t you be at work right now?” he asked the editor.

  “I was on standby at the office last night for a couple of pending stories, which I was told had to be ready for this morning. The events concerned didn’t take place, and I’m officially having breakfast.” The man never looked tired. Terrell began opening a box. He pulled out a rather simple, yet graceful pair of wings. He held them a few inches apart, indicating the wing-span was well beyond the reach of his arms. The way he held them indicated they weighed almost nothing. He put them down and pulled out a fuselage, in two halves. He held the halves together, and smiled at the apparent capacity. “I’ll test the load capacity Saturday.”

  Michael had been watching, slumped against the back wall of his camper. “I don’t suppose you brought that breakfast with you, by the way?”

  “Sorry.” Terrell dismissed the question, but then turned. “You broke yet?”

  “Getting close. You’ve made me afraid to touch an ATM.”

  “With good reason.” He placed the parts back into the open box, without bothering to repack neatly or close the box. “Two guys showed up that night you left the office and flashed badges. Since people working for ‘The Families’ can be just about anything they have to be, I didn’t bother checking what sort of badges.” He crossed his left arm over his stomach, gripped the right elbow, and held his chin loosely in the right hand. “They were thorough. After thanking me for the folder of your notes, they disappeared into your office. An hour later, they came back out and demanded more. I invited them to search the entire building, if they wished, and held up that fat ring of keys I have to keep. Must have been convincing; they went away.” His right hand swung out, palm up to emphasize the point.

  “Obviously that was not all,” Michael said.

  “Obviously. They had taken your laptop and the hard drive from the desktop system. The next morning, they woke me up at home. In essence, they told me I couldn’t discuss this with anyone. Then they mentioned some items from my Marine service to emphasize they knew I knew what could happen. Then they told me to notify them the instant I hear of, or from, you again.”

  “And you rigged a recording to call me as soon as my phone registered in the cell network,” Michael stated, not quite a question.

  “More or less. Don’t ask how. Best I can tell, they are still watching me at least part of the time, relying on mostly passive methods – phones, Internet, probably some spotters here and there. They own the system, so they don’t need to resort to melodramatic tailing methods.”

  “Ah, that chip you found,” Michael pushed away from his truck. With his arms crossed in front of him, he walked over to stand near the stack of boxes.

  Terrell dropped his hands to his sides, putting them in his pants pockets, and turned slowly to keep his face towards Michael. “I got a chance to field test that hand scanner on your car. It told me there were two chips. I extrapolated from there your apartment was similarly bugged, and of course your accounts are tagged – they’re bankers.” Reaching into a jacket pocket, he produced a blue colored plastic card. “Wal-Mart gift card. I got it before all this started, and kept it for emergencies. This qualifies as an emergency. It should hold you until I’m ready for the next step.”

  Michael, still facing the wall, reached out and took the card. He studied it a moment, looking up in time to see Terrell’s back, hastily walking to his car outside.

  Chapter 29

  Without any better plan, Michael left his truck in the storage facility. He sometimes slipped in and out when traffic was heavy, or asked to ride out the gate with folks leaving. If the attendants knew he was sleeping inside, they said nothing about it. Wal-Mart was just a mile away, so it wasn’t too bad. The card was plenty to live on, and he took advantage of the time and strong signal for his laptop. On the Flagstand site, he and Terrell stayed in touch the four days until Saturday.

  For the time being, Terrell was discussing targeting an NSA listening post, and favored the one in Yakima, Washington. He had gone to desert training there with a Marine artillery unit early in his career, and knew the terrain quite well. There were several places to enter the perimeter of the Yakima Training Area with a vehicle, and at least two good places left a short drive to an excellent launch area on the ridge just north of the NSA site.

  Terrell had reasoned there were three classes of target desirable for the purpose. That purpose was to extend what Michael and Burk had done, but with a direct attack on the government, not just one of its nefarious activities. So hitting the NSA listening post, the first class of target, while not a crippling blow, was rather low risk and would serve the purpose. The second, killing one or more critical figures in the government, especially people responsible for the unprecedented level of tyranny, was more risky, and also wouldn’t stop the process. However, it would bring a new level of fear to the tyrannous elite. Both of these kinds of attack would spawn more of the copycat stuff in evidence following the adventure with the SWAT Team.

  However, the third and ideal attack would be the riskiest of all: Killing more of the Shadow Government and family. Terrell had made it clear just whom he knew them to be. There were a select few steering the whole thing. In one exchange online, Michael had a lot of questions about this, so they used an encrypted chat board.

  M: I keep hearing this is all some kind of Zionist conspiracy.

  T: That’s one of several covers for the real conspiracy. This, for example, is what keeps the mainstream evangelical and fundamentalist Christians on board. It’s so effective, a great many of the Shadow folks affect a Jewish identity. A tiny few of those making all the noise about Jews are actually trying to keep that lie alive; the rest are just useful idiots.

  M: I’m confused about the neo-cons. Are they part of the Zionist-Dispensationalist axis?

  T: Most of the neo-cons are Christian or Jewish, by religious affiliation, but I can’t see any real religious practice in the central figures. Keep in mind, it’s just politics with another face. The vast majority of the partisans are dupes, and don’t really see the big picture. Neo-cons and Zionists are pretty much the same bunch, but the difference is which audience they pander to at the time. Precious few are permitted to see how strong their ties are to some of our liberals, atheists and certain cooperative Muslim governments.

  M: Yet so much of it seems based in Israel, and I keep seeing the Rothschilds name, or their associates.

  T: Israel is most certainly NOT our friend. BTW, it was the Rothschilds agents who first pushed through the forfeiture laws in the so-called Drug War. They wasted no time in getting their first bag, a guy named Scott here in CA. They wanted to confiscate his immense property, so trumped up some false charges about marijuana, got a bogus warrant, and conducted an armed raid. They provoked him to show himself armed, then blew him away. No one was prosecuted because the Shadow crew made sure to hush it up. They have continued using that MO since then to deal with problem people or simply seize property.

 
M: So what’s the big picture? What can you tell me?

  T: Distraction. If a significant number of sheeple can be riled up about Israel on either side of the question, it makes Israel valuable. When people lose interest, Israel will probably be thrown under the bus. Same goes for just about every major political debate: abortion, gay marriage, welfare, etc.

  M: I guess the Latino migration driving wages down, the wasted resources on pointless foreign wars and taxation, the wholesale conscription-through-poverty and mutilation or death of an entire generation, the harsh crack-down on liberties... it all aims to keep us busy while bringing us down so we can’t resist.

  T: That’s about it. There’s nothing to say the Zionists have to succeed, but they probably will up to a point. Yet the core issue is robbing the whole world, keeping everyone away from the real issues so they can enslave us all slowly – that is, those of us allowed to live. We won’t stop them. It’s like you said: We just want to raise the price.

  Michael was beginning to have doubts.

  Chapter 30

  The test flight went well. The cheap gliders could carry the five kilograms just fine, even without steering ailerons on the wings. Also, with the Arduino modules modified to compute flight in 3D, the craft could be programmed to climb to a specific altitude, then dive into any chosen location in the entire world, if the wind would carry them, and as long as the battery held a charge. Terrell explained, “Most every modern structure of any significance, including the NSA listening posts, can be pinned down precisely by coordinates, thanks to Google Earth.”

  The idea of destroying a bunch of equipment wasn’t too bad. Michael was just a bit worried about getting explosives powerful enough to be useful without raising attention. Could even a former Marine pull that off? It was one thing getting pre-made weapons from an arms dealer, but Terrell was talking something more powerful, which could be fitted to the curves of the aircraft bodies.

  Terrell asked Michael to spend one more week hiding in the storage center while he arranged for the explosives. Then he said something which made Michael very nervous.

  “Once I take delivery, you can be sure we’ll have to move very fast. There’s no way to get this stuff without drawing attention. The supply chain is too compromised with double agents. The trick is to pick it up immediately, and act instantly, before any response can be mobilized. You won’t be with me for the final event. I’m pretty sure I can get out of most jams, but I can’t take responsibility for you. Just be ready for anything, and don’t ask too many questions.” Then he said something which showed a side Michael had never seen before. “Please, trust me.”

  They stayed up very late prepping the aircraft for quick final assembly. All the electronics were installed, batteries tested and installed, and some fitting of parts. Then it was all packed back into the boxes. Terrell then had Michael lay down in the floor of the back seat of his car so he could take Michael to his house. It was a much better ride than some of his rail adventures, but still not the best. Terrell pulled inside the garage, turned and whispered to stay put just a little longer.

  Coming back, he announced he found no bugs, and let Michael out. The ostensible purpose was to take a regular bath instead of the washpan bathing Michael had been doing in the storage unit. Terrell showed Michael what sort of home a knowledgeable paranoid kept. The entire place had a fine mesh Faraday Cage built into the wallpaper, and linked to a similar mesh in the shutters, doors, etc. Closed up tight against a good storm, the house was also protected from EMP weapons and some forms of snooping. Terrell mentioned it had been shielded this way since September. He showed Michael his only computer, a laptop running OpenBSD – famous for being un-crackable. He invited Michael to explore the system a bit while offline. The file structure was similar to his own Linux laptop, so he knew his way around. Michael wondered if Terrell’s urging to look it over fully was some kind of effort to show there was nothing to hide. Indeed, the whole house was rather sparse, clearly without a woman’s touch for many years.

  In the wee hours of Sunday morning, the visit was terminated, and Michael was brought back by the same method as he left. So began another week in the storage facility. The boredom was broken only by extended time on the Net. There were tons of real flaky conspiracy bozos. Most of them had a few real facts, but they mixed it with all manner of paranoid junk. With the high variation in literacy, it was all the more difficult to sift out the garbage from the facts. One thing seemed rather clear from the mass of jabbering: There was a high likelihood the government would either manufacture another false flag incident like 9-11 – only worse – or would provoke military action from someone like North Korea, or any number of other foreign policy whipping boys.

  Since it was known some portion of the troops would most likely side with the population against the government elite, they had to be kept out of the US, and possibly whittled down by casualties in a senseless quagmire. Once the bulk of troops were absorbed in tasks or disabilities, there would be only police forces. Joining an already huge collection of armed federal officers – even the EPA had guns – the state and local agencies would be forcibly federalized. The police certification process in every state was loaded with subtle mind-conditioning, and by now most state and local policemen were ineluctably ready to crush any and all citizen resistance to even the most oppressive government demands. Those officers not quite fully adapted to the task were tagged as such. The plans called for compromising them by various leverages, to include threats to family and property, bogus charges filed away for possible future use, and limitations in duty assignment to prevent them getting in the way when the big even went down.

  When that day came, the police would round up all those who dared resist, lock them away in camps staffed by the few trusted units of the military, resulting in a nightmare world Stalin would have admired. Seeing this soothed his conscience for one last try at resistance.

  Chapter 31

  Michael was jolted awake Thursday morning by an urgent knocking on the side of his camper. Peeking out, he saw it was just about dawn through the open garage door. Terrell was feverishly loading the boxes into the back of a rental truck. He was wearing a brownish version of military woodland camouflage pants, and a plain brown hunting jacket. The back of the truck was a low-slung moving van box, about 12 feet long. Michael hurried to get dressed and join the fun. Terrell shooed him away. “Get your truck ready to roll. It’s going to be towed behind the moving rig.”

  Sure enough, there was a dolly hitched to the back of the mover. By the time Michael was ready to start the little pickup, Terrell had already pulled forward a bit and was impatiently waiting to guide him up on the dolly. First, he demanded Michael don a pair of snug fitting jersey gloves, with a warning not to remove them for any reason until he was driving his pickup again. It took only a couple of minutes to lock down the front of the pickup and hustle to the cab of the moving van. Terrell directed Michael to drive while he jumped in the passenger seat, and then produced a map. As soon as they stopped for the first traffic light outside the storage facility, Terrell unbuckled his seat belt and crawled through the opening between the cab and the van box. Michael kept driving, trying to glance back when he could through the rear view mirror to see what was going on.

  “Take it nice and easy for awhile!” Terrell ordered. The glances Michael managed showed Terrell opening a wooden case, lined with lots of padding. Inside were clear plastic bags filled with what appeared red-orange putty. Orange? He dared not ask out loud if this was Semtex, but decided it was. No wonder Terrell made it sound so risky!

  They managed to escape most of the morning drive-time traffic as they headed out toward Barstow. The map showed them taking I-15 to Las Vegas, with a spot circled somewhere on the north side of the Mojave. Once they settled into the steady rural highway traffic, Michael was able to get a better look into the back of the van. There were two large wooden cases of the orange putty. As Terrell carefully packed some into each model, connect
ed some wires, and closed the fuselages, he stacked them back in the boxes. All that was left was to mount the wings and launch them. Michael also spotted a large military style backpack and frame in one corner.

  As Terrell was finishing one model, Michael asked, “Why Vegas? I thought the target was in Washington.”

  Terrell’s natural voice was a booming baritone. While he could easily tone it down without transition all the way to a whisper, this was not the moment for that. Speaking easily, yet blasting clearly and sharply over the road noise, “Change of plans. The Bilderbergers will be in Vegas.”

  Michael’s soft tenor required yelling almost. “I thought they were meeting up north this summer.”

  “This is a preliminary, something never published. In fact, it’s so hush-hush, they pay a deposit and reserve a chunk of several major hotels around the world for the same time frame. Then, at the last minute they show up at one or the other. They can afford to take the loss, easily.” He named one of the tall, towering hotels in Vegas as the place they actually showed up last night, mostly members of the Ghost Families.

  Evil people, indeed, he thought. Still, Michael was feeling that sense of conviction this was not right. He wondered if there was any way he could back out, but decided it was too late, unless God intervened directly. That might mean the plan failing altogether, so Michael prayed silently to know how to pray.

  Terrell eventually finished, lining the boxes neatly across the tail of the truck. He shoved the wooden crates to the front, making sure the plastic bags were all stuffed back in them. The bags still had some orange residue in them. Clambering back through and into the passenger seat, Michael wondered how such a tall man, not exactly skinny, could move so gracefully in these tight quarters. Terrell pulled a handful of granola bars from somewhere, and two bottles of water. Michael realized he was starving. They ate in silence for a few minutes before Terrell pointed to an exit, saying, “Take that.”