The older man shook his head. “No, you didn't. But now that you've seen them, if you ever point a gun in their direction again I'll shoot you myself.”
“Who is that?” the young man wanted to know.
“That's Thomas Paine driving the truck,” he answered him as he turned and ran to catch up to Taylor.
“Men, gather 'round!” he yelled.
Mike stayed in his truck. He didn't want to deal with anyone if he could avoid it.
Taylor turned and grabbed her range finder. “1,157 yards. Bad field of view.”
“Yes ma'am,” the man said. “And an even worse field of view they have of us.”
“We can't shoot from here,” she said to Mike.
“No ma'am. This was our best spot to be able to monitor them without their new sharpshooters killing us.”
“Tell me everything,” she demanded.
The other fighters were all whispering to themselves, wondering who this beautiful young woman was that their Commander was so gleefully taking orders from.
When the Commander was done updating Taylor on the status of the guard station, she returned to the truck and told Mike they would need to go over to the old airport.
The Commander ran to his truck, yelling at his men “Escort that little old truck to Hurricane Mesa, and guard them with your life!”
As they approached the old airport, the Commander honked and yelled at the sentries, and they swiftly removed their barricade. Mike and the others drove through without an issue and they gathered in a gravel overlook past the Rocco Inn.
Taylor again jumped out of the truck and headed to the edge with her range finder. “1,570 yards. Still a bad field of view, but better. No matter how we do this, there's a lot of innocent property and life between us and them.”
“Commander, who is this?” a man called out as Mike got out of his truck.
“Men, women. This is General and Mrs. Thomas Paine. They're in charge, and we will follow their orders.”
Taylor and Mike just looked at each other. If not so determined and focused on killing guardsmen, they would have laughed at the assumption that they were husband and wife.
Some gathered around saluted, and some went to whispering. No one knew what to think. The tall, bulky man with his long hair and beard was not what they had imagined. Especially not with a woman that looked like Taylor.
Mike paid no attention to anyone there. He looked through the spotting scope at their target. “Who here can give me the most information about the Guard station from this point of view?”
A young woman stepped forward “I believe that would be me, sir.”
“How old are you?” Taylor asked her.
“I'm seventeen ma'am.”
“This is my daughter,” The commander said of the young woman. “She's got an eidetic memory, and I put her over here because it doesn't seem their shooters can hit us over here.”
“So, what?” Taylor asked. “That means you never forget anything?”
“Something like that.”
“Talk,” Mike commanded, holding a map of the station Bishop Christensen had given him.
“Sir, our men who are out training right now to learn to shoot that far have this spot in mind,” she said, pointing to a tent nearly center of the park. “That's their galley, and all but a few of them are in there every meal time. This corner is the ideal place to hit. There's a moderate sized propane tank there. The problem is, from up here, there's tree cover slightly blocking that corner. But from the ground level, they've put up reinforced concrete barriers around it.”
“How long until they gather to eat?”
“We've got about forty-five minutes until they should have lunch. They're fairly consistent with that schedule, but two or three times per week they eat at different times, and we never know when that's going to happen.”
Mike gave her a nod and walked over to Taylor standing by the edge of the cliff to look through the spotting scope again.
“Listen up!” he yelled to the group standing around him. “We're going to go on the assumption that they're eating on schedule today. You will stay here with us,” he pointed to the young lady, “while the rest of you are going to get yourselves positioned within two to four blocks of the park.”
Mike turned to the commander as he continued. “I assume you've got radios to communicate during this attack?”
“The only thing that everyone has are CB radios. They try to monitor us, so we rotate channels regularly,” he replied.
“What did you use last?”
“Channel 28 sir,” his daughter replied.
“Okay, everyone tune to 13 then.”
“Sir, if I may.”
Mike nodded to the young lady.
“Two things sir. Most importantly, the reason we haven't already tried to rush them is their traps. They've blocked off all except the east side of 300 South for at least four blocks and have motion sensor-activated explosives set up all over the place. There's more of us than them, but we can't get in,” she said.
“Okay, what else?” Mike asked
“Well sir, there's a room in the motel over there that you can get a better shot from. You still can't see the side of the tent you need to, but I believe the view of the tent overall is better.”
“What's your name?”
“Amanda Matheson, sir.”
Mike stood silent for a moment to think, when Taylor spoke up. “Can you rig up one of these vehicles to drive unmanned. Tie up the steering wheel and put a block on the gas pedal maybe?” she asked the Commander.
“I see what you're getting at,” he replied. “I'm sure we can come up with something. Hell, I'll drive it through myself to set off those bombs and clear a path if I have to.”
“Good enough,” Mike interrupted, taking back over. “Miss Matheson here will be the voice you're listening for. Any order she gives stands. If she says go, we will immediately open fire on their galley tent. Hopefully I'll hit the propane tank and it will blow up. You will rush the station and leave no one there alive.” Mike hesitated for a moment. “For any of you who live through this, everything in that station you are to claim for your group and use to defend against any other Guard returning here. Load up and move out!”
“Taylor, grab your Barrett too. We're both going to unleash several magazines on that station at the same time,” he told her. “As soon as you hear my first shot, rain hell on that camp.”
They both followed Amanda to the motel room she mentioned and setup for the shot.
“Amanda, take this radio,” Taylor instructed her. “It's our two-way. I have to be able to monitor wind conditions. I'll radio to you what they are, you relay that to him.”
“Yes ma'am.”
As they were waiting to hear from Taylor, Amanda became star-struck, being alone with the man behind the voice she'd listened to for months.
“I can't believe I'm standing here with you sir. Can, can I ask you a question sir?”
“You just did,” Mike coldly responded.
“Sir, is Thomas Paine your real name?”
“Young lady, you need to stick with questions that pertain to you. And nothing about me fits that criteria.”
“Yes sir,” She waited a while before speaking up again. “Sir. My father and his friends say you have a few wives. I just want to tell you, if you ever want another -”
Taylor's voice came over the two-way radio. “Winds are from the northwest, eight miles per hour.”
“Sir, she said -”
“I heard her. Repeat her message back to her to let her know you got it.”
Amanda repeated the message.
“Tell her we will ask for an update when I'm about ready to fire.”
Amanda relayed the message, and heard Taylor confirm she got it.
It was again silent. Pleasant for Mike, but uncomfortable for Amanda.
“Sir, You are such an inspiration to everyone wanting freedom. And I would love the chance to become -”
>
“You need to stop,” Mike said as he turned to see young Amanda removing her shirt. “What the hell do you think you're doing? Keep your damn clothes on. We're here for a purpose. You're worth more than this.”
Amanda was too embarrassed to say anything else. They sat and silently waited until they could see if the guardsmen were gathering to eat or not. About fifteen minutes later, they saw some uniformed men making their way to the target tent.
“Ask for an updated wind status.”
Amanda did as told and repeated Taylor's status back to confirm that the winds were unchanged.
Mike waited a few more minutes before breaking the silence without even slightly moving from his rifle. “Amanda, don't ever again try to do that for someone you barely know. You have an infatuation with a voice and rumors, and nothing more than that. Save yourself and keep your dignity until you find someone you love.”
“I -,” she started to say before letting out a groan. “Yes sir,” she answered.
Amanda had never seen someone be killed before, but she was watching through the spotting scope in anticipation.
“Give the 'Go' order,” he told her.
Amanda slowly brought her CB to her mouth. “GO!” she screamed, in an almost panicked voice. Mike had to hesitate to recover from the surprise of how she gave the order. Then, he started firing. Taylor followed immediately. Their first ten round magazines were emptied within seconds. A series of small explosions could be seen along 200 South, letting them know the locals were moving in. He loaded up his second magazine and continued firing until it was empty. There was no motion from the tent they had just watched several men walk into. Mike loaded up one last magazine and proceeded to empty it. On his eighth shot, the tent exploded in a fiery ball. He stepped back and sat on the bed in the room.
Amanda was almost in tears holding her ears from the rapid, thirty loud booms in the enclosed space of the small room. Mike stood back up and guided her to the bed. “Someone will be back later. We have to go,” he told her, carefully mouthing his words knowing she probably couldn't hear him over the ringing in her ears. Mike grabbed his gun and gear and headed down to the truck where Taylor was waiting on him. Her ears were ringing as well, and their shoulders were really sore.
“Off to Cedar City,” he yelled, not realizing how loud he was talking. Taylor leaned over to hug him, barely able to hear anything herself. The two successful missions seemed to be bringing peace to her though. Justice for all the tragedy the Guard had brought to their life.
Cedar City's Guard station was the one that brought them the most anxiety. They both knew this was most likely where the guardsmen who killed Stacy had been sent from. As they approached, both found themselves fighting back tears.
The Guard station in Cedar City was in Cedar Middle School. A strategic location situated on a hill with excellent access to Walmart, where they were running most of the supply distribution to the area, and to the interstate.
The group of resistance fighters Phillip had gathered together were posting themselves over at Best Buy Motor Sales, a used car dealership that had shut down after the crash. It was inside the range of the Guard's sharpshooters, and the men all stayed mostly behind the building. They had only received one shot, but it had killed the one man they had there who was aiming at the school building.
Mike and Taylor pulled up and saw no one. Taylor started to open her door, and heard some voices coming from around the back of the building, so they drove around to see who it was. “Are you kidding me?” Taylor said as they first laid eyes upon the half drunk men sitting around with their rifles. “Mike, we can't do this. We're maybe 1,200 yards from their station. They're going to shoot you before you can even look through your scope.”
They decided to get out of the truck to see how the group of men would respond. One of them made the wisecrack, “Look, ZZ Top brought us a play toy!” which Taylor quickly reacted to by kicking the man between his legs. The other seven men surrounded them, checking out Taylor, and trying to assess whether Mike was a danger or not. When one of the men reached out to grab Taylor's ass, he found himself staring down the barrel of her 9mm. She resisted the urge to shoot him, but Mike wasn't so nice about it, and shot the man in the back of his leg, being careful to miss the bone.
“There's six of you left. That's five bullets for each of you that we have left before we reload. Anyone else want to be stupid?” Mike challenged them in a deep and pissed off voice.
“Holy shit, man. I know you. Dude, that's Thomas Paine!” one man said as he put his hands in the air and backed away.
“What the hell are you guys doing here?” Taylor asked the men who had all gathered into a group. The two they'd taken down were trying to make their way off to the side.
“We're the resistance. Except, we can't resist them. They took out our friend the other day from all the way over there. None of us can shoot half that far.”
“Then what are you doing here?” She repeated.
“We're keeping our word. We promised Phillip we'd be here. We're following your orders. But we can't actually do anything. We can't even sit out and point our guns at them without getting shot.”
“So you're going to sit around and drink? Useless bastards,” Taylor said as she started walking towards the truck.
“So far this morning we've destroyed the Guard Stations in Mesquite and Saint George. We came here to defeat this one too, but we can't do it without the local help that we had in both the other cities,” Mike said to the men. “Where is Phillip?”
“He's supposed to come with the next shift. We swap out at dinner time.”
“How many are there of you on rotation?”
“There's about forty total, but only twenty-three of us are regular.”
“How many Guard are up there?
“Last we were able to find out there were ten. That was with the arrival of those snipers they brought in.”
“Snipers?” Mike asked, emphasizing the “s” at the end.
“We're pretty sure there's two. Might be three.”
Mike sat and thought for a few minutes.
“Taylor, can you range it?” he asked.
“Sir, it's 1,189 yards from the front porch of the building.” a different man spoke up. “It's also 515 yards from the middle of Walmart's roof, 1,007 yards from the tank on the hill, and 934 from the roof of Home Depot.”
Mike and Taylor were both impressed. “Damn man, good job. Can we get to them from the north at all?”
“Not since they went and leveled everything. Tons of people's homes; they just bulldozed or burned everything down and piled the debris in the roads. It's about a mile and a half walk from Highway 56, and you're completely exposed the whole time.”
“Dammit! Son-of-a-bitch!” Mike was starting to get really angry. He wanted this station to fall more than all the others combined. “We're just going to have to wait until we can get a whole lot more people together who are willing to storm the place, knowing there's a good chance they'll get shot.”
“Ma'am,” the man who'd grabbed Taylor called out. “I'm sorry for what I did. But I have an idea.”
Mike spun around to the man holding the bullet wound in the back of his left thigh. “Your voice. You're that little bastard who tried to claim I was your friend. You're the one who got the whole thing started calling me 'General,' aren't you?”
“Yes sir, and sir, I broadcast from my truck. Usually from right here,” he said, pointing to a thirty-foot tall antenna tower attached to the building.
“Sir, I believe that if people know you're here right now, and you're ready to fight with them, people all across the area will come out shooting.”
Taylor rushed up against Mike. “Do it. We've got to give it a try.”
Mike nodded, and one of the man's friends pulled his truck over close to the antenna and helped him into the passenger seat while they set everything up. Within a few minutes, the wounded man was signaling for Mike to sit in the drivers
seat, holding out a microphone to him. “We're only three minutes from the top of the hour sir. If you get started now, some others may loop you on to their stations.”
Mike grabbed the microphone and began his first live broadcast.
“This is Thomas Paine. Early this morning, I teamed up with locals in Mesquite who were willing to give their lives for freedom to defeat the Guard station there. We were able to kill the guardsmen, and confiscate their supplies. I then moved on to Saint George, where I organized with the local resistance to do the same thing there. Two local Guard stations fell by lunch time.
“I now am coming to you from Cedar City, where we had hoped to do the same thing here. And with your help, we still can. We cannot engage the Guard here as easily. They're in a brick building with snipers positioned on the roof. Only an overwhelming arrival of men and women ready to fight, and possibly to die, can help us successfully take this station.
“Here is what we need to defeat the oppression and give you your freedom. Gather as many people together as possible along Highway 56, between I-15 and Cross Hollow Rd. Gather together in groups of twenty to fifty if you can, and begin walking towards the station through the rubble at exactly 3 pm. That's in one hour.
“We also need support from the south. Gather behind Home Depot so the buildings provide you with cover. We need people with good quality hunting rifles on the roof there, and at the tank on the hill behind Walmart.
“All of this information is assuming you have a fairly standard hunting rifle zeroed at one-hundred yards. From Home Depot, you will be 934 yards away. Their snipers can shoot you from there. To effectively return fire you'll have to aim roughly fifteen to twenty feet high. From the tank, you'll be a 1,000 yards away and need to aim between twenty to twenty-five feet high.
Crashed: The Death Of The Dollar Page 16