The Conspiracy of American Democracy - A Father's Revenge

by Robert Strickland

  He twirled the old Benchmade knife about his hands so fast that if I hadn’t known it was a knife, I would not have been able to tell what it was. Motioning at his hand I mentioned, “I see you are a Benchmade man. Thanks for helping us.” I continued to watch him play with the knife.

  He stopped twirling the knife, looked at me and said, “What’s yours General Hornady? Your specialty that is.”

  I sat staring down at the now, still knife in his hand. After thirty seconds or so, I responded. “I guess its survival. I do whatever it takes to survive. If I need a gun, I use a gun. If I need a knife, I use a knife. If I need to choke the poor bastard out, I choke him out. I am quick on my feet and even quicker to think. I guess my will to survive has always been stronger than those I have fought.”

  “And, tomorrow night?” he asked as he began twirling his knife again.

  “Tomorrow night, I will do whatever I have to do to kill Alexei Vadim. He held my daughters prisoner for years. Tomorrow night he pays.”

  “So it is about revenge is it?” he asked as he cut his eyes upward at me.

  “That’s part of it” I stated.

  “General, don’t lie to yourself, revenge is feeding you right now. You’re consumed. You can’t sleep and you’re on the verge of rage. You may just get yourself killed tomorrow night if you aren’t careful.”

  “I know. At some point my luck will run out. But not tomorrow night. God would not do that to me. He’s using me right now, I can feel it,” I said.

  “God left me long ago. Or, maybe I left him. Either way, we aren’t together anymore,” he clearly informed me.

  Tiring of the conversation, I stood to walk away and gave him a parting shot. “I will not die tomorrow night General Alexander. God would not do that to me. He still owes me a just punishment for all of the people I have killed. But tomorrow night, I can assure you that I will be His instrument. Tomorrow night, I will rid the world of a piece of evil that lurks in our country.” With that, I walked back to my bedroll and lay down.

  Several hours later, we were all up and packing our bags for the short journey to the school in Brattleboro. As the sun rose, we began our march. Thirty five hundred fifty marching men was not only an impressive sight, it was a loud venture. I worried that the Socialists would hear us coming. We arrived at the rendezvous point just after lunch. As some soldiers set up camp, others began preparing lunch. There was very little discussion among the large group.

  The campsite was large and sat within a big cluster of oak trees. You could still see the trampled ground from General Alexander and his men just days before. I looked up at the blue sky and said to myself, “Not a cloud in the sky.” I closed my eyes and thought of Hannah. I could see her in my mind’s eye. I saw her smile, her hair, and her beautiful eyes. I could almost smell her presence. Damn I miss her, I thought to myself. With an exasperated sigh I opened my eyes.

  Coming back to reality, I saw Lily and Adam working on a small tent they were going to share. I still was not quite sure how I felt about it all, but I was dealing with it. When I looked around at the extremely large group of men, all I really wanted to do was find some alone time. I missed Hannah tremendously.

  I found a secluded tree and sat down. As I leaned my head against the tree and closed my eyes, I heard footsteps approaching. I opened my eyes and saw Ben walking toward me looking a little anxious. “Tonight’s the night huh, General?”

  “It would appear so Ben,” I said looking up at him. I squinted from the sun shining in my eyes from behind his silhouette. “Son, you’ve got to promise me you will keep yourself safe out there. Do as we tell you and you should be fine. But it is war. Some of us are going to die. I need you for the next battle,” I replied.

  “I know that General. I just want you to know that I am ready”

  I sighed and then smiled, remembering what it was like to be ready for battle. The young were always full of excitement. “We are all ready to fight, Ben.”

  “To fight?” he questioned. “Oh no Sir, I am ready to die if I need to!” And with that, he turned and walked off leaving me to my thoughts.

  “Damn kid,” I muttered to myself watching him while he walked away.

  I attempted to get lost in thought once again, but saw Adam and Lily walking up. Damn, they looked happy. “Mind if we join you Dad?” Lily asked as she plopped down on the ground in front of me. Adam sat down beside her. They were each holding a sandwich and a bottle of water.

  “I do not mind at all, darling. Whatcha eating?” I asked.

  “The Iowa boys have cases of peanut butter they acquired. They said they robbed a supply convoy last week to get the bread and water,” Adam told me, between bites of his peanut butter sandwich.

  Lily reached out to hand a sandwich to me. I reached forward, grabbed it, and took a large bite out of it. I nodded my head as I spoke, “Damn fine meal Lily.”

  Laughing she replied, “Glad you like it Dad. What are you thinking about?” Before I could answer she continued, “Missing Mom?”

  “You always were good at knowing my thoughts. Keep a watch on this one Adam, she’ll know your every thought,” In the distance, I could see Generals Davies, Thomas, and Alexander slowly walking toward me. They appeared to be in a deep conversation as they walked. I watched them intently as Adam and Lily carried on a quiet conversation.

  “General Hornady, it would appear that all of our soldiers are more than ready to fight. I do believe that this is our time Sir,” General Davies said, as he clicked his heels together and stood erect in front of me.

  “I believe that you are right General Davies. Alexander, what do you think?” I asked.

  “I believe that when the scouts arrive, we have one more briefing, and then we put the wheels in motion. I think we can start at the edge of nightfall and by midnight we can be celebrating our victory. This is the one battle we’ve all been waiting for,” he finished.

  General Thomas stood with his pipe in his mouth while the smoke swirled above his head and said nothing. “Grant, do you have anything to say?” I asked.

  Taking the pipe from his mouth, he made direct eye contact with me and said with a smile and solemnness, “I miss Sally Anne.”

  Everyone chuckled and I replied, “I know the feeling Grant. I’m kind of longing for Hannah myself. About that time Ben came running up out of breath.

  “The scouts are here, General!” he spoke between heaves of air.

  We all started walking toward the front of the campsite where two scouts waited outside a large tent. General Alexander’s men had set up a large tent as the Command Headquarters. We walked inside the tent and noticed there was a nice table lying in the middle of the grassy floor. There were four equally cut oak logs sitting on the ground in a square and an old house door had been lain flat on them to make the table. It was very effective.

  One of General Alexander’s men walked into the tent with an old highway sign that was green on the front with the word EXIT and an arrow on it. He flipped it over so that the silver back of the sign was face up and laid it on top of the table. He handed a couple of Sharpie permanent markers to the scout. He then turned and walked out of the tent.

  “Where the hell did you get Sharpies?” I asked, picking up one to look at it.

  “We’re not only in the business of war, we are also in the business of acquisitions,” General Alexander said. He took the Sharpie from me and handed it to the scout.

  As Generals Davies, Thomas, Alexander, and I looked on, the scout began drawing a very detailed map of the middle school where the Russians and socialists were staying. Adam and Lily walked in as did Ben. I looked over at Ben, Adam smiled saying, “It’s okay General. He’s with me.”

  With the map drawn, the scout began detailing in words what he had drawn. “As you can see the school is pretty much a square building. They have sentries posted at each of the four corners. The sentries are in teams of three. There’s a large courtyard in the middle of the school so that all four
sides of the school protect it. The Bear, a weird-looking guy with glasses and an eye patch, and a few other men, we assumed were Generals, were all camped out in that courtyard.”

  “Stop right there!” I shouted. “Describe the guy with the eye patch.”

  “Well General, he was a little old fat man. He stood maybe five-feet-four inches, had a long black and gray beard down to the middle of his chest. He wore wire-rimmed glasses over the eye patch and the patch was on his left eye. He had really long black and gray hair that was in a ponytail halfway down his back. He was overweight, maybe two hundred fifty pounds,” he said.

  “That’s him!” I replied energetically. “That’s Emmet Forsyth.”

  “It sure sounds like him from what I have heard,” General Thomas replied.

  General Alexander looked at us and frowned, cleared his throat, and said, “Please continue,” looking at the scout.

  “Yes Sir. They have four drones and three tanks parked on the south side. They have four copters parked on the north side. There are a large number of tents around the school and we estimated at least five thousand men out and about the school. They kept going in and out of the front door carrying large boxes that appeared to be ammunition. I think they made the front of the school their armory. There are five, old army jeeps parked in front of the school. They had what looked like eight, old D-1 howitzer field guns in back of the school and aimed toward the front of the school.

  A howitzer is a type of artillery piece characterized by a relatively short barrel and the use of comparatively small propellant charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories, with a steep angle of descent. Until about the end of the Second World War, such weapons were characterized by a barrel length fifteen to twenty five times the caliber of the gun. During World War II, the military doctrine of Soviet deep battle called for the extensive use of heavy artillery to hold the formal line of front. Soviet doctrine was remarkably different from the German doctrine of Blitzkrieg, and called for a far more extensive use of artillery. As a result, howitzers saw most of the action on Eastern front, and most of the best howitzers of the WWII period were Soviet-made, as other allies mostly relied on different types of assault weapons for the battle. Most of the howitzers produced by the USSR at the time were not self-propelled, as the country did not have resources to spare for the construction of the engines for the self-propelled variants. Notable examples of Soviet howitzers included the M-10, M-30 and D-1.24

  The scout continued in his assessment. “All of the soldiers were walking around with AR-15 rifles or AK-47’s. The old paved parking lot for the school is on the north side of the building and it appears they have a lot of supplies stored in large metal containers there. They look like old Conex containers. I think they have a lot of rations, food, medical supplies and stuff like that in there. That’s about all I have.”

  Conex containers were the abbreviated pronunciation for intermodal containers. The container was a standardized reusable steel box used for the safe, efficient and secure storage and movement of materials and products within a global containerized intermodal freight transport system. “Intermodal” indicated that the container could be moved from one mode of transport to another (from ship, to rail, to truck) without unloading and reloading the contents of the container. A typical container has doors fitted at one end, and is constructed of corrugated weathering steel. Containers were originally eight feet wide by eight feet high, and either a nominal twenty feet or forty feet long. They could be stacked up to seven units high. At each of the eight corners are castings with openings for twist lock fasteners. The standard height was usually eight feet six inches.25

  General Alexander began speaking, “Go back to the school and wait for us. We will be there just before the sun sets. You’ll know when we are there.” The scout left the tent.

  We all stared at the old street sign turned into a map. It was very quiet. No one spoke, but everyone wanted to speak.

  Ben looked at me and surprisingly, he spoke first. “General, what do you want us to do?”

  Chapter 19

  The Beginning of the End

  Return to Table of Contents

  “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

  —Winston Churchill

  General Alexander stepped forward and began speaking. “It looks like they’ve got a damn fortress built up around that school.”

  “Yes it does,” I said looking at the map quizzically.

  General Alexander began, “As we discussed yesterday, I think we should disable the drones and battle copters first. Unfortunately, now we have to re-adjust our initial plans because they now have them sitting on opposite sides of the building. We will coordinate that with one-third of our men, a battalion, and they will come in here from the south of the school” he said, pointing at the map of the school that the scout had just finished. “We will disable the drones and the tanks on the south side. If we hit them fast enough, we can disable the heavy equipment on the south side before the Russians engage them in battle. At the same time we hit the south side, I want the second battalion to hit the north side and disable the battle copters. Those two battalions hitting simultaneously will draw the rest out of the soldiers out of their tents and out of the school. Once that happens, our third battalion will come in from the west on the back side of the school here,” he stated while thumping the map with his finger. “We will absolutely have to take out their howitzers immediately to protect our soldiers on the east side. If we do this right, we will have them on their heels pretty good at this point. Since we won’t have another battalion in reserve like we originally planned, we will have to assemble our snipers here at the front of the school on the east side by this cluster of trees,” he said pointing at the front of the school.

  Adam spoke up at this point, “How long should we plan on the initial strike taking General?”

  “If we do it right, less than five minutes for the initial strike. The hand to hand and duration of the battle will depend on who is better prepared for the fight,” he replied. “The fighting will start,” looking at Ben and pointing at him, “when our snipers begin firing and picking off soldiers. It is imperative that you start taking out the soldiers near the tanks, drones and the copters. I cannot stress this enough Ben. We need to take out as many as possible to assist our movements. Once they start gearing up the drones and copters you will need to shift from soldiers to taking out the drones and copters.”

  “We’ve got it Sir!” Ben replied.

  “You will start firing at exactly 2000 hours, not a minute before and not a minute after, do you understand?”

  “Yes Sir!” Ben stated with conviction.

  Raising his left arm and looking at an old Tag Hauer watch that rested on his wrist, General Alexander continued, “Everyone set your watches. It is now approximately fifteen fifty-seven hours on my mark, mark.” Everyone set their watches and we all looked around at each other waiting for everyone to finish.

  “Well, all that’s left is to decide who leads the battalions?” I inquired.

  General Alexander began, “Generals Thomas and Davies will lead the second battalion. I will lead the first. General Hornady and Major Adam Jones will lead the third battalion. And this young man, Ben,” he said, resting his hand on Ben’s left shoulder, “as we discussed a while ago, will lead the snipers. We will begin the assault at twenty hundred hours. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, will be in place at nineteen fifty hours. For this battle, we need to leave the tank and copter you acquired here at the campsite. Silence is our friend this time, and those things make way too much noise. Are there any questions?”

  No one said a word. We all looked around at each other and still, no one saying a word.

  “Alright, I will separate my men into battalions and send them to you. You’ll each be responsible for getting your battalion from here to there in time for the assa
ult. I’ll see you all on the other side,” General Alexander concluded.

  As everyone left the tent I stayed behind along with Generals Davies and Thomas. Once the tent had cleared of personnel, I began “I’m glad you’re with us General Alexander. Does anyone have any thoughts they did not want to share with the group?”

  “I must say, if I do not make it out of this soiree alive, I want all of you to know that it has been an absolute honor to be with you these last few weeks. And I do mean an honor as well as a privilege” General Davies wholeheartedly told all of us.

  General Thomas stood motionless while the smoke from his pipe swirled around his head. “Let’s get this show on the road, I need to get back to Sally Ann,” he commanded, then turned and left the tent followed by General Davies.