Liberty's Hammer

by Reed Hill

  Brodie brushed aside memory, and found cover behind his open door, sneaking a look over the top. He saw Finnegan exit the cab of his truck and fire over his window, as Frank Martin swung out his door next to Brodie, making a nice barrier. Martin rose up with the twelve-gauge at his shoulder and let loose of two quick shots from the pump shotgun, toward the men to the left of the Mohawk. Finnegan ducked down for cover, and Brodie saw Mac Harris' head pop up and take aim but not fire. Brodie wondered if they had clear shots because of their angle to the pumps.

  One of the criminals ran from the fight, and the other two pulled and fired, before moving to the open doors of the nearby truck. One of the foes to right of the leader drew and fired, while another turned and scrambled into the truck bed, his feet slipping on the chrome bumper. Brodie ducked down

  From his right Brodie heard a voice he didn't recognize, "Oh crap, I'm hit. I'm hit!" Brodie could see feet of Deputy Martinez moving around where he lay, but most of his body was blocked by the two trucks, and he didn't think the voice was his. The Jessups exited the rear cab of Sheriff Johnson's truck and provided him cover fire as he sought the relative safety of his car door.

  There were a few loud cracks of gunfire from the opposition, and the pings of bullets hitting metal. Brodie spied over the top of his door and saw several ruffians being pulled into the truck bed or inside the cab of the closest two of the four vehicles, and they were all shouting in Spanish. Brodie steadied his aim on the car door targeting the head and shoulders of one of the guys in the truck bed and fired.

  Brodie heard the sound of breaking glass and the bending sound of ricochet. The windshield of the Sheriff's truck exploded, spraying glass all over Brodie's truck, and he heard Kirk Thompson, "Oh damn!" Brodie swung around to see Thompson with his hand pressed to his neck and blood running down his arm and on his shoulder.

  Within moments, the Mexicans were fishtailing off the gravel and onto the pavement. Mark Simmons trained his sights on the nearest of the marauders' trucks and let loose a shot. There were a few more sparse shots from the Jessup brothers as the gang sped away, but after a moment everyone had ceased firing.

  Brodie almost couldn't hear over the racing beat of his pulse. He stood and looked around. As the Mohawk thug raised his gun to his shoulder and fired a shot as the gang started to pull away. The Mohawk stood, holding his gun aloft, and shouting something as they disappeared into the heat waves of the horizon. Brodie turned to Calderon, "What was that he said?"

  "Que Viva la raza." Calderon said softly. "Long live the race."

  *****

  Governor's Residence

  Austin, Texas - July 5th, 2017 - 10:05 a.m.

  Chase leaned back in his chair and looked like he was about to start praying given how he held his hands to his lips. Doyle had come in for the military briefing while Lopez and Callie finished up the speech in the hearth room. They had spent a few minutes confirming the timeline of known events, and it made Doyle a bit uneasy hearing the clinical review of the catastrophic events of the past eight hours. The military men were professionals but Doyle couldn't shake the feeling that their tone was indifferent.

  General Stein broke in on the phone, "The bottom line Governor is that we don't have the manpower and hardware to mount a successful counter-strike at this time. There would likely be a relatively high cost in casualties and the outcome would not be all that favorable. We're confident that we could keep them busy, but in all probability, we would not be able to regain control of the city centers."

  "Yes," the Governor lowered his hands, "you have made that clear, General."

  "Sir," Dinger broke in, "perhaps we have a sufficient force for a response that is less ambitious. Taking back the downtown areas with the force projection capability he have right now, would be like making Pickett's charge at Gettysburg," Dinger referenced the infamous and tragically failed assault on the Union center at Gettysburg that was the decisive defeat which ended the three-day battle and Robert E. Lee's campaign in Pennsylvania.

  "You could deploy at noon with our current forces and engage in a force-limited set of strategies such as urban special warfare and small unit guerilla tactics," Doyle said.

  Chase's head snapped over to Doyle, who stood motionless. The Governor then glanced to Ranger boss Ted White, who just shrugged and turned up his hands.

  "I don't know who said that on your end, Governor," Stein said slowly in his smooth Tennessee tone, "but that is correct. We have learned a lot about city fighting in the last decade or so, and the urban warfare strategies and tactics are better established in today's military than ever before." Stein said.

  Doyle could go on about guerilla warfare combat operations. It had been driven into his brain during his three years as an Army grunt. He had joined for the college tuition program and wound up learning more about surviving and winning in politics as a soldier than he did in college or in his master's in political science program from UT. Doyle thought that if they wanted to do something immediate, they should be looking at ambush, raid and sniper scenarios in the urban, small force environment they were facing. In his opinion, the best option as of now was waiting and responding with greater force and assets. If it was truly a matter of twenty-four hours and we could have three times the numbers and assets, then they should wait the twenty-four hours and spend the extra time on strategy and detailing the TTP – tactics, techniques and procedures – for the operation.

  "My counsel would be to wait and assemble the full balance of the 1st, 2nd and 8th Regiments," Stein said. "Company commanders have all proceeded to their assembly points and battalion commanders could really benefit from the extra planning time. Selfishly, it could really help me and the Regimental command staff to work up battle scenarios."

  "I would concur, Governor," Dinger said. "Our tactical options, right now, would be considered non-optimal in my opinion."

  "We would be negligent not bring you another option too, Governor," Stein said. "You could always contact the President and ask for federal assistance," General Stein said.

  "I don't think so," Chase said, rubbing his five o clock shadow with his large hand. "Right now, I think we need to bolster the forces and prepare for a larger action. Let's plan to talk after my speech, say twelve-thirty. I'll be in the car on the way back, but you can update me."

  "Yes, Governor," Stein said, "I think that's the right call, sir."

  "Okay, let's get it moving," Chase said. "Talk to you at twelve-thirty." He pressed the speaker button on the desk phone, ending the call, and looked at Doyle. "How much time do I have before we need to leave?"

  "Doyle glanced at his old-school watch, and said, "We'll need to leave in about twenty minutes."

  "Good, I'm going to go take a quick shower and get a change of clothes," Chase said. "I haven't shaved since Sunday morning, I think," he shook his head a bit as he shuffled off toward the stairs that led to the main residence on the second floor.

  Doyle worked his way over to Callie Morgan as he tried to get a better view of the laptop remove. He had enlisted Callie's help when Lopez had told him an hour before that the governor requested a short speech, and now they were seated next to Lopez in the hearth room, huddled around the screen at one of the small side tables.

  "How much time do we have?" Lopez asked.

  "We need to give him a chance to look at the draft. He's pretty tired I think," Callie said.

  "He really needs to get comfortable with it and have the chance to look it over, but he went upstairs to shave and get a fresh shirt." Doyle said.

  "Well, he'll need to look it over in the car at this point," Callie said.

  "Agreed," Lopez said. "What kind of press do we have out there?"

  Doyle went across the very large hearth room, pulled aside the curtains and peered outside. He paced back to them across the hardwood, and Lopez glanced down at the papers and red-lined a few words.

  "Looks like about a couple of news crews only," Doyle said.

  "Okay, you tw
o give this a final look-through. I'm going to get a drink," Lopez said, rising from his chair.

  Callie glanced at Doyle, "I'm not sure it's a good idea to go ahead with the speech at the Alamo."

  Doyle looked into her gold-flecked green eyes, sitting down in Lopez' vacated chair, "I know, but I think his heart is set on it."

  "He sure is an iron-necked son of gun," Callie said with a laugh and a quick flick of her auburn mane.

  "Yeah, I hope he knows what he's doing," Doyle said. "Things sure seem like they're spinning out of control. It's like we're trapped in that that Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times."

  "Hey, Callie," Meacham called from the hall way, "you about ready to head over? We're due in court at one o'clock and we probably need to do a final look at the briefs."

  "I'll be right there, Bill." Callie said over her shoulder, and brushed her hair with her fingers. "You know, right now," she looked over at Doyle and smiled, "I could really use a big dose of uninteresting times."

  *****

  Homeland Special Investigations - Special Response Team - Bravo Team

  Laredo, Texas - July 5th, 2017 - 10:10 am

  Schmidt looked over his MP-5 and did a last minute slap on the magazine butt as he surveyed the landscape passing by the suburbs and into downtown. Lake Casa Blanca had looked absolutely serene as they passed it, but when they got closer, the façade was broken by the perhaps dozen vehicles that were abandoned by the side of the Highway 59. Several cars and SUVs, packed full with gear and passengers, were leaving the city in the outbound lanes – a minivan with a mattress strapped to the roof had flown past them, in a big hurry. They had started seeing the occasional columns of smoke snaking their way toward the sky from three or four miles out, but as they got closer to the city center, there were too many to count.

  The city airport runways came into view and Schmidt saw the charred husk of a twin engine propeller airplane a few hundred yards down the main north-south runway. "Holy crap." The post office on the north side of Saunders Street had smoke billowing from the west side, and several teens with bandana masks ran across the street, a couple wielding handguns.

  As Highway 59 turned into Saunders Street, they approached the prominent Spanish-style medical center and Schmidt steeled himself at the sight of the chaos – the parking lot which ringed regional hospital was completely full of cars, and more vehicles were wedged in around it, covering the grass field. There were hundreds of people walking injured loved ones through the crazy maze of cars and trucks. As they got closer, Schmidt could see some cars and trucks had just pulled off the road wherever they were.

  He really hoped they were going to be able to do some good here, but Schmidt couldn't get over the sense that something seemed off with these orders. The last few years, the ops increasingly often had become pointless snipe hunts. Intel was pretty consistently dicked up. Schmidt was getting tired of the nonsense, pushing twenty years in the game between the military and DHS. He was sick of the crap the higher ups did. All the misguided raids into people's homes, seeing the shock and horror on the faces of the kids as their moms and dads were cuffed. And all for what? Half the time the tips were bad, and the other half they had to rummage through the entire house just to find an old blunt in a shoebox or an cracked bong. Maybe one op in fifty was something real where he could say that justice was being served. The others were just harassment. He wasn't a thug, but he felt like he was becoming one a little more every day. He craved peace. What he felt instead was a growing dread that he was losing himself, each and every time he hung up his gear in his locker and went home at night.

  "It's backed up ahead – exiting south on Bartlett," agent Ortega's call brought him back to the disaster. Traffic was congested on both sides of the boulevard, so he swung around and cut through a McDonald's parking lot and took the alley in order to get clear of it before returning to the residential side of the street. On their way through the alley, several young gang bangers came running out of the back side of the Walgreens their arms full of all kinds of food, electronics and boxes of pill bottles. They could hear a car alarm ringing somewhere nearby, and the Chiropractic clinic across the street had smoke billowing from its back window.

  "How far to the primary?" one of the guys shouted from the back.

  "About thirty or forty blocks from here. We've got to head further south and then cut twenty blocks west.

  "Roger that."

  They rolled south and witnessed another massive collection of cars surrounding the high school, only this time, they saw four or five police cars and makeshift barricade at the north entrance and a similar setup at the east entrance. The heads of shotgun-toting officers followed them as they cruised past and Schmidt gave the sign to stop, "Hold up. Let's talk to these guys and see if we can get some local intel." Ortega pulled the eighteen-ton DAP to a stop just past the cordon of police cars.

  "Ortega come with me, slowly. Jenkins you take the driver's seat." Schmidt slung the MP-5 to his rear and showed his hands as he exited.

  He walked slowly toward the uniformed officers who had their shotguns trained on him from the cover of their black-and-white cruisers, "I'm Darren Schmidt with Homeland Security- Special Response Team." There were a couple of orders to stop, so Schmidt stayed where he was, "I'm SRT Team leader, Sergeant Darren Schmidt with DHS. This is agent Ortega," he bobbed with his head toward the young Hispanic agent. "We're here with orders to help the town," he slowly withdrew the folded paper orders from his front blouse pocket and waved them. "Who's your commander at this location?"

  A uniformed officer stepped from cover, and put his side arm to low ready, "I'm Sergeant Haskins. I'm in charge of this check point."

  "Haskins, that's great," Darren said taking a couple of steps forward, and lowering hands a bit. "We're with Homeland Security. Me and my team are here to help Laredo. I'd like to speak with your lieutenant, if possible. Where would he be?"

  The officer lowered his weapon and waved the guys to do the same as Schmidt approached, "He's running the command center at Del Norte mall. I can call him. Sorry about muzzling you, but you could say we're all a bit paranoid now."

  "Calling him would be great," Schmidt said, puzzled by his mention of the Del Norte Mall. "I understand how you would be on edge. No problem."

  As Haskins whipped out his wireless and dialed, he ducked hearing the distant pop of what Schmidt assumed was gunfire. A moment later he got connected, "L-T, this is Haskins at Carter High school check point…Yes…Yes…I have a Sergeant…?" he looked at Schmidt with eyebrows raised.

  "Schmidt…DHS."

  "I have a Sergeant Schmidt with Homeland Security here; he would like to speak to you…okay…one second." Haskins handed over the wireless.

  "This is Sergeant Darren Schmidt, Homeland Security, Special Response Unit, Bravo Team leader."

  "Sergeant Schmidt, this is Craig Brackin, Lieutenant with Laredo PD, and acting commander. How can I help you?" Brackin said, in a coarse, marble-mouthed Texas drawl.

  "Based on what I've seen here, sir, I think I should be asking you that," Schmidt said.

  "No bullshit there, Schmidt."

  "Looks like you're really in the jelly down here, sir. I've seen the airport and the hospital, but we haven't been past this high school yet. My orders are to take and hold City Hall, and rescue of hostages at that location sir…" Schmidt could hear the Lieutenant snicker as he continued, "…but from what we saw, I'm guessing those orders are based on old intel."

  "City Hall…crap…It's been lost to us for four hours now. I'd be shocked if most of it is still standing."

  "Well, sir, these orders are pretty well dicked obviously. We aren't the cavalry or anything like that, but we're here to do some good." Schmidt wadded up the paper and shoved it in his pocket, "I suggest we hook up and figure out how best to accomplish that."

  "Sounds good, sergeant. I'm going to have you come to me and we'll get our heads together. I'm at our makeshift command center we have se
tup at Del Norte Mall. You're going to want to come up Meadow Drive and…uh…. Oh hell, pass me back Haskins and have him assign a guy to bring you up here. The streets are pretty well screwed."

  "Roger that, here's Haskins," he handed the wireless back to the police officer.

  While Haskins listened to the commander, Schmidt couldn't help but laugh inside. Same old, same old. Mission gets FUBAR due to bad intel. Nothing ever changes.

  Chapter 8

  Outskirts of Sonora, Texas - July 5th, 2017 – 10:15 a.m.

  Staff Sergeant Ken Mathews massaged his eyes for a moment as he cruised down I-10 in the M35A3 truck. His eyes blinked slowly, as he was starting to fail at holding off the thirty-six hours of stress and the road. Mathews was long overdue for some rack time, and he knew it. They had pressed on through the morning and made it to Fort Stockton by eight am, and the four hundred or so refugees from Fort Bliss were tired and hungry. They radioed ahead and came into town with a police escort, which took them directly to a small community college, where Fort Stockton police and fire rescue met them. Mathews was amazed at how the community gathered to help out the survivors. Apparently, the battle over El Paso was all over the news, and Mathews was stunned to find that several other border towns had been attacked. It was then that he had resolved to engage this enemy in some way and be of use these people.

  “You look like you could use a break, sar’nt,” private Williams, sitting next to him in the cab broke him out of his thoughts. “You want me to drive for a while?”

  “You take over when we get to Sonora,” Mathews said. “We’ll get refueled and re-supplied and maybe catch a couple hours shut-eye.”

  “Sounds good, sar’nt.” Williams flashed a grin, showing a stark contrast between his teeth and his dark skin.

  Mathews knew there was a National Guard armory in Sonora, since he had been part of a unit that was tasked with delivering some equipment there last year. Bliss was updating some its vehicles and medical kits, and was passing down the older stuff to some of the local National Guard armories, as was customary. Sonora armory wasn’t much, but they had a few arms lockers and decent medical supplies, and ammunition. Half of his rag-tag group had no more than two magazines for their M-16 rifles, and a handful had nothing but a sidearm.