“You’re close, I count thirteen bikes…looks like a few are doubled up—those three on the right are women—gotta be…a few bundles are draped over some bikes; look like they could be bodies. A couple of ‘em up front look shot up. Jesus, they’re packin’, almost to a man.”
“You men sneak out of here and get back to your buildings. Find your building Reps and get ‘em over here—no, wait,” said Erik as the guards graciously got up to leave. They didn’t have rain gear, but they looked happy enough to be getting out of the office. “Find the Reps then tell ‘em to meet behind the office,” Erik said with a nod of his head. “Hurry!”
When Erik and Ted were alone, Ted lowered his head and looked at his friend. The rain spattering on the windows and roof of the small building were the only sounds either heard. “This don’t look good at all, man.”
“I know…they out-gun us right from the start. Dammit, this wasn’t supposed to happen yet…we haven’t had the time to train anyone more than a few days—“
“Hello?” called out a deep voice from outside.
“Are you kidding me?” whispered Ted.
“Hello? Is anyone in there?” called out the voice, louder this time. The sounds of someone rattling the heavy gate echoed through the rain.
“Well…what do you think?” hissed Ted.
Erik grinned with sudden inspiration. “Follow my lead,” he whispered. Cupping his hands around this mouth he shouted towards the window, opened a few inches to let in fresh air and keep out the rain.
“Stay where you are! All of you are being covered by snipers. Any sudden moves and you will be shot. Any attempt to draw your weapons and you will be shot!”
Ted moved across the hallway and found a better spot behind some furniture to watch the scene outside unseen. “They’re frozen. Nobody’s moving but they’re looking around—mostly at the bigger buildings,” he reported
“Very well, then. What do you want?” shouted Erik.
“We ain’t here to pick a fight if that’s what you’re worried about. We’re running from one. Some of us got shot up pretty bad and we’re wondering if you can help us out—we just want to get out of this rain and hide from the sonsabitches that chased us through town today,” boomed the voice outside.
“Still no movement, no weapons,” reported Ted.
Erik, with his back to the wall facing the bikers, thought for a second and listened to the rain. “Think they’re telling the truth?”
“Dude, they’re bikers! I’ve dealt with plenty of ‘em…not nice people generally. At least not the ones in gangs…”
“Why the hell would you think we’d want to help a biker gang?” shouted Erik.
“Hey, we ain’t the Hells Angels, if that’s what you’re worried about! We were riding up from the Keys after Bike Week when all hell broke loose. Everybody’s been takin’ pot shots at us the whole way north. We can’t rest, we can’t stop, we can barely get enough gas to get a few miles down the road—We don’t even know what the hell is going on. It’s like the whole damn world is falling apart!” The desperation in the man’s voice was obvious.
Erik paused for a second, something in his memory jogged. The Keys…I remember the last time I was in Key West, it was Spring Break, my last year in college…Sean, Gary, and I went down there to drink our pre-exam worries away and ended up camping next to some bikers down there for Bike Week…every morning they were tuning their hogs at dawn, listening to Elvis on the boombox they had—what was his name?
“Hoss?” Erik asked.
The biker cursed in disbelief. “How the fuck do you know my name? Who are you!?”
“Cover me…” Erik said. He hoped that was the right thing to say at the moment. Ted’s eyes grew wide. Before he could respond, Erik rose and opened the front door to the office, stepping out into the rain and throwing up the hood to his poncho. Sweat dripped down between his shoulder blades. He was taking his life into his own hands at this point. He said a quick prayer concerning protecting good hearted fools and let the bikers see he was armed.
“Who are you?” asked the biker spokesman, taking a step back from the gate and shielding his eyes from the rain.
Erik walked up to the gate through the rain, nice and slow, hands away from his weapons. He could see the bikers were a tired, haggard and bloody looking group, but they were holding true and no weapons were raised.
“You down in Key West two years ago, late March?”
“Yeah…” replied the biker, nervously. “Why?”
“You remember staying in that campsite off Mallory Square?” Erik asked, his heart racing. Could it be the same group?
The man thought for a second, looking miserable in the rain. He looked down, rubbing the matted, wet beard on his chin. Suddenly he looked up with a smile. “Yeah…there were these three guys, said they were in school up north somewhere, stayin’ in a tent. They tied the damn thing to their car because they couldn’t drive the stakes into ground because—“
“It was a gravel covered parking lot!” said Erik with a hearty guffaw.
The biker roared with laughter. “You three kids got drunk as ticks every night and we woke your asses up at dawn every day workin’ on our bikes—“
“But we weren’t all that upset because we got to start drinkin’ again.”
The two men shook hands through the gate gripping forearms instead of hands, laughing. “This here’s…hang on…lemme think,” Hoss said to his crew. “Erik! Erik, with a ‘k’, like the Vikings.” The tension broke at once. The other bikers just stared, watching and hoping.
“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Erik. “Where’s your wife?” Erik smiled, left hand coming off his pistol finally. His smile froze when he saw the look of pained anguish flash across the face of Hoss. The big man’s shoulder’s slumped ever so slightly. The rain fell in sheets off his forehead.
“We got ambushed down in Fort Myers…we were just trying to get some food; we weren’t trying to steal or anything. Had plenty of cash, because no one was taking it, but they didn’t care…they started shootin’ at us. Sally took one…in the…” the biker’s face seemed to crack in grief. He put one hand to his face in a very non-biker pose and stifled a sob. Slowly he gained control over himself in the gentle rain. He looked up, a man more haggard and road weary Erik had never seen. “She didn’t make it.”
“Oh God, Hoss, I’m so sorry…”
“We lost six more just today…” he was trying to get his composure back, his voice still thick with pain. His hand gripped the slippery post of the gate. “We could only manage to bring three back with us out of Osprey this morning. Known ‘em all for years…God damn it…what the hell is going on in this state? Everyone’s shooting at us for no reason and no one’s taking the time to explain why!” Hoss gripped the vertical iron bars of the gate to support his weight. His knuckles were white and for a second Erik thought the big man might break the gate in half.
Erik could see Hoss was spent, physically and emotionally. His mind made a snap decision that came more from his heart. He knew, deep down in his soul that this man could be trusted. But the others…
“Hoss, who’s all these guys you’re riding with?”
“We were all at Bike Week this year together. We all came down from Montana,” Erik remembered then that Hoss and his wife represented a riding club out of Billings.
“They’re good people Erik. You knew Sally, even if only for a few days. She don’t tolerate assholes. Didn’t…”
Even through the dim light of the dawn filtered through the rain, Erik could see the white knuckled grip on the iron bar of the gate waver. His hands slid down the rain slick bars slowly. Hoss was at his breaking point. Erik scanned the other bikers, silently watching the parlay with hope and desperation in their eyes. They were all exhausted and worn down. More than one sodden head was simply lowered. They were at the end of their trails.
“Well, I can’t let y’all sit out here in the rain, then,” Erik said, mo
ving towards the little guard shack to unlatch the gate. He thought idly that in better times, when the power was still on, the old man who manned the gate at nights probably would have called the cops had he seen Hoss and his crew ride up like they had.
He and Hoss physically pushed the heavy gate just wide enough to allow the bikers to enter the complex two at a time. Erik took a quick glance and could see more than a few windows in the closer buildings of the complex with lights glowing. The residents were starting to wake at all the noise and were trying to see what was going on. Erik made a mental note to talk to Ted about blacking out the windows after dark…
“God bless you, Erik…I know we don’t look like—“
“Hoss, shut up and get your sorry asses inside where it’s dry. We’ll talk then. Come on, you can park by the office here under the sunshades to keep the bikes dry. No, Ted, it’s okay!” said Erik, noticing Ted come out of the leasing office building with his shotgun at port arms.
“Howdy,” called out Hoss.
“That’s Ted,” said Erik, “Our chief of security, so to speak.”
Ted continued to watch all the bikers at once, waiting for an excuse to send one or more to Hell. As far as he was concerned they were all threats.
“Relax, Ted. Hoss is a friend of mine from a few years back. Drinkin’ buddy. Anyone who rides with him rides with me,” said Erik using a phrase Hoss himself used to welcome Erik, Sean and Gary into the biker party two years ago. Hoss smiled at the sentiment. Ted dipped his head slightly, his face grave under the dripping poncho hood. His eyes never left Hoss.
“Don’t mind him,” Erik said in a too-loud whisper. “He’s a Marine.”
One of the bikers behind them heard that comment and stood up, straddling his bike. “Semper Fi, Marine!” he barked as the bike coasted by.
Ted’s attention snapped to the biker who spoke. “You in the Corps?”
“Damn straight, the 1st MEU in Kuwait—Second Gulf War. Big Green Machine all the way,” the man said over his shoulder as the bike continued rolling through the rain.
“Well I will be dipped in shit,” Ted muttered with a smile. He pointed the shotgun at the ground and walked forward through the rain to greet the newest guests to stay at Colonial Gardens.
NORAD
The Enemy Within
MR. PRESIDENT, WE’VE lost contact with the Theodore Roosevelt battlegroup,” reported Admiral Bortsen sourly. “Again.”
The President rubbed his forehead. What a way to start the day. “Why?”
“Another nuke?” asked the Secretary of State.
“No. Conventional attack from the Egyptian Air Force this time. They got lucky, that’s all…pardon my language, sir.”
The President waved it off and accepted a cup of steaming coffee from an aide. “Casualties?” He wished desperately for a window. It was too damn gloomy locked up under the mountain.
“No word yet sir. If the carrier took a hit hard enough to knock out all communications, it could be bad. If the carrier got hit at all, it could be bad.”
“How many did we get?”
The Admiral’s image smiled. “All of ‘em, sir. We swatted every last one of them sons of bitches out of the sky. No quarter asked nor given. Egypt can be taken off the threat assessment board.”
“The Egyptian government is screaming bloody murder, but right now the only thing they can hit us with is sticks and stones,” said the face of the Secretary of State on the large video screen.
“Good. First good news I’ve heard all week.”
“I have something, sir,” said the National Security Advisor, recently arrived from an abandoned Washington, D.C.. “CIA sent this over from Langley. Hot off the press,” she said, handing the President some 8 x 10 glossy photographs. High altitude photos. Very high altitude.
“Satellite photos? What am I looking at, Alicia?”
“That’s the southern coast of China, sir.”
“China?” asked Admiral Bortsen’s image. “What the hell are they doing?”
“Yes. China,” said the NSA. “Looks like a lot of large ships—tankers, we think—just put to sea. We don’t know what’s going on, because there’s no obvious military vessels in the fleet…”
“Let me see that,” said the Admiral.
“Thank you,” the President said as an aide took the photos. In seconds, the images were scanned and sent via secure link to the other cabinet members. The admiral was able to see what the President saw within a minute.
“Christ, those are tankers, all right. But you got a classic fleet formation going on. See here?” he asked, pointing it out to the President.
“Why are they moving a fleet of commercial ships in naval formation?” asked the Commander in Chief.
“Any threat?” asked the SecDef’s face on the large screen.
“Negative, sir…” said the Admiral, studying the image. “At least, not from these photos. Could be subs all mixed in there.”
An Air Force Lieutenant snapped to attention in the corner of the conference room and spoke, “Mr. President, I’ve just been informed the link with our forces in Chicago has been established. General Stapleton is ready for you now, sir.”
“Thank you, son,” the President said. He swiveled his chair to face another video screen at the rear of the room and saw a bulldog of a man. General Stapleton’s image glared back at him.
“General.”
“Good morning Mr. President.”
“What’s your situation?”
“Sir, my men are all set up in a perimeter around the occupied zone,” said General Stapleton, internally grating at having to call any part of an American city the ‘occupied zone’. “We’re locked and loaded. I’ve sent some scouts in to recon and we’ve had some casualties. Artillery is sighted in, my tanks are hummin’.”
The President looked at the large wall-sized picture of General Stapleton’s upper body and the pall of smoke obscuring the view of Chicago in the background.
“I hate to Hell having to say this, but General, take the city. Just try not to burn it to the ground…”
“Sir, I want to be absolutely clear on my orders—“
“General,” the President said, sitting straighter and effecting a more official tone of voice. “You are hereby authorized to use any force necessary to liberate the city of Chicago from occupying forces.”
The general nodded then continued without missing a beat. “Sir, my scouts tell me they’re holed up in the old Sears Tower. I’ve already lost two tanks, their crews, and an entire scout squad. Short of storming that tower with every man I have…” the General looked over his shoulder at the massive black structure just visible through the smoke in the background. “I’m going to lose a lot of men. There’s too many choke points inside a high-rise like that. It’ll be suicide. Easiest way is to bring that sucker down and end this rebellion once and for all.”
“We may be too late for that, General, but if you have to bring down that tower…” the President thought for a moment. Destroying one of the nation’s landmarks would be devastating to his career and legacy. Not destroying it could allow the rebels to escape, which could be devastating for the country. He could see the face of the SecState go white on the other video screen.
“Do it, General. Take that thing down if you have to, but this ends today!”
“Yes, sir!” The General snapped a salute and turned to say something off camera to the artillery squad. Just before the picture went dead, the howitzer bucked and the picture was shattered.
The President put both of his hands on the glossy polished surface of the large desk deep under NORAD. His head dropped a little as he said a silent prayer asking for help and guidance. Stapleton doesn’t screw around.
“My God…I’ve just ordered an attack on one of our own cities…”
“Sir, you weren’t given much of a choice,” offered Hank Suthby..
The President pounded the table and looked up suddenly. “Dammit that doesn’t matter
, Hank! I was chosen to lead and protect America, not attack it.”
“With all due respect, sir, if you don’t attack Chicago, that little movement will turn into the Rebellion the foreign press is harping about so much. Then we’ll have a real civil war again—one that’s going to be a hell of a lot worse than last time, I assure you! Sir, no matter how hard you try, we are falling apart—whether you like it or not! Everything we do that takes the pressure off one group of people and puts it on two other groups…”
“You don’t have to remind me!” barked the Command in Chief.
“Sir, God-dammit…someone has to!” Hank Suthby held up his hand and ticked off points on his fingers. “We’re holding our own for the first time in this crisis. It’s only been a week and a half since we lost power and we’re already attacking one of our largest cities. We lost control in Chicago and Atlanta. New York is going to be next—L.A. is damn near a wasteland and Atlanta is a ghost town. In another week we’re going to have cholera and typhoid running rampant through the urban areas, there’s going to be no food or water…how much control will you have then? America will be no better than a third-world country…”
“Hank,” the President said in a quiet voice. His face was a mask of exhaustion. “Do you realize what you’re asking me to do?”
“Sir…everything my boys are telling me…Jesus, sir, it’s getting bad out there and it’s only going to get worse. Food shipments are non-existant. We can’t—there’s just too many people to take care of, sir.”
“With the stroke of a pen you would have me ignore almost two-hundred and fifty years of freedom,” sighed the President.
“I’m asking you to sign this damn paper and save your country!” the SecDHS said, pulling out the already prepared Executive Order authorizing Homeland Security to take control of the nation. “I’ve been carrying this around for a week now. In my opinion you should’ve signed a long time ago—“
“I’m not going to be known as the President who threw the Constitution out the window, Hank!”
“You’re not throwing it out the window, just…ignoring the more time constraining and frustrating parts until all this is fixed. Then we put everything back. It’s all right here,” the Secretary of Homeland Security said, sliding the Executive Order across the desk.
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