Freedom's Sons

by H. A. Covington

  “I’ve shot my way both in and out of that that jail a few times in the past,” said old man Selkirk. “Yeah, I know, it was forty years ago, back before the PATUs took over the developmental center on Main Street and turned that into their main barracks and lockup, and the county may have renovated or changed things, but there used to be a kind of shipping and receiving area in the back here, with a small parking lot. They had cameras on it in those days, but one of the first things the NVA did when we entered an operational area was cruise around at night with some twenty-twos and infrared sights and take out all the spy cameras we could find, everywhere from convenience stores to government parking lots. Don’t know if they ever put the cameras back in after the first war.”

  “They did, Captain, but they don’t have any inside monitors,” said Sweeney, who had come back downstairs. “The ones they had broke years ago and nobody ever got around appropriating the budget to fix them. One of our contacts Over There tells us they record, but you have to take the memory stick out and plug it into a monitor to see what’s on it.”

  “That’s Americans all over. They waste untold wealth on things they don’t need, yet they won’t spend a few pennies for the things they do need,” snorted Selkirk. “If we could get into the building that way without being detected, then there is a stairwell along this wall here that goes right up into the jail section,” he went on, pointing. “Only one steel door, and it’s not as thick and strong as the ones going in and out of the main office. This place was built almost a hundred years ago, remember, and it was meant to be a holding facility for drunks, petty criminals, and the occasional chicken thief and stock rustler, not Alcatraz. It never held any of us Volunteers worth a damn, which is why the Patties built their own dungeon over there on Main.”

  Cullen Selkirk from the SS spoke up. “Lieutenant, if the door is still like Pop described it to me, I have some plastique I can rig that will blow it off its hinges without too much concussion or injury to people inside.”

  “We still need to find out if they’ve bothered to take John back into the jail itself, or if they’re just cooling his heels in one of those little bullpen cages until the copter lands out at the airport,” said Bobby. “Any luck, Mike?”

  “Roxy isn’t answering, which I take to mean she likes her job too much or else she’s scared this thing might escalate into bloodshed,” said Corporal Sweeney. “I found a couple of guys who are willing to scout for us, but they’re way out in the county or in American Butte, and it will take them time to get down to Boulder. Couple of hours, maybe.”

  “Give me one of our cars and let me go Over There and set up an observation post,” offered Cullen Selkirk. “I can get up onto the roof of the high school and watch the place with infrared field glasses.”

  “Too dangerous, Cull,” said Selkirk, shaking his head. “They don’t know you Over There, and those who do know that you’re one of ours, and you got no business being anywhere in Boulder at night, never mind up on the roof of Jefferson High with a pair of night-vision glasses.”

  “I agree, Color Sergeant,” said Bobby. “If Sheriff Lomax is giving the FBI his active support in this little project, then he’ll have all his men out patrolling and watching for a rescue attempt.”

  “Is Lomax backing their play on this or not?” asked Ray.

  “We don’t know,” said Bobby, shaking his head. “It seems clear that grabbing John was just something these FBI agents did off their own bat, in an effort to recover that stupid nigger’s luxury sedan she left over here when she came visiting, and so I doubt the sheriff is best pleased. But legally speaking he is still obliged to render all due assistance to federal law enforcement, blah, blah, blah. A lot is going to depend on how much assistance he feels obliged to render them in fact. What we really need is for somebody to get inside the sheriff’s office and check things out visually, which is what I had Danny Tolliver in mind for, as reluctant as I am to place a teenaged girl at risk. But she’s the only one we’ve got on our team, or apparently on our team, who can just walk into the cop-shop over there. Once we can determine John’s exact location, we’ll have to wing it. If we can’t get a twenty on him we may have to hit them from two sides at once.”

  “We had to do it like that once, back in the day,” said Selkirk.

  “How did you do that?” asked Bobby. “Would a re-play work? Anybody around who might remember it and warn Lomax how to get ready for it?”

  “Elwood Tolliver is all,” said Selkirk. “Anyway, here’s my suggestion, being your consultant and all, young fellow. First off, we don’t all cross the Road in one big convoy. That’s how Jack Smith fucked up in Helena that time. We have to assume Lomax is waiting for us, or they’ve got that British merc advising them who presumably has at least some idea of what he’s doing tactically. None of us should enter Boulder via Depot Hill Road, that turns into Second Avenue. That’s they way they’ll be expecting us to come. We need to divide into two sections. One of us crosses over the Border Highway onto Cattle Drive Road, here, about a mile west of town.”

  “There’s no road crossing at that point on the map,” said Bobby.

  “It’s there, trust me,” said Selkirk. “The other section needs to cross to the north of the town, over onto Frontage Road at mile marker one-six-four. Yeah, I know, it’s not on the map either. There used to be an interstate exit there. The PATUs blocked it off back in the day because they wanted to be able to control entrance and exit onto the interstate with as little manpower as they had, but we unofficially re-opened it. Never mind, Cullen or Ned can show you. Let’s say my group goes over onto Cattle Drive Road and your section crosses at one-six-four onto Frontage.”

  “So we go into town down North Main Street and you enter up South Main Street at the same time?” asked Bobby. “Even this late at night, won’t somebody see us? And if Sheriff Lomax has got his deputies out patrolling and watching for any company coming, we’ll damned sure be detected!”

  “I know, that’s why both sections avoid Main Street,” said Selkirk. “Your group needs to get here, to Faith Lutheran Church on Third Avenue, and my people need to get to Boulder Elementary School, also on Third. Don’t worry, there won’t be any kids around this time of night, and both of them have parking lots for our vehicles facing Third, with buildings between them and the sheriff’s office for concealment. We park, leave a couple of vehicle guards, then approach the sheriff’s station from the east and west sides of the building. It’s mostly offices and storefronts along South Washington, so shouldn’t be too many people looking out their windows at this time of night.”

  “Then what?” asked Bobby.

  “If there is any way at all somebody of ours can get eyes on Johnny and see whether he’s in a jail cell or a squad room cage, that’s the way we go in. If not, on my—my apologies, Lieutenant, on your signal, I suggest we go in from both ends, as quickly and quietly as possible until somebody kicks up a fuss. Your party through the front door, my team through the rear entrance and up the stairs into the jail wing, presuming it’s still there.”

  Bobby spoke up. “We’ll take our police hand-rams to break down any locked doors. I don’t like this. Insufficient planning, poor intel, and time constraints, but if we don’t get moving right now, that damned helicopter may beat us to Johnny. All right, everybody get this, and Captain Selkirk, you make sure your clansmen out there get it. This is a hostage rescue, not a retaliatory strike or an NVA tickle. Our object is to recover your grandson and bring him home, but it is almost as important that we do it while inflicting as few casualties as possible on the residents of Boulder, Montana, and that includes Ben Lomax and his deputies. The FBI agents and their New Model Army buddy and that plug-ugly negress who defiled our door the other day are all fair game. You want revenge, shoot them if you can, but unless you have no choice, don’t hurt any of the locals. I’d rather not start something tonight everybody around here is still going to be dealing with another forty years from now. Let’s go.”
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  It took about half an hour for the two Northwest war parties to slip across the Border Highway and roll as quietly as they could into place at their respective staging areas in front of the church and the school. It was almost ten p.m. when they began moving into whatever cover they could find around the rear of the sheriff’s station, slipping across South Washington Street to conceal themselves behind fences and trees and whatever offered any concealment from the front. Bobby was worried someone would see them and raise the alarm or even fire a shot, but the small-town stereotypes about rolling up the sidewalks at night seemed to fit Boulder to a T. At ten o’clock on a chilly night with autumn coming on, there didn’t seem to be anybody around; it occurred to Bobby that most people were probably already in bed by now. Bobby and Ray Selkirk used their phones for communication. “You see anybody posted on sentry duty out back?” Bobby asked old Ray. He kept his voice low.

  “That’s negatory,” replied Selkirk. “You?”

  “Negative as well,” Bobby told him. “I can’t see anybody on the roof.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Sweeney tells me he just got a call from his cousin Roxy, and Lomax sent her home for the evening to get her away from temptation, as he put it, so that’s one potential source of intel gone. Did you get hold of the girl? We need to get some eyes inside that cop-shop,” asked Bobby.

  “I did,” confirmed old Ray. “I explained what we needed, and I gave her my word that if she couldn’t help us, there would be no protest and no bad blood, because I understood I was asking her to go against her own family and upbringing and it was something I had no right to do. She agreed to try. She’s using some cheap phone she got from a vending machine so I can’t conference her in with you, but she took the family car and hid the keys of the other vehicles, so that will slow down any pursuit. She’s about two minutes out. She’s going to try to get in to see Johnny, and she’ll call me with whatever she can find out. She says once we get him she wants to come back Home with us,” added old Selkirk.

  Bobby frowned. “Captain, I wonder, does this kid know what she’s doing, or is she just some teenaged flake who thinks she’s having a romantic adventure?”

  “She sounds to me like she understands,” replied Selkirk. “The Tollivers never were regular Amurrican bozos and flakes, they were just dumb as a bag of hammers when it came to race and politics.”

  “Can you see any sign of life in there at all?” asked Bobby, examining the lit but closed window blinds of the station with his night vision, unable even to detect any movement inside.

  “Couple of deputies just came out back and lit up cigarettes,” said Selkirk. “I thought when the Americans un-banned tobacco they also stopped forcing people outside to smoke.”

  A large older-model Celestial, a station wagon of Chinese manufacture, pulled up to the front of the sheriff’s office beside the squad cars. “Hang on, this must be Danielle,” said Bobby. He watched as a small figure in a shepherd’s coat got out of the vehicle and marched inside with a determined stride. “Hope they don’t decide to arrest her and put her in a cell, too.”

  Danny in fact walked right into the bull pen in the middle of an argument between Sheriff Ben Lomax and Monty Sanderson on the one hand, and Gabrielle Martine, and Special Agent Mona James on the other. The small group was being observed by almost half a dozen Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies who leaned on desks or walls around the coffee pot, watching with interest. “I don’t care if your colleagues in Billings can’t or won’t keep their helicopters operational!” Lomax was snarling at the two Womyn of Color. “I want this prisoner the hell out of here, tonight, and if that means you have to drive him all the way to Billings yourselves in that damned Lexus, then do it. You’re not leaving him here for another twenty-four hours while some bureaucrat in Billings okays servicing the chopper and signs the voucher or whatever the problem is. Once word gets out that he’s here, we’re going to have an armed gang of his relatives coming over here to try and break him out, or maybe a full-scale commando raid by their military, and there will be a bloodbath right here in my station house.”

  “All because you wanted your goddamned car back, which you shouldn’t have lost because you should never have set foot Over There in the first place!” rumbled Sanderson angrily.

  “He’s your collar and he’s your responsibility, federal jurisdiction as you keep reminding me,” Lomax went on, “So you need to get him out of here, and do whatever the hell you’re going to do with him. But I’m not sending any of my own men with you. I’m going to need all of them here to deal with the consequences of what you’ve done.”

  “Sheriff, we don’t need to ask your permission to apprehend a federal felon in your county,” explained Mona James, trying to be reasonable and calming. “It’s true that advance notification is customary, but not required when time is a factor.”

  “Your attitude has been noted, Sheriff!” whined Gabi Martine. “Oh yes, it’s been noted.”

  “Note away, ma’am,” said Lomax. “I don’t give a damn any more.”

  “I didn’t know you spoke chimpanzee, Ben,” said Johnny Selkirk, who was leaning lazily against the bars in one of the small bullpen holding cells.

  “Shut up, Johnny!” snapped Lomax. FBI Agent Earl Hornbuckle leaned over and jabbed Johnny through the bars with an electric cattle prod he’d gotten from somewhere; Selkirk shouted and swore and tried to grab the prod even while he was doubled up, but Hornbuckle jabbed at him swiftly and repeatedly between the bars. Danny screamed and ran toward the cell. Lomax turned, his face furious. He jumped forward, grabbed the cattle prod out of Hornbuckle’s hand, and threw it across the room. “Do that one more time and I’ll ram that thing up your ass!” he roared at Hornbuckle.

  “But you just admitted he’s our prisoner, in our custody, federal jurisdiction,” protested Hornbuckle sullenly.

  “He’s in my jail now, much as I don’t want him to be, and I’m not allowing you FBI shitheads to torture prisoners in my custody!” Lomax replied coldly. “This isn’t forty years ago and you no longer have an army of FATPO goons you can use to threaten local law enforcement officers into knuckling under.” He turned back to Mona James. “Get him out of here, now,” he told her. “Use your own car, not one of the county’s, and get your asses on the road to Billings right now, or I’m letting him go.”

  “Like fuck you be letting his white ass go!” screamed Gabi Martine. “Dat crackuh muthafukka done boosted my ride!” Under stress Gabi lost her proper diction. She was under stress a lot lately, and more and more she was pelting all those around her with muthafukkas.

  “There’s eight of us in this building, and only four of you,” Lomax reminded Gabi with a scowl. Then he looked over and saw Danielle crying and hugging Johnny through the bars. “Oh, just beautiful!” he sighed. “Juliet has come to say farewell to Romeo.”

  Mona James reached out and grabbed Danny by the collar, pulling her away from the bars. “Step away from the prisoner! Sheriff, this woman may have given him a weapon or a communication device! They both need to be strip-searched!”

  “Great! Then I’d have Elwood Tolliver trying to bushwhack me as well as Ray Selkirk!” growled Lomax. “Bullshit! There’s going to be no strip-searching. Go get whatever car you’re going to use to take this man to Billings, come back, and then get him out of here!”

  “I’ve already sent Colonel Hart to bring one of his armored SUVs,” said Mona. “But I still say…”

  Lomax grabbed Danny away from her. “You, young lady, come with me.” He dragged her over to Roxy the dispatcher’s office and threw her inside. “You and I need to have a little talk, Danny, and I’ll be back here in a bit. In the meantime you stay here and don’t leave the building. I don’t want to have to try and explain to your grandfather how you disappeared out of a police station!” He closed the door and stalked away. However foolish and infuriating Danny’s thoughtless behavior appeared to Lomax, it simply never occurred to him that she could
be in league with the demons from Across The Road, much less spying for them. Not a Tolliver girl; it was unthinkable.

  Danny flipped open her burner phone and dialed. “Johnny’s in one of the squad room cells,” she whispered.

  “All right, honey,” said Selkirk. “Can you get out of there?”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Say again? They didn’t arrest you, did they?”

  “No,” she told him. “Not yet. But Sheriff Lomax said he wanted to talk to me. He put me in this office and told me not to leave.”

  “Mmm, good, at least you’ll be out of the way. Is there a desk or something you can take cover behind?” asked Ray.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, when you hear the ruckus start, you do that. We’ll find you when it’s over. Thank you, Danny.”

  “Just get Johnny out of here safely,” she said.

  Ray told Bobby and his team out in front what Danny had seen. “He’s in the bullpen. Ready to move?” he asked.

  “That’s an awful lot of hostiles, and local men at that,” mused Bobby. “We could use a diversion to try and draw some of them away. Captain, you got those nephews of yours with the chunkers? Any vehicles in that back lot you can go pyrotechnic on?”

  “Sure,” said Selkirk. “Their paddy wagon and eight or nine deputies’ personal cars. We can blow up Ben Lomax’s Plains Rover, if you want.”

  “No, try not to piss him off any more than he’s gonna be anyway,” said Bobby. “Crack the paddy wagon. When they come out, don’t open fire on them or try to pin them down. That will cause casualties. Come around the building to Washington Street and follow me in through the front. Look, give me two minutes, okay? I want to try something to see if we can’t cut the bloodletting down a bit.”

  “Okay, son, two minutes, then paddy wagon go boom,” said Selkirk. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”