Eric Sanderson was not going to run for higher office on the ever-popular Constitution-shredding platform. He was not going to dance on top of her father’s grave.
****
All the way down I-95 and I-64 to their new base of operations, the STU Team members in the 36-vehicle convoy were tuned to National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition,” and later to AM talk radio, listening as each new detail about the Virginia Attorney General’s assassination was reported. All of them, the operators and tech support guys in their mix of government and private vehicles skipped from station to station, relaying the latest news to each other on their VHF tactical radio net.
Listening in on Virginia State Police frequencies they learned that Virginia Beach police were searching for a white male, approximately forty-five years old, who had been seen in the area fishing. It was believed that he may have carried a rifle to a black pickup truck concealed in a long white tube and escaped from the area. Police were stopping and searching all white men in black pickup trucks moving in southeastern Virginia, unceremoniously pulling their drivers out and to the ground at gunpoint.
Attorney General Sanderson had been nailed by a sniper while golfing, teeing off on a private Virginia Beach country club. The golfers among the STU Team couldn’t help thinking ‘what a way to go.’ There you are, concentrating on one of your favorite activities in the world, and in the next second your head is melon salad and you’re talking to Saint Peter…or Lucifer…or to nobody at all. Not a bad way to go, even if it’s messy for the cleanup crew. Messy but painless.
The sniper had not been captured or for that matter even seen or heard, so he was a pro. He’d known where Sanderson would be, and was waiting for him. Unlike Senator Randolph, Sanderson had not been sniped at home, but on the move, at a private and unannounced event, so the shooter obviously had a good source of inside intel. This was a strong indication that the sniper was part of a well-coordinated team, which lined up perfectly with what they had already been briefed about.
Inside and unspoken, all of the STU Team members, alone in each vehicle, felt a great deal of respect for the assassin. Obviously, he was a kindred spirit on some level, even if he shot for the other team. “One shot, one kill,” and a clean getaway: you had to admire that…strictly on a professional basis. Probably ex-military, or ex-SWAT, or both. The bad guys obviously had some pretty decent shooters, who would demand their utmost attention and respect.
Sanderson had foolishly taken a high profile on guns recently, hoping to gain publicity for his run for Governor. Just yesterday he was all over television promoting his “FIST” checkpoint teams. Well, obviously, someone had not liked the idea of submitting to random highway firearms searches, and had taken him out…
The killing brought a new sense of urgency to their mission in Tidewater, energizing the STU Team as they rolled down the highway in their anonymous mixed convoy. They drove black Chevy Suburbans, “Bell South” and “Virginia Power” vans, motor homes, utility trucks, a small fuel truck loaded with aviation gas, some of their own private vehicles, and actual rental trucks hired to haul their lockers and crates and boxes of bulky equipment.
They knew that hard-core domestic terrorists were loose in Tidewater Virginia, spreading fear and death and havoc. But unknown to these domestic terrorists, a new kind of ass-kicking undercover sheriff was coming to town. The covert operators of the secret STU Team were on their way, and the evildoers were about to find out that their only easy days were yesterday.
All of them to a man could not believe their good fortune, that they were members of the STU Team on that crisp clear Saturday morning. They’d trained and planned and sweat and bled for years, mostly beginning way back in the military, and now the battle had finally come to American soil. On that day not one of them would have accepted a transfer to the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, or even to the almighty Secret Service. For once the Fibbies of the Joint Domestic Terrorism Task Force would be playing the supporting role while the deviously named Special Training Unit would do the shooting and killing.
And they all knew exactly who to thank for their great good fortune on that blue-sky Saturday as they rolled south to Tidewater: none other than that genius and visionary, Wally Malvone. Only Malvone had the insight, only he had foreseen the coming need for the Special Training Unit. He had pushed for the creation of the STU Team, just in time for them to go into action when they were needed the most.
****
The President’s Homeland Security Team met in the White House Situation Room at ten o’clock, and the mood was beyond grim. As usual, President Gilmore sat in his swiveling black leather recliner by the center of the conference table, and used the remote control to switch the sound among the bank of big screen television screens.
The eight FBI SWAT agents slain in the Reston Virginia ambush were being memorialized at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors, a first for federal law enforcement agents killed in the line of duty. Seven of the eight had prior military service, so it was not much of a stretch when they were brought to the cemetery on flag-draped caissons. There were bagpipes playing Amazing Grace, and a bugle playing Taps, and weeping children and stoic wives veiled in black, being handed American flags folded into tight triangles.
“Damn… I should be there,” said the President bitterly. He hated the idea of missing the solemn and dignified national television exposure which attending and speaking at such an important ceremony would have brought him.
No one corrected him. They all knew that the Director of the Secret Service had admitted that they could not absolutely ensure his safety during outdoor appearances for the time being, while new procedures were put into effect. The completely expendable Vice-President had gone in his place. The Reston ambush had been the worst single day’s disaster to ever befall the FBI, even worse than 9-11.
“Wayne,” he said to his FBI Director Wayne Sheridan, “what do we know about Sanderson’s assassination?”
“We’re on it, Mr. President. He was killed by a single small-caliber high-velocity rifle bullet which struck him in the head. The assassin has thus far eluded detection, but local police have some solid leads. They’re looking for a thin white man with a goatee-style beard, who was seen carrying a long white tube back to a black pickup truck. They believe the sniper was posing as a fisherman, waiting at the end of the lake where Attorney General Sanderson was shot. We have an eyewitness working with FBI sketch artists, and we think we may be able to use hypnosis to recover the license number of the getaway truck. We’ll nail this guy. We’re hot on his trail.”
“How far away did the sniper shoot from this time? Did he use another antique ‘trash rifle’?”
“We’re searching the area where the fisherman was seen; it’s 500 yards away at the north end of the lake. It'll be a while before we can tell what kind of rifle he used; apparently they’ve only recovered a few tiny fragments of the bullet so far. They can’t even tell exactly what caliber it was yet.”
“Did anybody hear where the shot came from?”
“Well, sir, the initial reports from his security detail, they’re inconclusive. They’re still in shock, Sanderson’s head… Well, it happened right in front of them, and they’re pretty shook up. They might have just missed the sound, or the sniper could have used a sound suppressor.”
“A what? You mean a silencer?”
“He may have. Used a silencer I mean.”
“But they’re illegal, aren’t they?”
Wayne Sheridan looked over at David Boxell, the Director of the BATFE. ATF’s profile had risen considerably in the federal hierarchy since the Stadium Massacre, and he had been asked to attend the HST emergency meetings. Boxell was a rather slight man wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Sometimes his subordinates called him Barney Fife, after the timid deputy from the fictional town of Mayberry, because of the way he spoke.
Boxell said, “Silencers? Uh, no Mr. President, actually they’re not illegal, as long as one p
ays the tax, a fee, $200 I believe. That’s the same as it is for fully automatic weapons, one pays a $200 tax and they’re legal.”
“Wait just a minute! You’re telling me that silencers and machine guns are legal, if you pay $200?”
“Well, yes. That’s been the law for decades. One registers them with ATF of course, and there’s a background check, and the $200 tax…”
“That’s insane!” the President shot back. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”
Boxell stuttered, “W-w-well, the Schuleman Montaine Act, th-that only addressed semi-automatic weapons. It didn’t address Class Three weapons, that’s silencers and machine guns that have had their tax paid…”
“That’s ridiculous. I’ll just fix that situation with another Presidential Decision Directive.” He looked over at U.S. Attorney General Lynn Axelmann, who nodded her head up and down in assent. “I just can’t believe the whole situation! The day after Sanderson announces the new road block plan, the plan we pushed on Virginia, he’s killed by a sniper. The very next day! This situation is out of control. These secret militias have got to be stopped!”
The FBI Director cleared his throat and said, “Sir, if I may…”
“Go ahead Wayne, what? What?”
“It’s the Second Amendment people.”
“The who?”
“It’s more than just ‘militias’ sir. I wish it was just militias! Militias we could handle…but it’s the whole Second Amendment crowd. Ever since we passed the assault rifle law, we’ve been getting death threats mailed to us, emailed, telephoned… They’re calling us traitors, threatening to kill us…and they’re not only threatening. Yesterday in Dallas somebody put a round through the FBI Special-Agent-In-Charge’s window. Luckily the room was empty, and we’ve kept it quiet, but the shooter obviously knew exactly which office was the SAIC’s.
“And in Phoenix a package was found Thursday. It was placed, we don’t know how, right inside the ATF Resident Agency. They got a phone call telling them exactly where to look. It was twenty pounds of bricks in a plastic file box, and it had a note inside, it said, “The next one will be C-4.” It came with a blasting cap and a little bit of C-4 explosive in a baggie, so it was no prank.”
The President said, “You see Wayne, you’re making my point: they’re just terrorists, they’re no different from Muslim terrorists or any other kind.”
“Perhaps on one level it’s the same, but this is different too. For one thing, they didn’t explode a bomb in Phoenix, they just sent a warning. Muslims don’t warn: they just blow you up. And we’re getting hundreds of letters and calls a day, and they all say the same thing: ‘You took an oath to defend the Constitution, now you’re destroying it’ or ‘You’re a traitor, you’re a domestic enemy of the Constitution.’ Hundreds of them, thousands of them, every day.”
“All over the Second Amendment?” asked the President.
“Yes sir, and the Fourth, with the checkpoints now, but mostly the Second. They feel—strongly—that we’ve stepped over the line with the assault rifle ban. That we’ve crossed a point of no return. They’re threatening outright violence.”
“They’re doing more than threatening. Remember, that militia nutcase Shifflett started all this with the Stadium Massacre! They shot Senator Randolph, they shot Sanderson, they blew up the bridge, and they killed eight FBI agents. They’ve gone way, way beyond threatening! They’re just terrorists, plain and simple. They’re no better than any damned Muslim terrorists.”
“I agree, sir…”
“We need to crush them, ruthlessly, without mercy. There’s over a thousand dead Americans because of them, and they’ve got to pay! I’m going to make them pay!”
“Yes sir, but, but that may not be a very simple task. Sir, I’d like to show you some film that was just shot within the hour by an FBI surveillance plane in North Carolina. It shows the extent of the problem we’re up against.”
The President paused, catching his breath, and nodded.
The FBI Director made a hand signal to an Air Force audio-visual aide, and the center television screen cut to a grainy black and white aerial view with time and date numbers on the bottom. Director Sheridan said, “We’re looking at the funeral of Ben Mitchell, in Dunn, North Carolina.”
The President said, “The retired Green Beret who blew up the Wilson Bridge and wiped out the FBI agents.”
“Correct. Now you’ll note the hundreds of vehicles parked here.” Sheridan circled the area on the screen with his red laser pointer. “Quite a crowd turned out for the man. He seems to have been well known in the Special Forces community. Watch this group when the picture zooms in.”
The video was taken from an overhead angle. An open grave, a white tent and a coffin became visible, surrounded by a crowd that was comprised almost completely of men. Some of them wore suits and jackets, many were dressed casually, and a few were wearing jungle fatigues, but most of them wore berets.
“Mr. President, here’s where it gets really interesting. Now watch right here, this group.” He circled an area in the crowd with his laser pointer. All of the members of the Homeland Security Team were leaning forward, staring intently at the four foot wide video screen.
From the center of the densely packed milling group of several hundred men, black sticks emerged, aiming skyward. The video taken from the circling FBI Cessna jerked and zoomed in and re-centered on the sticks, which under greater magnification were obviously rifle barrels. Even the senior officials in the room, who had never held a rifle in their lives, could identify them by their distinctive triangular fore sights as M-16s of some type, along with others that were also obviously assault rifles.
“Oh my sweet Jesus,” whispered the President in the silent room. “Didn’t the I.R.A. used to do that?”
The seven men carrying their rifles vertically in front of their chests at the “present-arms” position formed into a single rank, the crowd around them melted back to give them room. All seven of the men had dark triangular rags wrapped around their heads masking them below the eyes like Wild West outlaws. They all wore dark sunglasses, and they all wore berets.
“Jesus H. Christ… They’re giving him a 21 gun salute.”
“That’s exactly right, Mr. President. I’ve been informed that the bandanas are from combat field dressing kits, the kind the Army uses to tie bandages in place. They’re giving Mitchell the Special Forces version of an I.R.A. funeral.”
While they watched the rifles were shouldered in unison, aimed skyward at a 45-degree angle, they were fired, brought down to present-arms, then returned to their shoulders and fired again. The members of the Homeland Security Team watched the display in mute wonderment.
The President spoke first, with a sarcastic scoff. “Well, it appears that they haven’t all turned in their assault rifles.”
After a moment to see if anyone else had a response, the FBI Director said, “No sir, it doesn’t appear so. To say the least.”
“And they’re doing all this for a bridge bomber and a murderer?”
“They’re doing it for Sergeant Major Mitchell, yes. And they’re doing it for the other old Green Beret, the fellow who was killed with his son in the jeep in Norfolk. Denton? Mark Denton. From what we’ve been hearing, these Green Berets are pretty ticked off about both of them.”
“Didn’t that one in Norfolk blow himself up accidentally? Wasn’t he part of that militia ring with Shifflett?” asked the President.
“Well, we think so, but the Green Berets…they’re another story. They think the fellow in Norfolk, Mark Denton, was murdered, that’s what our sources say. Apparently they agree with Ben Mitchell, with what he said in his D.O.L. letter. They think Denton was murdered.”
“Oh come on, murdered by whom? Those people are paranoid. They’re conspiracy nuts! They’re the black-helicopter crowd!”
“Maybe so, Mr. President, maybe so, but there’s thousands and thousands of them,” said the FBI Director.
“Well, I don’t see thousands of them on your video; hundreds maybe, but not thousands. Don’t you have FBI agents on the ground down there? Don’t you cover these things? These men have clearly broken the law. Blatantly! Why can’t you move in and make arrests?”
Director Sheridan squirmed in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “Yes sir, we did know about the funeral in advance and we did have several teams on the ground. It’s S.O.P to cover funerals like this, the same as mafia or motorcycle gang funerals.”
“And? Did they make any arrests?”
“Uh, no sir, they did not. Evidently our Special Agents on the ground were discovered. The last word I have is they haven’t been hurt, but they were disarmed and sent away, with messages. Threats, actually.”
“Sent away? Disarmed? What are you talking about?”
“We assigned six agents to monitor the funeral on the ground, in three vehicles. Pretty standard, but we had no idea that hundreds of old Special Forces guys were going to show up…and well, our agents were ‘made.’ Spotted. There was nothing they could do. We’re lucky they were let go; some of the hot-heads in the mob wanted to lynch them.”
“Lynch them! I don’t understand?” The President was growing more and more incredulous.
“As traitors, sir. They called our Special Agents traitors. Some of them were mentioning ropes and trees, that’s my understanding sir. Ropes and trees… But calmer heads prevailed, and our agents were released… but without their pistols or submachine guns or credentials. Or their video cameras. Or their shoes.”
“FBI agents carry machine guns now?”
“Well yes, in their vehicles. They carry MP-5 submachine guns in their vehicles, yes sir.”
“And they let them be taken away? Just like that?”
“I’m sure it’ll be investigated. It just happened, but judging from the film we just saw, they had no choice. They were outnumbered and outgunned a hundred to one.”
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