Drone Wars 1: The Beginning

by Mike Whitworth

  "That was done by our government simply by signing NAFTA," Peggy said.

  "That's right in part," I agreed. Toni was nodding her head.

  "The second thing that is done is to constrain the citizen's ability to access and exchange information. That's where the recent attacks on the first amendment and the attempts to get the entire internet under government control are directed. The internet is part of what I want to talk to you about, Peggy," I said.

  "OK," Peggy said.

  "The last thing is to remove the ability of the citizens to defend themselves and to protect their property. In this country, that is the current gun control push which will lead to gun confiscation."

  "The first thing after the election was a ban of semi-automatic weapons," Toni said. "That is clearly unconstitutional."

  "Yes, it is," I replied. "Also on the horizon is the UN treaty on small arms control that will ban all firearms in private possession here in the US. That is also unconstitutional, but I believe it will be signed by our traitorous president and ratified by the senate."

  "Tyranny is getting close," Peggy said.

  "I think it may already be here. Most folks just don't yet know it," Toni said.

  "OK," I said. "We have to fight on all three fronts. We need to reeducate people in constitutional law and in critical-thinking skills. We need to design and implement a method of communication beyond government control and detection that both we, and the citizenry, can use. I think we need a secret internet, or something."

  Peggy nodded, "I have some ideas on that."

  Toni said, "I checked into your idea of piggybacking signals on the current internet. The experts I spoke to think it might just work."

  "Can we get them on our side?” I asked.

  "They are already on our side and are working on it.” Toni looked at Peggy, "I will put you in touch with them."

  "Great," Peggy smiled.

  "The third thing we need to do is keep guns in the hands of the citizenry."

  "And the 3D printing gun factory that Lorne wants to develop may allow us to keep the citizenry armed," Toni said.

  "We also need to manufacture ammunition.” I said. "The government will crack down on the availability of that as well. They are already demanding that records are kept of all ammunition sales."

  "We also, if possible, need to find ways to block the state surveillance system and even turn it around so we can use it but the government can't."

  "I have a contact who might be able to help us with that," Peggy smiled.

  Peggy, Toni, and I talked for about three hours. By then we had several good ideas that we considered implementing. Peggy may have had the best one. She said that since television and the movies had contributed to the dumbing down of the populace, that we should use the same medium to brighten them up again. I wasn't sure if we had the resources to do that or how long it would take, but I thought that, given time, it could work quite well.

  Nancy, Lorne, and I sat in one of the small conference rooms discussing the solar arrays and facility security.

  "We need to be able to move operations quickly," I said. "Until we control the government data stream, they will be able to find us fairly quickly."

  "You think they might drop a bunker buster on us if they find us?” Lorne asked.

  "Yes I do," I replied. The three of us talked for a couple of hours before Lorne excused himself to see about a previous engagement. When he left, Nancy turned to me and said. "Lorne is quite a guy, isn't he?"

  "Yes, he is. I think he is the backbone of this revolution. I am proud to call him my friend."

  Chapter 16: FIRST STRIKE

  "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable!” John F. Kennedy

  Alabama, Highway 17 near Chatom, North of Mobile

  "It just ain't right," Larry said. "Those Federal Transportation Security Police thugs set up a checkpoint on the highway, and now we have to get groped every time we go to Mobile to go shopping. I thought those dumb asses were just supposed to be at the airports."

  "I know," Lowboy replied. "They groped my five-year-old grand-niece just last week. She is still upset over that. And so am I."

  "I flew to Houston to visit my son last Christmas," Larry said, "The FTSP bastards felt up my junk and the bitches left my wife in tears. I think that was part of what contributed to her death last month; that and the breast cancer."

  "I am truly sorry about Mildred, Larry," Lowboy said. "You guys were married how long?"

  "41 years," Larry answered. "I just want to kill some of those FTSP bastards. They have to be evil people just to be able to do what they do. Where does the government find these retards, anyway?"

  "I think they hire them right out of prisons, gay bars, or the psych ward or something," Lowboy laughed.

  "I want to get rid of that damn checkpoint on highway 17.” Larry said.

  "They will put you in jail," Lowboy said.

  "And at my age I should give a damn about that? I ain't got so long left, you know."

  "Me either," Lowboy said. "I miss the America we grew up in. Where did it go? Where did these bastards come from who believe they have the right to tell everyone how to live their lives? Hell, 70 percent of what the feds do now is unconstitutional. That checkpoint and their forced, warrantless searches are unconstitutional. Highway 17 is a state-maintained road, for Pete's sake—it ain't even a federal highway. I think I am ready to do something to get even myself."

  "What can we do? Those baby feeler-uppers have an armored checkpoint and full-auto M-16s."

  "Don't you still have one of those M-16s?” Lowboy asked.

  "I sure do, and the Government ain't getting it either. I brung it back from Nam, and that baby is mine. It won't do much good against that armored checkpoint though."

  Lowboy grinned, "I think I know how to do this. Are you in?"

  "You bet your sweet ass," Larry smiled. "What have you got in mind?"

  Washington, D.C.

  The president paced around the oval office, stopping occasionally to admire himself in the full-length mirror he had ordered mounted on the rear of the door to the oval office. He was tall, fit, and often wore lifts to make himself seem even taller, especially when he had to appear in public. After all, being president was as much about looking good as anything else.

  As long as he looked good, he found it easy to win the confidence of most of the useless eaters. As long as he spoke well, and he certainly had remarkable skill in translating the teleprompter into well-received words on the stage, he felt he could sway public opinion in any direction he wanted with his oratory. It would be so much easier when he had no opposition to his plans, though. "Soon," he said to himself. "Soon."

  There was a soft knock at the door. The president checked his appearance carefully in the mirror and slightly adjusted his coat before saying, "Enter," In his best regal voice.

  The door opened, and the Secretary of the Department of Interior Security walked in. "Mr. President," the secretary said. "We still have not located the missing targets. We do, however, know that target number one, the man who escaped the quad-copter drones and shot down our mini-predator drone, was with target number two, the woman who escaped our ground hounds in Colorado. They were seen in Mississippi."

  "Why did we not get them?” The president asked. "I told you people to kill these targets. If word gets out about what these people have seen, people may start to believe those damn rebels instead of us. That cannot be allowed to happen!"

  "Yes Sir, Mr. President," the secretary wrung his hands. "We are working on it, and we have a line on their headquarters in Mississippi. We think we have it located. We are planning a coordinated air and ground strike. We have also identified the primary owner, Mr. Lorne Vanders. This man is a wealthy and influential member of the opposition, we believe."

  "Do you have any solid evidence of this?” The president asked.

  "Not exactly, Mr. President," the secretary stutter
ed. "The evidence we have is all circumstantial at this point."

  "That's good enough for me. Blast the bastard!" the president said waving the secretary out of the Oval Office. The president smiled, "And be sure to send me the videos when you're done."

  Alabama

  Larry and Lowboy lay flat on their stomachs in the grass and fallen leaves under a small scrub oak on a hill about 300 yards from the FTSP checkpoint. The area was heavily wooded, covered mostly with pine trees and scattered scrub oak. Consequently, when they scouted the area the previous day, they had some difficulty finding a spot with a clear view far enough away from the checkpoint.

  The scouting was easy because Larry and Lowboy had been on many, many deer, turkey, squirrel, and other hunts together over the last 43 years. They seldom had to say a word. Long familiarity let them anticipate the other's moves with ease. Many years before, Larry had taught Lowboy the hand signals he had used as a U.S. Marine Force Recon team member in Nam; signals Lowboy had never used as a grunt. Since then, they had added to those signals so that now they could almost speak to each other with just their hands. It had been years since they had even spoken a word on a hunt.

  Larry wanted even more distance than the 300 yards they managed, but he also said that any .223 fire from the FTSP agents would probably not be accurate at that range. Larry was also fairly sure that the FTSP agents did not have any high-powered rifles. Even so, he suggested that they had best keep their heads down.

  Larry and Lowboy each held their best hunting rifle, which, in Lowboy's case, was his only hunting rifle, and his only rifle, for that matter, just like his Winchester Model 12 pump shotgun was his only shotgun.

  Both hunting rifles were 30-06 Remington model 700s with 6 to 9X variable Leopold scopes. Lowboy wondered if they favored the same rifle because they were such long time friends, or because the Remington 700 was the best rifle either of them could afford.

  Larry and Lowboy had spent part of the previous day being certain that their rifles were sighted in for exactly 300 yards. Lowboy was an excellent shot and managed to put five out of five into a 1.7" group at 300 yards. Perhaps that came from only having the one rifle. His father had always said to beware of the man with only one gun, because it was likely that man would know how to shoot it very well. Larry's group was 3.3". They both figured that would be good enough.

  Taking careful aim, Larry and Lowboy each chose an FTSP agent. Both of their rifles were carefully stabilized on small homemade sandbag rests and a ground cloth lay under the muzzles of their rifles to prevent leaves and dirt from being kicked up when the guns were fired. Larry said, "I'll take the bitch. She might just be the one who made my wife cry." That suited Lowboy fine since he wasn't sure he could shoot a woman, no matter how much she needed shooting.

  Both shots rang out within a fraction of a second of one another, and the two FTSP agents dropped limply to the ground. Both were shot through the head. Through his scope, Lowboy could see the blood and brains spray out of their skulls before they fell. He felt momentarily sick before his hatred of the feds kicked in and the feeling went away.

  The other FTSP agents immediately, and quite unprofessionally, retreated to the portable, armored checkpoint building without firing a return shot. Through his riflescope, Larry could see two FTSP agents frantically calling for assistance on their cell phones. Larry thought about bouncing a bullet off the checkpoint's bulletproof glass just to make those bullies shit in their pants, but decided he would wait for a valid shot instead.

  Lowboy rose from the ground, brushed off a few of last winter's leaves stuck to his shirt, and began working his way through the woods toward the other side of the checkpoint where they had chosen a second vantage point. Larry remained in place. Their plan was to try to get off a few more shots and then leave the area.

  Larry laid his rifle down and began watching the checkpoint through a small pair of binoculars. He could see one of the agents on the radio. His best guess was that there were at least three agents in the tiny building. Larry couldn't see them very well, and couldn't tell what they were doing. He hoped Lowboy would be able to see something from his new vantage point. They had a pair of small walkie-talkies for communication.

  Larry did not see the quad-copter drone that rose with a whirr from the back of one of the FTSP 4WD trucks parked a short distance from the checkpoint. He was too busy watching the checkpoint through his binoculars. He did however hear the drone when it got close to him. He rolled over. The last thing he heard was the roar of full auto .40 caliber rounds as they tore through him.

  Lowboy by then had found his new vantage point, gone prone, and had just focused his binoculars on Larry's position. He witnessed the quad-copter drone shoot Larry to pieces. "Oh shit!” Lowboy rose and started to run. "It is time to leave," he muttered out loud.

  Washington, D.C.

  The secretary of the Department of Interior Security had just returned from his meeting with the president when his assistant secretary caught him in the hall and said "We have a problem, Sir."

  "What is it?” The secretary asked.

  "There has been an attack on one of our FTSP checkpoints in Alabama. There were snipers involved. They killed two of our agents."

  "Did we get the snipers?” The secretary asked.

  "Yes sir, the agents at the checkpoint got one with the quad-copter drone that was assigned to the checkpoint. Fortunately, the drone pilot was not hit. If they had hit the drone pilot first, our people would have been unable to respond."

  "So what you are saying is that one got away?"

  "Yes Sir, but we will get him. We have a ground hound mobilized."

  "Should we assign more than one quad-copter drone and pilot to each FTSP checkpoint?"

  "Yes Sir, I believe we should," the assistant secretary said. "I also believe we should assign a mini-predator drone to each FTSP checkpoint."

  "I don't think we have the manpower or the drone power to do that," the secretary mused. "However, what we can do from now is set up multiple checkpoints in the same area. Then, we can keep a mini-predator drone in flight in the general area of our checkpoints and on alert so that the response time to an incident at any checkpoint would be minimal."

  "Yes Sir," the assistant secretary said. "I will see to it."

  Alabama

  Lowboy ran as far, and as fast, as he could into the woods. At his age, that was neither very far nor very fast. However, he was a good old Alabama country boy, and he knew these woods like the back of his hand. He did not know a lot about technology, but he had good common sense, and common sense told him that the government probably had nearly every technology he had ever seen used in the movies. That meant that the government would be able to locate him using thermal imaging devices, even when he was deep in the woods. Lowboy knew of a small cave in a hillside not too far from where he was and that was where he went. He figured that they wouldn't be able to find him as easily in the cave.

  Lowboy crawled deep into the cave. He now had more than 30 feet of solid rock above him, but could still watch the entrance. He knew that no one ever went to the cave anymore. When he was a boy the cave had been a popular place, but now all the kids did was play games on their computers and iPhones, or post senseless tidbits of non-information such as, I just ate a sandwich, on Facebook or Twitter.

  Lowboy knew that anyone he saw coming into the cave would be a government agent. He laid his rifle down and pulled his .44 out of its holster and checked the loads. His revolver was a huge old Walker Colt that he had inherited from his grandfather. It was a black powder piece that his grandfather had converted to use .44 caliber metal cartridges.

  Lowboy favored this revolver above all other handguns. He always carried it in the woods, or in his truck, even though he knew he could sell it for a big pile of money. He hand-loaded the cartridges himself; using bullets he cast from lead tire weights, and black power he bought at the local hardware store.

  Lowboy settled himself in for a wait. He o
nly had to wait five hours. He was getting stiff, cold, and sore when he saw the shadow cross the light at the front of the cave. The hammer was already cocked on his revolver. He waited patiently.

  Reston, Virginia

  "Sir, I have bad news," the assistant secretary told the secretary. "The ground hound that we sent after the second sniper in Alabama has disappeared."

  "What the hell is going on here? After four years of not losing a single ground hound, how have we now lost five in the course of a few months?"

  "I don't know Sir, but we are on it."

  "You better be. The president is on our ass about this."

  Alabama, just off Highway 17

  Lowboy tossed the dead government agent over his shoulder like he was a sack of grain. Standing six feet six and, even at age 68, built like a tank, tossing the body over his shoulder was effortless. Lowboy then started walking toward a friend's house. He took the government agent's rifle and his pistol and studied them as he walked. The stupid government agent had been no match for his old Walker Colt and had not even got off a shot before that big hunk of lead had drilled him right between the eyes.

  Lowboy had been shooting the old Colt since he was five years old, before he could even lift the heavy old piece by himself. Now he never missed. He figured folks could have these newfangled pistols. He just wanted one he could hit something with. That old gun had saved his life today.

  Sam stared in amazement as Lowboy walked out of the woods carrying what Sam at first thought was a deer over his shoulder. As Lowboy got closer, Sam realized that Lowboy was carrying a man. From the way the body hung, Sam was fairly sure the man was dead.

  "What the fuck?” Sam shouted.

  "You gotta see this," Lowboy shouted back at him. "I have a lot to tell you.” Sam followed Lowboy into the barn where Lowboy unconcernedly dumped the body on the floor.