"I have heard that."
"Have you heard that the government is coming right out now and saying that it is OK for them to kill children, as long as they are hostile, of course?"
"No," Lorne shook his head. "I had not heard that. No wonder so many countries hate the U.S."
"If it gets out to the populace that they are killing children here in the U.S. as well, we may have an extremely violent revolution on our hands."
"I know that there have been several children in the U.S. killed by drone strikes already. All murders of children have been covered up by the government so far. Several have also been killed by ground hounds, including Toni's niece."
"I didn't realize that Toni's niece wasn't an adult."
"She was only 14," Lorne said.
I felt sick to my stomach. It just firmed my resolve to kill every one of the bastards that killed innocent American citizens. I also thought it would not hurt my feelings the least little bit if I also killed the politicians responsible for the deaths of innocent children overseas. I have never understood how some people can do things like that. Although I had studied psychopaths and their behavior, I did not think I would ever be capable of truly understanding them.
Things went well for the next four days. I got a lot of planning done. I would have much rather been out there with a rifle shooting the drone pilots who murdered Susan, but that might mean I only got a few of them. This way, I hoped to get them all. Lorne had taken a team to see if they could recover the sniper who got away from the FTSP in Alabama. This time Myrtle went with him.
Toni quietly walked up behind me. I was lost in thought at my desk with the cat Loco perched on top of the printer next to me. I assumed the cat was a self-appointed desk monitor. Toni put her hands on my shoulders and said. "John, there has been a development concerning the FTSP attack in Georgia. We managed to get several partial videos of the event from organization members who got them from witnesses. Peggy spliced them together. I think you need to see this."
"Have you heard from Lorne yet?” I asked. "Is he still in Alabama?"
"No we have not heard anything yet. We think he is still in Alabama."
"Was he involved in this?"
"Not that we can tell. You have to see this for yourself."
"OK," I replied and followed Toni over to the big screen where Peggy was holding a DVD. After an odd, but subtle, glance at Toni, she put the DVD in the slot and played the video clip.
I watched as the images flashed across the screen. The first video clip showed what was obviously an armored FTSP checkpoint.
"Is this the same checkpoint where the snipers shot the two agents?” I asked. Toni nodded. I continued watching.
There was a male FTSP agent standing beside a typical four-door sedan. Although the video had no sound, the agent was obviously berating the driver of the car. I could see that a large dump truck was crowding the cars ahead of it through the other lane of the checkpoint, much to the consternation of the FTSP agents. The FTSP agent next to the sedan looked over his shoulder at approaching dump truck as the car beside him drove away. The FTSP agent turned, drew his pistol, fired three shots toward the escaping car, turned again, and, with his back to the car that drove away, begin firing his pistol in the opposite direction.
I was surprised when the sedan that pulled away from the roadblock stopped, and the driver got out. The driver was a tiny, older, white-haired woman of maybe 70 or 80 who pulled what looked like a 380 automatic from her purse. She leveled the pistol at the FTSP agent and shouted something. I couldn't read her lips for sure, but I thought she said, "This will teach you to shoot at me, you son of a bitch.” The FTSP agent turned toward her just as four rounds from her tiny pistol struck him in the chest and neck. The FTSP agent staggered, dropped his pistol, and moved toward the armored checkpoint. Obviously, he was not wearing body armor.
By now I could see that there was yet another dump truck driving up in the opposite lane. Before the dump trucks got close, all the FTSP agents retreated to the inside of the armored checkpoint. I watched as two dump trucks pulled past the FTSP armored checkpoint, and then carefully backed up, and dumped their loads of gravel on top of the small mobile checkpoint building. The gravel nearly covered the checkpoint. I noticed with amusement that both of the dump trucks belonged to the Department of Interior Security.
In the next scene, two more large dump trucks backed up to the armored checkpoint and dumped their loads of gravel. These were also DIS trucks. By now, the checkpoint was entirely covered by gravel.
I saw the drivers, and three passengers, get out of the four dump trucks and head for the surrounding woods on foot. As best I could tell there had been seven people involved in this incident, not counting the woman who shot the FTSP agent for shooting at her.
The viewpoint changed again to a camera obviously much farther away from the site. This time there was not much activity except for a few citizens standing around. After a couple minutes I was astonished to see a flash coming in from the left hand side of the screen. Then the gravel-covered checkpoint blew up. Obviously some of the citizens nearby had been killed or hurt. I could see a couple of people lying unmoving as the dust and smoke cleared and was starting to have that all too familiar sick feeling in my stomach. "Was that what I think it was?” I asked.
"Yes, it was," Peggy said. "That was a drone missile strike.” I noticed that the footage had affected Peggy as well. She looked a little green around the gills.
"It looked like a hellfire missile," Toni said. "It may have been from one of the full-sized reaper drones."
"They blew up their own people trying to get the citizens who did this?” I asked.
"It appears that way," Toni said.
"Are they so desperate to get whoever did this that they kill innocent civilians as well as their own agents?”
"I think these people will stop at nothing to get what they want," Peggy said. "They are monsters."
"I agree, they are indeed monsters," I replied. "I wonder if they realize that we have this on film, and what the impact will be of this footage on the Internet. They have given us perhaps the best film footage that we can use to wake up more of the citizenry. Can we put this on the Internet?"
"Yes," Peggy said. "That is easy. I can have it on several video sharing sites in ten minutes. I think it would help if you can give me a bit of a write-up so that I can annotate the video with text to show people what was going on. I can keep putting it up again and again after the government figures out where it is and takes it down."
"That makes sense," I said. "To do that though, we need to know more about why this occurred and who was involved. Can you get word Lorne about this? Maybe it would be best for us to wait until we hear more from him."
"I agree," Toni said.
"OK," Peggy nodded. "I will let you know when I hear from Lorne."
"Thank you," I said.
I returned to my desk and sat down; still sick at the pit of my stomach from the images I had just seen. Again, I doubted my ability to lead the people to victory against the oppressive government, and create a return to individual freedom. I wasn't sure I was made of stern enough stuff. It seemed to me that the people needed a leader who was hardened to death and destruction. Yet, at the same time, I understood that someone who was too hardened to battle and loss of life might not take the same care to avoid losing innocents that I was trying to do. My greatest fear was that what I had been through, and what I was sure was coming, might leave me too callused and unfeeling to still be human.
Two days later we heard from Lorne. His coded message said that he had safely secured all of the participants in the checkpoint incident, as well as family members, and was headed with them to Mississippi. All in all, Lorne had 27 people with him, not counting Doc and Myrtle.
The next three days passed without incident. Peggy told me that the hackers were able to jam some drone signals, and they had managed to capture a small, surveillance drone, much like Iran had
done. They still were not able to take control of the drones in the air and repurpose them for our use, but they felt like once they had captured a mini-predator, or other attack drone, they would easily be able to reverse engineer this capability. Peggy had also told me that three top notch electrical engineers had been added to the team, and that one of them had designed control circuits for the federal government's tactical nukes before he awoke and quit his job.
Lorne sent us the details of the checkpoint incident, and we got the annotated video online along with interviews with the guy who had initiated the whole thing, and the older lady who had shot the FTSP agent with her pistol. Both interviews were good. The video went viral in less than two days and had over five million views before the government had it taken down. Peggy just put it back up again using another account and in three more days it had another eight million views. Some movie producer in Hollywood said on Twitter that he was going to make a movie of the incident.
Chapter 18: MISSISSIPPI
"Never underestimate a woman of years.” John Debrouillard
Alabama
Myrtle looked Lowboy eye to eye. They were exactly the same height. They both grinned simultaneously.
"Well, who have we here?” Lowboy asked. He was still holding his Remington model 700. He prized that rifle, and didn't want to give it up.
"Just what I was wondering?” Myrtle replied.
"You two lummoxes get your asses in gear and get on the bus," Lorne said while scanning the small crowd to make sure that everyone was accounted for. Doc was at the back end of the bus doing the same. The crowd was varied in age. There were six children from 14 or so down to the age of two, and several wives and grandmothers. The age of the men ranged from 20 to over 70. All were surprisingly cheerful considering the situation. Lorne didn't hear a single recrimination from the families of the men who had done the deed.
The bus was sitting under the roof of a big hay barn. It was a retired Greyhound that had been painted to look like a band bus. 'The Lymphocytes' was painted in big letters on the side of the bus, and the windows were blacked out. From the paint job, and decorative art, the band appeared to be a cross between punk and rock. Too bad there was no such band, Doc mused. They might be fun to listen to.
After everyone was loaded on the big old bus, Myrtle and Lowboy still stood talking by the door. It was obvious that they had instantly hit it off. Lorne walked up to them and pushed them both towards the bus door. They got the hint, and got on the bus. Doc and Lorne then opened one of the luggage compartments and began passing AR-15s to each of the men on the bus and several of the women. Two of the boys, 10 and 11, and one nine-year-old girl wanted rifles too, but Lorne suggested that they just hold extra magazines for their parents. They acquiesced, although the oldest boy seemed very disappointed. Lowboy declined an AR-15 and said, "I'll stick with my Remington, Thanks."
Doc got into the driver's seat and closed the door. Lorne stood beside him, with his rifle out of sight on the floor. Lorne was glad the bus had been available. The bus was heavily modified by a friend of Lorne’s who had bought it used and made the alterations. Lorne supplied the money on the odd chance that something like that might be needed. It had taken about six hours to get the bus to location. Its owner was now headed home to buy a few more old buses, and modify them as well. Naturally, the bus was not registered to the owner. It was, instead, registered to a federal judge in Washington, D.C. It was amazing what a good patriotic lawyer could accomplish.
The bus was armored, and would stop a big fifty round. The tires were custom-made run-flats capable of high-speed operation. The bus's engine and drive train were modified as well, and the bus had over twice the horsepower of a standard model. The diesel tank held enough fuel for a thousand miles. There were also a dozen chaff mortars mounted in the rear that could shoot through camouflaged ports in the roof. Despite that defense capability, Lorne wanted to reach Mississippi without having to fight off any feds. It was only 178 miles. He thought they had an excellent chance.
They had only been in Mississippi for ten miles on highway 42 when a Mississippi Highway Patrol car pulled up behind them and turned on the lights and siren.
"This sucks," Doc complained. "I was only doing eight over."
"I guess we better pull over," Lorne said. He turned to the folks sitting in the bus and said, "Keep your rifles out of sight, but handy. You will know if you need them."
Doc signaled a right turn, and pulled the bus to the side of the highway. He chose a spot where the shoulder of the road was wider than normal to pull over. Lorne handed his rifle to one of the men in the bus, and it was quickly hidden. Lorne then motioned for Doc to open the door to the bus. They waited.
After a minute or so, the Mississippi Highway Patrol officer got out of his vehicle and walked around to the open bus door. He stepped up onto the first step and asked Doc for his driver's license. Doc reached into his wallet, took his drivers license out, and held it so that the officer had to step further into the bus to grasp it. The officer took the bait and stepped all the way up into the bus. Knowing that it would not do for Doc's driver's license to be run, Lorne gestured to the guys sitting in the back of the bus. As if of one accord, almost 20 rifles rose and were pointed at the Mississippi Highway Patrolman.
"Oh shit! Not again.” The officer said.
"Does this happen to you with any regularity?” Lorne asked.
"Well it never used to," the officer replied keeping his hands far away from his pistol, "but not too long ago a fellow pulled a shotgun on me. He was hidden in the trunk of a car."
"Who was he with?” Lorne asked.
"A blonde woman and an old man," The officer replied.
"How tall are you?” Lorne asked.
"What has that got to do with anything?” The officer asked.
"Just answer the question."
"I am 6 feet 2.” The officer replied.
Lorne smiled, "You must be Fred."
"How the hell would you know that?” The officer asked. "Unless..."
"Yes, they are friends of ours," Lorne replied. "Don't do anything stupid with a pistol of yours now."
"With that many rifles pointed at me. You must think I'm crazy."
"No, not crazy. We just don't want an accident. Please hand your pistol to Doc, very carefully.” Lorne motioned toward Doc with his hand. The officer, very carefully, handed Doc his pistol, butt first.
"What are you going to do with me?” The officer asked.
"I am hoping to get you to join us," Lorne responded.
"Now I know who you guys are—sort of," the highway patrolman said.
"John spoke highly of you."
"So John must be the guy with the shotgun?"
"Yes, that was John."
"What if I don't want to join you?” The patrolman asked.
"Don't worry, we're not going to hurt you, or any member of your family for that matter."
"Somehow I didn't think you were," the patrolman said. "Even though, with that many rifles pointed at me, that might be a stretch.” Lorne motioned and the rifles disappeared.
"How about you come along with us and you and I talk for a while," Lorne said.
"It appears as if I don't have a choice," Fred replied. "However, I must admit that I am quite intrigued by you guys and not unsympathetic to your goals."
"Okay then, let's get this done," Lorne then turned to Myrtle and Lowboy and said, "How about you two drive the cruiser and follow us?"
"Sounds like a plan to me," Lowboy said. He and Myrtle rose, exited the bus, and walked back to the police cruiser. They got in, and the cruiser noticeably sank down on its shocks. Lorne motioned for Fred to have a seat on the bench that Myrtle and Lowboy had vacated. Lorne sat down beside the officer. Doc closed the door, put the bus in gear, and started back down the highway. The cruiser followed.
Two days later, everyone was comfortably quartered in Lorne's Mississippi headquarters. Lorne looked around and thought it was good to b
e home. For him, the Mississippi ranch was home. He had lived, at various times, in most of the states, but there was just something about Mississippi that called out to him. Perhaps it was the freedom-mindedness and independence of the citizens? Lorne observed that the people of rural Mississippi, in spite of being opinionated and hardheaded at times, were invariably far more self-sufficient then the people in most of the other places he had lived. He also noticed that, despite their often-cantankerous words, these folks tended to help their neighbors more than elsewhere. Lorne liked that. He thought his mom would've also liked Mississippi.
Lorne knew that he had to get most of these people away from the Mississippi Ranch as soon as he could. So far, he had managed to send five people to another ranch that he had part ownership of in Wyoming, and three more to a ranch in Utah owned by a friend. He was still looking for safe havens for the rest of the people they had brought to the Mississippi ranch.
Fred, the Highway Patrol officer, decided to throw his lot in with the rebels, as he called them, especially after he and Lorne watched the viral video of the missile strike on the FTSP checkpoint in Alabama. Lorne suggested to Fred that he could be the most useful if he remained in his position as a Mississippi Highway Patrol officer. After some discussion, Fred agreed. Lorne and several of the others waved goodbye to Fred as he drove away. Arrangements had been made to teach Fred what he needed to know about the organization, and what he needed to know to be useful to the organization. Fred was also given a half-dozen prearranged escape plans in case he needed them, as well as ways of getting additional help, should he need it.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Doc said.
"What do you mean?” Lorne asked.
"I don't think we should stay here."
"I think we're safe here," Lorne replied.
"I hope you're right. But there's something that's making me nervous."
"What do you think it is?"
Drone Wars 1: The Beginning Page 20