Bug Out! Texas Book 6: Citizen Vengeance

by Robert Boren

  “Oh no,” Carol said. Madison flashed a look at Juan Carlos.

  “What do we do?” Richardson asked.

  “Find a safe place to fight from,” Jefferson said. “Use that BMG. I’d suggest finding a roof.”

  “There was a huge explosion a few minutes ago,” Madison said. “You know what that was?”

  “No, haven’t heard anything. I’ll check on it.”

  Brendan and Hannah rushed in through the back door. “That guy’s a genius.”

  “He fixed the SMAW?” Richardson asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “What’s wrong? You guys look scared shitless.”

  “There’s about twelve thousand enemy fighters closing on the city,” Jefferson said over the phone speaker.

  “Oh, crap, I didn’t know you were on a call,” Brendan said. “What are we gonna do?”

  “You guys want to use the roof on this building?” Carol asked. “It’s got masonry facades. Good cover.”

  “You have access?” Richardson asked.

  “I have a key to the stairwell. There’s no lock at the top door.”

  “Perfect,” Richardson said.

  “Yeah, I’d get up there,” Jefferson said. “You can control the whole damn area with a BMG if you have some good sight lines.”

  “How many floors up?” Madison asked.

  “Only seven,” Carol said. “It’s doable.”

  “On crutches?” Madison asked.

  “Maybe you should stay here,” Juan Carlos said.

  “With thousands of fighters coming this way?” she asked. “No, I’ll take it slow, but I’m going where you go.”

  “We got a problem,” Lita said, nodding towards the floor. Water was flooding up through a drain hole.

  “Oh, crap,” Carol said, looking at it, then looking out the front windows. The street was filling with water. “That’s what the explosion was. They blocked the river. It’s dumping into the storm drain system, and running down the roads.”

  “Get the guns off the floor, now!” Richardson shouted.

  Chapter 11 – Only Two Thirds

  Hendrix paced around the living room, nervous as hell. Governor Nelson had just left ten minutes ago, in a convoy of military vehicles.

  Maria came out from the kitchen. “Lunch?” she asked.

  Hendrix stopped for a moment, then smiled at her. “Yeah, I need to take my mind off this stuff. I won’t settle down completely until Nelson calls me from the new capitol bunker.”

  “Understand. I’m worried too,” she said. “I’ll be back in a second.”

  She rushed through the hallway to the bedrooms as Hendrix continued to pace.

  “Kip!”

  Hendrix looked at the hallway, then rushed inside. “Something the matter?” He went through the door, and she was laying naked on the bed before him. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh,” she said, smiling. “Come here. It’s been too long.”

  Hendrix walked towards the bed, shedding his clothes as he went, then ravishing her with abandon. They were lost to all but each other.

  “I needed that,” Hendrix said softly, petting her cheek as she stared into his eyes.

  “I know, me too,” she said. They stayed on the bed together for a while, chatting and caressing each other, cherishing the break. Then the console beeped.

  “Uh oh,” Hendrix said.

  “Want to take it out there or in here?” Maria asked, getting off the bed.

  “Out there,” Hendrix said. “Just in case it’s something bad.”

  “Okay, honey,” she said, pulling her sweat pants on and rushing out the door, zipping up her hoodie. He put on his pants and shirt, then joined her in front of the console.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Hendrix said. She clicked accept. Video of a conference room came up. Brian was sitting at his laptop, next to the head of the table.

  “Ah, Kip, glad you could make it,” Brian said. “The Governor will be here in a second.”

  “Good, he made it there safely,” Hendrix said.

  “Yeah,” Brian said. “Gallagher is here too.”

  “How about Wallis?”

  “Still in the Dallas area,” Brian said, “but he’ll be on this call.”

  “Ramsey?” Hendrix asked.

  “He’ll be here too,” Brian said. “He’s with the Governor right now.”

  Nelson walked in and sat at the head of the table, Ramsey following him in, then Gallagher.

  “Who’s on?” Nelson asked.

  “Kip Hendrix,” Brian said. “Wallis should be on any minute.”

  “How about our asset in Fort Stockton?”

  “Don will be on in a moment, and he has his social media team assembled again.”

  “Good,” Nelson said.

  There was a beep on the screen, and a new window opened, showing Wallis’s smiling face. “Sorry I’m late, folks.”

  “We’re just starting,” Nelson said. “Good to see you all.”

  “What’s going on?” Hendrix asked.

  “Big series of attacks in San Antonio,” Nelson said. “There’s over ten thousand enemy fighters entering the city, and several thousand more are already there.”

  “What are they doing?” Hendrix asked.

  “General mayhem,” Gallagher said. “This morning they were shooting RPGs at hotels along the Riverwalk. Citizens responded again, and eventually chased them away from the area, but then gunfire started up on College Street, down by the Alamo, and in several other spots.”

  “They blew up part of the river channel after everybody fled the Riverwalk area,” Ramsey said. “It’s overflowing into the city now. Too much water for the flood control system to handle in such a small area.”

  “Dammit,” Hendrix said. “How many people we lose?”

  “A lot less than we would have if the citizens didn’t show up,” Gallagher said. “Fort Stockton on yet?”

  “Not yet, sir,” Brian said. “Should be any second.”

  “They’re kinda far away from San Antonio, aren’t they?” Hendrix asked.

  “We want them to do their social media recruiting again, like they did for the big battle last night,” Gallagher said. “We need all the help we can get. We’ve got many hundreds of civilians in that battle right now, but we need many thousands.”

  There was a beep. A third window came up, showing a middle-aged man and a very attractive dark haired woman. There were rows of people in front of them, laptops open.

  “Hello, Governor,” Don said. “We’ve already gotten started, based on what Ramsey told us to do.”

  “Excellent,” Gallagher said. “Tell people to go south of the city along I-37, and also north of the city, just south of Boerne on I-10. That’s where the satellite pictures show most of the incoming forces. We’re trying to pound them from the air, but they’ve got a lot of cover. Human shields, buildings, housing tracks, and so on. We’ll have to hit them on the ground.”

  “Also tell people that there are hundreds of sleeper cells activating inside the city, especially downtown and in the tourist areas,” Ramsey said. “We’re going to need a lot of help down there.”

  “What about the Army National Guard?” Don asked.

  “We’re rushing as many as we can in that direction,” Gallagher said, “but we weren’t quite ready to mount a large assault. We’re still screening for RFID chips.”

  “How’s it going?” Nelson asked.

  “Way worse than we expected,” Gallagher said. “We’re running about a third with chips. Damn President Simpson and his service for green cards BS.”

  “You’re saying most of the bad people are foreigners?” Hendrix asked.

  “Yeah,” Gallagher said, “most but not all. We have a lot of militia folks joining in too. There were more Simon Orr types in the state than we thought.”

  “Wonderful,” Hendrix said.

  Brian held up his hands, looking at his laptop screen.

  “What’s going on?�
� Nelson asked.

  “We sent a team to unblock the river. Enemy forces attacked. Killed our whole team.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Nelson said. “How many Army National Guard guys do we have ready to field right now?”

  “Just a sec,” Gallagher said. He got up from the table and walked away with the phone to his ear.

  “How badly can San Antonio be flooded?” Maria asked.

  “Bad enough to tie up traffic,” Ramsey said. “It’ll be hard to get fighters in there. We could lose all of downtown to the enemy if we aren’t careful.”

  “My God,” Nelson said. “If they can take that part of town, they’ll expand outwards from there. They might take the whole damn city.”

  “We’re getting a pretty big response from people in the San Antonio city center,” Don said. “A lot of them are already in the fight.”

  “He’s right about that,” Wallis said. “We’ve got some eyes and ears right in the middle of it.”

  “Really? Who?” Nelson asked.

  “One of our key Patrol Boat crews,” Wallis said. “They were on their way from Riviera Beach to Houston.”

  “Kinda out of the way, isn’t it?” Gallagher asked.

  “They got chased out when the enemy landed on the gulf coast,” Wallis said. “They barely got out of Loyola Beach ahead of the enemy. I’ve got one of my best guys talking with them. He told them to stay in the city and help. Now we’ll use them for spotters and intel.”

  Gallagher came back in. “We could field about fifteen thousand troops right now,” he said.

  “Wallis, can you get them airlifted to San Antonio?”

  “Yes sir,” Wallis said. “Where are they now?”

  “Camp Bowie, in Fort Worth,” Gallagher said.

  “Okay, let’s rush them down there,” Nelson said. “I’ll let you guys figure out how and where to use them.”

  “Can’t we divert the river from someplace outside of the city?” Hendrix asked.

  “It’s spring fed from inside city limits,” Nelson said. “No shutting that off, I’m afraid.”

  “Shoot, that’s right,” Hendrix said. “Should have remembered that.”

  “What about all the choppers we have at our disposal now?” Nelson asked.

  “We still need to patrol the roads, especially around Fort Stockton and El Paso,” Wallis said. “We’ll have more civilian casualties if we send them in, too. I suggest we wait a little and see what the citizens and those Army National Guard folks can do.”

  “Okay,” Nelson said. “What else?”

  “We’ve had a hard time getting patrol boat crews to the Galveston area,” Wallis said. “You already know about one of the teams. Two more got killed in action in Riviera Beach when the invasion happened.”

  “On their boats?” Nelson asked.

  “No, they were hiding out, waiting to leave the area like the team that’s in San Antonio. Other crews are trickling in slowly, but the roads are a mess down there. Lots of enemy fighters attacking and then disappearing.”

  “What happened to the boats?” Hendrix asked.

  “We paid contractors to take them to Galveston,” Wallis said. “Captain Jefferson led that operation. He’s the guy talking to the crew in San Antonio. The boats got to the base safely, but we only have three crews right now. Jefferson wanted to man one with a couple of officers, but I told him no.”

  “Good call. How many boats do we have down there?” Nelson asked.

  “Sixteen,” Wallis said. “More than enough to protect the infrastructure down there, especially since we wiped out their aircraft carrier and their other large boats.”

  “So we bought ourselves some time,” Nelson said. “But they’ll recover. We’d better start looking for alternatives on the crew problem.”

  “Yeah,” Gallagher said. “We can’t afford to lose any more infrastructure.”

  “Especially oil refineries,” Wallis said. “At least we got the one in Corpus Christi up and running again.”

  “How much danger is it in?” Hendrix asked.

  “A lot, but it’ll take the enemy a little while to recover from the pounding we gave them down there, and we’re bringing their two aircraft carriers up.”

  “We need choppers for that, don’t we?” Nelson asked. “And pilots.”

  “Working on that,” Wallis said. “We’d be further along if we didn’t have to deal with this mess in San Antonio. We need to be careful. They’re trying to get us back into reactive mode after the slaughter up by Fort Stockton. They’ve probably figured out our strategy already.”

  “What strategy?” Don asked.

  “Sorry, can’t talk about that right now,” Nelson said. “How’s the social media action going?”

  “People were out there waiting for the information,” Sydney said. “We’re getting pledges on a huge scale. Forty thousand people in the San Antonio area and the surrounding suburbs.”

  “Excellent,” Nelson said. “Stay on it. After we get past this, I want you guys to work with some other groups. Spread your knowledge and experience.”

  “You got it,” Don said.

  “I need to get going,” Wallis said. “Anything else for this call?”

  “I don’t have anything else,” Nelson said. “Anybody have anything more?”

  There was silence.

  “Okay, I’ll take that as a no. Talk to you later. Godspeed.”

  Brian ended the call. Maria clicked off the meeting, then leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath.

  “You okay, honey?” Hendrix asked.

  “This is a long way from over, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Hendrix said.

  Chapter 12 – Mixing the Mash

  Curt woke up next to Amanda, the prior night rushing back into his head. She stirred.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning,” Curt said, searching her eyes.

  “I did what I wanted to do last night, all right?” she said softly. “I have no regrets. Do you?”

  “No,” Curt said, caressing her face.

  “You want to go again now?” she asked.

  “No, let’s save it for later,” Curt said. “We’ve got stuff going on today.”

  “More weapons production?” she asked.

  “We’re out of vehicles,” he said. “I was thinking more about your operation, just in case we have a hard time getting more fuel for the tanks.” He got up and looked out the window. “Lot of activity down at the clubhouse. Wonder what’s going on?”

  “Maybe we should get dressed and go check it out.”

  “I need a shower pretty bad,” Curt said.

  “Maybe I should join you.”

  He smiled. “I could live with that, but it’ll be pretty tight.”

  “I don’t care,” Amanda said, getting out of bed. Curt moaned as he took her in.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said.

  “Sure you don’t want to play a little before we get moving?” she asked, getting next to him.

  “Dammit,” he said, pulling her towards him, their naked bodies touching as they kissed. They fell back onto the bed, making frantic love, then lying on their backs. Curt chuckled.

  “What?” Amanda asked.

  “I don’t want to do anything but that,” he said. “I could stay in here all day with you.”

  “No you couldn’t,” she said. “Let’s go get that shower, and then we’ll get busy, okay?”

  “Oh, all right,” he frowned, faking disappointment.

  They squeezed into the little shower and cleaned off, then got dressed and left their coach. Don drove up with Sydney, and they parked by the still.

  “Good morning,” Sydney said as she got out of the SUV, Don joining her.

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Amanda grinned.

  “Shit, you did it, didn’t you?” Sydney whispered.

  Amanda just looked back at her with an embarrassed smile.

  “What’s going on at the clubho
use?” Curt asked, walking up to Don.

  “Ramsey called this morning. There’s an attack going on in central San Antonio. He asked us to get our social media warriors back on line to gin up some citizen support.”

  “How bad?” Curt asked, brow furrowed.

  “Lots of sleeper cells in the center of town were activated,” Don said. “Satellite imagery is showing about twelve thousand enemy fighters making their way into town from the north and the south.”

  “Dammit,” Curt said. “Where the hell is the Army National Guard?”

  “On their way, from the sound of it,” Don said, “but they found about a third of their troops had RFID chips.”

  “Shit. A third?” Curt said.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Amanda asked.

  “Infiltration on a much bigger scale than I expected,” Curt said.

  “Oh, almost forgot. Moe and Clancy were asking about you,” Don said.

  “They need me?”

  “They wanted to chat about the RFID chips in the goats,” Don said.

  “Go,” Amanda said. “I’ll get the still fired up. Don’t need help on that.”

  “I’ll stick around and help you,” Sydney said. “Just need to grab my stuff out of the cabinet next to the still and load it into the SUV.”

  “Oh, really now?” Amanda asked.

  “Shut up,” Sydney said as she walked towards the cabinet. “Want to help me, sweetie?”

  “Sure,” Don said, rushing over. “You can ride with me if you want, Curt.”

  “Yeah, I’ll go,” Curt said.

  He watched as Don and Sydney grabbed plastic containers of clothes and other possessions, sliding them into the back of the SUV.

  “That all of it?” Don asked.

  “Yeah,” Sydney said. “I’ll have clean clothes for tomorrow, finally.”

  Don chuckled. “Okay. Sure you don’t want to come back?”

  “No,” she said. “You can just leave my stuff in the back of the wagon. We’ll deal with it tonight.”

  “Oh, you will, eh?” Amanda asked, twinkle in her eye.

  Sydney rolled her eyes. “Whatever. What do you need help with?”

  “Mixing up some mash,” Amanda said. “We’ll need more raw materials pretty soon. Maybe after we get this batch going you can use your skills to find us a source nearby.”