Scavenger

by Jerry D. Young

  Then he continued his journey to Chicago, a major anti-gun city, with lots of BATFEPM agents. He took a week to scout the area, using different role camouflage each day. When he had his spots picked he dropped off copies of his Declaration at each newspaper, TV station, and radio station. He then went and set up the scoped and suppressed Barrett Light Fifty that had been in the BATFEPM van and waited. When he had his chance he fired all ten rounds in the Barrett magazine.

  Calmly he broke the gun down, replaced it in its case, slipped the case into the duffle bag, and swung it to his back. He was gone in minutes, headed back to the small town to switch vehicles and go back to his camp.

  Agent Miller showed up three days after Jimmy returned to his camp. Jimmy thought Agent Miller’s hand was twitching toward his pistol. “How long have you been here?”

  Jimmy told him the first day he’d arrived. “Why?”

  “We’re investigating a series of murders in Chicago. You’ve been here all that time?”

  “Sure. Just been enjoying being away from the city. Why do you think I have anything to do with murders in Chicago?”

  “I’ll ask the questions. You used a Barrett fifty-caliber sniper rifle in Iraq, didn’t you?”

  Jimmy nodded.

  “You know they are illegal to own now.”

  Again Jimmy nodded.

  “Do you own one?”

  With a chuckle Jimmy replied. “No. I do not own a fifty caliber weapon. The only weapon I had you have now.”

  “When do you plan to leave?”

  “Now is a good time, I think. To be honest, you have kind of ruined things up here for me. It isn’t long before I have to go to work again, anyway.”

  “You are awful sure of yourself, Smart Guy.”

  “It’s easy when you have right on your side.”

  “Right? Right like the great Second Amendment right?”

  “No. The ‘I’m innocent’ right. More questions?”

  “If I find out you’ve been lying to me, things will go hard for you.”

  “I understand,” Jimmy said. He turned away and began to pack up his camp.

  “I think you’re lying and I’m going to prove it. What is down that way?”

  “I don’t suggest you go down there. It’s a mess. I thought about it, but chickened out. That’s why I’m camping here.”

  “We’ll see,” Miller said. “We know you didn’t go out the way you came in. But if I can get through, that means you could, too.”

  “If you go, you’ll see my tracks where I tried.”

  Miller went back to his Ford Excursion and followed the obvious tracks that Jimmy had made sure to leave, just in case. Jimmy pulled him out four hours later, hooked the trailer back up, and headed for home, a fuming Miller leading the way.

  The Chicago killings seemed to galvanize the nation. It couldn’t be kept off the news. It had happened in full daylight, middle of the week, with hundreds of witnesses. The Chicago papers, radio stations, and TV stations all had copies of his Declaration.

  The BATFEPM began to run into even more resistance than before. Ambushes, sniping attacks, an all manner of active resistance when trying to confiscate. Dozens of people died, including women and children as the BATFEPM began to go in shooting, in response to the attacks. Attempts to quash the news coverage began to fail.

  With more coverage of the BATFEPM killings, many of the news outlets began to investigate other news stories they had been warned to stay away from. News of other abuses was disseminated.

  People began to protest the ID chip implants as more and more security measures were instituted in response to the violence. Travel was heavily restricted as pockets of resistance were identified. Only those with the chip could travel more than twenty-five miles from their home. People living further than that from their work required special programming in their chip to pass the check points.

  In addition to the attacks on authority figures, the BATEFPM and security police, strong supporters of the various measures began to be attacked openly. There were calls to employ the military in protecting members of the Executive Branch, the Judicial Branch, and more importantly, the Legislative Branch of the government, particularly members of Congress that had supported, and were still supporting the various restrictive aspects of American life. Several had been killed. Almost all had been attacked in one way or another at least once.

  The country was in an uproar. The President declared martial law and suspended the Constitution. Open warfare erupted. The President called on the UN for assistance to put down the rebellion.

  Rogue elements of the US Navy shot down the first seven plane loads of Peacekeepers headed for the country. Marines from Quantico stormed the UN complex and commandeered aircraft to transport delegates and workers out of the United States. Elements of the Air Force destroyed the buildings.

  Many units of the various Armed Forces were now sitting ready to do battle with their own forces.

  Fearful of an attack on Washington, DC`, the President, Vice President, and key members of Congress boarded Air Force One for a flight to Geneva, Switzerland, to continue pursuing a UN solution. One of the F-15 escort pilots activated his weapons systems and shot down the plane. He was in turned destroyed by another of the escort planes, but Air Force One went down with total loss of life.

  That act broke the back of the Democratic Party, which had been running into problems anyway, as the draconian measures they had begun using began to severely affect their own constituents.

  The Secretary of State was sworn in as President. He was a Democrat, but a very moderate one. He immediately called for peace among Americans, restricted the BATEFPM duties for an indefinite period of time, and rescinded all the recent restrictive laws by executive order.

  Agent Miller went berserk and went after Jimmy. As soon as the restrictions of gun ownership had been rescinded, Jimmy had brought out a couple of his cached firearms. A sympathetic BATFEPM agent contacted Jimmy and warned him that Miller was going after him. Jimmy smiled slightly and hung up the telephone.

  Jimmy waited for Miller on the street in front of Jimmy’s apartment building. It was over in seconds. Jimmy dove to his left as soon as he saw Miller approach. Miller drew and began firing. Jimmy drew his Para-Ordnance and put three quick rounds into Miller’s face, dropping him almost instantly. No charges were filed, with two dozen witnesses substantiating Jimmy’s statement that Miller had drawn first, without warning, and fired at Jimmy.

  Even with most of the restrictions lifted, serious damage had been done to the United States economy. That, in conjunction with the continuing droughts blamed on Global Warming, the food supply became critical. You can’t eat guns, or gold, or yachts, or SUV’s. You can eat tobacco, but it isn’t very filling. The remainder of Congress couldn’t come up with a plan to resolve the shortages.

  The whole world was suffering from Global Warming. Where there weren’t ongoing droughts, there were monsoonal rains. Crop production per capita was at a two-hundred year low.

  The US economy was in ruins due to the Rainbow Currency Equalization Act. Gold and silver began climbing again as Americans could again own it and now many wanted it badly.

  The split in the military was slow in healing. There were those that had supported Presidential authority, despite the Constitution, who were still at odds with those that supported direct Constitutional authority, despite Presidential authority.

  With the US having pulled back its influences from around the world, except for Israel, many countries around the world began programs of adventurism, including Spain, France, Russia, China, and Germany, in search for diminishing resources, especially food crops.

  The Mid-East was at war with itself. With the nuclear umbrella protecting Israel, many of the other countries in the area began small internecine wars to try to bring back one of the many previous dynasties that had controlled the area in the past, with the stated intention of becoming strong enough to take on Israel, even if Israel cont
inued to have US help.

  The UN, now meeting in The Hague, was essentially powerless. The nations of Africa and South and Central America began fighting one another, and the incursions of the nations on their new path of adventurism.

  Local communities began cracking down on illegal immigration, and the courts were letting them. Between losing benefits in many places and the much tougher economy, many Mexicans and Central Americans began to leave the US voluntarily. The streets of the US were no longer paved in gold for illegal immigrants or for natural born citizens, when it came to that.

  The corporation Jimmy worked for had held on for as long as it could. It finally had to downsize and Jimmy’s position was eliminated. While he job hunted Jimmy moved out to the farm, living in a small travel trailer he bought used. He helped around the farm when he wasn’t out on interviews.

  He installed satellite TV and satellite internet service in the trailer to keep up on the news. It wasn’t good, despite the upswing in Republican popularity. Things seemed to be moving in the right direction, but the pendulum swung slowly, which Jimmy decided was probably a good thing.

  New programs were developed, similar to many of the Depression Era federal works projects, without quite as much socialism involved. It was announced that the military would be rebuilding, to counter some of the activities going on in the world.

  It was debated in later decades whether or not that announcement of the rebuilding program was the actual trigger, or not, but global nuclear war erupted two days after the announcement. Russia launched first, quickly followed by China. But the US was still the most powerful nation on the planet. The President released the nuclear arsenal and the US retaliated in kind. Most of the world was spared the initial effects, with only the three nations using their nuclear arsenals, targeting each other.

  In the long term, however, the entire world suffered. Global warming was reversed in a few days and a new minor Ice Age began.

  Jimmy was at the farm when the attack came. He sheltered with the family, in the basement of the new monolithic dome barn that had been part of the upgrade to the farm. Besides Jimmy, most of the owner’s extended family came to the shelter, too. They were somewhat west of any targets, and well east of the targets to their west. They received only marginal fallout and were out of the shelter in ten days.

  It was already fall, and with the overcast caused by the nuclear war, winter was going to come early. They prepped the farm for the following spring, scraping and discarding the top three inches of top soil of their fields. Jimmy helped where he could, mostly with the animals, while the others used their diesel powered equipment. Most of it was very good equipment, but far from new. Most items survived the EMP. While there were some losses to the EMP, none were critical.

  They settled in to hibernate the winter, secure in food and fuel. Jimmy had retrieved more of his cached weapons and armed those over fifteen years of age at the farm. He did some basic training, and set up a few fixed defensive positions, with a watch kept on the main entry to the farm at all times.

  It was well they did. In January several people tried to get onto the farm, searching for food. They were met with force. The family was prepared to help their neighbors, and had small handouts ready for distribution. It only seemed to madden the people. They left with the food, but came back during the middle of a snow storm for more.

  Jimmy’s long range sniper skills weren’t of much use in the heavy fall of snow, but his ability to blend into the surroundings was. He went out in snow camouflage over body armor during the attack. He was able to break the back of the attack, sneaking up on and taking out three of those doing the most firing at the house. Through the swirling snow he saw several of the others begin to run away. He fired the PTR-91 until he couldn’t see anyone.

  They left the bodies where they lay for three days, and then Jimmy and the oldest brother, Frank, both in armor and camouflage, went out, in yet another snow storm, to make sure no one was lurking around. They moved the bodies and stripped them, recovering some useable gear. The bodies were wrapped in plastic and put in a metal storage building for burial when the ground thawed.

  There were several more people that came to the farm for food, but only one more group was aggressive. When they foolishly made threats, standing right there in a group, all heavily armed, Jimmy didn’t hesitate. He opened fire. When he did, several other members of the family did as well. They added the bodies to those already in the metal building.

  Jimmy back tracked their approach. He didn’t find any signs of any others, but he did find four vehicles, including three diesel crew cab Dodge dualies, with trailers, loaded to the gills, and a ten wheeler tanker truck nearly full of diesel.

  He drove one of the vehicles to the farm and took three others from the farm back to recover the rest of the vehicles. The Dodges only had a few miles on them. Jimmy assumed they’d been liberated from a dealership. It didn’t matter. They were the farms now. As he had before, Jimmy took a share of the spoils of war, letting the farm have all four vehicles, while he took a large share of the supplies and a few of the weapons.

  Those on the farm were now well equipped tactically and trained to handle emergencies. Jimmy decided to go check on his property holdings. He loaded up the Suburban and trailer and set off.

  It took him a few days to get to the first small town. There were people moving about, but not that many. Checking his radiation meter, Jimmy decided a quick visual on the quadraplex would be adequate. The radiation in the area was still over 1.0R/hr.

  The quadraplex was on what had been a quiet side street. It didn’t look like any snow had been removed since it had started the previous fall. Jimmy turned around and left the small town. He’d check during the summer months when he could get to it without leaving the Suburban vulnerable.

  So far, the people he met were civil enough, if not necessarily friendly. People seemed to want to keep what was in their area, for their own use. He was warned repeatedly not to try to scavenge in ‘their’ area.

  Figuring the snow would be less the further south he went, Jimmy turned the Suburban in that direction, headed for another of the towns where he had a quadraplex. There was, indeed, less snow, but there was still snow. Plenty of it. When he ran into roadblocks, natural or manmade, he went around them where he could. When he couldn’t he backtracked ‘til he could take a different route.

  Going solo had serious drawbacks. Jimmy always stopped well before dark, fixed a hot meal and then found a remote place to stay the night. He slept in a Slumberjack two-bag sleep system, in a trough of sorts in the equipment in the back of the Suburban. Despite the sub-zero cold at nights, he slept warmly. He never had trouble starting the Suburban after one of the cold nights.

  He made it to the second quadraplex. It was intact, but deserted. The door to one of the units was open, and there were signs of rodents and other small animals inside. He checked the freestanding four door garage. There were no vehicles inside. He backed the trailer into one of the slots and the Suburban in another and began to clean up the infested unit. He stayed there three days and didn’t see a soul.

  Jimmy checked the outside access to the basement. It was still well concealed under three inches of earth, plus the snow. He didn’t bother it. He did open one of the secret entrances located in the floor of each master bedroom in the quadraplex. He climbed down the ladder and took a look around. Everything was just as he’d left it when the quadraplex had been built. After climbing back out, he closed the hatch.

  At the next small town on the southern route, Jimmy found he still had tenants. They weren’t too happy that he still wanted rent.

  “Look,” Jimmy told the three head of households of the three units that were occupied, “It’s still my property. I’m not going to kick you out in the cold. You being here helps protect this property. But I do expect some compensation. Excess food, gold or silver, of course. Firewood, anything of value. I don’t ask much. A tenth ounce of gold per month or what i
t would buy. Let it accumulate. I’ll be by once or twice a year to collect. Nothing on this trip.”

  Two agreed, if somewhat reluctantly. The third man angrily said, “I may just leave and burn this place to the ground.”

  The other two gasped in shock.

  Jimmy smiled that little smile of his and replied. “If this place burns, I will find you and kill you with no mercy. I’ve killed before, I can do it again.”

  The man blanched, and looked down at his feet. “You’ll get your bloody tribute!” The anger was obvious. He turned around and went into his unit of the quadraplex.

  Jimmy turned to the other two men. “Any one that wants the fourth unit, the same situation goes. Let them know they will owe from the time they take up residency. If you want, you can combine resources and pay as a group.”

  The two nodded and Jimmy got back into the Suburban and left. There had been no indications that the tenants had found the basement and its cache.

  The fourth quadraplex had burned, at least partially. It was no problem to get into the basement through the bedroom of the part that hadn’t burned. He cleaned out the cache and loaded it into the trailer. The only thing he left behind was the water from the 15-gallon barrels he used for water storage.

  At the fifth quadraplex there were six families using the four units. He gave them the same offer to pay to continue to stay. They seemed much less reluctant and agreed quickly, and even offered a cord of firewood in payment then and there. Jimmy declined, smiled, and shook hands all around. He’d see in a few months if they would actually pay up.

  Those in the sixth quadraplex ran him off at gun point. From the looks of the weapons they brandished, they hadn’t discovered the cache in the basement, if they’d even found the basement. It wasn’t worth the trouble at the moment to find out. They didn’t look to be a very healthy bunch.