A Time for Patriots

by Dale Brown

  “What’s the latest, David?” Patrick asked.

  “Your friend Charlie has some burns and a concussion,” David said. “There were a number of severe burn injuries and injuries from the explosion, but luckily it was far enough away.” He looked directly at Patrick. “There was just one fatality.” Patrick closed his eyes, and he half leaned, half stumbled back against the wall for support. “I’m sorry, Patrick.”

  “What?” Brad asked, looking back and forth from Patrick to David in confusion. “Who?”

  Patrick reached out and hugged his son tightly. “Your uncle Jon, son.”

  “Wha-what?” Brad gasped, and he started to sob into his father’s shoulder. “Uncle Jon’s dead?”

  “I’m sorry, Brad,” David said. He waited a few moments, then went on: “There’s more, Patrick.” He pinned a white plastic tag on their shirts. “They detected traces of radiation at the blast site—another dirty bomb. No lethal levels have been detected yet on the survivors—I think the bomb was so big that it cooked off most of whatever was in the van—but the blast site is pretty contaminated. The base is being evacuated and closed down. We’re going to transfer the casualties to Andorsen Memorial any minute now—everyone else will be taken to the high school for more examinations.”

  “Jesus . . .” Patrick breathed, then hugged Darrow as well as his son. “I swear to God, I’m going to find these terrorist bastards and make them pay, I swear it.”

  “Let the authorities handle it, Patrick,” Darrow said. “This . . . this is just too massive, too dangerous. It’ll take the Army to stop those terrorists. Your son needs you right now. You’ve done all you can. Let the authorities take charge.” Patrick could do nothing else but hug his son and Darrow—the energy just seemed to flow from his body like air escaping from a balloon.

  “Dad?” Brad asked. “What’s going to happen? What do we do?”

  “We’ll deal with it, son,” Patrick said softly, hugging Brad tightly. “We’ll be okay.” He turned and looked toward the entrance to the clinic . . . and saw none other than Judah Andorsen talking with FBI special agent Chastain . . .

  . . . and standing beside and behind Andorsen was Michael Fitzgerald! He looked at Patrick with a painful, horrified expression, then averted his eyes.

  Andorsen noticed Patrick looking toward him and stepped forward. Fitzgerald did not move, and he kept his eyes averted. “Hello, General,” Andorsen said. Both his voice and demeanor were completely changed—he no longer came across as the “aw, shucks” grandfatherly country rancher. “It’s good to see you’re okay. What a horrible thing, absolutely horrible. And I just heard they’re evacuating and closing the base today. God, what a mess. I’ll sure miss all of you, but I think it’s the best thing for the community. Obviously the base has been targeted by extremists, and even the Air Force’s best security can’t seem to keep anyone safe.”

  He took a step toward Patrick, and sensing danger, Patrick pulled his son away from him and guided him into Darrow’s arms, then took a step toward Andorsen. The rancher got face-to-face with Patrick, then said in a low voice: “As you know, General, I like aircraft, and I like airports. I like this airport—nice long runways, lots of hangar space, lots of land, and, of course, the cool underground hangars that my father and grandfather built. I think I’d like to have this airport, and I think the county will sell it to me for next to nothing right after the Air Force gives it to them—after it’s been cleaned up and decontaminated, of course.

  “I’m thinking I might get into the resort and hunting-lodge business—you know, fly wealthy folks in, have some golf and tennis and a spa for the ladies, take guys out hunting for bighorn and deer, then serve them a big meal in a five-star restaurant,” he went on, happily smiling at Patrick’s shocked expression. “We could turn the underground hangars into a big year-round shooting range. Or how about a big sex grotto, like Hugh Heffner’s? The world’s biggest brothel? That sound like fun to you? It’s perfectly legal here in Lander County, of course.”

  He looked Patrick squarely in the eyes. “We don’t need the Space Defense Force, the Civil Air Patrol, your high-tech gadgets, or any of you creaky retired ex-military jocks here after this base closes,” he said, “and we certainly don’t need hotshots like you who think the military is the be-all and the end-all. You’ve had your day, General, but as of right now, it’s over. I have a suggestion for you: when you get out of federal prison, why don’t you just go back to wherever you came from, go find a nice comfy rocking chair, and stay put? You’re not welcome here. Take my advice, for the safety of your son and your friends: get the hell out of northern Nevada.” And with that, he left, Fitzgerald following close behind him.

  “Why was Mr. Fitzgerald going with Mr. Andorsen, Dad?” Brad asked.

  “That’s something we need to find out, Brad,” Patrick said. He shook his head in confusion, then turned to David. “Didn’t Fid go with Leif to the Freedom-7 mine?” he asked.

  “Yes,” David said. “I spoke with him while they were on their way out there. He didn’t call you to tell what they found?”

  “I never heard from either one of them,” Patrick said. “I assumed they didn’t get a chance to go.” He wore a very worried expression. “Now Fid is back—with Andorsen—and no one’s heard from Leif. Not good.” He thought for a moment. “We’ve got some work to do. Whack, I want the CID.”

  “I think it was blown over by the explosion, but it should still be operable,” Whack said.

  “It might have to be cleaned and decontaminated, but hopefully it won’t be damaged or unusable,” Patrick said. “Check it out. We’ll meet at the Space Defense Force building.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Whack said, and he headed out the door.

  Patrick turned to Brad. “You stay with Miss Horton, okay, Brad?”

  “I want to go with you, Dad,” Brad said.

  “You can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Hold on a second, Patrick,” Rob Spara interjected. “We all want to go with you.”

  “These guys are dangerous—they’re killers,” Patrick said. “The Tin Man and CID are our best weapons to use against them.”

  “With all due respect, General—no, they’re not,” Rob said. “Those ‘guys’ are our neighbors—they may even be our friends. The best answer to this situation may not be the best weapon—maybe it’s just one neighbor telling another neighbor to knock it off and join the real world again.”

  “We’ll get the whole squadron,” John de Carteret said. “I don’t know how many guys we’re up against, but we should be able to muster a bunch of guys to head on out there with you.”

  Patrick thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “We’ll meet out at the Space Defense Force building,” he said, “and we’ll come up with a plan.” He turned to Brad. He was about to tell him he couldn’t go. But he looked into his son’s face, and he didn’t see his son—he saw the look of a determined, angry young man, ready to go to work, resolved not to stay behind.

  He clasped Brad on the shoulder and nodded. “You’re with me, Brad,” he said.

  Andorsen Freedom-7 Mine, near Mount Callahan, Nevada

  That evening

  “The closing of the air base is only the beginning,” Judah Andorsen proclaimed loudly to the three hundred men, women, and even children assembled before him in the massive hollowed-out cavern carved into the side of the open-pit mine. Standing beside and behind him was Michael Fitzgerald. “That base was a symbol of the waste, inefficiency, and incompetence of the American government. They failed to protect themselves, and they failed to protect the citizens that trusted the government to help them. Those people from the Knights of the True Republic lost their lives because the government promised to help them, and broke their promise. Government is incapable of protecting you. Only we the people can protect us. No one else but ourselves.” The audience clapped and cheered their agreement.

  “When the base reverts back to its rightful owners . . .�
��—and the audience chanted, “We the people! We the people! We the people!”—“ . . . we will be able to solidify our control over how we are governed in this territory. We’ll be able to see the enemy coming. They won’t be able to fly in aircraft to watch us, or bring more weapons to kill us. We’ll be able to better consolidate our influence over the various so-called established government entities, the corrupt county and state governments, and prove to the world that sovereign citizens can and must run our own lives, free of the influence of the broken and dysfunctional Washington bureaucratic elite. Remember this day, my friends and fellow patriots: today was the twenty-first century’s ‘shot heard ’round the world’—the opening shot of the renewed fight for true freedom.”

  At the mine entrance, two pickup trucks with four men, all armed with hunting rifles fitted with night-vision sniperscopes, stood guard just inside the closed steel gate and cattle guard. The pickup trucks were arranged nose to nose, blocking the road but making it easy for them to maneuver in case they were needed.

  “Pretty good turnout tonight, eh?” one of the guards said. “I brought my brother-in-law and his teenage kids. They got to meet Mr. Andorsen personally.”

  “We might need a bigger cavern pretty soon,” another said.

  “Soon we’ll move out to the air base,” another guard said. “I heard that after it’s cleaned up, we’ll use—” He stopped, then started scanning the area outside the gate with his night-vision sniperscope. “Did you hear something?”

  “What? Like a car?”

  “No—sounded big, running, like an elk or something.” He stopped, then reversed his scan. “Hold on . . . I see . . . shit, what the hell is that?”

  Moments later, the Cybernetic Infantry Device ran up to the gate. “Evening, guys,” Brad McLanahan said in an electronically synthesized voice from within the CID. “Nice night tonight, isn’t it?” Brad shook the heavy steel gate experimentally a few times . . . then lifted it up, snapping chains, locks, and hinges, and tossed it aside as easily as tossing a shoveful of dirt.

  “I’m going to need a little room here, guys,” Brad said. He put both hands under the front bumper of one of the pickup truck and lifted, and the pickup flipped end over end through the air, finally coming to rest about twenty yards away. He reached over and grabbed the rifles out of the hands of two stupefied guards, then punted the second pickup truck away before disarming the other two guards.

  Brad then grabbed the two guards he’d just disarmed and held them close to his head. “Would you mind dropping your radios on the ground?” They hesitated, numb with fear. “Drop them, now!” Brad shouted. They did as they were told, and Brad crushed the devices under his armored feet before doing the same to the other two guards’. “Thanks, guys. My squadron mates will be coming through shortly. Don’t get run over by accident in the dark. See ya.” And he trotted away to the next guard post.

  As Andorsen was speaking, a man came up onstage to him and whispered, “All of the guard posts missed a check-in, sir.”

  “Damn,” Andorsen said. He turned to Fitzgerald. “We’ll go out the north relief bore—that’ll take us all the way to the north side of the ridge, about a mile walking. I’ve got two Harleys waiting outside the bore. We can ride to my airstrip near Austin and take the Turbo Commander to—”

  Just then the entire assemblage heard the large, heavy steel doors at the back of the cavern rattle, as if it were being blown by a powerful gust of wind. Then they heard a metallic knock knock knock—followed by both doors being ripped off their hinges like banana peels, and the Cybernetic Infantry Device entered the chamber. “Is it too late for the door prize?” Brad asked in his electronic voice, holding both steel doors in his armored hands. He held up the doors and rattled them as easily as shaking two pieces of paper. “Get it? ‘Door prize’?”

  “Everybody take a good look—this is what the government has sent out against us!” Andorsen shouted over the terrified voices echoing through the cavern. “They sent the most destructive weapon in the Army’s arsenal against unarmed innocent citizens. Don’t be afraid of it! You want a perfect example of what the federal government is willing to do against sovereign citizens—there it is! The federal government will stop at nothing, and use every weapon it possesses, to squash your freedom!”

  “This has nothing to do with the federal government, Andorsen,” a voice said . . . and Patrick McLanahan stepped past Brad into the chamber. “This is about your fellow citizens putting a stop to your killing spree.” Behind him came Rob Spara, David Bellville, John de Carteret, and fifty more members of the Battle Mountain Civil Air Patrol squadron.

  “These are the criminals who have been spying on you!” Andorsen shouted. “These are the ones who tried to kill the Knights of the True Republic, then lured them onto the air base and slaughtered them! They are the ones using radioactive bombs. Don’t listen to them!”

  “My name is General Patrick McLanahan,” Patrick shouted. “You know who I am. I’m a retired lieutenant-general of the United States Air Force and a member of the Civil Air Patrol—and I’m also your neighbor. We are all your neighbors. I’m here to tell you that Judah Andorsen has been lying to you. He doesn’t want to protect you. He doesn’t want to create a peaceful self-governing society. He’s an anarchist. He wants to create an empire in the heart of Nevada that operates by creating fear in the people, our elected officials, and in law enforcement. He creates fear, then proposes a solution: band together, join him, and he will protect you. It’s a lie.”

  “Who is creating fear now, McLanahan?” Andorsen asked. “Who is ripping apart doors and killing our friends outside? You’re the real threat here, McLanahan, not I. You can’t stop us. You can’t terrorize us.” He waved his hands over the audience. “What are you going to do to us now, General?” he asked. “You going to call the police? Call the Army? Call the National Guard? You do that, and you’ve proved that government only takes freedom, not provides it—and you’re an instrument of the government, just as we always thought you were.”

  “Why did you kill Leif Delamar, Andorsen?”

  “You mean, the man spying on us yesterday morning?” Andorsen asked. “Your spy? He deserved to die.”

  “He was unarmed.”

  “He was a spy and a traitor, and spies and traitors are executed—that’s the law of war.”

  “Why did you kill all those members of the Knights of the True Republic?” Patrick asked. “More innocents murdered, by you.”

  “They were cowardly sheep, betrayed by their leader into agreeing to come onto the air base for their so-called protection and assistance,” Andorsen said. “They are better off dead than surrendering themselves to the government!”

  “So who else do you intend on killing with radioactive dirty bombs, Andorsen?” Patrick shouted. “What other innocents will die?”

  “I never used dirty bombs on anyone!” Andorsen shouted. Now the assemblage was looking suspiciously at him instead of Patrick or the CID. “That’s a lie! Prove that I’ve ever used dirty bombs! Yes, I have explosives, and I’ve lashed out at enemies of this community! But I’ve never used dirty—”

  “You’re a liar, Andorsen,” a voice shouted behind him. It was Michael Fitzgerald, pushing a cart carrying a large wooden crate with J. ANDORSEN CONSTRUCTION stenciled in black letters. “If you’ve never used dirty bombs, what’s this?” And Fitzgerald kicked the crate open . . .

  . . . revealing a large steel-and-concrete cask, marked with radioactive-material symbology.

  “You planted that on me!” Andorsen shouted. “It’s a plant! You’re trying to set me up!”

  “You murdered my friend right in front of my eyes, you lousy bastard,” Fitzgerald shouted. “You had me spy on my friends and inform on them to the FBI. All I wanted was a job, Andorsen—you turned me into a traitor.”

  “No one’s going to believe you about anything, you stupid loser,” Andorsen said, “especially if you’re dead!” And he reached into his jacket for h
is Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver . . .

  . . . but Fitzgerald was faster. He pulled out a Browning M1911 semiautomatic pistol and fired three times before Andorsen’s revolver could clear the flying jacket.

  “I may be a loser,” Fitzgerald said, “but I can draw and shoot better than you any day.” He stepped over the body, off the stage, and over to Patrick, Rob, David, and John. “I’m sorry, guys,” he said. “I told Andorsen about your surveillance, the Tin Man, the robot, and the backups, and he told the FBI. I was just trying to get into his good graces so he’d give me a job. I set up Leif with Andorsen’s guards, but I didn’t think they’d kill him! Then I helped the van get on base. Jesus, I really screwed up.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Patrick said. He turned to the crowd. “Go home, everyone,” he said in a loud voice. “Go home, hug your family, and try to trust the government again. It may not be perfect, but it’s ours. If you don’t like it—fix it. Don’t try to destroy it.” He looked up at the CID. “Let’s go, big guy.”

  “Okay, Dad,” Brad said—and Patrick thought he could hear Brad’s own voice, not the electronic one.

  Epilogue

  I find no hint throughout the Universe of good or ill, of blessing or of curse; I find alone Necessity Supreme.

  —James Thomson

  Downtown Battle Mountain

  Days later

  Patrick emerged from the hotel hand in hand with Darrow Horton and walked to the hotel’s parking lot. “Are you sure you can’t stay one more night?” he asked. “I can fly you to Reno in the Centurion so you can catch your flight.”