World War III - Home Front: A Novel of the Next American Revolution - Book One – As Day turns to Night

by William C. Seigler

  “Are you one of those people?” asked Laura.

  “No, and I don’t have a need to know. What I’ve been told is that he is a cantankerous old bugger. He’s stuck in a wheel chair now and has to direct some young people, who have mechanical aptitude, in how to run the equipment.

  “I’ve been told that it has been a difficult working environment, but they’re getting the hang of it. At least I hope so before the old codger has a stroke or they shoot him.”

  We all laughed at that. Slime interrupted, “Who came up with this machinegun-shotgun idea?”

  “Several of the commanders got together and hashed out what they felt was needed, you know work out what the requirements would be. We considered ammo availability, reloading, what we wanted the weapon for in the first place, and cost to produce. Other considerations were maintainability in the field, simplicity of construction, ease of operation, and a variety of other things.

  “Once we had some idea of what we wanted, we sat about finding someone who could design and build the prototype. Then we tested several until we got the bugs out. This weapon is just what we need at this time and place.

  “It is rugged and reliable. It is cheap and relatively easy to produce. It or knockoffs can be made with very basic equipment. It can be issued to people who have never used a firearm, and with minimal training they can go to work. This is also something people will be more likely to walk off and leave should it become necessary.”

  “Why don’t you just make it to fire the .223 round?” asked Smitty.

  “We’ve been kicking that around as well, and while we’re at it how about .40 caliber pistol ammo too. Both are common in police forces, so the ammo should be around.”

  “Just take it off their bodies,” said Smitty.

  “We started with the shotgun because of the availability of ammunition, and it can be used by less expert marksmen. I expect that in later versions of the weapon, that is exactly what will happen.”

  “Can one old guy and his people build enough?”

  “Oh goodness no, but now that we’ve got the bugs worked out, we will be looking for other gunsmiths to make them or at least parts that might be more difficult for the untrained individual. Other parts and assembly can be done by less expert people.”

  “I’ve a question that’s off the subject,” said Slime.

  “Okay, but first are there any more questions about this gun?”

  “What are you calling it?” asked Ricki.

  “We still don’t have a name for it yet. There have been a number of ideas floated from MS-1 for machinegun shotgun to the republic’s machine gun. They’ll think of something, anything else?”

  There wasn’t. “Okay Slime, what was your question?”

  “What are the new communication methods we’re using? You mentioned that in the beginning.”

  “Glad you brought that up. Angel’s group has some real electronics geniuses. They have looked at this problem from the strategic point of view as well as down at the unit level in the field.

  “In fact one of the things some of us might want to do is learn Morse code, but it isn’t absolutely necessary. There are free translators out there where you just type in the words you want to use, the computer puts them into code, and another on the other end returns it to a typed message.”

  “Yes, but can’t the zombies just listen in?”

  “How will they know what to listen for or where?” asked Rico.

  “Where?” asked Ricki. “They can listen anywhere if we’re using radio.”

  “I mean where on the dial, what frequency?”

  “Can’t that be used to locate us?” asked Hector.

  “Radio signals can be used that way if you are not careful. However, these signals are being bounced off the moon, and they’ll be encoded. This will be used for communication between units and to share information. We will not use it within our unit.

  “I’ve picked up these marine band walkie-talkies for that sort of communication. We are so far from the coast; hopefully no one will be listening. But always assume someone is.”

  “We had problems like that in Vietnam,” said Craig. “We were so sloppy on the radio that Charlie could listen in and take notes with a pencil as we talked.”

  “He’s right,” added Hector. “We had a first sergeant that would not shut up on the radio. Good thing he didn’t catch a round.”

  “From what they taught us when I was in training, the Israelis lost quite a few midlevel officers during the Yom Kippur War this way,” added Rico.

  “What do you mean?” asked Ricki.

  “If you keep the mike keyed too long or too often, your position can be plotted,” replied Rico. Once they had the location of the offending radio transmission, just call in artillery.”

  “Ouch,” said Tim.

  “So don’t do it,” added Rico. “If you want to be a DJ, take a job at a radio station. Use these radios only when you have to and then be careful of what you say. Use code whenever possible.”

  “You mean the phrases like Angel’s unit uses,” I offered.

  “Yes, and there are other ways to encode communication. But for us just use low power most of the time. Keep it simple and short. If you need to talk about something lengthy, it’s usually better to meet and do it face to face.

  “Anything else?” he asked looking around. After scanning the group, he began again.

  “Now as to the operation of these marine radios, you turn it on like this.” Rico briefed us on the use, care, and feeding of the little marine walkie-talkies.

  Chapter 10 – The Good Cop

  Cyrus Blackwell, Cy to his friends, was proud this day. He had finally graduated from the police academy. Weeks of classroom work, mandatory hours in the gym, practice exercises, and visits to the pistol range had finally paid off.

  “Now stand up straight,” his mother said. She was proud of her first born. He so reminded her of her husband when he had his picture taken as a young army PFC. Her mother-in-law had given the framed photograph to her as a wedding present. Cy had his mother’s dark, creamed coffee complexion and thick crop of dark hair, but his father’s mouth and manners.

  Mrs. Maria Blackwell felt that she was the luckiest woman on Earth. It had not always been so. Her mother was a Puerto Ricaña who had gone to New York to live with family and look for work. There she met and married Maria’s father, a jazz musician. Money was always tight, and her father drank. Sometimes when he drank, he got mean. Then both mother and daughter might get beaten.

  Eventually, the drinking got him killed. Coming home from a gig late one night, he was jumped by a street gang bent on mugging him. He was drunk as usual, and they started fighting. He was shot dead. Maria was ten years old.

  Her mother struggled for years to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads doing domestic work for the great ladies who inhabited Manhattan. While they were short on money, they were long on family. Puerto Rican families were very close, and there was always an auntie or cousin she could be left with while her mother worked.

  Much later at City College, she met Melvin Blackwell, a tall lean blonde man who worked offshore when he wasn’t in school. He would be a ship’s captain someday. He had plans and an affinity for women of dark complexion. Melvin would hold her hand for what seemed hours and whisper the sweetest things a young girl could imagine.

  Her mother’s only request was that she be married before she became pregnant. Maria had been afraid Melvin would dump her if she told him of her mother’s dictum, mores of the time and place being what they were.

  Eventually, young men being young men, it became necessary to tell him. For her, who had her own desires as she was young and healthy as well, it was a painful decision, but she summoned up her courage and spoke. “My mother said that if I kept my pants on, I’d stay out of trouble.”

  He sat back, looked deep into her big black eyes, and simply said, “I would never ask you to do anything your mother told you not t
o do.”

  That’s when she fell in love with this tall lean sailor with blonde hair down to his shoulders. They married when Melvin was promoted to Mate.

  Cy was the eldest of three. They had two girls who were still in school. She loved them all, and she loved the life Mel and she had made.

  Her wonderful husband was now Captain of an offshore service vessel and had missed many birthdays, dentists’ appointments, and anniversaries but always managed to navigate his way home. On top of all her other blessings, her first born whom she had nursed as a baby and doctored when he was sick had become a fine young man, and a New York City police officer.

  Cy stood up straight for the picture in his blue uniform with service cap and badge. He was the very picture of New York’s finest. This photograph would grace his mother’s piano next to the one of his father in a young soldier’s uniform.

  His friend Joe had asked him, “Why do you want to become a cop, man? There are a lot of ways of making a living which pay better and have less chance of getting you shot.”

  It had been a fair question. Police work is not the most glamorous kind of work, and other things paid much better.

  Why, because when he was young, Cy had a scrape with the law. He had been hanging out with some boys who thought themselves tough guys. They spray painted buildings and set things on fire with matches, anything to make them look macho.

  Eventually, they were caught when one of the boys set himself on fire. The first man on the scene was a New York City policeman. He put the fire out with a blanket and then sent for an ambulance. Cy thought the policeman looked like superman. Instead of hauling them all in, the officer gave the boys a stern lecture, one Cy never forgot.

  To him, the New York City policeman was a real live action hero. Unfortunately, he discovered, after his assignment to a precinct, that the real day to day work of a policeman is not just unglamorous, but systemic problems had long plagued the blue.

  One of his first lessons was stop and frisk. “There’s one there,” his partner Wallace said. He switched on the lights and briefly blasted the siren.

  “One what?” Cy asked.

  “Are you blind? It’s a ghetto kid wearing a hoody and carrying a backpack. That’s what it is.”

  “Don’t remember there being a law against that.”

  “Why do they give me these greenhorns? Look, just watch what I do, okay. Keep an eye out in case he really is dangerous or someone else has a problem with us doing our job.”

  “Okay kid, keep your hands where I can see them,” ordered Wallace.

  “I ain’t done nothing.”

  Cy moved to where he could watch the suspect and keep an eye on the surroundings.

  “Put your hands on top of your head, and don’t get cute with me. What’s in the bag?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re carrying a backpack full of nothing. Let me see it.”

  “Why’re you hassling me? I ain’t done anything.”

  “You’re acting suspicious, that’s what.”

  “Just walking down the street is acting suspicious?”

  “Don’t get smart with me.” He opened the backpack and dumped the contents on the sidewalk, then spread it out with his foot. It looked like school books and notebooks.

  One of the notebooks had a marijuana leaf sketched on the cover. “Look, evidence of drug use; you some kind of druggie kid?”

  “No.”

  “Looks like it to me,” he said tossing the backpack on the ground.

  He then frisked the kid. “Okay, empty your pockets.”

  There were only his house keys, some change, and a few other innocent items. These Wallace dropped on the ground.

  “Okay kid, you can go, and don’t let me catch you out like this again.”

  “Like what?”

  “You want me to tase you? Now get your stuff and shut your smart mouth before I put my fist in it.”

  He looked at Cy. “Come on; I’ll show you how to fill out a 250.” With that he got back in the car.

  This Cy had not expected. It didn’t take a constitutional scholar to see that this was a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. That was the least of it though.

  One officer he worked with had been placed on administrative leave without pay several times because of his brutality. Each time he went before the commission which looked into such things, he was returned to active duty with back pay. Once he even received one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in back pay. He was really pleased with himself and bragged about being the toughest cop in the NYPD.

  The SWAT teams were even worse. At first used on a limited basis in high risk situations, they were now used more often where no violence or threat of violence was evident.

  Once they shot an unarmed man in the heart after kicking in his door and got away with it, claiming the AR-15 had gone off accidentally. Whenever police come in with weapons pointed at people, accidents were bound to happen.

  Another time, they kicked in the door of the wrong house and gave the old guy living there a heart attack. He died, but no action was taken against the cops.

  Congress was partly to blame, or mostly so. They had made the no knock entry legal. Now there were over eighty thousand such raids each year. The War on Drugs was the excuse. It had become a war on the American people, make that mostly minority American people.

  Then the corruption was something he had failed utterly to anticipate. He failed to realize that wherever money was allied with government power, corruption could be predicted to follow. A cop on the take was the rule, but he wanted no part of it, which quickly gained him the reputation as not being a team player. Keep that up and he’d never make sergeant he had been told.

  It came to a head one night when his partner stopped a car because its taillight was out. No big deal, just routine till Sam handed him the bag.

  “What’s this?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “It looks like a plastic bag of marijuana.”

  “Give the kid a prize.”

  “What are you doing with it?”

  “What do you think I’m doing with it?”

  “I don’t know; I’m asking you.”

  “No wonder no one wants to work with you. Look, don’t be stupid. I’m going to pull them out of the car then search it. You go around to the passenger’s side and throw the bag in the window. Got it?”

  “I’m supposed to frame these kids on marijuana.”

  “Hey we gotta’ show these people who’s boss.”

  “By framing them, how does this help anything?”

  “Look, I don’t need no philosophy lesson. Just do it.” With that Sam got out and walked over to the stopped car.

  “Let me see your license.”

  “What did I do officer?”

  “You got a taillight out.”

  “You got your registration and proof of insurance?”

  “Yeah, they’re in the glove box.” With that the young man reached over and opened the glove box.

  “Gun!” called Sam and drew his 9 mm automatic.

  Cy, who was already around on the passenger’s side, also drew his.

  The frightened man looked back and put his hands up. “I ain’t got no gun.”

  “Okay, both of you, out of the car.”

  The driver and the passenger slowly got out and kept their hands up.

  “What are you, a pimp?”

  “No, I ain’t no pimp.”

  “What you doing with a white broad?”

  “We work together. I’m just taking her home.”

  Sam had them both facing away from the car. He then motioned to Cy. Cy just looked confused.

  Sam silently mouthed, “The bag.”

  Cy held it up dramatically between his thumb and forefinger with a bent wrist. Sam rolled his eyes and nodded.

  Cy lowered the bag and looked at it then over at the two people whose only crime was a taillight that needed fixing. He then opened the bag and du
mped the contents on the ground.

  Sam became red faced. “You two get out of here.”

  The astonished people got back in the car and drove off.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you? Why did you do that?”

  “I should have busted you. You were the one with the drugs.”

  “Why you sorry no account!” Sam said lunging at Cy. He caught Cy with both hands in the chest and pushed him hard.

  Cy tripped as he stumbled backwards and fell.

  “What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy? We had them. We could’a torn that car apart. There’s no telling what we would have found.”

  Cy got up, keeping an eye on Sam. “Maybe we should take this up with the Sergeant.”

  “Yeah, maybe we should. Get in the car.”

  They drove in silence. When they arrived back at the station, Sam got out, slammed the door, and stalked off. Cy gathered his equipment and followed. He thought the sergeant would have to straighten Sam out, though he didn’t really want to get his partner in trouble. Cy was not prepared for what he found.

  The sergeant motioned him into the lieutenant’s office. “Blackwell, what’s your problem?” the lieutenant demanded as Cy entered his office.

  “My problem. What problem is that?”

  “Every now and then we get a guy in here who doesn’t want to play ball.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m doing my job.”

  “Apparently your partner doesn’t think so. I know for a fact that there are guys who do not want you riding with them. They don’t think they can depend on you.”

  “Depend on me to do what, drop Marijuana in some kid’s car?”

  “I don’t want to hear it. You need to go along with your partner. I don’t want to hear any more complaints about you. Take the rest of the shift off. We’ve already got somebody coming in to replace you.”

  “But Lieutenant…”

  “That’s all.”

  “But Lieutenant…”

  “That is all.”

  Cy was stunned. He sat in the locker room and tried to figure out what just happened. A couple of guys wandered by and gave him dirty looks. Something was wrong, really wrong.