Hard Favored Rage

by Don Shift

  Tyler had wheeled his chair around the corner to watch. He was old enough to remember when the movie came out in 1993 and was troubled by pangs of nostalgia and a sense of loss for a time that his children and grandchildren would never experience.

  Soon, half the room was drowsing in a post-prandial haze.

  “Isn’t that Laverne? Or Shirley?” Mrs. Sibley said about the wife of the flirtatious homeowner dressed as the devil.

  “It’s one of them. I don’t remember which,” Mrs. Palmer said.

  “Her name is Penny Marshall. That’s her husband in real life,” Mr. Palmer said.

  A beep came from the security desk. “That’s me,” Tyler said.

  Inside the security desk area, there was list of sensors along the fence line of the 70-acre portion of the ranch. Each gate was marked with a small blue LED and several red LEDs marked the location of motion sensors. The blue light next to the main gate was blinking, indicating a car had driven past on the road.

  “Dad, attempt breach at the main gate!”

  Mr. Sibley jumped up, running to the security room. On the gate camera, a man with an angle grinder was cutting through the heavy-duty lock housing. “Breach! Everybody get your gear and go to battle stations!”

  The TV went off. Someone switched off the two dim lights that were on. David and the Palmers all ran to the front door to get to their rooms and gear up. The Sibley boys and the women did so as well. Ashley and Mika stood ready to main the interior for intruder defense, first aid, and firefighting. Mrs. Sibley replaced Tyler at the security desk.

  By the time David and Brooke got their portable radios turned on, the intruders had already broken through the main gate and were traveling at high speed down the main ranch road. Auggie radioed that he was en route from the back end of the property. Sam, who volunteered to be the on-call backup so Marco could sleep, was already kitted up and outside.

  Mrs. Sibley announced that the vehicle had slowed to a near-stop to make the required 90 degree turn to come up the driveway towards the house itself. The “driveway” was a densely packed gravel road that wound its way down and through the small gully in between the two hills of avocado trees. It was two-tenths of a mile long and winding except for the straightaway that approached the actual cobblestone house driveway itself.

  Sam was slogging his guts out to get into his prepared foxhole, cleverly integrated into the fieldstone retaining wall and flower bed. Hauling “The Pig” M60 machine gun while in a flat-out sprint wasn’t easy even for a fit man like himself. Combat is a young man’s game, he thought. Over his panting and the thumping of his feet, he could hear the screech of the vehicle’s tires as it made the turn, then the roar of its engine as the driver floored it through the orchard.

  Mr. Sibley had clearly marked the correct entrance to the house from the central driveway so fire fighters wouldn’t get lost in the maze of trees. The driver of the SUV focused on the reflective address sign pointing to the left where the house driveway met the gravel drive at an angle. Because the moon had not yet cleared the trees, the gully was still in full shadow. Even without headlights, the sky shine made the sign visible enough for the driver to see it at a little over 100 yards.

  What the driver didn’t see, because of the shadow and flat black paint, was the interlocking L shaped barriers crossing the gravel road. The driver’s foot hit the brake pedal a second or two before hitting the barrier, but only because it was time for him to slow down anyway.

  Sam saw the brake lights flash red, bathing the avocados that lined the gully in bloody light. Then the SUV hit the barrier at 40 miles an hour. The sections flexed against each other with the impact until they became rigid. As the weight of the vehicle pressed down on the horizonal part of the “L” the barrier would not flip backwards but skidded slightly until the backsides dug into the ground and stuck fast.

  Four men plus equipment were in the back of the SUV. The rear-weight combined with speed and the natural dip of the front end of the vehicle under braking only exacerbated the tendency of the sudden stop of the barrier to make the rear wheels of intercepted vehicles jump. In this case, the barriers gave way slightly due to the soft ground, allowing their entire length to pivot back just a little more than they were designed to.

  Sam’s finger never touched the trigger of his machine gun as the SUV somersaulted and landed on its roof, crushing the occupants in the back. Judging from the passenger, who was flung out through the windshield 20 yards down the road, the accident was not survivable. No one in the SUV would be fighting. But another vehicle was coming.

  ***

  Back in the house, Mrs. Sibley watched a red light near the creek, the central drainage ditch through the center of the ranch, illuminate. A second motion sensor, this one closer to the house, lit off. “I think someone is approaching from the south along the creek. Two motion sensors.”

  “Copy,” Mr. Sibley radioed. “I’m moving to the back.”

  A third light went off. “Looks like someone is running up, the way the lights are going off,” Carlie said.

  Brooke, who demanded and got an exception from the “males only fight” rule, was also on the back side of the house. “What do you want me to do if they start attacking the house?” she radioed.

  “Just shoot them, sweetheart,” her husband replied.

  David was scanning using the night vision scope on his rifle. Sure enough, through a gap in the trees he saw four men running towards the house. Mr. Sibley dropped right next to him.

  “Hold the line. I’m going to scan the area with my thermal scope and then try to snipe them. Don’t shoot them until they approach the actual house perimeter.” Mr. Sibley had a suppressed .300 Blackout rifle with subsonic ammunition, supposedly registered to his Arizona address, not that the National Firearms Act mattered any longer.

  “Copy.”

  Mr. Sibley moved and began his scan. His FLIR thermal scope was set to white hot, which meant that any heat signature would appear in white against a black background. The hills were free of any obvious snipers or flanking forces. From what he could tell, the only threat on the south side was the four men now slowly making their way through the trees. They were a flanking surprise while the main attack with the just-now loudly wrecked SUV was supposed to draw the brunt of the response.

  Taking a position from under a bench strategically placed to provide concealment, he waited for the flankers to make their way to him. The men were smart by approaching through the lemon trees. Typically, and which was certainly the case on his acreage, the ground beneath lemon trees was kept free of leaves. Avocado orchards often had lots of loud, crunchy leaves littering the orchard floor, which was why he specifically let the high ground and perimeter be filled with trees and not cleaned of leaf litter. Because the occasional fallen citrus leaf was small and didn’t crunch much, the intruders could hug the trees tightly and move in their shadows, rather than be forced into the center of the rows.

  When they closed to 50 yards, it didn’t matter. The subsonic round would penetrate the leaves and headshots with a lightly magnified scope from a prone position were easy. Mr. Sibley doubted that the intruders could hear the clicking sound his shots were making over their own breathing and movements. The impact of the bullets hitting their targets was certainly louder. From the way the last two men froze at the strange sound, it was clear to him that whoever these guys were, they were amateurs. A bullet impacting their flesh was a new and short-lived experience for them.

  “Back door is secure,” Mr. Sibley radioed.

  ***

  After the SUV had flipped, a van traveling at a much more reasonable speed came around the corner. Upon realizing that the lights of the SUV, a Suburban, were upside down, the driver stopped about 75 yards from Sam’s position.

  Time to wake up the neighbors, he said to himself. With his foxhole aligned perfectly to look directly down the driveway, Sam had no problem putting a 20 round burst into the engine block and the windshield. For the sa
ke of controllability, he held himself to ten round bursts after, careful to equally target all portions of the van to kill all occupants. When his belt was empty, the last rat-a-tat-tat of the gun was echoing from the distant hills. Happy Halloween.

  Throughout the night, the men took turns monitoring the perimeter for repeat attacks. None came. At dawn, they began to inspect the wrecks and patrol the property. Mr. Palmer gave a low whistle as he squatted down and turned his head sideways to look inside the overturned SUV. One of the bodies lying on the roof groaned.

  “Help me.”

  “We got a survivor,” Mr. Palmer called.

  “Shoot him,” David joked.

  “David…”

  “Pull him out,” Mr. Sibley said. “But shoot him if he goes for a gun.”

  “Should we worry about head or spinal cord injuries?” Tyler asked.

  “Dude, if he’s got that snapping his neck on accident would be a blessing.”

  It took a few minutes to get the man out and onto a soft patch of dirt. He asked for some water and Mr. Sibley gave him a canteen. A cursory examination revealed several broken ribs and one that had punctured a lung.

  “So is anyone going to be looking for you?” David asked.

  The man shook his head ever so slightly. “No. Maybe the women.”

  “What women?”

  “Our wives, girlfriends.”

  “Where is home?” The man indicated he didn’t want to talk anymore, so Sam kicked him.

  “Sam, go easy on him,” David urged.

  “Screw him.” Sam knelt down. “Where is your base?”

  “No base. Our own houses. A couple guys moved in close to each other.”

  “Where?” The man appeared to drift off to sleep. “What city?” Sam said with a kick.

  “Oak View.”

  “Okay, get him up to the house. Make him comfortable while we check out the rest.”

  Sam and Mr. Palmer carried the injured man as carefully as they could up the hill to the house. David, Tyler, and Mr. Sibley made sure that the four occupants still inside the vehicle, only two who were wearing their seatbelts, were dead. Sean walked down and confirmed the ejected man had died on impact with the ground.

  Sam’s bullets had thoroughly perforated the van. All eight men inside died rapidly judging from the pools of blood on the floor, already congealed and blackening. Only David didn’t wrinkle his nose at the coppery smell of blood and leaking feces.

  “Sam stitched this up pretty good,” Sean said.

  “Yeah, but he ruined this AR.” Tyler held up one of the dead attacker’s rifle that had a bullet through the scope and one into the magazine well.

  Mr. Sibley looked at it. “Junk. We’ll part it out.”

  “This guy looks familiar,” David said, pointing at the front passenger.

  “You’re right,” Tyler agreed. “Did we hook him?”

  “He’s a cop.”

  “What?”

  David pointed at the holster. “Basket weave. He’s wearing a Sam Browne below his chest rig.” The dead man had a Sig Sauer pistol in his holster. The bottom of the magazine was labeled with a four-digit number and ‘VCSO.’ “He’s a deputy.”

  Tyler started to snap his fingers to jog his memory. “It’s Gooch. Gooch from Fillmore, went to Todd Road in July.” Sean and David nodded in recognition.

  “Traitor. Benedict Arnold,” Mr. Sibley swore.

  They all searched the van and the bodies. None had identification, but two looked familiar and several had enough police equipment to be identified as rogue officers. Each had different levels of kit on, many were using their duty holsters and belts, along with some issued tactical gear. Three of the men looked to be from Ventura or Oxnard PD in black and blue BDUs. All were armed with AR-15 type rifles, several of which were clearly marked as military surplus property.

  “Okay, who talked?” Mr. Sibley said, looking at each of the four deputies, now that Sam had rejoined them.

  “Dad, none of us talked about our prepper compound, but it wasn’t all that hard to figure out. Anybody with three cents in their head could figure out that from the location, the terrain, and the frickin’ barbed wire perimeter fencing that this was a compound,” Tyler replied.

  “Lots of orchards and ranches have barbed wire. Avocados are valuable. This place came with the fencing when I bought the place.”

  “Yeah but remember all the barbecues and parties we’ve had here. It’s not hard for someone who knows what they’re looking at to tell we’re preppers, Dad. Even without that, this place is a jewel on its own. I mean, everyone on the department knows you are a firearms dealer and blow stuff up for the movies.”

  Mr. Sibley grunted.

  “Well, our security measures worked.”

  “Not much time,” Mr. Sibley opined. “They almost got the drop on us. What if someone wasn’t watching the board? What if the barricade didn’t work? What if they flanked us silently and next thing you know, they’re breaching the house?”

  “But they didn’t,” Tyler said. “Our security worked; we didn’t get killed. We kicked ass. Shit happens, but twice now everything worked the way it was supposed to.”

  Mr. Sibley stroked his stubble. “I’ll grant you that. But why did they go in loud instead of slow and stealthy?”

  “You’re thinking like an operator. They were cops. Shock and awe, like the SWAT team kicking in the door at 6 AM to intimidate some drug dealer who might go after a street cop or a rival, but not six buff dudes with submachine guns. It’s what they know. They don’t think like you and I,” Sam said.

  During the War on Terror, the “go fast and loud” approach to house raids quickly became more troublesome than helpful. Intending to stun the targets with helicopter assaults, explosive breaches, and overwhelming force, the Taliban and insurgents learned to run or prepare to fight when they heard the buzz of rotors. Sam had seen the birth of the slow and quiet methods during his time translating for the SEALs in Iraq. It was far more effective to approach stealthily in the pre-dawn hours and shoot everyone with suppressed weapons before they woke up rather than kick the door, throw flashbangs, and wake up every guy with an AK in the neighborhood.

  “Well, let’s get done what needs done. First, we’re going to split into teams of two and inspect the inner perimeter. Then my boys will cover me as we weld the gate shut. Palmers go check out the bodies in the orchard and use a handcart or something to bring them up here to the cars. Once the gate is secure, I’ll hitch the dump trailer to the tractors, and we’ll all pull the bodies out of the vehicles and bury them in a mass grave all the way up at the north end.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “What about me?” Sam asked.

  “You ever do interrogations?”

  “Yes,” Sam replied in the same tone of voice an impudent teenager might use.

  “Okay smart ass, were you ever the interrogator when the CIA was torturing some guy?”

  “I’m familiar with enhanced interrogations, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That’s it. Go figure out from that guy, if he’s still alive, what their plan was. How many of them, etc. Don’t be squeamish.”

  “No problem. I’ll move him into the garage, so he doesn’t disturb the ladies.”

  Facing certain death had a way of shifting one away from moral absolutes. Mr. Palmer, Sean, and Tyler all shared a brief, but telling look expressing their feelings about how casually Sam answered. Mr. Sibley and David didn’t seem to mind.

  At the main gate, Mr. Sibley looked at the gate lying flat on the gravel, still locked, and admired the ingenuity of the attackers. They had ground off the hinges at the either end rather than try and force the lock. It was trivial to snip the fence and the cut the padlock on the cane bolts. Once the gate was lying flat on the ground, the vehicles had simply driven over it. “Guess I didn’t anticipate that,” Mr. Sibley said.

  “Bought us some time, I suppose,” Mr. Palmer said.

  “Yeah, two w
hole minutes.”

  It didn’t take too long to weld new hinge brackets on. Plates were added to cover up the hinges on the roadside and new padlocks, ones with shielded shanks, were fastened to the cane bolts.

  “You know Dad, someone could just snip the fence and cut from behind.”

  “Thanks Sean, I guess I didn’t understand how chain-link fences work. Perhaps you would like to be on permanent guard duty and can shoot them if they try to get through. Mom can bring dinner to your foxhole.”

  “Nevermind, I’m good.” Everyone else laughed at him.

  To slow down any vehicle approaches, a new intermediate barrier was installed halfway down the drive that consisted of a one-foot diameter pipe that rotated on a stake on one end and was braced by a rock on the other. Any vehicle entering the property would be in for a huge surprise as they tried to get up to speed. While Sean was painting the pipe black with some leftover roof sealing tar, Sam came walking back.

  “It’s done.”

  Mr. Sibley nodded. “What did you find out?”

  The force consisted of eight former deputies, four officers from other departments, and four male relatives. Two of them had been trained by Tyler and another had worked with Sean in the jail. Those three knew of the ranch and conceived the plan to attack it. For the past two and half months, they had been raiding various places and building up their own supplies, waiting for an appropriate time to conquer their own compound.

  None of them had much more weaponry than AR-15s and shotguns. None had night vision and a lot of their tactical equipment was cheap surplus. They were a formidable force against the unprepared, but not against a trained, disciplined, and well-equipped opponent. Everyone on that ranch, especially Aggie and Marco, now understood the importance of being well-prepared and why Mr. Sibley had gone to such extremes.

  When Sam asked why the men didn’t prepare for disasters, the former deputy said that few of them had considered that anything like this was possible. They focused on stockpiling guns and ammo, figuring if any crisis lasted longer than a few weeks they would just go out and take what they needed. “When the shit hits the fan, we’ll just kill somebody and take their stuff. Survival of the fittest.”