by Liscom, Sean
“Afternoon,” I said as he stopped a couple of feet from the big steel gate.
“Mr. Sterling?” he asked as he extended his hand through the bars. I made no move to return the gesture.
“Yes. You are?” I asked.
“I’m Ray Judge,” he said as he withdrew his hand.
“What can I do for you, Ray?”
“Let’s not play games, Jason. I’m here on a conquest of sorts and this ranch is next on my list. You have but two options, submit or I remove this place from the map if you resist,” he smiled and leaned a little closer. “I’m kinda hoping that you resist.”
CHAPTER 13
Monday, August 14th, 2017
“What makes you think I'm going to let you through this gate?” I asked.
“It's all very simple, Jason. Basically a yes or no answer on your part. If you open this gate and put down your weapons, you live. You make me open this gate and everyone here dies. I think that you can figure out who will come out the victor in the second scenario,” he smiled. I just glared at him. He rolled his eyes and drew one of his handguns. In an instant he had it pointed directly at Melissa.
“Jason.....” she said barely above a whisper.
“Yes, Jason. I'm gonna count to three. If I make it that far, the lovely Mrs. Sterling gets a bullet right between the eyes. That will be the signal for my men to open fire and destroy this place. It's entirely up to you. One.....”
“Jason.....” Melissa said again.
“Two.....” I could see his finger tightening on the trigger.
“ALRIGHT!” I shouted. “I'll open the gate!” he smiled again and relaxed his grip on the gun.
“See, it wasn't that hard,” he mocked.
“Jill, open the gate,” I ordered Melissa. She responded instantly by stepping back into the gatehouse and hitting the button. She quickly came back to stand with me.
“Let me tell you what's going to happen next. The three of us are going to have a nice little walk, we're going to go somewhere quiet so that we can talk. If you make any, and I do mean ANY hostile moves, we destroy this place. Am I clear?”
“Yeah, you've made your point,” I grumbled. He raised his hand and motioned for the Hummer to follow him as he started walking up the driveway. Melissa and I fell in beside him.
“Pretty nice piece of land you two have here,” he commented. “Do you have an office or somewhere that we could speak privately?”
“That building to the left, it's our security shack,” I pointed out.
“Ah, that will be perfect,” he altered his course and headed for the shack. I glanced over my shoulder and I could see two of the tanks and two of the eight-wheel drive Stryker’s coming through the gate behind the Hummer. “Don't fret, Jason. As long as everyone keeps their cool, we're not that hard to get along with.”
“It's a whole lot easier to negotiate when you're the one holding all the cards,” Melissa said from beside me.
“Oh, so true my dear. Jill, right?” he asked her.
“Yeah.”
“Jill, while I may hold all of the cards, as you say. You and your hubby here, have some very important decisions to make in the very near term,” he stopped on the front porch of the shack. “The first of those decisions will be the terms of your surrender,” the only
thing that I could think was that he was buying Melissa’s cover of Jill. Hopefully Jill would figure it out, quickly. “Shall we go discuss those terms?” he asked.
“Might as well,” I replied.
“First things first, though. I need you to stand your men down. “One wrong move and all the progress that we have made is for naught,” he said. I reached for my radio and brought it to my mouth.
“All hands, this is Jason Sterling. Stand down, I repeat, stand down. Sling arms and assemble in front of medical. That's an order.”
“That wasn't so bad, was it? Come on, let's go inside and get this over with,” he motioned for the door. I turned the handle and led the way in. Jill was standing behind the desk and she started to walk toward me.
“Lange, I said stand down. Get out there with everyone else, right now!” I said forcefully. Jill stopped in her tracks and stared at me like I'd lost my mind. I'd taken a couple more steps and Melissa followed me in. Confusion spread across Jill’s face when she saw that Melissa was wearing her patches and name tape. “Lange! Outside with the others, now!” I softened it with a wink.
“Um, okay.” Jill replied, I could see her mind racing to put together what I had done. “Yes..... Sir!” she stammered and began to move for the door. Ray Judge blocked her before she could exit the room.
“Damn, Jason! Nobody told me that this is where the good lookin women were!” Ray said, eyeing Jill
from head to toe. He walked around her, his gaze lingering on her backside. “Yes indeed. Got yourself some good lookin gals out here,” he remarked. He stood in front of Jill again and had to look up at her to make eye contact. “What's your name, sweetie?”
“Melissa Lange,” Jill replied without missing a beat.
“Well, Melissa Lange. You need to get that fine ass of yours out there with everyone else. You see, me and your bosses here have some delicate matters to attend to.”
“Okay,” Jill replied and started to step past Ray. He turned slightly to let her go. As she passed him, he slapped her butt with an open palm.
“Go on, get moving!” he shouted at her. I could see the look on her face and if there hadn't been so much at stake, she'd have beat him to a pulp right then and there. Instead, she continued toward the door. When she opened it and went out, four more men came in. All four stood directly behind me and Melissa. Ray moved to stand in front of us.
“Weapons, please,” he ordered. I put both of my hands up in front of me and then reached up and took the slung AR-15 off of my shoulder. I leaned it against the desk. Next, I reached across my body with my left hand. It found my .45 in its holster and I slid it out. Keeping the barrel pointed at the ground, I ejected the
magazine and let it fall to the floor. Putting the front edge of the slide on the corner of the desk, I pushed down and ejected the live round from the chamber. I
thumbed the slide lock so that it would remain in the rearward position and I handed it to Ray, butt first. He seemed disappointed that I didn’t try anything.
“You too, Jill,” he instructed. Melissa did as she was told.
“Body armor,” Ray said. I unbuckled the side and slid it off over my head. I held it out and dropped it on the floor with a heavy thud. Melissa followed suit and one of Ray’s guys grabbed them and threw them on the desk. “Pistol belt.” he ordered. I unbuckled it and threw it on the desk, Melissa followed my lead. Ray pulled the radio from my armor and handed it back to me.
“Order your men outside to hand over their weapons and body armor.”
Never breaking eye contact, I spoke into the mic. “All ranch personnel, Stack arms and body armor in the middle of the parking lot and then stand on the sidewalk. Do not resist,” I ordered. Ray looked out the window toward the parking lot.
“Obedient bunch you got here,” he remarked. Just then, the door behind me opened and one of his men came in. He handed Ray a slip of paper and left just as quickly. Ray read the note then looked at me.
“Hmmm, it appears that we have a little problem, Jason.”
“Really?”
“Well, we have accounted for one MRAP, 2 five-tons, two Hummers and 6 people. That doesn’t jive with the intelligence that we were given. Care to
explain?” he asked.
“No, not really,” I said before I even thought about it. He raised his eyebrows and crumpled up the note.
“Here’s the thing, Jason. We know that there were three of your teams out here yesterday, that’s 60 people, give or take. Ya add that to the 20 to 30 people from the ranch itself, and while I’m no math whiz, that’s a whole lot more than 6 people. The other problem is that my guys can’t seem to find the other rigs. I’m
really going to need you to tell me where you stashed all the people and equipment, Jason.”
“It’s simple, as you like to say. By now, they are probably in Idaho and you will never catch them before they reach Montana,” I lied.
“Oh? This really complicates things, my friend,” he said as he crossed his arms. “You see, we really wanted those vehicles and weapons. I had my heart set on adding them to my inventory. How can we ever fix this?” he asked mockingly.
“Don’t know what to tell ya,” I said shrugging my shoulders. He gave a quick nod of his head and an instant later my right thigh exploded in pain. I went down like a sack of bricks. Writhing on the floor in agony, I could see that one of the men behind me had hit me with a steel baton. He came in for another hit but a lightning strike from Melissa crushed his windpipe. The guy that was standing behind her wrapped her up in a bear hug and took her to the floor.
Through the pain, I was trying to get to my feet
but my leg was completely failing me. I’d made it as far as my knees when I took a savage kick to the side of my chest. It hit with such force that it flipped me onto my side and I was left gasping for air. When I looked up, I was looking down the barrel of a pistol. Ray was the one holding it.
“Enough!” he shouted. For a moment the only sound in the room was the man that Melissa had throat punched. He was gasping and flailing around somewhere behind me. Ray shifted the aim of his pistol and shot his own man. At this close of a range, the only thing I could hear now was the ringing in my ears. He holstered his sidearm and jerked me to my feet by my collar. He looked pissed. He threw me into the chair that sat across from the desk and turned to grab Melissa. Jerking her to her feet, he stepped behind her and locked his arm around her neck.
“Tell me where they went or I’m going to squeeze the life out of this little bitch and you’re going to watch!” he yelled.
“I told you! They left last night!” I yelled right back.
“Bullshit!” he said as he applied a more pressure on Melissa’s throat. She was clawing at his arms but it was having no effect.
“We suspected that some shit was going to go down today so I ordered the evacuation of the ranch!” I shouted, trying to stand back up.
“You knew we were coming?” he growled.
“It wasn't that hard to figure out! We heard the
distress calls from Austin and Eureka. We knew you had pushed as far north as highway 50. I knew we didn't stand a chance in a head to head fight, so I evacuated the ranch!”
“Son-of-a-bitch. If you weren’t such a valuable catch, I’d just shoot you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“There’s a bounty on your head. Sadly, your ass is worth more alive than dead.”
“Yeah, I know about the bounty.”
“My, ummmm, employers want you alive and they are willing to pay five hundred gold coins for the two of you,” he said as he released Melissa and shoved her toward me. “I guess they want you alive when they kill you!” he laughed loudly.
“What? Why?”
“Come on, Jason. Don’t be so damn naive. You have been a beacon of hope and freedom in this state. Shit, the entire west coast heard about the epic fight that went down here last year. You and your people have been running around like a bunch of fucking Robin Hoods. We can’t have that. Just doesn’t fit the plan,” he said. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights because he started laughing again.
“You really don’t have a clue, do you?” he began again. “Let’s talk on the ride. We really need to get moving.”
“Where are we going? I thought you were going to leave us here!” Melissa said from the chair next to me.
“Listen, sweetie. I never once said that I was going to leave you and dear husband here. I said everyone else could stay, I never included you in that.”
“You leave her out of this!” I shouted, struggling to make it to my feet. My right leg felt like it was asleep.
“If you’d prefer, I could just shoot her now. No one would question it,” he growled.
“You bastard,” I growled back.
“I’ve been called worse by better people,” he said to me. Without taking his eyes off of me, he continued. “Get cuffs on both of them and get ‘em loaded in my Hummer,” he ordered his men. They spun both of us around and cuffed our hands behind our backs. One man escorted each of us out of the shack and toward one of the waiting Hummers. As Melissa and I were being pushed into the back seats, I saw Ray talking to one of his men. They were looking over all of the gear from the ranch that had been piled in the parking lot.
Melissa and I were seated side by side. The seats weren’t exactly comfortable and it was compounded by having our hands behind our backs. After a few moments, Ray walked up to my open door.
“Comfy?” he asked.
“No.”
“Too bad,” he said with chuckle. “Don’t even ask me to take the cuffs off, it ain’t gonna happen. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. You’re gonna be in here for a while.”
“Where are you taking us?”
“Las Vegas, baby!” he replied without hesitation. I gave a sideways look at Melissa. If she was scared, she didn’t show it. “Let me save you the trouble, Jason. We could sit here and play 20 questions but I just want to get it over so I can take a nap. Sound good to you?”
“Sure,” I replied. “Why don’t you start by telling me who the hell you people are.”
“If that’s your biggest question, this is gonna be easy,” he chuckled. “My men and I belong to the Western States Coalition. We now control everything west of the Rocky Mountains, south of the Idaho, Oregon border. Of course, we had a little help from our Cartel friends, but they pretty much let us run the show…..”
“What?” I asked. The surprise must have been evident on my face and in my voice. He laughed again and slammed my door. He climbed into the front passenger seat. The driver started the engine and put it in gear. Another man climbed into the back of the Hummer and stood between Melissa and I, manning the turret. As we started to move, I caught sight of Jill.
“Las Vegas!” I yelled out the window at her. She nodded and mouthed the words, I love you. I mouthed them back. I could count five Hummers in our convoy,
ours, one ahead of us and three behind us.
“If you think anyone here can save you, might as well give up on that right now. I'm leaving a contingent behind to run this place. It'll make a nice little prison, don't you think?” he asked as he turned in his seat.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Melissa asked
from the other seat.
“I'm turning the ranch into a prison. It's got enough room to house all the prisoners that we took in Elko, It's already got high walls and it's already got the guard towers. All I gotta do is add some of my men, and poof, instant prison,” he smiled. By now, I wanted nothing more than to punch that smirk from his face.
“Prisoners?” I asked.
“I'm not a savage, Jason. Of course we've taken prisoners. So long as they surrender peacefully, I try to take care of them. I'll admit, I was a little surprised that Elko and Winnemucca went down without a fight.”
“What do you care about prisoners?”
“They're useful. That's why I care about them. Take your ranch for example. You've got an honest to God working ranch. Greenhouses to grow in year-round, fields to grow even more in the spring and summer, good water and lots of cattle. All of those things are things that are going to be needed to fuel my push farther north. I keep prisoners so that they can keep us fed. It was a huge bonus that you had a decent fuel storage too. That also works to my
advantage. Fuel, of any kind, is getting harder and harder to find. Your ranch and Elko, they were a big score for us in that department.”
“You said something about a coalition, what is that?”
“Right now, it's western Arizona, southern California and a big chunk of Nevada. We've gotten a lot
of help from our brothers south of the border too,”
he replied.
“You mean the government of Mexico is pushing this?” Melissa asked.
“Heavens, no. The government of Mexico has been in shambles since the EMP. I'm talking about the cartels. Hell, they pretty much run the game now.”
“And you work for them?” I asked.
“Not really. I work for myself.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Why? Because it earns me gold, a lot of gold. It helps that I get to keep the spoils of war too.”
“So you're nothing more than a hired gun, a mercenary.”
“I prefer the term, soldier of fortune.”
“Why are the cartels interested in the western United States?”
“Eventually, in time, this whole mess is going to straighten itself out. Governments will rise again. Borders will be a big deal again..... This is a land grab. When this ship begins to right itself, they want to be in firm control of the western states. It goes back to what we were just talking about. Good land, good water..…
Resources in general.”
“Do they honestly think that the United States government is going to let them keep such a large swath of land?”
“The government ain't gonna do shit about it. C'mon, Jason. Pull your head out of your ass and look at the big picture. The cartels have been major players south of the border for a long time. They infiltrated the
police, the military, and the government. The elected government in Mexico couldn't end the cartels, why? Because they were too well armed and extremely motivated. Once they control the entire western U.S., there ain't shit that anyone can do about it,” the irritation in his voice was coming out.
“Look, where do you think I got all of this military hardware? Where did you get all of yours? Jason, there is so damn much shit just laying around, going to waste. People like me and even you see the uses for it. Why drive around in a shitty, old Chevy pickup when you can cruise in one of these bad boys? Why settle for a deer rifle when you can have a genuine M-4 rifle? Millions upon millions of rounds of ammo, guns, tanks, choppers, any damn thing you want, and I'm taking it. I'm building a fucking army and I'm going to be in a position of power when the lights come back on. Guys like you stand in my way. You, Major Jackson, Mayor Calvert, Paul Wesson….. All of you were too busy worrying about the little guys, about keeping the peace. Blah, blah, blah. Bunch of PBS, humanitarian crap. In this day and age, the strong survive, pussies like you perish!” he ranted. The wild look in his eyes made me question his sanity. He turned back around in his seat and it was quiet again.