General Wells interjected. “I assure you, Mr. President, that these traitors will be dead and done with shortly.”
“Thank you General. I will hold you to that. Now, Mr. Deputy, what about the foreign issues?”
“These are more pressing matters, sir. Our intelligence shows that both the Chinese and Russian military forces are preparing for a full out war on several fronts. Their air, ground, and naval forces are on full alert. Twelve Chinese infantry, tank, and armored brigades are forming along the North Korean border. We have undeniable proof through our intelligence networks that the Chinese have moved KN-08 medium-range mobile missiles near South Korea. Hundreds of Chinese warships have been ordered to the East China Sea. It appears they may attempt to control the waters around South Korea and perhaps as far as Japan.
“To the west, at least five Chinese armed divisions have been mobilized along the Indian border up to Afghanistan. Only two of their nuclear subs remain in the Gulf of Mexico while the rest of their subs are heading toward our west coast. It appears they are preparing to take on two fronts. One against the U.S. and one against the Russians.” The Deputy seemed extremely nervous. These weren’t trial war games.
“The Chinese long-range nuclear warheads are ready to launch once their leaders feel we are completely helpless. Although our intercontinental ballistic missiles are operational, the Chinese are waiting for an opportune time to launch. Our operatives in the Middle East have also confirmed that China is sending long-range nuclear weapons to their allies in Iran. You know what that means, sir. Israel is nervous as hell.”
The President listened intently. This was nothing new to him. In fact, he had expected every Chinese move. Like a deadly chess game he was several steps ahead of his worldly opponents. He was willing to lose some of his pieces, particularly his pawns, in order to win in checkmate.
The Deputy turned to the issues with Russia. “The Russians, too, are on high alert. They already have mobilized upward to five-hundred thousand troops who are stationed along their entire western boundaries. They appear to be ready to drive into Kazakhstan down to Georgia up through Ukraine, and possibly into northern Europe. No doubt they are employing their tactical advantage due to America’s problems.
“The Russian President has ordered aircraft carriers and battleships to secure ports on the Caspian and Black Seas. Eight of their advanced nuclear submarines are pushing across the Atlantic toward our east coast. They already have several subs in the Gulf and within sight of California. They apparently have decided to set forth their entire strategic nuclear arsenal. We are in one hell of a predicament, if I may say so, Mr. President.”
“It appears so,” the President said, seemingly not too concerned.
The Deputy had more to report. “Fortunately, China and Russia both want the entire spoils of war. Each country is waiting for the right time to make their move. The consensus is that both countries are determined to wipe out the other, along with America, in an attempt to be the sole king of the hill. So it may be possible to pit the two countries against one another.
Although they have similar political philosophies and agendas, they are still mortal enemies and will, as witnessed before, refuse to work together for the benefit of both. I believe that is our one advantage we have, sir.”
“Point well taken,” the President added. “But we have that covered.”
General Wells gave a serious nod of agreement to the President.
“Have our troops abroad been ordered to return home?” the President asked the NSA Deputy.
“Yes sir. Our forces from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, including our fleets in the Pacific, North Atlantic, and the Mediterranean, have been recalled. We will have a whole new military force of over 350,000 soldiers and sailors outraged at the attack on their homeland. They will follow you to their deaths sir, to further protect their families and country from the supposed communist aggressors. Within the next few days we will have one hell of an angry force ready and willing to take out the Chinese and Russians.”
The President locked his fingers together and rested them on his chin as if to mull over the scenario. “Excellent work. Now we continue going forward with our plan and wait for our men to come home.”
The chief executive rose from his seat. “Thank you gentlemen. We shall talk soon.”
General Wells and the NSA Deputy left the room. The President sat in his comfortable chair and savored being alone with his thoughts of becoming the supreme global leader.
Chapter 39
The men crawled down from the steep hill and assembled at their trucks. They checked their watches. It was nearing seven A.M. According to Pete a new shift of guards would come on duty at seven. The team wanted to gain entrance to the camp before the new guards arrived. The night shift would be tired and inattentive, eager to get out of the cold, so now was the ideal time to hit.
“Good luck brothers,” Pete said to Cody and Raz.
“Won’t need no luck if we all follow the plan,” Raz grunted.
Their weapons were primed, their vehicles set, their will to fight on the edge. Raz drove the Humvee with Cody riding shotgun. Pete and his brothers took their pickups and went to the far side of the concentration camp staying out of sight behind the hills. The rest of their army, the two hundred armed Pascua Indians, disappeared into the desert and hills. Everyone had a special job to do.
After getting their meager breakfast the majority of the detainees had returned to their buildings where it was a bit warmer than outside. Some stayed in the yard, smoking their last cigarettes, complaining about everything, consoling each other, pacing the length of the fenced compound like trapped animals. Dozens were waiting to use the latrine holes while others hurriedly took care of their business at the primitive facilities.
Guards were walking adjacent to the double fence with no sense of danger from the locked-up prisoners. The lack of urgency was evident in their casual manner. The complex was very quiet considering it held tens of thousands of kidnapped citizens. Raz heard heavy equipment running beyond the buildings outside the fenced perimeter. Backhoes working on those tremendous holes, he guessed.
Raz turned onto the dirt road leading straight into the camp from the south side. He drove slowly toward the sentry shack as if he belonged there. Right now he figured he did. Attacking in plain view. It was a tactic often used in such circumstances. The big green Army Humvee would throw the guards off long enough for it to get real close to them. Worked before with those cockroaches near the border, Raz recalled. He was sure it would work again.
He looked over at Cody. The young man would do anything for his family. He would give his life to save the ones he loved from those evil bastards running the camp. Raz knew that. He admired the boy. Cody reminded Raz of the soldiers he had worked and fought with. They would do anything for their families and country too.
The kid had changed over the past day. It was hard to believe that all this crap began just yesterday. Cody had learned there really are bad guys out there. There were too many of them and they were everywhere. Even in your own backyard. The kid hadn’t seen enough death and dishonesty and deception in his short life to realize what lives beyond the night’s door. He was an innocent school teacher who hadn’t learned to hate yet.
Raz kept thinking, as he approached the guards with their hands held up signaling to stop. Cody hadn’t learned to hate like the Pascuas who were helping them. They had earned that right. He had never had his possessions stolen from him. He had never been confined under the control of sick bastards. He had never been stripped of his human rights and dignity because he was different from the rest. Up until this journey, he had never been in a life or death situation.
What Cody was about to encounter would change all that. In the next few minutes he would see how the world really was, with its psychopaths and freaks and egomaniacs and paid mercenaries and greedy assholes.
These things Raz knew too well.
Raz hated the wic
kedness around him even more than his Indian friends, if that were possible. He hated national leaders who create false flag threats, bogus disasters, phony terrorist attacks, fake national defense breaches, all just to scare a fragile population into easy submission. He hated a government that fabricates wars to enrich close business associates, politically connected contractors, and wealthy bankers who generously contribute to the right candidates. He hated a ruling class who kills young men and women under the pretense of national security and weeps phony tears at their funerals for the cameras.
He hated everything there was to hate when his only son Jason was slaughtered on the battlefield in foreign sands, all in the name of oil contracts and big business. He despised those who were responsible for his dear wife dying from cancer at a much too early age. All under the pretense of prohibitive medical costs, while billions of dollars were given away like candy to foreign countries who loathed the United States.
Hatred drives people to correct the wrongs they have seen and endured. It grows into a fierce need for revenge and festers into a monster eating from within. It motivates a person to do crazy, sometimes stupid, illogical things. It also kills people inside. Raz felt bad that Cody would learn to hate as much as he had.
But it was his turn.
He stopped at the guard shack and watched the sentries move to each side of the vehicle. It was déjà vu all over again. Predictability and routine were deadly in the game of vengeance.
“What you want?” the small Chinese man said impatiently. He had only ten minutes left at his station. This American weather was worst than back home.
Raz didn’t answer. He was waiting.
“Where you go?” the guard yelled. The Humvee proved to be an open invitation to the camp, but an old bearded guy and young man out of uniform was unusual, suspicious. Who the hell were these guys bothering him at the end of his miserable shift?
Raz turned toward Cody. They had their pistols cocked and ready to shoot, but they didn’t want to create a scene and alert the rest of the guards. Not now, anyway. It was too soon. Raz simply smiled at the Chinaman, buying time. Where the fuck are they? He thought, wondering when Pete’s men would join in. Two more seconds and he would have to shoot. He gripped his gun and began to pull it from his side.
He couldn’t wait any longer. The guard was about to say something when both Raz and Cody heard a high speed sound sailing through the air.
Whoosh!
Then a second one.
Whoosh!
The guard’s beady eyes went wide, as if his pupils had been transformed into orbs of hardened, shiny black glass. He stood still for a moment, not looking at the old man in the military vehicle. Instead, for an instant he looked down at his chest, a surge of blood spurting through his winter jacket. The guard fell backwards onto the road, his rifle dropped and clattered to the ground. A feathered arrow shaft was deep in his back, its razor sharp tip protruding through his chest.
Cody’s guard had the same surprised reaction, except an arrow had pierced his neck, front to back, not exiting all the way through. Raz looked up at the nearest tower guard expecting movement. The guard’s body slumped over the wood railings, a victim of the same silent killer.
“Guess that means it’s okay to go in,” Raz grinned.
Two more guards up ahead were on the ground, lifeless. The Indians were busy and accurate.
Cody said, “Must be some of Pete’s people who can’t handle a rifle.”
“Damn good with ‘em bows,” Raz commented.
“Thank God,” Cody added.
“Nah,” Raz said. “Thank the Pascuas.”
Robin’s building was a hundred feet farther up the road. Raz drove slowly forward. Look normal. Cody kept an eye out for more guards. The next tower was empty. A body was sprawled out at the base of the wooden lookout. Two more contorted bodies lined the road nearby. Cody saw people mingling in the yard surrounding building number one. No one had any idea what was happening. That was good.
Everything so far was working as planned.
Except for one unexpected turn.
Hundreds of yards ahead Raz saw a bunch of uniformed soldiers exiting the guard residence and getting into two troop carriers. It was time to change shifts.
Raz hoped Pete and his warriors were ready.
Chapter 40
The truckloads of day shift guards were about to leave for the far ends of the compound. Once they found their dead comrades an alarm would sound. There would no doubt be some confusion about the arrows in the bodies, but all hell would break loose as the battle began.
Raz stepped on the brake. It was five minutes before seven. Why weren’t the troop carriers moving?
He looked through his binoculars, then stopped to think. Pete’s men were supposed to shoot every guard during the transfer. During that short fleeting moment when most of the enemy in the entire camp were out in the open, vulnerable. Two hundred guards, two hundred Indians. Pretty good odds. The sides were fairly matched, but the Indians had the element of surprise.
The Pascuas would shoot, with a gun or apparently with arrows, every troop at the sentry points. Every tower sentinel would be taken down as they left the machine guns unmanned. Every soldier watching the captive compounds would be killed. Every man checking the fences would be laid out. Every guard patrolling the road would be dropped. Every enemy leaving the men’s quarters would be stopped. Every specialist exiting the interrogation building would be terminated. Every officer from their separate residences would be executed.
Every single one of these son-of-a-bitches was supposed to be dead in the next ten minutes. That’s what was supposed to happen if everything went as planned, which it rarely did. That’s what Raz was thinking about.
Cody picked up the field glasses and watched nothing happening with the trucks. He heard a faint sound and scanned up toward the third tower. Two arrows had struck the guard, center chest, causing the man to shriek and tumble off the platform backwards onto the razor fencing below. His limp body caught on the coiled wire making it dangle like a bloody rag doll. Cody looked to the hill tops and saw no one.
“Did you see that?” Cody asked.
“Yup,” Raz said. He was not too concerned with the guard. “Keep ya eyes on ‘em trucks. Somethin’s up.”
Cody re-focused. He was worried about other soldiers seeing the dead guard hanging in mid air.
“It don’t make no sense,” Raz grumbled. He drove forward ever so slowly trying not to attract attention.
“A bus just turned in,” Cody said. It came in from the southern route. “Here comes another one.”
Raz could see the buses too, but not as clearly from this distance.
“There’s three more. Wait! Four more!” Cody added. “Why would they park there, near the guards’ quarters?”
Raz considered the move. It was odd to see the buses not simply roll up to the prisoner buildings to drop off their catch.
“Oh, oh!” Cody uttered.
“What?”
“I see soldiers getting off the first bus,” Cody explained.
“There’s always gonna be guards on ‘em buses,” Raz reasoned.
“Yeah, but….”
“But what?” Raz asked, getting irritated.
“There’s no people on the buses. I mean no prisoners.”
“What the hell ya talkin’ ‘bout?” Raz said. “Give me ‘em glasses.” He checked the out of place transports. “Ya right, sonny. Mmm. Nothin’ but soldiers comin’ out.”
Cody ran a quick mental process. Six buses, fifty or so men per. “Holy shit! Must be close to three hundred troops there.”
“Reckon ya right.”
“But why?” Cody was baffled.
Raz had to contemplate the situation. He knew military tactics. He understood warfare strategies. Move troops from cleared targets to strengthen more critical positions. Mobilize forces from captured and secured regions to troubled spots. Be mobile, be fluid. Stay ahead of the enemy
. Defeat and advance. Attack and destroy.
“They’re throwin’ duffel bags from the buses,” Raz mentioned. “They’re gonna settle in, is my guess.”
Cody was confused. “Makes no sense to have that many soldiers to cover this place.”
“They come in from the south,” Raz stated. “I figure they’re from our neck of the woods. Probably took care of most of the population down there. They were damn busy, weren’t they? No need for that many troops ta clean up. I’ll betcha they’re holdin’ up here for the night, then headin’ north ta the big cities. Tucson. Phoenix.”
Cody shook his head. “Well, hell. We have to hurry.”
More prisoners began exiting their buildings wondering what the noise was coming from across the complex. Loud motor engines, a mix of voices, things being thrown around. Within the fences word was spreading about the dead guards. Some of the captives began screaming and shouting, excited about the killings. Rescuers were there to help them, to bring them home. Finally, this horrendous ordeal was about to come to an end. It was past seven o’clock. There were no day shift guards, but a shit load of them were across the road in large numbers.
In minutes the buildings emptied into the yards. Hoards of prisoners crowded the fences, yelling for help, creating a raucous uproar. They saw Raz’s Humvee on the road. Two white guys, obviously not guards. They were there to release the detainees. Freedom was moments away.
The yards turned exuberant with cheerful captives.
“USA!”
“USA!”
“USA!”
The chants grew louder as more people gathered in the open spaces, rattled the fences, cheered at the sight of the guards with the arrows in their bodies. Men spit through the fences onto the nearest dead captors. One man pissed on a dead man’s corpse. Women held their children’s heads away from the gruesome sights. A few weaker people threw up their rice swill breakfast.
Treasonous Behavior- in the Beginning Page 26