Treasonous Behavior- in the Beginning

by Robert Johnson

“Ya people almost in place?” Raz turned to ask Pete. “We ain’t got much time ta fiddle around.”

  “A few more minutes, my friend. If we’re going to do this right, we have to be a hundred percent ready,” Pete explained.

  Raz looked at his watch. It had been more than twenty minutes getting all the tribe in place. “People are dyin’ down there, for Christ sake!”

  Members of the tribe reached their positions and settled on the ridges, staying out of view from the guards below. Each non warrior held a spear or a bow, or maybe just a long stick, prepared to join the battle without firing a shot. The armed warriors positioned themselves in intervals of twenty to twenty five Pascuas. In minutes the Circle of Fear would surround the entire camp complex. Fewer than a hundred and fifty men with their rifles and bows and arrows would create the facade of a massive force firing down on the three hundred plus soldiers.

  However, in reality there would be closer to three thousand other Indians displaying their weapons and ability to wipe out the much smaller force of guards. Every one of the Pascua Yaqui tribe, except for the seriously wounded, had volunteered to enter the battlefield to help defeat the foreigners and regain their rightful lands. From the valley floor the odds would appear to be closer to ten-to-one, in favor of the Indians. Pete hoped such a false appearance would scare the hell out of the invaders, just as in the five hundred year old legend of Yaqui Creek.

  Pete moved several paces from Raz’s side, his rifle primed. He raised his hand ready to signal his people to fire and make a hell of a racket. He looked into the small valley. The guards were more concerned with their duties and seemed completely unaware of the Indian presence hovering above them.

  Raz took one last look through his field glasses. “Oh shit!” he grumbled. He dropped the binoculars and shouted at Pete. But the Indian chief was in the zone, thinking of nothing else but battle.

  “Wait!” Raz screamed. But it was too late.

  All eyes were focused on Pete. People would no doubt die in the next several minutes, but death in battle was looked upon as an honorable end for the proud Pascuas as they fought to protect their home.

  Cody had heard the old man scream. Why did he want to wait?

  “They have ya wife, Cody! They’re takin’ her to interrogation,” Raz hollered to him.

  Cody squinted his eyes. Sure as hell the guards had returned to pull more prisoners and were dragging them from the buildings. Three other prisoners surrounded Robin, all going to their death sentence. But where were his kids?

  He had to do something.

  Now!

  Pete lowered his hand, signaling his large army to fire at will. The sharpshooters and expert archers stood on the rise and picked their marks. The first to drop were the tower guards, eliminating the most dangerous firepower. Next, the guards in the road and those forcing the prisoners out of the buildings were targeted.

  Soldiers looked to the hills and saw thousands of weapons thrust into the air. Arrows and lead rained upon them from every angle. They were surrounded, ambushed from above.

  “Watch outside the fences,” Pete yelled to his men near him. Guards near the interrogation building and the residences hid behind the structures and the parked buses, taking aim at the overwhelming forces encircling them. Shots from inside the torture chamber rang out. Each blast meant another prisoner was killed.

  The uproar from the Pascuas in the hills was deafening, echoing like heavy thunder bouncing off the valley walls. Some of the soldiers steadied themselves and with quick aim shot painted warriors as they popped up to fire. But, there were too many Indians and most of the guards simply scattered for protection. Troops with their handful of prisoners hid behind their captives, using them as human shields

  against the blitz. Harried detainees and guards alike fell to the constant onslaught.

  Cody focused on the three men using his wife and the other captives as a screen against bullets and stone tipped shafts. Steadying his rifle he took aim at the soldier and fired. With only one good hand he missed by a long shot. He tried again. He needed to save Robin. This time he rested the rifle on a large stone, bearing down on the cowardly soldier.

  Lying beside him on the irregular ground, Raz reached over and pushed Cody’s rifle barrel to the ground. “I’ll handle this one, sonny,” he said.

  “No, I have to….” Cody protested.

  “Hush! I don’t need no distraction,” Raz mumbled. He clutched his rifle firmly and sighted the guard. He took a deep breath and held it in. In his silent patience he watched the guard pulling his hostages closer to him, making a shot nearly impossible without killing one of the good guys.

  “Steady. Steady ya son-of-a-bitch,” he whispered, waiting for the right moment while bearing down his barrel sight. His bare finger rested on the trigger like a feather caressing a baby.

  “Shoot him! Shoot him!” Cody screamed.

  “Not yet. Not just yet,” Raz said calmly. The noises around him had faded away as if turned off by hand. He blocked out all sounds around him. His sharp vision funneled to one spot on the guard’s exposed forehead. Robin’s head was two inches from her tormenter, almost touching him. There was terror in her face and tears in her eyes.

  Then there was a loud blast as Raz discharged his weapon toward the panicky guard some two hundred yards away. It took less than a second before the shot exploded into the man’s head, perfectly placed between his darting eyes and bushy brows.

  “Bingo,” Raz said smugly. “Take that, ya bastard.”

  Blood splattered onto Robin’s face and the other prisoners. She screamed as if she too had been shot.

  Both Raz and Cody heard her terror over the clamoring sounds about them.

  Cody reacted without thinking. “You shot her!” he shrieked. “You shot Robin!”

  “Here,” Raz said, giving the binoculars to his friend. “Take a look.”

  Cody found his wife lying on the ground, bloodied from the close encounter. Turning to the dead man she pushed his limp body away from her. “You god-damn son-of-a-bitch!” she shouted. She looked up toward the hill, but couldn’t make out her savior. Instead, she and the prisoners around her huddled together with the fear of still being killed.

  “She’s okay, Raz! Robin’s not hit,” Cody rejoiced.

  Raz adjusted his rifle, taking aim at another guard not far from the first and fired again. “Yup. Now we need ta take the fight down there.”

  Raz motioned to Pete that it was time for them and some of the warriors to enter the camp. Pete nodded as he and half his men withdrew down the far side of the hill.

  The old man looked at Cody whose face was pale white. “Can’t wait for ya, kid. Some things we have ta take care of.”

  “I’m coming,” Cody said.

  “Meet ya in hell, kid,” he said as he slid down the steep slope.

  Chapter 45

  The Indian cries in the hills, the primitive stick weapons wildly pounding the sky, the barrage of death and destruction raining down on the camp were relentless. Guards were being slaughtered in every corner of the camp, arrows coming from nowhere, shots ringing from unseen red devils.

  But the soldiers were unyielding and ruthless in their sharp response. Old men, women, and some younger members of the tribe, foolishly looking over the rocky rims of the protective hills, curious at what was happening in the valley, met their death by seasoned soldiers below.

  Prisoners peeked through their doors and shutters watching the battle from a safe distance. Those in the open ran for any nearby hiding place, of which there were few. A handful of survivors from the interrogation building raced into the desert looking over their shoulders for fear of being shot in the back. Some fell into the giant death pit landing on still warm, discarded bodies. They lay there, motionless, in order to remain undetected and alive. Robin tried to get back to her children, but she was hopelessly caught in a constant pounding of crossfire gun shot.

  Dead and injured soldiers littered the compound yard
s and roads. Lifeless uniforms lay on top of one another in their failed attempts to escape the merciless Indian attack. Squads of foreign guards threw their weapons to the ground, eventually unwilling to die for a cause they didn’t believe in. Dead men could spend no money. They ran past the outer sentry points hoping to find their way through the unfamiliar Sonoran desert. The Oshkosh vehicles were racing into the desert as well, filled with runaway guards trying to save themselves.

  The majority of those left alive, those whose duty was to control the camp, continued shooting wildly into the hills.

  Raz and twenty Pascuas worked their way into the complex from the south end. Raz’s only purpose for the moment was to grab Robin, find her children, and then get them the hell out of the camp. It was his unspoken promise to Cody.

  Following their chief, another twenty or so warriors backed up Pete as they reached the northern portion of the detention camp. Their plan was to make their way toward the southern team and meet up at the interrogation center, while protecting all prisoners and eliminating every hostile in their way.

  As Raz and his band entered the camp road they saw an Army truck racing toward the sentry exit. Three soldiers were in the cab, but none of them fired their weapons. A chorus of Indian rifles rang as they pelted the escaping truck. The driver slummed over the steering wheel, killed by the first bullet. Another guard grabbed the wheel, but both front tires blew out from gun shots causing the two and half ton truck to lose control. The truck rammed forward hitting the sentry shack broadside. It flipped over on its side, slid a hundred feet farther, and burst into flames. Raz’s men let the guards in the cab and the dozen or so hunkered in the back burn to death. The Pascuas cleanly shot those who tried to run.

  Robin saw the flames and hoped someone was coming to save her. She rose and ran toward her building, passing dead soldiers along the way. Bullets whizzed past her from every direction. One guard on the ground was wounded, his leg shot off at the knee, but he was still alert. He grabbed Robin’s jacket and pulled her down. He violently stuck his pistol into her temple and yelled something in Russian. Robin didn’t understand his words, though she knew the danger she had fallen into. The man was crazed with rage and pain. She knew she was going to die before seeing her children or husband again.

  Pete was halfway through the camp. He had lost three warriors to hidden soldiers sniping away, desperate to survive as the camp was being overrun. A guard had climbed up one of the twenty foot tall towers and turned the machine gun on the tribe. Two Pascuas were immediately shredded to pieces by the big gun. Seconds later four arrows pierced through the guard’s body, putting an end to the killings from above.

  About four dozen enemy troops held strong in the interrogation building and the adjacent guards’ barracks. They kept shooting through the open windows and doors into the oncoming tribal sweep. A few more of Pete’s men were killed, including his youngest brother. Several others were severely wounded. The mounting bloodshed and death only pissed the Indians off even worse, making them more determined than ever to kill every trooper in sight.

  Raz saw Robin a hundred feet ahead, a pistol jammed against her head. He stepped closer. When he was within earshot of the guard he went into his interrogation mode, learned and processed over so many years, an expert in calming people down on the worst day of their lives.

  “Put the gun down,” he yelled at the guard, getting his attention. “Listen here fella, ya put the gun down and I’ll let ya go free.”

  The guard heard him, but didn’t move. Robin froze in fear. She was surprised to see and hear Cody’s old friend. She hadn’t seen Raz Hunter in years. Confusion set in. How did he get here? Where was Cody? She wondered.

  “Ya understand me?” Raz asked the guard. He put his hands in the air as if to show the man he was in no danger.

  “Yeah,” the guard responded. “My leg!” he screamed out.

  “We’ll git ya some help,” Raz assured him. “Ya understand me?”

  The guard nodded his head, but pulled Robin closer to him. “I understand.”

  “Good. That’s good. Ya drop ya gun and ya can go.”

  The guard was nervous as hell. Should he trust the old man. He didn’t want to, but he wanted to live. He had already lost his leg. If these men came toward him he would kill the woman. But he would be a dead man too. So he decided to do the right thing. “Okay. No shoot. I put gun down,” he answered in broken English.

  Raz’s crew was beside him, their rifles and arrows aimed at the Russian soldier dead set on killing one of the hostages. “Easy now, pal. Put it down slowly,” Raz spoke to him evenly, gently, as he moved closer. Raz motioned to his team to lower their weapons in good faith.

  “We’re not gonna hurt ya. My men won’t shoot,” Raz tried to reassure the desperate soldier.

  The man removed the pistol from Robin’s head and leaned over to slowly put the gun on the ground. “See,” he said with a worried smile. “No problem. Okay? No shoot.”

  “Okay,” Raz said.

  Out of nowhere came a loud explosion. A rifle blast from behind Raz and his men echoed in the camp. The Russian guard slumped against the wire fence he was leaning against. Half his head had been blown off. Blood and sticky brain matter and pieces of hairy skull covered Robin. She began screaming as Raz looked around to see who had fired the shot.

  Cody hobbled past the men and tossed his smoking rifle to the road. Each step hurt his side. He limped toward his wife. “Robin, Robin.”

  “Is that you Cody?” she asked in disbelief. “Is that really you?”

  “Yup. It’s me,” he smiled. He staggered toward Robin and helped her get to her feet despite the pain in his shoulder.

  “What happened to you?” Robin had to ask, seeing his numerous bandages.

  “Been a rough day.”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked his wife.

  “No, just shook up. I thought I was going to die,” she said.

  “I’m so glad to find you.” He hugged his wife as best he could without twisting his rattled body. “We knew you were here someplace.”

  Robin looked over at her prison building. “The children, we have to get the children.”

  Cody and Robin quickly shuffled to the front gate. With his sidearm Cody shot off the lock and pushed it inward. The front door of the building creaked open and a few people stepped out. The good guys were here.

  Raz and his men moved past Cody toward the sound of more gunfire. “Ya good?” he asked the young man.

  “Great,” Cody responded as he and Robin entered the yard.

  “Git ya family, we got business ta finish.”

  Chapter 46

  The President of the New United States was fuming while eating his late breakfast. He had the situation with China and Russia under control. Once that battle was settled between the two communist aggressors his newly established nation would be strong enough to take out the winner.

  His real problems were much closer to home. They were, in fact, the homegrown domestic do-gooders. The lousy constitutional backers, the pesky self-proclaimed patriots of a defunct system and outdated policies that were a major thorn in his side. These disloyal subversives were flaunting their supposedly unalienable rights and fluffing their feathers in a show of defiance, as if their puny offenses could take down a powerful new order.

  The commander-in-chief took this outrageous display of insolence as a personal affront to him personally and a sign of contempt directed at the prestigious position of the most powerful man in the world. He turned to General Wells who was silently reviewing his reports, letting his coffee go cold, wishing he was any place else except with the President being berated like a teenager who had fucked up in school.

  “General, you of all people should realize how much effort has been exerted for us to have arrived at this point. It’s been no easy task. We’ve lost some battles, but what is more important is that we’ve won even more. I don’t like to lose and I hate insubordination. Tell me, General. A
m I wrong?”

  “No sir. You are absolutely correct.” He believed it too, but he hated being a doormat to the President. “You’ve done all the right moves, sir. Your building of alliances with politically opposing forces has been ingenious. The United Nations, the international bankers, the labor unions, and the old money establishments have all supported you extremely well.

  “Your plans to alter the nation are nothing less than visionary. Your priorities have been straight on since the very beginning. Your calculations regarding how both our allies and enemies would react have been nothing less than prophetic. I must tell you sir, that I have never seen such a fabulously successful campaign either on the battlefield or in the political arena.”

  “Thank you for your vote of confidence,” the President said. He truly enjoyed hearing such accolades, but now he was all business. He didn’t want to hear any more excuses from his man in charge of national defense. He wanted results.

  The General had some good news to break the ice. The engineers in the Weather Modification Program had, at the President’s order, adjusted the HAARP effects on the weather, thereby increasing the temperature toward the freezing mark. This would make the Army’s attempt to capture or run down these renegade patrols much easier. The arctic cold had done its job in frightening the public and allowing most of the citizens to be rounded up rather easily.

  “Sir,” the General began, terrified by what he was about to tell his boss next. “Reports have come in confirming some collection points are being attacked by groups of armed militants. Initial numbers show a hundred forty three smaller evacuation centers are on the verge of being lost to renegade dissenters.”

  “A hundred forty three?” the President screamed like a mad man.

  “Yes sir, but that’s out of over three thousand collection centers. A very small percentage.”

  “I don’t give a shit how many we have! Those loses are totally unacceptable,” the supreme executive shouted. “How many men have we lost?”