by Warren Ray
Winters noticed the firm grip and figured the man worked outside, as his hands were rough and calloused. He had a slender build to him and was nearly Winters’ height. His hair was salt and pepper, which matched his facial stubble. He moved with a self-confidence that said he had experienced life on his own terms. Murphy was a bit younger and despite the bags under his eyes, which made him appear older, he had a lot of energy. He had enthusiasm in his blue eyes and came off as a friendly person.
“You guys serve in the military?” Winters asked.
“Ten years in the Army, got out after Desert Storm,” said Burns.
“Four years in the Army,” said Murphy.
“We could use more guys with experience.” He turned back to the volunteers and asked them to guard the drivers while they were gone.
Winters took the two new recruits over to his crew, who were milling around by the big trucks, and introduced them.
“Excellent. Two more with only one name. We’re big on that here. I’m Meeks and big foot over there is Scar.”
Burns and Murphy went around and shook everybody’s hand.
“So, what’s the plan?” Burns asked.
Meeks gestured to Scar. “We like to keep things as simple as possible, some of us aren’t all that smart.”
Burns turned to Murphy. “Looks like we’re gonna fit right in then.”
“Ha, I like this guy already,” Meeks said excitedly.
Winters stood by Elliott, and said in jest, “great, two more comedians.”
“At least we’ll never have ourselves a dull moment,” responded Elliott.
“I like dull sometimes,” said Winters.
They found a spot off the road to hide the men and their pickups. Elliott and Winters hopped in the first transport, Scar mounted the second and Nate the third. Everyone else climbed into the back of a truck where they readied their weapons. Engines started and screamed as they inched their way up the big hill.
An hour later, they reached their destination. Elliott rolled up his window, hoping the afternoon sun reflecting off the window would, once again, conceal his identity. Tensions built as they approached the entrance. Elliott would be the first one into the parking lot and the first one out of the cab. He began to sweat and nervously tapped the steering wheel.
Winters took a deep breath. “I’ll exit after you get out and sneak around like we did at the first pickup place.”
Winters saw that they had a much bigger space to get across than the first time they had done this in Iowa.
Winters spoke in a soothing tone. “You good to go?”
Elliott nodded.
They pulled into the oversized lot and parked where the original drivers had instructed them to go.
Two men exited the small building, each carrying M-16’s. They walked forward but stopped halfway across the parking lot when they saw the trucks park in the wrong spots. They raised their weapons.
Winters half-yelled. “Those drivers lied to us.”
Chapter 22
Buffalo County Wisconsin
Another man came rushing out of the building to join the first two. They waited for the drivers to get out.
Elliott said in surprise. “Whoa, Captain, look, Scar is walking over to ‘em.”
Winters leaned forward to find Scar walking toward them. “What on earth?”
Scar approach them with a big grin on his face, which seemed to lighten the tense moment.
Winters grabbed the door handle. “Change of plans. You go to the back and pretend to give instructions to the volunteers. I’ll help Scar.”
Winters tried to be as nonchalant possible but hurried at the same time to get with Scar.
Scar stood in front of the three men who he tried to put at ease with a friendly appearance.
“Yeah, Colonel Nunn is anxious about what happened down in Iowa, somebody somewhere screwed the pooch. Whoever it was, I’m sure wasn't doing their job like you guys here,” said Scar to the men who still firmly gripped their weapons.
One of them nodded.
“Any of you guys got a cigarette?” Scar asked them.
A man wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses reached into his pocket. “Right here, man. What did you say your name was again?”
“Scarborough. I’m part of Nunn’s private security detail. We’re just making sure everything is hunky dory up this way. Where’s everyone else?” Scar lit the cigarette taking in a deep drag.
“They’re inside, probably wondering who you are,” said the man with the glasses.
Winters approached the group.
“Oh, this here is Cole,” said Scar. “He’s Colonel Nunn’s, right-hand man. I was just explaining to these gentlemen who we are and what we’re doing here.”
“We should probably get to it,” said another one of the men.
“Get to it?” asked Winters.
“Yeah, you know get to the volunteers.”
“Yes, you do that, we’ll go inside, and let 'em know why we're here,” said Scar.
Scar and Winters started walking toward the building.
“Nice move,” said Winters.
“Thought you might like that.”
They reached the door and walked inside. It took a second for their eyes to adjust to the dim light and to the three men pointing .45's right in their faces.
Scar put his hands up. “Hey, hold up there, fellas. Colonel Nunn sent us to make sure everything is going okay up here.”
“I wasn’t informed of this,” said the boss.
Scar squared up to him. “Of course you weren’t. This is a surprise security check. You don’t give a heads up on surprise inspections. Now get your guns out of my face, and point me to the bathroom.”
The boss seemed perplexed but relented. He lowered his weapon and pointed the way to the bathroom. “Down there on the left,” he said. “Where are our drivers?”
“Oh, don’t worry about them, they’ll be along on the next trip,” said Scar as he sauntered to the bathroom. “Man, don’t you guys ever clean this place. It smells like an outhouse.”
Trash littered the hallway and the low light made the green walls look even uglier.
Scar reached the bathroom, turned around, and could see Winters, who made eye contact with him.
Gunfire was heard from outside. The sound made Winters jump. It didn’t alarm the boss, figuring his men were doing their job. The shooting came in several short bursts and was sporadic. This got the attention of the boss. He was used to continuous gunfire and some screaming. He started back toward the door to see what was going on but noticed Winters had drawn his weapon. The boss instinctively raised his sidearm. He was too slow, and Winters pulled the trigger. Two rounds found their mark and dropped the man in his tracks. Scar did the same, and immediately took down the remaining two, who yelled out, but for only a moment.
“Well, that’s that,” said Winters.
“Captain, you’re a pretty cool customer, you’d have made a good Marine.”
Winters shook his head in a non-committal way, it was nice to hear, but he was too unsure of himself to be a Marine.
Winters tucked his pistol back into his waist. “Let's get outside, and see what happened.”
“Be happy to get out of this dump.”
They left the building and saw their crew crouched on the ground in a semi-circle and Nate running up to them. “Captain, Meeks got shot.”
“How bad?” asked Winters in a concerned tone.
“Not bad, just took a bit off his arm.”
Scar shook his head. “Hells bells, we’re never going to hear the end of this.”
They hustled over to the group where Burns was attending to Meeks.
“What happened?” Winters asked Elliott.
“We had them disarmed, except one of ‘em had a pistol hidden in his jacket. He got a shot off before we could gun ‘em down.”
Scar knelt by his friend. “What happened to your cat-like reflexes?”
“Well, thank
Gaawd for those reflexes. Otherwise, I’d be lying dead on the ground, and you’d be looking down at me crying your little eyes out.”
“I’d certainly be looking down at you.”
Meeks grabbed the corner of Scar's jacket. “Oh, you’d be shedding some tears. Think I should get a purple heart for this?”
Scar shook his head. “Captain, I told ya. We’ll never hear the end of this.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” said Winters who silently thanked God for such a minor wound.
Winters turned to Nate. “Let’s dump the bodies somewhere along the way. I want to get back to those volunteers as quickly as we can. Elliott, scavenge the place, and grab anything we might be able to use.”
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled out of the parking lot and headed back to pick up the rest of the volunteers. They had found a well-hidden place in the woods to park all the vehicles. This didn’t alleviate his concern about leaving those men for such an extended period. If some of them took off in the pickups, there would be nothing they could do. He hoped they didn’t go back to the Patriot Center to try and take matters into their own hands. It needed to be done but in the right way.
His thoughts turned to Meeks. He was lucky to be alive. It also made him realize that none of them had any medical experience. He tried to think in favorable terms, but the fact remained; how would they deal with future injuries.
An hour later, Elliott noticed it first. “Geez Louise, Captain, up ahead, is that what I think it is?”
Winters squinted his eyes. “What is it?”
“Looks to me like we got a string of Army Humvees coming our way.”
“Oh hell,” said Winters in an elevated tone.
Chapter 23
Briggsville Wisconsin
Major Green reached the Wisconsin Patriot Center located in Briggsville, just north of Portage, about a hundred miles from the Illinois border. He had never personally visited this Center before and didn’t know the man who ran it or any of his employees.
Green pulled into a disorganized parking lot. Vehicles of all types were parked haphazardly, spilling out onto the street. When volunteers came through these centers, they typically left their vehicles. Family members would pick them up later, while others simply abandoned them, figuring they would never be coming back. Most of the centers had places the vehicles could be stored for later pickup.
The limited space forced Green’s convoy of Humvees to park on the street. The man who ran the Center came out to greet him.
He walked over to Green. “You must be Major Green.”
“I am, and you are?”
“Eddie, Eddie Wakefield,” he said sticking his hand out.
Green shook his hand.
“So, what’s this all about?” asked Eddie who apparently had never turned down an opportunity to eat or drink beer. His girth appeared to be more than his height. His long, greasy hair matched his unkempt beard.
“Colonel Nunn wants me to visit all the centers personally and make an assessment of their operation. I noticed your parking lot is quite full. Why haven’t you moved all these cars off the lot? Don’t you have a storage lot?”
“Storage lot? We don’t need no storage lot, we’ve got an 'ole boy that comes around and picks them up. He should be here sometime this week.”
Green cocked his head back. “Picks them up? Where does he take them?”
“He takes them down south and sells them.”
“Sells them?”
Wakefield saw the innocence in Green’s eyes when he asked the question. He realized the major knew nothing about Operation Wildflower. He remembered Colonel Nunn telling him, no one but his employees were to know about their operation. What he didn’t know until right now, was that Colonel Nunn had kept that vital information from Major Green.
“Yes, sells them for the volunteers. You know, with fuel shortages and all, anything on four wheels is getting pretty useless, so we sell them and get the money to their families.”
“Okay. As far as I know, none of the other centers provide such a service.”
Wakefield suppressed a smirk. “We do everything we can to help out.”
Green spoke to him pointedly. “We’ve had some delays at a couple of the other stations. Crews have disappeared. So, we wanted to speak to you personally to determine if there were any problems, which might encourage you to do the same thing?”
“No, can’t say we got anything wrong here. We love what we’re doing and it feels good to be able to serve our country in its time of need,” said Wakefield with a smile that hid his contempt for America.
Wakefield was an avowed Communist and well known around Wisconsin before the war started. He handpicked his workers from the movement and had no problem finding like-minded people to help in any way they could to bring America to its knees.
Green and his men walked into the center, to inspect the place, it was dirtier than most of the ones he had seen, but he didn’t uncover any clues which might suggest something was wrong. Green chatted with Wakefield a bit longer, before he and his men remounted their vehicles to go to inspect the drop-off location.
“That place was disgusting,” said Lieutenant Crick, getting into the Humvee.
Green slid into his seat. “Tell me about it.”
“They smelled like they’ve haven’t bathed in a month. Are these the best people, the government could come up with? They’re about as bad as hippie protesters.”
“Our best and brightest are out West,” said Green with a reflective tone.
“Doesn’t leave much hope for our future if these are the people we’re fighting for.”
“I’m sure they’re a tiny minority.”
An hour later, as the Humvees were headed to the drop off location, they spotted transports coming toward them.
“Should I signal them to pull over?” asked Green’s driver.
“Absolutely.”
As they got closer, they slowed down, flashed their headlights, and came to a complete stop about fifty yards from the incoming transports. Green and Crick got out of the Humvee and waited for them. The transports stopped about twenty yards away from the Humvees. Green nodded to Crick and they walked to the first truck.
Chapter 24
Elliott looked over at Winters. His hand shook as he started to fumble around with the gear shift. He downshifted and slowed the transport down.
“What are we going to do?” asked Elliott.
“Don’t pull up all the way up to them, let them walk to us.”
Elliott shifted his eyes to his side mirror and saw Scar signaling the guys in the back of the truck to stay quiet. Winters grabbed his Colt and watched the two soldiers come closer.
Major Green walked to the side and locked eyes on Elliott.
“I’m Major Green and this is Lieutenant Crick. We’re with Colonel Nunn’s detachment, and as you may or may not know, he is in charge of the Patriot operation.”
Elliott feigned concerned. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, we just wanted to ask a few questions,” said Major Green. “Can I assume Wakefield has filled you in on what’s been happening at some of the other Patriot Centers?”
Elliott didn’t know Wakefield or what to say, so he decided to act ignorant of the subject. “No, can’t say I know anything about it. Has something happened?”
“We’ve had some guys missing at a couple of other Centers in Iowa and Minnesota, and we can’t figure out why.”
Elliott gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Did something happen to them?”
“We don’t know. We think they just up and quit their jobs. Which seems rather strange, especially with jobs so difficult to come by.”
“Well yeah, I’m grateful for mine, even if I’m having to do things I normally wouldn’t want to do.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“By what?”
“Doing things you normally wouldn’t want to do?”
Elliott didn’t know what to
say and was puzzled by this question. Killing people, was not obvious enough? He didn’t dare glance over to Winters, nor did he dare break eye contact with the major, who waited for an answer. He had a genuine look of curiosity. This made Elliott wonder what kind of heartless man stood before him, that he thought nothing of killing innocent people. He had to come up with something, which would satisfy the major.
“Work for the government,” said Elliott putting a smile on his face. “No offense, but I used to be a farmer. Never thought I’d have to work for the government.”
“Yes, well these are trying times. I’m sure you’ll get to farm again someday. You know, you’re a lot older than most of the drivers I’ve seen at other centers.”
Elliott waved his hand in the direction of the other trucks. “Oh really? Well, we’re all about the same age.”
“We’re inspecting all the centers. Have you had any problems with Wakefield and his operation?”
“No, can’t say that I have,” Elliott responded.
“How about at the drop-off location?”
“Ah, well no. I mean we just left there. Everything looked normal to me. Is that where you’re headed next?” asked Elliott hoping not to sound too anxious.
“Yes. Thanks for your time.”
“Anytime, Major.”
Green and Crick retreated to their Humvee.
Elliott let out a deep breath. “That was interesting.”
The Humvees drove past them.
Winters slouched in his seat. “Yeah, to say the least. What the hell was that all about, asking what wasn’t normal in killing people?”
Elliott straightened up. “That’s what I was wondering. He must be a cold-hearted bastard.”
“No doubt. Oh, and kudos to you. You were pretty quick. Work for the government. That was brilliant.”
“Yeah, don’t quite know where that one came from.”
Ten minutes later, they pulled over to where they left the new volunteers. Everyone got out of the trucks and hurried over to Elliott and Winters.
“What the hell was that all about? I thought for sure we were going to have a shootout,” said Meeks.