Power Games: Operation Enduring Unity I (25 page)

7 March: 1030

Pop, pop, click.

Shit. Sophie had lost track of how many rounds were left. She slid out the magazine, locked the bolt to the rear and rested her peacemaker on the sandbags in front of her. Fighting the itch to stand up, she pushed the oversized helmet as far out of the way as she dared. Her instructor noticed; he caught everything, but let it go. He had a bigger annoyance. Everyone else on the line but her still carefully pumped out rounds downrange.

“Why the hell aren’t you firing, Kampbell?” Even over all the shooting, he was loud and clear.

“Out of ammo, Sergeant!” That clearly wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. “Also out of targets, Sergeant!”

For a wonder, she caught him off guard. He straddled her firing pit, waved his red paddle at the range control tower and pointed down at her. A second later, all the targets in her lane flipped up, but then all went back down. The instructor looked as close to impressed as that scowling, jagged face ever could.

He blew a whistle. “Check fire! Clear and safe your weapons!”

Range control recocked everyone’s lanes but left up the plastic army men each missed.

“I’ll be damned. 40 out of 40 and finished 10 seconds before anyone else. Where did you learn how to shoot so well?”

Sophie licked her thin lips, but tried not to look too confused. “From you, Sergeant!”

What type of trick question was that? The instructors loved to trip trainees up with logic traps that had no correct answers. The truth made her look like a kiss ass and he’d sniff out a lie immediately.

Well, the right answer wasn’t the point. The whole game is a test to see if you hesitate. Right or wrong, so long as you sounded off good and strong they’d leave you alone. Show the slightest indecision though… Well, then you’d be doing pushups until the instructor grew tired.

He studied her with something verging on respect while preaching to the assembled squad. “You know what’s special about this soldier, eh? She actually listens! See what you can accomplish when you shut your cock holsters and open your minds?”

He smiled wide…something you never want to see a drill instructor do. “Listen up, all you good ‘ole boys out there who think you know everything there is to know about shooting, because your ‘grandiddy’ taught you. Look at these scores. Not one of you shot over 30 out of 40. You don’t want to listen to me when I show you the four fundamentals of marksmanship, fine. Maybe you’ll listen to her.”

He waved his painted ping-pong paddle at the tower. “Reload, we’re going again. Anyone who misses a single target will be personally coached by this little soldier until you’re less of a fuckup. What are you waiting on? Let’s go, let’s go! Move with a sense of fucking purpose!”

Sophie just received her first promotion. In her NCO’s eyes, she moved up from unidentifiable animal shit under your boot to a real human being. After only three weeks in this program, she was amazed at how much that respect meant to her. Her heart fluttered at what he called her as much as any of Ben’s pet names. It was a word she hated, until applied to her:
soldier
.

With colleges across the state temporarily closed, unemployment approaching 12% and, frankly, so many people pissed off, this private camp bustled. Their free curriculum helped. The shadowy organizers–some new non-profit foundation primarily funded by a LLC, which was itself a daughter firm of a shell corporation of an offshore holding company–hired only the best instructors. They even worked out an arrangement with some schools to provide “professional learning credits” to anyone who successfully completed a “proactive defense” program.

Everyone started in a weeklong dynamic self-defense class. Despite the hype, these classes trained people in a type of civil disobedience closer in spirit and practice to Che Guevara than Martin Luther King and Gandhi. However, since the BDU-clad teachers stopped short of issuing firearms, they could still play the non-violence card.

The real purpose of the course was far more than just teaching people how to protest more effectively. Each class was a large-scale recruiting event and actually cheaper, per head, than the US Army’s recruiting efforts. Less than 5% of attendees proved enough passion and drive to be invited to join “advanced lessons.” The ultimate reward being eventually able to join one of the hip, still-evolving Freedom Brigades. Recruits were also paid, and paid well, to volunteer for these non-profit “Constitutional Clubs.” At least that was the name on the tax forms and in friendly media coverage. Everyone else just called them “The Militia.”

A pair of National Guard observers conferred off to the side and critiqued them every step of the way. Originally, those uniforms represented the enemy, but my how things had changed over the last month! Acting Governor Salazar took a more contrarian position to the Federal Government every week. The hotter her rhetoric, the higher she climbed in the opinion polls. Which meant she gave the people more of what they wanted. A strange cycle, but not terribly interesting to Sophie.

Sophie didn’t know who paid for all this, nor did she care. In all the clubs and causes she’d ever participated in, none gave her half the motivation as “The Brigades.” The friendships she forged out here in the woods would be lifelong. The memories of their hardships still fresh 50 years from now. She was part of something truly important, something bigger than herself.

These freedom fighters had no such impotent goals as “raising awareness.” No, their mission was to evoke real change. At the point of a gun, if need be. Not just to protect, but create freedom. Next to that sense of purpose, everything else in life had the volume turned down.

She hadn’t had contact with anyone outside the program in over three weeks. Some of the other guys were homesick, but she couldn’t feel more at home. Her friends back in L.A. thought it crazy that someone so socially conscious would join a paramilitary organization.

Sophie couldn’t understand why her civilian friends
didn’t
. Putting on the uniform was just another version of civic virtue. A semi-automatic rifle solves more problems than a picket sign. Those 5.56mm rounds deliver a lot more permanent social justice than any lawsuit. This girl, not even old enough to drink legally yet, wondered how you could expect a civilian to understand something like that?

9 March: 1300

Even with the Feds temporarily thrown out of North Florida, the rebels had no chance to celebrate or take a load off. Despite the near hysterical excitement out West, they were far from happy. Everyone in uniform looked around at their shattered, bloodied units and wondered how they were supposed to stop the next attack.

There was too much cleanup and prep work for the next fight to be done. Too much work and, after that disastrous fight yesterday, too few survivors to do it all. In all this crap, Congressman Eliot was just a neat trophy.

The Florida Defense Forces didn’t have a detention center setup for high value prisoners. Such a need was pure fantasy at the start of the invasion. Most of the enemy soldiers they still held were severely wounded. They wouldn’t be leaving the crowded hospitals anytime soon. Those few hundred captured up in Lake City were crammed into a football stadium in Tampa. It didn’t seem appropriate to shove a politician in with them. None of the militiamen really knew what to do with a captured congressman.

Eliot’s almost comical “take me to your leader” demands eventually paid off. He and Jessica bounced around from one field headquarters to another before finally landing at the head command post in Ocala. Getting there was one thing. Getting someone to pay attention to her was much harder. Jessica wasn’t zip-tied like the congressman, but she sure wasn’t free to move around.

Way back when in J school they cautioned about getting too close to the story. Shit, she thought, I’m smack dab in the middle of it. Any closer and I’d be an obituary. She wasn’t terribly worried, mainly just annoyed that no one wanted to talk to her. What she could learn if the guard would let her go anywhere outside this little corner of the convention hall. What her editor would pay if she could get an exclusive from “the heart of the beast.”

She gazed with lust as General Cooper intensely conferred with a bunch of his officers only a few yards away. What she wouldn’t give to get in the middle of that! She even tried flirting with the guard, but he was far too focused on his hatred of Eliot to be interested in her. She pondered screaming “rape” when a tall, dark sergeant marched up to their glaring sentry.

“Private, can’t you see these detainees are hungry? Go get these civilians a couple of MRE’s. I’ll watch ‘em.” He unslung his M249.

The PFC looked him over skeptically. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. Major Gorgas ordered me to stay here until he personally said otherwise. I can’t abandon my post.” His words were respectful, but his tone implied, “Fetch your own shit.”

It was pretty obvious the sergeant wasn’t used to disobedience.

“Private, I don’t give a rat’s ass what some fucking officer told you! You’re in my headquarters; these prisoners are my responsibility. So get your ass in gear!” This buck sergeant, fairly old for an E-5, had an impressively refined command voice.

Every instinct in the poor kid told him to obey, but a strand of discipline held him in place. “Uh, I can’t. My orders…” a stray idea crossed his mind and gave him a little more confidence. “Um, what unit are you with, Sergeant? What do you do around here?”

If he thought this strange NCO was angry before, he wasn’t ready for this white-hot rage. The sergeant jumped right in his face. Curiously, he yelled just loud enough to scare the kid but not draw attention from the command staff on the other side of the large room.

“Boy, if you have to ask,
you
don’t belong here! Now, I gave you an order. Are we going to have a problem?”

The private’s endurance lasted two more seconds. Fuck it. “Hooah, Sergeant.” He left quickly, muttering under his breath about how the left hand never knows what the right hand is doing. He was sick and tired of always being in the wrong no matter what he did.

The moment the guardsman stepped outside, this curious fellow whipped out a blade and rushed up to the now terrified congressman. He cut the plastic cuffs, searched both faces, and spoke to the strongest one.

“Alright lady, take this dude and get out of here, right now. There’s a sentry outside the entrance, so stop when he yells or you’ll be shot in the back. The important thing is not to come back in here, no matter what you hear. Clear?”

Jessica had never seen such calm, yet focused intensity. She neither argued nor questioned. Just nodded and pushed the congressman towards the door. As soon as they were moving, Brown turned and strolled towards the center of the hall. No more time to waste. People were already throwing curious glances at him.

In normal circumstances he never could have pulled off this stunt. The two dead guardsmen in the trunk of his Humvee outside would have been missed much sooner. Even as swamped as these command staffers were, they should’ve known he wasn’t kosher. Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. Too late for all that now.

Major Gorgas caught Brown’s strange movements out the corner of his eye. He didn’t understand any of it, but he didn’t waste time trying to.

“Frag out!” he screamed.

Gorgas dropped the map in his hand and yanked the general to the ground with him. A second later, both grenades detonated. He peeked around the old desk to see this stranger in a friendly uniform take a knee and blaze away with a SAW. No real tactics involved. Just stand in the middle of the room with an automatic weapon and kill everything that moves.

General Cooper was not thankful for the lifesaving. He drew his sidearm with a war whoop and popped straight up to engage this crazy fuck. He collapsed almost immediately without firing a shot, three holes in his gut and a trio of larger exit holes out his back. Gorgas yanked off his own ACU top and did the best he could to stop the bleeding.

Someone from somewhere chucked a flash bang grenade at the killer in the middle of the room. It might’ve seemed clever at the time, but it dazed those firing back more than it distracted him. The only effect was to allow the attacker a chance to slip away. Brown had shoved earplugs in before even tossing the grenades, which was probably unnecessary. His murderous focus couldn’t be thrown off by some non-lethal toy.

When the defenders could focus again, the enemy was gone. Like a killer dream. In just 20 seconds, a dozen officers and key staffers were either killed or seriously wounded. What the hell just happened? Someone noticed the side door still swinging. An only slightly wounded master sergeant lead a scratch squad of men out the door after him.

And straight into a bigger fight. That same grinning asshole stood in the turret of an up-armored Humvee and rocked a .50 cal. The master sergeant shoved his guys back under cover when the barrel swung their way. Half-inch slugs ripped easily through the brick wall inches above his head. After a short burst, Brown swiveled back to his main target, the other Humvees around him.

He systematically shredded several occupied trucks whose gunners were a little too slow on the uptake. He hadn’t planned to make a last stand in the parking lot, but what are you going to do? How long did he have before they flanked him? Despite the big gun in his hands, he could only shoot one target at once. Any second they’d figure that out and hit him in the back. All he could do was make it costly.

It didn’t surprise him when he heard the truck’s doors open below. What a shame the guardsmen were so quick. Time for the big finale.

He stuck his thumb in the pin of his last grenade, which was already taped around a canister of homemade napalm. Just as he prepared to yank it out, he looked down to face his enemy for the last time. A mound of blonde hair stuck between his legs and smiled.

Jessica ignored the obvious erection next to her face. It was already there before she climbed into the driver’s seat. “So, you ready to get out of here, or are you having too much fun?”

She barked at the sobbing congressman to buckle up while she tried to figure out this military vehicle. The steering was simple enough, and even an automatic, but where were the fucking keys? How do you start this damn thing?

Luckily, the diesel’s glow plugs were still warm. The engine roared to life when she randomly flipped switches and got to the big green knob on the left of the steering wheel. She had no time to celebrate. Several something’s slammed the window next to her. Two big cracks appeared in the armored glass. More rounds hammered the outside of the truck all over. “Go! Go!” was the congressman’s advice. For once, she agreed with him.

Jessica peeled away as fast as the heavy truck could accelerate. She sideswiped another Humvee on the way out and nearly ran someone over, but they got clear. The suppressive fire from the gunner’s hatch above stopped only when they were nearly a mile distant.

The stranger dropped down, shook his head at the guy in back and clapped the woman on the shoulder.

“Damn fine job! But take this next left; we want to go south.” It pissed her off how her nipples crinkled at his touch, but she couldn’t stop. When he slipped a loaded pistol belt around her waist and buckled it, steamy breath behind her ear, she was positively…well, excited. She was a modern, responsible, professional woman. There was nothing sexy about killing and nearly getting killed. Why couldn’t Mother Nature join the 21
st
century?

She stayed focused and kept her eyes on the road, rather than on that rugged face. “Why south? It’s only a couple of hours until the border if we go the other way.”

Brown kept himself busy getting everyone a weapon and inventorying their remaining supplies. He tried hard to avoid staring down that neckline…God Damnit! She didn’t even have perfume on. How could the scent of an unwashed woman be so intoxicating? This gal was more trouble than tear gas.

“The whole rebel army is north of us. Believe me. I’ve spent a lot of time tracking their movements. Everything they got is up there. No one is south of us. What do you say we hit the beach and wait for the real Army to get here?”

She mulled that over briefly and tried to keep things light. “Hmm, and I didn’t even bring a bathing suit.”

The mental image of her in a bikini made John drop the magazine he was loading. He laughed nervously. He felt like a teenager again. A well-armed teenager probably being hunted by both sides, but right now, he didn’t worry. Amazing how tossing a girl into any situation suddenly makes it less disastrous.

He stuck his hand over the radio mount, partly just for the excuse to touch her. “By the way, I’m John.” She held his rough hand longer than necessary.

“Jessica. A pleasure. I take it you aren’t with the Guard?” Damn girl, she thought, turn the reporter routine off for a second!

Brown changed the subject to something safer, even if more difficult. “Listen, ah, I want to say…I mean, that was some hardcore shit, um…I appreciate your help back there and all, but why?”

She shot him another grin. “You’re not particularly good at saying thank you, are you? That’s ok, no need to. I see this as more a suicide prevention incident. I’m a reporter and saw the hottest story around,” she blushed a tad at her choice of words, “um, was getting itself killed. Besides, you got us out of there safely. Karma wouldn’t be pleased if I didn’t return the favor.”

“Is Karma a boyfriend or…?” Brown tried to stay nonchalant and scanned around the vehicle, even while scanning her intently.

She had such a carefree laugh. “That’s a good one!”

He was still trying to puzzle out what she meant by that when their luggage suddenly joined the conversation. “Soldier, on behalf of a grateful nation, I want to thank you for saving me from those fanatics. Now we need to find some way to communicate with the military. I’ll see to it you are evacuated as well. Oh, and by the way, I don’t need this. Could you imagine if a photo was taken?”

“Who are you and what the hell are you talking about?” Brown turned around in time to see the congressman waving the 9mm he gave him right in his face. In typical fashion, the politician ignored the “help’s” comments.

Brown reacted instinctively. He crushed the threat’s wrist, pushed the gun up and away, and tried to draw his own. Jessica reached over, seized his arm and rolled her eyes before he finished killing the suit in the back. “Relax, John. Let me introduce you. That’s Congressman Alfred Eliot, from New York’s 29th congressional district.”

John holstered his weapon. With disgust, he shoved the other gun, grip first, back into the congressman’s hand. “That’s how you hand over a fucking weapon. Keep your finger off the trigger unless you’re ready to use it!” His command voice even worked on the millionaire in back.

“Well, then. Please do forgive my…unfamiliarity with firearms. I’m afraid I’m not qualified to use one. However, if you get me to a telephone, I’ll have a hundred professional shooters here in a hurry.”

Brown yanked the pistol away. “Maybe you have a point.” Before he could get more pissed off about the idea of deploying soldiers as casually as calling up a plumber, Jessica got him back on track.

She reached behind her head and patted the machine gun turret ring. “I think we should stop anyway. We need to find a different vehicle somehow. This thing might not be special to you, but that machine gun sticks out in polite company.” She grinned wide and tried to get a rise out of him.

“We need to find a place to hide your big gun.” It gave her goose bumps when he focused all that intent energy solely on her.

“Yeah…sure. Ok, we’ll find a phone and a car to steal in the next town ahead.”