Shelter: Book 2, A Long Days Night (21 page)

Nikita walks over to whisper in the Captain’s ear, “Captain, are you really going to allow Alex to buy a car?”

Sarnoff says, “Nikita, first he has to find one, next he has to find the fuel for it. He also has to agree to let us load it with equipment. Finding such an old car and the fuel will not be easy.”

Nikita shakes his head “He will! He will be doing nothing except for looking for his car. I bet he convinces most of his squad to drop everything and look for his car. He will find one if he has to hijack one of our trucks and go to Detroit.”

“Nikita you worry too much.”

Laughing, Nikita says, “Captain, I am afraid you are the one who will soon worry. I do not like this mission. I do not like us giving or selling arms to Americans who can just as easily use them against us.  If we have to go through with attacking an American Army platoon, they will know in a minute that we are not a militia. They will know we are Spetsnaz by the way we fight. As soon as we engage them they will know who we are, it can be the spark that starts World War 3. Once they report back to their headquarters, we will be swimming in Army platoons all eager to taste our blood. My friend, fighting the US Army on their own turf is different than fighting gangs or the black asses.”

“My friend, I know. If we have to hit them, I plan to strike them and run away. There is no way I am going to stand and go toe to toe with the American Army. We have rifles and hand grenades. They most likely have heavy machine guns, mortars, and shoulder-fired missiles. I know Darkenov sent us on a suicide mission. I have no intention of giving him what he wants. We will hit them, fade away, hit them and fade away again. Remind the men not to get carried away. They are to set up an ambush for the Americans. Fire one magazine and run away before the Americans can regroup and counter attack. I do not know where this platoon came from. I have no intel if they are paper pushers or hardened warriors. If they are warriors, we could have a serious problem on our hands. We could be setting a trap where we will be the ones getting trapped.”

“Captain, my other worry is the Americans we are selling rifles to will figure out who we are and they use them to turn on us.”

“After we sell the weapons, we will quickly leave the area. Nikita, make sure we have a fallback position. I fear the upcoming battle is going to be short and violent. I do not want to lose any of our men to Darkenov’s wet dream.”

“Yes, sir.”

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“Jay, we’re ready to go.”

“OK, let’s do this.” I unlock the security panel, I enter my passcode into the panel which disarms the booby traps and begins the process of unlocking the doors. Tony smiles asking, “You did remember to disarm all of the booby traps and gas didn’t you? I don’t want to be killed by our own weapons.”

“If not, it’s going to be a very short trip. John, was the code a seven or nine digit code?”

Tony frowns saying, “Jay, this isn’t really the time to forget the passcode.”

I smile at him as I touch the enter key for the third time which starts the doors opening. The lights dim and go out so no one outside can see our lights. As the doors open, we lift our rifles into firing position, we’re as ready as we can be. We’re wearing body armor and helmets. None of us has anything on us that can be used to identify us, not even a wedding ring. We walk in single file, I lead, John brings up the rear. We pause to close and lock the doors. We wait until the camouflage is in place hiding our location before we begin moving towards my house.

Chapter 13

Dense smoke grows over the city of Los Angeles, the smoke from one of five out of control wildfires is merging with the buildings burning in East Central LA. Most of California was in a one hundred year drought situation, the supply of water was strictly controlled. The governor decided that fires that didn’t immediately place people’s lives at risk would be allowed to burn themselves out. The state didn’t have sufficient water to use putting out fires and providing drinking water to everyone in the state.  It came down to putting fires out or having people go thirsty. The governor issued executive orders mandating personal bathing on odd/even days. He outlawed watering of lawns, filling swimming pools, and washing cars. Helicopters were used to locate swimming pools which city trucks drained. Hollywood stars bought camouflaged covers and tents to cover their pools so the city couldn’t take their water. It became a running battle of wits between the Hollywood stars and the city administration. The city was also low on fuel to generate electrical power, the city provided electricity for three hours a day, usually between 2 and 5 AM. The city’s gangs joined in an uneasy truce to fight the LAPD and steal generators and water. Black market water sold for $20.00 a gallon, more than gasoline and more on a per ounce basis than cocaine. The gangs bottled water, sometimes the water was trucked north from Mexico, and sometimes it was boiled ocean water. The wildfires started in Canyon County to the North East of LA, within a week the fire had burned 40,000 acres and growing. Hundreds of homes were burned to their foundations, thousands of homes in Saugus and Valencia were at risk. Their owners are walking south along Route 5 and 405 to escape the growing fires. Many are dragging wheeled suitcases behind them with everything they could carry from their homes.

Tens of thousands of refugees strip everything in their path, they act like a swarm of locusts. They invade homes and stores in the towns that line the interstates, they flow into buildings taking everything that’s not nailed down. The large Latter Day Saints warehouse in Sylmar is cleaned out in a few hours. Due to the lack of guns in the state, many homeowners couldn’t prevent the swarms of people stealing everything they had, after their homes are stripped and usually set on fire, they joined the growing number of refugees walking towards Los Angeles City Hall to demand help. The year-long drought dried out the topsoil causing the hot Santa Ana winds to create miles long dust storms which blew across the city and its suburbs. A wall of sand and dirt is driven by the winds blowing out of the mountains towards the now hundred thousand refugees. The sand and dirt attacks the people seeking help. The city doesn’t have the fuel to provide assistance to the refugees, thousands choke to death when they’re covered in the sand and dirt. The grit fills the refugee’s lungs. They cough and beg for help. News reporters record the sad end of tens of thousands who beg for help, who are lying on the interstate crying and not understating why there’s no help coming to aide them. When the storm abets the gangs move in to steal everything they had.

The news of the death of over one hundred thousand spreads across the country which makes everyone else feel thankful for the limited supplies they still have.  The country wakes the day after the death of the LA hundred thousand hearing the Premier of the People’s Republic of China, who goes on international media offering the people of California assistance and more importantly water. “People of the great state of California, you are thirsty, you are tired, you’ve watched your savings and jobs disappear while the state government you elected increase your sales and income taxes while also cutting all of your benefits, yet still allowing illegal aliens to usurp your hard earned benefits. The state has plenty of water, yet it’s not being made available to you. You’re not even able to bath every day, the world’s richest farmland in the central section of the state has become a dust bowl, crops that fed the world are dead. The rich top soil has been picked up by the hot Santa Ana winds, spreading it all over the west. The great city of Los Angeles is dying of thirst, dirty water is being sold on the city’s street corners, people beg not for money, but for a bottle of water. The government you elected year after year hasn’t improved the situation, it’s made it worse. You’ve seen your taxes double, your schools which once ranked second in the country, now rank 48th, your schools have the highest number of students per teacher. Your sons and daughters enter college only because the state higher education system is free to anyone living in the state, graduates find they can’t get a job when they leave college with advanced degrees in Transgender African American studies, a useless education that cost your state half a million dollars so the union college professors can earn over $400,000 to teach one or two courses a semester.  Your taxes are paying for benefits and school for millions of non-citizens who have better benefits than you, the hardworking legal people of California. You’ve watched your local crime rate soar, you’ve watched your elected government strip your rights, they’ve deemed thousands of statements as hate speech, they’ve forced your churches to break their vows, they’ve forced businesses to hire those who aren’t qualified nor are they needed, so the mandated percentages of multi-cultural workers is maintained. Every job, even the self-employed has been forced to join a union which has lowered your take home pay. Are you happy being a citizen of what used to be the most admired state? California used to be the state everyone wanted to move to, now it’s in the top five states seeing the greatest decrease in legal population and the number one state in noncitizen population growth. Your state is bankrupt, state pensions are bankrupt, what does your government in Sacramento want to fund? A multibillion-dollar rail system that is to connect LA and San Francisco, except it will take fifty to one hundred years to build, while you sit unemployed, thirsty and dirty, not allowed to even bath every day.”

The Premier continues, “Citizens of the great state of California, your elected officials in Sacramento and Washington D.C. have failed you. The once great country of America is bankrupt. Your national debt is over $22 trillion, there isn’t enough money in the world to pay back the debt. You owe us over $16 trillion. We’ve offered to erase your government’s debt in exchange for the states of Hawaii and California. We will ensure you have water, security, your children will have a good education. You will be able to go to sleep every night clean and with a full stomach. You will have a true say in your government, just like Hong Kong does. We’ll set up Hawaii and California as special economic zones. We’ll help you rebuild your economy and close the borders to ensure anyone living in the state is a citizen. We’ve been asking your elected officials to hold a special election and allow you to decide your own fate. As a sign of our good will, tonight we will air drop millions of cases of food and water across the state of California. Remember who is coming to your aid, force your government to allow you to decide. Remember who your real friends are. The people of China look forward to welcoming you into our family with open arms. Thank you, listen for the sound of airplanes at midnight, look up for the bright red parachutes with our gift to you. I wish you all a good night.”

The people of California are shocked by the announcement, they look at their watches and clocks to see how close they are to midnight. They are eager to get their free food and water. The various gangs make plans to track down the air drops and steal them. The governor calls the President asking for help, he begs for the Feds to shoot down any Chinese flight that enters California airspace. The President responds, “I heard the lying Chinese Premier, I plan to address the good people of California and Hawaii in one hour. My speechwriters are working on the draft right now. We can’t afford the fuel to send up hundreds of fighters to shoot down Chinese planes. They aren’t bombing us, let them do their air drop, we have nothing to lose. We can take credit for it by telling the people we asked the Chinese to give them food and water so we wouldn’t have to increase their taxes to cover this unexpected situation. The media will support us, they’ll convince the people to side with us.”

Washington D.C. is shocked by the Chinese announcement. The president’s CoS says, “Mr. President, I think the people may decide that the Chinese offer them a better future than they have seen from us. Look at the situation of the hundred thousand who died leaving the fires.”

“We’ll say the Chinese started the fires so the people had to leave their homes. They set the entire situation up so they could step in to be the hero’s solving the problem they created.”

“I like that, the media should be able to spin it so the people easily buy it.”

“We blame the drought on global warming caused by the Chinese refusing to sign the latest carbon dioxide treaty and their walking out of the UN carbon tax meetings. They caused the drought which caused the people’s suffering so they can pretend to be their hero’s.”

“Excellent, I’ll contact the Hollywood players, they’ll be ready to support your speech.”

“Tell them I’ll call them an hour after my address to the people.”

“I’m sure they’ll be happy to speak with you.”

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For the first time in almost two months the outside shelter door opens, after we exit, the door closed and been re-sealed. We’re satisfied the camo has held up hiding the entrance to the shelter. We’re standing outside the shelter’s door. The smell of fresh air sweeps over us. The cool, humid night air fills our lungs like a drug. We stand still inhaling the familiar smells. The wind against our exposed skin is a feeling we thought we might not feel again. The wind invigorates us, it makes us feel brand new. It washes off our regrets. I look at the others, we’re all smiling, Todd has tears in the corners of his eyes. I hold up my hand to say we’re going to hold here a moment, a moment we need for our eyes to adjust to the darkness and our senses to align to being outside. Tony whispers, “It feels so good being outside. I questioned if we’d ever smell fresh air again.”