Operation SERF

Part 11

Chris Sullins (February XXVII, 2009)

Scott drove the group in the white bus. John had been surprised by the lack of people and vehicles on their route north along the Dixie Highway. However, at three different places along the way, Scott pointed out the charred remains of cars pushed off to the side of road. There was also an area where half a dozen homes on both sides of the road had recently burned and were still smoking. Scott said “mortar attacks” to John.

The bus was met at a highway onramp by two black suburbans with flashing lights and escorted the rest of the way toward an airport on the south side of Louisville. All three vehicles later went through a military checkpoint where an exit ramp left the highway on the east side of the airport. The vehicles went down a city street before turning west to go back under the highway toward the airport. Hidden under the overpass itself was another checkpoint, but manned by armed men in multicolor camouflage similar to John and his men.

After passing under the highway the bus was faced with the side of an armored personnel carrier on the street which served as the gateway door through a wall of shipping containers stacked two high. The two suburbans which had escorted the bus turned right and went down a side road which skirted the line of shipping containers on one side and the highway on the other. As the bus crept forward a few feet the APC fired up its engine and moved aside clearing the way for the bus to go through the gap in the great wall of shipping containers.

“We have a lot to talk about before you leave,” Scott said as he drove a couple hundred yards deeper into the large cordoned off area at their end of the airport. He pulled the bus over to an airplane hanger where more men in camouflage were milling around. “We’ll drop off your men and prisoners here. The men here will help yours get re-equipped for colder weather. When’s the last time you skied or snow-shoed?”

“It’s been a while,” said John as he heard multiple propeller rotors of a large aircraft throttling up in the background.

As everyone left the bus and were met by the other men in camouflage, Scott led John to a single 20’ shipping container next to the hanger. At one end the large steel double doors were open revealing a standard entry door set in another interior wall only a few inches further inside.

“Welcome to my office,” said Scott as he pressed a code under the doorknob and opened the door. “It’s a complete C quad in a box. Close the door behind you.”

Scott went around the edge of a table top which was folded down from the wall. This formed a working desk and had a single laptop on it, three satellite phones, and a communications transceiver. Scott sat down on a chair with John at on another chair facing him across the table. A small kitchenette, refrigerator, and folding bed were in the space behind Scott. There were two other narrow doors in a wall at the back end of the container. John saw clothes scattered on the carpeted floor as well as a set of new body armor with clean pouches attached to it that didn’t bear a single scuff. An assault rifle was leaning against the wall next to Scott. A metal ammo can and magazines for the rifle was stacked up next to it.

“Where’s the washer and dryer?” asked John as a joke.

“They’re in the storage area behind one door,” said Scott pointing a thumb behind himself, “and the bathroom is through the other. It’s airline size. Do you need to use it?”

“No, I’m good,” said John.

“There’s an opportunity in Michigan right now,” Scott said. “The Committee is preparing to send a small force to attack some local freedom fighters up there. I want you and your team to hit the Chairman and his commies in their heel. They’re preparing to send them out of Chicago and up Route 131 as we speak. I want you to make contact with the locals who are putting up resistance in Michigan and assist them in their fight. Everything about the mission and the locals will be on this laptop. I want you to read the file on the resistance leader named Josiah Shroud. Make contact with him and work with his people. He won’t know you’re coming and quite frankly, I don’t know how he’s going to react to you guys. You’re going to have to win his trust and convince him you can help them in their fight. If they won’t work with you, I want you to stay separate from them, but still remain in place up there and harass the reds.”

“What kind of force is being sent right now?” asked John.

“Four ASVs and a few support vehicles,” said Scott. “With you guys up there, the reds are going to find they’ve severely underestimated their problem. While you’re the pebble in their shoe, we’re going to hit them square in the face down here.”

“What am I going to have to use against the ASVs?” asked John.

“I’ve got four AT-4s to send along with you,” said Scott. “You’ll have a couple RPG launchers and a few extra rockets for each. You guys have to jump in light.”

“Do you have anything on the shelf that’s not older than I am?” asked John. “Don’t you have some Javelins stashed away somewhere?”

“Those AT-4s will work just fine for this job,” replied Scott. “Besides, I’m saving those Javelins for a real emergency.”

“Doesn’t this qualify as enough of an emergency?”

“No,” replied Scott. “Things can get a lot worse than this when it comes to armor. I’m thinking of a line of main battle tanks with pissed off gunners. Don’t worry –I’ll always have the right tools ready to hand you.”

“How long are we on this mission? Do we hit them and…” began John.

“You’re staying up there until further notice,” said Scott. “Think of this one as long term. Possibly for the duration of the war. We’ll be dropping supplies to you later. With everything that’s going to happen, I doubt the reds will have time to pull the boot off that you’re in. If things go well, their leg will be blown off their body and I’ll be personally removing the boot later to get you out.”

“What about Mond?”

“I’m going to take care of Mond,” said Scott. “I’m going to hit Mond in the stomach and then punch the Chairman’s chin. With all these pin prick attacks from the other side of the river, the Army is now ready to move with me on this. A lot has happened over the last few days. Things are getting completely out of control in other places. Not just in the US but elsewhere. It’s like New York and DC were the tinder which got sparked, caught the whole house on fire and now it’s spreading down the block. The military is in total zombie containment mode with the East Coast right now and they’re sick of the Committee’s bullsh-t.”

“Zombies?” asked John.

“It’s just a figure of speech,” said Scott. “The populace on the East Coast is completely out of control. There’s been massive panic after tens of thousands of people began dropping dead the day before last due to radiation exposure. Turns out sophisticated enhanced radiation weapons were also used for the attacks. Not just a single conventional on the buildings. Both sites were double-tapped. Maybe triple. Afterwards all of these apparently normal looking people who were no where near the bombs started getting sick and dropping like flies. We know now they were going through the walking ghost phase, but a lot of rumors started spreading that it was actually a plague.

“We also found out later that the radiation detection equipment used by the CBRN response teams and even the local CERTs had been tampered with. People dying in the cities were either hit up front with the weapon or were exposed later to contamination. No one knew what was going on at first but the walking ghosts developed fevers and started dying so everyone else tried to get away from the East Coast. It’s too cold to go north, so most tried going southwest and south. You heard about all those roads that were blown along the Appalachians, right?”

“Yes.”

“We had some other players on board who agreed to do that for containment,” said Scott. “Some of them even got a bit over-exuberant and blew bridges too far inside of this state. But east of the Smokies we just needed the civilians who hadn’t been exposed to stay in place and receive help there. We weren’t set up to handle millions of people attempting to move out. Cities outside of New York and DC were either in complete gridlock on the roads, or were rioting with fires spreading, or were sending tens of thousands of refugees swarming on small towns all at once like locusts. Waves of people ended up moving into other states and looting just to eat before moving again to do the same thing. We can’t even keep the electrical grid up out there now which is also adding to the movement.

“As this progressed I thought this had been part of some intentional guiding after the attacks. I figured Mond had planned this at the direction of the other two factions and that they were all in temporary alliance on it. Our intelligence was able to show our own faction of governors and agency heads, some of the other independent players still on the game board, and even most of the military, that there had been excessive amounts of gasoline pre-positioned for mass civilian movement. But, this was just enough fuel to allow people to fill up and move out and maybe re-fuel somewhere again to the southwest or south.

“We found there were extra fuel trucks scheduled in advance and already making deliveries up and down the mountains after the attacks, but not as much between the mountains and the Mississippi and between I-70 and I-40. That box was a dry zone. People were definitely going to move south from there because going north on foot in wintertime would be worse. At the same time we found the Deep South was also well-fueled in advance. There was excess supply early on in Atlanta, Montgomery, and Jackson. There was even another delivery of fuel in transit on the trucks and by rail. There was too much prepositioned to resupply the system in these key areas. This changed after all the extra people arrived and things began to go dry.

“That got everyone’s attention. The Joint Chiefs ignored the competing factions’ shadow governments and rightly questioned why people were being encouraged to move to and stay in the Southern states. At least they could agree with our faction that this might have been pre-positioning the population itself for another attack. We stopped most of the mass migration on the highways through the mountains, but there’s still a lot of population movement south down the East Coast. I figured it was the Governor and his faction trying to keep us distracted and overwhelmed in our backyard while they entrenched their positions deeper out west. They were even going heavy on the propaganda in their media to advertise their United Southwestern States.

“But, I’m looking back at this and I now know the interpretation and the strong encouragement for the response taken here was my mistake. I think this is exactly how Mond expected I would react if control was lost on the East Coast. Even the Governor’s fascist faction was letting refugees come in at first. They could have easily blocked all this movement on day one by taking the bridges at the Mississippi. It didn’t make sense for them to go along with the population flowing in their direction as well. I think Mond wanted as much of the population as possible concentrating in the south. Anywhere in the south. I think he counted on people who weren’t even affected by the bombings to panic and run like deer and push more herds along with them to warmer and supposedly safer areas.”

John was quiet and contemplated that this was the first time he had ever heard Scott say he made a mistake in the ten years he’d worked with him. He was still trying to process much of what he had just heard and said “I don’t know what all of this means yet. You’re telling me all this, but still sending me north into the middle of nowhere. Shouldn’t I stay at your side right now? Shouldn’t I stand with you and fight Mond?”

“John,” said Scott, “I’ve really enjoyed mentoring you. I’ve seen you come a long way over the last few years. Under normal circumstances I would guide you along for another ten years, or one of the other assistant directors would if I couldn’t. Right now, though, all of them are either dead or dark. I’m going to have to tell you about things that would have been delayed many years until you were about to take my place within the company. The director, the other assistant directors, and I would have decided together when you were ready to be brought in and given additional information. How balances of power were maintained and plans which were conceived, debated, but so far had never been carried through. How the divisions had led to the splintering that we see before us today.

“I would have wanted to wait until you were older because age often brings more experience and with it wisdom. But, I don’t have that luxury now. In fact, I’ve already told you some things that would have waited in past times. Some of what you’re going to learn will have to be on this laptop that I’m sending with you. There’s not enough time for me to cover it all with you in person now. Keep in mind that before today this had always been done in person and only verbally.

“One thing that I have kept clouded from you has been the true nature of the groups, the factions, we have pursued together which have until recently, managed this country as a coalition under a sort of unwritten truce. In the past you and I have talked about two fifth columns of global socialists on the one hand and the fascist families on the other. I’ve told you about some of the powerful insiders in both of them. Their histories and their connections to certain corporations. Their direct and indirect influences on various federal agencies, certain supposedly elected officials, and many strategically significant state governments.

“We’ve talked about, thwarted, or picked up the pieces after their black ops. Any covert actions which spilled out, both ours and theirs, required cover stories in the mainstream which implicated foreign terrorists or domestic patsies. You would be surprised to learn how much cooperation the factions gave to each other in the mass media in the past. The main truth for you to understand is there have been three powerful groups running this country. Inside the top covert circles and secret societies they are simply referred to as the factions. Collectively the factions are the top rulers of this country. It was not always like this, but they have been the true powerbase for decades. Over the last sixty years they’ve worked together when it was in their mutual interest to unite against either foreign outsiders or against domestic newcomers who had the potential to steer the great ship of the nation into uncharted or dangerous waters.

“I need to be clear with you that you and I have always protected this country against all outsiders on the international playing field. However, I’m also a sworn member of one of these factions. But unlike the other two, the faction I serve is the one that has tried to keep the vision of America as a sovereign nation and a Constitutional republic alive. It’s the one where an oath to the Constitution still means something and isn’t just done in public as part of a fictional act on TV to beguile people. Our oath to this faction does not abrogate the oath to defend the Constitution. We’re the ones who still cherish the founding documents, the words of the fathers, the flag, the anthem, the national holidays, and the rule of law as it was written. It all still means something to that one faction. To me. ”

Scott paused for a moment and then added “Is there anything I’ve said so far that you have a question about?”

“No,” said John without hesitation, but he was still trying to put some of the new pieces together into a larger picture from earlier in the conversation.

“I want you to tell me something,” said Scott. “This is something I had to memorize years ago. I want you to tell me if you agree with this; the spirit of the words and principles which would require living action.”

“I’ve always told you my opinion,” said John. “I’ve always shared my thoughts with you without hesitation.”

“Ok,” said Scott. “Here it is:

“Our allegiance is to the United States of America. We are the eternal protectors of her liberty. We are the vigilant defenders of the land and the keepers of her boundaries. We are the first to fight all enemies foreign and domestic. When those enemies are hidden among the people of this land, we become their shadow and silently remove them from public view. We reserve the right to adjudicate and carry out sentence against traitors who have usurped the mechanisms of our government, twisted the proper functioning of our courts, and denied our countrymen due process and justice. As long as one of us is alive, we will pursue and execute the guilty. We pledge our lives to our fellow citizens because they are the lifeblood of our existence. We are one with the people and we will always stand united with them.”

Scott stopped and looked at John. There were no further words.

“It sounds like what I’ve been doing. I’ve demonstrated these actions even without saying words just like this,” said John as he looked at Scott who still remained silent. “Well, of course, I agree with all of it.”

“Yes,” said Scott. “I would say so. Your actions have spoken louder than your words on many occasions. And, I’ve never seen nor heard that one has ever differed from the other. Not in spirit or in principle.”

Scott got up and opened the door to the storage closet behind him. He took out a black molded plastic case by a single handle and carried it back over to the desk and sat down. John immediately noticed that there weren’t padlocks through the two holes on each corner of the case, but two green unnumbered tags instead. It was no larger than a tennis shoe box.

“If I had handcuffs, you’d be getting married to this case,” said Scott. “This case remains with you at all times. You will not re-delegate responsibility for this case. The item contained in it is of unique status. Do not break the seals until I tell you to either in person or by codeword. The codeword is ‘Silver-lining.’ Other items which complement the contents of this case will be dropped to you as part of the standard equipment for a long-term isolated mission. These other items are not unusual and are easily recognized by most people. But when these other items are needed in conjunction with the unique item, they are above critical. Failure to retain these other items in working order will be catastrophic to you and your team.”

Scott passed the small case to John who touched the handle and then asked “I don’t suppose you can tell me the other items in advance?”

“No,” replied Scott. “Now take the case and this laptop. The laptop will recognize your thumb and password. Take this rifle, the mags and the ammo, too. We’re getting past the landed gentry with the pistol stuff you’ve been doing lately. Think dark ages where the king himself went into battle with sword and shield. That means wearing this tactical body armor with the rifle plates, too. You won’t be hanging back with the satellite phone when the fighting needs to be done. If you stay out of the righting, I can tell you Shroud and his people won’t respect you. Some of your own men are having a problem with it right now, too.”

“I haven’t sighted in a rifle since…” began John.

“This rifle is yours,” said Scott. “The body armor is, too. It wasn’t re-issued since your last training. None of it ever is. We keep everyone’s stored ready to deploy with them. Any other questions?”

John was silent.

“Ok, good, join your men and get the rest of your gear,” said Scott. “That plane you heard was yours probably running some last minute safety checks. We took it out of mothballs yesterday.”

* * *

“If the two of you are done granting each other access,” said Cass as she stood alone in the elevator, ”we need to talk business.”

“We were just finishing up,” said the Chairman as he stood in his robe in front of the open elevator door. Behind the Chairman the woman who had complained about computer restrictions at the previous committee meeting quickly darted naked across the living room area and through the bedroom door.

“Get dressed,” said Cass. “We need to meet with Stacey, Gilbert, David, and the geek in the basement. Five minutes.”

Cass pushed a button and the elevator door closed.

“She’s gone. You can come out now,” said the Chairman. “I just need for you to finish me off before I do down.”

* * *

“What seems to be the issue now?” asked the Chairman as he sat at the round table with Cass, Stacey, Gilbert, David, and the frail man –who was without his usual computer and phones.

“Your unilateral decisions,” said David.

“What do you mean?” asked the Chairman.

“Escalating the fight with Fort Knox,” said Gilbert. “We were nowhere near ready to take them on. Now the military is dancing arm in arm with the nationalists.”

“But, I didn’t…” began the Chairman.

“Don’t even deny it. We know you’ve stayed in communication with Mond,” said Cass as the frail man looked down at the table. “You’ve got him sheltering south of Bloomington right now.”

“This is going to get a bit complicated, but I…” restarted the Chairman.

“D-mn it!” exclaimed David. “Both of these were major decisions and you left us completely out. The group feels it was a mistake to put you in the chair position. It has confused you.”

“Confused is a nice way of putting it,” said Stacey as she stared at the Chairman. “It’s gone completely to your head. It’s corrupted you and you’ve abandoned our ideals.”

“We were willing to overlook your recent eccentricities,” said David,”because we all need to unwind and have some fun in our personal lives, but you overstepped this group’s authority and insulted all of us.”

“It’s not just that,” said Gilbert. “You’ve put everything at risk. Everything that has been planned for decades is at risk. It’s one thing to play guerilla war with the nationalists and strong-arm some isolated states while the old federal military is divided and overstretched, but now they’re preparing to hit us here. You drove the Army right into the arms of the nationalists and they’re going to roll us over with heavy armor. We can’t stop this. Our man on the joint chiefs doesn’t have full control of his own piece on the board yet. We would push for a schism of the military after that.”

“Precisely,” said Cass. “At this stage how am I going to convince Air Force pilots to attack Army tanks? Think about how that would look. Last week I was asking them move nukes around and by the end of this week I’ll be asking them to strafe humvees full of guardsmen. They’re not going to do it. We’re not going to have any credibility outside of this building. We’ll have lost all the tools of power.”

“Just let me explain!” yelled the Chairman. “Ok, yes, I’ve talked with Mond. Cass and Stacey, you know I’ve talked with Mond.”

“This has been since then,” said Stacey. “Don’t lie to us.”

“Yes, I’ve talked with him again,” said the Chairman. “But, he contacted me first. He told me about the red vials. He said he was putting them into play…”

“See!” interrupted the frail man in a presence of voice that was inversely proportional to his physical build. “I told you guys he was going to use that.”

“Yeah,” said Gilbert as he looked at the Chairman and then to the frail man. “You were right. He’s just pulling anything he can at this point to save his own ass.”

“You don’t understand,” said the Chairman as a snivel began in his voice. “Mond has the green vials, too. He’s willing to make a deal with us. We just have to stick together now and we’ll pull through this together.”

“Oh, please,” said David. “Now you’re saying he has both. Gilbert’s right, you’re just pulling stuff out of your ass.”

“A futile attempt,” said the frail man.

“Pathetic,” said Stacey.

“I’m done listening to this,” said Gilbert. “Everyone clear the room.”

“God, please, Gilbert,” said the Chairman in tears as the rest of the core committee members began exiting the room. “Don’t do this. It’s all going to work out. It’s all going to work out.”

The other members filed into the hallway as David came out last and closed the hollow core metal door. They stood quietly and looked at each other for a couple seconds before there was a loud scream from the Chairman. This was followed by a single gunshot which sent a short sharp thump through the door and cinder block wall before the sound of a human body slapped down once on the floor. There was a near simultaneous metallic tap as the empty brass from the fired cartridge ejected against the interior side of the door. This distinct sound was quickly followed by the next sound of the same single brass casing bouncing twice and rolling a few feet across the hard tile floor within the interior of the room.

Gilbert opened the door, came out and closed it behind him. There were seven tiny spots of blood scattered across his cheeks. He took a deep breath, exhaled and said “It’s done. I left the pistol beside him. I’ll have the guards clean it up. We need to tell the group he committed suicide rather than own up for some kind of mistake.”

“We should add a live traitor to this,” said Cass. “Someone to make an example of and keep the entire group in line during this transition.”

“We could use that girl he was with,” said Stacey.

“No,” said the frail man. “She does a real job on the committee. A critical one. Just pick anyone off the back row, but yes, it needs to be a female. Someone to point at for pillow talk with him.”

“Whoever it is we’ll say she was going to leak information about the neutron weapons to a foreign government assisting the fascists,” said David.

“D-mn, I like that idea,” said Gilbert. “The pledges will eat that one up.”

“I’ll second that,” said Stacey. “She can also serve as our first official public execution.”

“I agree, but don’t sharpen the blade on the guillotine just yet,” said David. “I think this might be a good time to use the President on TV one more time. Maybe we can get more of the military motivated in our direction. If the Army does roll out on us, we’ll have the President say that their officers are traitors.”

“We still need to limit his influence on the stage,” said Cass. “We don’t need some members on the committee getting nostalgic.”

“So which one of us is it now?” asked the frail man. “Who’s going to lead the Committee in public?”

There was silence for about a second before Cass volunteered “I’ll do it.”

“Great idea,” said David.

“I’ll second that,” said Gilbert.

“What do we do about Mond in the meantime?” asked Stacey.

“I always thought the ex-Chairman overestimated his abilities,” said the frail man. “He had his uses, but right now he’s isolated and contained. He’s made enemies with everyone. He’s stuck now. He can be safely ignored.”

“Gilbert, I need to tell you something,” said Cass.

“What?”

“You’ve got blood on your cheeks,” said Cass as she made wiping motion on her own.

Gilbert reached up, touched a drop of blood on one cheek, and looked at his finger tip. “Thanks for the heads up.”

* * *

“The committee killed their Chairman,” said the Governor at the head of the banquet hall size dining table where all his usual men in long sleeve shirts and ties were seated along each side. The sounds of utensils against plates and subdued side conversations all came to a stop. The Governor finished chewing a bite of food and swallowed it. “Now they’ve picked some woman he was banging for years to represent them. Can you believe these f-cking people.”

The Governor picked up a glass of wine and raised it into the air. “Here’s a toast to the old saying ‘better dead than red’ and making one of our jobs easier in the process.”

“Here, here!” yelled one of the other men as everyone raised their glasses and drank. Everyone paused for a moment waiting for the Governor to say something else and were about to resume eating before he spoke again.

“Anyone here want to take a f-cking shot at me?” the Governor said. “Cause if you do, don’t be a p-ssy about it. Just do it right now in front of everyone here. Don’t wake my ass up and take me somewhere under false pretenses to do some kind of mobster hit. Just call me out in front of everyone and we’ll do it like men. That’s how we’re going to do it. We can have a public duel with pistols and take twenty paces. Better yet, everyone can stand in a circle and we’ll go at it with knives or swords. We’ll put that on live f-cking TV and see who wants to run for public office next year.”

The Governor looked up and down the dinner table on both sides and said “That last part about people running for office was a joke. We’re not holding any elections. That old illusion is over. We’re running things now and we’re going to show people that we can get the job done. Does anyone have anything new to report? Is there anything going on out there I don’t already f-cking know about?”

“We’re still screening the refugees who came in and looking for scientists and others with critical skills among them,” said one of the men. “I’d like to be more active and try to recruit known researchers directly, though. This shouldn’t be limited to just this Continent, we should go worldwide and try to get some of our émigrés back. When we show them what kind of standard of living will be possible again here, we’ll win willing and very skilled volunteers to our cause. We could reverse the brain drain that happened in the past.”

“I’d have to agree with going outside of our territory as soon as possible and looking for new blood,” said another man. “We’re carrying a lot of useless eaters right now. The sooner we can remove them, the better.”

“In the meantime, let’s just use the old methods,” said another man. “We’ve got diesel, trains, and exhaust and we can get to work on this right now.”

“The biological weapon is still far more efficient for both long term and global use,” said another man. “It will make no difference if we eliminate everyone we don’t need in North America and then more new people just move in again in fifty years from outside. What about our enemies who continue to operate on other continents?”

“Rather than recruit new scientists to come up with a cure,” said yet another man,”why aren’t we still trying to steal it from the…”

“We can’t just re-synthesize it from a sample,” said the previous man. “Our own scientists have tried before and it doesn’t work. That’s why we’ve been looking for new scientists to figure this problem out.”

“Someone just f-cking shoot me now,” said the Governor.

* * *

Trooper Browning and his wife had stopped and remained since yesterday at a state park conference center on the north side of Higgins Lake. They had their own sleeping backs and slept in front of the woodstove in the main meeting hall. Browning had remembered the location from a year ago when all the State Troopers from the northern lower peninsula had used the location as a temporary command post during a manhunt for a wanted mass murderer.

Browning had met briefly yesterday with a Military Police Officer after he and his wife were admitted to Camp Grayling. However, after they were directed to park, he and his wife were kept in a small building just past the front gates. Browning was unsure at first how much information to give to the MP. He wondered if any of the new federal agents in gray uniforms were at Grayling and how much authority they might have assumed in the meantime. Browning simply asked to speak to “whoever is in charge” and was told “a meeting with the provost marshal isn’t possible at this time due to ongoing operations.” Browning asked if the provost marshal was a “new civilian” and was told the person was a colonel with the National Guard.

Browning decided to go a step further and asked to “speak directly with the Camp commander about a local security situation of immediate importance”. The Military Police Officer replied that a meeting with the commander also wouldn’t be possible, however he encouraged Browning to “go ahead and report here and now any matters of importance and they would be relayed to the proper personnel as time permitted.” As Browning and his wife stood quietly with the stoic officer a long convoy of military vehicles began leaving the Camp. Browning asked what was going on and was told “Detroit is on fire.” Trooper Browning mentally recalled the riots approximately a decade before and asked “Again?” Browning didn’t receive any further detailed information from the soldier.

After scores of vehicles had finished passing by, the MP Officer politely asked if there was anything else the Brownings would “like to share, otherwise it was time for them to exit the Camp.” Trooper Browning asked about gasoline in the area and was told the only gas station in town had not received last week’s delivery and was now empty. He asked about a hotel and was told “the only one in Grayling is fully booked with soldiers’ families.”

Browning asked about any kind of emergency housing for himself and his wife and was told they “should report to Fort Custer near Battle Creek where all temporary housing in the State of Michigan is assigned.” Browning recalled this area was still three hours away even when the roads were clear. Lansing was closer, but still about 150 miles away. Browning decided he would travel a few miles south of Grayling and stop at the state park conference center to collect his thoughts before planning what to do next.

As his wife turned over in her sleeping bag to face away from him, Browning saw the last log in the woodstove begin to break apart into large orange coals. The large interior of the hall was still very cold more than 10 feet away from the woodstove. When the Brownings came inside the building for the first time late yesterday, there were only a couple armloads of hardwood left inside next to the woodstove. They were unable to locate anymore stacked firewood behind the building. Trooper Browning decided they would need to leave soon, but he wondered where they would go. He wasn’t sure who to trust yet or how he would be received at State Police Headquarters in Lansing. Would it be similar to the cold reception at Camp Grayling or far too hot to handle? Browning knew for sure he didn’t want to go to a civilian relocation center for any kind of assistance.

“Honey, wake up,” said Browning.

His wife turned back over and faced him with her eyes open wide open. She was completely awake and appeared to have slept little during the night. She looked at him without saying anything.

“Let’s go home now,” he said.

“Ok.”

* * *

“What can you tell me about the man you’ve been traveling with?” asked the man in tan.

“Do you mean Mark?” asked Mike Shroud. “I’m not sure about his last name.”

“Yes, Mark Ayala. Ayala is his last name. What do you know about him?” reiterated the man as he leaned forward on the table between them.

“I just met him a couple days ago,” answered Mike. “He was hitchhiking near the ranch I worked on. My boss and I picked him up. My boss dropped us off together at the state line and we just kept walking together.”

“Where were you both going?”

“I’m going to Michigan to see my family,” answered Mike. “That’s where I’m originally from. Mark said he was going to Chicago to see his family. I just figured since we were both going in the same direction most of the way, we might as well keep going. There might be gangs along the way and it would probably be safer for us to travel together.”

“Is that why he was carrying a weapon? To protect you against gangs?”

“I don’t know,” answered Mike. “Maybe.”

“You knew he was carrying a weapon.”

“He really didn’t talk to me about it,” said Mike.

“You told me this morning when we first talked that you weren’t aware of the events taking place in the Midwest,” began the man. “But you continue to mention Michigan and I wonder why now of all times you would want to return there.”

“I did see something on the news,” said Mike. “There was something briefly on TV about some problems there. I’m just afraid for my family and I want to make sure things are still ok with them.”

“Is your family French?”

“No,” said Mike. “We’re Americans.”

“Did your family originally come from France?”

“We’ve lived in America since before the Revolutionary War,” answered Mike. “I think the first Shroud here was English.”

“Which side did he fight on?”

“The right side,” answered Mike with some attitude as he wondered why the interrogation had gone off on a seemingly unrelated tangent.

“Which side would that be?”

“The winning side,” Mike replied without hesitation.

“The founding fathers,” stated the man which received no verbal acknowledgement from Mike. “You were once in the Marines?”

“There’s no once about it,” said Mike. “It’s more like always.”

“The discharge information on your ID card was quite extensive,” said the man as he slid Mike’s expired military card across the table to him. “It began with your first deployment during the invasion of Iraq and ended with your discharge as a cook. I didn’t even know the Marines had cooks. I thought that was something a civilian contractor or maybe the National Guard did for you guys, to take care of the real warriors on the front lines.”

“My training as a cook came later,” said Mike. “Civilian ontractors became too expensive and we, the Marines, went back to taking care of things ourselves. We never mixed much with the Army.”

“Why become a cook?” asked the man. “You had five combat deployments…”

“I was thinking about a job after the Marines,” Mike interrupted. “I had a wife and a kid and the deployments weren’t working for either of them. I needed to find something I could do back home. The auto factories were already closing by the time I was looking to get out and I didn’t have a lot of options.”

“Why not work for law enforcement? Why not use your veteran’s preference and go for a state of federal job?”

“I, my family, would’ve had to move again,” said Mike. “My wife has family there and she didn’t want to move. The family on both sides had helped her with my kid during my deployments and everyone was comfortable there together. My only federal employment option at the time was border patrol and they didn’t have any openings in Michigan near the Canadian side. Just near Mexico. There weren’t any openings in the State Police. County sheriff was facing budget cuts before I even unpacked my bags. Like I said already I didn’t have many options when I left the Marines.”

“I’m sure that restaurants weren’t doing very well in the area either at the time. What about short-term security contractor work? You could’ve left for relatively shorter periods of time and still made more money.”

“You’re right about the restaurants,” said Mike. “I thought about going with one of the security companies, but my wife didn’t want me gone for even a week.”

“But then you left and went to work on a ranch in New Mexico,” stated the man which brought only silence from Mike as he waited for a response for over a minute. “What happened at home? What was the final straw?”

“The usual,” answered Mike.

“The usual what?”

“Arguments with the wife,” said Mike. “Problems with a teenager who knows everything. I know these things happen to lots of people. But, everyone was older by then and they really just didn’t need me anymore.”

“Do you think they need you now?”

“They might,” said Mike with the faintest glimmer of hope revealed in his voice. “I don’t know. I figured it’s been a while since I was last there. It couldn’t hurt to at least go there and check on them.”

“I see,” said the man as he sat back in his chair. “Mike, I have great respect for what you’re doing by traveling right now. There are a lot of men who wouldn’t be doing what you are. We’ve had a few others pass through here –a few other real men— but even most of them are not in the same position as you are. One other man is and I think it’s by some kind of divine providence alone that he is here as well as you right now. There’s something I need to tell you about your family. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this. What you saw on TV didn’t show everything from the original video because of concerns for national security. Mike…”

“My family’s dead aren’t they.”

* * *

“I was wondering for a moment if this guy was the dullest tack in the box,” said a man in tan as he watched Mike’s emotionless face on the screen of a laptop in another hotel room in Shamrock, Texas. The man brushed a finger across the touchpad and zoomed in on Mike’s face via the hidden wireless camera in the other room. “Just heard his family was killed and his eyes are still as dry as sand.”

“It will hit him later,” said another man in the room wearing civilian clothes. “It always does. And I’ll be with him when it happens.”

“Have you had enough time to study his file?”

“What’s to study,” said the other man. “He’s a former Marine who became a cowboy after he separated from an estranged family which he was returning to see and has now found out they were murdered. He’ll be easy.”

“So you’ll be his new best friend,” said the tan man. “What name are you taking for this?”

“Bill,” said the man in civilian clothes as he pulled an envelope out of a cardboard box sitting on the floor next to the desk. “I’ll be Bill.”

“Does the other traveler fit into this at all?” asked the man as he clicked on the laptop and the screen changed to a view of Mark sitting alone in handcuffs in another hotel room. “Should I put him in the dumpster?”

“No,” said Bill. “He should continue the journey with us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Bill, “and I don’t have time to explain why this might be helpful. Also, when you release him, give him his gun and his gold –all his gold— back.”

“All of it?”

“Yes,” said Bill. “Down to the last tenth of an ounce I saw you palm into your pocket last night. This will help show Mike what righteous people we are later and win his trust.”

“By giving some half-Mexican he just met his gun and gold back?” asked the man in tan as he looked away from the laptop and at Bill.

“Just do it,” said Bill. “It will make my job easier. Trust me. When was the last time you remember me being wrong?”

“How about that last flight out of Bagram?”

“We were still able to drive out of there and here we are today,” said Bill. “I wouldn’t count that as me being wrong.”

“That detour cost me half a leg,” said the man in the chair.

“And me an eye,” said Bill as the laptop reflected from both a living eye and a matching glass eye. “What’s your point?”

“How will you be traveling?” asked the man.

“There’s a military train taking relief supplies east,” said Bill. “I’ll call in a favor to put us on it, but as far as these two guys will know we’re traveling like hobos.”

“What about the checkpoints east of the Mississippi once you leave the train?”

“We’ll have our man in the room with Mike tell him about the commies in Chicago,” answered Bill. “How he’ll have to avoid any authorities out there and especially the men in gray. I don’t think he’ll have a problem doing that after he sees the new video of his nephew shooting some more of them.”

“How do you stay with Shroud all the way up there to where he lives? The cover story is the grays killed your family as political dissidents in Indianapolis.”

“I’m still figuring out some details,” said Bill. “I’ll learn more as we go. I’ll become a doctor for this one. I doubt they have any left up where he’s at in Michigan.”

“Doctor,” said the man before he let out a short laugh. “The closest you’ve ever come to being a doctor is under one on the table.”

“Or on top of one in bed,” countered Bill.

“And I recall your cosmetic surgery with her,” said the man as he turned to the laptop and clicked back to Mike on the screen. “Not exactly the best facelift or boob job I’ve ever seen.”

“Don’t go there,” said Bill.

“I’m just saying you don’t have any real healing skills,” said the man. “You give whole new meaning to going under the knife.”

“I slapped a tourniquet on your butt, put in an IV in you, and kept you alive,” said Bill. “It’s not like I’m traveling with any real surgical tools or medicine. I won’t have to demonstrate anything to them. Don’t worry, I’ll make it work. I could be the drunk who lost his surgical license.”

“Ok, let’s finish getting you prepped,” said the man as he pulled a small radio out of another box on the floor next to the desk. “Take this. I’ll drop you a note next week when we get a break in the noise. Start on the usual shortwave bands. Hold down on both directions of the scan buttons at the same time like this and the decoder will kick in on the LCD.”

“I’ve seen one of these before,” said Mike. “You don’t have to show me how it works.”

“I just wanted to make sure your good eye is seeing this clearly.”

* * *

Daniel rolled off of his wife Tara and pulled his underwear back up as the two of them remained under the covers. He lay quietly beside her and looked at the wooden ceiling illuminated by the oil lamp on the nightstand. Although the door of their room was closed, both of them could hear Isaac giggling with Josiah and the two reporters speaking to each other in French in the family room on the first floor.

“Daniel,” said Tara.

“What?”

“Please talk to me.”

“I’m ok,” said Daniel. “Everything’s ok. I’m just tired now.”

“This use to be our favorite time of the year,” said Tara, “just you and I in bed together all winter.”

“It still is,” said Daniel as he continued to look at the ceiling. “I want you to know it still is.”

“I can feel something is different.”

“From that?” asked Daniel.

“We can be sitting at the table together,” said Tara, “and I can just touch your hand and I can feel something is different.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Daniel. “I’m the same man. I’m the same man who loves you.”

“I love you, too,” said Tara. “I know you love me.”

“Then what is it?”

“I can feel something different when I touch you,” said Tara. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like knowing there’s this different kind electricity in you, but you’re not sure what or where it is. Kind of like expecting a shock from static when someone touches you in the winter, but it’s already grounded somewhere else.”

“You’re making me sound like a solar panel.”

“That’s just it,” said Tara. “It’s like you’re standing in front of a supernova and I don’t know where all of that energy is going.”

“I wish I could tell you,” said Daniel. “It just seems to be going down a black hole for me.”

* * *

Josiah woke from the strange dream he just had. Although it had bordered on nightmarish for him, he had simply rolled from his side to his back and opened up his eyes. It was still very dark and he guessed it was still the middle of the night. He reflected quietly about the dream.

He was somewhere else in rural America within the consciousness of another man. Josiah was seeing things firsthand through this other man’s eyes, but only as a passenger along for the ride. The countryside he walked through was unfamiliar and generic enough to have been anywhere from sea to shining sea. As the walker approached an area with some small homes and trailers, a voice inside his head said he was now “deep within the stronghold of the enemy lands.” He was advised by the voice to appear overtly plain and casual while still being cautious of his surroundings. The walker went directly to one home which had a short fence enclosing the front yard. The gate was unlocked which he opened and continued toward the front door.

The voice inside the walker’s head told him “a very evil man who is among the top leaders of the enemy here” lived in the house. The voice said “Do everything possible to earn his trust so that he will let down his guard.” The walker opened the unlocked front door and entered the small one story house. The interior was quite average. “He is sleeping” said a small girl who appeared in the same room standing next to the walker. “Who?” asked the walker. “The one sleeping in the next room. The one who abuses me. The one you are here to kill” she said.

Three dogs appeared in the living room. They were of progressive size from small to large. One by one they attacked the walker with the smallest going first. Josiah was amazed during the dream when the first dog bore down with its teeth on the walker’s forearm but drew no blood. This was quickly followed by the man reaching over with his free arm and effortlessly breaking the dog’s neck. The walker repeated this twice more as each dog attacked separately. The walker was alone with three dead dogs on the living room floor. The little girl had disappeared.

At this point, the man in the next room awoke and came out looking angry, but saying nothing. It was not anyone Josiah could remember seeing in real life, or in a picture, or on TV in the past. The first thought that Josiah could feel from the walker was not one of fear, but rather that winning the man’s trust would now be more difficult. The walker told the man he was “sorry about the dogs” and then the dream ended as Josiah awoke to the real world.

Josiah breathed deeply through his nose and exhaled. So many questions about what it meant. There was much symbolism, though confusing together. Josiah decided he would go back to sleep and think about it more in the morning.

“Josiah Shroud,” said a voice in the dark.

“Who is it?” said Josiah.

“I’d like to introduce myself,” said the voice before a face was illuminated by a small red LED flashlight over in the corner of the room where there was a wooden chair.

“Who are you?” said Josiah as he sat up in bed to get a better look at the man in the red light. Josiah was relieved to see it wasn’t the face of the evil man he had just seen so vividly in the dream.

“I was just about to get to that,” said the man.

“How did you get in here without my dogs barking?” asked Josiah as he thought about the dogs in the kennel behind the house.

“Two of my guys are staring down your dogs right now,” said the man. “Now if you’d let me finish what I was going to say…”

“Ok, who are you?”

“My name is John and I’m here to help you in your fight against America’s enemies.”

End of Part 11

Previous Parts:

http://www.oftwominds.com/opSERF/OP-serf.html

Special notes from Chris Sullins:

I hope you enjoyed reading the supersized Part 11. There are more installments on the way. Thanks for your continued interest in “Operation SERF” as we near the climax!

If you’ve enjoyed reading this story, please consider making a donation to the oftwominds.com website.  Charles Hugh Smith has graciously provided space for it on his website for your reading enjoyment.  Although it’s from a genre outside the commentary and other essays which usually appear on OTM, I thank Mr. Smith in presenting this to a far wider audience than I would have been able to do on my own.  He has done this in the spirit of the First Amendment and in the fine tradition of experienced writers supporting new writers.  I give similar thanks to those people who’ve also linked from their websites and/or emailed friends and family.

This “strategic action thriller” has been hastily constructed one part at a time and appears as my schedule permits it.  There are bound to be some errors.  I have every intention of completing this as a free full online novel.  If there is sufficient interest, then the story you see here will be BOOK ONE and there will be another.  I may post a public email address in the future for comments, critiques, scathing reviews, mark-ups, praise, thanks or indifference from the online community. 

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons or events in the past, present, or future is probably either out of sheer coincidence or due to the cyclical nature of history.  The writer existing at this point in the timeline has no conscious awareness of any pending events which in later hindsight may seem have been due to currently unknown acts of retroactive causality emanating from future points. 

For more on a wide array of other topics, please visit the oftwominds.com weblog.

All content, HTML coding, format design, design elements and images copyright © 2009 Charles Hugh Smith, copyright to text and all other content in the above work is held by the author of the story/essay as of the publication date listed above. All rights reserved in all media.

The views of the contributor authors are their own, and do not reflect the views of Charles Hugh Smith. All errors and errors of omission in the above work are the sole responsibility of the work's author.

The writer(s) would be honored if you linked this story/essay to your site, or printed a copy for your own use.