Warning: “Operation SERF”
contains the following elements which readers of different genres may
separately find disturbing: pre-censored
profanity, acts of bodacious violence, and (debuting in Part 7) a love triangle.
Operation SERF
Part 7
By Chris Sullins
A moment in time
for Daniel Shroud, age 14, early one summer in the morning before the
mosquitoes and heat rose for the day.
“Good job,” said
Mike Shroud as he looked through the spotting scope and the echo of Daniel’s
last shot faded. “You hit the bulls-eye
again.”
“Uncle Mike, this
is starting to hurt my shoulder,” said Daniel as he removed the rifle stock
from his right shoulder and rubbed the collar bone under his t-shirt with his
left hand. He was in the probe position
on the wet grass that had been mowed yesterday.
“I’m going to be sitting on a tree-stand or standing in field when I
shoot at a deer.”
“Probably,”
stated Mike from his prone position on the rolled out olive drab foam mat next
to Daniel. “Right now we’re working on
your marksmanship. But, if you could
take a shot from a supported position like this, you would use it. Here’s another round.”
“I haven’t missed
yet, but you act like I’m not good enough yet,” said Daniel as he took the
single cartridge from his uncle’s hand, put it in the open bolt action under
the scope, and slowly pushed the cartridge forward. “How will we know when I’m ready?”
“When that target
downrange turns into a negative image while you’re looking at it, then you’ll
know,” replied Mike as he looked sideways at Daniel. “But, that won’t happen if you’re thinking
about the pain in your shoulder.”
“My arms are
itching and my pants are wet from this grass…”
“You think you’re
going to feel more comfortable out here in November after three hours in the
wind, snow, and rain?” Mike broke in.
“Now take your last shot.”
The shot rang out
as Mike finished his sentence and it was followed by a half muffled yelp of
pain from Daniel. The elder Shroud
looked through the spotting scope and then purposely let out a breath that
would have been loud enough to express his displeasure had his younger partner
not been wearing ear plugs. He looked
over at Daniel who was already turned toward him.
“What?” barked
Daniel far above what was required to be heard over the ear plugs.
“That barely
touched the paper,” Mike said. “These
bullets are too expensive to waste on your attitude.”
“Well, fine
then,” said Daniel as he let the heavy barreled rifle drop a few inches
sideways and one of the long target scope knobs planted itself in the grass.
“Pick that up!”
ordered Mike. “You don’t let optics flop
on the ground like that.”
“You care more
about that gun getting damaged than me,” Daniel said after he stood up and
began pulling out his ear plugs.
“You can heal,”
said Mike as he continued his gruff tone and picked up the rifle. “This gun will rust and the optics can get
scratched or broken. Besides, you still need
to get toughened up.”
“I am tough,” Daniel
mumbled before he began a walk which turned into a run into the woods a few yards
away. After Daniel was deeper in the woods,
but still able to see Mike in the field through breaks in the trees, he
screamed “I thought you would understand!”
As Daniel
disappeared a few seconds later into the background darkness of the woods, Mike
said out loud but still audibly below the chirping of the birds “Yes, I should
have.”
* * *
“BB,” said
Trooper Browning’s wife as she looked through the
front window from inside their house after the driveway sensor let out three
separate dings. “Three vehicles just
pulled up. I haven’t seen them
before. Are these the guys you told me
about?”
Browning leapt up
from his easy chair but still carefully dropped his personal DVD player on the
padded cushion. He went straight to the
window next to his wife where she had been warming herself near the woodstove. He recognized the vehicles immediately.
“Wendy,” he said
with a clear tone of urgency. “Yes,
they’re the ones. They’re very
dangerous. Go to the safe room. No matter what you hear –don’t open the
door.”
“Just talk to
them,” said Wendy as she walked across the room and opened the door to the
basement. “Tell them something like there’s
an investigation with your state commander underway already.”
“Sure thing,
honey, we’ll just talk,” Browning said before she stepped through and closed
the door behind her.
Browning looked
back out the window to see that all three vehicles had stopped and four
occupants had stepped out of each one.
Two men in gray from the lead vehicle stood facing the house while two
others talked and looked at a small cell-phone size object held by one man. The occupants of the second and third
vehicles behind in line on the long snow-covered driveway between the bare
trees stood next to their respective vehicles.
Other than the two men who were talking, everyone held their assault
rifles at low-ready.
The two men
walked straight toward the pole barn which was at a right angle to the Browning’s garage attached to their house. The walk through entry door was to the far
right front side of the red pole barn next to two large double overhead doors. The gray man who wasn’t holding the small
device immediately kicked open the flimsy entry door
and quickly went through it with his weapon held up.
“Oh, sh-t,” Browning said out loud before he turned and went
across the room to the stairs leading up to the second floor. The open stairwell faced the front door to
the house and was next to the closed basement door. He raced up the steps.
Once upstairs
Browning looked through the window from one of the front bedrooms. He had a view overlooking the entire area
where all the men were parked in a straight line. It seemed to him that the second of the first
two men had already entered the pole barn and a third man with his weapon
raised was on his way into it as well.
The fourth man from the lead vehicle had walked over to the entry door,
but had remained on the outside with his weapon pointed back toward the front
door of Browning’s house. The men from the other two vehicles had
suddenly become more alert with all of them either pointing their weapons back
toward the house or off to both sides of the driveway and into the woods.
Browning knew the
three gray men in the pole barn would immediately see their comrade’s vehicle
and then find the three filled body bags placed along the back wall. It didn’t take a federal profiler or
professional psychologist to guess that their emotions would range from very
anxious to fully enraged. Their
behavioral reactions would also include a range of responses with each having a
number of variables and possible outcomes weighed. The likelihood of any one of these responses
taking final form in real life would have been up for a vibrant debate among
the experts of the ivory tower.
Browning wasn’t a
papered academic, he was a concrete realist and the events within the past week
had quickly tempered his view of the reality of life emerging in
Browning’s hypothesis for the potential situation
was quite simple: if the gray men forced
their way into his home, it would not be for a civilized talk but for
revenge. Rather than submit to the gray
men and in all likelihood die at their hands, followed by the gray men forcing
their way into his wife’s safe room for more nefarious pre-murder acts with her,
Browning would fight them once they crossed the front door’s threshold. He was fairly certain his assumption was about
to become tested in the real-life gladiatorial arena where the confidence
interval of measuring aggressive human behavior usually expresses itself in
gushes of blood, the release of bowels and bladders, and the screams of pain.
Browning saw all
three men who went into the pole barn come back out, yell something to the
fourth and then all four went straight toward his front door and out of the
line of his sight. Browning left the
bedroom and went to the backside of the stairwell facing behind where the steps
came up. There was no knock at his front
door, it simply burst open and Browning could hear multiple steps quickly enter
his front room.
He had already
shifted the machinegun to a curled inner arm, took the grenade with his free
hand and pulled the ring of the straightened pin with a free finger on the
other hand. Browning, let the grenade’s spoon
fly off into the bedroom behind him, leaned over the rail while still keeping
the machinegun firmly cradled, and with the forward overhead sweep of the other
arm sent the grenade from the ledge above to the main entry room below.
There seemed to
be no shift in the sound of commotion indicating a change of awareness by the
men to the silently ignited weapon.
Browning shifted back around into the bedroom with the machinegun in
both hands. Two seconds later there was
a sharp explosion which Browning felt hammer his feet through the floor and simultaneously
accompanied by a blast of dust and change in air pressure up the stairwell
which he felt in his eyes.
Browning’s ears were ringing and he was unable to
hear the screams from the gray men as he advanced farther forward along the
upper landing and turned to look back down the entire flight of stairs. He immediately saw one unmoving man with a
torn and bloody gray uniform at the bottom of his stairs. Browning ducked down to get a better angle
and looked out into the room below. He
could see another man writhing around in the center of the entry room floor as
another man crawled toward the door with a prodigious amount of blood spurting
out of one thigh. Another apparently
uninjured man jumped over the crawling man and toward the open front door.
Browning let out
a burst of machinegun fire as the only upright man sailed through the door jamb. Bullets tagged the man at the base of his
spine and buttocks while at the height of his gazelle-like bounce which sent
him careening out and rolling sideways into the snow outside. Without hesitation Browning sprayed both the
crawling and writhing men inside the house with bullet across their heads and
shoulders causing them to come to a complete stop. A second later he did the same to the
motionless man at the bottom of the stairs who remained mostly still except
where the bullets jiggled his flesh and bone.
He looked back
out the open front door and saw the previously jumping man attempt to swim his
way forward through the snow, but who could only claw with his hands since his
legs were completely limp. Browning sent
out another barrage peppering the man with red gouges from head to toe before
the machinegun consumed the remaining belt of ammo and left the box attached
below it empty.
Browning raced
back to the front room, grabbed another full box of belted ammo and prepared to
reload his weapon. He glanced out the
window and saw the men clustered around the second vehicle begin firing their assault
rifles at the house. Browning rushed to
the back of the second floor and toward the rear bedroom where the stairs came
up.
He went through
the door as he heard retorts from multiple weapons, the splintering of wood,
chipping of plaster, and front windows breaking on both floors. Browning turned the corner with his back to
the wall and sank to the floor before he started fumbling with the weapon.
He briefly wished
he had spent more time practicing reloading the weapon rather than watching a
movie. He wondered how the thought of
regret had even found a place to express itself in spite of everything. Browning remembered the police radio he had
in the kitchen at the back of the first floor.
It was turned off and had been charging off the DC battery bank that
formed his home’s power supply.
* * *
Daniel and
Jacques had stopped the snowmobile a couple hundred yards away in the woods to
the side of the Browning home and had been quietly making their way toward the
trooper’s family residence. Daniel would
raise his rifle and look through the scope.
By doing this it was possible for Daniel to see some of the red pole
barn between the trees. He and Jacques
would advance another 25 yards before he scanned the area again through the
glass. Daniel could see the three
vehicles and some of the armed men as they advanced.
When the firing
at the house began, Daniel immediately kneeled at the edge of a tree. He estimated they were still at least 100
yards away from the last vehicle and glassed the area again with his
scope. Daniel could see one of the men
at the edge of the second vehicle firing his weapon toward the Browning
home. Daniel swept the scope to the last
vehicle and saw three men with it. One
was standing at the open driver’s side door and facing toward the house while
two others were at the back of the SUV.
One man who was
standing on the back right side faced directly away from Daniel while the other
at the back left corner was knelt down. This
last man was closer to Daniel and was slowly turning counter clockwise as he
looked over the top of the iron sights on the assault rifle he had up to his
right cheek. The man’s eyes met Daniel’s
through the magnified view of his scope.
For a moment the lines and shapes inside the scope became both brighter
and sharper before Daniel realized the man had his own weapon pointing straight
at him, too.
Daniel pulled the
trigger and saw the man’s face disappear above the lower jaw before the recoil
of the rifle sent the scope’s picture straight up where he saw the man’s helmet
flip in mid air. Daniel quickly
recovered and placed the crosshairs back over the rear area of the SUV. Daniel reflected for a moment that just
before he pulled the trigger the picture had seemed to turn even more black and
white right before his eyes than he thought was attributable to the winter
landscape alone. He just as quickly
noticed the red blood was clearly visible across the back glossy window of the
vehicle.
Daniel had
unconsciously cycled the bolt action and re-chambered another live round as the
other man at the back of the vehicle crouched and began to turn toward him as
well. Daniel focused his complete
attention toward that man and quickly shifted the crosshairs right over the
man’s first button between the collar bones.
Rather than elevate for perfection Daniel opted to deliver his second
shot. The man flew backwards with his
arms hailing toward the air before completely disappeared from sight in the
snow.
The gray man on
the driver’s side had unleashed a volley of automatic fire toward the brightly-coated
Jacques who was standing to the left of the tree which Daniel had leaned
against. Jacques stood his ground and
continued to capture the action on video as bullets snapped into the bark of
trees in front, behind, and both sides of him.
A third shot from Daniel impacted that gray man directly center mass
which caused him to cease fire, bounce backwards into the vehicle, and drop his
rifle, but not go down.
The gray man
didn’t reach down for his rifle and scrambled into the driver’s seat
instead. He habitually reached forward
and closed his door before the reverse taillights lit up. A fourth shot from Daniel shattered the
driver’s side window and the vehicle continued to roll in a slow reverse until
it backed into a tree and came to a complete stop. A fourth gray man got out of the stopped
vehicle from the side facing away from Daniel.
Daniel held his
fire as that man ran toward the group’s second vehicle which had re-filled with
its four men and almost ran him over as it went backwards down the driveway
without stopping. Daniel placed his
crosshairs over the remaining man who held his weapon at the ready and then turned
toward the house. The man went down due
to someone else’s bullet impact as Daniel heard a short string of fire further
to his left. Daniel turned further to
his left and glassed the front area of the house.
It was still
difficult to see due to the trees, but he spotted a lone figure moving away from
the house and down the driveway toward the fallen man. Daniel glimpsed the face of Browning for a
moment through the branches. Shroud
lowered his rifle and looked back toward Jacques who already had the camera
pointed at him.
“Talk,” said
Jacques.
“What do you want
me to say?” asked Daniel.
“Talk,” said
Jacques again with the camera pointed toward Daniel.
Daniel tried to
think of something witty or profound, but said “You’re a better cameraman than
a reporter.”
“Please talk
more,” said Jacques again when Daniel remained kneeling silently for a few more
seconds.
“Good God,” said
Daniel. “That’s enough already.”
“Who is that?”
yelled Browning. “Answer me or I’ll
shoot!”
“It’s Danny. Danny Shroud.
Danny Shroud and a stupid French guy.”
* * *
The gray men who
had escaped in their vehicle made their way south along a county road. They had opted to take a new way back to the
southern part of
The only outside
communication for them had been a satellite phone which was lost among the men
killed who had attempted the entry into the house. It was a device which combined communication,
real-time satellite terrain maps, and tracking of each of their vehicles. Despite the loss of this piece of technology,
this group still had a vehicle GPS unit with a pre-installed map of all
Sometime after
dark they had to double-back after being stopped on a narrow road by two very
large downed trees which stretched all the way across from one forest to
another. They used a lateral road which would take them
to another road going south again. The
blowing wind and the lightly falling snow made it difficult to see in the dark,
but they stayed on the correct path with the GPS.
The old base map
wasn’t capable of telling the driver that one of the roads had been washed out
ahead. Even with the headlights cutting
into the black background, the white on white foreground left little time for
the driver to react to the dark spot which suddenly appeared before them. The vehicle plunged into the widely eroded
deep culvert below.
The driver and
the passenger in front were initially saved by their air bags but immediately
found they were pinned by their legs when the front quarter panels, engine, and
dashboard crumpled backwards on impact.
The passenger behind the driver had not been wearing a seatbelt and flew
over top of the driver’s headrest and instantly fatally ate the top of the
driver’s helmet. As water filled the
front area of the vehicle up to the waists of the trapped men, the only
uninjured back passenger opened his door, stepped out, and slipped. He landed backwards into the water of the
small stream running under the broken ice surrounding the vehicle.
This last lost man
would wander wet and shivering a few miles back down the same road before
collapsing in the snow and dying of hypothermia like his pinned in
comrades. The next day a pack of wolves
would discover his body on the road and a murder of crows would find the bodies
of the others through the broken windows a few days later. Hundreds of miles away the frail man on the
Committee would make a note on his laptop regarding a single dot representing a
team that came to a complete stop before the signal was lost a few seconds
later.
* * *
The small
flip-phone rang once on the nightstand under the double lamp which had both
bulbs turned on. The stand was next to
two king-size beds that had been pushed together. As the phone rang again one human form under
the covers which was nestled tightly between two other human forms rolled over
top of one them. This was followed by a
female giggle. A male hand reached out
from under the covers and grabbed the phone as it rang a third time.
“Hello, this is
the Chairman,” responded the Chairman.
“This is Mond.”
“Mond,” said the Chairman as he came out naked from under
the covers and grabbed a robe off the floor next to two other robes. The females pulled down the covers from over
their heads. Cass and Stacey remained
silent as the Chairman continued “I haven’t heard from you for a few days. How have things been going for you?”
“I would say
things have been going very well overall.”
“Well, that’s
good to hear. I figured you’ve been
staying at least one step ahead of a lot of people right now,” said the
Chairman as he slid on the robe one sleeve at a time, switched hands with the
phone and walked right up to the window looking out on
“I’m not
interrupting anything right now am I?”
“No, um, nothing
of importance,” said the Chairman as he looked up into the unbroken sheet of
black clouds in the dark night sky before he swept a curtain across the entire
window and stepped backward from it. “Is
there something I can do for you right now?”
“Well, yes. My assistant and I could use a place to stay
in the
“I’m not sure I
can help you with that,” said the Chairman as he waved the two females out of
bed and motioned for them to put on their robes as well.
“Really.
Now why is that?”
“You tend to
bring a lot of heat with you,” said the Chairman as he pushed the women through
the next room and toward the elevator door.
“You’re the kind of person who shows up and no matter what the time of
the year it is, the weather always gets worse.
Things are really good for us right now and I don’t want to see that
change. You know what I mean?”
“I
understand. But, temporary sanctuary for
me from our common enemies is very little burden on you. In fact, it is very little for me to get in
return for all that I have done for you.”
“We really do
appreciate your assistance,” said the Chairman as all three entered the
elevator and he pushed the button for the deepest subbasement level. “But we still can’t do that for you right
now. That’s a lot of attention. That would entail a lot of risk we’re not
able to take on. I’m sorry. I hope you’re not taking this personally.”
“No, I’m
not. And just to show you our working
relationship is still positive, I’m going to advise you in advance of some
video from one of your northern wild areas which is going to hit the news
soon. I’m going to strongly advise you
not to overreact after you see one of your officers executed…”
“Did you do
this?” interrupted the Chairman.
“No. Be quiet and listen. Do not overreact to this incident. Go ahead and round up the perpetrators and
have a formal televised trial for them.
This will help establish your credibility in the eyes of the
people. But, do not increase the overall
speed of the depopulation program in that area.
Continue it at the same pace which I advised five years ago at the
closed hearing…”
“A lot has
changed since then,” the Chairman broke in again. “You’re not really in a position to see
what’s been going on…”
“Close your
mouth. Nothing has changed since
then. That plan is still perfect as
written. I don’t want you to get lost in
extracurricular diversions in the meantime.”
“By the way,” the
Chairman began, “how did you even get my number? This is an encrypted phone on our closed COW
system.”
“Actually, it’s
Cass’s phone. Now tell her she still
looks very fetching.”
The Chairman
turned the phone over, saw the small camera lens in the top of the flip cover,
realized Cass had been standing in the elevator on that side, and said “You’re
seeing everything?”
“Dumb
question. Good night.”
“D-mn it!” said the Chairman as he hyper-extended the flip
cover until it broke off the phone, then pulled the battery pack off the back
of the phone and snapped the main body in half as well. “Cass, I’m sorry about your phone.”
“That’s not my
phone,” said Cass. “It’s back upstairs
in my pants. You just broke your own
phone. Get a grip about whatever he just
told you.”
“He mentioned you
by name being with me right now,” said the Chairman.
“I’m sure he read
about us in a file and took an educated guess,” reassured Cass. “Mond is messing
with your head.”
“Did he say
anything about me?” asked Stacey.
“No, not at all,”
said the Chairman.
The elevator door
opened with a ding and a guard in a gray uniform sitting at a desk just a few
feet away looked up from a magazine at the three people standing in robes in
the elevator who didn’t come out. The
Chairman then pushed and held the button keeping the elevators doors wide open.
“Everything ok,
sir?” the guard asked as he laid the magazine down.
“Any problems
with the building or security or anything like that right now?” asked the
Chairman. “How are the skies above us?”
“No, sir, no
reports of anything,” replied the guard.
“The perimeter above and below ground is secure. The sky is clear. It has been for days.”
“We’re just out
for a ride on the elevator,” said Cass as she took the Chairman’s thumb off the
door button and pushed the penthouse floor button herself.
“Keep up the good
work,” said the Chairman as he gave the guard a thumb up.
“Thank you, sir,”
said the guard and as the door closed he looked down at Stacey’s bare legs.
“I’m cold,” said
Stacey after the door closed and they began going up. A few seconds later she pushed the button for
another floor right before the elevator got to it and said “I’m going back to
my own room and turn on the electric fireplace.”
“Nothing like a warm
place and a good book to curl up with,” said Cass as the door opened and Stacey
stepped off.
“Shut up,” said
Stacey leaving her back turned to them as the door closed.
“What’s up with
her?” asked the Chairman.
“It’s a female
thing,” replied Cass. “You wouldn’t
understand.”
“Oh, it’s that
time of the month,” commented the Chairman.
“You still don’t
get it,” said Cass. “Don’t even try to
figure it out.”
End of Part 7
Part 6:
http://www.oftwominds.com/opSERF/op-serf-p6.html
Part 5:
http://www.oftwominds.com/journal08/sullins12e-08.html
Part 4:
http://www.oftwominds.com/journal08/sullins12d-08.html
Part 3:
http://www.oftwominds.com/journal08/sullins12c-08.html
Part 2:
http://www.oftwominds.com/journal08/sullins12b-08.html
Part 1:
http://www.oftwominds.com/journal08/sullins12a-08.html
New special notes from Chris Sullins: 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
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praise, thanks or indifference from the online community.
This is a work of
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future is probably either out of sheer coincidence or due to the cyclical
nature of history. The writer existing at
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