Revenge in the Homeland (4 page)

***

Gabe and Bobby traveled back to the safe house in Kentucky without any issues and spent several hours sending the intelligence back to the ISA Intel Group. They were both worn out from the drive and  stress that comes from knowing that any minute a USA operative could walk up to them and end their lives for espionage. The CIA contact could easily have been a real Secret Service agent and arrested both of them.

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Chapter 5

The details about the attack on the fleet came in bits and drabs over the next 24 hours. The only good news was most of the fleet survived and the Bush carrier group suffered much less damage than the Ford group. The entire ISA was on high alert and prepared to repel all attacks. John had Meg’s team flying double shifts to keep the Apaches and A-10’s in the air at all times scouting for the enemy. Scott had ten armored recon squads fanning out into the states bordering the ISA. Bob sent over a hundred spies who fanned out over the same border states to watch for any troop movements.

In a short period, the old USA had attacked Port Arthur and John’s home base, The Bunker, with major loss of life and killed the leaders of the Port Arthur group. In addition, an unknown enemy had nuked the ISA’s carrier fleet in the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of lives were lost and several ships were destroyed. John and the Admiral suspected that a drug cartel, the UN and perhaps the USA were behind all of the attacks.

Life in the Mobile area went on as usual except for the heightened alert status. Everyone had a decent house or apartment to live in and plenty of food to eat. The sewage treatment plants were operating, water was flowing and garbage trucks were in limited operation. Several libraries were open and a few movie theaters. Medicine, toilet paper and other personal hygiene supplies were in short supply.

Crime was rare and usually involved alcohol. Gasoline was in such short supply that speeding was rare and police weren’t relegated to traffic duty. Drug dealers were tried convicted and executed promptly. Most of the scum that sold drugs had either been shot or run out of the territory in the first six months after TSHTF.

The internet was dead and only police and military had working cell phones. George had crews out fixing telephone lines and about half of the homes had working land lines.

The Navy had one working TV station that broadcasted information, news and old movies from 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. The newscasters only gave the facts, no spin. It would be several years before any new movies or TV shows would be produced. Most survivors were starting to like sitting on their front porch talking with their neighbors and having dinner with all the family present.

***

“Admiral, we have passed the intel from our operatives in the USA into your team. They set the charges and homing beacons per orders.”

“Thanks, John, your spy has been a very valuable asset in our war with the USA. He appears to be getting closer to the president himself, isn’t he?”

“Admiral, we had a peculiar thing happen on this visit to Harrisburg. A USA secret service agent walked up to our man and told him that he was a spy for the ISA.”

“Shit! This hurts our spy program in the USA.”

“Well, actually it doesn’t look like it compromised our spy. The man told us that he actually works for the CIA and they work for the ISA.”

“John, you knew that the CIA and NSA worked for us now.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know how active they are in Harrisburg. My man may be taking assignments that they can handle.”

“Good point. I’ll discuss this with the Agency.”

“Admiral, the man told my guy to give you a personal message. Your son is still alive, but his family perished in the first strike on DC.”

The Admiral stood up and asked, “What else did he say?”

“Nothing, he left after giving this message.”

“John, did your man give you a description?”

“Yes he did. The man was about 45, dark brown hair, six foot two and about 200 pounds. In addition, he had a small scar on his cheek in front of his left ear.”

The Admiral bowed his head and prayed, “Thank you, Lord, for this news about my son and take care of Sue and the kids.”

“John, the man was my son. Thanks for this great news. I will tell my wife and his brothers and sister.”

***

The sun was going down as Gus watched the team walk into the room.

Gus said, “John, you are starting to become a damned bureaucrat. Damned meetings every five minutes to discuss what we discussed during the last meeting. I thought that we would run this new country better than the old USA.”

George Washington, the first governor of the new territory of Alabama looked at Gus, “The difference is in how we treat our people and how honest we are in everything we do. We don’t judge a man by the color of his skin and we don’t keep women barefoot and pregnant. I am the first Black governor of Alabama and I won’t be the last. Meetings, paperwork and rules will always be the crap that has to be done to keep a society working. Why are you in a bad mood today?”

“I’m in a good mood and as soon as John tells me who to kill for attacking our country, I’ll be in a better mood. I hadn’t noticed you were black because I don’t judge a man by the color of his skin, Daddy.”

George gave Gus the finger and asked everyone to set down and be quiet.

Gus McCoy was John’s best friend and the Secretary of Defense for the ISA. He had no use for politics and wanted revenge. He was engaged to George’s daughter, Ginny, and was very good friends with George and his wife Shirley. HE was twice Ginny’s age and had a daughter older than her.

John Harris, the president of the ISA, stood up and said, “Starting today we will start every meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance to the ISA along with the Lord’s Prayer. Just change USA to ISA until we can create our own. I called this meeting to discuss some brand new items for our one year plan. Gus, George and I met with the Admiral and we have a couple of very important changes to our goals. The first is that taking Corpus Christie is number one on our agenda. Gus will brief the governors after the meeting and let them know their territories' role in this crucial campaign. Next on the list is another reorganization of our leadership and expansion of some duties. Last on the list for today is we will discuss moving up the timetable for expanding the ISA into all of the surrounding states before year end.”

The last comment started everyone talking at once.

“Okay, cut the chatter. Hold it for when we get to expanding.”

John looked around the room and said, “Who has a full plate and can’t take on any more responsibility?”

No one raised their hand.

“Who doesn’t have competent people to groom and delegate to?”

Again, no one raised their hand.

John laughed, “Great, we have a lot of work to do and I like to delegate.”

Gus added, “And shit flows downhill.”

They all laughed and agreed with Gus.

John surveyed the room and opened with, “All of you have worked your butts off protecting, feeding and babysitting your people. I will now be asking for more work from each of you and your teams. Each of you know your assignment and now you will find out what your fellow teammate has signed up for."

"Charlie is the new governor of the Texas and Louisiana territory. He will pick a leader for each of his states. Steve will become the governor of the territory made up of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. Sally will take the new territory of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Last, Tom will take Arkansas and Missouri and form a new territory. As I told Charlie, each of you will choose leaders for each state until we hold elections in about two years. Now last, but not least, George has been promoted to vice president of the ISA. He will be my operations manager. Each governor will report to George. I will also be expanding my staff by adding a chief of Staff, a surgeon general and a chief of infrastructure. Dr. Ray will fill the surgeon general’s position until a more qualified doctor can be found; his words, not mine. I am seeking candidates for the other positions.”

Gus spoke up and said, “And he rested on the seventh day.”

“I appreciate your humor and I know that you are kidding me. I also know that we won’t have every one of these territories up and running with power and lights, but we must kick out the thugs and the DHS before end of this year. The thugs will be easy and I don’t expect much issue with the DHS since the USA is bankrupt and barely feeding their home base in the northeast. I expect our military to roll over the resistance and let each governor know who the leaders of the friendly groups are. We will arm them, feed them and protect them. They will form the core of each new state. We will encourage them to join and work our butts off to demonstrate why it’s in their best interest; however, we won’t force them to join our country. The downside for them is when they decide not to join us we can’t waste time, money or soldiers protecting or feeding them. Any questions?”

Steve raised his hand, “Why are we starting a meeting at 8:00 p.m.?”

John replied, “I can’t answer that right now, but towards the end of the meeting at least one of you will tell me the answer.”

They all had confused looks on their faces, but every one of them trusted that John had a reason to wait on the answer.

Sally raised her hand, “John, do you have an answer from the Admiral on him assigning a military advisor to each territory?”

“Yes, he has agreed to do that and much more. I have some great news that Gus and I just heard this morning. While the military of the ISA will stay under my command, we will be forming an Army National Guard under the command of each territory governor. He will supply the core command group, training, arms and supplies for each territory. I will have ultimate decision making authority and can call them up for a national emergency. The core group of officers will be soldiers that would normally be retiring from the military and have the skills that we need. We will help with civilian jobs and they will help build our National Guard.”

“John, I won’t speak for the other governors, but this is much better than I hope for. Thank the Admiral.”

Tom spoke up, “Should we be worried about getting some of the military’s dead wood?”

Bob answered before John could speak, “Tom that is a valid concern. The Admiral has placed me in charge of the project and I promise you that I will make sure that you get well qualified and motivated soldiers.”

George had a question, “Will the NG’s role be to protect their states or to help expand the ISA?”

“George, both is the short answer. We will send in our best units from the regular forces to eliminate the major forces of evil and then turn the mopping up and ongoing security to the NG.”

“I like that concept. Thanks for taking on this role. Perhaps we should use Major Mills from that Kentucky NG unit to assist you.”

“Great minds think alike. I have reached out to him and he will be advising me while heading up the unit under Steve. He knows the area and is itching to get Kentucky to join the ISA. I told him that Tennessee was first, then Kentucky.”

Ann, the mayor of Mobile, spoke up and asked, “I hate to put you on the spot, but when are we attacking the USA for the attack on the Bunker? I buy off on waiting for the major offensive until the fleet is back up to speed, but we can’t let the USA think that they can kill our people without any consequences. Moreover, what about the three hostages that they took during the raid.

“Gus was going to brief all of you after the meeting, but……………”

John looked at his watch, smiled, pointed at Gus and started counting down. Three, two, one and boom. Gus, give them an update.”

“John was counting down to the time when forty missiles and several bombs would hit their targets in the USA. These were only HE warheads, but we also sent some rather large drones over several targets and sprayed fuel out in the air. Yes, air fuel bombs. The targets were mainly DHS compounds and barracks. We hope to wipe out the unit that conducted the attack. We used a combination of stealth bombers and Tomahawks. John, your turn.”

“It’s now 11:38 p.m. on the east coast and all of the leaders of the USA were at home and fast asleep with their families. Now, who has the answer?”

Sally said, “We just bombed their fucking leaders at home with their families just like they attacked us.”

John smiled and said, “Bingo! We hit the homes of their leaders of DHS, Secretary of War, Secretary of Media and the Secret Service. We also targeted the homes of the VP, majority leader of both houses, and the top five senators. The only difference is that we gave a five minute warning to the second group to get out of their homes. Bob will be calling any minute with the damage assessment.”

Steve was pissed and replied, “John, why did we warn the second group? Those bastards didn’t warn us.”

“Glad you asked. First, anyone killed will be replaced with another hardcore supporter of their fascist president. Second, we wanted all of their leadership to know that we can kill them anytime we want to. Third, we sent a message that ordered them to release our people or we'll continue bombing them. Fourth, we bombed the president’s favorite bench at his favorite park in Harrisburg.”

John’s phone rang and he answered. He left the room and came back a few minutes later.

John said, “Good news for us, not so good for the USA. All targets were hit. It will be days before we know how effective the bombs are. The only miss was the Secretary of War. He and his family were not home. Command also received contact from a captain in the USA who says he is deserting and bringing most of his command plus our three people. We haven’t had time to vet the call, but we have sent a large force to accept his surrender in Tennessee. He commands 2nd Battalion, 501st Airborne Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne. He says others will follow if we will have them.