Authors: L. Douglas Hogan
Reynolds had medium-brown skin, light-brown eyes, and black hair. His voice was deep, not unlike Franks’.
“When I was a boy, I used to run around outside with my toy guns and shoot my friends. We played army, cops and robbers, and things like that. I remember growing up and seeing restrictions and regulations tightening on our second amendment right to bear arms. Then came the executive orders banning ammunition and increasing taxation on distributers of firearms. The UN small-arms treaty was constantly being pressed down our throats, until one day, a liberal-led congress gave in to the pressure, forsaking the calls and emails of the voters, and made the possibility of not owning guns a credible possibility.
“That’s why I joined the Marines,” Franks said. “I knew what was happening to my country. We were actively being sold down the river by our government. It’s been full of corruption for so many years that the people came to expect it. People became used to politicians bragging about their education and upbringing in poor homes. They all wanted us to know that they knew what it was like to be poor, but now they’re educated and know how to fix Washington. The people buy that kind of stuff hook, line, and sinker. Once they win office, they become a part of the problem. The government got to a place where it was no longer made up of ‘the people’ but a place where the people were fearful of their government. That’s where tyranny lives. In fear of government. I vote for the government to be fearful of the people. That’s where liberty lives.”
The room became almost somber as they sat silent for several minutes. Every man thought of the Marines and civilians that had died earlier in the day. Before they bivouacked down for the evening, they had a makeshift memorial service where a young lance corporal had prepared a speech. The men thought of how the Marines were wrapped in blankets acquired from local homes, and how they were lowered into the Mississippi River. Their bodies, now miles downstream, would certainly be seen by other patriots. To Buchanan, the memorial service was twofold. He was counting on fellow Americans joining the fight. The sight of dead Marines would certainly raise an alarm and sound the bell of freedom, wherever that may be.
Buchanan was a pretty good read of character. He thought quite a bit about the day’s events and how Reynolds could have taken his shot at killing them on multiple occasions, especially when he had air superiority. It wasn’t just because the helos were losing the fight; on the contrary, the guns that one more Black Hawk could have offered would have tipped the scales in their favor. No, Buchanan knew Reynolds was genuine, but he reserved to himself a necessary need to be cautious.
Buchanan reached over his rack and pulled out Reynold’s M9 Beretta and handed it to him.
“Lance Corporal!” Buchanan called out.
“Yes, sir,” the Marine said as he peeked in the shelter.
“Give the Rangers their rifles.”
“Yes, sir,” the Marine said as he closed the flap.
The Rangers had been carrying MK16 SCAR-Ls prior to surrendering to the Marines. When the chopper was secured, so were the weapons.
“Tomorrow, we will no longer be a Marine unit; we will be an American joint-forces coalition. We’re going to have to work together to restore the Constitution. We need to focus on finding more active-duty units and veterans to make this work. Are you on board, Sergeant First Class?”
The senior enlisted Army Ranger did not hesitate to respond, “Hoorah!”
With that, the Marines and Rangers settled down for a well-deserved night’s rest.
Gorham, Illinois, October 26
Nathan had barely slept that night. He rolled around in his bed, wondering what had happened. Did Jess steal the bus and weapons? Were they rightfully hers because she was the one who acquired them? Why did she leave so aggressively? Why didn’t she say good-bye? These were the thoughts that probed his mind all night long. It was no wonder that when Denny came barging in his house at 0600 hours, he was already awake and eating eggs.
“Good morning, boss.”
“Good morning, my friend. You know that boss thing is unnecessary. You make this feel like work. You packed up and ready to roll?” Nathan asked.
“I’m ready to go. I rounded up the ‘Posse’, That’s what we’re calling our inner circle of vets.”
“Are they outside?”
“Yeah, they’re cool.”
“No, have them come in. I insist.”
All the homes in Gorham were hooked to propane tanks. They had acquired them the previous year from a train that had stopped in their town. The conductor dumped his job and just left them there. To this day, he still resides in Gorham. It was that propane that Nathan used to fry his eggs every morning. The grease was very old and made the eggs taste like nine different kinds of food, but it was food nonetheless.
“You boys want something to eat before we roll? We’ve waited all night, might as well take the time necessary to eat.”
They all said, “No, thank you.”
Nathan choked down his two eggs and grabbed his chest rig and pack.
“Let’s go.”
Jess woke up with an excruciating migraine. Her mouth was gagged with a sock and duct tape wrapped around her head and over her mouth with multiple passes. She was in a sitting position in a dark room with her hands tied behind her back, which was latched to a rounded column of some sort. Her long brown hair was partially taped to her head in the back, but in the front, her bangs were hanging over her eyes. Her immediate concern was that she had been raped or some other despicable act of violence committed against her as she was unconscious. She had no recollection of what had happened or where she was. After assessing herself for discomfort, the only thing she felt out of the norm was her migraine. This gave her a sense of calm so she could focus on the next issue.
Where am I?
she thought to herself. She heard voices overhead and footsteps stomping around the ceiling. With that bit of information, she knew that she was either in a basement or some other form of structure where there was an upper level.
The voices she heard were severely muffled. She couldn’t make out any words, but the volume and tone she understood as an argument. Jessica had been trained in paralanguage as a police officer and a correctional officer. She knew tones, cadence, volume, and expressions all fed into what was being said by the speaker. Unfortunately for her, she was missing body language as she would have understood in the form of facial expressions. She was also trained to detect lies by paying attention to these details. Maybe that chance would come and she could put her training and experience to the test, but for now, she was stuck evaluating her environment.
Jess began working the duct tape that was securing her arms behind her back. She was having a difficult time, so she decided to stand up and felt herself rise against the cold steel of the pole. On her way up, she felt what she thought was a bolt of some sort, binding two pieces of the column together. It was a little higher than she could reach, until she took a step forward and was able to raise her arms higher against the pole. Once she reached the bolt, she felt it had an octagonal head to it. She used the edges of the bolt to wear into the duct tape. Her body wriggled around for a time until she was able to free her hands.
Jess instantly reached around and attempted to pull the sock from her mouth, but she couldn’t get to it. The duct tape was wrapped tightly around her head and she couldn’t find the end. Jess could breathe and figured the mouth restraint could wait.
She began walking around the room, bumping into odds and ends. When she bumped into what she thought was a desk, she felt around for drawers and found a middle drawer filled with office supplies. She grabbed a pen and began trying to poke a hole through the edge of the tape that was wrapped around her head. She knew that would give a starting point from which to tear the tape. Her attempt was short-lived as she heard a metal on metal sound, resembling a lock being unfastened, from around the corner. A flood of light came pouring into the room from an opened door, revealing solid stone basement walls, floor joists on the ceiling, and barred and blackened-out windows.
Jess ran toward the light, which was around the corner. The first thing she heard was a man’s voice. Jess could see the light was coming from an opened door at the top of a staircase. She heard a man talking as she ran to the side of the stairs and into the shadows.
The stairwell was an open design, poorly made without a wall or railing. Jess still had a gag in her mouth as she prepared the pen. She took the cap off, revealing a ballpoint tip, which was sharper than the cap. She fixed it in her hand with the point of the pen facing down. Jess was preparing to hammer strike her captor using the pen as a shank.
“All right, all right! Calm down, Thomas!” the man yelled to somebody upstairs.
“Geesh, you guys are pushy,” he said as he started descending the stairs.
Jess recognized the voice. It was Scott, the annoying guy from Gorham. Realizing now that she had been suckered, she lay in wait.
Another voice came whipping to the doorway at the top of the staircase. “You had better get your act together before you end up dead, like the others,” the male voice said as the door slammed shut, leaving Scott alone in the dark.
Jess was in the dark again, but she knew her night vision was better than Scott’s. She was creeping around from behind the stairs and into line of sight of Scott. He could not see her and had his hands out in front of him. Scott was walking toward her, feeling for the light switch, which was hanging from the ceiling not too far from his location.
“How you doing down here?” Scott asked. “Are you awake yet? The plan wasn’t to take any prisoners, originally, but when I saw you, I had to have you. Hot chicks are hard to find these days.”
The man was inches away from the hanging pull string that would turn on the basement light. Jess had to act now while she had the advantage. She stood up and backed away far enough to start a good charge toward Scott. No sooner than Scott turned the light on, he was blasted with an attack from Jess. She had charged him and jumped onto him, wrapping her legs around his body. It all happened in one fluid motion. She would have sunk her teeth into his throat if not for the gag, so she utilized the pen in her hand, instead. Stab after stab, she sank the pen into his throat.
Scott struggled little as his attention was on the fact he could no longer breathe or speak. The first strike punctured his trachea, the third strike opened his left exterior carotid artery. Scott fell to the floor and Jess covered his mouth as she took the pen and ran it through his eye and into his brain. Scott went limp and Jess rolled away from Scott’s left side because of the blood still spraying from his neck.
She lay next to him only briefly before she collected herself and began searching his person. She found a holstered pistol and a sheathed Leatherman on his belt. She unlatched and loosened his belt and removed the two items and then attached them to hers.
Jess took just a second to look around at her captors’ basement. She swept the environment, once through, with her eyes, checking for weapons or any useful tools. She knew it would be a longshot, but Jess believed erring on the side of safety, and security was critical to survival. She saw nothing useful, worthy of carrying into an unknown hostile environment.
Now armed with a .45 S&W Governor and a Leatherman multi-tool, Jess quietly crept up the staircase, paying attention to creaking boards. Once she reached the top of the stairs, she unholstered her new revolver, checked the cylinder for ammo, and grabbed the door handle, listening for sounds from the room outside the door. Jess carefully turned the door handle and pulled the door open, just a couple inches, and listened some more. She was no longer hearing voices as she did before, and that made her fearful that her struggle with Scott may have been heard. She didn’t want to spend too much time waiting at the basement door. Her training taught her that hesitation can sometimes have deadly outcomes.
Jess was awkwardly pulling the basement door towards her, as she had to lower herself down the staircase a bit to make room for the door to pull open. She did this with one hand on the door and her pistol in the other hand, pointed towards the opened doorway. With the door now open, Jess tiptoed up the stairs, peeking around the corner, first left, then right. To her surprise, there was an M4 standing against the wall next to the door.
Keeping her gun pointed out the door, she used her left hand to reach out and grab the rifle. Successfully doing so armed her with a military rifle. She had seen M4s before, but this one was stockier than the others she had seen. It had an additional barrel under the primary barrel that she assumed was a grenade launcher. She was careful to locate the rifle’s trigger and not to confuse it for the trigger of the grenade launcher. She was untrained in its use and wise enough to avoid using weapons she didn’t understand.
Jess removed the magazine of the rifle and took note that the magazine was full. She pulled the charging handle to the rear about an inch and took notice that the rifle had one round chambered. Pushing the forward assist to properly secure the round back in the chamber, Jess took the rifle off “safe” and put it on “fire.” She noticed there was a “full auto” option, but she was fine, knowing she didn’t have enough ammo to spray in full-auto mode. Her training taught her that single fire is the most accurate.
Jess placed the pistol back into its holster then stepped out of the basement into what appeared to be an apartment. She boldly began clearing each room. That’s when the faint sound of men screaming and yells from the south window of the apartment were heard.
Jess carefully moved toward a window and tried to look out. The blinds were shut and Jess was hesitant to make them move. Nevertheless, she used her fingers to gently grab one end of one horizontal piece of the blinds and move it up and out of the way. Seeing motion below her, she saw several armed men running and walking down a southbound alleyway to a street running east to west. The crowds were piling up at the sidewalk where the alley ended and the east/westbound road met. The men had their backs to her, so she thought it good to check the north side of the apartment. She could see no more movement and used this information to embolden her to find an exit on the north side of the apartment.