Powerless- America Unplugged

by Diane Matousek Schnabel

  He peered around the trailer.

  A savage stumbled backward and fell, groping at his neck.

  Bradley turned toward the remaining shooter, who was hiding behind a pop-up camper. Kyle charged past the aluminum box, emptying his magazine, and then the campground fell silent.

  Dumbfounded, Bradley’s gaze skipped between dead bodies as if connecting dots. Somehow, Kyle had dispatched all four savages.

  “Bradley? Oh my God, you’ve been shot!” The alarm in Kyle’s voice was a whisper compared to the panic in his eyes.

  “Just a glancing blow,” he said, walking toward him. “Nice shooting, Rambo.”

  An astonished yet proud grin overspread Kyle’s face; and Bradley shook his hand in a rite of passage, like a dean conferring a diploma on a graduate.

  “You saved my ass ... And his,” Bradley added, thumb hooking toward Andrews. The Ranger had crawled behind the tree for cover, leaving only his arms exposed. His hands were frantically working to stretch the yellow rope binding his wrists.

  Bradley removed the Army-issued knife from the dead interrogator and severed the rope to free Andrews. “This belong to you?” He hurled the knife, driving the blade into the sand, forcing the handle to stand at attention.

  Andrews’ arms eked forward tentatively as though the movement caused pain. He rotated his wrists, inspecting the purple bruises inflicted by the rope, then seized the knife and cut the bindings from his ankles. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Your fucking fairy godmother.” Bradley extended his left hand to help Andrews to his feet, and his AWOL status suddenly felt like a burr caught in his boxers. “Come on, Kyle. Let’s get out of here.”

  152G

  DJ AL-ZAHRANI WAS A mile from Lake Halona when the gunfire began. He reversed course, heading back to the campground, but as the firefight intensified, doubt knotted inside him. Was it a quick reaction force? The black ops team?

  He did an about-face, unwilling to engage them. He had done his job; he had delivered Andrews.

  A cocktail of worry and vengeance sprouted in his mind. What if Andrews survived? He was an elusive, slippery bastard who repeatedly managed to cheat death.

  Within minutes he devised a backup plan. DJ had already established the Staff Sergeant as an Islamophobe, a man whose personal vendetta had cost him two levels of rank.

  I’ll report that Andrews went berserk, shooting at me; and that Juan and Victor had died heroically saving my life.

  If Andrews survived, he would be court-martialed, branded as a murderer and traitor. DJ smiled at the irony.

  He dropped his gear onto the ground. Using his M4 carbine, he fired two rounds into his Kevlar helmet, three into his backpack, deliberately striking the radio to justify why he hadn’t reported the incident. Then DJ gathered the evidence and resumed his trek.

  A mile farther to the north, he noticed small bands of Americans slogging along the roadway, pulling suitcases and loaded wagons toward the Assistance Center in Tavares. Despite staffing problems caused by the debacle at Haywood Field, Operation Sunburn would succeed—Allah willing.

  He skirted the shore of some unknown lake and cut through a neighborhood, a horseshoe-shaped arrangement of single-story houses with stone facades and angular tapered columns better suited to Montana. The smell of death hung like an invisible fog.

  Homeowners fertilizing their front lawns—literally, he thought, pinching his nostrils.

  Overgrown crabgrass gave way to a sea of empty lots, mounds of sand choked with weeds and trash. Floating in the middle, there was a solitary house, green with white shutters. DJ hastened his stride, irritated by the sight of an American flag snapping in the wind.

  He tramped up the driveway past a black Jeep Cherokee, left hand fumbling in the pocket of his jacket. He plucked the flag from its perch and flicked his lighter until a steady orange flame licked at the Stars and Stripes. Mesmerized, he watched the fabric disappear before his eyes, magically erased from existence.

  Just like the United States, he thought.

  As he flung the burning flag onto the driveway, a bullet pinged against the Jeep, six feet to his right.

  DJ ducked and reached for his rifle with sweat-soaked hands. Behind a front-porch column, a man in his thirties extended a snub-nosed .38 special.

  Stupid infidel, DJ thought. Couldn’t hit an elephant with that thing.

  He fired three short bursts. Bullets chewed through the wooden column, and a spray of blood doused the white shutters. He approached the body and removed a wedding band from the dead man’s finger, mumbling words from the Hadith.

  “All income that comes by the point of the sword is a gift from Allah.”

  Understanding the wife to be one of the dead man’s possessions, DJ entered the house, whispering, “Honey, I’m home.”

  Emboldened by the sound of a terrified female voice, he swaggered into the family room. He grabbed the woman by her long brown hair, yanked her toward him, and ripped at her clothing.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked, choking on sobs.

  “Because,” he hissed, “you are an infidel.”

  “B-b-but I thought the Koran was about peace and love.”

  “There are a hundred and fourteen verses about peace, love, and forgiveness. But the principle of Naskh erases all that,” DJ told her. “Later revelations override earlier ones. As if they never existed. So, all that peace and love was replaced by the Verse of the Sword. Fight and slay the infidels wherever you find them.”

  She tried to break free of his grasp, and with a closed fist, he knocked her to the floor. “A cheap rug is more valuable in a man’s home than a woman,” he said, spitting the words at her. “Guess who said that?”

  153G

  RYAN ANDREWS INHERITED an M4 assault rifle and six full magazines from his former captors. He retrieved his stolen Kevlar helmet and night-vision gear from a dead savage, wrists aching as though he had sprained them both.

  It doesn’t make sense, he thought. Rope rash shouldn’t cause this type of pain.

  He gathered the helmets and night-vision gear that had belonged to Juan and Victor, suddenly struck by the senselessness of their deaths. They would be alive if Captain Rodriguez had listened—if he had launched an investigation—a point Ryan was hell-bent on making emphatically clear, even if it cost him two more levels of rank.

  Sighing, he watched his rescuers pitch the last of the AK-47s into the lake, then they retrieved their backpacks and trudged into the woods. Unanswered questions hammered through Ryan’s mind. The younger one was a wiseass, confident and disciplined under fire, even when his rifle jammed.

  Definitely not his first firefight. He has to be military. Enlisted at eighteen out by twenty-two? Or AWOL?

  The older guy, Kyle, seemed familiar, but Ryan couldn’t place his face. He didn’t carry himself like a hunter, a cop, or a Soldier, yet he had managed to wipe out four well-armed savages.

  Were these the guys who kicked ass in Astatula and Haywood Field?

  Curiosity overwhelmed his urge to track down DJ.

  I can settle that score later—at Camp Sunshine, Ryan decided, breaking into a jog. His leg muscles and groin ached, courtesy of that tug-of-war split and DJ’s boot. He felt light-headed. Was it a side effect from the tranquilizer? Or lack of food? Ryan couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten.

  As he closed the distance, Kyle glanced back at him. Neither man broke stride, and Ryan fell into step behind them. Two miles to the north, they hunkered down behind a cluster of cabbage palms.

  Kyle upended his backpack, its contents spilling over the ground. He tossed a bottle of water and a can of food to Ryan, then he grabbed the first aid kit. “Bradley, let’s see that wound.”

  Ryan noted the name, and as he guzzled the water, a plastic spoon bounced off his chest. Mumbling, “Thanks,” he yanked the pull tab from the can of beef ravioli and dug into the best tasting food he’d had in weeks.

  Bradley’s injury looked more like
a burn than a gunshot wound. The raw, fluorescent pink gash was three inches long, blistered and oozing blood, but the bullet had not penetrated muscle. “You got lucky,” Ryan told him.

  “I got lucky?” Bradley repeated incredulously as he blotted his wound with an antiseptic wipe. “How exactly did you get captured?”

  “Why exactly are you AWOL?”

  Although Bradley’s expression remained flat, Kyle’s supplied the confirmation Ryan had been seeking. “It makes my job tougher when assholes don’t report for duty.”

  “Well, if he had reported, you would be singing castrato. How fucking tough would that make your job?” Kyle asked.

  Ryan smirked and downed the remainder of his water. He hadn’t enjoyed a good ball-busting exchange since losing Dannel, Marcos, and Mike. “Your father plays hardball. I see where you get it from.”

  “He’s not my father,” Bradley told him. “But you got the hardball part right. He’s Kyle Murphy, hall-of-fame shortstop.”

  “Get the hell out of here,” Ryan said, genuinely surprised. “That’s why you seemed familiar. When I was a teenager, your face was plastered all over the tabloids. You were banging that female pitcher—”

  “Yo, that’s his late wife,” Bradley said.

  “No disrespect intended.” Ryan bowed his head then turned toward Bradley. “You planning on introducing yourself?”

  He gave a slow nod, remorse evident in his expression. “Lance Corporal Bradley Webber, Marine Corps Sniper.”

  Now, things were starting to make sense. “So how did you end up at that campground?”

  “We tailed the savages. It’s not every day you see a hog-tied Army Ranger, dangling upside down from a pole.”

  Ryan grinned at the ballsy twentysomething, unafraid to taunt a Soldier of superior rank, even while admittedly AWOL. “I got nailed by a tranquilizer dart,” he said, finally understanding why his wrists ached. “Did you shoot up that warehouse in Astatula?”

  “The guards,” Bradley said, “not the teens.”

  “Right, they were poisoned.” Ryan studied his face for signs of deception, but found none. “Where’d you get the tainted food?”

  “It was raining down over Jacksonville,” Kyle said as he looped a gauze bandage around Bradley’s injured arm. “And where the hell were you? And the U.S. military?”

  “Who the fuck do you think shot down those aircraft? And destroyed the Iranian bases launching that shit?”

  Kyle’s green eyes bored into him. “The same idiots who let the savages steal a Patriot missile battery?”

  “So you wreaked havoc at Haywood Field too?”

  “No, I sat that one out,” Kyle told him, stuffing water, food, and survival gear into his backpack. “That was Bradley and my daughter.”

  Ryan’s lips parted. His eyes teetered between Bradley and Kyle. “Your daughter?”

  “She’s an NRA competition shooter,” Bradley said. “Not your average sixteen-year-old.”

  This was why he had been kidnapped and nearly tortured?

  For information about an AWOL Marine, a senior citizen, and a teenaged girl?

  154G

  “ZAAKIR, WHY DO YOU have such an allegiance to strangers?” Eliza smacked her palm against the granite-topped kitchen island. “Your family is starving—”

  “We’re hungry, Eliza. Not starving,” he corrected her.

  She rambled on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Your daughter had an asthma attack this morning; and instead of leaving for Tavares—where there’s medical care, food, and safety—we’re sitting here, awaiting the permission of strangers!”

  “Strangers?” he shouted back. “They saved us from extremists. Without them, we would’ve known true starvation.”

  “Kyle told you he wasn’t the sharpshooter; he denied giving us the food. If you won’t believe me, at least believe him!”

  “We’ve been over this. He wants to remain anonymous to avoid inviting an attack. He asked us to respect those wishes.”

  “You’re putting your faith in a man who lied to you.”

  My faith? Zaakir shook his head at the irony. Jihadists are trying to kill us in the name of Allah while the evil infidels are protecting and feeding us in the name of their Lord.

  “Say something, Zaakir!”

  The argument had been churning for hours, a carousel of misery, round and round, neither able to persuade or pacify the other.

  Mustering his most rigid, authoritative tone, he said, “If the FEMA camp is legitimate, we’ll leave at sunup.”

  “But we’re hungry now! Let’s just go!”

  Her shrill, whiny voice felt like a piranha nibbling his brain. He couldn’t bear another minute. Exhaling weariness in an audible hiss, he snatched his inherited AK-47 from the kitchen table.

  “Finally, you’ve come to your senses. I can be ready in—”

  “Eliza!” he snapped. “I’m going hunting.”

  155G

  BRADLEY WAS GROWING aggravated with Staff Sergeant Ryan Andrews. The guy clearly preferred to be on the asking end of questions. “You can at least separate fact from propaganda. We put our asses on the line to save yours.”

  “You guys had my back, and I appreciate it. Thank you.” Ryan eyed him like a human X-ray machine, gauging his trustworthiness, then said, “Tell me what you know, and I’ll try to fill in the blanks.”

  “We’ve heard there were Fort-Hood-style shootings on a dozen stateside military bases.”

  Ryan nodded somberly. “Affirmative. Terrorists were all homegrown. Fucking traitors.”

  “Langden Air Force Base attacked by our own jet?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Heat radiated from Bradley’s body as if his blood were magma. His pulse felt like a bludgeon against his wounded arm. “Did the U.S.S. Stellate lose a billion dollars worth of aircraft?”

  Ryan’s head tilted toward him, eyes penetrating like lasers. “Where are you getting this information?”

  “Emergency Broadcast System,” Bradley told him. “I was assuming it was psyops.”

  “The most dangerous type,” Ryan said. “The kind where they’re actually telling the truth.”

  “What about the nuclear power plants?” Bradley asked. “Are they melting down?”

  “Negative. Army and Air Force have been scrambling to secure them and keep cooling pumps running.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re not wiping out these cells,” Kyle said, condemnation dripping from his tone. “You’re abandoning the civilians you’re supposed to protect.”

  An uncontainable rage flared in Ryan’s eyes. Kyle hadn’t struck a nerve, he had pulverized them all.

  “We’re fighting an enemy dressed like civilians, hiding amongst civilians, and our rules of engagement don’t allow us to shoot until fired upon. I intervened once when Americans were being executed on their front lawns, and you know what happened? I got demoted and threatened with court-martial.”

  What are they gonna do to me? Bradley wondered, eyes roving left to right, fearful that raised voices might attract unwanted attention.

  “So you’re just supposed to watch the slaughter?” Kyle demanded.

  “We’re not law enforcement, and the terrorists know it. They smile and recite our rules of engagement, flaunting the fact that they’re untouchable. Bradley, you’ve got the right idea. Stay AWOL because you’re actually making a difference.”

  Disconcerted, Bradley took a slow breath. “Is there anything else noteworthy?”

  “Besides poisoned MREs and mess hall slop? Ammo spiked with explosives? Traitors stealing our weapons and turning them against us? Preschool suicide bombers? The loss of satellites?”

  “The EMP fried military satellites?” Bradley asked.

  “No, we lost those to a fleet of satellite-killing drones. No warheads necessary. The kinetic energy alone shredded them. And I almost forgot,” Ryan said, sarcastically throwing up his hands. “While our satellites were being turned into confetti, Iran ambushed Israel
; and North Korea attacked South Korea and Japan. The only good news is that China hasn’t taken advantage of the chaos and invaded Taiwan ... Yet.”

  Bradley was gnawing his lip. Fighting on multiple fronts overseas in addition to savages on the mainland? Could the U.S. military stretch that far? With no economy to back it?

  The hairs on his neck stood on end as he realized there was a new crop of reasons to discourage Abby from enlisting in the Marine Corps.

  Kyle broke the prolonged silence. “Ryan, you know anything about a FEMA Camp near Tavares?”

  The Ranger’s head did not move. His eyes shifted upward. “There’s one at Camp Sunshine. That’s up near Gainesville.”

  “Well, Tavares is where we’re headed,” Bradley said. “Why don’t you tag along? See if you can make a difference?”

  156G

  OMID GHORBANI MARCHED forward, determination burning more furiously than the raw sores on his feet. He had smelled the carnage of Haywood Field long before his eyes beheld it. The stench pressed against him, smothering and relentless, like wading into a lake of decaying corpses. Swarms of bugs marked the position of each body, black clouds of failure shaming them even in death. Turkey buzzards swooped in, feasting on bits of flesh, defiling his brethren; and Omid drank in every detail, vowing to make the infidels pay.

  With Hamid Khadem trailing after him, he searched each building then slowly circled the remains of the Patriot missile battery. After one lap, he found them—the wires used to detonate the explosives. Omid clasped them lightly, allowing them to glide through his fingers as he walked.

  He cursed the grass-covered, sandy soil. It was like a sponge, momentarily absorbing his weight then rebounding to its original shape, swallowing up all footprints.

  He traced each wire’s length in a southwestern direction, crossing the runway, passing between deceased paratroopers before locating the spools and detonators.