American Insurgent

by Phil Rabalais

  Andy looked at his friend, seeing the deadly serious expression on his face. “I’m with you, John, into Hell itself if that’s where we need to go. I trust you,” Andy said evenly.

  John took a draw on his cigar and thought, The only tricky part is figuring out how far to push this pendulum before it swings back in the other direction.

  The next morning John discussed his plan with a very unhappy spouse. “I can’t decide if you’re crazy or suicidal sometimes,” Rachel spat. “We could pack up and head out and walk away from this. This isn’t our war.”

  “Honey,” John replied evenly, “it became our war the day they invaded my home with guns drawn.”

  “But what we did then was self-defense. What you’re planning is cold-blooded murder.”

  “That’s the same charge levied against every terrorist group in the world, but if they are victorious, they rewrite their history to infer some righteous cause. Ask the men who fought in the American Revolution.”

  “Uh-huh. A lot of them died on those fields.” She looked at her husband.

  “And they died knowing that life without freedom was no life at all. You and everyone here will be in danger if we keep coming back here. If we go outside the wire and limit our return trips, they won’t have a trail to follow,” John reasoned.

  “You had better come back to me, John, or I swear to God I’ll never forgive you,” Rachel said through tears.

  “With my shield, or on it.” John quoted the old Spartan axiom. He would come home the victor, or not at all.

  John walked down the hallway to find Mark, Kevin, and Andy digesting the intelligence they had collected. The agency’s schedule was consistent to the point of monotony. Any vehicles heading out for raids left at the same time, usually between 0700 and 0800. Earlier departure times were uncommon but did happen. Return times were more varied. They were still surveying the facility to determine their supply times.

  “John, we’ve been looking things over. I wish you two would reconsider what you’re planning. If you get hung up out there, you’ll both be sitting ducks,” Mark related.

  “But if we keep coming back here, sooner or later this cell will be discovered. No dice. If we go out alone, we can hit and disappear and keep the pressure on them without them having the larger target of this cell to come after. If you keep feeding us intel, I’m sure we can crank up the pressure on them and check in often,” John replied.

  “You sure just two of you? I could send a couple of my guys along,” Mark started.

  “Yes, Mark, I’m sure. Out there in the bush, I can’t afford the liability of bringing tourists or amateurs. Andy is neither. He’s one hell of a good shot and an experienced outdoorsman. Besides, I have a little homework for you and your other cells while we’re outside picking a fight,” John said. “I have a list of names and hometowns—some guys I bet may be sympathetic to our cause. You would have to convince their local cells to find them and make them an offer, but if you want to turn this organization from a bunch of computer nerds to door kickers, then we need to bolster our ranks. These are people who will move the Minutemen in the direction they need to move in.”

  “Okay, leave me the names and any information you can give me. I’ll transmit it around on secure comms and let you know what comes of it. You two please be careful.”

  “Yes, mother,” Andy replied, rolling his eyes.

  The House of Cards

  “Shorts, what in the hell is going on down there?” his superior roared. Shorts was becoming accustomed to these daily ass chewings, made regular by the near constant harassment of his agents by these insurrectionists. The ass chewings were then summarily passed along to Johns, for all the good it did.

  “Sir, we are trying to ascertain the whereabouts—”

  “I don’t want to hear what you’re trying to do! I want this brought to heel right now!” Then the line went dead.

  In the past month, his camp had suffered numerous injuries and casualties. Sniper fire, IEDs (improvised explosive devices), ambushes. The mounting pressure being placed on the camp was having its effect on the morale of the men, and all of their efforts to capture or kill their assailants had amounted to nothing. They struck from cover and disappeared like ghosts afterwards.

  Shorts thumbed through the reports from the previous thirty days.

  Four agents in Humvee ambushed en route to their target. No casualties, multiple injuries.

  Four agents assaulted while entering target residence with small-caliber rifle. Agents sustained moderate injuries, no casualties. Subject was killed in exchange of gunfire.

  Four agents in Humvee struck by roadside bomb en route to their target. No casualties, multiple injuries.

  Four agents in Humvee ambushed. All deceased.

  One agent on exterior wall patrol, single gunshot wound to head from a large-caliber rifle. Agent deceased.

  Four agents living off-site victims of explosive devices set at their residences. All deceased.

  Four agents received sniper fire while entering a residence. Subject was killed in crossfire, no injuries to agents.

  One agent ambushed during off hours with bladed weapon. Agent deceased.

  Two agents in guard tower, single gunshot to each from large-caliber rifle. One agent deceased from gunshot to head; other severely injured, gunshot struck chest plate.

  Shorts was sorting these reports into two piles. One pile was obviously the work of opportunists observing their neighbors being raided. Casualties among agents were rare, injuries superficial. The assailants were amateurs, and the damage was troublesome but not alarming.

  The other pile was stacking up to be the work of the core group of the insurgency. The attacks on agents were obviously preplanned, well rehearsed, and intended to cause casualties or injuries of agents as they went about their duties or after hours. The most troubling of these were the sniper attacks that had begun to occur directly against the detention camp. Shorts had requested additional personnel be brought in to replace his wounded and deceased, but the orders had to crawl through the massive bureaucracy that was his organization before he would see any relief.

  The other danger Shorts was battling was the tumbling morale of the men under his command. Three and a half weeks prior, his post had lost their second team to a vicious assault by this local terrorist group, with only Senior Agent Johns surviving. Since then, their casualty list and injured list had grown daily. Dissent among the men was increasing, and Shorts feared an all-out revolt if something did not give. Shorts had also quietly accepted the resignation of one of his veteran agents right after the second team went missing, who gave no official reason, only stated he refused to continue working for the agency.

  At the rate these attacks were occurring, it would not be more than a week before his camp was below critical strength. Almost more problematic were constant reports of attacks now coming in from other stations around the country.

  Hundreds of miles away, another so-called “gundamentalist” from John’s list was being dragged into this insurgency.

  John, you crazy bastard. I don’t think anyone else could’ve sold me an idea this nuts, Matt thought. Over three weeks ago he had seen his friend from New Orleans on the evening news, along with his wife, proclaimed for all the world to be domestic terrorists. Then, a few days later, another friend of his in the area, Andy, had the same charges levied against him. Matt had known both men for years and knew there had to be more to the story than what the media was releasing. John and Andy were both hard-core gun-rights and free-speech advocates, but Matt also knew them to both be honest men and ardent patriots. That either of them would randomly become a lone-wolf killer left more questions than answers, until he got his answers from a very unlikely source.

  An unaddressed letter showed up on his doorstep. It contained a short message purportedly from John and Andy, explaining their actions, and a method of contact. The people who picked up on the other end of that phone call were a local cell of the Mi
nutemen based close to him, with an offer to join them before the searches and confiscations inevitably came to his doorstep.

  Matt had pondered this. He, like many people, did not willingly hand over his guns on the government’s word. Give me a break. You guys want to take all of my guns, can’t take all the criminals’ guns, then you won’t give up yours?! Do I look stupid? he had thought at the time. With the rumors growing more frequent, the videos and audio files that had flared across social media, and now this personal and direct message from two men he trusted, it seemed the time to get in the fight was now. Matt, heeding the prudence and caution urged by John, slowly reached out to the Minutemen, then began recruiting men in the local community he knew held the same beliefs as he did. The ones who would not outright join he left with a warning to ready themselves for a fight.

  When the day came that the black Humvee showed up at his door, in much the same fashion it had shown up at John’s and Andy’s doors hundreds of miles away, Matt made the only decision a man in his position could. Matt fought back and defended his family. The result was several dead agents and another family displaced from their home. Matt rushed his family from their quiet suburban home to the uncertainty that awaited them. The resistance, the Minutemen, the insurgency—whatever you called them, these men and women were just like Matt. They were people pushed to their practical limit by a government intent on taking that which was not theirs to take. They were people who banded together and said No More.

  Like Matt, all over the country, people were fighting back. Some rushed to join their local Minutemen chapters. Some fought as individuals when their homes were directly threatened. Some went on the offensive much like John and Andy were, harassing their local detention camps and individual agents with any and all means available to them. In every case, the message was clear: the Minutemen wanted these camps closed down, and they wanted their people released. Right now.

  The pendulum had swung in the other direction. After years of unchallenged supremacy, the federal government had pushed the people to their breaking point, and the people were in near outright revolt. What had begun as a localized problem in the New Orleans area was spreading. The ranks of the Minutemen were being bolstered, and even those cells previously hesitant to join the fight were now so overwhelmed with support and the demand to fight back they were acquiescing to public opinion. The resources of a nation-state are limitless, but so far they proved unable to quell this rapidly growing insurrection.

  Poking the Bear

  “Wolf’s Den, this is Wolf checking in,” John called into his radio after checking to make sure they were on the secure net. Much like the military employed, the radio network the Minutemen maintained was able to rapidly “frequency hop,” jumping across a set of preselected radio frequencies at set intervals. Any radio set up with these frequencies and synced with their timing had unrestrained communications. Anyone trying to listen in on any one of the frequencies would hear nothing but static with occasional blips and clipped sounds. It was not impenetrable, but it was as secure as they could manage, and based on his military experience and training, John had urged the importance of destroying these synced radios if capture became inevitable.

  “Wolf, this is Wolf’s Den. You coming home for a little while?” The voice was not Kevin, as John was expecting. Rachel was apparently taking a shift on the radio. She had picked up the particulars of being a radio operator quickly from Kevin and was fortunate to be on her shift when she heard her husband’s voice on the radio.

  “Yes, Wolf’s Den, we’re inbound. ETA unknown. Keep a plate out for us.” John’s way of saying they’d be back by dark/dinnertime.

  “Roger that, safe travels. Wolf’s Den out.” Rachel had worried endlessly with John away. Just to have him close by brought her calm, and for him to be away and in obvious danger was a constant source of anxiety for her. Kay likewise had missed her father terribly. While Rachel had experienced John’s bouts of absence for military service and his previous careers, he had been a near constant fixture in their home since Kay was born, and his absence was very conspicuous to her.

  “They’re on their way back in?” Mark asked, walking to the console.

  “Yes, should be here by dark,” Rachel answered.

  “I’ll try to talk him into staying a few days. I’m pretty shocked how much havoc they’ve been causing. Surely if they lay off for a couple of days, it won’t undo the progress they’ve made,” Mark offered.

  “Progress towards what?” Rachel asked bitterly. “Why is everything always his responsibility? It doesn’t matter if it’s a job or politics or anything. He always takes everything upon himself, and no one else can be expected to hold up their end.” She lashed out, frustrated that she had to sacrifice her husband while other wives spent quiet evenings at home with theirs. The stinging words were felt most by Mark, who had quietly dealt with the pangs of guilt that these two men were taking on so much of the burden of the mission they had set for themselves.

  John and Andy had, according to assorted radio traffic, either killed or wounded over a hundred agents in the past thirty days. They had picked at so many of the supply convoys (that they now knew were arriving weekly on Saturdays) they were being escorted by armed guards when available personnel could be spared. The tensions inside the camp itself were at an all-time high. Every guard had to be saying a prayer every time they climbed into a guard tower or walked the wall, expecting the evening silence to be shattered by the sound of John’s or Andy’s rifles. Shorts, Johns, and the rest of the camp leadership were at their wit’s end trying to find these two men, not realizing just how small a force was managing to cause them so much trouble.

  Similar campaigns were being waged around the country, with varying degrees of success. Even outside of these coordinated attacks, the random lone-wolf attacks by common people were causing the agency a phenomenal headache. Calls for replacement personnel went unanswered simply because there were no longer any replacements to send. The president had even been asked to send in the National Guard or the Army to quell the insurrection, which he refused, afraid the sight of military troops in the streets would only promote more resistance. He set the problem firmly back on the shoulders of the agency he had directed to locate and confiscate all contraband firearms and deal with those who flagrantly flaunted the new laws.

  The longer the insurrection went on, the more it bloomed, the louder the whispers of a full-blown rebellion grew. Local news stations were heavily regulated and unable to report outside of news the state had approved, but international news and bloggers across the internet had no such qualms. What was once a few isolated stories was growing into trending news.

  BBC news: Reports continue to surface from various locales around the United States of sporadic acts of violence targeting government officials. A White House official statement indicates anti-government extremism at work, but unnamed sources point to the recent repeal of the civilian right to keep and bear arms as the culprit. If the report is to be believed, what we are witnessing is the beginnings of a full-blown rebellion in the United States over gun rights.

  Reuters: Attacks against government officials in America continue to mount, and the group known as the Minutemen is claiming responsibility. They assert that their violence is constrained to officials of the governmental arm responsible for seizing civilian firearms and jailing those who refused to surrender their firearms to law enforcement. Press affiliates in the US media refuse to comment, only to reiterate the official statements released to the White House press corps.

  AFP: It was not long ago we welcomed the United States into the modern age as it finally took meaningful steps to curb its gun violence epidemic. Now it would appear the country is not as united as we once thought in this endeavor, as gun violence has exploded all across the country. Despite significant governmental resources allocated to locate and seize these contraband firearms, there appears to be no end in sight for the escalating violence that has racked the United
States.

  The independent bloggers were doing a much better job of reporting the actual issues. They were actively reaching out to the Minutemen through bulletin boards and forums, pleading for interviews and conversation. They were all too happy to report what the Minutemen were after: Stop the seizures and detainments, release all prisoners, restore the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. Or else.

  But all of this unfurling on the world stage meant little to a worried wife and mother wishing for her husband to come home. All she could think of was raising a daughter alone if something happened to him. Yet she understood that he could not be dissuaded from this course. When he had left, he told her he would return “with his shield, or on it,” an old Spartan axiom for he would win, or he would die. The best she could do was to support him and pray for his safety.

  Several hours later, the two weary men were sighted coming up the road in Andy’s Jeep. As they pulled down the long driveway, they each waved to the lookouts on each side. They were greeted by Mark, Rachel, and Kay. John could see his daughter running towards the Jeep even before they came to a full stop.

  “Daddy!” Kay yelled. He was nearly bowled over by her, but her embrace was cut short as she pulled back, and her face betrayed John’s marginal hygiene. “You stink,” she loudly announced.

  “Well, princess,” Andy retorted, “not a lot of opportunities for a good shower when you live in the woods for a week.”

  They all grabbed gear while one of Mark’s men pulled the Jeep around back in the barn, and went inside. Everything was unceremoniously thrown on the floor of the shop, and John and Andy retreated to their rooms for much-needed showers. John stood under the stream of scalding hot water, just barely at a tolerable temperature, and let the grunge and grit of a week living in the field run off him. He and Andy had been reduced to “GI showers” for that time, and a hot shower with soap felt amazing.