Keith had no idea what the people behind all this hoped to accomplish, other than some unachievable utopian dream in which everyone who agreed with them could participate in ridding themselves of all they perceived wrong in the world. It wasn’t a new concept, by any means, and Keith’s father had fought against it in the jungles of Vietnam long before Eric and Keith were even born. Bart Branson had said long ago, when the two brothers were nearly old enough for military service, that the world was bound to become less stable with time, and that if they signed up, chances were good they’d see their share of war too.
“There’s just too damned many people on the planet, that’s the problem,” their father had said. “There’s no way to avoid conflicts when you’ve got that many people and a limited amount of land and resources. Things are going to keep shifting and the boundaries are going to change. Hell, I hardly recognize this country now compared to when I was growing up. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when you boys are my age.”
Keith wasn’t as old as Bart had been when he used to say that, but things were indeed unimaginable now. He had hated that his father was 800 miles away in south Florida when it started, but it hadn’t done any good to tell him he ought to pack up and come stay with him and Lynn for a while. Bart Branson was as stubborn as they came, and he loved what he did for a living down there, running his little boatyard on the river in a place that winter rarely touched.
Keith had talked to him often in the beginning, before things got really bad and the cell and landline networks began going down. The occasional ham radio conversations came later, when that was all they had. They’d talked some about what was going on in Keith’s AO as well as in south Florida, a state that was reeling from violence as much as any in the country, especially in the bigger, more culturally diverse cities like Miami. Trouble had been brewing for years over the decisions some of those cities made to defy federal authority, and the illegal immigration issue was just one more fuse leading to the powder keg waiting to explode along racial, economic and political divides. When the burning and killing began, many such cities, including nearby New Orleans and Houston, soon found themselves in the dark. Shutting down the power grid of any major city was a simple matter due to the complexity of the systems they all relied on. The repercussions were far less predictable, however and of course the disruptions affected everyone, not just those that such actions were intended to sanction. In the end, it only gave the insurrectionists more fuel to justify their increasingly aggressive counteractions, which in turn brought even harsher repercussions—creating a vicious cycle of ever-evolving chaos and escalating violence. The tactics and scale of the attacks changed until it could no longer be considered anything less than guerrilla warfare. Keith could still remember every word of the call for backup he’d responded to after one such revenge attack that involved his own department and forever changed law enforcement operations in his rural parish.
The sheriff and three deputies, arriving in two separate vehicles, had responded to a report of a shooting on an isolated levee road in the southern section of the parish. The female caller who reported the two burning vehicles in the road with dead bodies inside them had called from a cell phone with a local area code and prefix. She’d sounded appropriately frightened and upset, according to what the dispatcher said later, but the responding officers apparently drove right into a trap laid deliberately to kill them. They did indeed find the burning cars, smashed up in the middle of the narrow, two-lane road, but when they got out of their vehicles to investigate and called back in, the reported bodies were not visible in the flames. The next transmission anyone heard from them was a desperate plea for back up. Piecing together the evidence later, it was deduced that at least three shooters opened up on them from somewhere within the woods on either side of the road, because the four lawmen were found all dead on the scene, cut down by bullets from as many different calibers.
Keith was the closest mobile unit to receive that call, and would never forget the voice of Chief Deputy Sam Trahan, urgently screaming into his handheld as already fatally wounded, he tried to crawl for the cover of his truck. Sam never made it. It took Keith nearly ten minutes to arrive, ripping down the narrow blacktop road as fast as his sheriff’s department Tahoe would go. By the time he arrived, all four men, including Sheriff Landry, lay dead between their patrol vehicles and the burning cars someone had used to set up the roadblock. The officers had been stripped of their weapons, both the service pistols on their belts and the M4 carbines they probably had in hand when they got out. Keith knew even as he walked up to them that he could be next, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he scanned the wooded bottomlands alongside the road for movement, wondering from behind which tree the first bullet would come.
But whoever had done this was already long gone. Later investigation revealed ATV tire tracks in the mud a quarter mile east of the road. An old logging track that was too narrow and muddy for conventional vehicles had provided an escape route to an apparent rendezvous with a truck and trailer several miles away on the next real road. It was a planned ambush deliberately calculated to murder the first responders, who had been set up by the mysterious female caller. Losing the sheriff and three deputies in one day was a devastating blow to the department, and changed everything about the way Keith and his remaining fellow officers worked going forward. For the first time since he’d been sworn in, Lynn asked him to consider walking away from it, but quitting the department wasn’t an option as far as Keith was concerned, especially not now.
“Four good men died today because they were wearing this badge,” he told her. “It might be safer to take it off, but if all of us who have taken the oath to enforce the law start doing that, what’s going to happen then? Somebody has to stand up and fight or it’s going to be game over for everybody.”
“And they are, Keith, and you can too, whether you’re in uniform or not. I’m just worried because it’s clear that you are a target now, just because of that badge… you and every other law enforcement officer.”
That was a fact and Keith certainly understood where Lynn was coming from. The law-abiding citizens of his parish were doing their part, and they were armed, but most folks had enough to worry about just looking out for their own families. They couldn’t be expected to go out looking for the troublemakers every time an incident like today’s ambush happened. And they couldn’t be easily organized and ordered around either. Not all of them had the same ideas about what needed doing or not doing, and most of them just wanted to be left alone, hoping they could get back to their old lives the way they were before all this started.
If the federal authorities had their way, all civilians across the country would be disarmed by now anyway. In fact, they had already mandated that and were doing their best to carry it out where they could, but it was completely unrealistic overall. Those calling for such legislation had become more vocal after every random terror attack or mass shooting for years prior, but the very fact that such incidents were increasing in frequency and number of casualties guaranteed that disarming the population would be harder than ever. By the time the massive riots broke out, most civilians were better armed than any time in history. It was far too late now to legislate firearms out of existence, and confiscation on such a massive scale wasn’t going to work—certainly not now in a time of war.
That didn’t stop them from trying though. Military and civilian police roadblocks were set up on major highways and interstates as well as within many cities for the purpose of searching vehicles for weapons and ammunition. It worked in many areas, as did the threat of severe penalties for those caught with them, but it would never work everywhere, and it was impossible to enforce in the rural areas, especially without the full cooperation of all local authorities. Keith and his fellow deputies had already discussed this many times with the sheriff as the violence ramped up. They had no intention of taking away the ability of their parish citizens to defend themselves,
and those same armed citizens had been invaluable in keeping most of the troublemakers out of the area, at least at first.
That first incident on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge wasn’t something any lawman would want to see happen in his jurisdiction, but it was inevitable, given the tenacity of the agitators who wouldn’t quit without a fight. When the bullets started flying, regular people who had never used their guns for anything other than deer hunting or target shooting suddenly found themselves engaged in a firefight. If they hadn’t been armed, the outcome could have been far different. No threat of harsh penalties for keeping their firearms would convince anyone who’d survived that encounter to turn theirs in, and Keith certainly wasn’t going to be trying to collect them. An armed citizenry was their best hope of survival now, and as things worsened in the weeks that followed, that reality was proven time after time.
The news of what happened on the bridge that day the protesters tried to block it spread far beyond St. Martin Parish, however, and eventually gave someone else an idea for the attack that came later. It had probably been planned for weeks, but executed at a most opportune moment, when the threat of the impending hurricane persuaded people to attempt a last minute evacuation, guaranteeing the bridge would be packed.
Eleven
KEITH WAS RUNNING THE river in his patrol boat that day of the attack, visiting all the out of the way communities and isolated homesteads on the back bayous that he could reach and making sure the people living there knew about the coming storm. Most folks that lived in the vicinity of the bridge, like Keith and Lynn, would ride it out in place, which was the sensible thing to do for anyone that far inland. Down in Morgan City and the lower coastal areas of the river, in St. Mary and Terrebonne Parishes, it was different. The storm surge was the danger in the tidal zones, and if the hurricane were strong enough, like an Andrew or Katrina-level event, it would be devastating for all those places that were just barely above sea level. With the men they’d lost, which included two more deputies within weeks after the sheriff was ambushed, the department was stretched thin. There wasn’t a whole lot they could do in the way of hurricane preparation, besides warning those who might not know it was coming. Though it might be futile in the end, Keith was going to visit as many residents along the waterways as he could find.
“I’ll try to be back before dark,” he’d told Lynn. “Don’t worry about me. Just stay put and stay off the roads. It’s going to get crazy now that the people in the cities have figured out this thing is about to hit.”
“Most of them won’t have the gas to get anywhere though,” Lynn said. “They’d be better off staying where they are.”
“Yeah, but they won’t. There’ll be enough of them with just enough gas to make it to I-10 and turn it into a parking lot. All hell will break loose when the ones that aren’t on empty can’t move because of the ones that are. It’s not anywhere you want to be, trust me.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not going out there, but it breaks my heart thinking about all the people who have nowhere to go to get out of the danger zone.”
“I know. I wish there was a way to get them all out, but of course there isn’t. And you know as well as I do that there’s other kinds of danger zones elsewhere now that are as bad or worse. All I can do about the hurricane is make sure as many people know about it as possible. At least they can hunker down and try to protect their property. It’s better than nothing. I’ll see you later, baby. I’ll try to be back by dark.”
“Be safe, Keith.”
He’d kissed her and promised he would, but he wasn’t worried out on the river, which was much safer than any road. So far, there hadn’t been any incidents on the parts of the river in his jurisdiction, which was why fuel was now being moved north by barge instead of truck or rail transport. That didn’t mean it was totally safe though, and the towboat companies were certainly employing armed security, given the value of their cargo. Nothing had happened here yet though, and Keith figured that if the fuel barges did run into trouble, it would probably be on the Mississippi or its tributaries. The farther from the Gulf refineries and storage facilities they traveled, the more valuable their cargo would become. Gasoline and diesel could still be had here in the Gulf coast region, at least by those who could afford the exorbitant prices, but in places far from where it was produced; obtaining it at any price was virtually impossible.
It was early morning when Keith had said goodbye to Lynn, and he spent most of the day warning people along the lower reaches of the river before turning back north to scour all the smaller bayous and sloughs closer to home. It would have taken until dark at least, just as he’d told his wife, if his mission hadn’t been interrupted by a call from dispatch on his secure radio as soon as he was back in range. There’d been another incident on the I-10 bridge over the swamp that afternoon. Deputy Greg Hebert had called it in, relaying what he could see of it when he got there. What he’d described sounded like a major terror attack, complete with explosions and automatic weapons. He’d called from the Butte La Rose exit near the west end of the bridge, and had no idea what it was like on the other side, but that the worst appeared to be east of the Whiskey Bay channel crossing.
Keith sped back to his house with the outboards nearly wide open. It would be faster to grab his bike and go by road, as it was a long way around to the Whiskey Bay landing and he still might need to make his way miles to the east to reach the scene. From what the dispatcher said, it might already be too late, but he was going to have to get up there anyway and find out what happened. The KLR parked under his house was the best tool he had for that, considering the gridlock he knew he’d be facing once he arrived on the bridge.
When he came around the last bend on the home bayou and cut the throttle on approach to his dock, everything looked as it had when he’d left. His white sheriff’s department Tahoe, now dented and sporting bullet holes from some of his recent encounters, was parked next to Lynn’s Jeep Cherokee and his old Toyota pickup. Keith had no reason to think Lynn might have gone anywhere until he tied off his lines and walked up to the house. That was when he saw something odd. The 650cc Kawasaki he intended to ride to the bridge on was there, but Lynn’s smaller Suzuki dual-sport was not. It had definitely been there when he left this morning though, and it didn’t make sense that it would be missing now.
“LYNN!” Keith ran up the steps to the front deck and unlocked the door. “Lynn! Where are you?”
Lynn didn’t answer though and Keith only had to glance at the bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room to see that she had left him a note. He snatched it up and read the brief message. Lynn had taken the bike! Keith stared at her words in disbelief. She said she took it because she had to get across the bridge and figured it would be faster with all the traffic. The note explained that her sister Jeannette had called on the radio Keith had given her to tell her that their mother apparently had a heart attack that afternoon and might not make it. Jeannette and her family lived with their mother in the house Lynn and her siblings had grown up in south of Ramah, because she was nearly ninety and unable to live alone any more. Naturally, Lynn wanted to try and get there in time, regardless of the traffic jam she knew she would face on the bridge, and she’d taken the bike, knowing it was her only chance of getting across. Keith doubted Lynn knew anything about the attack when she left, and he could only hope she’d reached her destination before it started. The last thing she’d written was: Please don’t worry! I’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as I know. Love you, Lynn.
Keith stuffed the note in his shirt pocket and reached for the radio microphone to try and raise Jeannette. The radios were retired base station units the department had used before their last upgrade, and after the cell phone networks went down, Keith had bought two of them and paid the technician to set them up on a secure frequency so they could communicate with Lynn’s family over on the east side of the river basin. It was a reliable system, but no one answered h
is repeated calls, and Keith couldn’t wait around to see if they would. He had to get to that bridge and hope like hell Lynn had already made it across before the attack.
Keith locked the house and rushed back downstairs to the bike. He put his M4 in the side-mounted rifle scabbard and pulled on his helmet and leather gloves. Barely giving the single-cylinder engine time to warm up, he popped the clutch and tore out down the gravel to the paved road at the end of the lane. Why of all days, did his mother-in-law have to pick today to have a heart attack? They all knew she’d been in poor health for a long time though, and no doubt all the stress and excitement over the approaching hurricane was a contributing factor. Keith knew that even if he’d been here, he couldn’t have talked Lynn out of trying to get there before it was too late to see her, not if the bridge was still passable. He just wished she’d made a note of the exact time she’d left. From what the dispatcher said, he gathered that the attack happened about an hour before he received the call. The timing of her departure could be a matter of life or death for Lynn, regardless of whether or not her mother survived the heart attack.
Keith wound the 650 thumper to the redline as all those thoughts went through his mind. The KLR wasn’t a fast bike on the open road, but it could go most anywhere, and that was more useful than speed most of the time now. When he finally came to the entrance ramp to Interstate 10, he stood on the pegs and rode around the stopped cars until he reached the eastbound lanes. Several people standing beside their cars and trucks staring towards the bridge stepped back in alarm at his sudden approach, until he flicked on the small blue L.E.D. flashers mounted on the lower forks. When he stopped and flipped up his helmet, a truck driver came over to his bike to fill him in after realizing that he was a lawman.
“It’s bad,” the man said, telling Keith that the details of the attack had been relayed by CB radio from other truckers caught on the bridge closer to the scene. Keith could see dark plumes of smoke in the distance, and the trucker said it was from all the burning vehicles.
Feral Nation Series: Books 1-3: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series Boxed Set Page 27
