Stolen Liberty: Behind the Curtain

by Thomas A. Watson

  From half a mile away, they heard the boom of a shotgun blasting away while the lower pops of handguns and the sharp bark of rifles they knew were ARs sang a deadly serenade. Randy tried to surge ahead, but Cody and Charlie stayed on his heels. Trying to keep up, Robbie lost ground with the rest of the team, but he still had them in sight when they turned right and then left toward Kristi’s street.

  The gunshots became louder with each step. Robbie felt his heart racing as suppressed shots rang out when Randy had turned onto Kristi’s street. When he hit the intersection a block south of Kristi’s house, he heard the familiar suppressed snaps as Charlie and Cody engaged targets in front of Kristi’s home. Rounding the corner, Robbie raised his rifle and saw a knot of men trying to load up in an SUV. Pulling his AR to his shoulder, Robbie raced in and cut them apart before they could speed away. When the AR ran dry, Robbie let it hang while he transitioned to the shotgun. He hammered away at the remaining crew trying to escape until he’d emptied his magazine. He pulled his Glock and ran around the house to find three men trying to steal his motorcycle. Never pausing, Robbie shot all three and ran down the alley, looking for anyone else who wanted to fight. Reloading his pistol and shoving it back in the holster, Robbie transitioned back to his AR and changed magazines.

  Grabbing his PTT, Randy called over the radio, “Blaster, clear out back?”

  “I think so. The garage door is screwed up, and I don’t think I can secure it. My bike is out in the alley, but I don’t have time to mess with it.”

  “Come back around front, the back door is barricaded.” Randy cut the transmission.

  Trembling in rage, Robbie took the narrow yard between Kristi’s house and the Ramirez property. Around front, Robbie got his first good look at the pile of bodies on the porch and strewn across the front yard. Based on the fact that several of the men showed signs of close range shotgun blasts, Robbie figured Jerome had put Wheat’s shotgun to good use. What he didn’t expect to see, lay at the base of the porch stairs.

  Jerome had taken multiple gunshot wounds. The most severe, a chest wound, leaked a thick line of blood down his bare side. Kristi and Charlie were trying to keep the man alive, with Kristi doing chest compressions and Charlie tying a combat bandage around another bullet wound to Jerome’s right thigh.

  Robbie stepped into a spreading pool of blood and his feet kicked aside spent shotgun rounds.

  “Kristi, are you hit?” Robbie asked.

  “No. Jerome stopped them down here and held the door. We were upstairs trying to cover him. When Tabitha and Ryan showed up, we let them in, but this gang tried to rush the door,” Kristi told Robbie and Charlie while she administered compressions.

  “Your sister brought them here? The attack was caused by her coming to your home?” Robbie growled with a snarl.

  “I didn’t get into it with her, but she thinks they saw them driving around the neighborhood and just followed them to our doorstep. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t just leave them out there. I’m such an idiot.” Kristi stopped and checked Jerome’s pulse. “Charlie, you can save the bandages. Jerome is gone.” Kristi wiped her hands on her pants and left dark smears of Jerome’s clotted blood on her thighs. “Everyone else is safe upstairs. Clark and Emily were shooting from their bedroom windows, but the men pushing in the door were covered by the porch.” Kristi stood, and Charlie saw her hands shaking from the shock of seeing combat play out in her once-safe suburban domicile.

  “Kristi, let us deal with Jerome. I don’t want the kids to see him like this.” Charlie stepped to the door and tried to lock it, but the damaged metal door would not close. The shotgun blasts to the hinges from the outside had warped the frame.

  Kristi looked at Jerome for a second. “It’s too late for that. Clark and Emily saw it all happen,” she announced to the dark room lit by candles and smelling of spent gunpowder and blood. “They were in the fight, too. A lot of those bodies in the yard were cut down by them.” Her words caught in her throat and she shuddered, “My babies saw Jerome fight for his life, and I couldn’t do anything to help him. He told me to stay upstairs and wouldn’t take my AR.” Kristi stopped and let out a low moan, and Robbie caught her in a hug. He moved her into the kitchen and sat her down at the table.

  “Jerome may not have been a Ranger, but he fought like one of my brothers. He fought for this family because he loved you as much as we all do. You have a job, Kristi; keep Clark and Emily safe. Let that be your focus. I’m going to give Jerome a proper burial, and then we need to get the hell out of here. Ranger on, sister.” Letting her go, Robbie’s voice broke as he stood and gave Kristi another one-armed hug. He wiped at his eyes and walked back to the living room. Relaxing when he saw Charlie had the front yard under observation, Robbie moved over beside him.

  “Shadow and Babyface have it covered from the upstairs windows,” Charlie said without looking away from the yard.

  “Shouldn’t you be on overwatch, Book?” Robbie asked as he dropped his pack and unbuckled the shotgun from his vest.

  Stepping back from the door, Charlie shrugged, “I told them I’d help you bury Jerome. You think by the pool? He did work his butt off on that deck.”

  “I think he would like that,” Robbie nodded, then paused before continuing, “I don’t even know how to repay him. His boys are out there, and I have no idea how to find Charlene’s crazy ass. He was here to get his sons clear of the violence. He wasn’t ready for this.”

  “We do what we can, Blaster. Here,” Charlie said and handed over a pile of blankets from the couch. “I raided the linen closet. You want to take him out the back door?”

  “Yeah, I don’t want to try to carry him out there and stumble on his handiwork. Good God, he piled those bastards up like wood,” Blaster complimented Jerome’s last stand at the door. “Shotguns are good until it comes time to reload.”

  Looking at the pile on the porch, Charlie nodded, “If I’m going out, whoever gets me is going to stumble on a mound of spent brass and bodies. Your friend did good.”

  Robbie and Charlie half-slid and half-carried Jerome’s dead weight to the back door and disassembled the barricade made of a shelving unit and a table shoved into the rear entrance. A white security bar was jammed under the doorknob and secured to the floor with a rubber anti-skid pad. Someone had nailed a thick spike into the hardwood floor to further reinforce the simple bar. Inspecting the work, Charlie kicked the bar aside and unlocked the deadbolt before removing the chain. “I don’t think they even tried to force their way in back here.”

  “They got distracted with my bike in the garage. They weren’t bright, but their numbers made up for their lack of skill,” Robbie grunted as he navigated the door. The two paused and pulled their goggles down.

  Grabbing his PTT, Charlie called upstairs to Cody and Randy, “Are we clear out back?”

  A few seconds later, Cody replied from above, “Yeah, Shadow has the front covered, and there’s nothing moving in the alley. Shadow reports twenty-six tangos down out front.”

  Charlie nodded to Robbie, “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but we have to be expeditious about this. We can’t delay here very long, Blaster.”

  “Just help me get him under the ground, Book. He deserves something for his devotion to the family,” his voice cracked, and Charlie thought Robbie shook slightly as they shuffled Jerome’s body down the steps and over to the aboveground pool. “I’ll get some shovels,” Robbie mumbled before he jogged to the garage and rummaged around the yard tools, returning with two long-handled shovels. “We can both dig and cut down on time. Let Babyface worry about watching our six.”

  With no more words, Robbie and Charlie dug at the soft sod until they had a grave deep enough to protect the body from roaming dogs. The two lowered Jerome’s form into the shallow grave and covered him with the fragrant soil. Robbie gathered paving stones from around the pool and covered the disturbed soil.

  “You want to say some words?” Charlie asked.

  L
ooking at the stones they’d placed, Robbie asked, “What do you say to a man who lays down his life for someone else?”

  Feeling Robbie’s pain, Charlie’s eyes welled up. “You call him ‘brother’,” Charlie said with his voice breaking.

  With a long sigh, Robbie nodded. Together, the two stood in silence and said their own personal prayers for their departed friend. A pain neither wanted to feel again filled them: losing a friend in combat.

  Lifting his head, Robbie looked around at the yard and remembered the good times they’d all shared in that place with the kids, Kristi, and each other. “This place will always be special to me.”

  “Maybe one day we can come back and give him a better funeral. His kids should know his bravery,” Charlie suggested. “This place will have a very special meaning now.”

  “Yeah. One day,” Robbie sighed, then walked off to return the shovels to the garage and they withdrew back to the house.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chicago, IL

  Once inside, Charlie and Robbie took the time to barricade the back door before heading back to the front of the house. They found Kristi at the table, redistributing camping gear into two new packs.

  “I thought you already had that sorted out?” Charlie asked as he took a seat and worked at reloading magazines from his own pack. Unlike the others who’d refilled their packs from Kristi’s safe, Charlie couldn’t. Kristi didn’t have 7.62 and he’d never kept any here. There had never been a reason for him to have rifle ammo stashed at the house.

  Dropping into a chair, Robbie checked the action of the shotgun, swabbed the chamber and action with a rag from his kit before pushing rounds into the tubular magazine. The room smelled of death, blood, sweat, and gun oil as they worked to get their weapons ready.

  Kristi sighed and stopped packing the bags. “These are for my sister and her husband. They ran from their building on the Gold Coast and drew that gang to us. Tabitha didn’t know better, so don’t take it out on her. They have Chase with them, and he’s freaking out.”

  Not looking at her, Charlie inserted a fresh magazine into his rifle and hit the bolt catch. A fresh round stripped from the magazine and loaded the chamber. He safed the rifle and leaned it against the side of the table.

  “That gang would have never shown up on your doorstep, except for your useless sister. Jerome died because they had nowhere else to go. Am I right?” Charlie snapped in a low voice, feeling his blood pressure rising.

  With the shotgun in hand, Robbie stood up from his chair and headed for the stairs.

  “Robbie, don’t!” Kristi called out. She tried to cut him off, but her feet slipped on the coagulating blood. Robbie skipped over the streaked pool of Jerome’s life-giving fluid and pounded up the stairs. Waiting, Randy met him at the top landing with his hand outstretched like a crossing guard.

  “When we get out of this shit, I promise, you will get first shot at kicking their asses,” Randy said, then pulled Robbie to Clark’s bedroom. The boy was kneeling on his bed, scanning the street below with his AR. Never letting Robbie’s vest go, Randy pulled Robbie back into the hall. “We protect the kids and Kristi first. I dislike, no, I despise Tabitha and Ryan, but their kid is blameless in this. It’s a shit sandwich, but Kristi demands that we help get them out with us.”

  Taking a deep breath, Robbie started to protest, but Kristi grabbed his ear and pulled his head around. “Robbie, we are not abandoning my sister if we can help them.”

  “Why the hell did they just show up out of the blue? Don’t they have their own fancy building with security?” Robbie asked with a scowl.

  “As an alderman, Ryan got advance notice that the city was becoming unsafe. When he called the doorman of the building, he found out the security team the city paid for had walked off the job. They panicked and headed here, since Tabitha knew we had food and guns,” Kristi explained.

  Trembling in rage, Robbie shook his head, “So, like the Pied Piper, they drew an armed mob to your doorstep? How many anti-gun rallies have they attended? But when their sheeple world became scary, where did they run?”

  “They blew through a roadblock the gang had set up. The gang saw a flashy SUV and gave chase,” Kristi shrugged. “Tabitha and Ryan have no practical experience with what’s going on, but she is family.”

  With a menacing gaze, Robbie looked around, “So, where are they? Are they ready to go?”

  “They are in the spare bedroom. I didn’t want Chase to see Jerome like that, so I told them to stay there until I came to get them.” Kristi pushed past Robbie and Randy in the narrow hallway to reach the door. She pulled out a key and unlocked the knob to the room. “Hey, guys? It’s time for us to go.”

  A man’s voice whined, “But, why? Aren’t we safe here?”

  Robbie rolled his eyes at Randy, “Will you back me capping that whiny bitch now and save us time?”

  Randy chuckled, “You’ll have to deal with Kristi’s wrath if you kill her brother-in-law right now. Later? Outside the city? Hell, I’ll flip ya for it.”

  “What if we just left them behind?” Robbie asked.

  Kristi coaxed the disheveled adults from the room. Tabitha had Chase by the hand. The pale nine-year-old boy shivered in fear, and he tried to bolt back into the room when he spotted Blaster and Shadow standing in the hall. Only seeing camouflage, low-cut ballistic helmets with night vision monoculars flipped up, knee and elbow pads with full tactical vests and an assortment of weapons, they didn’t look like anyone Chase knew and Kristi stopped Chase from running back into the room.

  Dropping to his right knee, Randy spoke to the boy, “Hey. We are here to help. Don’t act like you don’t know us. Your Aunt Kristi is a friend of ours, Chase, and we came to get her out of here. Do you want to come with us or stay here, Chase?”

  “Mom?” Chase implored Tabitha Dillon.

  “Do you have a vehicle big enough for all of us?” Ryan asked, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder.

  “Nope. We are walking out of here. The four of us got in here on our feet, and that’s the best way to get out,” Randy said as he stood and eyed their footwear. Tabitha wore flats, and Ryan sported leather loafers. Chase had kid’s sneakers. “Before we go, we have to make sure you can keep up. Kristi, do you have any shoes that will fit Ryan or Tabitha?”

  “I don’t know about Ryan, but I may have a set of hiking boots that will fit her.” Kristi led her sister downstairs to rummage through her closet while Robbie and Randy looked at Ryan’s feet.

  “You know what they say about men with big feet, right?” Robbie chuckled at Randy.

  “Yeah, you get a size eleven and suck it up, buttercup.” Randy grumbled. Ryan looked at his expensive Italian shoes.

  “I paid over a grand for these!” he complained.

  With a somewhat sinister grin, Robbie shook his head, “I’m gonna be honest with you, bud. No matter what you think now, your feet are going to feel like hamburger, even if we find you boots that fit. We aren’t going to stick to paved roads or graded walking paths. You either keep up or get left behind.”

  Ryan shook his head, “Why is this happening? The news said the gun nuts were rioting over water rights. How did it get to this?”

  With disdain on his face, Randy looked at the pathetic excuse of a man with his son by his side. “You really have no clue, do you? I haven’t checked on the news broadcasts in a few days, but it’s got nothing to do with water rights or farmers protesting in the streets. Did the guys chasing you look like farmers to you?” Randy sighed. “Come on, Wheat had huge feet, and there might be something in the basement close to your size.” Randy led Ryan and Chase down to the main floor and further down into the finished basement. Not wanting to be near them, Robbie stayed upstairs and checked on Cody watching the back of the house, and Clark keeping an eye on the front. He tapped on Emily’s door and waited for her to answer.

  He heard her unlock the door with a soft “click”. Robbie pushed the door open slowly, and Emi
ly almost knocked him down with a fierce hug. Turning to the windows that faced the front yard, Robbie saw empty brass casings were spread over the carpeted floor with two empty magazines.

  “Uncle Robbie! Is Jerome okay? Mom sent me to my room and told me to stay here until it was safe.” Robbie saw streaks down her cheeks from her dried tears.

  “We got it under control. We are leaving soon. Do you have everything ready?” Robbie saw the pack leaned against the dresser with her pink AR birthday present leaning next to it. Emily had her “camping clothes” on. Looking down at her, Robbie smiled at the girl, “Okay, then. We’ll come get you soon. Your Aunt Tabitha and Uncle Ryan need some better shoes for the trip. Did you pack extra socks?”

  “I always do. Just like I was taught,” Emily answered with a forced smile and Robbie gave her a hug, glancing back at the pink rifle. He saw a smudge of carbon from the rifle being used, and Robbie looked at Emily again.

  “Did you have to shoot at anyone when Jerome was in the fight?” he asked softly, but the empty brass gave him the answer.

  Like a switch had been flipped, Emily’s eyes welled up slightly, and her lower lip quivered. Very slowly, she gave a small nod. Robbie knelt down and gave her a long hug and whispered in her ear, “It's okay,” as she sobbed into his shoulder.

  Holding her tight, Robbie cried with Emily for her pain and the loss of Jerome.

  “I know you are upset about having to hurt people, but you did the right thing,” Robbie told her in a soft voice.