Homefront: The Voice of Freedom

by John

  “Uhm, I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t in good conscience sell you that moldy loaf. I’m a doctor, you see. Well, not technically, I was a male nurse before all the trouble began, but I know a lot about this stuff. You’d get pretty sick if you ate that loaf.”

  The Korean was twenty yards away.

  The woman frowned and said, “Well, all right. I’ll take those other two, then. Next time you need to come out here with a lot more.”

  “Er, my wife can make only so many at a time. You know how scarce flour is.” He packaged the two loaves just as the Korean approached the stand and stood a few feet behind the woman. He stared at Jim with interest.

  The woman felt the soldier’s presence and turned. “Oh,” she said. Returning her focus to Jim, she made a face. “I guess I’ll take my bread and go.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She gave him two dollars and departed quickly with her daughter, leaving the vendor alone with the Korean.

  “Hello,” Jim said. “I’m sorry, I just sold my last loaf. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  The soldier took three steps closer and barked, “Identity card!”

  Shit, shit, shit! He willed the Korean, Don’t look over my shoulder! Don’t look down the block!

  Jim dug into his pocket and pulled out the proper identification. “Here you go.”

  The officer took it and examined its details. He looked at Jim’s face and the photo on the card, back and forth, three times. “This your address?” the man asked, referring to what was printed on the ID.

  “Yes.”

  “Where is?”

  “The street?” Jim didn’t know. All of their IDs at Home were fake. He pointed west to redirect the Korean’s attention from the length of street behind him. “That way, about three blocks.”

  The Korean whipped out a hand-held portable electronic device and punched in the address.

  Oh, shit …

  The officer frowned and asked again, “Where is?”

  Jim shook his head. “I’m sorry, I may be turned around here. What does that say?”

  Obviously, the Korean’s English wasn’t very good. “Where is!” he demanded again.

  Flustered, Jim allowed his desperation to show. “I said I’m turned around! I’m not sure. Isn’t it that way?” He pointed west again.

  The soldier didn’t like the American’s tone. It sounded uncooperative. He pointed to the pavement. “On knees!”

  Jim’s heart pounded in his chest. “What?” He glanced nervously at the moldy loaf of bread in the cart.

  “On knees!”

  He did as he was told. The Korean moved behind him and ordered, “Hands behind!”

  Oh my God …!

  Handcuffs snapped around Jim’s wrists. The Korean frisked him; once satisfied the American wasn’t carrying any weapons, he turned his attention to the bread cart.

  Meanwhile, Walker and Wilcox were unaware of what was happening within sight of the building. Walker grappled with the antenna as the wind threatened to blow it right out of his hands. Wilcox had managed to screw in half the bolts. “Ben, I swear if you don’t hold that thing steady, I’m going to drill you to the roof!”

  “I’m doing my best, damn it!”

  She screwed in two more bolts. Two more to go.

  The Korean opened the bread cart and made sure there were no hidden compartments where the American might keep a weapon. Then he picked up the loaf of bread and grimaced when he saw the mold. He sniffed it and turned to his prisoner. “Bad food!” he snarled.

  Jim nodded. “I know. It’s moldy. I was going to throw it away.”

  The Korean made a sound of disgust and dropped the bread on the sidewalk. It split in two, revealing the walkie-talkie. The instrument spurted static.

  The officer glared at it and then shifted his dark eyes to Jim.

  The American had only one thought: I have to pull his attention away from Ben and Kelsie! Before the guard could touch him, Jim impulsively bolted to his feet and ran west on Main Street.

  “Halt!” the officer shouted. He drew a Baek-Du-San, the North Korean copy of the Czech CZ-75 pistol. “Halt!” he called again as he took a bead on the running man.

  Jim didn’t stop.

  The Korean had to squeeze the trigger only once. Struck in the back, the resistance fighter fell forward on his face, pushed himself forward a few inches with his feet, and then lost consciousness. The soldier calmly walked to the dying man and emptied another round in the back of the escapee’s head.

  Back on the roof, Wilcox had just finished bolting the antenna to the stand, when they both heard the gunshots.

  “What the hell was that?” Walker asked. Wilcox stood beside him and they squinted down Rose Lane.

  “I don’t see Jim at his stand,” she said.

  “Neither do I.” The Korean walked back into view. “Fuck! Get inside!”

  Wilcox clambered into the hole and down the ladder. Walker followed and replaced the cover. Once he was on the floor, she asked, “What do we do? Stay here and be quiet?”

  Walker had stupidly left the walkie-talkie on the console. He picked it up and started to call Jim—and hesitated. “Jim’s dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Just a feeling. I think we should get out of here. Let’s leave our shit here and go out the back door. We’ll walk up to the highway like we’re an ordinary couple. If the KPA stops us, we’ll say we’re out for an afternoon stroll. There’s no law against that. It’s the middle of the day.”

  “Why don’t we just stay here?”

  “ ’Cause we need to see what happened to Jim. We owe him that. We’re done here for today, right?” He pointed to the mess of wiring under the console. “All we have left to do is rewire that mess and plug in our transistor board?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then we’re all set for tomorrow, right on schedule. So let’s get out of here.”

  She nodded. “All right.”

  He had left his automatic assault rifle back at Home, but they both packed their M9 pistols.

  “If we get frisked, we’re screwed,” she said.

  “There’s no reason for them to do that. Just keep cool, okay? But just in case, I’m disengaging the safety on mine.”

  She did the same, returned the weapon to her concealed holster at the base of her spine, took a deep breath, and said, “Let’s go.”

  Once outside, they pulled their jackets around them not only to disguise their guns but also because the temperature had dropped. The wind had picked up considerably. They walked arm in arm, pretending to be embroiled in a conversation and laughing at a joke when they reached the bread cart. From there they saw Jim’s body in the middle of the road and the Korean standing over him, speaking into a communication device. Otherwise, the street was deserted.

  “Oh God,” Wilcox whispered.

  “Just keep moving.”

  The soldier spotted them and shouted, “Halt!” He quickly strutted toward them, his handgun in hand. “Identity cards!”

  Walker and Wilcox looked at each other and nodded. They dug into their pockets and produced the items. The Korean snatched them and, for a few tense moments, the couple wondered why the man was taking so long in examining them. Eventually, though, he handed the cards back and holstered his pistol. Then he said, “Recite oath!”

  The couple didn’t know what he meant. “Excuse me?” Walker asked.

  “Oath of Loyalty! Recite!”

  Walker swallowed. He didn’t know it. He felt a rush of terror and the onset of a cold sweat.

  Then Wilcox spoke with a slight shake in her voice, “I hereby affirm on oath a loyalty to the New Juche Revolution and the righteous creation of the New Democratic People’s Republic of America. To dedicate myself to the struggle of the sum in pursuit of the new revolutionary thought of the Great Chairman, Comrade Kim Jong-un, and offer my highest loyalty to the authority of the Great Chairman, Comrade Kim Jong-un.”

  She paused, struggling to
remember the rest. The Korean watched her with cruel anticipation.

  “Further, I denounce and reject any devotion to the State of which I have heretofore been subject.” Her voice broke unintentionally when Wilcox ended the recitation with, “I make this oath freely and by my own burden and not in submission to any outside influence.”

  The soldier smiled sadistically. He enjoyed her discomfort. Apparently, that satisfied him; without turning to Walker for a repeat performance, the Korean jerked his head and snapped, “Go!”

  An overwhelming sense of relief flooded over Walker. He smiled at the man and nodded. “Good day,” he said, and then he took Wilcox’s arm. But his partner jerked away from him, reached behind her back, and drew the M9. Before the Korean could react, Wilcox aimed and discharged a bullet in the soldier’s face. Blood and gray matter burst out the back of his head, and then the officer toppled over in front of her. As soon as he was down, Wilcox kicked him several times and the spat on the corpse.

  “Fuck you! You dirty bastard, I didn’t mean a word of it!” she cried. The tears flowed.

  Walker took hold of her and squeezed her tightly. “Whoa, Kelsie, whoa. It’s okay.” She broke down in a catharsis of emotion. He let her sob against his chest as he stroked her hair. He gave her some time for the release and then had the presence of mind to say, “We need to get rid of his body, or this street will be swarming with Norks tomorrow.” He looked around. The road was still empty. “No one can see us. Let’s put him in the cart and take him back to the radio station.”

  Wilcox pulled away from him, holstered her gun, sniffed, and wiped her face with her hands. “What about Jim?”

  Walker shook his head. “I hate to say it, but we have to leave him.”

  Together, they picked up and stuffed the soldier’s body in the cart, closed the door, and wheeled it up the block.

  APRIL 10, 2026

  Walker and Wilcox put the finishing touches on the radio station console and antenna just as the Korean force appeared on Highway 50 and civilians stampeded back toward the elementary school. The resistance cell hunkered down at the intersection with Rose Lane, aiming to hold off the onslaught until Walker made his broadcast. Under the pressure of strong winds, the advancing army, and jury-rigged equipment, the couple hit the air waves as the battle outside commenced. The old radio station building, not quite a hundred yards away from the melee, rattled with every detonation.

  Giap blurted the new orders over the walkie-talkie. “Walker! Two minutes! You copy, my friend? Over.”

  Walker grabbed the radio and answered. “All right!”

  “We blow horn, yes? You move! Out!”

  Wilcox looked at him with anticipation.

  He unfolded a scrap of paper upon which he had scribbled, tapped the microphone again, and froze. Walker had rehearsed his speech a dozen times and suddenly he couldn’t open his mouth. It was too important to mess up.

  “Ben?”

  He didn’t move.

  “Ben! Snap out of it!”

  Walker waved her off. “I’m okay.”

  Then he spoke into the mic.

  “People of America! If you are hearing this, then you are not alone! All over this great country of ours is a movement. A movement of resistance. We cannot allow our land to be occupied any longer.

  “We all know our Korean occupiers have committed appalling atrocities in various cities across our nation, but I must impart to you this terrible news. Some of you listening may already know this, but for those of you who don’t—the Koreans have destroyed the Mississippi River from top to bottom! They have somehow managed to pollute this lifeline of our country with radioactive chemicals, killing everything along its banks and causing the evacuation of every town and city on its shores. There is no telling how this monstrous deed will affect generations to come. In short, our country is divided! The people east of the river are cut off from those of us in the west. This is the most heinous act ever committed on American soil, my friends, and one of the worst corruptions of nature ever caused by human hands. She cannot be crossed! I repeat—any attempt means certain death!

  “If invading our country wasn’t enough, this sick, inhuman crime is the last straw. We must stand up and fight back. No more complacency! No more submission! Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago, in 1776, a small band of revolutionaries stood against the mighty British Empire in a bid for independence and freedom. We can do it again. George Washington, the founder of our country, once said these words to the Continental Army: ‘The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.’

  “My friends, let Washington’s words ring true again today. The Second American Revolution is here. Resistance cells are scattered everywhere. Find them. Join them. Do not give up hope. If you have access to radio equipment, I urge you to use it to transmit the truth. We can forge a network of communication once again, my friends. We must!”

  The gunfire grew louder. They heard shouts outside the building. And then—the dreaded bugle call. Time to go.

  “This is all I have to say at the moment, but I will be back. Keep your radios on.”

  A massive explosion rocked the building. A section of the control room wall collapsed inward, filling the space with smoke and debris.

  “Ben, we gotta go!” Kelsie shouted.

  Walker continued, “This is Be—” He hesitated, thinking it unwise to relay his real name. “This is the Voice of Freedom, broadcasting to you from America!”

  He pulled his circuit board out of the console and thrust it into his backpack. Kelsie shut off the generator, and together they carried it out the front door of the old radio station. Members of the cell ran past them, some turning backward to fire at the advancing enemy. They spotted dozens of parents with children rushing toward the school building up ahead.

  “Kelsie, run!” Walker shouted.

  “Ben, we have to leave the generator. We can’t run with it.”

  But before Walker dropped his end, Goliath rumbled up next to them.

  “Kelsie, our ride’s here. Quick!”

  They lifted the thirty-pound generator, placed it in a compartment on top of the vehicle, and climbed aboard. Lee must have been watching them, for the ingeniously-designed contraption bolted forward just as they were settled.

  “Hold on!”

  Goliath’s speed increased to fifty miles-per-hour as it shot ahead of the running resistance members. It was now a race to reach Cedar Cemetery, where the entire group could scatter like flies. It was possible a few fighters might be caught—but most would make it to Home unseen and alive.

  Walker’s walkie-talkie crackled. It was Kopple.

  “Nice job, Walker. For a city boy.” Even through the static Ben could hear the resilient sergeant huffing as he ran.

  “You heard it?”

  “I had my transistor radio in my shirt pocket. Heard every word. ‘Voice of Freedom,’ huh? I like it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now pardon me while I run my ass off and you enjoy your taxi ride. See you at Home.”

  By the time the Koreans had swarmed into the battered radio station and spread westward into the town, the combined Utah and Colorado cells were already dispersed in dozens of different directions through Montrose’s southeast suburbs.

  They had lived another day.

  WALKER’S JOURNAL

  APRIL 10, 2026

  We made it back Home in one piece. Well, not all of us. We lost eight. Six from Boone’s cell and two from Nguyen’s. It pains me to say we had to l
eave them, lying in the streets of suburbia, bleeding to death or blown to pieces. Even worse than that was the number of civilian casualties. I don’t know how many there were, but a lot of adults and children were killed in the melee. Tragically bad timing for that school to let out just when the battle started. It will haunt me to my dying day.

  But on a happier note, I made my best broadcast today, the first of its kind!

  No more music or half-assed news reports. That was all well and good, and it probably did a lot for morale, but it was time to get serious. I sure hope to God that someone heard me. And I hope they spread the word. At any rate, DJ Ben is dead. I dubbed myself the Voice of Freedom. It has a nice ring to it.

  Despite the horror of what happened today, I think we turned a corner. Sure, we’re all on the run and the Koreans have Montrose. But Kelsie and I accomplished something I hope will end up being important. I never thought I’d be a “real” journalist again. I don’t recognize myself when I look in the cloudy, dirty mirrors we have at Home. I’m a very different person than I was eighteen months ago, back when I was a disillusioned, cynical celebrity/pop news reporter in Hollywood. Back then, I didn’t give a shit who I hurt or walked on to get a stupid story.

  Life and death meant nothing to me then. But now? I feel more alive than I ever have …

  APRIL 12, 2026

  We know the Norks are in town doing exactly what was foretold. They’ve set up checkpoints in more areas and there’s a massive presence on the streets. I guess when the guy Kelsie killed didn’t show up after his rounds, the shit hit the fan. Maybe they’ll find his body in the rubble of the radio station. Who knows …

  MAY 1, 2026

  They’ve started building the wall. It’s going to enclose the city and turn Montrose into one big concentration camp. Over the last couple of weeks, the Koreans have been busy constructing all kinds of crap. They turned City Hall into an “employment center” for shale oil mining operations. If you ask me, it’s slave labor. I have no idea if they’re actually paying people to work for them, but I’m not eager to find out.

  The cell made a couple of raids on the bastards since April 10th. Connor took a team and knocked out one of the construction sites where part of the wall was being built. Just blew it all to smithereens. Wish I could’ve seen it. I went on the other mission, which was last week. Connor and Wally led a group of us to one of the checkpoints not far from Home. Boone didn’t like its close proximity, so we took it out. Wasn’t a big operation—just had to engage fifteen soldiers in battle and blow up their makeshift building. None of our guys got hurt. Took the bastards by surprise, so it was all over in five minutes. I know I shot at least one guy, but it’s hard to know for sure. I never knew how confusing and chaotic battle really is. You’ve seen war movies and all that, but you never get a sense of just how much of a mind-fuck it is. You go in thinking your team and your plans are organized, but when the shit hits the fan, all that goes out the window. When bullets are flying every which way, explosions are going off all around you, people are shouting orders, the enemy is yelling, and you’re running through smoke and flames and debris—it’s just crazy. It’s entirely possible to “run around like an idiot.”