Gleason continued quickly. “But let’s talk about something more pleasant. How’s Keith, by the way? What is he, eighteen now?” Gleason paused. “Oh, to be eighteen again, even in these troubled times. I do hope we can avoid mandatory conscription, but then again, we all have to do our part. I’m sure a patriotic young man like Keith would make a valuable addition to the new Special Reaction Force. Of course, a young man with a father in the national leadership always has options, assuming you decide to stay, of course.”
Tremble sank back into his chair and glared at Gleason.
“Food for thought, Simon,” said Gleason as he reached over and patted Tremble’s knee, “just food for thought.”
Gleason flashed his perfect white teeth in another million-dollar smile and rose.
“I’ll give you some time to think. Help yourself to the coffee on the sideboard, and let the fellow at the door know if you’d like anything to snack on. We try to keep things civilized, even in the midst of disaster. I’ll be back in an hour or so for your decision.”
Warden’s Office
Federal Correctional Complex
Beaumont, Texas
Day 15, 1:00 p.m.
McComb leaned back in the warden’s chair, his feet on the desk.
“So how’d it work?”
Snaggle flashed his gap-toothed grin. “Slicker ‘n snot on a doorknob. I gotta hand it to ya Spike, bustin’ the guys outta Stiles was genius. We drove right up in the federal CO uniforms and prison vans in broad daylight and those dumb-ass state assholes let us in easy as you please. Weren’t many of ‘em left anyway, so it didn’t take long to take care of ‘em. We had a lot more brothers in the state lockup too.”
“How many we free?”
“Just over two hundred Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, and maybe that many more new recruits. Like you said, we only took recruits who seemed hardcore, and left the others locked up with the jigs and beaners.” Snaggle smirked. “I expect the rest of the whites will be a mite more enthusiastic after a day or so without any food or water. They wasn’t gettin’ much anyway, but the state assholes seemed to be doing a bit better about feeding ‘em than they was doing by us.”
McComb shook his head. “We’re tight on food and such anyway, and better off to have committed ABT soldiers we know we can trust, so we’ll look at recruits hard from here on. Any of the whites that don’t measure up we’ll use in the labor gang unless they look to be trouble, then we just leave ‘em to rot with the mud people. Everything set up now at Stiles?”
Snaggle nodded. “We left guys in the Texas state CO uniforms running the place, so it looks normal if anyone checks, or at least normal considerin’ what’s going on. The brothers we freed are setting up quarters in the admin buildings, and I left a few of our guys in charge to run things. Nobody at Stiles outranked you in the Brotherhood, but I brought the three or four top guys over here to our group so we can keep an eye on ‘em, just in case. We don’t want nobody gettin’ no wrong ideas on who’s in charge.”
“Good man. How’s the scavenging going?”
“Could be better, but we’re building up the stores a little at a time. It would go a lot faster if we could just blow through and take stuff, but we’re keepin’ it low key, like you want.”
“Any problems?”
“Not with the scavenging, the boys are getting pretty good at it. They just drive up in uniform and one of ‘em knocks at the door politely. When folks answer the door, they give ‘em the old ‘be on the lookout for escaped prisoners’ and then check out the situation while the other guys circle around the house. Then they either bust in and take everything or pull back and figure out the best way to take ‘em. They ain’t leavin’ no witnesses behind, and so far it’s all been smooth along those lines, but …” Snaggle hesitated.
“Out with it. What’s the problem?”
“Well, we’re still short of women. I mean, me and you and the rest of the top guys have our pick. And I ain’t caught up by a damn sight, but I’m feelin’ a lot better in that department. But the problem is, we ain’t got enough women to go around yet, especially good-lookin’ ones, and it’s causing some problems. I mean, some of the junior guys go out and grab some good-lookin’ bitch, and the next thing he knows, he brings her back here and he goes to the end of the line. Some of ‘em are starting to grumble, and to be honest, I don’t think it’s good for morale.”
“All right, I get it. We’ll have to cool it with the rank thing and make sure everybody gets a fair shot at the women.” McComb smiled. “In a few weeks when we control everything, women will be crawling up the road begging us to take ‘em, so I guess we can be patient. I mean, now that we’ve had a little taste to hold us awhile.”
“Good call, I think,” Snaggle said. “Just one more thing. One of the scavenging teams ran into a deputy sheriff patrol last night—”
“Goddammit, I told you to avoid—”
Snaggle held up his hands. “It’s cool, Spike, we got it handled. They took ‘em out before they got on the radio, and they brought the cruiser back here. We got it hid in the motor pool.”
McComb struggled to contain himself, but slowly calmed. “I suppose it was gonna happen sooner or later. What about the bodies?”
“Body,” Snaggle said, “we stripped the uniform and dumped him with the others in the medium-security administration building. They took the second deputy alive, and one of the guys recognized him. Seems like the asshole busted him some time back, and he wanted payback. They got him over in max security, having a little fun with him. I made ‘em strip him to his skivvies first. I figure we might be able to use the uniform.”
“All right,” McComb said, “just as long as nobody saw …” He trailed off.
“What’s up, Spike? What’re you thinking?”
But McComb was already on his feet, moving toward the door, and Snaggle fell in behind, hurrying to keep up as McComb raced out of the building. Five minutes later they rushed through the entrance to the max-security unit, where an ABT soldier in a CO uniform manned the security checkpoint.
“Where’s the cop?” McComb demanded.
The soldier smirked. “In the dining hall so everybody could watch.”
McComb raced for the dining hall, with Snaggle trailing, and burst in to find the deputy tied to a chair, blood covering his battered face as he slumped forward with his chin on his chest, and convicts lined up before him, each apparently waiting their turn to beat the man. Others cheered them on, and a few enterprising souls were taking bets on which blow would finish the cop off.
“All right, all right, knock it off!” McComb yelled as he walked into the room. His order was met with jeers and catcalls. But he leveled a stony gaze at the audience and the jeering stopped as abruptly as it began.
“I got better use for this asshole,” McComb said, “supposing you morons ain’t killed him.” He walked over and raised a bloody eyelid with his thumb and poked a finger in the cop’s eye, and the cop’s head jerked back at this latest and unexpected assault.
McComb nodded and turned to Snaggle. “All right, he’s alive, or alive enough, anyway. Get him in one of the private offices and send somebody over to the motor pool for a car battery and a pair of jumper cables, and make sure the battery has a good hot charge. Matter of fact, better have ‘em bring a couple of extra batteries as backups.”
***
Two hours later, McComb straightened, handed the jumper cable leads to Snaggle, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“That’s all he knows. Shoot him in the head and throw him with the others.”
“He’s still alive, maybe we should give him back to the boys,” Snaggle said. “You know, just for morale.”
“I don’t give a damn, do what you want. I doubt he lasts another ten minutes anyway, and he served my purpose.”
“You think he was tellin’ the truth about FEMA? And what about the National Guard? Don’t sound right they ain’t together. I mean,
I thought they would be actin’ more like after one of the hurricanes.”
McComb shrugged. “It kinda makes sense in a way. The FEMA assholes are all concentrating on that nuke plant over by Bay City, probably trying to get the power back. That’s fine by me, it’s over a hundred and fifty miles from here with Houston in between. And with almost all the National Guard units in East Texas detailed to help out in Houston and Dallas, that mostly leaves the local yokels and a few state troopers minding the store here.” He smiled. “Which is gonna make this a lot easier.”
Jack Brooks Regional Airport
US Highway 69
Nederland, Texas
Day 15, 5:00 p.m.
Snaggle looked around nervously, checking the setup for the tenth time. The Bureau of Prisons’ transport bus was a hundred yards down the entrance road to the airport, pitched forward into the shallow ditch, not quite at a right angle to the road. A dozen ABT soldiers still dressed as prisoners and carrying guns of various types stood around, talking and smoking, ready to play their parts.
Spike McComb stood next to him, both men uniformed as federal corrections officers, as were six of their fellow prisoners. To complete the ruse, two prisoners wore the uniforms of the most recently deceased Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies. All ten men stood behind the deputies’ captured cruiser and two of the Bureau of Prison’s sedans, the three vehicles drawn across the road to form a roadblock to prevent the escape of the prison bus—or so it seemed.
“I don’t know, Spike, this seems a bit risky,” Snaggle said. “I mean, what if too many of ‘em show up at once?”
“Relax, you heard what the guy said. There ain’t that many of ‘em left to patrol at any one time. Hell, I’m worried we won’t draw up enough of ‘em. I figure where we are, we’ll most likely get a few Port Arthur cops and county deputies. I hope it’ll be enough to go to the next part of the plan, ‘cause I don’t think we can pull this off twice. Even cops ain’t that friggin’ dumb.”
Snaggle nodded, and McComb turned, cupping his hands to yell over the fake roadblock. “Okay, boys, get ready and make it look good. Start shootin’ when you see the cop cars arrive, and make damn sure you’re shootin’ high because if any one of us gets hit, whoever fired the shot is a dead man.”
There were waves and sarcastic comments as the men followed orders and crawled under the bus, and McComb gathered the other men around for final instructions.
“Okay, minimum blood. I don’t want the uniforms messed up. We take ‘em down from behind with the stun guns and then cap ‘em with the little twenty-two to the head at close range. Everybody got that?”
There were nods of understanding.
“Okay, boys, showtime!” McComb said. He walked to the deputies’ car and reached in for the radio mike.
“OFFICER DOWN! SHOTS FIRED! OFFICER DOWN ON US 69 IN NEDERLAND AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE AIRPORT. REQUEST IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE FROM ALL UNITS IN THE VICINITY. REPEAT. OFFICER DOWN! SHOTS FIRED! OFFICER DOWN ON US 69 IN NEDERLAND AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE AIRPORT. REQUEST IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE FROM ALL UNITS IN THE VICINITY.”
He replaced the mike and listened, but didn’t respond to the flood of requests for more information. He knew those units that could respond would, because nothing had a greater priority than ‘officer down,’ and the less they knew, the more confused they’d be when they arrived. He listened for units responding along with their ETAs, and held up fingers for each separate response he heard so his men would know as well. In moments he’d registered five responding units, with arrivals spread over the next fifteen minutes, and he heard the first siren in the distance.
It went like clockwork as the cons under the bus kept up a steady fire and their fake police colleagues crouched behind the roadblock, rising sporadically to return fire. The officers in each responding unit interpreted the scene exactly as intended and parked their cruisers to rush to McComb’s side, peering over the roadblock at the prison bus as McComb’s men took a step back and jammed stun guns into their necks. The helpless would-be rescuers were then dragged out of sight on the opposite side of the roadblock and dispatched with a single small-caliber round to the head, as all the while the radio shrieked requests for status updates.
It was over in twenty minutes and McComb counted the dead and inventoried his spoils—four Port Arthur cops, three Jefferson County deputy sheriffs, and two Beaumont cops, along with five captured police cars. All the radios were active now as dispatchers sought more information, and McComb knew they had to move quickly.
“All right, Snag, just like we planned, get the guys out of the bus and into these dead cop’s uniforms now—no, wait—have six of ‘em dress out, but leave one dead cop from each service in uniform and throw ‘em in the cruisers. They’ll respond better if they think one of their own is down. We have to hit the Port Arthur Police Department and the sheriff’s department office in Port Arthur together, ‘cause they’re closest and only a block apart. We’ll split the guys into two teams; you take the sheriff’s office and I’ll take the police department. You know the story, the only change is you carry the dead deputy in with the first guys, so it looks like he’s hurt and you’re helping him in. No lights and sirens until we’re half a block away, then light ‘em up and raise holy hell. Be fast, don’t give ‘em a chance to figure things out, and take out the dispatcher first thing. Got it?”
Snaggle nodded and set about his tasks. Ten minutes later a convoy of police cars was streaming towards downtown Port Arthur, packed with fake cops and correction officers. The Bureau of Prisons’ sedans with the remainder of the cons followed a half mile back. When the convoy reached the corner of Procter Street and Beaumont Avenue, McComb lit up the lights and siren, signaling all units to do the same, and the convoy split to complete their separate missions.
McComb led his three-car force to a skidding halt in the police department parking lot, disgorging his men. McComb and one of his cons grabbed the dead policeman and hurried into the building in front of the group, blood trailing down the dead man’s shirt from the head wound. They burst into the lightly manned police station, with McComb screaming an alarm.
“THERE’S BEEN A MASS ESCAPE FROM THE FEDERAL PRISON! THERE MUST BE TWO HUNDRED OF THEM AND THEY’RE ARMED AND HEADED THIS WAY. GET EVERYBODY OUT HERE RIGHT NOW AND START LOCKING DOWN THE BUILDING! THEY’RE RIGHT BEHIND US!”
The cops would have figured it out, given half a chance, but McComb didn’t give them one. In the two minutes of confusion generated by his arrival, his men swarmed through the lightly manned police station, killing without warning or mercy. The dispatcher was the first to go, and by the five-minute mark, the cons were in total control. McComb dispatched an underling to bring the rest of the force in the prison sedans in to help with the cleanup, and another to check on Snaggle’s progress at the sheriff’s department.
Five minutes later, Snaggle showed up in person, grinning from ear to ear.
“Fish in a barrel, Spike,” Snaggle said, “we got ‘em all.”
“The dispatcher?”
“Got her myself first thing. Nothing went out.”
“All right, we still gotta move fast. We leave uniformed guys at each place to deal with any who straggle in from patrol or shift change or whatever. We got guys standing by at the prison to reinforce here, so when we go back by there, we send a dozen more down for each office. Right now, we gotta get up to Beaumont. We still got the sherriff’s office there, as well as the Beaumont PD and the highway patrol office out on Eastex Freeway.” McComb looked at his watch. “We should be done in two hours.”
“I don’t know, Spike, we done real good here. I think maybe we just ought to wait—”
McComb glared at his underling. “Thinking’s my department. Yours is doing what you’re told. That ‘officer down’ call likely went everywhere and they’re all tense and nervous now, probably not thinkin’ too good. We give ‘em time, they’re gonna figure things out, so we strike fast before that happens. Now I want everybo
dy ready to roll in ten minutes. Got it?”
Texas Department of Public Safety
Region II, District B
7200 Eastex Freeway
Beaumont, Texas
Day 15, 7:00 p.m.
The Texas Highway Patrol troopers had been the last to fall and the hardest to take down, even though they had the least manpower. They’d been the most suspicious, and McComb’s men ended up fighting a pitched battle with the holdouts, losing four men in the process. Fortunately, they had managed to take out the dispatcher quickly. That was especially important to McComb, as the highway patrol would be the most likely to transmit a distress call to authorities at the state level.
Nonetheless, he was pleased. They’d managed to take down all remaining law enforcement in the entire county in an afternoon, and if their luck held, no one would be the wiser for a while. For sure the state authorities, assuming there actually were any state authorities left, would have their plate full, and it looked like FEMA only cared about the nuclear plant over in Bay City. The National Guard was up to their asses in alligators in Houston and Dallas, so that pretty much left Jefferson County, Texas, as his new kingdom.
He nodded as Snaggle walked up. “Good work, Snag, and pass that on to the boys. We need to get these three locations in Beaumont fully manned. We can surprise any stragglers and take care of them as they drift in, but I had another idea too. We got all the personnel records, so I want to put someone on checking out where every cop of any kind lives. I reckon some of them haven’t come in to work for one reason or another, but we gotta take ‘em out, just to be on the safe side. Send guys in state trooper uniforms to each local cop’s house and check it out. That way, the local cops won’t necessarily pick up on it if they don’t recognize the state troopers. Then you send guys in local cops’ uniforms to the state troopers’ homes for the same reason. If they find the cop, take ‘em out and don’t leave no witnesses. Then search and bring back all their guns, spare uniforms, and what have you. In a few days, we can make sure every uniformed cop in these parts is one of our guys. Then we don’t have to lay low and can pretty much do what we please. We make the two prisons our strongholds and consolidate our loot and prisoners there, so we always have a place to fall back to and defend if things go sideways. Other than that, we take what we want and live like we want.”
Under a Tell-Tale Sky: Disruption - Book 1 Page 25
