Threat warning

by John Gilstrap

  Despite the risk of losing the Nasbes in the next hour or two, Jonathan decided to wait till nightfall to approach the mansion. The ability to function at night was such a huge force multiplier that it was worth the risk. Easy to say, he supposed, until he found out that the bad guys had harmed the family while they were waiting things out.

  Jonathan worked his way into a thicket of evergreens in the southeast corner of the front yard, where he could see a good bit of the driveway and the front door of the residence. He imagined that Boxers had a similar view on the opposite side of the driveway.

  Moving slowly and quietly, Jonathan settled into his hidey-hole and oh-so-carefully slipped out of his ruck. Reaching into a side pocket, he found his digital monocular, and brought it to his eye. With the digital boosting, he could dial in to sixty-power, but at that magnification, even his heartbeat made the image dance. He settled for twelve-power.

  Two sentries stood guard on the front porch, flanking the front door. Both wore sidearms-they looked like Glocks, but both of them stood with arms akimbo, their hands resting on the pistol grips, making positive ID impossible. If they had access to long guns, those weapons were out of sight.

  Jonathan pressed the mike button on his vest. “I’m in position and I count two bad guys at the front door.”

  Boxers’ voice popped in his earbud. “I’m in position and I confirm two at the front door. I don’t see any others.”

  “The black side is clear,” Gail said. In their parlance, front was white, back was black, left was green, and right was red.

  “Mother Hen, how do you copy?” Jonathan asked.

  “Clear as crystal,” Venice said. “The live feed shows the one sentry on patrol still, but he seems to be taking a break, and sticking close to the fence line. He’s not a problem for now.”

  “Copy that,” Jonathan said. “Mother Hen, I want you to prompt us for a sit rep every fifteen minutes while we’re spread this far apart. Otherwise, let’s keep the channel clear unless there’s something to report.”

  Surveying the mansion, Jonathan noticed nothing special. It was a big old place, built in the style of old plantation houses, complete with pillars in the front that would please Scarlett O’Hara if she saw them. The drawings they’d studied showed it to be about ten thousand square feet on the main two levels, plus basement space underneath.

  Pulling the monocular away from his eye, he pulled the floor plan from his pocket and studied it some more. If there was one thing he’d learned the hard way it was that any floor plan that was older than five years-this one was dated thirty years ago-was as reliable as an unwound watch. All the parts would be there, you just never knew how accurate the arrangement would be. He remembered one prison rescue back in the day when all of their intelligence data told them that there would be wide-open space after turning a corner, but when they got there, he encountered a reinforced concrete wall. They’d managed a work-around, but that one nearly cost them the mission.

  Still, the drawings provided a sense of scale. And important landmarks such as stairways and utility lines normally remained constant even after major renovations. As long as he could In the distance, a thick crack split the air. Clearly a gunshot, it sounded far away, but had the unique qualities of one particular weapon.

  “Scorpion, Big Guy,” Boxers’ voice said in his ear. “Did that sound like a Barrett to you?”

  Yes, it did. Just like that, this mission took on a new tenor.

  Michael Copley tucked the recoil pad of the massive Barrett. 50-caliber sniper rifle into the soft notch of his shoulder, rested his hand atop the stock, and his cheek atop the back of his hand. Through his ten-power scope, he wasn’t sure he would recognize the true nature of his target if he hadn’t designed it himself. He certainly would not have recognized the finer points of the design.

  The Model 9000 Symphonic Reflector-the gold standard in acoustic reflectors-sat firmly in its frame, fifteen hundred yards away, fixed in the braces that he’d designed specifically for outdoor use. It wouldn’t do, after all, to ruin the very performances these were designed to augment by blowing over in a wind. Sturdy yet lightweight; high quality yet inexpensive. That’s what made Appalachian Acoustics so popular.

  Certainly, that’s what had sold these units to the federal government. When the United States Navy Band played a concert, every note was worthy of being heard, as was every word spoken by dignitaries and heads of state. Indoors or outdoors, the Model 9000 worked better than any other on the market.

  Presently, the panel on the opposite hilltop was positioned as if the concert were being delivered away from Copley, and his scope was thus showing him the back side of the panels. His sight picture, then, was the Appalachian Acoustics logo, printed over and over in a pattern that appeared random, but in fact was anything but.

  At this range, every environmental factor mattered, from the slightest breeze to the moisture content of the air. As far as the latter was concerned, thank God for the cold winter. At this temperature, the atmosphere was bone dry.

  He’d entered the air temperature, windage, and ammunition data into his handheld ballistics computer, and the results were as astounding as they always were. While the target was stationary, he nonetheless had to compensate for the ten-mile-per-hour breeze and the impossibly long distance. His computer told him to correct for 260 inches of drop and a lot of drift. In a sport where half-seconds of angle resulted in huge misses, this business of sighting in his scope became ridiculously important. When the time came to take his real shot, there’d be no room for trial and error.

  “The spotter is safe,” said Brother Franklin from his right. “Fire when ready.” A member of the Board of Elders, Brother Franklin was one of the original founders of the Army of God, and the second-best sniper in the group, next to Michael himself. Both had trained for years.

  Trained for this one shot.

  Copley ran the numbers in his head, and found the appropriate mark on the logo. He placed that spot in the very lower rightmost arc of his sight picture. He took a deep breath, let half of it go, and then caressed the trigger.

  The firing pin engaged, and the weapon erupted, launching its massive, 660-grain bullet at 2,800 feet per second. As the shell casing flew from the receiver, the muzzle brake and floating barrel took most of the recoil, or the kick might have broken bones. It would take over a second and a half for the half-inch-diameter bullet to traverse its nearly 1,500-yard trajectory. He’d just brought his scope back to the sight picture when he saw the panel move.

  He’d hit his spot precisely; but it wouldn’t be time to smile until he knew he’d hit the true target, which was beyond the panel, and out of his sight. A few seconds later, one of the children from the compound rose from behind the rock that shielded him and waved a white flag over his head.

  “Dead center,” Brother Franklin said. “White means perfect shot.” He lay next to Michael on his stomach on the ground, peering through the eyepiece of a digital spotting scope. “Great job, Brother Michael.” Truly, it was a shot that the best snipers in the world would have trouble making.

  “One more,” Brother Michael said. He again settled the reticle into the most unlikely part of the scope and launched another bullet.

  The boy with the flag dove for cover after the bullet hit, and then sheepishly raised the white flag again.

  “Perfect,” Brother Franklin said. He couldn’t help but laugh, and then he patted Michael on the shoulder. “It was a mean thing to do to the boy, but it was perfect. Two in a row is a trend,” he said.

  Copley lifted his cheek from the weapon, and then pushed himself up to a kneeling position. “This is one amazing weapon,” he said.

  “But hardly practical,” Franklin countered. “What does it weigh? Twenty-five pounds?”

  “Twenty-eight and a half, empty,” Copley said. “Not my first choice for close quarters.”

  Copley left the weapon on the ground and stood, brushing dirt from the front of his clothes. Fr
anklin joined him. Together, they walked to the flat rock where they’d placed their backpacks and a thermos of coffee. Copley poured into Franklin’s cup first, and then into his own.

  “It has cream and sugar,” Copley said. “I hope that suits.”

  “In this weather, all that matters is that it’s hot,” Franklin replied.

  They sipped in silence for nearly a minute. Finally, Copley said, “I had dual purposes for bringing you here, Brother Franklin.”

  “I figured as much,” the other man said. “You rarely have only one thing on your mind.”

  Copley smiled at what he perceived to be a compliment. “Even more so now that the war has begun,” he said. “I want you to speak freely.”

  Franklin half nodded, half shrugged.

  “What do you think of the video we put out on the Internet?”

  “You mean of the User family? Wasn’t that the plan from the beginning?”

  “A question is not an answer to a question,” Copley admonished.

  Franklin’s whole body shrugged. “I think it’s what we needed to do. What’s the sense of having assets if you’re not willing to exploit them?”

  “Did you feel that the recording and airing of the video were the evidence of hubris on my part?”

  Franklin looked uncomfortable.

  “Again, I ask you to speak freely.”

  He took his time. “I don’t know how to answer you,” Franklin said. “Hubris means pride, and I suppose that pride is a sin, yet, you have every reason to be proud of what we are accomplishing.”

  “Was it the right thing to do, in your opinion?”

  “It was an important thing to do. The necessary thing to do. The entire point was to portray ourselves as a Muslim offshoot. That’s a main strategy.”

  Copley found himself smiling at the words he’d wanted to hear.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, why do you ask the question?”

  “Brother Kendig,” Copley said. In its own way, that was a complete answer.

  Franklin took a sip of his coffee and gave a conciliatory nod. “Well, yes. Brother Kendig has always been… careful. Is he the one who accused you of hubris?”

  “On more than one occasion.” Copley paused to consider his next question. “What do you think of the good Sheriff Neen?”

  There was that uneasy look again. “I think that he’s been a friend of mine for many years.”

  Copley sat on the flat rock, ignoring the aching cold that seeped through his trousers and into his spine. “Do you think he is an asset to our mission, or a hindrance?”

  Franklin joined his commander on the rock. “You ask me to speak frankly, and then you ask a question about loyalty. In time of war, the underlying accusation carries a death sentence.”

  “For good cause,” Copley said.

  Franklin took his time assembling his words. “I’ve known you for many years, Brother Michael. For as many years as we have both known Brother Kendig. If you’re harboring paranoid thoughts that he is somehow against what we are doing, then I respectfully-”

  “Not against us,” Michael said, raising his hand to interrupt. “Just not entirely with us.”

  “Two ways of saying the same thing, sir. The entire community has trained long and hard for this war. For those who are under twenty, they have trained their entire lives. Much of that training came from Brother Kendig. Without him, we would not be empowered as we are now.”

  “But people change, do they not?”

  Franklin considered that. “Of course they do. We all change. Our hair turns gray with time, and we get winded sooner during physical training. But I don’t believe that we change fundamentally. I believe that who we are remains who we are. That means Kendig is a talented soldier and loyal to the cause.”

  “Yet he disrespects me,” Copley mused aloud. None of this was what he’d expected to hear. Brother Franklin’s words, in fact, made him wonder if a conspiracy of sorts might be in play.

  “If you say, then it must be so. But if you’re seeking my counsel as an elder, then my advice to you is to think carefully about the space that separates disagreement from disloyalty.” He paused, obviously hesitant to state the rest. “One could argue that if a person holds an opinion deeply and firmly enough, disagreement could be judged the highest degree of loyalty. Sir.”

  In an academic setting such lofty statements would have more meaning for Copley than they did right now. For a team to function healthily, dissent was wrong. He was surprised that Franklin didn’t already know this.

  “What are your thoughts on the execution?” Copley asked.

  Franklin’s answer came without pause. “I think that you have no choice. They killed a soldier.”

  “The boy maintains that he was protecting his mother from rape,” Copley baited. “I cannot say that such a crime is beyond the reach of Brother Stephen.”

  “And had he lived, he would have been appropriately punished,” Franklin said. “As it is, that opportunity for justice was denied.”

  “Exactly,” Copley said. “And do you agree that the execution should be broadcast live on the Internet?”

  Franklin’s body seemed to stiffen with the question. “Is that important?”

  “Our goal is to rend the fabric of what the Users believe is comfort in their lives. Could there be anything more unsettling?”

  Franklin hesitated. “Nothing I can think of.”

  Copley didn’t like the noncommittal answer. “I said you can speak freely.”

  A deep breath, followed by a settling sigh. “I worry about cause and effect,” he said. “Actions have consequences. It’s one thing to watch the news and hear and see reports of the mayhem the Army is sowing. But if you present the public with the spectacle of an execution, I fear that instead of justice, they will see only cruelty.”

  “You fear,” Copley said. He was sick to death of that word. “Is cowardice in battle likewise not a crime?”

  Franklin stood. “You told me to speak freely.”

  Copley felt a wave of anger approaching, but he pushed it down. “Yes, I did,” he said. He stood as well and pointed with his chin to the rifle. “Are you up to more spotting?”

  “I am,” Franklin said. As they covered the distance to the weapon, he said, “Please, Brother Michael. If I offended-”

  Copley waved him off. “You’re fine,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”

  The two men moved almost in unison as they lowered themselves to their bellies on the ground in front of their respective toys. Copley positioned himself at the gunstock and wriggled a bit as he settled into a comfortable position on the ground.

  “Be aware on the left,” Franklin said. “It looks like one of Mrs. Shockley’s cows has wandered out of the pasture.”

  “Is it likely to wander into my field of fire?” Shooting was a head game, and he didn’t appreciate the interruption.

  “Probably not. Not unless you shoot wild. She ranges at twenty-one fifty yards and three hundred twenty feet from the target.”

  Copley reacquired the acoustic panel and ran the previous ballistic calculations through his head. “Is the cow moving or standing still?”

  “Looks like she’s grazing.”

  Without saying a word, Copley pivoted the Barrett to the left, adjusted in his head for the new range, and squeezed the trigger. Again. And again. The massive weapon bucked with each round, the pressure wave at the muzzle blasting dirt and leaves.

  Two point two seconds later-long before the sound of the gunshots could arrive on the opposite hill-the cow erupted in a pink cloud, one of its hind legs spinning away and landing ten or fifteen feet from the rest of the carcass.

  Copley smiled. He lifted his cheek from the butt stock and craned his neck to look over his shoulder at Franklin, whose face was a mask of disbelief.

  “You didn’t even aim,” Franklin said.

  “Of course I aimed. I just did it quickly.” He rose to his knees and hefted the Barrett from the ground. “
But a shot like that tells you that it’s time to stop for the day.”

  He walked back to the flat rock to begin the process of cleaning the weapon and returning it to its padded case, leaving Franklin to pick up the sandbags and other clutter from their shooting perch. Arriving at the rock, he gently placed the weapon butt-down on the flat surface. He removed the five-cartridge magazine and cleared the breach.

  “Franklin?” he said without looking.

  “Yes, sir?”

  He liked the “sir.” That’s what happened when you made people nervous. “Can I count on you to make things happen tonight?”

  “Of course,” he said. Then, after a beat: “What things are you talking about?”

  “I want the entire compound assembled for the executions, and I want it on a live Internet feed. Route it as we did before.”

  A long moment passed in silence. Copley turned to see Franklin just standing there. “Brother Franklin?”

  He seemed startled. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll see to it. What time?”

  “Eight-ish? After the trial.”

  Franklin clearly wanted to object, but he swallowed his words. “Both of them, sir?”

  “One at a time, of course. What do you think would make the best drama for television, a mother watching her son die first, or the other way around?”

  There was that look again.

  “I can count on you, can’t I, Brother Franklin?” The action of the Barrett made a loud clack as it slid closed.

  “Always, Brother Michael.”

  “Then who do you think we should send to God first, the woman or the boy?”

  Franklin searched a long time for the right words. “I’m sure that any decision you make will be the right one, Brother Michael.”

  That unsettled, appalled look would soon be shared by the entire world, Copley thought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY – FOUR

  Nothing happened at the mansion for an hour and a half. Literally nothing. The sentries didn’t change, and no one left or arrived. From this distance, with the equipment they had available, there was no way to monitor what might be going on inside, but Jonathan’s instincts told him that they were in a lull.