Liberty's Hammer

by Reed Hill

  “General Dinger and my deputy, General Phelps, have been working on intelligence gathering and information since earlier this morning,” Gen. Stein’s voice was a southern baritone that suggested refinement, probably Tennessee money. “My assessment – and I believe that General Dinger would agree – is that that the Border has been breached in what has all the signs of a planned operation.”

  “I would have to concur with General Stein,” Ted White said breathlessly, having arrived only a few minutes before. White was a tall, stout figure under the brim of an cream Stetson. Roughly fifty, he looked like he could bench press a Mack truck. He scratched the sizable scar on his neck, stood up, and folded his arms across his thick chest, “The Majors from both Company D in McAllen and Company E in El Paso report that their respective cities have been, for all practical purposes, overrun.”

  “What do you mean ‘overrun’?” Doyle said.

  General Dinger jumped in at that point, “Our local intelligence indicates that individual groups of forces, perhaps five hundred each, crossed the border at El Paso and at McAllen almost simultaneously at 0215. The video feed from the main Border station in El Paso at Avenida De Las Amerícanas was lost at that time, but the last few images suggest that the main guard station and tower were attacked with some kind of ordinance. Same story at McAllen. We’ve got no intelligence right now on the nature or origins of the explosions, but it was apparently enough to take out the border guards there completely. It’s difficult to ascertain a precise number of insurgents with the lack of video intelligence, but citizen reports and police department reports indicate a large number of armed illegals crossing in vehicles ranging from trucks and SUVs to old box trucks. They could number in the thousands.”

  “Ft. Bliss and Biggs Field have been assaulted by armed columns attacking from multiple headings, apparently driving civilian trucks and SUVs, Deuce-and-a-halfs, and probably thirty Humvees as well as a bunch of Armored Personnel Carriers, and medium and light attack vehicles. A few soldiers managed to snap pictures. Cell phone images captured showed an odd mix of APCs, including some old Russian BTRs, German Fuchs Tz-1 and GTKs and even French VAB – there were even some our own M113a, mostly retired models. Our security personnel seemed to hesitate, thinking they were friendlies, and that cost us dearly. Three of the four brigades housed at Ft. Bliss are forward deployed in Iraq right now on Operation Lasting Liberty, and our skeleton MP regiment was overcome at the perimeter in multiple locations.” General Stein said.

  “How the hell could that happen?” asked the Governor. “I thought there were thirty thousand troops at Bliss. I toured the facility in 2011 or 2012, for crissakes.”

  “Well sir, as you know there were considerable cuts to the military starting in 2013,” Doyle said. President Obama had strong-armed the idea of the “Sequester” through Congress, which resulted in real cuts in the budget, and the military caught the brunt of it. “The public didn’t seem to notice, so they made more cuts in 2014 and again in 2015.”

  “Yes, there are only about eighteen thousand troops at Bliss now, sir, and as I said, three quarters of them are forward deployed in Iraq at the moment.” General Stein admitted. “Troop structure and reorganization saw a fair amount of their force capabilities transferred to Fort Carson, sir, in 2014 and 2015.”

  “Details are still emerging, but the bottom line is this: the columns caught us by surprise and took the airfield first, followed by the armory and then Post HQ. Our troops there were…are….eighty percent reservists, with some of them rotating out yesterday morning, due to be relieved by incoming replacements today.”

  “How many is some?” Governor Chase pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and middle finger. “What are we really looking at here?”

  “At transition, it would be maybe….sixty percent of total capability, sir.” Dinger said.

  “Eighty percent of which are reservists.” Lopez pursed his lips and bobbed back in the chair.

  “Most of which would be there for training, yes sir,” Dinger continued.

  “Good God,” Chase muttered.

  *****

  Fox Run Rod and Gun Club

  Outside of Hunt, Texas - July 5th, 2017 – 4:42 a.m.

  Brodie wasn’t the first to arrive at the gun club. A Harley sportster, two SUVs and two trucks were already parked out front of the cedar-planked building with a red tin roof, now faded from years in the sun. He brought his forest-green Silverado 4x4 to a stop on the crushed gravel in front of the porch of the main building and grinned at the small sign nailed a bit askew above the front door. Fox Run Rod and Gun Club was painted in faded black letters on the chipped whitewashed board with ‘PRIVATE’ and ‘est. 1947’ noted below in maroon script.

  His grandfather Earl Brodie had founded the Club, when he and a handful of buddies had come home from the war and wanted to drink, shoot and fish. Drink mostly. Brodie chuckled. Grampa Earl used to bring him out here on Sunday afternoons as a kid, and it hadn’t changed much in the past thirty years. It was a little over five hundred acres situated in the lulling hills of cedar trees off Highway 39, almost at the intersection of Highway 83, only about ten miles from the ranch. Somehow, those guys managed scratch together enough money to buy the land, build the main club house, a rifle range and skeet range.

  Over the years, they had added two barns as well as a couple more skeet ranges, and a trap range and they had expanded the rifle range to twelve lanes and added a twelve-lane pistol range. They didn’t keep horses anymore, and the barns were mostly flop houses for when guys didn’t want to drive home or were on the outs with their ladies. The “big barn” existed primarily for storage, and had all manner of junk in it from ammo and ammo cans to an old Korean War era jeep that was joked about as having been mailed back to the states one part at a time. The “little barn” had been expanded from its small cedar frame and fixed up pretty nice over the years – even going so far as to put in a couple of wall unit air conditioners.

  He, Kirk Thompson and Mark Simmons were the only ones in the club now who were related to those amazing old coots, Brodie recalled, climbing out of his truck and heading up the steps of the clubhouse. As the old wooden door creaked closed behind him, Kirk, Mark and Joe Calderon wheeled around in their bar stools, and each gave Brodie a nod and quick greeting before swiveling back to the TV.

  Another guy at the bar, someone he didn’t recognize, studied Brodie as he walked in. Who’s this Dwight Yoakum wannabe? He was wearing jeans and a red-plaid shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, sporting a fancy woven straw hat so curved it nearly bent down and touched the bridge of his nose. Brodie thought he looked like a guy trying to look like a country singer or something. He eyed Brodie as he strode to the bar and took a seat next to Simmons clapping him on the shoulder.

  The guys were transfixed by the news reports that continued to pour from the high-mounted television above the bar. Brodie got a distinct whiff of pall in the air – it was unnerving in this place reserved for shootin’, hootin’ and hollerin’ as they would say. It was normally a sanctuary for the guys from the stresses of an increasingly upside-down world. Not tonight.

  Ben Murkowski was behind the bar pulling a draw and nodded to Brodie as he sat down, “Let me get you a cold one, Brodie. I know you’re not a big drinker, but you’ll probably want one.” Brodie had known Ben from the club for more than ten years. He was a regular at the club, and an avid shooter despite having pretty poor eyesight and not a lot of cash for the best hardware. Ben was mid-thirties, average-height and had a bit of a pot belly to go along with his bald head and coke-bottle glasses.

  “No kidding,” Joe Calderon said, sardonically as he brought his mug of beer up to his lips. Brodie had known Joe for close to fifteen years through the club. Joe was rather short and burly, with long, straight black hair. In his mid-forties, he was part Mexican, courtesy of his father, but identified much more strongly with the Comanche Indian from his mother’s side, as evidenced by the beaded lea
ther circlet on his forehead, which held a couple of long eagle feathers dangling in the back. In spite of growing up in San Antonio, he preferred the slower pace in the hills, and settled with his wife in Kerrville, where he began working at a cycle shop about ten or twelve years ago. Joe was wearing his motorcycle leathers, and he cleaned up his mustache after taking a deep draw of his beer.

  Ben slid a draw to Brodie and started to re-fill Kirk Thompson’s mug. That cold brew sure looked good. He pushed it aside to Thompson who put his arm around Brodie and gave him a good shake, “I’ll just have an iced tea, Ben.”

  Thompson was Brodie’s best friend, and they had known each other since junior high. He was lean guy from Ingram, an inch or so taller than Brodie, with narrow shoulders and long, tanned arms. His Cheshire-cat smile and good looks had always been irresistible to the ladies – which helped explain his two failed marriages and countless romances. Kirk had had a hard time holding a good job most of his life and was someone Brodie had bailed out of too many jams to count. He was also someone Brodie trusted more than anyone he had met, from before and even after West Point.

  Mark Simmons was the third of the Three Amigos who, along with Kirk, had helped Brodie manage the craziness of high school, and he greeted Brodie with a warm “Howdy” and wink as he found a bar stool. The stocky Simmons sat a bit shorter than Brodie at about six-foot. Simmons was as solid and cerebral as Kirk was impulsive and charming. He enjoyed his computer and equations as much as Kirk liked the ladies. He did a hitch in the Marines out of high school, and went on to become a civil engineer after going to A&M. Now he worked for the county managing water systems. His wife was good friends with Sara, and their kids were in the same homeschool group. Brodie would always regard blond, blue-eyed Simmons as a brother.

  “What on earth is going on? You guys get this figured out yet?” Brodie asked.

  “Nope,” said the stranger in the straw hat. “We don’t know jack, other than McAllen is on fire, and nobody is telling us exactly why.”

  “Who are you again?” said Brodie.

  “Finnegan’s buddy, Frank Martin,” he thumbed toward the goateed redhead coming from the john. “We were out grabbing a drink, when one of y’all called.”

  As if on cue, John Finnegan strolled out of the men’s room just past the bar, letting the yellow and black tin sign that read Danger Zone – Bathroom Area – Gas Mask Optional clank against the door. The flushing of the toilet was a virtual round of applause for the tall, broad-chested redneck who emerged slapping his hands together and rubbing them. Finnegan easily stood six-foot four, and was in his mid-thirties, but he looked like he could still strap on an eighty- pound ruck and hump the mountains of Afghanistan. He had first met Finnegan over ten years ago, at the Dallas airport USO of all places. He was as fiery a guy as his shock of red hair, and Brodie just had to chuckle just seeing him bounce to the bar in his straw ridge top. Finnegan punched out of the Army six years ago and went to work for the Kerrville Fire Department as an EMT and Fire Fighter. “Don’t anybody go in there for a while – it’s nuclear,” Finnegan raised his eyebrows for effect as he ambled back to the bar.

  “Nice to see you making a contribution, Finnegan,” Brodie grinned wide at the tall Texan.

  “You know me, Nick – always willing to do my part.” Finnegan flapped his hands dry a couple of times and then wiped them on the back of his Wranglers, and strutted over to his tall bar stool clicking the underslung heels of his maroon and brown Luccheses on the old hardwood floors. “Martin was 10th Mountain with me in Afghanistan. Came down for a visit, and look at the crap he brought with him. Dumb bastard is from Oklahoma.”

  “Hey now,” Martin objected. “Don’t be putting down my great state, y’all.”

  “That would explain the hat,” Brodie chortled, a tenor of humor to an otherwise somber tone in the air. Strange that he didn’t recognize Martin, him being 10th Mountain.

  “Oh we love you Okies,” Kirk elbowed Martin grinning that wide smile. “Every time one of us Texans moves up there, it raises the IQ of both states.” That barb set off the crew with a raucous round of laughs and a grinning curse from Martin, but the intro for a live update on the TV caught their attention and quieted everyone down.

  “I’m not sure what’s happening,” Kirk Thompson was looking at his wireless. “But, Facebook is going nuts about the violence down here. #Texasriots is trending in on Twitter too.”

  “Yeah.” Mark Simmons looked at his handheld. “Comments are rolling faster than I can read them on my Facebook page. Marine buddies asking me if there’s shooting where I am. What the hell?”

  Brodie felt a little out of the loop. He wasn’t much into social media. Sara kept an eye on things at their house. Brodie sometimes felt like he was a century out of his time, and this was a prime example. These new wireless devices just weren’t phones anymore – they are mini-computers. You could call, text and email on them, all while watching your favorite TV show and searching the internet. He glanced at the old clip pager and his flip-phone and just chuckled. He was a dinosaur.

  The TV cut to a shot of a blonde reporter standing in front of a cordon of wooden street barriers flanked by police cars with their roof cherries lit. “The city of McAllen is on fire this morning along Nolana Avenue between Bicentennial and McColl streets as civil unrest has gripped the city….” The camera zoomed to a shot over her shoulder showing the faint glow of fire and rising smoke off in the distance. “As you can see behind me, the city is engulfed in riot and violence, so McAllen police officials have asked to broadcast from a safer location in this South Park, just across the line into Edinburg. The cause of the unrest so far is unknown this morning. We don’t know, right now, if the reason is terrorism or just upset citizens.”

  “I’m gonna take a chance and say it ain’t ‘upset people’ there sweetheart,” Finnegan said, raising his mug at the TV.

  The news anchor continued, “These images were taken earlier this morning, about an hour ago, before our Action-5 chopper was asked to leave the area.”

  The images from overhead showed scores of men, all Hispanic, armed mostly with AK-47s and Mini-14s running through the streets. There were also a variety of trucks hauling armed men, as well as SUVs. Brodie exhaled deeply, suddenly aware that he had been holding his breath. Dusty box cargo trucks of one sort or another dumped armed thugs into the streets by the dozen. Most of them wore backpacks or old army surplus LC-2 harnesses with some pouches attached. A few of them who did more pointing and shouting looked to be wearing molle chest rigs or otherwise decent LBE (load bearing equipment), and some of them even had thigh holsters and long gun sleeves on their backs. No way these guys were upset civilians – no way in hell.

  The crew sat staring silently for several minutes as the images rolled on the screen. It was utter mayhem in the streets with a lot of gunfire and Molotov cocktails. There were multiple cars overturned and burning, including several police cruisers. An occasional small explosion could be seen in different places with the concordant muted rumble coming through on the audio. McAllen was indeed a city in flames.

  The footage shifted to a large low building and parking lot which held a handful of police cruisers. “The scene about an hour ago at the McAllen police station was grim…,” the reporter commented. Several SUVs and 4x4 trucks could be seen in a firefight with officers, mostly uniformed, firing their service pistols, and a few wearing dark tactical vests and helmets, firing rifles. A large vehicle that looked like six-wheeled APC with a long-barreled rifle mounted in a shooter’s nest on top was rolling across an open park, with muzzle flash coming from a top-mounted large caliber gun.

  “What the hell?” said Calderon. “Damn, is that Russian? It doesn’t look like one of ours.”

  “It’s a Fuchs,” Brodie said. “We saw a few of them at Bagram.” Brodie’s eye twitched as he flashed to a fuzzy memory in Afghanistan for a moment.

  The Fuchs rolled by with a loud churning gurgle, as Coalition Forces came int
o the camp. What looked like German and Belgian troops jumped out of the armored vehicle and ran to set up a perimeter. Sergeant Combs peered closer at him, shaking him by the shoulders, “You okay Captain Brodie? Can you hear me?”

  Brodie shook his head and took a long draw from his tea. “It’s a German-made APC.”

  “Yep,” Finnegan replied peering at Brodie with a slight frown. “That’s what I said. Looks like a German Fuchs to me.” He sat up and drank from his mug, “You might need to go back to bed, Cap. You seem out of it.”

  “Screw off. I’m fine.” Who the hell was John Finnegan thinking he was to order me some rack time. Last time I checked, I had been his commanding officer not the other way around.

  “What the hell is a Fuchs doing in downtown McAllen shooting up a police HQ?” Kirk Thompson uttered as he stared at the TV as he raised his frosty brew to his lips.

  That certainly was the question.

  “Now you may be able to hear the sounds of helicopters in the background there. We’re told that Air National Guard units may be in the area, probably surveying the situation. We will keep you up to date, but for now, reporting from the outskirts of McAllen – a city in turmoil – this is Poppy Santiago, Action-5 News.”

  Brodie shook his head. Thank you, Poppy for that amazing insight. You couldn’t fill a thimble with what these news readers knew about the military. It wouldn’t be Air National Guard deploying helos.

  It was then that Dennis Evans came through the door with his best friend Glen Tucker in tow. Both guys were a bit of a bridge between the older crew in the club and the next generation, which had more or less taken over the reins. Dennis had been friends with Brodie’s father and had been around ever since Brodie could remember. He was mid-fifties and little overweight for his six-foot frame, wearing jeans and a ragged blue plaid shirt; he looked pretty tired, his graying hair unkempt. “Hey guys,” he greeted the group. “What did I miss?”