2024

by H. Berkeley Rourke

  It was getting dark fast. I expected the guy to turn around and head back but something kept him coming. As he passed by me I opened the portal of the spider hole quietly and stepped up behind him. He must have felt my presence at the last second. He started to turn as I plunged my K-Bar into his kidney. I twisted it and he gurgled and sank to his knees. I finished him, took his equipment and his radio and threw him over the cliff. He fell a long way.

  I heard the helicopter coming, heard someone on the radio calling for someone called M-5 who didn't answer. I guessed it might be the guy I just threw over the cliff. I slipped back into the spider hole and headed back through the tunnels to the house. The helicopter came over the area several times and then settled on the cliff side. I heard over the radio which I had turned down low and was using an ear bud that was attached to it, “M-5 appears to have fallen off a cliff the dumb shit.”

  “Call off the search then, the helicopter can return to base. This is M-1, out.” The guy who identified himself as M-1 then came back on the radio. I recognized his voice at that point. He called for M-22. There was an answer and then M-1 said, “M-5 is gone. How many do we have on the blocks this evening?”

  M-22 or someone who identified themselves as M-22 said “Twelve, six at each location.”

  M-1 answered “10-4, out.”

  When I got back to the house, I asked dad where he thought the second “block” might be and he guessed it would be on the other side of town on Hwy. 93. We discussed how we could attack that place and he said it was a long trek at the best and even longer back. It would require some wheels. So then I asked “Where do you think the headquarters will be?”

  “I have no doubt that it will be at the police station in town or maybe the State Patrol office if they were able to take those boys out.”

  “Well it's probably too soon to think about taking that place out. I am guessing completely about their numbers but I think they have about thirty or more in their group. One of them called M-22 on the radio gives me that number for now. Do you think they are smart enough to organize a rapid response team?”

  “Son, I would think anyone would be that smart after what we did to them last night. We took out eight of their finest and one more this evening so far. But even if they have a rapid response team we can do something different tonight if that strikes your fancy.”

  “What would that be, dad?”

  “Here's what I have in mind, son.” He outlined a basic plan, and I have to admit the old man is diabolical when he puts his mind to something. We got geared up, left the ladies with our love and headed out pretty much in the same fashion as the night before, and we were headed to the same roadblock as the night before as well.

  When we got to the area of the roadblock we began to slither and crawl. We thought they might post a couple of sentries in the forest. Actually they posted four. The six guys at the block were two on the road and four in the woods. I took care of two of those in the woods and the old man took care of two as well. He was forced to use the silenced pistol on the second one when the first made more noise than he should have.

  The two guys at the road block began to stir around when they heard that sound, a strange kind of noise. One of them said “What should we do?” Those were his last words. I shot him in the forehead as dad shot the other one. We cleaned up their weapons, radios and food again, stacked their bodies in their trucks this time and lit the trucks afire then headed home. Six more down!

  Obviously they couldn't continue to take losses at that rate and be viable as a group. We wondered if the deaths of so many, twelve already, might have chased any of them off. We would not know whether that was true for many months to come. We had, it turned out, only just begun.

  Among the weapons that we were able to garner from the militiamen this time were some RPG's made in Russia, or China or maybe in Czechoslovakia. There were two launchers and half a dozen rocket propelled grenades. Since we had booby trapped their weapons in the past we didn't want to fire any of the weapons we had confiscated until we broke them down, checked them out and looked for any destructive devices that might be planted in them. It was good that we took the time to do that.

  The warheads of two of the rocket propelled grenades were set to explode on ignition of the launcher. Who ever fired these babies was going to have his own personal fireworks show for a flashing moment of surprise. But we were able to reset them and eliminate the danger. All the rifles we had taken away from the militiamen were brand spanking new military K-Bar (extra strong barrel for extended usage at a high rate of fire) barrels.

  They were able to be fired at burst, single shot or full automatic rate. They could only have come from a military base or a police barracks. That told us that the State Police barracks in Frenchtown was gone and the men, the several State Police that resided there probably had been murdered. That also told us that the militiamen might have taken over a National Guard weapons cache in the next town up the road where many had served the nation as National Guardsmen. That could mean that we would begin to find men opposing us that were trained or it could mean that they were all dead or captive.

  We had to have some information. We decided that on our next sortie we had to take at least one prisoner. We had some fun with the kids that morning and then went to sleep. We woke up at mom's urging about 4:30 that afternoon. It would not be dark for several hours but she wanted us all to have a nice dinner together for a change.

  Mom is not a religious woman, but that night she had set a beautiful table with a nice piece of ham, one of the last of those she had frozen, and a full course meal of salad, frozen vegetables that tasted nearly as good as fresh, and a small cake just the right size for all of us. And as we sat down she asked for us all to be grateful to God for our gift of food and then said, “Dear God, our family wants to survive, wants to continue to help create this wonderful nation that we have been for so long now. But God, for us to do that our men must do things that they would not otherwise do. You know that as well as they do. Give them your strength Lord, the humility to live in peace and the ability to understand the needs of their work without self loathing. Thank you God for this family and all that we do in your name. Amen”

  The work that dad and I were doing was certainly not “God's” work. But it was necessary if we were all to survive. It was also necessary if some reasonable sense of who we were as a nation was to be restored. That night, just after dusk we began again. We decided that the roadblock had to be our focus for several sorties until they made it such a strong point that we could not overcome the odds. We ran as far as we dared and then began to crawl and sneak toward our evening's rendevous. Once again they had posted sentries in the darkness of the forest.

  The forest was our domain. We ruled the night and the forest. Six of them died that night in the forest. Then we went to the roadblock. This night they had an additional four on the trucks. They also had murdered some that were driving on the highway again. Among those dead in the cars next to the road were several young children. It was sickening to me to see what those bastards did to those children. In the name of what, I wondered. Anarchy was what they seemed to prefer. Death was what we would give them.

  Most military men who are trained at all will sit in the dark, move as little as possible when they know they are in danger, let the other guy make the mistakes in the night. These men, young, virile, strong, but untrained were no match for trained military men. We shot three of them in the forehead. The fourth hid. We snuck up close to him, made a noise, he looked up to see what it was and I knocked him out with a sap.

  We carried him far enough back into the forest so that we could interrogate him without interference if another group of his buddies came along. Dad stayed in the background to act as a guard for both of us and so he would not be seen and give away our numbers if we decided to let this kid go.

  I gagged him and showed him my knife. I made a small incision in his nostril. It bled a lot. He tried to yell but I sap
ped him again. He awoke, groggy, not knowing what his circumstances were for sure and looked around. He saw me and began to cringe. I showed him my knife again and put it close to his right eye. He shook his head violently side to side. I said to him, “If I take the gag out of your mouth you cannot yell. Do you hear me clearly?”

  He nodded. I took the gag out. He opened his mouth wide as if to yell. I sapped him again, not enough to take him completely out, just enough to stun him and make him understand. As he came around that time I put my knife in front of his face again. He understood. He didn't start to yell again. He sat quietly. I said to him, “How many are in your group?”

  He said, “I don't know for sure. I am called M-45 in the group. I think they give us numbers that go with the numbers of the group.”

  I asked him, “What is the highest number you know of in your group?”

  “One of the guys that was here tonight was number 56 I think. I have not heard any numbers higher than that.”

  “Do you know how many of your group have died in the last few days?”

  “No but I know there have been a lot of them. One of them was a low number, number 5, I think. He is the brother of our leader. Our leader is so mad about that he wants to light the entire forest afire in order to smoke you guys out.”

  “Where did you guys get the M-16 rifles that you had tonight?”

  “The barracks up the road where the National Guard was. They just opened the doors and let us have whatever we wanted. They didn't want to fight us.”

  “Do you have mortars?”

  “I don't know what a mortar is, sir.”

  “It's a long tube that mounts on a base plate. You drop a shell down it and the shell fires off, and explodes somewhere down the line.” I said.

  “No. Not that I know of. We have some machine guns on the helicopter now, but other than that I don't know of anything heavier than the rifles. Hell we don't need em,” he laughed. “Most people are so stupid they stop at our roadblocks, we shoot the men right away, have some fun with the women and kids and then shoot them too.”

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “Well you know, they are outsiders. And they have gas in their cars. And most of them are carrying a lot of money. We siphon off the gas and junk their cars unless they are pick-ups or vans and of course we keep any weapons they may have and their money.”

  “How many have you killed, son?”

  “Well, I just helped to do what we have out there right now. We only got two cars in this afternoon and evening.”

  We had looked earlier and there were four women in one of the cars. It was evident they were about college age girls. They were completely naked, had been badly cut up and tortured before they died. All had evidently been raped. I asked him about the girls. “Did you enjoy the girls, boy? Ever have any that tight before?”

  “Oh boy were they ever,” he said and then got a look of surprise on his face. “You tricked me.” After I talked a little further with the boy I took him back to his truck, the one we had taken him out of after killing the other three in the truck. “Is this your truck boy?”

  “Well it's the one the boss gave me, but I think I get to keep it from now on, yeah.” He was smiling and happy to be back with his buds and his truck.

  We had already stripped the weapons, the cash, the ammunition and the food and drinks they had. I tied his hands to the wheel of the truck with duct tape. He had a small Buck knife on the side of his belt. I opened it and put it in his right hand. I told him “After we leave you can work yourself loose and go back to town. We don't need you any longer.”

  We had set the truck up the same as the first two with a small amount of Semtex sitting right under the driver's seat. We took off. A few minutes later we heard the explosion and saw a fire ball go into the sky. We knew what it was from. If he'd had any sense at all he would have cut himself free and got out of the truck and ran back to town. He didn't have any sense, nor any time left. Another ten were gone from this group of murderers.

  As we walked back toward the house, moving slowly again, we began to see some vehicles coming from the direction of Missoula. We snuck out to the edge of the highway and watched as a number of army trucks rolled by. But they were being driven by people who were not dressed in military gear. Some of them had twin fifties mounted on top. Most appeared to be unarmed.

  They were widely separated like a normal military convoy would be. There would be a jeep at the end with the second in command of the group in the vehicle. We set up with the MP-5's on burst. When the Jeep came even with us we shot both the driver and the passengers. There were three of them in the jeep. After that as we walked back into the trees we could hear the radio again, “M-3, come in M-3. Where are you, M-3?” I wanted to key the radio I had and say “He's dead.” But I didn't!

  As we wended our way home the helicopter passed over us several times. We were totally covered, had donned firefighter's silver fire repellant blankets in addition to our clothing so we could present the smallest possible heat signature in addition to being as invisible as was possible. At one point the helicopter turned after it passed by us, flew faster toward us again as we stood behind trees and rocks and fired a machine gun into the forest. But it was firing a good two or three hundred yards beyond where we were located. It must have seen something flare on the infrared or downward looking “Fleer” device in the helicopter and took it as a target. We moved more quickly out of the area as the helicopter hovered and continued to fire in the area behind us.

  Then we heard a faint voice on the radio say “Cease firing, cease firing. This is M-7, cease firing. You have hit me already. I am badly wounded. You will need to get me help as soon as possible.” We kept on trucking and made it back to the house safely while listening to the radio chatter about M-7. But it shook both of us a little.

  We wondered if someone had brought night vision, had followed our trail, or if we were leaving a trail, or if something had keyed them to our area. We looked through the weapons we had confiscated and the ammunition. We found a tracker and smashed it well before arriving back at the house. Damn, I thought, these people are beginning to piss me off. They are getting a little smarter about this little war we are fighting.

  That night was not done by the time dad and I got home. It was starry and clear, a beautiful and cool fall Montana night. I sat outside with my oldest boy Gene for a little while and we talked about the stars a little. We used to sit on the roof at home and try to identify them. We were doing that and just enjoying being together. I had one of their radios on with an ear bud in so Gene could not hear what was coming over the radio.

  About three hours after we got home I heard on the radio “This is M-1. I don't know who you are but you have now killed over twenty of my men. We are at war, you and I, and I mean to kill you and everyone you love. Know that, and know that I will find you people and when I do I will enjoy torturing each one of you before you die.” Dad came out and sat down with Gene and I right after the broadcast. Gene was busy counting stars.

  Dad asked me “Did you hear that guy?”

  “Yeah, dad. I guess we cannot expect anything less can we. They have taken some casualties and lost equipment as well as money. He has to be furious with his men and even more so with us.”

  Gene saw his grampa, gave him a big hug and said “Grampa are all those people in town bad people? Gramma says she doesn't think all of them are bad. Are they?”

  “Gene, I doubt if all the people in the town are bad people. But some are, son, and they are doing bad things. So we are going to see if we can't stop them from doing bad things. What do you think about that?”

  “It sounds good to me Grampa.” And off he went. Of course as much as he loves his Grampa he would think any words that came out of Grampa's mouth would be just fine. I think probably Grampa feels pretty much the same about him.

  When Gene had gone back into the house dad and I sat out a little longer. He had a little monitor for the cameras he
had in the trees and for the sound devices he had planted some one thousand yards away from the house. All of a sudden, from one area of the sound detector field a lot of activity started. We watched the cameras for a moment before going back into the house. We saw several men walking back and forth in the trees and they were using night vision. We armed up and went into the tunnel system to see what was going to happen.

  Each of the men we could see from the cameras were carrying SAW weapons (Squad Automatic Weapon). Apparently they had somehow found a trail that led toward the house and they were following it. We watched as the lead guy stepped into a punji stake hole and was put out of action. Then another did the same thing. Neither of them were on the radio which apparently had different frequencies than those we had been monitoring. The third guy didn't know what the hell to do. He took off his night goggles. He was maybe fifteen feet from our spider hole when I shot him. He was frantically calling for help on the radio but no one was answering.

  Again we took their weapons, stripped and cleaned them, found one tracker and crushed it, found a tracker on each of the guys and crushed them before they went over the edge of the cliffs. They each had thousands of dollars on them. We took that and everything else of any use including the night vision units and the radios. Dad repaired the damage to his camouflaged covers for the punji stake holes while I was taking the bodies to the cliff.

  We equipped three spider holes with SAW weapons. Each of them had been carrying one extra canister with them. Dad took one of them apart the next day and began the process of making more through reverse engineering with some aluminum he had on hand as well as with his wire feed welder. Before the end of the morning we had three more canisters which we filled with belts of ammo we had taken off the others we had killed.