“No harm in planning. Let’s figure it all out and have it in our back pockets so if something does go wrong, we can just pack up and get the hell out of Dodge,” Ted urged. “It makes me feel better just knowing we have options.”
“True.” Erik tugged on the two week beard growing on his chin. “Alright, let’s do it. Just between me and you. Don’t even mention it to Susan. I won’t talk to Brin.”
“Loose lips sink ships, gotcha.”
ARIZONA
Line in the Sand
ROB GUNN TOOK a sip from his canteen and replaced the valuable water back into his combat pack. The dust covered pack lay at his feet and looked more like a rock than a bag. He and his scouts had been out on the Ridge now, south of Nogales for three days straight, watching.
The Regulators had tried to make one last attempt at informing the Border Patrol about the situation with the armed Mexicans and the two fights that had broken out but the Feds were tied up with their own problems. It seemed the real issue was people leaving America, not coming in. In two weeks since the first terrorist attacks had taken down the energy infrastructure of America, the mass of illegal immigrants in the southwest began receding, like an out flowing tide of humanity.
In the past three days, Rob had personally seen more than a thousand Mexicans trudge back across the border. Sometimes they drove past in old jalopies stuffed to the gills with people, animals, and belongings. All of them were fleeing the growing anarchy in America. He shook his head in disbelief at the sight.
Anarchy it was, in the United States. More so in the western states, as the wildfires, finally officially acknowledged to have been set by terrorist cells were still raging, after two weeks. Los Angeles was still smoldering; millions had been killed.
Phoenix was reduced to mostly ashes and shells of buildings as the fires consumed everything in their paths. Hundreds of miles long and still growing as National Forests ignited. The sky in southern Arizona was perpetually cloudy from the soot and smoke of fires to the west and north. The Regulators had taken to wearing water soaked bandannas around their faces to help make breathing easier. Days were reduced to murky twilight conditions, even at high noon.
As the Mexicans streamed south into their homeland, Americans streamed north and east, away from the burning, rioting cities. Even those cities that had no formal ties to the Brotherhood and their riot instigators fell prey to the newest ‘fad’. Many of America’s cities were glowing after dark, not from streetlights, but from bonfires and burning buildings. Those who were too poor to leave town joined in the fun of burning down their own neighborhoods. It was the Rodney King Riots, the New Orleans looters and the Paris riots all over again, on a massive scale. Those who had the money to leave left, forming huge caravans on the choked highways leading out of towns all across America.
Bandits and robbers were quick to pounce on the gridlocked travelers. Rumors spread like lightning about what roads were safe and what roads weren’t. When it was released that the President had declared martial law and a mandatory national curfew was put in effect, the proverbial shit hit the fan. Places that weren’t in a state of rebellion or riot went up in flames overnight as angry citizens revolted at the government’s attempts to calm their fears about this latest assault on their already endangered lives.
The Regulators and their families and long ago decided that they would never be forced from their homes, either by natural disasters or man-made crises. And so Rob and his seven companions peered over the ridge in the murky noon-day dust and soot and watched the flow of Mexicans. Rob shook his head at how far the country had fallen. It was a cryin’ shame.
“Rob we got movement behind us!” crackled the voice of their rear-guard, Ed Franks, on the other side of Ridge, to the north. Rob’s mind was jerked from his dark broodings. He picked up the radio next to him and pushed the transmit button.
“Numbers?”
“I see three…”
“Position?” Rob asked, already giving hand signs to the two men on either side of him. The Regulators were switching positions and turning to face the first threat since the gunfight a few days back that saw seven Regulators buried and fourteen more wounded. Since then three of the wounded had returned to duty, the rest were still healing in the makeshift hospital at the Gunn Ranch.
“Should be comin’ over the north ridgeline any second now…” was the scratchy reply.
“I got two targets…no three!” came Lance Bryton’s voice over the radio from Rob’s right, to the east about three hundred yards.
“Overwatch, any others?”
“Negative…that’s it.” Replied Ed.
“Alright, elements One, Two and Four, let’s get ‘em. No firing until I give the order. Three and Six, you watch the herds,” Rob commanded, using the new term ‘herd’ for the waves of people migrating south into Mexico.
“This is Two, I have visual,” came Lance’s voice over the radio in a few moments. Rob was still run-walking through the brush and trying to keep a low profile against the rocky outcroppings while circling away to the east and south in an effort to catch the three intruders in a slight ravine.
“Three has eyes on target.”
“This is One, I’m in position,” whispered George Franks. “Targets in sight, thirty yards out.” He paused to look through the scope on his hunting rifle. “They look dark…maybe Mexicans but they don’t look quite right.”
“Two here…in position on the west. I see ‘em. He’s right, they don’t have any stuff. No bags, no nothing. I see no weapons.”
Rob finally spotted the three strangers through some sage brush he was hiding behind, just under a large boulder. “I got ‘em,” he reported into his radio. Fishing out his binoculars from his combat vest, he zeroed in on the three targets.
“Weapon! I see an AK-47!” Lance Bryton’s voice squeaked over the radio.
“Confirm…targets are armed,” hissed Three.
“They ain’t Mexicans…I can hear ‘em now,” George Franks mumbled into the radio. “Sounds Arabic to me.”
“Fuckin’ terrorists!” someone grunted.
“Cut the chatter, I want a clear channel,” barked Rob. He sighted in on the man on the right as the three unwitting Arabs cautiously picked their way down the dry stream bed towards the Regulators.
“Two, you take the one on the right, I take the one on the left. Three, you get the one in the middle. I want leg shots only. We want to talk to these assholes…hear that One? No head shots.” Rob could imagine the other Regulators cussing him right about then. He didn’t care. Jed and Bill had been murdered by friends of these three Arabs and he wanted info.
“Copy that…”
“Confirm.”
“You got it.”
“Right then, wait for my signal,” said Rob, putting down his radio and taking aim with his old lever-action Winchester. He took a deep breath.
“Stop where you are!” he called out. His voice echoed off the walls of the slight ravine the three Arabs had wandered into. They froze and pulled out weapons. They spun around trying to place the location of the voice that just hailed them.
“Drop your weapons and lie down on the ground, hands and feet spread apart,” Rob called out.
The three Arabs crouched and spread out a little bit, weapons up and seeking targets. Rob noticed then that these men had received some form of proper training. They didn’t panic and fire or comply with the orders they were given. They were waiting to strike. As a team. They kept their backs to each other, covering all angles.
Rob switched languages and called out his orders in fluent Spanish. No result. One of the Arabs screamed something unintelligible back at him. Rob heard something about ‘Allah’. That was all he needed.
No more warnings, assholes.
“Take ‘em down!” he said, pulling the trigger on his rifle. The old Winchester barked and bucked, but before Rob could blink, the man he had targeted was rolling around on the ground screaming. The other two Arabs w
ere down as well. One was on hands and knees, the others laying on his back, flopping around for his pistol.
“One and Two, secure ‘em!” Rob called out to the others. George and Lance burst from their hiding places less than twenty yards from the Arabs and ran forwards to kick away the enemy’s weapons and begin tying them up. They paid no attention to the screams and pathetic protests of the wounded men. In less than five minutes, the confrontation was over and the Regulators had three very alive, bleeding, and pissed off terrorists hog-tied.
Rob made his way down the ravine to the waiting captives. His Winchester was resting over his right shoulder. Lance stood watch over the captives, and they all waited for Rob to do something. He walked up to the three bleeding Arabs and looked at them the way a rancher sizes up a head of cattle.
The one in the middle had a stream of blood running down his forehead from cut he received when he fell after being shot. He glared at Rob defiantly and spat at the ground. He grinned through bloodstained teeth and spoke a string of what everyone figured was Arabic for cussin’. Rob waited till the man was finished, then planted his worn cowboy boot squarely in the man’s teeth with a satisfying crunch, sending the captive sprawling on his back.
The other two captives just looked at Rob with shock. He leaned down to the man on his right, a thick bushy mustache coated in dust. Rob could see the sweat on the man’s forehead.
“I’m gonna ask you a question. I know you speak English, don’t you?”
The captive on his left shook his head and spoke in Arabic. Rob looked up at Lance. Lance smashed the back of the speaker’s head with the butt of his rifle, sending the Arab to eat a dirt sandwich. Lance stepped back and leveled his rifle on the three Arabs again.
“I know you speak English…all you bastards do, don’t you?” Rob asked, eyebrows raised. He waited. Rob brought down his Winchester and cocked it, the loud cha-chack echoed slightly in the ravine as he worked the lever action, chambering another round. He replaced the rifle on his shoulder, at ease.
“Yes…” said the Arab. “I speak…English…”
“Oh good,” replied Rob. He straightened up and smiled. “Now, you’re going to tell me what I want to know, or you’re going to die.”
“You Yankee pig-dogs will kill me no matter what,” spat the prisoner.
“Yes, we will. Your kind aren’t even worth feeding to the coyotes. But you can choose how you die. If you tell us what we want, you’ll die quickly, kinda like how we put a horse out of its misery if it gets snakebit. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I assure you, you will suffer so bad you will want us to kill you…" Rob paused in thought. "You assholes ever hear of what the Apaches used to do to foreigners they caught on their lands?" No response but a hate filled glare. Rob sighed.
"Well, let's just say you want to tell us what we want to know, okay?” Rob smiled again. He paced a few steps away and then turned back, composing himself.
“What are you doing here?” asked Rob, his face a look of grim determination, all joviality erased in a split second.
“Screw you, Yankee, Allah will cleanse this land—“ Rob pulled out his buck knife and jabbed it into the Arab’s thigh in a lightning quick movement. The captive man howled in pain and screamed in Arabic.
“Wrong answer, jackass!” grunted Rob as he jerked the knife free, leaving a bloody patch on the Arab’s pant leg. “I told you—you answer my questions and you die quickly. You try to jerk us around and you’re going to feel pain. Lots of it.”
The other two Arabs took note of the turn of events with shock and anger. “You cannot do this, American! Where are your Bill of Rights and your Constitution now, Yankee cowboy!? Where are your—“
“Haven’t you heard?” asked Rob with a sly smile. “You stupid fuckers forced the President to suspend the Constitution.” Rob frowned as he dropped his Winchester down and leveled it at the face of the Arab who spoke out of turn. He pulled the trigger, sending one more Jihadist to Allah with a clap of thunder and spray of blood.
“You sonsabitches have killed a lot of my friends. You started all this shit. God knows how many have died because of you—“
The Arab Rob was trying to interrogate spoke up, looking at his friend’s twitching body with tear filled eyes. “Animal! You killed Shadin…he was my father’s—“
Lance kicked the Arab hard in the ribs. “I don’t give a fuck what he was! You come over here and set our country on fire, kill our people, burn our cities and then have the gall to criticize us?” Lance kicked the whimpering man harder. “Shut up! Shut up you piece of shit!”
When the Arab could breathe again through the pain in his broken chest, he whispered, “So, you think you are so high and mighty…yet you stoop to beating a man who is tied up? Where are your morals? You are the Great Satan…you are repugnant to Allah and you will be cleansed.”
Rob moved forward and put his boot squarely but gently down on the Arab’s throat. “How many more are there of you assholes?”
The Arab smiled, his spit bloody, dust covering most of his face. Rob put pressure on the Arab’s throat with his boot and cut off the air. The Arab tried to breath but couldn’t and as the seconds ticked by, he began to struggle and twitch, but couldn’t remove the dusty boot from his neck with his hands tied behind his back. At the point Rob figured the animal would pass out, he lifted his foot. The terrorist wheezed and sucked wind for a few seconds. The color came back to his face.
“How many are there?”
“Screw—“ the boot cut off the rest of the captives reply. Rob let the man squirm again for a while then took his boot off the man’s neck. The Arab drew ragged breaths and looked up at Rob with squinted eyes. He was in serious pain.
“How...many?” Rob waited for an answer. Finally the Arab nodded. In a voice hardly audible, he spoke.
“I know only ten…but there are more…many…in cells…do not know all.”
“See, was that so bad?” Rob asked, stepping back. He hating having to resort to this kind of interrogation but his mind was made up. The terrorists had started this mess in his own backyard and by God, he was going to finish it.
“Why are you going to Mexico?”
The Arab shook his head. Rob nodded to Lance with a sigh. Lance strode forward, pulled the Arab to his knees and held his head inches away from the fresh brain matter that lay sprayed out from the open cavity of his comrade’s head. The cherry cobbler looking material was on the ground, rocks, and sage brush in a cone shaped pattern. The Arab vomited. Lance dropped him painfully back on the ground and stepped back.
Rob forced himself not to throw up as well. He hated doing this, but considered it a necessary evil. “Why were you going to Mexico?!”
The third prisoner spoke up now, hoping to take the heat off his friend. “We will get our Mexican brothers to rise up against you! A vast army is forming even now!”
Rob and Lance exchanged looks. An army? The Mexicans are going to attack? With all those people heading back home to Mexico…of course…the government down there doesn’t want them in the first place…we’re weak now and they have an excuse. Jesus, if they join up with the UN invasion…talk about a beachhead. Open door into America…Oh my God.
The two Arabs held a heated exchange in their native tongue for a few moments before Rob interrupted by putting the tip of his Winchester against the nose of his interrogation subject and turning his head back around.
“You’re going to talk to me and no one else, buddy.”
“Allah take you!” said the third prisoner.
“Lance, shut that asshole up.”
Lance stepped forward and pulled out his own hunting knife. He let it gleam in the sun in front of the bound Arab for a second before drawing it across the surprised man’s throat in one clean motion. The blood was so thick, it was almost black as it cascaded all down the man’s chest and in a spray to the ground before him. The body dropped to the ground and flopped a little as the dying man tried in vain to draw brea
th through his severed throat. The loud gasping sound was grotesque but the Americans grit their teeth and ignored the distraction. This was payback. Above them, hidden in the sage brush, one of the Regulators threw up.
“Sic Semper Tyrannis, motherfucker,” said Lance as he cleaned his blade on the still twitching body. All the tolerance, acceptance, benefit of the doubt and forgiveness in his heart had been replaced by cold hatred the night he saw what had happened to Jed and Bill. He had no more compassion in him for anyone who raised a hand against his countrymen.
The sole remaining captive howled in grief at seeing his second comrade dispatched without so much as a trial or press conference. He was beginning to feel something he hadn’t felt before in his career as a Jihadist. He sensed that perhaps, just perhaps, they had pushed these Americans too far.
They weren’t backing down the way he and the others had expected. As he saw the American cowboy slit his comrade’s throat and send him to Allah, he finally recognized something deep down in his soul that his trainers had thought vanquished. For the first time since he took up the scimitar against the Great Satan, he felt fear. A mind numbing, bowel emptying, totally petrifying fear.
“So you thought you could just march in here, stir up the hornet’s nest and go home, huh, Muhammad?” Rob cocked the lever on his rifle again. The loud cha-chack caused the Arab to flinch. The last prisoner watched intently as the spent shell tumbled through the air, glittering in the sun, before it impacted the dusty ground in silence.
“You assholes thought if you hit us again like September 11th, we’d just roll over and give up on everything, right? That you would rule the world…well guess what, you piece of shit…” he leveled the long rifle at the terrorist's head.
Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) Page 43
