Hunted

by William W. Johnstone

  “They’re not geniuses,” she said. “Although we all like to think that of our kids. But they all graduated with three-point-two and three-point-three or -four averages. And they’re all working now and paying taxes and so forth. Helping to pay the salaries of those who attacked us,” she added bitterly.

  “And killed my wife,” Vince’s words were softly offered.

  “And wiped out Jody’s family,” Kevin added. “But we sure wasted some of the bastards. Excuse my language.”

  “That’s all right,” Karen said. “I certainly understand your feelings. After they knocked my husband to the ground, I can share a little bit of your emotions.”

  Paul was looking at the weapons the men and women had brought with them. The weapons were not new, by any means, but they were well cared for. Mini-14s, he thought, with twenty- or thirty-round clips. The kind of weapons called assault rifles. And at that moment, the boy—almost a man—knew why there was such a great hue and cry to disarm the American public: unarmed citizens could not fight back against government excesses and brutality such as these people in camp had faced. And Paul also thought, as he studied the men and women, that the government better be very wary of men and women such as these, for their spirit of independence and self-reliance was strong, and not likely to be broken. If enough men and women like Kevin and his friends could get together, they could force the government to toe the mark. That’s why the government was coming down so hard on men and women the media called survivalists. They were scared of them.

  Paul didn’t realize it yet, but he had just become a survivalist.

  * * *

  “Spotters report an entire team down and dead up here,” the agent said, pointing to a spot on the map. “Ten agents. Eight men and two women. Their weapons and personal gear taken by whoever hit them.”

  Max Vernon threw his tin coffee cup to the ground. “All right, people. We’ve sealed this area off . . .” Not true. Several dozen hikers and campers and fishermen (excuse me, fisher-persons) and nature lovers were now in the area, and they did not have the vaguest idea they had walked into a free-fire zone. It would take two full divisions of troops to seal off over a thousand square miles of wilderness; and even then, someone would probably slip through. But Max Vernon was impressed with his gold badge and government-authorized near-dictatorial powers, so he was too stupid to realize that. He had attained his position by ass-kissing and carefully placing himself in the right places at the right times. And never having the courage to question directives or orders. Just following orders. Don’t blame me, I’m just following orders. “... we’ve evac’d everyone who isn’t aligned directly or who we think doesn’t secretly support these terrorist bastards . . .” (Anyone who didn’t blindly follow the Washington party-in-power’s dogma like a bunch of lemmings to the sea. They used to be called free thinkers—but now they were referred to as terrorists, traitors, much-to-be-feared survivalists, seditionists, separatists, or whatever else some of the elected nannies and ninnies could hang on them.) “. . . so it’s shoot-to-kill time, people...”

  A number of those agents standing close to Max exchanged very wary glances at that remark. Those looks held one unanimous and silent comment: they would shoot only if they were shot at, and if Max Vernon didn’t like that, he could go suck an egg.

  “... those orders are being radioed to all teams. Draw equipment and provisions. Let’s secure this area, people. Move out!”

  * * *

  A dentist from Boise and a schoolteacher on spring break from out of state were to be the first real outsider casualties of the American government’s armed and dangerous Thought & Speech Police. Both of them had entered the wilderness area the day before, and were only a few miles from the meadow where the mercenaries had done battle with the federal agents. As Darry was helping Jack to the cave, the dentist and the schoolteacher met on one of the many trails leading into the wilderness area. They chatted for a few moments, then walked on. A half hour later, the dentist was dead, shot through the head by a government sniper. The woman’s left arm had been shattered by a bullet, and she was running away in a blind panic, believing she had been set upon by outlaws.

  Just about the same time the dentist and the schoolteacher were ambushed, Mike Tuttle and his mercenaries sprung the trap on a five-man team of federal agents. The mercenaries took no prisoners and left no one alive. One member of the team did manage to get off a short radio message before he died, giving position and status, which was grim.

  “The whole area is filled with highly trained and motivated paramilitary troops!” the agent frantically radioed. “They’re armed with automatic weapons and sure as hell know how to use them. We’ve had it, Max. I—”

  The radio went silent.

  Max’s face turned hard as he realized what had happened to that team of agents. “Get the word out to all our people: the password is ‘tails,’ response is ‘wagging.’ Anyone who doesn’t know the correct response is to be considered an enemy. Shoot to kill. Send that out in code, by burst transmission. The enemy now has our radios, and they’ll be able to listen in on open transmissions. And get word to Washington that it looks like this area is the central hotbed for insurrection. I want federal marshals in here to completely seal off the area. No troops. That would tip off the press.” He turned to a map and using a grease pencil marked the hot area. “This area. Get it done right now. No one in, and no one out unless they are with us. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Max Vernon turned to face the map. “I’ll crush you all,” he promised in a whisper. “I’ll break the back of insurrection, and I’ll be a hero.”

  Max had dreams of being promoted as soon as this operation was successfully concluded. Parties in his honor. His name in gold letters on his office door.

  The only thing Max was going to get his name on was the marble of his tombstone.

  15

  While Jack was being made as comfortable as possible in the cave, Darry went outside again to wander through nature’s garden, collecting plants and herbs to make a poultice to hasten the healing of the agent’s wounds. He was back shortly and had a camp pot filled with water heating over a small fire.

  “I thought you were dead, Jack,” Kathy said. “I couldn’t find a pulse.”

  “Those dead agents?” Jack asked.

  “I killed them,” his partner admitted. “I guess I’m in deep shit, right?”

  “I doubt it. They opened fire on us, remember?” Jack’s memory was slowly returning.

  “Some one is moving out there,” George Eagle Dancer called from the mouth of the cave. “I think it is a woman, and I think she is hurt.”

  Darry peered out through the brush that covered the mouth of the cave and nodded his head. His eyesight was far superior to the average human’s, and he could easily see that the woman was hurt and in considerable pain. “I’ll go get her,” Darry said.

  Kathy had moved to his side. “She’s going to be frightened out of her wits, Darry. I’d better go with you.”

  Darry gave that a few seconds thought. “You may be right. Let’s go.”

  It took the pair about fifteen minutes to carefully climb down the rocky and brush-covered slope, then make their way across the basin of the small valley. The closer they came, it was apparent to both of them that the woman was suffering a gunshot wound.

  As they approached the staggering woman, she spotted them and panicked. “Don’t run away!” Kathy called. “We’re friendly.” She started to add that she was a federal agent, then thought better of that, since the odds were pretty good it was federal agents who had shot her.

  “Please!” Darry called. “We won’t hurt you. Let us help you. There are half a dozen of us who have taken refuge in a cave across the valley.”

  The schoolteacher, who looked to be in her mid to late twenties, paused, turned around, then began walking slowly toward Kathy and Darry. She started crying. “My God, what’s happening around here? A man I met on the trai
l was shot to death by masked men, and then they turned their guns on me. There was no warning. Nothing. The bastards just opened fire on us!”

  Darry took her good arm. “Come on. Your arm looks like it’s broken. We can patch you up and make you comfortable.”

  As they started walking across the valley floor, Kathy asked, “Were they wearing ski masks and dressed in camouflage?”

  “Yes.”

  “Federal agents,” she told the woman.

  “Federal agents! I’m a schoolteacher from Kansas, dammit! This is my fifth trip out here. I come out here once a year. Why the hell would federal agents shoot me?”

  “They shot me and my partner,” Kathy replied. “And we’re FBI.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “It’s a very long story,” Darry said. “And I’m afraid it’s not going to have a very happy ending.”

  “You let me get my hands on a gun, and I’ll show you a happy ending,” the schoolteacher from Kansas said grimly.

  * * *

  “Freeze, goddamn you!” the BATF man shouted from the top of the bluff overlooking the Collier camp. “You’re all under arrest.”

  Seventeen-year-old Paul was out of the agent’s line of sight, crouched under an overhang on the worn path. He reached for the rifle he’d taken from Darry’s cabin and carefully cocked the hammer. He knew there was a live round in the slot, for he’d levered one in after loading up the tube upon finding the rifle.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Karen snapped at the two agents standing above them. “I’m an attorney from Los Angeles, and my husband is a doctor. We’ve done nothing illegal.”

  “You’re harboring fugitives. Aiding and abetting them. Now stand up and get your hands in the air!”

  Paul inched backward and could just see one agent’s head, from the shoulders up. He slowly lined up the head with the iron sights.

  “I’ve had all this nonsense I’m going to tolerate,” Karen told the federal agent “You go right straight to hell!”

  “I’ll kill you, bitch!” the agent said, jerking his M-16 to his shoulder. He had lost two close friends this day, ambushed by the mercenaries, and was in no mood for any type of resistance.

  Paul shot him, the tiny .22 slug, pushed by a magnum powder load, striking the man in the eye and exiting out the back of his head. Before the agent dropped his M-16, his finger tightened on the trigger, and he blew off half a clip. The weapon discharged upon hitting the ground, nearly taking off his partner’s foot, the .223 round blowing a hole in the man’s ankle. The wounded man screamed in pain and lost his balance, doing a header off the bluff. He landed on his head, and all heard the neck snap.

  Paul climbed up the bluff and stood for a moment over the body of the federal agent he’d just killed. Then the teenager knelt on the ground and puked up his lunch.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Kevin said, rising to his feet. “All those shots will attract attention.”

  “We can take the big ... raft,” Ray said, his voice trailing off as he turned and looked toward the raft. The rounds from the agent’s M-16 had all torn into the rubber. It was flattened and ruined.

  “I had to shoot him!” Paul called from the bluff. “He was going to shoot you, Mother!”

  “Yes, I think he was going to do just that,” Ray Collier called up to the boy on the bluffs. “You did the only thing you could. It’s all right. Stay up there and keep watch, son. Keep your eyes open.”

  “Where did he get the rifle, Ray?” Karen asked.

  “Probably from the cabin.”

  “Ballsy kid,” Kevin remarked, off-handedly. “I wasn’t that much older when I was in ’Nam.” He turned to his group. “Let’s pick up those M-16s, people, and the walkie-talkies and the ammo. We’ve got to get the hell gone from here and do it damn quick.”

  “Where do we go?” Karen asked, her eyes on her son on the bluffs.

  “I know a place,” Kevin said. “If we can make it, we’ll be safe for a time. But we’re goin’ to have to hurry. We don’t have that much daylight left.”

  “Time just might be running out for all of us,” Todd said.

  “What do you mean by that?” Dr. Collier asked.

  “Dead men don’t talk,” Kevin replied. “I’ve got me a hunch that this government operation has been one mistake after another right from the start. There is no telling how many innocent people have died due to this fuck-up. You can’t bear witness against the government if you’re dead.”

  “I can’t believe our government would allow anything like that to happen,” the doctor said.

  “Wake up and smell the coffee, Doc,” Vince told him. “Open your eyes. Our government sucks. And it has been that way for a long time. You’ve been too busy making money and hobnobbing with the country club set to realize that. You and your wife and family live way up here on such a lofty plane”—he extended his arm as high above his head as he could reach—“you’re totally unaware of what’s been taking place around you. Our government, through its enforcement agencies, is ruthless. Hell, Doc, even living out here like we do, we know more about the obscene practices of the government than you do, and you said you live in L.A. You think what is happening out here is something new? No way. Goes on all the time. Most of the time people don’t get killed; they just get the crap scared out of them. Their doors are smashed open; they’re dragged out of bed in their nightclothes. . . just like the Nazis did to the Jews when Hitler was in power . . .”

  Karen had stopped her packing and was listening intently, the lawyer in her now running on all eight cylinders.

  “... we’ve been rousted before over the years,” Niki Carmouche picked it up, as she helped Terri Collier put a few things in a backpack. “But never this violently. The government and the local cops, everywhere, have gone bonkers about drugs . . . as well they should, for drugs are helping to destroy many of the nation’s youth . . .”

  Gas escaped from the dead agent lying only a few yards away. Niki cut her eyes to him. “... but they should use some common sense in enforcing the law. Now it seems that people who are into survivalism are being treated in the same manner that druggies are treated. The government is scared, Doctor. And they’re overreacting.”

  “You see, Mr. and Mrs. Collier,” Betsy Noble took the verbal ball. “We know so much more than you about the abuses of big government because we subscribe, in a very round-about way, to so-called ‘underground’ publications. I say ‘round-about’ because government agents regularly intercept the mail of people they think are practicing any type of ‘subversive lifestyle.’ Whatever the hell that means.” She smiled. “We have friends over in Washington State who used to use pigeons to deliver short notes between family and friends. Naturally, the government got word of it and would occasionally shoot down the birds. One note read: ‘Big G going under next week. Country will never be the same. Don’t miss it.’ Naturally, the feds thought it meant a plot to overthrow the government . . . hippies are such dangerous people, you know? So about a hundred agents surrounded the farm and moved in, machine guns ready. What they found was that ‘Big G’ meant Big George Wilson. He had finally accepted Christ and ‘going under’ meant he was being baptized in a small creek that ran through the land. To say that our government is paranoid is slightly understating the obvious.”

  “They shot down the birds?” Terri questioned. “That’s grotesque!”

  “So is our government,” Kevin added.

  * * *

  Inspector Hank Wallace and Special Agent Carol Murphy, from the Bureau’s IAD, decided to use Darry’s cabin as an HQ for their operation. Darry would be compensated for the use of his cabin and, should he return, the IAD people would move out posthaste. The pair of IAD agents quickly let it be known to all the agents in the field (now numbering over seven hundred) that any gunshots around the cabin would be met with dire consequences.

  Just before dark, a team of federal agents walked up to the cabin and asked if they could have a
drink of water from the well.

  “Of course you can,” Carol told the BATF personnel. “Any luck out in the field?”

  “We don’t even know what we’re looking for,” one of the men replied.

  “We were choppered in about six hours ago and assigned this sector,” another said. “We were told that a large bunch of very dangerous and heavily armed survivalists were on the loose.”

  “Well,” Hank said, “that much is probably true. But from what we’ve learned so far, although we can’t prove it, one way or the other, the survivalists didn’t start the fight. We did.”

  “The hell you say!”

  “That’s right. They were having a cookout, no arms in sight, when a team from Max Vernon’s bunch raided the camp and started shooting. To date, we have nine dead civilians and several others badly wounded from that camp.”

  The BATF men exchanged glances.

  “In addition, the cabin of a man named Jody Hinds was raided, his wife and her sister and boyfriend were killed.”

  “That’s the guy who had a drug lab, right?”

  Carol shook her head. “So far as we have been able to determine, no drugs or drug paraphernalia were found, nor any signs of a drug lab. No illegal weapons were found.”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” another BATF agent whispered.

  “Oh, man,” his friend said. “We don’t need this.”

  What Max Vernon and the other federal agents did not know was that Hank and Carol were not the only IAD people working the area. There were other IAD people among the field teams posing as field agents.

  “A very reputable doctor from Los Angeles was roughed up by government agents,” Hank said. “He and his family are on vacation, doing some white water rafting. They were right over there.” He pointed. “We haven’t heard or seen them since we set up HQ here, but we’ve only been here for a short time.”