The air filled with the smell of smoke, fire, and fear.
Ripper found it intoxicating.
“Line up in front of the building with your weapons ready and then wait for my order!”
Gunfire erupted from the back of the building indicating some of the building’s occupants were trying to exit into the alley. Ripper knew that very soon even more would be attempting to escape through the front.
“Get ready, here they come!”
A particularly tall, armed black man pushed open the glass City Hall front doors and began shooting at the line of men who were pointing their assault rifles back at him. Ripper snarled his command at the very moment he pulled the trigger of his own weapon.
“Fire!”
The black man’s body was torn to shreds as the force of impact of several bullets hitting him simultaneously lifted his body several inches off the ground before it smashed against the glass doors behind him, shattering them completely.
A great chorus of cheers erupted from Ripper’s gang. Ripper pointed to two of his men holding Molotov cocktails at the ready.
“Light ‘em up!”
The men threw the flaming bottles through one of the broken windows on the second floor and were rewarded with yet more screams from inside the smoking structure. One of the bikers to Ripper’s right fell down to the ground as a bullet fired from a third floor window imbedded itself deep in his stomach.
“Keep firing!”
Another round of AK-47 gunfire turned the night into a terrifying spectacle of destruction. Hundreds of rounds broke yet more glass, brick, and injured or killed several more of those barricaded inside the City Hall building.
Flames began to erupt from the open second floor windows and then soon could be seen spreading to the third floor. Ripper knew it was only a matter of a little more time before their victory would be complete. He turned to the men and women gathered behind him and shouted with great enthusiasm.
“I love the smell of fried darkie in the evening!”
Several of the bikers laughed loudly at the sinister joke while others continued to cheer.
Then the bikers scattered in terror as several gunshots rained down upon them from the City Hall rooftop leaving two of Ripper’s gang injured and one dead with two bullet wounds to the head.
“Hit ‘em again, Serb!”
Serb pointed the RPG toward the roof and fired another missile. Several large pieces of red brick crumbled to the sidewalk below while at the same time a young woman holding a toddler emerged from the smoke and flame that was by then billowing out the building’s entrance. Ripper raised his AK-47, aimed at the mother’s head and fired.
The gang leader’s aimed proved true. The upper left side of the woman’s head was almost entirely obliterated. Her body fell to the concrete steps though even in the moment of her death she somehow managed to protect her child from the impact of the fall, the young boy’s body safely cushioned in his already dead mother’s arms.
A pronounced hush fell over the gang. Even Serb found himself momentarily frozen as he considered the implications of what was to be done.
The boy had learned to walk just three weeks earlier. He squirmed off of his mother’s body and then used it to provide the leverage needed for him to stand. His small, dark haired head was illuminated by the flames behind him. He wore only a pair of white diapers and a red t-shirt.
The child looked back at the many grim, white faces that stared back at him and then smiled as his tiny hands waved excitedly at his sides while a series of happy, gurgling squeals issued from his pink-tongued mouth.
“Serb, give me the RPG.”
Serb’s mouth fell open as he held the portable missile launcher at his side. He had guessed at the depths of Ripper’s determination to wipe out all impure races from the earth, but at that moment found that determination to be more frighteningly deep than even he had imagined.
Ripper’s eyes remained fixed upon the excited child as he repeated the order.
“I’m waiting, Serb. Give me the RPG.”
Serb felt the silent stares of the others in the gang as he made his way slowly toward Ripper and handed him the weapon. Ripper took the launcher in his right hand and then saw it had not yet been re-armed.
“Get me another missile – NOW.”
The boy was by then looking down at the body of his mother, his happy, gurgling coos having gone silent. By the time Serb returned with another missile, the child had begun to cry, his large brown eyes filled with tears and his plaintive wail joining the chorus of crackling flames and occasional screams from inside the City Hall structure.
Ripper aimed the loaded RPG-7 at the diminutive target that stood wobbling near his mother.
“We show no mercy for their kind, no matter how small! They are an abomination! A disease to be eradicated! The word of what we have done here today will spread far and wide. Our power will be known to those who support us, and our enemies who would see us defeated. And don’t think for a second the people inside that building would not have the same done to us.”
The child’s cry had turned to screams as it appeared to have realized on some cognitive level that his mother would never take him into her arms again.
Ripper pulled the RPG’s trigger and then watched as the boy was obliterated. He lifted his eyes upward at the sound of a military helicopter passing overhead. Though it was impossible for him to see the faces of the aircraft’s occupants, Ripper knew the man from the EPA who had given the weapons over to Cousin Johnny was inside the helicopter looking down at the Ripper’s work.
“Who is that?”
The question came from Slack who stood to Ripper’s left.
Ripper waved at the helicopter as it slowly disappeared into the night sky, certain they would all find out soon enough.
---------------------------
EPISODE EIGHTEEN:
General Thompson felt the bullet’s impact hit him in the upper left portion of his back. The force of the blow sent him crashing toward the wall of the study and then his body crumpled to the floor below where he remained face down and unmoving on his stomach as his lungs cried out for another gulp of life-saving oxygen.
The Joint Chiefs Chairman heard Tennison slowly approach from the other side of the desk and hoped his reflexes would prove swift enough.
He thinks I’m dead or wounded and he doesn’t know I’m armed. That’s my advantage. Just turn, aim and fire.
Colonel Tennison had used a silencer on his weapon. No-one else in the main building of the Camp David compound heard the shot.
“Damn you, General, I really didn’t want to have to do that.”
The general knew Tennison was now directly behind him. His right hand gripped his loaded sidearm tightly underneath his stomach. He held his breath and kept as still as possible.
Wait for the right time…
Tennison kicked the general’s limp left foot and then took out a small, portable satellite phone that was only available to the highest ranking members of the U.S. government.
“Yeah, it’s me. He’s been eliminated. Yes sir. Yes, I understand. Absolutely…ok.”
Though he couldn’t hear the voice of the person the colonel was speaking to, Thompson knew it was the recently departed EPA official, Dr. Sage who had less than an hour earlier demanded he fully initiate Protocol X – a demand General Thompson had adamantly refused.
The general heard another helicopter taking off from the Camp David helipad location some two hundred yards from the main building and wondered who might be in it. Dr. Sage had already departed several minutes earlier and General Thompson knew the identity of the second departure was most likely also related to the conspiracy unfolding before him.
I’m missing something. Gotta think…
Tennison’s hand pushed up against the small of the general’s back as the colonel tried to roll him over. That was the moment Thompson had been waiting for.
He flung his left shoulder back at th
e very moment his weapon-wielding right hand pressed the pistol against the stunned Tennison’s left temple.
“Drop your weapon, Colonel.”
Tennison paused for a half second which caused the general to then jam the end of his pistol into the bottom of the colonel’s jaw with enough force it caused Tennison’s head to snap upward.
“Don’t be stupid – just drop the damn gun and take two steps back.”
Colonel Tennison complied, the sound of his gun falling onto the study’s hardwood floor echoing inside the small, enclosed space. The general quickly picked it up and placed it atop his desk.
“Now sit your ass down in that chair right there and don’t move.”
Tennison lowered himself into one of the two chairs that sat opposite the study desk while the general stood glaring down at his aide.
“WHY?”
The colonel’s eyes stared out the room’s small window overlooking a portion of the building’s front porch. His mouth was a grim slash, the lips pressed tightly together.
“I asked you a question, soldier.”
Tennison shook his head and then closed his eyes while he took in a long, slow breath.
“You don’t give the orders around here anymore, General.”
The general was about to respond when his body suddenly stiffened from the pain emanating from the muscle-deep bruise forming on his back where the bullet had struck him. Tennison noted the reaction and then gave his former commanding officer an admiring, albeit bemused grin.
“How long have you been wearing that vest? It must be one of the newer ones – you can’t even make it out underneath your shirt.”
General Thompson grunted as he waited for the pain to subside while also grateful for the almost quarter-inch of Kevlar he wore that had saved him from Tennison’s assassination attempt.
“So who do you take orders from then, Colonel? Is it that little prick, Dr. Sage? Is that who you were speaking to after you thought you just killed me?”
The colonel’s grin vanished as he once again clamped his mouth tightly shut and dropped his gaze to the top of the general’s desk.
“Sage couldn’t get General Crow to shoot me dead after I refused to give the initiation order for Protocol X so you were his back-up plan, is that it? But what then, Colonel - you think he would just let you ride on out of here? Are you really that stupid?”
Tennison’s eyes flared at the insult. It was the very reaction the general had hoped for. That anger would be the fuel to feed the colonel’s desire to further explain his actions.
“I’m not the stupid one here, General. This is the future and I intend to be a part of it. As soon as you refused to issue the order you became an unnecessary liability and I assure you, these people have contingencies that go well beyond me. They’ve been planning this for a very long time.”
General Thompson tilted his head slightly to the left, noting to himself how the near-constant chopper traffic above the Camp David compound had suddenly gone strangely silent. The absence of that noise sent a chill down his spine, the unmistakable calm before a terrible and dark storm he knew was about to be unleashed from above.
“You damn fool, Colonel. You just said these people have contingencies well beyond yourself!”
The general began to move himself to the other side of the desk, intending to make his way outside of the study when Tennision suddenly stood up and blocked the general’s path to the door.
“I can’t allow you to leave this room alive, General.”
General Thompson glared back at the colonel, trying to determine if the other man was seriously prepared to give up his own life to keep him from exiting the study.
“So are you saying I’d have to kill you first if I want to walk out of here?”
The colonel nodded slowly as he prepared to lunge at his commanding officer.
“Yes sir.”
The general shrugged, reached across his desk to take the colonel’s silencer-enhanced pistol in his left hand and then pointed it directly at Colonel Tennison’s forehead.
“Well ok, then.”
The general proceeded to kill Tennison with his own gun. The bullet entered inches above the colonel’s nose causing the military officer’s upper body to rock back. A small, bloodless entrance hole was the only visible indication Tennison had been shot as he stood there for a moment blinking his eyes in disbelief while attempting to form words with a mouth that no longer cooperated.
General Thompson watched with a mixture of satisfaction and regret as the legs of his former military aide buckled and then the colonel crumpled to the floor as the light of consciousness abruptly left his eyes.
The general’s wife and daughters were waiting for him in one of the small guest cabins some three hundred feet from the main building’s front steps and General Reg Thompson had every intention of making it back there alive before the attack was unleashed. He had chosen that particular cabin for a very specific reason most likely unknown to anyone else currently at the compound.
As a younger officer he had enjoyed a strong interest in both political and military history and he had at one time devoted several weeks to studying the history of Camp David. During those studies he found a brief mention of a guest cabin constructed during the Lynden Johnson administration. Johnson, despite his outward bravado, was notoriously paranoid about being killed off by Soviet agents and/or Kennedy sympathizers – a paranoia that extended to his own Secret Service detail. As president he rarely slept overnight in the compound’s main building but instead spent his nights in the seemingly nondescript guest cabin.
That cabin was comprised of bullet-resistant glass windows, a specially fortified door, and a layer of half-inch thick steel that ran inside all of its walls and roof. More impressive though was the bunker that was hidden underneath the cabin’s foundation. A concrete staircase beneath a set of floorboards took occupants a full twelve feet down into a concrete encased structure that enjoyed its own oxygen and water supply and battery-powered lighting system.
After Johnson left the White House the bunker was all but forgotten and the guest cabin was simply one of several that were found upon the sprawling Camp Davidproperty. The general had found a reference to it within a then-recently declassified communication between Richard Nixon’s White House Secret Service detail and Camp David security staff where Nixon’s Chief of Staff was said to have demanded,“…President wants that sick bastard Johnson’s bunker-cabin closed up tight before his arrival.”
Decades later that very same cabin was the general’s only hope to keep his own family alive.
The air outside was not quite a biting cold, but close. The general paused to scan the area between himself and the cabin where his family was waiting and was only mildly surprised to find nobody else moving about the normally busy compound.
Some kind of evacuation order went out but it sure as hell didn’t come from me.
The general then recalled Tennison telling him he had already issued a full security alert following General Crow’s death.
Tennison never issued a security alert – that was the evacuation order.
The entire compound had been transformed from a bustling military center to a suddenly abandoned outpost. General Thompson paused again, his ears detecting the faint noise of several vehicles moving across the paved access road some two miles from where he stood.
As soon as Sage was gone from here he had it shut down. He would need the authority of at least some of the other Joint Chiefs, though. Are they all in on this coup or just some of them?
The general had no time to further ponder his own question. The barely perceptible sound of the departing vehicles was replaced by the sky-scorching hiss of two approaching F-22 fighter jets. General Thompson was familiar with the recently discontinued F-22 and its capabilities. The aircraft was stealth-based technology and could carry up to two one-thousand pound JDAM bombs. Four such bombs dropped in tandem were more than enough to decimate most of the primary
structures of the Camp David compound.
Most of our remaining F-22s are kept at Andrews Air Force Base. Does that mean General Meyers is involved? He was the only other one in the room when General Crow killed himself who appeared genuinely shocked.
General Thompson reached the cabin he hoped still contained his family and found the front door already partially open, a discovery that caused the color to fall from his face. He reached out to push the door fully open with a right hand that still gripped his sidearm at the ready in case he found trouble waiting for him inside.
The cabin interior was empty.
General Reg Thompson’s wife and children were gone.
American Survivalist: RACE WARS OMNIBUS: Seasons 1-5 Of An American Survivalist Series... Page 23
