by Robert Boren
Bug Out! Part 5
RV Flight from Terror
Robert G Boren
Contents
Previously - From Bugout! Part 4
Chapter 1 – Militia Action
Chapter 2 – Cameras and Cables
Chapter 3 – Somber Reception
Chapter 4 – Get Outta Dodge
Chapter 5 – Blasting Through Utah
Chapter 6 – Road Action
Chapter 7 - Carnage at Camp
Chapter 8 – The Hunt Begins
Chapter 9 – Enemy Wave
Chapter 10 – Hacking the Enemy
Chapter 11 – Who is the Enemy?
Chapter 12 – Welcome to Colorado
Chapter 13 – Highway Shakedown
Chapter 14 – On the Road to Eagle
Chapter 15 – Climbing the Grade
Chapter 16 – Eagle's Nest
Chapter 17 – Raptors!
Copyright - About the Author
Previously - in Bug Out! Part 4
Frank, Jane, and the group attempt to make the RV Park in Utah safe. The U.S. Army joins them, putting a small force there to help. They become friends with General Walker and Major Hobbs, and work together to take it to the enemy. Meanwhile, more enemy fighters flood over the Canadian border, trying to link up with enemy forces from the south. There are more nuclear attacks around the world. The battle with Officer Simmons comes to a head, and the group defeats him and his band of traitors with courage and teamwork. Sleeper cells are activated all over the USA, and infiltrators cause problems in the ranks of our military. Finally, a bomb goes off in the U.S. Capitol building, on the day of a Joint Session of Congress.
Chapter 01 – Militia Action
“Are you telling me that we might have just lost both houses of Congress?” Jane asked the General.
“I sure hope not,” he said. “Turn the sound up. Let’s hear what they’re saying.”
Just then Lieutenant James ran into the clubhouse.
“General, Sir,” he panted. “Urgent message coming through. Major, they want you too.”
“Excuse us, folks,” General Walker said. He and Major Hobbs hurriedly left the room, heading towards the barn.
“I hope most of our legislators were out of there before this happened,” Jerry said.
“Seriously,” Charlie said.
They all gathered around the TV and listened. The announcer came on.
“As you can see, this important and historic building has been damaged beyond repair. It’s a miracle that there aren’t more government officials missing, especially after the Joint Session of Congress today. At this time, we are missing twenty two members from the House of Representatives, and four Senators. This country is extremely lucky tonight. It could have been much worse, had the blast happened just twenty minutes earlier.”
“Oh, thank God,” Jane said. She broke down crying, and Frank rushed to her side and held her.
The announcer continued.
“The President, Vice President, and key Senators have been moved to a secure location while this incident is being investigated. No one has taken credit for the attack so far. There is speculation that the explosives may have been inside the building for some time, but there is no confirmation on that. Surveillance video from the area has not shown anything being shot into the structure from the outside, so as of now it appears that the blast came from a location inside the structure.”
General Walker and Major Hobbs walked quickly back into the Clubhouse.
“We dodged a bullet today,” the General said. His face was grim. “Our sources are saying that this was probably militia. The Islamists may have had a hand in it, but since the government has finally started to profile people, it’s unlikely that Islamist fighters from the Middle East would have been able to get into that area.”
“Like I said earlier,” Jerry said. “Leakage to the east.”
“They have one person being questioned right now, who was seen hanging around the scene in surveillance video. He was involved in the Yuma incident, and got picked up on the way from Quartzsite to Flagstaff. He escaped shortly after capture.”
Frank and Jane looked at each other nervously.
“His name wasn’t Sean, was it?” Frank asked.
The General got a shocked look on his face.
“Yes, it was,” he said. “Can you take a look at a picture that we have? It’s back at the barn.”
“Of course,” Frank said. He looked at Jane, and she nodded. They got up and followed the General and the Major out the door, continuing to talk as they walked.
“How did you know Sean?” asked General Walker.
“We didn’t really know him,” Jane said.
“They were in the space next to us overnight in an RV Park in Quartzsite,” Frank said. “They had a 5th Wheel, and were having trouble backing it in. I went over and helped them. Then we had a couple of beers, and we chatted a little bit. Jane and I thought Sean was kind of a nutcase.”
“Why?” General Walker said.
“Well, he said he was working at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma as a civilian, and he had been hearing a lot of things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Some things that turned out to be true, and some Militia BS. This was the first place that we stopped after leaving California. We didn’t know much yet. Sean said there were Islamists from that new group in Iraq joining up with radicals in Venezuela, and that they were coming through Mexico to attack the USA. Of course that turned out to be true, but we didn’t know it at the time. We still thought things were bad in California because of the banking crisis and the state pension crisis.”
“Is that why you thought he was a nutcase?” General Walker asked.
“No, that part of his story seemed plausible to me, after some of the things we saw on the road, like M-1 Battle tanks going south. Sean went on to say that the U.S. Government was colluding with the enemy, because they wanted an excuse to impose country-wide martial law.”
“Did he tell you why the Government would want to do that?”
“Yeah, he said the Government thought that was the only way they were going to be able to impose strict rules to fight global warming.”
The General laughed. “Seriously?” he asked.
“I kid you not,” Frank said.
They got to the door of the barn and went in. The General walked them over to a hardened laptop sitting on a folding table, and pointed at the screen.
“That him?” he asked.
Frank and Jane looked, and nodded yes.
“What else can you tell me about this guy?”
“Well, before he told me all this BS I just mentioned, he took me off on the other side of their rig, where his wife couldn’t hear. I thought that was pretty strange. Then when we came back, Jane mentioned that the wife was pregnant. He didn’t mention that to me. Seemed like that should have been the first thing he mentioned.”
“What happened to the wife?” asked Jane, hoping the news wasn’t what she feared. “She was basically just a scared child. Very young. I felt sorry for her.”
“When Sean escaped, he tried to take her with him. She got shot and killed.”
“Oh, no,” Jane said, her voice catching, then in a whisper, “that poor girl.”
“But Sean got away?” asked Frank.
“Yes.”
“How?” Frank asked.
“Long story, and I can’t tell you parts of it,” General Walker said.
Frank nodded. “Okay, no problem.”
“Anything else you can tell me, Frank?”
“Yes, General. We left early the next morning. Sean took off a
little before us. They got pretty far ahead of us on Route 60, and traffic was bumper to bumper by the time we got on. I don’t think we got above 30 miles per hour on that road. We couldn’t see Sean’s rig ahead of us. Then we made the transition to Route 71. That road goes to Flagstaff, and most of the people who were on Route 60 were on their way to Phoenix, so the traffic got a lot better for us. Once we were on Route 71, we got up to full speed and almost caught up to them. We could see them ahead of us.”
“Then what?”
“Then we saw two highway patrol cars and an Army Humvee barreling up behind us. They passed us on the left side of the road, and we saw them pull Sean’s rig over. We passed them and I kept an eye in my rear view mirror for as long as I could. The last thing I saw was the Army guys pointing M-16s into Sean’s truck.”
“That must have shook you two up,” the General said.
“Yes, it did,” Jane said. “We were afraid that we were going to be pulled over next since we’d talked to him. We turned off our cellphones at that point, just in case we were going to be tracked.”
“Don’t blame you there. You never saw them again after that?”
“Nope,” Frank said.
“Anything you can tell us about him?” asked Jane.
“Not a lot,” General Walker said. “We know that he had a hand in the incident at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma. He was one of the inside folks who allowed the enemy to take that facility over.”
“How’d you find that out?” asked Frank.
“Surveillance video,” he said, then lowering his voice, “you didn’t hear that from me.”
Frank and Jane nodded.
“So he’s connected to the Williams Militia?” asked Jane.
“We think so, although the Williams piece was pretty small. The part of the militia he came out of was much larger and more sophisticated.”
“We’re going to be looking over our shoulders all the time when we leave this area, aren’t we?” Frank asked.
“I’m afraid so,” General Walker said.
“You still think it’s better that we leave?” Jane asked.
“Yes. We’re going to be hitting these folks hard. It’ll be difficult for them to give you guys any thought. They are going to be fighting for their lives. That will hopefully make them too busy to be sending their valuable people after you in the near term. Later, there might be stragglers who want to come after you. We’ll try to clean them all up, but I’ve got to be honest. It’ll be difficult to know for sure if we got everybody. We don’t even know who all the members are.”
Frank looked over at Jane, her eyes wide with terror. He put his arm around her.
“Is the attack in DC today going to change anything for us?” Frank asked.
“Well, it’s going to delay me getting an answer about the 20 rigs outside of your core group, I suspect,” he said. “The folks at the Pentagon are going to have their hands full for at least a few days.”
“But we’re still going in the next three or four days?” asked Jane.
“Yes, things are already in progress,” he said. “I don’t need any more approvals to proceed. We do need to get the order for the motorhomes in quickly, though. No later than mid-morning tomorrow.”
“We can tell you what we would like right now,” Frank said. “We just want a straight across trade, and our rig is made by Forest River.”
“Lieutenant, you have that spreadsheet set up yet?” he asked.
“Yes sir.”
“Good, why don’t you take Frank and Jane’s info,” the General said.
Lieutenant James came over to the laptop and pulled up a spreadsheet. It had everyone’s names in the far left column. He moved the cursor over to their name.
“Current make and model?” he asked.
“Forest River Georgetown 328,” Frank said.
“Desired replacement?”
“The same make and model will do just fine, Lieutenant.”
The Lieutenant copied the info over.
“That was easy. We’re done,” he said.
“Thanks! Would you like me to spread the word to the others?”
“Sure, I’ll be here all night,” the Lieutenant said. He laughed.
“Need us for anything else, General Walker?”
“No, you can go back over to the clubhouse if you want to. The Major and I will probably be back over there later.”
“Okay, see you later,” Frank said. He took Jane’s hand and they walked back to the clubhouse.
“I can’t believe this stuff about Sean,” Jane said. “And his poor wife. It’s so awful.”
“Things could have been worse for us,” Frank said. “We might have hooked up with Sean if he didn’t get caught. Wonder if the Williams Militia guys knew him, or knew that we’d met him?”
“Didn’t we mention his capture to Hank?”
“I’m pretty sure we did. Probably to Dave too.”
“I wonder if Hank was part of the Williams Militia,” Jane asked, “he didn’t act like he knew Dave and his guys before they showed up to check out the Chief’s motor home.”
“Good question,” Frank said. “I’ll bet Earl or Jackson could tell us. I’d be shocked if he wasn’t, though. He was trying to keep us from leaving that place by the airstrip, remember?”
“Yes, and somebody shotgunned him as we were leaving,” Jane said.
They got back to the clubhouse. Jeb and Jerry walked up to them, with Earl, Jackson, and Charlie bringing up the rear.
“Everything alright?” Jeb asked.
“Yes,” Frank said. “We saw the picture of Sean. It’s the same guy we met at Quartzsite.”
“We hadn’t thought about that first day for a while,” Jane said. “Seems like so long ago now.”
“Earl, Jackson, do you guys remember a guy named Sean?” asked Frank. “He would have been from the Yuma branch of the militia.”
“No, can’t say that I do,” Earl said. “Jackson?”
“Nope, doesn’t ring a bell, but we weren’t high enough in the organization to be in meetings with other militias.”
“Remember somebody named Hank?” asked Jane. “He looked kinda like Santa Claus.”
“Oh, yeah, we knew Hank,” Earl said. “What a dope. He was their recruiter and propaganda guy. A real windbag.”
“We saw him get shot when we were leaving that place by the airstrip,” Jackson said. “Good riddance. He was one of the creeps that was pushing us to spy on you guys.”
“Wonder what happened to his wife,” Jane said.
“Oh, yeah, Linda,” Earl said. “She was actually a nice person. She didn’t like the militia stuff one bit, but she didn’t want to leave Hank. I hope she got away from those idiots.”
“Anything else on the news?” asked Frank.
“Naw, not really,” Charlie said. “They are just repeating the same stuff that you heard before you walked off with the General.”
There was a loud giggle from over by the cocktail cart. Everybody turned around.
“Rosie has a good buzz on,” Jerry said, cracking up. “I’m glad, she needed some relief. She sure is flirting with the Sheriff tonight.”
“Yeah, and he seems to be enjoying it, too,” Jane smiled.
“Rosie wanted me to drink another one of those Weng Weng things,” Earl said. “They hit you fast. I’m too nervous to get that plastered, though. I just have the feeling that there’s going to be more action coming.”
“I know, me too,” Jerry said. “I feel really uneasy. Wish we had those cameras up.”
“We’ll get them up tomorrow,” Frank said, “but we’ve got privates patrolling the park. We should be alright tonight.”
“Hopefully,” Jeb said.
“By the way, Lieutenant James needs your RV requests by mid-morning tomorrow. He’s over at the barn now with a spreadsheet. If you know what you want, you can go over and chat with him tonight.”
“You guys already put in your order, I suspect,” C
harlie said.
“Yes, it was easy for us,” Jane said. “We just asked for a straight across trade….another Georgetown 328.”
“You like those short coaches, eh,” Jeb said. “It is a nice rig, though.”
“I know what I need to order,” Charlie said. “Hilda and I were looking at options earlier.” He walked over to where Hilda was chatting with Rosie and Jasmine, and got her attention. They walked off to the barn.
“Guess I could go do it now too,” Jeb said.
“Me too,” Jackson said. Earl nodded, and the three followed Charlie and Hilda out the door.
“How about you, Jerry,” Frank asked.
“Don’t know. I think I’d better go grab Jasmine and get on the web. They didn’t mention Tiffin, so we’ll have to choose something else.”
“Yeah, Tiffin makes good coaches. You’ll probably have to go with one of the higher end Winnebago’s to get close.”
“Maybe,” Jerry replied. “Tiffin’s coaches are a cut above. Maybe a Fleetwood Discovery would be close enough. Not sure I want a Winnebago…but we’ll see. I’ll let Jasmine have the final choice – the floor plan needs to serve the three of us.”
“Good luck,” Frank said. Jerry nodded and walked over to Jasmine.
Frank and Jane walked back over by the TV and watched for a few minutes.
“I was just thinking, Frank. What was the Joint Session about, anyway?”
“Good question,” Frank said. “War related, probably.”
Frank pulled out his phone and searched for it on the web.
“It was a closed session,” Frank said. “Interesting.”
“Any speculation?” asked Jane.
“Yes,” Frank said. He sat down, his eyes glued to the phone’s screen.
“Some sources are saying it was about Mexico…..you know, should we merge our two countries into one, or carry on the way it was before.”
“I could see that,” Jane said.
“But there are others speculating that it was about martial law,” Frank said. He frowned.
“Why don’t we go back to the coach and get on the laptop,” Jane said. “We should do some poking around, since we’re about to embark on a big move.”
“Sounds good,” Frank said. “Let’s go.”
