Cascadia Fallen: The Complete Trilogy, page 49
“In fact, we think one of the gangs was escortin’ him home,” Jerome revealed.
“Hmmm,” Phil said. “I take it some of them used to go to church here?”
“Yeah,” Jerome told him, nodding. “He was loved and respected by everyone around here.”
They sat silently while Phil pondered his next questions. “Any chance the local gangs are going to start comin’ after all of you?”
“Why d’ya think we guard the stoop?” Jerome countered. “Man is by nature sinful. An’ when people get hungry, they forget stealing’s a sin.”
“And murder,” Phil said quietly, as an afterthought.
“Pardon?”
He cleared his throat. “They forget that murder is a sin, too. And that murder and killing aren’t necessarily the same thing.” He wasn’t thinking about gang members when he said it. Directly to Martha, he gingerly asked, “Would you mind if I see the clothes he was wearing that night?”
She was a bit shocked. “Why, dear? What good could come of it?”
“Honestly, probably nothing,” Phil said. “There’s just this nagging thought in my head…” He hoped that would be enough and was rewarded. Martha went into one of the rooms at the far end of the church and came back out a minute later with a box.
She had tears in her eyes when she handed the box to Phil. “I haven’t really even looked at it myself.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He couldn’t think of anything to say that would comfort her. He opened the lid and pulled out the reverend’s pants. “Looks like they laundered everything,” he said softly. He had Jerome and several other’s full attention. Phil pulled out the shirt and coat and laid them out on a pew. After staring for several seconds, he opened the coat and put the shirt in it to see where the man had been shot. Then it dawned on him…
“Jerome,” he said, asking with a nod if he would follow him outside. To Martha he said, “Would you mind if I stayed here tonight?”
“You’ll always be welcome with me, Phil, and I’m sure the Lord don’t mind you bein’ in His house, neither!”
“I’m going out to grab my stuff, then.” He gave her a quick hug and then headed out the church’s main entrance followed by his new friend.
“What’d you see?” Jerome said.
“Something I didn’t like. What do most of the gangs around here carry?” Phil asked.
“Nine-mil, just like everywhere else,” Jerome answered with a quizzical look.
“Hmmm. That’s what I thought,” Phil said, not believing what the facts told him.
“What?” Jerome asked, his voice lowering a bit as his face turned even more stone-like.
“Those holes are less than a quarter-inch,” he explained. “Could be a common .22, but more likely .223 or 5.56 because of the damage it caused.” He wanted to test Jerome’s deduction against his own.
“You sayin’ the streets may be tellin’ the truth??” Jerome was pissed.
“Only way to know for sure is to ask someone who was there and decide if they’re lying,” Phil answered. And I got a feeling the Guard has already lied about it. “But, yeah, that’s what I think.”
Phil decided to wait the night out. Jerome and some others helped him get his Jeep around to the back—the church’s public lot was much too likely to be robbed on a nightly basis. He’d spent the night there, getting a true sense of foreboding as they heard gunfire, yelling, screeching tires, and screams most of the night. There were no lights to cast shadows, even when cars drove by. Everybody had figured out to disable every light on their vehicle when they drove at night. Nobody wanted to say, Hey, everybody, here I am—rob and kill me. Anyone driving was probably on gang business, as it was. Fuel had become much too valuable to waste. At one point, Phil thought he even heard a couple of wild dog packs wandering around hunting. Mama never called me smart, he thought, as he decided he needed to talk to that gang when the sun came up.
Snohomish County, Washington had been preparing for at least one aspect of a massive natural disaster for several years. As one of the counties that houses a state prison—the Monroe Correctional Facility—they had been pushing the state for extra money and people ever since 9/11, most of a generation earlier. They had prepared for the capability to ensure that should the state fail, they would be able to provide for the guards and their families for up to four months. Indeed, the foresight had become invaluable. Despite some structural damage, the newer buildings in the facility had withstood the quakes. They released the least violent twenty percent of the inmates within two days.
The county had implemented their various emergency responses, including building a tent city for the prison guards at nearby Monroe High School. Without the ability to feed the prisoners for much longer, though, the prison officials themselves had to make a quiet decision. They released another forty percent of the prison population, retaining only the worst offenders, most of them members of organized gangs. In essence, they allotted some of the food that had been stored for guard staff and used it to be able to retain the worst-of-the-worst for a few months until the relief started to trickle in.
The guards that had actually come to the prison had known they could bring their families to be protected, which was a powerful remover of leverage from the criminals inside. They had been corralled into much tighter confines so the guards could be closer together. At just over three weeks into the post-disaster efforts, the prison and county officials had started to feel that all of their planning efforts were starting to find an equilibrium. If only they’d planned for RPGs and mortars.
One rocket-propelled grenade would probably not have completely breached the main gate at the prison—which is why Reynaldo chose to employ three at every guard tower along the back of the property. He also had mortar teams targeting the main gate and front side towers. The hardened structures were not intended to repel small bombs from directly above. Once the perimeter was breached, a few more RPGs shot into the main building convinced the remaining staff to give up. Reynaldo rewarded them with a relatively quick firing-squad death.
A mere fifty minutes after their initial attack and he was standing on the back of a tow truck with a bullhorn in hand, addressing the remaining 779 former prisoners. “My friends,” he said in near-perfect English, “you may be surrounded by my army now, but at your feet is the moment you were born for.” He let that linger for a moment or two. “Not all of you are cut out for my all-star team…but most of you are.” He looked around. There was a soft hum of silent conversation drifting from the men corralled on the softball field.
Rey continued. “Many of you were enemies. That will end now. Close that chapter. Start the next one.” He gave a small wave to a unit of men who had contained a large percentage of the white prisoners—not every white prisoner, but those who openly sported white supremacist markings. All of them had been forced at gunpoint to lie in the mud in front of all the rest. Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka-Krow! His men started to shoot them in the back of their heads. A few had tried to scramble to their feet when the shooting started, but they were vastly outnumbered. In all, sixty-seven white racists had been killed in a matter of three seconds.
Every prisoner had some sort of reaction, regardless of their ethnicity. “Brothers!” Rey yelled into his hand-mic to get the loud buzz to die back down, “I’ve been advised by my leaders that I cannot trust the Blacks, the Whites, the Asians... Is this true?”
A raucous course broke out, as men emboldened by this new vision all cheered out, hoping for an opportunity. The vast majority were thrilled just for the chance to escape, but almost all of them recognized what was happening—this Mexican Army was going to take over the Pacific Northwest, one city at a time. Better to join than die, most of them thought.
“Los policias ya casi estan aqui,” Rey heard in his earpiece.
“Hermanos…Brothers…the time to stop killing each other is here. Join us! Help us rebuild a society for the strong! The pigs and the Army are moving in. Now is your chance to join us in the fight for our New World!”
Rey began firing a rifle into the air, and hundreds of new members of his army roared in unison. He watched his men back a truck into the crowd and begin issuing weapons and orders to their new soldiers. They had anticipated a response from the local police and National Guard. He had an overwatch poised to launch two javelin anti-tank missiles right down Highway 522 into the column of response vehicles. They have no idea what they’re up against, Rey thought as he smiled.
18
Cleansing Breaths.
Tahoma’s Hammer Plus 12 Days.
Nick had a choice to make and plenty of time to think about it on that long hike home. He had qualified with a few different platforms in the Army, and in the years since, had purchased the civilian equivalents. He knew immediately he didn’t need his Barrett 50-caliber. Don’t need that distance on that island. A lot of weight, considering I might need to fight my way back to the boat. He truly loved his Remington 700, most similar to the M24 he started his career with. The stand-out choice for this mission had been the Knights Armament SR-25. It was chambered in .308, and he trusted it out to eight hundred meters, even in the crosswinds he expected.
This twenty-inch model was fairly new—it had been purchased for him as a retirement present, and he’d spent the years since tricking it out for this mission. On the front was a quick-disconnect suppressor. He had folding bi-pod legs and a dual-system scope mount, which held an expensive Leupold sight and in front of that, a clip-on PVS-30 sniper’s night sight. He preferred very light triggers on his work platforms in the Army, but for the expected dual-role of this model, he kept a heavier, two-stage trigger that would be forgiving in engaged combat. He also had a standard sixteen-inch barrel AR-15 in the boat as Murphy insurance. Other than those two rifles, he had brought with him only a Glock 17 with an RMR red-dot sight and an Esee fixed-blade knife.
He looked through the spotting scope one last time to check the wider field for last minute surprises. After two-and-a-half days of waiting—several years, actually, he corrected himself—the reason he still lived in Washington state was in front of him. They were having some sort of assembly in the common area between all the buildings. There was a pretty hyped up crowd ranting and worked up over something. Could have to do with the van that came from the pier this morning. I wonder if that boat came back?
He’d buried the better of the two roosts that covered the main compound a little farther back into the trees. The back-up roost was farther east—it still covered any escape toward the pier but had much less angle into the center courtyard. His range finder was hanging around his neck, as was a back-up pair of binoculars. He had to be ready if he needed to abandon the spotting scope. 627 meters. He did some quick math and figured out the bullet would need three-quarters of a second to lob to its target—plenty of time for the crosswind to push it right-to-left.
He started deep, cleansing breaths, breathing in through his nostrils and slowly out through his mouth. Slow the heart rate. This one was personal. The rush reminded him of the first few of his career. Breathe…Slowly exhale…He had his body positioned directly in line with the rifle, feet spread apart and flat, toes pointing out. No parallax in the site? Check. Good solid pull into the shoulder? Check. Cheek weld? Check. One last breath in, exhale it half-way...squeeze…
The Grace family had stayed in Natalie’s father’s garage for the night. Roy had found an old propane camping heater and a couple of one-pound bottles. He’d found the twenty-pound bottle for the home BBQ, too, but he doubted the old man had the cheap cable and adaptor to enable it to hook up to their camping stove. Nevertheless, he added the big bottle and a few tools to their kitty. Roy had also reminded his wife that her father owned a .357 revolver, which she asked for and was gifted. She had mixed emotions on that, knowing that as dark as the thought was, leaving it might be the more humane alternative to the death that was coming for him. Ultimately, she remembered something that had helped her cope with her mother’s death—God chooses when, not us.
On the evening of arrival, Natalie and Roy had busied the kids with getting the chicken tractor onto some grass and tying up the goats while she told her husband the entire scoop. He was no fonder of the idea of leaving the old man behind than she was, but they both knew that getting their kids to Uncle Bubby’s was the first priority.
The next morning, the drizzle had finally evolved into rain. Everyone was buttoned up tightly. She made sure the kids and Roy had an adequate goodbye with Grandpa. I think James understands that this will be the last time. Wesley will, too, but he probably won’t show emotion about it. Katherine won’t even remember him! This made her tear up again as she watched the farewells.
Animals tethered, Roy shepherded the kids and “wagon train” to the end of the driveway to give his wife some space. He knew she was the toughest member and leader of the family but that she would be fragile for a while.
“Dad,” she said through tears as she leaned in to hug him and kiss him on the cheek. “I love you so much!” The water works started. “I feel like this is the last time I’ll ever see you.”
“No, honey. We’ll meet again,” the old man said, smiling through his own tears. “I love you, too. I’m so sorry you had to see your mother suffer. I think you’re old enough to get that despite being divorced, we still loved each other.”
“Yes…I get it,” she nodded.
“Tell your brother,” he started, pausing to collect himself. She waited patiently. “Tell him I’m sorry.” The memories of a painful past of regrets he had as a father made him start bawling again.
“I will,” she said through her own emotion.
“Tell him,” he continued, “that I wish I’d gotten to know his family better, and that I’m proud of him for standing up to me and making his own life!”
Natalie embraced her father for a while longer, finally letting go and turning. She chose not to look back, preferring to close the painful chapter and start moving forward into a scary and uncertain future.
The barricade had been built with the nearest resource in large quantity—downed logs and river rock. At the head of their road on the south side of the river, Earl and Conner had instructed the residents in how to construct a zigzag pattern out of logs that would allow cars and trucks to work their way through slowly. They used the quads to haul river rock up and reinforce the gaps from the logs to the forest hill on the south side of the choke point and build a wall to the bridge on the north.
The bridge was on the crossroad and led north to a similar road on that side of the river. Like theirs, that road was sparsely populated with homes every three to five acres. After working with the various residents in the principles of watch-standing for a few days, Earl had decided to go check on that road. He and Conner were slowly walking across the bridge, armed, but elbows bent up a bit to show their hands.
“You gettin’ that sense?” Conner asked. He was referring to the feeling they’d had in Iraq when they knew they were being watched.
“Yep,” Earl said.
The partners subconsciously spread themselves apart. Whereas in peace time they would walk next to each other like anyone else, in alert-mode they had spread out about fifteen feet. As they crossed and rounded the bend where the road went along the river, they saw an elaborate chokepoint crossing it. They were surprised to see several men and women, all of whom were well-armed. There was a teenager pushing a garden-cart behind two of the women and one man, who didn’t seem to be part of the guards. Those four were on the near-side of the intricate gate and walking toward Earl and Conner, smiling.
“Don’t be alarmed!” the older of the women said.
Earl could see a few other people still on watch on the far side of the gate. They were using the big plastic jersey barriers that could be filled with water for weight. The barriers had been spray painted a camo pattern. Their zigzag had two, parallel lanes. At the far end of those lanes was a huge log tethered to an old pickup with chain. It looked ready to be pulled in front of the lanes to allow for an instant cut-off. There was a decent-sized wooden shed kit with an asphalt shingle roof that had been constructed. Makes a rainy night on watch quite tolerable, Earl figured. He saw that the cart had a big jug and some supplies in it.
“We brought you guys some coffee!” she said. “Please—come in and have a seat!”
Earl and Conner looked at each other as they closed their own gap and approached. They both knew that if there had been danger, they would’ve died having never seen it coming. “I’m impressed,” Earl opened, looking around. “You all didn’t just happen to throw this together. I’m Earl.”
“Conner,” his wingman introduced himself.
“I’m Vince,” the graying-man in his early seventies said. The mother-daughter combo introduced themselves as Erin and Lacey as they all went into the little shack on the other side of the gate. Earl noticed the men and women still on watch and the teen with the cart had maintained their sense of alertness to the outside world, even as they passed through. Everyone was armed—even the teen—and well-equipped. Serious folks, Earl thought. Lacey brought the coffee urn and stuff in from the cart.
The shack was about eight feet wide by twelve feet deep. It had a table, chairs, lantern and radios being charged by a bank of car batteries. Must be solar on top. There was a large map on the wall that showed every property by address. Earl started studying it.
Erin saw his gaze. “Just a quick reference. We don’t want to give away too much detail to any invaders,” she explained.
“I’m still impressed,” Earl said. “I’m retired Army. That’s hard to do. And, you all were expecting us, which tells me you have a good perimeter and communication system running. I didn’t see any antennas on this building, but I’m guessing you have some in the trees…maybe even a mesh network.”
