Bug Out! Atlantic Book 6, page 6
They watched the students approaching, the UN Peacekeepers looking nervously in their direction, one going to the van parked in front of Wasserstein Hall, coming back with a bull horn. He raised it to his lips. “Please stay away from the intersection. We need to concentrate on what we are doing. Your support is appreciated, but please leave the area. It’s for your own safety.”
Brent laughed. “This is hilarious. When do our guys get here?”
“They’re already in line, on the other side of Garfield Street. Almost didn’t make it past the checkpoint at Somerville Avenue.”
“We’re hitting that one, too, right?”
Mick eyed him. “You never listen in the meetings.”
Brent shrugged. “Lost interest after we were cut off by the others. We were supposed to be members of the Paine Society.”
“We still are, but there were infiltrators,” Mick said. “Don’t take it personal. We’ll get back with them eventually, but until then, we’ve got work to do. I don’t blame them for being cautious.”
“You think they were in on that hit by South Station?”
Mick smiled. “Yeah. Beautifully done, too. I think the Sons of Liberty was a good fit with us.”
“Me too,” Brent said. “I want me one of those two-wheeled things.”
Mick’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. He looked at it. “They’re only two blocks down, on either side. Let’s get ready.”
“Wish we had somebody on top of Wasserstein Hall too.”
Mick nodded. “It is what it is. We’re just here to create a diversion, so the guys can flood out of their trucks and blast the Peacekeepers.”
“I see the first one, coming from the north on Massachusetts,” Brent said. “Rental truck. Can’t believe the first checkpoint didn’t make them open the back.”
“This wouldn’t have worked any time but the first day,” Mick said. “Truck number two coming in on Everett Street from the east, see it?”
“Yeah, I see it. I think we’re about to break our truck rental agreements.”
Mick chuckled, setting down his binoculars and picking up his M4, checking the magazine. “You checked your magazine?”
Brent nodded. “Gotten attached to my girl here.”
“You got that from the Fenway Park battle?”
“Yep. I think they’re better than the M4s in some ways.”
“Mine’s customized to me,” Mick said, changing position, putting the gun on the raised ledge of the roof, sighting targets. “This scope, for instance. Pure gold. Paid a pretty penny for this sucker.”
“Is it better than this one, I wonder? Didn’t pay anything for it.”
“Get sharp, here they come.”
They watched as the rental truck from the north rolled up to the checkpoint. The UN Peacekeeper went to the driver’s side window, another going to the passenger side window. A moment later the other truck was there, two Peacekeepers on that one too.
“When?” Brent asked.
“They’re gonna buzz me,” Mick said. “You really ought to listen.”
“So sue me,” Brent said, Mick’s phone buzzing. “There it is.”
They both opened up, short bursts of auto fire, taking out the men at the windows of both trucks as the students across the street looked on in horror. Two of the Peacekeepers fired at their position, hitting the raised lip of the roof, Brent shooting both dead.
“There, Peacekeepers running in from the sidewalk to the west,” Mick said, firing fast, Brent doing the same at another group of Peacekeepers running towards the trucks from the other side of the street, Paine Society commandos flooding out of the trucks, getting into action right away, guns blazing at the Peacekeepers, some of them turning and running for their lives.
“Don’t let them escape,” Brent said, following them with his scope, firing one at a time. “What about the students? They’re rushing over.”
“Only kill them if they’re firing at our people,” Mick said as he dropped several more Peacekeepers, all the Paine Society fighters out of the trucks now, two of them hit and down, the rest on a rampage, killing UN Peacekeepers before they could respond.
There were shots coming from the group of students now.
“Okay, we can fire on them,” Mick said, aiming and firing at two he saw with assault rifles, Brent dropping one who was carrying a sawed-off shotgun. The rest of the students turned and ran, the Paine Society commandos gathering up FNs and their wounded, putting them in the backs of the trucks and taking off in different directions. Gunfire erupted to the north.
“There goes the assault on the checkpoint at Somerville Avenue,” Mick said. “C’mon, let’s get to the second location.”
The two ran off the roof, getting into the stairwell, not slowing down until they were in their car, driving to the next target.
***
Albena and Penko were in the intel room at the main Manhattan bunker, watching video of the check point attacks all around Boston.
“I’m proud of them,” Penko said.
Mayor Fine, Tracy, Julio, and Kate came in. “Is it true?”
“Yeah,” Albena said. “It was on TV, but the networks pulled it. NBS has lousy network security. I hacked in and got their feed. They’re still shooting video from their choppers.”
“I’ll put it up on the main screen,” Penko said, typing for a moment, the screen lighting up, a high shot from a news chopper, showing the cityscape below with pillars of smoke here and there.
“What percentage of the checkpoints did they attack?” Julio asked. “Do we know?”
“Less than half,” Albena said, “but a lot of the other check points shut down when the attacks started. There are only a handful of them still working now, and I wouldn’t want to be them.”
“It’s the execution,” Tracy said. “People don’t take well to that level of violence.”
“They shut down the TV coverage so the resistance can’t see where the bases are,” Kate said. “Are you recording this?”
“I have been all morning, yes,” Albena said.
“We should talk to Jared,” Julio said. “I’ll bet our sister team in Boston would love to have access to this video.”
“If they don’t already have it,” Mayor Fine said. “That Boston team is good.”
Julio nodded. “Still worth checking on.”
“You’re right,” the mayor said, pulling out his thin phone. He hit Jared’s contact. It rang a few times, then Jared’s face appeared on the screen.
“Mayor Fine, how are you?”
“Great. You’re on speaker, my staff is here plus Penko and Albena. We’ve been recording chopper video from the NBS affiliate in Boston. Think the team there might be interested? It could help them find the UN bases that the checkpoints operate out of.”
Jared smiled. “That’s a great idea. We’ve had a couple military drones in the air as well, but they can’t cover everything. Send me the files and the URL and security info and I’ll forward it to your counterparts there.”
“Can you do that, Albena?”
“Sure, easy peasy,” she said. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Thanks,” Jared said. “They don’t appear to be trying that in your city, at least for now. We’re seeing similar activities in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, Pittsburg, Providence, Manchester, and Portland.”
“Are the citizens fighting back everywhere?” Tracy asked.
“Not at the level they are in Boston, but look at what just happened in that city,” Jared said. “The execution was way over the top.”
“Where are all these UN Peacekeepers coming from?” Kate asked.
“We’ve been watching,” Jared said. “The largest single point of origin we’ve seen so far is Halifax.”
“Canada?” Tracy asked. “Does the Canadian government know about that?”
Jared sighed. “We’ve passed some comments through channels, but it doesn’t appear to be breaking through. There are too many globalists in that government. I can’t reveal myself to them.”
“Yeah, don’t do that,” Mayor Fine said. “Thanks. That’s all I had.”
“I’ll watch for the data,” Jared said. “Thank you, it’s helpful.”
Mayor Fine ended the call. “There you go. Hope it helps. It’s disturbing that not every city is fighting this.”
“He didn’t say they weren’t fighting, he said it wasn’t at the same level as Boston,” Julio said.
Mayor Fine nodded. “True. We should keep a good eye out around here, just in case.”
“They won’t try it here,” Penko said. “They know it will draw another attack on their headquarters.”
“I don’t think they’d care at this point,” Julio said. “We know Mateo isn’t there. We need to help expose the Halifax problem. If the Canadians kick the UN out of their country, it’ll be rough sledding for them.”
{ 5 }
Apache
S turm stood in his room, holding the pistol with his new hand, dry-firing it. It was getting better. He’d dropped that gun many times in the last few days, but now he rarely did. Claude walked in.
“We’ve got a better place lined up.”
Sturm set down his pistol. “Can I practice shooting there?”
“Yes,” Claude said.
“Where?”
Claude smiled. “The Mayor’s forces lost interest in the buildings we occupied near the Harlem Armory. The best of them is still undiscovered. We’re taking you there.”
“How, the subway?”
Claude shook his head. “They know about the cameras that Mateo’s team compromised.”
“They removed them?”
“No, but we’re pretty sure they have a substitute by now, which is worse than them replacing the original ones.”
“So we’re traveling the streets, then?”
“Yes, we’ve got a van lined up. It’s got armor, and we’ll have a commando squad with you as well.”
“Good. When?”
“Tonight,” Claude said.
“That will work. Any more news since the execution in Boston?”
“Yeah, we rolled out check points all over the mid-Atlantic and New England states. They were successful in most places, but in Boston, the resistance rose up and squashed them.”
“Were a lot of citizens involved, or was it commandos from the resistance?” Sturm asked.
“We don’t know that detail. I’ll try to find out… I can see why you’d want to know that.”
“Yeah, if this is grass roots, we’ve got a problem. I suspect it’s not, but you never know. We’ve had a lot of grass roots resistance in New York City. I didn’t expect that.”
“Nor did I,” Claude said.
“We might not be able to conquer this city until the other big cities in the region have been put under control. What’s going on at UN Headquarters?”
Claude shrugged. “Still no power or water. People are pissing in the damn planters and they’re almost out of bottled water, apparently. We might want to surrender and evacuate the site.”
“We’ll never do that, it’s sovereign territory. If we give that up, we’re lost. Let me think on ways to re-supply them with food and water. It’s a lot easier to get non-flammable materials in, and Mayor Fine might not even stop us. It is a humanitarian situation, and he doesn’t need bad press. Remember that they backed off and let us put out the fires after the battle there. They could’ve easily overrun that whole facility.”
“Honor among thieves, huh?” Claude said. “Okay. You want to talk to Mateo about it?”
“I’d rather talk to Sanchez, but I’ll bet he hasn’t even figured out how to keep his cellphone working.”
Claude snickered. “I’ll give him a call.” He took out his phone and punched Sanchez’s number. It rang twice, and clicked.
“Claude?”
“Yeah, Sanchez, I’m putting you on speaker. Sturm is with me.”
“Okay.”
Claude put the phone on the table and pushed the speaker button. “Hear me?”
“I do. Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
“How are you keeping your phone charged?” Sturm asked.
“We had a bunch of solar phone chargers in the lab,” Sanchez said. “From a study we were doing, to supply parts of Africa with cell phones. Their grid is spotty, to say the least. I must say I’m impressed with these things. They work well.”
“Good, glad we can communicate,” Sturm said. “I’ll bet you’re running out of food and water.”
“We’re okay on food for the moment… thanks to earlier testing again, for the same region as the solar chargers. Got lots of freeze-dried stuff. The employees are getting tired of it, but we aren’t starving. Things will get bad when we run out of water. Wish we could abandon the site, but there’s no way.”
“You’re talking about the materials on the top floor,” Sturm said.
There was a pause on the line. “You know about that stuff?”
“There are documents that prove our collusion on the nuclear attacks,” Sturm said. “Knowing Mateo, there’s other bad stuff there too.”
“You can’t tell him I know about this,” Sanchez said. “In fact, it’d be good if Claude wasn’t in the room for this part.”
Claude nodded, leaving the room. Sturm picked up the phone, turning off the speaker button.
“Claude left, and I took you off speaker. What are you talking about?”
“When I thought Mateo was gone for good, I went up into his office and poked around. I expected what you just mentioned… documents that would compromise the UN, having to do with the war. The stuff I found wasn’t just about the nukes… it was about everything. Wish we could burn it all, but I’m afraid we’ll need it later to survive.”
“What else does he have?” Sturm asked, a headache starting behind his forehead.
“He’s got dossiers on all of our funders, and all of our allied political leaders. Classic blackmail stuff.”
“Exactly what I expected,” Sturm said. “How far up?”
“Daan. President Simpson. Saladin. A bunch of big-dollar Wall Street types. About half the UK royal family. All of the EU leadership, and most of the UK government too. Even others in the UN High Command. It’s bad.”
“What did you do with it?” Sturm asked.
“I kicked everybody off that floor, padlocked the door, then barricaded it.”
Sturm sighed. “You’re right, we can’t evacuate the site, because we can’t get rid of that stuff, just in case we win this war. Neutralizing our partners will be a must. Mateo is smart enough to know that. We’ll have to do a night of the long knives that Hitler would admire. He doesn’t know that you know about the blackmail stuff?”
“I’m sure he suspects. Some of these folders were on his frigging desktop.”
“Who else knows?”
“Jerry Poole knew, but there’s not a piece of him left that’s more than a foot square.”
“Nice visual,” Sturm said.
“Sorry. There were sixteen people on Mateo’s floor.”
“Tell me they’re still at the facility.”
“They are,” Sanchez said. “I hate to say it, but we should kill them all.”
“We have no choice. Good job shutting it down. Compile the names of everybody on the top floor and send it to me.”
“Yes sir.”
“I’ll arrange for two open flatbed trucks to be sent to the street in front of UN Headquarters. One of them will be loaded up with bottled water. The other will be loaded with food. All completely visible so there’s no doubt what it is. Have a crew ready to unload the supplies.”
“You’re counting on Mayor Fine and the NYPD allowing us to take the supplies,” Sanchez said. “I think you’re right about that, but I’ve been wrong before.”
“This is humanitarian,” Sturm said. “Mayor Fine has no choice, and he controls the NYPD. I’ll shoot for noon tomorrow.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Keep your chin up, Sanchez.”
“Will do.”
Sturm ended the call, and opened the door, Claude coming back inside.
“Bad?” Claude asked.
“You don’t want to know, for your own safety.” Sturm told Claude about his re-supply plan, and they got to work.
***
Tracy rushed into Mayor Fine’s office. He looked up from his PC screen.
“Did you hear?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
“The House Intel committee published thousands of emails from the Simpson Administration. They were in on the start of the war, the nuclear attacks, the UN invasion, even the Islamist invasion. All of it.”
Mayor Fine pushed himself away from his desk, his brow furrowed. “It’s not just partisan BS?”
“No, this is the real deal. Oh, and somebody murdered the Speaker of the House. Geraldine was the one holding back the publication. She knew… she was in on it. I can’t figure out why she was murdered, frankly.”
“This is treason. Capital offense for sure. Have they began making arrests yet?”
“They nabbed the Vice President and the Joint Chiefs already, because they were at one of the established alternate locations. President Simpson and his Cabinet have disappeared. There’s a search going on now.”
“Hmmm, so if the VP and the House Speaker are out of pocket, that leaves President pro tempore of the Senate Borden. Wonder if he’s dirty?”
“They’re looking into it now,” Tracy said. “If he is, we’ve got a big problem, because all the other candidates are in Simpson’s cabinet. All of them have been implicated by the email dump.”
“How far does this go?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are foreign leaders involved?”
Tracy shrugged. “I don’t know, those are the only emails that have been heavily redacted. I was expecting Mateo to show up as guilty, but he didn’t. Simpson formally requested him to come in after the invasion and bombings. That’s quite clear.”
