Desperation directs our efforts, and rest assured that we are perfectly willing to sacrifice our own lives for the great cause that we serve.
What is the soul of a single individual, when a billion and a half others depend on us to succeed? Our great movement is their last chance, and failure isn’t an alternative.
“But coldblooded murder is not our intention, only a potential means.
So follow our rules, and you shall live. Resist, and you will die.
It’s as simple as that, for the Queen and her occupants are now mine!”
BOOK THREE
I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then said I, “Here I am; send me!”
18
Thomas expected the worst as they were disarmed, gagged, had their eyes covered and hands restrained with electrical tape. Other than the warning threat from the raspy-voiced woman, their attackers kept silent during this whole process, their faces hidden behind camouflaged hoods.
Before his own eyes were masked with tape, he counted at least twelve individuals in the militia party, who now proceeded to prod them forward with the barrels of their weapons.
To keep from straying from the path, Thomas was forced to grab onto the shoulders of the man in front of him. It was disorientating to travel in this manner, and he had to hurry to keep pace as they continued up a steep hill.
As they reached the summit, one of the militia members announced their arrival with a series of bird calls. The path was flat here, and Thomas counted off some two dozen steps before they were led into a structure.
The air inside was heavy with the scent of burning logs. It was the woman with the raspy voice who ordered them to their knees. Thomas did as instructed, and listened as she began a furious, accusation-filled diatribe.
Thomas had heard it all before. She started off declaring that this was yet another instance of the United States government infringing on the rights of its citizens. They had been apparently expecting this incursion for some time, and accused them of illegal trespass and a litany of other crimes that included the tragic deaths at Ruby Ridge, and the slaughter at the Waco Branch Davidian complex.
She went on to declare her belief in the right of all Americans to bear arms. She also revealed her fear of a United Nations-sponsored one-world government that the atf. and the FBI were secretly laying the groundwork for.
With rising frustration, Thomas was forced to listen to these paranoid, unfounded attacks that finally ended when she ordered the leader of her group of captives to stand. Thomas did so, and suddenly felt the tape painfully stripped off his forehead.
His eyes stung as he looked out at a bank of powerful mercury-vapor lights that continued to veil his accusers. A hooded figure dressed in BDUs came forward, frisked him, and pulled the search warrant out of his zippered pocket. This figure disappeared back into the light, and Thomas listened as the woman with the raspy voice read the warrant.
“So, you’re looking for an organization responsible for threatening the life of our commander in chief,” she repeated with a skeptical laugh.
“What a clever cover story to justify this flagrant act of trespassing.
From the weapons you were outfitted with, it’s obvious that you already considered us guilty as charged, and were on your way to carry out the government’s sentence. Before we pass our own judgment, how do you plead?”
This same individual stepped forward and ripped the tape off Thomas’s mouth. He cleared his dry throat, and finding himself with nothing to lose, described in detail the two leds that had brought about this intrusion.
Thomas tried his best to contain both his anger and his fear as he revealed the nature of the evidence that had brought them to the Holly wilderness area. He decided to include the description of their suspect, as given to them by the Winchester post office clerk, still not certain if this individual and the woman who stood before him, were one and the same.
“Look,” he said. “We didn’t come out here to attack you. And I don’t think you find it strange that government agents are armed. If this is a case of mistaken identity, then I’m sorry to have bothered you this morning.
“But believe me, I personally helped defuse that second IED, and the C-4 it held was very real. Before more bombs are sent and innocent lives endangered, all we want to do is enforce our warrant. If you’re not involved, then you have nothing to hide. Let us look around and determine this fact, then I swear that we’ll leave you in peace and be gone from here.”
A single, BDU-clad figure stepped forward. Short and stocky, this individual halted in front of Thomas and yanked off her hood. The defiant face of a fifty-year-old woman stared back at him. She had penetrating hazel eyes, with cracked skin stretched tight over prominent cheekbones. Her spiky hair was cut short, and Thomas saw that the characteristic straw-colored braids were noticeably absent.
“Your candor is appreciated,” she whispered as she took him aside. “And as shocking as this may sound, I believe you. Though I don’t always agree with my government, violence isn’t the way in which I’ve chosen to express my displeasure.
“I’m Capt. Lee Pierce, formerly of the U. S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. I formed the Holly River Patriots in a last-ditch effort to defend the Constitution, not destroy it. Senseless bloodshed isn’t in our charter, though I’m sorry to say that there could be others in our midst who don’t feel likewise. If that description you related is accurate, I believe the suspect you seek could be amongst us. Shall we see for ourselves?”
Pierce ordered Thomas and Galloway’s restraints removed, and quickly escorted them back into the woods, the rest of their team still held captive back at the main compound. They soon found themselves on an isolated corner of her property.
“It was my great-great-grandfather who originally settled this land,” she explained while leading them up a tree-lined ridge. “The cabin we’re headed to was part of his original homestead. My stepson moved up there this past spring, shortly after his father died. We never were close, and after the accident took my husband, he got increasingly extreme in his ideas, so much so that I was forced to castigate him in front of the others. And that’s when he moved into the cabin with his girlfriend Emma.”
“I realize that this isn’t easy for you, Captain,” said Thomas as they reached the top of the ridge. They started down into a fog-filled hollow.
“The boy always was too headstrong for his own good,” she continued without breaking her stride. “At first I feared that I was the cause of his rebelliousness. But even when I wasn’t around, he had a way of alienating those around him. I’m afraid he’s just a bad seed who believes that violence is the only way to get his point across.”
The air temperature dropped as they climbed down into the valley. A stream could be heard nearby, and it was beside it that a cabin materialized out of the fog. It was an ancient structure, formed out of white stone blocks.
Lee Pierce peered through the cracked window, and seeing no one inside, unlocked the front door with a key she extracted from the top of the wooden door frame. The stench of tanning animal skins was overpowering as they stepped inside. The place was a mess, and it was obvious that its occupants didn’t devote much time to housekeeping. Clothing and used supplies littered the floor, with a thick coating of dust covering the furniture.
“If these two are up to no good, we’ll find the evidence either up in the attic or down in the root cellar,” said Pierce.