Salt Lake County Fairgrounds
Salt Lake City, Utah
Francisco hadn’t waited for his brother to finish his reconnaissance to prepare for the attack on the rich Oakwood neighborhood. Gabriel hoped he could talk his brother out of attacking, but the whole thing felt like a train that had already left the station.
At the morning meeting of lieutenants, Francisco jumped right into ordering the attack without waiting to hear Gabriel’s report. Francisco was excited about the “tanks” they were building out of bulldozers and front-end loaders.
Francisco passed around pictures on his iPhone of heavy equipment with steel plates welded over the body and cockpit, protecting the driver and forming protective shooting boxes with firing slits. Gabriel begrudgingly admitted to himself that the low-tech tanks had been a great idea.
“We should be able to blast through roadblocks, walls and even homes,” Francisco said. “And we’re loading up hundreds of Molotov cocktails for burning those people out.” Gabriel grimaced at the thought of homes and the tent city burning with families and children trapped inside.
Gabriel didn’t hold out much hope, but he had to try to slow this down. “Hermano, can I give my report now? I’ve seen their defenses,” Gabriel reminded Francisco.
“Sure, hermanito. Go ahead. What did you see? Certainly they’re not ready for our tanks, right?” The lieutenants all laughed at the joke, savoring the idea of another easy victory.
Gabriel laughed along with the gangbangers. “First, I may have screwed up. Please forgive me, Francisco, but I told the Tongan Crips that you’d meet with them today on neutral ground.” Gabriel left out the part about the meeting being a gambit to save his own life.
Francisco didn’t look mad. He seemed to be considering the idea. “Why would we want to meet with the Crips?”
“I thought you might want to trade some of the drugs and guns from the Avenues for more soldiers.”
Francisco’s eyebrows jumped. It triggered an idea. “We could use the Polys as shock troops. They won’t be reliable, but they hit hard. I don’t know what the trade would be, but it could work. It’d be like the German mercenaries George Washington used in the Continental Army.” That meant nothing to anyone at the meeting except maybe Francisco. He never missed a chance to mention military history, proud of the few books he’d read in prison.
It wasn’t entirely unusual for Norteños to work with Crips. Los Latigos were Bloods—but they weren’t committed to the Bloods versus Crips gang war in Los Angeles. That was an African-American thing. Mexicans and Polys were a bit more flexible on the matter, especially in Utah. Making a deal with the Crips could be dangerous, but they had done it several times in the past, mostly in prison.
“I’ll talk to them,” Francisco decided. “When and where?”
“Warm Springs Park at 1:00 p.m.”
“Good. Now, tell me about the Oakwood mansion neighborhood.”
He told them first about the neighborhood’s military organization―their uniforms, helmets, assault rifles, defensive barricades, and bunkers. Some of the lieutenants looked uneasy at the mention of military equipment. Francisco asked a few questions and came to his own conclusion.
“So they’re not actual military…”
“I don’t know, but they’re well organized. They’re ready for an attack. I saw men with hand grenades on their vests, and all of them were wearing body armor.” Gabriel had no idea if they were real hand grenades or not, but it made an impression.
“How many, hermanito?” Francisco asked the question Gabriel had been avoiding.
“Maybe fifty men at the barricade at the bottom of the hill,” Gabriel exaggerated. He had only counted thirty-five on guard, and that was with women, many of whom probably didn’t belong to the defensive force.
“Good!” Francisco smacked the park bench they had been standing around. “Fifty men should be no problem! We have fifteen hundred men, and that doesn’t count the Crips, and it doesn’t count the tanks.”
Gabriel’s heart sank. He hadn’t known the army had grown so much. In his mind, Gabriel conceded to the inevitable.
“How do we attack?” Gabriel asked.
“With fifteen hundred soldiers? Simple.” Francisco smiled. “Frontal assault.”
Walmart Distribution Center
Wamsutter, Wyoming
As the rising sun washed the sky over the Uinta Mountains, painting it gray, Chad did a final review of his team.
On the rooftop of the Walmart distribution center, he had placed the forty men he’d requested from the mayor. They tiptoed around the roof in socks. It was the only way Chad could guarantee they wouldn’t make too much noise. The rooftop guys carried a variety of rifles, mostly scoped hunting rifles.
Pacheco took his normal position—on overwatch with a radio—monitoring the interstate for unexpected guests from Rock Springs.
On the ground, in the parking lot with Chad, another ten men took up positions around the front doors where the people in the distribution center seemed to come and go most frequently. Chad and his team waited out of sight, behind the closest rank of semi-trailers.
Last, Chad positioned the Medicine Bow River Band, a country band out of Rawlins, behind the farthest row of semi-trailers, completely hidden from view. Chad didn’t know much about country western music, but he knew this wasn’t a great band, but they would do for the job at hand.
With everyone in place, Chad gave the “go” command.
The band began playing, You Should Be Here, which had been a chart-topping country hit when the power went out. The music wafted over the parking lot, amped by the generator-driven speakers they had set up facing the distribution center.
The band played for several minutes with no response from the people in the building. Chad began to worry. The band was the lynchpin of his scheme. The Medicine Bow River Band didn’t have much of a discography of modern country; Chad was pretty sure they had only six or seven songs before they would have to start repeating.
As of yet, the cops and truckers inside the distribution center had grown more complacent and more convinced they were safe with each passing day, based on Chad’s observation. Chad had this one opportunity to take them down without bloodshed. Otherwise, the Rock Springs contingent would be dug inside, with food and water for the next hundred years.
As the first song of the band’s set ended, Chad went to chew on his nails, then noticed he was wearing Mechanix gloves. The band moved on to Nobody to Blame, Number Eighteen on the Country Western Chart when the stock market dropped a deuce.
One of the steel doors cracked open, and people started pouring into the parking lot from the distribution center, drawn to the music. Chad guessed the first thing they would think when they heard music coming from the parking lot at 5:00 a.m., was that the radio had come on in one of the semis. People were inherently hopeful, and Chad figured they would never guess it was a live band playing for them in dawn’s early hours. They would naturally conclude that a radio had magically switched on in the parking lot with civilization somehow restored.
As Chad watched folks rubbing their eyes and cocking their ears, he laughed. Little lambs, drawn to hope.
More and more people wandered out, hitching up their drawers and smoothing over their flyaway hair. Chad tried to get a head count. He came in at about forty-five people, and just a few had grabbed their guns on their way to check out the music.
Chad clicked the second “go” signal on his radio, and his men on the roof quietly moved to the edge, peering down over the parking lot.