Chad stepped out from behind a semi-trailer. “Put your guns down, right now.” The distribution center people jumped as Chad and the rest of Chad’s crew appeared, rifles leveled at their guts.
“I got people on the roof. Put ’em down NOW.”
The stunned crowd, almost in unison, gaped at Chad, then turned to look at the roof. Dozens of rifle barrels pointed down at them. Sleepy, confused, and clearly caught off guard, everyone with a gun complied.
“Now, move around to the side of the building. Now. MOVE!” Chad pointed to his right. Men from Chad’s team ran up and herded the people around the corner of the building.
Just then, the doors opened again and another small group wandered out to check on the music. This group saw their friends being herded off, but they were still too confused to know what was happening. As soon as the door clicked shut, Chad ordered them to put down their guns as well. That added five more to the number of captives. By Chad’s best estimate, that totaled about fifty prisoners. The band played two more songs and nobody else came out.
“Cut the music. Tell the band to pack up and head back to Rawlins,” Chad said over the radio.
The plan had worked better than he had hoped, but he figured there might still be at least ten men inside the distribution center. Chad called over the radio and ordered everyone to begin phase two of his plan.
His men re-deployed, with all but six of the rooftop gunners climbing down the ladders they had brought from Rawlins. Everyone else covered the doors in case someone came out shooting. A school bus drove into the parking lot and swung around to collect the fifty prisoners. They would drop them off near Rock Springs later that morning.
Another team hopped into four of the semi-trucks and drove them out of the parking lot and toward the westbound on-ramp, setting a roadblock to prevent Rock Springs from counter-attacking. It took almost half an hour to get everyone set for phase two and, since nobody new had come out of the distribution center, Chad assumed that whoever remained inside knew they were under attack and had set a defensive position, ready for bear.
Chad pictured the tactical situation inside the distribution center. The walls of the warehouse did nothing to protect the defenders, since there were hundreds of doors opening to the outside. Defenders couldn’t cover even half of those doors. The warehouse walls rendered them blind to what was going on outside.
If Chad had been the one trapped inside, he would have constructed an interior fortress, a place where he could take cover and fight. Based on his reconnoiter, Chad would probably build his fortress against the logistics office in the center of the dry goods area.
Chad made entry with thirty of his men, mostly guys with assault rifles. They entered on the far end of the perishables arm, which smelled even worse than before. Meeting no resistance in the perishables area, Chad split his group into two teams, and each moved along the outside walls, heading toward the dry goods section. Chad had given his men strict instructions not to fire until Chad fired or until fired upon. He still held out hope for a peaceful resolution.
As he and his men fanned out around the dry goods area of the warehouse, Chad stole a couple of looks at the office. Exactly as he had predicted, the remaining defenders had set up a fortress made of cardboard boxes. Based on the labels, Chad assumed they were boxes of canned goods, perhaps the best ballistic protection available inside the distribution center.
Once his team had fully deployed, completely surrounding the makeshift fort, Chad hollered out, “We have you surrounded. We don’t want anyone to die. All the rest of your men are in our custody. Why don’t you come out with your hands up, and we’ll give you a ride home?”
After a second or two, a gravelly voice responded. “Screw you, you bunch of thieves. I am the duly-elected sheriff of Sweetwater County, Wyoming. You’re not taking our town’s food. It rightfully belongs to us. We were here first, and we have permission from the town of Wamsutter to hold and distribute this food. We’re not giving it to anyone without a fight.”
Chad shook his head. His shitty deal with the Rawlins mayor grew more hair every second.
“Sir, I understand what you’re saying. I surely do. But I have almost a hundred armed men from Carbon County inside this building who claim this food as theirs.” Chad thought that lying about their numbers was justified given that it might save lives.
“I’m not from around here,” Chad continued, “so I really don’t give a shit about what belongs to who. But it looks to me like we’ve already taken this warehouse. Our men are bringing the semis around right now to empty this place. These Carbon County boys won’t give back this food. So there’s only one question remaining: are you and your friends going to die in here? Because, either way, the food is gone.”
“Come and take it from us. Without this food, people will die in Sweetwater. It might as well be us that dies here right now.”
Chad considered his options. Winning this gunfight would be easy; the outcome was a foregone conclusion. The canned food around the sheriff and his men would stop the first few bullets but, as his men smashed and drained the cans, bullets would start sailing through and bouncing around inside their fortress like bees in a Wonder Bread bag. Everyone inside would die.
As Chad thought through the tactical situation, a rifle boomed. Chad didn’t know who shot first—his guys or the sheriff’s guys.
Then all hell broke loose. Like so many gunfights he had seen before, Chad watched as his men emptied their guns and all their mags into the fortress of Del Monte green beans. Give a man a stack of bullets and half a reason to use them, and that man will burn through those bullets before having two thoughts.
Eventually, the gunfire died off. Chad felt the foreboding that accompanied the end of a shooting match. Winning a gunfight was like having sex with a hooker. It seemed pretty damned exciting in the doing, but the come-down dragged a man’s soul through the mud.
While his men hooted and hollered their victory, Chad approached the stack of boxes. Green bean juice mixed ominously with other, darker fluids. He stepped through a breach in the boxes, rifle at the ready, his adrenaline pumping.
The scene inside didn’t surprise him. He had seen it before―six men and one woman posed in the contortions of violent death. Some lay sprawled. One perched precariously on his knees, his head slumped low on his chest. All of them had been shot dozens of times. One or more of them had defecated in the throes of death. One young man’s belly had split open, his entrails mixing with the bile and blood of his friends on the floor.
Chad felt the old familiar rage rising, like a tide of acid in his belly. Once again, he had done battle at the behest of old men, men with enough testosterone to want to kill something but not enough testosterone to do it themselves.
Only part of his anger pointed at the politicians of the world. The larger part focused anger on himself. Once again he had allowed his talents to be manipulated by men whose only virtue was an ability to trick people into voting for them.
As soon as he confirmed that all the defenders were dead, Chad walked out of the building, cleared his rifle and handgun, and walked across the parking lot to the Chevy Blazer he and Pacheco had stolen from the first roadblock. He left no instructions with the men of Rawlins. His job was done and the dickweeds who had hired him could figure out the rest.
“Pacheco, Chad. Over.”
“Go ahead, Chad.”
“Walk out to the freeway. I’m coming to pick you up.”
“Okay, Chad.”