She hesitated, nodded her head, and accepted his invitation. Then, glancing to the back yard, she cried out, “No I can’t.” She burst into tears and ran for her house.
The hand gripping his shoulder kept Jack from racing after the woman. He turned to face his brother.
Beau shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do, Jack. We need to get Tracy and get the hell outa here. We can’t save everyone.”
With a sigh Jack shook his head in a somewhat reluctant agreement. He knew the wisdom of his brother’s words, and a moment later they were on their way to the Walker’s.
The dune buggy roared down the street.
Jack took a shortcut to reach Scott Walker’s house — a shortcut that took them through a very expensive neighborhood and one in which Representatives Lipton and Washington lived in high fashion.
They came upon Washington’s property first. The house was a display home, well-manicured, and nicely decorated. But what they saw in the finely trimmed front yard startled both men. Jack brought the dune buggy to a screeching halt. In the yard was Washington. He was obviously dead. His wife and two children knelt over his body, and all three shrieked out in horror.
When Jack and Beau ran up to the woman, she again screamed and covered her face with one hand while trying to crawl away from the two men. She had been beaten. There was a bullet hole in the back of Washington’s head, and it appeared he had been executed.
“Please no more!” she screamed.
Jack tried to soothe her as Beau kept a watchful eye out for whoever might have done the cowardly act. “Mrs. Washington, we want to help. What happened?”
Washington’s wife buried her face in her hands. “They dragged him out of the house. It was horrible,” she screamed.
Beau put his arm around her and she wilted against him.
“I tried to stop them but they beat me. Then they… they… shot him!” Again she screamed in a voice filled with terror.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Beau.
Jack was confused. “Why would the invaders do this?”
Mrs. Washington pushed away from Beau and glared up into his face with a strange horror in her eyes. “They were Americans. Americans killed my husband. At least a dozen men and four pickups. They all had rifles and guns. They said they were going to clean up the mess the politicians had made.”
Horrified Beau turned to Jack. He hated Sarah Lipton but she was in danger. He mumbled, “Lipton.”
“I heard them say Lipton needed to die,” interjected Mrs. Washington.
The brothers jumped into the dune buggy and immediately the smoking tires tore at the concrete roadway as they made every effort they could to reach Sarah Lipton’s house before it was too late.
They were less than a hundred yards away. Four pickups were parked in front and still running. Men with high-powered rifles stood in the bed of all but one truck. Eight men dragged Lipton out into her front yard. Almost all of them wore jeans, boots, and cowboy hats or baseball caps. They were a savage-looking group of redneck cowboys out for something. But what?
The most striking thing about them was their jackets. They all wore the same type of military green jacket with an American flag patch on the left arm and a logo that was a throwback to the American Colonial days of 1776. It looked like a freedom fighter kneeling and firing a musket. In an ark above the logo were the words, “The Minute Men.”
Hurriedly, Lipton’s husband ran from the front door of the house, his white shirt stained red with blood. He had already been beaten. Mr. Lipton came running to save his wife. He held a gun in his hand and fired as he ran at the two men. A bullet knocked one of the eight men to the ground but the rest responded with a barrage of their own gunfire. Sarah’s husband was dead before he hit the ground.
Beau and Jack started running. They were less than twenty yards from her. Things seemed to happen in slow motion, and it would be something so atrocious the two brothers would never forget what they were about to see.
On her knees, Lipton faced Jack and Beau as they raced forward. A man held each arm while a third had wrapped his hand in her long beautiful hair. With pleading terrified puppy dog eyes, she stared at the two brothers trying to rescue her. Her face showed hopeless desperation and terror. Tears flowed from her eyes.
“Please don’t do this,” she cried. “I’ll do anything you want. I’m a member of Congress; you can’t do this!”
The one holding her hair, Rourke, was a powerful man bigger than Beau or Jack. He wore a revolver at his side like a throwback to old Western days and appeared capable of using his firearm. He pulled the weapon from the holster and put it to her right temple.
Both brothers yelled, “Stop!”
All the men gave the two brothers only a cursory glance as though they had come to help them. A dazed recognition filled Lipton’s pleading eyes when she saw Beau, and the words, “Please help me,” formed on her lips but the words never came out. The man continued the execution and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun discharging halted the brothers. Disbelieving, Jack and Beau watched as the men laughed, and the one holding Lipton let her body fall unceremoniously to the well-trimmed grass of her front yard. A few yards away lay her husband.
Rourke laughed at the two brothers. “You’re too late. We already got her.”
In shocked disbelief Beau mumbled, “This is murder.”
With the gun still in his hand the renegade killer pointed at Lipton with the barrel of his gun and said, “That is not murder. We executed a traitor to the United States of America.”
Another cowboy, Baker, said, “We’re in this mess because of all the politicians like her.”
One of the Minute Men, who had held Lipton’s arm, shoved her with his foot until her body rolled over and soulless eyes stared into the clear blue sky. “She’ll never be able to take our things away again.”
“Or destroy our country,” said another.
“You can’t do this,” said Jack.
Another laughed, “We already have.”
“Who are you that you think you can do something like this?” Beau asked.
Rourke broke in, “We’re called the Minute Men. We organized in 2003 after ninety-three members of the United States Senate refused to vote on the Iraq war appropriations because they knew it would lose them the next election no matter which way they voted. A war to make the rich wealthier. A war that bankrupted us.”
This time Frost, another rough looking character interjected, “All they cared about was what they could get out of it.” He thumped his chest with his fist, “We created an organization dedicated to their execution should our country go bankrupt. Now they will pay for what they’ve done.” He pointed to Lipton. “This is justice for the treason she committed.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, Beau said, “You can’t kill them all.”
Laughing out loud Baker said, “You haven’t been listening. This was organized ten years ago. Right now in EVERY STATE, units of the Minute Men are serving out justice to all members of Congress for the treason they have committed to our country.”
With a smile Frost shook a sheet of paper in the air. The list was filled with names. He said, “We can give you a copy. It’s a list of the CEOs and businessmen who sent American jobs to other countries. For the American lives they destroyed we will take their lives today.”
In stunned silence Jack and Beau could only stare at the list.
Beau mumbled, “You can’t do this.” Frost snickered, and then stuffed the list back in his pocket. A few of the men picked up their wounded friend. Finished, they all returned to their trucks.
The brothers had charged in unprepared. Jack and Beau knew things like this didn’t happen in a civilized land. But it had just happened and they had seen it and they had been unable to do anything about it. The United States of America had become like the streets of Bosnia more than a decade before, with chaos like Iraq or any other country with civil unrest and strife. Now it had come to America. The Gex brothers were so stunned they couldn’t even respond. Beau was the first to react and reached for his gun.