The Meachum ranch was large and modern and readily defensible. Brush was cut back 300 meters so an enemy would have to approach over open terrain. Turnbull’s trained eye noted the loopholes running across each face of the house so the family could defend the redoubt while reinforcements were being called via the antennae on the roof.
Meachum’s wife met them on the porch with lemonade and no questions – she knew that when visitors came to this remote part of the border something was going on that was none of her business. The house was modern and comfortable. A huge big screen monitor, tuned to a correspondent speaking from Fox News’s Dallas headquarters, hung on one wall. On the next wall was a rack of at least a dozen M4s and other weapons, plus piles of neatly stacked loaded magazines. A second monitor displayed a map of the local border sector, with icons over the locals’ homes and key infil/exfil routes displayed.
After lunch, they inspected their old Army surplus packs again. Both were worn and stained. Sewn up inside the lower back pad of Turnbull’s ruck were 20 one-ounce gold coins. There was some basic gear, like binoculars and wire cutters. There was a roll of OD green hundred mile an hour tape and a couple hundred feet of 550 parachute cord. And then there were the weapons. The M4s were broken down inside too, out of view. In the top pocket were worn clothes from the other side – they would walk over in USDF camo and change at the handover point. The goal was to look like another pair of homeless men wandering the byways of the People’s Republic.
Turnbull handed over Junior’s documents – ID card, ration cards, and various receipts and papers that made up a typical resident’s pocket litter. Clay had come through for them. There was cash too, lots of it, new series bills with extra zeros on the denominations the government printed to try and catch up with the hyperinflation. Clay had come through with that too. They stuffed as much as they could into old, cheap wallets and the rest they rolled up and stuff down into their packs.
There were other things too, blue state toiletries like sour toothpaste, flimsy razors and runny shave cream. Turnbull carried a PR pain reliever bottle, but the pills inside were high quality Motrin made in Louisiana. Hidden at the bottom of the pack, where a cop would have to really dig to find it, was a medical kit, complete with forceps, syringes and vials of morphine and antibiotics.
And then there was toilet paper – Turnbull handed over one of the rolls.
“Charmin?” asked Junior, puzzled.
“I’m telling you, that’s gold when you need it. And you will. The water quality is bad and the food is worse. Take your Cipro today and every day. Don’t forget. The only worse thing than being over there is being over there with the runs.”
“They can’t even operate a water system? “The kind of people who actually run things mostly left; the good ones that stayed got replaced. Too much privilege, so someone else had to get those jobs. And, shockingly, when the place your great-great-great-grandfather was born is your key criteria, competence is rarely your end product.”
“Well, if you make everyone sick because you aren’t doing your job, don’t you get, you know, fired?”
Turnbull laughed. “What’s the fun of accountability when it means admitting you hired incompetents? No, it’s better to blame greedy wreckers and saboteurs and, of course, the US. Because all their misfortunes are our fault. Just remember that. Make it your default when talking to people. If someone complains about something, mutter about how the United States is to blame and you’ll be fine.”
They ate a big dinner with the large Meachum family that evening. A whole bunch more children and relatives appeared and, after grace, they set upon the spread of roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, bread and vegetables.
“Enjoy,” Turnbull told Junior. “It’s the last decent grub you’re going to get for a while.”
They set out at sunset with Elijah and a half-dozen boys. Everyone carried a long weapon, including Turnbull and Junior, who had reassembled their carbines from inside their rucksacks. They looked like what they were supposed to look like – a regular USDF patrol. The moon was up enough that no one needed night vision. At the edge of the farm, they dispersed in a 360 position and took a knee for ten minutes to let their eyes and ears adjust to the night. Elijah’s radio man called in that they were crossing the line of departure and the small column moved west, trudging up the hills quietly, not needing GPS to know where they were. The Meachums had been here for more than a century, and they and their neighbors were intimately familiar with every rise, bluff, wash, and boulder within 20 miles.
Turnbull and Junior walked in the middle with Elijah, following a trail they would not have seen if their guide had not taken them along it. One of the older boys, a citizen, was at point. Another son was trail. The radio man monitored comms via his earpiece. No one had to say a word; in the few instances Elijah needed to give an instruction, he did it with hand signals that his team instantly understood and obeyed.
After an hour, Elijah stopped and whispered in Turnbull’s ear, “We’ve crossed.”
Turnbull nodded, and they kept moving.
About ten minutes later, the radioman suddenly turned and nodded to the leader. Elijah made the sign to rally off the trail, and the team silently formed a 360 degree circle facing outwards, Elijah and Turnbull in the middle, each of the six other men taking security over a 60 degree piece of the pie.
“Our motion detectors picked up multiple contacts forward–looks like about a klick ahead–coming this way,” Elijah whispered.
“Our people?” asked Turnbull.
“No, not yet. We don’t know who they are. But they might be raiders.”
If they were just refugees – unlikely out here – then the USDF would evaluate them. If they looked useful, like they might contribute to the US, they would lead them back for processing. If not, they would just turn them around. But if they were raiders, then they were coming to steal and probably worse. They couldn’t be allowed past.
“Okay, where do we take them?” asked Turnbull. Elijah was visibly relieved that detouring from the insertion was not going to be an issue with his charge. If these were bad guys, the people they were coming to hurt were his people, and that simply was not going to happen.
“There’s a stretch over the next rise, very tight. We can do a good L-shaped ambush if they’re raiders.”
“Let’s do it.”
Elijah knew how to pick his kill zone, and how to distribute his men. The trail ran along the side of a hill and up for about 50 meters in a straight line. Elijah put one son with an M14 at the top, his field of fire straight down the path. The rifle’s .308 rounds would be able to cover the length of the kill zone. He placed himself and the rest of the team on a low, brushy ridge perpendicular to the trail segment, his son at the far end charged with locking down the kill zone and ensuring no one else entered or exited from the west.
Turnbull and Junior took their place on the line, lying on their bellies facing the kill zone. Each of their M4s held a 30 round magazine of the 5.56 mm ammo the USDF troopers carried; they did not want to waste their untraceable, sterilized rounds.
They waited.
The night was warm and very still. Turnbull’s eyes, already acclimated, grew clearer in the moonlight. He heard everything, right down to Elijah’s calm breathing to his immediate left. Slowly and deliberately, he put rubber plugs in both ears.
Even with the plugs, he heard their voices. They were laughing, and swearing too, like they were on a hike to some remote party spot to smoke some dope and drink some beers.
“How fucking far is it?” one complained from down the trail in the darkness.
“Few miles. Are we over the line yet?”