“Tennesseeeee!” said Jessie. He stomped through a field of empty beer cans on the way to the gun cabinet. The glass case contained a 12-gauge shotgun, and that was it. He’d sold or pawned the rest of his ’daddy’s guns. But he had that one left.
He’d watched the news all morning long at the Antioch Social Club, a dark, shabby bar where he could drink until he passed out and no one would try to steal his Marlboro Reds. Salt of the earth folk just like him. They even let him run a monthly tab, and then allowed him to use his food stamps and disability check to pay for his beer. The regulars there were his family. The battered pickup trucks in the gravel parking lot held gun racks in every rear window. Many of the trucks were adorned with bumper stickers of rebel flags and “Secession Now!” logos.
He’d known this was coming, and the only thing that took away from his triumphant mood was the fact that his daddy couldn’t be here to see it too. Daddy had known.
Was a high school football player with college prospects. Fast and mean, like the old man said. Shake and bake. Taliban took my knee and a Mexican took my job and now it’s war.
This was a lie he’d repeated so often that he actually believed it. He’d tried to join the army, but they’d refused to let him in. He’d been a benchwarmer in high school, with no prospects. But the stories were good for free beer, and he’d built a life and friends around these stories until he was convinced he was a different man than he actually was. Okay, you motherfuckers. My turn!
Marshall took the shotgun from the case, staggering, seething, and finding a fight in the way that people named Jessie who want to be called Marshall always do.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Enemy Is Us
SOUTHERN ALBERTA, CANADA
The helicopter touched down in a pristine valley surrounded by mountains, and Henry hopped off the bird into the snow in front of a squat log cabin. Smoke coiled from a stone chimney. The other Blackhawk landed behind him as he walked toward the cabin. The flight crews and several team members pulled cammie netting over the birds.
Henry waited on the wide front porch while his teammates sauntered forward. Carlos grinned at him and said, “Guess this is a safe house the colonel had up his sleeve.”
The sky was clear and blue and the temperature was in the teens. Henry stomped his boots on the wooden porch. His face was numb from the ride in the helicopter, but he was not concerned with the cold; he wanted to know what was happening.
Colonel Bragg nodded at the expectant faces of his men as he strode onto the porch and knocked on the door.
A woman opened the door at the first knock. She wore her dark hair in a long braid, and her face was the color of tanned leather. There was the smell of fresh bread wafting in the warm air. Her expression was flat, gazing at the thirty armed soldiers gathered around the front of her cabin. She looked neither surprised nor afraid.
“Hello, Colonel,” she said.
“Hello, May,” replied Colonel Bragg. “Sorry to intrude. But, you know the deal.”
“Yup. I was really hoping you were off somewhere else. Come on in. Not that you need me to tell you that.”
“We won’t all be here long,” said the colonel. “Just need to regroup and figure out what the next move is.”
“Well, come on, boys, don’t just stand there in the cold,” she said, moving away from the door.
Henry followed the colonel into the cabin. A friendly fire blazed in the stone fireplace. The sound system played Mozart. Henry was befuddled.
“Boys, this is my cousin’s wife, May. She’s good people. Try not to track snow inside.”
“Not his wife anymore.”
“Well, no. May God rest his soul.” The colonel led the way down a hallway. He pulled a sconce on the wall, and part of the wall slid back, revealing a stairway.
“I’ll bring you men some coffee and bread. Got some venison stew for supper if you’re going to be staying.”
“That’d be great, May,” said Colonel Bragg.
Henry and the Wolves followed the colonel down a series of metal stairs, and Henry guessed they descended about four stories below ground.
The colonel entered a code onto a keyboard mounted on metal blast doors; the doors opened with a hiss, revealing a cavernous room, three or four thousand square feet, with a row of bunks along one wall. Inert computer screens surrounded what looked like a command center. Metal racks contained assault rifles and ammunition. The colonel walked to the op center and began turning on the computers, which sprang to life. He turned heel, hands behind his back, to face the men. His gray eyes were the color of the ocean before a storm, sober and sad.
“Take a knee,” he said. The men gathered around him like a football team around the coach after practice.
“I know you all have questions; I’ll try to answer them as best I can. I’m gonna ask you to trust me. We don’t have much time, and there’s a lot that needs to be done. Here it is in a nutshell.” His gaze swept the room, locking eyes with each man for a moment.
“This place belonged to a group of guys the Mounties took down about ten years ago. I acquired it quietly, using shell companies. May has been keeping up appearances here, just in case we ever needed a rabbit hole in this neck of the woods. I’ve stashed diamonds, gold, passports, weapons, food, and just about everything we could need to survive a damn apocalypse. I never really thought I’d wind up here.”
“Washington, DC, was attacked this morning. It is unclear whether it was a missile launched by military assets or if it was a bomb detonated by terrorist separatists. San Francisco was subsequently attacked, and I’m pretty sure, based on the eyewitness reports, they did get struck with a missile, maybe something launched from a submarine.”
Henry closed his eyes. Several of the men had families in San Francisco.
“The United States is at war with itself. At installations around the world, there has been fighting. On a lot of bases, there has been no bloodshed. Some base commanders are allowing troops to leave if they choose, trying to maintain order without anyone getting killed. Throughout the separatist states, troops are being given the option to join, disband, or depart, and in most places it’s orderly. But the chain of command is completely broken. Now, every one of us signed an oath to uphold the Constitution, to defend our country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Frankly I’m not sure what that means right now.”
“Sir,” Carlos said, “shouldn’t we be trying to stop the rebels? I’m confused. Why are things unclear?”
“We could do that,” Colonel Bragg said. He looked tired, depleted. “We have zero assets beyond what you see here and our two birds. We could try to make it to federal territory. We’d run the risk of being shot down.”
Several of the men began to speak at once, but the colonel held up his hand. The men shut up.
“I bleed red, white, and blue, you men know that. I have been a loyal soldier, and I’ve followed orders I disagreed with because that’s what we do. For the last six months, I’ve been making discreet inquiries through some contacts I trust. Men and women I’ve known for decades. I fear our unit has been manipulated and compromised. We have operated outside of the chain of command of even SOCOM.” US Special Operations Command coordinated the joint efforts of the various special ops units the United States deployed around the world. The Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Green Berets, and Marine Raider Regiment all fell under the purview of SOCOM. “We’ve worked with them, but not for them. This much I knew when I signed on; it made sense in terms of operational security and the fact that what we’ve been doing falls into a constitutional gray area.”