Two minutes later, a minute inside Troy’s expected time of departure, each member of the combined twenty-person team designated Endeavor was aboard one of the three helicopters now hurtling low and fast over the camp. Each of them was wearing a headset which allowed comms with their team, and thanks to the encryption protocols, their team alone.
“Listen up,” Troy told them though the boom mic attached to the headset he wore, “as of thirty minutes ago our beloved United States is at war.” He paused to let that hang, knowing that his team were too professional to ask stupid questions in the middle of his brief. “We don’t know who with as yet, but we do know that both eastern and western seaboards have been devastated by nuclear attacks. D.C. is gone and so is Fort Bragg, along with a half-dozen other cities. It’s believed we were a target of an ICBM but it was intercepted by our ABMs.” He paused, imagining the looks of horror and anger his team were exchanging, and even felt his own bird drop a little as though the pilot had been taken by the sudden shock of the news.
“Our orders are to get the fuck out of dodge and fall back on an enclosed position to await further orders from the remaining elements of command. Question time will be later, for now we wait for a deployment.”
With that, he recited the coordinates of their target location from memory to the co-pilot and sat back.
A PERSON WITHOUT PRINCIPLES
Saturday 1:00 a.m. – Free America Movement Headquarters
Colonel Glenn Butler had cleared all personnel from the command hut and sat at his desk in silence. The screens had been turned off as he couldn’t bear to watch the unthinkable destruction being wrought on his country.
At first, he couldn’t believe the coincidental timing of the attack happening just as the opening phase of his plan was drawing to a close. After the fourth mushroom cloud he saw on screen, the awareness slowly dawned on him that this was no mere coincidence, but a terrible country-wide campaign of annihilation and he had been responsible for effectively shutting down the command structure for whoever had used him like a pawn. All was lost, and worse than that; he was partially to blame. He had opened the door for them.
The phone chirped, making him jolt up in his seat in fright. There were noises outside as vehicles started and his so-called loyal followers fled, but the sudden sharpness and closeness of the ringer frightened him out of his stasis-like depression. He turned his attention to the CIA man on the other end of the line, preparing to launch into a savage and vitriolic rant about the irony of the word intelligence in their title.
“Butler,” he snarled into the phone after raising the stubby aerial. He didn’t wait for an answer but launched straight into is attack.
“Now you listen to me, you sorry piece of shit—” he started, but was cut off by laughing coming from the other end of the line.
“Colonel,” said the voice in between chuckles, “I simply wanted to thank you for your kind assistance. You have been invaluable to the People’s Republic.”
With that the line went silent, and Colonel Glenn Butler slowly placed the phone on the table before him.
Sat back in a comfortable office chair on the other end of the line, the sound of a single sob escaping Butler’s lips was quickly stifled. The ensuing silence, which hung heavy with an air of resolve, was punctuated only by the metallic sound of Butler’s pistol protesting the action as he pulled back the top slide to chamber a round. A few seconds of heavy breathing followed before a single sharp report echoed down the line, then a noise that the man listening assumed to be a body slumping over. Waiting in silence with a partially amused look on his face, he heard the sounds of footsteps and a door opening. Shuffling noises merged into the sound of breathing as someone picked the phone up to their ear.
“It’s done,” said a female voice in a simple statement.
“Good,” came the reply, “proceed as planned.”
Suzanne clicked off the call and clipped the phone to her belt before looking down at the man sitting dead in his chair. The bear in the winter of life, the ageing lion superseded by a generation younger and fitter, the outcast silverback discarded and destined to die alone. She didn’t even have pity for him any longer; she simply activated a fist-sized device which whirred quietly as it spun up and began to blink small LED lights. She tossed it onto Butler’s dead lap and walked outside to climb into a truck and abandon the movement just as everyone else had.
Thirty-eight minutes after she had cleared the limits of the forest and headed north intending to head west on better roads, a single high-yield incendiary device dropped from near the stratosphere and plummeted earthwards like a dart, homing straight toward the signal emanating from the beacon, and wiped the Movement headquarters from the planet.
Further south, four people moved as fast as they could through the shadows of Central Park. The sound of sirens in the city was muted by their distance from the streets and shops which were being looted by everyone either too stupid, too selfish, or just totally unaware that nukes were dropping on the country. Trying to move around without attracting any attention to themselves was mostly simple, as the majority of people they saw had their own issues of more pressing concern than four strangers skulking west.
The majority, that was, with the exception of a young man having recently walked out of high school to walk a different path. His ‘crew’ made up entirely of children, only ever called him by his street name which, although apt, sounded comedic given his age. Muscle, a youth of fifteen but built like a man twice his age and heavy-set, watched them from the bushes and gave orders for two of his crew to follow them as he looped ahead.
This was a routine they had grown used to and, although they preferred to prey on naive tourists, it tended to work on New Yorkers who were supposed to be savvy enough not to get caught out like they did. Two hooded youths would follow the targets, staying close enough to unnerve them but never close enough to risk confrontation. When the nervous victims were spending more time looking behind them than in front, Muscle and the rest of the gang would burst from the bushes, beat their victims down, and rob them of everything.
The events in the city had led Muscle and his crew to step up their game that night, and already tonight they had committed dozens of felonies with impunity, as no cops ventured into the park that was their personal playground. They were encouraged into more bravery, more overt violence than normal, and now the reflected flash of metal he saw in the hands of one of them made him certain that he could now acquire the weapon he needed to be taken seriously on the streets. With a whistle and a nod of his head, two of the younger crew members, just thirteen and fourteen respectively, flicked up their hoods and set off into the darkness to set the trap.
Jake, at the head of their small advancing column, had his bright LED flashlight unclipped from his belt and held tactically in his left hand which he rested under his right as it gripped the Glock. He didn’t have it turned on, as he would blind everyone and ruin the night vision all of their eyes had acquired. He would use it if he had to, but he knew the results all too well of losing his visual acuity in the dark because some idiot flashed a beam too close to his eyes. The brightness of it was a weapon in itself, both psychologically and for temporarily blinding suspects, and he intended to keep that in reserve, not least for the fact that everyone would be able to see them at a distance and not the other way around.