Sic Semper Tyrannis (7 page)

“
Good—All right, here goes nothing.  I hope these locals know what the hell they’re doing.  Blowing the bridge in three, two, one
…”

“Open your mouth!” Pinner said as he turned away from the bridge and cupped his ears.

Erik closed his eyes and opened his mouth.  The next thing he knew, it felt like he was flying.  Then he was on his back and the world was reduced to a high-pitched ringing.  He coughed some more and cracked an eye open.

Sergeant Pinner was on his knees, coughing, but gave him the thumbs-up.  A massive cloud of dust was drifting north and billowing up into the sky.  It blotted out the afternoon sun ushering in an early twilight.  Erik could see bits of debris falling from the sky all around them, splashing into the calm Canaveral Barge Canal.

“Good Lord,” Erik said, coughing.  He rolled over to his hands and knees and tried to get up.

“Well,” said Pinner, leaning against the tree.  “I think that shut down the bridge for a while.”

“
Oorah!
” roared Ted’s voice over their radios.  He laughed and coughed.  “
These rednecks know how to party!  Holy shit, that was
awesome!
I never expected a home-brew to go up like that!
”

Erik shook his head to clear his thoughts.  He started to feel a bit light-headed and his hands shook.  The last time he’d felt so out of sorts had been in the parking lot back home at the Freehold, when he’d killed the escaped prisoner that had tried to attack Brin and Susan…

He ignored the excited chatter that was going back and forth between Ted and Pinner.  His mind was telling him he still wasn’t safe, despite the fact that the Russians milling around on the south back of the canal could do nothing at the moment to reach them other than take pot-shots with their rifles. 
God I just want to leave…run north with Brin…

The drone.

Those two little words shot through his spinning mind like lightning and he was suddenly on high-alert. 

“
Where’s the Matvee, Pinner?  They got a drone in the air—I spotted it before we beat feet here.  We gotta get the hell out of here before that thing takes us out.  They’ll be looking for blood, now.
”  Ted’s voice had a distinct urgency to it.

Pinner’s smile vanished.  “I stashed it over that hill there.”  He turned to Erik and helped him to his feet.  “Let’s go get the Major.”

CHAPTER 4

Wolverines!

ROB GUNN WIPED SWEAT from his forehead with the back of his hand and exhaled.  He adjusted the hat on his head and said, “All right boys, one last heave ought to do it.  On three.”  He took one more look at his work crew.  “Ready?”

“Let’s do this, I’m hungry,” said Nate Godfrey.

Rob grunted.  “One…two…
three!
”  The six-man team groaned and strained as one and the heavy pine log they had  man-handled all afternoon finally settled into place at the top of Redoubt #4 and nestled tight.  Most of the team dropped to the ground and gave weak cheers. 

Rob leaned against the stout wall, now a good two feet higher than his head and tried to catch his breath. 
I’m getting too old for this shit,
he told himself.  He sighed and knuckled his aching lower back.  The coolness of the fresh-fallen wood was a welcome relief to his forehead. 

Makes a nice patch of shade too.
  He stood back and thumped the wall with his gloved fist.  The sound was dense and firm.  Ought to be.  Each log was at least two feet thick, good strong Arizona Scots Pines.

He nodded to himself.  His eyes roamed the length of the redoubt, as it appeared to grow from the side of the mountain, curved south and again to the west. 
Put a walkway along the back of the wall and a man could stand up and shoot over the top, drop down to the ground and he’s invisible.
  He slapped the wall again.
It’d take a tank to bust through these logs.

“Break time yet?” asked a hopeful voice from the other side of the redoubt.

Rob grinned.  “You read my mind.”  He took off his Stetson and looked up into the azure sky through the gently swaying pines that soared above.  “Close enough to lunch time for us to rustle up some chow.  C’mon boys.”

Nate whooped and Rob could hear the amiable chatter of the work crew as they gathered weapons and prepared to hike back up slope to HQ.  He followed them for about a hundred feet then turned around to examine their work.  From up here, the wall looked sturdy and strong as hell.  He nodded again.  Anyone approaching their mountain stronghold from the south, east, or west, would be funneled by the landscape through this area.  Redoubt #3 was directly opposite #4 on the next ridge.  Through the pines he could clearly see the wooden structure they had finished the day before yesterday.

“Yup,” he said to himself.  “Ol’ Charlie comes after us up here, he’s gonna be in for a world of hurt.”

Rob turned and headed back up the mountain, his Winchester slung over his right shoulder.  He was just starting to enjoy the serenity of the alpine woods and his brief solitude—the others had already crested the ridge and disappeared from his view—when his radio broke squelch.

“
One, this is HQ.  What’s your twenty?
”

Rob paused and leaned against a pine tree as he fished the radio off his belt.  He casually looked back down slope through the pines toward the redoubts.  “Almost back to the ranch.  What’s up?”

“Two spotted some strangers on the south 40.  Descriptions match our friends from last week.”

Rob turned and started up the hill with a renewed strength.  Strangers.  It had been Lance’s idea to come up with a code name for the Chinese army that was making its way deeper into Arizona. 
Strangers
seemed as good as any and wouldn’t necessarily tip anyone listening in as to who the Regulators were referring to in their radio transmissions.

“Numbers?” he asked, trying hard not to gasp for breath as he finally reached the top of the ridge.  Before him stretched a broad flat piece of mountain side, where he and Lance had built a hunting cabin in their mis-spent youth.  That cabin, in the past month, had been transformed into the Regulators new base of operations—a fortress.  The Redoubts downslope were just another layer of defenses he had set up to secure HQ from the Chinese.

“Unit
Two reports there are at least ten.  Maybe twelve.  I have RAF-3 standing by
…”

“Do it—I’ll be at HQ in a second.”  He jogged over toward the main entrance to HQ and thought about who was on the Rapid Action Force.    No weak links that he could think of—good men, all of them.

He pushed open the main door and rushed to the rear of the cabin in order to find the radio room.  Inside, Jerry Baersfeld was sitting at the terminal, one hand cupped the large earphones on his head, the other resting on the transmit button of a desk microphone.  Rob got a nod and moved over toward the map tacked to the unfinished pine wall.

The location of the Regulators’ HQ was marked by a red dot on the broken northern face of the Red Rock Mountain.  Defensive zones were penciled in where the landscape would force anyone approaching into certain areas.  The Redoubts were marked at intersections of natural paths with those funnels, making convenient choke-points.  The Regulators had created a network of deer-paths that crisscrossed the mountain for the Rapid Action Forces to use.  They could reach just about any spot in the area the Regulators controlled in a matter of minutes on foot.

The South 40 was also penciled in on the map, the buffer zone Rob had created as a catchall for describing the dense woodland wilderness just outside the first line of defense at the base of the valley.

Jerry glanced at Rob and put his finger on the map.  “Roger that, RAF-3, you are clear to the border,” he said into the mic.

Rob nodded.  He leaned the Winchester against the desk and sat on the edge.  He twirled a finger in the air.  “Let’s hear it.”

After Jerry flipped a switch and the speakers in the room piped the words of the leader of RAF-3 into the air.  Jerry removed his headset and rubbed his ears.

“Okay, radio silence all units.  RAF-3 has the floor.”

Rob and Jerry waited in silence for a few tense minutes as the response team maneuvered into position.  He glanced at the map.  He hated being stuck here while his men were out sneaking up on the Chinese.  He didn’t feel too old for
that
shit.  But, it had been one of the stipulations he’d been forced to make when the Regulators re-elected him their war chief.  He was barred from personal engagements—the men viewed him as irreplaceable.

“Where’s Lance and his patrol?” asked Rob.

Jerry pointed to the south ridge.  “He checked in here.  I suggested RAF-3 set up there,” he shifted his finger to the eastern ridge across a narrow stream.  “This spot is the high ground and they’ll get a good crossfire going.   We’ll see,” he said with a shrug.

“Sounds good.  It’s what I would have done.”

“HQ
,” whispered the team leader.  “
I got a visual on Two and his boys.  No sign of
…”  The voice paused.  “
Wait a minute…yeah, there they are.
”

“Can you confirm numbers?” asked Jerry.

“Yeah—definitely twelve that I can see.”

Rob leaned over the mic and pushed the transmit button: “
RAF-3, this is One.  Can you pull it off?
”

There was no hesitation: “
Hell yes.
”

“Then have at ‘em.”

“
Roger that HQ.  Moving to intercept
.”

Rob paced the floor of the little room for a few minutes like a caged animal.  Jerry finally turned and looked up at his commander.  “You want to be out there, huh?” he said with a jerk of his head towards the map.  “Dude, just
go
.”

Rob paused and stared at Jerry.  “I can’t stay in here while they—”

“I never saw you, man,” replied Jerry with a smile.  He turned back to the radio.

Rob grinned.  He grabbed the Winchester and bolted for the door.  If he took the upper path, he could cut across the Regulator compound and come up from behind Lance, on a higher ridge, and get a good view—if not participate—in the ambush.  He ran as fast as he could for the deer trail.  A quick glance at his watch and some mental map-checking—yup, he’d only have a few minutes…

PO SIN LICKED HIS lips and replaced the cigarette in his mouth.  He drew in and exhaled the pungent smoke that he knew his one-time friend despised.  He couldn’t help but grin.  Everything was going as planned.

“Are you certain of this?” asked Shin Ho, now Undersecretary to the Supreme Leader, himself.  He narrowed his eyes and looked over the top of the report in his pudgy little hands.

Po Sin bowed his head.  “Yes.  It is all there in the report.  I have confirmed the information myself.  Our Expeditionary Force has completely breached the border and is moving north on schedule.”

“Not completely on schedule, I see.”

Po Sin frowned.  He removed the cigarette from his mouth and flicked the ash into the provided ashtray.  He glanced down at the specks of ash that landed on the Undersecretary’s desk before answering.  “What you refer to is just a minor hiccup.  A scouting party was lost—”

“The deaths of fifty-two men and the loss of a dozen vehicles, all their weapons and gear…”  Now it was Shin Ho’s turn to frown.  “You call this a
hiccup?
”

Po Sin spread his hands, cigarette dangling from his mouth.  “Of course we mourn the loss of so many men—the place they had stopped at was evidently booby-trapped.  We had not expected such cowardice from the Americans.  But, as I said, it was merely a scouting platoon.  This minor tragedy has had no effect whatsoever on the rest of the Expedition.  We are on schedule and have removed the bulk of the fighting forces across the border into Arizona.”

“This supply line is awful long, Po Sin,” said Shin Ho, idly waving at the smoke that was clouding his office.  He laid the paper down on the desk and tapped it with a bejeweled finger.  “Do you think it wise to bring so much materiel through open desert like this?”

Po Sin nodded.  “There is an element of risk, yes.  But we have analyzed all threats and have come to the conclusion that this route not only provides the most safety for our personnel, but also the fastest—resistance-free—route into the underbelly of America.”  He pulled a map out of his own file and handed it to Shin Ho.  “As you can see here, now that we have gained a foothold in Nogales, we can funnel everything north and west.  We will use the American highway system to ship our forces straight across Arizona and California.”

Shin Ho sighed.  “I’m to meet with the Russians this evening.  They’re going to want to know the timetable going forward.”

“Ah yes—tell me, are they having much success with their little adventure in…where was it that they landed?  Georgia?”

“Florida.”

“Ah,” said Po Sin.  “I visited Florida last year on vacation.  Wonderful place.  Completely infested with tourists, but some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen.”

“Indeed,” said the Undersecretary through a frown.  “They have taken control of Miami with the help of our Cuban friends and are pushing north.  Their aim is to use Florida as a springboard to the heart of the American South. Now…The timetable?”

“Of course,” said Po Sin. 
Arrogant snot.
 
You will not long sit that chair, I promise you.
  He smiled and handed over another document from his file.  “We’re going ahead with Phase Two.  The next wave of supply ships and troop transports will be leaving Dinghai at dawn.  Estimated arrival is two weeks, barring any major storms or naval engagements.  The Navy will be conducting offensives around Hawaii, which should keep America’s attention long enough for the task force to slip past.”

“And you think the Expeditionary Force can cut through Arizona and California
and
reach the coast in two weeks?”

Po Sin adjusted his glasses to hide his anger.  “Sir, have we not crossed half of Mexico—through inhospitable desert, I might add—breached the border and brought an entire army into the United States, virtually undetected?  And we did all that in
less
than two weeks.”  He shook his head.  “No, the American people are scared and hiding—the ones that have survived the starvation and gang wars, that is.  Their own people are tearing the nation apart and their government is all but helpless to respond, especially now that President Reed is dead.”  He chuckled.  “That was an unexpected stroke of good fortune.”

“Yes, you must see that it is not wasted.”

Po Sin nodded in submission. “Of course, Undersecretary.  To that end, I believe we should open a dialog with Mr. Suthby—”

Shin Ho looked confused.  “A cabinet official?”

“True, he
was
the Director of their Emergency Management Agency—but now he is de-facto President.  An alliance with him could prove…useful.  I believe he will not be unwilling to cooperate with us.”

The Undersecretary leaned back in his chair to the sound of squealing hinges.  He steepled his fingers in thought and looked at the ceiling.  “We could send out feelers to our Senators and Congressmen.  Perhaps they can do something to get Mr. Suthby to agree to a non-aggression pact?”