The Resolution (9 page)

Chapter Fifteen:
Diversions

“Okay, guys, we came down one at a time, we’ll go up one at a time,” Carl said, pointing up at the rocky wash they had climbed down from the ridge to join Q at the cave. “Jason, you go first since you’ll make it to the top quicker than Evan—being hurt and all. Then we can both cover him, and I’ll bring up the rear. Once at the top, just keep your eyes open until we all get joined back up and head back down the other side. The tops of the ridges around here are about as close as the drones and choppers can get to us with the steepness of the terrain. They don’t have much room to drop down between the hills.”

“Roger Roger,” Jason answered sharply as he immediately began to ascend the steep and rocky hill.

“How you hangin’ in there, Evan?” Carl asked.

“Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ll be glad to be home, that’s for sure.”

“We’ll give you a good meal and send you on your way once we get back. By the time we finish with supper, it’ll be getting dark and you can travel under the cover of darkness on a full stomach.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Evan replied as he watched Jason bound from rock to rock like a mountain goat.
Show off,
he thought jokingly.

As Jason crested the top of the hill, he took a moment to scan the area for any potential threats, then motioned for Evan to proceed. Evan slung his AK over his back and began climbing from rock to rock, pausing occasionally to deal with the pain from his wound.
Suck it up, buttercup!
he admonished himself, trying to ignore the pain and not slow the others down.

Reaching the top of the ridge, Jason reached down and grabbed his hand, pulling him on up the last few feet. “Damn, man. I didn’t think you were ever gonna make it up here. I thought I was gonna have to come down and carry you up like a pack mule.”

“Yeah, yeah... whatever,” Evan replied.

As Jason looked back down the hill at Carl, he noticed that Carl had turned around and was looking behind him. Just then, an Mi24 attack helicopter rose above the opposing ridge like an ominous specter with its weapons stations loaded down as if prepared for war.

“Go!” shouted Carl as he pulled something from his daypack and began running laterally across the hillside. He fired a flare in the direction of the helicopter, causing it to swerve momentarily as if taking evasive action from a threat. Carl had disappeared into the woods as quickly as he fired the shot.

Evan and Jason began running downhill, dodging limbs and branches, jumping over brush, using the steep incline of the terrain to their advantage. Keeping their momentum moving, they were able to clear many obstacles they otherwise would not be able to make in a single jump.

Hearing the ominous
thump-thump-thump
of the Mi24 Hind’s main rotors, Evan and Jason didn’t even slow down to look behind themselves to see if it was in pursuit. They heard the Hind’s four-barreled 12.7mm machine gun open fire and they realized they were not its immediate targets; they used the opportunity to change course.

“This way!” Jason shouted, leading Evan off course, away from the route they had used to get there from Carl’s cabin.

Running through the woods at a breakneck pace, Evan was having a hard time keeping up with his friend and began to slow and lose ground on him. He simply could not struggle through the pain to keep up the pace as the wound was beginning to take its toll on him. He could feel the wetness seeping down his side and knew Patricia’s stitch job was simply not holding up under the intense physical activity.

Coming to a stop and taking a knee, he looked up to see Jason turn his head to check on him, immediately causing him to reverse course to come back for his friend.

“Ev, are you okay?” Jason asked, struggling to catch his breath.

Evan was unable to answer right away; his heavy breathing was exacerbating the pain from the wound, making it almost unbearable. “Gotta... gotta slow up for a bit,” he said, struggling to speak between his labored breaths.

“C’mon,” Jason said as he reached out and took Evan’s hand. He then hunched down and pulled Evan onto his back, and began to make his way slowly through the woods, carrying his dear friend. As they came upon another wash in a heavily wooded and shady area, Jason looked around above and said, “This thick tree cover will help. Let’s see if we can get over to that large rock with the downed tree lying across it. We’ll look and see if we can make ourselves a blind and lie low for a while.”

Evan replied, giving Jason the thumbs up with his left hand as Jason held onto his right arm firmly to keep him on his back. Approaching the fallen tree, Jason said, “Sit tight a sec... but keep your ears and eyes open.”

Evan nodded in reply and Jason began scurrying around, dragging any broken tree branch that he could move over to the log. He piled the branches haphazardly to create a natural looking pile of brush and then motioned for Evan to join him. “Slide underneath this one and get in,” he said, holding up a branch for Evan.

Once Evan was inside the blind, Jason crawled underneath the branch and joined him. “We just have to hope those guys are running old, low-tech gear. If that were our boys, they would have found and smoked us by now. It’s hard to fight a war against those who out-tech you these days.”

Evan again replied with only a nod. He laid his head back against a rock and rested for a moment while Jason kept a keen eye on their surroundings. “An Mi-24 Hind has an eight-person troop compartment and they could have very easily had some hunter-killer types rappel down to flush us out,” Jason whispered. “I think we need to just lie low for a while. However long it takes to know they are out of the area.”

“Cool,” Evan said with a nod as he continued to rest with his head on the rock.

~~~~

After several hours of no sounds other than those of birds, insects, and a ticked off squirrel, apparently upset that Evan and Jason were occupying his personal space. Jason whispered, “How are you feeling?”

“Better now,” Evan replied softly. “Well, not completely better. I’m pretty sure I tore my stitches open. I’m just afraid to look. But I’m past the acute pain stage.”

“Let me take a look,” Jason said as he lifted Evan’s shirt. “
Damn
.”

“What?”

“She sure wasted a lot of gauze on you,” Jason said jokingly.

“Yeah, yeah... how does it look?”

“The bandages are soaked with blood, but they’re still taped on pretty well. On second thought, we don’t have anything to cover your wound with, so I don’t think I want to remove them. They’re soaked but still doing their job of keeping dirt and debris out.”

“Sounds fine to me,” replied Evan. “I don’t want you poking around in there, anyway. So, what do you think happened to Carl and Q?”

“That depends on whether the threat was airborne only or if they dropped some guys in on foot. If they were airborne only, unless they had a tip-off somehow about the location of the cave itself, Q could have probably ridden out the threat in the cave. On the other hand, if they dropped some guys in on foot, that’s a whole different ballgame. From where they got a bead on Carl, they could easily have found the cave from there.”

“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking, too,” Evan said in a concerned voice. “Carl’s probably screwed either way. I don’t know how the hell you can outrun a Hind on foot in rough terrain. Add to that the fact that they were letting their gun rip like that, and one has to assume they had him in a vulnerable situation.”

“Yep,” Jason replied, looking down at the ground.

“So now what?” Evan asked.

“We follow the original plan of waiting until nightfall. If we have pursuers on foot, they’ll be picked up and bug out by then. This terrain is too rough for that Hind to be working close to the terrain in the dark.”

“Unless they expect them to hike out.”

“I doubt they would do that with the risk of militia-friendly folks in the area. They only have strength in their numbers and equipment superiority. On foot and alone, they are at a disadvantage around here.”

“True. I guess we will be footin’ it home now, huh? I mean, we can’t risk leading them back to Carl’s place to get the horses. That would be a death sentence to Ted, Vanessa, Audrey, and Patricia. If they followed us, that is.”

“Yep. Do you think you’ll be able to make it that far? With your side in this condition? Not to mention your feet.”

“My feet are holding up. The pain in my side actually helps me forget about them at times.”

Looking at the map Q gave them, Jason followed a route in his mind with his finger, studying the terrain to find a suitable route back to the Homefront. As he slid his finger across the paper, Evan watched, wondering what was going through his mind. After several moments of silence, Jason spoke up and said, “We can’t take the straight-line route for several reasons.”

“Why is that?” Evan asked.

“Well, the first and most obvious is the terrain. We need to stay low in the valleys between the hills to get the most cover from the possible prying eyes above. Second, the radio equipment we are supposed to pick up is a little off our route to the south. Here’s what I’m thinking—we drop down a little further from where we are that way,” he said, pointing through the woods from where they sat. “Then, we can follow this creek through the lowest points of the terrain until we get here. We will have to cross over the mountain at this point to get to the other side, but at least we will have cover along the way, as well as a source of water. Once we get to the other side, we can drop straight back down into the next valley and follow that to near the radio cache. That will be a good spot for you to take a break while I retrieve the gear and bring it back. There’s no reason to put any extra mileage on you if we can help it.”

“What if you can’t carry it all after hiking to it by yourself?”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. I’ll make two trips if need be. Q said the repeaters were suitcase-sized. The handheld transmitters can’t be too heavy or bulky.”

“I imagine the batteries and solar chargers for those repeaters are gonna be kind of heavy though,” added Evan.

“True. Well... I’ll carry what I can. If I can’t get it all in one trip we—or I, rather—will just have to come back and make a second trip.”

“Heck, Sarah won’t ever let you out of the house again after all this. She won’t be up for you traipsing off into the woods again right away. You’ll be on spousal lockdown.”

They shared a laugh as Jason folded the map and put it in his shirt pocket then they both sat back and thought of home. They felt close, yet far away at the same time. Their journey home from the Blue Ridge Militia’s camp had been plagued with setbacks and redirections. They wondered how many more unexpected events would get in their way before they finally reached home.

Chapter Sixteen: Keeping the Faith

The metal trashcan crashed against the sheet metal wall of quad two’s barracks, as had become their all too familiar wake-up call. Ed and Nate, along with the others, sprang to their feet. Balancing on his good leg while leaning on Ed’s shoulder, Nate noticed one of the guards—apparently the day’s quad leader—walking his way with a stern facial expression.

The guard looked down at Nate’s missing leg, chuckled, and said, “At least you’re easy to identify. Petty Officer Nathan Hoskins, you are hereby notified that you are officially being detained as a deserter from the United States Navy. A DOD representative will be arriving tomorrow to escort you and several other deserters, here at Camp Twenty-one, to a facility where you can be properly processed by your respective service components. Do you have any questions, Petty Officer... or I guess I should say, soon to be Seaman Hoskins? I imagine a demotion will be in your immediate future along with your incarceration. Deserters like you disgust me.”

“Traitors like you who put this fraud of a government above their neighbors and fellow citizens disgust me,” Nate snapped in reply. “When did you serve? I served my country with honor. I left because of what my government had become. I left because my oath and my loyalties were to the Constitution and the values we used to cherish. You joined them for the very same reason I left them. That says everything about you and me both.”

“I’m serving now,” the man said through his unclean teeth and foul breath.

Before Nate could take evasive action, he felt the sting of the man’s open-palm slap to his face, causing him to lose his balance and fall backwards to the floor, hitting his head on his cot. Ed flinched out of reflex as the two lower-level guards who had accompanied the man squared off on him. Knowing he wouldn’t be helping Nate’s situation, Ed made the wise choice to stand down from his near escalation of the situation.

“Can I at least help him up?” Ed asked.

“Let the piece of trash get himself up,” the quad leader said. He then turned around and announced, “In honor of having a treasonous deserter among you, breakfast will be canceled today for all quad two detainees. If there is one among you, there are probably more, and trash like you do not deserve to eat.”

He then turned back to Nate, smiled, and said, “I hope they each thank you personally for the hunger you are forcing them to endure.”

As the quad leader exited the barracks room with his fellow guards following closely behind, Ed reached down and helped Nate back up onto his cot. “Holy crap, man,” he said with a look of concern on his face.

Nate sat on the edge of his cot silently, his elbows on his thighs and his hands in his face. The sting he still felt from the slap was nothing compared to the anguish he felt inside, knowing that his chances of ever seeing Peggy, Zack, and his family again were slipping away.

How did it come to this?
Nate thought.
How did I work so hard to make it from California to Texas, and then on to Tennessee, only to end up dying alone in a prison somewhere? Or even worse, living a long life that way?

Ed patted him on the shoulder and said softly, “It’s not over until it’s over.”

Grumbling from some of the other detainees could be heard from across the room about their missed meal. Aaron Darcy stood on top of his cot and said in a firm and loud tone, “Shut the hell up! Every damn one of you running your mouths over a missed meal right now, just shut the hell up! You didn’t miss breakfast because of what Nate did in his past, which I don’t blame him for one bit. In fact, I applaud him for refusing to follow orders contrary to his oath of enlistment. The reason you are missing a meal is because that same government, from which he fled now holds you in the clutches of its hand. They put these cowardly guards, who are only here because they can’t take care of themselves without the government’s hand to feed them, in charge of you, and they abuse you as well. They are small and insignificant cowards placed in a position of authority simply because they are willing to do the job. Don’t let them get into your heads. Don’t let the government—or what is masquerading as our government—turn us on each other. We may need each other sooner than we all think. They used the strategy of divide and conquer on us as a nation for years before the collapse. They split us into groups, pitting us against one another to weaken us so that their plans could come to fruition. Don’t let them use the same strategy on us here. Let the hunger that is in your stomach be replaced with a hunger to regain your freedom.”

Aaron stepped down from his cot and walked across the room to Ed and Nate. “Just hang in there, Nate. Just hang in there,” he said with a pat on Nate’s back. Giving Ed a nod, Aaron stood up and walked back across the room as the door to the barracks slid open, followed by the order from one of the guards for all detainees to exit the barracks and enter the yard.

~~~~

Later that evening, Ed, Nate, and Tommy were sitting in the same shady corner as they had the day before. Matt’s bloodstains still painted the gravel in front of Nate as he mindlessly tossed pebbles on the ground, staring at the stain.

“I’m not going,” Nate said, tossing another gravel.

“What?” Ed asked with a confused voice.

“I’m not going with them. Whatever happens will happen. I would rather stand up to them like a man and let the chips fall where they may rather than be hauled off as if I am their property. If I die here, at least I’ll die by the terms of my choosing.”

“Nate,” Ed paused, trying to put his words together. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea. A lot has happened lately. I know you’re down. I know it seems hopeless. But you can’t... you just can’t stop trying to get home to Peggy and Zack. You can’t give up now.”

“I’m tired, Ed. I’m so damn tired. The last few years have taken the life right out of me. I’m tired of worry. I’m tired of misery. I’m tired of watching the horrors this God-forsaken world inflicts on good people. I’m just tired.”

“Well, Peggy’s not giving up on you so easy; I can damn well promise you that. Now snap out of it. We’ll get through this. You’ll get through this.”

Nate gazed at a gravel he held between his index finger and thumb, looking it over as if he was trying to find some sort of answer within it. He then tossed it on the ground, in the center of Matt’s bloodstain, and lay back with his arms crossed behind his head. “I’m just tired, Ed.”

Ed worried about his friend. He had never seen Nate without a fire in his soul. The events of late had taken their toll on all of them, but it seemed Nate had demons in his life that he had yet to deal with properly and they were chipping away at him from within.

~~~~

Later that night, as Nate lay awake in his cot, staring into the darkness of the ceiling, he thought of Peggy and Zack. He thought of the love he felt inside for both of them and had often wondered if the drive he had inside to find his mother and father had been meant to be so that he could find them. He fell for her as soon as he met her, as if he had known her all of his life.
Was it the desperation of the situation? The desperation of the world we lived in that made us want to latch onto the first person we found? Were we just rebounding from the world’s biggest breakup? Were we rebounding from our loss of the world as we knew it?
He asked himself.
No! Of course not! I love her. I really love her. I love the smell of her hair. I love the sparkle in her eyes. I love her smile, her touch, her laugh. I love her... I love her completely and with all of my heart and soul. I love Zack. I love my family. I can’t go out like this. I can’t leave this world without being there to provide for them for a long damn time to come!

Nate’s thoughts were interrupted by a muffled thump off in the distance. His heart skipped a beat, not knowing what it could have been. Then another thump could be heard, followed by several loud cracks.
Shit! That’s gunfire!
he thought. “Ed... Ed...” he said as he shook his friend’s arm to wake him.

“Wut... uh, what’s wrong?” Ed replied as he awoke and looked around the room, confused. Another distant thump immediately told him the story of why Nate was waking him. “What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know. It just started.”

As Ed sat up, several other detainees could be heard whispering in the darkness of the room. As more and more began to wake, the whispers turned to louder conversation as the distant noises began to increase in intensity.

There was a scuffle outside the door; then they heard the sound of the large steel beam that was always propped up ominously next to the door sliding into position, filling the two large brackets welded to the door frame.

“They’re barricading us in!” one of the men shouted in the darkness.

Chaos ensued in the barracks as the detainees all scrambled to get up and put their orange jumpsuits on, as that was all they had to wear.

“Everybody, listen up!” shouted Aaron. “If you want to make it out of here, follow my lead. Stay away from the walls. Everyone gather in the center of the room. Gather all of the cots together, lay them on their sides, and arrange them in a circle around us.”

“Why... what for? What’s going on?” one of the men asked in a panic.

“The cavalry is here,” Aaron said. “They’ll have to breach the walls to get in. They can’t take much time to do it, so it’ll probably be violent, and they’re gonna be relying on us to be prepared. Just do as I say, for now; everyone get in the center of the room and lie on the floor. When they breach the walls, there may be shrapnel and the cots could help protect us. Shove all of the pillows and blankets between the cots for extra protection.”

As the sounds of mortar fire, gunfire, and explosions continued to increase in intensity outside, most of the men in quad two followed Aaron’s directions and built a circle out of cots and blankets. Several others, including Tate, ignored his pleas for cooperation and ran to the door and began to bang on it violently while screaming at the guards for help.

Tate yelled, “Let me out! Let me out! You owe me! You owe me! Get me the hell out of here!”

As Tate pounded away at the door, Ed attempted to get him to join the others for safety. “Tate, get your ass over here! Get over here!”

Tate ignored him and continued pounding relentlessly at the door. A nearby explosion, with a near-deafening shockwave, rocked the flimsy metal building. Bits of shrapnel tore through the walls, leaving small jagged holes scattered throughout the structure, illuminating the room with small rays of light from the light outside.

After having ducked behind the cots for cover when the explosion hit, Ed looked up to see one of the men limping back towards them with a leg injury and Tate lying on the floor, convulsing; he was covered from head to toe with shrapnel wounds. Ed and one of the other detainees ran over to him and dragged him into the protective circle, closing the gap behind him.

“You stupid son of a bitch,” one of the men said as he began assessing the extent of his injuries. With barely enough light to assess him properly, the man, who clearly had past medical training, noticed a bulge on the side of Tate’s head. He gently felt around with his fingers and quickly realized that Tate’s skull had been ruptured and his exposed brains were partially spilling out onto the floor.

The others noticed that he immediately stopped his assessment and just sat there as if he had given up as soon as he started.

“What? What is it?” one of the others asked.

“There’s nothing we can do. Nothing,” he said.

Aaron spoke up amidst the chaos and said, “There’s nothing you could do, Doc, but thanks for trying. Just look for others who may need you now.” He then turned his attention back to the group and said, “I told you to stay down and stay in the center. We don’t know which wall will be breached, but I can assure you it’s coming. Now, stay the hell down behind the cots and look out for each other. When the time comes, and you’ll know when it does, follow my lead or the orders of the militiamen who enter the room. Don’t appear to be a threat or they will smoke you. Understood?”

The detainees now seemed to take Aaron’s advice and orders seriously and stayed down, clinging tightly to one another in the confined space of their tightly packed circle.

As small-arms fire seemed to be getting closer to their location, they could hear gunfire originating from the observation level just above their barracks. They could hear empty shell casings hitting the metallic ceiling above their heads as they were ejected from the guards’ rifles. A barrage of incoming fire both ricocheted off of and penetrated the structure. The sound of each impact was deafening as the detainees struggled to stay together on the floor as tightly as they could, and out of the line of fire.

During the barrage of incoming fire, Nate heard what he assumed was a rifle hitting the ceiling above them, followed by the thump of one of the guard’s bodies as he seemed to go down hard during the exchange. That sound was followed by another, and then another until the remaining shots seemed to be incoming, with no more defensive fire originating from the observation floor.

They heard three loud bangs on the north wall of the quad as if someone was striking it with the butt of a rifle.