Uncertain Times Page 5

  “We’ll be back,” said the tall, skinny one.

  “You’re not welcome on my property,” Bill protested.

  “We’ll see about that,” said the shorter, more muscular man. They climbed back in the cruiser, turned around and drove away.

  At breakfast, which consisted of a Mountain House breakfast skillet, Bill said, “I guess this really is the beginning of the end.”

  “What do you mean, dad?” asked Terry.

  “He means they’re turning on their own people,” Jim said. “This is what we’ve spent so many years and man hours preparing for. We’d hoped it wouldn’t ever happen, but we built this in the off chance it did. Now we’ll sit back, watch and hope it doesn’t impact our lives too much.”

  “What if the troopers come back or bring more men?” Terry asked while looking around.

  “We’ll handle each situation as it’s presented to us,” Jim replied.

  “I need some essentials from town,” Jessie said, handing Jim a list.

  “You want more video cameras?” Jim asked her with a strange look.

  “We need to put some at the main intersections of the gravel road heading up to the cabin for advanced warning. I can attach infrared lasers to the cameras with motion alarms that would start recording on an external hard drive here at the cabin, so we can see what’s coming our way.”

  Jessie was Rick’s first-born twin, his eldest child by two minutes. She had been studying computer programming and communications at the local college.

  “Someone can monitor the camera feeds 24/7 in order to be ready for anything. When the camera’s motion sensors have been activated, they will start recording on the hard drive. We can erase them weekly if nothing exciting has happened,” she added.

  “OK, let’s go on a road trip,” Jim said, looking impressed.

  Two days after they put this plan into action, Rick, who had been monitoring the feeds early in the morning hours, called Jim to review some video footage.

  “We’ve had motion at the road junction about two miles away.”

  “Show me,” said Jim, yawning as he walked into the cabin with Rick.

  Rick kept a live feed going and at the same time, on a different screen and pulled up the video from the time the alarm had gone off.

  “I see two Alaska State Trooper SUVs and a five-ton truck with who knows what size force,” Rick said.

  “Everyone, get your gear on, this is not a drill!” Jim commanded over the radio.

  Jim took control, as usual, because it came so naturally to him. Most valued his leadership. Some questioned it, but at the end of the day they were all glad he was there.

  “Danny, do you need help?” Matt asked as Danny struggled to put his gear on.

  “Yea, sorry. I can’t get this belt to hook and…”

  “Danny, calm down and take a deep breath. What you’re feeling is panic and adrenaline. You’re going to be fine.”

  “Mary, you and Susan stay hidden with the kids. Can you keep Sally occupied please?” Jim asked her.

  “You be careful!” Mary said, hugging Jim tight.

  The team members converged on the kitchen of the cabin, where Jim had set up a staging area. A few others had issues with gear and weapons as well, but they were quickly addressed.

  “I want the two snipers in elevated positions. Matt here and Rick here,” Jim pointed at the hand drawn map of the cabin and perimeter. “Team One, take the left flank, here. Team Two, take the right flank, over here. Like we’ve practiced, people! Now move!”

  Everyone grabbed their rifles and finished putting their gear on. Most of the rifles were AK-47s because of their reliability and large caliber compared to the AR-15. A child could shoot the rifle, so it could be especially deadly in well-trained hands.

  The teams had barely made it into position when the vehicles approached. Bill met the aggressors from the cabin deck and shined a three million candlelight power spotlight at them. The vehicles immediately stopped.

  “You can stop right there!” Bill yelled.

  The tall trooper from the previous visit got out and moved closer. Terry fired a warning shot at his feet.

  Not even flinching, the trooper called out, “By the power given to me by the United Nations, you will surrender and have your cabin searched.”

  As he was speaking, 20 armed men jumped out of the five-ton truck and lined up beside him.

  “This is your last chance,” Bill shouted back. You surrender, or you’ll not see the sun rise today.”

  Laughter broke out among armed intruders. Bill shut off the spotlight.

  “On me people,” Jim said over the radio, then fired the first shot.

  Naythan fired a machine-gun they had taken from one of the road block vehicles on the way south. The relentless, suppressive fire, rained down from his elevated position on the balcony of the second story of the cabin.

  “They’re flanking us to the left,” Rick yelled, “Naythan, do you see them?”

  “I’ve got ‘em!” The automatic sent a hail of lead and copper their way, with a tracer every fifth round, like a pulsating laser pointing at them.

  A lone pop-up flare illuminated the area around the trucks as the battle slowed down. Most of the U.N. troops and the troopers didn’t even have time to shoot back, before they were gunned down.

  “Cease fire! Cease fire!” Jim yelled over the radio. “Rick, Matt, shoot any stragglers you see. I want the rest of you to sound off that you’re OK. Give me a sitrep, did anyone get hurt?”

  To most of the men, the firefight gave the impression of lasting an eternity, but in reality, it had taken place over only a few minutes.

  “Does anyone have eyes on Terry?” Jim asked.

  “He’s right here with me,” Danny responded. “His radio stopped working.”

  “OK, everyone, you need to stay still. Rick, from your position, I want you to sweep the area with the thermal monocular, please.”

  “I see one on the move,” said Rick moments later. “Two hundred yards to the southwest I see a lone man limping away.”

  “Take him out!” ordered Jim. “Team one move to intercept, use NVGs.”

  A lone shot cut through the now-silent night.

  “He’s down,” Rick said. “Team one, he’s right in front of you, behind the tree.”

  “We see him. He’s still alive. Looks like you shot right through the tree.”

  “Bring him up to the cabin,” Jim told them.

  They checked in one at a time. Not even a scratch had been reported.

  It took about an hour for the men to strip the gear, firearms and ammunition from the U.N. force and load the bodies in the vehicles that were still able to run. Some of had too many bullet holes in vital operating areas, with oil and other fluids pooled under the chassis.

  Shell casings and body parts littered the blood-soaked ground around the trucks.

  “Most of these rifles still have the safety on,” Rick commented as he brought more over to the pile they had started.

  “The ambush couldn’t have been more in our favor,” Jim told him.

  The task of hiding what had happened wouldn’t be an easy one, but had to be done for the security of the people in the cabin.

  Danny helped carry a body to a truck, stopped suddenly, dropped the legs of the limp corpse and vomited on the ground next to it.

  “You alright?” Rick asked him as he walked over.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Let’s just get this done.”

  “He’ll be OK,” Jim told Rick as Danny walked away. “Each one of us has seen him kill moose and bears, gut them and cut them up, but this is completely different. We need to keep an eye on each other.”

  “I agree.”

  They were done as the first glimmer of light could be seen above the mountains.

  “There’s an old abandoned cabin a few miles south of here,” Bill said. “We should take the bodies down there.”

  “Sounds good,” Jim said as he pointed at
Danny, Naythan and a few others. “Let’s do it guys.”

  Half of the men took the vehicles and bodies down to the abandoned structure. Some of them followed on ATVs, so they had a ride back. They staged the area to look like it had happened there and torched the cabin and the vehicles with the dead men inside. The smoke would be seen for miles and the people who found the scene would hopefully not look past that area.

  “Let’s make one more sweep of the area now it’s light out,” Bill suggested.

  “What’s on your mind Rick?” Jim asked him once they made it back.

  “You know we’ve opened up a can of worms right?”

  “Let’s go see what our guest has to say and decide then.”

  “Those who trade liberty for security have neither.”

  —John Adams

  Chapter Nine

  “What have we found out?” Jim asked about the prisoner.

  “I recognized him right away as the short trooper who had previously visited the cabin.”

  “He tried to crawl away through some alders when he heard us approaching,” Terry said “He had a satellite phone in his hand and he attempted to dial out.”

  “The guys used his own handcuffs to secure him to the railing,” Bill added, “Not like he could get away with the wound he has and we already confiscated his SAT phone.”

  “We have a few questions for you, pal,” Jim said to the man. He didn’t say a thing until Jim pressed on his chest wound, which was bleeding profusely down his body into a pool of crimson-colored dirt.

  “AAHHH!” the trooper yelled. “I can’t tell you anything! If I do, they’ll do much more to me than you could. I’ve seen what they do to people who won’t submit.”

  “Well, then you’ve clearly underestimated us, slick,” said Matthew. “I’ve been trained to interrogate by the best mercenaries on Earth. You’re in for a world of hurt if you don’t start talking.”

  They blindfolded the trooper and took him down into the cave system to an uncompleted room.

  “Get me a chair and some flexi cuffs,” Jim told Terry.

  They placed the trooper in the center of the room and secured him to the chair. Rick took off the blindfold and shined a bright flashlight in his eyes.

  “Alright now, Smith,” Jim called him by the name on his bloody uniform. “I want to know why this area has been targeted by the military.”

  “I told you, I won’t tell you anything, so you might as well kill me now,” he said, coughing up bubbly looking blood.

  “Not going to happen — yet,” Jim said, then whispered something to Matthew, who quickly left the room.

  “Where’s he going?” Matt asked.

  “You’ll see,” Jim told him, not wanting to disclose anything to Smith.

  Matthew returned with a skinny propane bottle and a torch with a trigger.

  “What’re you going to do?” Smith’s eyes suddenly became huge.

  “You’re going to talk one way or another,” Jim said as he screwed the tip onto the bottle.

  “You’re crazy! Get that thing away from me!”

  Jim pulled the trigger a couple times until the torch lit. He adjusted the flame and slowly moved it close enough to Smith’s face so he felt the heat.

  “I can’t tell you anything!”

  Rick grabbed the bottle from Jim and used the torch to cauterize the chest wound as Smith screamed in agony.

  “I’m going to let you reflect on this for a few minutes,” Jim said. “When we get back, you’re either going to talk or experience more pain. You have my word if you cooperate, I won’t kill you.”

  Jim, Matt, Rick and Matthew left the room. Danny walked up to them from down the hall and asked if they needed any help.

  “It’s under control Danny,” Matt said, pulling him aside. “Why don’t you get Bill and cut some meat off the last moose you guys shot? We can throw some steaks on the grill tonight if you want to marinate them.”

  “I can do that,” Danny said, and he walked back to the cabin.

  “What the hell are you doing going medieval on him?” Matt asked Rick. “I’m with you, but this is wrong. We need to talk to him and find out what we can. He’s already wounded, why make it worse?”

  “Did you see the blood on the floor and outside? This man’s extremely close to bleeding out. If I hadn’t done what I did, he’d be dead before he told us anything.”

  Tensions were running high. They were dealing with lack of sleep, the stress of combat and the uncertainty of a changing world that brought a huge threat to their door.

  “Do you think I want to be out here with my family?” Rick asked Matt. “Hell no! I want to be back home in my recliner drinking a beer and watching TV. But guess what? We’re here, and we need to deal with the fact they’re trying to kill us.”

  “You know we can’t let him live,” Jim said, “I told him I wouldn’t kill him, but I said nothing about anyone else. We need to get as much info out of him as we can, and then you can take him for a ride.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Matthew with a growing smile on his face.

  Ten minutes had gone by before the four men walked back to the room. Smith had lost consciousness. Matthew splashed water in his face. Smith screamed in agony as he woke.

  “You ready to answer our questions?” Jim asked.

  “How can I trust you won’t kill me?”

  “You can’t, but you need to tell us why you came to the cabin. Were you looking for someone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well don’t make me guess, boy!”

  “OK! We were looking for you. Your names are Jim Stanton, Matt Woods and Richard Perry. I don’t know who you are,” he said looking at Matthew.

  The other three men looked at each. “How the hell did you know that?” they asked, almost in unison.

  “Your names, as well as scores of others, were put on a high-priority terrorist watch list recently.”

  “Are you calling us terrorists?” asked Matthew. “We’re American’s like you, you son of a bitch!”

  “Calm down big boy,” Jim said holding Matthew back.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” asked Matthew.

  Jim followed him out into the hall and closed the door.

  “Look,” Matthew said. “I know you guys want him to talk, but I believe extreme measures need to be taken.”

  “I know we’ve given him something to think about already buddy. Let’s wait and see what happens, OK? Besides, he’s lost a large amount of blood and without medical attention, he won’t make it much longer anyway.

  “Fine. This is your show. I’m only trying to help.”

  “And I appreciate it more than you know.”

  They walked back into the room.

  “Start from the beginning, Smith. We want to hear it all,” Jim said.

  “Can I have some water?”

  “Matthew, give him some of your water.”

  “This better be good…” Matthew said, reluctantly giving Smith some water from his bottle.

  “OK,” Smith started. “A few weeks ago, we — all the troopers on the southern Kenai Peninsula — were called in for an emergency meeting. We were surprised to see men in strange military fatigues running the show. A man with a French accent told us to be seated. He said he was with the United Nations and that we were all now under his command. Many of us weren’t happy and started asking questions, but the post commander told us to stand down and comply. The French man was a colonel, and he told us of a new age coming to our country, and that we should all be glad to be part of it. Half the men in the room got up and left. For the men who stayed in their seats, the colonel said that this was to be expected. ‘Those of you who still occupy this room are the right men for the job,’ he told us. I still can’t believe it.”

  “So why go along with all this if you don’t think they’re doing the right thing?” Matt asked?

  “The U.N. generals had the troopers who walked out that day killed as an example to t
he rest of us. Even their families were killed. I don’t want to do this to my fellow Americans, but you have to draw a line and decide what’s right for your own family.”

  Smith had some good points, thought Jim, but the founding fathers of this great nation had some, too, and many men since then paid the ultimate price for freedom.

  “Well, I understand that you had a hard decision to make, Mr. Smith, but killing Americans, or even simply rounding them up for the enemy, isn’t the answer,” Jim said. “I would give up my life for my family, but I took an oath to defend this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. You could have played your cards differently, just like we have. Personally, I will not sit idly by while our freedoms are stripped from us, or let this great nation be wiped from the Earth! Mr. Smith, you have committed treason against this country. You cannot be allowed to spread your poison to the masses.”

  It was very apparent that Jim and the others weren’t happy.

  “Wait!” Smith said. “I thought you said you wouldn’t kill me!”

  “I will keep my word, but these men didn’t say they wouldn’t.”

  “No, you can’t do this! My wife, my children!”

  “They will not be harmed by us,” Jim assured him. “We’re not the enemy, we’re patriots. Get this trash out of here, guys.”

  Rick and Matthew walked Smith out of the cabin. They put him in the backseat of Matthew’s Hummer for transport.

  Matthew and Rick came back two hours later.

  “How did it go?” Jim asked.

  “He said sorry,” Matthew said as he walked into the cabin and continued into the tunnel.

  Rick had a solemn look on his face. Jim knew it all too well. Not every man could do what he needed to do for liberty and freedom, but those who did, let their demons out to frolic. Jim could see this was merely the beginning.

  “In order to succeed, we must first believe we can.”

  —Nikos Kazantzakis

  Chapter Ten

  They continued to watch, listen and wait as fall slowly crept down the mountain. The fireweed, nearly in full bloom now, an indication that winter is not far off, and the weather was cooling. Most of them were not looking forward to what that meant.