Revolt: the book

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The college boy also agreed.  ”Yeah, all we should have left when this first started.  I would have been home by now.  This isn’t my fight.  These guys are all nuts.  The government isn’t out to get them.”  Again the two longhaired, mid-aged, hippies nodded in agreement.

The column slowly came around a rocky point.  The college kid’s young eyes were first to pick out the low flying helicopters approaching out of the sun.  ”Hey, look here comes the Calvary now.”  The businessman instructed the kid to stop.  They got out and waved to the helicopters which now had slowed to a hover several hundred yards away.  The businessman straightened his green polo shirt and tan pants; it always paid to look good when dealing with unknown competition.  Then he held up his hands and pointed to the white flags in the cars.  Others were getting out of their stopped vehicles and were starting to wave.

Seminko leaned over the pilot and looked through the windshield.  He could see the ten or so cars parked in the middle of the road.  There were figures waving and pointing to the limp white rags.  Fools.  Stupid, weak fools.  Seminko knew what he had to do.  He punched the button on his throat mike and gave the instructions to both helicopters.

The college boy watched as the two helicopters banked away from each other and began to fly towards them.  At three hundred yards he saw the nose of the ships dip down.  The boy realized they weren’t going to land.  At one hundred and fifty yards the first burst from the thirty caliber mini-gun mounted under the wings of the first chopper raked the car and hit the businessman squarely in the head blowing brain matter all over the front of the car.  The one old hippie yelped and went down, blood soaking through his genuine earth friendly tan hemp shirt. The other one, stoned by now, stood looking at his fallen friend and said, “Hey man, that isn’t very cool at all.”

Alex Davis got into his 2008 red Cadillac and started across town to the radio station. The Cadillac was one of the few perks left from the “old days” when GM was a sponsor of his show. The “former GM”, he reminded himself. Things had certainly changed. The station was located up in the mountains several miles outside town. He cruised along in the late night at his usual breakneck speed; the Cadillac still rode like a dream, not like the forced to be built eco-friendly cars now being produced. Carbon footprint my ass! Davis stroked the leather seats. We are Americans. We deserve to live like this.

There was very little traffic in town this late at night. Davis never paid attention to the single set of car lights following him at a discreet distance. His thoughts were on what he was going to say tonight. He glanced down at the folder next to him. He had studied the documents all day. Davis took a deep breath. Years ago, when he had a huge national radio program, he did his level best to warn America of exactly what was happening now. Admittedly some of it may have been hype. But now for the first time, he was afraid. He always figured this march towards socialism Fontaine was on would be turned back by men and women with a sense of what this country really stood for. Now he wasn’t so sure. The way things were, America may never be turned around.

As his car rounded a curve and started down a long decline between two ridges he noticed the car behind him closing the distance between them. That’s strange, Davis thought. He sped up a little and saw the other car was keeping pace about fifty yards behind him. The Cadillac’s smooth ride disguised its speed. Davis looked down at the speedometer and saw he was going almost seventy. He realized he better slow down before the next turn and began to apply the brakes. Davis glanced up to see the car behind him accelerate towards him. What in the hell is that guy’s problem? Davis thought to himself. The car rammed the back of Davis’s Cadillac causing the tires to lose traction for a second. Davis fought to keep the car on the road. The other car hit him again as Davis’s car approached the sharp turn. Davis knew the road. It was cut into the side of the mountain. There was a sharp slope on the left side, and a sheer drop on the other. Davis gripped the wheel harder as he tried to apply the brakes again. The other car hit him hard in the rear bumper then jerked sideways forcing the rear tires on Davis’s Cadillac to break their grip. It was a perfectly executed “pit maneuver.” Davis realized too late he was out of control. The Cadillac began to spin sideways and hit the guard rail with a terrific impact. The car flipped up on its side and seemed to hang in the air for a split second before tumbling over the edge and down the steep slope. Pieces flew off the Cadillac as it plummeted down the rocky embankment with increasing velocity. Davis wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, another bad habit he never broke. On the eighth violent revolution, Davis’s unconscious form was ejected from the car and into its downward path. Davis hit the ground with enough speed to split his head open on the rocks. As if an unseen jester wanted to add a macabre punch line, the car then smashed into his lifeless body crushing it into mass of amputated limbs and strewn intestines.

The old dark Ford sedan pulled up where Davis’s car left the road. Two large African American men in black clothing got out and looked over the edge of the void. They were part of Fontaine’s “National Civil Defense Force”, a civilian Para-military organization, initially organized in the third year of Fontaine’s administration. Fontaine sold the force as a way to have enhanced neighborhood security. Some described the force as the Guardian Angels on steroids. At first the crime rate did substantially drop in the neighborhoods where the NCDF operated. But the reason for the decline was that a substantial number of the recruits came from the same criminal ranks Fontaine was supposedly targeting. Through multi-million dollar grants, Fontaine was able to empower members of gangs, the new Black Panthers, and other like organizations in order to gain control of the inner cities. Over time two elements emerged from the NCDF. One was the street level group that watched over the neighborhoods. It encouraged the almost mandatory adherence to Fontaine’s “new way of doing things” he advocated in his campaign. The NCDF used community pressure to make citizens follow the rules of behavior. Anyone out of line, from a crack dealer to a business owner could be paid a late night visit from a couple of metal bar wielding attitude adjusters. The second part of the NCDF was a more professional unit executed special operations for Fontaine. These members were selected from the more committed recruits and professional criminals. Fontaine made sure members from the special units were positioned throughout the country. They were in effect a quick reaction force. Just hours earlier, the two men standing on the edge of the road had received a call from Zabgrid. He had been right; there wasn’t much time to be fancy.

The larger of the two men smiled in the dark. “I told you it would work.”

The second man nodded in somewhat disbelief. “So you did. I must remember to make sure you don’t get pissed at me.”

The first man laughed and slapped his friend on the back. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Goldstein would have cursed himself for being so stupid if he could have mustered enough breath to do so. Tennis a couple of times a week simply didn’t keep him in shape enough to handle the steep trails, especially at this altitude. His breath was ragged and he felt like his lungs had caught fire. To make it worse, the trail he chose did not take him far enough around the roadblock as he hoped. He was trying to be as quiet as possible. But the suitcases he was carrying kept hanging up on the low branches in the forest. He stopped long enough to look down the ridge. Fear gripped him when he spotted at least four shadows making their way up the side of the mountain. He could see them in the beams of their small flashlights. Damn it! What was he going to do? Give up, or take off running? Running was out of the question; Goldstein was already just about done in. He could see the rifles the men carried were now un-slung. He knew he was in trouble. Goldstein redoubled his effort and started scrambling up the trail as quickly as he could. But it was futile; the soldiers were gaining on him. He could hear them shouting to each other as they maneuvered to cut him off. The beams from the flashlights began to play over the limbs of the trees he was fighting through. They were about thirty yards behind him when the first burst of automatic fire ripped through the trees next to his head. He flung himself to the ground and covered up. Holy shit, they were firing at him for no reason. They were going to kill him right there.

Crawford stepped outside with Childs.  Crawford looked up at the late summer night stars.  “How long do you think before they will strike back?”

Childs looked up too.  “Maybe three days, maybe a week.  It will take some time to get organized after Friday.” It was Child’s turn to ask a question.  “Do you think they’ll send in more feds?”

Crawford’s brow furrowed.  “I don’t know.  This is way bigger than a Waco situation or that guy in Texas who had his gun collection taken with an HRT raid by the FBI.  He was just one man, and Waco was a compound in the middle of nowhere.  Hell, this whole county is in the middle of nowhere.”  Crawford laughed as he made a sweeping gesture with is arms.  “I’m not sure they have enough agents in the entire western part of the country to handle this!  Maybe that will delay them some.”

“Well at least they can’t send in the Army.”  Childs smiled in the dark.  “That is still against the law.”

Crawford didn’t answer, but something clicked in the back of his mind.  He couldn’t grasp it right away, fatigue was setting in.  But there was something bothering his subconscious.  He knew he would think of it sooner or later.

The blonde four year old girl picked up her favorite doll and stuck it back into the baby buggy she was pushing. She shook her finger at the doll and chastised her for not staying in the buggy, just like her mother did her on the days they went to the mall. She laughed and kissed the doll, forgiving all transgressions. She turned her head and looked up at the sky when she heard a deep thumping whine coming from the backside of the mountain behind her house. The noise grew louder as a dark shadow swept over her. The little girl looked up in time to see a black helicopter, with missile pods hung under its wings, swing low over her neighborhood, bank hard and then begin a straight run down her street.

Her mother was watching her daughter through the kitchen window when she saw and heard the same thing. The mother dropped a glass shattering it in the sink. She started to run for the door, yelling her daughter’s name. “Sally, Sally, come here honey!” The mother tried to control the panic in her voice. She didn’t want to scare the child but at the same time she wanted the girl to react quickly. Sally heard her mother and picked up her doll so she could go. Sally froze as she looked up at the noisy funny looking bird. It was flying right at her.

At two a.m. Sunday morning, three unmarked Humvees, an armored personnel carrier and two large box trucks drove down a two lane road that ran through a town thirty miles south of Rockledge.  The only witnesses to the small column were a couple of barking dogs.  Had someone been around to take a closer look they would have noticed the grim faced soldiers inside the vehicle wore no insignias on their uniforms.  The vehicles drove toward Wyatt County on one of the only three roads into the county.

At the same time two other identical columns were making their way in similar fashion along the other two roads.   Approximately two hours later the columns halted just inside the county line.  One truck continued up the access road to the sole cellular tower servicing the area.  Another truck drove on to the repeater station that carried the local police channels.  The rest of the column trucks parked in a flat area alongside the road.  The soldiers jumped out and began taking up defensive positions around the vehicles.  One soldier opened the back of the truck to reveal a bank of communications equipment with several soldiers at the controls.  Another soldier strapped himself in a lineman’s belt and gaffs then climbed up to the top of the telephone pole next to the truck.  After a few minutes he signaled down to the people inside the truck.  At the cell tower and repeater station, the soldiers exploded charges at the base of the towers knocking them down.  Wyatt County was cut off.

Fontaine had a few problems, as he liked to call them- “growing pains” during his first term in office. He had a tendency to appoint people with less than perfect backgrounds. Some of them made it through, but others had to be cut out. Fontaine was secretly pleased with the level of forgiveness in the American voting populace, especially when you promised them things they wanted to hear. Publicly, he was a stalwart defender of the little guy. Privately, he felt that most if not all average Americans were idiots and fools. This is one of the reasons he felt compelled to lead them into the new era. Fontaine was careful though; only a select trusted few around him knew how he felt.

President Tyler Fontaine was a tall angular athletic man of fifty two. His dark straight hair was kept short and combed back in a suave fashion. The women loved him, especially those in the media and entertainment world. He could be very convincing and persuasive. Some people swore could talk a nun out of her habit. But at the moment, Fontaine wasn’t thinking about sex. He was sitting back in the thick leather chair at the head of the long dark oak table. A number of important people were also seated around it. Fontaine was holding a meeting in one of the secure rooms in the White House. He picked the room because he was sure there were no bugs or other surveillance devices that would be able to record anything said inside. Absolute secrecy was necessary for his plan to work. Fontaine surveyed the group he had ordered there. He, like all the men there except one, were dressed in the obligatory dark suit and power tie. At the table to his left sat George Chandris, secretary of Treasury and the mastermind behind the monetary policies. Next to him was the deputy director of the FBI Robert Johnson. To Johnson’s left was the only man not dressed in civilian clothes, he was the key to it all. That man was the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Vladimir Chechecko, a second generation Yugoslavian, whose father was a great freedom fighter in World War Two. His uniform displayed numerous medals regaling Chechecko’s almost thirty year service. Across from the three sat two other men, Daniel Stoner the Secretary of the Interior and Walter Weedman the Majority leader of the Senate.

When I wrote this book I never thought I’d find myself yelling at the TV “read the book!” It was this summer when I pulled the manuscript off of the shelf and began working on it again.

Why do I think there is something here? Because people are people and history is history. Just because we are the United States of America doesn’t mean we are immune to failure and defeat. Our founding fathers did their best to create a system strong enough to resist the temptations humans have to rule without conscience. They hoped balancing three branches of government against each other would allow for the times  when one branch lost its collective mind (so to speak) the others would push back against any abuse. That works well, if the branches are doing their job. They aren’t today.

Where does the journey lead? Read the book. Over the next several months, I’ll be posting some excerpts. Hope you enjoy.

Through his sniper scope Crawford counted ten men either sitting in or standing behind the five green Humvees parked in a line on the one side of the road.  The men standing in front of the Humvees were all dressed in the standard digital camouflage BDUs issued by the army.  But this group consisted of federal agents; part of the negotiating team agreed upon earlier. About fifty yards away parked on the opposite side of the road were Crawford’s people, all standing next to their old Ford and Chevy pickups.  Mostly ranchers and farmers, the men were all dressed in jeans and regular shirts, their heads covered from the sun with beat up cowboy hats and faded ball caps.    The two groups were faced off, like a couple bulls deciding who owned the territory they stood on, which in essence was what this was all about.

I hope they don’t decide to fight over it, Crawford thought.  Things could get real ugly. Crawford caught a slight motion from James.  He glanced over and saw James motion with just his finger slowly to the far ridge.  “We’ve got company,” he whispered.

Crawford slowly swung his scope over onto the ridge were James had pointed.  Sure enough he caught a quick flash of light coming from some scrub brush on the edge of the far ridge.  It was a reflection of sunlight bouncing off either binoculars or a scope.  Damn! If they had snipers on their side they must figure on some trouble.  He looked back at James with a question on his face.  James whispered, “I’ll take the ridge.  You cover the targets.  Radio in that this looks shitty.”