2020: Emergency Exit (6 page)

While the Mexican government and military leaders worked closely together throughout the closing stages of the plan and attacks, the general population was largely unaware of what was taking place to the north. Mexico City had been America’s only retaliatory target in Mexico—it was completely wiped out—but a great deal of the border towns had been in chemical impact zones. They suffered extensive loss. The rest of the nation was kept out of the loop.

After the attacks the General moved an army of Mexican soldiers to form a quarantine zone around Mexico City and an additional force to the US- Mexico border. Those soldiers were to keep Mexican citizens in Mexico and out of the Qi Jia line of fire. They were also to kill any Americans trying to come in.

In the creation of The Seven’s alliance Mexico had been promised the states of California and Texas when everything settled. It was only logical their proximity would allow them to be the first to move in, but even that migration was over a year away. Questions had begun to pour in regarding Mexico City, the border towns, and all American radio and TV stations having gone dark. It wouldn’t be long before government officials would have to address the events in detail.

While the clean sweep operation began, the leaders of The Seven flew to Washington, D.C., where the U.S. flag was lowered from the Capitol and burnt, and a new black flag was raised with seven red stars in a circle surrounding the words Qi Jia. The Capitol building was left standing as a monument, but the rest of the city was demolished.

Qi Jia’s capital city would be Denver. The Seven set up their operational command center there and began to build a twenty-by-twenty-foot wall around the entire state. There would eventually be no way in or out of Colorado undetected. The world’s largest standing fortress, it would also be the primary intersection for every important route through the new America.

They began the process of dividing the United States and Canada into new territories. Each of The Seven commanders had their own secret ambitions, their own master plan, and their own best interests in mind. Like bank robbers in a vault with billions, they agreed to equally split the abundant profits. For now.

EIGHT: “Captain Eddie”

Captain Ade “Eddie” Bayo was a giant. He was also a Nigerian refugee. At age sixteen, he and his younger brother Lazzo were hunting mice in a millet field when rebels attacked their village. As the two of them watched, terrified, the rebels burnt the village to the ground. They killed most of the adults and girls, including their parents and sister, and kidnapped the remaining boys. Eddie knew firsthand what senseless violence looked like, and he wanted no part of it. He and Lazzo fled to Libya with hundreds of others, desperate to avoid the genocide escalating back home.

Libya, at the time, was remaking its world image, fresh off Muammar Gaddafi’s murderous regime. The people were sympathetic to the experiences of the Nigerians, and the boys were welcomed with open arms.

Eddie hated war, but he desperately wanted a higher education. Without enlisting in the military, there’d be no such opportunity for a poor boy like him. He knew he was risking being pulled into a fight he didn’t want, but he desired education more. The military was also the only way he was ever going to get to America, a dream of his since childhood. But visas were hard to secure for Africans, even more so for refugees, unless they joined the military. His English studies were going well, vocabulary wise, but speaking the language itself was rather challenging. He found himself stuttering regularly, couldn’t appropriately nail an American accent, and struggled with the excessive slang and idioms. He feared none of those would get easier without actually living in America. He was convinced if he could get a few years of experience in the United States he could overcome his current impediment and learn to speak like a true American. He had to get there somehow. As soon as he was eligible, he enlisted.

He loved college. Even without alcohol, as a devout Muslim, they were still the best years of his life. He immersed himself in American history, geography, government, culture and military studies at the University of Tripoli. His American knowledge and brilliant strategic mind helped him climb the military intelligence ladder quickly and, perhaps more importantly, kept him off the battlefield. He didn’t have to fight. He didn’t have to kill.

He met his wife his last year at the university, married her that summer, and was granted an officer post in the village of Marat, an hour south of Tripoli, a month later. Eddie was lauded for his character and leadership skills. A well-educated peacekeeper and difference maker respected by his military peers, Eddie, by the age of twenty-five, was rapidly promoted all the way to captain, the highest available rank for a refugee.

His brother Lazzo had followed him into the military and was promoted behind him up to first lieutenant. Both of them worked in military intelligence, and that was Eddie’s entire focus. Lazzo, on the other hand, was also trained as a pilot. He loved to fly, and he could expertly pilot any kind of aircraft.

In September of 2020, Eddie received a visit from Libya’s commander in chief. Curious as to the purpose for the visit and the many personal questions he was asked, he was told only the Libyan chief was searching for his country’s best men. Accordingly, if the commander thought highly enough of him, Eddie should expect to receive a call soon with a special opportunity. A little more than a week later, Eddie and his company were offered an assignment in Mexico for what he was told was a “training exercise.” Eager to make a difference out in the world and to prove his worthiness to his commander in chief, he and Lazzo reported for duty without objection. Eddie left behind his wife and three daughters, and Lazzo left his new and pregnant wife.

As their training exercise neared its conclusion, a week before they were due to return to Libya, their commander called Eddie and all the other company leaders into the main building. He informed them the United States had attacked their homes, unleashed nuclear bombs on all of Libya and many other countries, and wiped out the entire population. No one back home had survived. Officers had been trying to reach family for days, but with no success. There was no home left to return to. They were on their own here. China, Russia, and several other countries had reportedly retaliated with chemical warfare and had managed to wipe out most of the United States. In shock, Eddie listened as he was filled in on the details by his commanding officer. He was given a phone and told to try to reach his family. Everywhere he called he received nothing but static. They were all dead. It was true. There was nothing they could do. How could America have done this?
How could America have done this to HIM?

Furious rage quickly replaced his sadness. He wanted to know what he and his men could do. His commander told him, “Plans have changed.” This was no longer a training exercise. The remaining government leaders from the former superpowers had joined together into one unified force called Qi Jia, and they would be making a move on the former American capitol. The commanders assured each of the officers their orders would arrive soon, and they likely would be sent in to finish the job. Libya’s commander wanted to know if he could count on Eddie to make America pay for its sins. With resolution fueled by personal tragedy, a fury for war replaced a decade and a half of peace in an instant. Eddie wanted blood.
Hell yes they could count on him!

When the orders came, he didn’t question the incredible size of the already mobilized force. It didn’t occur to him to consider how a million military and mercenary men had been pulled together so quickly and orchestrated into an even more unified dispersal across the former United States. He fell hook, line, and sinker for his commander’s version of the attacks, and his family’s death secured his unquestionable allegiance to the fight.

His papers had his company going to a place called Fargo. Eddie had seen a movie by that name at the university, but hadn’t been able to understand its regional dialect. He shouldn’t have to worry about that now; there wasn’t supposed to be anyone still alive up there. He was assigned leadership to a patrol of eighty men, a small faction of the five thousand soldiers being sent to Fargo, North Dakota. Their orders: “Kill everyone not wearing a Qi Jia uniform.”
Simple enough
.

On arrival at the Fargo Air National Guard Base, he and fifty other company leaders assembled in the airport hanger. Eddie’s company and four others would head north immediately to a town called Grand Forks. They were to burn every grocery, clothing, and supply store in the city, the idea being to limit the strength of resistance, and life expectancy, of any survivors. They were then to head west in a straight line towards Montana burning every farm and small town to the ground, before eventually circling back to Fargo. They could leave the roads alone. Leave the bodies. Cleanup crews would follow and take care of them, and as evidenced by the hundreds scattered about the base, there would be millions of bodies to get rid of. There were no inconsistencies in the commander’s plan to make Eddie take pause. Now, fueled by vengeance, he was a blindly motivated man.

NINE: (Ryan) “On The Road Again”

Monday, October 19, 2020.

North Dakota.

We arrived in Grand Forks minutes after 2 a.m. Once the rain stopped the full moon emerged, which helped the travel, but driving through the dark with no headlights still wasn’t easy. The tension hadn’t subsided in the least, and we were all expecting to be pulled over at gunpoint any minute, so we spoke very little.

Passing through the small town of Fisher, a few miles outside Grand Forks, we came upon a larger replica of what we’d found in Ely. The smell seemed even stronger here, even with the air on and windows up. Exponentially more cars littered the highways and ditches, occupants still inside. Gaping holes showed in the center dividers and the guardrails on bridges, where some cars were still hanging and others had plunged through. Abundantly more dead animals again covered the roads. This toxin, whatever it was, had spared no creature. There didn’t appear to be any immune. Survival was lucky. Pure luck. I just couldn’t get over that.

Exiting off Highway 2 onto Demers Avenue, we saw even more bodies in parked cars, more on the sidewalks, and more on the lawns. We all wanted to look away, but to where? We sought out any visible signs of life, helplessly wishing we could help someone, somehow, in some way. But we couldn’t. It was the same sickening, horrific, scene wherever we looked.

Businesses had been rendered into the ultimate situational ironies. There was a State Farm agency, with no one there, a Motel 6 with no lights on, and a Batteries Plus store, completely dead. The movie theater across the street from Cabela’s was playing
Terminator 6
. Even Arnold wasn’t coming back from this. At any other point in time these truths would have been quite funny. Tonight they were sobering doses of reality. This is how it is. Everywhere. Life will never again be how it was before.

We still hadn’t encountered any signs of enemy presence. There were no other vehicles, no lights, no aircraft or motor sounds. Yet, to be certain no one was at Cabela’s, we looped all the way around the building before parking the three trucks across the street in an auto repair shop parking lot. Cameron and Danny pulled on their covert, black, Special Ops uniforms. The suits were high-tech, lined with a heat-absorbent, waterproof, Kevlar reinforced fabric and equipped with miniature battery-powered vents (under the arms, at the waist, at the ankles, and at the neck) to balance their body temperature inside the suit with the air outside. They called them “ghost suits,” and those two would be invisible on any THIRST system. The Navy SEALs used these uniforms in every stealth operation, allowing them to breach buildings and beaches almost invisibly—like ghosts. On the open market they would be $80,000 suits, but they weren’t available on the market, which meant two was all we had.

Hayley and I didn’t have that same stealth security, but we crossed the street with Cameron and Danny, and crept along the edge of the building to the front door. The others stayed with the trucks for now. Danny picked the lock in seconds, something I normally would have questioned, but decided to let go for the time being.
Had to be something he picked up in the military
. He raised the iron gates enough to access the doors and opened those enough so he could slide in and disarm the security system. Another useful trick that took him only seconds. He then came back and opened the glass doors so we could all slide in. Danny lowered and relocked the iron gate, and we made our way together through the darkened store. We found the section with the night vision gear, and Danny set each of us up with a functional set. He loaded up on batteries and other related accessories and grabbed an additional set for everyone waiting with the trucks. Then we headed to the back door to let them in.

Once we were all inside, Danny split our survival shopping spree list into eight sections, each with ten to twenty items. I stayed with him and Cameron. We collected equipment from high-tech infrared deflecting blankets and tents to similar stealth clothing, jackets, gloves, hats, boots, and sleeping bags. Danny knew what kinds of guns we needed, so he went to gather those. He and Cameron had their Special Ops Remington R11s slung over their shoulders and Springfield XDM12s holstered. They also had their high-powered, .50 caliber, Barrett M82 sniper rifles out in the truck.

Cabela’s didn’t stock those military grade weapons, but Danny’s search turned up four Remington 700s, four M40A8s, two Colt M4s, four Beretta handguns and four Springfield XDM8s. We gathered scopes, ammo, and silencers for the weapons, fishing gear, knives, propane grills and tanks, and pre-packaged military food packets. Hayley picked up four more bows, beyond the four she’d packed, and a hundred of the best arrows. The others loaded up on additional food, two-way radios, bottled water, hunting traps, motion cameras, emergency lights, rope, wire, first aid kits, Tasers, backpacks, face paint, and a couple of generators. We hauled the supplies out to the trucks, divided everything equally among the three vehicles in case we happened to lose one, and then moved them down the street a few more blocks. Danny and Dad wrapped the hoods with heat-trapping tarps, to mask the engine temperatures, and we were ready to get a little rest.