Foreign Enemies and Traitors (73 page)

After a moment, the terrified soldier replied with a quiet “Yes sir, I speak English.”  Carson stepped out from his hiding place, to see if anyone else was outside the garage, and then he took his first detailed look at his prisoner.  He had a long, pale face, and a pencil-thin mustache.  He noted the single vertical black bar insignia stuck to the front middle of the soldier’s camouflage rain parka, and on his beret.  “Oh, an officer—the smart one.  No wonder you’re still alive.  Okay, Lieutenant, reach around with your left hand and pull out your pistol with just your thumb and one finger.  It’s awkward, but you can do it.  Good, now lay it on the ground, nice and easy.” 

He advanced toward the officer like a cat, the Glock extended.  The officer was a little taller than Carson, around six feet.  “We’ve got some work to do now, and it has to be fast.  Turn around.  See that civilian?  The station manager?  Grab him by his feet, drag him over to that oil-changing pit and shove him in it.”  A large rectangular hole in the cement floor allowed grease monkeys to work beneath a car.  “Are you fucking deaf?  Drag him over there, or I’ll shoot your ass where you stand and drag you there myself.  Lieutenant, if you want to live, you have to start listening to me, understand?  We don’t have time for pity parties right now.”

With three men shot dead around him in the last minute, the NAL officer obviously believed Carson.  He broke from his trance and scurried the dozen feet to Stanley Fromish, seized him by his ankles and dragged him face down across the concrete, until he was alongside the grease pit.  He rolled the body into the open hole, where it landed with a thud.  While Fromish was being dealt with, Carson scooped up the pistols, the flashlight and the M-16A2 rifle.  The scuffed and dinged rifle had obviously seen decades of hard service; the stenciled armory numbers on the stock were barely legible.  He slung the rifle over his shoulder by its sling; the pistols and light went into the outside cargo pockets of his field jacket.  One of the blue NAL berets on the ground was still free of blood; he grabbed it and jammed it in a pocket.

“Next, your two
compadres
.  They can get a decent burial later.  Oh, pull off their insignias and badges first.”  The cloth rank and unit badges were attached with velcro like those on U.S. Army uniforms. 

Even in the dim light, the head wound of the first soldier he had shot was hard to look at, and impossible to ignore.  His face was mostly gone above the nose, and it looked as if he had bled gallons onto the floor, along with bone and brain matter.  The young NAL officer threw up, retching violently, dropping to his hands and knees.  A shout from Carson got him moving again.  The corpses left shiny black trails on the concrete floor as they were dragged over to the pit.  In the dark interior of the garage, the blood might be mistaken for an oil spill, at least until it was fully light outside.  Stanley Fromish, who had been shot just outside the garage, had been wearing a thick coat, and most of his blood was contained.  His bullet wounds were in his back, now on top.  After pushing the first soldier into the pit, the NAL lieutenant stammered, “I’m not helping you anymore.  You’re just going to kill me last.”

Carson was ready for this reaction.  Remembering Sergeant Amory’s incapacitating fear immediately after the death of the Mississippi Guard officers, he adopted the most avuncular tone he could muster, almost smiling.  “No I’m not.  I need you alive, LT.”  He pronounced this “el tee,” the enlisted man’s colloquial term for the military abbreviation of lieutenant.  This was part of Carson’s deliberate campaign to reassure the terrified junior officer.  “Lieutenant, you’re going to be my driver today.  In a few minutes, we’re going to be crossing the bridge in your humvee, and I need you alive and well for that.  So here’s the deal: you drive me and two of my friends across the river, and you’ll live.  If you don’t betray us, I promise I’ll let you go on the other side.  I give you my word of honor as a soldier.  But if you try to pull some tricky shit like this gas station guy did, then I’ll kill you just like I killed him.  We get across the bridge, you live.  If we don’t, you won’t either.  It’s that simple.  You got it?”

“I got it.”

They were now standing only yards apart, staring at one another.  Both men were roughly the same height and build, but the older man held a pistol and the younger man did not.  Carson noted the officer’s surname, on the cloth tape over the breast pocket of his parka.  “All right, Lieutenant Malverde, let’s walk back out to your humvee and get going.  I’ll be right behind you with my pistol aimed at your back.  Remember: the penalty’s the same for killing three or four.  One more won’t matter one bit.”  With his left hand, Carson pulled hard on the chain by the side of the bay door, and it began to roll down behind him with a rumbling clatter as they stepped outside.

****

Boone almost opened fire on the NAL humvee.
  Fortunately, the vehicle stopped fifty yards from their hiding place behind the derelict restaurant, and blinked its headlights in the agreed-upon manner.  Boone turned on his own flashlight to answer the signal, and the hummer rolled up to them.  He shined the light through the windshield.  Carson was sitting behind the driver, who was a Legion soldier in an ACU uniform, wearing a blue beret.  As soon as the vehicle stopped, Carson opened the back door to talk, since the inches-thick windows on this up-armored humvee didn’t roll down.  He kept his pistol aimed at the driver.  Boone and Doug had also changed into their daytime street clothes since he had left for the garage.

Boone asked, “What happened?  How the hell did you wind up with a hummer?”

“Your boy Stanley ratted me out.  This humvee pulled into the station to gas up, and Fromish ratted me out.  I wasted two NAL soldiers in the garage.  I had no choice—it was either me or them.  Then Lieutenant Malverde here got religion.  He agreed to drive us across the bridge, and in return I promised not to shoot him.”

“Where’s Fromish?”

“He’s dead too.  The three of them are in the grease pit inside his gas station.  I closed the place up, but there’s some blood outside.  It’s getting light; do you think we’ll be able to drive over the bridge without getting stopped or questioned?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” replied Boone.  “I haven’t been across it in months, and even then I was hidden in the trunk of a car, so I didn’t see anything.  I can’t go into Carrolton anymore, so I don’t know what the bridge security is like these days.  A military hummer should be good to go just about anywhere.  But the bridge guards probably know all of the local troops, and they might wonder who the new guys are.”  Boone opened the front door to address their prisoner, still behind the wheel.  “Well, Lieutenant, is crossing the bridge going to be a problem?”

After a hesitation, Malverde said, “No, it shouldn’t be.  There’s no reason for them to inspect a Legion humvee.  They can see what it is.”

“If you’re lying, you’re dying,” said Boone.

“I’m not lying,” answered Malverde.

Carson said, “Boone, I had an idea coming over here.  Colonel Brice just temporarily transferred over to the North American Legion.  Here, take your Glock, and keep the lieutenant from getting any funny ideas.  Let me change back into my ACUs.  You too, Doug.  I have the Legion insignias from the guys that I, uh, took out.” 

Standing between the humvee and the ruined restaurant, Doug Dolan and Carson quickly changed back into their Army ACU uniforms.  They pressed on the velcro NAL patches, imitating the lieutenant’s uniform.  The blue beret Carson had picked up was different.  On the front, the blue beret had the three silver stars of the North American Legion.  This was what the Legion’s enlisted men wore on their berets.  Malverde had a lieutenant’s single black bar on his beret instead of the three stars.  For his evolving plan to work, these details were critical.  Carson found his black U.S. Army beret, removed the eagle that signified the rank of full colonel, and transferred it to the blue beret.  He placed the modified Legion beret on his head, just covering the scar beneath his hairline.

“What about me?” asked Boone.  “I’m too big to hide, and I sure as hell can’t pass for a Mexican.”  This was an understatement.  Boone Vikersun, “the Viking,” was several inches above six feet tall, with wild dark blond hair and a thick reddish beard.

“I already figured it out,” said Carson.  “You’re our prisoner.  When we approach the security point, just put your hands behind your back like you’re handcuffed—but hang on to your pistol.  If they just look inside, it’ll fit the story I’m going to tell.  We’re transporting a dangerous gringo terrorist.  I’m a colonel in the North American Legion, a bilingual commie rat bastard traitor.  You said the Legion took American volunteers, right?  Well, that’s me.  Colonel Brice has gone over to the dark side.  Lieutenant Malverde, our cover is we’re taking this big gringo prisoner to Fort Campbell for interrogation.  Can you make that story work, if we’re stopped?”

“Umm…well, I guess I can…if they don’t check your IDs.  Usually they don’t, not if you’re in uniform.”

“Well, they’d better not,” said Carson, “or you’ll be the first one to get it.  The ‘prisoner’ will have a .45 aimed at your back, and I’ve got a nine millimeter.”

“All right, we’ll get across…but then you’ll let me out on the other side?  Like you said?”

“
If
we make it,” Carson replied.

“We’ll make it,” said Boone, slinging his pack into the back of the humvee behind the driver.  “That’s a good plan, Phil.  I think it’ll work.” 

After changing clothes and making sure the details of their uniforms were correct, it took only a few minutes to drive from their last hiding place behind the abandoned restaurant to “downtown” Carrolton.  The NAL humvee turned right onto Highway 214, and soon rolled past the service station.  The bay doors were still down, and the same single exterior spotlight shone on the pump island.  There was a little traffic on the road now, but no customers were waiting in the gas station, which still appeared to be closed for the night.  A few blocks on, they drove past the old Ford dealership and the chain drugstore and motel beside it.  A few NAL troops were walking between humvees, confiscated pickups, and troop trucks, getting ready for the new day.  Other young Hispanic-looking men were leaving the diner next to the motel, some in uniform and some in civvies or tracksuits.  These former businesses evidently housed and fed the hundred or so foreign soldiers stationed in Carrolton, assigned to guard the western side of the critical Tennessee River bridge.

A half mile further on, the two-lane road began its long ascent up the earthen rampart to the concrete and steel bridge.  The sky was lightening in the east, and it promised to be a clear day.  The last bands of cloud from the passing front turned pink and silver as they were swept away.  Concrete Jersey barricades were set up partway across the road, forcing traffic to slow down and snake through them.  On the shoulder to their right, three sections of barricade were arranged in a U shape, with sandbags stacked on top of them.  A humvee with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on top was parked inside this crude fighting position, protected on the front and sides.  The earthen roadway was elevated enough to see the vehicle’s weapon silhouetted against the eastern sky.  An ammo box the size of a large Igloo cooler sat on the left side of the gun, connected to it by a flexible feed belt. 

Carson said, “At least nobody’s on the fifty—it’s unmanned.”

“Nobody’s on it,” replied Doug from behind him, “but it’s not unmanned.  It’s a CROWS.”

“A what?”

“CROWS—Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station.  The operator is sitting inside the hummer, watching us on color television.  Or maybe he’s back at their HQ; he could be anywhere.  It’s the revenge of the Nintendo nerds.  Some little hundred-pound geek in that hummer can blow you away at a thousand yards.  When we get closer, you’ll see a couple of big glass lenses under the barrel.  Spooky as shit, those robot eyeballs staring at you.  They say the gunner can zoom in and read a newspaper across a football field—at night.  You can’t hide from that thing; it can see you a mile away.”  Doug sighed.  “I just wish we had one on this hummer.”

Then, as if the machine had heard Doug Dolan, the gun system on the humvee’s roof traversed until it was oriented in their direction, but the barrel remained elevated well above them.  This movement was so disconcerting that Carson had the thought,
Maybe it can hear us?
  The CROWS system was so far-out sci-fi that almost anything seemed possible.  Maybe it was hooked up to a directional microphone?  He tried to push the paranoid thoughts from his mind.

Malverde slowed as their humvee entered the serpentine concrete pattern of barricade sections.  Boone quietly asked, “What now, Lieutenant?  How’s this going to go down?”  He was sitting behind the driver, his suppressed Glock pistol gripped behind his back as he pretended to be a shackled prisoner.

Malverde answered, “If they make us stop, we stop.  If not, we keep going, slowly.”

“Okay, LT,” said Boone.  “Just keep going, nice and easy.”

A medium-sized flatbed truck, loaded with scrap metal and used appliances, was stopped ahead of them.  A pair of arc lights on tall stands illuminated both sides of the cab of the truck.  A NAL soldier was speaking to the driver through the side window and inspecting documents, his frosty breath visible in the bright artificial light.  Another soldier walked around the back of the truck, peering into its heaped metal junk with a powerful flashlight.  Both men wore ACU uniforms matching Lieutenant Malverde’s, including blue berets.  It was almost light enough outside that the vehicle inspector didn’t need the flashlight.  After a minute, the truck’s gears engaged, and it pulled forward and ascended the bridge. 

Boone said quietly, “Go ahead, Lieutenant, it’s our turn.  Do it right.” 

When their humvee was even with the guard post, between the two arc light towers, Lieutenant Malverde stopped, but he left the transmission in drive, his hands locked on the wheel.  The NAL soldiers approached, one on each side.  Both men had M-4 carbines slung over their shoulders, and holstered pistols.  Phil Carson, in the front passenger seat, glanced to his right at the robot machine gun on top of the guard post humvee.  Beneath the yard-long gun barrel, a pair of shiny lenses the size of CDs reflected the arc lights back at him, and he looked away.  It was an unearthly, creepy feeling, to be stared at by a robot wielding a “Ma Deuce”—an M2 .50 caliber, the exact same machine gun invented by John Moses Browning fully a century before.  Now it was married to computers, robots and video sights, and did not need a human hand to aim or fire it.  Just some technoid geek who was staring at a screen, while manipulating a Playstation control.