The Bonner Incident: Joshua's War (30 page)

“Colonel,” Moore said, leaning over the table. “Just how many troops are you bringing?”

“By tomorrow afternoon, I will have two thousand troops in place and another thousand by the end of the week.”

“Please don’t tell me they are state National Guard,” Moore moaned, feeling trapped.

Giving a snort, Tanner shook his head. “The ones that are Guard aren’t from this state and the extra thousand are from the German garrison in New Mexico.”

Winters let out a gasp as her mouth fell open, staring at Tanner. “Pardon,” Schmidt said, leaning over the table. “Are you saying German military personnel are coming to assist in a domestic matter?”

“Yes, and it’s perfectly legal. Presidential Decision Directive/ NSC-25 clearly allows for the federal government to request UN troops in times of crisis. He doesn’t need congressional approval.”

“Holy shit!” Moore shouted, jumping back out of his chair and started pacing again.

“Moore, you need to calm down and quit smoking, otherwise you’re going to have a heart attack,” Tanner said, shaking his head.

“Moore quit smoking over a decade ago,” Schmidt said.

“No, he started back up today,” Winters said as Moore paced back and forth, talking to himself.

Stopping suddenly, Moore dug in his pocket, pulling out the pack of cigarettes and shaking one out. Sticking it between his lips, he pulled out a lighter and lighting it as Winters gasped. She had been born into an era where nobody smoked inside a building.

Moore turned to see more than her shocked face. “Don’t say a word about my cigarette,” he snapped, then looked at Tanner.

“Colonel, this isn’t California, New York or Chicago. Hell, those people are so brain dead they won’t object unless you take away the free stuff the government gives them,” Moore said, taking a drag. “This is Idaho. Hell, the biggest city here is Boise and it’s full of rednecks that hold on dearly to their American identity. You bring in foreign troops and we will have a war. My God, I’ve had a ninety-year-old woman aim a shotgun at me here!”

“Please,” Tanner said without the tone of command, waving his hand at the chair Moore had jumped out of. When Moore sat back down, Tanner cleared his throat. “That is precisely why I requested them, Agent Moore. I’m certain my troops will follow orders but I worry that after a few engagements, some will start to question the orders they receive. With foreign troops here fighting beside and integrated with domestic troops, it’s been proven in rebellions, that the domestic troops will not question the actions they are ordered to do. We have trained doing this for years with our allies and it only reaffirms what we have witnessed in combat. If we have foreign troops with ours, they will fight the population without question.”

The cigarette that was hanging between Moore’s lips fell onto the table. “Are we here to get Joshua or stomp out an insurrection?” he asked numbly.

“To get Joshua and if insurrection starts, to stop it quickly,” Tanner said, getting up and picking the cigarette up, putting it back in Moore’s mouth. Sitting back down, Tanner stared at Moore. “I’m not going to lie, this is a test bed to see how the rest of the country views the enactment of the FEMA regions. We wanted to wait until guns were less of a concern, but those dumbasses couldn’t just shoot a logger. No, they had to make him into a super soldier.”

“Colonel, Joshua has no military training,” Schmidt said and Tanner busted out laughing.

Moore pulled the cigarette in his mouth with his lips, taking a drag as Tanner slapped the table laughing. Slowly, Tanner stopped laughing and turned to Schmidt, wiping his eyes. “Agent Schmidt, I’ve fought battles in shit holes around the world. Most of the fighters I’ve gone up against had no formal training,” he said, still chuckling softly. “It’s the man that makes the warrior, Agent Schmidt, and from what I’ve read on Joshua, he makes a formidable warrior.”

“Yes, that’s my point,” Moore said, taking his cigarette out of his mouth. “Men like Joshua are a dime a dozen around these parts. Then you have Montana and Wyoming next door, then Utah and Nevada to the south, I’m starting to feel like Custer.”

“Relax, Moore,” Tanner said soothingly. “We’ve done hundreds of studies and there may be a lot of tough men, but our studies have shown that ninety-percent will leave after the first battle.”

“Who in the fuck did your studies?” Winters snapped. “Rioters fight harder than that and we aren’t talking gang bangers here. It was the CFR, Council of Foreign Relations, wasn’t it?”

“Funny you should bring that up but those numbers, gangs, actually worry us more,” Tanner said and Schmidt fell back in his chair. “They have no regard for life and fight all the time. But as for who did the studies, that’s classified,” Tanner said with a wink and a nod.

Tanner looked around at the shocked faces. “Please people, we have been slowly preparing the country for this. Our biggest concern is the workforce just stopping going to work. A country not being productive is a drain on resources.”

Shaking his head, Moore leaned over the table. “So you think the population around here won’t fight when pushed?”

“Oh, I’m sure they will, but when they see that we shoot back and have bigger weapons, they will stop and fall in line,” Tanner said. “The rest of the rednecks in the south will see it also, and it won’t have to be repeated many times.”

“Colonel,” Schmidt said, still flopped back in his chair in shock. “We aren’t talking about rednecks. We are talking about working men and women fighting.”

“I know, but Moore used the term,” Tanner said, looking at the stunned faces. “I see I’ve given you a lot to think about so, Moore, get your team and update your profile and give your recommendations. Schmidt, find where Joshua’s family has disappeared to.”

“If you want me to walk in that house, fuck you,” Schmidt snapped, jumping up. “I’ve seen with my own eyes how good that fucker is booby trapping stuff. Hell, he blew up one of our bomb techs.”

Moore and Winters looked at Schmidt in shock that he would challenge the colonel. Tanner looked off, thinking. “You’re that certain the house would be rigged?” Tanner asked.

“One hundred percent,” Schmidt said, lifting his chin. “If my team had been in place, they could’ve told us his family was leaving and we could’ve popped his ass when he came to rig the house.”

“You don’t think they are with Joshua?” Tanner asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Not a chance in hell,” Schmidt said.

Grinning, Tanner nodded, “Neither do I,” he said. “Okay, the house is off-limits to all personnel. Sooner or later, a local or hero worshiper will enter the house blowing themselves up and we can inform the country that Joshua is an indiscriminate killer.”

“Colonel, the NSA tried that in the beginning, building a false history about Joshua. It didn’t work,” Winters said.

“Yes, I’m aware,” Tanner said. “And to be honest, I think if we had video of Joshua killing infants that thirty percent of the population still wouldn’t believe it.”

“So why worry about it?”

Tanner looked at her hard. “We don’t want that thirty percent to get any bigger.”

“Then Colonel, we must watch our own actions,” Moore said, dropping his cigarette into a water bottle. “If we continue running around killing boys that thirty percent is going to grow rapidly.”

“That was stupid,” Tanner said. “Now, that is my area. Your area is getting me intel on Joshua.”

“One last question,” Moore said, getting up. “Has the entire region been activated?”

“No, only Bonner and Boundary Counties have been labeled in state of crisis,” Tanner said and Moore gave a sigh of relief. “Moore, I know there are a lot of guns out there and would like to get this done and pull back, until those in power get more guns out of the equation.”

“Okay, I’ll get my team cranked up,” Moore said with an actual smile.

As they walked out, Tanner called the others standing in the hall inside. Schmidt left them without saying a word. When they reached the doors, Winters hit Moore in the arm, “Give me a cigarette,” she snapped.

“You’ve never smoked,” he said pulling the pack out.

“Well, I need one now, damn it,” she said, grabbing the pack. “And your lighter,” she said, pulling a cigarette out. He handed over the lighter as she gave him the pack back. “I’ll be in shortly. I need a minute.”

“Take your time,” Moore said, patting her arm and walked over to their building.

“Thank God I took a chance,” she mumbled, lighting the cigarette with trembling hands and coughed, drawing in the smoke. It normally took two days for her message to get to her unit of Minutemen, but with the constant surveillance now on all email and phone, she’d only got the message she had given Ernest out yesterday.

What she didn’t know was that Ernest had gotten the message out. He’d notified the units he was connected to and they’d relayed it out. The Blue Ridge Minutemen got her message that she had given Ernest from another unit before they got hers.

Many of the attacks were by ordinary people, but the majority of attacks were from those who knew America was the people, not the government. Some were Minutemen; others were just small groups of working people and friends who were tired of being run over and having everything taken while those in Washington made millions. It was once again, time for the government to fear the people, the only real reason any government wanted weapons out of the hands of the citizens.

An armed man was a citizen; an unarmed man was a subject.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Riding all night, only stopping to record the small burst of noise that Ernest had sent, Joshua didn’t even listen to it and instead, listened to the radio the feds were using. Joshua heard Tanner come on and tell the teams that he was in charge now. Joshua had never heard about the executive orders Tanner spouted and wished he could look them up. Unlike any other time, there was much more chatter on the radio.

Stopping along a ridge and looking in the valley below, Joshua saw a dim campfire half a mile away. Glancing at his watch, seeing it was 3:48 a.m., he knew he had to move fast. Steering King through the trees, he got within two hundred yards.

Climbing off, Joshua looked back at the pack saddle on Jack. “Well, it is quieter than even a suppressed gun,” he said, taking his compound bow off.

Carrying the bow in his left hand, Joshua gripped the M4, aiming it ahead with his right hand as he slipped through the woods, closing on the camp. He saw eight of the pop-up tents and wondered why the number varied so much from team to team. On the radio, he’d heard of teams talking about the number of agents that refused to go out because they were sick but hell, couldn’t they just grab another man to take his place. So those that claimed they were sick were forced to go out or face disciplinary action.

The team was camped in a small clearing next to a stream and Joshua knelt down, putting the bow down softly. Keeping his hand on the M4, he lifted the thermal scope up to his eye with his left. Seven of the tents were a brighter white than one and Joshua saw a man sitting next to a tree.

Keeping the scope on the man for several minutes, Joshua could swear the man was asleep. ‘I can’t sleep like that damn it’ he thought, lowering the thermal. Putting it up, Joshua flipped the monocular over his left eye and picked up the bow.

Swinging around the camp till he was facing the man leaning against the tree, Joshua moved closer, letting the M4 hang at his side. Pulling an arrow out of the side-mounted quiver, Joshua crept up till he was twenty yards from the man. Nocking the arrow, Joshua pulled the eighty-pound compound bow back.

It was dark with more clouds rolling in and Joshua could see his aiming pins with his right eye. The problem was his left eye could see just fine and his brain wanted to use that view. Finally, he closed his left eye, seeing just the man’s outline and rested the pin on the man’s head as he relaxed his breathing.

Twang- sounded as he released the arrow and Joshua almost dove to the ground, expecting the men to be charging out of the tents. He heard the arrow hit the tree with a thunk and grabbed his M4 aiming, but only saw the outline twitching.

Realizing his left eye was closed, he opened it to see the shaft of the arrow sticking out between the man’s eyes as his body jerked against the tree. “Well, guess since elk have a hard time hearing a bow people do too,” he mumbled, letting the M4 hang at his side again and pulled another arrow.

With the arrow nocked, holding the bow in his left hand, he crept up to the first tent and pulled his knife out. Lightly pressing the blade on the fabric he pulled the knife down as the razor edge split the fabric. Making a six-inch cut he could see the man inside sleeping with his mouth open.

Putting his knife down, Joshua pulled the bow back, aiming at the man’s head that was almost at his feet. Letting the string go –twang- sounded as did the sound of the broad head punching through the man’s skull. Dropping his bow, Joshua saw only the feathers sticking out of the man’s nose. The rest of his thirty-four-inch arrow had passed through, burying into the ground.

Moving from tent to tent, Joshua continued till he reached number seven. He put his bow down and moved up, cutting a hole and then moved to the last tent cutting a hole. Seeing where the men were, he raised his M4 aiming at the first one and squeezing the trigger.