World of Ashes (62 page)

             
Lee had to begrudgingly allow his brother his moment of smug pride in predicting the monetary system Jimmy ranted about as well. Jimmy was as sly as his brother about earning money and he didn’t like to see his small fortune of over ten thousand S-Dollars (roughly $20,000 in 2012 US Dollars) become worth no more than the “standard wage” of 500 Ameros. The worth of such money, which was only on FEMA issued EBT cards, was intrinsic at best. The Amero was as idiotic a concept as the Euro and its predictable failure. The products the FEMA workers sold, which were only Government Approved Supplies, were obscenely expensive and often of the lowest quality. The markets had been completely shut down except for those businesses applying for Federal Grants, and no restaurants were allowed to stay open pending Food and Drug Administration inspection, supplying, and approval. Go figure there were no inspectors available for at least six months. To make matters worse, or to put salt on an already open wound, the Environmental Protection Agency demands along with other
Green Laws
would have to be adhered to by all businesses. This meant no more air conditioners or electric stoves, and certainly no way to run factories or heat most of the homes. All this regulation and intrusion was passed off as being “for the protection of the environment, the people, and a safe and secure future for America.” Everyone in town was really tired of hearing that rhetoric. How could the FEMA workers and Soldiers actually believe that shit? Willful ignorance? There could be no other answer.

             
“What do you think the chances they’ll just leave are?” Ethan theorized as they stashed the trucks they wouldn’t be taking back. “Maybe it would only take us showing up with tanks and they just say fuck it and take off. Then again, what if they already have armor, or even air defenses like an attack chopper?”

             
“I don’t guess I’ve actually given a lot of thought to that outcome.” Lee didn’t like sounding like Ethan, but he recalled the words of the philosopher Tsun Tsu.
When faced with untenable alternatives, remember your imperative.
The imperative was Sullivan’s survival, and the ultimate goal was unconditional independence. “As you’re so fond of pointing out, a surprise attack like Pearl Harbor can work.”

             
“The attack on Pearl Harbor ultimately lead to the destruction of the Japanese Empire. As Admiral Yamamoto accurately predicted-“

             
“Ethan. Shut up.” Jimmy said, interrupting from beneath an ASV where he was hiding from the sun during a quick nap.

             
“Well, don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe they could stop a force like this from breeching the walls. If I did I wouldn’t be here doing this, instead of at home planting IED’s in the Federal’s breakfast cereal until I bleed them for so long they lose the very taste for war and leave my fucking home. But first things first, when we get back I need to link with Allen so we can activate the Resistance. I’m sure they have a few men ready at any given time, but we’ll need an organized force to appear from within the ranks of the Federals. Otherwise they might be able to mount a counter offensive.”

             
Lee took a deep breath. “I wasn’t going to tell you… Leave it to someone you might not punch in the face just for delivering a message, but…”

             
“Tell me what? What are you talking about? Is Samuel okay? Mary?”

             
“The radio has a text option someone in Texas failed to tell us about. We’ve been receiving messages from Kenly for the last six hours. Allen and everyone involved in the Hemp & Corn Fuel projects has been arrested under Martial Law for growing and attempting to distribute a Schedule One Narcotic, and for attempting to sew insurrection among the population. Mary and Paula are okay, though. Lots of people have gone underground, or disappeared. The Army’s commanding officer there, this Colonel Jeffry Sharp… He’s gone mad with power. I don’t think we can let him escape. He has to be HVTOne*.” (High Value Target)

             
“Martial Law… There could be no more evil a concept in America, and no more appealing law to a tyrant like
him.
Lee, I have to go. Now. They come to our doorstep, and we hold fast. They murder our lawmen, and yet we hold fast behind our walls. Well not now. No more. It is our duty to fight. Our
duty
to disobey.”

             
“I feel like you’re probably butchering a quote from a movie, but I can’t remember which one. Very poetical, Ethan, but you get your wish. I want you to ambush the convoy our people are being transported on. Take our their defenses and get as many back as they’ll let go alive. Be realistic, you may not be able to save everyone.”

             
Dire words. Ethan didn’t wait to lock the door. He grabbed Jimmy and the two Cavalrymen in charge of his ASV and they were on their way before the rest of the trucks were hidden. Ethan had no idea if he’d get to the convoy before they made their exit at Rolla towards Jefferson City, but it was fine with him if he didn’t catch them on I-44. No one would expect to be blindsided by a Mk19 and a 50cal from an armored vehicle anywhere in this state. From what Jimmy had said the Federals didn’t take anyone in the town very seriously, or their ability to fight back. The Federal armor in the area wasn’t impressive to begin with, so the men had a fighting chance.

             
“Ghostrider Six, this is Vader Six.”
Lee called over the radio.

             
“This is Ghostrider, go ahead Vader.”

             
“
Be advised, Operation Iron Sides is a go. Out.”
Iron Sides was code for the mission to drive up I-55. This meant the convoy had left Fort Leonard Wood. It also meant Ethan’s ASV was completely on its own.

             
Unable to justify slowing now that he’d heard of Allen’s abduction, Ethan ordered the ASV to maintain speed directly for the bridges, hoping against hope the Federals hadn’t blown them yet. Rounding the corner at the bottom of the hill the enemy unit was easy to spot in desert tan trucks no one had repainted since Iraq & Afghanistan. Their uniforms weren’t the right colors for Missouri, meant to have been phased out years ago for that very reason. Universal Camouflage was a joke and made the men look like little blue dots against brown. The troops sent to blow what remained of the bridges over the Big Piney River spotted the ASV’s approach and opened fire with small arms before Ethan ever had a chance to use the loudspeaker to talk to them.

             
“I think they’re pissed off at you, Sheriff!” The ASV’s driver laughed as a NATO 5.56mm round pinged off the armor near the windshield.

             
“No shit?” Ethan took as careful aim as he could from the uphill angle at sixty miles an hour while the driver dodged debris on a bridge that was already listing slighting to the left and pulled the trigger for the Mk19 automatic grenade launcher, belting out half a dozen rounds at the enemy’s tan colored Green Trucks. The soldiers scattered as they heard the
fung fung fung
sound of the supremely deadly weapon, followed seconds later by all but one round impacting the side of the cliff. The one stray round Ethan was sure would never hit anything blew the Federal’s truck in half and sent one man off the edge of the cliff in a flaming cartwheel. He was definitely dead, Ethan knew it, but anyone who’d shoot first and ask questions later wasn’t someone he was going to lose sleep over shooting back at.

             
The ASV roared past the smoldering truck and stunned soldiers. Jimmy flipped them off from the navigator’s seat, but there wasn’t much chance they saw. The grenade to the face had effectively conveyed the message
Go Fuck Yourself.

             
“Vader Six, Ghostrider. We’ve made, uh,
contact
.” A garbled transmission came back, but it wasn’t urgent. Lee was just acknowledging the transmission. Hopefully they weren’t being jammed yet. If they were really lucky the scouts hadn’t been able to relay a call for help, but the enemy soldier’s absence on routine radio checks would eventually be noticed. Time had grown drastically shorter.

              Allen didn’t struggle with the Federals when they’d taken him in the middle of the night. He had figured it was coming, and given his friends and family and employees the rundown on how to not make a scene when arrested. He’d taught them how to lull the Onezies into a false sense of security, the best way to affect an escape. The only thing that upset him was that all his employees had been arrested on the same charges with the same potential punishment. Colonel Sharp, after insulting and berating Allen for several hours on the menace posed to society by marijuana, and some other completely fictitious propaganda aimed at Marijuana/Hemp Farmers like himself, decreed there would be no lesser punishments for Allen’s peons. He didn’t respond at all to Sharp’s self-righteous ranting, least of all from an man that reminded him rather distinctly of George Armstrong Custer in a modern uniform.

Sharp, knowing Allen had stopped paying attention
during his pontifications informed him the indoor grows were all scheduled for destruction under DEA, ATF, DHS, and a bunch of other bureau policies that meant nothing to him. Pending collection of evidence, Allen and his “confederates” would be held at a Jefferson City Maximum Security Detention Facility. No mention was ever made on how long they’d be there, but it did amuse Allen to hear the word “Confederates” spoken aloud. It was almost as if Colonel Sharp were trying to add legitimacy to Allen’s business practices by comparing him to the glorious Southern Rebels.

             
No one arrested under Sharp’s Martial Rule bothered asking about trials or lawyers. They already knew the Right of Habeas Corpus had been suspended, probably for ever if the Federals won. The only options they had were to blame Allen and the town’s suspiciously absent leaders and hope for a reduced sentence, something Allen had already specifically instructed them to do, but then he’d neglected to mention what Sharp had said to him. They were all just biding their time now, holding casual conversations about the bad food or the weather as the convoy plodded along the highway at this Green Truck model’s maximum speed of fifty five miles per hour. The trucks might be able to go faster, but that was how fast the Regulations of Emissions Board, Transportation Safety Agency/Ground Service and the EPA said they were allowed to go. The cruise controls were prompted as such, which made the trip painfully long for everyone. Even the soldiers tasked with guarding them were miserable, but then that was because one of Allen’s employees had a bad habit of passing extremely noxious gas when she wasn’t able to take her medication, which she was cut off from because Sharp was an asshole. The soldiers were about to roll the windows down when
KABOOM!
The only armed vehicle in the group, a rather dolled up looking robin’s egg blue MRAP, was blown on its side from a broadside salvo of automatic grenades. The MRAP tilted on two wheels under the explosions, ramped a lowrider ghetto truck abandoned on the road and flipped on its side. It halted only when the turret was caught by the arresting cables in the median.

             
No one in the back of the Green Trucks could see much through the security fencing installed in between the window panes, but a peephole near Allen gave him an unparalleled view of a woodland painted ASV roaring out from the wood line toward the MRAP, the Browning “Ma Deuce” .50caliber in the turret banging away at the MRAP’s angled undercarriage just to keep the troops inside from getting out. Once the smoke cleared the ASV allowed the crew of the MRAP to evacuate. A voice came over the loudspeaker and demanded their surrender. The dazed and bruised men laid their weapons down and backed away, the turret clanking mechanically toward to the convoy. Ethan’s voice, recognizable and menacing, spoke to the Jumpsuits in the convoy. “
Get out.
”

The loudspeaker was crystal clear. The Federals piled out of their vehicles, the soldiers who’d laid their arms down made no effort to reclaim them as the turret clanked back towards them. It went without saying
who the ASV belonged to. The Sheriff had come for his people. With no other choice the Federals let them go, and in turn Allen and his people stole their trucks and their supplies. The soldiers were left their weapons on the condition they were to protect the civilian Jumpsuits left in their charge. The soldiers agreed to the conditions, they were just men fighting for their country after all, caught up in a shit-storm they’d never imagined possible. Ethan would send trucks back for them, so they had best not abandon the civvies. That would determine what happened to them later.

             
One soldier stepped away from the group and slung his rifle. “I want to go with you.” He said to Allen.

             
“Huh?” Ethan was taken aback, but didn’t lower his sidearm when the soldier approached.

             
“These fucking Progressives are evil, Sheriff.” The tall black soldier had a slight Orange County accent, it reminded Ethan of when he’d first met Juan. “I was in the California National Guard. We wound up in Wyoming to protect Cheyenne. They’ve taken away every civil liberty, it’s like they used the book
1984
as a manual instead of a warning
.
They’re nothing but a bunch of malevolent communists. Therefor, I want to come with you. Besides, you’ll need someone to advise you on how to deal with Colonel Sharp. I can give you the rundown on him on the way.”