Chapter 11 -- WGEIRBYOULPUJBMECIHOD
Carter joined the two dozen or so other people assembled near the covered
shooters stations at the rifle range. He and Jessica had gotten up early and
driven over after breakfast, prepared for the beginning of the week's
activities. He knew there would be a considerable amount of weapons practice,
as well as physical conditioning work. Although most of what he had come to
call the resistance were from rural and small town environments, there were a
few who lived, as he had, in cities where it was not possible to walk out the
door and take a hike through the woods - they would probably find this trip a
refreshing diversion. He knew how much he had enjoyed the change from the
crowded, noisy city.
Several people wearing hats that looked like the ones worn by many state police,
including those of Missouri, he knew. Jessica told him that they were the
ones who would be conducting the practices.
"Generally, military training instructors wear these, so with many of us
having military connections, it's something we're used to. Makes them easier
to find when we're all dressed pretty much the same."
Their own attire was the usual, but almost everyone was wearing baseball caps.
They were of different colors and had letters on the front, identifying their
organization. He and Jessica had navy blue with with the letters MGF in white.
They hadn't worn them at home, and he first saw them when Jessica produced
them when the trip began. There were a total of twenty-nine visitors,
including instructors.
A couple of them waved toward the group, indicating they should gather around
them in a close group. The two of them, a man and woman who appeared to be in
their early forties, got the group formed into a semi-circle about two deep,
before they began.
"Hello everybody," the man began. "Glad you all made it safely. Since there
are a few of you here for the first time, I'm William Randall, and I go by Bill.
And this is my lovely wife Melissa."
Except for the paramilitary look of their outfits, they could have been an
average suburban couple at the mall. Carter had yet to see anyone who looked
crazy or even eccentric. He had often seen news about various alleged white
supremacists or religious fanatics plotting against the government. There was
video or photos of people who looked like misfits and derelicts, badly groomed
and dressed, and otherwise unpleasant-looking. He knew there were amateur rebel
groups, usually small and without much money, and not usually thinking far
beyond the fact that they were angry about something. But he also knew that
the government had a habit of planting agents provocateur in such
organizations in order to create an incident of some sort. He supposed they
could provide a useful distraction while the organized and disciplined outfit
he was part of remained well hidden. Perhaps they could create such
diversions if they were not already occurring.
The other instructors were introduced and the session got underway. First was
target shooting on the handgun range. Apparently the others had, like Jessica
and him, not brought weapons. Jessica had her personal gun in the car, and
had a carry permit. As a convicted felon he could not, although she had
assured him that if the time came when it was necessary, he could count on
being able to do so without any worries.
Here the guns were issued to the shooters. The range had only ten
shooter stations, so they would spend some of their time watching. The first
group took their positions, and he watched as they completed firing and scoring.
They were using revolvers that sounded like .357 Magnums, and went through a
cycle of target practice type exercises, shooting for score. Next they fired
all six shots as rapidly as possible, double action, while putting all shots
in the kill zone.
He and Jessica were in the third group. A young man and woman, both fairly
young, gave them their guns and ammunition. They were indeed .357s, Rugers with six
inch barrels. As they were scoring their targets, the young woman wearing a
name tag with 'Hannah' on it told him looked at his targets, then smiled.
"Nice," she said. "Thought you were one of the new ones."
He had put all of the slow shots in the the ten ring, and the rapid fire hits
were not off by much. It wasn't difficult, even after not having practiced in
seven years, outside of some informal practice with Jessica and Tommy.
He grinned. "I'm a little rusty."
He noticed that he was only a little better than Jessica in the rapid fire,
and not at all in the slow part. They went on until it was time for lunch,
using .40 caliber auto pistols for a round, and then a session with .44 Magnums.
Over lunch, sandwiches and chips with bottled beverages, arriving in a couple
of vehicles presumably from headquarters, he and Jessica chatted with the
others. He found himself talking to Hannah again, along with the other
instructor, whose name was Steve.
"Seems you already have some proficiency with weapons," he said. "Military
experience?"
"Ex-cop." Carter replied.
"Lot of those these days," said Steve, "given the way cops are being treated.
Is that why you quit?"
"Not exactly. I was given an extended vacation and not invited back."
He paused. Not having associated with anyone other than Jessica and her family,
he hadn't had occasion to discuss what had happened to him.
"You remember the King case in St. Louis, seven years ago?"
"Oh yeah - that was you? There've been so many of them it's hard to keep track.
Drugged-up thug sliced your partner, you got filmed holding him down the wrong
way, or something. That was one of the worst - no reason at all except the
mobs and the bureaucrats."
"Yeah. The perp was the wrong color, and so was over half the population.
They had the usual days of riots and burning and looting, so they made the
usual sacrifice. Throw a cop or two overboard."
"Yeah," Steves aid. "And now no one in his right mind will be a cop. So the
the urban jungle dwellers are killing each other off at a greater rate. Sorry
it happened to you. Is that what brought you over?"
"Actually I didn't know you existed. I figured my life was over and I was
going to use what time I had left to go back and kill the people who did it to me."
"I've often wondered why none of the cops who got railroaded like you have
ever tried to that," Steve said. "I don't think I could go on living without some sort of
retribution. Maybe we've become the kind of people who no longer have what it
takes to set things right. We're hoping that's not the case. But how did you
get here?"
"Tommy brought him in," said Jessica. "He's a pretty good judge of character,
didn't want to see Darrell throw away his life that way. And someone who was
that determined to pursue justice might be a good fit."
"He did well, I believe," said Steve. "Are you as good with other weapons as
with handguns?"
"I didn't train that much with long guns," Carter replied. "We had to be
qualified with all the weapons we used, but unless you were on some special
duty like a SWAT team the emphasis was just handguns, tasers, mostly."
"Well, in that case you can learn something. We have a combat range over
there that is probably something like police departments use in training. And
then there's the rifle range. We can't make everyone into a special forces
operative, or even a competent soldier, but we try to prepare for as many
situations as we can. In the end, we have no way of knowing how things will
end up. All we can to is try to be ready."
After lunch they went to the rifle range, spending the remainder of the day
practicing with several types of rifles. There were several M1 Garands of
recent manufacture and a number of sporting rifles chambered in .308 an .30-06,
and a couple in .300 Winchester Magnum. The rifles Carter had trained with
were in .308, and he shot reasonably well with one even after years of not
using one. After a while he got five shot groups down to under four inches at
400 yards - nothing spectacular but with regular practice he would probably
improve. The shooters passed the guns around in an informal manner, each of
them shooting several of them in each caliber.
They departed the range in time to eat at the cafeteria at headquarters, or
the 'mess hall' as Carter heard several of the former military guys call it.
He had seen a number of them who seemed to have military experience, both from
their handling of the weapons and their camaraderie. He and Jessica shared a
table with two of them, young men from Arizona.
They had each done a four year enlistment and while enjoying the knowledge
they acquired were unable to deal with the degradation been done by
political and social pressures. The knowledge that the nation's defenses was
so compromised was one of their motives for joining the outfit. It was
operated, as many apparently were, by a group of fairly wealthy
individuals who had sufficient means to finance it. Carter wondered if all of
them were organized that way, or if any were made up of individuals in a
democratic process.
"There aren't many," Jessica told him. "Of course, I don't have the entire
picture. Only the Council knows it all. But I do believe there are one or
two that fit that description. They would have to be very tight, in terms or
the reliability of their members, so they can't be penetrated by the enemy. I
know they exist only from things Dad has said, and I'm not sure they have the
same status as freeholds. Maybe more like associates, allies."
The Council, Carter knew, was the the top of the operation. It was made up of
the leaders of the various organizations. Jessica's father was a member, and
was away for meetings at least once a month.
After dinner was over they moved over to empty section of the dining area
where a couple of long tables held coolers of iced beer and some bottles of
wine. Although about a third of those present were women, only a couple of
them were drinking wine, drinking beer from the bottles like the men. Jessica
was one of those choosing beer.
The gathering broke up after just a couple of beers for most of them, enough
time for some more conversation. Jessica introduced him to a few more people,
and they headed back to their cabin. After the day's activities they were
both ready for a shower and bed, and with that accomplished, he fell asleep
almost as soon as he lay down.
The next day featured sessions on the combat courses. The first one Carter
found familiar, as it was similar to those used in some police training.
While going through a course simulating an urban environment, targets would
suddenly be presented from various places, depicting either armed assailants
or harmless citizens, and points were scored for shooting the dangerous ones
and not any harmless ones. His cop training came in handy here, and he easily
got a perfect score.
The outdoor range was similar, with targets presented behind vegetation or
features of the landscape. Instead of a handgun, however, the participants
were given a .40 caliber carbine. Carter enjoyed using the little weapon and
despite having seldom used one that way, he easily mastered the course.
After lunch they practiced throwing grenades on the outdoor combat course.
They of course used inert practice grenades, as live ones either had to be
legally permitted and taxed, and of course acquiring them in quantities would
be difficult. However, practicing for the accurate delivery of them
suggested to Carter that they would be available and perhaps used in the event
of what he thought of as the 'big one'. Later he asked Jessica, and she told
him that the freeholds did indeed have them, and many other proscribed or
traceable weapons.
He knew that there were large stashes of weapons on the MacArthur farm, in
hidden compartments buried under tons of corn. The huge circular storage bins
would have to be emptied to access them, but even if the farm ever came under
suspicion and was raided, they might escape detection if no other evidence was
found. And if they ever were needed, that would be a minor inconvenience. He
also knew that in a fenced yard of several acres along one of the roads well
away from the houses, were several powerful demolition machines, some of them
modified to carry weapons. Disguised as rusty and dirty old trucks and
tractors, they waited for a time when they would be needed.
They ended a little earlier this day, and after dinner he and Jessica watched
television for a while. Most of the time they were together they were working
on something, or Tommy or her father was present. Now, however, with the only
distraction being the television, he began to wonder about their relationship.
She was not married, he assumed, and had given no indication of having a
boyfriend or whatever they were called these days. She worked with her father,
Tommy and him on various projects, mostly involving upkeep and security for
the farm, and various types of preparations for the expected crisis.
Perhaps, he thought, after being out of it so long he didn't know how to act.
He had had a series of relationships in the past, some of them fairly long but
eventually ending, probably because he never could make the commitment most
women would want eventually. Which, he thought, had turned out to be a good
thing. But, he found himself being attracted to her, at least in wanting to
be with her as much as possible. The last thing you need though, he told
himself, is to become emotionally involved. He had hardened himself
thoroughly against having any feelings beyond his desire for retribution, and
that was now fading against his new position.
He looked over at her, just in time for her to turn and look in his direction.
He had a slight suspicion she had been stealing a glance at him, something he
had observed lately, and the fact that he was doing the same thing had caused
his thoughts about some sort of relationship outside of business might develop,
and what its effects might be.
"You're quiet," she said. "More than usual."
"I am?" he asked. "Yeah, there's so much stuff to think about, suddenly. Do
you get used to it?"
"I guess I have," she replied. "I pretty much grew up with it. And it happened
gradually - it was after mom died that dad became serious about the situation
we were in, and as he began exploring possibilities he met others who thought
like he did. So he was in at the beginning. By the time I was out of school
it was in its beginning phase, and so it's been my life."
"You never married?" he asked.
"I did, but it didn't work out. Fortunately it didn't work out fairly quickly,
so it didn't waste much of my life. Now I don't know now if I could have a
relationship with anyone outside. The need for secrecy makes that
difficult. You never know if you can trust someone that completely."
Carter wondered if she was trying to tell him something or if that was just an
innocent observation.
"Yeah, I see what you mean."
He looked over at the television. Jessica had turned the sound down and they
had been reading chyrons on the bottom of the screen. It was a news channel
and normally there was little worth watching, much less listening to,
considering that most of the news channels had nothing except propaganda
punctuated by banal items of interest only to the dormant minds of the
majority of the population.
Suddenly everything disappeared from the screen to be replaced by a large
image proclaiming "BREAKING NEWS", accompanied by presumably dramatic music.
Carter always wondered how much the audience was impressed by the color and sound.
Probably, he thought, anyone watching this stuff every day was easily impressed.
They watched the bottom of the screen as the suitably young, well-groomed,
female person appeared and began to speak. One of Carter's former colleagues,
who had been born in and grew up in England, told him the people who read the
news on television were called 'news readers'. As long as he could remember
they were called reporters, anchors, correspondents and other aggrandized terms.
Of course paying a bimbo, male or female, millions of dollars a year to read a
teleprompter said as much as about the state of the business as anything.
'DEADLY POLICE SHOOTING' was announced in large bold letters across the
bottom of the screen. Jessica turned up the sound.
"Police are investigating an officer-involved shooting this evening on Quincy
Avenue," the young blonde news reader said. "We have few details at this time,
but it is confirmed that one person has been taken to taken to UAMS Hospital,
his condition is not known at this time. We go to Marie Myers, who is on the
scene now. Marie?"
The scene switched to mostly deserted street, with several police cars sat,
lights flashing, with cops walking or standing around. The screen
split to show another young woman, holding a big microphone with the station logo.
"Sarah, I'm here at the Quik Shop on Quincy Avenue," she said. "About an hour
ago police were called to a suspected robbery in progress here. Witnesses tell us that
two men had attacked the clerk, whether it was a robbery or something else we
don't know at this time. One of them was holding the clerk from behind with a
knife at her neck, and the other was behind the counter as well.
"Do we have any new information on the perpetrators?" Sarah asked.
Marie put her hand over one ear and did not speak for several seconds, then
said "We are getting a report now that one of them was dead on arrival at the
hospital, and the condition of the other is unknown."
As the conversation continued Jessica and Carter looked at each other, both
with probably the same thought. He said it first.
"They haven't gotten to the most important part," he said. "What color was the
perp, and the cop?"
"The only important part," she replied. "That will light the fuse."
"It's near the point now where it won't matter much," he said. "Cops shoot
white people all the time and it's not news, but before long even black cops
won't be safe if they shoot someone of the wrong color. They're moving beyond
just trying to create racial division - they want it to be between law and
order and the law of the jungle. Any excuse to get a riot started, burning
and looting, to tear down the civil society. The cities, of any size, are
mostly beyond saving."
Before long they were out of material and went back to the regular news. Carter
and Jessica sat silently for a while, with nothing to say that hadn't been
said before. He supposed one reason he didn't watch television much was
because of the news. It was earlier to read the articles on the news web
sites a couple of times a day - he got the information without the annoying,
preening humans.
It was getting late, and he and Jessica said their good-nights and went to bed.