Globall War of Terror - Bikers

Globall War of Terror - Bikers

We weren't making much mileage over ground. Our first convoy sleep had been on the side of the road in far Northern California, relying on isolation as our only protection. Our second had been halfway down Jungo Road - protected by terrain. We were now on our third in a campground in far western Utah -- all daytime stops.

There were many reasons to run at night. Fewer people about, harder to spot us, less wear and tear on vehicle cooling systems, less wear and tear on the passengers.

But resting during the day had one huge disadvantage. It meant that we were vulnerable in daylight. Anyone who found us could see what we had - which was a crowd of refugees, mostly not white and all (provably) not US citizens. In post-Firecracker America where lifelong US citizens by birth were getting flak for _looking like_ they might have come from another country, this was a problem.

Buddy was pulling vehicle maintenance and I was going over maps while Brooke covered the turn-off to our small corner of this huge and empty campground. We had picked it for being a left turn from the entrance, secluded and having water on tap. We'd gotten lucky and been able to use the campground's dump station to empty and service the septic tank on the interstate bus.

What we didn't have was food. This area - desert and scrub forest - was not good for scrounging not that we would have found much. No stores.

That was why the campground was empty despite millions of refugees in the Bay Area - the Homeland checkpoints had kept many from getting this far, the counterculture types had met their fates in Northern Nevada, and most importantly - no food.

Also, between the mandatory military call up and the rumblings of a draft, plus the ever present fear of internment for vagrants, plus the massive increase in fuel prices I haven't mentioned because being able to pay for gas was not an issue for us, people weren't traveling much. Travel meant going to places where there weren't other people to vouch for you.

I should expound a little on the mandatory military call up. If Uncle Sam had ever put you in a uniform, you were "reactivated" - drafted in all but name. 4F or fifty or disabled veteran did not matter - you were called in, evaluated for China service, and either released with papers or sent where the War needed you. And if by now you didn't have exemption papers, you were fucked.

I had papers, courtesy of the SLE getting me "Essential Site Personnel" status. That would help on the way back but wouldn't help the convoy now. I could shield my people: guards, medics, firefighter. But I couldn't help Brooke. As a Marine rifleman who hadn't reported in and had no intention of reporting in, she would be interned upon identification. A sway back was no longer any excuse. If she were _lucky_ she'd be sent to China, most likely to Special Military Police service shepherding Shock Troops (penal infantry, mostly "volunteer" mental hospital patients), and with a similar survival rate. But she might just get shot in the neck.

Sorry Brooke. I couldn't think of any better way to get someone who like me and like Buddy, would certainly kill to protect these folks because we have no alternatives.

I heard motorcycle engines as someone broke squelch twice. That was a problem up front. So I headed down there, still wearing polo shirt and pistol and badge.

I thought about it and took off the badge, putting it in a back pocket.

Several bikes, big ones. Harleys. And were this a bad movie, I would recognize the biker as a standard "biker gang" right out of Central Casting. Seven big motorcycles, eleven people - eight male, three female.

Brooke was not yet muzzling them - pointing her rifle at them - but it was a near thing. Other guards were moving discreetly to defensive positions, and Brooke had the metal access gates to our area closed but not locked.

They were circling - showing off their skill on heavy bikes by turning and not getting off the bike.

When I joined Brooke, the leader stopped circling and pulled up alongside the closed gates. He revved his bike and said something we couldn't hear.

I shook my head and put my left hand up to my ear. "Huh?"

Behind us, the convoy was ready to execute whichever emergency action plan Buddy felt was appropriate - mount up in the vehicles and move out, mostly take cover while guards came to the front with full weapons, or scatter into the wilds while the guards died to buy them time to flee. This was starting to go in the direction of Option #2.

He turned off his bike.

"Nice day, I said," he shouted.

"It is," I replied. It was, I thought. They had the jackets and large patches of a notorious motorcycle gang, whose notoriety I will not add to by mentioning their name here.

"We'd like to come in, talk to you folks."

"We can talk right here. What's on your mind?"

Brooke broke squelch repeatedly, six times, tapping the radio mike button attached to the front of her trigger guard. That was the 'get ready for a fight' signal.

So far we were about halfway into the mugging. The part where the mugger asks for a light, or a quarter, or the time, to close the gap between a reasonable distance from a stranger and a stabbing. Their mobility needed the gate open.

I could see from here that they were openly armed. Slung rifles and shotguns. Mostly folding stock AKs. Plus the weapons any biker gang normally carried - chains, knives galore, razors, push daggers, and all sorts of exotic crap.

Such as the shotgun built into the biker's left handlebar, which he had just discreetly (he thought) turned to point directly at me.

I drew and shot the biker twice in the head, swiveled and started double tapping, working my way from left to right.

Brooke walked a full auto burst across the bikers from right to left, using up an entire magazine in four seconds.

From behind us, sharp cracks on single shot announced that another guard had joined the fight, aiming carefully to not hit us.

I reloaded and re-engaged. One of the women had been protected by being behind her rider's body. As she put her hands up I shot her twice in the face.

Sorry. In bullet time no surrenders can be accepted.

I reloaded a second time and walked rapidly backwards with Brooke as Matt and two other guards ran forward. She was halfway through her second magazine, having switched to well placed single shots. One of the guards was carrying two rifles, and immediately handed me one.

We reassessed the scene. Two were still moving. We ended that.

This is not a game, this is not a movie, no dying words. All it would have taken to kill us all would be one of them getting away. And I can't afford for misguided mercy to cause us to take a risk of getting one of my guards killed.

If the biker leader had lived, he would have complained that we hadn't given them a chance.

Well, we hadn't. And I would have shot him mid-word if he'd still been able to speak.

"Let's clean up the scene. Carefully now."

This was going to be a bloody, grisly job. So I took off my polo shirt and uniform pants. I put on gloves and drew my knife.

Matt followed my example while the other two guards and Brooke stayed on overwatch, except that Matt covered me with his silenced single shot pistol.

Matt and I approached the first biker down. He was still groaning but his hands were empty. As Matt aimed his handgun at his torso from the side, I lifted his hair by one hand and cut his throat from ear to ear, aiming the blood spray at bare asphalt.

A wounded biker lurched to his feet and Brooke took his head off with one shot.

We were not interested in prisoners, even for interrogation, because we had no means of verifying what they would say. Torture works. But torture only works if you can _verify_ the answers given under duress, and we could not.

Once all eleven bikers were slain, we stripped their effects.

Buddy came up in the middle of this and scratched his head.

"Boss, isn't this a little extreme?"

For answer I went over to the fallen leader's bike, stood it up, aimed the left handlebar into the bushes and pressed the trigger, discharging the shotgun loudly but harmlessly. I suppose I could have pulled the round, waste not want not, but I was making an important point.

"Holy shit!" Buddy exclaimed, where he had not at the killings.

He went and got the fuel kit and drained the bike tanks. I pulled their rations and gave them to the medics to evaluate. They in turn pulled out about half for the nursing mothers and left the rest on a picnic table with a firm "at your own risk" admonition. The beef jerky was still beef jerky. Things hadn't fallen that far.

The miscellaneous hide out weapons went into a backpack; they might be useful, aside from individual pieces that each of us added to our personal arsenals. We saved out a little fuel for the clothing, especially the biker jackets and IDs, and burned them in one of the campfire circles. I tossed in the hard drugs when the fire burned bright. You don't burn pot. It was cheap crap, so I put it in the pit toilet with the rest of the cheap crap.

We dragged the bodies on a tarp and tumbled them where they would be out of sight. I cleaned up and got dressed with relief. The bikes we jumbled in a mass down a nearby ravine.

The guards collected brass while half an hour with a broom and some water took care of the spilled blood. Something had happened here but it would take an evidence tech to figure out what.

Some of the monitors had seen what we were doing. Obviously they told the refugees.

This was as good a time as any to check on our two frank prisoners - the man who had freaked out on the bus on the first day, and the man who had tried to steal the recovery truck on the second day. The medic interviewed them both while I watched, and had his quiet recommendation.

"The first guy may be OK now. Seat him at the back and have people watch him."

Then he turned and spoke loudly, "The second guy ... he'll never be OK, he's just an asshole. Totally doesn't care that he would have left everyone else to die. Put a biker jacket on him and shoot him."

I shook my head.

"Even bikers have standards. That's why we had to kill them all, not just the leader. They would have died for each other. Their kill-die equation was fucked up, but they still had one. If you won't die for anything, you won't live for anything either. Just being alive is the worst punishment we can give him. Keep it that way."

If we needed to send someone ahead at gunpoint to check for mines, he was definitely my first pick.

Problem disposed of, I went back to my maps and Buddy to his maintenance.

Bikers. Them guys could fuck up a beach party.

Globall War of Terror - Night Moves

Globall War of Terror - Night Moves

We loaded up the convoy, peacetime style. Brooke's happy switch equipped rifle was discreetly tucked away, the more incriminating of our contraband was properly stowed in concealed compartments, rifles properly stowed but readily accessible.

It was late afternoon. We would hit Salt Lake City around dusk.

As we had done so many times before, we bypassed the first open fueling station. That would be the one with local police -- if not state troopers or worse yet Homeland - on recon.

At the second open fueling station, I used the Client provided fuel cards instead of the Company cards. They worked.

Buddy again went into the gas station but came right back out again.

He gave me a "thumbs down" signal concealed by his body from the gas station.

I keyed up on radio, which I hated to do anywhere near a populated area.

"Leaving time now," I said forcefully.

Buddy got in, started the truck and drove out. After a moment the other vehicles followed.

"We're famous."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Wanted poster. Stills of the buses at the 84 checkpoint. Armed and extremely dangerous. Call Homeland immediately."

"But not the tow rig."

"For whatever reason, no."

We had to dump all the vehicles. Dammit.

I had a contingency plan for that. It purely sucked donkey balls, but we would have to make it work.

The Salt Lake City offices of the CLIENT are located in a suburb about twenty minutes south of the main town. This allowed us to approach on arterial roads.

Twice we had to drive through small towns.

The second time we drove through a small town, a local police car pulled out red and blue lights flashing and started to close up on us in the lead. Then - mysteriously - it turned off its lights and made a sudden U-turn the way it had come.

Crap.

Finally we were on approach to the CLIENT site. Their gate was fortified like ours, with J-barriers and generator powered lights. And Employer security personnel with rifles.

I made sure my IDs were displayed and my badge was on my belt. Then we followed the gate guard's directions to the first stop point, and I dismounted.

"[Echo 18], [COMPANY] Security in service to [CLIENT.]"

The guard was still staring at the vehicles behind us.

"Let me call my supervisor."

"Good idea."

The supervisor came out.

"I know who you are. Never thought I'd meet you. What is this?"

"One hundred and sixty [CLIENT] employees in distress."

"I take it this was not your first plan."

"Negative."

"What can we do for you?"

"Refuse us access. Then we're going to give you the employees, walking them through your east perimeter. Please don't shoot them. Then we're going to take these very conspicuous vehicles and get rid of them."

"Then what do we do with the employees?"

"Get them inside and cleaned up for now. Feed them if you can. I have some ideas but we need a little time. Oh, and I have an ambulance with three patients in it. They will need medical attention, so page your medical staff."

"We don't have that."

"I'll send the medics in with them."

"OK. Do you have our number?"

"Yes, but our mobile phones don't work."

"Neither do ours. Homeland shut down the cell network. Said it was being used for IEDs. Welcome back to the 1980s."

"Hear that. Bye for now."

WIth that, I raised my arms and ranted a little - acting for the cameras. Then we very visibly got back in our vehicles and drove away out of range. Then came back along the perimeter.

We had four driver positions. I therefore needed to keep five people. Myself, Buddy, the firefighter, Matt and Brooke. But for the moment, Buddy and Brooke would be going where the people were. Brooke had her rifle, but cased.

The refugees were told firmly - get all your stuff. This is why one bag only. What you leave behind could kill us all.

The security supervisor met our crowd at the fence line, where he immediately took bolt cutters to a section of fence to drop it and let us in.

"I'm going out with you. I have a place for you to park the small vehicles."

"That would be awesome. How secure is it?"

"Somewhat."

We left the recovery truck and its flatbed trailer, the interstate bus and the shuttle bus parked on the side road. There hadn't been any passing traffic, we might get lucky.

The nursery van, the barracks van and the ambulance were loaded with most of our portable equipment - and all the weapons and other good stuff.

Completely to my utter lack of surprise, the security supervisor gave us directions on local roads - avoiding major intersections and cameras - to an LDS site. An unmarked warehouse among others in a light industrial area. He took the lead in his personal unmarked Crown Victoria.

He opened the gate, then the roll up doors for the surface level ramp.

"Park where you like."

We did. Then Matt, the firefighter and I piled back into his car for the return trip.

Brooke and Buddy were waiting for us and came out of the bushes when we returned to the buses and truck.

"Are we good?" I asked them.

If the answer was no, my plan was to take the security supervisor hostage, go hey diddle diddle through the main gate, leaving a trail of bodies until we got back to our people, and then mount up and take off with the survivors whose injuries allowed them to be moved.

"We're good. They've got them bedded down in the conference facility for the moment. Both us and them have posted security. Patients are fine. Working the food problem. They emptied the vending machines for us and someone is getting the cafeteria manager to come to work now."

"Let's go do this."

The security supervisor drove alone back into his site, a box of our goodies in his trunk. Just in case.

I sent the firefighter and Brooke back in. Two went out, two come back in. It's a different level of camera review to see _different_ people.

Buddy would be driving the recovery truck. We completely stripped of all contents - including documents and license plates - then loaded the shuttle bus on the flatbed - it was a tight fit, but it could be done. I would ride shotgun with him.

Matt got to drive the otherwise empty interstate bus.

This was going to be _fun_.

We hammered south. Buddy's vehicle had been first to fuel up so it was nearly full tank. After an hour we got on the I-15 south, just in time to encounter another rat trailer and its tripod cameras. Perfect.

Buddy promptly demonstrated that you could in fact drive a recovery truck at over 100 miles per hour, if you knew what you were doing and had balls of steel. Matt - with much less driving experience - slipstreamed behind him with the empty bus.

Fairly suddenly, without signaling, Buddy took an off ramp with the bus following. A few miles down, we literally pulled in behind someone's barn.

Matt promptly abandoned the interstate bus and came to join us as Buddy uncoupled the flatbed trailer, shuttle bus still loaded. He had the presence of mind to bring its very last contents - the folder of legal documents.

Buddy sent him back with a screwdriver to pull the plates. It took only a few minutes.

Now it was the recovery truck and the three of us, and the recovery truck's storage compartments full of anything we cared about.

I decided not to grenade the buses. The longer it would take to find them, the better.

We spent the rest of the night driving a countersurveillance route.

First well east. Then breaking out paint cans and stencils. A recovery truck is a recovery truck, but this recovery truck had been marked with a California company name, phone number, etc. Now it had Arizona plates and a valid Arizona company name and phone number painted on the the side. It also had a new reflective stripe carefully applied along both sides and "don't hit me" roadway safety chevrons on the back. Buddy dismounted the flatbed hitch assembly and rigged for cable towing. Although it was still the same base color, it did not look like the same truck.

Then, bold as brass, taking a different route to the I-15 North and driving past those same rat cameras, northbound.

We parked at a truck stop and Buddy went inside to talk to the fuel desk, arranging permission.

"We're good." We'd already made sure the external compartments were locked and the cab was empty of anything interesting.

One phone call and an hour later, an unmarked Crown Victoria picked us up and took us back to the Utah site. We had to cuddle under a blanket in the back, but that was a small price to pay.

Now we had to work the second part of the plan - getting 160 people from here to Colorado without using buses.