The Army Comes Calling Page 3

  “Are you two in charge of this place?”

  “We have no designated leaders. But we represent the group.”

  “We have orders from the President of the United States of America to take possession of your livestock. You and your people are welcome to stay here if you wish. But we will be here with transport vehicles by 1400 hours tomorrow to load your animals. Please have them ready to go.”

  John was unswayed.

  “Colonel, may I ask by what authority President Sanders thinks he can take livestock that doesn’t belong to him?”

  “It’s not President Sanders. Sanders died a long time ago. It’s President Clark. Call it an executive order for the essential health and welfare of the American people.”

  He was obviously not a man who enjoyed backtalk or debate. With a cockiness common of military officers who knew they could snuff out lives with a simple nod of their head, he turned on his heels and returned to his helicopter.

  His major followed without so much as a word.

  John and Bryan held their ground as the Cobra lifted off, swirling dust and leaves all around them. It rose to a level just above the treetops, banked sharply to port, and flew off to the north.

  Mark looked at John and could see he was seething.

  “Now what, John? Now what do we do?”

  “Well, we’re not giving up our livestock. That’s for damned sure.”

  Chapter 6

  Several of the men worked through the night, moving livestock over to the mine by cover of darkness. By the time breakfast rolled around, they had done what Frank had suggested.

  And they were exhausted. Much too exhausted to have their head in the game if there was going to be a firefight later.

  The mood at breakfast was subdued, almost solemn. Most of the residents picked at their food.

  Since no one seemed to have any interest in eating anyway, Mark didn’t wait until everyone was finished, as had always been his practice.

  “If no one has any objections, we’ll go ahead and get started now.”

  He looked around. He saw a lot of sleepy faces, and some seething with anger, but no one appeared to object.

  “We’ve been up most of the night brainstorming and shifting some of our assets to the mine. Some of the actions we are going to propose to you this morning have already been done. Normally we’d have waited, but fourteen hundred hours is almost upon us. The actions we’ve taken are mostly common sense, and we were confident that the group would have concurred with our actions if we’d met last night.

  “I’ll yield the floor to John. He can explain what we’ve done to this point, and where he feels we need to go from here.”

  John stood up. He was a striking figure in a long sleeved heavily starched khaki shirt. He was the kind of man who commanded respect whenever he walked into any room, regardless of the circumstances. And on this particular morning, even more so. For on this day, he was wearing his war face.

  “I don’t mind telling you, this makes me angry. From the beginning, we had plans to share our livestock with others, so that the entire area could benefit by our efforts. In fact, we already shared with our friends on Buena Vista Drive and at Marty’s truck stop.

  “If the Army had come in and asked for a few head of everything we had, I’d have been the first to try to convince all of you to share with them.

  “But this… this stinks. I’ve never had much liking for bullies. For these guys to come in here and demand not just part of our livestock, but all of it, to me is just unconscionable.

  “I’m hoping all of you agree. We thought you would, at least enough of you to vote to oppose their demands. Bearing that in mind, we have moved roughly half of our farm animals into the mine, along with enough feed to sustain them for ninety days. We still have sufficient water in the storage tanks over there to last for up to two years. And we can continue to take small loads of feed through the tunnel and into the mine, enough to keep the animals going indefinitely, without ever having to walk out the gate.

  “Before I go any further, I’d like to take a vote to make sure I haven’t overstepped my authority, or overestimated everyone’s willingness to fight the Army’s demands. If I have, and if there’s a willingness to give up everything we’ve worked for without a fight, now’s the time to say so.”

  He turned back to Mark and nodded.

  Mark said, “Karen, would you do the count? Everyone, by show of hands, do you agree with John’s decision to tell the Army no, and to separate the livestock?”

  Karen’s head bobbed slightly as she scanned the room, counting the hands.

  “Thirty one.”

  “Very well. The motion carries. Since we’re short on time, I’d like to let John and Frank finish briefing everyone about what we’ve done at this point. They should be able to answer most of your questions and can save you the trouble of asking them. Once they’re finished we can open the floor for comments and unresolved questions. Back to you, John.”

  “Thank you. As I said, our game plan is simply to tell the Army no. They obviously have us outgunned. And if this really is the Army instead of a band of bandits, they almost certainly have us outnumbered too.

  “But we’re not without our own advantages. It’s always harder to take ground than it is to keep it, so there’s that. They’ve already seen Karen out in the open, so they know there are women and children here. I know the world has changed a lot in the last eight years, but I’d like to think the Army of the greatest country in the world still won’t shoot into a compound where there are innocent women and children.

  “That’s one thing we have on our side. Another, and perhaps even more key, is that we have the livestock they want in here. If they don’t care about harming us, perhaps they’ll care about harming the livestock. So we have that card to play too.

  “We want to move all of you women and children into the mine, except the women volunteers who have helped us fight in the past.” He looked specifically at Sarah, not wanting to hear the same dressing down she’d given Frank the day before.

  Sarah simply smiled and blew him a kiss.

  “Once you’re in the mine, you can consider yourself safe. We’ll man the security desk over there with video tied into the security desk here. You folks in the mine will be able to see what’s going on via the monitors. We’re going to ask that the children be kept away from the monitors in case it turns ugly.

  John nodded to Frank, yielding the floor to him. He wanted everyone to know he now considered Frank a full-fledged member of the team.

  Frank stood up and spoke.

  “They said they’d be back at fourteen hundred hours. Two p.m. That’s just a few hours away. We’re going to rebuff their demands and give them new terms.

  “Our terms.

  “We plan to tell them we’ll kill the livestock if they try to take them by force. But in the spirit of détente, we will agree to moisten their beak. That’s a term the mafia used to use. It means we will give them a taste, we will share our livestock with them to avoid a larger war.

  “One of two things is going to happen. Either they will try to push their way in to take the livestock by force, and we’ll start shooting them. If they don’t back off, we’ll kill off the entire population of farm animals. Then we’ll let them in to see the carnage and try to convince them that’s all we have.

  “If they buy it, they’ll be very angry, but we don’t think they’ll resort to reprisals. It would serve no purpose for them, and their men would serve witness to any atrocities they served up. I’m assuming that Army officers are still subject to courts martial.

  “The other thing that could happen is that they’ll agree to our terms. We will give them half of everything we have. It’ll actually be a quarter, since half our animals are already in the mine. But they won’t know that.

  “In exchange for us sharing with them, they will have to agree to two of our own demands. First, they must promise to leave us alone. To let us grow our own an
imals in peace, without any further visits from them. Second, they must promise not to kill all the animals for the temporary pleasure of their men, but rather to grow the herds so they can repopulate in greater numbers.”

  Frank looked at John.

  “I can’t think of anything else. You?”

  “Nope. That about covers it. I know you all have a lot of questions or comments, though, so let’s open it up.”

  Debbie asked, “What if they refuse our offer? What happens if we kill all of our own animals?”

  “Well, that depends. If you’re asking what will happen to us, I expect nothing. Like I said, they’ll be angry, but they’ll have nothing to gain by retaliating against us.

  “If you’re asking what happens to the animals, they might load up the carcasses and take them with them. They might figure if they can’t have live animals then they’ll at least have the world’s biggest barbeque for their men.

  “If they get huffy and just leave, then we’ll immediately dispatch Brad and Bryan to get two reefer trailers from the truck stop on Highway 83.

  “They call them ‘reefers,’ but most of them actually have the capability of getting much colder than a refrigerator. Cold enough to freeze the meat. We’ll spend a couple of days butchering the meat and freezing it in the trailers, and then pull it out a piece at a time to either eat it or turn it into jerky for later.

  “Whichever happens, we can no longer keep the surviving animals out in the open. That’ll mean they’re in the mine for good. I hate to deprive any creature of sunshine, but we’ll have to remember they could return at any time to see if we betrayed them. And we’ve already established that their helicopters are faster than our ability to get the animals under cover.”

  Chapter 7

  The Army was nothing if not prompt. At one fifty nine p.m., the steady chop, chop, chop of a helicopter could be heard approaching from the west. When it came into view twenty seconds later, it was close enough to the treetops to clip one of them occasionally with its skids.

  At precisely the same moment the helicopter came into view, Sarah called out from the control center.

  “Okay, I can see a convoy of five… no, six, big military trucks in a line, coming toward us on Highway 83. It’s within half a mile or so, going at a pretty good rate.”

  The helicopter rose a hundred feet to mark the turnoff for the truck drivers. The convoy slowed as they got closer.

  All of the noncombatants had been evacuated to the mine two hours before. Only essential personnel remained in the compound. Sarah coordinated everything from the control center. Frank and John stood at the gate with Hannah and Sami. The girls would let them out when the chopper landed, so they could walk the hundred and twenty yards to the same place it set down the first time, just south of the compound’s wall.

  Once the men were outside the gate, the girls would proceed immediately to the chicken coop, don heavy leather gloves, and stand by for further instructions. Brad was already there waiting.

  Bryan was in the cattle barn with an AR-15 rifle. Mark was in the pig barn with another one.

  Sarah’s instructions were simple. She was to watch the monitors closely. If there was any sign of trouble… if John and Frank were accosted or taken into custody, or if the troops advanced toward the compound to scale the walls or break in, she was to give the word immediately.

  If Sarah gave the word, all the animals would be killed immediately. With the sixteen head of cattle and fourteen pigs still in the compound, it would be over within a minute. Since the chickens had to be chased down and have their necks broken, the process would take a bit longer. Still, Hannah and her crew figured they could kill all twenty chickens within four to five minutes.

  The chopper landed within inches of where it had set down the first time it was there.

  At least it appeared to be the same chopper. It had no serial number painted on the side, as did other Army helicopters John and Frank had seen. John presumed it was unmarked because it wasn’t part of a normal detachment of such vehicles. He guessed that this was the personal chopper assigned to the colonel who had visited him before.

  The door gunner was different this time. The pilot and co-pilot never left the bird. The same colonel and major stepped onto the dirt and met John and Frank in the clearing.

  They stopped five feet apart. To Sarah, watching on the monitors, it looked a lot like old western movies. The bad guys and the sheriff meeting in the middle of Main Street, while the sheriff warned the bad guys to behave themselves or suffer the full wrath of the law.

  In this case, the Army represented the bad guys.

  “Colonel my name is John Jacoby. I’m the head of security for the people in this compound. I assume you are authorized to negotiate on behalf of the U.S. government?”

  “Mr. Jacoby, I’ll have you know I am the U.S. government.”

  John smiled and caught the colonel off guard. He was expecting to see fear in John’s eyes. Instead he got a smile. He was briefly set aback.

  “Now, colonel, I feel I need to warn you. If you negotiate with us I think you’ll be quite agreeable with our terms. If you fail to negotiate you’ll leave with nothing. Absolutely nothing. I would imagine you’d have a hard time explaining that to your superiors.”

  “I have no superiors. This is my operation.”

  John was unswayed.

  “Come now, colonel. We all have superiors. Now then, the choice is yours. We can negotiate and you can take your trophies back with you, or you can leave empty handed. Your call. It doesn’t matter to me either way.”

  The colonel was a hard case, but he was also an intelligent man. He assumed that the men in front of him wouldn’t be so bold unless they knew something he didn’t.

  So the colonel blinked first.

  “Go on.”

  “First, you have me at a disadvantage. This is Frank Woodard, my assistant and chief of operational security. You have our names. We’ll need yours if we are expected to negotiate in good faith.”

  “I am Colonel Travis Montgomery. This is Major Jim Koziol.”

  “Why do you want our animals, Colonel Montgomery?”

  “Eminent domain, Mr. Jacoby. We have the legal right according to federal law to take possession of personal property for the greater good of the nation. In this case, your livestock will be moved south about a hundred miles, where it will be turned over to trained specialists who will ensure they multiply quickly. The overall goal is to repopulate our meat supply so that all of our citizens can benefit from them, instead of a select few.”

  “And for all of our efforts in cultivating the herd to this point… Our foresight and planning, and all the investment we put into getting these animals through the last eight years, that means no special consideration for us?”

  “You will be given the same allotment of meat as everyone else, when the time comes to distribute it.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not good enough, colonel. You see, we are not a greedy group by nature. We’ve already shared our animals on two prior occasions. Had you asked, we’d have been more than willing to share with you for your project.

  “However, there is a right way and a wrong way to ask for assistance. One does not simply make demands and try to bully others. And I’m not a lawyer, but don’t eminent domain laws apply strictly to land and real property?”

  “They apply to whatever I deem is best for the people under my control.”

  “And therein lies the problem, Colonel Montgomery. What’s best for you and your mission does not represent what’s best for the people under my control. It appears that we are not too different from that regard. Except that I hold better cards than you do.”

  The colonel turned red and appeared ready to explode. But he kept his composure and asked, “Meaning what?”

  “As I said, it was our intention from the beginning to share with others to help repopulate the livestock in the area. But if you take any action to take the animals by force, either now or in
the future, we will immediately shoot all of them dead. Every cow, every pig, every chicken. You’ll be able to have a hell of a barbeque. But you’ll never be able to carry out your project.”

  “That’s not a negotiation. It’s an ultimatum.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. But let’s remember who it was that stormed in here uninvited and made the first demand. A totally unacceptable demand, I might add.”

  “I can have a battalion of troops here in four hours. We can roll right over you.”

  “You could. But it wouldn’t do you any good. Before you even made it past the fence you will have failed in your mission. We’ve got people permanently stationed in each of the barns, with automatic weapons and instructions to kill the animals at the first sign of assault.

  “So yes, it may be a demand that you’re not quite happy with accepting. But as I said, I hold all the cards and I’m in a position to make that demand.”

  “What if I take you both into custody and try you for treason?”

  John pointed to the surveillance camera on the wall.

  “As soon as any of your men make a move to do that, you’ll start hearing automatic gunfire from within the compound. They tell me it’ll all be over within two minutes, tops.”

  The colonel seemed to chew on his options for several seconds.

  “Very well. I accept your terms. What are your demands for the process?”

  “None of your people are allowed in the compound. You’ve already had a bird’s eye view of what’s in there. There’s no need to investigate further just to satisfy your curiosity. We will build a temporary holding pen where your helicopter sits now. We will herd your share of the cattle and pigs into the pen. The poultry will be put in a separate cage. You may come back in forty eight hours to pick up your animals. Bear in mind, colonel, that we will have snipers in the forest. They will have their weapons trained on the animals and will shoot them dead if you try to take more than we’ve bargained for. And again, if you send in a recon team or attempt to assault the camp, all of them, inside and out, will be shot dead.”