Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (51 page)

“No harm in
planning.  Let’s figure it all out and have it in our back pockets so if
something does go wrong, we can just pack up and get the hell out of Dodge,”
Ted urged.  “It makes me feel better just knowing we have options.”

“True.” 
Erik tugged on the two week beard growing on his chin.  “Alright, let’s do it. 
Just between me and you.  Don’t even mention it to Susan.  I won’t talk to
Brin.”

“Loose lips
sink ships, gotcha.”

ROB GUNN TOOK a sip
from his canteen and replaced the valuable water back into his combat pack. 
The dust covered pack lay at his feet and looked more like a rock than a bag. 
He and his scouts had been out on the Ridge now, south of Nogales for three days
straight, watching.

The
Regulators had tried to make one last attempt at informing the Border Patrol
about the situation with the armed Mexicans and the two fights that had broken
out but the Feds were tied up with their own problems.  It seemed the real
issue was people leaving America, not coming in.  In two weeks since the first
terrorist attacks had taken down the energy infrastructure of America, the mass
of illegal immigrants in the southwest began receding, like an out flowing tide
of humanity.  

In the past
three days, Rob had personally seen more than a thousand Mexicans trudge back
across the border.  Sometimes they drove past in old jalopies stuffed to the
gills with people, animals, and belongings.  All of them were fleeing the
growing anarchy in America.   He shook his head in disbelief at the sight.

Anarchy it
was, in the United States.  More so in the western states, as the wildfires,
finally officially acknowledged to have been set by terrorist cells were still
raging, after two weeks.  Los Angeles was still smoldering; millions had been
killed. 

Phoenix was
reduced to mostly ashes and shells of buildings as the fires consumed
everything in their paths.  Hundreds of miles long and still growing as
National Forests ignited.  The sky in southern Arizona was perpetually cloudy
from the soot and smoke of fires to the west and north.  The Regulators had
taken to wearing water soaked bandannas around their faces to help make
breathing easier.  Days were reduced to murky twilight conditions, even at high
noon.

As the
Mexicans streamed south into their homeland, Americans streamed north and east,
away from the burning, rioting cities.  Even those cities that had no formal
ties to the Brotherhood and their riot instigators fell prey to the newest ‘fad’. 
Many of America’s cities were glowing after dark, not from streetlights, but
from bonfires and burning buildings.  Those who were too poor to leave town
joined in the fun of burning down their own neighborhoods.  It was the Rodney
King Riots, the New Orleans looters and the Paris riots all over again, on a
massive scale.  Those who had the money to leave left, forming huge caravans on
the choked highways leading out of towns all across America. 

Bandits and
robbers were quick to pounce on the gridlocked travelers.  Rumors spread like
lightning about what roads were safe and what roads weren’t.  When it was
released that the President had declared martial law and a mandatory national
curfew was put in effect, the proverbial shit hit the fan.  Places that weren’t
in a state of rebellion or riot went up in flames overnight as angry citizens
revolted at the government’s attempts to calm their fears about this latest
assault on their already endangered lives. 

The
Regulators and their families and long ago decided that they would never be
forced from their homes, either by natural disasters or man-made crises.  And
so Rob and his seven companions peered over the ridge in the murky noon-day
dust and soot and watched the flow of Mexicans.   Rob shook his head at how far
the country had fallen.  It was a cryin’ shame.

“
Rob we
got movement behind us!
” crackled the voice of their rear-guard, Ed Franks,
on the other side of Ridge, to the north.  Rob’s mind was jerked from his dark
broodings.  He picked up the radio next to him and pushed the transmit button.

“Numbers?”

“
I see
three
…”

“Position?”
Rob asked, already giving hand signs to the two men on either side of him.  The
Regulators were switching positions and turning to face the first threat since
the gunfight a few days back that saw seven Regulators buried and fourteen more
wounded.  Since then three of the wounded had returned to duty, the rest were
still healing in the makeshift hospital at the Gunn Ranch.

“
Should
be comin’ over the north ridgeline any second now
…” was the scratchy reply.

“
I got
two targets…no three!
” came Lance Bryton’s voice over the radio from Rob’s
right, to the east about three hundred yards.

“Overwatch,
any others?”

“
Negative…that’s
it
.” Replied Ed.

“Alright,
elements One, Two and Four, let’s get ‘em.  No firing until I give the order. 
Three and Six, you watch the herds,”  Rob commanded, using the new term ‘herd’
for the waves of people migrating south into Mexico.

“
This is
Two, I have visual
,” came Lance’s voice over the radio in a few moments. 
Rob was still run-walking through the brush and trying to keep a low profile
against the rocky outcroppings while circling away to the east and south in an
effort to catch the three intruders in a slight ravine. 

“
Three
has eyes on target
.”

“
This is
One, I’m in position
,” whispered George Franks.  “
Targets in sight,
thirty yards out.
”  He paused to look through the scope on his hunting
rifle.  “
They look dark…maybe Mexicans but they don’t look quite right
.”

“
Two
here…in position on the west.  I see ‘em.  He’s right, they don’t have any
stuff.  No bags, no nothing.  I see no weapons
.”

Rob finally
spotted the three strangers through some sage brush he was hiding behind, just
under a large boulder.  “I got ‘em,” he reported into his radio.  Fishing out
his binoculars from his combat vest, he zeroed in on the three targets.

“
Weapon! 
I see an AK-47!
” Lance Bryton’s voice squeaked over the radio.

“
Confirm…targets
are armed
,” hissed Three.

“
They
ain’t Mexicans…I can hear ‘em now
,” George Franks mumbled into the radio. 
“
Sounds Arabic to me
.”

“
Fuckin’
terrorists!
” someone grunted.

“Cut the
chatter, I want a clear channel,” barked Rob.  He sighted in on the man on the
right as the three unwitting Arabs cautiously picked their way down the dry
stream bed towards the Regulators.

“Two, you
take the one on the right, I take the one on the left.  Three, you get the one
in the middle.  I want leg shots only.  We want to talk to these assholes…hear
that One? 
No head shots
.”  Rob could imagine the other Regulators
cussing him right about then.  He didn’t care.  Jed and Bill had been murdered
by friends of these three Arabs and he wanted info.

“
Copy
that
…”

“
Confirm
.”

“
You got
it.
”

“Right
then, wait for my signal,” said Rob, putting down his radio and taking aim with
his old lever-action Winchester.  He took a deep breath.

“Stop where
you are!” he called out.  His voice echoed off the walls of the slight ravine
the three Arabs had wandered into.  They froze and pulled out weapons.  They
spun around trying to place the location of the voice that just hailed them.

“Drop your
weapons and lie down on the ground, hands and feet spread apart,” Rob called
out.

The three
Arabs crouched and spread out a little bit, weapons up and seeking targets. 
Rob noticed then that these men had received some form of proper training. 
They didn’t panic and fire or comply with the orders they were given.  They
were waiting to strike.  As a team.  They kept their backs to each other,
covering all angles.

Rob
switched languages and called out his orders in fluent Spanish.  No result. 
One of the Arabs screamed something unintelligible back at him.  Rob heard
something about ‘Allah’.  That was all he needed.

No more
warnings, assholes
.

“Take ‘em
down!” he said, pulling the trigger on his rifle.  The old Winchester barked
and bucked, but before Rob could blink, the man he had targeted was rolling
around on the ground screaming.  The other two Arabs were down as well.  One
was on hands and knees, the others laying on his back, flopping around for his
pistol.

“One and
Two, secure ‘em!” Rob called out to the others.  George and Lance burst from
their hiding places less than twenty yards from the Arabs and ran forwards to
kick away the enemy’s weapons and begin tying them up.  They paid no attention
to the screams and pathetic protests of the wounded men.  In less than five
minutes, the confrontation was over and the Regulators had three very alive,
bleeding, and pissed off terrorists hog-tied.

Rob made
his way down the ravine to the waiting captives.  His Winchester was resting
over his right shoulder.  Lance stood watch over the captives, and they all
waited for Rob to do something.  He walked up to the three bleeding Arabs and
looked at them the way a rancher sizes up a head of cattle.

The one in
the middle had a stream of blood running down his forehead from cut he received
when he fell after being shot.  He glared at Rob defiantly and spat at the
ground.  He grinned through bloodstained teeth and spoke a string of what
everyone figured was Arabic for cussin’.  Rob waited till the man was finished,
then planted his worn cowboy boot squarely in the man’s teeth with a satisfying
crunch, sending the captive sprawling on his back.

The other
two captives just looked at Rob with shock.  He leaned down to the man on his
right, a thick bushy mustache coated in dust.  Rob could see the sweat on the
man’s forehead. 

“I’m gonna
ask you a question.  I know you speak English, don’t you?”

The captive
on his left shook his head and spoke in Arabic.  Rob looked up at Lance.  Lance
smashed the back of the speaker’s head with the butt of his rifle, sending the
Arab to eat a dirt sandwich.  Lance stepped back and leveled his rifle on the
three Arabs again.

“I know you
speak English…all you bastards do, don’t you?”  Rob asked, eyebrows raised.  He
waited.  Rob brought down his Winchester and cocked it, the loud
cha-chack
echoed slightly in the ravine as he worked the lever action, chambering another
round.  He replaced the rifle on his shoulder, at ease.

“Yes…” said
the Arab.  “I speak…
English
…”

“Oh good,”
replied Rob.  He straightened up and smiled.  “Now, you’re going to tell me
what I want to know, or you’re going to die.”

“You Yankee
pig-dogs will kill me no matter what,” spat the prisoner.

“Yes, we
will.  Your kind aren’t even worth feeding to the coyotes.  But you can choose
how
you die.  If you tell us what we want, you’ll die quickly, kinda like how we put
a horse out of its misery if it gets snakebit.  If you don’t tell me what I
want to know, I assure you, you will suffer so bad you will want us to kill
you…" Rob paused in thought.  "You assholes ever hear of what the
Apaches used to do to foreigners they caught on their lands?"  No response
but a hate filled glare.  Rob sighed.

"Well,
let's just say you want to tell us what we want to know, okay?”  Rob smiled
again.  He paced a few steps away and then turned back, composing himself.

“What are
you doing here?” asked Rob, his face a look of grim determination, all
joviality erased in a split second.

“Screw you,
Yankee
, Allah will cleanse this land—“  Rob pulled out his buck knife
and jabbed it into the Arab’s thigh in a lightning quick movement.  The captive
man howled in pain and screamed in Arabic.

“Wrong
answer, jackass!” grunted Rob as he jerked the knife free, leaving a bloody
patch on the Arab’s pant leg.  “I told you—you answer my questions and you die
quickly.  You try to jerk us around and you’re going to feel pain.  Lots of
it.”

The other
two Arabs took note of the turn of events with shock and anger.  “You cannot do
this, American!  Where are your Bill of Rights and your Constitution now,
Yankee cowboy!?  Where are your—“

“Haven’t
you heard?” asked Rob with a sly smile.  “You stupid fuckers forced the
President to
suspend
the Constitution.”  Rob frowned as he dropped his
Winchester down and leveled it at the face of the Arab who spoke out of turn. 
He pulled the trigger, sending one more Jihadist to Allah with a clap of
thunder and spray of blood.

“You
sonsabitches have killed a lot of my friends. 
You
started all this
shit.  God knows how many have died because of you—“

The Arab
Rob was trying to interrogate spoke up, looking at his friend’s twitching body
with tear filled eyes.  “Animal!  You killed Shadin…he was my father’s—“

Lance
kicked the Arab hard in the ribs.  “I don’t give a fuck what he was!  You come
over here and set our country on fire, kill our people, burn our cities and
then have the gall to criticize
us
?”  Lance kicked the whimpering man
harder.  “Shut up!  Shut up you piece of shit!”

When the
Arab could breathe again through the pain in his broken chest, he whispered,
“So, you think you are so high and mighty…yet you stoop to beating a man who is
tied up?  Where are your morals?  You
are
the Great Satan…you are
repugnant to Allah and you will be cleansed.”