The Bonner Incident: Joshua's War (34 page)

“How?” Moore asked, leaning over the table.

“A list of every employee of the federal government was included in Joshua’s message,” Tanner said. “Just to let you know, a copy was sent to the director of Homeland before it was released on the net. Nobody realized it until this afternoon when an aide checked his email.”

“Joshua didn’t do that,” Moore said, finally sitting down in his chair.

“Moore, I need an idea how Joshua is communicating with the outside. We know he has help, I need a guess as to who,” Tanner said.

“Colonel, I know he has help now, but it goes against Joshua’s profile,” Moore said. “The best I can figure, he moves outside the search area and uses some place’s Wi-Fi and uploads his video. We know he can do it at will. My guess is, he’s sending it to one of the alternative news sites and they are helping him get his message out.”

Looking behind Moore at the map, “How far out could he feasibly move and still maintain his action against us?” Tanner asked.

“Spokane, Coeur d’Alene,” Moore said, spinning in his chair till he was looking at the map. “Hell, there are truck stops and coffee shops everywhere in between them. Thankfully, even there it’s sparsely populated. All he needs is Wi-Fi and there isn’t much to the east.”

“I’m expanding my emergency area,” Tanner said, picking up his pen.

“Um, don’t you have to call someone to do that?” Moore asked as Tanner made notes.

“No,” Tanner laughed. “Once I was activated as the regional commander, I can do what I want in my region.”

“Tanner,” Moore said, leaning over the table and lowering his voice. “Please tell me you still aren’t planning to arrest the sheriff.”

Tanner gave a slight jump at hearing his name and really didn’t like it, but let it slide. “Yes, I am,” he said sternly. “My troops were turned away from town today by an armed group of civilians. I’m putting out a drone and a surveillance team and when the sheriff is somewhere more isolated, we will take him.”

Moore flopped back in his chair. “The sheriff has never actively interfered with this investigation.”

“Yes, he has,” Tanner said. “He never assisted when he was instructed to do.”

“Colonel, those civilians with weapons won’t just go away,” Winters said.

“I released a message today. All civilians in Bonner and Boundary Counties had to register all weapons with the regional office in seven days and those weapons had to stay inside their residence. Law enforcement in the area has to do the same, and only registered weapons will be allowed to be carried on duty,” Tanner said.

Winters’ eyes got wide as she gasped, falling back in her chair. Staring at Winters with a stern face, Tanner continued. “Tomorrow, I’m adding the counties of Kootenai and Kellogg in Idaho, and Spokane and Pend Oreille counties in Washington State.”

“If you do that, Colonel, you will have to send troops here to each of those counties,” Moore said, rubbing his belly hard.

“No, I called in another two thousand troops and will assign five hundred to each county. They will assist in locking down some roads,” Tanner said.

‘You were already going to do that’ Winters almost shouted but caught herself. To help cover her shock, she spun away from the table, getting up and heading to the table loaded with food and drinks.

“Let’s make something clear,” Tanner said, watching Winters walk toward the table. “When Joshua is dead, this will end. We’ll have proof. When the public thought he was wounded, the attacks dropped off sharply.”

“When are you expecting attacks here?” Moore asked bluntly, taking a roll of Tums out of his pocket.

A sly grin parted Tanner’s face. “That’s why you and your team are staying here until we get Joshua, you can think,” Tanner said. “Intelligence says we should start expecting attacks in ten days, but they will be on the convoys that bring us supplies. They won’t attack here, too much a show of force.”

Taking a long drink, Winters wiped her mouth. “And Joshua?”

“I wish,” Tanner chuckled. “No, in your report, you stated he never does the same thing twice and I agree with you, but in case you’re wrong, I have men on overwatch around us.”

The phone on the table rang, making Moore and Winters jump. Snatching the phone up, “Colonel Tanner,” Tanner snapped. He listened for a few seconds and then just hung the phone up. “The first cargo plane will be landing in ten minutes.”

“Colonel, I’m not a military man, but you really don’t want to make the population actively hostile,” Moore said carefully.

“We know what’s best for them and they will accept that. Hell, just not helping us shows they are seditious. You comply with your government’s demands at all times,” he spat out. 

Calming her breathing, Winters walked back to the table, fighting not to pull out her Glock and fill Tanner’s face with bullets. She knew there were many more like him that were begging to fill the position. “So, you’re planning on sending out three thousand troops tomorrow?” she asked, sitting back down.

“Yes. Most will be marching out and we will keep them resupplied by air,” he said, looking back down at his notebook and continuing to write. “In two days, all units should be in their area. My troops and the other search teams will stay out for two weeks at a time, none of this ‘few days hiking trip’ anymore.”

“Well, Joshua will definitely have his targets then,” Winters nodded, putting her laptop in her tote bag and slinging it across her shoulder. She was hoping Moore would take the hint that she was ready to leave.

They all heard the hum of airplane engines as the cargo plane landed across the road at the airstrip. “Wish we could’ve held on to those agents,” Moore said.

“We will make do. Transports will be landing every hour all night and should be done by tomorrow morning,” Tanner said, as the lights went out.

An emergency light cut on in the corner, casting the room in dim light as Tanner grabbed the phone. He hit the phone several times, then slammed down the receiver. “Major!” he bellowed.

A captain burst in the door, “Colonel, Major Grattan is briefing troops,” the captain barked, standing at attention.

“What happened to the power?”

“We are on the phone with the power company now and generators are being hooked up,” the captain reported.

“There weren’t generators already hooked up?” Tanner asked shocked.

“Um, Colonel, it was decided by D.C. that after Joshua’s last attack we wouldn’t house fuel here,” Moore said. “They just had the power company contract out to put a substation here.”

Standing up slowly, Tanner started thinking about who he could punish for this. Putting his hands on his hips, Tanner took a breath to start bellowing as the building shook.

Everyone dropped to the floor as explosions rocked the building.  Tanner jumped to his feet, realizing the explosions were coming from the airstrip. Then, the roar of gunfire filled the air with the explosions and bullets punched through the wall, driving Tanner back to the floor.

Winters crawled over to Moore and yelled over the noise. “We have to leave the building before they blow it up!”

Moore didn’t get a chance to reply before Winters started crawling for the door. Keeping her body pressed as flat as she could, Winters crawled rather fast to the door with her laptop case resting on her back as bullets tore through the building above their heads.

Moving out into the hall, she saw the guard that had stood outside the briefing room lying on the floor, staring vacantly at the ceiling with a pool of blood around him. Never pausing to even check the soldier, Winters crawled over his body and could smell smoke mixed with fuel.

Ahead of her, she saw several others were crawling for the door as explosions sounded outside this time, closer. “They are hitting the vehicles!” Moore shouted behind her.

“That’s why I’m getting out of the building,” Winters mumbled, never stopping. “If they are that close, it won’t be long before they are in here.”

A woman ran out of an office ahead of Winters. “Get down!” Winters yelled and the woman jerked as bullets punched into her body. The woman fell down, grabbing her chest as Winters crawled up to her.

“Let me see!” Winters yelled, trying to pull the woman’s hands off her chest. The woman just panted, holding her chest as Winters pried her hands up. “It’s not that bad, you need to follow me!” Winters shouted, seeing the bullet had just passed through one of the woman’s breast.

She looked into the woman’s face and saw her breathing getting shallower and her face was very pale. “It’s not that bad,” Winters said, lowering her face to the woman’s.

“Her hip!” Moore shouted beside her.

Barely lifting her head, Winters looked down at the woman’s hip, seeing where a bullet had blown out over her left hip leaving a bloody crater. “Oh that’s bad,” Winters said, turning back to the woman’s face and seeing her eyes were closed. Putting fingers on the woman’s neck, she felt a faint thready pulse. “Sorry,” Winters said as Tanner crawled past them, heading for the door.

Winters and Moore crawled after him as bullets continued ripping the building apart over their heads. They found the door outside open and crawled down the steps and found Tanner beside a sergeant, yelling into a radio.

Seeing a large tree, Winters crawled toward it and risked a quick look around. Her jaw fell open, seeing several buildings around her engulfed in fire. Glancing back, she saw the building she had just crawled from had flames leaping high in the air from the back of the building.

“Move!” Moore said, grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the tree.

When they were beside the tree, Moore moved to get on his knees but Winters grabbed him. “Don’t get up!”

Moore nodded, staying down and looked across the road at the airstrip. “Holy mother,” he gasped. A C130 was on the runway, engulfed in flames, along with all the small buildings. Looking at the north end, Moore saw flames coming from the wreckage of the helicopters.

A shrill bugle sounded from outside to the east of the compound and then others started sounding all around them. The torrent of gunfire suddenly stopped and they could hear the roar of the fires around them.

Gunfire started picking up slowly, returning to another torrent and Winters thought a ground attack had started. She raised her head up some and realized it was the troops and agents inside the fence who were now shooting.

“God damn it!” Tanner screamed walking past them.

“I hope he doesn’t send troops out,” Winters said.

Moore moved beside her on the ground as Tanner screamed at troops and people around him. “If he does, they are dead,” Moore said.

Nodding, Winters looked over at the building they’d used and saw it was fully engulfed in flames. “I’m going to check on our group,” she said and got to her knees and then darted over to a group, huddled beside some shrubs.

“Glad she had HRT training,” Moore said, getting to his knees and running after Winters.

***

Almost seven hundred citizens were moving away from the compound to disappear into the countryside. Ernest had all of his troops, but the two groups he’d been in contact with had brought theirs too, giving him three hundred and fifty trained fighters, the rest… They were normal people. Everything from housewives to mechanics, but all knew how to shoot. They were the militia that was spelled out in the Constitution, the able-bodied population. 

Chapter Forty-One

It was four p.m. when a captain led Moore and Winters over to the new briefing area, a canvas awning. It was just a green military tent without the sides. There were tables and chairs under the tent, many showing signs that they had been pulled from the burning buildings.

Every building and tent in the compound that had been there yesterday, was nothing more than smoldering ruins.

They walked under the awning to see that everyone else looked like they did, filthy with soot-covered faces. Winters dropped in a chair, setting her laptop bag on the table. “Can’t believe you saved your laptop,” Moore said, sitting down beside her.

“I wasn’t stopping to take the damn thing off,” Winters said, pulling out her laptop as Moore glanced around and only saw two other officers with laptops.

Tanner walked to the head of the tables as Winters turned her laptop on. “Major, start,” he barked and dropped in a chair.

Major Grattan moved to an easel that held a chalkboard, showing a rough outline of the compound. “Sir, as of right now, casualties stand at one thousand seven hundred and sixteen KIA, two thousand eight hundred forty-six WIA. If we don’t get medevac in soon, we will lose many more of the wounded.”

“With the roads blocked, I told you to get civilian air to help,” Tanner barked.

“Colonel, they won’t come and spouted some regulation that they didn’t have to fly into dangerous conditions,” Grattan said. “We have twenty Blackhawks coming in from Ft Lewis and they should be here within the hour. Another fifteen are coming in from Edwards, but they won’t be here until tonight.”

“I’ll deal with those air crews later, continue,” Tanner said, pulling out a small notepad. “Any idea from S-2 on the number of attackers?”