The Shelter: Book 1, The Beginning (17 page)

“The earlier they hit us, the less experienced they are.”

We’re as ready as we can be, everyone does their chores wearing body armor and carrying their rifles. At 10:00 PM our motion sensor alerts us that someone is pulling up to Fred’s front gate. We watch video from our hidden cameras as they push against the gate. They get into the truck and slowly drive away. My phone rings, “Jay, Fred, do you think they’re gone, did they give up?”

“Nope, they drove around the curve, we need to put some cameras there, we have a blind spot, somehow they figured it out. They’re going to walk back to us. Just wait and keep your eyes open and don’t make any sounds.” I smile thinking of the little trick we set up in our homes. We have a couple of sewing models mounted on wheels that are pulled back and forth in front of our living room window shades. Anyone looking towards our houses will think the shadows they see are us and they’ll think we’re all in our living rooms.

Thirty minutes later we see eight bodies walking in a single file along the barbed wire fence. They’re all carrying rifles. We can’t tell by the thermal images what type of rifles they are. Two of them are carrying sheets of plywood which they lay over the barb wire fence. The sheets of wood allow them to walk over our fence. We’ll have to find a way to make sure no one can use this trick on us again. Right after they cross our barbed wire, two of them step into one of our small punji pits, breaking their ankles and impaling their foot on the nails. Two are effectively out of the fight. The remaining six spread out slowly walking up Fred’s driveway, so far they haven’t seen us waiting in our trench. Their leader pauses, he kneels placing some type of device to his right eye. Damn it, he has a night vision device. We turn on our bright lamps which defeat his night vision and also momentarily blinds them, overloading their night vision.

Paul is our best shot, he looks at me, I nod. He aims and shoots a mine, it blows up in a bright flash, sending hundreds of nails out in all directions. We keep our heads down so any nails that come in our direction fly over our trench. The mini claymore surprises the hell out of our invaders while taking three of them out. Now there are only three people left. Paul aims, hitting the leader in his chest. Fred and I aim for the other two. I miss with one shot, hitting him with my second. Fred hits his target with his first shot. We wait to see if anyone else is coming. One of the wounded is crying out for mercy. We get up to see if any other invaders are alive. Of the eight who attacked us, three are wounded. They might make it, but it depends on if those who stepped in a punji pit get an infection and how serious the wounds of the others are. Fred asks, “Jay, should we call the police?”

“I think your friend Sheriff Grover sent them. Why don’t you and Matt find their trucks and bring them here? We’ll hide them at the far end of our property. I think the Sheriff will show up to see if his friends succeeded. We should act as if nothing happened. When dawn breaks, send the kids to police any brass they find. We need to remove the wood from the barb wire fence and remove any proof these guys were here. Strip the bodies, we’ll bury them in a mass grave near the back end of our land next to the small hill.”

Fred looks down at the three wounded invaders, “What about them?”

“Let’s see if they have any knowledge we can use.”

I bend down on one knee, “Any of you want to trade information?”

One of them men coughs up blood, asking, “What are you offering?”

“A quick, painless death, or we can cut your tongue out and drop you out in the back of our land, let the animals have you. You won’t even be able to scream.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Who sent you, what did they tell you about us?”

Cough, cough. “Sheriff Groversent us. Told us you’d be real easy pickings, you have food, liquor, and women.”

“Anything else you want to say?”

“He told us, he’ll come by around nine in the morning.”

“Thank you.” Phuff. One silenced round to the center of his head sent him to hell.

Chapter 9

President Putin and Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu meet to discuss what else they can do to the Americans. “Mr. President, the American’s economy is in the toilet, rioting is out of control, most of their cities are burning. Anything else we do will be considered an act of war, they may counter attack us with nuclear weapons.”

President Putin laughs at his defense minister, “Sergey, the black Yankee President doesn’t have the balls to use nuclear weapons. He lacks the balls to do anything except talk. He gives speeches how he wants the world to be, not how it actually is. How many lines in the sand has he drawn and moved in six years? He doesn’t have one iota of guts in him. He’s a pansy, we can do anything we want. As long as nothing can be traced directly to us, he won’t do a damn thing. We are free to act in any manner we wish. I want some options that will destroy their economy for good. I don’t want them to be able to quickly fix whatever we do to them. I want them to hurt. We are on the eve of the greatest moment in our history. We are about to capture Europe without firing a shot, if we manage the Americans right, we’ll be able to control them forever.”

“Mr. President, the only weapon in our arsenal which will destroy their economy is an EMP attack.”

“Sergey, they’ll see us launch it, their military may strike us on warning of our launch. I’d rather not use any type of tactical or strategic weapons.”

“Sir, we can arm and train a lot of their protesters, they will keep the American police and military bogged down.”

“I like this idea, how long until you can implement this idea?”

“I’ll send a team to America, we’ll ship the weapons in diplomatic pouches. The team will take a tour of the cities of America, dropping off the weapons and training their charges in how to fight the police.”

“Are you sure you can ship enough weapons in diplomatic pouches to make a difference?”

“We can mark large crates as diplomatic pouches, the Americans do the same thing when they send equipment here.”

You have permission to go ahead with your plan. Send me daily updates. Sergey, in order for this to work; it must stay a total secret. No one can know we’re behind their next round of civil problems. Only use the best of your field people, people, you can totally trust.”

“Yes, sir.”

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It took Franco and Fred three hours to dispose of the bodies. The two vehicles are hidden in a group of trees at the edge of our property. Franco’s sons wore rubber gloves when they moved the trucks so no fingerprints could be traced to any of us. We retrace the invader's steps to clean up any brass and any signs they were here. At nine o’clock the next morning, like clockwork, Sheriff Grover shows up at Fred’s front gate. Fred and I are waiting for him in Fred’s kitchen. Cheri invites the Sheriff into their house. “Good morning, Sheriff. Would you like some eggs and bacon, coffee?”

“Just black coffee is fine, thank you.”

Sipping my coffee, I look at the Sheriff, “Hello Sheriff Grover, what brings you back this beautiful morning? Have you decided to make me an offer for our grain?”

Looking at the front of the house, Grover says, “There were reports of gunfire last night I’m just checking to make sure everyone is OK.”

Fred smiles at the Sheriff replying, “Well, that’s very kind of you to check on us. As you can see, we’re fine. We had a peaceful evening. We didn’t hear any gunfire, Jay, did you and Lacy hear any at your place?”

“Nope, we slept like two babies.”

We could tell looking at the Sheriff’s face, he didn’t believe a word we said, but he had no proof of anything to the contrary. He said, “Mind if I look around a little? Maybe someone tried to trespass on your property and got hurt in one of your illegal traps.”

Fred looks hurt saying, “Sergeant, what traps are you talking about?”

“What about that trench that runs in front of your house?”

With all the strength I could manage, I say with a straight face, “Oh, that, it's the beginning of a new lawn sprinkler system.”

“Isn’t that a little deep for a sprinkler system?”

“Might be, we’ve never dug one before. Maybe we mixed up the instructions, you know like we converted the metric instructions into English wrong. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. I assure you we’ll recheck the instructions as soon as possible. If there’s nothing else, we’re very busy today.”

“Thank you for the coffee, I have nothing else to discuss with you today. As I said, there were reports of gunfire, I’m just checking on everyone in the area.”

The Sheriff walked to his car while looking at the front of Fred’s house. He shakes his head, he knows something’s wrong. However, he doesn’t have any proof what happened last night. When he gets in his car, he hits redial for the ninth time, the phone rings four times before going to voicemail. He curses to himself, thinking,
what the hell happened to George and his crew? He should have had an easy time last night. They wouldn’t have been prepared for him. George and his crew should have been able to break in and show these assholes they need my protection. When I get my hands on George, I’m going to kick his ass. He must have picked someone up in the bar and spent the night with her. It’s hard to find good help these days.
Fred takes George’s phone out of his coat pocket, he and I look at the ringing phone showing the Sheriff’s caller ID number and laugh. Fred says, “I wonder what he’s going to do next?”

“He’ll be back with some excuse to get a better look at our property. Later today, let’s seed the plot where we buried our uninvited visitors.”

“I’ll get the boys on it later today.”

“Thanks.”

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43,000 students attend one of the 36 colleges and universities in the Nashville area. As the value of the dollar crashes, the cost of each credit hour increases more than 50%. This forces many students to shift from full time to part time, extending their college education from four to six or more years. Many protest the quickly increasing costs, tens of thousands take to the streets protesting the rapid increase in their education costs. Thousands of students lose their part and full-time jobs due to the economy falling apart. Without a job, many students have to drop out of school. They begin the long trip home, most can’t afford to pay the tuition without a job. Government student loans have dried up forcing many students to give up their education. Thousands of students sit in at their administrative offices in protest of the rising costs, lack of loans and lack of jobs.

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Lacy and I are enjoying a cup of coffee after a long night, she says, “There’s a truck at the gate.” They’re pushing the talk button. I get up to respond, “Hello?”

“Hello, this is Lowes hardware with a delivery. Franco ordered twenty pallets of Portland cement. Said to deliver it to your address.”

“Please give me a minute to check with Franco.”

“Lacy, please call up to Franco and see if he ordered a shitload of cement.”

A minute later Lacy returns smiling, saying, “He said yes, more building materials are also on the way.”

“Great, it would be nice if he warned us.”

“Hello, I’m opening the gate, please follow the driveway, you can drop your load on the right side of the rear garage.”

“Will do, we’re going to need payment before we unload.”

“I’m sure you do, how much?”

“Even with Franco’s builder and quantity discount, it comes to $1,800.”

“I assume you want cash?”

“If you want to pay with a credit card, we’re supposed to collect a 3% processing fee.”

“I’ll pay in cash, I’ll meet you at the garage.”

Before I finish the discussion with the truck driver, Franco and his sons join me. “Jay, I’m sorry, I didn’t check with you in advance, you said time was critical so I placed orders with my suppliers before they ran out of supplies.”