Kurt Schlichter - Indian Country

Larry was gone; there was only smoke and flame, and Turnbull took that opportunity to leap down to the street. The smoke cleared and the smoothbore gun was no longer smooth in any sense of the word. It was a curled, charred twisted abomination. The tank itself was still. The guys inside were almost certainly still alive – the Abrams was unparalleled in terms of crew survivability – but they no doubt got their bell rung.

Turnbull caught his breath, supporting himself with his weapon. He shook his head. Only Larry Langer would take on a tank hand-to-hand and win.

Guerrillas were moving past him now. This part of the battle was done. But there was still most of an infantry company in the north of town.

Turnbull let out a sigh, picked up his M4, and began trotting north.

Kunstler slammed the black Blazer’s door behind him, but the PSF slacker sitting on the cruiser’s hood did not even react. There was work to be done – this area was nowhere near pacified, and this man was just sitting there, on the side of the road.

“You!” Kunstler shouted, approaching the cruiser from behind. The officer just kept looking off into the distance. He probably just did not have the stomach to do what needed to be done to ensure a truly human and caring future. Fine. If he could not serve as an active participant, he could serve as a cautionary example.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Kunstler walked past the car toward the hood where the man was sitting.

“Waiting,” the man said without turning.

“For what?”

“For you.” Now Ted Cannon turned around. Kunstler saw him and gasped. He drew his Beretta and aimed.

Cannon sat, quietly. Kunstler looked him over, the gun still aimed at Cannon’s chest.

“Funny that you’ll die in a PSF uniform when you hate them so much,” Kunstler said.

“It’s a little funny.”

“I always hated cops. Fascists. Oppressors. Me? I serve the people, culling out vermin like you.”

“I have to say, you sound pretty fascist.”

“Get off the car,” Kunstler said, and Cannon slipped off and onto his feet.

“You know how I know you’re not a cop?” asked Cannon.

“I suppose you’ll tell me,” Kunstler said. He decided this would be Cannon’s last sentence. He was getting bored, and there was work to be done.

“A real cop would have checked the back seat.”

Kunstler pivoted as Eli sat up inside the cruiser holding his Mossberg, smiling as he unleashed the swarm of double aught.

The two dozen prisoners from the command post were zip-tied in the courthouse square, having been brought back by truck. The courthouse itself still smoldered from the artillery hits. A 105 shell had taken out the Ruth Bader Ginsberg statue from the waist up.

The guards were mostly teenagers and old folks. A woman who had to be in her seventies stood guard with a single barrel break action 12-guage; the rest had either deer rifles or M4s.

There were a lot of M4s to be had.

Turnbull checked into the command post in a storefront on the edge of the square. The adrenaline was still running through his blood and he knew it was only a matter of time before he crashed.

“Motrin,” he said to the medic. He was handed two 200 milligram tablets.

“Don’t toy with me.” The medic handed over two more and Turnbull swallowed the 800 milligrams dry.

“Situation?” he said. Dale showed him the maps, old AAA paper jobs with yellow Post-Its representing insurgent units and red ones representing People’s Republic Army and other forces.

Several townsfolk were talking into radios and taking notes, then stepping forward to tell Dale’s battle captain, Becky the waitress, the information. Then she would have her ops sergeant, a high school friend of Carl Hyatt’s, move the Post-Its. No one touched the maps but the ops sergeant.

Dale walked Turnbull through the current status of the Battle of Jasper. The red Post-Its were in disarray and were scattering north with no perceptible rhyme or reason.

“They’re running,” Turnbull said aloud. Dale looked at the map as if to confirm that it was really true, then went back to his work.

“Becky,” one of the radio operators shouted, excited. “There are more tanks coming, lots of them, dozens, on I-69 and 231!”

The command post froze. Everyone understood what that meant. They had barely survived the first time.

Turnbull’s mind raced. Dozens? How long could he try and hold out as a rearguard while the rest of the townspeople ran for the border?

Not long. It was over. The silence itself was almost audible.

He and most of these people had held off a brigade, and now they were all going to die.

The radio operator saw the confusion he had caused, and he clarified.

“No, you don’t understand. They’re coming north ,” he shouted.

Becky came over. “North?”

“It’s the US Army. They’re coming. They’re pouring over the border! They told our people they’re heading to I-70!”

I-70 ran east-west across the state through Indianapolis. Half of Indiana was turning red.

The command post broke out in cheers. Townspeople hugged and laughed.

Turnbull was quiet. Dead to alive again in a heartbeat.

Back to the fight.

“Dale, cut some teams south to set up rendezvous with the US forces. We want the passage of lines through our guys coordinated so there’s no fratricide. Dale nodded. Turnbull headed to the door.

He still had unfinished business.

Two insurgents lifted the zip-tied lieutenant colonel roughly to his feet. His hair was high and tight, and there was a blood-stained bandage around his right thigh.

Turnbull looked him over, and he stared back hard.

“I’m guessing you were Colonel Deloitte’s three?” Turnbull said, abbreviating the term “S3,” or operations officer. The TAC-CP was overrun and the staff was captured. The prisoners had not been treated pleasantly, but they hadn’t been shot either.

The PRA officer said nothing.

“Some of the troopers told us already, so it’s not a secret,” Turnbull said. “I’ve got some questions.”

“I’m not telling you shit,” said the lieutenant colonel. He seemed resigned to his fate, but determined to go out with his pride.

“If you worked for Deloitte, if he let you work for him, I wouldn’t expect anything less. I worked for him too.”

“So you’re the infiltrator?”

“Not anymore. In a couple hours half the US Army will be coming through here and taking everything south of Indianapolis. This isn’t Indian Country anymore. It’s red. So now I’m not infiltrating anything anymore. I’m a citizen.”

The officer said nothing, taking it in. Pretty soon the insurgents would turn him over to the US Army. He’d probably get a choice, go home or go red. If Deloitte relied on him, he was probably squared away. Hopefully, he’d go red.

“I don’t need to know any operational stuff. I wouldn’t disrespect you by asking,” Turnbull said.

“So what do you want to know?”

“I want to know what happened to Colonel Deloitte.”

The lieutenant colonel’s eyes narrowed, now displaying a different and deeper anger.

“They came in and arrested him,” he said. “Then the PBIs took him outside. He looked them in the eyes the whole time. The Colonel said ‘God bless America,’ then told that bastard to go to hell.”

Turnbull was silent for a moment, his fist clenching and unclenching.

“So they shot him?” he said evenly. “Did they say why?”

“Treason, I guess. He said the colonel was guilty of a lot of things, but I guess it boiled down to that.”

“Treason,” Turnbull said bitterly. That was the last thing Colonel Deloitte could ever be guilty of.