It Ain't Paranoia if... Pt. 02 Ch. 05

Well, at least to me he did; everyone else seemed to accept that crazy shit as fact! It was looking like I needed to get out a lot more!

He laid it all out like some elaborate Tom Clancy tale, and then came to our role - the role of the Brotherhood, Terlingua Militia, and Ultimate Solutions personnel. To summarize, all we have to do is control the Bend, repel any military force from the south, west, or northwest, and keep command informed. That's an area bigger than several New England states, but he assured us that with our new armaments we should be able handle anything the rebels could throw at us, "freeing our other troops and the military to focus on more condensed and populated areas that may come under attack."

He went on to explain that the concern for far west Texas was related to proximity to the southern border, and to certain groups of 'patriots' who were part of a larger plot "to destabilize and overthrow the government." He didn't say much else, other than to tell us to take stock of what we had and let Tom know if we needed more. They prepared to leave after he finished, around two pm.

I called Tom aside, looked searchingly into his eyes, and explained, "Tom, this whole thing is a bit much for me to digest; I feel like I'm in an episode of the old TV series Revolution, or the Twilight Zone. I want your personal assurance that we aren't getting suckered into some plot to destabilize the government ourselves!"

Tom's a cold blooded negotiator and no doubt a consummate liar, given how high he rose in the military and the government, but I could only read sincerity in his voice and his eyes as he again assured me this was legitimate and urgent.

I sighed, wished him well, nodded at "Don", and watched them leave to return to wherever they came from in their fancy three-engine jet. Just before he departed, Don looked at me and said, "Check your phone before you do inventory." I checked my phone after the lifted off, but saw nothing new in my messages or email.

I walked back to our planning team, stood behind my seat, and said, "Hang on just a minute. I have an important question before we go on. Do you all believe this crap? I mean, I feel like we're being conned!

"This ain't the 1770s - there ain't no Tories and Patriots here, and there ain't no insurrection going on, at least that I've heard about! Persuade me, or I'm out!"

The next hour scared the shit out of me, and I was back in. Now I knew for certain I had been leading a sheltered life.

****

With my time and attention divided between business in Hungary and foreign and domestically supported insurrection in the United States, time flew. The Brotherhood didn't need me nor did the Terlingua Militia, so I kept making things happen in Hungary. Ash finished up with her job two days early, went to see Mom and Dad, and then met me at the Lair.

After a most gracious introduction to my star-struck friends, and then to my children, Eva, and her children.

The kids were enchanted by the woman Grace loudly likened to Snow White, and Ash went with the kids to see their rooms. Eva gave me something akin to el mal ojo, so I asked, "Why are you giving me the evil eye, Eva? Ashley is the new personal assistant you and these guys assured me I needed."

"Sure she is. What are her qualifications for the job, other than the obvious?" she asked suspiciously. I quickly reviewed her Curriculum Vitae, disclosed that she had been handling one of my investment portfolios quite efficiently for two years, and that I was personal friends with her parents. Eva backed off a bit after that, but Claude and Clay continued to smirk.

Coyote made it worse when he sidled by and said, "Well, Claude wasn't joking; if anything he understated the fact, but I suppose your rating of 12/13 is close enough. Personally, I'd say 14/15, but I like long legged women with round bottoms, so..."

Eva was spurred into action, and she was blunt. "So, is this Kaitlyn's replacement? You're not even going to give her a chance when she's released?"

"Again, Eva, Ashley is uniquely qualified, experienced, and extraordinarily intelligent. My headhunter called her the perfect candidate, and her boss said she's the best he's had at analysis and generating solutions. YOU and Claude TOLD ME I needed an assistant, and I hired the best candidate available.

"As to Kaitlyn, she has not mentioned me but in one communication since she went into the retreat, and that was to tell the kids to get me - or one of the uncles - to help write emails if they needed it. Not an email, not a text, not a phone call to tell me she no longer holds me personally responsible for every bad thing that's happened to her since puberty. I kind of think that ship has sailed, don't you?"

That little dose of reality set her back, but she forged ahead. "You don't understand what being in such a situation - being helpless, raped repeatedly, beaten, threatened, and having your kids threatened does to a woman! It's going to take some time, but she will recover. Are you going to be here for her when she does?"

The last was said in a challenging rather than inquiring way. I probably should not have shrugged and said, "She had no problem wrecking my life and walking away six years ago, or six months ago. I guess we'll see, assuming she does show up again at some point."

Eva stomped away, Claude shook his head and followed her, and Clay grinned. "You've got foot-in-mouth disease today, Boss; probably ought to take a break from chatting with the good doctor. No one is going to believe that SI swimsuit model is what you say she is until they've gotten to know her anyway, so quit being defensive.

"Besides, Kaitlyn asked me about you once, so that's twice."

"In six months!" I replied abruptly.

He chuckled, pointed at the staircase the jungle cat was walking down, with the kids fluttering around her like she was the pied piper, and told me to shush. He walked over to meet them, and reminded everyone that supper was in ten minutes.

Ashely's new entourage stormed over to tell me she was going to sit with us at supper. She smiled cutely at the kids, and I grinned at Eva's likely reaction. With the kids ignoring Eva and clustered around Ashley, I got the reaction I expected, and it was hard as hell to restrain the grin.

It was even harder when they insisted she sit in my place on the couch for movie night. Claude and Eva were on the loveseat, I was on the recliner, and we were watching the long-awaited sequel to Frozen. Eva was channeling the frosty snow queen, and I suppose my grins only made it worse. As soon as it ended, she hustled them upstairs - "No, I don't need any help!" - and put them to bed.

Ashley asked if she did something wrong; Claude and I assured her she had not, that Eva was just having a bad night.

Fortunately, since we weren't flying out until early Monday, Ash was here for the weekend. By Sunday evening she had impressed all the men with more than her looks, and Eva had warmed up considerably. Her intellect, competence, sense of humor, and caring nature were on full display, and they ultimately won everyone over.

Still, I got a another mal ojo when Clay loaded us and his chosen companions in the SUV to take us to the airport Monday morning at 7:30 am. On the way I pondered what Eva expects out of me. I hope it isn't that I'll just mope around until Kaitlyn figures things out and decides whether I'm her hero or worst nightmare!

Yes, the previous 14 months before the kidnapping had been idyllic in most ways, although we both would have preferred to leave out the gunfights, kidnapping, beatings, and rapes, but I'm not going to let her stomp my heart again: she nearly killed me last time!

But I survived, I learned to live without her, and I can do it again; especially since I have the kids and intend to keep them!

She may be languishing in luxury while drinking tea with her shrink and playing with her personal trainer, but she's also making my case for primary custody, due to her having ongoing mental issues.

Backing the story up a bit, Friday night after the kids were in bed we had a brief men-only junta on the patio to discuss whether to bring Ash and Eva into the quagmire of conspiracy with us. Both had already been properly vetted due to their proximity and positions in our "family", and had been found worthy of inclusion. The bigger issue would be their reaction to the invitation; you can be both trustworthy and a patriot without wanting anything to do with the state of affairs presumably upon us.

Neither flinched as Clay, Claude, Ron, and Doc laid things out, both asked excellent questions, and after all questions were answered, both declared with conviction that they were in, and I learned Ashley's daddy was a Brother.

And so Ron, Clay, Claude, Eva, Ashley, and I traveled to Crescent Moon Saturday morning "to take stock."

Ultimate Solutions, Ltd, was seeking to lease the main house and one warehouse, at whatever price I set. The other warehouse and the hanger would be leased by The Brotherhood, or whatever name they came up with for their - well, our - rapidly expanding paramilitary group, again at a price I set.

"Rapidly expanding?" Yes, it seems an anonymous donor had made it possible to allocate fully paid resources to the deep-dive screening of potential recruits, and, just as Paul predicted, the organization would likely double in a few more months, and then double or maybe triple in size again within six months. I wondered if we had that long, but understood the need to deeply screen recruits; a mole or traitor would be catastrophic.

Ultimate Solutions had also recently benefited from an anonymous donor, who was funding an additional two dozen positions for two years. Clay and Claude were using the same screening procedures, and had allocated three additional resources to hurry the process along. It looked like they would be fully staffed with experienced military operatives within a month or so, and some of their new hires were so skilled they would likely be doing at least some of the specialized training.

The company needed local space to house personnel and to develop, with The Brotherhood(+), a first rate training facility. The Crescent Moon offered established housing, infrastructure, and the space to add more of both, while the undeveloped and isolated land of the 6400 Ranch (Ashley's name) offered adequate space to conduct training exercises... especially if I accepted the proffered contract from the Texas Air National Guard to lease a portion as a practice strafing and bombing range, which would provide cover for explosions and automatic weapons fire.

That the adjacent seven sections to the south and five sections to the north side were owned respectively, by a man and a woman who both sported and supported the crossed lightning bolts of the Brotherhood, meant we had 14,000 acres to work with. Not exactly the 1.2m acres at Fort Bliss, but I was assured it was more than sufficient for our needs.

I don't think the powers that be are concerned about my acceptance of the offered leases, because construction on the runway at the Crescent Moon is already scheduled. It will be improved and lengthened, a taxiway added, and more hangers built, the cost of which would be borne by another grant from another anonymous source. We weren't lacking for financial support.

Plans were also in place to develop a 'man camp', like those used in the oil patch when a new field was being explored and developed. Comprised of bunkhouse doublewides, it would be erected beyond the second warehouse, and the cost of the housing and infrastructure was already in a nascent account at the Ozona Bank. We were also advised that a member with plentiful experience in the oil field would take charge of development as soon as agreements were signed.

I laughed at that: "Once the agreements were signed?" Honestly, I'd lost control of the whole damn thing the night we interdicted the weapons transfer, and was now relying on the Edwards brothers, Paul, the Sheriff, the Secretary, and whoever else was involved (the CIA? NSA? DOD?) to do the right thing.

It's true that I don't need the land or buildings for anything, and that I bought them on a whim (for about 20 cents on the dollar, but still) rather than to address a need. I guess I could claim them as 'long term investments', but right now they were looking like the answers to compelling needs.

Anyway, sometimes I felt like the philanthropist who buys property and gives it to the Nature Conservancy, and sometimes I felt like a landlord whose property was taken by eminent domain so they could build a mall.

The only things keeping me from signing were a beaucoup of legal and liability issues that needed to be worked out, including contracts, and, as Ashley pointed out, tax issues to be resolved. I was relying on Monroe Carr and his firm on the legal side, and Ashley volunteered to consult with him on the contracts and tax issues. She sounded confident, so I took her up on it and turned my attention to the only asset not yet claimed; the smaller house.

It was too nice to leave vacant - the uncles maybe, if they didn't want to keep driving back to town and back over the mountains to Ron's? Ashley? Kaitlyn, should she ever return? Or Claude, Eva, and her kids? Oh well - maybe when I get back from Europe things will have cleared up a bit.

I sighed, walked outside, and my phone dinged. The message read: "#2WH 6425891370"

Huh? I stared at it a bit longer, and then realized it must be from Don. But WTH does it mean?

The good sheriff chose that moment of personal consternation to drive up and insist we take a tour of the 6400 Ranch with him, promising he knew things about the place we didn't but should. We loaded into a 4x4 Suburban and the took us on a 'short tour' that took three hours. And he was right; there were things we needed to know.

I have no idea what the fuckers we interrupted had planned, but theirs was not a simple 'gun running' operation.

When we came back out the gate we were across the street from the road to the Lair, so I insisted on dropping everyone off before I took Sheriff Goodson back to his pickup. Clay was driving, and I caught the suspicious frown that passed over his face before he announced he would drive so we would have additional security.

We dropped everyone off, I got in the passenger seat, the sheriff remained in the seat behind the driver, and we left. As soon as we started down the ramp I read the cryptic message to them, said I believe it was from Don, and asked what they thought it meant.

We discussed possibilities as we drove the five miles to the Crescent Moon. Once there, I directed Clay to the door on the second warehouse. We were standing in front of the keypad, and before he could enter the code for today, I stopped him and entered the ten digits from the message. The door swung open; we stepped inside, stood, and looked around. The red button that opens the door from the inside was glowing.

They shrugged, so I pushed it. The outside door swung shut and locked itself, and the floor started dropping.

The familiar shiny light switch was nearer Sheriff Goodson, so he flipped it on and we were looking at a slightly bigger 'gymnasium' than the one in the first warehouse. Steel shelving was stacked with large metal boxes or crates along the east and south walls, and more oversized steel boxes were sitting on pallets aligned along and between each of the two center aisles.

The pièce de résistance was rockets of various sizes and configurations standing in rows of four along the north wall. Some were bigger, some smaller, but all had impressive warheads.

The metal boxes were in six different colors. Assuming they were color coded, we only opened one of each of the colors. Between Clay, the sheriff, and our phones, we were able to identify the various weapons and weapons systems

There were five rust colored boxes on the north side of center aisle that contained launchers for the Russian-built tri-pod mounted anti-tank missile called the Kornet-M. The fifteen dark orange boxes stacked across the aisle contained the new version of the missiles, with thermobaric warheads. Clay used his phone to look them up and learned that they have a range of 5.5 km and are also effective against buildings, bunkers, field fortifications and entrenched troops.

We all sucked air on that discovery. Where in the hell would any enemy we might face get tanks?

There were multiple-use Soviet-era RPG-7s in the navy colored boxes, and their munitions were in the light blue boxes. Some were meant for use against armored vehicles, some against personnel (troops).

The dark red boxes contained 12.7mm (.50 caliber) DShK machine guns mounted on two small wheels. They were belt fed and, although the design is the better part of a century old, extremely deadly against troops or vehicles, even lightly armored vehicles. Belts of ammunition were stored in the light red boxes.

The missiles stacked along the wall were a conglomeration of Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs). Some were battery mounted, which explained the concrete pads scattered around the Crescent Moon and 6400 Ranch, and some were hand-held SAMs, called MANPADS.

The combination of munitions and weapons stored in the two large underground rooms about covered the spectrum of weapons that would be used in warfare. That was a sobering thought, but not inconsistent with the warnings.

I didn't sleep well that night. I had an offer on the table for a small ranch with a nice house located on the upper reaches of Lake Buchanan; I needed to check on the relative safety of that area vis a vis Fort Davis, and maybe raise my bid. I do not want the kids in harms way!

****

Sunday we took the children to church - well, mass, since Eva was Catholic - and then to lunch at Poco Mexico, just outside town on the highway to Balmorhea. Not Maria-good food, but good food nevertheless.

The Fort Davis National Historic Site caught the attention of the kids on the way out, so ten of us visited the partially restored frontier fort after we ate lunch. The video presentation and the museum were our first stops, and then we roamed the large site and applied what we had learned at our first stop to what we were seeing.

Authentic biscuits were offered at the kitchen of a restored officer's quarters. It was on the west, near the cliffs that formed a horseshoe around the springs at the base of a cliff. The springs fed the small creek that flowed through the fort, which led to a discussion about how they would have protected themselves from marauding Apache, and what a big area they patrolled.

The nearest forts were Fort Stockton and Fort Lancaster to the east, and Fort Quitman and Fort Bliss to the west. Fort Stockton was about 100 miles through rough terrain on winding trails, and it was twice that distance to the western forts. The area in which they were supposed to keep peace was larger than many states!

We were given guided tours of some of the restored buildings. The authentic era furnishings were described and the daily lives of both soldiers and the officers' wives were detailed. The bugler sounded Retreat to call the soldiers to the parade ground at the end of the day, which was another highlight.

After checking with Sheriff Goodson about the relative safety of the lake, I texted the realtor my new offer on the Lake Buch property, and asked if she knew a good building contractor. It just so happened her brother and brother-in-law were exactly what I needed, and they would be both fast and thorough.

I spent the rest of the afternoon discussing the safety of the four children with the Edwards brothers, the sheriff, Tom Yonkers, Paul Peveto, and Eva. The unanimous consensus was that all known data led to the conclusion that the 'rebellion' was months away; and, no place was safer than the bunker if it did happen earlier, especially now that we had significant air defenses.