DOMESTIC ENEMIES 6
The amount of light in the cell never varied; there was no way for Ranya to tell the time of day or night except by checking her digital watch. When she heard the footsteps on the cement floor outside, she quickly looked at it: just after 9 AM, on Tuesday. When she heard the key in her lock, she stood and slipped on her black hood. Hands on each shoulder once again guided her by the same path as the day before. Once again the hood was pulled off, and she was made to sit in front of the tribunal.
This time, the three judges from yesterday were joined by a fourth, sitting at the left end of the table next to the Jefe. He was the youngest of them, she guessed in his early to mid-thirties. He was clean-shaven, and had wavy brown hair over his ears and the collar of his camouflage utility shirt. Unlike the Jefe he wore his brown beret at the table; it had a coin-sized silver medallion depicting a stylized bird of prey pinned to the front. He was a handsome man, with high cheekbones, and a straight nose and square chin. He was already staring at her when the hood was removed. He had bright hazel eyes similar in shade to her own, and she returned his gaze.
After a few moments she broke the eye contact, and examined the items which had been arranged on the table. She saw her big folding knife, and Destiny’s Nikon camera. She saw her 9mm Glock, still disassembled, in a clear plastic bag.
As before, the stern-looking woman spoke first. “Come here, Ranya. Come to the table.”
She stood and did as she was told.
“Show me your hands.” Ranya leaned across the narrow table. Once again, her callused palms were given a careful examination. “Well, you do have the hands of a field worker, that is undeniable. Do you recognize this pistol? We found it in your pack, very carefully concealed. Where did you get it?”
“From the house of the assistant warden of the camp for political prisoners. Before I escaped.”
“Before you killed her, you mean. Before you killed the woman in her house.”
“Yes. Before I killed her.”
The four judges on the tribunal looked at one another.
The Jefe spoke. “Please assemble the pistol for us.”
Again, she did as she was told, efficiently mating the slide and barrel and plastic pistol grip receiver, as they studied her level of expertise. Then after laying the Glock down on the table, she stepped back, and stood at a relaxed version of the position of attention, with her hands at her sides. She stared at the black and red banner on the wall above the tribunal.
The woman picked up the pistol and then said, “Ranya Bardiwell, we have checked your story through police channels. We believe that you did escape from the gringo federales. We know that this pistol belonged to Starr Linssen, a federal officer, whom you killed. We know that the federales killed your father, who was a gun dealer, and later you were arrested on suspicion of terrorism. But all that doesn’t concern us. We accept that.
“What concerns is why you think we should keep you? We have many, many Milicianos already. We don’t need you, and believe me…we will not simply release you. We could return you to the gringo federales for the sake of diplomacy with Washington. Or we could have you shot here and now, to simply close the book on yesterday’s fiasco once and for all. So why should we keep you? What can you do for us?” She stared up at Ranya over her half-glasses, while idly waving the Glock.
In her cell Ranya had thought long and hard about the Jefe’s comments, on their ride to Albuquerque. “Gringo cowboy snipers” had massacred a busload of Milicianos only yesterday. (And she knew who the snipers were.) Gringo cowboys were shooting up cell tower transmitters to hinder Milicia communications. Probably the mountaintop microwave relays as well. The Jefe himself traveled in an unmarked civilian truck, and only dared to put the identifying red cloth on the dashboard when close to his own checkpoint. It was evident to her that these leaders were concerned about the Milicia’s deficiency in weapons training, and were fearful of the “gringo cowboys” who still out-gunned them. She had already prepared several lines of argument.
Ranya began, “Your rifles are in terrible condition, and your Milicianos don’t know anything more than how to pull the trigger. I doubt they could hit a house at one hundred meters. They are clowns with rifles. I can make them marksmen.”
She had their full attention.
“Look at that soldier by the door, how he holds his rifle like a loaf of bread under his arm. He is aiming it at all of us, and his finger is on the trigger! But we may be safe, because his rifle is probably so dirty inside that it will not fire. I can show you.”
The Jefe was flushed with embarrassment, but the younger officer wearing the brown beret with the silver pin was laughing. He said, “Soldier, step forward and give her your rifle. Unloaded.”
The Miliciano who had been standing by the door had been holding it casually in the crook of his right arm, leveled horizontally. The stocky Inca-faced soldier straightened the rifle up to the vertical, while extracting the magazine, which he placed in a pouch on his web belt. He marched across the room and thrust it violently at Ranya, while giving her a cruel look. She was ready, and grabbed the rifle as he pushed it at her. She then turned her back on him dismissively, and faced the tribunal.
She remembered some AR-15 tricks she had learned many years before, growing up at Freedom Arms, when those semi-auto versions of the military M-16 had been legal to own. How long could that kind of ingrained “muscle memory” last, she wondered?
She held the black M-16 rifle vertically in front of her, and then pulled the charging handle rearward, checking that there was no chambered round. (She noted the empty chamber with great interest. If it was Milicia SOP to carry their rifles with empty chambers, she might gain critical seconds when the time came to escape.) Then she swung the rifle behind her back and held it horizontally in both hands, the barrel pointing to her left. Next came the tricky part, which she had mastered years before as a teenager in her father’s gun shop.
By feel, she found the rear cross pin, slid it out with her fingernails, and dropped the lower half of the rifle down to the vertical, hinged on the still-intact front cross pin. She pulled back the charging handle and removed the ten inch long bolt carrier assembly with her right hand, and brought it around to her front, and snapped it toward them.
“Look at it, it’s filthy. The bolt should pop out of the bolt carrier when I do that, but it’s so caked with carbon that it can’t move. This rifle will jam after one or two magazines, if it fires at all. Somebody needs to teach your Milicianos to keep their rifles clean, so that they will always fire. And somebody needs to teach them to shoot accurately, or the gringo cowboys will continue to kill them with ease, like yesterday on the bus. That is what I can do for you.” She brought the L-shaped half-disassembled rifle back in front of her, and reassembled it in a few seconds, snapping it back into line while keeping eye contact with the young officer.
Again she held the rifle vertically, and then surprised even herself by doing a quick drill team routine with loud stock slaps and spins, moving the M-16 smartly from shoulder to shoulder. She remembered Phil Carson and the other Viet Nam veterans who had taught her these fancy rifle drills, as a young girl back in Virginia at Freedom Arms, and she silently thanked them. They had thought it was cute to watch the teen swing and spin the familiar rifles like a Marine DI on a parade ground, and she had basked in their approval. She had never dreamed that their drill team routines were still waiting dormant inside her, until this M-16 had been in her hands, in front of the tribunal.
The four Milicia leaders stared at her, the youngest one with the longish hair and the beret was smiling broadly.
Camarada Inez said to the guard, “Take her back to her cell.” Ranya tossed him his rifle with both hands when he was a few feet away, and he almost dropped it. He was still red-faced with shame, as he reloaded his magazine. Another Miliciano handed her the black hood, and Ranya accepted in casually. She made and held eye contact with the young Milicia officer as she slipped the cloth over her face. Then she was taken from the room, but this time without handcuffs.
After she was led away, the four Milicia leaders argued her fate. The woman said, “Well, strictly from an ethno-geopolitical standpoint, she’s acceptable. She’s a Palestinian Arab…so she’s not Indo-Hispanic, but…she is from another oppressed racial group. At least she’s not an Anglo, so that’s in her favor, even if her credentials as a dedicated Marxist are in doubt.”
The mustachioed note-keeper with the receding hairline said, “I think at least we should ask el Gobernador’s office if he wants to send her back to the gringo federales in Oklahoma. We could turn her in to the federal building in the center city. Deleon’s government in Santa Fe would gain much favor with Washington, and this in turn would reflect well on the Milicia de Nuevo Mexico. As you mentioned, Comrade Inez, this would be the diplomatic thing to do.”
The woman said, “But then the story of what happened yesterday at Chulada will be known to the gringos, and many questions will be asked about the missing students. I think Bardiwell should simply be disappeared, or used as a rifle instructor, if that benefits us.”
“These M-16’s are too delicate anyway,” said the Jefe. “They are a ladies’ rifle! We only need to ask our ‘friends’, and they would begin to send thousands of AK-47s next week. Now that’s a rifle that doesn’t need to be cleaned! That’s a real man’s rifle!”
The female comrade cleared her throat at this sexist remark and answered him, “You miss the point, Carlos. We must only use weapons obtained locally, gringo weapons, if we are to maintain our appearance as ‘indigenous’ New Mexico Milicia fighters, sanctioned and approved by Santa Fe. The minute our troops were seen carrying foreign weapons, our honeymoon with Washington would be over. They would no longer turn a blind eye to us, if we were to carry foreign weapons. And they might begin to ask where ‘advisors’ such as yourself come from.”
“Well, the troops won’t accept shooting lessons from a woman,” el Jefe stated flatly. “They are very macho, and it would insult their manhood for them to be ordered to learn from a female how to shoot their own rifles. This attitude may be primitive and reactionary, but it is reality. Frankly, many of them are nothing more than criminales, pistoleros, who have joined the Milicia only for the promise of citizenship and free land. They won’t like it at all, to have a gringa as a rifle instructor.”
The youngest officer said, “Well I can use her right away. So far we have been given 2,000 rifles from the National Guard armory, but most of them are mierde, worn out crap with crooked barrels. I need to find one hundred good rifles from that mountain of junk, and I need to find them as soon as possible! The Falcon Battalion is providing security next week at the Gaia Ranch, and we have damn few riflemen who can shoot as well as they should. This Bardiwell can find the best rifles quickly, and make them ready. My Falcons will listen to her, if I tell them to. So I can certainly use her, if none of you want her.”
“Ah yes, the dashing ‘Che’ Ramos can use the pretty young lady,” said the Jefe, mocking him. “Yes, I’m very certain that you can use her.”
The young officer ignored the intended meaning of the Jefe’s remark and replied, “My Falcons are not too proud to learn from an expert: man or woman. And after your Milicianos did so well in battle yesterday, I’m sure they need no lessons! How many were killed on the bus, eighteen, twenty? And how many gringo snipers did your troops catch after that battle? None! Only four gringo students from Michigan! Bravo, Comandante ‘El Condor’, bravo!”
The Jefe stabbed out his cigar butt in his ashtray, then pointed his finger at the one he had called ‘Che’. “First of all, they weren’t my troops—they were not under my operational command. Now, if I was given actual command, that would be another matter… And second, a real battalion is many more than one hundred chosen men, despite that pretty silver bird on your beret…”
“All right, enough!” The woman stopped their growing argument with a slap on the table. “Basilio Ramos can take this Bardiwell to find the best rifles, and instruct the Batallón Halcón in marksmanship. I have decided, and it is finished.”
But the Jefe was not quite finished. “No, Camarada Inez, that is not enough! I demand at least a loyalty test! A prueba, a proof. It is my right to demand this, before a stranger is brought into our group! It is my right! We were all tested, and I demand it now!”
The woman turned and looked at the Jefe, then she asked, “What kind of a test?”
The helicopter pilot said, “Watch out for laser lights, gentlemen. And if we get any ground fire, I’m taking evasive action, so be ready.”
Through the cabin windows of the sleek Eurocopter, Bob Bullard and his young chief of staff were surveying the sheets of flame and smoke burning across South Central Los Angeles, after a week of what the media was calling “arson riots.” This was Bullard’s own helicopter, or more properly, the helicopter serving the Southwest Regional Director of the Department of Homeland Security. They had lifted off from the roof of the Los Angeles Federal Building in Westwood for a quick aerial survey of the firestorms raging through and across South Central, on their way back to San Diego.
Director Bullard, as a rule, never put his feet on the ground in LA County outside of federal property, and even then only when surrounded by a phalanx of heavily armed security ninjas. A “working visit to Los Angeles” in reality meant a stopover at the massive Federal Building, within the fortified “Green Zone” on Wilshire Boulevard, with his helicopter landing him safely on the rooftop helipad. He pitied the poor suckers who actually had to live down there in the city with the animals…as he streaked two thousand feet above them, at 120 miles an hour.
“The mayor wants to know how soon we’re going to bring in the air tankers.”
“Keep stalling him,” said Bullard.
“What? Excuse me?”
“You heard me, Jim. Keep stalling him. He’s not going to get any federal air assets.”
“But…then the fire’s going to burn all the way to…”
“All the way to where? Where’s it going to go? They’ve got it contained inside of the 710 freeway on the west, and it won’t get past the Los Angeles River on the east. So what’s the problem?”
“What’s the problem? The problem is hundreds of thousands of people live down there! You’re talking about most of Compton, Watts, Huntington Park…”
“Exactly! So what’s the problem?”
“Bob…we can’t…we have to…I mean…”
“Look Jim, you’ve got to see the big picture. Not Los Angeles…the entire country. Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles are a lifeline. When they talk about ‘critical infrastructure’, that’s it. Together they’re the third biggest port in the world, for God’s sake! The biggest port in America! And over half of the gas and oil in California comes out of those refineries down there—think of it, over half of this state’s gas and oil! The federal government can’t just keep paying those God damned M-19 warlords to keep the Alameda Corridor open, and hoping for the best. It’s just not working. I mean, it would be another matter if they could deliver, and actually keep the corridor safe and secure. But with the M-19s fighting the Crips on one side, and the Dragons on the other…hell, the rails have been effectively closed for most of the last month. Ships are backed up clear to Shanghai; factories are closing across the entire country! We can’t let it continue, Jim, and that comes from the top. I mean, the very top.”
“You’re talking about letting it burn?”
“Look, we didn’t start these arson riots, they did! Those animals shoot at fire trucks, they shoot at police, they shoot at ambulances! So we’re supposed to bring in air tankers from Colorado, to put out the fires they keep starting on each others’ turf? Screw ‘em! Let it all burn. They’ve already gamed it out, back in DC. The best outcome is if it burns from the 110 to the 710 and the LA River. Let it all burn, then at least we can patrol the tracks and the pipelines, and keep the trains rolling and the oil flowing.”
“But that’s…that’s five miles, from the 110 to the 710!”
“Right! Five miles of hostile territory. Five miles of a no-go area! Five miles where cops haven’t been able to step foot in years! Five miles of tattoo-faced animals who would cut your throat and rape your kids just for a laugh!”
“But the mayor, he’s never going to agree to…”
“Jim…Jim, that’s not our problem, it’s his. So what? What can he do? They didn’t vote for the President down there last time anyway, so who cares? Screw ‘em!”
“But Bob, they’re all waiting for the air tankers, they’re expecting to get them today or tomorrow!”
“There’s forest fires burning in Colorado, right? And isn’t that foam toxic to people? Just find a reason we can’t drop foam on urban areas, all right? Hell, those animals would just shoot at the air tankers anyway, when they’re down low making their runs. So screw ‘em, let it burn, let it all burn, clear it way back—just keep those tracks and pipelines open! I want to see a free-fire-zone for at least a mile on both sides of the Alameda Corridor! I don’t want to see one single shack still standing within rifle range of those railroad tracks! If this fire’s going to do it for us, then fine. Let it burn! And maybe it’ll teach the rest of those animals down there how to act like civilized freakin’ human beings, and what happens when they shoot at cops and firefighters!”
Ranya was led from the cell once again, but in a different direction. This time she was not made to wear a hood, but instead was handcuffed behind her back. Four Milicianos in brown t-shirts and brown berets, carrying M-16 rifles, marched in two pairs in front and behind her. As she had guessed, the Milicianos were using a mini-storage complex not only as a prison, but as a base. They escorted her from the building containing the smallest units, out onto the asphalt pavement beneath a brilliant blue sky. She blinked up at the sun, seeing it for the first time in 24 hours. On all sides she saw storage garages; some open, some closed. They marched her around a corner and toward a dead end, where closed garages on both sides of the lane terminated against a fifteen foot high cement wall.
A man was already standing against the wall. He was blindfolded with a black rag. As they marched nearer, Ranya saw that he was not merely standing, but that he was bound somehow to the wall with his hands behind his back. A yard from his waist on either side there were thick bracelet-sized steel rings bolted into the wall. She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as the horrifying realization flooded in. She had failed to convince them. Instead of trying to promote herself as a rifle expert, she should have “spouted off Marxist gibberish,” as John Barlow had suggested back at his North Texas ranch. It had been a terrible blunder; it was her greatest and last mistake!
The unpainted cement wall around the man was riddled with chips and dings, pocked with bullet marks, and splotched with dark stains…
She recognized the man by his Afro haircut and chocolate skin tone. It was none other than Kalil, with blood-soaked battle dressings taped across his bare upper chest. His lips were split and his once handsome nose was flattened. She had assumed that he was as dead as Derek—evidently she was wrong. But perhaps she was only off by one day…
At the sound of their approach he began to curse and mutter in English. “Yeah, motherfuckers, real brave, ain’t you? Beatin’ up on a niggah, just like back in Alabama! That’s all you jive Aztlan mothers is—nothin’ but brown-skinned Ku Klux Klan! Call yo’self La Raza, now I know what you really mean: you just a bunch of jive-ass La Raza racist motherfuckers! Yeah, real brave ain’t you, with me chained to this damn wall!”
One of Ranya’s escorts belted him across his face with the muzzle of his rifle, then butt-stroked him in the gut, and Kalil slumped forward and groaned, spitting out blood.
Two of the troops turned her around by the shoulders, and using a second pair of handcuffs, attached her wrists to the ring bolt on Kalil’s left side. She saw a dozen more brown-bereted Milicianos appear, marching toward the dead end in single file, their M-16 rifles held in haphazard directions.
Another of her escorts pulled a black sash from the front cargo pocket of his utility trousers, and quickly tied it around Ranya’s eyes, knotting it in the back. He had obviously done it before, she noted grimly.
There was no time for anything else but to prepare to meet God…if God did exist. She wished that she could think of something witty and cutting to shout at her firing squad, but instead random thoughts and faces flashed through her consciousness.
“Ready!” a voice shouted in Spanish. She heard a dozen M-16 bolts being charged and released, a chorus of rasping metallic clacks.
“Aim!” She tried to picture Brad’s face. Her knees began to go rubbery, her gut turned to water, and she took in one last breath and held it, bracing herself for the blow, her ears already ringing.
“Fire!” There was a mass detonation of rifle blasts. She felt no pain and wondered if she was already dead. Then she heard another chorus, of laughter and loud joking. After a moment, someone pulled off her mask, while another unlocked her handcuffs, both sets, freeing her hands. She clasped her arms around her chest, shaking, wobbling, almost collapsing. Her escorts reappeared and pulled her away from the wall.
“Ah, well, I guess you’re happy to be alive!”
“Ha! Look at her, she didn’t even piss! Good for you!”
“The pelotón de ejecución must be very bad shots—the entire squad missed!”
The Jefe appeared in his camouflage uniform, among the brown-shirted troops.
Kalil yelled out in English, “Hey! Hey! Very damn funny! I’m laughing out loud here! Ha ha ha! Now turn me loose, motherfuckers! Turn me loose, you…!”
Then the Jefe did something totally unexpected. He took a rifle at random from one of the Milicianos, and said to Ranya, “Now, let’s see if it’s so dirty that it won’t fire!” He yanked back the charging handle, ejecting a chambered live cartridge onto the asphalt, and let the handle fly forward, chambering another round from the magazine, holding the rifle so that she could be certain that it was loaded with live ammunition and fully functional.
They were standing thirty feet from the wall and Kalil, who continued in English to alternately shout abuse and plead for his life. The fifteen Milicianos slowly formed a wide half-circle around Ranya, away from the wall, their rifles nonchalantly trained toward her from their hips. The Jefe thrust the loaded rifle at her, and hissed, “Shoot that damned noisy ape! Shut him up! Kill him right now! Do it, or we will put you back beside him, and this time, I will not tell them to aim over the wall! Do it now!”
She held the loaded rifle at port arms, across her chest at an angle, her right fingers wrapped tightly around the pistol grip, her left hand on the smooth black plastic fore stock. She looked at the Jefe, he was staring intently at her with his coal-black eyes. With her right thumb she could feel that the safety was already pointing up, ready to fire single shots. She glanced at the semi-circle of Milicianos behind her. She looked at the blindfolded Kalil, still chained to the wall and loudly protesting. A dozen M-16 rifles were pointing in her direction. The Jefe had his pistol out, in his hand, twitching by his leg. His eyes burned her with their intensity.
She ruled out trying to reason with him—the Jefe was in deadly earnest, and the brown-shirted troops would obey him no matter what. She quickly weighed her options as they all stared at her, in the dead end alley thirty feet from Kalil on the wall. She could thumb the safety back to full auto, spin and shoot the Jefe, and maybe a few of the other Milicianos besides, before she was riddled with their bullets and killed.
The Jefe made a slight nod, and the fifteen rifle barrels began to slowly rise.
Talk was out. Running away was out. Shooting the Jefe and then being killed was out. Crying, begging or showing any form of feminine frailty was out.
Time was out.
She threw the black rifle to her shoulder, flicked back the safety while taking aim through the rear peep sight, and emptied the magazine in a single ripping three second burst. She saw her M-16’s bullets shred Kalil from his belly to his throat as the front sight climbed his body on full auto, giving him at least a swift death.
Well, the radical anarchist had come to New Mexico to find a revolution.
And he had found it.
They were all silent and still when her rifle went empty, and after a moment she lowered its barrel toward the ground. As the echoes died, she turned to the Jefe and said,
“In war, you either kill, or you are killed. And I am still alive!”
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