One Year After: A Novel Page 30

  There was a flurry of shots from within the courthouse, half a dozen running out. One dropped to the pavement, shot in the back from within the courthouse.

  John clicked the mike back. “All units, hold fire! Hold fire! Let them surrender!”

  The half dozen did not make it far, a burst of automatic fire from an upper floor of the federal building slaughtering them. There was more fire from the county jail, flashes of gunfire from within. A door burst open, and two more ran out. They were dropped, as well.

  “Those were friends of mine!” Deirdre cried. “His security team is killing them!”

  “Damn you, Fredericks!” John shouted. “For God’s sake, show some mercy!”

  Several more tried for a run from the county office. All died within seconds.

  “It’s on your soul, Fredericks!” John cried. “And those who stand with you!” He had one flare left. He raised the pistol over his head and fired it off.

  A fusillade of fire erupted seconds later from the three-hundred-plus troops deployed around the courthouse. He now wanted to keep his losses at a minimum; it was simply a question of overawing or—if need be—waiting them out unless he received word that Greenville was sending choppers up. He prayed that resistance would collapse before then, that there would be no need for a frontal assault or charge and resulting slaughter out of some Civil War battle or amphibious beachfront attack.

  Overawe in the first minutes. Break the will of the jittery ANR troops inside.

  With the captured armaments from the helicopter base, there was a surfeit of ammunition for once. A .50-caliber machine gun moved up by a team of Afghan vets to a position on the roof of the BB&T building poured an arcing stream of heavy fire down on the three main buildings of the courthouse complex, incendiary rounds igniting fires in the upper floors of the courthouse. He held back the two dozen air-to-ground rockets designed for the Apaches, because no one was sure of how to properly mount and shoot them, but half a dozen of the town’s homemade RPGs were fired, several going off wildly but two striking the county offices, igniting yet another fire in an upper floor. In an amazingly lucky strike, one hit the Bradley, the crew within abandoning the vehicle and running for the security of the courthouse, though there did not appear to be any real damage to the vehicle.

  After the initial rain of fire in an attempt to overawe, the situation settled down to near silence and carefully aimed shots by trained snipers on John’s side. If Deirdre’s ridiculous stereotype of mountain rednecks had one true point, it was that John had in his ranks dozens of highly skilled hunters armed with deer rifles and high-powered scopes, and it was doubtful that his opponent had the same.

  The morning dragged on, heat increasing, John looking at his watch ever more anxious, his radioman catching several quick appeals from someone other than Fredericks to Greenville calling for air support.

  John could feel the pressure building. Greenville to Asheville was indeed within air-support range for Apaches. From liftoff to attack, they could be on him in little more than twenty minutes. Billy had returned twice to Black Mountain to refuel, and John sent an order for him to climb up to at least eight thousand feet, move south to over Hendersonville, and report in if any kind of air support or ground movement up from South Carolina was approaching.

  They were four hours into the siege. In his mind, he felt he could, if need be, let it drag out for days since Greenville had not yet taken any action, but if they did, the tide could turn in a matter of minutes, and this chance to end the madness would be lost.

  The top two floors of the county office were completely ablaze, black smoke billowing straight up in the hot, still noonday air. In the county office building adjoining the courthouse, numerous smaller fires were burning on nearly every floor. The sight of it sickened John in a way. Everyone who lived in the region knew the legend of how, during the Second World War, the local hero, Bob Morgan, pilot of the Memphis Belle, one of the first B-17 bombers to complete twenty-five missions against the Germans, had flown his plane between the two buildings in an ultimate buzz job. His grave was at the veterans’ cemetery in Black Mountain, where those who died fighting the Posse rested. Before his death, Morgan was a regular guest visitor to John’s class. John connected those memories to this tragic moment, where the buildings now housed an enemy and those dragooned into serving him and what he allegedly represented.

  “White flag!” one of his team cried.

  John raised his binoculars, focused on the county building, and there was indeed a white sheet or towel hanging out of a window, a floor above where the fires raged. Someone was standing in the window, waving, making the gesture of throwing his weapon out to clatter on the pavement below. Smoke began to billow out of the room he was in so that he climbed out onto the window ledge.

  The sight sickened John. It was, of course, a gut-wrenching reminder burned into the heart of every American, the memory of the morning of 9/11.

  The man tried to crawl along the ledge, and John felt a swelling of pride in his troops in that no one fired at the man, and several around John were whispering encouragement.

  And then he lost his balance, tottered, and fell, plunging twelve stories to his death, and John heard groans of anguish erupting around him.

  He turned back to his radioman and took the mike. “For God’s sake, Fredericks! Your people are burning alive on the upper floors! Get them the hell out! We will not shoot!”

  He paused a few seconds, clicking the mike five times to signal it was a message to all units. “All units, all units. Cease fire unless directly fired upon. Let them surrender. Let them surrender.”

  Apparently, there was more than one radio link between the three buildings under siege monitoring his own broadcasts. Within seconds, a dozen more white flags were out from upper floors. Someone in the prison building had managed to find enough bedding; after shattering a window, someone tossed a rope ladder of sheets out the window and started rappelling down the side, reaching the pavement six floors down and holding the rope ladder taut as a woman in black uniform came out next. But before she had dropped a floor, shots rang out from the county courthouse, and she plunged to her death. The man on the ground ducked low and ran hard, dropping as puffs of shattered concrete erupted around him, but then he was up again, reaching a low stone wall and tumbling over it.

  “Send someone down there and try to find that man and bring him to me!” John shouted, and one of his security team got up, crouched low, and sprinted off.

  Apparently, at least one sniper in the upper floor of the federal building was still alert and nearly hit his runner, triggering another explosion of return fire that plastered the side of the building for several minutes.

  “Deirdre, you got the guts to get closer?” John asked.

  She looked over at him and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  He motioned to his radioman. “Ready for a little running?”

  “John, I’d prefer not, but I’m game if you are.”

  “Damn it, John,” Lee snapped. “You can control things just fine from here.”

  John looked at his old friend and smiled. “Okay, everyone, take a deep breath.” He hesitated. The order was indeed so hackneyed in so many bad movies. “Follow me.”

  He got up, crouched low, and started to sprint down the Tunnel Road, zigzagging every few seconds, startled a bit when he heard a bullet slap by close to his face. It was a long two-hundred-yard run down to the base of the hill, every gasp for air an absolute agony, until he finally dodged into cover behind a building at the northwest corner of the traffic circle below the courthouse complex.

  He looked back. One of his team was down, clutching his leg below the knee, a medic dragging him to cover, shots kicking up around them. He did not need to call for suppressive fire. Several hundred rounds slammed into the three buildings, any window that still had a pane of glass shattering. Whoever had fired on him and wounded one of his team was either dead or cowering.

  “Deirdre, you can talk
your people out better than I can. You’ve seen how we’ve behaved since taking you prisoner. Do you trust me?”

  She looked at him and nodded.

  “Try to talk them out and end this before any more people get hurt. I promise you, I will move anyone with the ANR who surrenders to arrange their repatriation back to their homes as quickly as possible.”

  At this point, as to the fate of Fredericks and others, he was making no promises after more than four hours of this day’s madness and the weeks leading up to it.

  Deirdre took the megaphone and began to appeal to those within the courthouse complex to surrender and end the killing. Her appeal was heartfelt at times that she was in tears, begging those within to just give up and come out with hands up. Then she made a gesture John had not anticipated, and it happened so quickly he did not have time to react. Deirdre suddenly stepped out into the middle of the traffic circle, megaphone still raised.

  “Please, all of you. Surrender. I promise you, you’ll be treated fairly. It was those who brought us here who lied.”

  A single shot clipped her shoulder, spinning her around and dropping her in the middle of the traffic circle.

  John, horrified, sprinted to where she lay writhing in pain and scooped an arm around her, pulling her up as he started to drag her back. One of his security team leaped out, weapon raised to cover the two, and he toppled over backward, shot in the forehead.

  Lee reached out, grabbing the two, dragging them the last few feet back into cover, the brick from the corner of the building peppering them with fragments.

  Lee grabbed the radio mike. “Leader okay. Now tear the bastards apart!” he cried.

  John cradled Deirdre as a medic came up to their side, crouching low. The medic, carrying a standard pack looted from the stockpile in Sears, cut Deirdre’s shirt open. She had been punctured just below the left collarbone, and contrary to all movies, a shoulder wound was not merely a nick with the bundle of blood vessels, nerves, and bones just above the rib cage and heart. The medic slapped on a sterile compress, pumped a morphine vial looted from medical supplies found in the Sears building into the young woman’s upper arm, stuck the empty syringe to her collar to indicate the dose she had received, and called for stretcher-bearers to take her to the rear.

  “Sorry, sir,” Deirdre said, looking up at John. “Thought if they saw me they’d lay down their arms.”

  “It’s okay, Captain,” he gasped, a wave of pain hitting him from his fractured rib. “You are one helluva brave woman, even if you are foolish.”

  He looked back out to the street where the young soldier of his security detail was dead, blood pooling on to the pavement. Yet another kid from one of his classes. It wasn’t Deirdre’s fault; it was war with all its stupidity and random violence that had killed the young man.

  Stretcher-bearers came up and lifted Deirdre to carry her off.

  “When all this is over,” John said, “I hope you stay on with us. We need soldiers like you.”

  She forced a weak smile of thanks. “Nothing to go home to now, anyhow. Thank you.”

  The next ten minutes were an explosion of unrelenting fire poured into the courthouses, and he sat silently, staring at the young man lying dead in the middle of the traffic circle. A decent lad caught up in madness who had died trying to do the right thing. And chances were that so many down in the courthouse complex believed they were fighting for the right thing, as well. But they had to be defeated now if his community had any hope of survival.

  Finally, after the long, sustained barrage, white flags began to appear in windows in all three buildings, but he let the fusillade continue on. It was time to break them entirely.

  “Tell all units to cease fire,” John finally announced.

  His radio operator looked over at him. “Billy reports he thinks he sees at least three helicopters coming up from Greenville.”

  “Scan the frequencies. See if you can find the one they’re operating on—most likely one of the aviation ones, perhaps the standard 122.9 of uncontrolled air space.”

  As the gunfire slacked off, with only an occasional return shot from the county building where it looked like part of the roof had collapsed in, John edged to the corner of his concealment and held the megaphone up, clicking it on. “This is John Matherson of Black Mountain and commander of the forces engaged against you. I am giving all of you five minutes to surrender and come out with hands up. This is my final offer. If you do not comply immediately, we will storm the buildings, and no prisoners will be taken. You have five minutes to surrender unconditionally but with the promise that you will be treated by the Geneva Accords. Otherwise, you damn well better be ready to die for that scum leader of yours.”

  In less than a minute, a side door of the county prison burst open, the first few stepping out looking about nervously and then breaking into a run down the street, staying close to the north wall of the building. From the office building next to the courthouse, it was the same, several score pouring out from a south-facing door, out of view of the county building. From the county building, the fugitives dashed out the side door facing Tunnel Road. Several ran from the main entry, and again, a flurry of shots from inside the building dropped some, but the majority were now making it to safety. Return fire tore into the front entry even as those pouring out of the other buildings raced across the potentially fatal open ground. The first of them reached John’s position, having no idea who he was. They were wide eyed and terrified, begging for mercy. He would rather spare them than kill them, but after all that had happened, he gazed at them with disgust and shouted for someone to take charge of the prisoners and get them to the rear.

  After ten minutes, no one else emerged. His radio operator announced that someone inside the building was desperately calling for air support from Greenville, the choppers going into a holding position just south of Hendersonville, which was only a few minutes away by air.

  It was a moment where Maury, back in Asheville, knew what to do, starting up with spoof radio traffic on the same frequency, announcing he and his assets were up and waiting to take out any approaching aircraft, the frequency jammed up with signals that John prayed was buying them time.

  It was a risk John could not tolerate. Fredericks would spin out his account of the disaster in the manner all such stories were spun going back thousands of years, and though John doubted the government Fredericks represented would be willing to drop a neutron bomb on them, two or three fuel-air explosives could nevertheless destroy his beloved valley and all whom he held dear. It had to end now.

  “All units. At my signal, once those surrendering are clear, suppressive fire for two minutes, assault units to go in and secure the buildings.”

  He half stepped out from the safety of where he had set up his command post. A dozen or so black uniforms were running for their lives, a few shots coming only from the county office.

  “On my mark. Now!”

  There was another explosion of fire, all of it focused in on the county office, and there was a fury to it now, a release of rage by his troops, fed up with all that had transpired and knowing that the cause of it was at last pinned down to this one final corner of trapped bastards.

  The assault teams started to dash in, crouching low under the suppressive fire, those racing for the federal office and county jail not showing too much concern as they burst into the buildings, but the county office was a different story. A heavy weapon, concealed and silent throughout the fight, now opened up from the third floor, dropping half a dozen of the team heading for the front entry. The way one of them was running, John—like any father—could recognize it was his daughter. A girl running next to her crumpled over, but his daughter pressed on. He watched, heart racing as she disappeared from his sight, his view of her blocked by the building. John could not contain himself. He stood up and started for the side entrance, his security team cursing him soundly, shouting for him to stay back as they sprinted ahead with younger legs and stronger hear
ts.

  None of them were hit, but out at the front of the courthouse where his daughter was looked bad. The assault team dived for cover and scattered, even as John’s team reached the side entryway where, across the years, those waiting for their cases—from traffic tickets to divorces to civil suits and criminal charges—had stood wreathed in cigarette smoke, waiting for the courthouse to open. It was a tawdry place in John’s mind, having stood out there himself when he had decided years earlier to fight an unfair traffic stop from an overeager trooper on Route 70 who claimed he was two miles per hour over the speed limit. His angry comment to the judge that the trooper was just looking to make her quota for the month had lost him his case, but it was worth it for being able to at least say exactly how he felt about things.

  And now he was running for that door as if his life depended on it, which it most certainly did. The glass door was shattered, his team leader diving through it and coming up with weapon raised, sending a burst of fire down the corridor to cover the others storming in.

  John lagged far behind, cursing the day he had taken up his first cigarette. The long-abandoned and defunct metal detector that guarded the entryway was still there, his team pushing past it, heading for the stairs that led up to the main floor. The foyer had been built in a grand old style, soaring up three stories, ringed with balconies along the four walls leading to offices on upper floors, and the foyer was thus a death trap. There were several explosions; someone was dropping grenades from above. One of his team dropped and was being dragged back to cover.

  Damn it. When will they ever give up? John thought, boiling with rage.

  His people were pouring in enough suppressive fire to disrupt the defense against the main entryway facing downtown Asheville, several dozen charging in, creeping up stairs one at a time, firing toward the balconies, and dropping several of the defenders. And then suddenly, the firing slackened, several weapons being thrown over railings to clatter onto the floor of the foyer, black-clad troops, crying that they were surrendering, holding up their hands and nervously coming down from the upper floors. Nearly all with him held fire, though one of his troopers, filled with rage, nearly reignited the fight when she shot one of the surrendering foes in the head as she turned the final bend of the staircase. She was jumped on and dragged back as she screamed at those surrendering that they were all murderers.