Chapter 6

"I'm not suggesting anything, dammit! I'm telling you the facts of life or death. You and I both know that if you go back to Ft. Jesus Loves Me without accomplishing your mission, you will be shot, with or without a show trial. And you know that a trial involves questioning, and questioning involves torture. You also know that you will say anything they want you to say, once the torture starts.

"I can assure you that you have no chance of taking us down militarily. Oh, sure, you might be able to kill me before my people react, but just look over my head at that quad .60 in its pillbox and aimed at your people. You may know better than I do what such a weapon with explosive bullets can do to infantry and thin-skin vehicles, including your armored car.

"You don't know what we have been working on here, and I'm not going to tell you, but let me assure you that you won't like it. If your people should succeed in breaking in, they won't live more than 10 minutes after they get inside. That's all I am permitted to say, but you better believe it.

"The only real option you have is to join us in our stand against the unreasonable actions of middle echelons. I'm certain that the highest echelons will not approve of what you are trying to do to us, and they will be very unhappy when they find out. I'm sure that you can imagine what will happen when they do display their displeasure. If we are dead, they are going to be even more unhappy.

"So, what will it be? Are you going to condemn your men to an unnecessary death, or are you going to join us? It's up to you, Major."

"Shit, now I don't know what to do. You make a damned potent argument. OK, I'll talk to my officers about your arguments and see what they have to say. It may take an hour or so."

"There's no hurry as far as we are concerned. We have air conditioning to wait in, and you have this damned heat. I expect you to give out before we do."

"OK, Lieutenant, that's another point in your favor. I'll see what I can do to hurry this along." With that, Major John Holmes walked back to his armored car and I hustled back to my office to enjoy the cool air. I used the telephone to the guard shack to order the two men to fall back to the first reception area where they would have some protection if the shooting ever did start.

The pillbox on the cliff above the cave entrance had some surprise defenses that could spring into action as soon as they were shot at, so I was not worried about them. However, I did call them to make sure that they were ready to act on half a moment's notice. I did tell them to be ready to fire in their own defense without waiting for orders from me. That struck a responsive cord with the men in the pillbox.

It was 70 minutes before the major walked up to the guardhouse and knocked on the wall. I used the PA system to tell him to answer the phone when it rang, and he could give me his answer then. I quickly dialed the telephone hanging on the outside of the guard shack and asked the major for his decision when he answered.

"Lieutenant, we have a problem. All of my officers and I have family back at the fort, and we are concerned about what will happen to them if we don't attack. Do you have any suggestions?"

"You have my heartfelt sympathy, Major Holmes, but I cannot offer any advice to you on what to do in this case. I hate to declare war on the US Army, but it looks like that may be what is going to happen. Wait a minute, I just had an inspiration. How many men, counting your officers and support troops do you have with you?"

"I have two companies, one of infantry at 104 officers and men and one of engineers at 73 men. I've got 20 support personnel, myself, my driver, and my gunner. That comes to an even 200 of us, all told."

"OK, that's more than I expected, and it complicates things a little bit. It looks like I'm going to have to be honest with you. For the last six years, we have been running a scam. We've claimed to be a medical research station, and we have implied that we have been working on ways to kill people with an unspecified agent. By fast talking and a lot of luck, we have made ourselves look like a research facility so secret that not even the highest brass know what we are doing. I have claimed that we reported directly to the very top of ONI, and no one else was allowed to know what we were doing. It has worked great up until the last few months, but now the scam is starting to fall apart. Actually, our scheme has lasted longer than I had expected, but that is beside the point.

"The important thing is that we have a growing community of free people here who do not answer to the government in Cheyenne Mountain. I am offering you and your men the chance to join us. Eventually, we hope to break free entirely from the bastards who run the country, but we may not be ready yet. If you guys join us, we will be a lot closer to doing what we yearn for, so we would welcome you with open arms.

"What we need to do is to make it look like you are doing your job so that the satellites won't pick up photos of any hanky-panky. That should protect your families for a while. I propose that you join us, and we stage a raid on Ft. Jesus Loves Us to rescue your families so that they, too, can join us here in relative safety. What do you say to that?"

"I say that's a damned good idea if you can pull it off. What do you propose?"

"I want you to bring all of your people into the cave, just as you would if you were occupying us prior to destroying our operation. I think that we can justify a stay of three to four days of all of your people inside the cave. We'll use that time to organize our raid. We have nearly 1,000 troops, most of whom are combat veterans, in our militia. Your people will make us only that much stronger. I think that 1,100 troops can easily perform the rescue we want to do if we operate in a hurry. Will you join us?"

"You bet we will. None of the people with me are fanatical supporters of the current government. In fact, I think that the powers-that-be would not be unhappy to see all of us dead as a result of this operation. Hell, yes, we'll join you. When do you want to start?"

"Let's start right now. Your men don't need to stay in that hot sun any more than necessary to pull off the charade. You get started moving them this way, and I'll start the necessary work on our end. Give me a call on this phone when you are ready to start moving people in. The phone number for my office is 666, a little joke on my part."

I went back to my office and called in the various department managers. I gave them a quick rundown of my plan, and they were willing to go along, including the raid on Ft. Jesus Loves Me. I was talking to my militia officers when the phone rang with a report that the first troops were ready to enter the lobby.

In preparation for an attack, we had a pair of .60 caliber machine guns set up to cover the entrance to the assembly area beyond the lobby. We had no doubt that we could mow down any invaders who got that far, so we were prepared for any immediate treachery. I told the major to move his men into the lobby and hold them there. I was on my way to talk to them.

The men had been moved into the lobby, but they did not really know what was going on. As far as they knew, this was a potentially hostile takeover. I wanted to explain why we had let them in without fighting and assure them that they were welcome to join us. On the other hand, I wanted them disarmed before they moved into the assembly area where they would board the trains to be taken for a meal.

I started my talk out with, "Welcome, Men, to the first day of your new lives. I need to give you a quick rundown on what we can give you and what we want from you in exchange. Roughly put, when you stepped through that door from the outside, you were cut off from the oppression and regulation by the current government inside Cheyenne Mountain. Like no time before in your lives, you are free men! Literally, all of us inside the cavern try to live by the creed of 'Let your conscience be your guide.'

"Everybody inside this cavern is a free and equal human being, whether male or female. Let me emphasize that, women are equal to men in all ways among us. If that bothers you, let us know. We have ways of dealing with that problem—you may not like them, but they work for us.

"That's what we will give you: the freedom to grow and be yourselves.

"What we need from you is your professional services. We plan a raid on Ft. Jesus Loves Me to rescue all of your loved ones who are being held hostage there to make sure that you obey orders. Any families that we rescue will be brought back here to live with us until we can work out some better arrangement. Frankly, your arrival was not as well anticipated as we had hoped, so some of our plans are still in development.

"In other words, what we want from you is your willingness to join us in fighting against the oppressive government that you have been forced to live under all of your lives. If you don't want to fight, we'll work something out, but I don't know right now what it will be.

"Lastly, before you are taken inside for a hot meal, please stack your weapons. That includes rifles and sidearms. Yes, I also mean knives, too. You are going to face some culture shock, and I don't want any accidents to result from that. Don't worry, eventually, you will get your guns back."

Not a single man objected to my request to surrender his weapons, and they all gawked like tourists when they marched through the door to board the trains. Meanwhile, the major went back to collect the Engineers and the support troops. I gave them the same speech that I had given the Infantry, and the results were the same. I am sure that, in both cases, some of the men went along because they had no idea what else they could do under the circumstances, but most of the men seemed grateful for the offer they were given.

We had two days to come up with a workable plan. Fortunately, virtually everybody who would be a part of the raiders knew the layout of Ft. Jesus Loves Me, so that was not a problem. We were sure that nobody at the fort, or anywhere else for that matter, would expect the audacious raid we had in mind, so we should be able to pull it off with little or no problem. Where we ran into real problems was on our way home. At least some of our travel would have to be in daylight, so we could expect harassment from the air, either from drones or from helicopters. Fortunately, we had plenty of the IR-seeking RPGs, so we should be able to defend ourselves from them.

There were no Special Forces troops stationed at the fort or at any other nearby installations, so we could probably be home before a significant attack could be mounted against us. The only thing that any of us could see that would be a real headache while we were in transit was the use of paratroopers against us. That was very unlikely, so we thought that a one-shot raid like this should work. Anyway, that was what we were depending on!

We divided our forces into two groups: one force to gather the hostages and another force to provide the military muscle that we might need. This was an easy division to make, since the hostages were all associated with the men who were just sent to conquer us. Approximately half of the 200 men who had been sent to subdue us were married or otherwise had relatives living at Ft. Jesus Loves Me. They were the contact people, and that left us with nearly 1,000 men who could be part of the supporting military force.