chapter 01

Friday

Mitch and Diane Davis, with their four children, are hosting a dinner for Diane’s best friend Maria Sanchez with her family of Roberto Sanchez and five of their six children. All are worried about the absence of Sophia, the eldest Sanchez child, who left the up-state college at the same time as Joan Davis, but Sophia isn’t home. She was making an intermediate stop, but she should’ve been home before now. The dinner discussions cover the political unrest sweeping across the USA: the riots and violence in the major cities, especially the increasing violence in their own city. Other items are the events where groups of violent protesters take over areas in Seattle and Portland then declare them as ’Free Zones’ which the local mayors are not doing anything about taking back control of the areas.

Many of the protesters are calling for the total removal of the police and elected officials to establish a state of anarchy while others want to establish a socialist state. Mixed in with them are the vicious thugs who call themselves ’Antifa’ and claim to be antifascists while also pushing a socialist agenda at the same time they use the very same tactics used by the Italian Fascists and the German Nazis in the 1930s.

At one point Mitch says, “I wish I knew what today’s educators think when they tell people Nazis are fascists and the opposite of socialists.” Joan frowns at him, so he adds, “The aims and intent of the Russian Communists, German Nazis, Italian Fascists, and Spanish Falange were based on the same agenda and the same sources. The only difference was the Russians wanted a world government with them in charge while the Germans, Italians, and Spaniards put their own nations first.”

Roberto says, “Most people think of all of the forms of politics as being in a line with the fascists on the right and the socialist on the left, thus the terms right wing and left wing. However, that left and right wing aspect really applies to the line of socialist political parties. If you were to design a chart of all of the forms of political groups you would have to do something like a slightly distorted capital ’H’ on its side. The bottom line would have all of the socialist political forms listed on it with the International Socialists on the far left, such as the Stalinists, then to the Ultra-nationalist Socialists on the far right, like the Nazis, Spanish and Italian Fascists. Also, nearly all of the socialist groups would be run by a totalitarian dictator from within a small group that’s in charge. The top line would be all of the forms of the democracies from Republics at one end to the Total Democracies at the other end. The joining bar would be all of the forms of Monarchy with the bottom one being an Absolute Inherited Monarch with total control like a dictator to the top one being an Elected Monarch from a small pool of family candidates.”

Joan interrupts with, “What do you mean by ’an Elected Monarch?’ Isn’t that a contradiction of terms?”

A smiling Roberto replies, “Many ancient cultures had what is a sort of mixture of monarchy, democracy, and socialism. The best example I can think of is the system in Ireland two thousand years ago. Each tribe was a clan of a very large extended family in which each family had a family head and the family heads met in council to decide all things that affected the clan as a whole. For the day to day operations they had a clan head who was elected by the council of family heads from the eligible members of the lead family, which was the direct line of the original family in the area. While a clan head was usually elected for life they could be removed from office and replaced if they did really bad. The council also elected the ’heir apparent’ from the same pool of eligible candidates, and the heir might not be the clan head’s son. The usual process was the ’heir’ became the elected clan head when a new one was selected, but it wasn’t automatic. On a regular basis the clan heads met in council to manage inter-clan issues and elected a king from a similar pool of eligible candidates. Thus you had a monarchy where the monarch was elected by the peerage who were elected by their local people.”

Looking about him Roberto says, “Back to the socialists. The Italian Fascist symbol is an ax and a bundle of sticks tied together to show their united socialist intent. In English the full name of the Nazi Party was ’National Socialist German Workers Party’ and most of the manifestos of the Communists, Nazis, plus the Spanish and Italian Fascists were the same with key points of centralized control of a socialist society. Where the Russians had full state ownership and control the Nazis and Fascists allowed for some privately owned and managed businesses under state control with the state having the full ownership and control of all of the essential operations. A few points where all three agreed were: the disarming of all of the people except their own immediate supporters, the bullying of people who did not totally agree with them, total control of the media, and the easy use of violence against any who opposed them. The way the Antifa of today attack people in the street is exactly what the Fascists and Nazis did in the 1920s and 1930s when the Italian Fascists took on the Italian Socialists supporting the push for a Stalinist style world socialist order and the Nazis attacked academics and Jews.”

A wide-eyed Joan says, “That’s nothing like what I was taught about them in high school or college in history or politics. I was checking what you were saying on my phone, and I see everything you say is there. Yet what I was told in school and college was different. I feel like I’ve been cheated by my teachers in not covering these things evenly or fairly.”

Maria joins in, “The real crazy thing is a Total Democracy is so close to a True Socialist State it’s hard to see the difference. The biggest one is who is in control and who sets the rules. In a Total Democracy all of the rules and major decisions are made by everyone in the society in a huge meeting until they all reach an agreement on the issue under discussion, and the same is true for how a True Socialist State works. Sadly, there are no True Socialist States today and there have never been any that were successful, beyond small agrarian societies like an Israeli Kibbutz. The closest we’ve gotten to it in an industrial society is with a business run as a co-operative where everyone working there buys one share in the business and each of them works at the job they can best do and they all share equally in the profits. In them all of the discussions on major decisions are made by everyone within the group and they come to a mutual decision or a great majority decision. Sadly, none of the socialist states work that way as they all have an elite group and a dictator.”

Joan says, “All that is interesting, but the professors at college all say it’s the fault of the rich white people creating the poverty and this unrest is just the poor people expressing their dissatisfaction at the situation.”

Mitch turns to Joan, saying, “Joan, my grandpa’s family was so poor he didn’t have shoes to wear to school in the nineteen thirties. He left school to get work as an unskilled laborer to help put food on the table so the family didn’t starve. Things weren’t much better for him after the Second World War. The only reason he had shoes then was he wore the Army boots he had when he was discharged after serving in the war. Work was hard to find for a man without a high school diploma. The poverty he grew up in and lived in with Pa and his family never caused any of them to go around demanding they had the right to have things handed to them. The social security services weren’t worth a damn then, so they all still lived hand to mouth. Pa was able to finish high school but he couldn’t go to college. That’s why he volunteered for the Air Force before he was eligible to be drafted, and it’s why Grandpa signed for him to join at seventeen years of age. Pa learned a trade in the Air Force and he stayed in until he died in a riot overseas. As I was growing up we lived in countries with a lot of poverty that was much worse than what we see them rioting about today. However, none of the countries had any unrest and violence, unless a part of the population was using violence to gain their own power or wealth. Criminal gangs and revolutionaries used violence to control the people, but the poor didn’t go out and riot when left alone. The riot that overran the base where Pa died while protecting the staff family living areas was started by local socialist revolutionaries while the general poor population ignored it all until the socialists murdered everyone in a hospital and that caused the local government to overreact and send the military in against the rioters. Things would have died down if the socialists hadn’t started shooting at the families of the police and soldiers. That caused them to overreact and fire at all of the rioters. That started the bloodbath that followed. It was the violent political people who caused the death and destruction, not the poverty. That’s still the situation today. All that’s different is the high number of violent socialist groups stirring things up with false claims of abuse to make people angry when there’s no need to be.” Joan is shocked by the emphatic way her father tells the family history, as she never did realize how bad it had been for her grandfather and great grandfather.

News

When they move from the dining table to the lounge room the two families are very worried about Sophia being so late. Just after they’re comfortable on the chairs Roberto’s cell phone rings. He looks at the number, smiles, and he answers it to hear a man ask, “Excuse me, Sir, do you know the owner of this phone?”

Roberto is no longer smiling as he replies, “Yes. The phone belongs to my daughter, Sophia Sanchez. We’re worried about her as she’s overdue home from her college today.” Because of what they just heard the rest are all now looking at Roberto with very worried expressions.

The man on the phone says, “I’m Sergeant Marks and this phone was in the pocket of a young woman brought in to the County Emergency Trauma Unit about thirty minutes ago. She’s in the operating theater for emergency surgery right now. Could you please come to the hospital to confirm who we have here?”

After Roberto hangs up the phone he tells the others about what he just heard on it, then he and Maria leave for the hospital.

At the hospital they find the young woman is now in Intensive Care, and it is Sophia. She’s seriously injured with multiple broken bones and other trauma damage as well as a severe concussion. She’s unconscious and heavily bandaged. They also learn several police officers, and many others, are in the hospital with serious injuries from an incident at a protest about half a mile from the Sanchez family home.

When Roberto asks what happened he’s taken to a police woman who has her left arm in a sling, has bandages on her head, several bruises, and two bullets are stuck in her vest. After they’re introduced as Sophia’s parents the young women tells them about her afternoon, along with what she saw and did. She starts by telling them of the approved protest march and how the police were organized to control it.

A Peaceful Protest!

Police Officer Molly Walker is one of the fifty officers assigned to see no one interferes with what is supposed to be a peaceful protest march by the ’Black Lives Matter’ (BLM) group. There are over three hundred people marching down the center of the main road through this part of the city, and the main duty of the police on hand is to stop people from entering into the march route from the side streets until after the protesters are half a block past the intersection. There are two police cars with an officer in each and three officers on foot at the front of the group with a similar group at the back of the marchers. The other forty officers are in groups of five with a group on each side of the march at the cross streets the protest is moving through. With this set up they either have four cross streets blocked off or three streets blocked with groups racing from the back to the front to block the next street. A police sergeant is in charge of the officers with the Deputy Mayor giving orders to the police.

The route of the march has been well publicized, so all of the shops along the route have been securely boarded up. The local residents are avoiding the route to keep away from the violence they’ve seen at the past ’peaceful protests’ organized by these people. It’s like the whole city is empty except for the group marching and the police keeping back any possible counter protesters, because there’s no one else in sight.

It’s clear the protest organizers and their more militant members are not happy with the total lack of watchers, other than reporters. About an hour into the march the group reach a cross street with two cars in it being held back half a block by the police. Since these are the first people seen by the protesters they turn to go down the street instead of staying on the route they requested. The Corporal in charge of the police group securing the intersection tells the protesters to return to their approved route. The marchers continue to enter the side street. The Deputy Mayor is with the group leading the march, so he’s immediately aware of the change. He tells the police to fall back and let the marchers go where they want to, so the police start to fall back in the side street. The officers moving from the intersection the rear of the march has finished passing are rushing to move up to support their colleagues in the side street. The protesters start yelling at the people in the cars.

The driver of the rear vehicles stalls his car, then he and his friends get out of the car and run down the street. On seeing the three fleeing young white men the protesters surge down the street, and some of their leaders run after the men while others surround the lead car and start yelling and shouting at the young woman in the car. Soon after this the other police officers arrive at the next intersection down the side street and start to move towards the marchers to get them back on their route.

The Confrontation

Molly says, “When my team moved into the intersection I could see the two stopped cars. One was clearly abandoned and the other had a young woman half out of the roof. It was obvious she was standing on a car seat with her head out through a sunroof. The crowd was shouting at her with the nicest comment being about her being a white racist pig. She got back into the car, then soon returned with a microphone on an ear mount. When she spoke you could hear her amplified voice, so she must have had some speakers in the car. The Corporal in charge of my team had us spread across the road to support the team already there. A moment later the team that normally takes the other side of the road also joined us, so there were now fifteen of us there. However, the lead members of the protest group near us lined up with Antifa shields and aluminum baseball bats to stop us moving them back. We set up a line holding our batons in front of us and waited for orders. I could see a few of the baseball bats being raised and lowered as members of the crowd smashed at the cars. Then things kind of froze and went quiet. We all waited to see what was happening next. On our radios we could hear the Sergeant calling for reinforcements, the riot squad, and his orders redeploying the other teams with us on this assignment.”

After sighing Molly looks up at Roberto and says, “You daughter is one of the bravest people I’ve ever seen. There she was surrounded by a few hundred angry people shouting at her and waving bats at her when they weren’t smashing her car with the bats. She stood there proud and defiant as she threw their own words back at them. I heard her say, ’The only racists in this street are you who claim Blacks are more important than anyone else. All lives matter. The native Americans and the Hispanics have had it much worse than the Blacks have over the last four centuries. The American Indians have had their lands, livelihood, and culture torn from them as well as facing deliberate genocide. Yet you don’t hear them saying they deserve to be treated better than anyone else. There were Hispanics in these lands before the first Black slaves arrived. The natives and Hispanics had been murdered and enslaved for decades before the Black slaves arrived. Yet here you are saying the Blacks are more important than anyone else. You claim they deserve priority treatment based solely on the color of their skin. That’s the very definition of racism. Wake up to yourselves. Start trying to improve your life and stop trying to destroy everything you can’t steal.’ Well, you can imagine how that went down. When they started to crawl through the windows of her car she climbed out and stood on the roof. When they started to rock the car and others tried to climb up on it she kicked them in the face. I heard the Deputy Mayor on the radio ordering us into the crowd to arrest the young white woman who’s inciting a riot and attacking the peaceful protesters. I’ve no idea how he could claim they’re peaceful protesters while they’re pounding her car with baseball bats.”

After stopping for a sip of water Molly continues, “The Corporal in charge of the original team had us quickly form a tight ’V’ group and we charged the line of protesters. When they raised their bats to swing at us we used our batons on them and broke their line. We were doing well until some of the protesters produced guns and started shooting. Three of the lead officers went down. I saw one of the gunmen, so I drew my gun and shot the gunman where I could see skin at the top of his jumper as he clearly had a ballistic vest on. From that point on I just hit anyone who didn’t fall back from us and shot anyone who showed a gun or knife. I don’t know how long the fight took, but I was eventually standing beside the car while my team’s corporal was providing emergency first aid to your daughter. Six of us made it to the car where we formed a half circle around the Corporal and your daughter while we used our batons to club every one of the protesters who came near us. Several minutes later a large group of officers arrived and they established a controlled lane from the main street to the car down which an ambulance drove to us. Your daughter was loaded up with three seriously injured officers and the ambulance left. It was the first of many ambulances that came in to take the injured to the hospitals. The Deputy Mayor went crazy when he saw that the rioters were being left where they lay until after every injured police officer had been loaded up and taken to hospital. I’ve no idea of what the final toll was, but it has to be bad.”

Roberto reached down to shake Molly’s hand while saying, “Thank you for doing all you could for our daughter. I don’t know if she will survive or not, but I now know you and your fellow officers did all you could to help her and the other good citizens of our city.” Maria leans down to give Molly a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Outcomes

Roberto asks, “Sergeant Marks, what was the final toll today’?”

Marks replies, “Twenty-five officers injured and sent to hospital, with another three killed. Eight of the injured have bullet wounds. Thirty-two of the rioters died, and another sixty were taken to hospital. Most of the rioters have mild injuries compared to the injured officers. After the area was cleared we recovered seventy firearms along with one hundred and fifty aluminum baseball bats as well as ninety-eight expensive riot shields. Forty-seven of the rioters had expensive body armor on. This was a well planned and funded riot. While the area of the incident was cleared the rest of the rioters weren’t dispersed, all that could be done was to push them away from the area around the cars to let us get to the injured and move them out of there. We’re sure there are more weapons among the rest of the rioters.”

“I bet the Mayor and Deputy Mayor will blame the police for the riot and all of the injuries!”

“What we’re hearing from downtown agrees with that. If they do take that path the city is going to explode. Over half of the force was ready to walk out the door last week. After today I doubt we’ll retain anyone worth keeping in uniform. The Antifa people will be able to set up the anarchy they want, unless the Mayor backs the police force.”

Roberto has a grim smile when he looks at Marks as he says, “Years ago my grandfather told me, ’Be very careful of what you wish for, as you may have it granted.’ I wonder if the BLM and Antifa people know what they’ll have if they get what they wish for. I’m sure they’ve not thought it through fully.” Marks slowly shakes his head as he walks away while thinking about what he just heard and what it may mean here and now.

A Long Night

The hospital is very overcrowded with the families of the injured, so the staff are clearing out the families of the injured who aren’t awake or expected to wake up soon. As Sophia isn’t expected to wake up for many hours the staff pressure Roberto and Maria to go home about two hours after they arrived at the hospital.

When they get home Maria and Roberto visit with the Davis family to tell them of what they learned at the hospital. Mitch tells Maria and Roberto about the news report of the march and riot. While they couldn’t identify who was being attacked the news report did show the start of the viscous attack on the young woman in the car and some of the events after the police moved in. Mitch says, “The news reports focused on the police actions and the downed protesters, but no shots of downed police. The reporters said the young woman was a racist who baited the crowd into attacking her. The Mayor said, ’The riot was due to the heavy handed way the police attacked the peaceful protesters.’ They gave the numbers of the injured protesters, but nothing on injured police or guns used by the protesters.”

The two families discuss the issue for some time before Roberto and Maria leave for their apartment on the other side of the landing. The two families live in apartments above their shops with a joint yard, shop access, and apartment access in the back of the block the building is on.

At two o’clock in the morning Roberto is woken up by his cell phone. The hospital staff are sorry to tell him his daughter just died without having regained consciousness. Both Maria and Roberto are devastated by the news. They hug each other as they cry. After nearly an hour of crying Maria falls asleep again, due to being emotionally exhausted. Roberto gets out of bed, puts on some warm clothes, and leaves the apartment for his favorite thinking spot: the building’s flat roof.

Roberto is not a violent man, as he’s very much an academic. He was a typical ’brain’ or ’nerd’ at school, depending upon your local slang, and he’s made a very good living in Information Technology writing code, designing websites and applications, as well as teaching people how to use computers and software. He’s also a good researcher with a very wide range of interests. He’s in great turmoil while he stands on the roof as he thinks about the events of the last twenty-four hours, along with the last few years of political violence. He also thinks on where it may go from here if the current trends continue unabated.

Decisive Dawn

Mitch has a bad night due to thinking about his friends and Sophia. Thus he’s awake while it’s still dark out. He checks the news, where he sees the report about the young woman in the car at the riot and her death. Her name isn’t given in the news report, and he wonders why not since he’s sure the authorities would have told the family before telling the news. After a little thought he feels sure the name was withheld by the media outlets because her being of Hispanic heritage doesn’t fit the media agenda to create and justify violence against whites.

After making a cup of coffee Mitch leaves the apartment to go up on the roof while he thinks about the recent events. Like Roberto, he finds the view from the roof conducive to good thinking. However, when he steps out of the stairwell he can see Roberto on the roof in the cold dawn air. Mitch stops to look at Roberto standing near the edge of the roof: from Mitch’s angle Roberto is standing at the low parapet and staring out across the city with the rising sun just far enough over the horizon and other buildings to be showing above Roberto’s head in the orange tinted clouds. The heavy warm clothes make Roberto look a lot beefier than he is. For a moment or two both men stand there: Roberto looking outward and silhouetted against the rising sun while Mitch looks on in silence. Both are like statues. Then Mitch moves forward, and he makes a small sound as he steps on the gravel on the roof.

Roberto slowly turns to Mitch, recognizes who it is, and says, “Time to be a farmer and to start the harvest.” Mitch frowns, so he adds, “As the Bible says, ’whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ Well, it’s past time those murdering racist scum got what they’ve sown and it’s now harvest time for them.”

Plans

Roberto and Mitch both agree the anarchists need to have some first hand knowledge of what true anarchy means. While they walk back down the stairs the two men discuss what they can do about the situation and what they have to do in order to ensure their families are safe from the violent anarchists. In the short time it takes them to walk down from the roof they agree they need to turn the shops and apartments into a well armed fortress as well as stocking up on supplies of all sorts. They also agree they need more intelligence on their enemy before they can take any direct action to make the people responsible for Sophia’s murder pay for their actions; both the actual killers and the ones orchestrating the events for their own power gains.

Over the next few days the two men work with their spouses to list what they need for their survival and their campaign. They also agree on a short list of friends to contact for advice and assistance, especially in the intelligence gathering process for information on those behind the violent idiots causing all of the trouble at the local level.

The tasks include large orders of long lasting food supplies and daily use consumables for storage in their fridges, freezers, and the basement. A number of firearms, ammunition, and other munitions are also stored, along with supplies of various chemicals for use against the anarchists. The men don’t want to use any chemicals, but their wives insist on them. However, the men agree when they see the list of chemicals won’t cause any explosions or fires, but they will make the recipients and their clothes stink worse than after losing a fight with a skunk. The idea is to be able to later identify all of the rioters who wear masks by the smell they have from being doused in the chemicals or the bright dyes in their clothes caused by the chemicals.

Another set of tasks relates to obtaining the equipment the families will need to keep both of their businesses operating after they fort up. They see they need to keep a source of income going, as well as the need to continue providing their clients with their services.

Home Base

The building the Sanchez and Davis families live and work in is in an older part of the city that’s made up of two story shop and residential buildings with basements. The buildings were all constructed of bricks and wood in the mid to late 1800s. Most were constructed on narrow rectangular blocks of land, and most of the buildings have common walls with their neighbors. This suburb is still doing fairly well, despite it bordering on some of the worst poverty stricken areas in the city.

The Land

The Sanchez building is on a much larger triangular shaped block of land due to the intersection it’s at. The five-way intersection is more like a ’Y’ with another road as a bar at ninety-degrees from the down road at the joint of the ’Y.’ The road going down is three lanes each way heading to the main city center while the other four roads are two lanes each way, and there are traffic lights controlling the intersection. At the traffic lights each road has an extra lane for the traffic turning left. The building is located on the block of land in the joint of the ’Y’ with its apex facing down the main road to the city. The left arm of the ’Y’ is at thirty degrees from straight ahead of the road from the city center while the right arm is forty-five degrees from straight ahead of the same road.

The block of land is two hundred and forty feet straight back from the apex of the ’Y’ to run three hundred feet down the left hand road as well as a few inches under three hundred and forty feet down the right hand street as the back property line is parallel to the other side streets.