299 Days: The Restoration

Chapter 306 Ringleader

“On your knees! Hands to your sides!” screamed the man in military contractor clothes and gear.

Nancy Ringman wondered who he was talking to. She looked around. There was no one there.

“Me?” she asked in bewilderment.

“On your knees!” the man screamed. “Yes, you!”

Nancy fell to her knees. The man’s rifle, one of those assault weapons, looked terrifying to her. She started to cover her face with her hands.

“Hands to your sides — now!” he screamed.

She froze. She could not move to save her life.

She heard a click and, without knowing anything about guns, realized it must be a safety to the gun. She’d seen that in movies. This man was about to shoot her. Suddenly, she realized she needed to put her hands to her sides, which she quickly did. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

“Spud Six, Oscar Romeo, got a prisoner here by the football field,” he said without pushing a button on a radio mic. He had a voice activated Quietpro headset for his radio.

“Roger, Oscar Romeo,” a voice said into the man’s earpiece. “On the way.”

“How many of you are here?” the man yelled to Nancy.

She couldn’t talk. She was so scared that her mouth wouldn’t move. The man gave her one more second to talk before he would seriously consider her to be a decoy or ambush bait.

“Spud Six, Oscar Romeo,” he said into his voice-activated radio, “Prisoner won’t say how many more are here. Expect lots of bad guys. Smoke ’em if you gotta.”

Hearing that made Nancy realize these soldiers or contractors or whatever were deadly serious — and that they considered her a threat. She felt herself losing bowel control. She felt so embarrassed and helpless as she realized she has just shit her pants.

“No more,” she said meekly to the man.

“What?” he yelled at her, as he was moving with his gun trained on her head. He wanted to be mobile so he’d be harder to shoot.

“No more people here,” she said a little louder. “I’m the only one.”

“Right,” he said dismissively.

“Prisoner says she’s the only one,” he said into the radio. “Whatever. Expect bad guys.”

“If there is anyone else here,” he said to Nancy, “You’ll hear a loud noise and a tremendous burning sensation as I shoot you.” He let that sink in. “It’ll hurt. A lot.”

Nancy started crying.

“So,” he said, “I’ll ask again: how many others are here?”

“I’m it,” Nancy said between sobs. “Everyone else left.”

“Where did they go?” the man asked.

“I dunno,” she said. “They just left. This place isn’t safe.”

“Like the football field?” he screamed. “Yeah, it’s pretty dangerous out there. We know what you guys did.” He wasn’t going to tell her that the Patriots had captured several of the Clover Park guards who confessed to the massacre at the football field. He was one of the Patriot special operations troops behind the JBLM line who conducted raids and executed other impromptu missions, like liberating prison camps. He’d seen some awful things, but a mass killing like this was the worst he’d heard of.

“We had to make room for refugees,” Nancy blurted out, realizing that she was incriminating herself. While she suspected this man was a teabagger, she still couldn’t fully believe they were operating behind the JBLM line. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

“So then, you were part of the football field incident?” the man asked, thanking his lucky stars that he seemed to be getting a confession from this prisoner.

“I didn’t do any of it,” she said. “Others did.”

“Why are you here?” the man asked. He turned when he heard people running up to his position. They were his teammates.

“I,” she started to say and then the other contractors started talking to the man about other threats and where to search next.

“You what?” the man finally said, after talking to his teammates.

“I told them to do it,” she said. She realized she shouldn’t have said that, but she wanted to get it off her chest. She immediately felt better.

“Spud Six, Oscar Romeo,” the man said, “I got the ringleader.”