I can’t do anything yet. If I act too soon, everything will fall apart. I’m not making the same mistakes. I learned to be more patient since you last saw me. I learned more than patience; so much more.
I need one guard to walk a little closer. As long as the other two don’t move too much, everything should be fine. I’ll only have a few seconds before anyone else shows up.
I’ve broken into so many internment camps and this won’t be the last.
The guard walks into the right spot.
My heartbeat pounds my chest, but I can work through it. The stress bothered me the first few times I broke into internment camps.
Time to move; the guard won’t stand there forever.
I hooked up a net to a jeep with a pulley system in the front. I fire the net at the first guard and retract the cable. The net drags the guard as he kicks and screams. Before the other guards can comprehend the situation, I throw a bola at one. A bola is a throwing weapon with weights on the end of connected strings. I hit him in the face and knock him out. I aimed for his legs. I’m close enough to the last guard to take him down by hand. I flip him over with one hand, spin around and knock him out with one blow. The first guard struggles to get out of the net. I get to him before he can untangle his radio.
I’m certain someone heard him yelling.
A camp this size would usually have more guards. Before my onslaught, I heard a guard say something about budget cuts. I wondered if my vigilantism influenced the government. As yet, I have no notion that my presence worries anyone in government, but they know of me. They captured me once.
I open the gate easily, but my concerns are for the people being held captive; the prisoners being locked up because they exist and having committed no crimes, hated for who they are. Society got persuaded by hate speeches started by one man. The politician turned dictator. Ronald Teagun. The Tommy Gun. He earned his nickname because of his own love for firearms and T-gun was slang for the semi-automatic Thompson rifle, or Tommy gun. The only difference between Teagun and the Thompson; Teagun had killed more people than all the Thompson rifles combined. Then the election made him the leader of the richest country in the world. People are idiots.
I know where the prisoners are being held. My mission is to get them to safety and then destroy the compound. Years ago, I wouldn’t have thought I could do something like that. Now it feels like second nature.
Four more guards come from around a building. I throw a smoke grenade and switch my face cover to infrared visuals. The guards stumble through the smoke and I pick them off one at a time.
I find the building with the prisoners. I place explosive charges on one side of the building and then on the fence nearest the building. My planned exit strategy.
Another guard wanders over without realizing I am there.
“Hey! Who the hell are you?”
I detonate the charges and the wall falls on him. People are clamoring inside, and this makes it easy to take out the guards. There are so many prisoners, mostly women and children. Many of them have torn shirts around their heads as hijabs. Devout to the end I guess. I hear someone shouting at me, but I only catch two words.
“Al Hafiz!”
They speak Arabic. I only understand Al Hafiz because I chose that for my codename. I guess they’ve heard of me. They are all staring at me, confused. They don’t know what to do. I blow the charges on the fence giving them a way out. It probably made a cool silhouette from their perspective.
As they all run to the open fence, I run off to blow the compound. I am hoping the camp’s armory has more explosives. I can only carry so much with me. Unfortunately, there are more guards to fight. I see prisoners fighting them. And the prisoners are winning. They take rifles and create a nice distraction, so I can get to work.
I am forced to break into every building. Normally this would be time consuming, but the breakout has everyone preoccupied. Three buildings later, I find the armory and it has a ridiculous number of explosives. I take all I need and even a couple more Kevlar vests; you can never have too many. I set charges on every building. They are close enough to set each charge off after each explosion. All the explosives in the armory will create an awesome big boom.
I set the charges; I punch in sixty seconds on the timer and run like hell. The guards and prisoners keep fighting. I throw a flash bomb to disorient everyone. I throw people through the fence. I remove weapons, so no one can keep firing. And then I hear the booms. It almost sounds like fireworks; almost. I run a separate direction from the prisoners. The guards don’t care about anyone anymore. Both objectives are complete; another successful mission.
An excerpt from the novella The Tommy Gun. Available for free on Kindle on February 22, 2019 only.
James Pack 