Jernigan's War (29 page)

Dix remembered when George Bush Sr. made a political rally stop back in the 80’s. All this Progressive New World Order crap was getting kicked off even then. It just took a communist President to use the groundwork laid out by those idiots to attempt an overthrow.

The truck pulled out and made a long slow run around the airport property. A spot light swung around the edges. Dix got ready to step behind the tree when the spotlight paused and a shot rang out. They were spot lighting deer on the airport property. While they were busy retrieving the deer Dix created an opening in the fence and slipped through. The entire airport facility was not fenced, just the portion around the roadway and around the main terminal. Dix slowly walked over to the first airplane and waited. He listened and watched as the deer hunters loaded the deer and returned to the hanger. After they drove past he looked up and flipped on his green LED cap light. He quickly found what he was looking for. The drain line on the fuel tank was
under the wing near the fuselage. Dix opened the valve and let the fuel flow, he did the same thing on the other side. He made his way from plane to plane. There were several different makes and models but he managed to find all the drains. He no longer had to use his light to find the openings and valves.

The troop transport helicopters were American made, it took him a few minutes to figure out the valve locations. The wind was blowing from the south so the smell of jet fuel was being carried away from the buildings. When he finished he lit the dry Bermuda grass full of jet fuel under the plane on the end. He walked toward the hangers where they were cleaning the deer. It only took a few moments until the flames caught the second plane on fire. The doors flew up on the hanger and Dix killed the Chinese who had been butchering the deer.

He waited in the shadows of the hanger as the airport came to life. By now six of the planes were engulfed in flames and had the entire area lit up. A fire truck came out of the fire station. Dix waited until they were at point blank range and opened up on the cab where the driver and firemen were riding. The truck careened out of control and into the inferno. The truck just added to the conflagration. By now more than half of the planes were on fire.

Dix swapped the empty magazine for a full one, his secret was out and he came under fire from the gate guard. He ran back into the shadows and slowed so he would not trip or injure himself. He walked out from behind the hanger and shot the guard who was still looking for a target. By now the entire airport was ablaze. The garrison of about 100 Chinese troops was in full panic mode.

Dix created another opening in the fence, walked about 300 yards up the road, and disappeared into the woods. He crossed
the road and followed a power line that led back around to Artman Road where he stashed the cop car. He crossed the bridge at a run and got back to the old farm house. Cranking the patrol car, he backed out of the drive. He turned south, went back to Airport road and took a right. He retraced his steps back to Tate’s house where he parked the police cruiser in the garage and closed the door. He called out to Rachel that he was back. “I don’t feel like sleeping on a cellar floor, so I’ll drag down a couple of mattresses and blankets.”

Dix took a few minutes and rolled his friend Tate up in the den rug and moved him into the kitchen out of the way. If he lived long enough and had the ability, he would bury him down at the cemetery. Dix went upstairs and brought down two mattresses from the bedrooms along with some quilts and pillows. They made pallets to sleep on and Dix was soon out for a while. He slept until after lunch.

Rachel woke him, “I’ve been hiding out of sight up in the front room, I don’t know what’s going on, but the police are all over the place. I haven’t seen this much activity since they took over the town in the beginning.”

Dix yawned, “They have 5 dead and one missing. All of the Chinese aircraft were destroyed last night along with a handful of dead Chinese. They are looking for the dozens of saboteurs’ who are running around in their midst. By the way, I brought you something.”

He dug into his pouch and brought out the Beretta 9mm and the extra two magazines. “The fellow who had these doesn’t need it anymore.” Dix gave her a rundown on the events of the evening.

Rachel laughed, “The last we knew you were selling office equipment, were you always working for the government and using the salesman thing as a cover?”

“No, I just got worried that we were headed for a financial collapse when we elected a communist president. I put together what I thought were adequate preparations to survive, that included food and weapons. The same thing has happened in every country in history that had a communist get in power. Our population was seduced by all the free government giveaways. They were also ignorant from all the subtle brainwashing by the main stream media and the idiots in Hollywood. Bad people started taking advantage of the innocent. They destroyed everything I had including every member of my family. I am doing what needed to be done to begin with; I’m killing every S.O.B. that needs killing. Right now it is the communist Chinese and their enablers here in the city. I plan on killing bad guys until they are all dead or I am.”

Dix opened up a MRE and told Rachel, “Try to limit yourself to just one a day. If you find yourself in a position where you’ve got to move, do not leave any food. Try and stay long enough to eat everything you can’t carry first. Your body will store the food until you need it. You haven’t said much about your people, or what happened to you.”

“I was married to Mitch Jones for about ten years. I never had any children because he didn’t want any. He decided he wanted a younger woman about three years ago. I should have expected it, as he left his first wife for a younger woman when I met him, that younger woman was me. All my people had died before the collapse. My brother and his family were in Alaska working for an oil company. The last I heard from them is that they were heading to his fish camp and were stocking up while they still could. Knowing him he was ready. I wasn’t so smart. I thought he was a nut. I put back a little food but I wound up at a FEMA camp. I escaped the FEMA camp when we realized that we were going to be shipped out to work in a factory in exchange for the food they give us. All they fed us for weeks was a small bowl
of rice with a small spoonfull of salty beans. We were all slowly starving to death. I went under the wire with a couple of other ladies. I don’t know where they went, because we split up.”

“Where’s the camp located?”

“Do you remember the prison down in Wilkinson County?”

Dix nodded, “Yes, what did they do with the prisoners?”

“They killed all of them.”

“And then?”

“I hid out at my mother’s old house until they found me looking for food last night. They told me if I made Assad Abdul happy I would get a good meal; that was when you showed up.”

“Stay put while I check something out.” Dix slipped out of the cellar and went out to the patrol car in the garage. He popped the trunk lid and looked in the trunk. Just as he expected, it was full of canned goods. It took him five trips but he unloaded all the food. He had struck pay dirt once again. “Rachel, do you mind staying forted up here for a while?”

“No, this food looks so good, I’m not going anywhere.”

Dix waited until dark before heading out again. He once again carried what he considered a heavy battle load. His pack was restocked and he carried eight full 30 round mags for Jake’s AR15. The two empty ones were in his pack. If he lucked up on some more .223/5.56, he would fill them again. He walked down Maple St. towards Main. It was pitch black dark and he drifted in and out of the shadows. There was some activity in a backyard on the west side of the street, a small fire was burning and you could see people sitting around it. He turned and walked down to the bluff and stood in the darkness overlooking the river. There were no street lights shining. He could see the bridge in the moonlight. A small light could be seen at the base of the bridge on the Louisiana side
of the river. Evidently they had a barricade and checkpoint at that location.

Back in Natchez he saw a bonfire going, but couldn’t tell much about it. A patrol car cruised down Broadway causing Dix to crouch behind the old gazebo and let it pass. It turned north on State Street and headed for the jail. He sat for a long time taking in the sights and smells of the night. He walked up State St. to within shooting distance of the jail. The carnage from the night before had been cleaned up.

The old jail house was still standing, he didn’t know if they still housed prisoners in it or not. He thought about setting it on fire, but didn’t want to take a chance on burning some good guys to death. Dix stood back in the doorway of an abandoned lawyer’s office and waited until another police car passed. Apparently they had quit using the city police department and were working out of the new county jail. It was only about 20 years old and they had plenty of room. He figured fat old Assad Abdul was working out of city hall and probably living in Dickel Hall, Jefferson Manor or Blackthorn Place. All were immense antebellum mansions that had been restored and maintained in their original splendor.

He back tracked down to the old train station and cut through the parking lot. There were some abandoned cars with flat tires and a couple that appeared to be used on occasion. The tires were pumped up and the windshields were clean. He turned on Washington St. and walked down Wall St. to Orleans. He methodically walked down Orleans until it turned into Homochitto. The old drive in was still on the corner, it was probably vacant.

He walked in front of the old elementary school and was almost caught out in the open by a patrol car. He froze in place as they turned from MLK right onto Orleans and went in the
opposite direction. He would have simply opened up on them and killed them had they turned in his direction. Dix found it amusing that instead of being paralyzed with fear as he once would have been, he looked at every encounter as an opportunity to finish the hunt.

He continued his stroll past the old high school and on to the old home called Blackthorn Place. It was a massive, antebellum mansion surrounded by columns rising up to the second story roof. As he expected, there was a guard house at the gate and a generator was humming away somewhere behind it. The house was lit up like the Governor’s mansion it was. Dix crossed the street and hid in between a couple of old houses that had been abandoned. Patrol cars came and went. A big black Cadillac Escalade came in around 9:00 pm. The guard closed the gate behind it. Dix thought to himself, “Assad Abdul has evidently arrived.”

The guard walked around to the side and took a leak hidden in the shadows of the guard house. Dix took this opportunity to cross the street and stand next to the little guard house. The guard came back in and resumed his duties. Dix stood quiet in the dark. The guard turned on a lively rap tune that grated at Dix’s nerves.

Dix wished that he had taken Jake’s advice and made silencers for their pistols. Dix didn’t want to kill the guard with his Kbar; he much preferred to pop a cap on them. He slung the rifle behind him and pulled out the Kbar. He could see the guard through the window. He kept nodding off. Dix waited until he started snoring and timed each step with a loud snore. The Kbar was razor sharp. With one quick thrust he ran the knife through the guard’s throat. The guard struggled less than a second and it was over.

Dix took the Glock 40 and the two magazines the guard had on his belt. He wiped the knife off on the guard’s shirt and replaced it in its sheath on his belt. Something you never forget is the smell of hot blood squirting and steaming in the cool night air. The guard had lost control of his bowels in the final moments of life which added to the acrid odor.

Dix washed his hands from the water cooler standing in the corner. He walked out and eased the gate open enough to slip onto the grounds of the mansion. Making a kill is a matter of planning when possible. Sometimes he had to shoot on instinct, but most of the time it was no different than deer hunting. You orient yourself in a hidden position, you take careful aim and you execute your plans. You concentrate on the process not the results. The kill takes place because you carefully execute the chain of events leading up to the act.

Dix stayed in the shadows as he approached the house. He sat for a long time in the yard until he spotted a guard sitting just inside the front door. Dix saw him through a window when he got up to get coffee. He eased around the back and sat for a while and found a couple of Chinese officers sitting on the porch smoking. They were in heated conversation that Dix could not hope to understand. One of them smacked the table and the other hopped up, slightly bowed, and went in. Evidently they were not happy that all the aircraft were destroyed.

From his spot in the yard he could see up on the second floor. Assad Abdul could be seen though his bedroom window. Several scantily clad ladies could also be seen. In another bedroom he saw the lights come on and the Chinese officer who had just left walked into view.

Dix put the yellow dot of his Trijicon scope on the side of Assad Abdul’s large head and squeezed off a round. The next shot went through the torso of the Chinese office that was still smoking on the back porch. The third shot went to the Chinese officer who had come to the window to see what the shooting was all about.

Dix didn’t wait; but went to a spot where he could see the guard from the front door. He saw him pass in front of the bedroom window, in Assad Abdul’s room. The guard bent over out of view; when he stood back up into view, Dix popped him through the back. Dix then hit the generator with about ten rounds and the lights went out.

He replaced the magazine in his rifle and proceeded out of the gate in the dark. He stopped at the houses across the street and hid in the shadows. Police cars rushed to the scene. When they stopped to open the gates, Dix riddled both passenger compartments with 55 grain, full metal jacket .223 bullets. One car took off, hit the other, and pushed it through the gates. Dix emptied a second magazine into both vehicles and reloaded again.