Then her voice emerged from the back of the room. “I don’t know who the second party is,” Lana stated. “But think about it. I was in the media, though fashion. When we gave code names, the first two or three letters belonged to the first party, in this instance that would be R…A…N. My guess would be Iran. We put those harsh sanctions on them. Someone said that the invaders want our president to step down. We tried to get their president to step down. The second half of the name, I’m clueless, but I’m guessing the bigger part is Iran. You realize their army is almost twice the size of ours.”
Someone else spelled the last portion and with the letters guessed it could possibly be Venezuela.
Everyone laughed.
The man who made the suggestion didn’t think it was funny. “They have two million soldiers. I saw that on the news a few weeks ago. All are rebels. We tried to oust their dictator. They claimed we incited a war there, too.”
“Wait a second!” An older guy called out, “Venezuela and Iran? What the hell is taking us so long to kick their asses?”
“Seven million soldiers,” Lana stated. “A combined force and my guess is they have North Korea helping them, would give them over 9 million soldiers. That’s a lot of manpower. Have we thought of that? If the combined forces send only one third of their forces here, they will have matched our army man for man.”
George added, “We don’t own the air yet. But when we do, I believe that’s when we’ll have the advantage. It’ll still be tough. They marched in and took three states.”
The meeting continued on. The identity of the invading enemy was still only a guess. Those in Agabarn were deep in a media blackout.
Once the meeting was over and the pudding had been served as desert, two of the women took the children to
One hundred and thirty-three people remained in the fire hall.
Each one of them was waiting to learn the tactical plan.
And that’s just what they were about to develop.
They wanted a plan in place in case the enemy invaded or struck Agabarn. Everyone felt that once the US started fighting back and pushing the enemy from the front lines, the front lines would move east.
It was inevitable.
The citizens and refugees in Agabarn could run or they could stay and fight.
There was no question about what they would choose to do.
An escape route was planned for the children.
Each person would have a post, be issued a weapon and told where go.
Some would have explosives.
It was an army of farmers, just like the revolutionary war.
Harry was on distribution, should fighting break out. His eyesight wasn’t the best anymore. He probably couldn’t fire a weapon accurately, and he certainly couldn’t toss a homemade grenade, but he could pass out things and dictate where people went.
Folks were lining up to register for duties based on their strengths. Harry was one of those people registering strengths and deciding if they were better on a gun, grenade or explosives. Or would they be better at just helping evacuate those who couldn’t fight.
After they had registered strengths, people were going to stick around, clean weapons, and work on separating ammo.
A full fight was planned.
Harry was surprised to see Lana in the line. She was three down the line when he noticed her. When she arrived at his desk, she smiled. It was a tired smile.
“This is a surprise,” Harry said. “Are you registering a strength?”
Lana nodded and sat down across from Harry.
“Where’s Ben?”
“He went to
“But he was okay with you being here?”
“I told him I was dying for spaghetti.”
Harry laughed. “And you stayed for the meeting.”
“Yes. He believed I was going back to the school to rest.”
Harry leaned back in the chair. “What’s going on?”
Lana folded her hands. “I come from a very rich family. When I was ten I had been shooting for a year. I took highest shooting marks in the junior competition. I was the youngest ever to hold that title. I held the championship for six years until Liam Wayne snatched it from me.”
“Wow,” Harry said. “Rifle? Shotgun?”
“You name it, I’m good with it. My father was president of the local NRA.”
Harry whistled. “Wait a second. Ben said you don’t believe in guns.”
Lana nodded. “I stopped believing in the right for every man to carry a weapon when some man with road rage unloaded a clip into my father. Harry, this is my country, despite what Ben says. I live here, I reaped its benefits and I’ll be damned if I am going to stand idly by or run to Canada without fighting for this country.”
Harry smiled. “What about Ben?”
“I love my husband. But I’m not going to run. I’m not.”
“Does he know this?”
Lana shook her head. “Not yet. He will. I’ll tell him. Hopefully, he’ll stay and fight, too. That’s what we have to do that’s what we should do.”
“It takes a lot of guts to do that.”
