Chapter 7 –
I lose my car
Elise had one hand full of silk skirts and another on her phone as she got into the car. She was going to make her plan happen before we got out of the driveway.
“Etienne, I am sorry to call so late.” There was a brief pause as she got some response from the minister, but then she pushed on. “I was talking with President Jolliet this evening, and the subject of tariffs came up. It occurred to us, there may be some business leaders in Louisiana who might be less interested in secession if they knew they would be liable to pay tariffs as foreign companies. I think if we gathered some of our industry experts and some intelligence people, we might be able to determine which companies to target, and STOP THE CAR.” Suddenly she was shouting at me. “STOP RIGHT HERE.” Then she was back on the phone.
“Etienne, the president’s security team is gone. Hit the alarm. Shawn, park across the road, pop the trunk, and then run.” She was out the door the instant the car stopped. I got out too, but I wasn’t running anywhere until I saw what was going on. Elise dug round in my trunk for a moment and then came out with a large canvas bag. I took it from her and we both went running down the hill towards the lake. With the water in the background we could see larger trees silhouetted against the lake, but we still got whipped by branches and taller ferns. And of course we could not see our footing so we kept stepping into holes and tripping over roots. Elise stayed ahead of me, her skirts pulled up to her waist as she ran.
Finally we got to the water’s edge and dropped behind a fallen tree. Elise took the bag from me and pulled out three rifles with short barrels and big ammunition clips. She worked the settings on one and handed it to me. “The safety is off and the gun is set for single shots. You have thirty bullets in the clip.”
“This was in my car?”
“We had them install a false wall in the trunk while you were in Dakota.”
“Okay. Now what?”
“You watch, I talk to people.” She set the other two guns next to her, but it was her phone that got most of her attention. Her thumbs were going like crazy as she texted several places, and then she was back making calls. She explained what we had seen and where we were. I couldn’t hear much of the other side of the conversation other than “stay there.” That sounded like good advice to me. Finally she set the phone down and took one of the rifles.
“If they are still in the area, I assume they have night vision goggles, so they will find us and kill us.”
“Thanks for the pep talk.”
“But my guess is they have already moved on Uncle Claude. Otherwise they would have killed us at the car.”
“So what do we do?”
“Help is coming. We wait.” I turned to look at Elsie. Her dress was torn and muddy and she had it pulled up high to free her legs. Under other circumstances… “Pay attention to the woods, Romeo.”
“Mind reader.” I scanned the woods as best I could, but I saw nothing. There was almost no moon and the woods along this part of the shore were thick. I couldn’t see a damn thing. Hopefully that was true for the bad guys as well.
Then we heard the crash. Something coming up the road had hit my car. It sounded like parts went flying everywhere. There was a pause, and then two or three very large vehicles continued up the road, straight for Jolliet’s house.
“Is that help, or is that trouble?” I asked.
“We’ll know soon enough.” And we did. We could hear shots and explosions just minutes later. There was a battle going on. Elise stood up and took off her gown. “Let me have your jacket, please. I want to follow along the lake and see if we can help.” I gave her my jacket and followed her along the water’s edge. We put the third rifle and some ammunition back in the bag and I carried that. It was probably a quarter mile back to the house, and it was not easy walking through the mud and low bushes. We made slow progress. Meanwhile the fire fight continued. We could see flashes through the trees, and we could smell smoke. Was the house on fire? We moved faster, but still it seemed to take forever for us to get to his estate.
Finally we got to the grape vines on the lower edge of the estate. They gave us some cover as we climbed the hill to see what was going on. We were moving really slowly now, barely making a sound. We were nearly to the top of the hill when Elise opened fire. I have no idea what she saw. She was about ten feet in front of me, and she just opened fire, her gun set of full automatic. Her burst was long enough to empty her full clip, and then she dropped to the ground. I dropped as well. Good thing. Return fire was instant and heavy. Elise crawled over to me and ripped the bag from my shoulder so she could replace her clip. I kept my eyes up the hill, watching from behind a grape vine. Bullets tore through the plants all around us, scattering leaves and grape canes. I pressed my face into the ground so hard I thought I wouldn’t be able to breathe. I thought I heard a noise up the hill to my right. I started firing in that direction without raising my gun more than an inch or two off the ground. My singles shots sounded pathetically weak coming amongst the constant explosions and shots going on all around me. But I kept firing. I was scared, and angry, and so I pulled the trigger over and over until the clip was empty. Then I pushed my face back into the dirt and waited.
Help came in the form of helicopters. I could hear them coming over the water. Were they based in Oshkosh? The first one came in fast, firing from multiple guns, but then it was blown up by a missile. Parts rained down all over the vineyard. Several other helicopters came right behind it, two firing their guns while two or three others hovered and dropped troops below us on the hill. Now I knew we were really in trouble. With gun men above us and below us, we could be shot by either side. Fortunately, Elise had some other device in the bag. She pulled it out and set it between us. “Beacon.” She mouthed to me. “We wait here.”
If the shooting and explosions were loud before, they now reached a whole new level. The helicopters were laying down a constant stream of bullets from multiple guns. Then we heard huge explosions from the front of the house as well. It sounded like vehicles over there were being blown up. Which side the vehicles belonged to was impossible to tell. We just kept our heads down.
Because of all the noise I never heard the soldiers come up behind us. I just sensed motion and turned to see five men hurdling the row of vines behind us. They landed on either side of us and immediately dropped to the ground.
“Captain Deloitte, mam. I understand you are Minister DuPry?”
“Yes, thank you for coming. There are about a dozen men under those trees.” She pointed. ”I think I may have hit several when we arrived. They are firing at us and at the house.”
“Yes, minister. Please stay down. I will leave two men with you.” He made some hand signals, and I saw five or six men slide over the ground to our left while two others stayed on either side of us. The men moving to the left made it to the end of the row and then rose together, firing fully automatic into an area near where Elise had pointed. I couldn’t believe it as they walked forward behind their fire. None of them had any protection. They kept up a steady stream of fire and just kept walking. Who does something like that?
Soon they were out of sight. At about this point Elise reached over and took my hand. I was unsure about the expression on her face. It was pretty dark back down among the vines, but what I could see for sure was her looking at me. I looked back. It made a difference. With all the horror around us, we just looked at each other. Suddenly I felt like I could breathe again. I squeezed her hand, and we waited.
How much longer did the shooting go on? It was nearly constant for maybe the next ten minutes, and then it became more sporadic. And we could hear it happening in different locations -- some to our right, followed by running and more shooting, and – more worrisome – some in the house. We could also tell at this point the house was on fire. There had been plenty of smoke before,
but now there were flames as well, coming through some windows on the east side of the house that had been blown out. Elsie squeezed my hand again, and now I could see she was crying.
“Remember last time they tried to shoot him, and he told the cooks it was not their fault?” I said. “This time he’ll tell the housekeepers the fire was not their fault.” Elise slid closer to me and we wrapped our arms around each other.
More time passed, and as odd as it sounds, I was so exhausted from the last hour or so, if we had staying there much longer, I think I might have fallen asleep. But eventually the captain returned. His men got to their feet, and we sat up.
“It will be hours before we know if we got them all, but we have a pretty good perimeter now, so it should be safe to move you.”
“How’s my uncle?”
“Safe, but injured. Let me take you to him.” He gave quick orders to his men, and they formed a barrier around us. We finished the walk up the hill. As we emerged from behind the last row of vines, we could see bodies everywhere. And the fire in the house was more apparent. It was spreading fast. The house would be gone in minutes. We walked around the west side of the house and were led to a military vehicle. Seated inside, behind bullet-proof glass, we found President Jolliet.
“Uncle Claude.” Elise leapt into the vehicle and hugged Jolliet. He moved his hands, but didn’t seem able to make them move the way he wanted. A doctor who had been sitting in the vehicle with the President reached over to touch Elise’s shoulder.
“He suffered significant concussions from the explosions as they came into the house. I am not sure he can hear you. An ambulance will come for him as soon as it is safe.”
“I can hear fine. I just can’t move all that well. Where is your dress?”
“Down by the lake. It got pretty muddy.” The doctor was moving around in the truck and I saw him pull a blanket from some box. He draped it around Elise’s shoulders.
“They killed most of my household staff. Cooks and stewards. They killed them. Why?” He was crying now, and Elise put his head on her shoulder.
“We should get him to a hospital. Let’s not wait for an ambulance. Captain,” the doctor shouted out the door. “We need to go now.” The captain had been watching the scene with Elise and quickly agreed. He gave orders to the driver, and pushed several soldiers – and me – into the vehicle. We were off instantly, headed back to town at a high rate of speed. We did slow down for some wreckage though – my car. Pieces were scattered for dozens of yards. Apparently Citroens make poor road blocks.