Repost: The Night Gods III- The Triumph of Evil: Chap. V -

Artwork by @marty-art on Steemit... With many thanks

The nearby city of Ft. Smith had become a center of UN activity. The close proximity to Ft. Chaffee just to the east made it a perfect place to billet troops. The base was closed in the 1990's and had been used to house refugees after Vietnam. Because of its relatively small size, Ft. Smith had remained untouched by the conflagration. The large convention center had been turned into offices with the auditorium doubling for propaganda broadcasts and as a meeting hall. Once the 2nd largest city in the state, it had replaced Little Rock, which had been for the most part destroyed, as the new state capital.

Ft. Smith also provided a rich hunting ground for Dick's patriotic militia, only 25 or so miles away in Ozark... and they were not alone. The area, once derided as the home of ignorant rednecks, had given birth to a patriotic movement unparalleled almost anywhere in the country. Arkansas had joined Oklahoma and Texas in the forefront of the drive for independence that was sweeping the nation.

Dick was almost unable to use his beloved M-14 now, the bursitis in his shoulders made the recoil unbearable. Under his expert tutelage, Ann's son Kyle was quickly becoming a crack shot... Like Dick before him, he seemed to possess an innate aptitude for shooting. "Become one with the target," Dick would tell him, "call the round home." Ann was less than pleased with the development, she had already lost her husband, but without this quest for freedom there was no future, so she didn't protest- aloud anyway.

Ann was teaching local children, whose parents eschewed the government schools. Her daughter, Barbara, had been in nursing school when the war began and stayed busy tending wounded patriots- of whom there was no short supply. She had become proficient at removing bullets, having been taught by a local doctor sympathetic to the cause. All licensed medical personnel had been pressed into service by the State, but many would smuggle supplies and offer their free time to the patriots... under penalty of death if caught.

Little Anica, now 16, helped Barbara in the makeshift clinic Dick had set up down the road at a neighbor's house, less than a quarter mile away. From the vantage point of the compound Dick and his men could surveil the property from the hilltop in case of danger and it also kept things from being centered in one location. She was also a big help at home where she had shown a particular knack for cooking... she was surprisingly good and with a few spices (that she grew herself) she could turn an ordinary meal into a feast. She loved doing it- it made the others happy and that pleased her.

She had also turned into quite a beauty and being 16 her attentions had shifted from the father figure of Przybysz in favor of a number of young patriots... However, under Przybysz' baleful glare, none dared approach. Przybysz was both respected and feared by the young recruits... Respected for his strength and martial abilities and feared for the same reason.

David was now in charge of research for the group... He not only provided information for Bret's nightly broadcasts- but for strategy sessions for the militias statewide... He had brilliantly concocted a series of different backdrops- each showing a different part of the country- for Bret's broadcasts to throw would be pursuers off the trail.

They had been joined by a veritable army of hackers and software developers and David oversaw their activities. No one was allowed into the compound without being thoroughly vetted and vouched for by at least two of the members. David and his hackers had devised a code based on spread spectrum technology, using alternating algorithms... it proved virtually impossible to break- at least for the hackers employed by the regime who sat befuddled and confused.

Leo Rosen, who had lost his wife, had also joined them, getting out of Washington just in the nick of time. He assisted Bret in the broadcasts acting as director. Having broken into journalism as a meteorologist, he was an expert cartographer and invaluable in the militia's plotting attacks... He had familiarized himself with maps of the entire area and had become an expert in the local topography. Dick oversaw it all, he was the undisputed leader with Przybysz as his second in command.

Groups like the one in Arkansas were springing up across the country... and they had also begun to proliferate across the entire world. The UN and particularly its barbarous soldiers had become hated... the order they imposed in the name of peace was despised by almost everyone.

In Italy, there was the Giuliano Militia, named after the Sicilian freedom fighter and outlaw. It operated out of the hills of Sicily with branches reaching up into the boot. It was led by Alessandra Palmieri and her brother Gerolamo Scozzari. Alessandra's husband had been killed during a battle with the UN forces and she took over the leadership of the group. She was a walking contradiction- as beautiful as any supermodel with long dark hair and flashing black eyes- yet she was as ruthless as any man... and even more ruthless to her enemies.

There had been a brief fight over the power vacuum left by the death of Alessandra's husband. One Vittorio Spataro saw himself as the rightful successor and he began trying to cause dissention within the group. In these dangerous times there is little room for dissention and Alessandra's lupara quickly brought put end to Spataro's quest for power. If anyone else coveted the leadership, they kept it to themselves.

Although China had been fairly well exempted from UN domination, the winds of liberty- once only a breeze in China- was growing in intensity. The People's Army, the largest standing army on earth, was experiencing dissent among its ranks. Many of the soldiers were beginning to sympathize with Chinese patriots- when the seeds of liberty take root, the tree grows quickly. The economic reforms on the late 20th Century increased prosperity... and with increased prosperity came a higher standard of living for many. These things lead to an increased demand for freedom and heralded a sharp decline in support for the coercive regime begun my Mao's Glorious Cultural Revolution. What began as a student movement during the 1980's was becoming a whirlwind. An uneasy marriage between the Tongs and the rebels had developed, the resulting movement began engulfing most of China. The dissent at home kept the soldiers still loyal to the regime too busy to aid the UN in their global efforts.

Wu Feng, leader of one of China's most powerful tongs, now in his 90's, was the catalyst between the resistance led by Gao Delun and the tongs. The tongs supplied the munitions, the resistance the manpower. Gao had once been a provincial governor, but sickened by the oppression of the Party, had quit in disgust. He was now in hiding, his whereabouts know only to a few. The Chinese government had already dunned his family for the cost of a bullet... He had been tried, convicted and sentenced in absentia.

The landscape of the Middle East, always a hotbed of contention, had changed dramatically. Jerusalem, the Holy City, was gone, reduced to rubble. The religious shrines, fought over for centuries by Judaism, Islam and Christianity were no more... there was nothing left to fight over. The Dome of the Rock, held holy by all and fought for by many, was reduced to dust. There had been no effort as yet to rebuild any of it. Jerusalem, for all intents and purposes, was a religious ghost-town.

Israel had, of course, retaliated- Mecca and Riyadh had been targeted by nuclear missiles. The Saudi Royal family was dead- some killed in the blast, others by Islamic moderates, tired of the oppressive regime. Wahhabism had become extremely unpopular in Arabia.

Elsewhere in the Middle East the radical fundamentalist groups were on the run- no longer funded and protected by US led security agencies. They were hunted and shot or hung on sight. The movement within Islam was to return it to the religion of peace it had been intended to be... But the Night Gods would reap many more sacrifices before that dream would be realized.