The former decathlon competitor watched the mass of angry humanity turn onto the street three blocks away, and keyed the “transmit” button of the radio in his hoodie jacket. “Leopard One, this is Boltcutter,” he spoke into the throat mike. “Over?”
“Boltcutter, this is Leopard One,” a voice responded, loud and clear, in his earbud. “Read you five-by-five, over.”
“Roger, Leopard one. Poacher has reached Checkpoint Tomahawk; is turning north. Over?”
“Roger that, Boltcutter. All Birdwatchers: looks like go time. Execute Concorde Thirteen. I say again: Concorde One-Three. Out.”
“This is Boltcutter. Wilco. Out.”
Boltcutter’s heart raced. He wanted to run now, but steeled himself. Contingency 13 meant the mob’s likely target was the privately-owned hardware store two blocks up. At that very moment, five of the Birdwatchers should be converging on the hardware store on foot, hell-for leather, while Gorilla Three brought up the ladder by vehicle.
Boltcutter brought his breathing under control and examined the advancing mob in the glow of the street lights. The largest element, composing the front ranks and columns on both sides, were the Useful Idiots. There was little uniformity in what they wore. Several of them carried signs, revealing that they believed this was about “systemic racism,” “police brutality,” and the murder of a man none of them knew or had even heard of a month before. If they thought it was suspicious…or even curious…that there were pallets of bricks staged along their route of march, they never paused to show it. Those with a free hand simply accepted the bricks just like they had accepted free school lunches not that long ago, not knowing or caring who had paid to supply them. The deus ex machina simply meant karma was on their side, because they were the righteous faction in this crusade.
Toward the center of the formation were the “soldiers.” They all wore black, with black bandanas or COVID masks over their faces. A few had bricks. All had concealed weapons. A few had incendiary devices which had also been pre-staged along the route of march—but were slightly more difficult to find if you didn’t know to look for them. They weren’t chanting slogans or carrying signs. They were no less eager to scalp Nazis and win social justice as the Useful Idiots, but knew the importance of maintaining discipline.
Boltcutter remained in his shadowy perch under a store awning as the enemy drew closer. They hadn’t noticed him, yet. He searched through the ranks of Blackshirt “soldiers.”
A seam opened up in the formation, allowing somebody on a bicycle to ride in. Boltcutter tracked this movement. The bicyclist stopped when he reached a figure close to the center of the formation. They exchanged words. The one on foot examined something on his smartphone screen, spoke into his phone, then held it to his ear while turning to search the mass of humanity behind him. He and the bicyclist conversed for a moment, nodded at each other, then the one on the bicycle rode away—the mob politely splitting to make a path for him again.
Boltcutter pushed the transmit button again. “All Birdwatchers; this is Boltcutter. I have eyes on a company commander. Bandito mask and typical Antifa uniform, but with rock climber helmet that has red stripes. Over.”
“Boltcutter, this is Toucan. Good copy. Out.”
“Boltcutter, this is Tree Python. Good copy. Out.”
The other birdwatchers acknowledged the tip, before clearing the channel.
As the mob drew closer, Boltcutter’s heart rate increased. When they were within a block, he fell back from his position, holding up his burner phone to record video footage. Leopard One was cutting the timing close. The mob would be at the hardware store in just a couple minutes at this rate. The team needed to be in place, with breathing under control, by that time.
Gorilla Three arrived behind the hardware store, braked to a stop, and began deploying the ladder. His vehicle had no license plate and hopefully would be mistaken for one of the Antifa command & control vehicles police were allowing to prowl the streets unmolested.
Tree Python arrived, panting from the run, exchanged a nod with Gorilla Three and climbed up to the roof with his modified golf bag slung across his back. Gorilla Three drove away.
Atop the roof, still catching his breath, Tree Python donned elbow and knee pads, found his roost overlooking the street, and extracted the rifle from the golf bag. He locked in the magazine full of sabot rounds and loaded one in the breach, then got comfortable.
“Leopard One to all Birdwatchers,” said the voice in his earpiece. “Game Wardens are still standing down, under orders. Poachers are in season. All go.”
Tree Python licked dry lips. As they suspected, the police (under orders from the Mayor) were going to sit back and let the mobs burn the city down. That sucked for the shopkeepers who were about to have their life’s work destroyed by entitled brats who didn’t know or care about the lifetimes of hard work and sacrifice it had taken to build the businesses along this street.
But tonight, it was going to suck even worse for some of the rioters.
Tree Python observed down the street. He spotted Boltcutter moving along the shadows in his distinct green New Balance running shoes. Python shifted his attention to the mob, and in a few moments had spotted the “company commander” identified by Boltcutter. He pushed his transmit button.
“Tree Python to all Birdwatchers. I’m in position. Have eyes on Boltcutter and the Poachers. Out.”
The mob slowed. They smashed out the windows of a restaurant with their supplied bricks. Looters rushed in to the cash register, and one soldier entered with them to plant his incendiary device.
While this happened, Toucan arrived, climbed the ladder, joined Tree Python on the edge of the roof,and quickly set up his nest.
Looters who hadn’t made much of a haul from the restaurant smashed the windows of a sports apparel store and rushed in to get Nikes and 49er jerseys. Evidently, this store was black-owned or otherwise exempted, because another Blackshirt farther back in the formation, holding a purpose-built video camera, began shouting, pointing, and flashing lights at the Useful Idiots. Some of the soldiers surrounding him shouldered through the mob to break up the looting underway at that store.
Tree Python turned to Toucan and said, “Check it out: Just made the battalion commander.”
They both used their optics to take a good look at the individual directing traffic. Toucan locked in on his transmissions. The BC was using his smart phone, with earpiece, throat mike, and SDR encryption. And why not use a smart phone? The cops had the technology to mark him, but no interest in doing so…or stopping the riot.
But Toucan had an interest.
They exchanged notes on the individual’s description, then Toucan radioed the ID of the battalion commander to all Birdwatchers.
Flames climbed up from the white-owned restaurant as the last of the peaceful protesters emerged from the sporting apparel store with armloads of social justice.
All the Birdwatchers were in place by then. Boltcutter went into action.
Boltcutter removed his black hoodie and tied it around his waist. His white shirt with the American flag on the chest was now a target reference point. So there would be no mistake, he pulled a red MAGA hat on his head and stepped out of the shadows onto the street.
He pointed at the burning restaurant, then the partially-looted sports fan store. “Hey! What are you doing? Those people’s stores have nothing to do with police brutality!”
He didn’t even need to yell. He was spotted instantly and a string of BLM and Antifa Blackshirts peeled off the formation, running after him with knives and batons drawn, even before he opened his mouth.
Boltcutter spent a couple more crucial seconds shouting futile chastisement to the rabid mob. The soldiers closed to within 15 yards before he took off. The adrenaline turbocharged his feet, and seven yards was as close as the nearest one got.
He was a decent sprinter and distance runner. He could no longer run a five-minute mile, probably, but he was able to keep ahead of his pursuers. He paced himself so as not to smoke himself, or widen the gap to the extent that the Blackshirts got discouraged and gave up pursuit.
He took a hard left at the pre-designated alley.
“Oh, we got his ass, now!” a voice called from behind him.
With all the yelling, air horns and firecrackers going off, almost nobody noticed the suppressed coughs of two rifles from a rooftop. The formation’s battalion CO, and one company CO fell to the street amidst the convulsing swarm of their soldiers and Useful Idiots.
The Blackshirts’ brigade commander, a college professor in an electronics-laden vehicle on an adjacent street, wouldn’t realize he had lost two of his favorite students for several minutes.
Boltcutter ran down the alley and past some garbage cans, slowed and turned, backing against the wall of a building facing the alley mouth. The lead Blackshirt charged into the alley, followed by three, followed by five more.
The Blackshirts slowed to a walk, advancing on their lone prey, brandishing weapons, chortling out threats of what they were going to do to him.
It wasn’t a dead-end alley, but a T-intersection. In the dark, it could be mistaken for a dead end, though, especially with their target-of-opportunity backed against a wall facing them, apparently helpless, distracting them from other considerations.
The pursuit element filled the mouth of the alley and advanced like a mudslide toward Boltcutter. They were going to cut this fool. They were going to beat him, kick him, make him bleed, and die an ignominious death. He would be an example to anyone else who might consider wearing hate symbols.
Before they reached the trash cans, three figures rose up facing them. They wore gray hoodie jackets, COVID masks, and yellow-tinted shooting glasses. They wielded 12-gauge shotguns (sometimes referred to as “riot guns,” for reasons that would soon be obvious).
The first man fired before the rioters had time to process what was happening. The lead Blackshirt blew backwards, slamming against his comrades.
The second shotgun fired, and another Blackshirt was nearly ripped in two. The third one fired, the blast tearing through someone’s head, wounding others behind him in the buckshot spread.
With disciplined, revolving fire, the three ambushers cleared the alley quickly. The survivors, some wounded, ran back toward the formation, where some were just now figuring out that their leaders had been cut down by snipers.
Holding “Defund the Police!” signs in one hand, Useful Idiots dialed 9-1-1 with the other hand. The emergency switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree.
In the alley and on the rooftop, Birdwatchers policed up their brass and packed their trash. Masks and shooting glasses were left on, but the hoodie jackets were turned right-side-out so that they were now black like so many in the mob out on the street. Once the snipers were down in the alley, Boltcutter collapsed the ladder and hoisted it up to his shoulder. He jogged with the snipers to their rally point where they would rendezvous with Gorilla Three and exfil by vehicle. The shotgunners took a different route where they were picked up by Gorilla One in another incognito vehicle.
The mob, now understanding what had just happened, panicked and fled the way they came, dropping bricks and trampling each other in their haste to abort the mission.
With this new development, the police were finally cleared to deploy, and they went into action.
When the cops arrived on scene, there were several dead bodies and some wounded, but not a whole hell of a lot that Ballistics could help them with.
###
For a purely non-fiction, factual report on the street tactics being employed by revolutionaries right now, you should read this.