select excerpts

 August 9th, 2020 – Warfield Air National Guard Base, Middle River, Maryland   

"Wire transfer complete. $2 million. Bank of Haiti. Operation Thunderbolt is a go for August, 26th, 7pm EDT," read the WhatsApp text on Colonel Maretta "Buff" Sowers' phone.

   "Thousands of Haitian kids thank you for your kind and generous donation. Your receipt for tax purposes is attached. Now go fuck yourself," the colonel texted back. Not a nice way to talk to such a benevolent donor but nice to include a receipt.

   Colonel Sowers had no intentions of waiting until August 26th for the commencement of Operation Thunderbolt. She was already at her base and was so for hours, prepping for her mission. Final inspections of the landing gear, weapons systems, navigational instruments and other things. She climbed into the cockpit of an A-10 Thunderbolt, fired up the twin turbofans and taxied to the end of the runway.

   The A-10 Thunderbolt as it is officially called is a killer of aircraft in every way imaginable. Bombs, missiles, rockets and a 30mm cannon rivaled by no other. The pilots that flew the aircraft preferred to call it by its nickname, the Warthog. Thick, mean and able to bring incredible lethality from either high altitude bombings or low altitude cannon strafing. The plane is as ugly as it is lethal and earned the nickname of the ghastly animal accordingly.

   In the case of Colonel Buff Sowers, she matched the temperament and physical characteristics of the airplane perfectly. Ornery, powerfully strong and facial features as hideous as the African savanna pig itself.

   Sowers' cantankerous personality developed over decades of being told all the things she couldn't do and then having to prove people wrong. Her strength was the by-product of her championship-level weight lifting career. And her face, at least the left side, was sculpted by flaming aviation fuel from a helicopter crash in 2004. The combat injury left her badly scarred with permanently damaged muscles along her jawline. 

 August 9th, 2020 - St. Louis Country Club - Ladue, Missouri

The bus stopped immediately in front of the entrance to the club. The fat driver exited first with his legs already churning at full speed when he hit the ground. Heyward, seconds earlier told him that when they park, he should leave the keys, get the heck out of there and "Oh, by the way, God Bless you."

   "Let's go. WASP season is open!" said Heyward, referring to the acronym for 'White, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant'. Heyward exited the bus with the same sense of urgency as the driver but with a destination.

   He grabbed the four large bags from underneath the bus and with the help of others unloaded twenty five AK-47 assault rifles, ten CZ Zen automatic sub machine guns, an assortment of handguns, a dozen Russian-made F1 hand grenades, Molotov Cocktails and a GoPro 7, head-mounted video recorder for himself. He donned the GoPro and pressed record.

   The first people to see the horde dressed in all white coming at the front doors were three young men working as valets. The look on their faces was that of absolute terror. As soon as the marauders passed the young men, they dropped the keys to the members' cars and ran like hell. They passed the gasping bus driver at the 200-yard mark.

   Once inside, Heyward spotted an armed security guard standing near the foyer of the restaurant. The retired cop instinctively drew toward his holstered side-arm. Heyward, even with his mostly masked face, gave the guard the same look a father gives his son seconds before the kid is about to do something incredibly stupid.

   That look that says, "Really? Are you really going to do this?" The guard understood the look. He had a dad. He also understood Heyward's cock of his head backwards that said, "Leave now." The guard obliged. He caught up to and passed the panting bus driver at the 400-yard mark but never came near the young valets.

   The murderous group broke into smaller squads and made their way through and around the country club as if they knew exactly where to go. The Men and Women locker rooms and the pool area where moms and kids enjoyed the last days of summer came under full, lethal assault. Mothers attempted in vain to protect their children by shielding them as they got dressed or while in the pool. Their shields didn't work.

   The tennis area, where smartly dressed couples played mixed doubles had no way out of the fenced in courts and made for easy targets. And lastly in the club's lounge and restaurant area, the esteemed members froze in such disbelief of what was occurring, they remained seated and accepted being murdered, scores at a time. "Bloody Mary's and Bloody Marty's for everyone," one of the terrorists declared as he entered the bar shooting.

   One squad of men, only three in size, aimed their instruments of terror not at victims but at walls, doorways and ornate paintings of former members. They didn't carry sub-machine guns. Their weapons were cans of black spray paint. Throughout the posh club, they sprayed the letters, Crna Ruka. A calling card of the organization responsible for this day.

   Calvin Heyward didn't personally kill anyone. He devised a special assignment for himself. As he doled out the weapons, he strapped a tool belt around his waist with two tools. A small hatchet and a hammer. In the belt's pocket was a box of nails.

   As he stumbled around dead members, he used the hatchet to lop off as many right hands of the victims as he could, given the time allowed. He nailed each of twenty five bloody hands to the foyer wall where the photos of club board members hung moments before.

   Heyward couldn't take credit for the gruesome idea. He got it after watching season three, episode three of the Game of Thrones titled "Walk of Punishment". He then told the men with the spray paint, "Paint them all black and make sure you write Wall of Punishment above them.