Independence Day
THE
leaders of the Plantation had waited several years for this day to come, and now that their plan had come to fruition, they could barely contain their enthusiasm. The special ceremony they had planned was originally slated to begin an hour before dawn, the same time they had held the symbolic ritual of the burning cross, but now that their big day was actually here, they realized that their adrenaline wouldn’t let them wait another four hours.
Their big announcement would have to be pushed forward.
Holmes notified Hakeem Ndjai, who told the rest of the guards. Within minutes, the Plantation’s tattooed battalion began assembling the prisoners into formation, forcing the tired captives into a very specific order:
Before Holmes, Jackson, and Webster made their appearance, the guards double-checked the prisoners, making sure everyone was where they were supposed to be.
Then, like a shadow through a sea of black, Master Holmes and his raven-colored steed charged through the night. The only thing announcing their presence was the sound of hooves tearing up the soft turf in rhythmic bursts and the occasional crack of a leather whip against the horse’s dark flesh. The sound brought chills to the recently flogged prisoners.
Once he reached the three groups, Holmes stared through the holes of his black hood and sighed. “Well, well, well! What do we have here? A bunch of frightened white people! The sight warms my heart!” He turned his attention to Ndjai. “Is everyone here, Hakeem?”
“Everyone except Master Jackson and Master Webster.”
Holmes nodded as he thought back to the days when he was the scared victim, when he watched members of the Ku Klux Klan ride in on horseback and terrorize his family with burning crosses and threats of violence. Shit, he could still remember the pounding of his heart and the knot in his gut. The way he trembled while clinging to his mom for safety.
“Will they be joining us?” Ndjai asked.
Holmes nodded, refusing to take his eyes off of the prisoners. He loved the way they quivered in the firelight. “My friends wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
BLOUNT gawked at the interior of Greene’s mansion as he walked down the hallways, glancing into every room he passed. He had never been in such a large house before and wanted a chance to snoop around. Unfortunately, his hosts had other ideas.
“Bennie!” Payne shouted. “Where are you hiding? Levon got off the phone five minutes ago, and we’ve been waiting for you ever since!”
“I sorry, Mr. Payne!” He jogged toward the sound of Payne’s voice. “I guess I gots a little bit lost when I left the toilet. I sorry!”
Payne grinned at Blount’s lanky form and easygoing country manner. “That’s all right. But if we’re gonna finish our preparations, we’ve got to get back to work.” He threw his arm around Blount’s shoulder and squeezed. “And you’re our star!”
The concept made him smile. “Let’s gets to it then! I been waitin’ my whole life to be a star!” Blount and Payne joined Greene and Jones at the massive dining room table. Maps and sketches were scattered all over the wooden surface. “So tells me, what does ya need to know?”
Jones, who possessed the strongest background in military strategy, glanced at the information in front of him. He had graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he had studied computers at the Colorado Springs campus. After receiving the highest score in Air Force history on the MSAE, the Military Strategy Acumen Examination, he earned his entrance into the MANIACs after a short stint in the military police. Once in the MANIACs, he served several years under Payne, planning a variety of successful missions.
“Now that we know about the Plantation itself, we need to talk about points of entry. How are we supposed to get onto the island?”
Blount answered. “The only way to gets onto the island is from the western dock. Cypress swamps is gonna block every other way to this place.”
“Then tell me about the west. What do we have to worry about before the dock?”
“There be a clean path, right down the middle, and you needs to follow it to avoid trouble. If you goes to one side of the path, boom! You hits some stumps. If you goes to the other side, boom! You hits some trees. But, if you stays in the middle-”
“Boom! The guards see us coming and blow our asses out of the water.”
Blount laughed at Jones’s comment. “That’s right! We’s gonna be gator stew!”
“If that’s the case,” Jones continued, “how do you recommend us getting there? If we can’t use the dock without being seen, how can we get there undetected?”
“Why does you want to make this so complicated, Mr. Jones? There ain’t no reason to find no back door when the front door is working just fine.”
“But I thought you said that there’ll be guards at the western dock.”
“Yep,” he chuckled, “but the guards won’t be expectin’ what I has in mind.”
“And what is that?”
Payne and Jones listened to Blount’s idea and liked what they heard. Even though they had won dozens of military awards, had planned intricate missions through several of the world’s most hostile countries, and had been in charge of the most elite fighting force in America’s history, they were forced to admit that Bennie Blount, a dreadlocked, slow-talking buckwheat from the bayou, had bested their military minds by devising the perfect plan all by himself.
And most importantly, it was simple enough that even he couldn’t screw it up.
DANCING
slightly with every hill and crevice, the headlights of the all-terrain vehicles looked like giant fireflies as they skimmed across the landscape of the Plantation. When the motors could finally be heard, the three groups of prisoners turned and watched the arrival of the two men. Wearing black hoods and thick cloaks, Jackson and Webster soared through the darkness, looking like supernatural beings on a mystical quest, their ebony robes flapping in the great rush of air. It was the type of entrance that nightmares were made of.
After stopping his vehicle, Jackson climbed off his ATV and walked toward Holmes, who was impatiently sitting on his steed. “Sorry we took so long. Right after you left, we got a phone call that we had to deal with.”
“Is everything all right?” Holmes asked.
Jackson nodded. “It seems that we’re going to be getting a few more captives, but it’s nothing to worry about.”
Even though he wanted to hear about the new arrivals, Holmes realized this wasn’t the time or place. He had more important things to deal with, like his announcement. “People, you have already met Master Jackson and myself. Now, it’s time to meet the real brains of the Plantation. I want you to say hello to Master Webster.”
Despite their hatred of the man, the group screamed in unison. “Hello, Master Webster!”
Webster laughed under his hood. When he’d started this mission of revenge, he had dreamed of this moment, but now that it was here, he no longer knew how to react. His reality had somehow intersected with his dream world, and he could no longer discern which was which.
“Soon the sun will rise on the Fourth of July. Independence Day. A day to celebrate the freedom of this great nation.” Webster took a deep breath while staring at the attentive crowd, wondering if they would understand the irony of their situation. “Unfortunately, some Americans weren’t given their freedom in 1776. In fact, thousands of men and women from the United States weren’t given their emancipation until after the Civil War had concluded. Yet we as a nation celebrate our independence on this day and this day alone. Ironic, isn’t it? A country celebrates its freedom on a day when only half of us were freed!”
He cleared his throat as the prisoners thought about his words.
“Wait! You want irony? Independence means freedom from control and restrictions. That’s the basic concept, right? So what’s the opposite of independence? Slavery! Back in the days, white people used to refer to slaves as indentured servants. Did you know that? That was the politically correct way to say
