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  Unfortunately, disaster was soon to follow because one of the militia members was a traitor, and he told the federal police about the secret leadership meetings that were taking place at Ray’s restaurant. A week later, the feds raided the restaurant and arrested Ray and all the militia leadership. It was devastating for the New Orleans militia, and most of the top leaders were executed within a few weeks. The rest were sent to the detention camps along with other members of the militia who were also arrested in a massive sweep throughout the city.

  Ray was among them, but at the time of the raid, he had not been in the meeting but instead in the kitchen, preparing several trays of food for the militia leaders. When interrogated, the militia leaders claimed that Ray had just rented them the restaurant and did not participate in the meetings or know what they were about. The feds did not really buy that story, but it gave them the excuse to detain Ray and turn him into their private chef as the cook for the people who controlled the detention center and the city.

  Chapter XIII

  Now Ray was on his way home again, back to the family plantation outside of Donaldsonville, Louisiana. He was coming home on a stolen fishing boat, and he was on deck, searching for the entrance to the bayou that ran through the family plantation into the river. The bayou had always been wide and deep and was used by fishing boats belonging to local families that would sail down to the Gulf of Mexico to catch fish and shrimp for restaurants in the cities of Donaldsonville and Baton Rouge.

  Ray hoped that the presence of another fishing boat moored along the bayou would not be noticed until they could unload their cargo and make plans to transport the team and what weapons and ammunition they could to their final destination in Texas. Ray also hoped that Daniel might help him procure some type of transport for his men and some of the food, weapons, and ammunition. The rest would be left with Daniel to be hidden or used as necessary to defend his cousin and the rest of the large extended Thibodeaux family.

  The hurricane that was now moving through New Orleans was turning to the west, so the winds and rain upriver at Donaldsonville were not nearly as severe as those still ravaging the coastal cities and towns of Louisiana. However, visibility was poor, so both Ray and Jason Arnaud were using night-vision goggles to scan the west bank of the river. It was the experienced sailor and river pilot Jason who spotted the bayou and slowly turned the fishing boat into it. However, they almost immediately encountered a totally unexpected problem.

  A half mile up the bayou, there had been a famous Cajun restaurant called Robichaux’s Landing. Ray had assumed that it had been long closed but saw it lit up in the distance. This was definitely a problem because they would have to sail past the restaurant to get to the landing at the plantation, and Ray knew that the boat would be spotted by anyone in the restaurant, and he had no idea who might be there. He immediately ordered Jason to reduce speed and put the boat as close as possible to the shore of the bayou without running it aground.

  Once this was accomplished, the engines were stopped, and two team members dropped the boat’s anchor to keep it from drifting. The boat was equipped with a small dingy and several rubber life rafts, and Ray decided to use one of the latter to transport him and two members of the team to the shore. He had to approach the restaurant to find out what was going on. To accompany him, he chose William Jackson, the former army ranger captain, and George Carson, the former Navy SEAL.

  They landed on the shore of the bayou, tied off the raft, and started to move through the thick woods. For the first time in many years, Ray smelled the delightful odors of pine and fir trees, and it only took him and his men a few minutes to reach the clearing surrounding the restaurant. They were immediately forced to withdraw a few yards back into the tree line when they spotted several armed guards patrolling the perimeter of the clearing.

  Ray had a pair of binoculars he had taken from the boat and used them to examine what was going on in the restaurant. He could tell right away that from the relaxed atmosphere, the music, and the laughter that it was probably a fais do-do, which is the Cajun name for a dance party. Ray had to smile because he appreciated the fact that only Cajuns would use a hurricane as an excuse for a party. As he scanned the faces in the room, he realized that he knew many of the older participants at the party. Some were his cousins, and others had been high school classmates and lifelong friends.

  He finally spotted his cousin Daniel, but the problem was how was he going to let Daniel know he was outside and get him to meet him in private, particularly with the area being hammered by rain and some wind. He couldn’t just walk into the party because he did not know everyone who was there. He needed another way to reach Daniel, so he took a closer look at the three heavily armed young guards that were patrolling the area. He was pleased when he recognized one of them as Daniel’s oldest son Johnny, a young man who had always admired Ray and he had been close to.

  As he watched his young cousin and the other two guards make their rounds, Ray realized that every few minutes Johnny was in a position behind the restaurant that was out of sight of the other two guards. Ray moved through the tree line and got into position so he could get the young man’s attention. The sound of his voice would be muffled by the wind and rain, so no one but Johnny would hear him. He used hand signals to get his two comrades through the woods and then stopped them so Johnny would not be spooked by the sight of three men instead of just one.

  As Johnny got near Ray’s hidden position, he called out to him, “Johnny, it’s your cousin Ray. I need to speak to your father in private. It’s important.”

  Johnny froze, but he recognized the voice and then his cousin when he stepped out of the woods and could be seen in the lantern light that was emanating from the restaurant. Johnny was surprised and delighted as he shook his older cousin’s hand. No one in the family had heard from Ray since just prior to the EMP attack, but they all knew about the chaos in New Orleans, so they feared that Ray might be dead.

  The young man acted quickly; he told Ray to follow him, and he led him to a covered and screened-in porch behind the restaurant kitchen. Once Ray was in hiding, Johnny went back outside and told the other two guards he had to go inside for a few minutes to use the bathroom. Once in the building, he pulled his father aside and told him where to find Ray. Then he returned to his guard post, unaware that his every move was being watched by two of Ray’s men. Ray had told them what he was doing, but in case something went wrong, they were to immediately return to the boat and head out into the Mississippi River to try to get upstream to another location where they could hide out.

  They were ordered specifically not to try to rescue Ray if he was captured. A firefight would reveal their presence and compromise the safety of the rest of the crew. Ray had made George Carson his second in command, and he and Jason Arnaud knew where Ray was planning to ultimately take his men, so they could proceed without him.

  In fact, Ray’s meeting with Daniel went off with no problems. He briefly told his cousin where he had been and how he and the others with him had escaped. He told Daniel that they needed to get the boat safely up the bayou to a secure location where they could offload the food and weapons and hide them. They also needed a place to stay until they could set off on their trek to their final destination. He told Daniel that they were hoping to get some form of transportation to help them along even if was just some donkeys or horses to be used to help carry their loads as they walked to their destination.

  Daniel may have only had a high school education before he went to work on the oil rigs, but he was highly intelligent and resourceful. He let Ray know that he and several of the other members of the family had formed a secret militia and all the people attending the fais do-do were involved in the militia. They could all be trusted. They knew that there would probably be no federal patrols in the area during the storm, so they decided to enjoy themselves and throw a party. He also informed Ray that, in fact, they had very litt
le contact with the feds who only showed up at harvest time to collect 75 percent of all the crops grown in the area as a tax.

  This meant that it was highly unlikely that even after the storm had passed that there would be any federal agents in the area for some time. They just didn’t have the manpower available to constantly monitor all the rural areas in Louisiana. He told his cousin that he would end the party and tell everyone what was going on. He would send Johnny back to the fishing boat with Ray, and he would guide the boat to an abandoned repair facility very close to the plantation. It was a covered wharf where the boat could be hidden from prying eyes.

  They would be met there by the militia members with pickup trucks to offload all the supplies and hide them with all of Ray’s men at secure locations. Then tomorrow they would discuss the ways they could help the fugitives get on the move to the place where they wanted to be. Ray knew that there would be much more to talk about later, but now they had to move, so he and his two men, along with Johnny headed back to the boat.

  It took about forty-five minutes for the fishing boat to make the journey up the bayou to the covered repair facility, but that had been more than enough time for Daniel to bring in the militia members and their vehicles. Because the feds relied heavily on the produce, sugarcane, meat, and poultry produced by this rural community, they made sure that a limited but adequate supply of fuel was available for the farms, ranches, and plantations in the area. The Cajuns that ran these facilities had learned to ration the fuel carefully and hoard much of it. So they had fuel to move the trucks, food, ammunition, weapons, and men into hiding in a short period of time.

  As Ray and his men disembarked from the boat, they were met by Daniel who Ray introduced to them. Then they found that they were in for a pleasant surprise. There were over fifty men, women, and even teenagers who were prepared to unload the boat and they would be able to do it quickly. Ray and the rest of his team did not need to be involved in this process; instead, they were treated to hot plates full of chicken and sausage gumbo, crawfish etouffee, and jambalaya that had been brought from the Cajun party to the landing site. For the fugitives, this was the best meal they had had in years.

  The unloading of the fishing boat was completed shortly after three o’clock in the morning, and Ray and his team were taken to a large barn on the plantation where they were provided with bedding that would allow them to sleep comfortably on the ground for the rest of the night. Daniels’s men would provide security overnight so all the fugitives could rest. There they could get a few hours of much-needed sleep and then prepare to proceed with the next part of the escape plan.

  Chapter XIV

  As instructed by Ray, Daniel awoke him and his men just after dawn, and the men were taken to the plantation home where they were provided with more luxuries that they had not enjoyed in years. It was a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs, Cajun boudin sausage, grits, homemade biscuits, and, most importantly, real coffee. After enjoying breakfast, Ray and Daniel sat down to talk business. The young man described the situation in the parish as being semi-stable. There were very few regular patrols in the area because the feds were still concentrating on controlling the large cities.

  As a result, there had not been any effort made yet to go door to door and search for firearms. There had been an order issued for all privately owned firearms to be turned in to local authorities such as the sheriff, and he had reported to the feds that many had been received and destroyed. He did not report that most of them were small-caliber older weapons and that many of them were broken and worthless. Thus, the Donaldsonville militia was well armed and prepared to fight with other area militias when the time came, and they knew it would eventually happen.

  Unfortunately, Ray had to inform Daniel that the time could be coming sooner rather than later. The night before, as they were pulling the Freedom Runner away from the wharf in New Orleans, there was a lot of lightning that illuminated the entire area and across the river on the west bank. Ray saw long lines of Russian- and Chinese-made tanks and other armored vehicles parked near a group of abandoned warehouses.

  That confirmed something that Ray had overheard in the detention center dining area for the guards and administrators. They had invited some Syrian officers to eat dinner with them so they could impress them with Ray’s cuisine. They were newly arrived and were commanders of a tank brigade that had recently arrived in New Orleans. Since they had no idea that Ray understood everything they were saying, they talked freely. Ray made a point of serving them personally but was careful not to be obvious. He did not hear the whole conversation but heard enough to know that they were the first element of a large force that was to assist the federal government in attacking a powerful rebel force in East Texas.

  However, before they moved into that state, they had the task of finding and destroying some Louisiana National Guard units that it was suspected were hidden in the Donaldsonville area. The federal commanders were waiting on several Syrian infantry brigades and supporting artillery to arrive in the next three weeks. Ray felt he had no choice but to ask Daniel if he knew anything about such guard units in the area. Daniel hesitated momentarily then informed Ray that he did know about them and that he and Ray needed to immediately meet with the lieutenant colonel who commanded the units and who lived in the area.

  They met Lieutenant Colonel Roger Griffin, a short wry middle-aged man, in the abandoned restaurant where the militia had been partying the night before. Daniel was the only person in the area who knew about the hidden guard units, and he assured the colonel that Ray could be trusted, and he had Ray tell him what he knew about the combined federal and Syrian operation. Ray also told the colonel and Daniel that he and his men were planning to head to East Texas where they had heard there was a strong resistance movement with a proactive commander that was recruiting more members for his growing militia.

  Ray felt obligated to send some of his men immediately to Texas to alert the militia leaders that they were the ultimate target of this invasion. On the other hand, he and some of the other men would stay behind to help defend Daniel and the people of the Donaldsonville area if the colonel and Daniel thought they could be of assistance.

  The colonel did not hesitate to be completely honest with Ray. There were elements of four different National Guard units hidden in the area and now were under his command. His own unit was an infantry battalion and the companies were scattered across south central Louisiana. The battalion headquarters had been in Donaldsonville but was now on an abandoned sugar plantation west of the city. The headquarters contingent was small consisting of the colonel, his executive officer, the battalion sergeant major, two other noncommissioned officers, and sixteen other infantrymen who were providing security. They were housed in the plantation house and surrounding buildings with their families.

  The rest of the members of the headquarters company and the infantry battalion were still living with their families in Donaldsonville and other area towns and cities. They could be called up if necessary, but the battalion was woefully understrength. The federal government had cut the military drastically over the years including not only active-duty units but also reserve and National Guard units. After the EMP attack, the government had attempted to federalize the National Guard units.

  In many states, the governors adamantly refused to allow this and deployed the National Guard units to assist people in their states, not to arrest them because they owned guns. When the federal government started to use the resources of the government police agencies and foreign troops in these states, many of the National Guard and reserve units took whatever equipment they could into hiding. That is what had happened in Louisiana, and so in addition to Colonel Griffin’s infantry, there were also several other units hidden in the area. This included an armored battalion with six Abrams battle tanks, a Blackhawk helicopter unit with four Blackhawks, an Apache helicopter unit with five Apache attack choppers, and an MP unit with
several Striker assault vehicles and some Humvees.

  Griffin told Ray that there was no way his limited capabilities could successfully resist an assault by the forces that Ray had described. The addition of Ray and his men to his command would make no difference, and Daniel’s militia would not be able to turn the tide either. This was particularly true since other Louisiana Guard units that had been in hiding in north Louisiana had been discovered and in most cases destroyed by federal troops and foreign mercenaries that had come in from Arkansas.

  The colonel felt that it was time for the units under his command to withdraw and also go to Texas to join the forces there. He also wanted Daniel and his militia to come with them. His plan was relatively simple: he would supply Ray and his team with three Humvees driven by Texas guard members to convey them and as many of the weapons as they could carry to the Texas border. He wanted Ray to convey to the East Texas militia commander the readiness of Colonel Griffin to move his large National Guard force and area militia into Texas to join the Texas force.

  The big question was, could the Texas group accommodate several hundred members of the Louisiana National Guard, militia members, and their families? They could bring tents for housing some of their people and some food, but they would have to have support from their counterparts in Texas. At this point, Daniel intervened and added his own thoughts to the discussion. He had always assumed that if things got really bad in the parish and his militia had to actively fight the feds that they would be supported by the National Guard. However, he realized that this was no longer possible.