The flatbed driver succeeded in flipping his trailer, and the truck’s cab was on the ground, too. The pallets were shattered, and bricks were scattered across both the incoming and the outgoing lanes of traffic.
“What’s going on?” Maria asked.
There was so much confusion, Juan couldn’t make sense of what he was looking at.
Then he saw it. Dozens of men were climbing out of their pickup trucks. They were armed, with pistols prominently displayed on their hips, and they were inserting large red, white, and blue American flags into holders mounted on the back of their trucks. There were also bright yellow flags with a picture of a rattlesnake and the words “Don’t Tread on Me” emblazoned across the bottom.
Within minutes, all the inbound and outbound lanes to the airport were choked with protestors for a half mile in either direction. Men and women dressed in a wild assortment of camouflage clothing began taking turns standing atop the overturned truck, screaming slogans into a bullhorn while their companions filmed them with cell phones.
The camera cut back to the news anchor. A big maps of the United States appeared with inset images of people rioting. They were all dressed in similar fashion, with the same combination of American and Gadsden flags displayed.
Maria tried to suppress a gasp, “What’d she say?”
Juan blew out a long breath. “She’s saying that this is happening at airports all across the country: Denver, Dallas, Chicago, a bunch of them.”
“Why?” she asked in a whisper.
“They’re protesting the law President Newsom just signed,” Juan offered. It Increases the number of Supreme Court Justices from nine to thirteen.”
Maria looked at her watch, “We were supposed to be there right now, picking up mijo.”
“I guess we got lucky,” Juan said, wincing at the thought of his last painful phone call with Carlos. He didn’t feel lucky. He felt cursed.