by Zack Finley
“No need to trade, I’ll have some seeds brought for you. They will be hybrid seeds. We don’t have enough heirloom seeds to trade, yet. Save your tools, you will need them,” I said.
“Appreciate it,” he said. “I’m surprised you didn’t just take the wood and not leave my family any.”
“It wouldn’t be right,” I said. “We aren’t trying to be greedy, if people play fair with us, we will play fair with them.”
“Are you the bunch who killed all those Militia guys?” he asked.
“Might have,” I answered a bit more warily than before.
“Folks at the middle school say you are good people. Let me know what kind of things you guys want, and if I find ‘em, we can trade for food. I think our wood situation is fine now,” he said.
“How can I reach you?” I asked.
“We got a CB radio. Not on much to save the batteries. Besides, you know where I live, your guy followed me last night,” with that he bent over to gather an armload of firewood.
“What callsign should we use for you?” I asked.
“Jericho,” he said. “Most everyone tunes in around noon on channel 20 for a few minutes each day. If you would leave my seeds on the woodpile, I’d appreciate it.”
I doubted he spotted last night’s tail, he just knew we wouldn’t leave someone armed in our area of operation without knowing where they were. Not that I’d let my guys know that. It would be better if they wondered how they were spotted. Anything to keep my guys on their toes.
I told one of the drivers to ask my mom for a family seed packet. He said he’d bring it back with him on his next trip.
We filled everyone’s fuel tank as well as every dry gas or diesel can in the valley. Everyone was conserving fuel so well we hadn’t dipped into our fuel tanks since the crash. But we did accumulate a lot of empty portable containers.
I wasn’t the only one to breathe a sigh of relief when both pickups full of fuel cans reached FOB Echo without mishap.
I arranged for the last load to be the big lumberyard truck, planning to put the generator, empty diesel tank, and forklift on it at the end.
We finished loading the truck with pallets of cement, quikcrete, mortar, tiles, and concrete blocks, before loading the forklift. The truck had good straps and sufficient room for what was left. I doubted we’d be back to the lumberyard except to empty the fuel tanks and maybe dismantle the lumber racks at some point.
We pulled everyone back to FOB Echo and dispersed into the valley. I went to consult with my dad.
He was ecstatic over the haul from the lumberyard. He also felt it was a significant morale booster to have everyone working together on the same goal.
My dad didn’t recognize the man I met at the lumberyard from my description, but he was very encouraged to hear that some in Huntsville were trying to support each other. My mom intended to offer spring seed packages to everyone during tomorrow’s noon communication period.
I told him my new priority was assessing the threat from the Lloyd Mountain camp. He concurred and told me to take all of Force Beta out of work duties until further notice.
When I started to protest, he reminded me there were a lot of people in the valley now who could shoot. Even Craig was mentoring two of dad’s cronies, so he didn’t have to stay up on the defense tower all the time.
I considered sending up our drone, but we could lose it easily to variable winds in our hilly terrain. I doubted we would see anything from an aerial shot that told us enough to risk it. We needed to go in on foot. Without understanding what the place looked like I couldn’t make any real plans for how to deal with this Militia.
I had no stomach for slaughtering them, but even less for letting them threaten our home or those trying to survive in town. We could send Frosty or Frank in with a message, “surrender or die.” I doubted that would result in a positive outcome. We needed to remove the leadership and disperse the rest, plus eliminate or capture any anti-armor or other rocket-type weapons.
They made a big mistake going after the middle school. They paid, but they still were a direct threat to those trying to survive in the area. While I wasn’t as worried anymore about the threat they posed to the valley, I couldn’t afford to become complacent. A few mortars could do a lot of damage and might kill some of our kids. We couldn’t allow that.
The sudden increase in population overwhelmed our old method of posting assignments on a chalkboard in the food court. There was now a computer in the food court posting the daily jobs. People were slowly being organized into groups for ease of scheduling. The chalkboard was now used for group assignments. Most people got new assignments at breakfast, although everyone was warned that there would be emergency changes during the day. Everyone who’d been redirected yesterday to empty the lumberyard knew that.
I posted an after-breakfast meeting for Force Beta. We still had four guys at FOB George, but Roger’s security team was now handling guard duties at FOB Echo. Hardening FOB Echo was on my to-do list.
There was a rollicking game of Monopoly going on when I got home. Melissa recruited Craig to assist her, but Jennifer, Billy, and Joe were competing on their own. Matt and Pete, two members of Force Beta, were playing, too.
The properties were evenly distributed, although Melissa was putting houses on Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues. No one else had a monopoly. While there were a lot of spirited deals being offered, no one was taking them. I suspected that would change once all the properties were sold.
Steve and Mandy were cheering from the sidelines, carefully not taking sides. I went upstairs to put on cleaner clothes. I was pleased to see someone had dropped off two chairs and LED reading lights. I wasn’t tempted to linger because the room was chilly.
I read the drone operations manual several times while the game continued. Even those knocked out remained in the room to cheer on the remaining players. Matt and Pete both made dreadful trades that gave Jennifer and Billy monopolies. They went down soon after that. I never saw either man take a dive on anything, before.
Ellie remained aloof from it all, sitting on the couch with her parents. She was supposed to be reading, but she never turned a page.
When Jennifer hit back-to-back hotels, I was pleased with the way she accepted the loss. I knew she was upset because she didn’t stay involved in the game. But she did walk away without doing anything harmful.
She sat on the arm of my chair and leaned on me. She saw the information I was reading and asked to look at it. I already gleaned what I could without actually trying to fly the thing.
“You have a drone?” Jennifer asked, looking at the colorful glossy colored manual. “It doesn’t look like a drone, it looks more like a toy airplane.”
“It is a drone and a toy airplane, just an expensive and irreplaceable surveillance device,” I agreed.
“Can I watch you fly it?” Jennifer asked.
“We still haven’t flown it yet,” I said. “When we do, it will probably be for area surveillance, and that wouldn’t be something you are involved with.”
“But, it would be fun,” Jennifer offered.
“Zeke isn’t going to let me fly this baby, either,” I said. “It came in late, so none of us has seen it in action.”
“How was your day?” I asked, switching subjects and placing the booklet on the floor beside me.
“Pretty good,” Jennifer said. “Most everyone was carrying things off the trucks. Everyone was trying to see how fast they could get the trucks unloaded. Our team was one of the best.”
“We were trying to load them fast, too,” I said.
“Did any more bad men come?” she asked.
“No, one of the lumberyard neighbors came by, but he was nice,” I said. “We saw a few people in their homes, but no one bothered us.”
“Are you going back tomorrow?” Jennifer asked.
“No, we got most everything we can use. Everyone gets to go back to regular duty tomorrow,” I said.
“I
went by and helped Uncle George with the horses on my break,” Jennifer said. “He will be glad to get the normal crew back.” She added, “Mr. Neufeld likes how I work with the draft horses. He’s going to teach me how to harness them to the wagons in the spring. Uncle George says once I learn how to do that, he’ll let me drive the wagon.”
Her declaration filled me with some trepidation recalling the size of the draft horses. I knew some of the things I got into at that age so I couldn’t really say anything. I trusted Jacob and George to make sure she was safe.
“That sounds like something to look forward to,” I said.
“They both told me I needed to improve my upper body strength and my arms,” she said. “Now I have to practice chin ups every day.” Jennifer looked around then leaned forward and whispered, “I couldn’t even do one chin up today. Uncle George says I have to do 10 in a row before I can switch to the draft horses.”
“Pushups can help you build arm strength, too,” I offered. “Do as many as you can, stop, then try it again. Try to do more each day.”
It dawned on me that PT might be a good thing for everyone in the valley at some point. It would reduce the chance of injuries as people did a lot more physical labor than they were used to. Something to talk with Dr. Jerrod about.
We sat together companionably, offering encouragement to the three remaining players. Joe was knocked out next after throwing doubles twice in a row, landing on back-to-back hotels. This gave Billy an enormous advantage and the game ended shortly.
Melissa wasn’t too bummed by the loss. She still crawled in my lap for a quick cuddle.
As the winner, Billy was stuck putting the game away. My Rangers headed off to their bunks, and we declared lights out a short while later.
The next morning Force Beta sat together at breakfast. I congratulated them on a successful raid on the lumberyard. I shared with them my concerns about the Lloyd Mountain Militia and my conundrum about what to do about them.
We agreed that the first order of business was to get eyes on their compound, watch them for a few days and get to know their routine.
“I could take my Barrett and take out their vehicles,” Craig offered. “I’m just not sure if putting them on foot is such a good idea.”
“Sounds like a good start, to me,” I said. “What makes it a bad idea.”
“Right now, they are sticking to the roads,” Craig said. “When they attacked the middle school, if they had come in through the woods and neighborhoods, they’d have made it harder on us.”
“How many shooters do they have left?” Ben asked.
“We’ve taken out about 80 shooters,” I said. “The best we can drag out of Frank and Frosty is they had about 100 shooters. FOB George hasn’t seen another vehicle for days. They want to go on the offensive.”
“Hell, if there are only 20 left, then it should be a cakewalk,” Pete said, prompting a chorus of groans.
“Last time you declared a cakewalk, we nearly got creamed,” Ben said.
“Pete, do you really trust Frank and Frosty are telling the truth?” I asked.
“Nah, I just don’t know if they were exaggerating high or low,” Pete said.
“Gear up, plan to be gone for 5 days. We will take two trucks and extra ammo and supplies. We’ll leave the two trucks under cover at FOB George. Craig, bring your Barrett and pick three men to be our overwatch. Zeke, issue everyone two grenades each for emergencies and six MREs. Pack a few extra MREs to leave at George. Other than the snipers, everyone should carry suppressed M4s.”
“Since we are taking the whole group, why not have five carry MK 17s. Having them firing from the perimeter can be mighty loud and confusing,” said Zeke.
“Make it so,” I said. “Meet back here in an hour ready to roll.”
Everyone left to pack their camelbacks and dry socks. I dragged out my pack and emptied the unneeded gear into the footlocker in the basement. I was prepared for rain and suspected we would do without a fire.
I needed to pick up the MREs, extra ammo, and extra batteries for my radio, and night vision gear from the armory and I was good to go.
I left the girls a note telling them I was going to be away from home for a few days. I warned them last night that I might be heading out so I hoped they wouldn’t be angry. I couldn’t stop them from worrying, but I wished they understood.
We stuffed eight in each truck, four in the cab and four in the bed. They weren’t full-sized pickups, good for gas mileage, well-built and nimble, with a reasonable payload. We saw a lot of them in other theaters of operation. There was a reason the terrorists liked them.
We were considering adding armor and turning them into technicals. Humvees were rugged, but they had the turning radius of an aircraft carrier and similar fuel mileage.
FOB George was ready to block any escapees.
The snipers headed for the perch Craig hoped was as good as it looked on the map. It was such a good site they expected someone from the Lloyd Mountain Militia might already be there.
The rest of us would get as close to the encampment as we could using overgrown timber company roads that were now more like trails than roads. We were in luck, while there were plenty of deer tracks there weren’t any people tracks. We’d still take care, but it was a good sign.
I reminded my guys about the potential for booby traps, though with the number of deer tracks in the area, this didn’t seem to be a serious threat.
I suspected any traps would be concentrated near the camp perimeter.
Craig checked in from the sniper’s perch. It was empty when they arrived, although there were fresh signs that someone was there just after the last rain. It was ideal for watching whatever was going on in the camp.
The camp was situated on a large flat muddy clearing. Three large plywood storage buildings perched on concrete blocks. Each building had galvanized steel roofs, with only a few windows. The only sign they weren’t abandoned was the smoke coming out of the chimneys. One of the buildings was older than the others, the plywood exterior was delaminating, and the roof was rusted in numerous places. It also had several sagging additions. Craig thought it was the original headquarters. That building’s main door was visible from his perch. The other two buildings probably had doors, too, but they weren’t visible from his angle.
There were five potentially functional vehicles in the compound, all parked in a group near a small shed made of concrete blocks, also with a galvanized roof.
There was one armed person in view who appeared to be on guard duty in front of the concrete shack. A smoky barrel was between the shed and the parked cars. A few blue porta-potties were clustered near an old-fashioned privy.
The compound was littered with trash including four rusted junkers sitting on blocks. The compound clearing had recently been expanded based on the number of stumps exposed around the clearing’s edges. There were plenty of bucked rounds, and scattered piles of split wood piled haphazardly around.
Craig thought the downed trees would provide excellent cover for our observations. So far, except for the lone guard, everyone seemed huddled inside the buildings.
The clearing may have started with some gravel, but now the place looked mostly muddy with deep potholes, especially along the only visible exit road.
We split into two groups, one headed for the northwest side and the other the south side.
The start of a plan was forming in my mind. I just wasn’t sure whether it was better to execute in darkness or daylight. Right now, the tangoes were concentrated in three enclosed buildings. Blocking the chimneys should chase them out of the buildings, allowing us to sort those with guns from those without. While I’d love to hit one building at a time, I doubted they’d be that helpful. Even a suppressed M4 shot should prompt someone from the other buildings to investigate.
We needed to hit the three buildings at the same time. Block the chimneys and wait for the ants to scramble out. Part of me wanted to siphon gas out of the cars and burn
the buildings down, but I couldn’t justify it. If there were children in the place….
We’d have to do this the harder way.
I shared my plan with the team. We all agreed daytime for an op of this sort was better, since we had the firepower and the high ground. FOB George suggested they drive up the road and block it with our trucks near the compound, adding their firepower to the attack, as needed. Craig proposed sending two of his team down to the compound as well.
“We can only monitor the door to the main building, so our help is limited,” Craig said. “If my guys can set up on the other side, that will give you backup for each door.”
I agreed to the changes. I warned the team that we probably had noncombatants in the mix and to try and leave them alive. I also emphasized that protecting noncombatants was secondary to avoiding friendly casualties.
