Breckinridge Valley: Surviving the Black--Book 1 of a Post-Apocalyptical series

by Zack Finley

  “I believe them,” Roger said. “Two of the captives are more worried about what Allen was going to do to their family than what we might do to them. Luckily the other two weren’t as principled.”

  “Everyone is sleeping in the jail, it has the beds and kitchen equipment,” my dad said. “The water isn’t running anymore, and bottled water is getting scarce. Allen was thinking about putting a tank on the roof and pumping water out of the Mecklin River into it. But everything I hear suggests he is too lazy to actually do anything about it until he wants water and it isn’t there. He told the deputies that he’ll give their families to the druggies if the deputies cause trouble. Apparently, that happened in the beginning, although none of the deputies would say what happened to the deputy or his family. They also claim not to know what happened to the seniors from the middle school, just that two of the druggies drove the bus.”

  “What about weapons?” I asked.

  “They have a large arsenal at the jail,” Roger said. “With plenty of AR 15s, flashbangs, armored vests, pistols, and SWAT gear. Allen and Ridge don’t trust anyone, only people on assigned duty are given AR 15s. They have to check them out at the start of an assignment and return them at the end of the assignment. All of the men have pistols. None of the women are allowed weapons. While everyone sleeps in the jail at night, they spread out in the day. Some of the women and most of the children spend their day in one of the courtrooms. One of our prisoners is worried about what they will do now the lights aren’t working. Several of the women are responsible for meal preparation, though this will be tough to do without electricity. They do have a cache of MREs, so some people will still eat.”

  “You know Allen better than I do, any idea how he will react to a siege?” I asked.

  “He considers the women and children hostages,” my dad said. “He is completely amoral. I don’t like what I hear about the druggies, it sounds like they may be worse than Allen is. They have 12 shooters left and about 20 women and children. Once Allen realizes he is trapped, he will hold onto the hostages and try to use them to negotiate a way out. His promises are worthless, and he will say anything to get off. Expect a double-cross. I don’t know much about his partner, Ridge, but they’ve been together for a long time. Ridge was married once but is divorced now. Despite his wife’s claims of domestic abuse, he got off without being charged when she refused to testify. Rumor at the time was that Allen visited her in the hospital and convinced her to withdraw her claims.”

  “We have one of their radios,” I said, “What is your take on whether we contact them or wait?”

  “I’d wait,” my dad said, with Roger nodding agreement. “Right now, they are clueless about what is happening. If they send out another patrol, you can pick up more of their shooters, with minimal risk to us. For all they know, we are a rival drug gang. No matter what you do, don’t react to threats to the hostages, Allen will use that as a weapon against you if he even suspects you might give a shit about them. My guess is those without protectors inside won’t survive this showdown.”

  “What if we pull back and encourage them to leave?” I asked. “We have a few tear gas canisters we can lob in to help encourage them.”

  “It is a huge building,” said Roger, “I just don’t want to lose any of our team rooting them out. I also don’t want to give Allen and his ilk a foothold in the area. I certainly don’t want them to join up with whatever is happening in Oneida.”

  “Do you think Major Thomas will get involved?” I asked. “We haven’t heard from him in a long time.”

  “He doesn’t have enough people to do much unless he got reinforcements. Most of his men deserted within days. I still think he got a secret set of orders after the solar storm eased enough for radio transmissions,” said Roger.

  “What are you going to do with our prisoners?” I asked.

  “It depends. They went along with robbing the seniors at the middle school, and they have no doubt the seniors were either killed outright or left to die,” my dad said. “Right now, the jury is still out. We may want them to sneak in and get the hostages to come out. That would really simplify things for us.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that, yet,” Roger quickly added. “I’ll need a few more sessions with them to determine whether that is even possible. I imagine the leader of that patrol is a lot more involved in shady doings than he admits. I actually have more hope for the two men who refuse to talk, they may still have some sense of right and wrong.”

  “Okay,” I said, wrapping up the discussion. “I won’t escalate the pressure. We’ll give those in the jail time to stew over their situation and hope they send out another patrol. I’m going to designate the building south of the jail as FOB Zulu. If you could provide hot meals and a supply of water there, we’ll rotate my guys in and out of Zulu for a meal and some downtime. You should run a few daylight patrols between Zulu and Fox to monitor for new threats. Leave us enough transport at Zulu to bug out to support any threat to the valley.”

  I returned to FOB Zulu and briefed the three guys there, then met with Matt and his two-man team on the east side. They, too, now had a pretty cozy situation. They had a pair of ninjas assigned to them. They built several shooting positions, most on the second floor facing the jail, but the one with the best range of fire was on the roof. They had plenty of ammo, but food and water would be welcomed. They agreed they had it pretty cush and volunteered to swap out with the guys hunkered down in the woods. I confirmed we were rotating teams as soon as possible.

  I retreated on my ninja through the woods and a small family cemetery to remain out of sight of the justice center. It was then an easy cut along a path through the woods behind FOB Zulu to the road department. I left my ninja tucked under some leaves before rejoining my team in the woods. Getting some relief for Buzzer, now perched on the roof of the farmer’s market building was going to be more difficult. He had a great view of the main court entrance to the building.

  Overnight his team scrounged several sandbags from the county road area and dragged them to the roof to create three excellent shooting positions.

  The building sat on an open gravel parking lot. There was a lot of open ground around it with almost no cover between it and the rest of us. It was the only location which would be difficult to reinforce without being spotted. We agreed to swap his group out each night when we could dart across the road using darkness as cover.

  Buzzer and his crew weren’t concerned. Two men kept watch at a time, allowing the other one to stand down. The guys on the justice center roof were doing the same. I promised to send them some relief after dark.

  We did a major shift, to relieve my team who’d spent two nights in the woods. I also reduced the team in the woods to five. This left us five at Zulu.

  We had several false alarms. One deputy came out once an hour, we weren’t sure if it was the same guy we saw the first thing that morning. He went out and walked around in front of the entrance, then ducked back inside. He wasn’t carrying an assault rifle, so we concluded he was probably bait.

  I put the woods’ team on alert, thinking they might try another patrol. But no such luck. They were just parading a deputy around to see if anyone would react. They had to be wondering if we were still out here.

  They decided to escalate. At about 14:00, someone shoved a young boy out the door. He looked 8 or 9 years old to me. He was crying and apparently wanted to go back inside. He backed away from the door when it opened. He didn’t start running until someone from the door began shooting. I had my team hold its fire. I knew Craig had the shooter in his sights. The gunshots convinced the boy to run. I could tell when the kid stopped just running away from his nemesis and began running towards the closest cover, the woods across Old Brimstone Road. Matt announced one of his team was moving to intercept the kid after he reached the safety of the woods.

  I ordered Force Beta to stay in cover, no matter what happened. Just before the boy reached the safety of the woods, someo
ne from inside the jail fired an assault rifle in his direction, knocking the boy down. He was only a few feet from the woods.

  I couldn’t see where the boy was hit.

  “He is still alive,” Craig said over the radio.

  The boy fell against the slight bank on the woods side of the road. It was barely possible for one of us to move slowly into position and help him into full cover without being spotted. If he’d fallen the other way, we’d have to wait until dark.

  “Tom, get your gear and set up a medic station in the woods close to the boy. Who else is closest?” I asked.

  “I’m maybe 50 feet from the kid,” Ben said.

  “We can’t afford to be spotted helping him,” I reminded everyone. “Make them believe the boy crawled into the woods.”

  “No promises,” Ben growled. “But if I can loop a rope onto his arm and pull him in, that should do it.”

  “Craig, I need to know how many you can see watching from the building,” I said. “Be sure you can id the shooter down the road.”

  “The shooter is wearing SWAT camos. I don’t know who it is, but I won’t forget him. Don’t worry about that,” said Craig.

  After a few minutes, Craig added, “They have two guys with binoculars trained on the kid. I don’t have a good shot at either one.”

  This whole episode shook me to the core. I’d seen ISIS, and the Taliban show similar disregard for life but never expected to see anything like this in my hometown.

  Ben was a good sniper and had great infiltration skills if someone could wriggle near the kid without being spotted, he could. That still left me with a difficult choice. I knew this was exactly what my dad warned me about. If we reacted to this kid being shot the way I wanted to, it would just set up grimmer and grimmer situations for the remaining hostages.

  This was a test. The brute in the jail wanted to know if we were still watching him. Shooting the kid cost him nothing but a mouth to feed. If we rushed to save the kid, that would tell him he could use the hostages against us. If we let the kid die without reacting, he’d know we either weren’t around or were as ruthless as he was.

  If Ben could get close enough to snag the kid’s arm, Ben could fade out of sight. He and Tom could pull the kid deep enough in the woods to work on him.

  “We have a disturbance at the doorway,” Craig said. “Be prepared to pull the kid. Someone is trying to get out of the door. It has them all distracted.” Seconds later a series of shots smashed the front door of the sheriff’s entrance, and the body of a woman spilled out.

  A lot of shouting followed the shooting until two men crunched through the broken glass and dragged the woman’s body to the edge of the building.

  Ben used the time the woman bought with her life to pull the kid into the brush.

  I glanced at my watch and realized the actual amount of time the kid lay unmoving after being shot was only about 15 minutes. I hoped we could save him.

  Tom called for transport to the valley. FOB Eagle acknowledged the request.

  With the tempered glass doors and windows knocked out in the front of the jail, Craig had a better shot. I just wasn’t ready to let him take it. By now they realized the kid moved out of sight. This caused a lot of shouting and arm waving. Eventually, the two men with the binoculars walked out of the building and toward where the kid was shot. Neither carried rifles and the man who shot the kid and mother kept them in his sights the whole way.

  They made a big show of examining the area where the kid fell and ostensibly crawled into the woods. They didn’t go far into the woods, which was a shame because men from Zulu were waiting to grab them. They turned around, apparently satisfied the kid crawled off somewhere to die.

  Another argument commenced when they returned to the entrance. Our team on the roof were in a position to eavesdrop and told us the men told the boss they saw the kid’s body. They were nearly sent to bring the body back to prove it, but eventually, the boss seemed to buy into their lie.

  I doubted the men lied to save the kid, my guess is they were just worried about going further into the woods.

  The late hour convinced them all to call it quits for the day with the boss telling them someone needed to get a load of water in the morning.

  The boy died during surgery. Tom and Ben returned to the field, neither said much. But they weren’t the only ones on a slow burn.

  No one blamed me except me.

  Just after dark, my dad made a surprise trip to FOB Zulu to brief me. He’d also brought hot meals and plenty of coffee for the whole team. It would have been festive if we weren’t so mad and heartsick.

  I learned that one of our captured deputies was the dead boy’s father. Roger took him to be with his son while the boy was being prepped for surgery. Dr. Jerrod sedated the man after the boy died. Roger passed on that the boy had a twin sister. I tried not to dwell on her possible fate.

  I told my dad we couldn’t stand by again and let Allen shoot another child. I already gave my men the green light to kill anyone with a weapon in a similar circumstance.

  My dad was still trying to find a way to get the rest of the hostages freed, without losing any valley personnel. He knew Force Beta was ready to storm the place. Letting a child take a bullet we could have stopped did not sit well with any of us.

  My dad proposed capturing the water expedition, first. He expected it to have a combination of shooters and hostages. Once those in the building settled down to wait for the expedition to return, we’d send in the four captured deputies to get all the hostages out.

  “Should we arm them?” I asked.

  “Pistols only, I think,” said my dad. “I may not send the patrol leader back in. I still think he is more involved in the criminal side than he indicates.”

  “Go with your gut feeling,” I said. “We could lose a lot of hostages if he is compromised.”

  I’d never been in the new combination justice center and jail. It was only 10 years old and replaced a three-story dinosaur built more than 100 years before. None of us knew much about the layout of the building. My dad spent some time in the sheriff’s area, but it was a small part of the whole. He never visited the jail. We’d have to go in and do the best we could.

  We left one man from Force Beta at each sniper post and three men on the roof to monitor the exits. The rest of Force Beta would capture the water expedition.

  We’d turn over all the captives to Roger, and he’d find out where the remaining noncombatants were. I gave that effort only a small chance of success but felt it was worth trying.

  Based on what we learned from those captured in the water expedition, we’d send the three deputies into the building to release as many hostages as possible. I anticipated they’d enter through the main justice center door but was willing to modify the plan if it made sense. We had glass cutters and could cut holes in any of the windows lining the edges of the building, if necessary, to avoid going through a door.

  Roger already told the deputies that anyone exiting the building carrying an assault rifle would be shot.

  We planned to use the armed Humvees to get between any shooter and the escapees. Roger would supply the men for the Humvees and have backup units at each site to secure all prisoners.

  Force Beta would leave a small team in the woods to cover the door the patrol exited through, leaving nine men to sweep the building. I expected most of the rooms to be empty, but we could not afford to leave them unsearched and leave a possible enemy behind us. Roger promised to bring us two breaching rams and a pair of tactical shotguns with plenty of shells from the armory for tomorrow’s operation.

  My dad left to handle the pile of issues on his plate. I knew he came to provide support and comfort, knowing how badly we felt over the outcome. Even knowing that we did everything possible after the kid was shot to save him wasn’t enough. We could have stopped it, and didn’t. The mother’s death weighed on me, too. But it wasn’t the millstone pulling me into the dark place I barely crawled out o
f after Irene’s death. The boy and Melissa were nearly the same age. The only upside was we might rescue the young girl, even though I feared she was at risk.

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 17

  The rain was steady and cold. I felt sorry for the teams on the roof and staked out in the woods.

  The capture team staked out the county museum near the high school where there was an old-fashioned hand pump. Roger learned it was the regular water source for the group.

  While we monitored all exits from the justice center, our intel indicated two or three guys would be sent to get a truck from the county yard, then return to pick up the workers. The team waiting in those woods were ready for company. I had full confidence our group would stay invisible unless they got stepped on.