Showing over the top of the truck cab was a .30 caliber belt-fed machine gun. It was probably taken from the National Guard armory in town. Boomer, the group leader, had the bikers pull off the side of the road for a conference.
“This is looking to me like they aren’t going to lay out the welcome mat for us! Hustler, you and Ralph go down to the barricade and one of you can negotiate some sort of agreement. Tell them we simply want food, water, and gas. Tell ’em we’re not looking for no trouble.”
The two bikers cranked up their bikes and headed toward the barricade with a white flag flying from a pole. A volley of shots tore up part of the road and the two bikers crumpled and went down. Their motorcycles fell, and sparks from metal on the pavement showered out, leaving a meteor light display in a wide arc until the gas tanks caught on fire; first one, then the other. The bikes continued to slide toward the barricade just before they exploded. The two slavers didn’t move. The pool of blood began to grow under and around their dead bodies.
Boomer surveyed the damage as he spoke matter-of-factly,
“Well fellas, it don’t look to me like they’re in any mood to negotiate. Let’s fall back and see what we can come up with. There’s plenty of ’em at that barricade and we don’t have much of a chance of sneaking up on ’em or just driving right up to ’em. We need to come up with somethin’ a little more realistic or we need to go around.”
After some further review, and an animated discussion, the group decided to go back and meet with Bone Breaker and the others. There was no reason to try to take on the townspeople without more men and ammo. This seemed to be the general consensus among all of them, and they mutually agreed to it. None of them wanted to take the chance of getting smoked by these people guarding the entry to the town.
◆◆◆
In the meantime, the group arriving at Klamath Falls faced a similar confrontation. Each group made the prudent decision to head back and meet with Bone Breaker to discuss their future plans.
When most of the groups had arrived back at the main camp, they slaughtered a cow that one of the groups had happened upon in a farm pasture. They also appropriated some bushels of corn they found in an old barn next to the same pasture. The women baked loaves of cornbread and laid out a sumptuous dinner around a huge campfire. They might as well party while they planned their next move.
They waited for the group from the south to arrive, eventually coming to the realization that they never would. Many wondered if the plague had ravaged them in their quest for plunder. Bone Breaker spoke to the men.
“I understand there was some trouble while the groups were out. Each person will report on what’s happening out there and we’ll figure out our next move. Slasher, you start.”
He looked over at Slasher and the man quickly rose to his feet.
“Just after the war started, we had it good. The pickings were easy! That’s no longer the case. The towns are blocked shut with armed sentries and they have barricades in place. Right now, the towns are regrouping, and the people appear to be well armed. There are many more of them now doing the guarding. We can no longer just ride in and take over. I have a plan, but we will have to change the way we’ve been operating.”
He stopped talking and looked around at the large contingent. Everyone waited for Bone Breaker’s permission as he nodded for him to continue. He was just as curious as the others were. This was interesting…
“Making a frontal assault is insane. All we’re going to do is lose more people if we try it, and we can’t afford that. We lost many good men and women to the plague. All we have to do is remember the attack on Fitch and what those well-armed farmers did to us. I’m guessing we’re about four-hundred warriors right now and a few hundred women, not counting the slaves.
“We need to fight the townspeople and ultimately take them over by stealth. Remember I told you about a plan I was worki’ on just before you were planning on hitting Fitch? I told you about the Trojan Horse? Here’s my plan for our Trojan Horse. We’ll send our people posing as couples into each of these towns with fortifications and conquer them from the inside out. Just like the Greek’s Wooden Horse, except we’ll do it a bit different. Our Trojan horse, so to speak.”
Nods of agreement came from everyone, and there was lots of murmuring as the people there listening began to talk with one another. He had everyone interested.
“Except, we’ll do it was just one man and one woman, and not alert the town’s people. The couples will blend in, work alongside them and learn all they can about their operations. Where they keep their stores and weapons, the schedules they keep. How often and where they change their guards. In a couple of months, we’ll attack, while we have our people on the inside working with us.”
He paused again and waited for someone else to say something, but no one spoke.
He continued when no one said anything,
“We need to pick our spies carefully they have to be trustworthy because the information they give us must be reliable and accurate. We’re gonna want them to gather enough information, so when they sneak out later, they can tell us everything we need to know. We’ll give them a date and a time to leave for a predetermined place where we will meet up with them. When we determine all their weaknesses, we can plan an attack. Once we plan and execute a full attack, we will be resupplied with everything we’ll need to go on to the next town from the one we take over. If we plunder one, we’ll have enough of everything to plunder the next. I say we take them one at a time. There is less risk that way. We can’t afford to lose too many of our own. We’re no longer getting the recruits we once were.”
He paused again to let the words sink in and remained standing.
There was talk among the others. Then everyone began talking at once, it appeared they liked what they were hearing, and the plan itself.
“While we’re waiting to get the inside scoop on the towns we penetrate, I say we spread out and really start working smaller places off the beaten path. There are still hundreds of small communities out there and I’m sure there are plenty of people just waiting to be overtaken.”
A cheer went up and he stopped talking.
Boomer stood up to be recognized and Bone Breaker nodded at him to advance. Getting the green light from Bone Breaker, Boomer began speaking to the group,
“Slasher made some excellent points. There are a lot of small groups out there that have come together to protect themselves and we can profit from them. We can take their stuff and their women.
“We can convert some of the men into slaves and in general make a small haul. I mean, it’s always nice to take over a whole town and get a lot of stuff while we’re at it, but those days of getting it handed to us are over and we all know it. I also think there are a lot less people because of the plague, starvation, and other sicknesses. God only knows what other catastrophic events could happen again; at any given time. The other day, one of our women died because she had a cut on her foot, and it became infected. We just didn’t have the medicine to treat her. That can happen to any of us.
“As we go into battle, we understand some of us will be wounded and some will die. We need to fight smarter, not harder.”
Seeing that no one made a move to stop him, Boomer continued.
“I say we patrol other areas and note where we have been on maps, so we don’t go to the same place over and over. Gas is critical right now and we need to find more of it. It’s out there somewhere; all we have to do is get to it before someone else does. I also think there’s a lot of medicine out there, we just need to find it and use it for ourselves.”
That’s when the crowd erupted into hollering, screaming, yelling, and whistling. Many of them were on their feet dancing around like wild Indians, and Bone Breaker sat there quietly, his elbow on the armrest of his chair and his hand to his chin. He had some pretty smart boys working for him, and these boys right here were just about the smartest among them. When they spoke, he listened, and what they
were saying made a lot of sense. This was a good plan and they were going to do it; simply because it was a good plan.
Bone Breaker said out loud to no one in particular, pretty much just to himself under his breath,
“They’re smart all right, but I’m a hell of a lot smarter. They’re working for me!”
Next, Angel stood. He had a reputation of being a merciless killer, and he had been a killer before the war. He looked over at Bone Breaker before he spoke.
“I thought about this ever since we formed up and began motoring around taking whatever we wanted. We did a lot of traveling around, we burned up lots of gas. We ate lots of food and were constantly motoring back to our main camp where Bone Breaker and Slasher were. We’re still waiting for the other group that went down the Coastal Highway. Who knows what happened to them or how far they got? I want to throw my suggestion out there as to how we can cut down a little and at the same time cover more territory.”
He looked over to Bone Breaker and was given a go-ahead nod.
“I don’t want anyone to think I’m suggesting anything other than what I’m putting forth here. I like what I’ve heard and want to see all the top lieutenants split away from the main group and go out and stake a territory of their own to watch over and control. We are like the knights of the medieval days. We are loyal to our king and obey his orders. But we’re like kings in our own right, perhaps earls or something like that. I don’t know what the names are exactly, but we can control the territory. We can spread out permanently and we can still rally around our king whenever we’re needed. In the meantime, our reward for good service is our own territory. We can continue building our individual camps with men, women, slaves, and supplies. Eventually, we can control all of California and Oregon.
“We’ll monitor everything that comes and goes, and charge taxes on the use of our land. For instance, anyone traveling on our roads or crossing our territory will have to pay us. That will keep supplies coming in more regularly than simply taking it at random, once a month or once every three months. When we’ve been at it for a while, we can have a big get-together and divide up the spoils with our king.”
He stopped talking and looked at Bone Breaker for a sign of approval. Bone Breaker was smiling. Angel took this as a good sign, but you never knew about the big guy. He was tired of the nomadic life and wanted to settle down. They had been at this plundering business for a while now, since the war. It was time to divide up the boundaries. As far as he was concerned, they should do it. He wanted an opportunity to control his own area for a change. This bullshit to get on our bikes, going from place to place to place, sleeping on the cold ground, and eating whatever we can scrounge up was getting old. He wanted a change. Bone Breaker stood up. It got really quiet. The big man just stared at everybody for a solid minute until everybody was very quiet and he began to speak,
“Those are good ideas. I like them! I think once we get a few wrinkles ironed out, we can concentrate on those ideas and put them into effect. As far as going off to control Oregon, I don’t like that. I’m content to control most of California. As long as the people from Oregon don’t bother me, I’m not going to bother them…”
He grinned,
“Unless I need to!”
People laughed.
“For now,”
he continued,
“Someone else can do their thing and we’ll do ours. We’ll talk about this again. I like everything I’ve heard here today I think we should all think on it and put it all together. In the meantime, everybody have a great time and eat your fill.”
Slasher didn’t say anything, but his mind was racing. There was no reason to stop at California. Why stop there when there was an entire United States to reap tribute from?
◆◆◆
It was inevitable, with or without Bone Breaker there would never again be a more opportune time to completely take over the continent, and he planned on doing just that. Bone Breaker had little foresight, and he wasn’t an able leader. He was just big and that was what carried him through all this time, but he wasn’t that smart, at least that’s what Slasher thought. But he kept that to himself. Bone Breaker was the leader right now because of brute force, but Slasher knew that would change in the future. All men have their moment to shine, but most of the time it doesn’t last long.
It was his new quest to make sure Bone Breaker’s reign was coming to an end; probably by the death of the big man. He would see to it personally if he had to. Bone Breaker smiled at his trusted lieutenant as Slasher gave back a wide grin. In the back of his mind he was saying to himself, You’re dead, big man!
Yes Sir, Mr. Bone Breaker, I’ll see you dead. His eyes disguised thoughts. You’re going to die, you big son of a bitch!
Over the next few days a search began for the six couples to be Bone Breaker’s spies. He had determined the women should be pregnant to elicit sympathy from the townspeople. The women had to be smart, and most of all, they had to be loyal to the slavers and Bone Breaker. If the townspeople detected them, it could be a major factor in diminishing the return they were hoping to get. A couple of women lied about being pregnant and were quickly eliminated from the project. One woman managed to convince those in power she simply had made a mistake about her monthly cycle, and since she was currently menstruating, she was eliminated as well.
Another woman was killed for her apparent trickery; they used her as an example in front of the whole camp. They tied her to a pole and whipped her to death. This eliminated any other ideas about trying to trick the selection committee. They eventually decided the women selected had to be showing in their pregnancy to eliminate any more attempts at deceit; and not just fat.
At long last six couples were selected for the job. They would be dropped off at least twenty miles from the entrance to the various towns they were trying to infiltrate. This would ensure they weren’t spotted as being slavers by anyone as they approached the town. The chosen towns were Reading in the south, Fitch in the east, Bishop in the northeast, Stockton in the southeast and finally Chico and Sacramento. The couples resembled refugees by wearing rags for clothing, not bathing for days, and not eating, so they appeared as skinny and undernourished as possible. Once they were settled into the towns, they could be on the verge of giving birth, or would have already given birth.
This was to allow them another six weeks before they would be energetic enough to travel. So, the deadline decided on was three-and-a-half months from the day they were dropped off. They all rehearsed their stories. They were laced with true events of their real past lives and embellished with made up stories about how they had managed to survive since the start of the war. They would tell of their sheer luck and how they managed to avoid the plague, the slavers, and total starvation as well.
They went before a committee and were questioned thoroughly about their stories. They had to have them down pat. The lies had to be believable. The committee decided after interviewing all of the couples they were ready.
It was all coming together to the satisfaction of Bone Breaker and Slasher. The plans were to strike at the heart of these larger towns. Once the slavers understood the security breaches and other weaknesses, each town would be taken easily. Everyone was satisfied the scheme would work. The easy part was done, but the proof of whether it was a good plan or not would only reveal itself in trying to pull it off.
Slasher was the master planner; ruthless, ambitious, and very smart. He was much smarter than Bone Breaker and his contempt for the big guy was becoming harder to hide. He realized he must continue the charade until just the right time. He was determined to kill the man and take over the gang of outlaw bikers. He already acted in that role although limited. Soon, he wouldn’t have to kiss the big man’s ass, he would run the show. His ultimate plan, of course, was to take over and dominate the entire United States of America. What was left of it anyway? Perhaps in a few years, he could take over larger tracts of land in other countries, but that was far into the
future. He had to deal with the here and now first. Bone Breaker was a dead man walking.
Three weeks later the spies were delivered to their drop-off points to begin the long walk to their assigned towns.
Chapter 16
The Spies
Carl and Millie went over the details, where they had supposedly come from, and how they desperately needed medical help for their baby that was due pretty soon. The twenty-mile walk was a long journey and was especially hard on the pregnant Millie, frequent stops were necessary.
The sentry notified both Fitch and Avalon by radio about the bikers who dropped off Stan and Millie. The slavers had passed by without noticing the manned tower hidden from their view and they ended up dropping the passengers in plain sight.
Mike prepared his Cessna 182 for a trip down to Fitch to see what was about to happen. Things had been quiet for some time and he wanted to hear the stories those two had to tell in person. These were unusual circumstances and he especially wanted to be there when the strangers arrived, and the questioning began.
The questions the townspeople asked of strangers were fairly routine. Where did you come from? How have you managed to survive all this time? Where have you been? What have you been doing and what have you seen along the way? Most of the straggler’s stories were fairly straightforward and matter-of-fact, but these two would be looked at much more closely because of how they arrived. It was rare anyone was delivered to the outskirts of Fitch by the slavers. That was worth investigating.
Mike veered the plane toward the north away from the main road and then swung it back toward the southeast and landed at the airport just outside of Fitch. He was well away from the main highway that passed through Fitch. The sheriff was waiting for him when he taxied up to the main building. Caroline was now looked at as the local doctor and was with Mike in the plane. She had come specifically to examine the woman. The sentry reported the woman straggler looked like she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, maybe seven or eight months.
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