by Steven Kagey
Once David radioed back that he was in place, everyone at the homestead took turns looking through the binoculars trying to find him. No one was able to see him. The team continued training on clearing the house with their intended three-man configuration. After a few runs, David got used to their rhythm of going to the individual rooms and was able to start calling out the locations of the girls in advance. The little girls were getting upset that they were now being found every time. A few times David even called his shots on the further rooms.
The sun was setting, and they took a break to eat dinner. Brian radioed David and told him to look in his pouch on his vest. Brian had stuck four rifle rounds in it.
“Load the ammo,” Brian said, then he called out a colored target from one of the paint cans he’d scattered throughout the woods. David hit the first three on the first shot and missed the last one. It was the closest one to him, but in his defense, it was almost dark when he took that shot, and he didn’t have night vision.
Brian took him out in the woods to inspect his shots when he returned to the house. He’d only missed the last shot by two inches. The entire team was pleased and feeling very confident with David being the sniper overwatch.
After dinner, they sent David back out into the field, this time with night vision, and they practiced clearing the house in the dark. With the ENVG-IIIs, the bad guys didn’t stand a chance in the dark without being able to see, and unable to hide their heat signatures.
With the success of the night time training, the group discussed the merits of doing all their raids at night. Travel to and from their targets at night was a lot more dangerous. Also, unless they lucked upon a long range night vision scope for David, his role was reduced, but the advantage of the night vision was still undeniable.
Chapter 26
Friday, September 27th
One Week Since the Power Went Out
The next morning everyone was tired from the late night of training. Brenda had taken the last watch at the LP/OP. Carol reported some disturbing news on the radio: infantry units from Fort Knox were being sent out to support the DHS in Kentucky and surrounding states. Larger cities from around the state were getting the first wave of soldiers. There was no mention of Crossville getting any yet, either on the HAM or from the local enemy radios they had captured.
“If the DHS in this area gets much more resistance,” Brian said, “they’ll request to be moved to the top of the list seeing how important the area around interstate 40 is.”
He got the team together and gave out a set of his Marine pattern (MARPAT) camouflage uniforms that he still had from when he was in the service.
“Do you think David should have a ghillie suit?” Craig asked.
“I do,” Brian agreed. He pulled out the largest set of woodland camouflage BDUs he could find and set upon them with scissors. He cut “V” pieces of fabric from top to bottom, which would mimic leaves and move in the wind to conceal a human form.
Sean, Craig, and David all looked at him like he was crazy.
Brian had David put the altered uniform over his MARPAT ones, and the color differential showed through. “David, go stand at the edge of the woods.”
Neither Sean nor Craig could see him, and he was only 100 feet away. After they finally spotted him, Brian told David to go a little deeper. This time No one could see him until Brian asked him to move his arms.
“That works damn good,” Craig said, and Sean agreed.
Brian got out the map of the area, detailing the plan for the day. They were going to recon two of the houses they intended to raid. Brian and David would go to one, Sean and Craig the other.
“This is a no contact operation,” he explained. “We’re only going to observe and see what we would be up against.”
They got in the truck and headed out. Brian and David were going to a house a few miles down the road. Sean and Craig were going to observe the house that Brian and Sean had passed yesterday that belonged to one of the guardsmen. Sean dropped Brian and David off and then continued on. Once they got within a mile of the house, Craig pulled the truck in woods and they snuck up to the house in the tree line.
***
Christina and Brandon were on watch in the LP/OP when they spotted an older model pickup coming down the road. There were two people in the cab and three in the bed. The three in the bed had rifles and were scanning the countryside. Brandon radioed the house. Everyone at the house grabbed their weapons and went to their assigned spots. Evelyn took Brian’s role and ran out the back door, around the workshop, and was ready to challenge the truck if they stopped.
The truck was traveling slow enough that it took almost two minutes to reach the gate. The three people in the bed of the truck were using the roof as a rest to aim their rifles at the house. There was a woman driving and a man in the passenger seat. The man got out and walked up to the gate.
“Anyone home!” he hollered.
Evelyn ignored his greeting so as not to give away her position yet. The man moved to the padlocked chain and started to climb the gate.
“That’s far enough,” Evelyn called out.
The man, who was now straddling the top of the gate, was startled and almost lost his balance. Still on the gate he said, “Give us food, and we will leave.”
“You will leave now,” Evelyn said, “or we’ll shoot every single one of you.”
The men in the bed of the truck were feverishly trying to find where Evelyn was, scanning every doorway and window.
The man on the gate said, “Give us food now, or there will be trouble!”
“You’re damn right there will be. Hauling your five dead bodies away from the gate will be a lot of trouble and a pain in the ass!” Evelyn replied. She stepped back and quietly said into the radio, “Christina, if they do anything else aggressive, take the shots.”
The man said, “Listen here, bitch. You bring us food or we’ll come in there and take it.”
When Evelyn moved her head to look around the workshop, one of the men in the bed of the truck caught the movement, aimed, and fired a shot at her. Fortunately, Evelyn saw the man point the rifle in her direction and had moved back from the corner. Wood splintered in front of her face.
Christina pushed down on the fifty cal trigger. Nothing happened. She tried to push the trigger, again and again, still nothing happened. She whispered to Brandon, “Help. It won’t fire.”
Brandon reached over and flicked the safety off. Christina was still pushing the trigger when the safety mechanism freed the weapon to fire and the gun popped off five rounds before she released the trigger from the surprise of it firing.
A lucky round caught one of the men in the bed and flung him over the side into the dirt. One of the other men screamed, “Jimmy!”
The driver also screamed when she felt the impacts into the truck bed and saw Jimmy fly off the bed in the side view mirror.
The man on the gate threw his hands in the air and jumped down from the gate. “We’re sorry. We’ll leave!” He moved back towards to the truck.
“Oh hell no,” Evelyn said into the radio. “Finish them Christina!”
“But they’re leaving!”
“So we let them go so they can harm someone else? Or sneak back here when we are not expecting it and attack us again for killing their man?”
Evelyn had a good point; Christina took a deep breath and pushed the trigger, wildly spraying rounds around the truck. The two remaining men were hit and crumpled over in the bed. The truck tires popped and then rounds found their way into the cab and engine, killing the driver. Steam poured out from under the hood.
After Christina had strafed the entire truck once more from front to back, Evelyn called “Cease fire!” over the radio. “I am approaching on foot, do not fire!”
Christina raised her hands off the weapon and stepped back, horrified at what she had done. Brandon engaged the safety and then told his mom, “Good job.”
Evelyn raised her rifle and ran forw
ard to the gate. As she got closer, she could hear the man that had approached the gate screaming, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please don’t shoot.” He was lying on the ground with his hands covering his head.
Evelyn said, “Yes, you are sorry,” and shot him in the head. She moved to each of the bodies and shot them one more time to make sure they were dead. Remorse for what just happened tried to surface within her, but she pushed it back down and told herself, This is their fault. They made their choice to threaten my friends and family.
She would briefly cry about this later, but with Brian’s encouragement she would soon push it into the back of her mind and know she did what had to be done.
Doc and Janice came down, and the group started the laborious process of picking up the bodies and dumping them in the bed of the truck.
They were startled when a voice said, “The next time you have one of them still alive, make them pick up all of their dead before you shoot them.”
Everyone was raising their weapons to find the voice when it said, “My name is Todd Palmer. I’m your next door neighbor.”
Brandon was the only one that had seen Todd before. Todd was standing in the same spot where he spoke to Brian from before. When everyone raised their weapons on him Brandon yelled, “He is a friendly!”
“We heard the shooting and came running to make sure everything was okay,” Todd said.
“Thank you,” Evelyn said. “We’re good.”
Seeing neither Brian nor Sean was around, Todd realized the women had handled themselves well. He offered to help with cleanup and called for a truck to come down to the gate to pull the shot up one away, after first making sure the fifty cal wasn’t going to shoot before the truck pulled up.
***
When Sean and Craig arrived at their target location, the front of the house appeared the same as it had the day before. Same truck outside, and smoke still coming from the chimney. Assuming that someone was home and not seeing any signs of movement they maneuvered around so they could see the rear of the house. They were surprised to see three young children running around playing in the yard. There was a younger woman hanging clothes up on the line and an older man sitting on the porch. The man appeared to be whittling on a stick, and Sean spotted a double barrel shotgun next to the man.
After a brief discussion on their observations, Sean and Craig assumed the woman was the wife of the guardsmen, and these were their children. They couldn’t tell about the older man. Was he holding them hostage or was he part of the family? Thirty minutes passed with the children running around playing and the woman doing various chores around the property. The old man never left his chair, keeping watch over the woman and children.
Sean and Craig were debating whether the man had taken advantage of the missing guardsmen to invade the house when the answer presented itself. The youngest looking boy ran up to the older man and the sound of the child’s voice carried with the wind, “Granddaddy!”
Sean and Craig’s minds painted a picture of the scene in front of them.
The woman who did not yet know she was a widower was caring for their children, and one of their fathers was there looking over the family and his grandkids. Maybe the guardsman was simply doing his duty following orders.
After putting themselves into the young guardsman shoes, neither Sean nor Craig was seeing this family as the enemy anymore. This made them question the motives of the other deputies and guardsmen. Were they simply doing what they needed to do to provide for their families? Could they fault them for that?
***
Brian and David were about to see a different viewpoint at the house they were watching. The house belonged to one of the men dressed as a deputy that they had killed. They were in position about 400 yards away. There was no sign of activity, and the house did not look like it had been properly cared for. After surveying the house, Brian used the range finder to quiz David on the distances to different things around the property, on wind direction, and speed, and then check on what signs he was basing his answers.
They sat in position for over an hour and David’s eyes were getting heavy.
“Take a power nap, David,” Brian said. “There’s nothing to look at right now.”
David had been asleep for twenty minutes. His heavy breathing and the warm sunlight were making Brian’s eyes heavier and heavier. In the distance, he heard a vehicle engine and shook the sleep off to listen. After a minute he could tell it was getting closer and he woke David up.
The two lay there listening to the sound of the vehicle, speculating if it was someone passing by or someone coming to this house. The road wasn’t traveled very often before the pulse, and there were very few houses along it. Brian assumed they were coming to this house.
An older model Buick came into view, pulled into the driveway, and parked in front of the house. A man emerged, and to Brian’s surprise, he was wearing a sheriff’s deputy shirt. Through the binoculars, Brian did not recognize him as any of the men he met at Sheriff Perry’s house. He thought that it odd that two men who lived in the same house would be chosen for the replacement deputies by the DHS.
The man unlocked the door, returned to the car, and started pulling stuff out of the passenger and back seats. It was then Brian realized the car was loaded with boxes and bags. He could see the man carrying what appeared to be a half box of store bought canned goods. The man continued to make trips from the car to the house, and soon he was carrying an assortment of firearms into the house—AR-15s, SKSs, and some kind of AK variant.
Looking at the man through his scope, David said, “That’s weird, to see a deputy look like that.”
Brian asked, “Like what?”
“He has tattoos on his face and neck.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, you can’t see them?” David asked.
“I can’t see as much detail through the binos that you can see.” David handed Brian the rifle and he looked through the scope. Sure enough, the man was a rough looking individual.
He agreed with David. It was weird to see someone in law enforcement with face and neck tattoos. Even if they weren’t real deputies, it was normally the criminals who’d done time in prison with those types of tattoos. His mind briefly flashed to the other fake deputy who lived in a meth house and what Sean had been told about him being arrested before.
“No way,” he said out loud.
“No way, what?”
“Nothing.” Brian handed David back the rifle. “If you see anything else weird tell me.”
The man made trip after trip from the car to the house, moving to the back of the car and opening the trunk. Curious what else the man could possibly have in the car after all the stuff he had just taken into the house, Brian was dumbfounded at what he witnessed. The man reached into the trunk and pulled out a young woman who was gagged, bound at her hands and feet, wearing only a t-shirt and panties, and dropped her on the ground with a thud. The young woman squirmed from the pain of the impact.
The man then pulled two duffle bags out and proceeded to carry them into the house. The young woman was still laying on the ground behind the car, obviously in no condition to attempt an escape.
While the man was in the house, Brian’s mind raced at everything they were witnessing. The man walked back out of the house, grabbed the girl by her bound wrist, and began dragging her towards the house. She squealed and writhed in pain as he dragged her over the gravel driveway.
“David!” Brian hissed. “Shoot him.”
“What?”
“Shoot him. Right now!”
The man was almost to the porch. Brian was getting ready to take the shot with the M4 then he heard David take a deep breath, let out a little and hold it. Seconds later the rifle barked, and the man dropped. Brian stared intently at the body, looking for signs of life. When there was no further movement, he said, “Good shot, David. Leave the rifle here and use your pistol. Let’s go.”
They ran towards the house in
a low crouch. Brian had the M4 up ready to fire, and David had his pistol the same. Brian ran past the girl and bent down to pull the pistol from the man’s body. David was about to bend down to check on the young woman, and Brian yelled, “No! Cover the door.”
Brian tossed the pistol out and under the car. He then raised his foot and brought down his heel as hard as he could to the man’s throat. It made a sickening crunch under his foot, but the man was obviously dead and the only movement was from Brian’s foot on the corpse.
They entered the house. The house was dark and musty smelling, and there were large piles and stacks of boxes all over the place. They quickly cleared the house without finding any more threats.
Brian rushed out to the girl and quickly removed her restraints and gag. She looked dazed and he was beginning to wonder if she had been drugged until she whimpered, “Please don’t hurt me.”
A little shocked, Brian said, “Ma’am, we’re not going to hurt you. We just saved you.” Unfamiliar with dealing with victims of violent crimes, he wrote it off as traumatic stress.
Other than the obvious bumps and scrapes he saw, Brian asked, “Are you hurt?”
The young woman shook her head. She looked up at Brian in his military uniform, then at David in the ghillie suit and noticed it had the same name tag on it. She asked, “Is he your son?”
“No, he’s my best friend’s son.” Brian realized she had seen the name tags and added, “He’s wearing one of my old Marine uniforms.”
“That uniform is different than the soldiers in town. You’re not one of them?”
“No,” Brian replied. “They’re Army National Guard soldiers.”
The woman looked relieved to hear that and then asked for water. Brian pulled the hose from his Giegerrig hydration bladder that he carried on his plate carrier and handed her the bite valve. “It’s pressurized. Bite on it and water will spray into your mouth.”
