by Steven Kagey
“Thank God!” Sheriff Perry exclaimed as he turned to go to his vehicle. “But we still have to go.”
“Sheriff, you all got any big guns at your place beside the rifles?” Todd asked.
“No, just the ARs.”
Todd turned to another man. “Grab the sheriff a 240 Golf and a couple of cases of ammo.” He looked back at the sheriff. “Were any of your boys in the military and know how to use it?”
A deputy back at the car said, “Yeah, I shot one plenty in Iraq.”
“What’s a 240 Golf?” Craig asked.
“The M240G is a belt-fed machine gun that shoots 7.62 NATO round,” Brian answered. “The round is almost the same as a .308. It’s not as beefy as the fifty cal, but it’ll put a hurt on anyone in front of it.”
Thomas handed the sheriff and Brian a radio. “Gentlemen, looks like we’re in this together. The radio is preset with our frequencies. If we make it past these attacks, we have plans to hit the DHS at home and we’ll need all hands. Good luck and Godspeed.”
After thanking them, Sheriff Perry and his men sped back to their home.
“Where do you need us and the fifty?”” Brian asked.
Todd grinned. “If you’re here to stay let’s turn that Hummer around and put it right up here at the top of the driveway. No one should be able to make it this far, but if they do y’all can make ‘em regret it.”
“Will do.” Brian nodded. “Earlier you asked why the guards hadn’t fired the mortars yet. What did you mean?”
Todd and Thomas smiled ear to ear. Thomas said, “We stole a page out of the Brian Stewart playbook. We saw how well your homemade mortars worked so we built our own and they’re lining the driveway. Five on each side all the way up.”
Brian and his guys laughed. “This should be interesting. Bring on the pain.”
Chapter 30
After getting the Hummer in place and double checking the fifty caliber to ensure it was ready to go, Brian sought out Todd. “The militia is running the show. My team will follow your lead. However, I do suggest David go up with the rest of the sharpshooters and lookouts in the top of the barn with his rifle.”
Todd agreed, and David was sent up, introduced, and given a place to shoot from. Todd asked the other three men to man the Hummer as a fighting position. One to fire the weapon, one to support, and one to drive the Hummer if need be.
“Do you want to send your folks over to my homestead to get out of the target zone?” Brian asked.
Todd liked the idea, but when he asked his father, Gary Palmer said, “Our fight is here with our boys.”
Brian was worried about the rest of his group back at the homestead in case the DHS targeted their house instead. Craig assured him everything was good. Before they came over to the Palmer farm, they got everyone ready and in a defensive position. The deputies even went around and inspected all the locations to make sure it was safe before they took off.
“Doc and Brandon are at the LP/OP. The girls with the radios were moved to the basements,” Craig told him. “Avery was being ornery about going to the basement so she, Patricia, and Lillian are watching the back of the property. Even Lillian was taking it seriously. Maybe seeing what happened to Crystal scared some sense into her. The rest of the women are in different positions around the property. Everyone’s wearing body armor and has something to take cover behind.”
***
After sitting around for two hours at the Palmer farm, everyone was getting antsy. MREs were passed out to keep their minds occupied. Seeing the MREs get sent out to the different positions, Brian estimated they had over forty personnel on the farm.
He saw a man come running out of the woods and into the command post. He glanced over to where Todd was stationed, and he and Chris were on the radio. They looked panicked.
“Something’s going on,” Brian said to Sean and Craig, and went over to be briefed.
Chris was screaming into the radio as Brian approached.
“What’s happening, Todd?” he asked.
“One of our safe houses was attacked. Now they aren’t responding to the radio anymore.”
Brian expected to see more of a rush to send assistance, but Todd told him, that particular house only had a five-man team, so they would have been outgunned fairly easily and were likely a total loss unless they were able to fall back into the woods.
Still, Brian didn’t like leaving any man behind. “I’ll get my team to take the Hummer and go check on the house. If we run into trouble, we can engage.”
Todd reluctantly agreed to the idea and called for one of his medics to go with them. The medic would also act as the radio operator since he knew how to speak to the rest of the militia over the radio.
Brian told the rest of his team the plan and Craig ran up to tell David they were leaving and for him to follow the directions from the rest of the militia leaders. On his way out to the Hummer he stopped by to ask Todd and Thomas to look after his boy.
“We’ll take care of him as if he was our own son,” Todd promised.
The militia’s medic met them at the Hummer and introduced himself as Mike Johnson. Following Mike’s directions, the group headed for the safe house. When they got close, they saw a plume of black smoke rising from the direction of the house. When the house came into view, it was completely engulfed in flames and was already collapsing. Sean was getting ready to turn into the driveway when the medic told him not to.
“This was our demolition team,” Mike said. “That’s why there were only five men here. If they had a mishap with the explosives we wouldn’t lose more men than we had to. We shouldn’t get too close in case the explosives start cooking off. If any of them survived the attack, they would have fallen back into the woods, and we won’t to find them. Let’s just head back. If they’re alive, they will come to the farm.”
Sean drove down the road and took a different route back to the Palmer farm.
They were coasting up to stop sign at an intersection when the pucker factor in the Hummer hit one hundred. A convoy of vehicles came racing along the road in front of them. Craig was scrambling to get up in the turret when Brian grabbed his pant leg and pulled him back down.
“They think we’re one of them! Stay down.”
The convoy was comprised of a mix of three HUMVEEs and four black newer model Suburban government vehicles. As each vehicle passed their Hummer the driver in the convoy would wave at them and Sean nonchalantly raised his hand over the steering wheel to wave back. They sat stunned at what they were witnessing. When the last Suburban passed them, the driver motioned for them to fall in behind and follow the convoy.
The whole vehicle erupted into laughter.
“No way,” Craig said. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
Mike was dumbfounded. “These guys know nothing about operational security. A troop of boy scouts should be able to defeat them.”
Sean pulled the Hummer out and fell in line at the back of the convoy.
“Should we light them up?” Craig asked.
Sean said, “No. We wouldn’t be able to take them all out before some got away. Plus, let’s see where they’re going first then we can engage them.”
“Tell command what the situation is,” Brian said to the medic.
It took Mike three times trying to tell command over the radio for them to understand what he was saying. They kept thinking they were hearing him wrong. “Command wants to know where they’re headed.”
Sean said, “I am not sure yet. I think they may be lost.”
“I want to know how they have those newer vehicles running,” Craig remarked.
Brian nodded. “Looks like DHS has been holding out on how to protect a vehicle from an EMP strike from the American public.”
Sean asked, “Are they armored?”
No one could tell for sure by looking at them.
“Hopefully they step away from them before we start shooting,” Craig said. “It would be nice to commandeer a few of thos
e.”
After a few miles, Brian realized where they were going. “Mike, radio command and tell them to warn the sheriff. They’re heading to his place.”
Mike relayed the message. The command post warned the sheriff’s men to seek cover because of imminent contact and to be aware there was a friendly vehicle traveling with the enemy.
When they were about one mile away from the sheriff’s house, the convoy slowed, and the formation tightened up. The gunners rose up in the turrets behind their weapons. Only two of the HUMVEEs had turret mounted weapons. One appeared to be an M2 fifty caliber; the other looked like an M249 SAW, which fired the same round as the AR-15, but was a belt fed automatic.
Brian handed Craig a helmet. “Stand up, but stay crouched down so they can only see your helmet and not your face or shirt.”
Brian laid out the game plan. Craig was to wait for someone at the sheriff’s place to fire first so that the DHS’s attention would be focused in that direction. If he saw a group of them together, he was to cut across them, but his main target would be the two machine gun turrets. If the machine gunners realized they were taking fire from the rear, they would turn and start firing in their direction. Brian and Sean would follow the lead of the other HUMVEE crews. They would mimic their actions but not get out of the vehicle until it was time to shoot, focusing their fire on the feds closest to them.
“It’s a good plan,” Mike said.
“If we start taking fire from the sheriff’s place, we close up and back out until we can continue engaging the feds,” Brian instructed. “They shouldn’t have anything that can penetrate the Hummer’s armor beside the fifty.”
***
“What do they mean there’s a friendly vehicle traveling with the enemy?” Deputy Collins asked the sheriff.
“I don’t know,” Sheriff Perry replied. “If they’re with those coming here to attack us, they can’t be that friendly.” The Sheriff thought for a few moments and looked up at one of the snipers set up in the barn. “I need you to inspect every vehicle and look for any friendlies. Look for any vehicle occupants acting differently than the rest.”
All the non-fighting women and children were sent to safety deep in the woods. The men manning the front gate were brought back, and everyone was hidden and ready. They soon heard the engines of the approaching convoy. The enemy vehicles pulled up to the gate and were spread out down the road along the fence line. Each vehicle pulled in facing the house and doors began opening with men pouring out and taking defensive positions.
The sheriff was in the darkness of the barn door behind some farming equipment. He shouted up to the snipers, “Do you see any signs of a friendly vehicle?”
No one saw anything different between any of the vehicles.
“Keep an eye out,” the sheriff said. Then turned his attention to the other men. “Hold your fire until we’re fired upon.”
The command rippled out among the other positions around the farm.
The DHS forces were confused. They expected to see deputies all over and have immediate resistance. Their intelligence reported over forty people living here, but no one was in sight. The front driveway was blocked by cubes of wire mesh cages filled with rocks making a gabion wall. They would not be able to drive further into the property.
The sheriff and his men saw half of the DHS forces form up and move past the barricades towards the house tactically. When the group was halfway to the house, one of the machine gunners saw movement at the rear corner of the house and opened fire.
The deputy that was operating the 240G machine gun was about to start firing on the group that was approaching the house when wood on the house started splintering around him. By the time he was able to regain himself the group of DHS had scattered, and he was left chasing each one individually. He was able to cut down the slower ones in the group.
The area erupted into a full-fledged firefight, with the sheriff and his men having the advantage of better cover and concealment. Once the fifty cal and SAW opened up, the tide turned to favor the DHS forces. The sheriff’s men were getting pinned down and unable to return fire, the DHS was closing in on them fast.
The lead sniper upstairs in the barn reported to the sheriff that the last Hummer wasn’t firing on them like the rest were. The man next to him said with a laugh, “Yeah, because I just shot the asshole gunner in the head.”
The lead sniper asked, “Was he shooting at us?”
“No, the moron was still facing the rest of the convoy. That’s how I got my shot past the turret armor; the space between the gun and the side.”
“You idiot! Didn’t you hear the sheriff say there was a supposedly friendly vehicle up there?” The doors on the Hummer closed, and it backed up, away from the rest of the DHS vehicles. As it was still reversing he recognized the driver and called out to the sheriff, “Sir, I believe Sean Williams is driving the last Hummer. I think they’re leaving now. One of our guys shot whoever they had manning the fifty cal.”
The sheriff was shocked and excited to hear it was Sean in the Hummer. That must be the friendly vehicle! When the man reported that they appeared to be leaving now because the turret gunner was shot, the excitement turned to frustration and remorse. His men were losing the advantage. Most were pinned down behind their positions unable to return fire. It was only a matter of time before the DHS forces would be upon them.
***
When the gunfire began, Craig had a large group of DHS in front of him using their vehicles for cover. He was reaching up to press the trigger on the fifty when his head violently snapped back. He fell down into the gunner’s harness which held him hovering halfway, and he had an immediate headache. “I’m hit!” he screamed.
Everyone turned their attention to him with a horrified look on their faces. Mike was quick to react, and was unbuckling the harness so Craig could come all the way down. Brian looked back, trying to find blood on Craig and the source of his injury. Then he saw the dent on his helmet. It had saved his life.
When Mike saw that the helmet had saved Craig, he said, “You’re okay, but you’re going to have a headache for a while.”
Brian moved into the turret position and right before he popped his head up he grabbed the helmet and put it on.
A third of the DHS forces were using the sheriff’s own road blockade as cover to fire from. Brian lined the sights up on the closest man and pushed the trigger. The weapon began firing with a deep thud thud thud and he walked the outgoing shots down the row of men, dropping them where they stood.
The men in the nearest Suburban could sense the weapon firing toward them instead of the sheriff’s compound and turned to engage Brian. He brought the weapon down on target and shredded the vehicle with the men standing next to it.
When the vehicle disintegrated, he hollered with a laugh, “If it’s armored, they need to get their money back!”
The remaining DHS forces switched their attention to Brian, which slowed the amount of shots being fired at the sheriff’s men. They took advantage and stood up firing, moving to better positions. The gunner of the nearest HUMVEE rotated the turret towards them. Brian quickly laid on the trigger, aiming in his direction. The first few shots ricocheted off the turret and armor but soon found the line of unarmored space around the weapon and the rounds found their mark.
The gunner died, his hands clamping down on the trigger, sending a line of fire towards Brian’s Hummer. In the process, he took out two more DHS troops, who were shot in the back by their own person. The weapon continued to fire, and clouds of dirt skidded right past the side of the Hummer from the impacts. The weapon eventually stopped firing and pointed skyward under the weight of the dead man.
The driver of the remaining HUMVEE jumped in and attempted to flee. Brian fired on it. The armor piercing fifty cal rounds soon found the weak spots in the vehicle’s rear armor and everyone in the vehicle was decimated. The vehicle looked like something out of a horror movie with blood covering the inside of every window
as the vehicle came to a stop in the ditch.
The snipers in the barn relayed what was happening up on the road, and they soon found targets which they engaged with deadly results. The remaining deputies moved aggressively forward to shoot at the DHS troops. Even the two men manning the 240G picked it up and ran forward a few feet for a better shooting position.
The SAW gunner was the final man of the opposing forces to succumb to the deputies’ assault. The deputies reached the road and Brian dropped down from the turret, asking Mike to make radio contact with the sheriff and make sure they knew they were on his side.
“Put your hands up on the glass so they can see we’re not going to shoot them,” Sean said.
The deputies eased out on the road, checking for any survivors that may still be a threat. A few mercy shots rang out, but for the most part the gunfire ceased.
“Sean, we know it’s you. You can come out!” Deputy Anderson hollered.
Sean looked at Brian questioningly.
“I ain’t getting out until the sheriff is standing up here in case some of their snipers didn’t get the memo that we are the good guys,” Brian said, shaking his head.
Everyone in the Hummer chuckled, but they all agreed with that assessment.
Sean hollered up through the turret, “We don’t trust your snipers!”
Anderson understood their trepidation. He turned back to the barn and waved his arms screaming, “Cease fire! Cease fire!” He walked up to the passenger door of the Hummer and Brian cracked it open to talk to him.
“We’re going to hang out in here for a bit to make sure no one shoots,” Brian said.
Anderson nodded. “I understand. Is everyone okay?”
Brian held out the helmet to show the bullet graze. “Yeah, everyone is okay, though we’ve got a man who’s going to have a headache for a while.”
The look of relief on Anderson’s face was apparent. His guys weren’t responsible for a friendly fire injury or worse, death.
