Humboldt, Arizona
May, the Fourth Year
La Fuerza ripped into Humboldt, Arizona, like a can opener. They had been in the looting business for so long that they were experts. They knew just how to approach various sorts of houses and businesses. Over time they had learned when to push hard, and when to wait, and how to expertly threaten and intimidate. The size of their force and their warnings via vehicle-mounted bullhorns made most residents panic and flee. They had also gained enough experience through hard knocks to know that when there was a certain threshold of resistance, it was best just to torch a place and consider it a loss. But they never just bypassed a house when there was heavy resistance. That would be a sign of weakness.
The contiguous towns of Humboldt and Dewey were easy targets. The houses were so spread out that they could be taken piecemeal. There was no planned resistance, so individual houses could be taken down sequentially, with little fear of being sniped at from behind. The loot was decent, but in recent months it was getting more and more difficult to find fuel. There were rumors that there was fresh gasoline and diesel being made in the Four Corners. Ignacio Garcia planned to move his force in that direction. His plan was to just pick away at the periphery to get fresh fuel, but not take on the owners of the refinery yet. There would be plenty of time for that.
40
Movement to Contact
“Of every One Hundred men, Ten shouldn’t even be there, Eighty are nothing but targets, Nine are real fighters . . . We are lucky to have them . . . They make the battle, Ah, but the One, One of them is a Warrior . . . and He will bring the others back.”
—Heraclitus (circa 500 B.C.)
A low rumbling sound came to Beth’s ears. She looked up from her washboard. It was wash day, and as usual she was doing her laundry scrubbing on the front porch. That way she could dump the gray water directly on her flower beds. The sound was coming from the west. A moment later she identified it: a motorcycle engine. It sounded out of place on Road 4990, which for the past two years mainly had horse traffic. Even though the refinery was just a few miles down the road, gasoline was so precious that it was used very sparingly.
Beth was surprised to see the motorcycle slow down and come to a stop at their front gate. She jumped up and grabbed her M2 Carbine, which was leaning against the door frame behind her. She held the gun at low ready, the way Lars had taught her. The buttplate was tucked into the pocket of her shoulder—a pocket that hadn’t existed just a few months before. Beth had lost nearly 20 pounds since the Crunch began. The austere diet and vigorous outdoor work had quickly brought her weight down to 125 pounds.
With a shout, Beth summoned Lars. He accompanied her to the gate. They approached the county road cautiously. Lars carried his Valmet M62 and Beth had her carbine, both at low ready.
When they were twenty yards from the gate, the man shouted: “Mr. Martin would like to see you, sir, as soon as possible. He said it’s important.”
Lars answered: “Understood.”
The man revved the bike’s engine, turned in a tight circle, and drove back toward the refinery. Lisbeth and Lars gave each other curious looks.
Lars arrived at Martin’s refinery just twenty minutes later. He was impressed to see that their security had not slackened in the three years since the Crunch began.
Seated in his office, L. Roy said, “Thanks for coming, Lars.”
Martin paused, looking a bit anxious, and said, “You once mentioned that you’re Finnish, but your given name is Lars. That’s Norwegian, right?”
“Well, my dad was full-blooded Finnish, and my mom was mostly Swedish: her maiden name was Bårdgård. So that’s why I ended up with a Swedish given name and a Finnish surname.
Martin replied, “Oh, I see. I’ve heard that the Finnish language is something unique, isn’t that right?”
“Yeah. The Finns are sorta the black sheep of Scandinavia. The language is completely different from Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, or Danish. It’s what is called a ‘Finno-Ugric’ language. The languages closest to it are Estonian and Hungarian. That’s because—though they don’t like to admit it—the Finns are actually the descendants of the Mongol Hordes. So it’s no wonder that the rest of Scandinavia doesn’t know how to relate to the Finns. It’s like you’re living in the suburbs, and then the Genghis Khan family moves in next door. That was about nine centuries back.”
Laine paused, and then added: “Your man said you had something important to discuss.”
Martin nodded. “Yes. I had a conversation on the forty-meter ham band with a gent in Prescott, Arizona. He said he had a crucial security concern to discuss. Then he made a very unusual request. He asked if we had anyone here that spoke Navajo. I said yes, and just a few minutes later I put one of my Navajo employees on the radio. Then his man and my man started yammering back and forth—you know, like the code talkers that were used back in World War Two.”
Laine nodded.
“Okay, so after the translation was done, here was their message in a nutshell: They said that the big La Fuerza looter gang we’ve been hearing all those rumors about is headed toward Prescott. It’s supposedly now more than two hundred men strong, and they have somewhere around fifty vehicles.”
Laine let out a whistle.
L. Roy continued: “The folks in Prescott asked us to send help—to assist in whittling them down. There are some combat veterans from Tuba City and from Gallup—mostly Navajos—who already agreed to help, and they’ll be heading to Prescott in a couple of days. They asked us to send at least six men. It’s a bit risky, but I can see the wisdom of confronting La Fuerza now, before they are in our backyard. To my mind, this is sorta like Bush’s War on Terror strategy: ‘Go beat them up somewhere else so that we don’t have to face them on our own soil.’ I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, La Fuerza is a bunch of very bad dudes. Lower than whale scum.”
Lars again nodded and said, “Yeah, I’ve heard about their track record: brutal, unrestrained, unrepentant.”
Martin leaned forward. “I think that it is wise to go out there, and do some attrition, and most importantly to try to take out their armored vehicles. Without those, La Fuerza will lose a lot of their combat effectiveness.” He sighed and then continued, “So, through my code talker, I immediately promised to send eight men, three hundred gallons of gasoline, and at least one hundred and fifty Molotov cocktails.”
Lars nodded and Martin said, “I need a man to be the team leader for the team representing Bloomfield and Farmington. I estimate that it’ll be just a ten-day trip at most. You get in there, you kick some tail, and you get out. You’d need to get the team on the road within three days.”
Before Lars Laine could comment, L. Roy continued, “Here’s the deal: If you take this job, I’ll pay you ten ounces of gold and a transferable, non-expiring credit for five thousand gallons of any fuel we produce here—even kerosene. You’ll get five ounces of gold up front and five upon completion, plus the fuel credit. Each of the other men I pick will get about two-thirds of what I’m offering you.”
Lars cocked his head and said, “That’s a lot of risk for that sort of pay.”
“You’ve got to recognize that it is your own best interest just as much as mine to see this threat removed or reduced. I have no doubt that Bloomfield is pretty high up on their target list. As we’ve discussed before, my refinery is an obvious plum, an obvious target. You know their modus operandi: if they come here, everyone living inside a thirty-mile radius will be at risk. Maybe even much farther than that. And since we’ve got gas and oil wells, we face an even bigger risk, which is that they’ll come and want to stay and make this their home base.”
Laine tipped his head and answered, “I concur. But even if we do this and we’re successful, there will be a lot of lead flying in both directions. So I’ll stand a good chance of assuming room temperatur
e. That would leave my wife a widow, with no means of support.”
Martin nodded and offered, “So then let me add this: you have my word of honor that if you or any of our men don’t come home from this, or if you’re disabled, then I’ll quadruple your compensation. You’ll have that in writing.”
Lars let out a breath and said seriously, “Okay, but just one more thing: if I can help pick the team and if I can have the veto on anyone that doesn’t seem trustworty, then I’m in.”
41
The Team
“Believe in your cause. The stronger your belief, the stronger your motivation and perseverance will be. You must know it in your heart that it is a worthwhile cause and that you are fighting the good fight. Whether it is the need to contribute or the belief in a greater good, for your buddy, for the team or for your country, find a reason that keeps your fire burning. You will need this fire when the times get tough. It will help you through when you are physically exhausted and mentally broken and you can only see far enough to take the next step.”
—Master Sergeant Paul R. Howe, U.S. Army (Retired), Leadership and Training for the Fight: A Few Thoughts on Leadership and Training from a Former Special Operations Soldier
The next few days were hectic as Lars gathered his team and logistics. First on the list was borrowing a pair of crew cab pickup trucks, both with fifth-wheel-type trailer hitches, a horse trailer for one of them, and a flatbed trailer for the other. The owners gladly loaned them, knowing that they’d be helping to keep a looter army from invading their region. For impromptu camouflage, the trucks and the trailers were all hastily painted flat tan, with a few large irregular blotches in flat brown. This was done at the Garza Auto Collision shop in Aztec. Lars told Honoré Garza to rush the job and specifically not to worry about overspray: “We don’t want any sharp lines or any distinct contrast: these have to blend in.” Garza took that literally, so there was paint on the edges of the windows, and even the tire sidewalls and license plates were painted tan.
Laine picked seven members, all military veterans, and most of them experienced horse riders. Six of them were ex-Army—including a medic—and one was a former Marine. All had served at least one combat tour in Iraq or Afghanistan and had combat arms specialties.
Four of them—Brian Baugh, Pat Redmond, Chad Stenerson, and Dave Escobar—were refinery employees. The other three were Bob Potts (a friend of the Laines from church), Johanna Visser (a South African–born former Army nurse who had more recently worked as an EMT), and Hector Ruiz (a friend of L. Roy Martin who he’d met through the local Rotary Club). With the exception of Laine, everyone on the team was single or divorced, and most had been E-4s or E-5s when they left the military. Hector Ruiz had been a tank commander and had left the army as an E-7. Ruiz was about Laine’s age. Lars had briefly toyed with the idea of including Shadrach Phelps in the team, but given his lack of combat experience he decided against it. He also rejected the idea of his brother Andy going on the mission. In the event that Lars didn’t return, someone would have to see after the ranch.
Two of the men had their own horses, and two had loaners. All were geldings or mares picked for good temperaments and dark markings. As Lars put it, “Paint horses need not apply.” Lars would ride Reuben’s horse, Scrappy, a milk-chocolate-brown gelding that was particularly calm around the sound of gunfire. Aside from a small white blaze between his eyes, Scrappy blended in almost as well as a deer.
Lars would have preferred complete uniformity of equipment, but the exigency of the situation didn’t allow them enough time to become familiar with new weapons. Lars and Pat Redmond (also a horseman) both had carbines chambered for 7.62x39mm (the AK-47 cartridge), while most of the others had .308 rifles—three M1As, a PTR HK91 clone, a DSA FAL clone, and a Saiga .308. The logistical mismatch was Johanna Visser, who carried a Galil 5.56. She had bought it because it was similar to the R4 rifle she had been issued by the SADF before she went to college.
In a perfect world, Lars would have had the squad members all carry rifles with fully interchangeable ammunition and magazines. Instead he put Hector Ruiz and the other two men with M1As together in the “infantry” team along with Bob Potts, who had the Saiga. At least three of them would have the chance to share magazines, and of course Potts could at least use loose .308 ammunition stripped from M1A magazines. It took a bit of begging and bribing, but each man on the team soon had at least eight spare loaded magazines. For his own fighting load, Laine decided to carry eleven spare magazines.
The medic, Johanna, was part of Laine’s cavalry team. They called themselves cavalry, but in actuality they’d operate as dragoons, fighting dismounted. Although Scrappy was accustomed to the sound of gunfire, they didn’t have time to train the other horses. In essence, the horses were planned as little more than quick getaway vehicles. There was no way to predict how the horses would react to the sight of Molotovs exploding and fusillades of gunfire.
All of the men wore ACU desert digital pattern camouflage fatigues. The ACU pattern was generally disliked, since it looked like a gray blob from a distance. This was the main reason that they had been replaced by the U.S. Army with the multicam OCP uniform. But ACUs did blend in fairly well in sagebrush country, which predominated where they were heading. Also, by all wearing the same uniforms, they’d have the advantage of being able to quickly recognize each other from a distance.
They day after the team was selected, they began training. They started with patrolling formations, carrying unloaded rifles. At the same time the horsemen practiced moving both mounted and on foot. By the afternoon the squad’s movement and hand signals began to look professional, but not as smooth as Laine would have liked. They next practiced ambushes and immediate action drills, such as reacting to an ambush, reacting to ground and aerial flares, and breaking contact.
Their trigger time began the next day at Laine’s ranch. Each rifle was meticulously zeroed for its owner. There was also time spent familiarizing each other with the peculiarities of handling all of the weapons, in the event someone had to pick up and use someone else’s rifle. Next, Lars passed on a few practical tips about night fighting. One of the most important of these was: “You may not be able to see your sights well. So, if in doubt, hold low, since the natural tendency is to shoot high, at night.”
Late in the afternoon, they were scheduled to drive to the refinery, to get a briefing and demonstration of the Molotov cocktails Little Ricky had been cooking up. Just after the team arrived, Lopez had them form a semicircle and explained, “If I had a few more days, I could have probably worked up some thermite grenades, but the clock is ticking, so these will have to do.” He pulled out a mason jar filled with a honeylike substance.
Ricardo Lopez had perfected a flameless design that was much safer to use than traditional “lit-rag” Molotov cocktails. It was based on a design that had been described to him by his great-uncle, who had served as an adviser in Angola in the 1970s. Working in an open area for safety, wearing a respirator and static-grounded boots, Lopez first created a large batch of thickened gasoline. All through this process, an assistant with several fire extinguishers was standing by. Lopez did his thickening in an open-top fifty-five-gallon drum that was half filled with gasoline. This gas had been decanted from the top of a larger drum that had been allowed to settle. The goal was to get pure gasoline with no water.
Lopez and his assistants threw large quantities of foam pellets and scrap Styrofoam from shipping boxes into the drum and then stirred it with a length of broomstick. A surprisingly large quantity of Styrofoam was needed before the gas began to thicken. The stirring continued as more and more Styrofoam was added and quickly dissolved. Gradually the mixture thickened to the desired consistency, about that of molasses. Their end result was about thirty gallons of thickened fuel, which Ricardo dubbed “the Poor Man’s Napalm.”
Lopez then brought several stacked cases of one-quart m
ason home-canning jars to his open lab. Wearing gloves and a clear plastic face shield, he opened a carboy of automobile battery acid. He carefully decanted one half cup of the concentrated sulfuric acid into each mason jar and then filled the rest of each with thickened gasoline. They were then sealed with standard mason jar lids and ring. In case any of the acid might have dripped onto the exterior of the jars, they were each rinsed thoroughly, twice, using one of the refinery’s portable emergency eye-wash fountains. After they had dried, two large rubber bands were slid onto the middle of each jar.
Back at Building 3, wearing a fresh pair of rubber gloves, Lopez made a saturated solution of potassium chlorate and put it in a broiler pan. He then soaked eleven-inch sheets of printer paper that had been cut into four-inch-wide strips. Then he laid out the strips on the pavement outside of the building, to allow them to completely dry. These were then stored in Ziploc bags. He noted that for safety it was very important to store the chlorated paper and the bottles separately, only attaching them just before use.
After successfully testing a couple of the Molotovs at the Bloomfield plant’s “back forty,” Ricardo put on a demonstration. “When you are ready for ignition,” he explained, “slip a sheet of the chlorate paper under the rubber band. Then you just shake it to mix the sulfuric acid into the gasoline. Since these are dissimilar liquids, the acid won’t stay in suspension too long—sorta like your oil-and-vinegar salad dressing. But it just takes un poquito droplet of the H2SO4 to touch the paper, and you get a flame.” Hefting one of the paper-wrapped jars he said, “Like so. . . .” He shook a jar briefly and then lobbed it sixty feet, smashing it on the ground, where it immediately burst into a huge ball of flame and sent a black mushroom cloud skyward. There were shouts, hoots, and applause. Next, using his Vector V-93 clone, Lopez demonstrated how one of the Molotovs could easily be set off at a distance. He missed with his first shot, but the second one resulted in another gratifying ball of flame.
Survivors - A Novel of the Coming Collapse Page 33
