by Reed, N. C.
“Stop. Just stop,” Clay held up a hand, disgust on his face. “I already told you we aren’t Green Berets, or even a facsimile thereof. We didn’t become part of the initiative because we were good people. Well, other than me,” he amended, shooting a sideways glance at Jose, who merely flipped him off.
“Anyway, please don’t try that ‘for the betterment of our fellow man’ shit on us, okay? Do us at least that courtesy. Now, I’m asking you again; what’s in it for you, and what’s in it for us?”
“If I have to go to Whitten for help, and tell him I can’t deal with this, then Flores has a chance to make a case for taking my position,” Adcock replied. “We’ve already established that you don’t want that, and that it’s not in your best interest.”
“I said it wasn’t in her best interest, or words to that effect,” Clay corrected. “But I will concede the point that we don’t want Flores in charge. Planting her will cause us problems we’re trying to avoid. That said, I won’t hesitate to do it.”
“I’m sure that’s true, and that would force Whitten to act, if for no other reason to preserve the appearance of having things under control,” Adcock explained. “As for what’s in it for you, what does Lewiston have that you need?”
“Nothing I’m aware of,” Clay’s reply was immediate and definite.
“They have a trade market that you’d like to get in to,” Adcock corrected. “They may or may not have resources you would want. I admit that some of your local folks would probably know more about that than I would. But, if you can help them overcome this issue, that would put them solidly in your debt.”
“Or would make them want to know why we didn’t help them sooner,” Clay shot back. “We’ve been this route already, thanks. We help someone, they begin to expect our help any and every time they need or want it, regardless of whether it places our people at risk or not. Those who have already lost loved ones will demand to know why we weren’t there to save their family members the way we did everyone else. This isn’t our first rodeo, Captain. I do sympathize with you over the loss of your men. It’s never easy to lose someone under your command. But this is not our problem, and if we try to help, then it will become our problem precisely because we tried to help. No thanks.”
“There has to be something you need or want that I can get you,” Adcock’s voice was urgent.
“What do you think you have, Captain, that’s worth the life of one single person on this farm?” Clay asked, though not harshly. Just in curiosity. “That’s what you’re asking me to do. Potentially trade the life of one of my people, or the security of our families, for material gain. We’re not mercenaries, Captain. When I asked what was in it for us, I meant to what advantage, not what can we expect to receive. There is no advantage to be gained by our doing this. Again, I do extend my condolences concerning your own losses, and I’m not without sympathy for the townspeople, but like I said before, we’ve been down this road and it cost us. We’re not doing it again.”
“There are kids dying from gunshot wounds at long range,” Adcock said quietly. “My men were sliced to ribbons, as were several of the townspeople. There are three teenagers missing now, among others. This problem is beyond what we can manage and I’m not ashamed to admit that. For all I know this is a precursor to this Army of God crap making its way in here right on top of us. There could be ten of them, there could be a hundred, I have no way of knowing. This may be a result of that idiot killing himself, or that message he sent. Nothing else seems to make any sense based on what I do know. And while a random act of violence may not concern you, we both know that the threat of these so-called Armies of God does. I can’t stop them. Not with what I have. And if this is just a feint and I call Whitten for support, they could well hit somewhere else. All I’m asking is to please help me stop this before it turns from a tragedy into a massacre.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Clay said suddenly. “I’ll call my men together, and let you make your request directly to them. I won’t refuse them the right to go and help if they so desire. So, you think about what you want to say while we gather everyone up. How ‘bout that.”
-
“-more what you guys are able to handle than us,” Adcock finished his explanation of what was happening and what he was asking.
“I need your help. Not just me, but an entire town full of people. Some of the dead are still, or were still, in their teens. Just kids who were trying to do their part to help their town through this trial. I really do understand it’s a lot to ask. I know that you’ve been wronged before after doing just that; helping others who didn’t seem to be able to help themselves. I can’t promise you that Lewiston will be any better to you or more appreciative than Jordan reportedly was, either.”
“But I can promise you that I will be,” he added firmly. “I can promise you that I won’t forget it, and that at some point, when you need my help, I’ll be there to give it to you, Lord willing I’m still living and able. I realize that a promise is all it is, and it has no tangible value, which means I’m asking you to take a lot on faith. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m asking you to have faith in me to come through for you at some point in the future because you came through for me now when I needed it.”
The assembled group included only those who had been engaged in the battles fought thus far, and not the group of trainees still going through their advanced training. Some of them exchanged looks while Adcock spoke, but held their peace until he was done.
“I’m probably the least informed person in this room, to be honest,” Kurtis Montana surprised most of them by speaking first. “But I can’t see how so few of us are going to be able to accomplish something that one hundred of you and a town full of volunteers can’t. That don’t make any sense to me at all.”
“It’s a difference in training, and experience,” Adcock told him. “My people, as I told Clay, are armored cavalry, with a smattering of military police and a few other specialties mixed in. If this was traditional combat, which I admit is a phrase that makes little sense but is still accurate, then we’d be fine. Depending on who we were facing, we’d be more than fine. But what we’re up against here is an act of pure terrorism. My men tried to find the people responsible for this and we ended up losing three people ourselves. Standard military tactics are not working against this kind of attack. We are completely out of our element, here. And if we are, then you can imagine how the townspeople are faring.”
“Have the aggressors made any kind of demands of the town?” Virgil Wilcox asked. The rangy cavalryman didn’t often offer an opinion or ask for one either. He did his job and kept moving forward. But he had asked an excellent question this time.
“Not at the time I left,” Adcock shook his head. “That was the first question I asked. Without some kind of demand like that, none of this makes any sense at all. Someone just wanting to build up a kill count could do that in easier ways. I can’t see any other reason to commit to this type of operation.”
“I have to go along with Kurtis,” Gordy leaned back in his chair, studying the Captain carefully. “If one hundred trained and experienced soldiers can’t handle this, skill set aside, how do you expect a handful of us to do any better. Lewiston is a big place to try and cover even if all of us went.”
“Which won’t be happening,” Clay threw in. “We will not be uncovering this farm completely for any reason. If some of you decide to go, I won’t stop you, but if too many step up, then you’ll have to do rock, paper, scissors to decide who gets to go and has to stay.” Everyone chuckled darkly at his jibe, but most also nodded in agreement.
“As I told Clay, most of you guys are hunters,” Adcock explained. “You can move against these people in ways my men just don’t have the training or experience for, badly as I hate to admit it. Fighting from inside an Abrams or a Bradley doesn’t compare well to brush fighting.”
“Yeah, cause rifle bullets tend to bounce off of them,” Mitchell Nolan snorted.
“Us, not so much.”
“That is a big part of it,” Adcock agreed. “It’s a different skill set, as I said before.”
“Assuming you get our help, what’s the plan?” Zach asked suddenly.
“What?”
“Say some of us agree to go down and help out,” said Zach. “What is your plan for when we get there? How are you going to fit us into your operation, and what makes you think that will be enough to make a difference?”
“I, I hadn’t really, hadn’t planned on that just exactly,” Adcock actually stammered a bit, and Clay’s face took on a look of disgust.
“See?” he demanded, looking from Adcock to his group and back. “One hundred men under your command, but you didn’t come here asking for our support or assistance. You came here expecting us to deal with this for you. You should have had a plan already set down before you ever bothered to come and present it to us. Which puts us back at we do this, and it becomes all about why we didn’t do it sooner, since we somehow owed it to them to fight their battles for them.” His anger was almost tangible.
“I truthfully didn’t know what I could do or not do, with your help,” Adcock defended his actions, or lack thereof. “Without knowing if you’d help, or how many of you might help, there was no way for me to formulate a plan of action.”
“No offense, dude, but that sounds like a lot of government double talk,” Zach stated. “I admit I don’t have any military experience, but a line of bullshit sounds pretty much the same in military as it does civilian, I’d guess.”
“Indeed, it does, Zachary,” Xavier agreed. “Not to pile on you, Captain, but it does seem as if you have come woefully underprepared. If you already had your suspicions about the type of training and experience we possessed, then you should have had at least some idea of how you intended to move forward, should you secure our assistance.”
“Well, I haven’t slept in three days, so I’m a little slow getting off the mark,” Adcock shot back.
“Which we can ill afford,” Xavier didn’t hesitate to add. “If you can’t even formulate a plan of action while fatigued, then we can scarcely depend on you to make effective command decisions whilst we are engaged with an enemy of unknown size or composition.”
“All true,” Adcock nodded tiredly. “I haven’t been at my best since I walked into this. The second victim was a teenage girl named Susie Latimer, who had volunteered to help man the roofs on security, and-,”
“Who did you say?” Gordy, Zach and Heath all asked in a ragged chorus. The air surrounding them seemed to suddenly be charged with tension.
“Susie Latimer?” Adcock didn’t notice the change in the boys, so tired was he. “She was working-,” He stopped as all three boys got to their feet.
“I’ll get my gear,” Gordy started for the door, Zach and Heath both hot on his heels.
“Hey, wait just a second!” Clay called. The three stopped, reluctantly, and turned back to their boss.
“You boys know this girl?” Clay asked respectfully.
“She hunts…hunted, every year at the Hunting for the Cure fundraiser,” Heath was the one who replied. “She would have aged out this year, just like Gordy and me. She is…she was, a fine person.”
“She was,” Gordy nodded in agreement. “Give you the shirt off her back, and I don’t mean that to be dirty. She was always ready to lend a helping hand. We used to mud ride together sometimes.”
“She was a hard-core tomboy,” Zach smiled faintly. “Hunt, fish, ride, you name it and she did it. Loved life and lived it to the fullest. I doubt I ever saw her without a smile.”
“Me either,” Gordy and Heath both echoed. They all three waited for another few seconds before they resumed their march for the door.
“Wait, boys,” Xavier Adair called, getting to his feet. “I think I shall accompany you on this venture.”
“Thanks, X,” Zach nodded.
“I’ll go, too,” Kurtis was next. “I didn’t know the girl, but she sounds like my kind of people.”
“Alright, everybody just hold on a minute,” Clay got to his feet. “Let’s not do this half-cocked. You’ve got two shooters in the crowd, so you need spotters for them. You’re also going to need hunters.” He turned to Adcock.
“If my boys are going with you, then you are going to have a solid plan in place before a single one of them leaves this farm.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Is everyone clear on what’s going to happen?” Clay asked one final time.
With the decision to go having been made, Adcock had joined Clay and Jose Juarez in a planning session while the team that was making the trip to Lewiston prepared. Heath and Kurtis would provide a long-range punch against snipers firing into the town, with Samantha Walters spotting for Heath and Jose spotting for Kurtis, something he had done for Jody Thompson in the field. Gordy was almost apoplectic at the idea of Samantha going and tried to set his foot down, as Abby snidely remarked, when Samantha cut him off cleanly with one sentence.
“I knew her, too.”
Jody had trained Samantha over the last several months and she was more than capable of being a spotter for Heath Kelly, the two having already worked in tandem from the tower during one battle. A stone-faced Gordy nodded and departed without another word, hiding how upset he was at the idea that she would be in such danger. For her part, Samantha worried that Gordy’s anger would linger long after this was done but could not allow herself to turn away from it.
In the field, the hunters would work in pairs. Xavier Adair and Zachary Willis would form one team, Nate Caudell and Mitchell Nolan another, and Kevin Bodee along with Gordy Sanders a third. Nate and Mitch, or ‘Scope’ and ‘Thug’ as they were respectively known, had worked as a team for long months at a time when in the field and were an accomplished duo. While Xavier and Zach lacked the other pair’s experience as a team in the field, Xavier had been working steadily to train Zach for the last several months and was confident that the two of them would acquit themselves well. Kevin and Gordy had worked well together in the field and were probably the best choices of all the rest to form a third team. While not experienced with working together in this particular way, the two were both exceptionally good, and Gordy had the most combat experience of any of the teens.
“Our part of this operation is split into two elements,” Jose noted. He would be commanding their detachment, Clay staying behind on the farm. “The first part will happen before we ever get into town. We will stop, Adcock’s men will make a great deal of noise as if making a nature call, and while they’re doing so, Nate, Mitch, X, Kevin, Gordy and Zach will slip away into the dark. Their mission will be simple; hunt down these fuckers and kill them.”
“The second part of our own operation will begin once we get into town. With the vehicles blocking sight of the dismounts, Kurtis and I will move to the top floor of this building,” he pointed to the building that Susie Latimer had been killed on. “Heath and Samantha will move to this building, two blocks down,” he changed his pointer. He looked at the young people he would be taking along.
“It is very important that you be in position before the sun comes up,” he stressed to Heath, Sam and Kurtis. “Without knowing where their shooter or shooters are, there’s no way we can stand upright out in the open on those rooftops, so we’ll be using the attic floor, which is essentially a half-floor above the third level. Shooting and spotting will both need to be accomplished from well back inside the buildings to help hide our positions. The buildings cover an entire block each, with numerous windows on every side, so our visibility should be excellent.”
“Tandi will be on hand in the event we have wounded and will serve as relief for those of us on sniper duty when and as needed.”
“Captain Adcock will have a trio of soldiers in each building to serve as security, to make sure no one can slip in and surprise us once the shooting starts. Their orders are to work two awake, one asleep at all times, but always assume that they’re all a
sleep. If you’re expecting to be surprised, well, then it won’t be a surprise, will it?” he smiled thinly.
“Understand something right now,” he told the assembled team. “We have absolutely no idea who these people are, how many of them there are, or what they want. Finding that out would be a huge help, but we will not risk our own safety to do it. Is that understood?” Everyone nodded in turn as Jose’s eyes went from one person to the next until he had gotten that affirmation from each of them.
“We’ll be crammed in pretty tight on the Ghost, with so much gear, but we’re packing for five days of operations. While it would be wonderful if we managed to clear this bunch during that time, we will not rush this in order to try and make that happen. That’s how mistakes are made. If we reach the end of our resources, we will regroup, resupply, and head back in after a short rest. We will not be leaving anyone alive behind us,” he declared flatly. “Live enemies come back to haunt you. If Adcock wants to take prisoners, then he needs to find his own. You find one, you kill him. Or her. Makes no difference at this point.”
“Adcock’s men will wait out the first day, and then begin moving out to drive the enemy forward the next morning. That should hopefully allow plenty of time for our hunter teams to get into position. Remember we don’t know their numbers,” Jose stressed yet again. “For all we know there are more of them than there are of Adcock’s group. We take every precaution. Any questions?”
He waited, but there were none.
“Very well. Equipment and supply check. We load in fifteen minutes. Get moving.”
-
“I really appreciate this,” Adcock said quietly as he stood beside Clay, waiting for the team making the trip to Lewiston to board their vehicle.
“I’m not the one doing it,” Clay told him simply. “They heard what you said, and because of that one young woman, decided to help. Those who didn’t know her are helping because the boys are. You had better come through with their support, Captain,” his voice turned cold. “If you don’t, then I suggest you dig a hole and pull it in after yourself. Understand?”
