by John Chapman
Ben took the handcuffs off Hank and led him to the counter where his guns were. Troy, who was now behind the counter said, “I have a Mosin-Nagant with a double shot of 9mm for Frank,” obviously mimicking a barista mispronouncing someone’s name. Hank didn’t get the joke, but gingerly accepted his now unloaded guns and his KA-BAR knife. Troy told him, “These two nice assaulters will escort you to the overpass out of town. Remember Hank, no shooting at anyone wearing a Black Knight patch,” while pointing at the patch on his chest. Hank nodded emphatically and replied, “Yes sir. I’ll see you in the morning.”
2nd Troop spent the rest of the day clearing buildings and setting up checkpoints. They didn’t find any more people until they got to the hotel, where the team found 16 rooms were occupied. They made contact with everyone and explained the situation. Most of the hotel’s guests were oil field workers with no place else to be, so Troy put them to work after feeding them from the food piling up from the grill-a-thon behind Walmart.
After thinking about what Troy had told him this morning about the City’s plan for the area, Harold had commandeered the closed down chain restaurant building on the eastern edge of Walmart’s lot. He and three of his employees set the place up as a dining hall, and by mid-day they were ready to start serving buffet style meals made up of the perishable food his crew had been cooking all day. Troy was able to rotate all his assaulters through the buffet, getting some of them their first real meal in over 24 hours.
By the time the logistic convoy arrived from FOB Card, with Mayor Barnhart in the lead vehicle, 2nd Troop and the oil workers had the area ringed with dead vehicles, and had two functional ECP’s emplaced. The eastern ECP was already allowing citizens to enter the area, sending them under escort to the buffet for a meal. Everyone they allowed in volunteered to help in whatever work needed to be done; gaining a doctor (an Oncologist) and several master tradesmen in the process. The Mayor found Troy standing by the M113.
“You guys crushed it Troy! This is amazing!” Mayor Barnhart said by way of greeting. Troy smiled and said, “All we did was provide security Sir. Harold and his team, and some oil field workers we found in the hotel, really made the progress today.” The Mayor nodded and said, “Well, great work. Any injuries?” Troy replied, “Nope. Venton about gave a guy a heart attack with the 240, but we are all good.” Barnhart laughed and said, “Well, praise the Lord for small miracles.”
Troy agreed and said, “Speaking of miracles, I found out this morning there is a giant greenhouse farm just south of Walmart. It wasn’t on the orders, but we secured it and made contact with the manager.” Mayor Barnhart slapped his forehead and said, “I can’t believe we forgot the farm! That place grows massive amounts of fruits and vegetables year-round. Thank you for catching that.” Troy said, “Don’t thank me, Harold told me about it.” The Mayor nodded and said, “I’ll make sure I stop down there and say hi to the manager, I think it’s Anthony, and coordinate with him.” Troy nodded, then filled the Mayor in on the rest of the day’s events, and told him about the issue with the owner of the nursery.
Barnhart said, “Sounds good. I’ll go talk to Bernard as well. He campaigned against me, and I arrested him once for growing weed back in the day, but I’m sure we can come to an understanding. I need to catch up with Harold first.” Troy nodded. He thought about assigning someone to guard the Mayor, but Barnhart was armed with his M&P 9mm and BCM M4. Ron can take care of himself, Troy thought, remembering the Mayor had been a SWAT guy before retiring. They shook hands and the Mayor jogged off to find Harold.
Chapter 19
Camp Ravenna
Ravenna, OH
Manny wasn’t happy about his 1st Troop making the long movement to the Camp Ravenna National Guard Base in soft skinned HMWWVs, an M915 tractor and trailer, and Kasey’s SUV. The problem was he had 29 people to move, and there were only so many armored vehicles. He dealt with the risk as best he could by doing a detailed route briefing as part of his Op Order, and doing several down vehicle drills in the water treatment plant parking lot before they pushed out the gate. He also felt better that the HMWWVs had belt feds mounted and manned.
While his primary mission was a reconnaissance in force to Ravenna, he had several secondary goals. He was to check the truck stop at the intersection of Hwy 14 and I-76, looking for semi-trailers that may have supplies in them and marking them for pickup, and doing the same on I-76 on their way to Ravenna. He was dubious of the wisdom of stopping the convoy every 100 yards to check a truck’s load, but he understood the necessity of gathering every single scrap of food and fuel now, before things got crazy. Look on the bright side, he told himself, at least the Troop will get lots of ‘dismount and set security’ drills done today.
Manny positioned himself in the second vehicle, trusting a police officer from Stow who had come in last night who was a former Army Cav Scout, to run the scout vehicle mission in Kasey’s SUV. He had one assaulter on a dirtbike but decided to use her, a female cop from Marlboro, for rear security. It felt shady as hell deploying with a team he hadn’t trained, much less who had never trained before together at all. We’re all we got, kept running through his mind.
1st Troop spent the next three hours checking semi-trailers. They found the truck stop at I-76 almost completely abandoned. The only people there were three truckers who’d locked themselves inside the convenience store of the truck stop and refused to come out. All their appointed spokesman would say to Manny was “We aren’t coming out. We have this place by salvage rights, and we are staying here! Take our trailers if you want, we don’t care.”
Manny tried reasoning with them, pointing out they could only stay inside so long before the Twinkies and Diet Coke ran out, and offered to take them back to Alliance, but they wouldn’t budge. He gave up after about 10 minutes. After opening every trailer in the lot, they found 16 that had dried or canned food inside and two fuel haulers loaded with diesel and gasoline. They re-secured them using heavy-duty pad locks, having cut off the shipping seals, and marked the trailers for recovery.
Moving on to I-76 itself, they checked over 60 trailers in the westbound lanes in the few miles between Hwy 14 and the Hwy 44 turnoff to Ravenna. They found, resealed, and marked 11 of them for recovery, including one fuel tanker. It surprised Manny that they hadn’t found anyone on I-76. The roadway and all of the vehicles appeared completely abandoned. He had expected to find at least some people still in their cars less than 24 hours after the pulse.
When the scout vehicle exited I-76 onto Hwy 44 northbound, the vehicle commander got on the radio and said, “Knight One, Knight One-Alpha-Three. I found all the people.” Manny replied, “Roger, One-Alpha-Three. How many and where are they.” The scout responded, “There are several hundred people in the parking lots of the gas stations and fast food places at the bottom of the ramp at the Hwy 44 exit. I can see several of them looking at us through the scopes of hunting rifles, and some have already started walking towards us. We are backing out.” The driver of Kasey’s Equinox put it in reverse and backed up the ramp as fast as he could, then got turned around and headed east in the westbound lanes until they reached Manny’s vehicle.
The scout got out, ran up to Manny’s door, and found him already looking at the paper road map, looking for a way around the intersection. “OK,” Manny said, talking to Keel, who was his driver, “We will turn around and go back to Hwy 14. If we go north on Hwy 14 it will dump us out near the Camp.” Manny showed the scout the route on the map and held it while the scout pulled out his notebook and drew a strip map. He was pretty sure he knew where he was going, but getting lost wasn’t an option. When he was done the scout mounted up and led the Troop east.
They made good time once they got back on Hwy 14, and within 20 minutes they were parked in a herringbone formation at a turnout near the southeast corner of the Camp Ravenna reservation. Manny called his team leaders to the center of the formation and gave his briefing. “Alright guys, we know the situation. Our mission
today is to recon Camp Ravenna to determine if there are any resources available we can utilize. My intent is to observe the Camp and figure out who is in control, if anyone, before making any contact.” Manny paused and made eye contact with his team leaders, then continued, “It is not my intent to attack the Camp. We are here to observe unless I decide otherwise. Everybody understand?” Three heads nodded.
Manny assigned Alpha team, now under Jim Keel’s leadership since Dan was promoted to lead 3rd Troop, to recon the main gate, located on the northeast side of the Camp. Jerry’s team, Bravo, was tasked with doing the recon of the southeast gate, a seldom-used entrance to the Camp. Charlie team, with Canton PD’s Miles Johnson at the helm, was ordered to maintain security on the vehicles and operate the patrol base. Manny kept the three Ohio National Guard guys with him at the patrol base for now. He trusted them, but only so far.
Manny gave the TLs 10 minutes to get their guys organized; Keel’s Alpha team was moving in seven. When he saw Alpha pushing out early, Jerry keyed his radio and said, “Overachiever.” The only response he got was Keel’s left middle finger up high pointing back at him. Alpha team slipped into the woods on the east side of the roadway, opposite the Camp, and disappeared towards the north.
Jerry’s Bravo team, having a much shorter distance to travel, reached their objective first. When they got to the southeast gate, Jerry laid out his seven-man team on the east side of the road in a shallow arch, with the center closest to the gate, directly across the north-south highway running next to the camp. He kept his team about 20 yards inside the tree line, and placed them about 10 yards apart. When Jerry finally settled in, he reported to Manny over the radio and used his Steiner 8X50 binos to start his recon.
After about 10 minutes of detailed observation, it was obvious the gate hadn’t been used in a long time. He could see the weathered chain and padlock keeping the gate secured hadn’t been moved in quite a while, if the rust bridge connecting the chain to the steel vertical pole of the 10-foot-tall gate’s center was any indication. A heavy layer of grass was sticking out of the unmarred layer of snow in the driveway. Jerry bet he could use the several layers of plastic garbage bags and fast food cups trapped against the mobile part of the fence to date the last time this gate was used, like an archeologist used layers of pottery fragments. The windows of the guardshack just inside the left side of the gate were yellowed and stained, and the step outside the shack’s sliding door was overgrown with a small jungle of pine needles and moss.
Lee, the electrical engineer and tactics student turned Black Knight assaulter, was lying next to Jerry, watching the target through his Khales 1-6 optic. Lee leaned close to Jerry and whispered, “I’d bet every one of my Star Wars action figures this gate hasn’t been used in five years.” Jerry discovered new depths of self-discipline trying to keep himself from laughing. Instead, he keyed his radio mic and said, “Knight One, Knight One-Bravo-One. Negative activity at east gate. It appears to not have been used at all for over a year.” Manny replied, “Roger One-Bravo-One. Hold your pos until I hear back from Alpha.” Jerry clicked his radio mic twice to say ‘roger’ without having to talk, and turned his attention back to the objective.
Alpha team was discovering Jim Keel set a blistering pace. His legs almost being longer than some of his assaulters were tall didn’t help, but his inhuman level of physical fitness had most of his eight assaulters breathing hard within the first 500 yards, just trying to keep up. Zach Shepard knew that if Keel kept this pace up Alpha would have guys fall out. Zach’s limited patrolling experience as part of the Alliance SWAT team also told him that Keel, as the TL, shouldn’t be the point man. Zach jogged up to Keel and stopped him. Keel took a knee, leaving him only slightly shorter than Zach when he was standing, and looked at him like ‘what the hell dude, what is it?’. Zach put his mouth close to Keel’s ear and said, “You need to slow down. Guys are already falling behind. Also, are you sure you should be the point man? You’re the TL.”
Keel’s first reaction was anger. If an assaulter had questioned a TL in the middle of an Op on Keel’s Vegas SWAT team, he would be punched in the face, followed by a rapid and unceremonious exit from the unit. You’re not in Vegas anymore Jim, was his next thought, and Zach has a point on both counts. Keel nodded his head and whispered, “You’re right bro. My bad. You take point, I’ll follow.” Zach breathed an inward sigh of relief that Keel hadn’t been a dick about it, and pushed off at a more manageable pace.
Alpha team made the one and a half mile movement to the woods across from the main gate in just over 30 minutes. Keel thought that even the newest Army Ranger would have had a stroke had they seen (and heard) their fieldcraft during the walk, but he cut himself and his team some slack. They were a bunch of cops thrown into a situation calling for Ranger skills; but Keel knew the first thing he was asking Manny for when they got time to breath was dismounted patrolling training. He wished he’d taken some classes in it before the pulse. That, and his guys were going to PT until their arms and legs fell off.
The team set up in the woods across from the main gate and started watching. Keel immediately noticed a head in the guard shack positioned in the middle of the ECP. The cyclone fence gates leading into the base were closed on both the entry and exit sides, but the shack was definitely manned. A white ford pickup with the Camp’s logo on the door sat with its hood up behind the shack. As he watched, a white kid in his early 20’s, wearing a blue uniform coat and uniform pants stepped out of the shack and stretched.
He noticed the man’s coat had a badge on the left breast and patches embroidered with ‘HBD Security’ on each shoulder, and he was wearing a gunbelt with a Glock pistol and two spare magazines, an empty radio pouch, and a Surefire light in an old Surefire light holder. The uniform matched the description of what to expect the guard to look like that Keel got from the National Guard troops riding with 1st Troop.
The team settled in to watch while Keel got on the radio. “Knight One, Knight One-Alpha-One. Eyes on. There is one uniformed guard, gates are closed. No other traffic.” He heard Manny say, “Roger. Charlie Mike.” Keel settled in for a cold day sitting in the woods.
Across the road, the security guard was laughing to himself. Whoever that was in the woods across from him wasn’t exactly Daniel Boone. Jeff Lewis was playing it cool; he heard the group moving through the woods opposite his gate several minutes before he saw them. He sat in his guardshack and watched them settle in about 70 yards to his east. Lewis was a former Marine who had taken this job because it paid well; and since it was on a government contract he got veteran’s preference for hiring. Although young, Lewis had been out of the Marine Corps for five months. During his four-year enlistment, he had gone downrange to Afghanistan as a Marine Infantryman twice, and wasn’t particularly worried about a bunch of yahoos who couldn’t even sneak up on a $18 an hour security guard.
After coming outside to pretend to stretch in order to get a better look at the watchers, Lewis went back inside his shack. He slung his rifle on its single point sling, letting it hang in front of his body, and grabbed his small binoculars. Lewis spent the next 15 minutes finding and observing each of the four people he could see hiding. One of them was a great big dude with a large ‘POLICE’ patch on the front of his plate carrier. Being something of a gear queer, Lewis recognized that all four of the guys he could see were wearing high-end Velocity and Crye plate carriers, and Arcteryx or Crye uniforms and jackets. None of their gear was camouflage; in fact, it looked like the Ranger Green monster had puked all over them. Also, despite their obvious discomfort in the woods, they held themselves like professionals.
Ok, these are definitely SWAT guys, Lewis thought, But what kind of cops can afford that gear? When the big guy moved and he saw the knight chess piece patch, it dawned on him. These guys were Alliance SWAT. Jeff Lewis may have been a veteran Marine Corps gunfighter, but he was still a 23-year-old. Social media had been the center of his life, until yesterday at least. Being
a gear queer and a gun guy in Northeast Ohio, he followed Alliance Police Training pretty closely on Facebook. He couldn’t afford to train there yet, but it didn’t cost anything to look at pictures and read after-action reports from classes. He’d recognize their Black Knight logo anywhere.
Lewis knew Alliance was close by; the SWAT team must be checking out Camp Ravenna for some reason. He weighed his options carefully. Lewis knew he was tired after sleeping in his car in short bursts last night. He knew he realistically couldn’t hold his post until he starved to death. As much as the Marine Corps had ingrained General Order Number Five into him, ‘To quit my post only when properly relieved’, Lewis was honest enough with himself to admit if he’d had any family or a girlfriend, he would have started walking home by now. Based on his observations, Lewis knew they had been EMP’d, or hit by a sunburst or whatever that was called, and he knew no one was coming to help him.
He made up his mind quickly; he would make contact with these guys, and if they had any governmental affiliation he would join them. Lewis stepped out into the cold day and looked right at the group of guys in the trees across the road, pointed at them, then made the ‘Rally On Me’ hand signal. He repeated the gesture as he watched them squirm around, then he held his binoculars over his head and shouted, “I can see you guys. Just come over here.”
