by John Chapman
Everyone nodded their understanding as JR came out of the back M113 hatch and slung first his sniper pack, then his Hog Saddle tripod and finally his rifle. He nodded to Phil and took off at a jog up the hill. Phil pointed to three guys and continued, “You guys will be on my team. We will be Three-Charlie-One on the radio. Take a few minutes and check your gear for noise. Jump up and down, check each other out, and secure any gear that’s making noise.” Phil then pointed at the other three assaulters and said, “You guys and the driver will be Dan’s team. You guys will be Knight Three on the radio. Make sure you have your kit checked and are ready to go. As soon as Dan gets here we will push off. Any questions?” No one had any, and they got to work.
When JR got close to Dan’s position, he got down on his belly and crawled the last 25 feet or so, until he was next to Dan, looking down on the warehouse. His first whispered words were, “Damn, that’s a huge building.” Dan chuckled and replied, “That’s what she said.” JR looked at Dan and said, “Common bro, you’re better than that,” with a smile. Dan smiled back and said, “No I’m not. Ask anybody.” JR chuckled softly and started getting his gear set up.
While he worked, Dan briefed him quietly, “No activity so far. I can hear an engine down there somewhere, but I can’t pinpoint it. It almost sounds like a generator. I’m wondering if their backup power system was shielded.” JR said, “It would make sense to spend the money when a good chunk of your inventory is probably frozen food, and would be ruined if the power went out and the generators didn’t work. Seems like a no-brainer for a business man.” Dan nodded and handed over a hand-drawn range card from his Rite in the Rain notebook. Dan said, “I didn’t get too detailed; figured you would want to do that. I also don’t have any way to range, so that’ll need to be done.” JR took the card and said, “Thanks. What’s the plan?”
Dan said, “I am taking a team to the Southwest corner of the building,” Dan pointed to the spot, where JR could see the facility’s office was located, “in the M113, approaching from the southwest driveway. Phil is taking a team to the southeast corner of the property and will set up in the trees there. They will be available for support from there. You have both the west and east driveways, and the north and west sides of the buildings.” JR replied, “Roger. Which side do you want to be side one?” Dan said, “Let’s call the north side the one side, east is side two, south is side three and west is side four.” JR nodded and said, “Please tell Phil. There are so many doors down there I’ll have to use the building numbering system to communicate almost anything.” Dan agreed.
Dan stayed in place until JR finished setting up his position and spent some time with his laser rangefinding binos, finishing his range card. When JR was ready, he said, “Sniper set.” Dan nodded and said, “Thanks Bro,” and backed off the hill to join his team.
It took over an hour for Phil’s team to walk to their position. Dan was getting impatient when he finally heard Phil get on the radio, “Knight Three, Three-Charlie-One. We are set at our standby pos. We ended up on the two / three corner, inside the trees about 100 yards from the building. We are at ground level, and do not have a clear view of the full length of either side of the building, but all the doors we can see are closed, and there is no activity.” Dan replied, “Knight Three copies. Hold there. Break. Sniper One, Knight Three. Any changes? We are about to move.” He heard JR say, “Knight Three, Sniper One. Negative. Move.”
Dan got his team loaded up and stuck his head in the driver’s copula, where Martin was strapped in, and said, “Let’s roll.” Martin started the M113 and let it warm up for a moment, before putting it in gear and pulling out. Kyle taught Martin to drive the lumbering tracked vehicle several years ago on a lark, during downtime at a CQB class he was taking from Mark and David. Learning to operate the vehicle had been fun; he’d never imagined he would be driving it in a situation like this.
Martin managed to get the armored vehicle into the distribution center’s parking lot and backed up near the office doors with the ramp facing the building without damaging anything. Not too bad for only 30 minutes of training several years ago, Martin thought. Dan told him to leave the vehicle running, make sure the driver’s hatch was locked from the inside, and join him in the troop compartment. Before he dropped the ramp, Dan briefed the guys one last time, “OK, we are taking everyone except the machinegunner,” he pointed at one of the Canton SWAT guys who was qualified on the M240 from his time in the Marine Corps.
“We will lock you in,” Dan continued, “and the rest of us will go see what’s up.” He made eye contact with everyone and said, “We’re all we got,” and was happy with the, “We’re all we need” he got in return. He dropped the ramp and the team got out and set up security. Once the ramp was closed again, the team moved to the main entrance doors. The glass entrance doors were locked, and heavily tinted, forcing Dan to use the 1500 lumen Surefire M600DF Scout light on his carbine to see inside. All he could see was an empty lobby and a closed door on the wall across from the entrance.
Dan looked at his team, and seeing they were more or less set up on the door properly, he banged on the glass with his gloved fist, rattling the doors in their metal frame. When he got no response after several attempts, Dan decided they would need to find a way in. He was hesitant to break the glass doors, wanting to keep the building as intact and weather-proof as possible. Dan looked at one of the Akron guys and said, “Take someone and go find another door. I don’t want to breach this glass if we don’t have to.” The assaulter nodded, grabbed an assaulter from Canton, and moved towards the southwest corner, looking for pedestrian doors.
Dan was about to give up on the main doors when he saw the interior door into the lobby open, and an older black man in blue suit pants and a button up white shirt walk into the lobby. He saw Dan and looked startled. Dan yelled through the glass door, “Police department. Can you let us in?” The man turned around and went back to the interior door and stood there. Dan yelled, “Sir! We are here to help you. Please open the door so I don’t have to break it.” The man replied, but Dan couldn’t hear him. Dan said, “Sir, I can’t hear you.”
The man looked frustrated and yelled, “Go away. We don’t need any help.” Dan shook his head and replied, “Sir, I can’t do that. I’ve been ordered to secure this facility. We aren’t here to hurt anyone, but I am going to come in.” The man shook his head and said, “Stay out! We just want to be left alone.” I bet you do, Dan thought. He tried a different track, “Sir, I’m Dan Wilson, and I’m a SWAT officer.” Dan took his badge off his battle belt and held it up to the window and pointed to the large police patch on the chest of his plate carrier, “What’s your name?” The man said, “You any relation to Bill Wilson over in Alliance?”
Dan chuckled and said, “I’m Bill’s son.” The man softened a little, and yelled to be heard, “I used to shoot trap with your Dad. He still like to fish?” Dan laughed and replied, “Nope. He’s always hated fishing.” The man visible relaxed and walked to the glass doors. He unlocked the right-side door and opened it, sticking out his hand, “How are you son, I’m Richard Helms. Your pops and I were close when you and your older brother Kyle were young. We travelled the trap circuit together quite a bit.” Dan said, “Yes sir, Dad talks about you from time to time.”
Richard chuckled and said, “I bet he does son. So, you are a policeman now?” Dan replied, “Yes sir. Can we come in?” Richard said, “Of course, come in.” Dan turned and spoke to his guys, “On me.” The two assaulters who went looking for a door came back and all four of them filed inside. As soon as he stepped into the building, Dan could feel the heat inside the lobby and saw the lights were on. He was surprised the backup power systems were running the building’s creature comforts in addition to the food storage systems. Richard locked the door behind them and gestured to the M113 sitting near the door, “I can’t believe you guys are still using those old 113’s. I rode one of those things all over Vietnam.” Dan replied, “I can�
��t believe you still have power here.”
Dan left two guys in the lobby, and told the other two to find the access to the roof. Richard gave them directions to the access ladder and the combination to the lock on the hatch. Richard said, “I sent everyone else home last night, so you shouldn’t run into anybody.” Dan nodded and told the assaulters, “Go ahead and get on the roof. One of you has a radio right?” Both nodded. “Alright,” Dan said, “Off you go.”
Dan followed Richard into his office. Richard sat down behind his desk and asked, “So Dan, do you know what happened? I guess the power went out, but we have redundant power generation for that, and we didn’t even know there was a problem until our second shift folks didn’t show up. When I couldn’t get the phones to work, even our cell phones, I sent everyone home. Then nobody’s cars would start. I can’t figure what the hell is going on.” Dan said, “As best as we can figure the country was hit with an electromagnetic pulse.” Richard had no idea what that was, and Dan took a few minutes to explain.
Richard was quiet for a while, then asked, “So this is a long-term thing; a new reality so to speak?” Dan said, “Yeah, I think so Richard.” “So that explains why you and your guys are here in combat gear,” Richard said grimly, putting all the pieces together, “The city wants to secure this food because no more is coming.” Dan raised his eyebrows and said, “Yep.” Richard let out a long breath and started speaking, but Dan didn’t hear him over JR’s voice in his headset, “Knight Three, Sniper One. A large group of vehicles just turned onto Hwy 44 from 62.”
Dan jumped to his feet and replied, “Roger, do we have assaulters on the roof yet?” When he let off his PTT he told Richard, “A large group is headed this way. This can’t be good.” In his headset Dan heard, “Three-Charlie-Six is on the roof and has eyes on. Looks a large group of thugs coming our way fast. Estimate at least 30 subjects.” JR stepped on him, saying, “Sniper One, I see AKs sticking out of windows. Permission to engage?” Dan thought through the information he had, balanced it against the situation, and made a decision.
Dan yelled for Martin, who was in the lobby, to get back in the M113 and be ready to move, and for the other assaulter to come with him, then keyed his radio, “Sniper One, engage.” Dan turned to Richard and said, “Take us to the roof.”
Chapter 25
ABC Food Superstores Distribution Center
Near Intersection of Hwy 62 and Hwy 44
JR fired his first shot as soon as his left hand got back on the bag he was using to stabilize his stock in the prone position. He fired before Dan’s permission came. The situation was obvious, and he wanted to stop these dongs as far away from the facility as he could to minimize the effect of the enemy’s superior numbers. His first target was the driver of the lead vehicle, about 300 yards from him, and only about 175 yards from the west driveway entrance. He lost the target in recoil, but knew he’d connected when he came back on target and saw the lead vehicle, a beautifully restored 1950’s era four door Chevy Bel Air, swerve to his right, jump the curb and plow into a telephone pole. It looked like the dong sitting in the passenger seat ate his AK in the collision.
JR got on the second vehicle, a 1970’s Ford van, which was braking hard after seeing the first vehicle careen off the road. It just made his shot easier. JR used the Horus reticle to hold one mil high and launched the next 168 grain Amax into the face of the Ford Van’s driver. That vehicle was almost at a complete stop, so there was no spectacular crash, but as JR cycled his bolt and checked his work, he could see a hole in the windshield, and it looked like someone had thrown a 5-gallon bucket of red paint on the windshield from the inside.
By this time the five remaining vehicles had stopped in the middle of the road. JR could sense their indecision, and took maximum advantage of it. Another suppressed 168 grain round screamed through his Surefire suppressor, and another dong’s head exploded, this time the front seat passenger in the third vehicle. The gore expelled by the supersonic round turning their homeboy’s head into a canoe was enough to get the three dongs in the back seat, and the driver of the 1970’s Lincoln Towncar, to jump out of the car and run into the woods on the east side of the road, putting them directly south of the facility JR was protecting.
The rest of the dongs in the convoy must have thought this looked like a good idea, because they all quickly followed suit. JR was able to shoot two more of them before they reached the woods, one of whom was only wounded, and was crying out for his friends to come get him. They must not have been good friends, because no one came. JR swept the vehicles in the road through his optic again, and found one guy had cracked the side door of the Ford van, and was trying to search for where the shots were coming from. JR watched him for a moment, and when the dong slowly slid the door open a little further, he saw this dong was apparently a ‘sniper dong’.
This guy had a black Remington 700P, complete with the Leupold scope and Harris bipod, and ‘CPD’ stenciled on the stock. JR would recognize a Canton PD sniper rifle anywhere; he had been shooting and training with their Snipers for over 10 years, and had always given them crap about the off-the-shelf guns with the goofy stenciling.
JR had heard the stories about the dirtbags in Canton killing and lynching cops, so there was little doubt in his mind about where this dumbass in the Gucci hat and red jacket had gotten the rifle. JR placed the two mil elevation dot of his Horus reticle on Sniper Dong’s nose and stroked the trigger. The Amax bullet did its work, and Sniper Dong fell into the crack of the van door, what was left of his head sticking out of the gap.
JR smiled, then returned his attention to the wounded guy in the road. It was obvious no one was going to help him, so JR finished him off with a shot to the head. He hoped his buddies were looking at him when the round bounced his head off the pavement. You guys think you’re bad asses? That’s cute, JR thought. If things were reverting to the law of the jungle, these dongs were nothing but jackals; and like jackals, they would regret stealing meat from the lions.
JR saw movement in his peripheral vision and returned his focus to the van. The side door was slowly sliding open, and he figured there had to be more of these dumbasses in there. JR decided see if he could provoke a reaction. He centered his two mil Horus dot on the center of the van’s side door and put a round through the cargo compartment. About a second later the back doors of the van flew open and three dumbasses burst out onto the pavement, firing wildly in all directions with their motley assortment of long guns as they ran to the east woodline. JR expended the last three rounds of his Tikka’s magazine, scoring only one hit, before they were out of sight.
JR quickly swapped out mags in the rifle and chambered a round. As he was getting back on the glass to try to find these guys in the woods, Dan called him on the radio, “Sniper One, Knight Three. We are up on the roof now.” JR saw Kyle waving at him. “Sitrep? We could hear your rounds going supersonic past us, but hadn’t heard any return fire until that last volley.”
JR keyed his PTT and said, “Roger Knight Three. I’m good; they were doing the Iraqi wedding dance, nothing serious. Splash seven so far, the dongs bailed out of their vehicles about 125 yards south of the facility, and are now in the woodline to your south. I need to finish cleaning up the vehicles, then I’ll start working the woods. Break. Three-Charlie-One, Sniper One. Be advised you have dongs to your southwest in the woods.”
Phil pushed his PTT and said, “Roger. Break. Knight Three, do you want us to skirmish north to south and push them west back onto the road?” “Negative Three-Charlie-One.” Dan replied, annoyance creeping into his voice. “You only have four guys. Hold your pos until I can get set up here.” Phil responded with a curt, “Roger.” Dan set himself up on the south parapet of the roof and grabbed his monocular, cursing himself for not carrying full size binoculars. He resolved to change that when they got out of here; he’d deal with the weight.
Dan scanned the woods to the south but didn’t see anything moving. Those dongs are probably
cleaning out their undies and gathering themselves, Dan thought, I need to get ahead of their thinking, as he racked his brain for a way to keep these guys off balance. He wanted to keep these guys as far away from the facility as he could, but he also didn’t want any of them to get away; He didn’t want any of them going to get more friends. Dan turned to Richard and said, “You know what I need, Richard?” Richard chuckled and replied, “A 90mm recoilless rifle?” Dan said, “I was thinking a 60mm mortar, but I’d take it. It would be nice to smoke check all those guys with some indirect fire while they are clumped up, before they get their shit together.”
As Dan thought it through, he knew they were in trouble, despite how well JR had worked the dongs over. The enemy had between 20 and 25 guys left, while Dan’s team consisted of 10 shooters; 11 if he could find a rifle for Richard. The enemy had freedom of movement, while Dan had a very large building to protect. Defending a building this size with 11 guys and a sniper was a losing proposition in the long run, no matter how much the opposition sucked. His radio wouldn’t reach into Alliance, so he had no way to get help, short of sending someone back to town, which would reduce his effective force by 10%. Dan slowed his thinking and focused. What are my options? He asked himself.
First, he could evacuate everyone in the M113, allowing the dongs to take the warehouse without a fight. This would guarantee his force, and Richard, would make it out intact, but would mean failure of the mission; and virtually guaranteed casualties when the Squadron had to raid the facility to take it back. Not to mention the damage the dongs were sure to do to the building, and the food inside, while he gathered a force to come take it back.
His second option was to defend the warehouse, and hold out until David figured out something is wrong when they didn’t report in at about 1600 hours as planned, and sent a relief force.
