What Do You Mean It’s Still Tuesday?
Surviving the EOTWAWKI
By
Billy Bob Richardson
KINDLE EDITION
Copyright 2015
Billy Bob Richardson
Kindle Edition, License
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events or places are purely coincidental; any references to actual places, people or brands are fictitious. All rights reserved.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Glenn of Sarco Press www.sarcopress.com [email protected]
Thanks also to Rachel at https://www.fiverr.com/readwritesell
Both of these fine people were a great help!
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
“What do you mean it’s still Tuesday?”
Madd and the cousins had done all they could to secure the family’s future. Circumstances had provided them a helping hand in taking over the family council, a bittersweet accomplishment for all of them. To their very core they knew that control of the council needed to be in the hands of those who would put the best interests of the family first. Not those who had been using it for their own personal power trips. With the council and the resources of the family safely in their hands they could implement strategies for securing the family’s future. Before leaving the family farms in Colorado to head back to Afghanistan they had delegated the more immediate projects to the capable hands of their close family and friends. They were feeling a sense of relief on one hand, knowing projects would be ongoing, on the other hand heading to a war was weighing on their minds.
Long term storage foods could be purchased. Old fields and pastures could be rehabilitated and planted. Housing and barns erected, if you had the finances. Money was a constant issue. Without finances saving hundreds of family from a world disaster would be close to impossible. The one shining light on the finances front was Al. An all-around good guy with just the right set of contacts and skills to help finance the survival of the family.
It would be a huge step up if Al could manage to relive the Taliban of some of their cash. It would benefit the family and while it might not affect the Taliban long term it sure would put a crimp in some of their immediate plans.
Chapter 1
Kandahar, Afghanistan
Al put the word out with his usual contacts. He gave them the name of the money man and a picture of the guy that helped smuggle money into the country. He also offered a reward for information and equipped them with very small digital cameras easily hidden in their clothes. Maybe his guys would get lucky and snap a picture of something useful. They were working the towns and villages close to the Tajikistan border in hopes they might find something useful. After almost four weeks, it wasn’t looking good.
If Zeb's estimates were correct he had about a week to find his target. So far he had zip, and it was frustrating as hell. Looking into the smuggling of drugs for weapons proved Zeb was right. It was an open secret, and practically everyone knew about. So far he was getting his own business taken care of, while trying to get a lead on the money man. Not much he could do about the family’s needs until he could get a lead.
The town of Kunduz in Kunduz Province was the only town relatively close to where the exchanges would happen. It seemed like the best candidate for a staging area. The money man might not be staying there but there was an excellent chance he would at least pass through Kunduz. It seemed like the most logical place to start looking, but his operatives were coming up dry.
There was a military presence right outside of Kunduz, Germans and US Soldiers predominately. They were the only units in or around Kunduz close to the old Afghan-Soviet-Tajikistan border. Might be time to head there and try to gather intelligence himself.
There was time to check his phone for a contact from Zeb before he left. He found a private place to talk, replaced the battery and activated the phone. He had been checking it six times a day without any contact. Today, less than a minute before he was going to turn it off, the phone rang. He answered with the code words he and Zeb had worked out.
“Dad, is that you?”
“Hi son, how are things in the armpit of the world?”
Now that the both knew for sure who they were speaking to it was time to get down to business.
“Hi guy, so what have you got for me?”
Zeb’s voice sounded strange because he was using a modulator to scramble his voice. The signal was encrypted and would be almost impossible to break, but no point in taking chances. At the farm Zeb had shown the modulator to him and had spoken into it so that Al would recognize Zeb's voice.
“We got a break. The spy guys have been using drones for surveillance in Kunduz Province and some of the video they sent back got a quick glimpse of that fancy AK. Unfortunately the man carrying it had his head covered with a keffiyeh and his face obscured with the tail of it. I am forwarding the picture now.”
“OK, got it. Damn, if it wasn’t for that AK we would never find him; he looks just like any other man you might see around here. Where was this taken, exactly?”
“Outside the town of Kunduz,” Zeb told him.
“I was about to head down there and check that place out.”
“I am going to send you a short video. The drone made a couple of passes over time. It caught a view of people in the street. On one of the later passes you can see what appears to be the same man disappear into a building in town. Unfortunately he is no longer carrying the AK, but, the clothes seem to be the same. That’s all we have to go on right now.”
“I might be able to pick out the building when I get down there,” Al assured him. “Depends on the architectural features in the video and what I can see to narrow it down.”
“Be careful my friend, and if it comes down to it, save yourself. You are no good to a certain girl dead. You are more important to us than the mission,” Zeb told him.
“I appreciate the sentiment but we both know that isn’t true.”
“Take care.” With that the line went dead and Al turned off the phone and removed the battery. He needed to gather up his hired guns and get on the road. It was a ways to Kunduz; he was going to have to get a ride on a chopper to get there any time soon. It would take time to get to Kunduz, time he didn’t have. Transport by chopper was the only fast way.
Al started laughing out loud. Get there fast? Hurry to steal money from drug smugglers so tough they were feared by the locals even more than the Taliban? If he got out of this one with his head on his shoulders maybe he should get that head examined!
The German base, Kunduz, Kunduz Province.
Al and his crew were able to grab a chopper out to the German base. The Germans had always been pretty helpful and today wasn’t any different. They let him change into Afghani clothes in the officers’ shower area. His guys waited outside, mingling with other Afghanis that had service jobs on the base. Hopefully the change into dirty, worn Afghani clothes would help him blend in better. His group left as any Afghans who worked on the base would.
He spoke the language well but he let his men do the
talking around town. He didn’t want any suspicion to fall on them because his accent wasn’t quite right.
After a day and a half they had finally found the right building. Surveillance was difficult. Everyone was suspicious of anyone new to the neighborhood. There had been some problems with the US backed militias here so the Germans made frequent patrols through town. Between the militias and the Germans it did give him a chance to get eyes on the building. He kept rotating his three men in and out and they were finally rewarded with six men leaving the building and heading off.
He followed, keeping them in sight until they came to a shop that supplied motor bikes. One of his targets had two old-looking bags with him. He was tying the bags to the back of the bikes, testing which was the best way to secure them. One of his men got close enough while pretending to be interested in a bike to hear the men make a deal to rent bikes.
They made arrangements to pick them up later the same day. Their next stop was a place that sold old beat up trucks. None of them could get close enough to hear but it was obvious their targets were making a deal on a truck. Finally they made the deal and loaded up in the truck. By the time Al got to the target house, the truck was parked in an alley next to it.
With the acquisition of transportation they could be leaving at any time. Was the money in the house or was it coming? That was the question. He left his man watching the house and moved to an adjoining street with stores, coffee shops and an open air market. He purchased fruit and cheese for lunch and ate squatting down, as many around him were doing.
Before long one of his men joined him.
“The man in the picture you showed us just arrived,” he told Al.
“Was he alone?”
“No, he had two bodyguards and three porters carrying two bags each with him. They took the bags into the house, then the three porters left and the others stayed in the house.”
“What kind of bags?”
“Just the kind you might see anyone carrying goods in. Very common for shopping in the markets.”
“Was there anything odd about them?” Al pressed him.
“Not really, except that the six bags were exactly the same. New looking, like they had been purchased at the same time from the same vendor.”
2:55am outside the target house and it was freaking cold. Al and his men were keyed up and weren’t noticing the temperature at the moment. Adrenaline was keeping them warm so far. Anyone awake and out at this time was bound to be up to no good. That included them. There wasn’t much choice. Everything pointed to the money being in the house, and that money was going to leave town soon. If he let the men guarding his target go mobile in a truck and motorbikes, he was in trouble. If the money got strapped to motorbikes, which then headed off in different directions, the whole mission was screwed.
His men had watched the house all day and into the night. As close as they could tell there were at least eleven Taliban and or drug smugglers in that house. His men were really outnumbered and weren’t too enthusiastic about going inside. Silent entries into unknown conditions and an unknown building looked good in the movies. Too bad real life isn’t a movie. Since his men were nothing more than hired gunmen and had no special ops training, a silent entry was a laughable idea. He had equipped himself and two other men with MP-5s with built in silencers. They were using subsonic 9MM rounds to help keep the noise level down. The lack of training was going to be a problem. The last guy on his team carried an AK.
He gave them firm orders not to fire unless the fat dropped in the fire. In a pouch attached to his belt he had 10 14oz M67 fragmentation grenades. He had already removed the safety clip that prevented the pin from being removed. The only other precaution he could take on short notice was to involve the Germans without letting them know he was up to something. He hated to mislead the Germans, but he had no choice. He told them he had intelligence that something might happen in town. He didn’t guarantee it, but said it was a strong possibility. He suggested the German commander make a sweep through town at 3am.
With the Germans starting at the other side of town he would only have a small window of time to carry out his mission. It was 3am it was time to go. The man with the AK was out back watching to make sure no one escaped that way. Al tried the door, but no joy, the door was secured. It was a wooden door with several pieces of wood running up and down. Through a crack he could see there was a lamp giving off light in the first room. Carefully removing his fighting knife, he inserted it into a crack. Carefully, while trying to be quiet, he slowly raised the locking bar. When he had it up as far as he could, it disengaged from the latch mounted on the wall.
No one was in the room. The three of them moved across the floor to the doorway. Straight ahead were stairs, and to the right was a table and a kitchen. Three men were in the kitchen making coffee and speaking softly. No time like the present.
Easing through the door a few inches Al took aim on the target furthest to the left. Clack, clack, next man, clack, clack, next man clack, clack. Six rounds and all three were down. Nowhere near silently, though. Men slumping to the floor and pulling over a chair are not silent. In the movies, sound-suppressed weapons are portrayed as being much quieter than in real life.
Moving quickly towards the back of the room, with his men spreading out behind him, he made it about halfway across the room. At that point two men came around a corner from the back of the room to investigate the noise. They weren’t nearly as worried as they should have been. His man with one of the sound-suppressed weapons opened up on them, with three round bursts. Al took the target to the right while his guy took the target to the left. Sound levels were getting out of hand. Must be another room to the left back there. Moving quickly Al swung into the room the two had just exited where another man was trying to untangle himself from his bedding. Clack, clack. That was all the rooms and they seemed to be clear except for dead bodies.
Headed back to the stairs Al heard voices from upstairs. Moving quickly he rushed up the dark stairs, taking two steps at a time. As he hit the landing someone stuck the barrel of an AK out the open doorway to his right and let off a magazine at full auto. Had there been enough light for them to aim, he would have been toast. He ducked and stepped back down two steps, crouching. Sweating like a pig he let the MP5 hang from its sling and grabbed a grenade. No time for a fancy stance, just pull the pin and roll it through the open door to his right, trying to make it angle into the room. It took a bad hop and only made it 5 feet into the room. By the flickering light in the room the grenade was plainly in sight. As it stopped rolling a man stepped into view and made to kick it back as if it were a soccer ball. Fuses on the M67 can be anywhere from 4 to 5.5 seconds long. The man was betting on the 5.5 seconds; he lost. He was blown up and back, with blood and gore flying everywhere. The door straight ahead was being inched open; his guy with the MP5 was watching it. Leaning around Al, he started stitching the door with 3 round bursts.
Al kept his concentration on the door to the right. Before the first grenade had stopped moving he had another one in his hand, the pin out with the spoon held down. Soon as what was left of Mr. Soccer hit the floor he let fly with another one. This one banked off the side wall and went out of sight around the door frame.
“Keep them in that room!” shouted Al.
Charging down the hall to the room on the right, he kept tucked up to the wall. As he stood against the wall a couple of feet outside the room, there was a long burst from inside. It turned one side of the door frame into dust. Al kept firmly pressed to the wall, out of sight. When he figured the man inside was about to change magazines, he reached into the room, keeping his body out of sight, and threw another grenade around to the left and much further into the room. This time he was greeted with screams and moaning. Behind him the third man had started firing on the door straight in front of the landing with his silenced MP5. Not that sound discipline would make much difference now. The grenades had blown any chance they had of a silent operation.<
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Not taking any chances, he threw another grenade around the corner, out of sight. When it went off he followed it in with his weapon aimed and ready. Cutting the room slowly he saw a desk and a table laying on its side, with beds along the opposite wall. Men were down and bleeding. He gave the ones he could see a double tap to the head and sent them on to their virgins. Shooting through the table top, he heard a man shrieking. Movie scripts to the contrary, table tops made rotten bullet stoppers. Moving up cautiously, he leaned up and sent another burst into the guy hiding on the other side. There was a desk with all sorts of papers on it and what might be the money bags stacked behind it. Nothing was now alive in the room. The floor and walls were coated with what looked a lot like raspberry jam. It wasn’t raspberry or jam. The smell in the room was unbelievable. Explosives, gunfire, and the coppery smell of blood along with the loosened bowels of the dead made for a miasma that no one ever forgot.
Slipping along the wall to the still-occupied room, he made eye contact with his guys. He gave a nod towards the door; his guy just shrugged. Right then they heard AK fire from out back. Rushing the door, Al gave it a kick. So many rounds had been punched through the flimsy door it exploded and sailed into the room. Ducking back outside of the door, Al leaned in and checked the room out. Two men were trying to get out a back window just as Al looked in. They were in each other’s way trying to first through the one window; it was almost comical to see.
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