For the people ... (Soldier Up Book 4)

by Steven Linde

  “I’m sorry say that again.” The President was momentarily stunned at the news he had all but given up.

  Chapter Forty

  Jake and President Washington went to Joint Base Meyer-Henderson Hall, which was made up of Fort Meyer, Fort McNair and Henderson Hall. It’s also the home of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, one of the squads that had been out searching for the radios literally stumbled on them, they had heard from several civilians that a man used to operate a shortwave station out of a storage facility it was called Storage Plus and was located a couple of blocks off the beltway. It wasn’t much, but it was something, PFC Coleman recalled there was a storage facility which he thought was called Storage Plus about a mile from their current position. Sergeant Torres, the squad leader shrugged and told PFC Coleman to lead the way.

  The squad loaded into their three Humvees with PFC Coleman in the lead vehicle, his memory was good and they found Storage Plus. The squad unloaded from the vehicles, there were eight men in the squad. Sergeant Torres set up security around the entrance to the facility while he and PFC Coleman checked everything out. The office was closed and the doors locked and there didn’t seem to be a living soul around. They decided to climb the fence which wasn’t really much of a challenge, once inside, they noticed that all of the storage lockers still had padlocks on them. Not one looked to have been broken into, both men wondered how much stuff in the lockers could be used by people in need right now. There must be a great deal of clothes, furniture and other items people can use and it would seem that after a year, no one was coming for it the Army should come clean it out. That was another mission though, Sergeant Torres would make a note to report the situation in his after action report.

  “There.” said PFC Coleman. “Point to two large shortwave antennae’s on the roof of the one of the storage lockers at the far end of the facility. The two Soldiers made their way to it; it was one of the large ones and off on its own, not connected to the rest of the building. The pull down door had a padlock on it. “How are we going to get it off?” asked PFC Coleman.

  “I have the key.” said Sergeant Torres.

  PFC Coleman looked at him with a puzzled look, then Sergeant Torres reached over his left shoulder and pulled out a sawed-off shotgun that was in sheath that he carried on his back. Sergeant Torres cracked open the barrel to make sure it was loaded, then snapped it back shut.

  “Turn away.” Sergeant Torres told PFC Torres.

  Sergeant Torres stood about three feet from the doors padlock, pointed the weapon at it, turned his head and pulled the trigger. There was a loud boom when the shotgun fired both barrels at the lock shredding it, also leaving a nice hole in the thin door to the storage locker. With that sound of the shotgun going off it caused a squad reaction, the entire squad jumped the fence and came to their brother’s rescue, so they thought. What they found was Sergeant Torres and PFC Coleman standing in front of an open locker filled with shortwave radio equipment. The squad’s communications specialist had been briefed and shown what they were looking for. He entered the locker, looked around, and looked at Sergeant Torres, “Bingo! Looks like we found some.” Corporal Ross, the squad’s commo man had a smile that ran from ear-to-ear.

  “Do we have radio contact with command?” asked Sergeant Torres.

  “Yes Sergeant we do.” replied Corporal Ross.

  “Call it in then let them know what we have.”

  Corporal Ross radioed back to his Platoon Leader and told him of the find. The Platoon Leader, First Lieutenant Price ordered them to hold in place and not touch anything. He told them they would be out shortly, to set up security and stay sharp. He emphasized that this had the highest priority and they were to protect it no matter what it took. The last order ‘protect them not matter what it took’ shook Corporal Ross for a moment he wondered what the Lieutenant knew that they didn’t, were they under imminent threat of an attack? If so, why not tell them?

  “Sergeant Torres.” Said Corporal Ross. “Lieutenant Price said they will be along shortly and to sit tight, put out security and protect the radios not matter what it takes.”

  “What’d he mean by that?” asked Sergeant Torres.

  “No idea I was wondering that myself.” Replied Corporal Ross.

  Sergeant Torres instructed PFC Coleman to close the door to the storage locker, he sent three men back up to the front. His instruction to those men was to find whatever they could to barricade the front entrance to the facility. There were a couple of the large trash containers and two cars that were out front, he told them to roll the trash containers into the driveway to block access and even better if they could move the cars there too. Sergeant Torres sent two more men to the rear of the facility to check it out, he also instructed them to find cover back there and shot anything coming over the fence. Sergeant Torres and Corporal Ross would stay near the storage locker and cover it.

  All of the Soldiers let out for their respective assignments, Sergeant Torres and Corporal Ross opened up a couple of the adjacent storage lockers using his shotgun approach, his own personal key. One of the lockers was filled with used tires, which was a good thing for them. They quickly went to work pulling out the tires and creating a fighting position in the middle of the road between the storage lockers. Once they had completed the fighting position they threw the rest of the tires around the road in front and in back of them. The idea was to slow down any attacker that might make it past the front gate in a vehicle or vehicles. They weren’t real sure how well it would really work, but it was worth a try and better than nothing.

  The other storage locker they had opened was empty, they left it open in the event they needed to evacuate their fighting position they could duck into the locker and be protected sort of a last ditch effort to protect themselves. Thirty minutes had passed with no sign or word from Lieutenant Price, an hour passed with no sign or word from Lieutenant Price. “Hey Ross give the Lt a holler will you and see where the hell they are.” Said Sergeant Torres.

  “I did about five mikes ago and got no response.” Said Corporal Torres.

  That was unusual thought Sergeant Torres, “Give it another try will you? If you can’t reach him see if you can get on the Battalion net.”

  “Roger that.” Said Corporal Ross.

  Five minutes later, “I can’t reach anyone.” Said Corporal Ross. “Nothing but air.”

  “Radio’s good right?” asked Sergeant Torres.

  “Yeah as far as I know.” Replied Corporal Torres.

  This was highly irregular thought Sergeant Torres then he heard the SAW cut-loose, “What the hell!” Sergeant Torres exclaimed now looking toward the front gate. He left his current position telling Corporal Ross to stay put and keep trying to get someone on the net. Sergeant Torres sprinted to the main entrance only to see his men fully engaged with two cars that were repeatedly driving back and forth firing on them. He also saw that an additional car was off to the left and on fire with dead bodies spilling out of it. He hurried over to his men, “What’s happening?” Sergeant Torres asked hurriedly.

  “The car over there on fire was first one that drove by firing at us they made a turn toward us and we fired on them. The car sort of exploded, swerved and stopped where it is now, guys started to unload out of it and we fired on them. Then these two other cars showed up doing a drive-by, they have automatic weapons.” Said PFC Coleman.

  “Anyone hurt here?” asked Sergeant Torres.

  “No we’re good here.” Responded all three Soldiers.

  “Look if it looks like you’re going to be overrun pull back to the storage unit as slow as you can.” Sergeant Torres told them.

  They answered in unison, “Roger that.” PFC Coleman stated, “I think we’ll be ok if this is all they got.”

  There was some gunfire coming from the rear of the facility, by the sound of it Sergeant Torres knew it was his Soldiers firing their M-4’s. “Alright boys I’m outta here I got go check on them.” With that Sergeant Torres took off a
t a run heading towards the gunfire to see what was going on. On the way to the rear of the facility, he stopped for a moment to speak to Corporal Ross, “Anything?” asked Sergeant Torres.

  “Yeah got in touch with the Lt they were hit hard on their way here by some unknown elements that were attacking them by car. There were no frontal engagements and they had to hunker down for a bit and their radio took a hit the reason we lost contact. They neutralized the threat and should be here in about ten mikes he said.” Said Corporal Ross.

  “Call them back and let them know it would appear that we are under attack by the same bad guys. If they can get here quicker we would appreciate it.” Sergeant Torres told Corporal Ross.

  Sergeant Torres left Corporal Ross and headed to the rear where Corporal Brown and Specialist Begen were. “What’s going on boys?” asked Sergeant Torres.

  “We’ve got movement down the slope there. We saw four men making their way up here. Two of them fired on us and we dropped them.” Said Corporal Brown.

  “What happened to the other two?” asked Sergeant Torres.

  “Don’t know.” Said Specialist Begen. “They went to ground we haven’t seen them since.”

  “Alright stay sharp, help should be here anytime now.” Said Sergeant Torres.

  Then he heard a much larger sounding machine gun back towards the front cutting loose, it was definitely a MA-Deuce. “Damn, what now?” said Sergeant Torres out loud not directed to anyone.

  Sergeant Torres took off at another run back toward the front stopping to speak with Corporal Ross for a moment, “That’s the rest of the Platoon arriving.” Said Corporal Ross. “They’re busy taking out the two other cars right now. The Lt said give them a couple of minutes and they’ll be right in.”

  It was good news to Sergeant Torres he hustled back up to the main entrance to report to Lieutenant Price. As Sergeant Torres arrived at the main entrance he saw two Humvees side-by-side with mounted .50 caliber machine guns in their turrets hammering away a four vehicles, two of which were on fire, the third disabled and the fourth doing its best to escape the carnage. It was too little too late for the fourth vehicle it burst into flames killing all of the occupants. While all of this was going on Lieutenant Price had dispatched another squad of Soldiers to come up from the rear of the facility. Corporal Brown and Specialist Begen saw them approaching and signaled to them that they had spied enemy to be close. The squad was able to capture the two men that hadn’t been killed by the Corporal and Specialist; they led them up the hill and into the back gate of the facility.

  Once up the hill they were told to get down on their knees with hands behind their head. At that time, with weapons trained on them they were searched and handcuffed using flex cuffs, they were then helped up and led off to the Lieutenant. With the attacking vehicles destroyed and men captured or killed the Lieutenant and his convoy made it into the Storage facility. They immediately set up a security perimeter in the event more of the bad guys showed up.

  “Do you know who they are?” asked Sergeant Torres to Lieutenant Price.

  “Intel has it that they’re a Neo-Nazi bunch of about a hundred men and woman that have been moving south from Pennsylvania wreaking havoc. We know there’s more, but we don’t know where there hold up.” Said Lieutenant Price.

  “Are we going after them?” asked Sergeant Torres.

  “We are you’re not. I want you to load up all of that equipment in the back of one of the deuce-and-a-half’s we brought. Then I want you and your squad to escort it back to Regimental Headquarters, report in to the Sergeant Major and you’ll get further instructions then.”

  “Yes sir will do.” Replied Sergeant Torres.

  Sergeant Torres got his squad together, he sent PFC Coleman to get the truck while they cleared all of the tires they had placed earlier in the rode out-of-the-way. They had the truck loaded and ready to pull out and head back to Fort Meyer. They loaded up into their Humvees and rechecked all of their weapons and ensured they were ready to repel any attack. The M-35 two and a half ton truck also had a machine gun mounted, M-249, one of Sergeant Torres squad members took over the machine gun. They felt a lot better handling it than one of the transportation Soldiers who had yet actually fired it in a combat situation.

  “I don’t want you to stop for anything Sergeant. Got that?” Ordered Lieutenant Price.

  “Yes sir no problem will plow on through anything.” Said Sergeant Torres.

  “I’m serious Sergeant all the way to the top, the President of the United States, has a hard on for these radios. If you lose them or get them damaged I can’t help what they’re going to do to you and you’re men.” Stated Lieutenant Price.

  The first thought that hit Sergeant Torres was ‘huh? What the fuck?’

  “Don’t worry sir, we’ll get them through, it’s a thirty minute drive back I plan on making it in twenty.” Said Sergeant Torres.

  “Roger that Sergeant just don’t kill you or your men in doing so. Now saddle up and get the hell out of dodge.” Replied Lieutenant Price.

  With the Lieutenants last words, Sergeant Torres in the lead Humvee gave the order via the radio for everyone to move out. He also told everyone in the small convoy not to stop for anything and if they did he would personally kick their ass. The convoy pulled out of the storage facility and made a quick right, they drove past the burning vehicles, and the acrid smell of burning bodies littered the air. A couple of the new Soldiers to the squad started to gag at the smell, they’d never been to Iraq or Afghanistan. Two blocks down they turned left again, from there it was almost a straight shot back to Fort Meyer. The challenge here was to keep an eye out for the Neo-Nazi’s that apparently had arrived into the area and were looking for a fight. Sergeant Torres hoped that the ass-kicking they took at the storage facility would deter them, but he didn’t think they were that smart.

  The small convoy was moving fast and hard through the streets, the men in the turrets were swinging their weapons from side-to-side looking for anything coming towards them. The convoy blasted through intersection-after-intersection, if there was one positive aspect of the event it was that it happened late in the evening and there were not a lot of cars on the road that had died. Many of the cars that had died and blocked the roads had been cleared if they had an avenue of approach to the base for this very reason. A mile from the base’s front gate a fuselage of bullets was unleashed on the convoy from several of the buildings and homes that lined the road. The men in the turrets returned fire, unfortunately PFC Coleman, who was manning the turret in the third Humvee was hit by the gunfire and killed, once he was hit his body dropped down into the Humvee which startled the driver and assistant driver causing them to swerve. The assistant driver moved PFC Coleman out-of-the-way after checking to see if he was still alive, he found him dead with a round to the head. The assistant driver, Specialist Begen, manned the turret and started to return fire as the driver now recovered and was accelerating to catch back up with the convoy.

  The convoy had pushed through the ambush area without further incident, Sergeant Torres was able to contact the Regimental net and give them time and coordinates of the attack. There was a quick reaction force that was immediately dispatched to take care of the problem. It was a mile from post and there were a lot of civilians around post which they were responsible for protecting. An ambush a mile away against a heavily armed convoy spelled nothing but trouble if they didn’t take care of it now. As they got closer to post there was a heavy military presence, they slowed their vehicles to a respective twenty miles-per-hour and then came to a stop at the main gate, if they hadn’t the guards there were under orders to shoot anything that didn’t stop. The guards were very nervous as there had been persons unknown at this time probing the posts perimeter defenses. So far they had killed about twenty of the men and woman that came at them. They hadn’t had any issues in the last couple of hours until the ambush a few minutes ago.

  As Sergeant Torres was entering the Fort the rapid
response force was exiting they were going hunting they didn’t waste time. They were in fact hunter – killer teams designed to hunt down the bad guys and eliminate them. The thought was that if they were going to fire on the military they wouldn’t have any problems hurting civilians. Prior to the event this would have been a police matter, they would have done their best to capture them and bring them before a court where they had rights. The military wasn’t a police force; there were security forces that worked alongside the military, but fell under many of the current rules of engagement. If anyone fired deliberately on the military or the security forces they would be dealt with very harshly, in other words odds are killed.

  Sergeant Torres and his convoy entered the post and made their way to Regimental HQ as they pulled up to the front, Sergeant Major Allen, the Regimental Command Sergeant Major, was waiting for them. Sergeant Torres ordered the squad to stay put in the vehicles he was getting out to speak with the Sergeant Major. Sergeant Torres exited his Humvee and reported to the Sergeant Major, the Sergeant Major hurried to Sergeant Torres, he told him to get back in and sit in the back. Sergeant Major Allen then instructed Sergeant Torres to get on the radio and tell everyone to follow him. “Let’s go.” Said the Sergeant Major. “Head down two blocks and take the first right then the next left.”

  They arrived within a few minutes at a building that was in the middle of nowhere. There was a large door that would allow the M-35 into it. Several Soldiers came out of the door as it was opened and waived the deuce-and-a-half into the building. Sergeant Torres and the Humvees were told to remain where they were. Sergeant Major Allen told Sergeant Torres for him and his men to park a Humvee at each corner of the building which meant not all corners would be covered, there were only three Humvees. He was also told for them to remain in the vehicles and on guard that there would be a VIP arriving shortly.