He nodded. “M113 APC. M2 on the top. Good condition. Gulf War era I think.”
Kevin’s eyes lit up with the information. An M113 is a problem, but one the AT4 can solve and I knew that was what he was thinking. “You’re sure? Absolutely sure about that?”
“Yeah. I liked tanks a lot growing up. My daddy bought me picture books. I watched a lot of war movies. I know what most of them look like,” Roy said. “Especially if they’re NATO.”
“Wow. Thanks Roy, that’s really helpful,” Kevin said.
Beyond that Jay told us that the NVC people had been trading with them the same as us. Each trade became progressively less fair and each visit became more about encouraging the Wilson family and their protected population to move north to work with/for the NVC. Jay’s dad Bart wanted nothing to do with it and it would appear the other day they pushed too hard, and the meet escalated to violence.
We also know that with only three dead bodies, and six here with us, that leaves four people unaccounted for.
Four people who were, in all likelihood, relocated to the north. To the… Northern Valley Cooperative.
I think before the fall of the country that would qualify as some kind of kidnapping. I’m not a cop or a lawyer though. Either way you slice it, I don’t like it. Feels shitty to me.
The Wilson people are staying in one of the houses down the road from Bastion. Outside of the walls near Gilbert’s house on Prospect Circle, but still within our protective envelope, and not far out of the range of our guns should they try something shady. People are always trying something shady.
No one will ever live in Gilbert’s home. I consider it and where he’s buried to be a sacred place, and many others here do too. Especially those who knew him personally. His sacrifice to keep me alive and fight off the influence of corruption has elevated him to saint-like status.
I miss that ornery old fuck.
Tomorrow we’re having an emergency all-hands brainpower meeting to figure out how to prepare for the inevitable visit by these NVC people. I’m hoping they have come as far south as they’re going to, and whatever preparations we make are unneeded.
But again there’s that little bad luck bitch fairy. She’s like my fucking anti-mascot.
Lucky for me, Otis is my actual mascot, and that furry little tub of cuddles has my back.
-Adrian
October 12th
I’m back. Briefly though, I think I’ve caught the flu. My guts feel like hot cement is being pumped inside it and the creeping doom of diarrhea is only a sneeze away. I am on guard; the ninja shits will not ambush me this time. It’s all made worse because my head feels like someone snuck up beside me and pushed an entire case of cotton balls in my ears and up my nose.
I hate being sick. Michelle is making such fun of me over my whining. Anyway…
In an effort to protect ourselves in the event of a full-on frontal attack by the Northern Valley Cooperative Kevin and crew have spread out several caches of weapons, food, and general supplies. He’s hidden them away off the beaten path beside stone walls and under large trees where we can find them, but where others wouldn’t search. In the event we need to bug out of here there are a dozen of us who all know the locations of the stashes, and can use them to re-arm, stabilize and fight back or flee.
Defenses here at Bastion are largely unchanged. We still have our ten foot tall or so berm wall with logs on the exterior that’ll stop anything short of a cruise missile. Our double front gate is still made of heavy timber and steel (thanks to Martin, our resident welder, and Blake our diesel engine tech and all around handy-dude) which was adequate for stopping most civilian vehicles long enough for our guard towers to kill the drivers and occupants inside. If you remember, on one side of the river we have one gate, then the hundred feet or so of the bridge, then on this side the other gate built into the berm wall.
It won’t stop an M113 APC. Nor will our guard towers with their SAW mounts, and posted guards with either M4s, or high powered hunting rifles. With our arsenal on hand, our lone choice to stop a tank or APC is the AT4.
Kevin reported that we have 5 of the antitank weapons. Two have been relocated to ground level structures near the front and rear gate in the event of an attack. It made some sense to store an AT4 anti tank weapon in the tower but Ethan and Joel both pointed out that they can light up the towers with the .50 cal and destroy the weapon long before we can bring it to bear on them, but an AT4 brought to the top of the berm wall on foot can’t be stopped. One of us pops up like a fucking angry meerkat and WHOOSH!
Cooked tank.
I hope we don’t get to that point.
We also need to really look into trying manufacture some kind of IED to place on the roads as needed. Tank bellies are thin, and a little boom will go a long way underneath them. Not sure what we have for explosives, but Kevin assures me he’s looking into the option.
Not much else new. No word from the tower downtown, nor word from the Factory near the city. Spring Meadows has been quiet, but that’s a comms issue on our part. Andy, the electronic whiz we adopted from the original factory people is still living there and he’s working on moving one of the city’s police/fire repeater towers to the Factory roof. They have power there spare and a boost tower in that spot will give our radios the juice to travel almost fifty miles. That’ll mean some of the radios we have can reach everywhere we call home.
I think Hector said he and Andy and crew would have their tower operational any minute now. You know… the more I think about it, the more of a priority that needs to be. The fastest way to get from the resort where the NVC is headquartered is to go south on the interstate, then cut west towards here. If they took that path they could conceivably drive right past Spring Meadows, then the Factory, and we’re at least 45 minutes away from either of those places should they need help. And shit, like I said we aren’t even in radio communications with Spring Meadows.
Hm. Crisis brewing in the back of my head. I’ll talk with Michelle and Kevin tomorrow and see if we can make a trip over there stat.
It’s time to shit. Turns out the crisis was in my bowels. Check in later. Maybe.
-Adrian
Strange Bedfellows
Early July, 2010. Afghanistan
Thomas turned the key of the filthy old pickup truck gingerly, as if his sensitive, slow touch would coax the motor to life more successfully. He felt the starter kick in, but the motor coughed and wheezed a few times, and then failed to turn over.
“Cunt,” Glen Torrance said disapprovingly from a few feet in front of the grille. “Let me try one more thing.” As Glen leaned into the engine compartment to tweak the engine, pretty little Rasa stood watch behind him. They were inside what an Afghani resident of the town at one point considered a garage. At best it could be called a carport. The structure consisted of a few logs propped up right beside a stone home with a thatched roof stretched over the top. The material did little to protect the venerable truck from the world outside.
Thomas scanned the outside of the vehicle shelter for anything moving. Other than dust the land seemed bare. All the goats in the small pen outside had been destroyed by the villagers when they’d been turned into zombies ad their corpses had long since rotted, their putrescence giving the air a heavy, rotting smell. Thomas felt strange thinking about the presence of the undead, like the whole experience was an overly elaborate, fucked-up prank some of his SEAL friends were playing on him. SEALs did that. Play pranks. Extra make up left over from last Halloween and some highly paid Afghan volunteers perhaps. Sadly he knew that wasn’t the case. These were real. Painful, bloody, filled with all the dreadful sorrow of the dead, and as real as anything could be. The world as they remembered it before the deployment was gone.
“Try now,” Torrance said, stepping back next to Rasa, the young Afghan girl they’d found earlier that morning. Glen towered over the teenage girl like a modern day camouflaged knight standing next to a robe wearing hobbit. Thomas laughed
slightly at the mental image of Glen wearing full plate armor emblazoned with the American flag and wielding a broadsword. Thomas inhaled deeply, gathering every flittering ether of good luck in the air, and gave the key a smooth, gentle twist.
The engine coughed, sputtered, nearly died out, and then roared to life, kicking out a huge plume of dark black soot and smoke out of its tailpipe. The stench of burnt oil and old engine wear covered the smell of the rotting goats. All three of the ragtag survivors let loose a restrained cheer of joy, Rasa’s cheer tinny and wild. They immediately dropped low and looked around, fearful of the repercussions of their noise. Any sounds could draw unwanted attention of multiple kinds. The SEALs were very much still in Indian country. Of course the sound of their yelling was half the noise of the four cylinders shaking themselves steadily into oblivion under the hood of the truck. Thomas popped back into the cab and watched as the fuel gauge slowly crept up, shaking like an arthritic finger until it came to a stop midway between the quarter and half marks. A third of a tank, probably less. Thomas did the math quickly in his head, estimating low.
“I think we’ve got maybe 75 miles. Assuming this piece of shit stays together that fucking long. Ready to go?”
Glen had already started moving to the passenger side of the truck, pushing Rasa in front of him so she could slide into the middle. After loading their spare gear into the bed and securing it, Torrance hopped into the seat and pulled the rickety door shut. Thomas slid the shifter into first, popped the emergency brake off, and engaged the clutch. They were off.
The two SEALs and the Afghan girl made it ten miles before the truck died. If the previous owner had been alive to witness the adventure, he would’ve thanked Allah for the miracle bestowed on him. The truck had served him well over the decade he’d owned it, but there would have been no conceivable way for him to have imagined it making the ten miles Thomas coaxed out of it. When the Nissan finally went to the grave on the side of a washed out dirt road at the bottom of a steep valley, it was belching smoke and flames from the hood, and the trio of mismatched companions had to run from it down the dirt packed road towards their destination. Dark black smoke billowed into the sky. Thomas felt as if the smoke resembled black blood drifting in sky blue water.
Neither of the SEALs felt like the trip the truck had managed was in any way miraculous.
The sun baked down from above, strangling the sweat from their bodies. The salty streams ran in thick rivulets down their faces and backs, soaking their clothing. Their position in the valley also made both warriors incredibly uncomfortable. To be out in the open and exposed on the road with elevated positions on all sides.... A month prior doing this would’ve been an invitation to the Taliban to either hit them with a mortar repeatedly, or to invite small arms fire. Precious little cover could be found in the alternating ravines and flat expanses they were traversing. It felt like suicide just walking.
After talking to Rasa using a small notebook during the walk, Thomas reasoned that they were about three miles on foot from the small village she had wanted to visit. Her aunt and uncle lived there and she very much wanted to see them, to see if they were alive. Glen and Thomas checked their AO maps and if all were accurate, then the village was only three miles from a small US Army Forward Operating Base in the hills. The FOB was intended to be an observation post for the valley, and Rasa’s family village. Once they passed through the village and theoretically left Rasa with her aunt and uncle, the SEALs would move on foot to the FOB. They’d reunite with US military forces there, and make a real run at survival, heading towards the closest major air base.
The three stopped a thousand meters short of the village and took cover behind a few large boulders with a tiny hill to their back. Unlike the first village Glen and Thomas had observed, this village sat in the flat of a valley, surrounded by an eight foot tall stone and mortar wall. The edification had been pockmarked heavily with the familiar rosettes left behind by gunfire. The village had seen heavy fighting, and it looked recent. The only gaps in the beaten up wall were at opposing sides of the town, and the only approach to either entrance was in the form of an elevated berm road. They’d be sitting ducks on approach.
“I don’t like it,” Thomas said as he peered through the ACOG scope he’d mounted on his rifle. There was no movement outside the walls of the village, and no sounds to match. Typically a village of this size would be bustling with activity in the later afternoon. Prayers should’ve been done by now, and the residents should be moving about, settling the affairs of the day. Silence could only be a terrible omen.
“Ditto,” Glen responded as he looked down the more powerful scope of the pair’s sniper rifle. As both men stared intently–looking for signs of danger or life–poor little Rasa sat in the dirt behind them, watching the two SEALs for signs of good news. Her damaged ears didn’t allow her to hear the men, but she was acutely aware of their body language, and what it conveyed. Some languages transcended the barriers of speech. She felt despair creep into her as the two men focused on where she wanted desperately to go.
“Say we stay here until dark, then we move in on foot using NVGs. I can’t see shit inside those walls, and with no eyes in the sky, we’re pretty much blind to anything. I’d rather have the advantage of nighttime.”
“I like it.”
Rasa noticed the two men look at one another and exchange calm words. She took that as a sign that a plan had been made. Her heart picked up a bit as she felt relief and hope return. The relieved dark skinned girl turned her attention to the area behind them, and noticed a darkness growing in the sky. It rolled up and towards them like piece of the earth itself. A hazy mountain of thin earth swirled into a wave that began to dominate the sky. She’d seen it before. A sandstorm. An ugly one that would scour flesh and invade the lungs. Rasa nearly leapt out of her dirty robe to grab Thomas’ backpack. She mouthed words and yanked hard; spinning him off the large stone he leaned on.
“What the fuck Rasa?!” Thomas said as he landed on his back. He looked up at her and saw the panic in her tiny eyes. Thomas remarked to himself strangely how much the white of her eyes shown. The girl stepped aside, one hand still clutching a strap on Thomas’ chest, and pointed to the storm barreling down on their position.
“Thomas what is that girl freaking her shit over?” Glen asked, looking over at the strange exchange between man and girl. He couldn’t see what the fuss was over.
Thomas saw what she her sudden anxiety was provoked by. “Fuck. Sandstorm. Big motherfucker,” Thomas said, getting up into a crouch behind the boulder.
Glen turned and looked back. Rasa watched as the man’s already pale face turned a shade whiter. “Holy shit. That’ll beat us to death out here in the open.”
“Looks like we’re headed into the town under cover of the storm. Let’s move. Fast.” Glen got to his feet as Thomas took off. He guarded his pace to ensure that Rasa could keep up. Glen did no such thing, tugging a red checkered bandana up from under his collar and over his beard and nose, protecting his breathing from the gray storm that would surely try to invade his mouth and nostrils, trying to choke him.
The noise of the storm grew in intensity as the roiling cloud filled with harsh dirt loomed closer. “Run Rasa! Let’s go!” Thomas yelled pointlessly. She couldn’t hear him. He waved her on, picking up his pace in the hope she’d match him, but her weak and underfed body with spindly, short legs couldn’t manage. She looked like she ran through a wall of water, or into a headwind that had the best of her. Thomas stopped suddenly, spun his M4A1 to his side fluidly and scooped the girl up without losing more than half a second. Nestled in the crux of his arms he went to full speed like only an apex predator could, like a wolf chasing down prey. Rasa’s stomach churned as the huge man carried her like she weighed nothing. She was amazed at the two men and their seemingly superhuman abilities.
Glen reached the walls of the village as the storm reached them. Despite being only ten feet apart the sand and debris kicked
up by the vicious winds made it nearly impossible to see each other. The roar of the storm made it almost impossible to hear one another as well. Glen’s mind abruptly slipped back a decade to the memory of nearly drowning in the white waters of a Colorado River. The sound of the rushing water and loss of visibility from the memory of the river incident was far too similar to the crushing weight of the storm in all its fury bearing down on him. His already stretched body burned harder, pushing itself to move faster as his anxiety from the memory welled.
Glen, the furthest ahead of the trio, passed into the village through the wall opening, and headed directly to the first building he saw on the right hand side. The bone colored square building made mostly of concrete blocks with a firm wooden door looked lost in the growing darkness. As the wind whipped up in a greater fury, stinging every exposed piece of his skin and obscuring the space between him and the wall of the home, he lost sight of the door, and simply moved through the brown-gray haze towards where he remembered the door to be. The world was awash in the rage of the desert as he reached out and found the dark rectangle that was the door. As the wind blew him off balance, Glen made a short prayer hoping the home was empty, and smashed his shoulder into the pale brown wood of the door, bursting inside, seeking the precious shelter inside.
A dozen yards behind Glen, Thomas still carried Rasa. He watched Glen for a moment, and then lost him in the haze of the storm as it enveloped the world. “Hold on Rasa!” Thomas screamed into the maelstrom, now stumbling forward as the gusts of wind buffeted him to and fro. Thomas locked the location of the gap in the wall into his memory and moved as straight towards it as he could manage. He stopped suddenly after a dozen paces as the corner of the wall suddenly loomed out of the void directly in his face. He’d nearly smashed his forehead into the storm-hidden stone. Thomas stepped to the right around it and moved towards where he hoped a home was.
The Dealer of Hope_Adrian's March_Part 1 Page 8
