After It Happened (Book 2): Humanity

by Devon C. Ford

  They tentatively entered, searching the dusty air with the bright torches mounted on their weapons.

  "Clear" said Steve who had taken the lead. "Now, nothing silly like a fifty calibre; we need to find a few decent rifles and a boot full of seven six two"

  The racks of weaponry in front of him were immense. Row upon row of different weapons, some modified and others stock. Dan took a large armful of Remington pump-action shotguns. Easy to use, reliable and capable of being used for hunting, blowing door hinges away or cutting bad people in half.

  They searched, resisting the urge to take everything. There were so many weapons neither of them recognised, some bearing cyrillic or oriental markings.

  A rack of rifles looked promising and Steve crowed at their success. He had found three new Mk14's, the American made Enhanced Battle Rifle with a full length rail and skeleton stocks. They were part painted in tan colouring over the black underneath.

  These types of rifle had been popular for some time now; designed to bridge the gap between frontline and snipers. A kind of specialist middle ground killer. They fired a heavy calibre bullet from a ten or twenty round magazine on semi-automatic. Perfect for what they wanted, and lethal up to a kilometre away - if you were skilled enough to put the bullet in the right place. A true sniper took years to perfect the art of long-distance shooting, of studying the physics required to thread their metaphorical needles.

  They searched every inch to look for ammunition for them, eventually only finding a few empty spare magazines.

  Dan ran his eyes along the racks again, ignoring the weird, wonderful and exotic. He took another few M4's, all that remained in the rack, and put them with his stash of shotguns.

  Steve called him through to another room which was decked out like a workshop with bench mounted tools along one side. There were suppressors and optics lined up, and Steve selected three of the bulbous telescopic sights which amplified light.

  Small bipods, vertical and adjustable foregrips, shorter range sights like the holographic red dots on some of their other guns.

  Steve grabbed everything he could, excitedly throwing all of it into boxes. Dan carried on until he found the next room stocked with various ammunition types. They filled his land rover with crates of heavy ammunition and shotgun cartridges. They filled the remaining space with 5.56, although they had lots of it at home it would run out eventually.

  Steve came back in and saw that they still had a lot more ammunition to take, and no space to carry it. He ran back to the Unimog and desperately tried again to start it. He bucked it forwards in gear until it finally caught and started. Dan's joy was short lived, as it died again instantly and began to steam from under the bonnet.

  "It's fucked" said Steve unhappily.

  Dan stated that he was well aware of that, then looked at Steve and said "trailer!"

  They walked back to the vehicle workshop and found a trailer. Its tyres were flat, and they had to drag it closer to pump them up using generator and compressor. They wheeled it back to the discovery and loaded all the boxes of ammunition they could find.

  On the final sweep, Dan found a box of small suppressors, which he tried to attach to his Sig. They didn't fit, and he looked around the handguns for one that did, throwing everything he could find into boxes. They loaded every crate of ammunition they could find into the trailer until a bark from the land Rover snapped Dan’s attention back to the present. He suddenly felt that similar sense of dread as he did last time. Unwilling to push their luck any further, he shouted to Steve "time to go!"

  They drove towards home, eyes constantly scanning for danger.

  Their CB was finally in range of the house when they crested high ground about fifteen miles out, getting Leah on the other end.

  "You've been ages!" She moaned at them "People are starting to worry"

  "Tell them we're fine, and we will be home soon" he said, driving onwards.

  THE HARD SELL

  They had brought back so much ammunition that Dan lost most of his room to store it. He thought that maybe it was time he established an armoury in there and move to another bedroom. Maybe there was one near Marie's room.

  He forced himself to think productively and not daydream; he had the workings of a plan and the tools to execute it. It needed some rehearsal and fine tuning, but a lot depended on what the opposition decided to do.

  Neil had fitted the GPMG into the mount, and test fired fifty rounds in short bursts on the range. He showed Dan how he had fitted the metal truck back with rubber loops, allowing him to unclip them silently from inside. He had attached a pole to the front, so when he lifted it the whole cover flipped over backwards and exposed the machine gun.

  Steve and Lexi had stripped and oiled the rifles, and each fired a further fifty rounds to sight their huge optics and practice. They were ready to go at four hundred metres, easily inside the range where the wind or atmosphere would be a serious issue for aiming. At that distance they would drop a human like they were water. Now came the big problem of convincing the council to endorse his plan as this was too big an issue to decide by himself.

  He called a meeting, having spoken to James and some others in advance for support.

  After dinner all departmental heads gathered at his request, and he laid out the groundwork.

  "As you may know, the place where James and Ed were found is under the control of a man who calls himself 'Bronson'. I'm told the name stems from what he does to people who disagree with his methods. I won't bore you with second hand details of his atrocities, but with your permission I'd like to bring James in to share some of what he saw" Dan looked around the room receiving nods all round and the mood took a darker feel.

  He called James loudly by name, and the nervous young man came in.

  "Thank you, James" he said "You know why you're here, so please tell us what living conditions you suffered and what punishments were dished out by this Bronson"

  James seemed nervous, but had been well coached in which bits to highlight.

  "They kept us in metal shipping containers, in a circle so we couldn't get out unless they lowered the crane to us. That's how they got us out to work and how they put in food and water and the buckets for..." He trailed off.

  "What work did they make you do?" Asked Dan.

  "Fetching food for them, carrying things around, that was the men anyway" he replied.

  "What do they make the women do?" Kate asked in a measured voice to control the anger of the obvious answer.

  "Cook, clean, and....." James faltered.

  "And what man, please speak up" said Penny, softening her snap with a reassuring smile.

  "Bronson says his boys need entertaining. He uses the girls to entertain them. Some of them bring food and drink back to share with the others afterwards" he finished. Enough said on that point.

  "The punishments. Tell us about the punishments" said Dan.

  James' face creased slightly "They'll have punished the other because we ran. I don't know what he would have done but it won't have been nice. He made us all watch him cut out a man's tongue for shouting at him once. He made another man, a boy really, fight him because he stood up to him to protect a girl. He beat him to death in front of us."

  "You say he fed and watered you? Was it enough?" asked Neil, secretly part of the plan to endorse the mission.

  "No. Some people fought over it, saying they should have it. A few of those Bronson lifted out and made them guards. Ed got a few beatings for trying to make sure everyone got a share. When they saw he was big enough to take it they offered him a job carrying stuff for them. That's how he got me out with him to work where Lexi found us" he said.

  "What about your living conditions? How many people are we talking about?" Asked Chris, also secretly onside thanks to Neil.

  "There were over thirty of us to start with. Three people died in the winter. They got sick and never got better"

  "No medical care?" Asked Kate, angrily.

&
nbsp; "No. They thought it might be the bug that killed everyone and didn't let anyone out for a few days" James said sadly “one girl died of an asthma attack”

  Nobody spoke, and Dan asked the council of they had any further questions for him. They didn't.

  "Thanks James, could you please ask Leah to come in?" he said.

  He left, and Leah entered full of confidence carrying a model of the area as described by James.

  She laid it on the table and looked at Dan hopefully.

  "Thanks, go enjoy your evening" he said, disappointing her with the dismissal. He didn't want her letting anything slip.

  As the door closed he turned to the assembled heads and asked, "Are there any objections to a rescue mission at this point?” Nobody spoke; he was sure the objections would come thick and fast soon.

  "This is the area James described" he began "as you can see it is heavily fortified and a stealth approach has been ruled out due to the geography. I propose to visit the camp and speak to the leader. If diplomacy fails, and let’s be realistic here it probably will, a plan to remove the captives by force is available"

  He looked at the council and received blank states from some, nods of encouragement from others.

  "This is a big operation, and holds equally big risks. I want this to be a vote but I want everyone to be clear about why I want to do it. Humanity must prevail, and with that we must save people from a system that uses slavery and brutality for the benefit of the few." Dan said, launching into his prepared speech about doing the right thing.

  "Two of my Rangers will be placed here and here" he said, indicating nearby buildings. "I will approach in a vehicle I have prepared for a confrontation" he left out Neil's involvement for now as agreed so he didn't seem complicit. Democracy was all well and good, but he liked to hedge his bets.

  "Should they not release the prisoners, the snipers will deal with the guards in top of the containers. I will have to deal with the remaining hostiles coming from this building here" again pointing to a part of the model.

  "How many are we talking about, mate?" asked Chris.

  "Up to twenty. I plan to be there at dawn so they will all be inside and probably still drunk" Dan replied with some trepidation.

  All part of the plan.

  "Can you handle that many?" Neil asked, full of rehearsed concern.

  "I'll have to, nobody else can work the machine gun" he said, easing into the sticky part of the plan.

  "Snipers? Machine gun?" Said Penny "is it safe to assume that you plan to kill these guards and 'Bronson'?"

  "Yes. I do. It's true that I'm the violent one here and sadly, that is my skill set. I can't grow things or make things or heal people, but I have used my abilities to keep every single one of you alive. I want to save these people, and I'm asking you all to allow me to take our Rangers and a few others to bring back thirty plus people who deserve better and to stop a tyrant before he is too powerful to deal with. What if we ignore this now, and next year he knocks on our door to take what he wants?"

  "It's too dangerous" said Penny "your plan is obviously flawed as you will never have time to use the machine gun if they are watching you"

  Neil cleared his throat. "Actually, I'm the only one here to have ever used one. I'll go with you"

  “I can’t let you do that” Dan began, but Neil cut him off harshly.

  “I was using them when you were still in school, so don’t tell me what you can and can’t let me do” he said, keeping his face stern and staring Dan into submission.

  "In that case, the plan will work much better and faster" Dan said with carefully feigned resignation.

  He looked to Chris and Kate in turn.

  "Yes" said Chris.

  "Absolutely" said Kate.

  Cara looked apprehensive, "I'm worried people, our people, will get killed" she said nervously.

  "I agree" said Andrew with uncharacteristic confidence.

  "I don't know. It seems very dangerous to have all the Rangers leave at once" said Jimmy, giving Penny some glimmer of support.

  He moved to Penny.

  "I'm concerned for the welfare of everyone. It's not just you risking your own life again; if you all go and get yourselves killed then what about everyone else?" She began "that said, I could not allow my conscience to rest knowing that we did nothing. You must promise that you will seek a diplomatic solution first though?"

  "Trust me, I will. Are we all agreed then?"

  They were.

  Dan hid his smile and reminded himself to do some extra washing up for Cara and share a beer with Jimmy for playing their parts - if everyone supported him publicly then Penny would feel alone enough to argue against the plan in justifiably good conscience.

  OPERATION EGGSHELL

  "Why is it called that?" Leah interrupted, for the third time since he started talking.

  "Because we need to tread lightly, now stop talking over me or I'll tell Ash you're edible" he snarled. He loved that sarcastic little girl, but she really knew how to piss him off at times.

  "Anyway! Thanks to everyone here for volunteering, as you know nobody will be forced to do this" Dan said as he addressed the assembled team.

  Steve, Joe and Lexi at the front. Neil, Ian, James and Ed behind. Leah had nagged to be allowed to go, but Dan had flatly refused. He would be too busy to watch over her, as would the other Rangers. He had to compromise by allowing her to be armed when they went, under Chris' careful eye as he would be nominally in charge of house protection during the mission.

  "You've all heard where we are going and why we are going there so I won't go over the whys and wherefores again except to say that our purpose is to rescue survivors being kept prisoner. We will be setting off long before dawn tomorrow to be in place by sunrise. Lexi and Steve know their insertion points, and will be providing cover throughout. Neil and I will be in the modified Land Rover, stopping short for him to get in the back.

  Ian will drive the coach with Ed and James to reassure the people we are rescuing, and you will stop a couple of miles short under Joe's protection until called in via CB.

  Reminder; there will be NO radio traffic until the threats are dealt with.” He paused to make sure they got the point, repeating the instruction carefully, word for word, out of habit.

  “I will drive to the site and talk to them. If it needs to go noisy, I will indicate for the snipers to open fire with a hand signal as agreed. Neil will then unveil his present and I will crawl under the Land Rover screaming and trying not to get shot" his joke got the nervous laugh it deserved.

  "Snipers will stay in place until extraction, then fall back and regroup at the agreed site before we return home in convoy"

  "Just in time for tea and medals" declared Wing Commander Neil.

  Penny and the others had not been idle. Bedding and clothing packs had been prepared, and the second level dormitories were cleared and fresh bedding laid out. Cara had spent the two days since the meeting baking cakes and pastries as Nina maintained the commercial cooking side effectively.

  Kate had laid out a triage area, and had a set of hospital scrubs ready for each of her team. Marie and Penny were standing by to welcome the new arrivals and organise them with all those not busy on the farms.

  "Get some sleep, alarm clocks set for two a.m." he nodded dismissal to the group and turned to see Leah's face set in a stone mask of neutrality which she had adopted since being told to be quiet.

  "What's the matter with you?" He asked.

  Leah fixed him with an evilly fake smile, replying in a sweet voice "Nothing"

  Dan didn't sleep, but that was fairly normal for him. Just after midnight he took Ash outside then went into Ops and loaded four of the new Remington shotguns which had been stored in his room. Chris would distribute these as he saw fit, and Dan trusted him to make the right choices.

  He checked over all the equipment he was taking, but left the personal weapons of the other Rangers as he wouldn't like someone tampering with his
; it messes with a person's chi.

  He was restless and ready by one a.m., waiting for the others. They trickled down one by one in silence, but all were early. As they were preparing to go Leah stumbled in looking sleepy but carried two flasks of coffee. She must have got up early to boil the water. She gave one to Dan and kept the second for herself, making him wonder when she started drinking coffee. More bad parenting he assumed, but it's not like he got her an appropriate present for her birthday.

  She pulled on her vest and took her Glock and carbine, checking both chambers and making sure they were safe before adding sugar to her drink. That was good; a sleepy teenager demonstrating weapon discipline when half asleep. He went to go and a grunt from her made him turn back. She walked over and tentatively put her arms around him, unsure of herself. He hugged her back, tighter and she simply said "see you later" then turned to switch on the CB to monitor their progress.

  Dan led the convoy with Neil sat beside him. He had left Ash behind, not wanting to risk him being hit in the hail of bullets he anticipated or biting a refugee. They didn't speak, save to look behind and say that they still had their convoy.

  Lexi and Steve followed, with Ian driving the coach stocked with food and water, and Joe behind. They took the route Lexi had followed, knowing it to be clear. Going at a steady speed so Ian could easily keep pace. They went like this for over three hours, until Dan pulled up at the point where Ian’s coach and Joe would wait for word that it was safe to move up.

  Dan drank a coffee and rehearsed exactly how he wanted it to go, then factored in what could go wrong. Lexi and Steve left after thirty minutes, creeping towards their posts on goggles to save using vehicle lights. He had insisted on radio silence in case the other group had a CB, and we're monitoring it. Slim chance, but his way avoided the slim chance that they would be the ones ambushed and not the other way around.