“Once I’m done with this batch, we’re going to need some more paper,” she said.
John nodded. “Speak with Ray. He’ll get you what you need. You’ve been working hard, Emma. Maybe it’s time you take a break.”
She grabbed the lever and began cranking it. “When I’m done here, I gotta go home and feed George.” She was referring to the goose he and Brandon had captured over by Stanley Lake. The cantankerous little guy had survived the battle huddled next to Emma down in the sewers. Since then George had been working up quite an appetite. “I owe it to Brandon until he gets back,” she said.
John found himself in the middle of one of those dreaded moments every parent went through—the moment where you could either give your child a dose of reality, in this case that Brandon might never be coming home, or you could smile and tell them what a great job they were doing. After all, every bead of Emma’s sweat was a testament to her dedication to fanning the flames of other people’s hope. Who was he to snuff that out?
“Is that where you’re going?” Emma asked, taking her hands off the lever and putting them on her hips. “To bring the boys home.” She grew still and held her breath.
“I can’t say right now, honey. I hope you understand that. Remember how I used to tell you about the last world war and how the British had that expression, ‘Loose lips sink ships.’ I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I also don’t wanna sink any ships. You understand, I hope.”
“Yup,” she replied with obvious disappointment and went right back to work.
Feeling her pain, he leaned in, kissed her forehead and headed for the rendezvous point.
Chapter 19
He arrived at the stables a few moments later and found the horses already saddled and loaded with gear. The four soldiers on the IED team were off to one side going over tips on wiring and planting bombs. Their brash young leader, Taylor, was talking about his time in Iraq and how insurgents began by digging holes in the ground to plant IEDs before graduating to hiding explosives in donkey carts and road kill.
Nearby the eleven men who would accompany him on the raid to destroy the Chinese truck depot were assembled. Moss stood before them, going over the plan.
John called them together for a last few words. As they closed in, Taylor raised his hand.
“What is it?” John asked.
“I noticed the horses the IED team is taking are loaded with wooden planks and shovels. I’m just wondering if we’re gonna be digging tunnels like the Viet Cong?”
This elicited laughter from some of the men.
Humor aside, the idea had occurred to John, but the sheer immensity of the country made the use of tunnels impractical. Only weeks before, the Chinese forces had been holed up on the crest of the Mississippi river. Today their front lines were stretched along the Appalachian mountain chain. In the coming days or weeks it was impossible to tell where they’d be. Would they be washing their feet in the Atlantic or retreating in haste toward the Rockies?
John let Moss take the floor to explain how the IED team was to begin creating camouflaged weapons caches at key locations. Whatever ammunition and weapons they captured on their raids would be deposited inside these storage areas. He made sure they understood they weren’t simply digging a hole and throwing guns and ammo inside. The ammunition needed to be protected from the elements and kept within certain temperatures.
“Once you’ve dug the hole,” Moss told them, “fill the bottom with a layer of gravel or rocks, then about fifteen inches of sand. This will help drain any water away that seeps into the cache. On top of the sand place logs and then the wooden floorboards which will hold the ammo crates. Keep them spaced apart to allow air circulation. For the roof, you can use leftover boards or several branches. Pile leaves over that and dig a drainage ditch around the cache to collect runoff. If you can find some PVC pipe and endcaps that are large enough, you can even store a limited amount of ammunition in there.”
“I’ve also had Devon make each team some of these,” John said, holding up a small, sharpened triangle.
“Caltrops,” Taylor exclaimed, unable to hide his exuberance.
“That’s right. They’re also pretty simple to make, using three-inch nails, filing off the end, bending them at a ninety-degree angle and then welding them together. They can be tossed across a roadway to puncture tires during an ambush or used to create a slow leak. Be creative, but above all, don’t hesitate to use the tools we’ve given you if the situation gets sticky. And remember, the most successful missions are ones where the enemy never knows you were there.”
“Until the place goes kablooey, that is,” Moss said, his hands forming an explosion.
John stood. “All right, time to mount up, gentlemen. And follow the paths through the Chinese lines we’ve outlined.”
“Hold on,” Taylor squawked. “We can’t just ride off, not without a name.”
Moss, Reese and Devon turned to John.
“He’s got a point,” Reese said, flipping out a cigarette and clamping the filter between his front teeth. “You got anything off the top of your head, Colonel?”
John drew a blank. Finding a name for their unit hadn’t been high on his priority list, but he could see how important it was to the men.
An image of Teddy Roosevelt flashed before him. Not many people knew the twenty-sixth president had led a cavalry regiment during the Spanish-American War. They’d been called the Rough Riders and to John, given they were about to spend the next few days in the saddle, the name seemed strangely appropriate.
The men cheered upon hearing it and laughed at the reasoning behind John’s suggestion. And with that they split into two groups, none of them entirely sure how many would ever make it back.
Chapter 20
John’s immediate team was quiet as they cut through the dense forest trails on their way past the ring of Chinese troops encircling Oneida. Calling it a ring wasn’t entirely accurate. The enemy had choked off every roadway into town. Creating an actual ring of soldiers would have required a deployment of thousands. It was the American armor they were really trying to keep in check.
Whenever possible open fields were to be avoided. Cover was their friend and a map of the Cumberland trail which passed through the wooded areas close to their objective was as invaluable as the weapons they carried. Before long, these maps would no longer be needed. These back trails in and out of Oneida would be seared into his men’s memories.
Two days into their journey, they hadn’t seen much activity. The roads, whenever they came into view, were largely empty save for the rare military convoys. It wasn’t the hustle and bustle John had expected. In a way, it reminded him of how some fellow soldiers had described Afghanistan. The land was spread out and you could go for days sometimes without seeing either friend or foe.
In the evenings they made camp, avoiding a fire whenever they could. Many of the men ate MREs or canned tuna. Water from streams as well as carrots and hay kept the horses fed and happy.
It wasn’t until the third day, when John’s backside had gone from sore to numb, that they came upon a strange sight. Through a loose screen of trees, they spotted the edges of a neighboring town. Stretching up past the roofs of the buildings was a church steeple.
“You see what I’m seeing?” Reese asked, pulling up beside him.
John lifted the binoculars and adjusted the focus. “Looks like a church to me,” he replied.
“Look where the cross used to be.”
It had been knocked off.
“It isn’t the first time I noticed it either,” Reese told him. “I know those Chinese aren’t big fans of worship. What little they do tolerate is usually so mixed with Communist politics, a bunch of the Catholic groups in their own country have gone underground. I suspect the same is starting to happen here.”
“As painful as it is to see,” John said, “we need to pick our battles.”
So far, crossing the Mississippi had been the most dangerous par
t of the operation. The concern of being spotted had meant using the old Caruthersville railroad bridge near Dyersburg.
It was later that day that they arrived at their objective. Set on the outskirts of Paragould, Arkansas, the truck depot was huge and situated next to a rail line. It appeared the Chinese were shipping in a mishmash of vehicles via older steam locomotives. John guessed there were well over a hundred trucks within the fenced enclosure. A handful of guards on foot stalked the perimeter. They were so far behind enemy lines, if anything went wrong, it would be a long and dangerous trek home.
Camped along the edge of the St. Francis wildlife reserve, they split into four groups of three men. Seconds later, teams one to three crossed the open field and used bolt cutters to enter the perimeter fence. Group four remained behind with the horses and equipment. If the operation fell apart, each team would head back to Oneida on its own predetermined path. This way they couldn’t all be scooped up at once.
John was with team one, which consisted of Moss and Devon. Reese would stay behind as part of group four and provide the infiltrating units with sniper cover and overwatch. Upon reaching the fence line, John raised his index and second finger in a v shape to call forward the soldier with the bolt cutters. The others waited, weapons at the ready, pulling rear and flank security. Within seconds they were through the chain link, the cut fence pushed back into place to avoid rousing suspicions. They weaved between the parked trucks. A combination of landmines and phosphorous grenades attached to rudimentary timers would do most of the damage.
John gave the signal and the three teams broke in different directions. They might not have explosives for all of the vehicles, but the hope was that vehicle fires would spread and take out as much as eighty to ninety percent of what was here.
Ten minutes later, with all the explosives in place, they returned to the fence. John scanned the treeline and spotted the all-clear signal from Reese. One by one they shuffled out and moved in teams back to the rendezvous point.
John’s team was last to leave the area. He checked his watch. Ten minutes to go until detonation. One more pass by the perimeter guards and Reese waved them forward.
“Everyone accounted for?” John asked, after he, Moss and Devon caught up with the others.
Reese nodded. “Yes, sir. Should we saddle up?”
“Not yet,” John replied.
“Are you sure?” Moss said. “Don’t we wanna be as far away as possible when those bombs go off?”
“Our position is safe from flying shrapnel, if that’s what you’re worried about. But I wanna see how long it takes the reinforcements to show up. At the first sign of them, we’ll pull back into the woods.”
They waited for a few more minutes when Reese spotted a convoy of military trucks approach the depot.
“Hey, we’ve got company. Three soft-tops. Can’t tell yet if they got any troops on board.”
“Heck, we may just kill two birds with one stone,” Moss said, rubbing his hands together excitedly.
“All right, those soft-tops have pulled up in front of the gates and are unloading…” Reese’s voice trailed off.
“What is it?” John asked, raising his binoculars and getting an answer he hadn’t expected.
The men being led off the soft-tops weren’t Chinese or North Korean soldiers.
They were American civilians.
Chapter 21
“What do you make of it?” Reese asked.
“I’m not sure,” John replied. “Going by the expressions on their faces and the way they’re being forced to line up, I’m not entirely sure they’re willing participants.”
“Truck drivers conscripted by the Chinese?”
John nodded. “Looks that way.” These men were innocent civilians and they were about to be blasted into smithereens. A squad-sized group of Chinese soldiers were with them.
Tension rising up his neck, John checked his watch. “We got less than a minute.” What was he to do? Let them die, sacrificed like the countless other civilians throughout this ugly war?
“There’s nothing to be done,” Moss said. “Wrong place at the wrong time, man. That’s all there is to it.”
“I got the Chinese squad leader in my sights,” Reese said, staring through the scope. “He’s got sergeant’s stripes.”
John bit his lip.
“What you want me to do?”
“Take him out,” John shouted.
Reese glanced over at him. “Before the detonation? You sure?”
“Yes, do it.”
Glancing back through his scope, Reese made a single click left on the elevation knob. Then he released a long slow breath as his finger settled over the trigger and squeezed. He’d brought the suppressed Remington 700 this time and it kicked back into his shoulder, making a dull clank as the round was ejected at nearly four thousand feet per second.
John watched through his binoculars as the shot hit the Chinese sergeant in the neck, spraying blood on the American civilians standing in loose formation before him. The Chinese soldiers around ducked for cover, shouting orders and scanning around fearfully. In the chaos the Americans broke free and ran. Ten seconds later the first landmine detonated, destroying a group of closely packed U-Haul trucks. On the heels of that came a second explosion, then a third and soon the entire depot erupted in a gout of twisted metal and flames. The heat was so intense, even from here John could feel it warm his cheeks.
The rest of the men mounted up while John and Reese remained concealed on the ground, waiting to observe the enemy response time. John’s watch ticked away the minutes. At last, two ZBD-08s appeared and stopped near the rows of burning trucks. Then a handful of soldiers on motorcycles sped past them and down the road.
“How long was that?” Reese asked.
John checked his watch. “Nearly twenty minutes.”
“Not great.”
“It is for us.”
Both men slid away from the treeline and headed for their horses.
“We homeward bound, boss?” Moss asked.
“Not yet,” John replied. “We have one more stop to make.”
John felt the tension among his men spike. He might not have come right out and said it, but they knew perfectly well where that next destination would be. The Jonesboro concentration camp.
Chapter 22
As John and his Rough Riders were making their way south toward Jonesboro, Brandon was dropping seeds into small holes dug by a prisoner five feet in front of him. Scanning his surroundings, he saw thousands of American POWs draped in the same vomit-brown uniforms. Those who’d been here from the beginning were often reduced to skeletons in tattered clothing.
Brandon wondered when the North Koreans would replace the scraps some folks were wearing, especially since winter was marching steadily closer. He wanted to believe that even the heartless North Koreans had enough sense to preserve the very workforce which helped to feed them, although as the days passed, he’d begun to understand their disregard for human life. First the re-education program, then the breeding program and now the never-ending executions only served to reinforce the idea that this wasn’t about the war effort or forging ahead with a twisted North Korean version of America. This was about slow and painful extermination.
Brandon also understood those sorts of feelings needed to be controlled. For now, his mind was all he had left, the only refuge where he could pretend he was once again in Oneida with Emma and the people closest to him. The note he’d seen on the leaflet told him he hadn’t been forgotten. They knew he was still alive and right now that was worth more than a mountain of table scraps.
He’d met with Dixon a handful of times over the last few days, mostly in the bathrooms where the guards wouldn’t bother them. Dixon refused to divulge any part of the escape plan other than to say that it was coming together nicely. Brandon had told him about the message on the leaflet and how help was on its way, but Dixon didn’t buy it. There was no way he was going to sit and wait for help
that might never arrive.
The man had a point, but what alternative did they have? If they managed to break out, they would be forced to live with the knowledge that their actions had led to the retribution killings promised by the camp commandant. Nothing in Brandon’s life had prepared him to make that kind of decision. But one thing he knew for certain—after that leaflet drop, Gregory’s resolve had started to waver. Upon hearing that Oneida had stood strong in the face of the Chinese assault and that a rescue attempt might be in the making, Gregory had predictably opted out of the escape plan. It seemed his fear of being shot in the back crawling under razor-wire fences was greater than his reluctance to be left behind.
The thought of Gregory made Brandon scan the field, searching for the boy. He spotted him about a hundred meters away, churning soil with his hands. Brandon was about to turn away when Pug Face shouted at Gregory and, when he didn’t respond, knocked him to the ground and began kicking him.
•••
Barely ten miles away, John recognized the camp’s close proximity provided too good an opportunity to pass up. Trails inside the St. Francis State Wildlife Reserve led from Paragould south toward Jonesboro and would provide the cover they needed to stay out of sight.
Once they arrived, their unit would remain concealed inside the woods. This portion of their mission would be devoted entirely to reconnaissance. The attack on the truck depot, important as it was, had only been a dress rehearsal, a test to see if his men could work together under stressful conditions.
The lightning bolt of inspiration which had hit John the other day had had to do with the camps. With the very real possibility that Brandon and Gregory were alive and being held captive inside, John had a burning interest in helping them escape. But committing Oneida’s meagre resources toward such an obviously self-serving goal was irresponsible, verging on criminal.
Last Stand: Turning the Tide (Book 4) Page 8
