by SD Tanner
‘And ya really need my foot up ya ass,’ Gears retorted. Watching the tail of the truck disappearing down the road, he added ‘They didn’t seem too keen on us bein’ army.’
‘No they did not,’ he agreed.
They pulled into the outskirts of the Major’s town just after lunchtime. The plan was to park the HUMVEE about a mile away from the base and walk until they were just under half a mile away. From there, they’d find somewhere to observe the Major’s base without being seen. He was convinced these guys were on the take, but he wasn’t sure how. Figuring they might be heavily armed, he and Gears agreed they didn’t want to blindly stumble into danger and they needed to get a handle on the situation.
Walking the roads, they found a strip of single-story retail stores on either side of a narrow three-story building. Given its position to the base, with the slight elevation of the area and the flat roof of the three-story building, they agreed it would serve their needs. The top two floors looked like they contained offices and the shop beneath had been a small electrical store. It looked largely undisturbed, but that made sense. In a world with limited power, it didn’t contain anything useful anymore. Breaking open the back entrance, Ip ran in to clear out any hunters. Deciding they didn’t want the noise of shooting any errant hunters running away from her, they closed the door and left her to it.
Hatch observed, ‘It’s freakin’ weird how she can do that.’
‘Freakin’ useful,’ Mackenzie added.
Once Ip cleared the building of hunters, they climbed to the roof and settled down with their binoculars trained on the Major’s base. It looked like a typical small remote army base, only untidier than usual. There were three main buildings and one was attached to a large double hangar. They could see a Black Hawk sitting on the helipad as if ready to fly. It looked like there were about 40 or so men in full ACUs, carrying M4s. The main gates were on the opposite side to the helipad and trucks were coming in and appeared to be unloading supplies. The trucks were reversing up to some sort of platform that led into the building, and he assumed the building opposite the hangar was a warehouse. The base was surrounded by a chain link fence and outside the fence, forming a leafy green perimeter, was a low forested area that had been cut back to put about 50 yards of clear space around the base.
They’d been watching the base for about three hours, trying to assess if they were looking at a real army base or not. Gears had given up observing the base, and was hunkered down below the height of the low wall that rimmed the roof of the building.
Looking across at him, Gears asked, ‘Whatdaya think?’
Still peering through his binoculars, he replied, ‘Dunno, could go either way. I doan think we’re gonna know jus’ by watchin’ ‘em.’
‘True,’ Gears replied firmly. ‘We need to get down there without bein’ obvious.’
Shaking his head, he said, ‘Well, I can’t go. I saw that smug fat-faced cherub down there. He knows who I am. And you shouldn’t go.’ Giving Gears a once over look, he added, ‘Ya doan blend in well.’
Gears grunted at his observation and remarked, ‘Depends on where I am.’
Chuckling, he quipped, ‘That’s true. At the zoo, I can’t single ya out in the gorilla cage.’
Mackenzie and Hatch started laughing and Gears rolled his eyes, but laughing at his own expense, he said, ‘That was swift justice, ya asshole.’
Still chuckling, Mackenzie said, ‘I’ll go. No one knows me.’ Giving Gears an amused look, he stressed, ‘And I do blend in well.’
Nodding, he replied, ‘And you’re young, so they’re unlikely to see ya as a threat. Just get in there. Talk to a few people. Get the intel and get out.’
By now it was late afternoon and they figured Mackenzie could just walk up to the gates and talk to the men guarding the entrance. If they were army, then Mackenzie could leave whenever he wanted to. If they weren’t army, then they were unlikely to view Mackenzie as a threat and he should be able to slip away. They agreed if he wasn’t back by nightfall, they’d take Ip to deal with the hunters and cut through the fence, grab Mackenzie while doing a quick recon of the buildings. He really wanted to check out the warehouse and if they got the chance to liberate a bird, they would.
Gears looked at Hatch and asked, ‘Can ya fly a Hawk?’
Sniffing, Hatch replied casually, ‘Yup. I was at Fort Rukker for flight training. Specialized in ‘em. Got ‘bout 100 hours, but that was four years ago.’
Narrowing his eyes at Hatch, Gears asked suspiciously, ‘Ya crash any?’
‘Yeah, loads,’ Hatch replied happily.
Rolling his eyes, Gears drawled, ‘Did ya crash any for real?’
‘Course not,’ Hatch replied with a grin. ‘They take that poorly.’
From their observation post, they’d seen Mackenzie approach the gates, talk to the guards and follow them into the base. It all looked very calm and relaxed and they weren’t worried. Mackenzie then disappeared with his escort into the building attached to the hangar. As they continued to watch, the flow of trucks gradually slowed to nothing and there was less activity on the grounds. The uniformed men were disappearing into the building attached to the hangar and they couldn’t see any sentries being posted as night fell.
It was now completely dark and there was still no sign of Mackenzie, as agreed they headed on foot to the perimeter of the base. Positioning themselves at the closest point to the parked Black Hawk, they used it to hide behind. Taking the bolt cutters they’d brought from the truck, they cut an entire segment of the chain link fence, leaving an eight-foot wide gap. He figured they might need a fast exit, and they didn’t want to be fumbling in the dark looking for their escape route. There were no sentries anywhere and it didn’t look like there was anyone outside to hear them, but they took their time and worked quietly. With the segment of fence open, they left Ip to protect Hatch from hunters and he and Gears entered the base. As planned, he headed off to the warehouse and Gears went to the hangar.
The warehouse was the equivalent of a two-story building and the size of at least two aircraft hangars. You could pack a lot of shit in here, he thought, and if they’re army they might have some quality armaments. He decided the easiest point of entry would be the loading bay. It should lead him straight into the warehouse and reduce the risk of running into anyone in the office areas. Hugging the shadows of the building, he worked his way around to the loading bay. No one seemed be outside in the dark, but he didn’t want the chance of anyone seeing him from an upstairs window from any of the buildings.
He could hear the muffled chatter of people and music from inside the building attached to the hangar and guessed it was the living area for the base. These people are presumptuous, he thought. They were acting as if no one would ever dare breach their perimeter at night. He reached the loading bay platform, which was about five feet off the ground. Using his arms to support his bodyweight, he lifted himself onto the platform. As he expected, there was a doorway next to the bay doors. He checked the door and, in keeping with their obvious lax attitude to security, it was unlocked. Smirking to himself, he thought, these guys aren’t army. The army taught their soldiers to scavenge in the field. Army warehouses were a magnet for random pilfering, and any real army kept their supplies under strict guard.
Pulling out his small pocket flashlight, he pointed it low to the ground and made his way towards the racking system ahead of him. He could almost hear music, but it was coming from an area behind the tall racks of goods and he assumed it was where the offices were located. The main warehouse was cool, still and silent. Padding quietly, he made his way down the corridors of racks, playing his flashlight carefully over the shelves to see what the trucks were delivering.
There were boxes of food, and judging by the labels, they contained canned and dried goods lifted from various warehouses and stores. Later shelves had boxes of clothing, and further shelves seemed to have an assortment of camping gear. It reminded him of his own stores back
at the Base. Nothing interesting here, he thought and he kept exploring. Making his way to the racks on his right, he thought things finally got interesting. As he padded down the racks on the far wall, he saw Javelins, M72 LAWS, and M3 MAAWS, Hellfire missiles, M252 mortars and grenades. They were all high-powered heavy-duty armaments. Looking at the impressive collection of weapons, he had to stop himself from wolf-whistling in appreciation.
The armaments were piled untidily on the racks, and he couldn’t understand why the weapons were not locked up. He was stunned. It was an arsenal of death sitting casually on the shelves of the racks just begging to be pilfered. The weapons were vaguely grouped together by what someone must have assumed was type, but they’d actually thrown together unrelated armaments and he assumed no one on this base knew what the hell they were doing with these weapons. Playing his flashlight down the line of weapons, he thought, if they don’t really know what these are, then maybe they don’t know how to use them. He grinned happily. Between him and Gears, they sure as shit knew what to do with these babies.
‘Get your hands up asshole!’ The voice was quietly spoken, but he knew from the tone, he’d be dead if he didn’t. Putting his hands up, he felt someone roughly yanked his M4A1 from his shoulder.
The quiet voice behind him said, ‘I don’t wanna mess up my nice warehouse with your blood, so you’re gonna remove that belt and vest and put your hands on your head and get down on your knees. Nice and cooperative like.’ To emphasize his point, the quietly spoken speaker jabbed him in the back with something he was pretty sure was the barrel of a gun.
He didn’t really want to mess up the man’s warehouse with his blood either and he did as he was ordered. Someone must have come from the other end of the rack, and a flashlight trained directly onto his face briefly blinded him.
The quietly spoken man said, ‘Whatdaya wanna do with this stupid piece of shit, boss?’
The man holding the flashlight in his face said in an educated accent, ‘Take him to the Major. This asshole’s not my problem tonight.’
A hand roughly grabbed the back of his shirt, and he felt himself being levered onto his feet. The quietly spoken man said, ‘Up ya get, shitferbrains.’
As he was marched out of the warehouse, across to a side door entrance next to the living quarters and into the hangar, the gun barrel never left the middle of his spine. The hangar was enormous, and the front half of it was half lit by lamps. In the shadowy light, he saw Gears kneeling with a gun pointed to his head. He mentally shook his head at the pair of them. Gears moved his head slightly as he walked in, and they briefly made eye contact. In that instant he knew they were both relieved to see one another and a little amused by their predicament. He was made to kneel next to Gears, but before anyone could say anything, there was a commotion from behind and to the right of them.
He heard someone noisily stamping out of the living quarters, swearing and shouting angrily, ‘This better be fuckin’ good. I don’t like having my dinner interrupted!’
They watched as a short man with a hefty paunch and shaved head banged his boots angrily as he walked up to them. Just six feet away, the man stood, legs astride with his hands on hips and glared at them. He was somewhat height-challenged and, even on their knees, the little man was almost eye level with them.
The little man snorted and declared rudely, ‘Shit! You guys a fuckin’ ugly!’
I could say same, he thought, but he silently eyed the little man steadily. Despite being on his knees, Gears had the air of a man in control of the situation.
Addressing both of them, the little man shouted, ‘Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck are you doing on my base?’
Before either could answer, the fat-faced cherub came into his line of sight and said, ‘That’s the guy we met down in Brookhaven. He’s the boss of those guys in the depot we saw.’
The little man drew himself up to his full height, which was not much, and said authoritatively, ‘I am Major Mitch Donohue. I am with the 156th Infantry Regiment of the United States Army and I understand you’ve been stealing from me.’
‘Not at all, Major,’ Gears replied amiably. ‘We had no idea there was any army left standin’.’
The Major scowled at Gears and said abruptly, ‘Well there is and we’re it.’
He almost laughed knowing there was no way this bunch of losers belonged to any army and he said conversationally, ‘Ya seem to be pretty well stocked, and that’s a very nice collection of armaments ya have in your warehouse.’
The Major turned his scowling face toward him and said, ‘What’s in or not in my warehouse is none of your fuckin’ business.’
Sounding equally as relaxed, Gears turned to him and asked, ‘What kinda stuff they got?’
Knowing Gears was giving him an opening to take control of the conversation, he replied, ‘Only the good stuff. Hellfires, Javelins, M72’s and M3’s.’
Gears nodded as if impressed and said wistfully, ‘That’s the good stuff.’
Throughout this brief exchange, the Major’s expression shifted from angry to shrewd. It’s like watching a dog think, he thought, and a really dumb dog at that.
The Major sneered at them and asked aggressively, ‘What do you two dumb fucks know about those armaments?’
Gears replied steadily, ‘We know how to use ‘em. We’re both ex-army.’ He noticed Gears didn’t mentioned that technically they were still enlisted.
The Major seemed to hesitate a fraction and then said slightly less aggressively, ‘So, what the hell are you doin’ here at my base?’
Gears shrugged and said, ‘Lookin’ for you guys. Pax here told me ya were army and we figured we’d go where the muscle is. Surely you’ve got use for a coupla experienced soldiers.’
Giving them both what he assumed was a hard stare, the Major was clearly trying to decide what to do with them. Coming to some conclusion, the Major said, ‘Huh, I can always use guys who can handle a gun, but I don’t know you two assholes. I don’t just sign up any swingin’ dick that walks in here. You gotta prove yourself to me first.’
Neither he nor Gears said anything. They knew there was no way the Major should be considering enlisting them to his team. He knew they had control of the depot. It meant they had their own supplies and he had to know they weren’t desperate. It was obvious they were lying, but the Major wasn’t calling them on it. He smiled inwardly and thought, I’m right, they don’t know how to use those armaments. That must be frustrating the hell out of him.
The Major broke off his gaze and barked, ‘Lock ‘em up. I’ll sort ‘em out in the morning.’ With that final order, he stamped out of the hangar on his tiny little feet.
He and Gears found themselves manhandled into a small cage partially hidden from view by a winged Black Hawk sitting in front of it against the far wall. Once they were locked in, the Major’s men wandered back to the entrance of the living quarters, clearly unconcerned about their new prisoners. Echoing through the hangar, he could hear them chatting amiably about nothing much.
Gears muttered, ‘This is one chickenshit outfit.’ As he spoke, Mackenzie silently came out of the shadows and crouched by the cage. He wasn’t wearing his tactical vest or belt and he figured Mackenzie was unarmed.
Gears shuffled until he sat next to Mackenzie and he sat with his back to the men guarding them from the other side of the hangar. If they happened to look across at them, his bulky torso would block their view of Gears, but he didn’t really expect them to pay any attention to them. These guys were overconfident to a stupid extent, but he figured if all they did was bully civilians then they’d have a false sense of superiority.
Gears handed Mackenzie his dog tags and said softly, ‘Give these to Ip, that way she’ll know we need her. She and Hatch are behind the fence next to the bird on the helipad. We need Ip to scare some hunters into the hangar. Get Hatch into the bird and check if it’ll fly. If it does, we’ll liberate it on the way out. If not, we’ll head back to the HUMVEE.’
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Quietly, he added, ‘And grab Hatch’s gun.’ Flicking his head towards the cage door, he said, ‘Yer gonna need to shoot that padlock off.’
Mackenzie nodded, but said nothing and, taking the dog tags from Gears, he silently slipped away into the dark hangar.
Gears turned to him and said, ‘That’s some fine firepower they got.’
Nodding, he said, ‘Yeah, and if we liberate that bird, they’re gonna bring it down on us.’
Shrugging, Gears replied matter-of-factly, ‘They’re gonna do that anyways. Do ya reckon they know how to use those weapons?’
He grinned and replied, ‘They ain’t got a clue. If they did, we’d be dead already.’
***
Mackenzie slunk against the wall to the side door of the hangar and yanked it open in one swift motion. Flying out the door, he banked to his right towards the bird on the helipad. Following Gears instructions, he found the eight-foot gap they had left in the fence and ran straight into Ip and Hatch. Back inside the base, the Major’s men were shouting to one another.
‘Who the hell was that?’
‘Where the fuck did that guy go?’
‘Who the fuck cares?’
Mackenzie shoved Gears dog tags into Ip’s hands and waved back at the hangar. Ip looked quizzically at the dog tags and then at Mackenzie.
Ip thinks: These belong to the man for me. Where is he now? Why does he not flee? He is not here, he is not with me. So now his mind is blind to me. I must seek to find him well. I will need the bald ones to unleash their hell. The rulers say I can take the bald ones will. I call to them to kill, kill, kill.
Mackenzie suddenly stopped waving and Hatch dropped to a fetal position. Hunters began to stream past them and race through the hole in the fence. Immediately gunfire erupted in the base. Grabbing Ip and Hatch, Mackenzie dragged them toward the Black Hawk.
Mackenzie shouted, ‘Gimme your gun!’ Grabbing Hatch’s gun, he pushed him at the Black Hawk and shouted, ‘See if that bird is a go!’
Hatch was keen to escape the hunters still streaming through the hole in the fence and, yanking open the cockpit door, he clambered inside and slammed it shut. Hunters continued to sprint around and past Mackenzie and Ip without trying to attack them. Mackenzie grabbed Ip’s hand and dragged her to the hangar. Some of the Major’s men were shooting at the hunters from the safety of the second-story windows of the living quarters. Mackenzie slammed into the hangar wall, pulled Ip low to the ground with him and crabbed towards the side door entrance. The door was still open and he could hear gunfire and hunters screeching inside the hangar. Still dragging Ip, he launched through the door, jagged left and ran along the wall to the other side of the hangar and towards the cage.
