Apocalypse in the Homeland: The Adventures of John Harris (6 page)

“Will this be a Christian nation?”

“The USA was founded on Christian beliefs as is the ISA. We will welcome all faiths, but we will not allow anyone to change our core beliefs. You won’t see abortion clinics, mosques hiding terrorists or liberals burning our flag. Our soldiers will shoot on site anyone desecrating our flag. I’m just a soldier and perhaps I didn’t answer all of the questions as well as they should be answered. The governor of the territory will be able to answer all questions.”

“Major Harris, we like what you said. We know which of our town’s people fall on bad luck and need a helping hand and which ones are slackers. We will help the truly needy and run the scumbag slackers out of town.”

Jim caught Scott after the meeting and said, “I think that we need to add another dozen security and protection trainers immediately. We are going to run into dozens of towns like this and we need to help them stay safe and begin the fight against the bad guys.”

"Damn Jim, You are right. We also need to have a shipment of small arms, ammo and light machine guns so we can arm our new militia. Thanks!”

They stayed on alert all that night and the next day with no more incidents. They finished searching the ammunition plant and found that many of the storage bunkers had been broken into, but very little had been damaged or stolen. Most of the bunkers contained larger shells ranging from .50cal to 105mm. The two bunkers with 9mm and 5.56 round had been looted, but most of the ammo was still there. They noticed well worn paths to those bunkers and thought that someone was frequently visiting to take more ammo. The tire tracks were from ATVs, which meant they couldn’t haul much at a time. They secured the bunkers, repaired the fences and posted guards until the Navy could fly in enough firepower to secure the plant.

“Scott, give my condolences to the people for the loss of their mayor and tell them that a large force of rangers will be there in the morning and their city will be protected by the ISA from now on. Tell them when we get the plant in operation that we will supply electricity, water and fuel for their town until our engineers can help them become self-sufficient. We can’t do this for every small town, but we have to hold the strategic ones.”

“Gus, there is enough ammunition stored here to supply the ISA for years and the plant looks like it can easily be started back up and in operation quickly. Many of the people around the town worked at the plant and have the skills to get it going again. They need jobs and we need their expertise. They have already begun to check out the machinery and get the plant ready to go back into operation.”

“Great job son. Now about those snipers. You are damn lucky to be talking to me. Was the satellite surveillance helpful? Give me an update on what your team has learned about them."

“The surveillance was just what we needed. My men are good, but these guys covered their tracks better than we have ever seen. They have about thirty men hiding just north of the ammo plant in an abandoned building. They have .308 and .338 sniper rifles and know how to use them. I have a team listening in on their communications back to their base and they definitely aren’t working for the USA.”

“They almost have to be with the Chosen People. Can you take them alive so we can interrogate the bastards?”

“We can take most alive and we are identifying the leaders for you. They aren’t wearing uniforms, but the three leaders have a command RV to live in and the rest sleep on the ground.”

“Go get them. Your team can have them back when we are done with them.”

"Thanks, I plan to take them tonight and have them on the helos going back to Mobile tomorrow afternoon."

***

“We killed the mayor of the town the ISA group is camped in. The unlucky bitch stepped in front of the major leading the ISA convoy. Tell Bo that we will kill him and all of his officers over the next two days.”

“Good hunting. Have you been able to determine their objective?”

“They are checking out an Army ammunition plant that appears to be full of cannon munition and a small amount of small arms bullets."

"Oh shit, we are under attack!”

The man’s voice stopped and he could hear explosions and gun fire. Bo might have been right about not attacking the ISA soldiers.

“Captain? Captain?”

There was no answer.

***

Sonny’s rangers took out all the guards with precision and accuracy; they all died instantly at the same time. Having taken out the guards, they switched their attention to the three Humvees and took out the crews manning the twin saws. The suppressed rifles meant that the targeted enemy never knew what hit them, however when they dropped, the others were alerted and a pitched battle began.

The CP troops were well trained and didn’t panic while returning fire. Several were able to get to the Humvees, but were shot before they could get the saws in action. The remaining CP soldiers had good cover and would be tough to route. The firefight was vicious and deadly to both sides. Sonny lost two snipers and the rangers and 82
nd
had one dead and three wounded.

Lt. Pope called Scott, “Sir, we are at a stalemate. I want to lob mortar shells just close enough to scare the hell out of them and see if they’ll surrender. It may kill a few of them, but I don’t want to lose any more troops.”

“Great idea, start lobbing.”

Lt. Pope had his team walk the shells towards the enemy from 200 yards out at 50 yard increments until one hit dead center of the enemy. Each mortar shell exploded and threw dirt and rocks all over the CP soldiers and the blast was deafening. The last one hit beside a Humvee, blew it into the air and flipped it over on its side. Two men were trapped under the vehicle and one was crying for help.

The next barrage was six shells dropped around the enemy about 30 yards from the center of their position. One was a bit too close and blew two more men up and threw body parts into the air.

“I’ll bet there are some pants that need to be cleaned," laughed Scott as he watched the explosions.

A few minutes later, a white flag appeared just above one of the Humvees. A soldier came out from behind the vehicle waving the white flag and walked towards Lt. Pope’s position.

“I’m Joe Graves and I want to know why you are attacking our peaceful group. We were hunting game to feed our families when you attacked.”

Scott walked up and backhanded the man and said, “You must think that we are stupid. We know who you are and you are a prisoner of war. Go back and tell your men to drop their weapons and surrender or I will lob mortar shells at you the rest of the day.”

Graves replied, “I am here with a white flag. You can’t shoot at us while we have a white flag for a meeting.”

“Look dumbass, you have 30 seconds to surrender or we wipe your men out.”

“We are peaceful men who just want to feed our families.”

“Fire a shell into the middle of them and see if it gets there attention.”

The soldier picked up the shell and started to drop it into the tube when the man screamed, “We surrender.”

The battle was over just as suddenly as it started.

The 22 surviving CP personnel were lined up and handcuffed with zip ties. Their wounded were given aide and would be flown to Mobile to recuperate so they could be interrogated.

Sonny was directing the prisoner security when several spit on him.  He quickly knocked both to the ground and stated, “I forgot that ya’ll are all racist SOBs. Well ya’ll are lucky that we need information from your sorry asses or I’d just skin you alive.”

He took his bayonet out of its scabbard and rubbed it against one of the idiot’s cheek as though he were about to shave him.

The guy said, “None of us will tell you anything, you sorry nigger.”

Sonny turned the blade on edge against the man’s neck and started drawing it downward making a shallow cut in the man’s throat.

“If none of you will talk then I’ll start by slicing this guy’s throat and keep cutting until one of you does. I’m just a nigger so no one expects me to behave any better.”

Sonny’s team laughed and started making bets on how many of the CP would lose their heads before the first one talked.

Sonny continued cutting and suddenly the man said, “I’ll tell you what you want to know. Please stop, you’re killing me.”

“So, you don’t mind talking with a nigger?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Joan, take him to Scott and remind him along the way that I’ll cut his damn head off if he clams up.”

Joan walked him over to Scott’s Humvee and turned him over to his security team. He was very talkative.

Scott asked, “Does the CP have any bases in this area?”

“No, the closest is in Dallas.”

“Give the locations of every one that you are aware of.”

The prisoner was holding his neck and said, “Can you have someone take care of my neck?”

“You won’t bleed to death as long as you keep pressure on the cut. Now talk.”

The man, who was an officer, knew most of the locations in North America. Scott was worried because there were three in the area that he was going into to search for his father. Denver, Oklahoma City and Topeka were in the middle of the area that he planned to search.

They finished interrogating the prisoner, had lunch and then interrogated five more. Most of the men only knew a few locations each, but they confirmed over half of the locations that the officer had given them. All of them had been to two or more working as guards so they knew quite a bit about their security, weapons and SOPs. Scott passed all of this info on to Gus.

Scott filled Gus in on the successful attack on the CP position and gave him the info gained from the brief interrogations.

“Gus, as important as the information is I must add that their command thinks that we killed all of them so they have no clue that we know this much about them.”

“Damn Scott, this is much worse than we ever imagined. They are in every state and all of the large cities. Do you believe that there are over 150,000 of the CP across the country?”

“Several of the men backed that up. Apparently, they were prepared for a world disaster and have plenty of food, ammo and guns. They also had all types of vehicles and aircraft stored in EMP proof bunkers. They were better prepared than the US military. I’m beginning to think that they may have had inside information before the attack on the USA began.”

“The supply helicopters will be there in the morning; load them up and we’ll perform a more thorough interrogation when they get here. Good job.”

***

“Sir, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the ISA forces wiped out our team in Louisiana. It appears that they are all dead.”

Bo looked up at him and had an evil grin on his face.

“I know that you warned me not to attack them and we didn’t. I only know that I was on the radio with the section leader when the attack began. There were numerous explosions. I don’t see how anyone survived.”

“I hope you learned to take the ISA military more seriously. They have the best of all the military branches and the passion for starting their own country. We both can’t exist in this new world. Get with the staff and develop a plan to defeat them before the end of this year.”

***

The helicopters arrived the next morning bringing supplies and 50 heavily armed rangers to protect the ammo dump until the Navy could arrange for security. The prisoners were loaded up and sent back to Mobile for interrogation.

Scott introduced the ranger officer to the mayor and town council and let them know his team would be heading out the next day.

“The rangers will watch over you and train your militia until you are strong enough to handle your own security. Two helicopter gunships will be based here, along with some scout planes that will support our mission. The ISA will be trucking ammo from here to where it’s needed and will bring in supplies to maintain the ammo manufacturing and your town. We will get your power back on and get you self sufficient as soon as possible.”

The acting mayor said, “Major Harris, we are grateful to you and the ISA and will do our part to help reclaim this country.”

“That’s exactly what we all need. Thanks.”

They pulled out just after dawn the next morning headed west to Dallas on Highway 20. The drive to Dallas was uneventful and they made contact with the group from Port Arthur at the intersection of Highways 20 and 35. Jim stayed behind for a couple of days to oversee the training for the groups in the Dallas suburbs and would be flown to rejoin the main group in a few days.

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Chapter 7