FORSAKEN: THE SYSTEMIC SERIES (9 page)

Amazingly, he was more successful than any of us imagined.  His father showed him how to skin and clean his catches, picking off the paltry few ounces of meat they afforded us.  Paul would often come home from an afternoon of hunting with two or even three pitiful little carcasses that he would proudly hold up for all to see. Then he’d go around back to his “cleaning area” as he called it – and old stump behind the store – and work until he’d gotten all the meat and usable bits he could off the squirrels. 

We’d often incorporate Paul’s offerings into our dinners in some way.  Of course his vegetarian mother wasn’t particularly pleased with his newfound role, but she seemed proud that her little man was doing his part to help provide for the group.  And if nothing else, it gave him a purpose, kept him from fighting with his sister Sarah, and got him out of Sharron’s hair for a few hours each day while she and Sarah toiled in the garden.  

It took us a while, but eventually in one of our searches, we came across a small pond a few miles away.  While it wasn’t much, I figured it would work as a water reserve should we encounter a dry spell in which we couldn’t collect enough rain water for our needs.  The downside to this was that we’d have to drive over with the pickup to make the trip worthwhile, which would burn precious fuel; but it was a tradeoff that we were certainly willing to make should the situation call for it. 

With a stable water source discovered, the adults of our group began occupying their days with a variety of duties.  With everything from washing and mending clothes, doing dishes, and searching for and preparing food, to cleaning our guns, conducting repairs on the store, helping in the garden, and watching the youngsters, it almost seemed as though our days were busier in Olsten than when we’d held occupations before the flu.  Meanwhile, the kids – when not assisting with certain aspects of such duties – found wonderful and creative ways to play together and entertain themselves.

The pieces of the puzzle felt as though they were falling into place in Olsten just as they had back in Tennessee.  And while it was a nice feeling, it also tended to worry me since I knew our situation could change in an instant.  Still, I was happy to have things settled, even if there was no guarantee they would remain that way.

Chapter 8

Ava had gotten her lead from an area trader, but she never took such information at face value.  She always had the details verified first, and often did some of her fact checking herself, just to be on the safe side.  Ava was willing to take risks, but they needed to be calculated risks.  She didn’t throw darts at a board like Jake.  Jake just didn’t care.  He was willing to toss men into the meat grinder at will to achieve his goals.  Ava didn’t mind doing this in certain situations, but lately she’d become more selective about who was placed in harms way, in what sorts of situations, and to achieve what goals. 

While Jake didn’t realize it, Ava was slowly weeding out the bad apples and keeping the most valuable, most trusted, and most loyal members of their organization.  She was developing a more specialized core in which each member had his distinct purpose, skills, and abilities. 

Rambo was the former marine who was a badass in just about ever sense of the word.  He knew guns – not just how to use them, but how to clean them, repair them, and care for them.  He was good with a knife and knew his way around explosives. 

Mad Dog was a little wild, but only in battle.  He was big, but not beefy, and with more muscles than brains; but he was one hell of a wheel man and had gotten Jake and Ava out of some sticky situations when the going got tough. 

The Kill King was a military man as well, and he was one hell of a shot.  After the flu, he’d lost an eye while trying to steal a car.  He now wore a patch over the eye but it didn’t seem to hurt his aim.  In fact, the loss of the eye only seemed to make the other eye stronger, sharpening his aim and increasing his accuracy. 

Ava had also added three other men to this core of their operation.  The first of these men was Johnny Switchblade.  He was a younger man compared to the rest and was deadly accurate with a knife either up close in hand-to-hand combat or when throwing at targets from afar. 

The second man was Steel Will.  He was a one of just a handful of black men who had worked in the coal mines of West Virginia before heading south after the flu.  The perilous work in the mines paired with being a minority in the mountains of West Virginia left Will imperturbable in just about any situation.  Threats, fistfights, gunfire, explosions, whatever; he never batted an eye, a characteristic that Ava found extremely valuable when working with the rest of Jake’s crew who often lost their cool when things started heating up.  Steel Will was their second best wheel man behind Mad Dog. 

And finally there was the Fallback Man or just “Fallback” for short.  The Fallback Man had been a career criminal.  From bank jobs and burglaries to identity theft and plain old pick-pocketing, he’d run the gambit when it came to stealing things.  However, with this lengthy resume of experience behind him, he’d only served a brief stint in prison for a job he’d pulled back in high school.  He’d unwittingly gone in to rob a gas station one morning at the same time the local cops came in for donuts each day.  He’d had a gun on him and the ill-timed robbery had landed him two years in the pen for what would have been a lousy $200 take.  He’d quickly learned his lesson.  After this, Fallback would work and rework every plan for an upcoming job until he got it perfect, creating multiple backup plans in the process.  And he’d never gone into a job unprepared again.  In the process, he’d keep himself prison-free throughout the remainder of his career until the Su flu had abruptly ended his work.  The flu was one of the few things he hadn’t planned for, but he’d quickly adjusted to the new environment and soon found himself thriving in the post-flu world. 

Sometimes, when Jake wasn’t around, Ava liked to pick Fallback’s brain for things like the quickest access points to a particular building, the best ways to get into and out of places unnoticed, or how to scout a location and glean the most valuable bits information.  She recognized him for his true talents and value rather than as just another hired gun, which was how Jake saw him.

And while Jake didn’t know it, when it came to their raids, Ava often tried to manage things so that this personal core of bodyguards remained close to her and relatively out of harm’s way.  She felt that they had earned this right either through their tenure within the crew or some combination of their dedication, loyalty, or skill set that they brought to the table.  Of course she always ensured that they were present at a raid and involved in some way since she wanted to keep them involve and their skills honed, but at the same time, they often acted more in supporting roles rather than as part of any frontal assault.  The men recognized this, and in turn, repaid Ava with an increasing level of loyalty although no words to this effect ever passed between them.  There were no contracts, no agreements, simply an unspoken arrangement between them that both sides understood and appreciated.             

Ava’s intelligence on their current target was pretty good, and she’d already scouted the location well in advance to the day’s assault.  However, she realized that the spot was going to be well guarded and she had informed her best men of this fact.  They knew what this meant – stay out of harm’s way whenever possible, don’t do anything stupid, and don’t get too crazy.

The day’s target was a National Guard armory.  Supposedly there was a trader, his personal bodyguard, and five or six hired guns holed up there.  These men had converted a portion of the compound into their own private base that was comprised of a block of four large buildings.  These structures included one building that served as barracks for the trader’s guards and that faced a small warehouse where most of their supplies were kept.  The two other buildings were vehicle garages that also faced one another, one of which was supposedly empty and the other that housed some impressive pieces of equipment, at least according to the intelligence Ava had gathered. 

The four buildings were separated by two, 80-foot wide boulevards that intersected in the center of the four structures. 

Ava knew that many of the vehicles and weapons from this location – as well as many other National Guard armories around the area – had been depleted during the flu in the state’s failed attempt at maintaining law and order.  Much of the larger equipment – tanks, armored vehicles, and the likes – had been set on fire and destroyed during the post-flu looting and rioting.  Many of the smaller arms, ammunition, and weapons accessories were carried off by survivors of the flu’s aftermath.  However, word on the street had it that there were still several armored vehicles housed at this particular armory location.  Ava had learned about the vehicles weeks earlier, but she hadn’t said anything to Jake.  But with Jake pushing for a new objective, she needed something with which to placate him.  She also felt that it was the right time and the right way to strengthen their fighting force without adding additional members.  She’d heard rumblings that the trader currently held up at the armory was in negotiations to sell off the vehicles to the Three Families, which would only increase their strength and leave Ava and Jake with fewer resources for expanding their own area of influence.  Ava realized that it was a risk, taking food from the hands of the families, but until a deal was officially done, these items were still up for grabs.  Plus, up until now, Ava hadn’t felt comfortable taking on such a well-defended target since she wasn’t sure their organization could handle it.  This was why they had thus far been tackling smaller, easier objectives.  She wanted to make sure the men had some training first.  Like the big college conferences taking on smaller opponents early in the season, it allowed them to get a feel for their team’s capabilities and work out the kinks against lesser opponents.  However, Ava realized that while such early victories could be valuable learning experiences and confidence boosters, they could also lead to a team becoming overconfident and complacent so that when they were really put to the test, they faltered under the pressure. 

This would be her team’s first big test on the road, and it was the reason she’d picked up the drug addicts.  She needed some front-line cannon fodder as a hedge against loosing too many of her own men. 

While it’d taken her some time, she’d finally managed to explain her plan in detail to Jake so that he understood how everything would go down.  They would leave four men at the pump station as a rear guard to protect their own supplies.  Rambo and Mad Dog would head this small team.  Jake didn’t like it since Rambo and Mad Dog were two of their best guys.  But Ava had convinced him that it was a good idea to leave some loyal long-termers behind to ensure the security of their home base.

According to the intelligence report Ava had received on the armory, most, if not all of the trader’s guards would be in or around the vehicle garage at the time of their attack.  The trader himself and his personal bodyguard would likely be in the compound’s main office inside the warehouse.

There would be three assault waves. 

But before the assault began, Kill King and the Fallback Man were to slip into the compound unnoticed and take up positions atop the second vehicle garage.  This would give them a perfect vantage point and direct line of fire to where the main assault would be taking place across the street and really to just about any other point within the compound. There, the Kill King could work the magic of his deadly pinpoint accuracy from above.

Of the men they’d brought with them for the assault, the first wave would be comprised of the expendables – the addicts.  If they lost a few or even
all
of them, so be it.  One of the newer recruits would drive them in a pickup truck, to the bed of which they’d welded steel side-panels that rose about three feet around the back sides of the truck in order to provide additional cover.  The truck would enter the compound and the junkies would unload in the boulevard’s intersection between the armory’s four main buildings serving as more of a distraction than anything.  These men would then take up positions around the garages and warehouse and lay down covering fire for the second wave of the attack while the pickup left.  It would circle around to relative cover near the rear guard which would be comprised of the heavily-armed and always prepared Jake and Ava who would ride with Johnny Switchblade as their driver.

The second wave would be comprised of the newer additions to their organization.  These were the guys that they had picked up over the past few weeks.  There were five of them in total, and they would be organized and led by Steel Will who would drive them in.  They would arrive in a steel-paneled SUV complete with welded tire-guards and reinforced steel bumper for ramming.  Gun turrets had been cut into the steel side-panels that covered the windows in order to allow men to fire from relative safety within.  Steel Will would ram the SUV through the main garage’s entry door at which point the Fallback Man would descend from his position atop the roof and rally any remaining addicts to join the second wave in entering and taking the armored vehicle garage. 

Then, Ava and Jake would arrive with Johnny Switchblade in their own armored SUV along with the pickup truck.  They would act as mobile reserve and third wave to handle the mop up or take care of any unexpected situations.

It wasn’t a perfect plan, but Ava recognized that no such plan ever was, and leaving it up to Jake would have resulted in a frenzied melee that involved absolutely no plan at all.