A Distant Eden (21 page)

“We appreciate your honesty,” John calmly said. Then he removed his knife and moved behind the tree as though to cut the rope binding—but cut the scout’s throat from ear to ear instead.

John and Isaac buried the body and eliminated signs that anyone had been in the area. John asked, “How much of that can you confirm?”

“All of it. I spotted the guards and patrols he mentioned. I watched the camp for several hours and saw the slaves, all men. The camp is as he described it, with the wall and everything. I am guessing he told the whole truth, as he understood it anyway.”

John and Isaac returned to Fort Brazos and gave a full report to Adrian and Roman. Adrian called a full tribal meeting that night and John and Isaac repeated their report for the entire group, children included. After they finished Roman stood up and said, “This is Adrian’s area and from this point until Adrian says the threat is over, Adrian is in charge. I want to remind everyone that we agreed that we don’t take votes on his commands; we follow them without question or hesitation. If anyone has any objection to this, say your piece now.”

There was a long moment of silence, then Jerry said, “I think I probably speak for everyone when I say that I am one hundred and ten percent behind Adrian. Just tell me what to do and consider it done.” There were assents from each of the adults and the older children.

Adrian said, “We’re at war. We can consider the scout’s action of spying on us for a positively unfriendly group an act of war. We have good intelligence on what we’re up against and we have maybe two weeks to prepare. As some of you know by now, I don’t believe in giving an enemy any chances that can be taken from them. We’ll act before they do. We know more about them than they know about us. We’ll act preemptively. I’ll scout the terrain and the enemy myself. I’ll be back in four days. We’re on full red alert status. They may have sent other scouts that we don’t know about, even the scout may not have known about. So now we vanish into the brush, denying them a target.

“We’ll break up into small groups, no group exceeding five people. We’ll separate and stay undetected. Rendesvouz at the high knoll in four days. If any strangers are seen, remain unseen by them. If you’re spotted, capture or kill that person at all costs. Understood?”

There was a chorus of “understood” from the group.

After the meeting, Adrian found himself alone with Alice and said,
“I’m damn glad you yelled at me back at that hospital, otherwise I would have left you behind, and what a mistake that would’ve been. I know you probably can’t abide the fact that I kill people when you save people, but it is a comfort having you near.”

“I know your job sometimes requires killing. But I also know that you only kill to protect the people you care about. I understand that—don’t ever think I don’t.”

Adrian was embarrassed. Something about Alice was causing him to feel unsure, a new situation for him. Adrian mumbled, “Well, I’ll see you in a few days. Take care of yourself,” and quickly strode off. Alice stood there in bemusement, and then smiled. She understood this sudden shyness meant that he liked her. It was progress, real progress.

That night Adrian went west to look at the enemy camp.

Adrian worked his way between the various roving and posted guards without difficulty. He found a good place to view the compound. He was underneath thick brush in a shadowed area. He carved out a small place where he could lie comfortably, and using a stick pushed into the ground, he built a little stand for his binoculars. He could watch for days like this. Using a pocket notebook and a pencil, he began recording the enemy’s routines; when the guards changed and where, when the slaves went out to the fields and came in. Anything worth noting was written down.

He noticed that the guard changes appeared to be at random times. That was always a good policy, but Adrian knew that it was never truly random. Having a purely random schedule was impossible. It took constant maintenance and it meant that some guards were out only a couple of hours and others were out for long extended periods. This was not good for morale: people need predictability and eventually they will have it. Adrian surmised that given enough time he would see the pattern.

Adrian put the binoculars up when the sun was overhead or moving in front of him. The old adage of using the binoculars only when the shadows pointed away from you was still good advice. By having the sun behind you, it can’t reflect off the lenses and give away your position. He would probably be safe given that he was in deep shade, but still, Adrian didn’t take unnecessary risks.

As he watched, he grew to know who the order givers and order takers were. He watched in particular as one huge man moved around. It was immediately apparent that he was the top dog. Fowler. The man was enormous, standing at least seven feet tall as measured against the doorjamb, having to duck his head to go in. His proportional frame would put him at about three hundred fifty pounds. He moved with the ease and fluidity of a trained athlete. He had to have more on the ball than just his size though; it took more than that to hold command of this many trained and disciplined men. He must also be intelligent and ready to impose discipline.

Adrian peered at Fowler through the binoculars. He looked familiar, but Adrian couldn’t place him.

By the end of the third day, Adrian had the guards’ pattern down cold. He watched an additional day just to be sure. He made detailed sketches, with dimensions determined by comparison of objects, in his notebook. Everything that he could learn, he recorded. If something happened to him and the notebook got back to his people, it would be invaluable. Much as he might act otherwise, Adrian understood his own mortality.

When Adrian had learned as much as he was going to about the compound, he switched to locating the guards and their routes. He drew a detailed map of the terrain around the compound out to where the outermost perimeter guards were stationed. It only took him a day to find each guard station and the paths they took back and forth. He also located the roving guards and carefully followed them around until he understood and drew in their patrol patterns. Men are creatures of habit, and these men had their habits like anyone else.

Adrian knew all about guard duty. He had stood enough of it himself, and he had also used guard psychology in a number of attacks. Guard psychology was pretty simple. Guard duty is boring. Guards start out nervous and twitchy as they take on the new duty and location. Pretty soon they have seen the same old trees and the same old bushes for hour after hour day after week after month, and nothing ever happens. Nothing changes. Eventually the guards just stop seeing. Their eyes might be scanning but their brains were no longer engaged. Their minds were caught up in thought loops. They might be thinking about how hungry they were, or how tired, or last night’s movie or the next date with that pretty girl or last summer’s fishing trip. What they weren’t thinking about was boogers behind the bushes. Not to say that they wouldn’t notice something obvious, but they weren’t really looking anymore.

Keeping guard duty interesting and guards on their toes had been a problem since the days of Rome. It was absolutely nothing new. People get settled into routine patterns. Shifting the guards around the various different stations only created a more diverse routine and pattern. Each guard had a routine for each guard station. Look here, turn, walk, look there, sit here, stand up stretch, take a drink from the canteen, look there, walk a few steps, and on and on. Knowing these routines put the guards in severe jeopardy. If the guards really thought there was an imminent attack they would be alert, but they rarely believed it; not after endless tedium.

The regular penetration attempts were a good idea to keep the guards engaged, but that would again become a routine set of habits. It would be the rare occasion that a penetration was attempted that the guards did not know about beforehand. Word always got out and spread. The penetrators would eventually get into the rut of following the same old routes, with only small variations. The guards knew those routes and watched particularly close for them. Adrian used this knowledge to spot the penetrators the one night they attempted to get in while he was watching. He not only knew they were coming, but could tell about when they would show up and where they would be “captured.” He could tell by the change in the guards’ normal routines. The changes pointed right at the penetration attempt.

Adrian knew that he was getting a look at the foot soldiers. The non-coms and officers didn’t stand guard duty in this outfit. After Adrian had learned as much as he could about the guards, he headed home. He took a roundabout route and watched his back trail. He wasn’t followed. When he returned he called a war council.

Adrian started off by describing what all he had seen. When he finished with that, he said, “These are well armed and reasonably well disciplined soldiers. I’ve certainly seen worse. They won’t just fall over from fright; they will fight, and they will fight according to a plan and follow complex orders under the heat of battle. They’re not to be dismissed as amateurs. Having said that, we will beat them.

“There are too many of them and they are too well armed for us to take them head on. We might beat them head on, but we would take heavy losses. What we can do is take them apart, break their discipline, and then destroy them one piece at a time. We can do that with much less risk. What I think we can do is first, break their will to fight or severely damage it by destroying their morale. Second, we draw them out and get them to chase us into the woods. Once they are in the woods, we cut their lines in two places, turning them into three separate groups. Third, we take those groups apart one at a time. Fourth, while we are doing that we also take over their compound by having a second group attack it while it is at its weakest.

“It’s going to take every man we have and we’ll need some of the women as spotters and runners. It’s dangerous. I can’t imagine that we can do this without some damage to ourselves—but this way we lose the least and totally eliminate them.”

Alice asked, “What about a siege? Can we starve them out?”

“Not according to the intelligence that we have. They could simply wait us out for a long time, and then attack when they’ve run out of food. At that point, we will be at less of an advantage than we are now. If they come out, knowing they have no food to return to, they will be coming out to fight to the death. They won’t be demoralized the way I intend to have them.”

“How are we going to demoralize them when they have us outnumbered and outgunned?” Jennifer asked.

“First, they don’t know much about us. They don’t know anything about our fighting capabilities, or how many of us there are, how well armed we are, how much experience we have. They’re completely in the dark to the extent right now that they don’t even know we can put up a fight. They don’t know they are the threatened ones.

“To thoroughly demoralize them we’re going to do the every other throat approach. Four of us will slip into their barracks while they sleep. We’ll go through their barracks, cutting every other throat without waking anyone up. When the survivors wake up the next morning and see that the man on each side of them has had his throat ripped out, a startling fear settles deep into their bones. A fear that will not leave them—a fear that will grow stronger with time.”

Kirby asked, “Why not cut every throat and be done with it?”

“Every other throat is a figure of speech,” Adrian answered. “It usually isn’t possible to cut that many throats without waking someone up and starting a battle in a confined space. We’ll cut as many as we can and get out. I could only wish it would be all of them, but it won’t.

“Once we’ve cut the throats, then we entice them out. They will be scared to death and mad with rage at the same time. We’ll make a false attack with a small group at the wall. This is the most dangerous operation of all. This is designed to make them chase us into the woods. You wouldn’t think anyone would fall for it; it is the oldest trick there is. The Indians did it over and over to our own cavalry. Yet it works almost every time.

“They won’t all come after us; some will remain behind to hold the fort. But they will come, they will follow us into the woods, and that is where we ambush them, cut their lines and eliminate them. Simultaneously our second group makes an attack on the camp and takes it. That is the second most dangerous job.

“Something about the leader is familiar; I swear I have seen him somewhere before.”

“Sounds like Mad Jack,” Jerry said after Adrian had described him, “the professional cage fighter! Doesn’t he have a ranch near here?”

Dave said, “Yeah, that’s right. He was the champion all time cage fighter. He killed two men with his bare hands in unsanctioned fights. He never lost a fight to anyone and he sometimes fought two and three opponents at a time. I heard he was forced to retire.”

Adrian smiled widely. “That gives me an idea. Our tactics just changed.”

Adrian said, “I’ll challenge him to one on one combat with a winner take all prize. I imagine he has a huge ego, and if challenged in front of his men can hardly refuse. When I kill him it will really demoralize his men. Adrian looked happy. “I doubt if he has a strong second in command, a guy like that doesn’t want a challenger in his camp. When we attack, they’ll be demoralized and without strong leadership. All excellent advantages for us.”

Alice was frightened. “You’ll be killed! He’s a monster that never lost a fight. Even I’ve heard of him!”

“He’s never been in a fight,” Adrian said calmly. “He’s always had the advantage of size and fear. He has always been fighting according to rules. He may have broken some of them, but he has that rule-bound mindset. I doubt if he’s ever been seriously challenged or knows what that feels like. He was a professional entertainer, not a professional killer.”

“But he’s huge,” Kirby blurted, “nearly twice your size. He has the reach and weight on you.”