A Distant Eden (22 page)

“You’re thinking along the same fighting-has-rules mindset. Size isn’t important; we’ll be fighting with knives. He has reach, sure, but that isn’t the advantage you think it is. In fact, it will be a disadvantage. He’ll be so used to having the advantage of reach that he won’t understand fighting in close. Besides, let’s just say he wins, so what?” Adrian paused for a moment, reflecting. “We weren’t about to surrender anyway. If I lose, you still have your battle plans to follow. John will lead you as well as I can, and they will be way overconfident after his win. Either way, we come out with the advantage.” Adrian grinned. “But I won’t lose.”

Alice was watching Adrian closely. She thought, “He looks like a little boy on Christmas morning that’s just opened a great present. He sees this as a wonderful surprise bonus. There’s not an ounce of fear in him anywhere. Either he’s completely crazy or he actually knows he can’t lose.”

“Here’s the plan,” Adrian said. “We move everyone into place. Capture all the guards. Send one of the guards back with the challenge. The fight will take place outside their compound, but close to it. They may think about setting up a sniper to take me out. To counter that we’ll set up snipers of our own. If I get shot, Fowler gets shot. He’ll be informed of that by the guard, along with the challenge. Then we fight. When I win, start the operation. Our attack works like this...” Adrian explained the revised battle plan quickly and concisely.

Creating a mockup of the battle site, Adrian used stakes to indicate the compound walls, buildings, guards. The stakes were connected by string lines to outline each structure. Adrian built a detailed three dimensional clay model of the entire area including contours, key points, and landmarks. He then assigned duties. He utilized every able-bodied adult and teenager in the group. Each person had assignments written out for them to study. Then he took each group through their assignment, using the large scale map for briefing and then the full scale site plan with the stakes for physical rehearsal. He made sure they all understood their assignments and the timing. Once each group understood their individual assignment he ran a full battle review with all groups acting out their parts.

Communications between the groups to make on-the-fly adjustments were discussed, detailed and practiced. The hospital team set up a makeshift field hospital and practiced triage. By nightfall of the first day everyone was moving smoothly, and as Adrian’s insistence they continued to work into the dark as well.

The next morning they began to practice again, but this time Adrian began throwing problems at them. What happens if group A is unable to complete their task, what do the other groups do, who communicates with whom, and so forth. The entire day was spent figuring out these logistics, then dealing with new problems. This quickly afforded them flexibility if something was to go wrong, and the ability to keep focus on what was important. They could adapt on the fly while still keeping the main mission the priority.

That night Adrian explained, “Y’all are getting pretty good, not good enough yet, but pretty good. You may be wondering why all the work on solving problems. The reason is because no plan ever goes precisely the way you intended. Plans sometimes blow up on first contact with the enemy. Unless the entire team knows what to do if the plan blows up, the battle can be quickly lost. We won’t have that problem.”

During these exercises, Adrian kept a scout watching Fowler’s compound. Fowler hadn’t sent out more scouts yet. Soon it would become clear the original scout was not returning. There would be curiosity and suspicion. When Fowler finally dispatched two scouts in the direction of Fort Brazos, the Fort Brazos scout double timed home to give the news.

As soon as Adrian heard the report, he did two things. He sent a four-man patrol to watch the two scouts coming in, and he hid the Brazos tribe. They removed all current signs of the tribe and went into the brush. The ideal situation would be for the two scouts to move through, see nothing and eventually report back that nothing was out there. This might make the bad guys think their own scout deserted.

The two Fowler scouts were shadowed without their knowing it. If they discovered anything to report, they would not be allowed to return home. That would increase Fowler’s suspicions, but he would still be without solid information.

Just as planned, Fowler’s scouts moved through the area without seeing anything. It looked to them as though the tribe had moved away. Adrian had an idea and threw them a red herring—he penned a note and left it nailed to the house. It said, “Jeff, if you find this note we have moved to the ranch south of Waco, you know the one. Come join us as soon as you can.” Misinformation could be as valuable as ten tanks and ten airplanes at times.

A day later, the scouts began the return trip to their base camp. They were allowed to go all the way back and report the tribe had moved out of the territory, South of Waco somewhere. Adrian kept watch on the enemy camp through rotating scouts. When the two enemy scouts were out of the way, the stakes were put back in the ground and the operation was worked over and over again, with Adrian throwing every monkey wrench he could think of into the mix. They built a section of wall simulating the one around the enemy fort and practiced climbing it until they could scale it like monkeys. When the team was able to handle every problem Adrian could throw at them, he got them together.

Adrian stood near the campfire and said, “You guys are ready. You guys are good. I am proud of every one of you. I know we’re going to win. We may take casualties, but our enemy will cease to exist and we will remain standing.

“There is one thing we have no yet discussed: captives. We must understand that we cannot take prisoners, and we cannot let any of them go. This means that we have to kill every one of them. Even if they surrender; we have to kill them. No exceptions. I know this is hard; it goes against everything we have ever been taught. It is not the American Way. It is not what the good guy does in the movies. It is murder and cowardly and low. We’ve been taught this all our life, had it drummed into us over and over; that mercy is good.

“That was true before the grid went down. It is not true now. This is a completely different time and place. Think this through and try to find a flaw in the logic of what I am saying. We can’t take prisoners and keep them prisoners. We don’t have the manpower or the resources to set up a permanent prison. We don’t take slaves. If we turn them loose, what happens? What happens is that they are soldiers and they will try to find another group to join. They will be able to provide skill—and information. Another group will take the freed captives in, and then they will tell that group every single thing they can about us.”

Kirby asked, “But what’s wrong about anyone else knowing about us?”

Adrian responded, “It depends. Look at what we are about to do to a group of people that barely know we exist. We have determined that they are a threat to our existence so we’re going to eliminate them. What the released soldiers would tell other groups about us is that we are fast vicious killers that attack without warning. They would be telling the truth too. They’ll assume that we could someday become a threat to them. They’ll know where we are. We won’t know they exist. Do you see the problem?”

When no one else offered to speak, Adrian continued, “The slaves they took are another story. I can’t kill them. Soldiers are there to kill us when and if they can. That’s their job. If they lose, and they will, then they lose everything. They knew that going in. Slaves are something else; they’re not there voluntarily. The slaves we will help until they can survive on their own. If, in that process, we determine that any of them are a threat to us, we will deal with them. But they get a fair chance to survive and become productive. Ultimately, we want another group in that place, a group that is friendly to us, allies. These rescued slaves may be the start of that group. John has agreed to stay and lead them and add more settlers as he can locate quality people.”

Roman stood up. “I would like to add a few more words here. Ladies, gentlemen, we are repeating the natural course that man has followed throughout history, in many places—at many times. We’re going through a predictable set of phases of society building. Because of the manner in which we have been thrown back into the Stone Age, and because of the knowledge we have and the resources at our disposal, we’re moving through those phases far faster than it has ever occurred before. Each day that passes now is like a century in the past.

“We will move from individual families scrambling for food and shelter, to tribes gathering resources, to villages that have the makings of social order and the matrix of dependencies. We do this by first fighting for whatever scraps of food there are. Then we join into tribes that must defend their own hunting grounds, or starve. Then we make alliances with other tribes, establish trade, define territories, and we grow into villages. During this process different regions grow with different rules and aspirations; different cultures if you will. This causes strife between regions and regional wars breakout. It will be as though we are in the middle ages.

“Eventually the regions will unite and we will be back to states. The states will unite under a central government and we’ll return to something like what our founding fathers contemplated. Then warring will occur between nations. In the past, these phases were spread over generations. People had time to adjust to each phase. This time these phases are all going to happen in your lifetime. You’re going to live a condensed version of two thousand years of history. You, as an individual, have to be able to adapt and cope to these changes, sometimes only weeks apart.

“We are moving rapidly towards the regional conflict phase. This war with these enemies is because they are bad people. We cannot co-exist with them. It is harsh and brutal, but Adrian is right: they have to die. Every one of them.

“Now, I suggest that you all get a good night’s sleep, because the morning brings day one of the actual war. Practice is over.”

They moved at dawn the next morning. Instead of leaving as one unit, they went in stages. Travelling in small spread out groups made it less likely they would be spotted.

Group Alpha was the initial group that would make contact. It was made of Adrian’s squad members. Their job was to find and take out the guards, right after the shift change at 2 am. By the time the next shift was due out, the war would already be in motion. After they had taken out the guards, Alpha group ceased to exist and the men went to join and lead other groups.

Group Bravo was three of them joining Adrian for the throat slitting exercise. This group would infiltrate the barracks at 4 am, slit as many throats as they could, and be back outside within thirty minutes. Then, like Alpha, Group Bravo would disband.

Group Charlie would take positions along the edge of the tree line in various positions surrounding the compound. They would act as snipers, picking off anyone they could when the time was right for them to do so.

Group Delta would, under cover of darkness, move next to the rear wall of the compound, cover themselves with specially constructed gilly blankets, and wait for their signal. The blankets were dyed the same color as the winter dead grasses. Tufts of grass were sewn onto the top of the blankets. Small vision holes were cut in. A man or woman could lie under the blanket, see out, and be almost invisible.

Adrian, immediately after sunrise, would send a captured guard back to the compound with his challenge of single combat to their leader. He was to stand fifty feet from the wall and shout the challenge, under the watchful eye of a sniper. He knew that sniper’s rifle was aimed at him the whole time.

Everyone moved into position as practiced. Alpha Group moved forward. Just after the shift change, they killed all but one of the guards. That one was tied, gagged, and kept back for his messenger duty later. Then Bravo group moved into position and waited for 4 am. Adrian knew that 4 am is the hour of deepest sleep, and the hour when the maximum number of people would be asleep. They carefully crept forward in the dark and scaled the wall furthest from the sentries. Their objective was to slip past these guards and leave them unmolested.

The barracks interior layout would determine what happened next. Slitting a man’s throat does not create instant and quiet death. It may make it impossible for him to shout, but he won’t become unconscious for four or five minutes. In that time, he will thrash, struggle, and make noise. If the men were lined up in open bunks then it would be a two-team operation with two men per team. If the men were in separate sleeping quarters, then it would be a single team operation.

As they crept into the barracks, they found it laid out in open bay with all lower bunks, an aisle down the middle, beds on both sides spaced three feet apart. Just about as difficult a setup as could be designed. They split into two groups, each team taking a side. To do this as quickly and silently as possible, the bigger of the two first put his hand over the sleeping soldier’s mouth and held him down by pushing on his face and
chest. At the same time, the second soldier slid a long thin, extremely sharp, fillet knife through one of the eyes directly into the brain, wiggling it around and pulling it in and out rapidly. Before the sleeping soldier could wake up his brains were scrambled and he was dead. Then his throat was cut open for visual impact.

Down the bunks they crept, killing every other sleeping soldier. By the time they got to the end of the room, half the soldiers were dead and the thirty minutes they had allotted was almost up. They would have liked to kill more, but they were already pushing their luck. Creeping out of the barracks, they caught sight of one man stirring, probably to go to the latrine. As they slipped back over the wall, yelling broke out.

Within minutes they were back into the wood line, and only moments later the sun was cresting the horizon. Using canteens and rags, Adrian and his crew cleaned themselves of blood. Pandemonium roared inside the compound. As the light got a little better Adrian’s snipers opened up and picked off the guards on the walls. Then the compound went silent. Adrian could imagine the terror and panic that was taking place in there. It was the perfect time to send the guard in with the challenge.