Dark Days Rough Roads (52 page)

He dug
down and hit a piece of rotting plywood. It was marine grade and he had treated
it practically six times sealing it up, but it was meant for indication of the
cage and not protection. Once hitting it, he knew he would have to finish
digging the cage out by hand. He turned the tractor off and jumped down. “Grab
a shovel guys, let’s get going.”

They
cleared the dirt off and removed the piece of wood. Sitting there was a big
metal box that had been buried five feet under the ground. The box itself was
roughly 48X48X48 inches. It was actually constructed of a couple of boxes
nested inside each other. Redundancy was the key to keeping the contents safe,
Haliday thought. He had looked up info on cages and everyone had a different
idea of what would work, so he went with his own.

He built
the first box with one eighth inch steel and lined it with rubber. The contents
were placed inside and the top sealed with a rubber gasket and then metal tape.
This was covered in rubber and then a copper shell applied to this. He was able
to sweat the lid of the copper on in order to seal it entirely. Next was
another thin metal skin and sealed again. They hoisted it out using the tractor
and some slings.

Haliday
started the slow process of opening the cage. Once it was opened, everyone
looked inside. You would have thought it was Christmas with all of the oohs and
aahs. “Don’t get excited yet,” he said. “We might have boat anchors here.” He
carefully pulled the contents out and the guys took it all inside.

He walked
inside and looked at the pile. Two 32” flat screen TV’s, two DVD players, two
small surround sound set ups, a couple of portable radios, a couple of Ipads, two
laptops and a massive computer tower filled with hard drives along with some
other various electronics. He grabbed one of the laptops and walked over to an
outlet.

He
plugged it in as everyone stood there and waited. A few lights blinked and then
the tell tale Microsoft windows sound came on. Roger looked around, “Solitaire
anyone?” he asked. They all cheered. They set most of it aside and got a TV set
up downstairs along with one of the laptops on the desk. The large computer
tower was loaded with files. E-books, dictionary, digital encyclopedia, music
and over 5,000 movies.

They
would be ok for entertainment, this would help keep some of the normalcy of
life flowing. That had been the reason behind having back ups for the TV and
such, in case something broke before the country was back on the grid. They
would limit the use of everything in order to avoid burning through it in a
short period of time.

Next on
the to-do list was to complete an entire inventory of everything they had and
to work out some menus in order to maximize the food stores. They were actually
much better off than they thought. The small caches around the property were
just a bonus. Farming and bartering would allow them to sustain themselves.

Dawn
called down to Roger; “Rob needs to speak to you.”

“Ok, tell
him I’ll be there in a second.” Roger went up the stairs and sat down by the
radio. “Hey Rob, what’s going on?”

“Roger,
we had a problem today. We had the fuel truck from the airport come out with six
armed guys. They went to one of the gas stations and took the gas. Well, they
took a truck load. We didn’t have enough people to try and defend it.”

“There’s
more,” he said. “They dropped a bunch of flyers on the ground. They said they
were going to be taking more gas and other supplies as form of payment for the
vehicles and equipment we took from them. There was to be no interference or
they would defend themselves. They also said they would consider anybody on the
streets armed and hostile.”

Roger
replied, “Rob, that means they’ll shoot anyone for any reason. They say
anything else?” Rob went on to say that they wanted their prisoners back, that
they expected full cooperation at all times, and most importantly they would
not be setting up any trade or distribution of food or supplies until spring.
“Roger, not a lot of people can make it that long.” Roger told him that was
because that’s what they wanted; to cull the population. For some reason Roger
kept thinking about that.

Roger sat
there in disbelief. He couldn’t grasp what he was hearing. The militia had at
least 25 dead and maybe 12 injured, of which half of those were likely to die.
This was almost half of their forces and yet they continued to hang on and keep
up their BS. Roger spoke aloud; “You’d think they were sitting on Fort Knox or something.”

Dawn
said, “No, you’d need a bigger army for that.”

“Hey Rob,
do me a favor.”

“What’s
that,” Rob asked.

Roger
told him to put a lot more intel on the militia compound. “I want a complete
count of everything and everyone. There has to be something else going on that
we don’t know about and we might need to figure it out pretty quickly.” Roger
said goodnight and looked over his notes.

Dawn
asked him what was wrong. “I think you found the problem,” he said.

“What do you
mean?” she asked.

“Their
numbers are growing. I kept thinking I was screwing up the people count that I
had, but that’s not it. Unless they have rabbits in there and they are spitting
out full grown humans, then people are getting into that compound somehow.
Somehow or at some time, more people showed up.”

He sat
back in his chair and mumbled. “Meeting time!” he yelled. Everyone gathered
around him. “I’m getting a little tired of this stuff,” he said. “I’m going to
go meet with Rob and his crew tomorrow morning. I think the militia has been
growing their numbers over the past week. I would venture to say they had
people show up from out of town and they expect more.”

Mark
looked at him and spoke. “That would explain why they still have the attitude.
They are trying to hold on as long as they can until their entire group comes
in. There’s no telling how many are on the way or how soon.”

“My point
exactly,” said Roger. Everyone looked around at each other. They wanted to ask
but knew the answer. The fight wasn’t over.

Roger sat
for a minute more. He looked at Mark and asked him if he would join him to go
meet with Rob and Brad in the morning. Mark slowly nodded, “I think I better.
If you’re thinking about what I’m thinking about then ya, I better go too.”

“Ok, it’s
settled.” Roger called Rob and set up the meeting. They would have to take that
compound and disband the militia before any more of them arrived or they would
have to leave the area themselves and that wasn’t an option.

They
arrived for the meeting just outside of town. Rob, Brad and two more guys met
them there. They sat down to talk about the militia and Haliday mentioned what
he thought was happening. Brad looked at Roger. “I think you’re right. I’ve
seen a couple of cars the past few days in town that I don’t really remember
being there. Plug wires were missing, so not sure if they run or not, but one
had Ohio plates on it.”

Brad
finished speaking. “They must have come in, parked and then snuck in. No one
had really been watching the whole compound until last night. We just watched
the main gates and admin building. This poses a big problem for us.”

Rob shook
his head. “We’re in deep, real deep.”

“And you
don’t have a paddle,” Roger added. “However, this is what we are going to do.
Take notes.”

Haliday
and Mark spent eight hours covering everything they would need to gather as far
as equipment went and what the plan was. They got a good count of how many
people they had to work with and what types of firearms. They wrapped up the
meeting and set the assault plan in motion. They would play it by ear as to
when it would begin because everyone had preparations to make. Haliday and Mark
went home and explained it to the group. Only Haliday and Mark would be
involved, everyone else would be staying put.

Rob had
his people keep a closer eye out on the compound. They noticed that same night
that there was indeed another group of people who snuck into the compound. It
looked like it was two adults and a younger child around 12 years old. Brad and
a few others had taken it upon themselves to check and mark the vehicles in the
area so they knew which ones had been there and which ones were new.

Haliday
told them to use chalk and mark the inside of a tire so it wasn’t obvious. They
could double up by placing a small stone just under a tire. If the first number
in the license plate was an even number it went under the drivers front tire,
if it was odd it went under the passenger front tire.

They had
remembered the newer vehicles that popped up and checked them out. With the
help of the auto parts store, they were able to get two of the three running
and confiscated them. They would use them for now and then return them if they
could convince the owners to leave.

The next
48 hours were spent on preparing for the assault. Brad had brought out groups
of people who were given a crash course on tactics they would need to employ
during the assault. Some basics on cover, fire, escape and evade. Not nearly
enough training, but more than any of them had ever had.

The
exception was that Brad was able to find five veterans and three police
officers in the group to help them out and take on roles as squad leaders. One
of the police officers whose name was Chuck had formal SRT training and picked
a few guys to help with building entry. There would be two teams for building
entry.

After the
initial assault, Mark would take over the main assault group while Haliday and
Chuck split off with the two entry teams to do the building checks. Once they
cleared the buildings another guy was assigned to lock them down. It was as
simple as locking the door and then breaking a key off in the tumblers. They
had a locksmith who could open them later.

They had
found some more tractors to use and took them over to the metal fabrication
shops in the area for armoring. They would armor the driver’s front and the
buckets or dozer blades. These were only going to be used for the assault. Just
enough to get some guys in and breach one side of the compound. The south end
was fairly accessible, but most of the people and buildings were all at the
north side of the airport.

They went
through again and picked out the best hunters they could find. Each was
assigned an area of the compound to cover. They were also each assigned
spotters to watch in the area for any surprises or attacks from the rear. They
had no idea who might try to sneak up behind them or even if they would.

Brad had
a stock full of tannerite targets. He asked Roger what they could do with them.
“Easy,” Roger said. “You lay a piece of scotch tape down, a line of heavy
finishing nails on the tape and wrap it around the can of tannerite. Use the
giant slingshot and launch them into the compound. The hunters will have a
target full of flechettes to fire on.”

“The
militia won’t want to touch them or come close after a few go off. Try and
launch a bunch simultaneously and have the guys shoot them simultaneously as
well. That will be a huge psychological kick in the pants. After word gets out
when one lands near someone they’ll want to leave.”

Brad
looked at him, “You’re a sick man.”

“Guerilla
warfare Brad, that’s all it is. The days of taking twenty paces and dueling
with pistols ended a while ago,” he replied.

They
wrangled up as many tires as they could. They placed them around the outside of
the compound in stacks. The militia laughed at them. Those things wouldn’t stop
a .22 round was what they were thinking. What they didn’t know was that these
would be lit on fire to create a smoke screen to help block some of their activities
and to smoke out the militia as much as possible.

Haliday
had them gather up bricks from the brickyard and use those to reinforce some of
their fighting positions around the compound. He also had them place a good
number of spike strips along the roads so any vehicles making a run for it
would get flat tires. They would let people go, but would have to make their
point so the militia would know it was over and they would be expected to
disband completely.

Roger
made sure that the guys that would be entering the compound and buildings had
mirrors to use, these were simple contraptions made of compact mirrors from the
cosmetic counter of the drug store, shortened broom sticks and duct tape.
Simple, effective and cheap. Easily tossed aside or thrown away with no bother
of how much they had cost.

Haliday
covered clothing with the guys. “Make sure you do not wear any camo. We can not
have anyone getting hit by friendly fire. You have all seen that they wear the
Russian camo and know what it looks like. Wear plain black or regular clothes.
Make sure they are loose enough to give when you move, but tight enough so they
do not get caught on stuff. Your shoes are important as well. Boots with ankle
support are the best option, avoid tennis shoes.”

“Everybody
gather around me,” Haliday said. “I’m going to cover the rules of engagement.
No children are to be fired upon unless they are actively firing on you. Anyone
else that is armed and engaged is fair game. If they drop their weapons and
surrender, you zip tie them behind their backs. We shoot to neutralize the
threat.”