“I see,” Turnbull said.
“But you know I have scouts too, because you killed some of them.”
“Again, nothing personal.”
“No, nothing personal.” Deloitte got up and extended his hand. Kelly stood and shook it.
“So, was I De Niro or Pacino today?” asked Turnbull.
“I don’t think Senator De Niro would approve of you appropriating his portrayal,” Deloitte replied. Then it occurred to him that in the movie, Pacino was the one who lived. He did not bring that up.
Instead, the colonel silently walked to the door and stepped out on the porch. He fit his soft cap over his short cropped hair.
Turnbull followed, picking up the M4 and hooking the sling to his gear so the weapon hung out of the way, but was still easily accessible.
Deloitte walked down the steps and behind him Turnbull walked out onto the planks of the porch.
“Colonel,” Turnbull said.
Deloitte stopped and turned around.
Turnbull saluted.
Deloitte stared for about a second, then came to attention and returned the salute. Then he turned back around and walked down the dusty driveway.
It was early morning when Davey Wohl handed back to Turnbull the cell phone Clay Deeds had provided. Around them in courthouse square, armed locals were assembling. Lots of men, and a few women. All readying for a fight. Others had slipped away north in the night. Some were just scared. The few remaining Tories had been impolitely invited to leave.
“The email’s sent, and then I got one back 20 minutes later. It’s on there. It’s coded,” Wohl said. He had driven out up through the Hoosier National Forest to near Bedford to get cell connectivity again, eluding patrols by sticking to back roads. He had sent the email Turnbull had written, with its long list of very specific requests, and had brought back the reply.
“Any trouble?” Turnbull asked, taking the iPhone and pulling up the reply email from his commander back in the United States.
“No, the roads are pretty empty. They aren’t patrolling much. Not yet at least.”
Turnbull reviewed the email after applying the decryption app.
“Mission approved. 0100 Local tomorrow. 38°17'39.6"N 86°41'14.6"W. Eliminate radar system vic Branchville Correctional Facility NLT 0030.”
“Great,” Turnbull grumbled. It was going to happen, if and only if his guys pulled off another raid. That was an unwelcome distraction, but a necessary one.
He quickly found the landing zone on his GPS map app – it was an empty field near the intersection of County Road 570 South and Country Road 85, about a mile south of a little hamlet called Birdseye, remote and hidden from hills but near two egress routes for the vehicles.
It was the radar site that was the sticking point. The area south of I-64 was still contested, and there were more military and civilian security forces the closer you got to the border. The prison looked like it was only a few miles away. But Turnbull understood. Obviously, no one in the red wanted being caught infiltrating the People’s Republic – that could spark the conventional war the negotiations were trying to avoid. So the radar station had to be down before the mission could happen.
Turnbull sent Wohl off to find Banks – it would be the Bretzville team that drew this mission. Then he set to studying the satellite map on his iPhone. After about ten minutes, he looked up and said to Lee Rogers, his supply guru, “I need a big truck, a lot of fertilizer and a buttload of propane canisters.”
Once south of I-64, they were in enemy territory again, or at least contested territory. Turnbull’s people didn’t generally operate that far south, and they had no real connection to the local guerrillas who did. They were on their own.
At 2330 hours, a panel truck driven by one of the Bretzville cell members came rumbling down Route 37, followed by an old pickup truck with a steel plate welded behind the cab and blocking the rear window. The old prison was a few miles south of St. Croix, where 37 crossed under I-64. The scouts had confirmed there was no check point. They proceeded south the six or so miles to the old Branchville Correctional Facility.
There had been eyes on the site since early afternoon – as soon as Banks got the mission he had reconnoitered the site from the dense woods to the east. There were about a dozen administrative buildings outside the 12’ high razor wire fence which surrounded the barracks that used to house the minimum security prisoners. A large parking lot, with several military trucks, fronted the fence where it bordered the open grassy field where the inmates used to take their recreation. The forest green radar trailers were set up there, about 15 meters from the fence, dishes spinning and their thick black cables snaking to the control rooms in the old guard house.
The PR’s prisoners were largely released by the pardons that followed the Split – since convicts were presumptively incarcerated as a result of some sort of oppression – and the ones from Branchville who had not been released outright had been transferred elsewhere. The site had been taken over by the PR military to provide radar surveillance of that section of the southern Indiana border, which lay a few miles to the immediate southeast along the route of the Ohio River.
Banks counted maybe 30 troops, with only a half dozen enlisted troops on what passed for guard duty at any given moment – they were often out of uniform. There was no evidence that NCOs were checking them – clearly, the command had not inspected it lately. There were no guard towers – the threat of getting sent to a real prison had usually been enough to keep the low-risk offenders from walking off – but there was a water tower on the southeast corner of the facility. The guards did not go up there, Banks noted it as he made his plans.
At night, there was pretty minimal activity. The radar dishes rotated, but there was not much else happening except the occasional guard walking about aimlessly. The barracks lights were still on, but that was it.
At 2343, the Bretzville team that Banks had deployed in the woods on the east side of the facility saw the truck’s lights as it and the pick-up turned off Route 37 and into the parking lot. There was no checkpoint outside the wire – there was one guard at the gate in the wire fence located on the southwest corner of the compound by the warehouse. Banks shook his head. What a cluster.
The truck cut its lights and pulled up along the fence parallel to the radar systems on the other side. The driver turned off the engine, got out of the cab, and hopped into the waiting pick-up. A guard walking patrol about 100 meters away inside the fence stared, puzzled. The pick-up turned around and sped out of the lot, the rear armor plate unnecessary since none of the guards had thought to open fire.
Banks glanced at his watch, which had been synched with the rest of the team. 2344 hours.
The intrigued guard started walking toward the truck parked just outside the fence line.
“Cover your ears,” Banks told his team.
At 2345, the truck was replaced by an orange fireball that engulfed the truck, the adjacent section of razor wire fence and the curious sentry. Banks and his troops were far enough away that it took a moment for the sound and blast wave to roar through their positon. It was about the loudest thing he had ever heard.
When Banks looked back up, the whole other side of the facility was a combination of dust and fire, with the cloud rising up above it all. Banks took out his radio.
“What do you see, over?”
Nothing.
“What do you see, over?” he shouted.
“I think I’m deaf,” came the response.
“Go around and tell me what you see, over!” cried Banks.
Up on the water tower, Banks’s observer stood up and slowly came around on the walkway until he was on the north side – he had wisely stayed on the south side so he couldn’t be seen while waiting and to shield him from the blast. On the north face, there were now several jagged holes in the tank spraying out water thanks to shrapnel from the vaporized truck. He looked down below at the target.