Director Woods’s security team was made up of ‘Black Panther’ members who had remained loyal to him since his Chicago voter intimidation days. Two of them were with him in the RTOC, dressed in the blue fatigue uniform of the Homeland Corps ‘blue shirts’ with tactical vests and M4 rifles slung from their fronts.
As Director Woods left the RTOC for the day, he headed down the corridor flanked by his two security guards, on his way to the elevator to the parking garage, where the rest of his detail awaited with the armored vehicles.
Suddenly, around the corner ahead of him stepped Lieutenant Jefferson, M4 rifle raised at the ready position. In a rapid succession of shots, the two security guards were gunned down, Jefferson advancing down the corridor to finish them with a shot to each of their heads. Director Woods stood between the two bodies, frozen and stunned.
Woods snapped out of it, “What the hell is this?! Stand down!”
Jefferson advanced towards him, rifle held in the ready position. Woods put his hands up defensively, but Jefferson jabbed the rifle muzzle into his mouth, smashing Woods’s front teeth. He followed up with a muzzle swipe to Woods’s temple, knocking him back against the wall, blood smeared across this forehead and running from his smashed mouth.
Woods’s defiant confidence evaporated, leaving just the cowering bully that he was. Leant against the wall, he held up a hand imploringly.
“Jefferson, wait, wait. You are one of us, you’re a brother. You’re a black man; you have to be on my side. We can take care of you. I was wrong about you,” said Woods, his tone wheedling.
“No Sir, I’m not like you, I’m an American. I’m a U.S. Army Ranger. My color is the color of my uniform. You, Sir, are a traitor, a coward and a disgrace. Your racism sickens me.”
Lieutenant Jefferson shot Director Woods twice in the chest, knocking him back against the wall. He shot him again through the forehead and Woods slumped to the ground, leaving a red stain across the wall as he slid down it.
Suddenly, two military police came round the corner, handguns drawn. Jefferson swung his weapon around, firing rapidly as the two MP’s ducked back round the corner into cover.
Then, he ran, desperate to get out of the building.
Chapter Sixteen
Jack drove his team hard. He had to get to the RV to be there to account for and organize his people. He took a direct route to the ERV, cross graining the generally north-south running terrain features and ridges as he moved west. They only paused for brief water rests and a couple of times for a little longer to eat what rations they had.
Jack could feel the exhaustion in him as he walked. His legs no longer had spring; he felt the leaden weight of them as he was walking uphill, the exhaustion embedded deeply in them.
As they continued to walk, they had to constantly snack on high energy foods. They were not hanging around, they were moving fast, and their blood sugar was always on the edge. A couple of times Jack felt his vision narrow and dim, and he had to eat something to get his blood sugar up. Hypoglycemia was the danger, and as soon as the sugar hit his bloodstream he felt himself come alive again.
Jack was amazed by Ned. He was older than Jack, but his endurance was impressive. However, the long march took its toll. As they were cresting a particularly nasty climb up what had seemed an endless slope to a ridge, the team sat down at the top to take a rest. They were some ten miles from their destination.
Ned was exhausted, mumbling and slightly incoherent. Jack tried to feed him an energy bar, passing pieces into his mouth. Ned sat there, trying to chew, and then he just let it all dribble out down his chin and over his shirt. Jack just couldn’t get him to take food on board.
However, Ned never gave up. Jack was exhausted, and would have found it hard enough to keep going without taking energy on board, but Ned never stopped.
Twenty four hours later his team walked into the ERV and was met by the security party.
Jack set up an OP over-watching the ERV itself, in case any of his teams had been captured and gave away the location. The OP included some guides who would meet incoming teams. They would be guided to a further checkpoint for accountability and then an assembly area one mile away.
Once at the assembly area they would be provided food and water and allowed to rest up.
Over the course of the next week, all of Jack’s teams trickled in, with the exception of those in the two pickups which had gone missing. Some had experienced adventures, pursued by Regime elements or drones, and had taken long diversions or been forced to lie up under the thermal ponchos, others were simply exhausted.
Jack decided to take a different approach with the Yankee patrol base. They were too far inside West Virginia, away from any realistic target areas, to carry out operations from here. He decided that they needed to rest up and plan their next move.
Jack set up a treatment center under Megan for the various wounded personnel, located tacked on to Yankee to make use of the people there to help with the healing and management of the wounded fighters.
He established his fire support platoon co-located with the fighting vehicles in a laager area. They were to be used as a quick reaction force for a mobile defense in case of a Regime incursion into the area.
He now dispersed the three 82nd squads to the three platoons and had each platoon set up a defensive patrol base dispersed around Yankee. This gave him a defensive screen round Yankee where the families and recovering wounded were being housed.
Once the defenses were set up, they went into a busy period of equipment and weapon cleaning and maintenance, as well as physical rest. They conducted a light patrolling program into the surrounding area.
Jack realized that to get back in the fight, he was going to have to move his forces back into a position where they could begin operations against the Regime again.
Two weeks later, Bill arrived. Jack was amazed. Jack had moved his TOC into a bunker he had had built just outside of Yankee, in order to be central to the defensive positions around the base. They grabbed some hot water from the central kitchen, made coffee, and walked up to his bunker where they sat inside on camp chairs by the light of a kerosene lamp.
They had a lot to talk about. Bill wanted to go over the after action reports from the recent combat, and Jack wanted news from the outside world. The big strategic question was about what was next for them.
The war against the Chinese was still ongoing west of the Rockies, with General Wall leading USPACOM. There were no significant breakthroughs to report either way from that theatre as yet. The demarcation line still held to the south with the Southern Federation, but there were rumblings of war.
“Listen Jack,” Bill said, “I want to get your buy in on a plan.”
“Ok, run it by me.”
“Remember the guy I sent to Texas?”
“Yea.”
“Ok, well they know all about your Company in Texas. Jack’s Juggernauts, aka the Mountain Men,” Bill chuckled. “You are famous, and very well regarded. I have been in negotiations and my guy reports that Texas is offering sanctuary to the families, on the basis that we move the Company to Texas. You will have to submit to operational control from the Federation chain of command and they will use you to further the Southern Federation’s military agenda.”
“You say ‘you’ — where do you fit in to this?”
“I would stay here, at the farm, and continue to run the network. Intelligence gathering.”
“I see,” said Jack, “but how do you feel about this? This is your Company, you created it, and we would no longer be fighting in Virginia?”