Against the Grain (13 page)

“Sure, but why?”
 

“Visibility and mobility,” I answered. “Again, if we had more people, I’d have a main gunner standing up against the roll bar, as it is, I can climb up there in an emergency. Not having someone there in the lead vehicle is damn near over the line of recklessly dangerous, but there’s nothing we can do about it”.

“What about taking one less truck, or how about having Cary and Julie drive?” Andrew asked.

“The problem with taking only two trucks total is space for everyone and gear in only one on the way back,” I answered him.

“It’d just be us four,” he said motioning to the small group of us.

Un-swayed, I continued on. “Yes, but it would be even more of a problem if one of the trucks breaks down. We have to have the redundancy of two rigs to leave any margin for error. As far as two more drivers from here, we can’t leave this place that short handed… short term or long term.”

That introduced a new, somber dose of reality to the situation.   

“Let’s talk sectors,” I began again, undaunted by their silence and pulling out my pen and pad of paper. “Everybody get to where you can see this.” I began to draw three boxes in a row with lines extending out from them.

“This is what a three vehicle convoy’s security sectors should look like…” I tore out the page and passed it around. “Now compare it to what we do have.” I passed a new sketch to them. “What do you see?”  

“We have no one covering the left side at all,” Breanne answered.

“And…?” I prompted.

“No overlapping fields of fire,” Derek supplied, showing that his early days in the military weren’t completely forgotten.

“Right on both counts. How do we fix it?”

“We need more people,” Andrew insightfully pointed out after a few long seconds had passed.

“Yup… and I really don’t have a good answer for this. The best thing I’ve come up with is that I play the main gunner in the lead rig, and Breanne sits behind Derek in the Dodge to cover the left side, but that leaves no navigation or driving help, and overloads the drivers on comms.”  

Silence returned.

“We need more people,” Andrew repeated again.

“And where do we get them from?" I asked, slightly frustrated with his imitation of a parrot.

“What about the Fossels or Janes?” Jake asked, bringing up the two sets of neighbors down the road.

“I did think of them, but they have even less people than we do and probably couldn’t and wouldn’t spare any. Plus, I don’t know them and can’t trust them to keep a cool head or act quickly in a bad situation.”

“Megan?” Andrew proposed.

“She has even less experience and is just getting settled in here,” Breanne answered for me. “Also, she’s a big help with the kids and if I’m going, I’d feel better if she were here to help Nick and my parents. How about Clint or Danielle? Wouldn’t they go if you asked?”

I of course had thought of my old friends, and I was again wishing things were different with them, but I did not want to talk about it, especially in front of the group.

“Yeah… but no,” I paused, then answered.

“Who?” Andrew asked.

“Nobody.”

“Hey, you’re showing us that we are screwed without more people and you seem to be sitting on some but won’t bring them in, what’s the deal?” He finally took some initiative by asking.  

“Trust me man, it’s not going to happen. It’s not even worth wasting our time talking about it,” I tried shutting the subject down one more time.

“I know there’s some bad history but…” Breanne pushed.  

“They are as short handed as anybody,” I cut her off, pleading with my eyes to move on.

“But you know some people that could help us out?” Andrew backed up his big sister.

“No, I don’t. I don’t know them anymore and they wouldn’t help me out with something like this. We’ll just have to figure something else out.”
 

“Well who are they anyway?” Derek interjected.

This was not going to get dropped until they had some sort of answer to satisfy them all. I’d have to thank Bre later for bringing it up.

“They’re just what’s left of a family that I used to know, that’s all. They used to do the type of stuff with me that I now do on my own.”
 

“Why, what happened?” Karen entered the fray.
 

Terrific… if they wanted the story then, they could get some of it, but I didn’t want them to question going out with me so I had to be careful in how I phrased it.

“One dead son and husband, one wounded father, a mother that couldn’t take the grief, and a whole lot of blame.”

“Oh,” someone stated flatly.
 

Clint’s son was my childhood best friend. He had met his wife Danielle while serving in the Army together and they got married at an old Grange Hall not far from here. We were all great friends, but she blamed me for what had happened, even though she was there too. Clint got shot and he had eventually healed up, and while he never had a bad thing to say to me, Danielle never did her healing.
  

“Well then why not Julie and Cary?” Jake finally came to my rescue. “You know they can drive.”

Cary had spent as much time as Andrew in his 4Runner, and Julie’s dad had been into the local drag racing scene back when there was such a thing. I had seen her drive a slingshot dragster better than all the other entries more than a few times.

“You know we’re willing to go if you need the help,” Julie again reassured me.

“I know and I appreciate it, but you guys are doing some important stuff around here and we just can’t deplete this place that much.”  Actually I needed them both to go, but I couldn’t be the one to ask it. I had already asked way too much… I sure wouldn’t complain if they simply insisted on going though.

“Screw it,”
Cary finally said, “we’re going.”

“Guys I’m already on the shit list for taking who I am away from here. I can’t take two more.”

“Its statistics at this point,” Julie lectured me. “If having us with you improves the chances of everyone coming back, then we are more valuable going than we are staying here. Besides, last night you said you would need up to six people and this would only make five.”

Cary
was nodding her agreement and Breanne and Karen both looked happy at the prospect.

“You guys work it out then…” I started sketching some notes on my pad and trying not to openly smile. “If we do this then here’s what it looks like. Drew, you’re in the back with Jake,” this news brought on a fist pump and high five between the two best friends, “
Cary you’re driving with me, and Julie has the Dodge. Derek, you take the front seat in the 4Runner and I’ll take the top spot.”

“This is your rodeo Hoss; I’ll go up top so you can run things down below,” Derek drawled.

I pulled him over to the side quickly in an illusion of a private conversation.

“The guy that is up there is target number one for anybody looking to shoot us up. You’ve got a family, I don’t.”

“You think all these people fighting to go follow you into a hail of bullets ain’t your family?” he asked plainly. “I’ll be just fine; you know I can handle it… Sir.”

He was a hard headed, pain in my ass and I knew he could do the job better than anybody.

“Damn it,” I muttered smiling, “I don’t need you to start giving me a rash of shit too… Fine, but if you’re up there, then you’re wearing plates.”

I had just one hard armor “bullet resistant” plate carrier that could withstand a heck of a lot of abuse… and I never wore it. I never even wore my “bullet proof vest” anymore as even the soft armor was too cumbersome when I was out moving around in the woods. It paid its way a while ago when I was trying to get out of the city, but now I had little use of it. I had to go back to my place anyway for supplies, so what was an extra twenty pounds to lug back here again anyway?
 

“Yeah that’s fine, thought I was done with SAPI a long time ago though,” Derek mused.

“We can do this with less people and keep you inside a rig you know,” I made one last push.  

“You’re out voted Bud,”
he turned away to rejoin the group.

Yeah if I don’t get shot by somebody first for taking half the town with me.

Chapter 13

I was actually pretty happy with the crew we had put together. If there were any more of a mixture of people, I would have had a heck of a time trying to figure out where everyone fit the best. As it was, it was already a process to look at the people going and the skill sets that each one brought to the table. Personalities, along with abilities and experiences, all needed to be taken into account.

If we had someone with a lot of off-roading experience, they may be a good choice for a driver. But if they were also a hot head, then they may be liable to not keep their cool and try to shoot instead of drive us out of a bad situation. And with shooters, do you select your best bulls eye shooter or do you put someone who can lay down semi aimed suppressive fire well enough to get you out of a kill zone? With who we had going, I could work with each person’s benefits and I was fairly happy with the arrangement. Only time would tell if I had made the right choices though.  

After lining out who would be where, I had everyone physically get in the different trucks we’d be taking. I wanted to get everyone in the seats they’d actually be sitting in for nothing else than the familiarization of it. We would come back later and do the same thing again with the long guns each person would be carrying. I didn’t want the actual rolling convoy to be the first time they had pointed a gun out of the window of a truck that they used to go to work, school, or church in.
 

Before Sue could call us over to eat lunch, I had everyone gather again in the back yard area to go over the Cliff’s Notes version of convoy management. I wanted each person to know the basics, but I didn’t want to overload them with too much information to be thinking about either. I would go over everything much more in depth with Breanne later.
 

“Shooters, lets talk for a minute,” I went back into instructor mode. “Shooting from a truck that is moving down a bumpy road is not exactly easy. Perfect aimed shots are going to be basically non-existent. We are looking at providing suppressive fire to get their heads down, so we can get through. That’s basically it. I’d like to get everybody in a truck with someone driving, set up some stationary targets and see what your hits versus rounds fired ratio looks like, but we don’t have the resources, so just think about that for a second,” I paused.

“It seems easy enough though right? Now imagine it with the driver putting their foot to the floor full of adrenaline to get out of a bad situation. The targets are now running or behind cover already, oh and people are shooting back at you from their non bumpy, not loud and not dusty ambush spot.”  

“What the hell can we do against that?” Jake wondered aloud.
 

Thankfully, I had an answer ready for him. “The trick is to not to waste rounds, but you will have to be on the trigger enough to make the hit. Don't fire as fast as you can pull the trigger, but don't take all day waiting for your perfect sh
ot. Its part timing, part skill and part blind luck. Use what you know and while we are driving, practice picking out targets like signs and trees and track them with your sights. You’ll get a feel for it eventually.”

“Drivers, remember what I said your job was?” I asked the group, partly to see if Julie and Cary had been paying attention before it had been decided that they would be joining us.

“Driving,” Karen answered for all three.

“Right. If we start taking incoming rounds, and you can keep moving, then keep moving. If the radiator is hit and blowing steam, keep going. If you lose a tire, drive out on rims.
 You are how we get out of a bad spot, got it?” I was harping on the point for a good reason. I, we all, needed them to get it into their heads.  

“Yeah we’ve got it,” Julie confirmed.

Say that now, but what happens in the heat of the moment? Here’s hoping cooler heads prevail. This next bit was not going to be much fun.

“Alright, there is one more thing I want us all to talk about, priorities. While traveling together, what is our priority?”

“Getting to their place at Trapper Lake,” Andrew quickly fell into my philosophical trap.  

“At what cost?” I posed. “Is the priority to get Karen’s Suburban with the two kids out there even at the cost of some of us not making it there, or back home here? If we get hit on the road and one rig gets cut off, and we don’t see a way to help the people in that truck, do we keep going?”

“Wait, you’d just leave us there?” Jake voiced his surprise after jumping to a conclusion.  

“I know what I’d do, but I want to hear all your thoughts first. This is not a policy I will dictate.” I really did know what I would do, but I wanted to get their heads in the game and for them to all see the bigger picture at the same time.

I waited, but there was no answer so I tried a different tact.  “A few minutes ago I was talking about dispersion and how we want to be within twenty five to fifty yards of each other. Why is that?” I prompted.

“Close enough to cover each other, but far enough that we don’t have an accident or have two trucks go down from one problem. It leaves us a safe space, a buffer,” Breanne answered.

“Exactly; close enough to help, but far enough that if one gets hit, at least its only one of us,” I summarized coldly.  “So again, what do we do in that case?”

“We go back to help,” Julie stated flatly with a hint of disgust at my question.
 

“Even if that means more of us might not make it?” I prompted again.

“Yes,” Julie answered quickly again, but looking a little less sure this time.

“And everyone agrees with that?” I looked at each member of the group assembled around the overgrown grassy back yard. Their nodding heads told me what I needed to know. “Good, I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.”
  

Right about then Sue thankfully came out the door announcing that the fried egg on toast sandwiches for lunch were ready and gave us a welcome break. We needed to keep going, and I knew that there was a ton of information that I wouldn’t even get to, but I had a real fear of overloading everyone too.

I had come to the conclusion that it was better to get them all thinking, and then practice a few dry runs, after we ate of course. Then they could all head to their duties around the houses and I could finish off the route planning. Of course at some point I also needed to get back to my place to refit for this little venture. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be getting much sleep in the next few days.

“Tha
nks Sue,” I said to our hostess and then turned back to the group. “One last thing before we go, everyone is going to need to pack a bag for the trip. We are not going to be overloading ourselves with luggage though, so keep it simple. Let’s plan enough food for three or four days. Don’t get all weird about changing your clothes everyday, but you’ll want to pack some layers. The land changes from these woods and rocks to a virtual scrub desert about half way out there. It gets hot, it gets cold, it gets dry, and it could get wet. We don’t exactly have a weather report so I can’t tell you what to expect.”

“The Meehan’s homestead sits off of
Trapper Lake. We’ll load up on water, but we should be able to re-supply once we get there. I also want to take some of David’s fishing gear. Trout or bass would be a nice change of menu I think.”

“Three or four days? It’s sixty miles away, that’s like two hours max,” Jake questioned.

“It
was
two hours,” I corrected him. “And that was driving seventy on the open highway. We have no clue what the roads are like and we won’t be doing a straight shot out there anyway. Plus, add any time we stay while we’re there, we need to be able to feed ourselves, and then again on the return trip. So yes, three or four days.”

“What about camo? What should we wear?” Jake was full of questions, which I was actually glad of… for now.

Half this stuff was second nature to me and he was helping me remember that they were all new to this type of thing. Of course that reminder was not doing much for my level of confidence in the decision to take an inexperienced crew out on something like this.

“What are you trying to blend into?” I asked Jake in return, which bought me a puzzled look from him. “If we were going to take a small group out to walk quietly in the woods and stalk or hunt, that’s one thing. But a big group in trucks, traveling across changing terrain… just wear something comfortable that you can layer if gets cold or hot. We aren’t going to be getting in and out of the trucks and shouldn’t have to actually
do
a whole lot, but clothes that are tough is better than something that will snag and rip easily. At the very least, go with dull earth tone colors and no bright neon from the eighties.”

With that said, I switched gears one last time. “Drew and Derek, you guys get with the drivers and work with David to get your trucks set up with radios, spare tires, jacks, tow chains, fuel…everything. Right now I want to leave in two days, at say… seven in the morning.”

“Seven AM? Don’t you mean PM?” Jake asked... again.

“Why? You have enough NVDs and thermals for everybody?” I smiled
mischievous
ly.

“Say what?”

“If we drive when it’s dark, without night vision we have to use our headlights. Headlights are target indicators to people out there that we can’t see... because it’s dark out. Headlights let other people know we’re coming, and gives them something to shoot at. If we go in the daytime, more people will be awake, but we will have as good a chance at seeing them as they have at seeing us,” I explained.

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Jake said, looking like he was still trying to figure out what it was I had just said.

“Going at night does seem like a good idea at first, but you just have to look at these things from both sides.” I concluded, although I still didn’t want to dissuade him from speaking up in the future so I added, “You’re thinking, that’s a good thing, keep it up. For now, let’s get some food and get back to work.”
 

After everyone filed into the house to dish up their food, Breanne and I were the last ones left standing in the yard so I took advantage of our relative privacy to have one last quick exchange on the matter.

“Bre, about the whole leaving anybody behind thing, if my lead truck gets hit or cut off for any reason and you and Karen can get out of there, then do it. It’s your job to get the rest of them to safety first, and if you can continue on, then that’s what you do. If you cant keep going forward, then turn back, but do not put anyone at risk to come help us.”

My frank direction made her visibly bristle, but she did shake her head in agreement and understanding.