Hell in the Homeland (12 page)

The DHS had caught him and his family and threatened to torture and kill his whole family if he didn’t become a spy for them. They took his youngest daughter and held her until he helped them spy on the local gangs. When he reported John’s activities and the involvement of the military, they started paying him and let him see his daughter. They were very interested in Bob and the Ensign and coached the Pastor how to get intelligence without raising suspicion.

The Pastor left his house and drove to the designated meeting place about a mile off Highway 43 north of Axis. He pulled off on a dirt road and into a barn where the DHS agent was waiting on him. He passed on the information about the attack on Mobile, got his reward and quickly got back on the road. What he didn’t notice was that two of his trusted men had followed him.

***

Major Johnson and his men had come up with a very simple plan to send a major force out to eliminate a fictitious gang that had attacked several patrols since the meeting with Deke. Of course, those patrols had not been attacked, but in fact were part of Johnson’s team. Deke had been pissed when told that five ten man patrols had been attacked with total losses. He demanded that Major Johnson eliminate the ones responsible. He told Johnson to kill them and hang every one of them on trees on the road back to Mobile as a warning to the other gangs.

Johnson’s men had recruited over five hundred fifty additional men to join them in their new adventure. Under the guise of getting the force together to attack the rogue gang, the team had a convoy of trucks, armored cars, and Humvees loaded to the ceiling with weapons, ammo, food and gear needed to survive until they were established in the new land. They planned to leave immediately.

***

It was just after noon and Gus saw all of the plans coming together. Without any fanfare all of the friendly groups except the Pastor’s had moved to the real staging areas. None of them knew that the attack was actually planned for that night to keep the mole from alerting the DHS. The Marines had a senior officer and five sergeants assigned to each group. They spent the afternoon going over the battle plans while their leaders attended to the wedding and the mole.

Bob had brought John back from the short trip and parked behind the barn. They walked into the meeting room just in time for the last strategy meeting. Bob filled them in on the Military's plans at the last minute for operations security.

He said, “It’s not that we don’t trust you, but its need to know and you didn’t need to know. We must achieve total surprise to make this go off with few casualties. I know we can accomplish our objectives, but I don’t want to sacrifice mine or your men.”

Several of the leaders noticed that the Pastor wasn’t in the meeting. John heard the buzz and said, “The Pastor has been delayed and Bob will fill him in when he gets here.”

Bob told them that the plan had been refined and that George would start the attacks on the DHS patrols at about dusk today. The room started to buzz.

“Yes, today. We planned this all along and soon you will know why, but not now.”

He told them, “First the Gerald R. Ford will supply F-18s to take out all enemy aircraft and communications. Second, six Apaches will take out the guard towers at both the Compound and Relocation Camp. When that is completed, they will give cover for the trucks filled with C4 to get next to the troop barracks. After those are destroyed, they will assist in mopping up any stragglers. Third, the Navy moved a team of underwater demolition experts to Mobile Bay to take out the Missile Frigate and then Apaches will take out the gunboats at about eleven o’clock. Finally, the attacks on the Compound and the Relocation Camp will be conducted at the same time, at midnight." Bob went on to tell the team about the multiple assignments that the various military teams would secure.”

Scott said, “Not much left for us to do, but to mop up and try to capture the officers who are in charge of these hell holes.”

Bob said, “I’m glad you said that! We would like to capture some of the leaders and put them on trial for treason. Most of the Command will be taken out by the F-18s during the first strikes; however, we would still like to catch a few. They will be wearing army style uniforms with army rank. The highest civilian leader is Deke Jones who is the field marshal for Alabama. He is from the Mobile area and played football at Vigor High School."

Steve asked, “The football player from the late nineties? Is he the same one who travelled the world denouncing our military and having dinner at Hugo Chavez’s palace?”

“Yes, the same jerk who hated his country, became a friend of the president and helped him get elected."

Gus said, “I don’t remember him having any military or government service. He’d better hope he picked some strong advisors to help run and protect Alabama.”

Bob replied, “He is a mess. Even though he has credible military men at his command, he won’t listen to their advice. That is good for us since we will be attacking his stronghold. Let’s forget about Deke for a minute; we have presents for everyone.”

Several soldiers brought bulletproof vests, grenade launchers, LAW rockets and assorted grenades into the meeting.

John said, “Come on up and take a look. Uncle Sam has brought some gear that should protect us and give us greater firepower. Make sure everyone has a bulletproof vest, helmet and plenty of grenades.”

Steve replied, “I didn’t think they would trust a bunch of rednecks like us with the good stuff.”

Everyone in the room broke out laughing. They laughed more than one would have thought at the kidding. John knew that the laughter was a way to make fun of the situation and relieve some stress. He was afraid that many of these men and women would not come back alive.

There was a commotion at the back of the room and the Pastor was shoved into the barn. His two right hand men had his hands tied behind his back and pushed him to the front of the room.

One of them said, “John, we caught this bastard meeting with the DHS and we think that he has been meeting with them for quite a while.”

John thanked the men and replied, “We were suspicious of him for several weeks. We set a trap and he took the bait. We planned to arrest him today after this meeting. Well, Pastor, what do you have to say for yourself?”

The Pastor wouldn’t make eye contact and just hung his head down.

Bob said, “We will deal with him later; I need to bring you two up to speed.”

Bob only asked them to go back home and wait for orders. He strongly suggested that they find any other spies and deal with them before the upcoming attack. They thanked Bob and John and then left for their camp.

John said, “Good move. We can’t fully trust them for a while. I would love to have their firepower, but would hate to get shot in the back.”

Gus said, “You never know who to trust do you buddy? Speaking of which, when you head to the house a whole bunch of women talked Beth into marrying you today. I wasn’t supposed to tell you, but I figured that you might want to wash your face and put these clothes on. Oops, here is the ring for Beth. I got it in a jewelry store, but she doesn’t need to know that you didn’t pick it out.”

John gave Gus a bear hug and pulled some clothes from a nearby stall. He reached in the pants pocket and pulled out a bigger diamond.

“Gus, do you really think a bunch of women can out smart Big John?”

“No John, but you’d better damn well let them think they did.”

While John finished up with Bob and got dressed, Gus scrambled to find another preacher. He was sneaking around to the visiting group’s leaders when he found one who had been a Baptist preacher before TSHTF. He was very happy to perform the ceremony.

The last of the wedding decorations were put in place during the briefing. The ladies had worked hard with very little to work with to make this a beautiful wedding. Shirley and the other cooks had prepared a great meal and Steve had chilled the champagne.               Poor Gus had to explain to Beth that the attack had been moved up to that very night. Beth took the news rather well in front of Gus, then went to her room and cried for a few minutes.

Ann heard her sobbing and asked, “Are you okay? What could be the matter on this great day?”

Beth told her about the change in plans and then cried for another minute.

“Beth, you have found your true love, share every minute with him like it is your last minute on earth and your love will always stay alive and strong. John may not be my cup of tea, but you know he is worth the effort and will be true to you the rest of your lives.”

Beth said, “But tonight could be the rest of our lives.”

Ann replied, “Now stop blubbering and get dressed. Your man will be dragged out to the Preacher any minute.”

***

Bob brought John to the back of the house still discussing the day’s events when they turned the corner and saw the crowd around the deck. He saw Beth standing with Janet and Gus on the deck with another guy that he did not recognize. Gus waved for John to join them on the deck.

John said, “It looks like someone is getting married, Beth. I wonder who it could be?"

Beth gave him a hug and a kiss and replied, “We are. Now stop acting like you don’t know anything about this wedding.”

“Now darling, this is a complete surprise, but a very good surprise.”

“Liar!”

The wedding was conducted on the back deck, which was just large enough to hold the wedding party. The friends and family were seated in chairs around the deck. Gus gave the bride away and the preacher started the wedding. Several people asked why the Pastor wasn’t performing the wedding and were told that his truck had broken down.

When John put the large diamond ring on Beth’s hand, she gasped and said, “So the world had to come to an end for me to get a huge diamond.”

They kissed and the preacher introduced them, “This is Mr. and Mrs. John Harris.”

***

              The reception and dinner lasted for two hours and John and Beth ate a light meal and danced. The entire camp and visitors were excited about the first wedding since TSHTF. Gus and several of the guys told Beth to name their first child after them. Beth was already pregnant for several weeks, but did not know. John and Beth finally got away from the crowd and went to their room. Beth ripped his clothes off and made passionate love with John. She knew that this could be their last night together and wanted it to be the best of his life. They fell asleep until Ann knocking on their door rudely interrupted them.

“Wake up sleepy heads, it’s time to kill the bad guys and y’all were making enough noise in there to wake the dead. Beth, did Little John live up to your expectations?”

A shoe hit the door and Ann laughed all the way down the hall.

              George started the attacks on the DHS patrols and roadblocks at seven o’clock at ten different locations spread out from lower Mississippi through southern Alabama over to Pensacola. The actions were meant to harass the DHS and kill many of them, but not to wipe them out. George wanted each DHS unit to scream as loud as possible for reinforcements. They would hit, run and hit them again to draw as many of the DHS out of the Compound as possible so the Apaches could strafe them to pieces.

George stayed in touch with each group by radio and had to remind the team several times not to kill too many of the DHS at one time.

He radioed Bob and said, “Bob, these DHS thugs are unorganized and not putting up much resistance. My team is kicking their asses with little resistance.”

Bob replied, “Don’t get too cocky; pride goes before a fall.”

***

              At nine o’clock Scott reported that there were major movements going on at the west end of the compound. His team moved as close as possible to get a better view of the movement. They saw over a hundred vehicles lining up in a convoy and hundreds of men loading their gear into trucks, armored cars and Humvees. This looked more like a relocation of forces.

Scott called Bob and said, “Something's fishy at this end of the compound. I expected fifty to a hundred men to mobilize and head out to help the patrols, but this looks like a major movement of manpower. I wonder if they are heading to the Relocation Camp to reinforce them. I will keep you posted and I’d warm up the Apaches just in case we can catch them out in the open.”

Bob responded, “It’s too early to deal with this group unless forced to attack. If they head southeast we will attack, if not we wait and see.”

***

Major Johnson looked at his watch and said to his captain, “It's ten forty-five, take us to this side of Slidell and we will rest for the night then go through Baton Rouge in the daylight.”

“Sir, the convoy is ready, the men are ready and we can move out of the Compound at your command.”

Major Johnson replied, “Captain, give the order to leave the compound.”

He then got in his Humvee and prepared to leave. The convoy cleared the gates and barreled away from the compound heading west on Airport Boulevard towards Mississippi. He planned to head over to Highway 63 in Mississippi, head south to Highway 10 and head on out to Texas. His DHS intelligence covering the southwest pointed out several communities that were in relatively good shape and had not been taken over by the DHS.

Port Arthur, Austin and Flagstaff were the cities that had fared the best after the attacks. Major Johnson preferred Port Arthur because it was on the gulf coast and was on a river that had a deep-water port. No one in the convoy noticed the helicopters following them from a few miles behind them.

***

              The Relocation Camp had several buildings inside of the double fence line. The location had been a major warehousing complex. The prisoners were kept in the six largest warehouses with only minimum security. The walls were eight inches thick and the guard towers had machine guns. There was no way unarmed people were going to get out of the camp. Each warehouse had thousands of bunk beds, five-gallon slop buckets and little else. These were holding pens until the people could be relocated to the planned labor camps.

              The EMPs had knocked out the electricity at the labor camps so there was no need for the labor until the engineers repaired the power plants. The good news was that the warehouse walls should protect the prisoners during the attack to free them. Bob was afraid that the guards would try to massacre the prisoners when they realized they were being overrun.

The plan was to attack one side of the Relocation Camp with only half the attacking force in order to get the DHS to send reinforcements from the Compound. Apaches would follow the convoy and eliminate the convoy before it got to the Camp. Then John’s men would attack and overrun the camp and free the prisoners. Bob expected to lose twenty percent of the prisoners if there was a major firefight inside the warehouses, but saw no other way to take the camp and free them.

The attack began with Meg’s snipers picking off as many of the guards as possible before the main attack, which gave the prisoners time to take cover. Meg and Alice had eight other snipers on their team. They had the Camp surrounded and were using night vision telescopes to pick off guard after guard. It only took ten minutes to decimate the guards stationed in the watchtowers.

Meg looked up at Alice and saw a big grin on her face each time she killed a guard.

“You really enjoy killing these scumbags, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. I think back to being captured by those damned drug running bastards and pretend that I am killing them.”

“Bad luck for these SOBs. Most are worthless outlaws paid by the DHS to rob and rape the same people they were robbing and raping for free before the SHTF.”

John's team then attacked the East end of the Relocation camp by ramming several trucks through the fence. This made an opening for John’s force to flood through to attack the center of the Camp.

John told Marvin, “Take your men to the mess hall and clear it out and the admin building. I’ll take the barracks and the command center.”

Marvin said, “No prisoners accept high ranking officers and no quarter given! We will make you proud.”

John called Bob, “These thugs are lightly armed and there doesn’t appear to be many in reserve. Deke will have to send reinforcements if he wants to try to keep control of the Camp.”

Bob replied, “His ego won’t allow for him to lose the Relocation Camp.”

As expected, it only took fifteen minutes for Deke to send armed Humvees and several trucks full of men to reinforce the Camp. Deke also sent five helicopter gunships to cover the reinforcements as they counterattacked. The convoy only got about two miles from the Compound before the Army Apaches began strafing them. The DHS helicopters flew towards the convoy to protect them when all hell broke loose from above the convoy. The Navy F-18s blew them out of the sky from two miles away. Fire and wreckage rained down from the sky. One of the gunships fell in the middle of the convoy and destroyed four trucks carrying sixty DHS thugs. The fuel from the chopper was on fire when it rained down on the men and burned them alive.

              Marvin had fifty men and women in his group to secure the section given to him. Half were regular army and half civilian recruits. He sent the army men to tackle the admin building and he took the rest to secure the mess hall.

“Karen, take five men with you and guard the back door to prevent any DHS from escaping while we enter and kill all of the bastards. Shoot anyone who tries to come out the door.”

Marvin tossed a couple of flash-bang grenades through a window and led the charge through the door with his M4 blazing away. He killed five thugs before his team got inside. There was an intense firefight, but the enemy was disorganized, didn’t take cover, shot wildly and had very few hits. Marvin was hit in the chest and knocked down. He recovered quickly and rejoined the fight. He thought, “Thank God for the flak jackets” and kept firing. His team quickly cleared the main dining room and started on the kitchen and supply rooms when they heard shots from the back door.

The DHS thugs came running out the door and ran right into the trap. There was a brief shootout, but the thugs were mowed down to a man. The last three raised their hands a little too late and died begging for life.

Karen yelled, “Cease fire! They are trying to surrender!"

Mary replied, “Too late, they are dead and good riddance. Karen, we are here to kill them, not to save them.”

Karen turned and looked at Marvin and said, “We won that battle,” then she fell to her knees and passed out.

Marvin saw the blood on her shoulder and leg. He yelled, “Get a medic; man down.”

Pat checked the wounds and held pressure on the leg wound, which had been bleeding profusely. She could not stop the bleeding and continued to yell for a medic. Karen died before the medic arrived.

              The command center only had a few men left to man the radio and they were burning documents when John and his team broke through the doors. The flash-bangs dazed the thugs and allowed John to capture all, but one of them because he was a dumbass and tried to shoot John with a hidden pistol.

“John, look behind you!”

John ducked, turned and fired his .45 at the man who was trying to kill him. The thug missed when John ducked and shot again. John felt a blow to his chest and fell, but fired on the way down. John shot again and hit the thug in the middle of his forehead. Blood, brains and bone sprayed out the back of his head and splattered on the wall.

“Damn, John, you cut that close. Do you always give the bad guy the first two shots?”

“Hell no, I never try to give them the first shot. I do think I’ll have to check my underwear. That scared the shit out of me. This war shit is for the young! Thank God and the Army for these flak jackets.”

              At midnight, the Navy began its attacks. F-18s took out all of the aircraft that the DHS had around Mobile. It was a lopsided battle with no losses for the Navy and complete destruction for the DHS. The Seal Team seized the Frigate without any losses. The helicopter gunships took out all of the gunboats and began the attacks on the Compound and the Relocation Camp. Bob then ordered the snipers and trucks into action.

              Scott took two men with satchel charges to bury the doors at the south end of the massive underground bunker. Jim took his men to the north end. Jim and his men had no issues, set the charges and set up behind a berm seventy-five yards from the doors to make sure no one disabled the charges. Scott’s team had just placed the first charge when twenty DHS thugs charged out of the remaining door, which was a hundred feet ahead of them. His team hit the ground firing at the DHS and surprised them. Bullets were hitting all around Scott, he felt one hit his back and another hit his butt. He grabbed a grenade and pitched it at the DHS and a few seconds later the explosion pitched one guy through the air. The firing abruptly stopped and Scott’s men came over to him.

“You set the last charge and you help me behind that truck so we can watch both doors. I’m not bleeding a lot, so take care of business.”

Both Teams watched safely as the bombs blew the compound entrances closed. The rubble was at least ten feet deep. No troops would be able to get out for several hours.

Scott’s ass felt like a huge yellow jacket had stung him, but he felt good about the successful capture of the men below ground. Little did he know, all but a handful of the men had either left with Major Johnson or were in the barracks.

The Apaches thundered in at ground level firing missiles into each of the guard towers. They made three passes to get all eight of the towers. On the third pass, the enemy fired a stinger ground to air missile at the last chopper. Scott saw bright white flares pop out of the back of the chopper and the missile detonated when it hit one of the flares. The explosion was too close to the chopper and a fragment hit the tail rotator. The chopper started spinning and then hit the ground very hard. There was no explosion, but Scott was sure the crew was injured.

Scott yelled, “Guys, let’s go help the crew before the thugs get to them.”

“But Scott, you are injured.”

“I’ll live a long life, but these men look like they need some help and protection.”

Several more stingers were fired which scared the Apaches off. A squad of DHS headed for the downed chopper. Jim’s team began firing on them and pinned them down so Scott’s team could go to the aid of the downed pilots. Scott’s men got to the chopper while Scott helped pin the thugs down. The chopper pilots were shaken up, but otherwise okay.

Bill drove the lead truck in the ten-truck convoy full of explosives. He thought it funny that they were going to use terrorist tactics against the DHS and were the good guys. Bill directed his five trucks to his targets while Imelda handled the remaining bomb loaded vehicles. They were getting a few rounds shot at them, but their trucks had DHS markings so they were thought to be troops coming to reinforce against the attack. They parked the trucks beside their targets, got out and headed to the safety of a retention pond in the center of the Compound. They timed their escape with the explosions that sealed the underground bunker.

They weren’t noticed for the hundred yards as they made their escape. When they came around the last building, they saw the downed chopper and ran over to assist. Bill was in the lead with Ginny and Mary on his tailwhen he saw the enemy behind a couple cars. They were firing at the downed chopper. Bill saw that they had no cover and the enemy was just seconds from spotting his team. They charged and begun firing.