Hell in the Homeland (9 page)

              George’s team had been very successful over the past month in finding supplies and new recruits. They had also brought more than fifteen extra trucks back to the bunker for Bob’s men to use. The team would share food with those less fortunate if they appeared to be decent people. They found many groups who wanted to join the fight, but found just as many that wanted to be left alone. They supplied the groups that would join in the fight with improved firepower and plenty of food. They politely thanked the groups not interested in fighting and left them alone. They did not waste food or weapons on anyone who would not fight.

              The group at the bunker had swelled to over two hundred and fifty people with at least one hundred that were being trained for the attack force. There were another seventy people capable of handling rifles, standing guard duty and supplies foraging.

After they finished unloading the supplies for the Pastor’s group, the Pastor asked if that couple still wanted to get married.

George said, “They do, would you take a few hours and come to our camp to marry them?”

The Pastor agreed and George told him that he would call and give him a date and time.

The Pastor told George, “We have attacked two DHS patrols since we last saw you. One was in Florida and another one was in Mississippi. We killed thirteen and captured four vehicles and a lot of light weapons and ammo. They acted as if they were out on a Sunday drive and drove right into the ambush. We left a couple of dead motorcycle gang members at each ambush site to throw them off our trail. We also made sure to use only hunting rifles and pistols so the shell casings fit a rag-tag bunch of motorcycle bums.”

George patted him on the back and thanked him for learning so quickly.

The Pastor asked George, “When can you tell me more about the attack on the DHS compound?

George replied, “I don’t remember saying anything about attacking the compound.”

“Sorry, I just assumed that would be the plan since that’s where most of them are located.

George left and did not reply.

Sonny trained the Pastor’s group on how to handle the IED’s safely, how to hide them so they could not be easily seen and then how set them off remotely.

The Pastor told them about a large supply convoy that had come down Highway 65 the past two Wednesdays just after noon. The vehicles were all military type, but were mainly tractor-trailers with a few heavily armed Humvees. He thought that the IED’s would be used to take out a couple of the Humvees and then ambush the convoy and take the supplies.

George said, “As I mentioned, we are getting close to a major assault on the DHS so let’s clear the attack with John first.”

The Pastor said, “Just let me know as sons as possible, so we don’t miss a chance for some fat truckloads of food and supplies. I’m tired of the Sears catalog in the outhouse, if you know what I mean.”

George replied, “I never thought about that. John and I stocked enough supplies for a year and I really don’t want to use an outhouse or a pile of leaves.”

The Pastor asked, “Tell me about the attack. How soon and how will a small group like us attack such a larger force?”

Gus replied, “You just have to trust me for now.”

The Pastor was not pleased by the answer, but kept the disappointment off his face.

They laughed, shook hands and George’s team left.

George and Bill were in the lead truck heading back to the bunker discussing John and Beth’s upcoming wedding when they came to the top of a hill. Bill saw the stalled vehicles blocking the road first and hit the brakes, bringing the truck to a dead stop. Just as the truck stopped, bullets peppered the front of the truck and one crashed through the front window just missing Bill.

George said, “Yep, it was a good place to ambush someone.”

They quickly backed the convoy back over the hill to safety. There were only eleven people on George’s team and he did not want to go charging down the hill to lose even one of them. He sent Sonny and Jill to flank the bad guys on the left and Bill and Janet to handle the right side. He told them to take sniper rifles and pick the thugs off from long range and don’t take any chances.

George guessed that they were about three hundred yards away from the roadblock and eighty feet above the ambushers. This made for a very difficult shot even for an experienced marksman. The ambushers were shooting steadily at George’s position, but most of the bullets were falling short or going very high. There were a couple of long bursts from an automatic weapon, which resulted in bullets spread out over a hundred feet wide. He asked his team to take their sniper rifles, wait until the flanking team started shooting and then rain hell down on these bastards.

They patiently waited for approximately twenty minutes until they heard the first shot from the left flank. George quickly found his preselected target and squeezed the trigger. The guy fell behind a car. George saw several thugs hit and the rest scrambled for better cover when a stray bullet hit one of his team. The lady had raised up for a better view and was shot through the right eye and died instantly.

There were about ten thugs still able to return fire and the nearest cover was over a hundred yards from the roadblock. George couldn’t risk rushing them and lose more people. He radioed the flankers and told them to try to pick off any of the thugs that showed themselves, but to keep behind cover. He told them about Helen’s death and told them he would develop a plan.

Bill said, “We can just forget them and go back to the bunker before someone else gets killed. I’d hate to lose somebody fighting a bad bunch that we could just go around.”

Sonny replied, “We can’t leave them here to kill more innocent people who drive by this place.

Bill reluctantly agreed.

***

Back at the bunker, John and Bob were preparing the attack team for their first patrol to attack a DHS supply convoy. The plan was to drive up Highway 65 and get off at Atmore and swing down to the northern part of Pensacola, seek out a DHS convoy and wipe it out and steal the supplies.               The idea was to alternate between lower Mississippi and northern Florida to hurt the DHS, but to not get the Alabama DHS after them. This would not work forever, but Bob and John wanted to sharpen their team’s skills while weakening the government troops. This would help them prepare for the attack on the DHS compound and relocation camp. They would also scout for more people to join their team and build a credible army large enough to defeat their enemy.

***

They waited patiently until midnight when George felt they could sneak up on the ambushers without much chance of being seen by the enemy. It was a cloudy night with very little moonlight and George had found a dry wash that was about two feet deep and ran up to within twenty yards of the roadblock. George had recalled Sonny and Bill leaving the other two to watch for thugs trying to sneak up on them.

George told the team, “Sonny, Bill, and you two are going with me to crawl down the wash to ambush those bastards before they escape. I want all of you going with me to put gloves on and wrap some extra cloth around your knees. We will be crawling over a bunch of rocks to get to these jerks.” They all scrambled to protect their knees and were soon finished.

George asked, “Is everyone ready?”

They were.

Sonny led the way. He crawled on his hands and knees for about a hundred yards and stopped to rest. The others, including George, were thankful for the break. They took a few minutes to observe the roadblock and did not observe any unusual activity. They could see the glow of a couple of cigarettes and a head bob every now and then, but nothing else.               Sonny took off crawling again and they quickly closed the gap to less than a hundred yards before checking the target again. Sonny reminded them to make sure that their trigger fingers were able to go into the trigger guard with the gloves on or cut the trigger finger from the gloves.

George radioed Janet when they got close to the roadblock and told her to start throwing some rocks to get the thugs attention. He could see the thugs stir and shift towards Janet when the rocks clattered. The distraction was working! The five of them scrambled to the first car without being seen, took up positions and began shooting. It was a very intense firefight, but only lasted a few minutes and ended with all of the thugs lying on the ground.

Sonny and Bill turned on flashlights and they all began making sure that these bastards were dead except for one to interrogate. All, but two were dead and those two were wounded too severely to talk so they were put out of their suffering.

They put a couple of guards out and called the rest of their friends to come down to the roadblock for the rest of the night. George did not want to travel in the dark and risk another ambush. He thanked everyone for their great job in taking out these scumbags and then told them to take turns at guard duty and get a little rest.

The next morning they searched the area for weapons and any clues where these thugs' home base was located. They found the usual dead biker gang looking men and women, some ARs and handguns, but saw some fully automatic Mac-10s and Uzis. These were better armed than the ones in the past, but still biker trash. There were two usable pickups and three motorcycles. Janet was checking the trunks of the cars for supplies when she found a woman and two children tied up in one of the car’s trunks. They untied them and got them out of the trunk. They were dehydrated, hungry and very filthy.

The woman said that her name was Maria Sanchez and that she and her kids had been traveling from Washington, DC to her mom’s home in Shreveport, when the lights went out. The kids were two girls about fourteen and five and could have been Maria at those ages.

Soon after, they were captured by a gang outside of Tuscaloosa and eventually traded to this gang for some Mac-10s. Janet gave them food and water while Jill rounded up some clothes to replace the rags they were wearing. Maria finished eating and told her kids to go play while she filled the team in on their story.

She said, “We were careful to avoid other people while walking towards Shreveport, however, we ran out of food and went into a small town to get food.”

She went on to tell them how they were captured. There were only a handful of people left in the town and at first, they were nice and gave us food and water. Later that night one of the men told Maria that she had to pay for the food. She tried to give him money, but he laughed at her, grabbed the older girl and started to leave the room.

Maria caught his arm and said, “What’s wrong? Aren’t you man enough for a real woman?”

She ripped her blouse off, exposed her breasts to him and said, “Leave the little girl alone and come and get some of this.”

He shoved the girl back in the room and took Maria to a bedroom. He turned his back on Maria and she stabbed him in the back and knocked him to the floor.

She put the knife to his throat and said, “You won’t molest another little girl, you sick bastard.”

She slit his throat.

The wife came running when she heard the noise and had three men with her. She pulled the .38 and shot two of the bastards, but the third knocked her down and knocked her out with one punch. When she woke up the kids and her were tied up and on the floor. The next day they were traded to the biker gang.

Janet asked, “Where did you get the knife and why didn’t you escape?” Maria responded, “I had a knife in my boot and a .38 strapped to my leg and if I had used them on that SOB’s wife, we would have escaped.”

Janet said, “Have you ever been up in Idaho? You look familiar.”

Maria replied, “Yes, why do you ask?

Janet stuck her 9mm into Maria’s chest and said, “You are that DHS agent, aren’t you?”

Maria replied, “Yes, I was a DHS agent, but I quit right after that disaster in Idaho. John Harris talked me into getting the hell out of DC and told me to take my kid to a safe place. Did he make it back to Mobile?”

George heard the conversation and was startled when Janet drew down on Maria. He drew his pistol to back Janet up and came on over to the two women. Janet filled George in on the “Trip” and the Chupracabras.

George could only say, “Holy shit.”

They tied her hands behind her back and got ready to head back to the bunker.  George radioed for John and they had to chase him down.

John said, “What’s so urgent George, we are deep into the plans for our little picnic.”

George said, “John, do you know a DHS agent by the name of Maria Sanchez?”

John replied, “Holy shit.”

George said, “That’s exactly what I said when I heard that she was a DHS agent.”