Retribution (Soldier Up - Book Five 5) (7 page)

              “Yes sir, will do and thank you,” General Welford replied. 

              General Welford went on with his briefing regarding bringing humanitarian efforts to Fayetteville and the surrounding communities.  He spoke at length regarding their engagements with the gangs and militias.  He was adamant that each new encounter with a militia group it was becoming even more difficult as it seemed they were better organized and had better weapons. However, their training and leadership was still horrible.  But, added that he believed it was only a matter of time before they ran into a force that might equal their own, yet added they were the 82
nd
Airborne the toughest bastards on the block and he was still sure they could take the fight to the enemy and win.  He reviewed the current personnel status as well vehicles, weapons, ammunition, food and fuel.  He then concluded his presentation, asked if there were any questions and there weren’t any.  With that, he left the podium and sat back down.  The conference room was quiet for a bit, than General Wallace spoke. “I’ve got only one question for the three of you.”

              “Yes sir, what’s that?” General Portson asked.

              “When were any of you going to tell me about Colonel Magnus?” General Wallace stated.

              “Sir where did you hear about Colonel Magnus?” General Portson asked.

              “From Colonel Lambert at Fort Bragg from his train.  He got the information from General Clayton.  From what I got from the both of them it’s an urgent matter that needs addressing immediately. Yet none of you chose to mention it, why?” General Wallace said.

              General Portson replied, “Sir we have no confirmation regarding Colonel Magnus. All we have is a SFC Harris from 19
th
Special Forces Group out of West Virginia.  We discussed it amongst ourselves and decided to place it on hold until we can allocate the resources to check it out.”

              “Too late General.  General Clayton took it upon himself to order three A-Teams out of California dropped into the vicinity where Colonel Magnus was reported.” General Wallace said.

              “That’s outrageous. Who does that man think he is?” General Portson responded angrily. 

              General Wallace was prompted to stand while leering at General Portson. “He’s an officer taking the initiative to get the job done! That’s who he is.  You and your fellow officers from Fort Bragg stand here and talk about the failure of leadership.  This is exactly what it looks like and General in case you still haven’t figured it out the country is in turmoil we need to get out of our previous mindset in how we do business.  General Clayton understands that and has been very successful; he did the right thing, while you and your Commanders sat on your collective hands.”

              “With all due respect sir, Fort Bragg is my sandbox and I’ll do what I please with those assets,” General Portson was angry with fire in his eyes.

              “General Portson you are relieved as the Commander of Fort Bragg.” General Wallace flatly stated while looking directly at General Portson.  General Wallace turned to his aide and ordered, “Please have the MPs come in and escort General Portson to the Stockade.  He will be charged with Conduct Unbecoming of an Officer, refusing to obey an order from a superior and anything else I can come with between now and his court martial.”

              General Portson sat stunned. The MPs entered the conference room and stood behind General Portson. “Please stand sir.” The burley MP said.

              General Portson stood and the MPs handcuffed him. The one MP holding him by his left arm pulled him away from the table.  Then both MPs grasped either arm and escorted him out.  Everyone in the room sat in stunned silence.  “General Townsend you’re now the interim Commander of Fort Bragg and you will also continue to carry out your duties as Commander of the 18
th
.  My expectation is that we aren’t sitting on your hands anymore.  I expect rapid response to situations, real time.  I don’t want this wait and see attitude we can’t afford it.”

Colonel Lambert was back on the train heading north as fast as it could take him. The news from General Clayton and SFC Harris shook him.  He had no reason not to believe what they told them about Colonel Magnus.  Colonel Lambert had met Colonel Magnus a few times over his career and knew of his very conservative views and did his best to steer clear of him.  As far as Colonel Lambert was considered the military should be apolitical because they had to serve a commander-in-chief from one political party or the other over a career.  Colonel Lambert was upset at General Moon for not sending in A-Teams from Bragg to ascertain the threat.  At least General Clayton recognized the potential threat and ordered teams from the 19
th
to join their brethren from the 19
th
from West Virginia in tracking the movements of Colonel Magnus.

              Colonel Lambert was in contact with his staff via the shortwave radio. He told them he would be back in D.C. in 2-3 days and he expected a high-level plan to defend the capital with current forces at hand.  General Clayton told Colonel Lambert not to worry. If Bragg couldn’t get off their fat asses, he’d drop the 184
th
Infantry Regiment (Airborne) to help secure the city.  He was also sure that the Department of the Navy could spare a couple thousand Marines to help.  General Clayton told him they had the aircraft to move them, but it would take a while so he needed to know as soon as possible what the plan was.  If Bragg was going to get involved, they needed to get the Air Force to Pope, but that required troop counts and moving other resources.  Bragg now had at least one working train which now that Colonel Lambert had cleared the tracks all the way to D.C. would help them move troops.  However, they needed to get on the ball. 

              Colonel Lambert was also speaking to General Wallace’s office trying to find out what resources outside of D.C. would be available to him.  For now there was no response. He was notified that since General Portson had been relieved and General Townsend made the new Commander it may take a while to get him that answer.  The problem with that was that Colonel Lambert was blind. He had no idea where Colonel Magnus and his forces were, their troop strength, weapons and weapons systems, and vehicles.  He needed Intel now because he needed to know how to deploy his forces or go on the offensive.  Radio contact with Bragg was spotty since they only had the one radio and it was yet to be manned twenty-four hours a day.  Colonel Lambert wondered what the hell was going on with those people.  Hopefully General Townsend could get their collective heads out of their asses.

              Colonel Lambert was anxious. They were half-a-day out of D.C. and the reports back from his staff were that they weren’t even close.  He explained to his XO that if they didn’t have something heads were going to roll. This was their job after all.  The closer he got to D.C. the more frequently he asked for reports. He wanted to keep them moving forward and he wanted them to understand how important this was.  His message to them that he had the XO relay was, this wasn’t Iraq or Afghanistan that they were defending their homes and families from but another Army that was as equally as dangerous as they were. It was possible that they could be out manned and out gunned and they needed to take that into consideration. 

              What Colonel Lambert needed was intelligence from the battlefield, where Colonel Magnus was now; he needed counts damn-it and he needed them now.  He knew that in order to defend the city he was going to have to pull all of his troops from their current duties, which was problematic.  Although they had done a great job of clearing out many of the large gangs and small militias they hadn’t eliminated them.  By pulling those soldiers out from those areas they may very well had given those organizations a free hand to do what they wanted.  General Clayton told him that he could reinforce what he currently had, but they needed a plan so they could determine what types, outside of infantry, they would need.  Colonel Lambert’s response was that he wished they had armor because he really wanted armor.  When he first said it to General Clayton the general came back with a shit eating grin and told Colonel Lambert “You never know.”  What the hell did that mean he thought? 

              It was 6:30 am and they were two hours out from D.C. when Colonel Lambert started to receive flash traffic over the radio.  He hustled as fast as he could get through the train to its very small communication center and read through the five messages that were waiting for him.  “Are you sure this is correct?” Colonel Lambert asked the RTO.

              “Yes sir, I was stunned and asked them to repeat it twice,” The Specialist said.

              Colonel Lambert read the messages again –

              Message one:

             
FLASH – FLASH – FLASH

              Attention: Colonel Lambert

We have reported five repeat five C-17 military transports landing at Dulles.  No military verification at this time.

             
Message two:

             
FLASH – FLASH – FLASH

              Attention: Colonel Lambert

We have visual verification by military personnel on the ground of five C-17 United States Air Force transports on the ground at Dulles.

              Message three:

             
FLASH – FLASH – FLASH

              Attention: Colonel Lambert

We have visual verification by military personnel on the ground that said C-17’s are unloading M1 Abrams, and Bradley’s.

Message four:

FLASH – FLASH – FLASH

Attention: Colonel Lambert

Have met C-17 as well as armor crews.  C-17s to return to West Coast. Armor states they are here and have been placed under your command.  Count: 5 M1s, 5 Bradley’s with munitions and crews.

Message five:

FLASH – FLASH – FLASH

Attention: Colonel Lambert

FM: General Clayton

A step in the right direction.  We do have some limited ability to move large assets by air as you can see.  Navy pursuing alternate plan will let you know more as I do.

              Colonel Lambert’s mouth opened and his jaw dropped at this stunning news. C-17s:
Where the hell did they get them?
He thought.   All that type of aircraft was grounded because of the EMP event.  Regardless, as small as the armor assets were, he knew they were better than nothing and he wondered what the hell the Navy was up to.  Colonel Lambert sent a message back thanking General Clayton and stated he’d take good care of the men and vehicles. 

The distant RTO reported that the information was being relayed from one of the Camp Park A-Teams in the field.  This caught Colonel Lambert’s attention since he knew that General Clayton had sent in three of his own teams a couple of days ago.  He was surprised they worked so quickly and information was going to start to flow in, or at least he hoped.  The distant RTO stated, “Prepare to copy, over.”

“Roger ready to copy, over,” stated the Corporal.

“Message as follows, classification Top Secret.  Colonel Magnus forces, what looks to be main body found at Fort Indiantown Gap, Lebanon, Pennsylvania – National Guard Training Center.  Colonel Magnus forces are engaging PA National Guard and Army Reserve on Fort.  Hard to tell how long Fort can hold out against Colonel Magnus.

Estimate Colonel Magnus strength between 5,000 – 10,000 soldiers; unable to get actual count.  Weapons – M4s, 155s, howitzers, .50 Cal’s, AT-4s, M-60s, M-249s, as far as we can tell right now.  Vehicles include Humvees armored, M35 trucks, M113/114 APC’s, various civilian trucks and SUVs painted camouflage NOT military issued, that’s all we have a visual on at this time.  More to come later…

-
         
End Message _
” the RTO on the far end stated.

“Roger, over.” The Corporal read the message back to the distant RTO.

“Roger, that’s correct, over.”

“Roger, out,” stated the Corporal.

The Corporal handed the message over to Colonel Lambert who was lost in thought. “Ensure they have this back at Regiment.  Tell them I said to use these numbers for now.” 

“Yes Sir will do.” With that the Corporal raised Regiment and relayed the message. 

Colonel Lambert left the small comm center thinking that the Regiment was out-manned at a minimum 3-1 and that wasn’t good.

Elements of Alpha Company, 3
rd
Battalion, 172
nd
Infantry Regiment were in hot pursuit of a Special Forces A-Team of unknown origin or at least that’s what they believed.  They believed they had chased them into a box canyon with sheer cliffs on all sides that they couldn’t possibly climb to escape.  Alpha’s Company Commander held back not wanting to enter the canyon immediately as he was well aware that his men were prior to the event were part timers in the guard.   His assumption was if this was a Special Forces A-Team it was their profession and a very dangerous group of men.  He knew the make-up of an A-Team which primarily consisted of thirteen men and that would be against his two hundred-fifty man company. 

              Although the greater numbers on paper would give him the advantage, an A-Team backed into a corner with no way out would fight.  Sending in the entire Company would present a few targets of opportunity for a well-trained and disciplined team.   Since Alpha Company wasn’t going to get any new replacements anytime soon primarily because there was no mechanism in place to bring in new soldiers the CO was concerned.  In addition, it was an assumption that they were chasing an A-Team based on the findings of one of the scouts from the contents of a rucksack they found in a hide.  A Company’s CO decided to send in two squads from First Platoon to recon the canyon and if they sighted the team to report back ASAP with specific orders not to engage. 

              First Squad, First Platoon was led by Staff Sergeant Wilbur Wilcox, six feet tall, lanky who spoke with a lisp.  He’d been in the guard for twenty years and oddly enough had never seen combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, since he’d done his best to avoid any deployment and was successful.  He had spent much of his time in those twenty years as part of the Quartermaster Corp and only moved over to the Infantry so as he could get his promotion to Staff Sergeant.  He was scheduled to go to infantry school at Fort Benning a few days after the event so it never happened.  SSG Wilcox’s entire infantry training was largely OJT and he really wasn’t very good at it.  The men under his command knew it as well and took most of their cues from Sergeant Russell, who had one tour from Iraq seven years earlier when he was a PFC.  Sergeant Russell had no combat experience as an NCO which was still better than an NCO from Quartermaster with no infantry training along with no combat experience.

              SSG Wilcox was jealous; he detested that the men followed SGT Russell, SSG Wilcox did everything possible to undermine SGT Russell which in turn caused a great deal of conflict within the squad and in many cases for the Platoon.  The Platoon Leader and Platoon Sergeant turned a blind-eye to the problems in first squad and wanted the two NCOs to resolve it themselves, which was a failure of leadership on their part.  Staff Sergeant Patel was the leader of second squad. He was also another NCO that had no combat and infantry experience.  He was an NCO in the regular Navy, got out, and enlisted in the Army National Guard letting him maintain his previous Navy rank as there was no real break in service.  He too was set to go to Fort Benning to the Infantry School along with SSG Wilcox which didn’t happen. 

              The key difference between the two NCOs was that SSG Patel recognized his weaknesses and had no problem following the lead of his assistant squad leader Sergeant Wolf.  Sergeant Wolf served in Iraq as a Specialist and served as an assistant squad leader when his squad leader had stepped on an IED killing him which moved Wolf up in the pecking order.   Although not a great deal of leadership experience as an NCO, Sergeant Wolf did have some which was a lot more than SSG Patel had. 

              The two squads moved cautiously into the canyon, First Squad taking the lead while Second Squad provided over-watch.  Both squads moved in typical V-formation with the Platoon Sergeant along with the RTO in the center.  The idea was to move down the center of the canyon slowly, go a hundred yards, both squads taking a knee, listening and looking.  Then SSG Wilcox would signal to resume if they didn’t hear or see anything.  After four hundred yards into the canyon the two squads took a knee, the Platoon Sergeant told SSG Wilcox to send out two men to scout head to the left and two more men to scout ahead to the right, and then resume moving forward with everyone else.