Hell Released (Hell Happened Book 3) (40 page)

“A reserve force of six trucks with medics and heavy weapons will take up position seven miles north of the camp’s outer perimeter to support a retreat or pick up wounded survivors.

“Our goal is to take Lt. Col. Pendleton Smith into custody without causing a full scale war between Ft. Knox and ourselves because they have tanks and artillery. Given time they could easily transport a few of their heavy pieces into range of our community.

“We want to do this without a single casualty, but those people have to be freed from the colonel’s tyranny. Any questions?” There had been none and the soldiers had about 30 minutes to say their good byes to friends and loved ones.

That final briefing had been earlier that morning and Myles felt things were falling into place. “Shoot at them again, Barry,” Capt. Eldred told the sailor, but drop your rounds in front of them a few hundred yards. “We want them to think they can get closer for another mile or so.”

The Deputy Doug had the lead vehicle up to 77 miles per hour, the top speed of the school bus. The attackers could easily keep up and closed the distance as Barry fired two groups of four shots behind them. The rounds dropped well in front of the attackers, tearing up pieces of pavement, but not doing any damage.

Another minute passed before the attackers started firing at Myles’ convoy again. One round of large-diameter projectile put a two-inch hole in the back of the school bus.

“Close enough, Barry! Back those sons-of-bitches off our ass! We’ve done all we can!” Eldred ordered. “And be quick about it sailor!”

That was all Barry needed. He’d already figured the range of the trailing trucks and he began a systematic three-shot burst barrage at them. The HUMVEE shook with each press of the butterfly trigger and the first rounds were impacting even as the second and third shots were being fired.

The first truck following them was hit and erupted in a cloud of steaming radiator and Freon from its destroyed front end. Barry figured the engine was toast as well because smoke started coming from the truck.

The convoy curved out of sight of their chasers and by the time they were five miles further away, they knew they had escaped and had no one following them.

“We’ve done our part,” Eldred said to Seaman Waters behind the wheel, “Well done, Barry,” he added over his soldier to his gunner. “Now it’s up to our commandos.” He picked up the microphone and clicked it four times, then three times. Russ and the radio operator would be listening for the clicks on the radio back at the base. It would tell them the first part of the plan had been successful and that Erica was free to start her action.

Russ, in the clear, called the Saunders Farm and told them their convoy had been attacked, but had survived and would arrive the next day for the prisoners. Erica would hear the transmission and begin her reconnoiter of Smith’s camp.

Sgt. Bare had been a communications specialist with an Indiana National Guard unit before the fall of civilization. She’d been attending a technical school studying electronic. She’d lost her parents, grand parents, fiancé, two older sisters and a younger brother.  She’d cried as much as anyone when the world ended and still harbored scars from her hurts.

When first found by Capt. Eldred, she had been searching for food as she waited for the plague to take her. She didn’t die and teamed up with Eldred and a few others. Eldred was a captain of a different National Guard unit, but he seemed to have an idea of a better way to survive.

What Eldred offered paled in comparison to what Col. Hammond proposed that first day they met. The elderly man had clearly been a superior officer in the military and he was a fair and gentle man who seldom raised his voice and was always willing to listen to other people’s opinions, thoughts and problems.

Under his command, she felt like there was something in life more than the sorrows of the past. He encouraged her and she got the radio station working and more people came to the base. With more people came those with more experience and they’d taken over the radio broadcasting, even though she was in charge of the station. She had been monitoring the ham radio when first contact with the Saunders Farm had been made.

It was the attack on the armory which brought into focus what Erica wanted to do with her new life. When the colonel formed a military unit and offered Erica the position as a platoon sergeant she jumped at it and began studying leadership and martial arts.  Through the winter she worked out and trained others in unarmed self-defense, small unit maneuvering and commando tactics. She worked out physically during the day and studied at night.

In her regular conversations with Lisa, the older woman occasionally asked about her personal life. She lived with the Marine Lance Corporal, a handsome man about her age, and Fred, a man in his mid-30s with perpetually dirty hands. But the three just lived together as friends and the pain of losing the man she loved and had been prepared to marry before the death that took him in the night, still kept her heart from sharing itself.

The course of her teaching and training brought her to a hillside in a wooded area several miles north of Lt. Col. Smith’s camp.  She had three others with her, all members of her commando team who had trained with her. All three were wearing hand-made ghillie suits with Mylar balloon material sewn on the inside to help reduce the heat signature of the four. Each would operate separately and approach the camp once darkness fell. Each had a pair of high-powered binoculars, night-vision goggles, a notepad and two pencils. They were armed only with a personal side arm of choice. They’d been given strict orders to not make contact with anyone.

Their mission was to see how the defenses were set up and look for a way to get inside the sprawling camp without being seen. They were also tasked with locating Lt. Col. Smith and the communications building. They had less than 12 hours and at 0300 had to have all the intel they could gather and return to the platoon led by Lt. Jimenez. His platoon was encamped behind the hill they were now hiding on.

Bare would brief the lieutenant and the two would affect the take over of the camp and apprehension of Smith if everything went as planned.

She looked at her watch. It was 1519 hours. In her ear she heard Russ’ call to Jerry at the Saunders Farm. Erica was glad to hear that Capt. Eldred had survived the attack and was on his way to pick up the prisoners. He was only two years older than her, but she liked the man who was a mentor and friend to her.

Bare looked over at the other three in her team. She nodded to them and the three slunk off in three different directions to do the job they had been assigned. “God go with you,” she whispered. She’d not see them for almost 12 hours, but she had faith her commandos would do as they had been asked and faith that God had brought her here to this moment in time by His will.

Russ, back at the armory, hung up the microphone after contacting the Saunders Farm.

“Now it’s in God’s hands. All we can do it wait,” he said to Lisa who had been by his side since early that morning when the convoys left Ft. Benjamin Harrison. “Our next contact will be sometime in the morning.”

“Maybe we should try to get some sleep?” she suggested.

“You go ahead, dear. I’m going to wait here in case I need to move the reserves up to rescue anyone.”

Lisa figured as much. Russ had been very concerned with sending his friends into harms way while he sat back in the relative safety of the base.  He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The previous night he hadn’t slept well and had gotten up unusually early.

She hadn’t seen this side of the man before and was worried he’d work himself into a heart attack or stroke. She rubbed his hand gently and told him she’d bring his meals to him. He smiled a grim smile and nodded to her.

Waiting had always been difficult for Russ. Even when serving in the military he was a man of action and liked to be a part of getting things done. That he had to sit here and wait was not something the colonel wanted to do.

Russ had to trust Capt. Eldred and the young officer had done a magnificent job. He was very pleased with the captain and how well he had matured in the last six months. He had been a competent officer, but he was also becoming an excellent leader who would take over the 1st Great Lakes Protectorate when Russ retired…again.

He admired the dedication of Sgt. Bare to her training and the training of others as well. He hoped she’d find someone with whom she could get personally involved. He felt that would help balance her, but she was still young and had plenty of time for that in her life...if she survived the day.

Lisa had scowled at Russ when he told her the young waif of a soldier would lead the commando team that would reconnoiter the camp, but Russ told her there was no one better trained to lead such a team and no one with the fierce loyalty the woman engendered in her troops. “She might be young, but she is the best person to do this and she is one of the best soldiers I have had the pleasure to work with in 30 years,” Russ told her. “And I’m not just saying that to placate you, dearest. She is intelligent, well-trained and dedicated to her profession like few I have ever worked and served before.”

Russ looked at the clock on the wall. He saw the minute hand tick up to 1600 hours military time. Eleven more hours until Erica would make contact with Lt. Jimenez’s platoon. If she did, they’d hear a click on the radio for every one of her commandos who returned to the platoon. Ideally, there would be four clicks at 0315 and again at 0330 hours.

Russ asked for his laptop and Lisa brought it to him with his dinner as the sun was setting on their community. He’d had a late lunch and had gone back to the armory to finish his study of military law and martial law. He wanted to be ready for the prisoners and Smith when they arrived sometime tomorrow. He knew Erica and her team would be slowly moving into position through the afternoon and wouldn’t be calling for help on the radio unless there was a dire emergency.

Once darkness fell, the team would move closer to the camp and make notes and observe.

When Lisa brought him dinner, home-made lasagna that tasted as good as it smelled, she also brought him his laptop so he could journal his thoughts and reasoning for relieving Lt. Col. Smith of his command.

Russ ate and listened to Zach’s radio station. Lisa had left instructions to everyone that Russ was not to be bothered by anything less than the Rapture while the mission was running.

When dinner was cleared, Lisa took the dishes back to be washed, but returned with a jacket and forced the colonel to take a walk. “You’ve been sitting here or in your office all day. You say you trust the people you’ve sent out, but they trust you to act like you trust them and take care of this community and yourself.

“You’re going for a walk with me and you’re going to look confident and commanding.”

A crescent moon was high in the sky and there was sporadic cloud cover. He had no idea what the weather was like where Erica was, but he hoped it was overcast and not raining. He and Lisa walked through the community’s streets, looking at the gardens people had planted and lawns that had been cared for.

Even during the walk, Lisa could tell the man was lost in his thoughts and concerned with the mission.

She felt the walk had done him good however, reminding him of all the people he’d helped already and was helping every day with his leadership and experience. There were more than a hundred people living at Lt. Col. Smith’s camp who were not enjoying the freedoms the people in their community enjoyed.

Lisa knew she might be the “mayor” of this community of survivors, but she knew it was Russ’ leadership and drive that was the real reason it was as successful as it was.

They got back to the radio room a little before 2300 hours. Lisa put coffee on as Russ did more writing on his laptop.  The coffee was brewed and served in an insulated cup just as Russ was finishing up his entry. He saved the document and set the laptop on the desk.

The two who had met on a golf course after the apocalypse, had later became friends, then lovers, sat in silence. All the words that had needed being said had been said.

They listened to the overnight show on the radio. Zach’s wife Crystal was their voice in the night, but Russ had turned the volume down. The music she played on the overnight show was a little too hip and upbeat for him tonight, but both he and Lisa wanted to hear something besides the static on the ham radio.

Sometime after midnight, Lisa fell asleep on the couch. Russ covered her with a blanket and kissed her on the forehead.

A little after one in the morning, Russ was sitting in his chair with his feet up on the desk. He was resting his eyelids, or so he told himself, thinking about the mission.

He was surprised when Lisa touched him on his shoulder shortly after 0500 hours.

“Damn,” he said. “I slept through the 3 a.m. contact by Bare. I wonder how her team did. Dammit all to hell,” he said as he stood and cracked his back and stretched.

“Don’t sweat it, Russ,” Lisa said as she enveloped his chest with her arms. “I heard the 0315 call and there were three clicks. I waited until 0330 to wake you and tell you one of our commandos was MIA, but the 0330 contact was clearly four clicks. I guess one of them was late, but since everyone was accounted for, I decided to let you sleep.”

Russ kissed the woman and said “You’re such a good woman. I’m surprised you’re not married to some handsome man who showers you with diamonds.”