by Zack Finley
“We’ll scout the jail compound tomorrow, with an eye toward capturing their vehicles and taking prisoners,” I said.
“Take Steve,” my dad suggested. “He’ll show you where to target the solar, without damaging it too bad.”
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Chapter 16
The five of us who scouted the middle school left after supper to scout the county jail. We were already packed, and it seemed pretty efficient. We did move two teams to FOB Echo, with one of them expecting to set up FOB Eagle as a radio link to Echo. My patrol scouted the area to FOB Eagle and gave the okay to the Eagle crew to drive up in one of our small pickup trucks.
Our initial plan was to acquire a prisoner, turn off power, and take away their transportation. This would leave them isolated in the jail, substantially reducing their threat to either the valley or to the rest of the community.
Depending on what we saw, we’d either try to accomplish our goals immediately or set up for longer-term surveillance. I was hoping they still kept a guard on the fuel pumps because capturing and questioning him was high on my Santa’s list.
We didn’t need to bring Steve along to learn how to disable the solar, Craig spoke with Steve for about a half hour and declared he was ready. A precisely placed bullet could stop the electricity from charging the batteries or powering the building’s grid. The failure might not even be noticeable until the batteries ran down.
Craig brought two of his sniper rifles, one was his suppressed M24A2 and the second was his suppressed .45 cal. air rifle. He planned to quietly disable the solar from a distance with the air rifle. I knew he could put a bullet in someone’s eye with that air rifle at 600 yards. He even brought its tank to top off the air pressure in case he found a series of targets.
I knew from past experience that while the suppressed air rifle wasn’t silent, it didn’t sound like a gunshot, either. It was still very lethal. Its most significant limitation for extended use was it was only a single shot and the rifle’s air charge needed to be topped off after only 10 shots. I bought a wide variety of air rifles for the valley’s hunting arsenal. I reasoned such rifles might be viable decades from now, long after gunpowder-based ammo became hard to find. Besides they were pretty cool.
Craig brought his M24A2 just in case we got into a firefight. It was suppressed, but that didn’t mean silent. It was still louder than our suppressed M4s but not shockingly so. The suppressor just extended the number of shots he could deliver before the enemy realized they were being targeted by a sniper. It was to our advantage to keep them guessing as long as possible.
The sheriff’s compound didn’t look a lot different from my last visit, but the changes complicated our plans. The fuel pumps were now unguarded, and the sheriff’s vehicles were parked in the jail entrance. We might get one or two vehicles moved away before someone inside sounded the alarm. Disabling them seemed a better bet.
The jail was a huge modern building. It housed the jail, courtrooms, the sheriff’s office and a variety of court offices. The jail area was the only part with a second story. The jail inmates maintained a large garden on the south side of the building which was currently dormant. The deputies were continuing to use the sheriff’s entrance, at least based on where the vehicles were now parked.
Craig planned to set up on the rooftop of a house on the south side of the jail. The solar feed from the roof was on this side. The house looked over where the vehicles were parked. Matt edged off to perch on top of a residence on the east side.
The woods provided plenty of cover to get into position. Tom and I left Buzzer on the northwest side of the building at the edge of the woods. Buzzer’s assignment was to watch the building exits while Tom and I verified the roadblock at the intersection of Highway 27 and Highway 297 was unmanned.
It was starting to get dark.
“Boss, I need to take the shot,” Craig said. “It will be too dark in a few.”
“Take it,” I said, stopping Tom and preparing to hightail it back to the jail if anyone noticed.
The only one who heard the shot was Matt, and he said it sounded like a deer farted. The team confirmed no reaction from inside, so Tom and I continued to the roadblock.
As expected, the roadblock was abandoned.
There were no signs of habitation at any of the buildings we passed. Most front doors were wide open. That seemed the deputy’s signature that all of value was removed. Most still contained furniture and a host of usable items, so we weren’t sure what the deputies were looking for except food, drugs, and liquor. Many things which I considered of high value were left behind, such as bottles of bleach, cooking oil, and first aid supplies. Enough remained that it might be worth an expedition to loot the area.
Both Matt and Craig said the homes they were perched on were looted in the same way.
We slipped back into position.
The sheriff’s office kept many inside lights on and several external spotlights aimed at the vehicles. “They will run their batteries down before we expected,” I said. “At this rate, they won’t last the night.”
The generator that powered the fuel pumps was stashed amongst the vehicles.
Then we settled down to wait and watch.
Tom and I remained at the edge of the woods, closest to the parked vehicles.
About 2 a.m. the spotlights cut off. They kept flickering for nearly an hour before they went out completely. All the lights inside were turned off hours before.
I called the rest of Force Beta to move up to join Tom and me in the woods. This took nearly another hour before we were ready to leave the tree line. We wore our NVGs on, and we aimed to either steal or disable the deputy’s fleet.
I really wanted to confiscate the Humvees if at all possible but knew starting them would raise the alarm. If we could push them quietly to the edge of the parking lot, we should avoid discovery. If not, we’d have a firefight on our hands.
My original plan was to disconnect the starters since this could be done with a simple wrench from under the Humvees. While we could still do that if we needed to, adding three more bullet resistant vehicles to the valley fleet was a better plan. To that end, I assigned a team of four to each vehicle to move them out of the hot zone.
The rest of us took cover behind the cruisers, monitoring the main entrance for signs of discovery.
To me the teams made a shocking amount of noise moving the Humvees, especially against the backdrop of utter silence. I held my breath, monitoring the glass entrance doors to the sheriff’s office, sure we’d be discovered.
If the deputies were keeping watch, they must have limited their attention to inside the building because no one came out to see what all the noise was about. I reminded myself that the actual amount of noise was minimal, it was just startling when contrasted to the silence of the new normal. It made any sound seem louder than it was.
As soon as the Humvee teams rejoined us, we disabled the five cruisers by pulling the power relays in the engine fuse boxes. While we could have hotwired the cars, I decided they weren’t worth stealing at this point.
We split up the team into four groups, providing backup for the snipers and to allow fresh eyes to keep watch while those who’d been on duty for nearly 24 hours got some sleep.
The three men who dropped off the purloined Humvees at FOB Fox returned to the justice building with a ladder to scale the roof. They climbed up on the flat roof where they settled in to watch and wait. They’d been briefed about roof access by Steve and came prepared to block the trapdoor from the justice center to the roof.
I debated assigning anyone to the roof, but it was too good an observation site to leave uncovered.
We set the stage, it was now time to wait for the deputies to make their next move.
The sun was already peeking out above the horizon when Ben nudged me awake. My team was nearly invisible, having used the fallen leaves to their advantage. Everyone looked relaxed. I heard the announcement over the radio that the front
door was opening.
While our primary goal was to capture one of the deputies, I didn’t intend to lose anyone to accomplish that. Nearly losing Scott, drove that message home.
The man who exited the building moved quickly to the sidewalk and urinated. He was dressed in a wrinkled blue uniform. His AR15 was slung over his back, and he carried a pistol in a belt holster.
He wouldn’t be the first person I shot while relieving himself but this was his lucky day, we were more interested in gathering intelligence than in body count.
From his body language, I didn’t think he noticed the missing Humvees.
Nothing happened for more than an hour. Those who could rest were encouraged to do so.
Without preamble, a group of four well-armed men in ragged blue uniforms, came outside, shouting and gesticulating at where the missing Humvees used to sit. From the body language we could see, the first guy we saw that morning was apologizing profusely, while the other three were on the attack. I surmised they blamed the man for the Humvees being stolen.
“They think someone from inside the jail left overnight in the Humvees,” came over the radio. “They’ve ordered everyone to gather in one of the courtrooms and be checked.” Already a dividend from having people on the roof.
Once the deputies completed a roll call and found that no one was missing, what they’d do next was going to determine a lot about their future. And possibly ours.
After less than an hour passed, two deputies came out of the building and got into one of the squad cars. They stayed in the car several minutes before popping the hood. For the first time, those waiting in the jail realized they might be under surveillance. While one deputy looked under the hood, the second deputy tried to spot a possible sniper.
We stayed out of sight, and the deputies retreated into the building.
Someone inside must have either thought the disabled car was a coincidence or just wanted to be unconditionally certain their transportation was toast. The nervous duo tried to start each successive car, without pausing to peek under the hoods.
They didn’t dawdle and kept looking around nervously throughout the operation. We were very sure they were being observed from within the sheriff’s offices throughout.
I was content to let their solar batteries discharge and have them fret about an unknown adversary.
Hoping they might send out a small group from another exit, I warned everyone to be on their toes. We needed one or more prisoners. I was hoping they would try something dumb and play into our hand.
While I preferred to talk first, I also made it clear that we believed the deputies were rogue and to take no chances. I felt that time was on our side, feeling like you were under siege was hard, especially when cold and in the dark.
When no one stirred for more than an hour, I ordered the guys to rest in shifts. I didn’t know how long we’d be here, but the deputies had food and supplies for a substantial siege. I doubted they had the patience.
We spent the rest of the day with at least one person looking for movement at each exterior door.
I thought the deputies would send a patrol through the door closest to the woods and then try to flank any observers. It would be a good tactic if they were being watched by a small group of three or four people. I actually hoped they would exit there, as it would put them into the brunt of our forces.
We watched and waited.
For us, years of deployments made it easy to wait. It was one of the first lessons in the Army. One either learned a form of patience or one cracked. Everyone had their own technique. Some guys swore by meditation, others practiced muscle and breathing relaxation techniques. If I was on watch, I focused on that task, letting all else fall away. During my rest periods, I used a combination of breathing exercises and a series of muscle tension and relaxation to actually rest and reduce stress.
There were a few false alarms as occasionally a lone deputy exited through the sheriff’s office main entrance. He made a quick patrol around the cars before returning to the office. The man never strayed far from the main door, so we didn’t try to capture him. I reminded everyone that the man was probably a decoy or bait.
This proved to be the case when a four-man patrol slipped out the side door and sprinted to the nearby woods. Three of the four still had the safeties on their rifles when captured. The fourth showed intelligence when he dropped his weapon, put his hands up and fell to his knees as ordered.
Within minutes they were zip-tied, gagged, and escorted away from the jail. The woods on the west side of the jail was only about 500 feet deep and ended abruptly at a clearing for the county road department. We separated the prisoners and secured them to trees bordering that clearing. I called FOB Eagle and asked them to relay a message to Roger that we had prisoners.
We had agreed before launching the operation that Roger would take charge of any prisoners, while Force Beta kept the group boxed up in the jail. What Roger learned from them could well change the rules of engagement, but the consensus was it would be better to separate the two functions.
I was quite comfortable with the division of labor. My team was new to Mecklin County. While we could handle the interrogation, I was hesitant to set us up as the designated judges and executioners. I believed our actions ending the Lloyd Mountain Militia threat was justifiable. I just didn’t want it to set a precedent for all time.
It was one thing to kill someone in a firefight. I was uneasy about how we dealt with the Militia. That unease grew exponentially when faced with the potential execution of deputies. I craved the comfort of due process in a nearly lawless world. Despite that queasiness, freeing someone who has shown their affinity for hurting innocents went against the grain.
The toughest part for me about the Militia fight was leaving any of them alive to potentially come back after my family. I had actually considered marking those we left alive to show they were suspect and had received their one mulligan. I only hesitated because notching an ear or cutting off a finger seemed too barbaric. I suspected it would come one day, but I wasn’t ready, yet. That shift would arrive pretty fast if I actually felt my girls were threatened.
Roger picked up the prisoners. We kept the radio the leader had on him. Force Beta settled back down to watch.
The guy monitoring the deputies’ radio reported that those in the jail were getting very worried about the patrol. After about half an hour he said the radio went silent.
My dad relayed intel on our encrypted radios. I suspected he went to FOB Eagle to send the info. He said there were about 50 people in the justice building, but only six of those remaining were deputies. The rest were local toughs and some civilians. The men we captured claimed they knew nothing about the seniors at the middle school. My dad added that he didn’t believe their denials, but he did believe them about the numbers. He confirmed Allen was in charge and that Sheriff Lewis was missing and presumed dead.
“Anything else you need to know right away,” My dad asked.
“Find out what conditions are like inside, food, water, power, heat, and sanitation,” I said. “It would be helpful to know where people are living and what percent are armed.”
“I think the solar batteries are pretty low,” my dad said, “They asked what we did to the power. Also, they don’t have running water anymore, the utility ran out of fuel for its generator and Allen wouldn’t supply any more.”
If they were that low on trained men, I doubted they’d send any more patrols today. I’d love for them to send out four-man patrols until they ran out of people, but we couldn’t count on them being that dumb. At least it wasn’t raining, I concluded as I settled in for the night. Everyone got some rest as we traded off monitoring the building perimeter overnight.
Other than a root in my ribs, I actually slept pretty well. Dry socks and an MRE and I was ready to go. I got the message that I was needed back at FOB Eagle for a consult just after dawn. We parked our vehicles south of the home Craig was using as a sniper perch
. I stayed in the woods and kept out of sight of the jail complex. I found that the guys with Craig were quite comfortable. We needed to rotate men out of the woods to this location to keep everyone fresh. They had a camp stove and nearly all the comforts of home.
They also had a Humvee with an M 240 mounted in the turret and about five ninja bikes.
I took a ninja back to FOB Eagle to consult with Roger and my dad, leaving Zeke in operational command.
The intel from our prisoners indicated the deputies were now allied with some local drug dealers and a few moonshiners. Deputy Allen was in charge, and his old partner Deputy Ridge was second in command. There were three other deputies and two corrections officers still at the jail, but they had no authority. Our prisoners insisted they were chosen for the patrol because Allen didn’t care whether they were killed or not. Most of the deputies still had family in the building. Allen made it clear their families would be harmed if they didn’t toe the line.