The Fall of America | Book 5 | Fallout

by Benton, W. R.

  The Senior Sergeant guided the helicopter in by using his arms, and soon it was hovering near the trail, with one skid actually touching the soil. The three wounded were placed inside and finally the body bag. It was then they began taking small arms fire. A rocket or missile, the Senior Sergeant was unsure which, swooshed by narrowly missing the tail but exploding close enough to cause some damage.

  The pilot's fairly calm voice was heard, “This is Medic One. I am taking ground fire! Taking fire, loaded, and departing. I have recovered three wounded and one dead.”

  The windscreen in front of the copilot shattered, the copilot's body stiffened, and then he went limp, as blood began to run down the front of his helmet.

  The crew, machine-gunners at both doors, were now returning fire and seemed to be holding their own.

  As the helicopter began to gain altitude, a Strela 2 missile fired, struck near the engine compartment, and while panels were blown away, the helicopter continued to gain altitude. Smoke began to pour from the engine of the aircraft.

  “Base, this is Medic One, and I am enroute to the base hospital. Be advised I have taken battle damage and not sure if I can make the return trip. All of my master caution lights are on and my copilot appears dead.”

  “Copy, Medic One, we have a couple of Black Sharks that are near your position to give you a hand and watch over you on your return flight. If you must sit the aircraft down, let us know and we'll send someone to pick you up.”

  “Medic One, this is Badger One and I have you visual. I am approaching off your right side and from behind you. I will fly over and around you to check for damage.”

  “I have some damage to the tail rotor and engine compartment.”

  “Copy and you are smoking badly too, from your engine. Uh, I see no flames.”

  Giving a dry chuckle the helicopter pilot replied, “That is the only light that is not on right now, my fire lights. If I have to put this thing down, I do not think I will have much notice, so I may be too busy to talk when it happens. Already the stick is vibrating, so I think it is just a matter of time.”

  Chapter 7

  I cursed as my first shot with the Strela 2 just caused some minor damage to the chopper's tail, but we carried one more. I lined up my sights on my last missile and when I squeezed the trigger, the aircraft dispensed chaff and while my aim was true, it exploded near the aircraft, but did not strike it as I wanted. I did have the satisfaction of seeing panels fly off and the bird began to smoke heavily.

  I suspected it would go down before it reached Edwards Air Base.

  The Russians, now under the leadership of a Senior Sergeant, broke contact with us and moved into the trees to lick their wounds. Normally I would have followed them, but I had a bomb to explode, so I walked from the swamp and started moving toward the safe house. I put Walker on point; she was a proven soldier, and had Brewer bringing up the rear. Dolly, walking at my side always made me feel safe because she could smell, hear and see better than any of us.

  I had enough experience to know the Russians were still following us. The Senior Sergeant pulled back into the woods to give his young troops some time to breathe, eat, and unwind. After a short break, they'd come after us again.

  Lea neared me and said, “Headquarters just notified me that the Russians are out in force and the units that attempted to reach us earlier are all being followed or have been fighting. Looks like no help any time soon. So, we're more or less on our own right now.”

  Mary looked at me and said, “We need to change directions and attempt to lose the team behind us. I see no reason to walk straight to the safe house and lead them there, too. I'm going to move to Walker and have her turn west a bit.”

  “We can try to lose them, but if that doesn't work, we'll ambush them, if we can. Brewer has a few mines to place, so he'll keep them honest.”

  “Let me climb a tree around here and I'll take out a bunch.” Alford, the sniper, said.

  “Do that, but take no chances. You know well how the sniper game is played, so do your job and then get back to us. Take no crazy chances.”

  Giving a dry chuckle, Alford replied, “Sir, I'm a sniper, and not a hero. I'll warn them off with a few well placed shots and then leave.”

  He then separated from us and moved into the trees. I said a silent prayer for him, knowing his task was difficult and dangerous. The difficult part was getting away, not killing Russians. Like most folks, the Russians hate snipers and if captured, Alford could expect a painful death. They'd probably torture him for days.

  Less than twenty minutes later, I heard four evenly spaced shots, then the rapid reply of a Bison sub-machine-gun. I counted Alford as dead, but he showed up later with no injuries. He knew he'd killed one with a head shot, and dropped two more, one man with two bullets in him.

  Most of the morning was quiet, but we did have to stop and hide from a couple of choppers that I suspected were working with the Russian team behind us. As far as I know they never spotted us because if they had, they'd have fired on us or called in some fixed wing aircraft. To the men behind us, it must have looked like we'd disappeared. We were experts at leaving few tracks, but no one can move and not leave some. Brewer's job, when he could, was to remove any tracks of us he spotted. At times he'd leave a clear track and then place a couple of booby-traps.

  Near dark, we came to an old junk yard full of rusting cars and trucks. There must have been 200 cars and trucks spread over a few acres, and while I saw a building, I wouldn't stay there. That would be the first place the Russians would search. Mary had the troops move through the junk yard, leaving hand grenades with the pins pulled, but the spoon held down by parts of a car body. We then ran some nylon fishing line to another vehicle and secured it. The idea was once the line was pulled far enough, and it'd not take much, the grenade would slide out, the spoon would fly off, and an explosion would result.

  We moved to the opposite side of the junk yard and made a night camp. It would be a cold camp since we were being followed. I then took Thompson with me and we walked to the house. I placed a couple of mines out front and then entered and booby-trapped the door with a grenade. I found two empty propane tanks, the kind used on barbecue grills, and placed them on each side of the grenade, and opened the valves. Since the building had two stories, I also booby-trapped the stairs about half way up.

  Once we were done, we quickly returned to camp, hoping to eat before it turned dark. Once the meal was complete, we spread out and waited. The air was cool, with a bit of a bite, but not really cold. I had felt fine as long as we were moving, but now I was slightly chilled. I took a hard candy from my pocket and sucked on it for energy and heat. Our wait was a short one, right after the moon came out, and while I heard no grenades explode in the junk yard, I did spot movement.

  When I glanced at Mary, she pointed at the house. I saw almost a squad of Russians moving for the place. I then lost them to darkness. I donned my NVGs and could see better, but at the distance much detail was missing.

  As I watched, one man kicked the front door in, and seconds later as the Russians rushed in shooting, the grenade between the propane tanks exploded. The resulting explosion was huge with a gigantic fireball.

  Must have still been a lot of propane gas in those cylinders, I thought, feeling nothing for my enemy. I was all out of compassion, having used the last of it a few years back.

  The house was now in flames and I spotted four Russians outside. I heard the low thunk of our sniper rifle twice and two of our enemies dropped.

  I moved to Mary and said, “I suggest we leave now. This place will be crawling with Russians, and it won't be long either. I'm sure they'll call this situation in to Headquarters.”

  Mary stood and said, “Saddle up and lets move. Brewer on point and Wied bringing up our rear. Keep your ears open for choppers.”

  We had a quiet night, and put some miles behind us. But near daybreak, we ran into a roadblock with a machine-gun nest. It was manned by five Rus
sians, and they were up and cooking breakfast. I wanted to go around it, but trees were sparse here and I didn’t want to take the time to walk miles out of my way. I wanted to get the bomb into Edwards and complete my mission. I had Hall crawl forward, with the intent of tossing a grenade in the sandbags. Three of the Russians were sitting on the bags as they ate. The other two were eating as they stood near the bags, making small talk. No one was alert or expecting danger.

  I instructed Alford to take out any men the grenade missed.

  I watched Hall moving slowly in the darkness and he was about half the distance to the machine-gun. Not once did a Russian soldier stop eating and scan the country-side. These men had been in the field too long, becoming bored and complacent. While I knew it was easy duty, away from Sergeants and officers, failure to stay alert would get them killed this morning.

  Hall stopped, pulled two grenades from his web belt, removed the tape around the spoons, and I watched him in the dim moonlight straighten the cotter pins. He left one grenade on the ground, while he pulled the pin on the one in his hand. He let the spoon fly and tossed it right into the sandbags. The second grenade followed the first. The resulting explosions were loud in the cool morning air and the three men eating on the sandbags were no longer seen. Alford's sniper rifle accounted for the other two.

  “Everyone stay where you are until sunrise; it's just a few minutes away.” Mary ordered.

  I was already tired, having carried my pack all night, and what I really needed was a full 8 hours of sleep, without interruption. I need some serious rest, I thought as I yawned. A few minutes later it was daylight.

  “Let's check them out and if they move, put a bullet in them.” Mary said as she stood.

  We were well spread out when all of us, except Alford, moved to the gun. He remained behind to take out any trouble that might pop up. While our grenade assault looked effective, people often survive what looks to be a totally devastating attack for the onlooker. I would not be surprised to find two or three men alive.

  We found the men dead, except for one. The wounded man had shrapnel in his belly and legs. He was laying on the pavement of the road in a pool of bright red blood. His eyes were large in fear and he was moaning constantly. I knew he was in severe pain, so I told Wied to give him just enough morphine to ease his pain. I warned her not to kill him.

  I'd started a new program where we left the wounded alone, except we'd kill their pain and dress their wounds. I hoped it would bring about the same treatment for our wounded when captured. So far, with the new Commander, I had no idea how he'd react. He'd been in place for less than a week.

  “Take anything of use. Walker, check the machine-gun and see if it's still in good condition. If so, bring it and all the ammo.”

  When Walker neared with the weapon in her hand, I saw it was an old, 7.62×54mm, PKM Machine Gun. Lawdy, they'd been around since 1961 or so, but I knew it was an old dependable weapon. We had five boxes of ammunition, but that's a lot of weight to carry. It was then I saw a bicycle laying in the grass; I walked to it and looked it over. We'd do like the Vietnamese did during the Vietnam War and use the bicycle to carry our gear and supplies. I cut a long green limb from an oak tree, trimmed it of branches, and then attached it to the handlebars using the shoe laces of the dead men. With one person holding the limb, we could balance a heavy load easily.

  I heard Carol speaking to the wounded Russian in his tongue, and found it strange she knew the language.

  “He wants to know if we will kill him.” she said, meeting my eyes.

  “Tell him if the Russian Commander will stop killing our men, I will no longer kill injured Russian soldiers. This one is to live so he can carry my message.”

  “Marsha,” Mary said to Wied, “Treat the Russian, but Susan, you cover her.”

  “Dolly, come.” I said, and when she walked to my side, I said, “Sit.”

  “Tell him if he tries to hurt our medic, the dog will eat him alive,” I said.

  “I told him, and he's scared of Dolly, but wants to know if he'll be a prisoner of war.”

  “No, we'll leave him for his people to find. We're taking their radio, so when they don't call in a report or two, someone will come looking for them.”

  “I told him about half, but he's passed out.”

  “Excellent. Pull him away from the others and plant some mines and toe-poppers. I want grenades under each body. I think the Russians won't expect us to provide medical care to a man and then booby-trap his dead friends.”

  In their supplies, besides the machine-gun, ammunition, individual weapons, and some boots, we found two cases of rations, two dozen grenades, two bottles of vodka, and some long rolls of freshly baked bread. I placed my pack, all the gear we now had, along with the drink and food on the bike. I found balancing it was easy.

  When we called in what happened with the machine-gun nest, we were ordered to move west about five miles and wait to link with another squad that would take us to the suitcase bomb. The safe house had been attacked, with heavy losses on both sides, but the suitcase was still in our possession.

  Instead of thinking about my mission, I found myself looking at Carol as she moved around. It's important to remember relationships came up, even with partisans. No matter how badly life treated us, we were still human, and being loved is a basic need. She was a very beautiful woman in my eyes. I found her blonde hair and green eyes had captured my heart, but she was intelligent too, spoke fluent Russian, and her only weakness was she didn't like spending the night in a swamp. She'd impressed me, and that's not easily done. Not once has she complained about being in the field, and I know it must be hard on her, because she works in intelligence, I thought. She's not a quitter, and that is a trait I demand in my women and friends.

  “Alright, let's move. We need to get to the spot so we can meet the other team. Same two on point and drag.” Mary said.

  Lea said, “Our password has been changed to 'water bill' and the team has been advised as well. Challenge with water and the reply should be bill. Expect rain tonight and part of tomorrow.”

  We began to move, taking our time. The bike, which I'd handed over to Thompson, was easy to move, and he even had his flamethrower on it. In a little more than an hour we were at the meeting spot and we began to dig in.

  Carol neared and asked if she could dig in close to me.

  “Sure, but dig deep.” I teased, because we rarely dug foxholes.

  “What will you do once the Russians leave?” she asked.

  “Help put this country back together, if it's possible. See, one of the biggest mistakes we made in the old America was giving so much power to the Federal Government. Toward the end, 90% of the power was in Washington and about 10% with the states. That's exactly backward of what our founding fathers wanted. Thomas Jefferson warned us to avoid a big Federal government because it takes power away from the states, and he didn't trust big government at all. Our politicians were all corrupt, they lied and sold their votes to the highest bidder.”

  “Oh, I can't believe they were taking money for how they voted.”

  “You can't? Then explain to me how most of them left politics as millionaires, which was impossible to do honestly using their base pay. Lobbies, in my opinion, were the ones buying the votes and each party was guilty of being bought. The only real difference between the Democrats and Republicans was the sponsors. Some Senators and Congressmen had paying positions with companies that paid them millions a year, but they'd never stepped inside their office. Corruption breeds corruption, which is why some pretty stupid decisions were passed in the last four years of our nation. Folks took the money and voted to pass things they knew would hurt or destroy our country.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, like granting citizenship to millions of illegal aliens, because it put a tremendous drain on our available assets due to almost all needing some sort of public assistance. These illegals weren't professionals, or at least most weren't; some w
ere criminals, and others were uneducated and worked in minimum wage positions. While we were taking care of illegals, we had veterans dying as they waited for care, and all our efforts seemed to be geared toward helping non-Americans first. I feel our priorities were wrong and our veterans should have been helped first. We should have sent the illegals home, billed their home country for the cost of transportation, and listed each illegal in the computer system as a criminal.”

  “I remember it happening, but I had no idea how bad off our country was at the time.”

  “What really showed our intelligence, or lack thereof, was taking almost 2 million Syrian refugees into our nation while they were expecting us to conform to their society. First, we were not in a good enough financial condition to bring others into our nation, and I feel if you come here to live, you become an American or return to your native land. If you think back you'll remember the increase in crime some of these folk caused once relocated here, they were always pushing their laws and religion on us, and some were guilty of terrorist activities. Just think, we brought the terrorists here, gave them a home, money, car, gave them full medical and dental coverage, and then found them a job. In turn, they blew us up to show how grateful they were.

  You will remember the turmoil our President caused by siding with this group or that group, clearly against the wishes of the majority of the American people. Soon, it got so bad it seemed like a cop a day was being killed, some by the same organizations the President endorsed. Then, when folks were going to speak to Congress or the Senate about an investigation being conducted, they often had deadly accidents. No, I didn't see it then, but America was destroyed from the inside, not from without.”

  “So, what kind of America do you want?” she asked, and I could see she was honestly interested in my response.

  “First, all political correctness bullshit needs to go out the window. We need a strong President who will have the sense, along with the guts, to make the proper decisions at tough times. We need to return the power of our nation to the people and their states. Politicians should not be able to accept funds, period, outside their basic government pay that we the people provide for him or her for the position they fill. There should be term limits for every politician, too. Lobbying should not be legal, because it's just another word for bribery, and those who accept cash should be charged with a felony. The President should not endorse anyone or any organization, not a one. He should only be allowed so many vacations days a year, paid out of his or her own pocket, and their vacations should be taken in the states, so our nation benefits from their money spent.”