Pedestals of Ash
Page 16
To the north of the building was a seemingly endless expanse of wide-open desert. For as far as he could see, there was nothing but flat, featureless sand. The ridgeline he was atop became very steep less than 1,000 yards north of the center, and even if he decided to detour in that direction, he wasn’t sure he could descend those cliff-like walls. He wanted desperately to bypass that area and be on his way toward Bliss, but the geography wasn’t cooperating. Even if he did head north and found a way to get down from the ridge, he would still have to cross a wide expanse of absolutely open terrain. The people at the complex had fast moving ATVs and most likely night vision – he would be exposed and outgunned with no possible egress.
Bishop had no quarrel with the people below. He wanted to deliver the letters, have a quick chat with the President of the United States, and get back home to his wife. That thought made him laugh. “Hi honey, I’m home. How did my day go? Oh, I had a great chat with the President of the United States and took a tour Fort Bliss. I’m tired though, what’s for supper?” Bishop shook his head – his kids would never believe this one.
He needed some diversion to draw the sentries’ attention away from that open stretch of desert to the north. That was the right direction and the right terrain for traveling. If he could keep the lookouts busy for just 10 minutes, he could scurry across, and be out of their visual range, and on his way. How to do that was a problem.
After detaching the night vision from his rifle, Bishop refocused the eyepiece and flipped through the notes he had been taking while scouting the complex. There was a trash heap on the very southwest corner of the property, and he pondered starting a fire to distract the occupants. There was no way he could even get close to the mound of cardboard boxes, trash bags and other discarded rubbish. He couldn’t think of a reliable way to remotely ignite it from a safe distance.
Another train of thought was to simply approach the complex with a white flag and pass on by. He had seriously been thinking this was the right course of action until he had read the posted signs. The evidence of several human skeletons made Bishop believe the guys at the compound weren’t bluffing.
He spent a few minutes thinking about firing a couple of wild shots at the building and circling around the response team. That course of action was dead-ended for several reasons, not the least of which was he couldn’t maneuver quickly in this landscape. He didn’t believe the gentlemen down there were so stupid as to send all their manpower galloping up the hill to find the shooter, and even if they did, Bishop wouldn’t be able to get around them fast enough. Those snipers on the roof weren’t going anywhere, and they were lord of everything within 1,000 yards of the complex – maybe more.
It was those snipers that bothered him the most. The ATVs would be easy enough to avoid with any but the worst of luck, but those guys on the rooftop were well placed and well equipped for their job. Bishop had seen them holding a variety of objects up to their eyes and scanning the surrounding countryside. While he had never worked with police snipers, he was sure they were equipped similarly to their military brethren, and that translated into night vision, laser range finders, extremely long-range rifles and perhaps even infrared sighting systems. While he couldn’t make out the specific weapons, there was a good chance they had at least one or two capable of hitting targets over a mile away.
Bishop looked down at his M4 and shook his head. His favorite weapon seemed small and anemic compared to what he believed the men below could access. The lack of ammo made the situation seem even more dismal. He needed some way to divert those snipers – some method of using their technology against them. Chewing on a piece of jerky and pulling cool water from his drinking tube, Bishop started to form an idea. The concept of using an enemy’s strength against itself was an age-old art of battle, and his mind was running with a plan.
Thirty minutes later, Bishop slowly approached the upwardly sloping embankment leading to I-10. He had backtracked a little over a mile to the east where the congestion of abandoned vehicles began. After verifying that no one was around, he quickly found what he was looking for and trotted to the side of a semi-truck sitting in the westbound lane. Clearly, the driver had run out of gas and simply walked away from his rig. Both of the fuel caps had been removed, and the glass on the driver’s side door had been broken out, probably by someone checking the cabin for food and water.
Bishop pulled his flashlight off of his chest rig and switched to the red filter. He cautiously climbed up the side of the tall vehicle and peered inside. Papers and other personal effects littered the cabin floor and seats. The scene reminded Bishop of the old movies where the spy came home to find his apartment had been ransacked by someone combing through his personal effects, looking for hidden flash drives storing covert government plans. The searchers in this case had been looking for food and water, not national secrets or hidden safes. Bishop shined his light on the sun visor above the steering wheel and sure enough, there was what he was looking for.
The red glow of the flashlight revealed a state of the art fuzzbuster, complete with the lettering “Dual Mode – Laser and Radar.” Used by motorists to avoid speeding tickets, Bishop had ridden with a friend who had equipped his sports car with a similar device. Following the little unit’s power cord, Bishop verified it was indeed connected to the big rig’s 12-volt battery. He found the power button and was only a little disappointed to discover the truck’s batteries were dead. That might be a problem. A quick scan of the interior revealed nothing more of interest. Bishop sat in the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut. After positioning himself carefully, he kicked the side mirror hard once and then again, until large sections of the coated glass fell to the pavement below. Bishop climbed down with the “borrowed” electronic whiz in his dump pouch, and gathered up the larger pieces of mirror.
He stood on the pavement of the big highway and looked both directions. It dawned on him that there might be a big hole in his plan. He needed 12-volt power to pull off his scheme, but as he looked up and down the road, he saw that every single vehicle had at least one of its doors open. It was obvious that people had driven until they had run out of gas. Before setting out on foot, most had probably locked their cars either out of habit or with the optimistic thought of returning with a can of fuel at some point. As the situation had deteriorated, hungry or thirsty people had probably taken to breaking into the discarded cars looking for food. Maybe some had been vandalized looking for valuables.
Regardless of the motive, open doors and trunk lids meant dome lights, and those lights left on for extended periods of time resulted in drained batteries. He was just about to give up on his plan when he walked past a motorcycle leaning against its kickstand. The bike didn’t have dome lights, but that presented another problem. The bike used a 6-volt power system, half of the typical automobile. Bishop scanned the road in both directions as far as his optics would allow and didn’t see another bike. He could wire two 6-volt batteries together and obtain his goal, but there wasn’t a second scooter to plunder. What he did see was a small fishing boat still sitting on its trailer a few hundred yards away. In less than 15 minutes, Bishop was hefting the starting battery out of the bass boat and moving off into the cool, desert night.
As he approached his previous position overlooking the distribution center, Bishop kept thinking about turning the enemy’s strength to his advantage. He needed to convince the force in the compound below that they were under attack by a significant threat. The key to his plot was to draw everyone’s attention to the ridge, so he could sneak past them in the open desert to the north. Since the trip wires had been set off by chance roaming deer and other wildlife, Bishop envisioned a low state of alert when the devices were engaged. The flares had cried wolf one too many times for anyone below to get excited. While it would have been simple enough to set some sort of time delay and trip one of the devices, Bishop didn’t think that would be enough. He had to have everyone’s attention pointed away from his route.
Bishop couldn’t improve the devices, so he decided to leave them just as they were. What he did do was rig the three flares together. After burning for 10 to 15 seconds, the first flare would burn through the trip wire for the next device. In less than a minute, all three of the bright red warning devices should be causing concern to the men below. It was a simple matter to connect a time delay to the first flare. Bishop removed his roll of duct tape from his pack and tore off a three-foot long strip. One of the hundreds of uses for this sort of tape was making a torch. Duct tape burned very slowly and was fairly consistent. Bishop rolled his adhoc fuse into a tight line and left it ready to light, as the last step before moving off.
The snipers most likely had laser range finders, and Bishop knew it was critical to keep those guys occupied. Failure to do so would probably result in a rather large piece of high-velocity lead slamming into his body. To avoid this unpleasant outcome, Bishop rigged the truck’s radar detector where the beams from the lasers below would pass by the device. The little black case contained LED-warning lights to alert the speeding motorists when a police radar or laser unit was nearby. Bishop hoped it would issue a similar warning regarding the snipers’ equipment. Moving carefully, he strategically placed the broken pieces of mirror where they would catch the flashing white lights from the detector. With any luck, the mirrors would make the blinking lights look like muzzle flashes to the people below. He stood back and walked through it in his mind. The flares would cause the snipers to scan the ridge. The mirrors would reflect the flares’ light and would look unusual to the snipers below. They would scan the area with their range finders, setting off the detector. The detector’s white lights would reflect in the mirrors, and hopefully look like muzzle flashes to the men below. Bishop rubbed his chin, concerned the whole plan reminded him of a Rube Goldberg cartoon mousetrap, but couldn’t come up with anything better.
Worried about his laser contraption, he decided redundancy was in order. His solution was to tape a few of his precious, remaining cartridges to each flare. Being careful not to trigger the device and blow off one of his fingers, he slowly wrapped each round so that its primer was positioned against the tube of the flare. As the heat from the flare reached the primer, the round should explode, causing a lot of noise and not much else. Hopefully, to the people below, it would sound like a gunshot.
It took almost three hours to rig everything up. After one quick check that he was ready, Bishop pulled a disposable lighter from his chest rig and ignited the long strand of duct tape and trotted away to the north.
He stayed close to the top of the ridge careful not to expose his movements to anyone watching from below. He traveled to a wash that was about 1,000 yards north of the complex and checked his watch. He carefully climbed down the steep slope of the rocks, working his way to the desert floor below. Bishop found a good place to hide at the bottom and remained out of sight. He waited until the burning duct tape finally made its way to the first flare’s trip wire. With an auditable pop and fizzle, the ridge south of Bishop was suddenly aglow in pulsating red light. He risked peeking his rifle around the corner of the rock he was hiding behind, and watched with anticipation the activity at the complex. He was a little disappointed when the night vision revealed very little activity on the rooftop of the structure.
Almost a minute later, the first flare burned through the second trip wire, and its magnesium ignited, contributing to the illumination of the ridgeline. Bishop smiled when the reaction to the second flare was considerable. He could see hurried activity and men moving in the shadows of the building. The third flare caused absolute bedlam.
Right on cue, the first flare burned down to the cartridge Bishop had taped to the tube. The sound of a rifle round being discharged was louder than Bishop had anticipated, and he actually jumped just a little as the noise echoed off the rocks. That discharge was soon followed by a second, and now Bishop could hear shouts coming from the complex.
It’s now or never. Bishop sprinted from his hiding spot and headed out into the open desert. He was wagering his life that the men guarding the distribution center were completely focused on the obvious attack coming from the other direction. He didn’t even breathe for the first twenty steps. After he had traveled a hundred yards or so, he started to replenish his oxygen and slow his pace. That was when he heard the first shot come from the roof of the warehouse.
His instinct was to dive for cover and roll. There wasn’t anything to hide behind, so he hoped the movement would cause a long distance shot to miss. When he finally stopped moving, he looked back at the building, trying to determine if he could arch a shot that far. The distance was way, way out of range for his rifle, but he might be able to keep their heads down for a minute or two. A flash of light on the ridge distracted him, and it took a moment to realize his radar trap was working. From his position, he watched, fascinated, as small white twinkles of light flashed on the ridge. It actually looked like the muzzle flash from a rifle, and the snipers on the rooftop were returning fire.
Bishop scrambled up and began jogging west and away from the complex, happy his plan had worked and wanting to get out of range as soon as possible. He ran hard for three minutes, and then slowed to scan the area in front of him with his night vision. As he was bringing the weapon to his shoulder, the squawk of a radio made him freeze.
There, less than 50 yards to his south, was one of the ATVs. The driver was standing in the seat, concentrating on the warehouse with binoculars, and hadn’t seen Bishop. The target was simply too good to pass up, and Bishop kept watching the preoccupied rider as he slowly circled up behind the man. When he was within 30 steps, he detected the noise of the engine idling. At 10 steps, he broke out into a full run and put his shoulder into the man’s knees. The tackle would have made any high school football coach proud.
By the time the startled, confused policeman had regained his composure, he was looking into the barrel of Bishop’s rifle. Bishop started to ask the cop for his license, registration, and proof of insurance, but thought better of it. Instead, he growled, “Friend, I’ll cut you in half, if you even look at me funny. Work with me here, and you’ll be home with your wife and kids in less than an hour. Try and be a fucking hero, and they’ll find your body in two pieces tomorrow morning. Your call.” Bishop accented his threat by clicking off the safety of his rifle.
The frightened man nodded rapidly and finally managed to mumbled, “Okay.”
Five minutes later, Bishop was riding on the ATV carrying the former owner’s shoes, pistol, four full magazines, and a couple bottles of water. The wind felt wonderful against his face, and he couldn’t help but let out a long-winded “Woooooohoooooo” as he sped off into the desert night.
Chapter 12 – Welcome to El Paso
Combined, the cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico have a population larger than Philadelphia or Phoenix. Were it not for the Rio Grande River splitting the two metropolitan municipalities with an international border, the area would be the fifth largest city in America. Almost two thirds of the population resides on the Mexican side of the border, however, leaving El Paso as the 19th largest in the United States, slightly ahead of Memphis, Tennessee.
Most Americans vi
sualize El Paso as a dusty cow town, often mentioned and seldom shown in Hollywood’s depictions of the Old West. The city doesn’t even get respect in the state of Texas, given it falls short of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, and Fort Worth in population.
El Paso is in fact a culturally rich and diverse city with a history as colorful as any, and older than most. The first recorded Thanksgiving Holiday celebrated in El Paso was over 20 years before the pilgrims threw their bash at Plymouth Plantation. The land around the modern downtown has been home to civilized cultures for thousands of years.
None of that mattered to Bishop as he sat on the ATV and chewed his third “power bar” of the morning. He had been like a kid on Christmas day when he found the stash of food in the off-road vehicle’s small storage compartment. Despite his best intentions of saving some of the goodies for Terri, he was quickly eating his way through the treasure.
His mood was elevated further by the fact that he was overlooking his destination. Spread out across the valley below was Fort Bliss with its million plus acres of land. To the south, he could see the outline of downtown El Paso’s skyscrapers. To the north was nothing but open desert, fading away to mountains in the distance. Bishop knew White Sands missile range was connected to the base in that general direction. From his elevated perch, he realized he was probably looking at New Mexico and Texas from the same vista.
He swung a leg over the ATV’s gas tank, while shoving the last of the chocolate flavored treat into his pie hole. A passing pang of guilt pulled him down for a moment, as he thought about how much Terri would have enjoyed sharing it with him. He consoled himself with the excuse that before everything went to hell, the nutritional snack wouldn’t have tasted all that good. While the print on the foil wrapper advertised the product as having a “rich chocolate flavor,” Bishop remembered most of these products had tasted like raw oats coated in cardboard. Today, however, nothing could be further from the truth. His palate had been deprived of anything sweet for months, and even the hint of chocolate caused him to gobble down the first two bars in a few bites.