Pedestals of Ash
Page 25
The older man leaned back in his plastic ice cream parlor chair and rubbed his chin. Bishop couldn’t tell if the man was pissed off, bored or simply thinking things through. He finally asked Bishop what he would have done.
Bishop wasn’t ready for that question and took his time. He stared at the wall, thinking that the pink and yellow balloons were a far too lighthearted décor for this conversation. We should be in a wood paneled conference room with high back leather chairs and ashtrays full of partially smoked cigars, he thought.
“Sir, I would have assigned army units and resources to the local politicians and leaders. Rather than roll into a city with tanks, I would have used the fuel to run local generators. I would have implemented similar actions to what Roosevelt did with the WPA. Could busses full of men recruited from the city centers have harvested crops somewhere? Could volunteers have been organized to distribute seeds and teach everyone how to produce their own vegetables? Could the Navy have docked the carriers and other nuclear powered vessels and used their reactors to provide electricity for some of the coastal cities? I’m not smart enough to know what would’ve worked and what wouldn’t. To be blunt, I don’t think it would have mattered if most of what the government tried to do eventually failed. What I do know is that taking away everyone’s freedom was a mistake. The door was opened to the Independents, and now they aren’t going to go away.”
The man across from Bishop smiled knowingly. “The Colonel was right about you. I should’ve known that old bastard wouldn’t send just any old Joe Nobody in his stead.”
Chapter 16 – The Storm before the Calm
The caravan from Meraton arrived at the church compound without incident. The remaining defenders seemed relieved that help had finally arrived and were especially happy to see their leader had returned. Deacon Brown immediately introduced Nick and let everyone at the compound know he was in charge of defensive matters. After making sure her wishes were known, she busied herself with checking on the wounded and other priorities.
Nick’s Special Forces’ training and experience immediately showed through. Being a Green Beret, his primary role in the military was to take irregulars, or untrained people, and convert them into an effective fighting force. He had performed these duties all over the world, and the defenders of the First Bible Church of Alpha, Texas were a perfect match for his experience. After gathering the “middle management” of men designated to protect the grounds, the first thing that drew Nick’s attention was the fact that the church had never conducted any offensive tactics. As the history of the conflict was explained to him, he noted that the word “defense” was taken far too literally by the congregation. Throughout the entire three-month affair, the men gathered around him had basically let the other side attack, attack, and attack again. Never had the church’s men attempted anything along the lines of a pre-emptive strike against their foes. Not once had they ever tried an ambush or counterattack. Initially, the congregation viewed such tactics as anti-Christian. Evidently, the old saying, “The best defense is a strong offense,” was assumed to apply only to football. The foe had been allowed to call the shots, and Nick was about to change all of that. The famous words of General Patton echoed in his head, “Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.”
His first step was to divide the force into two groups. The less mobile men were assigned to perimeter defense, and he significantly altered where each man was positioned. A second, more agile group was formed with the stated purpose of conducting offensive operations.
Nick then took the group assigned to the wall and sub-divided them into two sections. He left a core group of men stationed along the walls, but he also culled out what he termed a “quick reaction force.” This group was to lie back and wait during any attack. When it became apparent where the primary threat was focused, they were to rush in and reinforce that area.
Nick struggled with where to assign his own son. Kevin had proven himself in combat, and Nick trusted the boy’s judgment and capabilities more than he did anyone else at the compound. On the other hand, there was a higher level of risk here than anything they had encountered before. The father inside of him conflicted with the warrior. In the end, the father won out, and Nick was assigned as Deacon Brown’s new bodyguard. Nick made it absolutely clear that any heroics wouldn’t be tolerated. The boy begrudgingly agreed.
Terri was another dilemma. Nick had fought beside her as well and knew she was as good, if not better, than most men. Months ago, when the rovers had attacked Nick’s hideout, Terri had battled like a wildcat and saved Kevin from certain death. She was also the pregnant wife of the only friend Nick had left. Terri was a different situation than Kevin. She was an adult and responsible for her own actions. Nick started to leave the decision up to her, but then realized he hadn’t done so with any of the church’s other members. Why should Terri be given special consideration? Terri was assigned to the quick reaction force, and put in charge.
Despite a hurried evaluation and reorganization, Nick was concerned. Ammunition was low, as was morale. The perimeter consisted of far too much real estate for the number of men available to hold it and was way too porous for a proper fixed defense. After positioning the men on the wall where he thought best, Nick went to work on the mobile team. He gave them a quick, twenty-minute briefing on what he had in mind and made sure that everyone in the small group understood the tactics and terms.
Deacon Brown ventured out of the main building and watched Nick for a while. The man’s confidence was reassuring, and he seemed to understand he was commanding civilians, not soldiers. She marveled at how he explained things in quick, simple terms, and then made sure everyone understood. Diana thought Nick should have been a college professor. He seemed to boil down complex subjects to simple, understandable terms and showed patience when the student didn’t understand. The thought of the big warrior standing at the lectern with chalk dust on his hands made her giggle.
Nick heard Diana’s reaction and mistook it. After finishing his task, he marched over with a questioning look on his face, “Did I do something you thought was funny?”
Diana read him immediately, and blurted out, “Oh…no…no…no…. That wasn’t why I laughed. I was admiring how patient you were with the congregation and had a vision of you teaching college. It was so ridiculous…I had to laugh at myself. Don’t worry; you’re doing great.”
Nick smiled and relaxed. “I surely do hope we can end this conflict soon. I look forward to a time where people are building things, not tearing them down.”
Diana nodded her agreement, “I’ve wanted that for so long. In a way, I’d kind of given up hope. Lately, it takes everything I have to just make it through one day at a time. There’s been little thought about tomorrow.”
Nick reached out and put his hand on Diana’s shoulder. She didn’t recoil from the gesture, nor did she seem to embrace it. In a warm voice, Nick said, “I understand taking things one day at a time. I’ve been there. You have and are doing a great job with these people. We are going to fix this. I’m in it with you all the way, if you want me here.”
Diana looked into his eyes and said, “Thank you. You don’t know how good it is to hear that. I really am glad you are here.”
Nick knew it wasn’t the time to get into personal relationships. There was business to attend to, and he decided to pull back just a little. “Don’t be so quick to judge. I seem to have this tendency to wear out my welcome. We’ll see how the day goes and like you said, ‘One day at a time.’”
Diana nodded her agreement, “You’re right. These are good Christian people for the most part. Other than the loss of life on both sides, I worry the most about what all of this conflict is doing to their souls. None of them signed up to be soldiers. Even if we survive, I wonder about the quality of their lives afterwards. Nothing we can do about that now, I guess.”
The statement about Christian people reminded Nick of a thought that had been rolling around in
his head. “Diana is there any statue, cross or other religious symbol here at the church that is large enough to draw attention, but light enough we can carry?”
“I don’t know what you mean?”
Nick thought for a moment and then expounded, “Something like a big shiny cross or a statue of some sort. Something that we could sit out, and people would notice it. If it were something that looked valuable, that would be even better.”
Diana still didn’t quite comprehend what Nick was wanting, but turned and motioned him to follow her. The pair walked through the main floor, then down into the basement. Diana picked up a candle on the way and when they entered the darker part of the building, she lit the wick. They eventually entered a storeroom and she explained, “When we built the new structure, we stored a lot of things down here. My dad couldn’t seem to part with this stuff. You can use anything down here that meets your needs.”
Nick took the taper and investigated the large room, checking its contents. There were desks, chairs, artificial plants and an assortment of other items. In the corner, he saw a brightly painted statue of the Virgin Mary. He handed Diana the candle and moved a few items so he could access the porcelain decoration. He picked up the figure and hefted its weight. After satisfying himself it was portable, he moved the piece to an open area and examined it closely with the light.
The statue was about four feet high and brightly painted. Mary was standing with her arms spread wide as if to welcome everyone. She had been adorned with a blue robe and white headdress. Surrounding her head was a shiny golden crown that actually glittered in the candlelight. The inside was hollow and one arm had been broken off and reattached at some point. There was a bronze placard indicating it had been donated to the First Bible Church by the VFW Ladies Auxiliary of Alpha. One hand was missing.
“I remember this,” said Diana, “my father was very upset when it was broken during the move. I think he kept it down here hoping to have it repaired one day.”
“Do you mind if we use it? Odds are it won’t survive.”
Diana didn’t hesitate, “If it’ll help save one person’s life, you are welcome to it. It’s just a thing, and I’ve realized these past weeks that things aren’t really that important anymore.”
Nick didn’t want the statue to save lives. As a matter of fact, his intent was quite the opposite, but he decided to keep that to himself. He handed Diana the taper and gently hoisted the statue onto his shoulder.
Within three hours of arrival, ten stealthy men and one virgin snuck out of the church’s perimeter. Nick was leading the group.
The four Blackhawk helicopters performed a textbook simultaneous landing at the Alpha Airport. Before the skids touched the ground, the airmobile infantry hit the ground, moving rapidly to establish a perimeter. Within a few seconds, the well-trained troopers were fanning out in all directions, a search and rescue mission to secure the President of the United States.
The small regional airport could boast only a few buildings, and it didn’t take long to discover the abandoned Humvee Bishop had “borrowed” from Fort Bliss. Even less time transpired before a sergeant came rushing back to Agent Powell with the president’s jacket. “There’s no sign of them, sir. I believe they parked in that terminal and proceeded on foot or obtained another vehicle.”
Powell held the jacket in his hands and glanced at the waiting soldier. “Thank you, Sergeant. Please let me know as soon as you have finished searching the remaining facilities.”
The sergeant replied with a crisp, “Yes, sir,” and spun quickly to return to his unit. The man took a single step, paused, and then pivoted back around to face the Secret Service man. “Sir, there is one other thing. I believe one of the president’s party may be injured. There is a small amount of blood in the back of the Humvee.”
Powell’s head snapped up, and he demanded, “Show me.”
Both men sprinted to the hangar where several soldiers were examining every plane, nook, and cranny of the building. Powell was led to the back of the Humvee, where a few small drops of a dark, red substance were pointed out. Dipping his finger into one of the beads, Powell smelled the suspicious liquid, rubbed his fingers together, and stared at the results. “It sure looks and smells like blood, sergeant. But there’s not much here. Tell your CO I want someone flown in from Bliss immediately to take a sample of this. We need to find out if it belongs to the president or someone else.”
Powell walked back to the cluster of idling copters and scanned the terrain. There were four possibilities: The first was the fugitive and president had left by aircraft. “Unlikely,” thought Powell. The second was they left via another motorized vehicle, commandeered from the airport grounds. The third was the missing pair had met someone here and left with them. Again, Powell thought that was low on the probability list. The last, and what Powell’s gut told him was the most likely scenario, had the stranger and president leaving the airport on foot.
He reached that conclusion via simple deduction. The shot-up vehicles littering the airport grounds had been looted of their batteries, and the gas caps of every single tank were open or missing. Some locals were scavenging the area, and any motorized transport left behind by Bishop risked being discovered and stripped. Powell didn’t think the man would take that risk. The same logic applied to the aircraft. Every single gas cap was removed, indicating someone had siphoned all the fuel. If Bishop did have a plane waiting here, he risked coming back and finding empty fuel tanks. Meeting someone for a ride would have required pre-planning or communication. There was no way Bishop could have planned for the coup attempt or stealing a Humvee. Powell had searched the man’s personal items, and there had been no radio. No, the agent thought, He and the boss headed off on foot.
Powell instinctively ducked under a Blackhawk’s spinning blades and yelled at the pilot, “If you were to leave here on foot, where would you go? Is there anything of interest around here other than the town?”
The pilot looked at his GPS navigation display and a chart clipped to the dash. The helmet and mirrored aviator’s sunglasses made the man appear more machine than human. After scanning both sources, the pilot responded, “No sir, there is nothing but open desert every direction for miles, and frankly, sir, it’s pretty desolate-looking terrain. I’d head for town, sir.”
Powell nodded his thanks and walked away from the noisy engine. In a few minutes, the sergeant, accompanied by his lieutenant, came trotting back up. This time the officer reported, “All clear, sir.” Powell nodded and decided on a plan. He turned to the nearest Blackhawk and climbed aboard. He approached the cockpit and told the pilot his idea. “I want two of these birds to search the surrounding desert. Stay away from the town. If they are headed there and see you, the will go to cover and we’ll never find them. I want the other two choppers to stay here, ready to retrieve the president at a moment’s notice. I’m going to take these soldiers and head into Alpha. If the air patrol finds them, radio us. After you conduct the search, return here and wait to come get us.”
The pilot nodded and immediately began relaying the agent’s wishes over the radio. Two of the big helicopters powered up as Powell returned to the waiting soldiers. Again, the agent relayed his strategy, and within minutes the scouts were double-timing away toward Alpha.
After getting everyone settled in the former t-shirt shop, Nick carefully moved to the roof of the building. He had calculated that the enemy would attack before dark, and that left them only a few hours to move into place. If the ghoulish were going to hit the church today, it had to be soon.
The small, two-story brick building provided a good position to observe the enemy’s approach. While he was almost certain they would attack the breach created by the garbage truck, there was no way to be absolutely positive about which route they would opt for entry. He wanted to hit them as they were staging for the attack. That’s when they would be the most vulnerable, and his small number of men could cause the maximum amount of disruption.
As he lifted the heavy wooden trap door a few inches to peer outside, the first thing he looked for was any nearby structure that offered a higher vantage than his own. There was only one building some five or six blocks away that was taller and would provide a clear view of his position. It was in the opposite direction of the church, so he doubted the skinnies would have an observer there.
Keeping low, he pushed himself out onto the flat, pitch covered roof and slow-crawled to a nearby air conditioner hood. The shiny metal box looked like millions of others that adorned commercial buildings all over the world and would provide him limited cover. The anticipated sniper’s bullet didn’t slam into his body, so Nick proceeded to scoot to the raised edge of the roofline and peeked over. While he couldn’t see the courthouse building proper from his vantage point, he did have a clear view of several intersections in both directions. Unless the foe took a very out-of-the-way route to attack the compound, they should pass through his field of view.
Whereas Bishop had angled toward the campus after leaving the airport, the soldiers headed straight for downtown Alpha. Two scouts lead the way, keeping about 200 meters in front of the main body of troops. Powell noticed their progress slowed as they drew closer to the outskirts of town.
The fringes of Alpha consisted of a few scattered homes with detached garages and small outbuildings here and there. As they progressed, the surroundings gradually changed to neighborhood streets serving homes adorned with gingerbread and sidewalks lined with shade trees. This section of Alpha had once been a modest neighborhood of middle class family homes.