by John Chapman
Card changed the subject and asked, “Any idea what the hell is going on? None of my electronics or my patrol car work.” Dylan said, “I’m not sure. Had to have been a nuke of some kind.” Card said, “It could have been a sun storm too.” Dylan ignored him, in his mind it didn’t matter what caused the problem. Dylan noticed Card wasn’t carrying his rifle or wearing his hard armor and asked him, “Where’s your rifle and plates bro?” Card looked at him derisively and scoffed, saying, “I’m here to protect these people Nowak, not attack them. I’ve been trying to calm people down and telling them to shelter in place.” Dylan was not surprised. Card had always been a social worker cop who carried a gun because the department made him. Not exactly the kind of dude Dylan wanted with him right now.
The only thing Dylan could think to say was, “Can I have your rifle?” Card shrugged his shoulders, stood up and opened the trunk, and handed Dylan his patrol carbine. Dylan said, “Thanks. Do you have any mags?” The rifle didn’t have a magazine in it. Typical, he thought. Card ignored him, looking intently to the south. “What is it?” Dylan asked. “A group is coming this way.” Card said. Dylan was about to speak when rounds started impacting the patrol car and whizzing by in the air. Card didn’t move and Dylan had to pull him behind the car. Dylan hurriedly loaded the rifle and snuck a peek downrange. They must have seen him because the incoming fire increased in intensity. Some of the incoming fire was much louder and the rounds snapping overhead began to crack painfully. The opposition had found their rifles. He and Card needed to move. Now.
Dylan began pushing Card backwards, trying to keep the rapidly shredding patrol car between them and the bad guys. Dylan grabbed Card by the shirt and shook him. When Card’s eyes focused on him, Dylan said, “Sprint to the west side of the street, find cover and start shooting at these assholes. I’ll cover you while you run. When you start shooting I’ll sprint to you.” Card nodded jerkily and got up and started running. “Thanks for the warning bro.” Dylan said sarcastically to himself. He took a deep breath, switched which knee he had on the ground to reduce his exposure, shouldered the carbine, and rolled out to find some work.
As he extended past the car, Dylan saw a guy kneeling behind a car about 50 yards to his south-east. The guy had an AK in his hands and was firing at the patrol car. Dylan centered the EoTech reticle on the guy’s head and fired once. Nothing changed. He centered the dot and fired again. He watched the round impact the guy in the hip and he fell over screaming. What the hell?, Dylan thought, Where does Card have his rifle zero’d? That round impacted like 3 feet low. Dylan transitioned targets to a dude who was standing in the middle of Freedom Avenue wearing a bright white parka, shooting at the patrol car with a pistol. Again, Dylan aimed at the guy’s head and again the three rounds he fired hit the guy in his pelvis. The white jacket provided a great contrast to see his hits. Kind of like a zeroing target Dylan thought wryly.
Dylan realized Card wasn’t shooting. He ducked back behind the patrol car and noticed the fire from the dirtbags was slacking off. Maybe shooting at the cops was less fun when some of them were getting burned down. He chanced a glance to his right and saw Card was down on the sidewalk on the west side of Freedom Avenue, writhing in pain and yelling incoherently. “Shit.” Dylan said out loud. He moved the selector on the rifle to safe and sprinted at Card. As he reached him the fire from the hood rats picked up considerably. Gritting his teeth, Dylan stopped at Card and started to drag him west behind a house. When he got Card around the corner Dylan dropped him and collapsed in a heap himself. He was smoked.
Dylan had to keep going. He turned and started to evaluate Card’s injury and asked him, “Where are you hit bro? We don’t have a lot of time; you have to work with me here.” Card gritted his teeth and groaned, “I’m not shot. I sprained my ankle.” Dylan shook his head for a second. Keeping his thoughts to himself because they were counter-productive, Dylan just said, “Get. Up. Now. I need you to pull your weight and quit being a basic bitch, Card.” Card just looked at him. Dylan tried again, “Card we have to move. These guys have rifles and are coming for us. We need to get in a spot we can hard point and fight from.” Card finally nodded his head and dragged his sorry ass up to his feet. Dylan looked back around the corner at the dirtbags, and noticed they hadn’t advanced on the patrol car yet, but they had stopped shooting. They must be having the ‘no, YOU expose yourself first’ argument, he thought.
Dylan ducked back behind the corner and told Card, “OK, let’s get to the next alley west and look for a place to hard point. We can’t keep up this running gunfight; there are too many of them. Eventually they will smarten up and get north of us to box us in.” Card just nodded and hoped Dylan knew what he was doing. It was starting to dawn on Card just how off the rails things had become. His mind still reeled, trying to understand how in just an hour or so the day had devolved from a typical winter day shift into he and Dylan running for their lives, looking for a place to make a stand like they were some 19th century Indian fighters or something. Dylan could see the indecisiveness on Card’s face and said, “Just follow me and do what I tell you to, Card. We will be fine.” Card nodded and gathered himself to move.
Dylan and Card spent the next 30 minutes rushing from one piece of cover to the next. Alternating between running and hiding, they worked their way 8 blocks north. Their latest hiding spot was behind a bush on the east side of the St. Joseph’s Church Rectory, just a few of blocks from the police station. Dylan knew they couldn’t move much on such a sunny day without being seen but tried several times to stop and hard point a position, only to have someone see them and start yelling. They could hear the mob behind them; always stalking just out of sight like predators waiting for the prey to show a weakness.
As they hid they heard a commotion to their right and looked up just in time to see two young males banging on the front door of a house to the south of the Rectory. The two were let into the home and a moment later Card spotted a rifle barrel sticking out of one of the second-floor windows. The barrel was moving in a fairly tight cone in his and Dylan’s immediate area as if searching for them. Card started to say something but was cut off by Dylan softly saying, “Contact left. Four armed subjects across the street to the north.” Card said, “There is a rifle pointing at us from the second-floor window of the house to our south.” Dylan said, “So shoot at them dude!” while his mind raced for a solution. He wasn’t sure how the dirtbags accomplished it with no communications but they had the cops surrounded.
As Dylan tried to steel himself to assault through the four gunmen to the north, that being the only option he could see at this point, a window behind them in the Rectory opened. An elderly white man who Dylan recognized as the Pastor of this church stuck his head out and said, “What’s going on officers? Everything OK?” Dylan said, “No sir things are not OK. Can we come in please?” As the man was formulating a response the rifle in the window to the south cracked and the man’s head seemed to momentarily expand like a balloon. The 7.62X39 round caught the Pastor in the right temple and exploded out of his head just behind his left eye, painting the window sill and Dylan with the innocent man’s gore.
Card recoiled in shock and froze. Dylan knew they were surrounded and exposed in broad daylight without the benefit of even the most basic of cover. He made a snap decision. As more rounds came into their position from the south Dylan grabbed the lifeless Pastor by the shoulders and shoved him back in the window. In the same motion, he threw himself up into the window, catching the bottom of the sill and pulling himself in as rounds impacted the wall around him. As soon as Dylan got inside he turned and began engaging the elevated shooter to the south with his rifle. He hoped to suppress the guy long enough to get Card into the window. It was not to be.
As Dylan ceased firing he heard several shots from the north and clearly heard the distinctive smacking sound of high velocity rifle rounds striking flesh. Card was hit in the head and torso by several rounds. He watched Card crumple to
the ground and not move, a large pool of blood already pooling around his head. Dylan noticed Card’s pistol was still in its holster. Card had never drawn his weapon during the entire ordeal, making Dylan wonder what made a guy refuse to defend himself.
Dylan ducked back into the room he now found himself in and tried to fight off the shock. This was all too much. One-minute life is normal and the next he’s in a prolonged fight for his life. Dylan’s psyche struggled to adapt to this virtually instant polar shift in his reality. He forced himself to move.
He realized there was no getting out of this building now that he was inside. The ghetto army had him pinned in. He decided to take as many of these assholes with him as he could. The Pastor and Card were both gentle souls, and had not deserved to die like that. He would make these people pay. Dylan took a moment to pray for his children, now resigned to the fact he would never see them again. All thought of escape or reuniting with his family were pushed from his mind. Dylan was all in. He would kill all of these hood rats, or die trying. Dylan started looking for targets.
Chapter 8
City Police Range
Alliance, OH
Kyle walked in the team room and spoke up, “Alright, listen up for briefing.” Everyone settled down and pulled out their notebooks. Kyle began, “Everyone is familiar with the situation. It appears we have been EMP’d. We are lucky in that while it is bad, it could have been worse. Our first mission has three objectives. By priority, they are: One, make physical contact with the police department and city hall. Two, escort a team from the water department to the city yard to test three large generators and move them here if they work. Finally, objective three is to scout the city for problems and start recovering our families.” Kyle paused and said, “While we are on this mission, David will be working on planning to secure critical resources and facilities, and will be the base commander. Expect follow-on missions as soon as you return or FRAGOS (Fragmentary Orders) while you are still out.”
Kyle continued, “This is just the first of many missions. At least one team will be tasked with recovering their families every time we leave the base today, and everyone else should be looking for teammate’s families during your missions. Team leaders, I need you to make a list of all of your team member’s immediate family and their likely location. We will turn this into a comprehensive list and everyone will have a copy.” Kyle paused to gather his thoughts then continued, “Barring some emergency we will spend tonight recovering whatever families are left out there that are within our reach.” Everyone grabbed their notebooks and started writing family member names and likely locations before Kyle even finished speaking.
Kyle moved on, “Mark will be the ground force commander for this operation and will brief you on the execution, logistics and command and control.” Kyle sat down.
Mark stood up and briefed the execution phase. He was taking Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta teams. Dan’s Alpha team’s objective would be to get Kyle to the police station and back to base. Kyle needed to brief the Chief and the Mayor on what he knew of the situation and give them his recommendation for a course of action, then return to base. He was pretty sure the Chief and Mayor would adopt his general plan, but didn’t want to get caught up in a Chinese fire drill at city hall. Alpha’s job would be to make sure Kyle got back safely to base and to recover whatever family members they could find between the two locations. Mark assigned Alpha the two up-armored HMMWVs for transport, and told them to mount one of the range’s M249’s in the lead vehicle’s turret. The range maintained several M249 and M240 machineguns for military units to use in training so those units didn’t have to travel with the guns. That piece of logistical convenience would pay off in spades in the days ahead.
Manny’s Bravo Team would handle the escort to the city yard. They would take the two soft HMMWVs and one of the M915 semi tractors. These vehicles would allow them to transport all of the generators back to the water treatment plant in one movement. Mark didn’t assign any of the machineguns to Bravo because their trip would not take them into the city proper; the city yard was only two miles from the range through an industrial area. The risk of unrest was very low in that area this early in the event. Mark told Manny they were not to brook any objection from the city yard, but to let Marty do the talking.
Ben’s Charlie team was assigned to conduct a preliminary scouting mission of the city and to recover as many of their family members as possible. Charlie team ended up being made up of Alliance SWAT guys and Ed and Chris, so everyone knew the city intimately. If things were out of place any one of them would know it immediately; and most of them lived within the city limits, so gathering their families would be the simplest of the recovery missions. Mark told Ben to check State Street first, as that was where the majority of the large stores and other resource-heavy buildings were located. Charlie was told to scout and recover for no more than 2 hours then return to base. If they did not return by then a search team would have to be sent, so Mark stressed the importance of getting back on time. This was only an initial patrol, and Mark said, “Do not try to save the city on your own. Get your families and see what you can.” Mark assigned Charlie the MRAP armed with an M240 machinegun.
Mark tasked Delta team to be the quick reaction force (QRF). He told them to stage at the Circle J convenience store on Union Ave and to be listening closely to the radio. The teams would be doing constant radio checks to test the range of the car-to-car channel, and would report the results to Lee when they returned. Lee had been drafted as the comms guy, at least until they could find someone else; and he would plot the radios’ ranges on a map when the teams returned. Mark assigned Kasey’s Equinox and Ed’s pickup as Delta’s transportation, and told them to take one of the range’s M249 machineguns converted to a Mk46. Darren, an Alliance SWAT assaulters on Delta team who was qualified on the Mk46, volunteered to be the SAW gunner.
David asked, “Where do you want the snipers?” Mark replied, “Good question. I’d like to attach Kasey to Delta and JR to Charlie.” David nodded his head and looked to make sure the two snipers understood. The last thing Mark wanted to do was send Kasey out into the apocalypse, but she was a warrior and it would be a waste of resources to not deploy her, in addition to pissing her off.
Finally, Mark tasked Echo team with maintaining base security.
In addition to the military vehicles, David had discovered the range’s three quads and two dirt bikes still ran. Mark would use one of the quads (he never was a good dirt bike rider) and would float between the QRF and Alpha team during the mission. His plan was to be available to coordinate a response if one of the teams ran into trouble.
David briefed the medical plan. Each team had a medic and David would be at the base. Everyone hoped no medical services would be needed for this first mission; but David, a surgeon by trade, and Doc Zimmerman, an emergency room doctor and tactical medical director for the Alliance SWAT team, briefed the teams on medical procedures based on the austere conditions they suddenly found themselves in. Sarah volunteered to act as a medical assistant and would use the time to start converting the classroom pro-shop, with Burt’s help, into a clinic.
The only wildcard was Lydia, the county work release deputy who was stuck at the range when the pulse hit. She just sat in the back of the room looking worried. Earlier Lydia told Burt she was a widow, and after thinking it about it had decided she had nowhere better to be. She wasn’t sure this “EMP” was a real thing but Kyle and these SWAT guys seemed to be pretty sure, and she couldn’t think of a safer place to be than right where she was. Lydia spoke up and said, “I’ll help Sarah.” Mark nodded his head and said, “Thank you.”
Lee spoke up, “I wouldn’t count on the radios to work very well right now. The ionosphere is probably so overwhelmed the range of any radio waves is going to be pretty short for the next couple of days or weeks. They should work OK for tactical comms within a mile or so, but not much farther than that.” Everyone nodded and made murmurs o
f understanding.
Next, Mark issued radios and flashbangs to those without them (the non-SWAT people), and went over the individual assaulter load-out. Everyone leaving the base would be equipped with their ballistic helmet, active ear protection (most of the guys used MSA Sordins worn under their helmets), eye protection, plate carrier with level 4 plates front and back, two flashbangs, radio, six rifle magazines loaded to 28 rounds, a carbine or rifle with weapon mounted light (100% of the team was running Surefire) and multi-function aiming laser (all but two of the lasers in the room were the B.E. Meyers MAWL DA or C1+, which the Alliance SWAT team had only recently purchased for each assaulter, replacing the older Peq 15A models the team used for years. Most of the civilian students were running MAWLs as well because it was the “new hotness” and one hell of a good laser system), a tourniquet and IFAK medical kit, 10 chemlights on their belt or plate carrier, pistol and three loaded magazines, night vision goggles (several guys asked why they needed to carry their NVGs during the day, and the Rangers in the room all said, “REALLY?!), three bottles of water, and a protein bar.