Black Knight Squadron_Book 1_Foundations

by John Chapman

  Dan’s last option was to take the 240 and all its ammo off the M113, and bring the gun up to the roof; then send Martin back in the buttoned up armored vehicle to within radio range, to call for help. This would allow them to defend the warehouse almost as well as option two, and hopefully get a relief force back to him before the dongs got smart and came at them from multiple directions.

  He made a decision. Dan got on the radio and, not knowing Martin’s call sign, said, “Martin from Knight Three.” No answer. “Anyone in the 113, Knight Three.” Still nothing. Dan turned to one of the Charlie team assaulters on the roof with him and said, “Do either of the guys in the 113 have a radio?” The assaulter, who was resting his carbine on the parapet, exposing way too much of his body, shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” Dan sighed and said, “Give me your radio. I’ll be right back. Let me know if the dongs move.” The assaulter who was on the parapet nodded handed over his Alliance radio, and said, “Will do.”

  Dan climbed down the west roof access ladder, unlocked the main doors and ran out to the 113. He opened the rear door from the outside, and jumped in. “Gunner, take the 240 down and take it in the building, then come back and load all the ammo for it,” Dan pointed to three wooden crates, each holding four 200-round cans of 7.62 ammo for the gun, “and get it inside.” The assaulter manning the gun said, “I don’t know how to get the gun down.” Dan sighed and said, “Get out of the way, start carrying ammo into the building. Hurry up.”

  Dan got the gun off the mount and into the building, then ran back and closed the gunner’s hatch. He stuck his head into the driver’s compartment and spoke to Martin, “Hey bro. This is important,” Dan handed Martin the radio he’d taken from the assaulter on the roof, “I need you to drive back to Alliance. Shit, I need to write a message, hang on.” Dan ducked back into the troop compartment and pulled out his Rite in the Rain notebook and pen. He wrote a situation report and request for assistance, ripped it out of his notebook, and climbed back into space next to the driver’s compartment.

  Dan handed Martin the note and told him to read it. Once he was done, Martin looked up from the paper and said, “Ok. Who do I give this to?” Dan thought about that, then said, “When you get in radio range, call the TOC and tell them you need to get this to David. If he’s not available, Mark, Kyle, or Bones will know what to do, but I’d prefer David.” Martin said, “Roger.” Dan continued, “Keep the vehicle buttoned up; use the viewports to drive. We can’t risk losing you, the vehicle, or that message, understand?” Martin said, “I do,” then repeated the instructions back to his Troop Leader.

  Dan said, “Alright, you’re good to go. When you pull out, make lots of noise. I want them to think we left. We’re going to surprise those dongs.” Martin replied, with a grin, “Surprise dongs was the name of my rave techno music DJ act in college.” Dan laughed and said, “Get out of here, stud,” then got off the vehicle, closed the door and went in the building, locking the door behind him. He heard the M113 rev up and pull away, and said a quick prayer for Martin’s mission.

  Dan’s next problem was how to lead a bunch of cops in an infantry fight. He suspected he would have to use every ounce of skill developed during his years in Ranger Battalion. He knew these dongs had to smarten up at some point, he just prayed it wouldn’t be today.

  *

  In the woods, south of the food warehouse, Theo Jackson was trying to get things organized. Theo worked as an enforcer for the Bookie Organization, and had since Big Mook’s days. Today, when Jigsaw asked him to go along on this job to take and hold the big food warehouse outside the city, Theo was less than thrilled. He hadn’t been to sleep in the last 36 hours, having spent the entire first night after the pulse driving around town keeping young gangsters in check, working to enforce Bookie’s rules for this new world. He understood why Bookie was so adamant about the ‘no looting’ rule, but it made for a lot of work for Theo and the 13 guys who made up his crew. They’d had to show several young thugs what time it was; and while Theo had zero qualms about killing when it was necessary, he didn’t enjoy it; especially when he was killing young black men whose only crime was refusing to respect Bookie’s rules.

  Like everyone at the higher levels of the Bookie Organization, he’d been selected for his intelligence, emotional stability, loyalty, and ability. Unlike anyone else in Bookie’s employ, Theo was a Military Veteran with combat service. There were other Vets in the Bookie Organization, but most of them had been thrown out of the service, and none had any combat time. His four years in the 502nd Infantry Regiment during the GWOT shaped him in ways he barely understood.

  A 68W Combat Medic, Theo had deployed to Iraq twice as part of the 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team. When he got out of the Army, Theo returned to his native Canton, intent on going to college. He quickly found college wasn’t for him, and dropped out after less than one semester. Unable to find any work, Theo quickly fell in with the crew he grew up with in the projects. Not content to sling dope until he ended up dead or in jail, he leveraged his military experience, quickly proving himself to Jigsaw as a valuable member of his enforcement crew. Before Bookie had finished his sentence about taking over the food warehouse, Jigsaw decided to have Theo lead the crew.

  The sniper attack on his convoy as they approached the warehouse hadn’t been much of a surprise to Theo. He could see the gigantic building, sticking up out of the hills like a giant white blister, from Hwy 62 when they made the turn onto Hwy 44. A facility that big had to employ hundreds of people, and the amount of food stored there had to have made it the first target on any organized group’s radar as soon as the lights went out.

  So, Theo wasn’t surprised when they’d come under fire as they approached; what surprised him was the effectiveness of the sniper. In less than a minute the sniper had whacked seven of his guys, destroyed several vehicles, and forced his platoon-sized element of fighters into the cold woods, still over 100 yards away from their objective. That wasn’t some cracker hick with a hunting rifle; that dude was shooting a suppressed rifle from a good distance, he didn’t hesitate to shoot, and his target selection and accuracy was too good to be luck. Theo was sure they were facing a professional Sniper. The important question to him now was whether the guy was alone, or was he part of a group or unit?

  While Theo had never been a combat leader, he had served with some of the best small unit leaders in the world: Airborne NCOs. The US Army, despite all of its faults in Theo’s mind, raised exceptional platoon level NCO’s; and during his 26 months in combat, Theo had the opportunity to watch dozens of them in action. He began to do what he thought they would do in this situation. First, he rallied the people he had left and got them to chill out, trying to instill calm with his quiet confidence. When that didn’t work, Theo gave up and told them the next one to speak was getting shot. Their excited babbling and yelling was going to get everyone killed. It finally got quiet. Next, he did a head count. He had 24 warriors left. Theo broke the group up into three teams of eight, and had them spread out in a roughly equal sided triangle with 25 yard sides. This would be his patrol base.

  His second in command didn’t make it out of the kill zone when the sniper lit into them, so Theo appointed a new one from his personal crew. He left his new 2IC in command at the patrol base and went to do a leader’s recon. When he was about 50 yards away from his patrol base, walking northwest, Theo heard the sound of a poorly muffled diesel engine rev up and begin to move away. Not being close enough to see the distribution center through the trees, he missed seeing the M113 pulling out of the warehouse lot and turn north on Hwy 44.

  Theo quietly worked his way north through the woods until he could see the distribution center through the trees. The view wasn’t great, there were too many semi-trailers parked around the edge of the lot for him to see much of the building itself, but it was a start. Over the next hour he quietly worked his way around the giant building. During that time, he saw no evidence of anyone b
eing there, other than all the dead cars in the parking lot. He decided the vehicle he’d heard must have been the sniper getting away, afraid of being encircled. Theo finished his wide circle of the property and crossed the road back into the woods near where they had abandoned their vehicles. It was time to get his guys organized, and go claim that warehouse.

  *

  Up on the roof of the warehouse, Dan tracked Theo’s progress via radio. JR spotted him as he approached the distribution center from the woods to the south, his ACU camo uniform sticking out like a sore thumb in the leafless trees. The way he held his carbine, an M4 of some sort with a Trijicon ACOG and older Surefire light, combined with his head to toe ACU getup, complete with Gortex jacket and well-worn circa 2005 load bearing vest, screamed ‘Army Vet’ to JR. Between he and Phil, they were able to keep eyes on the guy during his entire circuit of the facility. Dan kept his and the roof team’s heads down, hoping to entice the guy into attacking.

  “Someone needs to tell this guy ACUs only work when you’re lying on a gravel parking lot.” JR commented over the radio. Phil replied, “No kidding. You can probably see this dude from space.” JR watched as he crossed the road to the south of the earlier kill zone around the vehicles, and saw him disappear back into the woods. He got back on the radio, “Knight Three, Sniper One. The dong scout is back in their nest.” Dan said, “Roger. Given what you and Phil observed about this guy, we have to assume he’s had some infantry training. We can probably expect an attack straight out of FM 7-8.” referring to the Army’s Field Manual on small unit tactics.

  JR replied, “Agreed. He will probably set up his base of fire on the south side of the property, and send his maneuver element to loop around wide and attack east to west. That’s the avenue of approach with the most cover and he won’t have to cross the main road.” “Great minds think alike Sniper One.” Dan replied, then continued, “Break. Three-Charlie-One, move to the northeast corner of the building, in the woods to the north, oriented south. If they attack like I think they will, you should be able to counterattack the right flank of their maneuver force.”

  Dan paused, thinking about Phil’s frame of reference. Phil was a great Fireman, and an exceptional SWAT assaulter, but he’d never been in the infantry. He felt the need to clarify, “Three-Charlie-One, for clarity, it is my intent that you counterattack their flank with gunfire, not physically. Wait for me to initiate over the radio. Do not advance on the dongs unless I tell you to, and don’t start shooting until I give the word.” Phil replied, “Roger that. Moving.” Dan looked again at the situation on the roof. It was an enormous expanse up there, at least 2000 feet on each side, littered with assorted HVAC systems and crisscrossed by air and electrical ducts. The four-foot-high parapet was solid concrete, obviously part of the monolithic pour when they erected the warehouse’s walls. If he had about 50 more assaulters, it would be a dream defensive position.

  Dan started placing his three assaulters in position, being careful to keep them away from the edge of the roof and hunched over. While he couldn’t see the tops of trees next to the property from the center of the roof, if they got within about five feet of the edge they could be seen from the woods.

  Dan placed his machinegun on the east side of the building, with a gunner and assistant gunner. He broke open all of the 240 ammo crates, and started ferrying 200 round cans to the east side of the roof, leaving 400 rounds on the south wall near the west corner, in case the enemy’s anticipated support by fire position turned out to be their maneuver side. He also had the guys break the cans open and remove all of the 100 round linked belts from their individual cardboard boxes. He didn’t want unfamiliar fingers fumbling with the boxes, like a teenage boy trying to unhook a bra clasp, when the shit hit the fan.

  Dan took the machinegunner’s carbine, after some quiet protest, and gave it to Richard, along with 4 of the gunner’s M4 magazines. He placed Richard and his last assaulter on the south wall, about 25 yards from the southwest corner, with orders to stay out of sight unless he said otherwise. Both of them had small drain ports to look through where the parapet met the roof, but Dan gave them specific orders to not stick their carbines out of them, and once set to not move around. “If I tell you to engage,” Dan concluded, “You’ll be shooting to the south. Make sure you don’t shoot over the parapet; use the drain openings from the prone position.” While the assaulter, a guy from Canton SWAT, looked anxious, Richard actually looked excited. Dan could tell it had been a long time since Richard had a mission that meant something, and was probably happy to have the clarity a life and death situation provided. Dan could relate.

  As he waited with the machinegun team on the east wall, one of the guys said, “I always wondered what people did with downtime before smart phones.” Dan laughed and replied, “I guess now you know. No YouTube for you G.I.” The gunner chuckled and said, “But a selfie with this gun just before I get a CONUS kill would totally get me, like, a million re-Tweets. With no internet, how am I going to watch my ‘6oo pound hoarder storage auction addicted goldmining life’ show on TLC?” All three of them laughed quietly, and the A-gunner got the last word, “If an apocalypse comes and no one Snapchats it, did it really happen?”

  *

  Theo managed to get back into the perimeter of his patrol base without getting shot by one of his own guys. He’d forgotten to tell them about challenge and response, but he was finally able to get his 2IC’s attention without attracting the fire of his own guys. Once he was inside the triangle, he saw he needn’t have worried; most of his guys were huddled in small clumps trying to keep warm, not paying the least attention to the world outside their little make-shift safe zone. He had a lot of work to do to get this rabble trained if the Organization hoped to accomplish anything other than ambush some cops and generally terrorize the population. As he saw earlier, any encounter with a trained group of people would result in someone cleaning his guys’ clocks.

  Theo sat down for a minute and took a pull of water out of his Camelback bladder, then called his core group of guys to him. Using a stick, he drew a quick diagram of the target and laid out what he wanted them to do. Unknown to Theo, his plan was basically the one the Black Knight Squadron assaulters, who he didn’t even know existed, had anticipated.

  His ‘1st Squad’, with eight guys, would move to the southern edge of the huge concrete apron around the building, and set up in a line. Their job would be to shoot anyone they saw, but they were not to advance. “If we are getting shot at,” Theo told them, “it’s your job to suppress them…shoot at them to keep their heads down. If we aren’t taking fire, do not shoot. Does everyone understand?” Eight heads nodded.

  Theo’s ‘2nd Squad’, with 16 guys plus him, would walk east, then north, then west, to approach the warehouse from the east. He would lead this element himself, and their orders were to work in eight man teams to rush the building. He kept the plan loose and vague, mostly because none of these guys had the training to understand what he was talking about. He would have to lead them from the front, and be ready to direct them on the fly.

  “Alright, I think the power is on in there. I heard a generator. Do this right and we will be livin’ large tonight.” Before Theo could stop them, the entire group starting cheering, yelling ‘whoop whoop’, and generally acting like savages. It took Theo several seconds to get them to shut the hell up.

  Chapter 26

  Rural Stark County

  Near Hartville, OH

  Martin was lost, and it was taking every ounce of mental energy he possessed to push down the panic he felt. When he left the food warehouse, heading to the FOB, he was absolutely sure he knew how to get there. Martin had been a paramedic in Stark County for over 10 years, and was as sure as a man could be that he knew every inch of the county. After over two hours of driving the M113 through the idyllic countryside, he came to realize just how dependent on GPS navigation he’d become. He kicked himself for not spending more time navigating with a map book, to keep
his skills up to date; but the thought that one day he might not have access to GPS never entered his mind. Until the GPS was gone.

  The narrow field of view through the armored viewports Martin was using to see the outside world weren’t helping. Dan had been insistent he remain locked in the armored vehicle, but Martin couldn’t see jack shit through the viewport; it was all he could do to keep the 14-ton vehicle on the road, and avoid hitting the stalled cars blocking every roadway. “Screw this,” Martin said out loud, and reached up and opened the driver’s hatch, then leveraged himself up to drive with his head sticking out of the vehicle. The frigid air blowing on his face was a relief, and helped him clear his head.

  Martin looked around, trying to get his bearings. The sun was almost down, and he was driving directly into it, so he knew he was heading generally west. He hadn’t crossed a freeway in his travels, so he knew he was going the wrong direction. He was on a rural two-lane road, surrounded by fallow farm fields as far as he could see. He needed to get turned around, then start looking for street signs. It had proven impossible to read street signs through the viewport, and Martin decided he should have cracked the driver’s hatch an hour ago.

  He tried the radio again, “Any Black Knight units, Knight Three-Charlie-Two.” and got nothing in return except the radio’s chirp telling him the battery was almost dead. I can’t believe I’m failing my first mission of the apocalypse, Martin raged at himself, I had one job! He saw a side road on his right, and was able to get the big armored vehicle slowed in time to use the space to turn around. He knew it was possible to turn the vehicle around in a small space just using the tracks, but he wasn’t confident enough in his driving abilities to try. Instead, Martin executed the ugliest five-point turn in history, and headed back to the east.