It was not until everyone was in position and three successive head counts were passed up the line that the planners knew their exact strength. There were 1,082 ambushers. On the long side of the L, the men were organized into groups of roughly one hundred, based on the interval of the telephone poles on the far side of the highway. They were told that a captain was assigned to command all of the men between each pair of poles.
Two reserve forces of two hundred men each were positioned in the woods at both tips of the L. Rather than providing blocking forces to prevent being outflanked as they had intended, in the end they provided massed firepower to cut down any of the looters who attempted to escape the ambush zone.
Given the wide variety of experience, lack of familiarity working together, and the sheer size of the ambush teams, the planners wisely decided to keep things simple. A static ambush was feasible, but any attempt at maneuvering these untrained men might result in confusion, panic, or even worse, a friendly-fire accident. Without a standard uniform, it would be difficult to distinguish friend from foe once units started to maneuver. A simple static ambush would be the safest plan.
Jake and Tomas rested prone in the “caterpillar” facing the railroad tracks. There were lots of whispered questions—mostly asking what was going on. After a few minutes, a man wearing a MultiCam uniform walked down the line to Jake and Tomas’s section and introduced himself. Once every twenty feet, he repeated, “I’m your captain. I had a deployment in Iraq and three in Afghanistan, so trust me. We are going to kick some tail and take names tomorrow. Just get comfortable and keep very quiet. Further orders will follow.”
Jake and Tomas were among the best-armed men in the ambush. Jake had his LAR-8 while Tomas has his DPMS AR-10 rifle. They each had nine 20-round magazines of ammunition.
The two men were just an arm’s width apart with their rucksacks positioned at their feet. In the moonlight he could see that there was a large monopole tower supporting a billboard sign off to their left, on the far side of the tracks. Highway 441 could not be seen, because of the raised railroad bed ahead of them.
The railroad bed had been elevated just a few months before the Crunch, as part of a regional railroad company upgrade designed to give the tracks better flood protection. This construction program was partly federally funded. It converted tracks that had heretofore been at just above street level and put them up on a five-foot-tall earthen berm that was topped by a thick layer of two-inch minus chert rock. The berm and ballast still looked freshly constructed.
They lay there quietly, with each man absorbed in his own thoughts. Jake fiddled with a chunk of chert rock that at some point had rolled down from the berm ahead of him. He started thinking about chiggers. Those biting insects were particularly fond of his flesh. He was glad it was January, and not June. Then his mind wandered to the song “Orange Blossom Special,” and he tried to recall the lyrics. The tune and the lyrics occupied his mind for several minutes, but his thoughts eventually returned to the upcoming ambush. He dreaded the prospect of deliberately taking lives.
Just after midnight, Jake asked Tomas in a whisper, “Does it bother you that some of these looters coming here in the morning from Orlando are going to be Cubanos?”
Tomas answered, “Naw. Look at who we got here alongside us: Every skin tone and accent of speech you can imagine. Whites, blacks, Cubans, and even some Seminole Indians. Same for the bad guys. But this isn’t about skin color. It’s about respect for life and property. We respect the right to safeguard life and property and they don’t. Plain and simple. We want to live in peace and help each other out, but all they think about is taking, taking, taking. Orlando didn’t get the nickname Whorlando for nothing. There are some really low-class thieving people there. And yeah, they do come in all colors.”
A young black man armed with a .30-30 Winchester lever gun on the other side of Tomas had overheard Tomas. He said, “Some of them may be black like me, but they’re no-account trash.”
A few minutes later the man on Jake’s left struck up a whispered conversation. He was wearing a camouflage jacket and a matching cap with a prominent Realtree company logo on the front. He appeared to be in his fifties. The man held a stainless steel Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle that had been wrapped with camouflage tape to reduce its glare. He also carried a M1911 Colt, .45 ACP—also stainless—in a Kydex hip holster. He whispered, “If we let these bastards get through, they’re going to decimate Mount Dora and Tavares. They’ll rape, they’ll kill, they’ll burn houses, and they’ll loot everything. They’ll even eat our dogs.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard how they operate,” Jake replied. “They’re like the Mongol Horde, only better armed. Worst-case scenario is they come and then they stay and lord it over us for a few months. I guess you heard what happened when the looters from Miami moved up the coast from Boca Raton to Vero Beach. Like a swarm of locusts, and they stayed. I heard that they took some women as slaves and kept them chained up—with padlocked chains around their necks. They’re absolutely barbaric.”
The man in the Realtree camo nodded. “All four of my grandparents and a bunch of my great-aunts and great-uncles died in the Holocaust. And my mother almost died of starvation before her camp was liberated by the British Army. She was in a camp called Neuengamme-Geilenberg, on the Elbe River. That’s near Hamburg. She was still just a little kid when they broke open the camp gates in May of 1945. I grew up hearing her say, ‘Never again.’ She gave me my first gun, a Remington .22 pump, for Christmas when I was eleven years old. Then she bought me an M1 carbine for my sixteenth birthday. My friends all thought that was pretty cool, that my mom liked guns.”
After a pause, he continued. “She’d often show me the tattoo on her left forearm. It was H-1938. By coincidence 1938 was the year she was born. She’d show me that tattoo and she’d say, ‘Never give up your guns. And never let them take you. Never!’”
Tomas chimed in. “Damned straight, never surrender. And never let anyone put you behind barbed wire. It’s better to die on your feet, fighting, than to die on your knees, begging for mercy.”
The night was spent in nervous anticipation. Only ten percent of the ambushers slept. These were mostly the men who’d had the longest walks. Just a few of them snored, and for this they got poked in the ribs and cussed out. Throughout the night a few orders and reports were passed down the line in whispers, at odd intervals. Most of them made sense.
“No talking above a whisper.”
“No lights or smoking.”
“Quiet.”
“Looters are expected at ten A.M.”
“Resist the urge to peek over the berm.”
“You’re a bunch of schoolgirls. Whispers only!”
The January night was chilly by Florida standards. A few of the men complained but were quickly chided. “Shut up. Deal with it. In another few hours you’ll be complaining that you’re too hot. So just shut up.” Jake had a heavy jacket and a pile cap. Tomas curled up in his poncho liner. He took pity on the young black man next to him, who had only a light jacket. He loaned him a Navy watch cap and a spare quilted field jacket liner that he normally kept bundled in his rucksack to use as a pillow when sleeping in the field.
—
The looter army was led by escaped convicts. They left the north end of Orlando before dawn, as expected. It was little more than a large, disorganized mob. They had no forward or flank scouting elements. They assumed that their superior numbers would overwhelm any defenders. They also had a false sense of security provided by the armored bulldozer, which they had used successfully twice before.
As they advanced, many of the looters sang chants, most of which were nonsensical. One of the largest groups was singing, “We gonna get some, get some, today.” The rest were variations of the same idea, the longest-running chant going, “Take some, take some, take some more. Get some, get some, get some more.”
The loot
ers advanced in staggered clumps of twenty to fifty people rather than in proper fighting array. Their numbers were overwhelming. In all there were over four thousand armed male looters, plus a few hundred unarmed women and teenage boys. The latter had come along hoping to find loot or perhaps “pick up” weapons in the wake of a successful raid.
The looters were armed with a motley assortment of weapons that ranged from lever-action Winchesters and Marlins to pump-action shotguns of various brands and vintages, to a few AKs, ARs, FALs, HKs, and M1 carbines. Only a few of them carried spare magazines in proper ALICE or MOLLE pouches. They mostly wore civilian clothes in a wide range of colors, and baseball caps, visors, and straw sun hats. Nearly all of them carried rucksacks and backpacks that hung loosely—indicative that they planned to fill them with booty. Many of them pushed or pulled a variety of carts—again, mostly empty or holding empty gas cans—for their expected loot.
On average, the ambushers were armed better than the looters, with a higher ratio of battle rifles. There were a few exotic guns including several Steyr AUGs, a belt-fed Shrike .223, an HK G36 clone, and a SIG PE-57. Most of the ambushers carried at least a hundred spare cartridges or shotgun shells, which was twice the average carried by the looters. Despite the disadvantage of smaller numbers, they were better organized, and better disciplined. And most of them would also have the advantage of firing from behind the cover of two steel railroad tracks. History has always shown that although outnumbered, the advantage goes to the defender who is thinking of nothing else but holding the line so that the oncoming horde might not assail his family or homestead. They waited in the darkness. A few slept. Many of them prayed. All of them worried.
23
MAD MINUTE
“. . . Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew/And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true/That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four/And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
“As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man/There are only four things certain since Social Progress began./That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,/And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins/When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,/As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,/The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
—Rudyard Kipling, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” 1919
Highway 441, Near Zellwood, Florida—January, the Third Year
The morning of January 22nd dawned with clear skies. It would be a sunny day. As the sky in the east lightened, a stack of photocopied one-page flyers was passed down the line, with the whispered words, “Share these—just one copy for every five men, pass them down.”
The sheet read:
Instructions to Our Roadblock Ambushers
If we fail today, we’ll be dead or slaves tomorrow.
Obey the orders of your Captains of Hundreds.
Noise, light, odor, and smoke discipline are essential.
If you need to poop, then dig a cat hole. (Odors can go a long distance.)
No smoking or talking above a low whisper.
Leave your rifle and shotgun chambers empty and safeties on.
If the ambush is sprung too early, we’ll be outflanked. Wait until they are right in the middle of the kill zone.
Keep on your bellies—you’ll live longer.
DO NOT advance from behind cover at the trailers or up to the RR tracks until ordered.
Keep your heads down! This cannot be overemphasized.
DO NOT fire until you hear rapid firing at the front end of the ambush.
Take only well-aimed shots.
Concentrate on that front sight post; everything else should be somewhat blurry.
Keep shooting until all of the looters are dead. Once they drop, take very deliberate shots at any looters that are still moving. (And any that might be faking death.)
DO NOT advance into the ambush kill zone until ordered by the captains.
Stay down. This is NOT a traditional military ambush, so we will not immediately charge into the kill zone. Allow plenty of time to let the wounded looters bleed out before advancing.
Pray hard. Psalms 91. May God bless this endeavor.
(By mutual agreement, after concerted prayer)
—Mayor Lyle Jenkins—Mount Dora
—Mayor Byer Levin—Tavares
—Mayor Tom Martinson—Tangerine
As full daylight came, a few men nibbled on food from their pockets. Jake could now see the billboard sign better. It had been painted black, and both sides said RENT THIS SIGN, along with a phone number—yet another victim of the economic decline that had preceded the Crunch. Jake and Tomas shared a granola bar. As they did so, Tomas said, “I wish I had a helmet. That would double my life expectancy.”
After a beat, Tomas continued. “I’ve been thinking about something. You know how you were teasing me about carrying too much gear? Well, one thing I’ve got in my ALICE pack is a couple of sandbags. When I was in the Marines, our battalion commander always insisted that each of us carry four sandbags. At first we hated that, since we were always humping around a ton of stuff, like we each also had to carry two mortar rounds. But those sandbags later turned out to be useful for a lot of things other than ballistic protection. For instance, we used them for packing speedballs.”
“What’s a speedball?” Jake asked.
Tomas explained. “That’s something that both the Army and Marines use, depending on the tactical situation or terrain, when part of a unit is under fire, and the rest of the guys are masked by terrain. When the guys up front, who are pinned down and doing most of the shooting, call back for a speedball, you take a sandbag and put in a couple of bandoleers of 5.56, a belt box of 7.62, and a few water bottles, and carry it forward.”
Jake looked incredulous. “You think we’re going to get pinned down?”
“No, no, no. I’m just explaining why amongst all my other gear I have three sandbags in the bottom of my rucksack. I say we fill them with soil here, and then we can lay them on the railroad track to give us a few more vertical inches of frontal protection. Hey, we’ve got the time, and it might give us a slight advantage.”
The man with the Mini-14 next to them chimed in. “I’ll take that third bag, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, no prob.”
The three men spent the next fifteen minutes quietly scraping sandy soil into the olive drab nylon bags using Marichal’s canteen cup as an impromptu shovel. Once the bags were filled, they used some black plastic cable zip ties from Jake’s pack to close each of them.
More orders were passed down the line in a sporadic succession as the morning progressed:
“Don’t panic if we get flanked. Mass your firepower.”
“Looters are expected at ten thirty A.M.”
“Share your water.”
“Quiet.”
“Looters are expected at eleven A.M.”
“Pray for success.”
“Quit grumbling and be patient.”
“Keep your heads down or you’ll ruin this ambush.”
“Quiet.”
“Looters are expected at ten thirty A.M.”
“Keep your safeties on.”
“Keep quiet.”
“Looters have been sighted less than three quarters of a mile south.”
“Keep your heads down.”
It was now above seventy-five degrees and Jake was getting a headache. He continued to look in the direction of the highway. At 10:40, Jake heard the looter’s armored bulldozer as it chugged toward the roadblock. The clanking of its steel tracks
was almost as loud as its engine. Tomas started looking anxious. He took off his MARPAT field jacket and stuffed it into the top of his ALICE pack.
Soon they could all hear the chants of the advancing looters in the distance. The bulldozer passed by, and the vanguard of the looter army approached. The amount of noise that came from the looters was surprising. As they got closer, Jake could hear shuffling feet, conversation, laughter, clanking metal, wobbling shopping cart wheels, and intermittent chanting.
Tomas half rolled over to Jake and whispered just inches from his ear, “Yep, there are lots of them, but this is amateur hour.”
Jake was also feeling warm, so he peeled off his field jacket, keeping his arms low. He quietly crept down to his rucksack and stowed the jacket. Then he pulled on the pack, trying to stay as close to the ground as possible. He handed Tomas his own pack, and he put it on. Once they were prone again, Tomas whispered, “Showtime, any moment.”
He had just finished speaking when the deep reports of a Barrett semiauto .50 from the Lake County Sheriff’s Department initiated the ambush. Just five shots from the Barrett aimed at the armored bulldozer’s engine brought it to a screeching halt, in a cloud of black smoke, just twenty-five feet short of the roadblock trailers.
There was a crackle of gunfire, as the looters probed the tree line to the west of the roadblock where they thought the Barrett .50 shooter might be hidden. Then a whispered order came. “Low crawl to the tracks. Stay prone. Keep as quiet as possible.” Jake crept forward up the berm, dragging his sandbag alongside him, in a leapfrogging motion. As he topped the railroad bed, he was startled by the sight of the huge number of looters, who were still ambling forward, nonchalantly. There were thousands of them. Then came an audible collective gasp from the looters, as the heads of the hundreds of ambushers came into view along the railroad tracks.
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