by David Craig
Stepping forward the soldier said something to one of the others who handed him some large military binoculars. Beacon began sliding backwards. His MultiCam hat slowly disappeared from view as the soldier struggled to adjust the binoculars.
By the time he got the binoculars focused Beacon was behind a small Christmas tree sized pine. Peeking through the boughs Beacon saw the soldier with the binoculars, pick up his M16 and start climbing up the hill.
By hiding behind bushes, Beacon could crawl back over the ridge but there were few trees or bushes on the other side. There was no way he'd be able to get to concealment big or thick enough to defeat those binoculars before the soldier reached the crest.
There was one large lone pine about ninety feet down the slope. If he could stand sideways behind its trunk he might escape detection. In any case the thick trunk would provide cover as well as concealment if the encounter turned into a gunfight.
When the rogue soldier reached the top of the ridge Beacon was standing at attention behind the pine with his rifle at his side. He couldn't be sure the tree completely hid him and he'd have to adjust his position to keep the tree between them if the man moved along the ridge so he was listening intently.
Footsteps at the ridgeline, then silence. Beacon held his breath. Then a voice yelled something unintelligible from the other side of the ridge. The guy nearby yelled back, "No, nothing."
Another long pause then the voice on the other side of the ridge yelled again. The soldier with the binoculars yelled back, "OK, OK I'm coming."
Something in his voice didn't ring true with Beacon's sixth sense. It was too loud and didn't sound like a subordinate talking to a superior. He listened but didn't move.
Evidently the soldier was doing the same because Beacon didn't hear any footsteps going back over the ridge. The two men stood like statues for minutes that seemed like hours.
Finally the voice from the next valley called out again. Then Beacon heard footstep as the guy's boots crossed over and descended the other side of the ridge.
Still Beacon waited another ten minutes before peeking around the tree. The guy with the binoculars was gone and Beacon's plan was intact. Crawling back up over the ridgeline a hundred meters from where his plan had almost met its doom Beacon watched from beneath a bush as the patrol of Woodland camouflage clad men continued on up the valley.
His confidence shaken Beacon found an observation point higher on another hill with a bushy draw behind it to serve as a retreat route if one was needed. He wasn't going to get close enough to be spotted again.
He might not be able to count the buttons on their uniforms from this new location, but with his binoculars he'd get a good enough look at the enemy column to fill out a SALUTE report.
When the main column finely struggled into view the sight was not encouraging.
The drunken woman had been wrong the Woodland clad men had MRE's so it was likely it had a strong leader enforcing discipline rather then lack of food that had kept them from trading food for women.
So far he'd seen two M60 machine gun crews each loaded down with machine gun, tripod and ammo cans. Every other soldier in the column was carrying cannon shell or a case of MRE's peeking out from under the top flaps of their backpacks. The other half of the men had ammo cans in their hands.
Later, after the last straggler staggered past, he took out his all weather notebook and did another SALUTE report:
Size: about a hundred and fifty well armed, uniformed (Woodland camo) troops
Activity: moving a cannon, artillery shells, two (2) M60 machine guns, ammo and MRE's
Location: bottom of the valley just above the blown bridge
Unit: rogue military led by a Colonel Darkin
Time: Noon
Equipment: full field gear, M16 rifles, at least two M60 machine guns and one cannon.
It was an M119 towed howitzer like the ones he remembered from his Army days. He wondered how much ammo they had for it. It seemed like they were going to way too much work carrying it up the mountainside if the big gun was just a bluff.
The Rich Guys Survival Club had built a castle which said "food, warmth and protection" to all who saw or heard of it. So it was hardly surprising that others wanted to take it for their own. Most, like the Blue Heads, didn't stand a chance of breaching the castle walls but this group had the necessary equipment, discipline and desire.
There was a reason castles disappeared after the introduction of gun powder into Europe. Castle curtain walls and gates had been breached first by kegs of gun powder then by canon as Europeans refined their technique. The Rich Guys Survival Club had gambled that large amounts of gun powder and other explosives would be unavailable for a generation or more after The Blowup. It looked like they'd lost that bet.
The Rich Guys Survival Club had done a great job of discouraging visitors. In addition to the bridge being blown, every tree along the roadside had been cut so as to fall across the road, and he could see landslides across the road further up the mountainside where cliffs made detours impossible.
Colonel Darkin's unit had been forced to zig zag back and forth across the road into the countryside going from one side to another around fallen trees to make progress up the road. The felled trees forced the men to travel twenty to thirty yards diagonally just to make a few yards progress up the road. Occasionally in flat areas they tried going cross country weaving through trees and other obstacles only to be forced back to the road by the terrain.
Beacon was torn with indecision. On the one hand he needed to get as much information as possible about Colonel Darkin and his force to report to the castle. As always military intelligence would be crucial to planning the upcoming battles. On the other hand he had to get word of the attacking force to Doc before they got that cannon within range of the castle or they could be blindsided by the Colonel.
He also wanted to slow the Colonel down somehow, but without getting himself killed or wounded least the SALUTE report never arrive at all. In the end he compromised.
He wanted a prisoner to interrogate and he thought he knew how to get one. Waiting below the lip of a slope Beacon peered out from under a bush as the Woodland clad men hove into view. Two long columns of men pulling ropes attached the howitzer. As soon as they were all fully exposed Beacon placed one carefully aimed shot from his Ruger at the column on the left. The little twenty-two caliber rounds were a lot more lethal now that antibiotics were almost nonexistent, but Beacon wasn't aiming to kill.
Beacon was gone, slipping into deeper forest behind the protection of the slope as the men looked around for the source of the shot and struggled to unsling their rifles. No answering shots were fired because the soldiers never saw a target to shoot at.
It took Colonel Darkin half an hour to recover from the attack. Once the wounded man was treated and squad assignments rearranged the Colonel sent two scouts out ahead before pulling the cannon across the same glade Beacon had shot across and began a descent into a small valley getting them quickly away from the one wounded man they'd left behind as Beacon had hoped.
After a half hour of careful observation, Beacon snuck up behind the man and stepped on his M16's barrel before the wounded man could grab it. "Easy there pardner," he said as he eased the weapon from the man's grip at pistol point. Once satisfied the man possessed no other weapons than the bayoneted rifle Beacon squatted a few feet to his side and began the interrogation.
"Looks like you won't be going anywhere soon with that bullet in your leg," Beacon opined looking meaningfully at the bandaged wound, "but at least they left you two MRE's that'll last you, what, two or three days?"
"They're coming back for me," the young man replied grudgingly.
"Not this week," Beacon responded gently. "Hauling that two ton hunk of metal and all that ammo up the mountain will take 'em another week or two, you got any water?"
"Some." The guy grabbed for his canteen as if he thought Beacon would take that too, knocking it over in the proc
ess. No water flowed out the open spout.
"That looks like a quart canteen to me," Beacon opined, "it'll last ya' a day if we can fill it."
Beacon picked up the empty canteen, now that it was just out of the man's reach, and began filling it from his bota bag.
"It's sterile," Beacon said, glancing at the bota bag, "it had vodka in it." Handing the now full canteen to the man he asked, "By the way, what's your name?"
"Private John Howlard, what'd ya' want?" The man looked back and forth from his canteen to Beacon suspiciously.
"Information, but first let's get you down to that creek where you'll have a chance of survival."
Unloading the M16 Beacon slung it over his shoulder next to his 10/22 then half carried half helped Private Howlard limp down to the creek. Sitting him down on a large log he used the rifle's bayonet to scrape out a fire pit nearby then, using a leafy branch he swept dead leaves into a pile next to the log.
"The leaves are your sleeping bag, John, the fire will cook your food and keep you warm, don't let it go out." Beacon pulled a thin packet from his inner coat pocket and took a fish hook on a line from it. "You'll be awfully tired of fish by the time you're ready to walk out of here."
Beacon began dragging large dead branches and small logs to the fire pit as he asked questions.
Realizing his position and thankful for Beacon's help John began opening up. They were 157 reservists under the command of Colonel Bernard W. Darkin. Everybody had an M16 and Col. Darkin had a pistol. They had fifty high explosive rounds for the M119 howitzer but not enough MRE's because Col. Darkin had made the men leave them behind in order to carry more ammo for the big gun.
Between the hard work moving all that metal uphill and short rations the men's morale was low. Private Howlard said they had been promised food and a warm bunk but became evasive when talking about what the rogue reservists intended to do when they got the cannon to the castle.
"Look John, I know The Blowup came as a big surprise to you and it's been rough. One minute you were at work and looking forward to a fun weekend and the next minute you were fighting for your life. I know you're not a bad person, I know you were just trying to survive so I'm going to tell you how to do that."
"There are several well armed, well organized groups up in these mountains," Beacon said exaggerating just a little bit, "they'll give the Colonel a real run for his money cannon or no cannon," then looking the man in the eye, "your only chance of survival is to join one of the collectives down in the lowlands. They should begin forming up about now and you can get in on the ground floor as a guard or worker if you try." Then hardening his voice Beacon added, "If you continue hanging out with robbers and thieves you will die."
"You've gone from being on a camera safari to being lion food. I'm giving you a chance to get back up in the safari truck." Beacon said continuing to make eye contact, "When you're well enough, walk downhill not up. Colonel Darkin isn't going to survive this, you can. I've done all I can for you, I've got to leave now."
Placing the private's M16 a safe distance away Beacon turned to leave.
Spontaneously the private volunteered "The password is "silicone" the counterpassword is "breast, they haven't changed it since we started."
"Thanks, John!" Beacon disappeared into the brush and trees thinking how pleased the people at the settlement and at the castle would be when they learned the password and concluded what Col. Darkin's men had on their minds."
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Flitting through the bushes from tree to tree so as not to skyline himself Beacon topped the ridge to find a long wide valley with what could only be The Castle up near the top.
Stopping behind a bush in the shade of a tree well below the top of the ridge Beacon looked down on the castle through his binoculars.
Near the top of the valley a nipple of rock rose out of the valley's center a few thousand yards below the tree line. Beacon could see no stream flowing down to the rocky outcrop, but a dam just below the big rock with a stream flowing out a concrete overflow channel indicated an artesian well or spring somewhere inside the rock outcropping.
What appeared to be a genuine medieval Castle Keep had been built atop the solid rock. A round tower that looked to be at least four stories high from Beacon's vantage point. The stream flowing out from the base of the castle keep filled the pond behind the circular dam supplying water to pipes that led directly to all the homes below it. Beacon surmised windmills must be filling the water towers atop the houses above the rock outcropping.
Two fortified three story keeps, which looked like the doubled as houses, were set close together as gatehouses so as to double their firepower in the area outside the main gate they framed.
The whole castle complex consisted of two and three story stone and rock homes with a generally straight reinforced cinder block curtain walls between the residential strong points forming a more or less circular polygon with the Castle Keep central fortress in the middle.
Like spokes of a wheel, roads ran from each of the houses to the Castle Keep in the center. There were two ring roads, one around the inside of the perimeter wall just behind the houses and another around the central fortress. Everything else was either garden or pasture.
Using those roads runners and reinforcements could get from one side of the enclosed area to the other in a fraction of the time it would take for someone outside the wall; giving the defenders yet another advantage.
None of the houses had any windows or doors in the first floor of walls facing the outside. Second story outer walls had only loopholes for firing out over the pastures. Windows on the outer walls of the houses were confined to the third story and were small portholes or thin vertical or horizontal slits too narrow for an adult to squeeze through.
The curtain walls were set back six feet from the thick outside walls of the houses so marksmen shooting through second story loopholes at the sides of the houses could kill anyone attempting to climb over or breach the walls between the houses.
But The Castle wasn't all fortification. The sides of the fortress houses on the inside of the wall looked like regular houses with windows, doors, patios and decks. Regular that is if you considered a mansion a house. There were solar panels and windmills on the roofs and large gardens behind the mansions.
Beacon quadrupled his estimate of the Rich Guys Survival Club's pre-blowup net worth and rechristened them the Castle Corporation. Of course all that paper fiat money was now worthless having turned from tender to tinder in a matter of moments. But that had happened after the castle's inhabitants had wisely exchanged lots of their digital dollars for some things of lasting value like rock walls, pasture and farmland. Beacon reflected "There's a reason they call it real estate."
The big expensive MultiCam painted off road vehicles that had convoyed them to this redoubt stood parked in yards with their windshields facing south and from what he could see the front passenger areas were being used as greenhouses. He surmised the cargo bays and camper shells were being used for rat, squirrel and chipmunk proof food storage. One of the vehicles was obviously being lived in. "A husband in the dog house or a rebellious teenager?" Beacon wondered.
Mindful of Doc's skill with the Barrett Beacon opted to make a broad daylight, very public, and he hoped, non-threatening entrance into the valley.
There was a well used road running between the fields up the center of the valley to two low wooden gatehouses then on to the larger stone gatehouses in the wall surrounding the Castle Keep. Outside the wall two side roads lead off the main road to lesser used roads that paralleled the tree lines along the sides of the valley. The road system made the valley look like a giant leaf with a well used main road/vein running down the center and smaller roads/veins running off from the center to the sides of the valley dwindling into trails as they approached the two tree lines.
Shouldering his backpack and slinging his iron sighted Ruger 10/22 over his shoulder with a white handkerchief tied around
the muzzle Beacon actively fought his own survival instincts as he walked out in the open down the slope towards the intersection of one of the side trails with the road paralleling the tree line. Carefully traversing a three strand barbed wire fence Beacon officially entered Castle Corporation territory.