Righteous Sacrifice

by Timothy Van Sickel

  He does as he is told.

  “Good man, now lay face down in the road, arms spread. You been probing our position, we know that. Now you walk down our road. What are you looking for in the dead of night?” the voice asks.

  “I was sent here by my boss to get information. Your defenses are good. I could not sneak around, so I decided to come down the road. We mean no harm. I only seek information.”

  “Seekin’ information is what spies do, shoot him, Henry, he’s a spy,” another voice states.

  Red twinges a bit but does not give up. “I would not have come straight down your road if I was a spy.”

  “So, you’re a crappy spy, not my problem. Shoot him Henry.”

  “I am an envoy with news. You do not want to shoot an envoy with news.”

  “You talk funny, where are you from, stranger?” the voice asks.

  “I am Handele, from the Indian State of Kashmir, but I am an American, my boss can verify that. I served as a translator in Afghanistan for four years.” Red responds.

  “Freaking foreigners, boss. I told you they would start invadin’.”

  “Calm down Hank, they wouldn’t be invading from the west. Step up and state your mission Handal,” the commanding voice states.

  A small red light turns on twenty feet to Red’s front left. He rises, grabs his horse’s lead and heads towards the dim light. A single man is at the light, middle aged and of military bearing, though a bit overweight. He sense that at least two other men are watching from the darkness. He uses the standard military introduction. “Lt. Handele Rajamakur, 1st Calvary. Three years in Afghanistan. Thank you for agreeing to hear me out. You can call me Red, everyone else does. I take no offense to that.”

  The man sizes Red up, and after a brief pause, shakes the man’s extended hand. “Sgt. Zookerman, 28th division, MPs. Bosnia for nine months. Why are you probing my defenses in the middle of the night?”

  Red looks at the man, and sees the serious look in his eyes, sees that he meets his gaze straight on. He will need to be as straight as he can be. He is used to dealing with people that will lie to him, this situation is different. This man is not from the tribal lands in Afghanistan. Many thoughts run through his head before he speaks.

  “I work for a Special Forces major. We have been tasked with protecting an important and well connected family. I am seeking information in this area that may help keep this family secure.”

  Sgt. Zookerman looks at the small man before him, trying not to laugh. “Red, you would have been better off telling me that you had ten families that were willing to work for a safe place to stay, with men willing to defend the farms they helped to work. You got some bigwig and his family that you want to bring here? That sounds like trouble.”

  Red pauses a moment. He knows his task well. “If I had told you I was helping escort ten refugee families, I would have been lying to you. You would have figured that out, and I would have been rejected, along with the family I am supposed to protect.”

  Sgt. Zookerman looks the man up and down. He sees no malice. “What do you want, Red? You want us to help out this ‘connected’ family?”

  “Let me talk to someone in your leadership command. The people we wish to protect come with some highly skilled security people,” Red responds. “We may be a valuable asset to you.”

  Captain Regis had told his men to be on the lookout for military type units that could help them defend their lands. Sgt. Zookerman sees this as an opportunity. He talks with Red for a few more minutes as his men set up a ride to take Red to the Bakersville Fire Hall, the combined headquarters for the militia patrolling the Laurel Mountain ridge.

  Red is stripped of his weapons and equipment, blindfolded and put on the back of an older ATV. After thirty bumpy minutes the ATV pulls to a stop. He is lead into a building that is mainly quiet, but he can hear a background noise that tells him this building never sleeps. Coffee being brewed, dishes being cleaned, background chatter.

  He is lead to a cot. “The man you need to talk with won’t be here for a while. Get some sleep, soldier.” A door closes securely and is locked.

  Red takes the blindfold off and looks around. He is in a small room that was probably once an office. Now it has two cots, a ‘sanitary bucket’, a small table with an LED lamp and a pitcher of water with two glasses. The other cot is empty. There is a small window with a heavy steel mesh secure to it: enough to stop an innocent man, nothing that would stop a man determined to get out. He has no reason to try an escape, so he abides by the soldier’s maxim of sleep when you can.

  * * *

  Red is stirred from his sleep by two firm knocks on the door. He is immediately awake and alert. The early morning sun shines through the small window and he smells coffee, bacon, eggs and pancakes. He smiles, four hours of sleep and the potential for a good breakfast. He has been in places much worse than this: much, much worse.

  The rap at the door repeats and the door is opened by a well-armed woman, weapon at the ready. “You got five minutes to eat and get decent.” A young man brings in a plate of pancakes and bacon. The door closes and is locked. Red scarfs down the food, uses the bucket, then smooths out his clothing as best as possible. There is no mirror, but he runs his hand through his thick black hair and tweaks his thick mustache.

  Two more raps and the same woman opens the door. She waves a hand in front of her nose. “Shit dude, that reeks. I should have told you the next stop is the bathroom. We do have running water. Jimmy, clean out that pot. Come with me Handele.” The fact she knows his name makes him realize there are systems and organization here.

  The woman leads him down a long hallway with a few other people bustling back and forth. She opens a door, marked Men. “Wash up Handele, I’ll be here when you’re done. Then you’ll meet with one of the bosses.”

  Five minutes later, Red sits in an office with two other men. The female soldier stands guard at the door, her weapon held ready. A tall dark skinned man in military uniform sits casually in a chair along the far wall. Behind a large desk sits a smaller white skinned man, graying at the temples, reading glasses hanging from a chain.

  The man behind the desk speaks first. “So you are with the hired guns protecting the Chaffe family? How are Dean and Chloe holding up?”

  Red is used to unexpected questions, but this one throws him for a loop. Only his red skin keeps the blush from showing. He thinks a bit. Should he deny? Act stupid? No, the people he is talking to are not stupid, they would not have asked the question if they didn’t know the answer.

  “Dean is holding up well, firm in keeping control of the property. Chloe is shaken. Two children and countless grandchildren are strewn across the globe. The property is threatened though. Too many refugees and apparently some of the contractors have given up confidential information,” Red responds.

  The man behind the desk looks Red over for a few moments before responding. He is a calculating man who played a hunch. He has actually met Dean and Chloe Chaffe. He is a fringe part of the elite, having risen to the executive level of a major hospital system. But he has always kept himself grounded by his humble childhood and Christian upbringing. He stands and extends his hand across the desk. Handele stands and shakes the man’s hand. “Derrick Durant, pleased to meet you Handele. I am a civilian leader here. This here is Captain Albright, one of our militia leaders, Tell us your story.”

  Red treats the men with respect. He knows, maybe better than the two men before him, that he is honored with meeting the tribal elders of this area. He has met with tribal leaders before, half way around the globe. Dishonesty will end the conversation. So he speaks openly.

  For almost an hour he tells what he knows. The captain quizzes him on the men, and equipment they have available. He evades as much as possible, stating he must protect the security of the Chaffes. Derrick asks him more about the situation around them, who they have contact with locally, and what other ‘elites’ they have had contact with. The meeting wraps up by
Derrick asking, “So what do the mighty Chaffes want from the riffraff in Somerset County?”

  “We may need to bugout, Mr. Farmer,” Red states. “If we have to bugout, can we retreat here, is this place safe?”

  “No place is safe, Handele. But we are better organized than anywhere else. And we have a small mountain that not too many people have tried to come over yet. We are more interested in having the Chaffe’s security people, but we will take in the Chaffes too. They will be treated well for what they bring, but they will need to work for their keep. Maybe like they have never worked before. Who they have contact with and what information they can provide may help them in gaining safe haven here.”

  Red nod’s his understanding and the meeting breaks up. A middle-aged local man meets with him, gives him an old CB radio and instructions on how he can contact them. The man lets Red know that they have CB stations set up at various outposts on the mountain and can pick up chatter all the way to Chestnut Ridge.

  By ten AM he has been blindfolded and escorted back to the outpost on Laurel Mountain Ridge, where his equipment and horse are returned to him. As he silently picks his way through the autumn forest, he ponders what has just taken place. He hears distant gunfire. A few random shots turn into a pitched battle that lasts fifteen minutes. It dies off. He hears three shots from the ridge behind him. Then nothing; a problem quickly resolved. He realizes that in the eight hours he spent on the other side of the ridge, he did not hear a single gunshot. In his valley, random firing is pervasive, and to hear a raging firefight break out is an almost daily occurrence. Captain Albright, Derrick Durant and whoever they may be working with, have established a safe haven, at least for now.

  Chapter 28 Reality

  The Farmstead

  10/13

  “The biggest question I have, Colonel is who else can take it?” I ask. “Any local units, even if they were able to get their people mustered, they’ll have their hands full just dealing with the chaos. And they won’t have any ammunition, just like the units around here. So if they even know about it, can they take it? I would say no. What do you think?”

  “The local commanders are aware of Letterkenny,” Colonel Adkins responds. “Part of their protocol, although antiquated, is to protect the depot. That brings up the question of will they move on it? That’s a tossup. I agree, some units will have disbanded to let their people take care of their own families. But there are a few large armories in the Harrisburg area which are home to several companies. They may have been able to muster a hundred men or more.”

  My Executive Officer, Colonel Fisher chimes in. “I’m not an operations man, but if I were a battalion commander, I would get a mission together to get to that depot. Everything a commander would need to arm his men is at that depot.”

  “If that battalion commander had enough people and vehicles to move thirty miles and then take the depot. Sure, that’s what I would do too,” States Captain Hutchins. “But we’re talkin’ city folk here. Sure they could round up some older cars, maybe a few trucks. But it won’t be like out here, where every other farm has a 1972 Ford F250 or an old farm tractor that still runs. And Harrisburg is going to be chaos. He would have to move his soldiers through that chaos. The locals would overwhelm him, looking for relief, for answers.”

  “All good points, but I think we need to consider that a guard or reserve unit may have been able to pull it off,” I state. “We need to consider that as a real possibility. To think this gold mine is sitting there, waiting for us to just waltz in and take what we want would be foolish.”

  “I agree with the General,” Colonel Adkins states. “We have to plan that a guard or reserve unit has taken control of the depot.”

  “What about Fort Indiantown Gap?” Lieutenant White, my son, chimes in. “Could they have mustered enough troops to take the depot? They would already have the ammunition and some hardened vehicles. Would they move to take the depot, just to secure it from people like us?”

  Colonel Adkins responds to that question. “I doubt it. There were no guard or reserve units training at the post on 9/11. That means about a hundred 28th division active duty people were on post when the power went out. Add in about two hundred civilian contractors, including security people. That leaves a slim amount of people on base to protect their own assets.

  The fort is very remote, so I doubt they were able to muster more than two hundred soldiers. And some of the units in Harrisburg that we discussed may head that way instead of to Letterkenny. It’s their division headquarters and they would have an affinity to rally there. They also would know they would be able to get ammunition and supplies there, as well as rally with other units.”

  “But even if the Gap could rally a thousand men, they would still be hard pressed just to keep the fort secure,” Captain Albright puts in. “I say it would be possible but doubtful that anyone from the Gap would send a crew to Letterkenny.”

  “More possible than you think, Captain,” Colonel Adkins states. “General Scartch, the Division XO, would have been on base. He is smart and takes charge. He knows about the depot. Securing it is on his protocol. Once he feels he can keep the Gap secure, he will send a mission to the depot. He is a hard ass. I know him personally. He would relish the idea of instituting martial law with him as the commanding general. I suspect he is the one who sent the scavenging parties into Bedford County.”

  “Okay, possibility two is that Fort Indiantown Gap has sent a relief mission to the depot,” I state. “What about active duty forts? Dix? Anderson Airforce base? Who else might take an interest in our target?”

  “There is no other fort within two hundred miles,” Colonel Fisher states. “They would have to fight through chaos to get there. And why? Active duty forts have all the supplies they need. And they will be busy defending their own bases. They will probably have a high desertion rate as well. Just like when Zach’s unit had to fire on civilians. We’re trained to fight foreigners, not Americans. I’d leave. And I would try to take every soldier I could with me before I got into massacring civilians. Zach experienced it, and that is exactly what he did.”

  “Colonel, Letterkenny was a national depot, but they tried to cut its funding. It’s now mainly the responsibility of the 28th division, right?” I ask.

  Colonel Adkins nods. “I don’t think anyone other than the 28th even has it on its radar. Active duty troops being present is a minimal risk.”

  “What about the locals?” Colonel Brit asks. “If this twenty thousand acre supply depot was in my backyard, boom, I am there. What about that?”

  “Good point Brit,” Zach responds. “The locals may be more of a problem than any military unit. What if they have rounded up a ragtag kick ass unit like we have here?”

  “That’s a possibility,” Colonel Adkins replies. “There are about a hundred civilian contractors who work there. Some are for inventory control and maintenance, but most are security contractors. They are better than mall cops, but they are not retired navy seals either. If they join in with other locals, especially vets, they could be a serious force. That has to be considered as a problem to be dealt with.”

  “Okay, so scenario three is that the locals have taken the place over,” I state. “Does anyone here have an objection to moving forward with planning this mission?”

  The room is quiet for a few seconds. Then Becca speaks up. Her voice is quiet and calm. “Why are we doing this? People are going to die. Christ wants us to love our neighbors. I see no love here, Mark. You are a Christian. How can planning this mission be part of God’s plan for you? You have helped unite this community by being loving and kind.

  “Yes, we defended our home, and people died, that I understand. Yes, we have helped others to gain their freedom from oppressive people. But this is different. You are planning to go get something that is not yours. And the only reason I see you doing that is so that you will have more guns than the guy next door. That is not love, Mark. Why are we doing this?”

&nbs
p; The room goes very quiet. Why are we doing this? Where is the love? There is only violence and death in what we are planning. My wife is right in a sense. What if we just wait out the turmoil in the safe haven we have created? Let the rest of the countryside fight out the chaos.

  But when good men do nothing, bad things happen. To do nothing is to allow innocent people to die. We have the opportunity and the possibility of helping people by bringing stability to their lands. Our intentions are to reach out in love to those who may be oppressed or starving. I think of Jesus telling the Centurion that he had great faith. The centurion was there to bring stability to the land. Jesus did not tell the centurion to lay down his arms. This debate rages in my head. How do we justify our actions as Christians? I truly feel that taking the depot is what we need to do, but my wife’s points are legitimate.

  Colonel Adkins breaks the silence. “I am sitting here now because half our General Staff wanted a total takeover in this type of situation. They wanted to implement martial law from the top down. The other half of the staff thought the opposite. In a collapse situation, we should return control of the units to the local government.”

  “From a national perspective, the institution of martial law is the protocol. The elites don’t want any type of local initiative. We can sit here in our peaceful valleys and pretend that nothing else is going on in the outside world. And forces beyond our comprehension will eventually come crashing down on us.

  “Yes, Rebecca, if we do this, people will die. Maybe even Zach. But if we don’t do this, more people will die. The people gathered here stand for freedom. I will set my chips on the people here in this room. I am not as faith oriented as you are, but I know right from wrong. Letting Letterkenny go would be wrong.”

  She looks around the room, heads nod. Even Becca gives a slight nod of approval before leaving the room quietly, stating that she needs to help in the kitchen, but really just needing some time for reflection.

  “Should we take a break before we decide on the fate of this mission?” I ask.