And with that, the First Sergeant walked briskly toward the door and made his exit. The next day, he was gone without a trace.
Tim leaned over to Eric. “This is the worst moment of my life. How about you?” Eric nodded. His brother might already be dead.
Camp David Briscol was rapidly becoming a ghost town. No one had received any significant information from anyone in ten days. Everyone assumed that electromagnetic pulse was the culprit. When a nuclear device is detonated around 10,000 feet above the ground, it destroys most electrical apparatus. The radio men were certain their equipment was in working order after conducting numerous tests, but there were no forthcoming messages.
Men began sneaking off in the night, taking their weapons and equipment with them. Two weeks went by and more than half the camp’s personnel had gone Absent With Out Leave (AWOL). AWOL is a serious transgression, especially in a time of war. But few gave it a second thought, responding just as the First Sergeant had that last night before he disappeared. Most of the Soldiers posted at the Camp on a permanent basis had family about sixty miles north in rented apartments and houses. The powerful feelings of fear for their families safety overtook them, and they eventually deserted the base and the military to find their loved ones. No one seemed to care. A number of the military who still remained at the Camp were transient and far-removed from where they lived, as well as their permanent duty stations.
It was decided that a group of 45 Soldiers would leave the camp and head west toward Seattle, Washington, to assess the damage. These were not deserters, they were Soldiers in search of answers.
It was a sanctioned Military Operation.
The group decided to head out the following morning, led by First Lieutenant William Everett, an Army veteran with recent combat experience. He assigned Lieutenant Stephen Donnelly to be his second-in-command, and although Donnelly did not have any actual combat experience, he had attended all the right schools and was a West Point Academy graduate. Both men were good leaders noted for evaluating situations before acting on them. They also weren’t exactly the‘100 percent by the book’ officer types, either. They were well-liked and well-respected by the Troopers selected to go on the mission with them.
The Commanding Officer of the post had gone AWOL two days prior and hadn’t been seen or heard of since. Nobody made an effort to go after any of the deserters because so many people were abandoning their posts these days that there weren’t enough Soldiers left to go after them. Soldiers needed to know what was happening with their friends and families, and the breakdown with the communications systems directly resulted in the breakdown of the military structure. Everyone needed to know the situation beyond the fence of this Camp. Food was running low, another reason Soldiers ran off.
Bright and early the next morning, the 45 men gathered in formation and heard the plan from Lieutenant Everett. His voice was even and calm. “As most of you already know, we are heading toward Seattle, Washington… and with a little luck, we should be there in a few hours. We’ll maintain a convoy formation and follow the highway until just before it splits to go into Seattle, and then we’ll continue west to Fort Lewis. We have no idea what we will come across on the way, but we’re all professional Soldiers and Marines and will act accordingly. Keep your eyes open and be prepared for anything and everything!”
Buckling his Kevlar helmet into place, he put his hand on the door handle, “Okay troops,” his voice had a reverberation of confidence, mount up!” With that said, the Soldiers and Marines engaged the starters on their trucks and other vehicles, and the engines sprang to life.
Eric and Tim rode together in the same truck.
As the convoy traveled west, there was only one incident of significance. After an hour and a half on the highway heading west, a group of civilians tried to overpower them. That was a big mistake. Lieutenant Donnelly tried to warn them to unblock the highway, but the people fired at the lead truck and they responded in kind. Eric and Tim assumed the position, but it was over before they could get set up, so they climbed back into the truck and stowed their gear.
Several civilians had been killed and as others dragged their companions away, the Lieutenant called for a ceasefire. One of the convoy medics did what he could for the wounded but it was a hopeless situation for most of them. They needed immediate surgery to survive their wounds, and that wasn’t going to happen.
The convoy continued and just before arriving at Greenwater, where many of the Camp’s dependents lived, they came across dead people lying alongside the road. Most had been dead for some time and birds and insects were already feeding on the carcasses. The dead had nothing of value in their possession. They had simply been shot and left there to rot. The convoy stopped several times along the way to look for survivors but they found none,
The group continued on and were stunned into silence as they passed many houses that were burned to the ground. A few were still smoldering and smoking, but the fires appeared to be old… probably older than just a few days.
Cars were abandoned and many stores had been looted. Windows were broken out and glass was scattered over sidewalks and streets. Clothing and other items were lying about, obviously dropped as the looters scurried away. Some of the Soldiers and Marines who had dependents living in the area were devastated by what they were seeing.
“It’s looking like a rough situation for these boys,” Eric leaned over and whispered to Tim, “I know how they feel. My brother’s probably dead. I hope we run into some Russians or Chinese… it would be good to get a little payback for what they have done to us.” Tim agreed. He felt just as bad as everyone else.
When they arrived at a junction where the highway split to go north to Seattle and west to Enumclaw, the convoy continued west. There was a brief conversation about exploring Seattle, but it had been decided that they would investigate it at another time. They continued toward Fort Lewis where they would determine what to do next.
There was some disappointment for a few of them by this decision because the action was probably north of here. It was disappointing to hear they wouldn’t be taking the fight to the enemy.
The further west they traveled, the more corpses they encountered. Most vehicles were empty and abandoned, but occasionally a driver could be seen dead in the driver’s seat. Lieutenant Donnelly had a Geiger counter and tested for radiation poisoning at random. At this point, there was no evidence of radiation. These people had simply been murdered. Each of them knew that these were indiscriminate acts of violence.
Eric tried to focus on the task at hand, moving safely to Fort Lewis. But his mind kept wandering to his brother Chris, the Assistant Weapons Officer on board the USS CALIFORNIA, an OHIO Class Nuclear Submarine. ‘Run silent, run deep” was their motto, and their mission was strategic deterrence. That was a fancy way to say they kept the bad guys from shooting because the retaliation would simply be at too high a price.
However, deterrence was out the window now, and if the CALIFORNIA had fired their missiles, it would have made them an instant target, being hard to miss. Their chances for survival, at that moment, went down drastically.
Still, Eric wondered about Chris. What was he up to? Where was he? Was he safe?
Chapter 3
Rescued
“LET’S GATHER up our things, head east, and put some distance between them and us.” Randy had just come from observing the Bikers over the hill and he looked at his compass as he talked. He turned to the kids.
“Go get my pocket knife and bring it to me. I set it down back by the campfire. We’ll wait here for you.”
The boy and girl turned and headed back to the old campsite as Randy started briefing Shirley on the situation. It wasn’t like Randy to make a mistake like that, but he was tired. At least the camp was still close and he actually remembered where he left the knife. The path was well worn, as well, so he wasn’t concerned about their getting lost.
Bone Breaker, the chieftain of the bikers, was itching
for the upcoming battle. They were four hundred and forty seven strong, including the two hundred women. He had been waiting three months to strike back at those farmer hicks and this time around he was going to enjoy himself thoroughly.
They had wiped him out during the last battle, but this time was going to be different. He had faced them twice before and now he was ready, having no illusions about their capabilities.
The hicks were good. They must have had some military types with them as they did a surgical job on his people. He wouldn’t have thought it possible if he hadn’t seen it happen with his own eyes. They had gone through his men with effortless ease, and hadn’t lost anyone on their side that he was aware of. His people had been decimated. He had luckily escaped unscathed. It wasn’t going to be that way this time. He would see to that. The tank had been the clincher last time. Who would have believed they would have a tank?
Bone Breaker knew in his heart that he was superior to most men. His size, his strength and all of the fights in which he had been victorious proved that. If he could just meet the leader of those farmers one-on-one, he would take the guy out, and then own this territory. What was the saying, “Cut off the head and the body will die?” He thought that was correct. He would settle the score the way he always did… with brute strength and superior intellect.
He knew he was smart, that’s why he was the leader of these people. They looked up to him as if he were king. He supposed he was a king, and he was entitled to whatever he wanted. No one had stood in his way since he was sixteen years old.
Yes sir, if he could just get their leader face-to-face in a fight, he would prevail. He remembered the first time he killed a man. It was an accident, but it made him feel as if he were God. Those who saw him do it backed away and never spoke of it again. He simply picked the man up and threw him against a wall. The guy bounced off the wall and was impaled on a picket fence between the wall of the building and the alley that paralleled the building. It wasn’t as if he had done it on purpose. It just happened.
“It just wasn’t that guy’s lucky day, is all.” The thought caused him to smile. You win some and you lose some. But Bone Breaker didn’t like to lose… ever! Winning was the name of the game. He was only sixteen the day he killed that guy. It changed him. It made him feel as if there was nothing he couldn’t do. He was fearless of the consequences of his actions. It was all a part of the river that made up life for him, and he flowed with it.
Bone Breaker stood on a large rock, turning to address his gang. “You all know why we’re here. We’re gonna teach those farmers a lesson they won’t soon forget. We’re gonna own this valley and everyone in it for as long as we want to!”
The group yelled and screamed, the shouting was deafening. Bone Breaker smiled. He liked being king, and these were his subjects.
“There will be no fires until we have successfully won the battle with these farmers. No reason whatsoever to let them know we’re coming. I’d say there’s another hundred miles to go before we’ll be in their backyard and by the time we’re there, they won’t be able to do anything about it.” Another roar of approval went up from the crowd and Bone Breaker stood there with his arms folded across his chest and smiled.
They were ready for what was coming.
Mike Reynolds and Sam Wolchak, two of the so-called ‘farmers’ Bone Breaker was referring to, watched and listened to the big slaver talk. Mike, x-Navy SEAL and Sam, ex-Green Beret, were two men from Avalon who were both seasoned veterans of a shooting war in the recent past.
They had donned Ghillie suits, made of ragged strips of linen and grass, and were no more than a hundred yards from the main encampment… nearly invisible, and hearing all they needed to know as they blended into the trees and bushes. Once the camp settled down, they would head deeper into the woods, then turn west and return to Avalon to prepare for the forthcoming attack by Bone Breaker and his group of thugs.
A few months earlier, Mike and Sam decided they needed more notice in terms of an early warning system, so a new watch tower had been erected twenty miles down the road from Avalon. They didn’t want another sneak-attack surprising them, or the community of Fitch. They considered the rural town their responsibility since trade and communications had opened up.
The new tower was carefully camouflaged, and manned by two teams who stayed on site for five days on and two days off. Over the last year, an occasional straggler arrived at the town of Fitch, sometimes from the east but more often than not, from the north or south. West held little in the way of population and the fallout pattern there was less certain. The great Mohave Desert lay to the southwest, and it was rare that anyone came from that direction.
It was uncommon for anyone to come from the west except the slavers. There were towns in that direction but each town had troubles of their own, and there wasn’t much communication between them.
Mike and Doctor Dan were working on that. These things took time and everyone was suspicious of everyone else. There were exceptions to this of course.
Over the last six months, Avalon had grown steadily. Fitch was growing, as well, because many of the stragglers showed up after by-passing the hidden entrance that led to Avalon.
Though the entry had seen much use over the last three months, it was still hard to notice. There was talk of camouflaging it, but it had not been done yet. The more the old track bed was traveled, the more the signs of usage became obvious. There was also talk of putting up a barrier and then setting a guard there.
Fitch installed four watch stations that were manned using the same system as the watch station in the west. Most of these watch standers were married men who had their wives, or girlfriends with them. A small house was erected near each site, and the sleeping quarters could easily accommodate twelve people. Each had a basic kitchen and a water tower that utilized gravity-fed water to service the small houses. The houses were furnished by stripping some of the abandoned homes at either Fitch or in the surrounding countryside.
There was one watch tower about thirty miles south of Fitch, in the general direction that FBI agent Beth Kelly and her group of children had come from, one more toward Bishop and the other 150 miles from Fitch in the east above the great desert of Death Valley. There was one lonely tower toward the north, just below the mountains, situated on a promontory where nothing could move anywhere in the surrounding area without being observed. That tower was about fifty miles northwest of Fitch.
Each structure was camouflaged with paint and debris from the surrounding area, so carefully used that even standing next to one, one would not be aware that it existed. This technique was borrowed from the British, who were able to hide the Suez Canal from German bombers during World War II. They couldn’t hide structures and land areas, so they changed their appearance to look like something else.
A roof on a house could be made to look like a pile of boulders or shrubs. Looking at something straight on, it could resemble a profusion of bushes using camouflaged netting. The techniques the Avalon group used were very good, and nobody wanted them to be discovered or overrun by the casual observer or passerby. Each facility had a stockpile of ammunition for the .50 caliber machine gun, the .30 caliber machine gun and the small arms for the watch standers, all compliments of the recently-established United States Government.
The group was much better armed these days. The regular shipments of arms from the new National Capital city of Chicago complimented what they already had.
Each watch station was much like a small community consisting of a large garden and water well. Each tower had a cement pillbox with the .30 caliber gun fixed in place and the .50 in the tower to maintain a better view. They took half-inch steel plates that had been scrounged from different locations, including a sheet metal shop outside of Fitch, and installed them in front and on the sides of the .50 caliber gun. This was reinforced with re-bar and cement. The higher elevation placement of the .50 was due to longer range ability of the .50 compared with the .30,
and so it would benefit from the additional elevation.
The watch tower standers were specifically trained by Mike and Sam to deal with any eventuality that might arise. Men and women were trained to stalk and overcome any anticipated objective. They learned how to work as an efficient, highly skilled, and motivated team. It was standing practice to have someone visit every watch tower, every day, as a security measure. No one was ever isolated for more than a day. If the messenger who was sent out failed to return, an assault was planned immediately to make sure any trouble was permanently stopped in its tracks.
The system was sound and functional in every regard. It was a six-month tour once guards were trained and assigned to a tower. At the end of the six-month deployment they would rotate to another tower in a different area, or they could go to the retreat at Avalon, or to the town of Fitch.
They could also stay at the watch tower they started with, but everyone had to rotate at least once every other year. The duty at one of these stations became almost a way of life for some of them and having their families with them helped maintain stability in the groups and prevented boredom from setting in. Once the towers were in place, there was never another incident that involved some straggler ambling along unnoticed. Everything that moved was noted.
Each sentry tower had the same routine, and everyone did the same types of drills and maintained the same types of activities. By doing this, no matter which tower they were assigned to, the processes and procedures were the same.
The only thing that changed was the terrain and the people. Keeping most things equal helped stabilize the system. Boredom set in occasionally but was overcome by the activities they all shared.
Self-defense, patrolling and tracking were essential to keep everyone physically fit and alert. The large garden at each tower required daily attention and other routine chores such as housekeeping, cooking, cleaning, reloading ammo and maintaining weapons, along with harvesting what was ready for the table kept them all occupied.
Avalon: Beyond the Retreat (The Avalon Series Book 2) Page 3