by Tj Reeder
After the shooting stopped and we had the attention of the townies we sent two scouts in to talk to them… one was the lady we rescued who was now known as "Shooter" , we figured a woman even one dressed in tiger stripes would be more apt to be welcomed then a small Asian armed with an AK... Kate with her red hair and well tailored tiger stripes was really easy on the eyes and made contact with folks pretty easy.
After Kate had checked things out she called for the Medical team who rushed up and bailing out went to work on the town folks who were wounded, they well lead by an older man who knew what he was doing or the town would have fallen to the slavers, as it was they had suffered 3 dead and 5 wounded all of whom were going to make it if Doc and her bunch had anything to say about it.
Jody and I sat down with the old fellow who turned out the have spent 25 years in the army Rangers and knew which pile his crap was in. so to speak. His name was Harvey ( Harv) Williams , Harv said the town was mostly occupied by the folks who lived there before the war and was mostly a farm and ranch supply town , at the peak it had 350 people in town , when the world went out of control he just assumed control and people knowing his back ground followed his lead , and he just did what he had done all his life , as with most of the other places we had visited he had the roads closed and had everybody with a weapon to show up , women and kids too .. then he set about preparing the town to survive , with trusted men on guard duty at the road blocks the rest of the town were set to starting gardens and building fighting positions that were interlocked .
It seemed to us that for the most part the small towns had held it together because of the community ties of a small town. There had to be something to this, but since we hadn't moved on any place bigger then a few hundred and small farms and ranches we really couldn't say but we needed to discuss it for sure.
But for now we had some scup bags to talk to, the slavers who had given up were being held separate so we could get all the information and cross reference it, by this method we could pretty much figure out what was what, as usual we let the Clan scouts scare the crap out of them and they all talked like their lives depended on it.. We learned that this slavery thing was a big deal and also who was buying the slaves and best of all. Where they were!
The next problem was that this nut was a big one and to crack it we needed more people and some heavy fire power and a plan, which we couldn't develop sitting here on our asses… So we needed to do a major recon on this dickweeds if we were going to save the folks being held and crush this bunch for good...
After we had all the information these mutts had we turned them over to the town folks , Short trial , long drop , short rope ... We chose to just leave it to them and we didn't even watch , instead we went to work with the maps , and talked over a plan for getting more information.. As much as it chapped mine and Jody's asses we just couldn't go on this recon , so Jody called over 3 of the older Clan scouts who had worked with him some in the Central Highlands , It amazed me how many people he got out of there and who had stayed in contact ..
Jody laid out the plan to these men who would lead 3 separate scout units again as much as we both wanted to go along we had to forego it. It seems that there is a base of scum bags near Waco who took over a small town and turned it into a slave camp where the men were worked to produce food and the women were used as it pleased the scum bags, the kids were held until they had enough then sold to god alone who knew and for what although we all feared we knew..
Jody and I and the wives sat around our camp talking to the team leaders when Jody laid out the thoughts that were troubling him, it boiled down to the fact that while we had been killing off a few assholes we weren't doing anything about the bigger problems which was the root of the problem the main headquarters of the various gangs, it was like trying to wipe all the fire ants in Texas by burning out one mound which in and of it's self didn't work either..
Jody said he felt we needed to follow the 3 F's of Marine logic , Find em , Fix em and then Fuck em!... I think that translates to locate them find their main HQ then wipe them out… but some how his version seems more fun… but depending on how big a place they have and how many guns not to mention how many innocents were in the line of fire would dictate just how big a force we would need..
One thing we have is massive fire power, but we don't have any artillery, but Jody is working on that??? I was wondering how we would handle cannons when we were trained in rifle work… Jody just smiled and said he was working one that too…
At this point we were kind of dead in the water so using the maps we located a state park a days ride away and bid good by to the folks in the little town who were now armed very well and ready for bear. We made the park easily enough and found a pleasant little place with a lake and the usual outhouses and camp spots after pulling in the scouts headed out for a recon which meant we would have deer and pig for dinner…
After reporting all quiet around the area for a couple of miles and bringing back the usual fresh meat the scouts set out the defenses around the camp , pretty much nothing was going to move thru the area without us knowing..
While waiting for the pig to roast we all headed for the lake and enjoyed a good swim and washing, the ladies were happy to get their hair clean after days of sweat and grime and smoky fires… dinner was great and relaxing was so welcome, we all went to bed early and for once got full nights sleep while the guard force stayed alert then took the day to rest.. It was a bit of heaven!
For the rest of the week we did nothing but sleep and eat and play in the water and fish! Pig and deer are great but once in a while something else is good too… a fish fry was the ticket… and another good thing was the fact we were able to spread out and have privacy with a central place to gather if we wanted to visit... Jade and I enjoyed that very much…
Five days later the radio watch reported the Scout teams were heading back and within an hour were in camp… Jody told them to hit the lake and relax and report in a few hours.
He was a damn good leader... always thinking of the troops… not that I knew much about that but I know good things when I see them. Plus hearing the comments from the others…
After having a meeting with the scout leaders Jody called a general meeting and after everybody quieted down he laid it out for us… The main bunch or rather "This" bunch was right where the captured slavers said they were and were doing just as stated… the men were working in the big gardens and the women were cooking and taking care of the main camp… the slaves were herded into pens at night with guard towers set around them they slept on the ground as best they could most were pretty bad off from lack of food and care... the men and women were kept separate , the women seemed to get a bit more food and had shelter from weather by way of shed roofs , they slept on the ground but had a blanket... the kids were kept in what looked like a school gym and the Slavers used the class rooms for their quarters .
There was a big diesel generator that provided light and water for the school, the cafeteria was the mess haul the slaves were fed twice a day at sun up and sun down and the attitude of the slavers seemed to be that if a slave died oh well… more could be bought almost any time.. The scouts said that the younger women and older girls were held in the school for use by the assholes... the younger girls were apparently not used as they were worth more to whoever bought them…
While I was personally appalled by this whole mess Jody said he had seen the same thing played out any place where the governing systems collapsed… that when money became worthless then humans became property to the warlords and there always had been a market for young girls. Even before the SHTF for the whole world… Jody said there had been a secret report out that showed a very large number of the young girls and boys who went missing were grabbed and sold into the white slavery market… As a former cop I could imagine they type of people who would buy kids for use in such ways...
According to the report it looked like there were upwards of 150 to 200 ass hats h
old up in the town.. They were well armed but seemed to be light on full auto which we were heavy in. with our entire force present excluding the Medical staff we were out numbered 2 to 3 to one but with surprise and fire power we knew we could take these people but the big problem was doing it without getting the hostages killed
Jody decided he needed to take a personal look at the place so we mounted up in several scout bugs with 3 gun bugs and headed out ( without mentioning where we were going to the wives which would cost later) .
It seemed like only minutes passed before we were flagged down by the stay behind scouts who waved us into a secure area to lay up the vehicles . After all were hidden under camo netting we gathered and got briefed by the scouts who stayed behind , nothing had changed it seemed nobody knew we were on the hunt so we moved out to the over view spot .
After a walk of a mile or so we came to a small hill that was being used as our observation spot and there it was all laid out just like the scouts had drawn it . Gardens growing, men hoeing under the guns of mounted horsemen like some throwback to the old southern chain gangs except these men were too beat down to run anyplace , chains weren’t needed .
Most looked to starved to work but the guards with their quirts made sure all were working. We watched them lashing out seemingly for no reason without fail the blows drove the man to the ground.
We laid on that hill for several hours and come to realize that these folks had been the big dogs so long they had become complacent and this was going to be their undoing. For the most part the ones not on guard duty just laid around drank and fought each other over who knows what.
Every once in a while one would go over to the women’s quarters and drag out a woman to one of several shacks that seemed to be used as cribs for using the women..
It was a long day laying in the weeds with the bugs and I wondered how the Clan scouts did it but then most had been born to it, the younger ones who were born here seemed to have inherited it from their parents. Most of us doze off while others watched.
Then right around mid afternoon we got a break none of us had expected any way, shape or form . Four of the slavers got geared up and went to the women’s quarters and brought out 10 women and headed for the gate leading out and into the wooded area where the women started gathering wood .
The break came in that two of the women were obviously clan women !! The scouts were vibrating with anger. Jody whispered to two of the team leaders who without a sound gathered their men and like smoke just were gone .
Jody said they would make contact with the women and learn all they could about the camp and we waited. About 3 hours after the women had been herded into the woods they came out hauling heavy loads which were taken inside the compound and stacked near a large fire pit .
The guards were so lax they never noticed they were one woman short , soon the scouts were back with the woman who was talking a mile a minute to the head scout .
Jody translated and the story came out, the woman and several of the people were heading to the Ranch and were ambushed by slavers who sold themto these people, the women’s husbands were killed outright , their teenaged daughters were in the school held with the other young girls , their boys were there too.
She said there was around 100 girls and boys being held in the school…unless some had been sold lately but she hadn’t heard of any..
We moved back to the hidden bugs and talked it over and decided that we needed to move tonight, also that we would try to do it quietly as much as we could..
I told Jody I was going in with the team who were tasked with sentry removal in the towers , he agreed but was going to slip thru the wire after we took out the sentries , the plan was to try to reach the young people first , the men and women outside would be covered by the largest group of our people acting as over watch , after the towers were knocked out it should be a lot easier….now if Murphy stayed out of it..
At midnight the watch changed in the towers so we waited until 0300 for them to get sleepy before we did our thing.. We were using two people with 22 pistols with sub sonic rounds to remove the tower watchers..
The tower I was going in on turned out to be a piece of cake, the two creeps were standing leaning over the edge of the wall smoking , and just a couple of seconds after they ruined their night vision with the cigarette lighter they both found out the smoking is detrimental to ones health.. On shot each from the base of the tower and they simply slipped down out of sight.
The other three hit teams went about their business quietly , we found out later that in two of the target towers the BG’s were sound asleep after smoking a big joint.. The Clansman who went up the stairs simply shot them both from the stairs..
The last town was just as easy as the guards were sitting down sharing a bottle , neither noticed that death came to call.. It was way too easy, and brought back the reason out people were so well trained and also had a good reason to be on top of their game , almost all had families depending on them..
Thru my night vision I watched dark forms slipping thru the wire with not a sound , Jody’s entire team was made up of clansmen and them ol boys could walk on water with nary a ripple. They made their way to the school gym door and slipped in, the captive clans woman had said they were guarded by only a couple of people who stayed outside the actual gym .
In the meantime the gate was opened after being sprayed liberally with oil , the waiting troops eased inside and spread out , moving among the prisoners , hopefully none would yell out , not that these asshats would notice iot as most were drunk by now and passed out.
The clanswoman had eased among the women and quietly spread the word to remain flat on the ground , the Men seemed to be so tired and starved that nothing should of a boot in the ribs would wake them.
At last after a nail biting long time Jody’s voice in a whisper said all clear in my ear, this was our signal to start moving in on the barracks and the shacks where the women were used , again the suppressed cans did their job, there was some noise when one of the sleeping slavers woke up and started to yell while jumping out of bed but died with a 22 round to the head and a sharp bolt to the chest , when he fell he knocked over a night stand with a bottle on it , which seemed to echo all over the compound but apparently wasn’t an uncommon sound in this place.
Jody said all the kids were under cover in a safe place from stray bullets and that we could open the ball when we wanted. I for one was very ready, when everybody had been alerted several shadows ran quietly to the barracks windows and tossed several grenades inside and ran back, hitting the dirt just as all hell broke loose , the kicker was the White Phosphorus grenades tossed in with the frags , when they went off it turned the whole building into an inferno .
Then the screaming started with people flying out the windows and doors only to be hit with withering fire from our people , several tried to surrender but we were past that so they died as well.
While we tore apart the main barracks Jody and a few of his crew hit the leaders place. Within moments they came out dragging a screaming naked man who was cussing a blue streak until one of the clan popped him in the back of the head with a rifle butt.
As per the plan everybody laid back in the shadows watching the buildings burn, any survivors who might come out shooting would be hard pressed to find a target. None came out.
Day break came and we policed up the area collecting weapons and anything unburned that had use, not one of the entire gang had survived but the head of the snake, and he was going to be some talking very soon .
I having never been in the military could not believe we had just taken out a much larger force with so few people and not one scratch to our team!! But Jody had said from the first that good preplanning and stealth and not playing fair beat the hell out of some asshole screaming “CHARGE!!” and everybody running into a wall of bullets.. He was right!.
I did wonder when our luck would run out but really we did have a wonderful group of fighters and
had some of the best scouts in the world in the Clansmen , they could sniff out an ambush better then a team of bloodhounds, they just seemed to feel in vibrating in the air.
Jody had told me you could lay near a trail on the blackest night and hear a file of troops moving quietly thru and just from the smell you would know who they were .
He said VC smelled of fish and rotten cabbage, that the South Viets smell like a French whorehouse because they all slathered sweet smelling perfume type crap on like water and Americans smelled like cigarettes and on the cherry’s after shave or deodorant.
I thought about that and quietly vowed to forgo any of those give a ways.. I’d hate to get killed because I didn’t wanna offend my squadies with BO.. What a stupid way to get killed.
After calling up the rest of the force we set about dealing as best we could with the freed people who were shocked to find they were free, they were a pretty sorry sight but for the most part some good food and rest would go a long ways in getting them back on their feet.
It made it all worth while seeing the fathers reunited with their wives and children , but the sadness of the ones who had lost their fathers or mothers made it come home again how good we had it while the world spun out of control.