The Systemic Series - Box Set

by K. W. Callahan

  Ava had also added three other men to this core of their operation. The first of these men was Johnny Switchblade. He was a younger man compared to the rest and was deadly accurate with a knife either up close in hand-to-hand combat or when throwing at targets from afar.

  The second man was Steel Will. He was one of just a handful of black men who had worked in the coal mines of West Virginia before heading south after the flu. The perilous work in the mines paired with being a minority in the mountains of West Virginia left Will imperturbable in just about any situation. Threats, fistfights, gunfire, explosions, whatever; he never batted an eye, a characteristic that Ava found extremely valuable when working with the rest of Jake’s crew who often lost their cool when things started heating up. Steel Will was their second best wheel man behind Mad Dog.

  And finally there was the Fallback Man or just “Fallback” for short. The Fallback Man had been a career criminal. From bank jobs and burglaries to identity theft and plain old pick-pocketing, he’d run the gambit when it came to stealing things. However, with this lengthy resume of experience behind him, he’d only served a brief stint in prison for a job he’d pulled back in high school. He’d unwittingly gone in to rob a gas station one morning at the same time the local cops came in for donuts each day. He’d had a gun on him and the ill-timed robbery had landed him two years in the pen for what would have been a lousy $200 take. He’d quickly learned his lesson. After this, Fallback would work and rework every plan for an upcoming job until he got it perfect, creating multiple backup plans in the process. He’d never gone into a job unprepared again, thereby keeping himself prison-free throughout the remainder of his career until the Su flu had abruptly ended his work. The flu was one of the few things he hadn’t planned for, but he’d quickly adjusted to the new environment and soon found himself thriving in the post-flu world.

  Sometimes, when Jake wasn’t around, Ava liked to pick Fallback’s brain for things like the quickest access points to a particular building, the best ways to get into and out of places unnoticed, or how to scout a location and glean the most valuable bits information. She recognized him for his true talents and value rather than as just another hired gun, which was how Jake saw him.

  And while Jake didn’t know it, when it came to their raids, Ava often tried to manage things so that this personal core of bodyguards remained close to her and relatively out of harm’s way. She felt that they had earned this right either through their tenure within the crew or some combination of their dedication, loyalty, or skill set that they brought to the table. Of course she always ensured that they were present at a raid and involved in some way since she wanted to keep them involve and their skills honed, but at the same time, they often acted more in supporting roles rather than as part of any frontal assault. The men recognized this, and in turn, repaid Ava with an increasing level of loyalty although no words to this effect ever passed between them. There were no contracts, no agreements, simply an unspoken arrangement between them that both sides understood and appreciated.

  Ava’s intelligence on their current target was pretty good, and she’d already scouted the location well in advance to the day’s assault. However, she realized that the spot was going to be well guarded and she had informed her best men of this fact. They knew what this meant – stay out of harm’s way whenever possible, don’t do anything stupid, and don’t get too crazy.

  The day’s target was a National Guard armory. Supposedly there was a trader, his personal bodyguard, and five or six hired guns holed up there. These men had converted a portion of the compound into their own private base that was comprised of a block of four large buildings. The structures included one building that served as barracks for the trader’s guards and that faced a small warehouse where most of their supplies were kept. The two other buildings were vehicle garages that also faced one another. One was reportedly empty and the other supposedly housed some impressive pieces of equipment.

  The four buildings were separated by two, 80-foot wide boulevards that intersected in the center of the four structures.

  Ava knew that many of the vehicles and weapons from this location – as well as many other National Guard armories around the area – had been depleted during the flu in the state’s failed attempt at maintaining law and order. Much of the larger equipment – tanks, armored vehicles, and the like – had been set on fire and destroyed during the post-flu looting and rioting. Many of the smaller arms, ammunition, and weapons accessories were carried off by survivors of the flu’s aftermath. However, word on the street had it that there were still several armored vehicles housed at this particular armory location. Ava had learned about the vehicles weeks earlier, but she hadn’t said anything to Jake. With Jake pushing for a new objective, she needed something to placate him. She also felt that it was the right time and the right way to strengthen their fighting force without adding additional members. She’d heard rumblings that the trader currently at the armory was in negotiations to sell off the vehicles to the Three Families. That would only increase their strength and leave Ava and Jake with fewer resources for expanding their own area of influence. Ava realized that it was a risk, taking food from the hands of the families, but until a deal was officially done, these items were still up for grabs.

  Up until now, Ava hadn’t felt comfortable taking on such a well-defended target since she wasn’t sure their organization could handle it. This was why they had thus far been tackling smaller, easier objectives. She wanted to make sure the men had some training first. Like the big college conferences taking on smaller opponents early in the season, it allowed her men a chance to get a feel for their team’s capabilities and work out the kinks against lesser opponents. Ava realized that while such early victories could be valuable learning experiences and confidence boosters, they could also lead to a team becoming overconfident and complacent so that when they were really put to the test, they faltered under the pressure.

  This would be her team’s first big test on the road, and it was the reason she’d picked up the drug addicts. She needed some front-line cannon fodder as a hedge against loosing too many of her own men.

  While it’d taken her some time, she’d finally managed to explain her plan in detail to Jake so that he understood how everything would go down. They would leave four men at the pump station as a rear guard to protect their own supplies. Rambo and Mad Dog would head this small team. Jake didn’t like it since Rambo and Mad Dog were two of their best guys, but Ava had convinced him that it was a good idea to leave some loyal long-termers behind to ensure the security of their home base.

  According to the intelligence report Ava had received on the armory, most, if not all of the trader’s guards would be in or around the vehicle garage at the time of their attack. The trader himself and his personal bodyguard would likely be in the compound’s main office inside the warehouse.

  There would be three assault waves.

  Before the assault began, Kill King and the Fallback Man were to slip into the compound unnoticed and take up positions atop the second vehicle garage. This would give them a perfect vantage point and direct line of fire to where the main assault would be taking place across the street and really to just about any other place within the compound. There, the Kill King could work the magic of his deadly pinpoint accuracy.

  Of the men they’d brought with them for the assault, the first wave would be comprised of the expendables – the addicts. If they lost a few or even all of them, so be it. One of the newer recruits would drive them in a pickup truck that they’d welded steel side-panels to. These panels rose to a height of about three feet around the bed of the truck in order to provide additional cover. The truck would enter the compound and the junkies would unload in the boulevard’s intersection between the armory’s four main buildings serving as more of a distraction than anything. These men would then take up positions around the garages and warehouse and lay down covering fire for the second wave of the attack while the pickup l
eft. It would circle around to relative cover near the rear guard that would be comprised of the heavily-armed and always prepared Jake and Ava who would ride with Johnny Switchblade as their driver.

  The second wave would be comprised of the newer additions to their organization. These were the guys that they had picked up over the past few weeks. There were five of them in total, and they would be organized and led by Steel Will who would drive them in. They would arrive in a steel-paneled SUV complete with welded tire-guards and reinforced steel bumper for ramming. Gun turrets had been cut into the steel side-panels that covered the windows in order to allow men to fire from relative safety within. Steel Will would ram the SUV through the main garage’s entry door at which point the Fallback Man would descend from his position atop the roof and rally any remaining addicts to join the second wave in entering and taking the armored vehicle garage.

  Ava and Jake would arrive with Johnny Switchblade in their own armored SUV along with the pickup truck. They would act as mobile reserve and third wave to handle the mop up or take care of any unexpected situations.

  It wasn’t a perfect plan, but Ava recognized that no such plan ever was, and leaving it up to Jake would have resulted in a frenzied melee that involved absolutely no plan at all.

  Ava crawled into the backseat of the crew cap pickup as they drove and opened the sliding glass window so that she could explain the plan to the druggies. She didn’t really care if they understood it or not. Their role was to unload from their current ride into the armored pickup waiting just outside the armory. From there they would drive inside the armory grounds, pile out, guns blazing while trying not to get shot in the process.

  They were a distraction – that was all; a way to divert the attention of the trader and his men while her main attack force arrived.

  * * *

  At 11:45 a.m., they sat a mile outside the armory. Kill King and the Fallback Man had left 15 minutes earlier to scout the location and take up their positions on the garage rooftop. Jake went through the plan again with the men as though he’d developed the whole thing himself. He seemed to like showing off for the druggies, although Ava had no idea why he’d try to impress such scum. Nonetheless, if Jake was happy, she was happy since it kept him out of her hair.

  With five minutes to go until the attack was to start, they handed out firearms to the addicts. They were given loaded assault rifles and an extra three full magazines. Then they were quickly ushered by Jake into the back of the armored pickup where, if there was a mishap with one of the firearms, in his words, “No one important would get hurt.”

  There were two reasons Ava had picked noon as their chosen “go” time. First, the information she had collected told her that the trader and his men were typically in the middle of lunch. She hoped that they would be eating, drowsy, maybe a little drunk, and altogether unprepared for an assault during their meal. Second, noon was as long as she dared keep her addicts pent up waiting to go. She’d gathered them at around eleven, and the effects of the small drug doses she’d handed out would be starting to wear off, which could leave them less brazen. She didn’t want them all deserting her at the last critical moment. She’d learned in previous raids that often when one druggy got the nervous itch to go, it set off a chain reaction, and within seconds they’d all be tucking tail and fleeing. This kind of last-minute desertion could ruin the whole plan.

  Engines were then fired up and the addict-bearing pickup rolled ahead. It was followed by the armored SUV, while Jake and Ava’s personal SUV brought up the rear. They would watch the attack from the cover of their SUV about 100 yards from where the main assault was to take place. Before they rolled, Johnny Switchblade got out and raised a thick steel plate up in front of their windshield and locked it in place. Thin slits – just big enough to see through – were cut into the plate for driver and passenger, providing them with a safe way to view the attack.

  Jake sat slouched in the middle of the backseat like the king he felt he was. Ava sat in the front passenger seat beside Switchblade as he drove. She liked to watch the attack. It provided her with the data she needed to make adjustments to future raids.

  Minutes later, the junkie-filled pickup truck crashed through the locked chain-link gate right on time, skidded to a stop near the center of the armory intersection, and the addicts were out of the pickup, finding cover, and laying down some wildly inaccurate fire just like they were supposed to. Ava knew that with only four magazines, and without the discipline to be selective in their targeting, the addicts would quickly burn through their ammo allotment. Therefore, timing was everything. Get the second wave there too early and the junkies might get confused and turn their fire on their own men. Get them there just a little too late and the junkies would be wiped out and the armory’s defenders would be ready and waiting for them.

  Two of the junkies focused on the small warehouse where the main office was alleged to be located. Two others aimed in the general direction of the vehicle garage that was the focus of the main attack. Another peeled off rounds at the nearby barracks. And the final junky just seemed to be spraying fire erratically and indiscriminately back and forth between all the buildings.

  It didn’t take long for the trader’s guards to react to the attack. Just as the armored pickup was rounding the corner and escaping between the barracks and the empty vehicle garage, the first two armory guards made their appearance, exiting out a side door from the main garage and cutting down one of the addicts. The two men took cover behind a nearby stack of wood pallets where they concentrated their fire against the druggy whose fire was all over the place and who had made the poor choice to shoot first and take cover later. He was quickly gunned down too.

  Another man appeared from the garage and darted over to a parked car beside the warehouse office. Meanwhile another appeared from the barracks, laying down a hail of gunfire that cut down the unsuspecting druggy who had taken up a position nearby. Quickly, three of Ava’s addicts were down, and the other three were down to their last two magazines of ammo. As the armored SUV arrived on the scene, crashing through the main garage’s vehicle entrance, ripping it off its rollers and leaving a gapping hole behind them, Ava and Jake slowed to a stop well away from the action where they could continue to watch the remainder of their plan unfold.

  Another of the trader’s men sprinted from the barracks carrying a big duffle bag while two more joined the fight from the warehouse office. Ava assumed these two were the trader himself and his personal bodyguard. They took cover behind a stack of steel barrels while the man with the duffle bag ran for cover and disappeared behind some wood crates nearby.

  Ava, watching through binoculars, could see the first man from the barracks drop suddenly and lay motionless on the ground, dead.

  “One down,” she said aloud. Several bullets pinged off their SUV’s protective windshield armor as Ava watched unflinchingly, remaining focused on the battle ahead of her.

  She saw the Fallback Man on the ground, having left his position on the rooftop to gather up the remnants of the junkies. He had just gotten them all together and ready to enter the garage when another was cut down.

  They were down to just two.

  Ava angled her binoculars upward so that she could see through the thin slats the armored windshield provided, up to the rooftop of the second garage. She could just make out the barrel of a rifle protruding from the roof’s ledge. A flash of light issued from the barrel and she looked back to the battle below to see another of the trader’s men who had been sheltering behind the stack of pallets sprawled on the pavement.

  “Two down,” she said. She didn’t like not being able to see what was happening inside the main garage, but she had to trust that their men were taking care of business. She watched as Fallback positioned the two remaining junkies at the main garage entrance so that they could provide covering fire. He gave each of them several extra magazines of ammo and then darted inside. Seconds later, rumbles and then smoke issued from insid
e the garage as Ava guessed Fallback had likely finished off the remaining defenders with grenades.

  Things were looking good. That’s when Ava noticed the man with the duffle bag. Another man had joined him; the one who had previously been taking cover behind the car. The other man had a heavy machinegun set up and was laying intense fire down upon the main garage. Bullets ripped into the side of the building and the two remaining druggies went stumbling for cover. Then he swung the machinegun toward where Jake and Ava’s SUV sat idling. Ava could see the flashes of light pouring from it, and seconds later, heavy caliber bullets began thudding into the vehicle. Suddenly the SUV sank at an angle under them.

  “Got one of the tires,” Johnny Switchblade said.

  Bullets struck their protective steel plate over the windshield; but this time, they didn’t “ping,” they thudded. As they hit, they left huge dents in the thick plating, cracking the windshield’s glass behind it.

  Ava pulled her head back reflexively from the lookout hole through which she had been viewing the battle.

  “What the hell do they have?” Jake cried. “Johnny, get us the fuck out of here!”

  They heard bullets thumping into the front of the SUV. Johnny threw the vehicle into reverse and hit the gas but nothing happened. Ava peeked out the view slot in front of her. She could see steam hissing out from under the SUV’s hood.

  “She’d dead,” Johnny called, trying to get the SUV restarted.

  “They must have got the engine,” Ava yelled. “We’re going to have to bail.”

  Jake was gathering up their assault rifles from the back seat. “We’ll go out through the cargo area,” he called.

  Ava took another glance through her viewing hole. Just as she did so, the fire on their position lightened. At first, she thought that maybe one of their guys had gotten the machine gunner, but what she saw instead horrified her. The man with the duffle bag was standing straight up now, a tube resting upon his shoulder. Suddenly there was a flash of light. Smoke issued from the tube as a projectile, wafting a trail of smoke behind it, sailed through the air headed straight for their SUV.