“They used trains to get the supplies into the States?”
“We didn’t know that until later. The Mexican rail system uses narrower gauges on the tracks, so they welded sleeves on the rollers on their locomotives, used our rolling stock, and that’s how we were taken over so fast. They really were pretty clever.”
“What happened in Mayer?”
“We took the base and forced the radio operator to call in a distress call. When they showed up, we made them fight street-to-street and bled them dry. They lost close to 200 men in that fight. We lost 13.”
“How did you pull that off?”
“We drew them into town and then hit them from all four sides. Mayer is in a valley, and we had the high ground, so we didn’t have to worry about friendly fire incidents. We just opened up on them and kept firing until they were all dead. Then they sent in the tanks and we had to leave or get wiped out.”
“When did you become a militia and not a partisan group?”
“When the Air Force decided to drop a guy into our AO, after we got ahold of them on the ham. Crazy bastards dropped this guy into the middle of what they had to think of as nowhere, but he brought along encrypted radios and C-4. That proved to be pretty useful. And the guy was very resourceful. He was a genius with explosives, and he eventually got us air cover and all kinds of perks. Technically, they sent him in to be a forward air traffic controller, which is a euphemism for someone who tells planes where to drop their bombs. But this guy was a miracle for us. His name was Bill Johnson, or at least that’s what he told us; but that was really when the militia began and we started coordinating attacks with the U.S. military.”
“Were you personally still raiding and ambushing convoys then?”
“No, I was more worried about trying to keep us fed and getting ammo. By that time, I was the general and the troops were fighting the fight. I just did my best to find food and ammo for them. After the occupation of Mayer, people starting showing up from all over the state and I became the guy who had to coordinate everything. If I would have been captured and tortured, it would have all gone down. We grew to 2,000 fighters by then. We trained them and sent a lot back to where they lived before the EMP hit, so we ended up with cells of fighters in Tucson, Phoenix, and Flagstaff. The southern cities worked on blowing up the tracks before the supply trains arrived, and Flagstaff worked on getting the Mexicans off the old Army bases there and out into a fair fight.”
Cory laid back and again fell asleep.
“Can you tell me the story from there?” Horace asked Eric.
“I can tell you some of it, but he never talked about operational stuff back then.”
“I’ll take whatever you can give me.”
“Okay, but let’s leave him to sleep. We can talk downstairs in the cafeteria.”
“Fine by me.”
The two men walked down the stairwell and entered the cafeteria where the home’s occupants who could walk took their meals. Eric led Horace to an empty table and they both sat.
Eric paused for a moment and then continued the story. “My brother and I began leading the raids. Tim, Rachael’s husband, took control of overseeing operations in our AO. Cory spent a lot of time traveling to meet with the other cells in Phoenix and Tucson. He traveled mostly by ATV overland and on secondary roads. The Mexicans still had checkpoints on the main roads into all the towns, so the meetings usually took place outside the city limits on somebody’s farm or ranch. Cory never spoke much about who was doing what because we operated on a need-to-know basis, and keeping the different cells compartmentalized was important to our security. We learned that the hard way.”
“What happened?”
“Three of our raids were ambushed, and we realized we had a traitor in our ranks. Finding him wasn’t easy. Eventually we did, but we lost a lot of men and had to suspend our raiding for close to a month. We finally found a radio in his tent, and he confessed. The Mexicans had taken his wife and kids hostage and threatened to kill them if he didn’t provide information on our movements.”
“What happened to him?”
“Cory executed him with a pistol shot to the head.”
Horace thought for a moment and then asked, “what was the U.S. Army doing around that time?”
“They were on the Arizona border. They had retaken Texas, but met stiff resistance after that. The Mexicans had to protect Nogales, as all their supplies were coming by railroad through there. So they fought like tigers to keep that line of supply open.” Eric paused and added, “the general the Mexicans sent to replace Santamaria after we killed him was named Sanchez. Things changed dramatically. Apparently, they decided to take a new approach. The reprisals stopped and they began a propaganda war. They dropped leaflets that said any resistance fighter who surrendered their weapons would be pardoned, and started offering medical assistance to civilians. None of that worked, though. By that time we were having enough success to keep the loyalty of most of the citizens, and everybody knew the Army was on the way. It was only a question of time before we would take everything back.”
“Is this when you think you went from being a partisan group to being a militia?”
“Yeah. Cory and I agree on that point. Once we started taking direction from the military, the prime objective was to disrupt their supplies by train. So Cory moved to Tucson for three months and directed operations there. Tim took command of our operations in Northern Arizona and he traveled to Flagstaff to coordinate with the militia there. There was a small Army Reserve base there that the Mexicans took over and used, but there were also around 60 reservists there, and they formed the core of that cell. They were even more active than we were, and pretty quickly gained control of their AO at night. By that time we owned the night as well, but couldn’t operate openly during the day. The Mexicans pretty much stayed in town on their bases. They patrolled during the day, but went into a defensive posture at night, so we became more active raiding static targets.”
Horace was furiously scribbling notes, trying to keep up with Eric’s monologue and held up one hand to indicate he needed time to catch up with the narrative. Eric paused, looked at him curiously, and Horace said, “you have no idea how valuable this information is. You’re covering a period of our history that we know almost nothing about, except for some dry facts.”
“You know,” Eric said, after taking a deep breath, “I saw a documentary on TV about us and the war, and I pretty much laughed through the whole thing. Everybody makes such a big deal out of what we did. What nobody seems to realize is that if the Mexicans had sent Sanchez in first, there probably wouldn’t have been a resistance. But Santamaria gave us no choice. From the moment they arrived, they started killing and raping, and confiscating weapons people needed to survive.” Eric paused, clearly thinking about what he was going to say next.
“I’m not sure that would be the case,” Horace answered. “There were different Mexican commanders all over the Southwest, and resistance movements everywhere.”
“Horace, there were no heroes or military geniuses in the group. We fought to stay alive and get vengeance for loved ones. We were all, at first, terrified at what we were doing. But it was better than being plucked off the street, at random, and being executed like cattle.”
“If that’s the case, Cory wouldn’t have agreed to lead the militia,” Horace responded. “That just made him more of a target than lying low, or just running his one cell.”
“He didn’t have a choice. The Air Force would not accept more than one leader for the state. They objected to the chain of command not being simple and clear. They pretty much conditioned their assistance on Cory taking the job. Come to think of it, that man has spent his entire life doing things he hates to do.”
“That’s what made him great man.”
“He still is,” Eric pointed out.
“I know.”
“You know, he would never agree with that characterization of him. He never thought what he did somehow
singled him out for attention.”
“That’s part of what makes him great.”
“Let’s go see if he’s awake,” Eric said. The two men stood and left the room, walked up the stairs, and entered Cory’s room. A nurse was just leaving with a half-eaten tray of food, and Cory was propped up in his bed, watching TV.
“Are you strong enough to continue?” Horace asked.
“Of course. What do you want to know?” Horace flipped back through his notes and read for a moment, then looked up. “What can you tell me about Bill Johnson? You said earlier he was a godsend.”
“He was. Bill was a sergeant in the Air Force. He was an African American, and really made the difference in terms of us getting the war to end. He did our first aerial bombing mission just south of Tucson later that year, and proceeded to blow the hell out of any Mexican train or truck convoy that was foolish enough to try to move through our territory. That was the beginning of the end for the invasion, and I think we all knew it.”
“What more can you tell me about that time?”
Cory closed his eyes, clearly transported to another time and lost in thought.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EMP PLUS TEN MONTHS
VARIOUS LOCATIONS
Bill and Cory waited for the airdrop four miles from the cave. It was around 2:00 AM, and they took turns piling wood on the signal fire that marked the drop zone. They sat next to the fire and watched the shadowy movements of the others in their group as they milled around in the tree line. A line of ATVs sat in one corner of the meadow, waiting to be loaded with much-needed supplies they would distribute to the militia.
“You think they’ll make it tonight?” Cory asked.
“Don’t see why not.” Bill studied his fingernails carefully, resumed clipping them, and then cleaned under the nails with the fold-out blade on the clippers. He looked bored. It was the third night they waited for the drop and Cory was starting to wonder if the Air Force was going to make good on its promise to drop more radios, food, ammo, and medical supplies to his group of fighters. He found that they were more than eager to get his messages, through Bill’s radio transmissions, with the intel about troop movements and where the Mexican Army operated, but less than responsive to his requests for supplies.
“This is starting to piss me off,” Cory said. “We’ve been out here for three nights, and nothing. Get somebody on the radio for me. I need to tell them to start delivering or stop asking for our help.”
“Not a good idea,” Bill responded, moving to the next nail.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re going to give them the information they need anyway, and they know it. So just relax and understand that this is how the military works. They’ll give us what we want, but they’ll do it when it’s convenient for them.”
“I’m starting to wonder if we’re on the same side,” Cory complained.
“They’re on their own side, and will get around to us when it’s easier to get to us. You need to relax.”
“Bill, I like you and appreciate all you have done for us; but I want you to call them and tell them we’re down to one month’s worth of rations, three skirmishes from being out of ammo, and we have no more ability to help them until they help us. It’s that bad. If you need to, tell them we will have to cease operations and stay in the forest. I won’t go to Tucson anymore and help with the attacks on the rail traffic, and you might as well pack up and head back to wherever their headquarters are now. We are at the end of the line. I’m not bluffing or joking. There is only so much I can ask of the men and women who are fighting with us, and they only have so much to give.” Cory stood up, walked to the nearest ATV, and left the drop zone. He pulled into the area below the cave minutes later, fuming at this latest setback, and walked up the path to the entrance. He saw Kate monitoring the ham with her earphones plugged in, and the rest of his group was sleeping in every corner of the cave. The cavern was much less crowded now, with most of the supplies they brought from the ranch either eaten or used up in their battles. He ran his fingers through his hair, sighing once, and then moved to where Kate sat listening to the radio. He motioned for her to take the headset off when he got to her line of sight.
“Any good news?” he asked.
“Not really,” she replied, after taking off one side of her earphones. “They’re still bogged down on the Texas border.”
“In more good news, there was no air drop tonight either.”
“What the hell is going on with the Air Force?” Kate responded. “You’ve been out there three nights now.”
“I don’t know, but Bill is calling them tonight and telling them we’re done if they don’t send us what we need. I told him that before I left.”
“He’ll sugar coat it.”
“He will, but maybe it will get through to someone.”
“I doubt it.”
“Me too,” Cory sighed and looked around the cave. He saw Tim and Racheal sleeping in a corner, huddled together like two bears in a den. He saw the rest of his warriors sleeping quietly in the corners of the cavern.
“We’ll have to send the hunting parties out again tomorrow, but they’ve been coming back with less every time we send them out. Let’s get whatever is left at the ranch tomorrow, including the livestock, and move what’s left here. We really can’t afford to lose anything from the ranch anymore.”
“I’ll take care of it, and we might as well bring Ben back. He’s been staying there for months. and so far we’ve been lucky he hasn’t had a visit from the Mexicans yet.”
“He’ll miss sleeping in a bed and having heat and power, but yeah, we need to bring him back.” Cory paused for a minute, then added, “I’ll see you in the morning. I’m tired.”
“I’ll be asleep in the morning. Justin is taking the radio shift at first light.”
“Well, if you want to sleep on my bedroll with me, you can.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Okay, see you later.”
The following night, the Air Force finally delivered on its promise to resupply the partisans, and the drop was spectacular to the militia that waited for the supplies. Cory wasn’t there. He had left for Tucson to continue the raids on the railroad cars that delivered the supplies to the Mexican Army. Bill went along, carrying four bricks of C-4 that they intended to use to blow up a bridge on the railway.
An ordinance and weapons training man fell out of the sky that night. He landed with an awkward stance, stutter stepping and almost falling over before he regained his balance, and then limped off the drop zone before he introduced himself. His name was Jim and he was clearly not happy to be there; but he got his act together, helped retrieve the SAWs and other automatic weapons from the drop, as well as more of the encrypted radios and food rations, before he climbed into an ATV and rode off to the cave.
Cory and Bill sat on a small rise that overlooked the railway between Nogales and Tucson. They both hated the terrain. “How the hell are you supposed to fight a guerilla war in a place that’s so damn flat you can watch your dog run away for a week?” Bill complained.
“You must have a poodle,” Cory replied dryly, and again glassed the bridge they were about to place the charges on. “But I get what you’re saying. It makes me jittery to be somewhere where there is no concealment, much less cover. I’m a lot happier in the mountains, but this is where the targets are, so let’s just get this done and get the hell back to Prescott as soon as we can.” After a moment he added, “I haven’t seen anything move down there for an hour. When it gets to be twilight, I think we should head down and place the charges.”
“You want to use the contact detonators?”
“Yeah, we need to take the locomotives out. They can replace the rolling stock all day long, but the locomotives are a finite resource; so we just place the charges at the northern side of the bridge and make sure they blast before the engines get to the other side. We can save the remote detonators for later. How many
of those do we have left?”
“Around twenty.”
“How do those things work?”
“Radio waves. A small servo closes the contact on the detonator when you activate them from the control.”
“So we could place bombs in buildings and detonate them from another location?”
“Up to three miles away.”
“We can use that later. We got people working at their bases all over the state, and if we can find a way to get the explosives into their headquarters, we could detonate them at the same time we storm the buildings and take over their headquarters.”
“We don’t have orders to do that.”
“I don’t have to take orders.”
“It would be better if you did.”
“I decide what our people do, and they will do whatever is necessary to end this war and get our territory back.”
“They won’t like that.”
“Life’s a bitch and then you die,” Cory replied, shrugging. He again glassed the area below him, looked over his shoulder, and said, “it’s going to be dark soon. Send the sappers in.”
“You going to stick around?” Bill asked.
“No, I have to go back to the Babson’s place and check in with Flagstaff to see if Tim needs any support from Prescott for the attack they’re doing on the supply trucks. That’s due to start in a few hours and I want to make sure he’s good to go.”
“You know, we’re going to have to move south of here to interdict the supply trains to the battle site on the Texas border.”
“We’re moving south next week. Right now, we’re still accumulating supplies in Prescott, and that was all the C-4 we had. Once we get resupplied, we can move farther south and start going after the supply trains to the Texas front.”
“Okay, I got it from here,” Bill said. He stood, waved to a group of four men to head down to the railroad tracks, and watched them as they moved off the rise toward the desert floor.
Prepper's Crucible - Volume Six: The End Page 5