“It is, or was, a Wal-Mart at one time but they are using it for the main operation center. We counted between two and three hundred in the building at any one time. The second place where they gather in numbers is here,” the runner said, pointing to the map once again.
“As you can see, it’s on the other side of I-70 and believe it or not, it was a Middle School. They do PT in the mornings in the track and field area and who knows what else inside during the rest of the day. They are divided by the highway and that doesn’t seem too bright to me.”
Forbs studied the map for several minutes.
“Actually, it isn’t too bad a defensive measure. If one group is attacked, the other can come and out flank the attackers. It is going to make our job harder. I don’t think we should underestimate the people in charge. This looks pretty well thought out to me. We are going to have to change our plans. If we attack like we had previously planned, I think we could get into a difficult situation. We are going to have to alter our original battle plans. I want you to go back to your FO and keep an eye on what is happening while I get the leaders of each section together to work out a new plan. You make damn sure they don’t spot you or any of the other forward observers. Don’t take unnecessary chances. Got it?”
“Yes sir,” he said and started back to his post.
“Damn. This changes everything. Even the bombers are going to have to be used differently.”
The bombers were now sitting at Salina Gunnison, a small airstrip just outside Salina, Utah. Nothing was going as planned.
~~
“Listen up. This is the change of plans. Alpha One will attack from the west. You will take on the group at the school. Alpha Two will attack the other group holed up in the Wal-Mart from the east. We will come right up I-70 once you are engaged. Half of my forces will break off and attack the Wal-Mart from behind and the other half will come in behind the other bunch at the school. We will wait until you are fully engaged so that they won’t know we are coming in behind them. The original plan was to fire the mortars so that they would have no more than an hour to surrender. I still intend to do that but I want the mortars fired from the North only with one round exploding near the school and the second one just above the shopping center. In exactly one hour after the second round is fired we will attack if they do not surrender.”
“But what about the others that may be in the town? They could mount an attack and even outflank us. Then we would have no way to extract,” a squad leader said.
“That’s why we give them the hour. If others are in the city they will report to their respective headquarters. Any stragglers won’t present much of a problem.”
“I don’t know. It seems kind of risky,” he said.
“The whole damn thing is risky. Trying to attack two targets at exactly the same time without communications is risky. Nevertheless, that is what we are here to do. Timing is everything so make sure you are totally situated and ready to go when the second shot leaves the tube. Start your watches and then we will all move at the same time. I have sent a runner back to the airfield to inform them of the problem. For now we are not calling them in. They will take off at 0700 and be ready to come to our rescue if necessary. If we need air support I will send up a flare and the mortar crew to the north will fire a starburst. They will then come in and do what they can to help.”
“Captain, this isn’t much better than a suicide mission. You’re talking about having planes coming in and just blowing the hell out of targets of opportunity without knowing who the targets are.”
“If I shoot that flair it means we are already in deep shit and have no other way out. It is a last resort measure and I damn sure hope I don’t have to use it. All you have to do is focus on your specific target and make sure your troops are ready.”
The squad leader sighed and just shook his head.
~~
The sun had been up for only thirty minutes when the first mortar round left the tube and exploded two hundred feet off the ground. Leaflets fluttered and slowly descended in the clear blue sky.
Everyone at the Middle School dropped to the ground at first and some went ducking for cover. They were just starting to read the leaflets when the second round exploded near the shopping center. They looked around in confusion. Several men, after reading the flyers, began heading into the building and waiting for orders as to what to do next. The same scenario was being played out at the shopping center.
“What do we do?” one of the men asked.
“I don’t know. Send someone over to Martin and see what he wants us to do,” he ordered while reading the pamphlet.
“What if they shoot me when I try to get over there?”
“If they wanted you dead, that would have been a real shell, not a warning. Now get your butt over there and find out what we are supposed to do next. Take the jeep and don’t screw around. We don’t have much time one way or the other,” he said, wadding the flyer and tossing it on the floor.
Phillip Martin was reading the same leaflet while standing inside the ransacked store.
The United Military Forces request a delegate from your forces to meet with a spokesperson from the United States of America Armed Forces. We do not want to take military action without a dialogue with your leaders or their appointed envoy. A representative from our Armed Forces will be at the field just to the east of the shopping center you are using as one of your headquarters. He will not be armed and will be under a flag of truce.
We will expect your emissary by no later than 08:00. If no spokesperson from your group is at the designated location, within the time frame given, we will commence military action.
Colonel Webber
United States. Forces Commander
Who the hell is this Colonel Webber and what is the United States Military Forces, he wondered. He let the paper fall out of his hand.
“Monroe, Dwayne, Benny, get your butts over here,” he shouted.
“What are we going to do?” Monroe asked as he ran up.
“Do any of you have an idea what the United Military Forces is all about? Have you ever heard anyone even mention them before?” he asked.
A chorus of ‘no’ came back.
“How in the hell do they know about us and how did they find us here?” he yelled, “Damn it. I want some answers. They know exactly where our two teams are located. How is that possible without someone being an informant?”
“Look, Phil, we have a bigger problem on our hands just now. We need to figure out what we are going to do. We have,” he said looking at his watch, “Fifty-one minutes left. If we are going to fight, we need to get the men in position. We need a plan.”
“What plan? Don’t you get it? If we do have an informant, they already know our capabilities and how we operate. We don’t have a defensive plan, just an offensive plan. When have we ever been forced to defend ourselves?” he said, his voice raising.
“Then we had better come up with one and fast or attack.”
“Attack who? Where? I sure the hell don’t know where they are, do you?”
“Fine. Just tell me what you want to have the men do,” he said.
A Jeep came racing into the parking lot and the driver ran in.
“Martin, Martin,” he said, “I’ve been sent to ask you what we should do.”
Phil Martin was never really meant to be a military leader. His training consisted of one summer in R.O.T.C. but he couldn’t even hack that. He had been thrust into the role by virtue of being at the right place at the right time and a whole lot of luck. Now he was in charge of a ragtag army that had been preying on small groups of survivors.
The only real skirmish they had encountered was with the group operating out of Salt Lake City. They had run up against a band of them but had the advantage of surprise and were able to do a good deal of damage before slipping away and heading back to safety.
His team of thugs, however, considered him a military genius and now his back was truly aga
inst the wall.
“Martin?”
“I’m thinking, jackass. Give me a minute,” he said, pacing back and forth.
What the hell could he do? If it really was a genuine army they would be cut down like grass. What he needed was more information to determine if they should try to defend, attack or surrender.
“We need to buy more time to figure out our defense plan. Here is what I want you to do. Monroe, take three men with you and slip out and see if you can locate any of this force. Those mortar rounds seemed to have come from the north so I want you to go in that direction. Be careful but see if you can spot anything that looks like an army. If you do, get your tails back here immediately. Dwayne, Benny, you do the same thing. Dwayne you go south, Benny you go west. I am going to go out and meet with them and see if I can buy some time and maybe get a feel for how strong they really are. You,” Martin said, turning to the driver, “Have your men armed and ready to come the second you hear gunshots. It will mean it has started and I don’t want them to know our full amount of forces.”
“What if they attack from the west?” he asked.
“Then stand and fight for a while but fall back to where we are and we will make a stand here,” he said.
“Okay, if you say so,” he driver said, scratching his head. He was no military genius but it didn’t sound like much of a plan to him.
“You’re actually going out to meet with them?” Benny asked.
“I am. I will see what they are really like and try to gain us some more time to solidify our position. Get the men to work on getting arms and ammunition in here and taking up positions on the roof and the two smaller buildings. Get someone up there with binoculars as well and see if they can spot anything.”
“Are you sure going out there is such a good idea? What if they just shoot you?”
“What the hell else do you suggest? Let them attack before we can get everyone in place? We need time and I don’t know of any other way unless one of you goes,” he said looking at each of them.
No one said a thing. He took a deep breath and let it out.
“I kind of thought this might happen one day. I didn’t see how no one but us could have survived. Other larger groups had to have as well. We know about the Salt Lake group but somewhere, someplace, others had to have made it. Okay, get going and see what you can find out,” he said and started toward a four wheel drive truck that he had been using.
He would go and meet with this so called army and then he would decide what to do next.
~~
The red pickup came bouncing across the field to where Captain Forbs stood leaning against his Hummer.
“Someone is coming,” the voice of a sniper said a few yards away.
“I can see the dust. How many?”
“Looks like just one. Someone could be hunkered down or in the bed. I can’t tell.”
“Just be ready.”
“Got your back.”
The pickup slowed and stopped a hundred yards from the Hummer. Forbs just waited. A few moments later the door opened and a short stocky man with a mustache climbed out. He had on sunglasses and an Atlanta Falcons hat. He stood beside the truck, looking around in all directions.
“No harm will come to you,” Forbs yelled.
“Meet me half way,” Martin yelled back.
“Here we go,” he said and started walking.
Martin waited until he was almost half way before he started walking to meet him. The Captain stopped and waited until he was a few feet in front of him.
“I’m Captain Forbs. United Armed Forces. And you are?”
“United Armed Forces? What the hell is that?” he said ignoring question.
“I am here to offer you a chance to surrender your arms and to have a chance at joining other survivors to try and help put this country back on its feet.”
“I asked who the United Armed Forces were,” Martin said.
“And I asked who you were.”
“Why should we surrender our arms? We don’t even know who the hell you really are or where you are from. We aren’t going to just give into someone who shows up and demands that we roll over and play dead,” Martin replied.
“Interesting choice of words. Actually, I am offering you a chance to do just that or be dead. My orders are the same either way. I am to remove your arms voluntarily or from your fingers after you are dead. The end result is going to be the same.”
“Damn sure of yourself Captain whatever.”
“Captain Forbs. Look, I know you need to do some posturing for that bunch you have back there, but I will only take so much. Let me show you something I think you will find most interesting,” he said and took his hat off.
Fifteen Hummers with .50 cal. machine guns and five with rocket launchers were uncovered from camouflage tarps. Out of the woods came three older Patton tanks.
“Now you have two choices. One is to get in your truck and go back and have everyone come out unarmed and surrender or you can go back and have them fight. In that case, we have plenty of body bags to take you out in. You have,” the Captain said, glancing at his watch, “Fifteen minutes. Not one second more before we advance.”
“How do I know you won’t just kill us once we put down our guns?”
“If we had wanted you dead we wouldn’t have given you this chance.”
“I’ll go talk it over with our people but I don’t know if we can do it in the time remaining,” Martin replied.
“Fourteen minutes is all you have. Not a minute longer.”
“And you have even less time Captain,” Martin said starting to pull a pistol from behind his back.
Forbs dropped to the ground and Martin was thrown back against the truck. The pistol was flung into the air. Martin looked down at his chest uncomprehendingly. Blood bubbled out of the center and ran down his front. He started to speak but froth and blood was all that came out of his mouth. He sank to his knees and fell face forward on the hard ground.
The rest was easy. It was the only shot fired during the entire course of events. The rest surrendered and were taken into custody. Each was interrogated and then they were divided into three sections.
The first group was comprised of those that were considered nothing more than people gone astray but were essentially good. They would be given jail time and then brought back into society for as long as they conformed to the rules and regulations established by the New Constitution.
The second group was the one that had potential trouble makers who would need a lot more effort to let back into society. They would stay in jail until it was felt they could return and lead a useful life within the confines of the structured system.
The last group consisted of the ones who had little or no chance of making it in society as a useful member. They were the hard core who thought that by just surviving they had the right to do what they wanted when they wanted. It was a mindset of survival of the fittest and nothing else mattered. They would be banished and spread out into various parts of Mexico. The remaining leaders' fates would be left up to the judicial system and the courts would ultimately decide what would happen to them.
~~
At the next week’s meeting Colonel Webber introduced Captain Forbs and let him tell how it had all came about. Everyone was pleased that there had been no loss of life to any of our soldiers and only one of the Richfield group was killed. It was even better than anyone had hoped for.
While they were basking in the glory, an even bigger problem was brewing. A crisis that they had no way of knowing about until it was upon them.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHINA
Ky Kinjo looked in disbelief at what was once a thriving city with millions of people. Bicycles and cars littered the once busy streets. Not a single soul was present in any direction.
“What has happened,” another miner asked him.
“I do not know but it must have been some kind of an attack. Everyone is gone. Vanished. We must have been i
n some kind of war with another country.”
“Is everyone dead? How could seven million people just vanish?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Something happened but who could do such a thing? Who has this kind of destructive power?” Kinjo asked.
“Only a few countries. Russia, America and perhaps someone in the Middle East,” the miner replied.
“Not the Russians. They are no longer a threat to our country. They became corrupt and soft and lost their power. They are only good at puffing out their chests. The Middle East is all talk. They are thugs that kill and run. They have no guts for real fighting. Our army could crush them like an ant under a thumb. Only one country has this kind of power,” Ky said.
“America?”
“America,” he said shaking his head.
“But why? I thought we were now becoming friends with them. We have many American tourists and even students from their country that come here. Why would they do something like this?”
“I found that you never really know what an American is thinking. Maybe they thought we were becoming a bigger threat and decided to take the risk now rather than later. I don’t know but this was not the work of Russia or some Middle Eastern country.”
“What do we do? Are we the only ones that survived?”
“I don’t know but I don’t think so. I can’t believe that in a country this size and with our population they could have killed us all. We need to see how many others survived.”
“How?” the man asked.
“Yes, that is the real question isn’t it? How?”
“If it was an attack, they would have attacked all of the largest cities don’t you think?”
“No doubt. Shanghai, Tianjin, and Qingdao would also have been attacked. If survivors exist, they will be in the country towns and villages. Places like we were in may have others that survived.”
“But no one in Jincheng survived,” he pointed out.
THE BEGINNING Book Two (THE EVENT) Page 11