THE TOCABAGA CHRONICELS: (BOX SET PART II - BOOKS #6-8)

by Thomas H. Ward

  I asked, “What about the drone?”

  Mike said, “The drone will be able to fly over one time at 1 am. It will give us a live feed so we can see where the patrols are located. Kick off time is 2 am.”

  Tommy butted in. “Truck one will have Tony driving, Jack on the 50 caliber, and Maggie on the SAW. Truck two has Chris driving, Jim Bo on the SAW, and Rick on the big gun.”

  I looked over at Jim Bo and asked, “Are you up to this?”

  He replied, “Yeah, my leg is fine. I can sit in a truck and fire a gun.”

  “What if something happens and you have to walk or run?”

  Tommy commented back, “Then you’ll have to carry him.”

  Everyone laughed at that comment, but I didn’t. It was a serious question.

  “Really, what’s so funny? What if a Hummer gets disabled? What’s Jim gonna do then?”

  “I’ll be able to keep up. If I didn’t think so I wouldn’t come along,” Jim told me.

  “If you say you’re ok, that’s fine with me.”

  “The key to this mission is speed. We need to get in and out as fast as possible. Once we radio you to pick us up the trucks have to move fast,” Tommy advised.

  “The plan looks fine to me. I agree speed is the key.”

  It was already 6 pm so I said, “Let’s get some food and then get our gear ready.”

  After eating we checked and rechecked our weapons. I laid everything out on the table in the garage while Johnny watched me. He asked a lot of questions. What’s this for? Why do you need that? How many bullets do you need? On and on he asked so many questions I couldn’t think.

  I did my best to answer his questions. It was important that he learn how to clean guns, know the type of ammo to use, and what equipment to take.

  Johnny noticed that his Dad packed a glass cutter, a bolt cutter, and a small crowbar. He asked, “What’s that for? Grandpa don’t have those.”

  Tommy told him, “This is a glass cutter to cut windows, and this bar is used to pop open doors or windows. The bolt cutter is for cutting through locks. I may need these to break into the clinic.”

  I laughed because I remember teaching Tommy the same things. He’s a good Dad spending the time teaching Johnny. Showing him how these tools worked was important training.

  After three hours we finally had everything ready to go. We packed water, energy bars, and extra ammo into the Humvee. Tony checked the oil, coolant, gas, and tires. Tony had replaced the flat tire on the one Hummer. We were set to go.

  It was 9 pm and Johnny went to bed. I suggested we get one drink before kickoff time to take off the edge. The four of us went to the Green Room and I poured a double JD for everyone.

  Jim Bo asked, “What if Albert’s family does get Ebola?”

  “Yeah,” Mike said.

  I replied, “Doc told me he’s gonna make up a plan just in case. But he’s pretty sure Albert wasn’t contagious.”

  “I don’t want pretty sure. I want 100 percent sure,” Tommy stated.

  “Yeah, me too,” I advised. “But if they get Ebola what should we do? Shoot them? We’ll have to wait and see what happens. They’re in quarantine for 30 days.”

  I held up my glass and stated, “Cheers. Here’s to a safe mission.” We clinked glasses and downed the booze. I lit up a smoke and asked the group, “After we pick up the vaccine how about we run some over to Rico’s compound before coming home.”

  Everyone agreed with that idea as long as we weren’t being chased by the Feds. We went home and waited for 1 am when the drone would fly over the Green Zone. We did one more check on our gear right before midnight.

  JULY 14, 2025

  AFTER MIDNIGHT

  Eight of us where sitting outside on my patio, when the cell rang. The Drone Master provided us a live feed of the flight over the Green Zone. We could see, using infrared, the locations of each Federal Officer.

  Between the drop off point and the clinic there were only 8 guards posted. In addition there was one roving patrol, using a vehicle, which passed by the clinic about every 30 minutes.

  It was almost 2 am when we mounted up and headed off Tocabaga driving with our headlights off. We arrived at the 22nd Avenue exit and stopped to scan the street for bad guys. This was gang territory. It had always been gang-infested, even in the good times. These gangs were well armed and dangerous. They would kill you just for fun.

  Looking through our night vision it seemed all clear so we proceeded forward at a high rate of speed. Our weapons were loaded, ready to rock and roll.

  Speeding down the street at 60 mph we reached 3rd Street in 10 minutes with no problems. On the corner of 3rd and 22nd sat my Father’s old house. I looked at it as we drove by. I wondered if anyone was inside using it for shelter. I hoped not because that was still family property.

  It was a short 5 minute ride to the drop off point. We found the area was all clear and no Free Roamers were about. We parked the trucks behind some over grown bushes next to an old office building. The building protected one of our flanks.

  We all dismounted and helped Mike and Tom put on the stealth uniforms, while Maggie and Jim Bo provided security. They placed the cloth covered helmets over their heads and turned invisible.

  I heard Tommy say, “Radio check.”

  Mike answered back, “Copy you A-ok.”

  I heard their voices on my radio and replied back, “Copy you both.”

  There was a half moon out so it wasn’t completely pitch black. Mike and Tommy took off the helmets and we wished them good luck. Tommy said, “When you hear us say … Ebola is ready. Come and get us.”

  I said, “Got it … Ebola is ready.” I handed them their guns and tools.

  Putting the helmets back on; they disappeared into the darkness. I couldn’t help but worry about my only son. I said a silent prayer for their safety. Now we had to wait.

  I estimated that it would take them about 30 minutes to cover the mile and a half. Depending on the situation it may take another 30 minutes to find the vaccine. So the total time would be 60 to 90 minutes at most. I noted the time on my watch.

  I commented, “Alright everyone. Stay on your toes and keep alert. You never know when a Free Roamer could be around. There’s probably some inside this building watching us right now.”

  This area was very close to the spot where I rescued Rosie and her brothers from three dirtbags. I knelt down and scanned the whole area using naked eyes and then with my night vision. Using the FLIR I did see two targets about 400 yards away near the next building. It was pretty much all open ground between us and them so we could keep track of them.

  I told Maggie, “At 2 o’clock there’re two bogies. Watch them.”

  Nodding her head, she looked through the FLIR, and said, “I see them.”

  Thirty minutes later Maggie said, “Boss, there’s more than two now. There’s a bunch of them.”

  I quickly spun around on my knee and peered through my scope. She was right. There were now six men gathered in that location. They were standing there and seemed to be talking.

  I softly told my crew, “Six bad guys at 2 o’clock. If they come within 100 yards take them out. Don’t fire until I give the order. Use your silenced M4s cause we don’t what the Feds to know we’re here.”

  I checked the time. Forty minutes had gone by so I radioed the sneakers. “Hey, how’s it going?”

  The radio hissed and Mike replied, “We’re at the clinic trying to get inside. We had to wait for a patrol to pass.”

  “If you can, hurry it up. We got company here.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Probably Free Roamers. There’s six of them.”

  “Only six. Shit that shouldn’t be a problem for you guys. Just let Maggie handle them,” Mike told me. “We’re going as fast as we can.” I laughed, but it was true, Maggie could kill them all.

  “Roger that.”

  “Tony, are they still coming our way?” I asked.
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br />   Before he could reply, Maggie said, “Yes. They’re about 150 yards out.”

  “I concur that,” Tony responded.

  “Jim Bo, watch our left flank. Chris, watch our backs. Rick watch everything,” I whispered. “Let’s start picking these guys off.”

  I fired a round hitting one dirtbag. He fell to the ground. Maggie fired next hitting her target and then Tony. Two more men dropped dead. The rest of them fell to the ground to keep from being shot. They were hiding in the deep grass making it impossible to target them.

  Not one of them returned fire which in my mind meant they couldn’t see us. They knew our general location but didn’t have an eye ball on any one of us. The question was would they crawl forward in the thick high grass or retreat?

  Jim Bo softly shouted, “We got company coming on the left flank.”

  “How many?” I asked.

  “I think five men. They’re next to the building, across the street.”

  “If they try to cross the street terminate them,” I replied.

  These guys could have us in a cross fire. I wondered what kind of weapons they had. In any case I was hoping that we’d get the radio call soon so we could move out.

  I wasn’t worried about this bunch of bad guys. I knew we could handle them. We could kill them all if we needed too. I just didn’t want any of my people to get killed.

  I looked at the time and 90 minutes had gone by. What the hell is holding them up? I lit up a smoke and tried to relax. I was thinking, come on Tommy hurry up.

  Rick said, “Jack, we got four more men approaching from 12 o’clock.”

  I looked through my scope. They were right in front of us about 50 yards away. The Roamers were blocking the direction we needed to go.

  “Rick, start shooting!” I said.

  Just then my radio crackled, “Ebola is ready. Hurry up we’re trapped inside the clinic by the Feds. They don’t know we’re here because they can’t see us, but they know someone broke in the clinic.”

  I shouted, “Everyone, mount up. Ebola is ready.” My crew jumped up and scrambled to the Humvees.

  After everyone was in position I told them to shoot anyone and everything in our way. The motors fired up and my truck took the lead. Pulling out from behind the bushes I broke the silence of the night by firing the big 50 caliber machine gun at every man I saw. I could hear the other truck’s 50 firing also. Maggie was shooting out the side window at targets she could see. The noise was deafening. Fire was spitting out of the barrels lighting up the night.

  I shouted to Tony, who was driving, “Floor it!” The Hummers roared away from the Free Roamers as some of their rounds pinged off the bullet proof trucks.

  Standing in the gun turret I was bouncing around like a bobble head. The street was rough and full of pot holes from years of no maintenance. I stopped shooting and had to hold on, with both hands, to the grab handles to keep from flying out.

  We were approaching the first Federal check point located at 4th Avenue. I could see two SUVs and four guards looking in our direction. The SUVs were kinda blocking the street, but not fully because there was about a six foot gap between them. The Fed agents were standing behind them. Bullets started to hit the front of our vehicle so I grabbed hold of the machine gun and started to fire back.

  I looked down and saw Maggie hanging halfway out of the side window shooting her SAW. She pulled back inside just as our truck rammed into both SUVs banging them out of the way. I yelled at her, “Keep your ass inside the truck!”

  The SUVs went flying from the impact striking the agents. It knocked them down like bowling pins. I turned around to see Hummer two zoom in between the SUVs. Rick swung his turret and shot at anyone who was still standing. They didn’t know what hit them.

  It was only another 3 blocks to the clinic. The street is six lanes wide here, so truck two pulled up on our left-side. The Hummers were running side-by-side so we both could see what was ahead. We saw two Federal trucks in front of the clinic. I estimated that meant we could be facing up to eight men.

  There were four standing outside near their vehicles in the street. They heard us coming and looked in our direction as we were now only one block away. We opened up on the bastards. The machine gun rounds ripped through the SUVs dropping all four men in a few moments.

  Apparently the men inside the clinic heard the gunfire and came running out. Seeing us they moved behind their trucks and opened up. We came to a tire screeching stop about 100 feet away and all six of us fired on the four Federal stooges.

  As the gun battle raged I saw the agents fall to the ground one by one. Tommy radioed me, “We killed some of the Feds for you. Pick us up.” It seems that Mike and Tommy were able to get out of the clinic in the invisible suits and gun these guys down from behind.

  As we pulled up to the clinic they took off their helmets and Mike yelled, “Come on give us a hand there’s a lot of stuff here.” Tony and Chris helped carry the drugs out while we provided security.

  It seems we hit the jack-pot stealing 30,000 doses of vaccine and other much need medical supplies such as antibiotics. The supplies filled up the back of both Hummers.

  After about 5 minutes we quickly departed heading straight down 3rd Street. There was one more Fed check point to pass through which was on 5th Avenue. They wouldn’t be expecting anyone coming from this direction. They wouldn’t be expecting speeding trucks coming from downtown with machine guns spitting fire and death.

  They must have heard the gun battle because they were expecting us. As soon as they saw us they started shooting. I could see the bright muzzle flashes from their weapons. We returned fire as their bullets sparked and bounced off our trucks.

  These guys, lucky for us, were stupid, because they were standing out in the open. They didn’t even try to hide behind their trucks or a tree. The wall of machine gun fire cut them down leaving four bloody bodies in the street.

  We drove quickly around the road block, and went to 9th Avenue. Stopping there I asked, “Is everyone ok?” All replied they were ok. That was a relief for me. I glanced behind us to see if we were being followed. Thank God, it was all clear.

  We dismounted and took a break. I was sipping some water as Mike and Tommy took off the rest of the stealth clothing.

  Tommy said, “We cleaned them out.”

  “I’m just happy the mission went well and no one was injured. Let’s go to Rico’s,” I said. We jumped in the trucks and headed to Rico’s as planned.

  Pulling up to the 54th Avenue Bridge we could see the compound was on fire so we stopped. Flames were shooting high into the air lighting up the night sky. It was burning out of control. I got on the phone and called Rico but there was no answer.

  Chris asked, “What now?”

  Tommy said, “It looks like the whole place is on fire.”

  I instructed everyone, “We’ll pull up as close as we can. If anybody comes up to the trucks don’t let them touch you.”

  Mike asked, “Should we shoot them?”

  “If they get too close shoot them.”

  The fire was so hot we stopped at 200 feet away. I told everyone to stay put while I went to check it out.

  I managed to move within 100 feet of the front door to the main building but the heat was too intense. I couldn’t move any closer. I saw some shadows of people running away from the fire in the other direction. Then two men and a woman came running over to me. Their clothes were burned in places and maybe their bodies. I couldn’t tell because of the black soot on their faces and hands.

  They were within 15 feet of me when I pointed my gun in their direction. I warned them not to come any closer. They stopped in their tracks.

  I asked, “Have any of you seen, Rico?”

  One of them said, “Hey, aren’t you, Jack Gunn?”

  “Yeah. What the hell is going on here?”

  “They’re killing everyone. Please let us go, we don’t mean you any harm,” the woman replied.

  I lowered m
y M4 and they took off running. I shouted, “Who’s killing everyone?” They kept running and didn’t look back.

  I moved closer to the fire and yelled, “Rico … Rico!”

  I stood there holding my hand up to cover my face from the heat. I yelled again for my friend. I could see people running around inside the compound trying to escape. They were trying to climb the razor wire fence.

  I stood there as long as I could and then backed away from the heat. I heard several explosions and the crack of bullets going off from the heat. I noticed dead bodies lying on the street. They appeared to have been shot, but I couldn’t tell. I sure as hell wasn’t going to touch them because they might be infected.

  Suddenly the 10 foot high fence collapsed from the heat and five men rushed out at me. When they came within 20 feet I warned them. “Stop! Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot.”

  They didn’t respond, so I started too slowly back away from them. They looked like zombies walking towards me. They were in shock for sure. I yelled again but they kept coming. Moving backwards I tripped over something in the street and landed on my ass.

  When I fell the five men rushed towards me. I scrambled, managing to swing my M4 in their direction, and opened fire on full automatic. I sprayed rounds back and forth, as they dropped to the ground five feet away. I kept scooting backwards, on my butt, to make sure I was out of their reach.

  That was too close for comfort. Thank God, none of them touched me. I breathed a sigh of relieve, stood up, and brushed the soot off my pants. I wondered if they were trying to kill me, take my gun, or what.

  I yelled some more for Rico. After half an hour of yelling and peering into the flames I walked back to the vehicles. I told everyone, “Let’s get the hell out of here! I couldn’t find Rico. Maybe he’s dead.”

  No one said a word as we drove back to Tocabaga except for Tommy and he asked, “What do you think happened?”