Uncertain Times: A Story of Survival Read online

  “We made it out of there in the nick of time,” Dave said with a sigh of relief.

  They made their way to the snowmobiles. Jim decided to stop a few miles away, to wait and listen to make sure they weren’t being followed. After about an hour, he was satisfied and they continued on. They made their way to the perimeter just after daylight. They put the machines in their bunkers and went into the compound to debrief their friends.

  “What happened? Start from the beginning,” Bill said.

  “Sara and I were eating breakfast a few days ago when we heard a knock at the door. After looking through the window and seeing troops and vehicles I opened up to an NWA officer. This has happened before, so I invited him in. He asked to see our World ID cards, which we gave him. He insisted he’d heard rumors of a safe house and ties to insurgents. Right after he spoke, troops came through both doors and cuffed us. I told him we didn’t know anything and couldn’t help him. He said he knew he had the right house and he’d find us out soon enough. I told him torturing us would be useless, and we’d say anything to make them stop. While smiling he said, and I quote, ‘Oh, we don’t torture our own citizens, we simply inject them with Sodium Pentothal and they tell us everything we want to know.’ We were then tied up in the chairs you found us in. Within an hour of being injected, Sara and I couldn’t stop talking. I’m so sorry guys,” Dave explained.

  “Not to worry,” Bill said. “We’ve had closer calls and we’re glad to have you back and unharmed.”

  Bill had always been fatherly and showed his comforting side to the people of the community.

  With huge smiles and open arms, Dave and Sara were welcomed back into the little community they had left to do their duty. They were happy to be back among friends and out of harm’s way.

  Jim, Bill and a few others left the homecoming celebration to talk.

  “First Dmitri shows up, takes out a few of us and claims they know where we are. Now they raid our safe house and drug Dave and Sara to make them spill the beans about this whole place,” Rick said while shaking his head.

  “OK, guys, we need to get prepared for the inevitable,” Jim told them as a polite way of cutting Rick off. Jim didn’t want Rick to list off the bad which had recently happened and get everybody more worked up than they already were.

  “We’ll stock more ammo at Talladega and each of the perimeter posts,” Matt chimed in.

  Bill suddenly spoke up, “And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name sitting on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”

  The other men stopped talking when Bill said it, although most of them knew what he meant. He quoted the Bible, specifically Revelation 6:8. The men stood quietly while looking at each other, not knowing what to say.

  “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”

  —Abraham Lincoln

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “With no contact in town now, we should send out long-range reconnaissance patrols in order to gather information and obtain supplies,” Jim suggested.

  “Long range?” Danny questioned.

  “Yes, four man teams who will go further than our patrols have before and penetrate the enemy’s lines.”

  “We shouldn’t engage the enemy unless it’s an undersized unit and we know we can take them out without any collateral damage or compromising the mission,” Rick added.

  “I agree,” Bill said. “With only four man teams and no back up, we should make sure we don’t bite off more than we can chew.”

  “It’s settled, then,” Jim said. “Each team will have two basic riflemen, a sniper and a machine-gunner for suppressive fire, if needed.”

  Rick, Matt, Jim and a few others started a competition to see who could get the most confirmed kills. This had come about when Rick and his team were on a patrol for intel about a supply convoy heading south. The patrol set up outside of a compound and watched it for two days. Satisfied they had enough evidence on the convoy, they left the area and started heading back to link up with the assault force who left the mountain to meet up with them for the ambush. They spotted an enemy patrol about 1,000 yards away down a nearby hill. There were five men seen. Danny told the story from his point of view.

  “Rick said, ‘we should take them out so they don’t find the hide we were in for the last couple of days and blow the mission.’

  Rick then moved into position and set his silenced semi-auto sniper rifle up on its bipod. With cover from the rest of us, he shot the soldier who had been leading the group. The bullet struck him right below his left eye and snapped his head back so fast the man became a ragdoll before he hit the ground. Before any of the other soldiers could react, the man in the rear took a round in his neck. The three men in the middle were confused and were starting to take cover behind trees as each of them took a bullet. Rick shot one of them in the head, and the other two were hit in their upper chests.”

  “How did you see this from where you were?” Jim interrupted, mockingly.

  “I’d been looking through my scope while covering him,” Danny excitedly retorted.

  “Let him finish, it’s getting good,” Bill said, smiling.

  Danny continued, “With the distance Rick shot from, the flight time of each bullet allowed him the vital seconds he needed to recover from the recoil and engage the next target. The five soldiers died in less than 20 seconds.”

  “Did you rehearse your story?” Rick asked grinning. “It’s not exactly how I remember it.”

  The entire group sitting around the table started laughing. Danny stood up and angrily left the room.

  “Danny, come back and tell us more,” Terry snickered.

  “Does the neck shot count as a head shot?” Bill asked.

  “It’s connected directly to the head, I’d say it counts.” Jim concluded.

  As each team came in from their patrols, the score on the board grew larger. Some thought it a morale booster for the compound, but some didn’t agree with the killing. Survival was now a way of life and those who threatened it had to be dealt with. Anyone who didn’t agree could leave if they wanted to. No one was forcing them to stay.

  Each mission had to be completed before the snipers could engage any size force. Sometimes the team had to find targets outside of the mission area in order to keep the snipers and the whole team in the running for the highest score. After all, the enemy was, well, the enemy.

  The rest of the team backed up the sniper, so the sniper didn’t get credit for the kill unless he pulled the actual trigger on each target. The scores were confirmed only by the other team members. The snipers had to be true to their word or it wouldn’t work. Most of the men knew each other well, which made it easier to trust their opponents.

  The LRRPs started seeing signs offering a reward for the name and whereabouts of any insurgent snipers in the area. This made it even more exciting and challenging. Not only were they killing the enemy and making it safer for the locals, but they were also bringing down the morale of the enemy, which has been a proven tactic throughout history.

  After a short time, it took two shots to the body to take down a target. This meant the enemy had started using better body armor. The new competition was head shots only. Several of the snipers’ kills had been head shots already, so those numbers were added to the head category and taken out of the body shot record.

  Matt and his team encountered a meager sized NWA patrol on one LRRP.

  “They seem undisciplined, carefree. Something isn’t right here, guys,” Matt said quietly over his radio as the team lay in a stand of alders.

  “They must be new guys, just take them out,” replied Terry.

  “Hold on, Terry. Give me a sweep of the area with thermal.”

  It was daylight, but the thermal worked day or night.

  “Hey, Matt!” said Terry excitedly. “We have hundreds of troops in the hills to the east!”

  “OK everyone, let’s slowly move back to behind our hill, and Terry, stay
on the thermal as we fall back,” Matt said.

  The four troops on patrol had been bait for the larger force. They were locals dressed in NWA uniforms. This was confirmed by an enemy soldier captured a few days later by another patrol.

  The group talked about it back in the cabin and decided thermal would be used during each operation to try and make sure they weren’t compromised, and the targets were legitimate ones.

  The enemy had been getting more aggressive with their tactics, which meant the militia had to be extra careful in order to avoid leading them back to the mountain.

  They’d been lucky with Dave and Sara’s capture. Apparently, the information they gave to the NWA commander didn’t get passed on to the right person. If it had, the mountain stronghold would have been bombed or attacked already.

  The growing forces of freedom fighters kept pushing back and did their best to disrupt what the U.N. tried to accomplish. The guerilla tactics the militia used kept them safe — for the most part. Although their initial losses had been low, loss of militia members became increasingly more common.

  “With the blessings of liberty, we have responsibilities to defend it.”

  —Michael Reagan

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Where am I?

  Why’s it so dark?

  I can’t hear anything except ringing.

  What the hell’s going on?

  What’s the bright flash of light?

  OK, I can see a little more now, but it’s blurry.

  Hey, where am I?

  Hello? Say something!

  Whose blood’s that?

  Rick…

  Talk to me, damn you!

  You can’t hear me, can you?

  I see your lips moving, but I can’t hear you?

  My God, this isn’t happening to me.

  OK, I felt that!

  Ow!

  Stop poking me!

  Wait, what’s in the syringe?

  Doc, don’t, no, no!

  Jim’s thoughts faded back into unconsciousness, unheard by those around him.

  “How’re you doing Rick?”

  “Better than Jim. Shit, sorry Mary, I didn’t mean it like that. I know Doc will do what he can for him. How’re you and the kids holding up?”

  “We’ll be fine. Please, tell me what happened out there.”

  Rick took Mary out of the medical room and they sat down at the large dining room table.

  “We decided to hit a convoy full of troops heading south that we recently learned about. The attack started off as planned until they got out of their armored personnel carriers and we realized we were outnumbered five to one, but we had the advantage otherwise. It was what you would call a textbook ambush. We’ve all done this several times. Three teams set up mortars and started to fire at random. With all the suppressed weapons we have, they couldn’t have seen all of us firing. The snipers are always at a farther distance than the main force anyway. We continued to engage as the mortars fell closer and closer to some of our firing positions.

  “It was an unlucky round that fired in Jim’s direction. He didn’t even know it was on the way, or at least I don’t think he did. He’s lucky he had all of his body armor and winter clothing on or this would be much worse. I saw the explosion at his position and made my way over there as soon as the fighting would let me. As I approached, I saw a small crater from the mortar round and no Jim. I continued to look and found a small blood trail. I followed it, found his rifle and a few yards later, saw him crawling away through the alders. As I came up behind him, he rolled over and pulled his handgun on me, then collapsed, and I called for assistance. We got him here as soon as we could,” Rick explained.

  Mary thanked him and walked back into the medical room.

  The whole compound prayed for Jim. They had lost people before, but none would impact the collective like losing their leader. He had brought them together and kept them safe. From time to time he’d heard people say none of them would have made it this far without his leadership.

  The surgery lasted the better part of four hours. The medical room door opened and the crowd that was waiting looked that way.

  “What can you tell us Doc?” asked Matt when the physician and Lisa finally walked out of the room.

  “He’s stable for now and I believe I got most of the shrapnel sticking out of him. He’s incredibly lucky, to say the least.”

  Rick had been second in command the whole time and would do his best in Jim’s absence, but he’d be glad to have their leader back on his feet.

  They put the sniper competition on hold until Jim could get back out into the field. The patrols and missions continued as they always had, though the mood was very different around the compound without Jim directing everyday business.

  Four days after Jim was wounded, he regained consciousness. The compound was told over the radio that he was awake. Mary and the kids were in the room when people started to arrive.

  “Alright, calm down, everyone,” said Matt who had been standing guard outside the room. “We’ll all get a chance to see him.”

  Jim had bandages covering his right side. He still had his limbs, except for his right pinky finger, which had been severed at the middle knuckle. Aside from those wounds, he appeared to be in one piece.

  “You have lots of people wanting to see you honey,” Mary told him.

  “Have Matt make a list for me and I’ll call for them a few at a time. They need to keep the compound running. Please tell them I’m grateful for what they do,” Jim managed to say with a swollen face. “Doc, when can I leave this room and go home?”

  “We will see how you’re doing next week,” he told Jim. “I don’t want you tearing any stitches or causing unnecessary infections because you opened a wound.”

  “Roger that,” Jim said. “Mary, I remember being brought into the operating room. I tried to talk to everyone, but no one could hear me. It felt like a dream. I yelled, but no noise came out.”

  “You were experiencing shock,” said the doctor. “Your brain shut down certain areas of your body to start working on them. Your brain kept going. This sounds similar to what coma patient’s experience.”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t handle it, and then you gave me a shot and everything turned black.”

  “I put you under so I could remove the shrapnel. If I had an X-ray machine, I could be more certain, but for now I’m pretty sure I managed to get it all. Let me know if you experience any pain or discomfort worse than you do right now and we can revisit the damage.”

  “Will do, Doc.”

  “Now get some rest and heal,” Doc ordered.

  Jim laid there in the bed while most of his family left the room and he slowly fell asleep. He woke a few hours later, drenched in sweat and shaking.

  “I remember.”

  “Remember what?” asked Mary. She hadn’t left his side for longer than it takes to use the restroom.

  “The ambush and the mortars,” he said. “I took out each mortar squad from the front of the convoy to the rear. As I put my cross hairs on the last one, it looked like they had located me. A soldier pointed in my direction. I shot five rounds and starting displacing when the world exploded around me. I crawled in the direction I thought there were alders, hoping to avoid any other rounds heading my way. It’s pretty hazy after that, until I made it here.”

  “Well, you’re here now and you’re safe. I’m glad it wasn’t any worse.”

  Mary stayed by his side and the kids visited him regularly.

  The days turned into weeks and Jim grew restless. He watched the compound’s entire DVD library, or so he had been told. Once he could, Jim pushed himself to get out of bed each day, and before long he started rehab. With several wounds on his right leg, walking would be the most difficult part but he made progress faster than Doc thought he would. He dressed one morning and started walking through the tunnel toward the main cave area with a cane. He couldn’t use crutches because of the wounds on his right
arm and shoulder area.

  It was slow going, but he could see the smiles on everyone’s faces as he walked passed them. This made things easier for him. It hurt like hell, even though he wouldn’t show it. He had to get back into shape and back in the fight.

  “Pain is just weakness leaving the body,” he kept telling himself.

  One morning, Jim bumped into Rick as he rounded a corner in a tunnel.

  “Hey, buddy,” Jim said.

  “What the hell are you doing up and about?” Rick demanded through a growing smile.

  “I came to get a sit rep from you,” Jim told him.

  They sat down at one of the eating tables and Rick told Jim everything the compound experienced in the last three weeks.

  “The ambush turned out to be another setup,” Rick said. “The good news, we’ve gained more machine-guns for the perimeter defenses and three of the four mortars they had remain operational, with about two dozen high explosive rounds, total. The trucks were loaded with ammo and mortar shells, as well as a couple RPGs and 26 grenades for them. We can defend this place really well now.”

  “When I’m feeling up to it, we’re getting back out there in full force,” Jim said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

  “No problem boss,” said Rick. “We’ve been sending patrols out, but not much has been happening. We may have scared them off for now.”

  “Or they’re getting ready to attack us with everything they have,” Jim said. “Keep security tight and keep the patrols up to the same level. We don’t need any surprises.”

  “Roger that,” Rick agreed.

  Jim stood up and made his way back to his room. He knew he had to work harder and get back in the mix with his comrades. He felt useless in his current state and yearned for the thrill of the fight.

  “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

  —John F. Kennedy

  Chapter Twenty-Nine