Dark Days Rough Roads (44 page)

Everyone
took their turns pulling security. Some slept; some stayed up longer and kept
going over the plans. Haliday just kept checking everything and trying to figure
out what he could do that would be better. He came up with a few more ideas. He
went out into the small storage building and did some work, He worked through
the night. The rest he would finish later, he needed a rest.

He walked
back into the house where everyone was getting ready to eat breakfast. “You
hungry Dad?” Kayla asked.

“No
sweetie, I’m going to take a nap for a couple of hours. Ok?” he said.

She said,
“ok, we’ll wake you up if anything happens or we need you.” He wandered up the
steps and lay down for a bit. He slept away for a couple of hours.

Kayla
woke him up. “Dad, can you come downstairs?”

“Sure.”
He went to move his legs but they were heavy. He had a cat and the mutant dog
Max lying on them. “Ok, time to get up,” he said. They just rolled over and
went back to sleep as he got up. Must be nice, he was thinking, just stay in
bed all day. He walked downstairs and looked over at the table and smiled.
“Damn, you guys didn’t have to.”

Mike and
Linda were sitting there. “We couldn’t let you guys have all the fun now could
we? We even brought a couple of friends.” He looked over at the common area and
saw a young couple sitting there. “That’s Bill’s son Mark and his wife, Lisa.”

He walked
over and shook their hands, “Nice to meet you, but you guys didn’t have to do
this.”

“Mike
thought we might come in handy. Lisa here married me after I proposed to her at
Ft. Campbell. I did three years active duty and I am currently inactive
reserve. Eleven Bravo sir.”

“It’s
Roger, and I was an NCO. Drop the ‘sir’ stuff.”

Mark went
on; “I did two tours in the sandbox. Lisa here was our unit admin clerk; still
knows how to fire a rifle. We even brought our own. They even have a special
feature, full auto. We can go if you want.”

“No, glad
to have you here,” Roger replied.

Mark
said, “Let’s see what you have?”

He went
over the entire plan with everyone again. Mark offered a couple of ideas which
made sense now that they had extra manpower. They went over the changes and
then he walked everyone around the property.

“Listen,
we expect this to go down tonight.”

“Ok,
we’ll all be ready,” they answered.

Haliday
had everyone double-checking everything, adding extra ammo to the stockpiles,
placing thermoses of hot tea by them, canteens of water and hand warmers as well.
They were also helping him set the rest up. Dawn and Diana moved the horses
over to the other neighbor’s property. They were snow birds and were already
down in Florida, so he didn’t think they would care. He staged the vehicles for
quick departure.

He had
Mark hold the range session and get everyone ready. He checked in now and then.
He looked over at the neighbor who was standing there. He made contact first,
showed her she was number one. He held that finger high. Randy called him in, “Hey
Uncle Roger, come in here quick.” He jogged over to the house to see what Randy
wanted.

“What’s
going on Randy?”

“Rob is
on the radio for you.”

“Ok,
thanks,” he said. “Rob, what’s the word?”

Rob
answered, “You’re getting hit tonight. These guys are finalizing the vehicle
loads and gear, and double-checking everything. I guarantee they are moving out
soon. As soon as they move out, I’ll be calling you. We are all in position
here near the airport and ready to go ourselves. Good luck Roger.”

“Good
luck to you too, Rob.”

This was
the calm before the storm. He walked around and hugged everyone and thanked
them. Everyone was dressed and ready. They were finding themselves idle things
to do in and out of the house. He sat there with his eyes closed and prayed a
bit. The ham crackled and he listened. He ran outside and cranked an old
fashioned air raid siren, which sent everyone running to their positions.

He wasn’t
worried about the neighbor calling it in. She already knew what was coming and
he had Kevin sneak over there earlier. Kevin unplugged her whip antenna and
connected some power leads to it he triggered a stun gun which popped a chip in
her handheld. He then snipped the antenna to double up the effort. The militia
relying on her to relay info for the attack was out of the question now.

They had
placed all the radios they could out there. If there was a need for retreat, a
flag would be raised at the crow’s nest and it would be lit up. He’d also fire
a couple of red flares up into the sky. Haliday took off for his position.
Everyone’s blood was pumping and it would be less than an hour now.
Anticipation coursed through their veins.

“Rob,
what do we have coming our way?”

“Roger,
you have one motorcycle, and no other ATV's of any sort at all, scratch that,
you have two quads in the back of the deuce. There are also four people in the
back of it. There are three pickup trucks, each has two people up front and two
in the back. Two Jeeps and a Bronco with four people in each. Thirty-one people
total.”

“They all
have AR’s; they look pretty standard except for a few oddballs here and there.
Lights attached, lasers, scopes, magazines taped together, the works. It looks
like a couple have some 308’s in the same configuration. One guy has some big
bad ass rifle or something. It looks like a small cannon.”

“The
other night they loaded up all the ammo cans and a lot of other gear. Tonight
they threw some packs and boxes in the trucks. A couple of guys look like they
have night vision goggles. Those old ones you see in the movies, nothing new
like you see them wearing today. The cases looked pretty old as well.”

“Wonderful
news there Rob, I expected about half. Any idea of the make up of their ranks,
as far as males and females?”

Rob gave
him a quick rundown of what he thought there was. “Looked like 24 men, and 7
women. A couple of them were teenagers.” Haliday figured these were the
neighbor’s daughter and her boyfriend. They were most likely familiar with the
area since she lived across the street. Plus he couldn’t forget two fighters
across the street as well if both were in on it, but he was thinking she was
the only one.

“How
about you guys Rob?”

“Oh,
we’re ready. We just need to know when to start.”

“I figure
about 45 minutes or so,” he said.

“Rob,
this is the only chance you have. You guys do what it takes. You won’t have
another chance like this again. I hope to be talking to you very soon.”

“You too,
Roger.” Mark and everyone else was listening and heard the news.

The
militia slowly made their way toward Haliday’s. They knew Haliday was expecting
them, but they also knew the layout of his land, the buildings on it and the
intel on who was there. They also enjoyed a 2 to 1 advantage for troop strength
with Haliday having some older folks in the group and also having to worry
about younger children.

The
convoy moved along slowly expecting ambush or traps. They would pause at
intersections and blind spots to check the areas out thoroughly before they
resumed speed. Haliday had hoped the bike would be up front and he had gone and
set up a catch wire for it. The deuce led the convoy with an anti-decap bar on
the front. It snapped the wire easily.

The next
wire was simpler. It pulled out a piece of cardboard between a clothes pin and
made a connection which ignited a rocket engine fuse. The fuse burned in a
couple of seconds and sent up a hailstorm of fireworks. It was fully dark now,
and Haliday spotted them through his spotting scope he had set up. The militia
convoy was now about two miles out. They pulled over and dismounted their
vehicles. They put up some ramps on the deuce and off-loaded the quads.

Everyone
rallied around the deuce now and they went over the plans for their offensive.
They realized with the fireworks warning that their attack was expected. The
bike and quads moved out first and crept along. They were making sure they did
not get caught up in any more wire strung across the roads. The headed off into
the woods. The rest of the vehicles split up and went in different directions.
The goal was to surround the house and test the defenses for weak points.

The
militia man leading the attack spoke. He spit out the usual crap about safety,
watching out for your fellow man and all that garbage, but he also told them
something else that put things in more perspective as to what they planned and
what they were all about. If Haliday heard this, it would have made a lot more
sense.

The man
said, “We are about to try and stop these people from ruining our plans to make
this area a better place to live. They want to ruin our chance to let nature
weed out those who are weak. Those who can not contribute to our society. Those
who will bring us down. We need to make sure we can conquer anyone who will
stop us from prospering.” It was almost like a miniature Bilderberg conspiracy.

They
moved in slowly. These guys had made some major mistakes, but this time they
were going about it like true professionals. They were moving in slowly, they
were spread out, and they had communications amongst everyone, they weren’t
taking stupid chances, and they simply had it together so far.

Even if
Haliday’s group wanted to leave right now, there was not a single road they
could have taken without running into some of the militia. There wasn’t a
single side of the house that wasn’t covered by at least five people. There was
a fair amount of open land around the property, except for the west side which
was heavily wooded and a little too close for comfort. He always wanted to cut
it back some, but never did.

The
militia carefully moved in closer in some more and then took cover. Haliday’s
group was lying in wait. Their breathing was rapid. Their heartbeats were quick.
The adrenaline was flowing. The temperature was around 40, but most of them
were sweating. They waited and waited some more. The militia was making them
sweat it out.

Out in
the tree line, a strobe light started to flash. Haliday called Rob, he didn’t
waste a lot of breath on words of wisdom or anything, he simply told him “Start
your offensive.” The strobe light flashed about 45 times a minute. It was a
small strobe head about the size of a quarter mounted in small 1X2 inch housing
running off a small 12 volt tractor battery.

This was
anchored to a tree about 10 feet off the ground. These were normally mounted in
fog light areas, back up lights on police cars, car grilles or almost anywhere.
They were pure white light and worked well. Each flash was like a small flash
of lightning.

The tree
bark splintered followed by the rifle’s report. The bark splintered yet again
and then the report. The third shot hit the battery and exploded it. The strobe
light fell to the ground with no power. The militia sniper had taken it out. It
was hard to hone in on due to the flashing light, but eventually he got it. He
was happy, there would be no more light to blind the militias’ night vision
goggles, he thought.

The tree
line started to blink randomly. These were all angled away from the house to
avoid interfering with the sight of Haliday’s group. Pretty soon there were
almost 20 of these blinking around the perimeter of the property. If one was
taken out they would know where at least one militia member would be, or at
least the general area. Hopefully this interfered with the night vision
entirely.

A white
flare erupted and sailed into the air. Haliday’s group spotted movement, but
only shadows on the ground. They were able to locate a couple of the vehicles,
but these were too far away to accurately see what was going on. The flare
drifted slowly to the ground. A couple of the strobe lights went out.

The
militia sniper was surveying the area. His original thought was to take out the
blinking lights, but there were simply too many of them. He would expose his
position, which he did not want to do. When the flare went off, he spotted Alan
up in the crow’s nest. He made his calculations and hugged the Barrett close.
He heard the rustling behind him and reached for his pistol. Haliday had come
out of his hide. He would have chosen this spot for his own hide; he counted on
this man doing the same. He was only 15 feet away from the sniper.

The
sniper rolled over in an attempt to protect himself and fire. Haliday had leapt
forward and came down on his upper arm with one knee and accidently knocked the
Barrett over with his other. He grabbed at the pistol and managed to move the
slide back about a quarter of an inch. It didn’t fire. Haliday increased his
grip and snapped the pistol around toward the man, nearly tearing his trigger
finger off.

The man
reached up and grabbed Haliday’s throat and tried to choke him. One of the
first things Haliday taught people in his self-defense classes was how to avoid
being choked. If you can stop yourself from breathing, you can stop the
choking. Haliday did this with an exaggerated cough and stopped breathing. He
managed to free the pistol from the man’s grip and tossed it aside.