Retribution (Soldier Up - Book Five 5) (14 page)

Colonel Magnus was furious over the loss of the team at the airport. He ordered the culprits that were responsible hunted down and executed.  He became even angrier when the reports came in that they couldn’t find those responsible for the attack.  Not only were his men killed, but all of the aircraft that they could have potentially used were destroyed.  However, the Colonel recognized there would be other opportunities to gather aircraft, since they were now headed to Harrisburg, which was the headquarters for the 28
th
Infantry Division.   He didn’t expect anyone to be home, but there might be some useful information he could get from anything left behind.  Harrisburg also had airports, both commercial and civilian, in which he was interested. 

              He still wanted to check out what was going on in Kenova, West Virginia and the 19
th
Special Forces group, the unit that he felt was currently stalking him.  The truth of the matter was that the 19
th
SF Group out of West Virginia had pulled its teams out, replaced by teams from Camp Parks.  If Colonel Magnus knew that there were teams from California stalking him, he might have re-thought his entire strategy, but he didn’t.   Colonel Magnus was moving his army down the primary roads towards Harrisburg, pre-event it was a 26-mile ride between Fort Indiantown Gap and the city, and usually took no more than thirty minutes to get there. 

              However, he was going to split his forces into three segments and enter the city from various locations, because he had no idea how receptive the city was going to be to him.  The city had a population of close to fifty thousand people, and the city itself covered roughly eleven square miles.  The first segment or spear Alpha would enter the city and secure the 28
th
Infantry Division Headquarters, the second segment or spear Bravo would secure Harrisburg international airport and the third segment or spear Charlie would secure Capital City airport.  Colonel Magnus and his staff were certain they would find useable aircraft at one of those two locations. 

              The prize Colonel Magus was seeking was the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, about twenty-six miles southwest of Harrisburg via I-81.  He didn’t know if they would put up a fight or not, but he hoped they would.  He knew, as he had gone to the College there, as had most of his own Officers, that the Barracks was outmanned by the thousands.  If Colonel Magnus wanted the placed leveled to the ground, he could do it.  The taking of the War College was more symbolic than tactical; the War College was the Army’s advance teaching warfare institution for its officers on the rise, but first he had to get through Harrisburg. 

              The Colonel’s forward elements sent word back that it looked like to them that Harrisburg was free to enter, that there wouldn’t be any standoff between them and the local population.  There was some law enforcement in the city, but not much and it was only in selected communities, generally established within those communities and only for those communities.  The larger population as a whole was undefended as far as they could tell and like many of these towns and cities had suffered a great deal over the last year.  The Colonel’s scout made it seem like Harrisburg was going to be easy pickings and they would be able to move right through.

              Colonel Magnus was having his morning coffee and speaking casually with some of his staff when the radios in his CP kicked alive.  Two Humvees hit IEDs on the road designated as the primary approach into the city.  As soldiers hurried to help the men in the Humvees machine gun fire erupted from the left side of the convoy; the fire coming from the woods cutting down three soldiers.  As the Humvees burned and men died the soldiers of the convoy returned fire, firing wildly into the woods where the machine gun fire had come from.  However, after the initial fire from the machine gun had stopped, the convoy commander, Major Harrington called a cease fire and got together a team to move into the woods.  The Major organized two teams quickly and they moved to assault the location where the machine gun fire had come from, but when they found the position no one was home.  They found a lot of the machine gun’s brass, but not the shooters.

              The radios in the Colonel’s CP busted loose again from the convoy approaching the municipal airport, Capital City. They heard large explosions from within airport grounds.  Lieutenant Colonel Allen was the convoy commander; his quick assessment of the situation was that people were destroying what aircraft they could, so as not to fall into the hands of Colonel Magnus.  Lt Colonel Allen, knowing how important the aircraft could be to their cause pushed his soldiers hard to get to the airport.  This was a mistake the attackers had hoped for.  They had mined and blockaded the road they were using to get into the area.  One M113 and one M114 were lost with crews when they hit anti-tank mines. 

              Once again, as soldiers left their vehicles to help, machine guns were fired from the woods to their left, killing two of them.  Lt. Colonel Allen’s quick reaction force went into immediate action, accurately returning fire and killing the machine gun crew that had fired on them.  When the quick reaction force investigated, they found two soldiers dead wearing 28
th
Infantry Division unit patches on their right and left shoulders.  This signified that they were combat veterans, either from Iraq and or Afghanistan or perhaps both.  Lt. Colonel Allen ordered their dog tags removed, and the bodies buried where they were. He would mark their location for retrieval in his log, even though at this moment those Soldiers were his enemy. They were still US soldiers and deserved a dignified burial when this was all over.

              Lt. Colonel Allen ordered several of the vehicles to take two secondary roads into the airport, but those were mined too.  He lost two Humvees, but the soldiers within them escaped unhurt, so Lt Colonel Allen ordered a halt. They were going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

              The next call to the CP was specifically for Colonel Magnus. The convoy commander of the third convoy, which was heading to the 28
th
ID HQ, relayed back that they had found the entire lead element dead.  Colonel Magnus was advised that any information coming into his CP from anyone stating to be said lead element was probably the enemy.  Colonel Magnus believed that his enemy would fight with dignity and honor, not treachery and deceit as they were now.  It was going to be a tough lesson for Colonel Magnus to follow, since most of the men and women he was going to face were combat veterans. They knew war, he didn’t, and he recognized this as a failure of the enemy, not himself. 

              Colonel Magnus ordered his commanders to press forward, but to use dismounted troops to clear the way and to bring in EOD when mines or other explosives were found.  At best, there were two teams of EOD techs, so they were going to have a busy day. Before the event they could count on technology to help them to find the devices.  They had remote controlled robots, electronic mine detectors, and other sensing equipment.  After the event, EOD was back to doing it the old way, knife probing, Bangalore torpedoes or the poor man’s substitution for them.   It had always been a tough job and now even harder with the loss of technology. Their training had included doing things the old- fashioned way, but no one ever thought it would come to it.

              The convoy heading into Capital City Airport found several more devices and EOD disarmed them. However, by the time they were able to move and occupy the airport the 28
th
ID had destroyed any usable aircraft and escape the area.  The convoy arrived at the 28
th
ID HQ with no further delays, but found no one home and the building heavily booby-trapped.  The EOD had all of the traps they could find unarmed by nightfall. The next morning the soldiers moved in with Military Intelligence Soldiers in tow.  They moved from office-to-office and found everything burned, not one piece of information found that could be useful.  Colonel Magnus ordered them out of the building and had them set up a perimeter and hold in place. 

              The convoy heading to the International Airport, which was the first one to be ambushed, made it to the airport without further incident.  What they found at the airport was the same thing the other convoy found at Capital City Airport—anything they might have used was destroyed in place.  Colonel Magnus ordered them to search the rest of the airport for other items, such as food, water, fuel, oil anything they could use.  After all, they still needed to eat and the vehicles still needed fuel and oil.  What the soldiers found during the search wasn’t entirely unexpected—civilians were living there with some food and water and relatively safe conditions.  They were questioned and they told the Military Intelligence Soldiers that they had seen other soldiers like them destroying the aircraft on the tarmac.  They also told them they had left a little over a day ago heading south. When the soldiers asked the civilians asked about the numbers of soldiers they saw, the people shrugged and said maybe hundreds.

              The search of the airport turned up a bonanza of food, water, fuel and other items they needed.  Unfortunately, it would leave the current residents of the airport with nothing.  When they asked what they were supposed to do with no food, a Major pulled his pistol and shot one of them in the head, “Die, I guess.” He then walked away.  The civilians in the airport after that kept their distance from the soldiers.  Colonel Magnus ordered them out of the airport and told them to head south toward the War College.

The 28
th
Infantry Division, what there was of it, was in full tactical retreat, heading south towards Washington D.C. They hoped to hook up with any leading elements of the 3
rd
Infantry Regiment, assuming of course they knew Colonel Magnus and his hoard was heading their way.  They were being led by Major General Walter Boney, a combat veteran of Iraq, who led the division while in Ramadi.  He had also commanded various Brigades and other units all over Europe finally landing the job with the Pennsylvania National Guard.   He was tough minded, but fair. He was decisive and believed in the Constitution and the country.  He knew it wasn’t perfect and he hoped the event would give the country a new start.  He had spoken to Colonel Magnus about a year ago and believed the man to be outright crazy.  He didn’t have the numbers in soldiers and equipment he felt he needed to take on the approaching Army.  His best bet was to head south and hopefully join elements of the 3
rd
or whatever units there were defending the capital.

              The hit and run tactics that he had instructed his units to employ seemed to be working, as well as destroying equipment in place that might aid Colonel Magnus’s cause.   MG Boney had no problem with destroying further infrastructure personally as he moved south, but the dilemma he had was how it was going to affect the civilian population.  His instructions were that if it wasn’t nailed down to take it.  Inform the civilians they encountered to get the hell out of the area, that there was a shit storm coming and they were in the middle of it.  If they couldn’t take it with them and the civilians in the area weren’t taking it with them, blow it in place.  There were several communal farms they had passed. The Brigades that happened on them were torn with how to deal with them.  They knew that Colonel Magnus would have no problem taking the farms and confiscating everything for his Army and if the civilians protested he’d simply kill them.

              The Brigade Commanders met with each community and briefed them on what was rolling their way.  Most of the farms were receptive; they harvested what they could and abandoned the areas.  Three farms were against any military action and refused to even consider moving on because they didn’t believe there was any danger coming.  Colonel William Sherman explained to them that he didn’t give a rat’s ass what they believed, they could stay or go, but he was going to destroy their crops.  The residents of those communes attempted to riot. They didn’t quite understand that times had changed and when you rioted against the Army, they were going to do anything and everything to put it down.  It was a very painful lesson for these people because the Army still burnt the crops and surrounding buildings as they left the area.

              One of the Brigades at the direction of MG Boney stopped at the War College. There were some tense moments between the 28
th
ID and the soldiers on base, and no one knew who to trust. The soldiers of Carlisle Barracks were told of the approaching army and weren’t aware of the 28
th
ID pulling back.  It took some time for cooler heads to prevail. In the end the soldiers at Carlisle Barracks joined with the Brigade from 28
th
ID in their redeployment, but only after destroying everything on post they could, so that Colonel Magnus wouldn’t have anything. 

So far, the 28
th
ID was using the “scorched earth policy” that MG Boney had set into place very effectively; they were destroying anything and everything in their path.   They were urging civilians to head south or east. They assured them that were was a lot of pain coming their way and they needed to vacate the area as soon as possible.  MG Boney had no intelligence where he might meet up with the 3
rd
Infantry Regiment. For all he knew they were hunkered down in D.C. waiting for the good Colonel Magnus.  The general knew the 3
rd
‘s commander, Colonel Lambert. He knew he was a good combat commander who had led one of his combat Brigades in Iraq successfully.

The general found it hard to believe that the Colonel Lambert would hold in place and not take the fight to the enemy; that wasn’t the officer he knew.  Regardless, the 28
th
had been on the run, moving slowly south with the occasional move east, then back west, doing their best to slow the progress of Colonel Magnus.  The 28
th
was about fifteen miles east of Martinsburg. The general met with his staff the night before and they had decided that they would make their stand at Frederick. Once they had settled there he would send word to the 3
rd
Infantry Regiment to come out and play with them, assuming of course the 3
rd
was still a viable option.  To be honest, there had been no contact with any units outside of his own, so for all he knew this was a suicide mission and he could merely be prolonging the fight every soldier knew was coming.

There was a wrapping on his tent flap, which was attached to his M113C, which he used as part of his CP.  “Come,” MG Boney said.

A Staff Sergeant Emory entered, came to attention and saluted. The General returned the salute, all the time thinking it was unusual for him to see, what looked like, an NCO fresh off the line.  “What can I do for you Sergeant?” Curiosity had the better of the General.

“Sir, well….it’s like this ….” the Staff Sergeant stuttered.

“Spit it out, what’s this all about?” The General stated.

“Sir, my men and I were on a patrol and we came across two soldiers. Well they got the draw on us and demanded in some sort of accent that we take them to our leader,” the SSG said.

“So you brought them to me?” MG General Boney asked.

“Well sir, they asked to be taken to you by name or they said they would kill us all.”

“So, again, you brought them here to kill me?”

“No sir, it’s not like that, one of them is a Captain and he identified himself, credentials and all with the 19
th
Special Forces Group, and they were here to save our collective asses.”  The SSG clearly uncomfortable with what was happening.

“Is this Captain here with you?” The General asked.

“Yes sir, he is outside with a Master Sergeant from the 19
th
too.”

This was either good or bad news the General thought, but then again, in for a pound…. “Would you ask them to please come in?”

“Yes sir.” The SSG came to attention, saluted, did an about face and left.  No more than two minutes passed and two very dirty, heavily armed entered the General’s CP.  They came to attention, saluted and held it until the General returned it, “As you were,” MG General Boney said.  He thought again, they were armed to the teeth. He wondered why no one in his command tried to disarm them, but it was a bit too late for that.

“What can the 28
th
Infantry Division do for the 19
th
Special Forces Group?”

The two SF soldiers handed over their credentials. General Boney took them, looked them over, and noticed that they read they were out of Camp Parks in California.
How was that possible?
He wondered. He handed the credentials back.  The general eyed the two men suspiciously. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m Captain DeToya and this is Master Sergeant Teavana.  Any place we can sit and talk, we’ve got quite a story for you General,” Captain DeToya said.

MG General Boney looked both men over again. “I have to tell you two men that I feel very uncomfortable with both of you men, that I don’t know, being so well armed and me being at a disadvantage.”

The Captain and Master Sergeant looked at each other, shrugged and started to hand over their weapons to the general, which surprised the hell out of the General.  The rest of the general’s staff walked into the CP at this time after eating chow.  They were astounded to see two men, of which none of them knew, handing weapon after weapon over to their commander; it was almost funny.

“I’m sorry sir,” the General’s Executive Officer said. “Did we interrupt something?”

“No not at all. Would you mind getting these men something to eat and drink? They apparently have a story for us,” MG General Boney replied.