Retribution (Soldier Up - Book Five 5) (17 page)

The Army of the Potomac had stopped at the War College; General Magnus was a very unhappy man to find no one home.  The entire place had been cleaned out by he assumed, the 28
th
ID, and something else wasn’t quite right.  There was something nagging at him. Why hadn’t anyone really engaged them in battle, well outside of the gangs and civilian formed militias.  Where the hell was the 28
th
ID heading?  What were the Special Forces up to? Who were they reporting to?  He had so many unanswered questions.  He needed answers. Four of the scouting platoons he had sent out at the beginning of the week had for the most part disappeared. 

              General Magnus ordered his units to set up a defensive perimeter, implement patrols past the wire, and set up the heavy machine guns. As far as he was concerned they were home for now.  He also ordered the engineers to put out minefields, and create bunkers.  Until further notice, they weren’t going any place, because he needed more intelligence. 

              General Magnus had promoted Lt Layton to full Colonel and made him his new Executive Officer/ the other one had been killed by a sniper a week earlier.  General Magnus knew it was those SF bastards because the round was a .50 Caliber and had to have been fired from an M107 possibly a mile or so away.  It gave everyone pause, thinking now that every single senior officer was a target. What they didn’t know was that it was one of the 28
th
ID scout platoons that took the shot.  Some of them had gone to the US Army sniper school and were very proficient with the M107. 

              Colonel Layton entered General Magnus’s headquarters, which he had set up in one of the still standing administrative buildings at the War College.  The 28
th
ID had graciously left one building standing, but they had heavily trapped it, which killed three of his soldiers.  Their commander had ordered everyone out of the building and called in EOD to clear it.  EOD found ninety-two booby traps; it was three days before they claimed the building was free and clear of all traps.  General Magnus had grown a bit paranoid and sent in his staff first to set things up.  Once he was sure nothing else was going to go boom, he then entered himself.             

              “Sir, we’ve found two usable aircraft at a private airfield that apparently the 28
th
ID had missed,” Colonel Layton reported.

              The report had caught General Magnus’ attention. “Define usable?” he asked.

              “Two Cessna’s, each capable of carrying eighteen people, crew and gear.  Both were started and flown successfully.” Colonel Layton was excited to relay this information to his commander.

              “Outstanding Colonel, fucking outstanding!” General Magnus responded. He was up now, pacing back-and-forth thinking.  “I want these two aircraft guarded like they were the gold at Fort Know.”

              “Yes sir, I have two Companies guarding the aircraft now.”

              “Pass on to the companies’ commanders that if anything happens to those two aircraft while on the ground I’ll have their asses, no…their lives.”  General Magnus ordered sternly.

              “I’ve already explained that sir.”

              “Roger that.” General Magnus said. “What’s the fuel situation for them?”

              “Another bright spot, the airfield where we found the aircraft has two thousand gallons.  The aircraft are topped off and ready to go,” Colonel Layton said smugly.

              “Awesome Colonel, fucking awesome.  First mission.” General Magnus walked over to the map posted on the wall. “I want these areas south of us, from here to Fredericks scouted by aircraft. I want mission ASAP.”

              “Yes sir, and the second mission?”

              “Can we reach West Virginia?”

              “You mean the 19
th
?”

              “You’re goddamned right. I want them to get a taste of their own medicine.”

              “Sir….meaning no disrespect….are you sure about this? I …I mean we have no idea the number of soldiers, or even if they’re still there.  At best, we can only send eighteen men and their equipment, it’s an awfully big chance to take and if we lose that aircraft we don’t know when we’ll find another.”

              General Magnus wasn’t happy with Colonel Layton’s assessment, but he knew he was right, “Fine scrub the mission. What’s your plan Colonel?”

              “Send it to Washington sir.  Let’s find out what we can see, that’s the ultimate goal correct?  We need a status of forces in the area.”

              The General thought for a moment. “Make it happen, Colonel, I want those birds in the air as soon as possible.  Let’s find out what the hell is going on, mostly where the hell the 28
th
is.”

Patton Airfield was a private field located three and a half miles from Carlisle Barracks.  The following morning after General Magnus had been notified of the aircrafts’ existence, both aircraft took off at 0600, one right after another.  The first aircraft was designated romeo-two-niner and headed east.  It would travel fifty miles east, then turn south for twenty-five miles, turn and head west, eventually hitting the outskirts of Fredericks.  Once ten miles past Fredericks it would turn north and head back to Patton Airfield.

              The other aircraft headed directly south, entering the Capital’s airspace.  It would fly a zigzag route over the city scouting out any units that might be deployed around the city.  Once they had completed that they would return back to Patton Airfield. 

              Once both teams were back on the ground they would be debriefed by Military Intelligence and the intelligence correlated and presented to the General at 1800, his evening briefing.  Both General Magnus and Colonel Clayton had high expectations from these two missions.  Captain Brian Moriarity, pilot and Captain Elizabeth Erin, co-pilot were in the Cessna, whose mission it was to gather intelligence on any enemy units they could find in and around Fredericks.  Major Delores Valencia, pilot, and First Lieutenant Marjorie K. Elm, co-pilot were in the second Cessna, whose mission was to conduct the flyovers of the Capital.  Out of the two missions the second one, the flyover of the Capital was deemed to be more dangerous.  General Magnus and his staff knew that the 3
rd
Infantry Regiment, whose duty was to protect Washington, would be in some form or fashion in and around the city.

              It was possible and even likely that the aircraft might take some ground fire; however, the aircraft was not identified as military so it was possible that the military might not do anything.  They might very well believe that it was civilian owned and being flown by civilians, that’s what they were hoping for.  The flight over Fredericks could be as dangerous, but it was unknown at this time if any enemy forces were in the area.  It was certainly true that the 28
th
ID was out there some place and if the aircraft stumbled over them, there was a good chance they might be fired on.  Equally, they might, like the first one, be determined to be civilian and left alone.

              Captains Moriarity and Erin’s flight were twenty minutes in and they were beginning their turns to begin to head west, because so far it had been uneventful.  They had seen few people, they had seen quite a few homes and buildings that had fallen into disrepair, and they even saw two downed commercial airliners. They assumed the wild animals had gotten to the bodies because they didn’t see any.   Another fifteen minutes passed, and again it was uneventful, then they heard what sounded like a couple of pings hitting the aircraft.  Captain Erin left her seat to check the back of the aircraft and sure enough, she had found two holes, which looked to have been caused by ground fire or rifles

              She returned to her seat and reported what she had found; they agreed they should take a bit more altitude to get out of any range of ground fire.  As they climbed the cloud cover increased to the point where they didn’t have clear visibility of what was on the ground.  They had glimpses, but not enough to make out any detail; however, they felt much safer now.  They were more concerned with getting out of the daily routine on the ground and getting some flight time, as opposed to looking for some enemy that both officers agreed their commander was being paranoid.

              Major Valencia and Lieutenant Elm were twenty minutes into their flight heading due south following the roadways down.  They were about thirty minutes out of Washington and both women were hoping that the uneventful flight would continue.  Like the other crew, it wasn’t as much about dedication to the cause as it was getting away from the daily routine and being able to fly.   What they saw was in stark contrast to the other crew. They viewed miles of road with stalled cars every place, and they did see people, mostly in small villages that had popped up near the roads.  They decided to fly lower to get a better look at several of the villages; they noticed that almost everyone was armed.  However, they couldn’t see with what types of weapons because they were moving quickly through.  They also found that the lower they flew it was less likely that anyone would immediately fire on them.  They were over a group of people so quickly and then gone, probably people heard the engines approaching, but both women knew from experience it was going to be hard to tell from which direction.

              Not to say people weren’t taking pot-shots at them because they were. A couple even pierced the skin of the aircraft, but they kept moving forward.  They noticed that the closer they got to Washington the greater the number of cars there were blocking the roads.  It looked like it was done intentionally.  Ten miles out of town was the first time they started to see any military, waking them up from their complacency.  They would have to assume the Army had a way to communicate, maybe even with radios.  The flying low approach possibly wasn’t going to work all that well, if they could communicate ahead and let the next unit know they were coming.  

              So far they hadn’t seen any civilians, only passed a couple of military checkpoints. “Oh shit! Did you see that?”  Major Valencia said.

              Lieutenant Elm had been looking out the opposite side of the aircraft. “No, see what?” she said.

              “We need to turn around,” Major Valencia stated.  “I think I saw armor.”

              “What do you mean armor?”

              “Tanks damn-it, I think I saw tanks.” 

              “Shit,” the Lieutenant said.  “But, our turning around for another pass will look suspicious don’t you think?”

              The Major had already made the decision to turn around and was in the process of it when they started to take heavy ground fire. Before they knew it the engine started to flame and smoke.  Major Valencia lost control of the aircraft, struggling to regain control. One of the stabilizers had been shredded.  The engine was dead, the prop had stopped turning, and after about two minutes the Major was able to get some control over the aircraft and point it at an open field, where she glided the aircraft in for a landing.

              “Looks like we’re going to have company,” Lieutenant Elm said.  “I see three, no four Humvees heading toward us.”

              “Roger that,” the Major responded.  “Let’s not do anything stupid once we’re on the ground.  Look over there; I spotted at least two Abrams and a Bradley.  Maybe it’s better we sit the rest of this out.”

              Lieutenant Elm nodded, “Yeah I saw them and a couple more on the other side.  Where did the 3
rd
get them?”

              “There’s a hell of a lot more going on here and we’re about to find out.”

              The aircraft hit the ground and bounced several times as it came down on the open field. As they got close to the edge of the field, there were two armored Humvees with M-249’s pointed directly at them.  The aircraft rolled to a stop, two more armored Humvees had approached from the rear, stopped and several soldiers unassed the vehicles.  Major Valencia looked back and then looked at Lieutenant Elm, “I’ll swear I just saw a Brigadier General walking this way.”

              “Shit, I saw him too,” the Lieutenant responded.

                The aircraft was sitting fifty yards from the tree line, where it had rolled to a stop, but the two officers made no threatening moves.  They were far too nervous too, especially with machine guns leveled on them.  There was a rap on the passenger side door. Even though the Lieutenant was right there she was far too focused on what was in front of her.  She looked out the window and her eyes grew wide and she cracked the door open, “Yes sir?”

              “Glad you could drop in,” Brigadier General Clayton said.

              Lieutenant Elm noticed all of the qualification badges he had on his uniform, some of them she knew to be Special Forces dive and halo.  She also saw the Ranger and Special Forces qualification tabs and combat patch, which she didn’t recognize. 

              “Can I invite you two officers to step out of the aircraft? It’s perfectly safe.”  The General said.