[STORY] TEOTWAWKI II Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is a work of FICTION. It is loosely based on the Book of Revelation. This is NOT theology. Any deviation from the Book of Revelation is artistic license. Please do not debate pre/post Tribulation viewpoints in your comments.

TEOTWAWKI II
The Great Tribulation

CHAPTER 1

Dateline 0800 February 1, 2005 Washington DC The Situation Room

“Mr. President, The Asteroid is over 20 kilometers in diameter, and we have to take precautions!”

President Kerry leaned over to talk to his Chief of Staff, then turned to his Science Advisor.

“Mr. Adamson, what is your best guess of the probability of this asteroid striking earth?’

He pressed a button, and the presentation graphics were rolling an animation. It showed a near-miss of around 50,000 miles, then a hit probability factor of less than 1%.

President Kerry blew up at his Science Advisor “You got me down here for an emergency meeting when I have a financial crisis to manage for a 1 in 1,000 chance of this asteroid striking the earth – this meeting is adjourned. Jim, I need you to recommend me a new Science Advisor, Mr. Adamson, You’re Fired!”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Mike Adamson was the best Astrophysicist in the country, with a Magna *** Laude PhD in Astrophysics from MIT. His personal estimates put the risk factor around 10-20 %, but the ever-cautious service drones at NASA had deliberately under-estimated the probability of a collision, since the last time they had predicated a collision and it missed, a whole department of engineers and scientists were fired by President Clinton. He packed his bags, and walked out of the room, thinking about where the safest parts of the country were. On his way out he made some phone calls and cashed in all his stocks and savings, and moved his family to the Southern United States, to a small town he grew up in West Virginia.

Meanwhile, in that same small town, Daniel Cox was busy in his Machine shop milling another cylinder head for a customer. Most of his jobs were run-of the mill repairs, but they paid the bills. He was also a Certified Welder, and more than once, he was called to work on a Civil project that needed his skills. He always charged fairly, and did his very best. His loves, besides God and His family, was his Country, or what it used to be, and his guns. He had purchased plans over 20 years ago to make several suppressed weapons, and only made enough for his family. His house and shop were literally dug into a mountainside. Between his shop, house, and storage, he had almost 100,000 square feet of space under the mountain.

He had acquired and installed over the years a very complete off- grid electrical system using wind, water, and solar power. His house backed up to a year-round creek that flowed fast enough that with the proper penstock and water turbines, produced 5KW every hour 7/24. He bought good used deep cycle batteries every chance he had, and currently had enough of a battery bank to run a week without any outside power. He didn’t use all the batteries at once, and carefully maintained and rotated his batteries, replacing the oldest batteries whenever he got a deal on new batteries. He had bought thousands of old golf cart batteries from the surrounding country clubs over the years. The batteries were perfectly good, it was just that the Country club manager had more dollars than sense, and replaced them every 5 years whether they needed it or not. As a result, Daniel got good used batteries with another 5 years of life left in them for pennies on the dollar. He bought Solar Panels from the State of West Virginia whenever they sold them as Surplus. Often the damage was cosmetic, and with a little TLC, he restored them to working condition. He had another 5KW of Solar panels out in front of his house on fixed racks, and several rebuilt wind turbines that someone had thought were dead, when all they needed was a good rebuild, and some cheap parts replaced. Between the 3, he had 15KW of power available most of the time, and kept his battery banks fully charged. He made his own hot water, and used a wood stove for cooking and what little heat he needed. He was surrounded by 20 acres of prime West Virginia land with a good creek for water, and enough game to last years. He had at least a year’s worth of stored food, and 2 years of stored supplies. His house was paid in full, and he paid his property taxes a year in advance every January 1st.

Every Sunday, his family went to the local church, then did what little shopping they needed on the way home. Daniel had stressed to his wife and children that they couldn’t breathe a word of their preparations to anyone. He told Mary, his wife that if the ATF knew of his weapons, he would probably die in prison if he made it that far. If anyone outside the family knew about his preparations, when things got bad they could all wind up dead or in prison. They had two strikes against them: They were Fundamentalist Born Again Christians, and they were gun owners. When the time came, the nation would turn against them, and they would stand alone. Daniel was sure that what his church called The Great Tribulation, to separate it from the current Tribulations that the church was facing, was right around the corner. With Kerry as the new President, he knew that his pastor might be right!

On this Sunday, on his way out of church, they decided to go shopping. As they pulled into the driveway of the local store, Daniel thought he recognized a familiar face from his past.

“Mike is that you?’

Mike Adamson, the Ex- Science Advisor to President Kerry turned around “Daniel, it is you – how are you doing?’

Daniel and Mike got caught up on things, and Daniel invited Mike and Sally up to their house for dinner. Mike gladly accepted.

Later that evening after dinner, Mike and Daniel sat down in Daniel’s “Office” to catch up on old times. When Mike got around to telling Daniel that he was the Ex-Science Advisor to President Kerry, and why, Daniel’s hair stood up on the back of his neck. As Mike was telling him about the meteor and what it could do, Daniel flashed back to Revelation 8:8-11. Mike saw the look on Daniel’s face, and asked him what was wrong. Daniel asked Mike if he was a Christian. Mike said “I used to go to Church as a kid, but haven’t been to church lately.”

Daniel grabbed his New King James Bible and opened to Revelation, then turned to Chapter 8, and started reading at verse 8.

8. Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.

9. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

10 Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.

11 The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter.

12 Then the fourth angel sounded: And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night.

13 And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!"

Mike’s chin hit his chest and his eyes got huge. He thought about what he knew, and how it correlated with Revelation. Suddenly he realized that he needed to make sure he was right with God.

Mike leveled with Daniel, telling him everything about the incoming meteor. Mike told him that where they were, and the type of building they were in was the most survivable location they could be in next to Cheyenne Mountain. Since he wasn’t the President of the United States, this would have to do. Daniel thought quickly, and asked Mike where they were staying. Mike told him they were staying at a motel, since they were unable to buy a property in West Virginia with less than 30 days escrow. Daniel knew he had a spare bedroom, and offered it to his high-school best friend. Mike asked Daniel point blank what he had in the way of preparations. Daniel decided to trust him, and told him everything.

“Daniel, right now I’ve got over a million dollars in cash in the bank, and I think we should use it to increase our long-term survival chances here. If you’re right, this might be the 2nd Act of the Great Tribulation. I don’t remember reading about an earthquake, but it might not have made the papers. We should order at least a year or two worth of food, and see if we can get a well dug on short notice, since you can’t rely on the creek if everything outside freezes if my Global Winter scenario becomes reality. You could have 30 feet of snow outside for the first winter here.”

They talked on through the night, and Daniel made a list of everything he mentioned and thought they might need. Finally, Mike mentioned weapons. Daniel showed him his weapons cache, and Mike said that wouldn’t be enough to stop a determined attack. They would need some Semiauto weapons in .308 caliber or better. Daniel grinned, then said, “since money is no object, why not build a Semi-auto BMG .50 rifle. I’ve got the plans for one in my safe. Just never thought I’d need it!”

Mike looked stunned for a moment, then realized that any ATF or other Jack Booted Thugs crashed their house, they’d need all the firepower they would have. “Daniel, do you have any semiauto designs in .308 caliber as well?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a design just like the BMG 50 in .308 – why?”

“If you could build one for Sally and I, we could help defend the place.”

“Ok, Mike – seems like tomorrow we’re going shopping. How much cash can you get out of the bank at once?”

“If I want to avoid government notice, I need to limit my daily transactions to 9,000 dollars per day.”

“Ok, 9,000 dollars will buy a lot of ammo. If you want to go to the bank tomorrow, we can go shopping in Wheeling.”

“Dan, why Wheeling?”

“First, I’m not really known there, like if I had been making large purchases here, someone I know might find out, and wonder why I was purchasing ammo when I don’t own any guns, at least none on the books. Do you have a local checking account?”

“Funny you should ask, I never closed my old bank account when we moved to DC, hoping I’d come back some day, just not as soon as I did.”

“Great, so you have local checks, so the guys in Wheeling won’t question you when we buy a bunch of food there. Also, we need to get on the internet, and buy some long-term storage food from Nitro-pak. If we order enough, they can ship it by common carrier, and we can have them expedite shipping for an additional charge.”


The next day, Mike and Dan hit the bank on the way to Wheeling. They took both vehicles, since they wanted to buy as much stuff as possible. First they cleaned out Wal-mart for supplies, then they visited the local Kroger and bought case-lots of all kinds of canned foods, and huge quantities of staples. Large purchases weren’t unusual around there, since a lot of people lived way out in the sticks, and bought over a month’s worth of canned goods and staples at once. Finally, their last stop was a mom and pop gun store that gave Dan great pricing on ammo before, and asked no questions. He ordered several cases of .308 and all the 50BMG they had in stock, and several scopes, including a Leupold Mark III for the BMG, and a couple of Simmons 3x12x50 AO scopes for the .308 rifles. Mike paid cash for the transaction, so they didn’t need to show ID. By the time they made it home, both trucks were down on their overload springs. After they unloaded, Dan fired up his computer, and soon they were on the Nitro-pak website. Dan made several suggestions, and Mike ordered wisely, just ordering long-term foods. They ordered a truckload of food, and Mike almost maxed out his Visa card. They paid extra for expedited shipping so the food would arrive within a week. Next Mike used what little he had left on his Visa to order a case of heirloom vegetable seeds from Seed Savers. That last purchase maxed his credit card out, and Dan offered the use of his credit card which had over 10,000 dollars available if they needed anything else. They both drove diesel vehicles, and Mike asked him how they could store several thousand gallons of diesel.

“Well if money were no object, I could bury a tank in the front yard, and use an electric pump to pump it out – why?”

“Dan, think for a minute. If TSHTF, where are we going to get any fuel?”

“OK, Mike, I know a local distributor who can install a 10K tank if you want that much, and fill it, but he’ll probably want cash or a cashier’s check for that kind of money.”

“How much are we talking about?”

“He owes me some favors, so I can probably get him to install and fill it for $50-100 thousand.”

“How about if we only bought 5,000 gallons?”

“That would only drop the price to around 50 thousand, the main costs are digging and burying the tank, there’s a huge labor cost involved!”

“OK, I still have most of my million dollars in the bank – why not!”

Dan made the call, and he said he would be by tomorrow to start digging the hole for the tank. Since Dan was out in the sticks, there wasn’t any permits needed besides the state ones, and Jim would take care of those.

Mike noticed Dan’s Radio Shack, and asked him if he still had his Ham license.

“Still got my general, it’s good for 5 more years.”

“Dan, you had better take the radio towers and all your wind turbines down a couple of days before the meteor is supposed to hit, the shock wave might destroy any tall items, and there might be some EMP associated with the meteor’s passage through the atmosphere. Dang, that reminds me – do you have good sturdy garage for both vehicles?”

“Dude, you must not have been paying attention. The garage is next to the house, and buried way into the mountain. The only thing that sticks out is the huge metal door. I’ve got a 4x4 ATV with a huge snow blower attachment to plow my driveway inside, just in case.”

“Better make sure you stock up on gasoline and Stabil or Pri.”

“What’s Pri?”

“It’s a stabilizer they make one for Diesel and one for Gasoline. That reminds me, we need to buy enough Pri-D to stabilize the diesel. How deep underground are they going?”

“I told them I wanted it 6 feet below the frost line just to be safe – I know how diesel can gel up when it gets cold!”

By now Mike and Sally had moved into their new room, and were settling in for a long stay. The next day, Dan took a 50-gallon drum to the gas station to fill up with gasoline. Mike paid cash for the gas, then they went to the auto parts store and bought enough Pri stabilizer to make sure it was good for a while. Jim showed up, and Dan showed him where he wanted the tank. Jim assured him none of the State paperwork would show the true location of the tank. He had done this for several other people he knew, since they thought that if the Feds knew they had stockpiled that much diesel, they must be a dangerous nut that needed to be on a list.

Mike decided they needed to make another run to Wheeling. He wanted some more ammo, and more food since Dan had the space to store it. While they were in town, Dan stopped at his favorite metal shop, and bought a huge amount of metal, just in case. Since he was always ordering weird metals from them, they never questioned his orders for Ordinance grade steel billets and bars. He ordered some Titanium and other metals just to throw them off the track, besides they could use some big knives for Mike and Sally. They came back with a truck full of staples and canned goods, plus Dan’s truck full of metal and ammo he bought from a different store for cash.

The very next day, President Kerry finally got around to banning all weapons and ammo sales. He hadn’t made it far enough yet to start confiscating, but he wanted the flow stopped. Dan was thanking God that night that they had had all the ammo they would need for almost 10 years after what they bought the other day.

Dan almost smacked his forehead and found Mike to ask him if the had any heavy winter coats and boots. When he said that they didn’t, Dan highly suggested they make a run into town tomorrow to check out the stores and buy some. He suggested the wives go to a Fabric store and stock up on fabrics and stuff to make clothes just in case.

The next day, both families went to town, and bought several sets of winter clothes. Mary and Sally bought several complete bolts of denim, canvas duck and a bolt of a cammo pattern the deer hunters around there wore, as well as a bunch of thread and notions. When they got home, they noticed their storage was getting full. That afternoon, the well driller showed up, and Dan showed him where he wanted the well drilled. 2 days later, they had a 1,000 foot well down into a deep aquifer sandwiched between two layers of granite. He installed the well pump and the 1,000 gallon tank inside a steel building that Dan had buried inside the mountain, but never used, and connected the pump to the fuse panel. Dan hoped that when everyone was finished, no one would know they were there unless they got right up to the house. Dan spent the next week hardening the access points with some scrap plate steel and his welder. Then he painted them to match the original doors, except now they would stop a 30 caliber round, at least for a while.

The next day, the truck arrived from Nitro-Pak, and they took the rest of the morning unloading and storing 2 years worth of additional food. When they finished, Mike remembered something Dan had said about hydro-electric power, and walked out to the creek. He looked and looked, and couldn’t see any evidence of any hydro power installation. All there was on the Creek was a huge rock that seemed to turn the creek into an underground creek. Confused, he asked Dan where the hydro installation was.

“It’s under the rock Mike!”

Mike was still confused, so Dan explained “That’s a fake rock I built to cover all the signs of my hydro installation. It’s like all the fake rocks in Disneyland, they’re mostly made of fiberglass and gunite, and I made a steel framework to hold it all in place. The only hint that it’s not a real rock is a small access panel that allows me to remove the rock to get at my hydro system for repairs and stuff. This one only weighs a couple of hundred pounds, but it’s heavy enough to make someone think it’s the real thing.

Jim showed up that morning with a loader/backhoe setup and the 10,000 gallon diesel tank on a flatbed. By that afternoon, the hole was dug, and the tank was in the hole. It would take him another day to finish making the connections and fill the tank. As Jim promised, the top of the tank was 8 feet below grade, plenty deep enough to avoid freezing or gelling problems. Instead of a hugely expensive turbine pump, Jim suggested a low pressure high volume fuel pump, which could fill a 100 gallon tank in 10 minutes. Dan thought that would be perfect and Jim told him he would see him tomorrow to finish the job.

Dan and Mike retired to Dan’s shop, and he started work on the .308 rifles. He asked Mike how long of a barrel he wanted, and Mike said that a 24 inch full profile barrel should be plenty. Dan chucked a 30-inch piece of ordinance stock in the lathe, and soon had a perfect 30-inch barrel turned. Now for the hard part, he needed to bore a perfectly concentric hole down the barrel and rifle it. Good thing he had a 36 inch line borer. Since it was semi-automatic, he could set it up and walk away. The next day, the barrel had a perfect .30 caliber hole running right through the middle. Next he set up the rifling machine with the depth and twist specs from the plans and rifled the whole barrel blank. All he had left to do is cut the blank, de-stress it, and bore the chamber and thread the receiver attachment. The receiver would be made out of a single piece of bar stock and machined to shape. Since the lathe was available, he programmed the cuts and parameters into the machine, made sure the piece of stock was setup right, closed the cover, and started the machine. Making the bolt would be a walk in the park compared to making the barrel. His parts bin included a bunch of complete sets of trigger groups from Brownell’s, so he could install any trigger he wanted into the receiver. Dan was tempted at one time to become a gunsmith and custom gun manufacturer, but figured that the ATF would be all over him if TSHTF, so he bought all the equipment, but never applied for the manufacturer’s license. Besides at the small quantities he purchased, a Manufacturer’s license would only save him 10%. It wasn’t worth the hassle. When the receiver was done, he programmed the lathe to make a bolt with locking lugs. He was going to build the rifle on an H&K action with the rotating lugs, to give a more positive lockup for accuracy and safety. When he was done with the barrel, Mike was amazed when he started making extra cuts on it, threading the outside of the barrel, and trial fitting a huge aluminum tube over it. Finally Mike couldn’t stand the suspense any more and asked him what the heck he was doing.

“I’m fitting the rifle for a suppressor. Even if the bullet is still supersonic, the suppressor will change the noise profile, eliminate muzzle blast, and reduce recoil, Hopefully whomever hears you shooting at them will think your are 90 degrees off where you really are.”

“Dan, you are really devious! Who would have thought of suppressing a supersonic battle rifle?”

“Mike, the US Military wants to go to suppressed rifles for just those reasons. Besides, it makes the rifle quieter and reduces firing signature since there is no muzzle blast to disturb dirt and vegetation. I’ve got a totally wiperless design that will take a .45 acp carbine, and reduce the noise signature down to a pellet gun.”

When he was finished with everything else, Dan machined a pair of huge scope rings that would fit exactly into cuts in the receiver designed to hold them, so he could remove and replace the scope without loosing zero. Since this gun had no other sights, this feature was not needed, but the rings would hold up to the recoil of a BMG 50 rifle. They were so wide they barely fit inside the short sections of 1” tube of the scope, and when he cut the rings, and drilled and tapped the screws to connect them, Mike marveled at his craftsmanship. A week later, Dan had the rifle assembled, and was ready to test it. They drove out to an abandoned mine, set up a rifle target at 100 yards, and Dan set the rifle up on sand bags so he could adjust the scope that he had mounted and boresighted with a laser boresighter. Dan’s first round went right through the x-ring. “Don’t change a thing” Dan proclaimed “Its dead bang on at 100 yards, all you need to do is adjust the setting for range now.”

Mike endured Dan’s verbose instructions to shoot the rifle – he already knew how to shoot, he’d been hunting deer in these woods as long as Dan. When he finally shut up, Mark picked up the rifle and the box of 168gr Match ammo, and laid down on a tarp in a Military prone position. After fiddling with the scope, but not touching the elevation and windage adjustments, Mike finally settled down to shoot the rifle, after sticking earplugs in his ears – he hated loud noises! When the sight centered on the x-ring, he squeezed the trigger. His round was high and left in the 9- ring, not a very good shot. His next two shots got closer to the x-ring, but were still high and left in the 10-ring. When he finished shooting, he decided to listen to Dan this time when he suggested a slight fix on his hold. The next group of three was in the x-ring. Mike was amazed at how quiet the rifle was, even with supersonic ammo. He could almost shoot without plugs, and in an emergency, he would. Dan paced off 300 yards and set up another target. When he came back, Mike was impressed; the rifle was totally cool to the touch. Mike lay down with the rifle again, and sighted in the 300 yard target. This one would be tougher, so he concentrated, slowed his breathing and pulse, and when the sights crossed the center of the x-ring, fired a shot. It was 9-ring low, and Dan suggested clicking in 3 clicks of elevation change to compensate. Mike adjusted the scope, fired another round, and it was just to the left of the x-ring and on the same level. Mike was trying to decide if he needed to make a scope adjustment when Dan walked up and suggested a physical change he had noticed. As soon as Mike made the correction, the scope locked on the x-ring and stayed there. He shot a 3- shot x-ring group and was happy. He didn’t give a RA how big his groups were, since he had just shot an x-ring group at 300 yards – he had never done that before!

When they got home, something was troubling Mike, so Dan asked him what he was thinking.

“Dan, you remember in Revelation where they talked about a third of the sky being dark, what if that’s a Global winter caused by debris in the sky from the meteor impact – your solar system wouldn’t work if there was no sun!”

“Yikes, I hadn’t thought of that! What are we going to do?”

Well, we have 10,000 gallons of diesel, why not get a DC diesel generator to replace your panels, say a 10KW unit?”

“Might be a tough call, my battery bank is set up for 48vdc, and most of the standard units are 12vdc!”

“Let’s call around, maybe you’ll get lucky!”

They started dialing, none of the local hardware stores from Clarksburg to Wheeling had anything in 48vdc. Finally Mark got on the phone with an old geezer that suggested they check the local military surplus, since some of their equipment was 48vdc. Mark thanked him and called the local surplus store.

“Abe’s Surplus, this is Abe speaking.”

“Abe, Mark Adamson, by any chance would you have a 48vdc diesel generator there?”

“Yep, I got Ol Bessie out back, she’s my yard queen. She’s Korean War vintage, runs on Diesel, and produces 10KW. Couldn’t ever sell her since she puts out 48vdc, and everyone wants either 115-120VAC or 12vdc. I even have the manuals and a complete parts and repair kit for her. She’s yours if you want her!”

“How much do you want?”

“Since you’ve been so nice young feller, I’ll sell it to you for a grand.”

“OK, Abe, we’ll be down in half an hour – is Bessie on a trailer or skid mounted?”

“She’s on a military trailer with a 50-gallon tank that’s still in good shape.”

“Thanks Abe, we’ll be right over!”

“Dan, let’s go – Abe’s Surplus has exactly what we want!”

When they got there, Ol Bessie was in pretty sad shape, but she did run, and he did have complete manuals for it and a complete parts kit. He even threw in an old Ring and Pintle hitch adapter so Dan’s truck could tow her home, and a tank full of diesel. Mark wrote the check, and they decided to look at the rest of his store. Dan was like a kid in a candy store – Old Abe had tons of stuff he could use, and kept piling it on the counter. When he was finished, he asked Abe how much for the lot of them. Abe was cranking away at his ancient adding machine, then when he had a total, gave them a 30% discount since they were buying so much stuff. “That’s $500 even for the lot!” Mike wrote the check, and Dan called Jim on the cell phone with an unusual request – he needed to modify their setup to feed Ol Bessie from the underground tank. Jim had a perfect idea, and stopped by the next morning. He checked Ol Bessie’s tank out, and told Dan the good news, she would work perfectly for what he wanted to do. He was going to install low-pressure/high volume demand-style diesel fuel pump underground next to the tank, and run a 1 inch rigid fuel line to his garage. He’d install a manifold, and 2 flex hoses. 1 would be hard connected to Ol Bessie’s tank and the other would terminate in a nozzle to fill the trucks. All they’d have to do was run DC power out to the tank in a piece of buried conduit. They might even be able to use the same trench for both. Dan thought that would be an excellent idea, since the garage was vented, and that would eliminate anything above ground outside to make them harder to spot. Mark said he could rig a remote on/off switch for the generator so they wouldn’t have to go outside to start or stop her. Since she was water-cooled, when she ran, she’d help keep the garage warm in the winter.

Mike had one last question for Dan – what about food production if there’s no sunlight – they only had enough food for 2 years without hunting or growing food. Dan explained that they had grow lights for an indoor greenhouse. They walked over to it, and Dan showed Mike his set-up. Mike asked if he had tried Hydroponics, and asked him how warm this room got with all the florescent fixtures running.

“Oh, I guess around 80 degrees.”

“Dan, have you ever heard of aquaculture?”

“Mike what are you talking about?”

“NASA developed a closed circuit system for food and oxygen production. You raise fish like tilapia, and use their byproducts in a hydroponic system to grow food. You feed the green vegetable matter back to the fish to supplement their feed, and you have a renewable system. You have more than enough electricity and water, and the environment is more than warm enough. If we can keep the water between 75 and 80 degrees, the fish will thrive, and produce nutrients to feed the plants. I can get you an article off the internet that explains the entire process.”

They walked back into Dan’s office, and when Mark showed him the article, he realized he had ¾ of what he needed. He made a list of the rest, and started ordering like crazy on the internet. Over the next week, they would have enough fish and tanks to have a self-sustaining system. They weren’t worried about the oxygen production, but figured it wouldn’t hurt. They drove into town the next day to buy all the stuff they could get locally to save shipping costs. They bought almost the entire stock of warm and cool 48 inch florescent tubes and several extra fixtures and spare ballasts, then they bought 5 gallons of liquid fish emulsion to supplement the output of the fish to jumpstart the system. The fish, fish food, tanks, and regulators would arrive later that week. Mike thought they were cutting it close, since the Meteor would arrive 3 days later. Dan asked Mike “What if the Meteor Misses?”

That brought Mike to a full stop. “I guess if I’m wrong, we’ll be living with you guys until I can earn enough money to get back on my feet – I’ve still got half a million in the bank just in case I’m wrong, but I don’t see any thing else we can buy to improve our situation.”

“Mike, this is just me, but you might consider changing as much of that cash into gold and silver as you can in the next couple of days. If the stuff hits the fan, FRN’s might be worthless, but people will barter for gold and silver, at least for a while.”

“You’re right, and if I’m wrong, and it misses, I can always sell them off later.”

Dan gave Mike the phone numbers of some reliable gold and silver traders in town. Mike said he’d call them the next day.

The next morning, Mike drove into town to see Sam, the President of the bank, and a good friend of theirs from high school. When they got inside his office, Mike asked him the best way to convert half a million dollars into gold and silver, and he needed the metal, not just a certificate. When Sam asked why, Mike told him. Sam realized who Mike was, and felt a cold chill run down his spine. He said he could authorize a one-time wire transfer to the dealer, and wouldn’t file the federal paperwork.

When Mike asked him why, Sam said “Your honesty might have just saved my family’s life, now I have a little over a week to plan and prepare.”

Mike made Sam promise to keep it under his hat, since news like this could start a general panic, and more people would die in the panic than would be saved by knowing. They were hundreds of miles from the coast in a wooded area with plenty of local resources, so they would probably be able to ride it out OK. Sam promised complete secrecy. Mike called a dealer using Sam’s phone, and arranged the purchase of half-a million in Gold and Silver coins and bars of various denominations, but all North American Currency with no Krugerrands. Since it was such a large amount, it would be 80% gold, and 20 percent Silver. Sam got on the line and authorized a wire transfer, and the Dealer said he would deliver the metal to the bank at 0800 the next morning via armored car. Sam and Mike agreed to this, and the deal was done. Tomorrow at 8:00 am, he’d own half a million dollars worth of gold and silver.

Fleataxi

Chapter 2

Mike was at the bank at 0745 the next morning. Sam was out front waiting for the armored car. When it arrived, Sam handed the driver a receipt for the gold and sliver, as well as a copy of the wire transfer statement. He asked the drivers to load the metal into Mike’s truck. They suggested Mike pull around and back up to their back gate, and they could transfer the cases of metal over using a roller setup they use to unload heavy boxes. Mike did just that and half an hour later, everything was inventoried and transferred. Mike thanked Sam, and threw a tarp over the bed of the truck so no one could see what was in it. Dan had parked a block away, and was monitoring the situation with mini cammo coated binoculars he had bought at the surplus store. When Mike got in, Dan started his truck and followed Mike all the way home. Dan had a heavy duty dolly in his shop that they used to unload the truck and transfer the metal into Mike and Sally’s room. Dan had suggested that if they wanted their privacy, that they should install a lock on their door, and keep the key. Mike installed a lock, but gave Dan a key for emergencies. All the gold and silver barely fit under their bed, but they wouldn’t have to worry about the mattress sagging ever. Dan suggested Mike keep $10,000 in cash just in case they needed something between now and when the meteor hit. Dan also mailed the payment to the Credit card company, but would be amazed if they ever cashed the check, since it would take 4 days for the mail to get delivered, and the Meteor would arrive in 3 days.

After lunch another delivery truck drove up with all their aquaculture gear including a bunch of live fish. Everyone turned out to unload and assemble the system as quickly as possible. Mary and Sally got some hot water ready to warm up the well water to 80 degrees after they had helped unload. Dan, Mike, Jim, and Dana were working to assemble the tanks, tubing, and pumps necessary to keep the system running. Once they had it all together, they started filling the fish tanks, and adding hot water until the thermometer said 80 degrees. Just like the instructions said, they put the bags full of Tilapia fry in the water to adjust the fry to the new water temperature. Mark got the oxygenation and circulation pumps going and installed the tank heater to keep the water at 75-80 degrees and verified they were working before they opened the bags an hour later. When they were done with the hot water, Mary and Sally were busy transplanting the seedlings they had been growing for weeks under the grow lights into the hydroponic media while Jim filled the tank with hydroponic solution, and added the recommended amount of fish emulsion to the water, then connected the bottle to a metering pump that would add a small amount of emulsion on a periodic basis. When they were finished, they were hot and sweaty, and ready for dinner and bed.

The next day, Dan, Mike and Jim started dismantling Dan’s radio towers, wind generators, solar panels and storing them in the garage. Dan kept up a long-line antenna to his short-wave receiver, but kept the antenna unplugged from the receiver unless he was listening to it. They unpacked their emergency gear and their kits just in case they had to leave in a hurry. When everything else was done, Dan couldn’t stand the waiting, so he went into his shop to build the other .308 rifle and his BMG rifle. The 308 went together in 1/3 the time of the other one, since he had saved the programs he had used to make the last one.

He was still working on the BMG rifle when the Meteor hit.

Dateline March 1, 2005 0600 EST

A Secret Service agent burst into the White House Residence. “Marching Order” he yelled to President Kerry and the First Lady, Theresa Heinz-Kerry. They were practically dragged out of bed and a whole phalanx of Secret Service agents met them in the hall with their sidearms drawn. The sense of urgency almost panicked the President and First Lady. They were escorted aboard Marine One, and it lifted off for Andrews the moment they were aboard.

President Kerry screamed at the Marine Sergeant crew chief “What the Hell is going on?”

“Sir that meteorite just hit a Russian satellite orbiting at 25,000 miles and has split up and is plummeting to earth. Our orders are to get you and Mrs. Kerry aboard Air Force One and to Cheyenne Mountain as fast as possible. Take care Sir!”

2 minutes later the helicopter touched down as close to the jet bearing the Presidential Seal as possible, disembarked the President and First Lady, then used emergency power to get away from the big jet. The President and First Lady were unceremoniously herded aboard AF1 as all 4 engines wound up to take-off thrust. The plane was taxiing before they were seated, and they just barely made it to their seats before the pilot firewalled all 4 engines in his haste to escape the fate that awaited the world. The huge 747 was airborne and headed west minutes before a 5 kilometer wide piece of the meteor struck the Atlantic Ocean just outside the Grand Banks. A few milliseconds later, it impacted the sea bed, and sent a shock wave traveling around the world. Meanwhile, it had displaced several hundred miles of water, which formed a Mega-tsunami that was over 5,000 feet high when it hit the Atlantic Seaboard. There was also a supersonic shock wave caused by the flight of the meteor through the atmosphere. That shock wave caught up with Air Force One seconds after it had turned west, and literally threw the plane into the ground at Mach 1. The plane added a small amount of damage to the total catastrophe that would result from the huge meteor. It also ended the lives of the President and First Lady.

A second piece of the Meteor headed toward the Pacific Ocean just west of California. A 5km wide piece hit the water 5 minutes after the first impact. It too sent seismic shock waves through the earth, and generated a mile-high Mega-tsunami, killing everything within 100 miles of the Pacific coast that was lower than 6,000 feet, and permanently flooding lowlands with salt water, destroying the San Joaquin Valley. The Mega-tsunami wiped every Pacific Island off the map, sinking every ship on the Pacific that day, and destroyed the Hawaiian Islands, wrecking the Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. The wave sped at supersonic speeds across the Pacific, destroying Taiwan, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and all the low lying countries of Asia. The final 5 km piece struck mainland China with the force of all the nuclear warheads of all the world powers. The heat, blast and shock waves destroyed everything above ground level in China, Siberia, and parts of Central Russia. The Mega-Tsunamis rebounded around the world, killing billions of people. Then the earthquakes and volcanoes started. The entire Ring of Fire blew its top, adding to the death and destruction, and hurling incalculable tons of smoke and ash into the air. Meanwhile the Atlantic Tsunami not only destroyed the entire Eastern coast of the United States and Canada, most of the people in Greenland and Iceland were swamped by the wave minutes later. There wasn’t enough time to warn people, and for the doomed, there was no place to run, and no where to hide. England ceased to exist, and the entire Atlantic Coast of Europe was either destroyed by the action of the huge wave, or flooded by displaced seawater. All the Low Countries found themselves 50 feet below sea level when their dams were destroyed by the effects of the tsunami. Fiords became natural channels for the energy of the tsunami, amplifying the effects of the wave, and destroying entire towns and villages. The coastal cities of Australia and New Zealand were decimated, and finally the wave made its way to the Med and the Persian Gulf. Low lying areas of the Med were flooded by the sudden rise of water, and as the wave swept into the Gulf, its height diminished by half, but still a deadly thousand foot wall of water, destroyed most of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other coastal areas of the Middle East. Iraq suffered a seawater intrusion into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, rendering the water undrinkable, and destroying food production that was dependent on the river for irrigation. An interesting one-two punch destroyed buildings in Iran and Iraq with the arrival of the Pacific Tsunami, the Chinese shock wave, and massive earthquakes. Millions of people died as un-reinforced buildings collapsed by the hundreds as earthquakes in excess of Richter 7 and some as high as 8 rocked the Middle East.

Meanwhile back at Dan’s house, they were rocking and rolling as Richter 6 quakes shook the ground one after another. Mike decided that now was a good time to sing the chorus to REM’s famous song “It’s The End Of The World As We Know it!” Dan started laughing, but Sally was looking for something to throw at him, and since the entire mountain was vibrating, she didn’t have much luck. Jim and Dana were curled up with their mom, and the dogs had decided that Dad was the best one to hang around with. He kept them close, and was praying fiercely that it would soon be over one way or another. About an hour later, the shaking started diminishing, then stopped altogether. Dan and Mike carefully explored the house to check for damages. Since they were inside a mountain, and they had time to prepare, there was very little damage, most all of it was cosmetic as interior walls cracked from the stresses and strains. The external shell was fine, and all the vents were secure, since Dan had taken the provision of double-walling all vents including the stove, and mounting springs inside the outer casing to suspend the vent pipe and minimize damage. The greenhouse and fish tank had survived with water sloshed out of the tank, and other minor damage. The garage was a mess, but the vehicles were fine, and more importantly, Ol Bessie was fine. The flex hose connection had prevented rupturing of the pipe. Dan just had to hope the diesel tank came through OK, since he couldn’t dig it up and check. He walked outside, and the ground looked fine, and there were no visible cracks in the soil or any smell of leaking diesel. Just then, Dan heard a roar, and trees cracking, and made a mad dash for the front door right as the trees around their house were blasted to splinters by a huge shock wave. He barely made it inside when the shock wave hit. Since it was traveling East to West, and the door opened South, they were OK, as the blast roared over their hill at over 100 mph. Dan decided then and there they were staying inside until further notice. Mary gave Dan a big hug and a kiss when she saw him, saying she thought he was dead. He deadpanned “Not Yet Anyway!” They spent the rest of the day on the floor in sleeping bags, huddled together, waiting for the next aftershock or shockwave.

By the next day, the frequency and intensity of the aftershocks had diminished, but Dan was noticing it was visibly darker outside, and it was 12 noon! Dan remembered verses 12 and 13 of chapter 8, and realized it was happening before his eyes! Since they had plenty of power, and Ol Bessie was more than capable of keeping up with the load, he grabbed his Bible and started reading further in Revelation. Chapter 9 did not bode well for the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami.

Fleataxi

Chapter 3

When things had settled down, Mike showed Dan an ingenious controller he had designed for the generator. It would start up the generator under 2 conditions: 1) If there was a load greater than 20 amps on the system, and the battery bank’s state of charge was below 70% or 2) if the state of charge dropped below 50% for any reason. It would shut the generator down when the state of charge approached 100 % to avoid overcharging. It also had an override to allow an equalization charge.

Dan was amazed “Wasn’t your PhD in Astrophysics?”

“Yeah, but we had to build a lot of our own electronics due to budget restraints, so we got very good at building controllers and other simple circuits. I eventually earned enough credits in Electronics to declare a Minor in Electrical Engineering, since my Mentor said if I could build controllers and stuff for the other Astronomy and Astrophysics grad students; it would make me the most popular guy in the department. Sally was a Nursing Student taking an Astronomy course when I was a Graduate Instructor. I was smart and waited until the class had finished to ask her out on a date, it wasn’t much, just some free time by ourselves at the College’s observatory. I did, however find out she was a great kisser!”

“Ok, Romeo – how about helping me install the controller and the connections?”

While they were installing the connections, they found some hidden damage, and fixed it as best as they could. Cracks were starting to appear in the gunite above their heads. Dan had a compressor, and 50 pounds of gunite mix and a hopper/mixer/sprayer. As soon as the controller was in and connected, the generator started up and ran for a while, then shut down as the state of charge approached 100 percent. Dan gave Mike a high-five and they went back to work. Dan plugged in his Shortwave radio, and was listening for commercial broadcasts. The fact that there were no commercial broadcasts worldwide told him what he needed to know – the devastation was worldwide. Later that evening, he started picking up low power transmissions from around the world describing the devastation. They estimated the casualty rate at anywhere from 50-80% worldwide. Some areas were as high as 100%, and some were as low as 30% depending on where they were, and how well prepared. Dan knew that number would grow as the injured died from lack of medical care, and the starving died from lack of food, and as the Global Winter set in, millions more would freeze to death from lack of shelter. The wave height when the original tsunamis reached land was estimated at 5-6 thousand feet high, and destroyed everything for up to 100 miles inland that was below 6,000 feet above sea level. He knew when the first phase of the Great Tribulation ended, the AntiChrist would make his appearance, and they would be in mortal danger. He had a short time from now until the advent of the AntiChrist to get set up to either resist or evade the global system he would install.

The first thing he did was to finish building his BMG-50 semiauto rifle. He put a huge suppressor on it instead of a muzzle brake for the same reasons he put a suppressor on the .308 rifles. Even though the round was still supersonic, he could disguise his shooting position, and more importantly, it reduced the felt recoil and muzzle blast of the BMG 50 rifle by 80-90%. He was disappointed when he had to make his scope rings so tall that they were almost 6 inches above the bore of the barrel to clear the huge can. Parallax wouldn’t be as big of an issue with the BMG rifle, since the closest he would be shooting was 500 yards. The .308’s and the Whisper 300 could handle anything inside 500 yards easily. Anything inside 100 yards could be engaged by the .45acp copies of the British-designed fully suppressed Sten carbine. He had 2 bolt-action magazine-fed .22 suppressed rifles for small game, and 4 bolt-action magazine-fed .22 pistols with integral suppressors for various uses. He had a huge cache of 20,000 rounds of Eley Subsonic Xtra-Plus .22LR 40 gr. HP ammo that he had reamed the chambers of the .22 weapons to shoot. Each of the .22 caliber weapons was fed from a 10-round magazine, and the 4 Stens were fed by 30 round stick magazines that were direct copies of the 9mm Sten magazine, but enlarged to hold the .45acp ammo. The .300 Whisper fed from a 7-round fixed magazine, and the .308’s had either 10 or 20 round magazines. The BMG 50 was fed by a 5 shot removable magazine.

Since the wind had died down, but it was getting colder, Dan decided to have everyone muster outside to gather blown down wood to stack as close to the house as possible. They loaded the wood into the trucks, then stacked them next to the house in a wood shed Dan had built to hold 10 cords of wood. They established a routine every day of radio watch, and wood gathering until they had cleared the area around their house of downed wood that might be a hazard if a wild fire started.

For over a week, there was no organized assistance anywhere in the United States, and in some areas, lawlessness prevailed, increasing the casualty count. There was no competent authority in most states except the Midwest of the United States, and some of the more Northern of the southern states. California was a total loss between the tsunami, earthquakes, and flooding. Any survivors in California were basically on there own. Oregon and Washington didn’t fare much better due to massive volcanic eruptions. People who assumed the Cascade Range was safe paid for their mistake with their lives. People east of the Cascades that were far enough away from the volcanic eruptions to have survived faced dealing with huge ash deposits blanketing everything, and turning day to night. Even further east there was significant ashfall. Areas with nuclear reactors discovered the meaning of “China Syndrome” as they either went critical and exploded, or were in the terminal phases of meltdown. All the water downwind of these incidents was contaminated by fallout, so surface water world-wide was eventually so contaminated that is was unfit to drink. The Japanese reactors were responsible for 2/3 of the world’s contamination, but the French and American reactors added their part as well. Asia was a total loss except for small pockets of survivors that may or may not survive the upcoming global winter.

Finally, what was left of the UN met in Emergency Session in Rome Italy, since all other significant capitals in Europe and North America had been destroyed. The old UN building was destroyed by the mile-high tsunami that obliterated New York City, killing everyone there. The delegates elected Count Monteforte as the new Secretary General of the UN. He was very politically connected, even a distant cousin of the new Pope, who was known as Pope Alexander. He was preaching World Peace, Tolerance, and Acceptance. It seemed the Catholic Church had blinked since the death of Pope John Paul II 3 months earlier. They were facing empty pews every Sunday, and the collections were almost non-existent. The last Pope had stayed the Moral High Ground despite the increasing Secular Hedonism prevalent world-wide. The only truly Catholic countries were in South America, and Materialism had even made inroads there. Abortion was now a Non- Issue, and the church started ordaining openly gay priests. Hearing this, a Conservative Southern Baptist minister quipped that the new Pope would soon change the Ten Commandments to the “Ten Suggestions”! With the election of the new Pope, church membership soared worldwide, but the message had changed so much that old “Orthodox” Catholics were strangers in their own churches!

Using new emergency powers, Secretary General Monteforte began sweeping reforms, including banning and confiscation all firearms and ammo, confiscation by force of “hoarded” food and supplies, and mandatory service of everyone from 18-45 in the UN Peace Force. He also made “Hate Speech” a crime, which meant that a lot of conservative pastors were now liable to be arrested for speaking against Homosexuality, Hedonism, Perversion, and Immorality. He instituted a new Global Currency, giving survivors 30 days to surrender any foreign currency for 10 cents on the dollar in exchange for new “UN Global Dollars” which was the ultimate “fiat Currency” since it had nothing backing it Dealing in gold and silver would be punishable by death. It would take 6 months to a year to implement the UN mandates in some areas of the United States, but any survivors in any cities of over 1 million before the meteor strike were almost immediately subject to the mandates. As a matter of fact, most of the survivors in the big cities voluntarily surrendered their arms and emptied their cupboards of even essential foodstuffs. In the smaller towns, it was another story, and the Jack Booted Thugs wearing Blue helmets started having to bring body bags to carry their dead. Unfortunately Secretary General Monteforte had superior weaponry since the UN raided all the armories of the world as soon as he could. Some smaller towns got wise to this and stole anything not nailed down then burned the armories to the ground to prevent their use by UN forces.

Just about this time, a particularly strange “mental illness” began affecting people world wide. There was no explanation or cure available, but soon people noticed that certain people were unaffected and others were. Even good “church going” Christians were affected, but a small minority they called the “Goody-two Shoes Fundamentalists” were unaffected. Since Dan and his family had sequestered themselves inside their houses due to the high radiation levels, they were unnoticed and assumed dead.

The temperature continued to drop world wide, and soon everything from Alaska to the Mason-Dixon Line was in perpetual winter. Daylight was 1/3 of usual values, and crop failures were rampant. The breadbasket of the United States failed to produce enough food to feed itself, let alone the rest of the country. Snows that normally melted in March or April hung around until June or July. Dan’s house in West Virginia had 6 feet of snow on the ground, making travel difficult. All they did outside all winter was gather wood, and only for limited times, since the radiation levels were still higher than Dan liked. Meanwhile Secretary General Monteforte was instituting even more bizarre laws including repealing all crimes against minors, removing the age of consent. He also instituted mandatory public service for those between 10-18. While the parents were sad to see their children go, they marveled at how well they had cleaned up the ash and radioactive debris. When they weren’t cleaning, they were being indoctrinated into the New World Order.

An Underground Railroad and an underground economy soon sprang up using barter and either gold or silver among people who loved freedom and wouldn’t submit to the New World Order. Enclaves of Freedom Lovers were forming nationwide, and people were instructed on how to get to them and avoid the UN patrols that sprang up on the roadways, and the random checkpoints. Families stopped by the checkpoints soon found their husbands dead, and the women and children raped and either taken prisoner or killed outright. Single men were conscripted on the spot, and attractive single women were captured and turned into sex slaves for the entertainment of the troops. In some areas of the country, a Blue Helmet made an excellent aiming point, and snipers were a constant problem.


Fleataxi

Chapter 4

The next day, while they were in the process of cleaning up the storage area, they decided to inventory their supplies. Mary and Sally inventoried the foodstuffs, so Dan and Mike inventoried the ammo and supplies. Dan still had most of the 20,000 rounds of Eley subsonic .22 ammo, since he had only shot enough of it in each weapon to function test and sight in the weapons. He still had 10,000 rounds of Cor-Bon 45acp Flying Ashcan ammo for the Sten guns, He only had 1,000 rounds of loaded ammo for the Whisper 300, but he had components to make another 5,000 rounds and a complete reloading set for the .300 and .308 including primers. He had 5,000 rounds loaded of .308 match ammo, and another 5,000 rounds worth of components that he could use for either the Whisper or the .308. He had 5,000 rounds of BMG 50 Match Ammo, but no provision to reload them, since they required a specialized loader to reload, and his Dillon progressive couldn’t reload ammo that large. He was planning on shooting mostly the .22’s and the 300 Whisper. The .308’s and the BMG 50 were mainly defensive weapons, since they weren’t fully suppressed since the ammo was supersonic, and the suppressor design he got was almost 20 years old, and needed subsonic ammo to totally suppress the noise of the round firing. Dan and Mike discussed putting the wind turbines back up, and putting up the antennas. Dan pointed out that the turbines were freeze resistant, and he really needed the antennas, especially the 10-meter radio to hear what he was missing from the short-wave broadcasts. Mike agreed as long as Dan didn’t transmit, since anyone who was looking for survivors, including the UN JBT’s, might have DF gear and be able to home in on his transmissions. Dan agreed, and they spent the rest of the day putting up the antennas and the wind turbines. The wind turbines took some load off the generator, saving fuel and wear and tear on the generator.

As soon as he got the antennas back up, Dan scanned the 10-meter frequencies, when he heard a Mayday in Spanish. He understood most of the message since he studied Spanish in High School. The Ham that was broadcasting was asking for help from anyone who could hear. From what he understood, the Catholic Churches in Latin America had broken away from the Roman Catholic Church since they claimed the Pope no longer spoke with the Authority of Peter, and was an instrument of the Devil. Pope Alexander demanded they return to the fold or face the consequences. The consequences turned out to be an all-out invasion of the country by UN forces who were destroying Catholic Churches, and either beheading or burning Catholic Priests at the stake, raping nuns then burning them at the stake, and forcing everyone they could get their hands on to swear allegiance to Pope Alexander, or die then and there. The population of South America had been effectively disarmed for decades, so they had no real means to fight back, and there were literally millions of Martyrs for Christ when they refused to deny their beliefs and swear allegiance to a man they called “El Diablo”. Most of the Military joined with the UN forces after seeing the writing on the wall, but thousands of members of the armed forces elected to go guerrilla and fight to the death. The entire continent of South America dissolved into anarchy as the UN forces tried to contain the guerillas, and the guerillas tried to destroy the UN forces. The levels of abuse and lawlessness among the UN forces exceeded what was happening in the US by a magnitude of 10, since there wasn’t an armed citizenry to effectively resist the UN forces. Some were able to get weapons, but some of the methods were exceedingly risky, and usually involved using their daughters as bait to attract a UN soldier, stick a knife in his ribs or a zip gun to his head, and liberate his weapon, ammo, and gear. This worked for a while, then the Soldiers got wise and never went anywhere by themselves, and several daughters were kidnapped and never seen again. Dan wept for the loss of innocent life, and was enraged by the behavior of the “leaders” and the UN troops. He decided then and there not to go quietly, and went to go have a talk with Mike.

“Mike, you wouldn’t believe what’s happening in South America. Things are going to get ugly in the US fast, and we have to decide what we want to do. I need to talk to you about something first. What do you think we should do if we’re surrounded with no means of escape?”

Mike had heard about the abuse of women and children by the UN troops, and knew that if he died, his wife would either become a Sex Slave to the troops, or die a horrible death after being used as a plaything by the troops.

“Dan, I think I know where you’re heading with this, and I agree – I’m not going without a fight! I might be a martyr for Christ, but I want to make sure the other guy becomes a martyr for his god first!”

“Mike, you know Jim is a big Bon Jovi fan – anyway they wrote the theme song to the movie “Young Guns”. It’s called “Blaze of Glory”. The final stanza of the song is a prayer to die like a man with a gun in his hand, staring down a bullet.

“Lord, I got to ask a favor
And I'll hope you'll understand
'Cause I've lived life to the fullest
Let the boy die like a man
Staring down the bullet
Let me make my final stand
Shot down in a blaze of glory”

I’d prefer that to capture, and I’m sure the women would prefer an honorable relatively painless martyrdom to rape and eventual death.”

Mike agreed “Especially since they’re going to die either way.”

“Ok, Enough of this morose sh*t – let’s go have some fun!”

Mike and Dan walked into Dan’s workshop, and Mike noticed that Dan had a huge cache of Black powder. “Dan – what were you going to use that for?”

“Well, you know – just in case…”

“We’ve got enough ammo for what we need, and I don’t see any black powder weapons lying around. How would you like to build some IEDs to give those JBTs something to think about if they come around here?”

“Mike, what nefarious devices did you have in mind?”

“Just some stuff to make them wish they’d have stayed in Europe or wherever the hell they came from!”

“Cool – Ok Einstein, let’s adjourn to the blackboard and diagram some stuff out, and I’ll check my supplies to see if we can build it!”

When they sat down at the blackboard, Dan took some Goody’s powder and mixed it with water, and drank it – he had a headache! Mike saw the package, and asked him how much of the Goody’s he had in stock.

“I’ve got several cases – I get headaches all the time!”

“Dude – you’ve got more than headaches, you have a main ingredient of trinitrophenol.”

“What the heck is that?”

“It was made before TNT. It’s a Major PITA to make, and very toxic, but makes one heck of a BOOM!”

Mike recalled the rest of the ingredients from memory, then Dan’s eyes got big. “How about making a command detonated mine like a Bouncing Betty?”

“Dan, and you thought I was evil! I love it, we can ring the compound with them inside iron pipe mortar tubes with electrical firing mechanisms, and when the JBT’s come around, we can turn them into sushi!”

“I can’t stand raw fish – around here we call Sushi “Bait”!”

“Ok, whatever – anyway, let’s get started!”

Mike and Dan scrounged all the supplies they would need to make the ingredients, and it took them several very tense and careful days to assemble the devices. While Mike played Dr. Jekyl, Dan was busy in his shop making the mortar tubes and the electric firing mechanism. They decided to use some of the Black powder for a lifting charge, to lift the mines about 4-6 feet in the air before they detonated. Dan used the rest of his black powder to make some directional mines, using the black powder as a propellant for a whole bunch of scrap metal he had left over from his projects. When he was finished, Mike packed the TNP into baby food jars, and filled the thin wall pipes with shrapnel and the baby food jar in the center. The detonator was attached to the lid of the jar, and the wires were run to the outside of the pipe, and the cap was sealed.

Mike carried the pipes like he was carrying a bomb, which he was! When they got all the components together, they dug a bunch of holes around the property with a posthole digger and buried the mortar tubes. They dug shallow trenches with a garden hoe to bury the trigger lines. Mike said the bombs had a lethal radius of 15 yards, so they spaced them every 30 yards in an arc around the front of the house, covering the most obvious avenues of approach. Dan took his directional mines, and buried them covering the driveway and a couple of natural pathways the invaders would likely use to attack them. When they finished, they sat down and had a beer, neither drank much, but when they were finished with their IEDs, their nerves were so shot that Mike spilled part of his beer. “Good thing you had that gas mask and the chemical gloves, or I could never had made that stuff safely – It’s so toxic that it isn’t even listed in some of the Anarchist Cookbooks!”

After they finished their beers, Dan went back to his Radios to check on any new information, and Mike had some quality time with Sally. They didn’t tell their wives about the IEDs until after they had installed them, since they didn’t want to worry them unnecessarily. Mary was really mad at Dan, but Sally took it in stride. She knew that Mike had worked with dangerous chemicals before, since his second love after astrophysics was chemistry, and he had always been a Dr. Jekyl type ever since she had known him. Dan finally settled Mary down by explaining in great detail why they built them – to keep her and the kids safe! He went into graphic detail what might happen to her and Dana if they got caught. Mary agreed she’d rather die by a bullet than live through that! Dan explained that the explosives were to prevent any attacker from getting close enough to kill them. As long as they stayed inside that ring of explosives they were relatively safe, unless they came after them with armor and helicopters. So far the JBT’s had only used soft vehicles since the level of resistance hadn’t risen to the level where they would need armor. He hoped they still would be in “stupid mode” if they attacked his house!

Dan had some time to kill that afternoon, so he went back into his shop and made some more magazines for the Sten guns and the .308 rifles. He had made stamping dies for both magazines, and had them mounted in a hydraulic press. He fed a pre-cut piece of sheet metal into the dies, then pressed a button, and compressed air actuated the hydraulic ram. 5 seconds later, he had the formed and shaped pieces of the magazines, and all he needed to do was the final bit of tweaking and welding. He already had pre-cut lengths of spring to make assembling the magazines as quick as possible. By the time he was finished, he had 10 30-round magazines for each Sten gun, and 10 20-round magazines for each .308 rifle. He had already made 10 5-round magazines for the BMG-50, but he wasn’t planning on shooting it enough to use all of them.

Fleataxi

Chapter 5

Mike had a brainstorm, and the next morning, asked Dan what they planned on doing if the UN forces got smart and started using better armor than a Hummer.

Dan’s train of thought ran into a brick wall, and it brought him up short – they had nothing in their arsenal that would stop even an ancient M-113 APC!

“Luckily for you Dan, I’ve already got some ideas. Remember the SLAP round the military developed for the 50bmg? Well, I’ll bet you can come up with something as good between our devious minds, and that well-equipped machine shop of yours.”

They immediately adjourned to the machine shop, so Dan could see what metals he had available for the project. He had some ideas too, but they were dependant on how much ultra-hard and ultra-heavy metal he had. Then he spotted the scraps of Ordinance Steel leftover from making the .308 and the BMG50 rifles. They could be cut up with his bandsaw, and chucked into his lathe to make sub-caliber penetrators, but what to use for sabots? He thought he could use the lead from the pulled bullets, and he had some small ingots of aluminum around. He’d have to pull the bullets anyway, and reuse the components. He’d also have to build a reloading press now, since he’d need it to reseat the sabot/penetrator combination into the cartridge. He didn’t have any spare primers for the BMG50, or he’d take the extra time to make a full-blown single-stage press, so he’d just fabricate something to reseat the bullets and re-crimp the mouth of the cartridge once the bullet was fully seated. Maybe he could use his hydraulic press on its lowest setting with the right die? Whatever he did, Dan would have enough projects to keep him busy for the next couple of weeks.

Since Dan was busy, Mike tried to find some more applications of “better living through Chemistry” and came up with a few ideas of his own. Dan had a huge stockpile of stuff he had just squirreled away over the decades and forgot about. Mike was finding all kinds of new uses for them. If and when the UN decided to attack them, he hoped the stuff he was coming up with would encourage them to run back to wherever they came from with their tails between their legs, and their fur singed. Mike walked back into Dan’s shop, found a block of Magnesium, and a bucket of rusted metal, and asked Dan if he was using them. Dan made a dismissive wave like “take it and get out of my hair, I’m thinking.” So Mike left with his supplies. He came back in a day or so, and spotted some Aluminum shavings on the lathe, and asked Dan to save all the aluminum shavings for him – they would come in handy. Dan pointed to a bucket in the corner full of aluminum shavings, and another with iron shavings that were already very rusty. Mike asked Dan if he could convert this block of magnesium into shavings as well. Dan said he’d get to it as soon as the lathe was available.

Meanwhile, Mike accumulated the rest of his ingredients. He scrounged the rest of their baby food jars and other small jars, and swiped some soap powder. His major score was a huge roll of cannon fuse, and several truck innertubes that had been patched several times, and Mike couldn’t figure why Dan was still holding on to them. Then he got a brilliantly wicked idea to use all of the supplies he’d found to give the UN troops a major headache, and a big reason to try their luck elsewhere. He went back into Dan’s shop, and sure enough he had a can of FFFg Black powder left over. “Perfect” thought Mike, and grabbed it. Mike was now turning from Dr. Jekyl to Mr. Hyde. Sally just left him alone when he was in these moods, since she found out from experience she really didn’t what to know what he was up to, because usually he was up to something that would make a very big explosion. First he experimented to determine the burn rate of the cannon fuse, then calculated how much FFFg Black Powder he’d need as an initiator for his nefarious devices. By the time he had finished that, Dan had his magnesium shavings Mike had experimented with various techniques to powder the shavings, and finally hit on an ingenious method. Two hours later, he had several pounds of fine aluminum, magnesium and iron oxide powders in Tupperware containers.

Next he borrowed several gallons of diesel, and mixed it with soap powder until it gelled. He poured the mixture into a dozen mayonnaise jars with lids, then wadded up some newspaper, stuffed it into the jars and saturated the newspaper with the mixture. Then he took some empty .22 shell casings, added a little FFFg black powder to them, and inserted the end of the cannon fuse into it, and carefully crimped the end of the casing, making sure that the black powder was all in the bottom of the casing. He had pre-drilled holes in the lids to barely fit the cannon fuse, then taped the detonators to the inside lids of the jars. He filled the baby food jars with 1 oz of Thermate mix, and taped the detonators he had already made to the lids. Mike had a really wicked idea, and duct taped a layer of 8d nails around the jars, including the mayonnaise jars. He figured “Might as well take advantage of the explosive force to cause some more damage!” With the addition of the nails, he had extended the lethal range of his IED’s from 5 to 15 meters. Scrounging around, Mike found some black iron pipe and a Y-connector to make an Adult Slingshot with. He fashioned a loading pouch out of scrap leather that would prevent the jars falling at their feet after the fuse was lit, and assembled his “Mad Max Slingshot”. Mike found the perfect baseplate lying around – an old truck clutch plate with a hole in the center just big enough to fit the pipe – and it only weighed around 20 pounds! Mike packed the bombs carefully in a divided box, and sealed the top, then marked it Fragile and Explosive – No spark or flame. Dan walked over to where he was working right before he sealed the bombs up, and Mike explained his idea. Dan had a really evil grin when he imagined the UN troops on the receiving end of those weapons.

He told Mike he had some prototypes for the sabot round he needed to test. Dan suggested they take their Honda 250 Enduros to an abandoned mine to test them.. Mike suggested bringing the Sten guns for self-defense just in case, and some regular BMG 50 ammo in case they needed the 50-cal rifle to defend themselves with. Dan was glad to see Mike was thinking ahead. He decided not to test the explosives, since they would make too much noise, and might attract the wrong people. Dan spent the rest of the day making a scabbard for the BMG50 to fit on his bike, and Mike made slings for both of the Stens, and loaded 10 30-round mags each, then stuck them into Dan’s chest carriers he had bought from the surplus store. Dan checked their E&E packs they’d carry in case they came across a superior force, and had to escape and evade instead of head home. He was not going to do anything to jeopardize his family, and bringing home trouble was not his idea of a smart move.

The next day, they drove their bikes to the abandoned mine, and luckily there was no one around, either the area had been decimated by the disasters, or else people were staying home out of sight and trying to ride it out as best as they could – just like they were doing. Dan set up the rifle while Mike remained in overwatch, scanning with his binoculars for any sign of trouble. Mike stayed under cover in the woods, so anyone observing them would think Dan was by himself, and therefore not a threat. Spotting an old wreck in the mine, Dan chambered one of his prototypes, and carefully sighted the old truck. A split second after he squeezed the trigger, the engine block of the truck blew to smithereens. He loaded his other design, and aimed at a rock face about 500 yards away. The rock blew into fragments when the round hit it. Quickly packing up, Dan jumped on his bike and hauled A$$ out of the canyon. Mike covered his six until they were back in the woods, and sure they were alone, and then they drove at a more sedate and quiet rate back home.

When they got home, Mike couldn’t stand it any longer, and asked Dan to show him his prototype rounds. He had some on the bench he hadn’t loaded yet, and the first one was a 30-caliber 3-inch long dart of Ordinance Steel surrounded by a thin aluminum 2-piece sabot. The second round was a .45 caliber sub-caliber penetrator made of hardened ordinance steel, with 2 lead driving bands cast onto it. Dan explained the rear band acted as a gas check, and the front band rode the bore, to prevent the steel from damaging the bore. He guessed the range of the first sabot round was over a mile, and the second of around 600 yards. The second one probably wouldn’t penetrate more than an inch or two of armor, but he was pretty sure the first round would penetrate anything less than an Abrams Main Battle tank. Since his saboted round weighed less than 1/3 the original bullet weight, he was pretty sure it was approaching hypersonic velocities, even with the suppressor. The second round was the same velocity as his original round, but was devastating against rigid armor. He was making them as fast as he could, and had a dozen of each. Now that he knew they would work, he was going to make 100 of each, just in case. Mike went back into their supply room, thinking about defeating armor, when he spied a case of 1lb propane bottles He found Dan and asked him if he were using them for anything. He admitted he had bought them years ago when the kids were still into camping, but didn’t need them now, unless they were forced to Bug Out and live the life of camping vagabonds. Mike asked him what he thought of flamethrowers. The curious look meant that Mike needed to explain more.

“Dan I can build an improvised flamethrower using a 1lb propane tank, and some gelled gasoline or white gas. I can even make them remote firing.”

“Mike, I think I’ve got about 50 gallons of Coleman stove fuel around here, it’s about 5 years old, but it’s in sealed cans.”

“Dan, that will work perfect. I can use the fuel cans to hold the gelled naphthalene. All I need now is a venturi feed, and a remotely actuated valve to release the propane and discharge the napa fuel. Got any more Magnesium lying around?”

“Why – I’ve got a box of road flares, would that work?”

“They’d work for a manual system, but maybe I can use the ingredients for a remotely fired unit.”

Mike went back to the drawing board, and Dan went back to making more AP ammo.

Dan was listening to the Shortwave radio while he worked, and the news was not good. There was worldwide famine, disease, pestilence, and death, on a scale never before seen. If he understood Revelation correctly, the “Man of Perdition” should soon make an appearance, followed by the 2 witnesses – he thought the next couple of months should be interesting to say the least. One part of the shortwave he heard that gave him hope were short coded messages aimed at other Christians who were in areas of great oppression, giving them safe routes away from those areas, into areas of relative safety. He wrote down the code blocks, then was playing around with his calculator, and was stunned to learn one of the code blocks looked amazingly familiar. He got out a map of the area, and it was an exact match. One of the safe havens was in Clarksburg WV! He ran to get Mike to give him the good news. If they were in a safe zone, they would be safe for a while, but when the AntiChrist came against them, and he would – it would be with superior force to destroy the entire enclave of Christians. Dan wondered if God was telling him he needed to get ready to resist the forces of the AntiChrist, since their most recent preparations would be totally unnecessary unless they were facing armor, and so far none of the UN JBT’s had anything better than armored Hummers that a 30 cal AP round could penetrate easily. When he found Mike and explained what he had heard, Mike agreed that they would be one of the last areas to be attacked by the forces of the AntiChrist, but all that meant was they would be facing armor instead of Hummers – he needed to get working on some more projects!

In Rome, things were coming to a head, Count Monteforte was too preoccupied with his own pleasures to care what was going on in the rest of the world, and Pope Alexander was facing more resistance than he expected. The people who were really in charge weren’t happy with their progress, and made plans to replace one or both of them.

Fleataxi

i'm posting the rest of the chapters of TEOTWAWKI for fleataxi as he's been busy with his other stories.


Chapter 6

Two days later, Count Monteforte died in what was reported as a gas explosion in his Roman villa. The next day Pope Alexander received the severed ring finger of the Count with his roman signet ring, and a note.

You will live as long as you are useful to us – do not fail! Push for the election of Javier Solana as the new Secretary General of the UN.

Sincerely,

The Committee

Pope Alexander was scared to his corrupt core, and knew the kingmakers had spoken. If he failed his assignment, he would join the Count. He was on the phone the rest of the day talking up Javier Solana, the head of the EU to be the replacement for the dead Count.

Count Monteforte’s body wasn’t even cold by the time the UN Security Council met, and by unanimous acclaim, voted Javier Solana as the new General Secretary. Pope Alexander met with Javier, and was soon told his place – back Solana or die. Evidently the Committee had changed their minds, and he was now #2 instead of #1.

A couple of days later, the new UN General Secretary asked for international live coverage of a major speech, and got it.

“Fellow Citizens of the Earth:

I come to you in Earth’s hour of despair with a message of Hope. We will rebuild, better and for a secure future. I have a vision of a United Earth, with no more wars, starvation, disease, fighting over petty nationalism, or any religious divisions. For too long, we have fought each other for outdated arbitrary boundaries. We are truly one planet, and if we don’t work together, we will become extinct. The UN has finally assumed their rightful role as world leader. The old governments are no more; they have been destroyed by this catastrophe. We will unite the world for one purpose, one vision. We need to heal the planet and ourselves. No longer can intolerance or bigotry or hate divide us. There will be jobs for everyone, and security.

For years, our various religions have been used to divide and conquer us. I tell you now, there is but one religion. God is Us, and We are God. All religions are equal since they are meant to give meaning to individual lives. Pope Alexander has agreed to chair a symposium to unite the worlds major religions, to combine the truths found in each, and combine all the world’s religions into one great Church of Earth, where everyone will worship.

Monetary systems have been used by the rich to enslave us, so I intend to replace all the world’s monetary systems with one world wide currency so everyone will have the same standards of wealth, food, and housing. Each shall Work to their ability, and receive according to their need.

The Family as a means of raising our young is outdated and doesn’t work, 2/3 of all marriages end in divorce, and the kids wind up damaged permanently. I propose to eliminate marriage and family as we know it, and replace the Family with the Village. All the people in the community will be responsible to raise their young, and the World Union will establish the model.

This planet is a mess, and it’s our job to clean it up! I propose that all children between the ages of 8 and 18 be inducted into the “Clean Up The World Corp”. Since Youth has always had the vision to look forward, we will help them clean up the planet. Anyone over 18 is eligible to join the World Peace Corp, which will be responsible for the security of the planet.

I’ve already spoken to the remainder of what world leadership is left. They have agreed to destroy the bulk of their weapons and turn the remainder over to the World Peace Corp – for we shall surely beat their swords into plowshares.

As the days go on, we will get better, stronger, and higher. I will hold other conferences as needed. Bless you my Children!” (Javier Solana made the sign of the Cross, but backward)

<fade to black>

Within hours commentators from all the Major Media were trumpeting Javier Solana as the Savior of the World.

Dan listened to the speech on his radio, and realized the AntiChrist might have just made his appearance. He knew things were going to get much worse from here on out.

The Revolution started in the Cities. Millions of children, raised by relatives and drug addicted parents, were sent to the CUTWC, and were issued brooms and other cleaning implements. At night they slept in unisex barracks with no dividers, and shown the most graphic of the MTV videos touting all kinds of Hedonistic Behavior, and graphic x-rated movies. What passed for Education was more like programming, and the “educators” were drumming into the children that the New Age had arrived, and their Old, Outdated parents wouldn’t understand, and it was up to them to lead the way. They were told that Their Parent’s God was an Evil Vengeful, Hateful god that wanted to destroy them, and had tried but failed. All kinds of aberrant sexual behavior was not only approved, but encouraged. Group orgies became the norm, and drugs were freely available.

The Revolution slowly spread from outside the cities. They missed their children, but were stunned and amazed by how clean the cities were. They felt that Javier Solana was indeed the Savior of the World. More and more cities came under his control, as parents willingly surrendered control of their children.

Solana wasn’t just interested in the children, he wanted the Family destroyed, and Humanity totally dependent on the good graces of the World Government. He removed all ratings systems from TV, Radio and newspapers. Slowly but steadily, the producers that had survived from Hollywood got together with pornographers, and increased the sex and violence in TV to the point where it was indistinguishable from what used to be shown in the sleaziest porno theaters in the red light districts. He also decriminalized all narcotics and other recreational drugs, and cut the cost of alcohol by 90%.

Next he started quietly drafting all teenagers over 18 into the World Peace Corp. The debauchery practiced there made what had happened so far seem tame. What few teenagers could function were so strung out on drugs that they did anything their superiors asked, and then some. They were ordered to go door to door and seize all weapons and ammo, as well as any stockpiled food. They were then organized into “Checkpoints” that were supposed to check ID’s but quickly devolved into extortion, murder and rape of innocent travelers. People quickly learned about these checkpoints, and stayed in their own neighborhoods, where they felt safe.

So far, only the cities had come under the heel of Solana, but he wanted to rule the world, and started sending the World Peace Corp out into the rural areas. Some areas resisted, causing casualties among the World Peace Corp. but brought the wrath of Solana in the form of Military troops with heavy weapons. Not many rural areas could stand up to Hummers, APC, and Bradleys, and were devastated.

The only “safe” areas were Christian Enclaves. It seemed if there was a majority of Christians in an area, the area was spared, for now. Dan feared that Solana was saving them for the last, and the heaviest attacks. What he didn’t know was they had Angelic guardians that the power of Evil was incapable of overcoming for now. Slowly, people in his area came out of hiding, when they realized they had been spared, and met at the churches that were still standing. Some wanted to pray, some wanted to hide or flee, and some wanted to counterattack. The majority, after praying decided that they would better serve God by trying to help other Christians to escape the wrath of Solana, and to spread the Good News. They didn’t have sophisticated communications equipment, but several of them were Hams, with packet radio setups, and could communicate with other hams. Since the Internet was down, the packet radio system had to be used to get the truth out, until a better way was discovered. Their software could send text messages in a “squirt” that was too fast for the existing DF equipment to locate it if it remained mobile. They converted several vans into mobile radio trucks with a driver and a radio operator. They would copy a message, forward it, and then move to keep the enemy from locating the transmitter. Several gas station owners donated all the gas they had left in their tanks to the cause, and hundreds of vans were equipped with “Pirate Radio” setups that could set up, transmit and receive, and be gone in 5 minutes. The “Voice of Truth” as the Pirate radio transmissions became known had some effect, but the people involved would never know how effective they had been. One part of the Voice of Truth had an immediate effect – a Christian Underground Railroad to move Christians living in occupied territory to areas of relative safety, and to send in Missionaries, who were basically street preachers, whose lives were daily at risk from the One World Government, and the very people they were trying to save. Solana knew about the street preachers, and put a bounty on their heads. Thousands of men and women became martyrs for Christ.

Chapter 7

After the meetings in the churches broke up, 3 main groups emerged.

The Prayer Warriors – People who devoted their days to prayer for the Community, and for the Christians in harms way.

The Resistors – People who wanted to resist the system of the Antichrist, these included several subgroups. 1) The Voice of Truth – an ad hoc group of hams and others running mobile Pirate Radio system known as The Voice of Truth. 2) The Underground Railroad – People who assisted Christians to flee areas controlled by the Antichrist, and helping to insert and support Street Preachers who would evangelize or die martyrs. 3) The Community Protection Group – People that realized the other 2 groups couldn’t exist without a stable safe environment. They were classic scroungers and “mad scientists” who made what they couldn’t beg, buy or borrow.

The Activists – Two groups merged into one. 1) The Saboteurs who would use any means necessary to damage or destroy equipment essential to the Antichrist system. 2) The Rebels – a direct action group bent on assassinating the upper echelons of the Antichrist system and targeting blue helmets with snipers. They would also come to the assistance of any community under attack by the Antichrist system that they could safely help. They were willing to die for Christ; they just wanted to make the other guy die for his god first!

Dan and Mike belonged to the Resistors, specifically the Community Protection group. One of the pastors in charge of the Resistors found out Dan’s and Mike’s talents, and put them to work scrounging and assembling any devices that they thought they would need to defend the community. He did warn them not to build any nuclear bombs, and Mike assured him they wouldn’t because he didn’t know where to get some weapons grade Plutonium! The pastor put them in touch with a crotchety old geezer across the valley, that everyone thought was the resident Paranoid Lunatic, but the Pastor knew him from way back, he was a preparedness nut, and if anyone had any ideas about what to build, or how to build it, he would know.

Mike and Dan drove across town, down a dirt road, and down a trail to what appeared to be a deserted cabin. If the pastor hadn’t told them that was a façade, he would have thought it was deserted. Dan honked a code pattern on the horn the pastor told him, but felt funny doing it. A couple of minutes later, this gnome came out of the door, looking older than Methuselah, and waved to them to come on inside. They left their weapons in the truck like the Pastor had told them, and walked forward only to have a shotgun pointed at them.

“Hold it right there – Identify yourselves or I’ll blow you to kingdom come!

“Harold, its Dan and Mike! Put that old blunderbuss down and talk to us.”

“Well why didn’t you say so in the first place. I haven’t seen you two since you graduated High School.”

“Pastor Roberts sent us over to talk to you – you were right, it’s TEOTWAWKI!”

“No kidding, what can I do for you whippersnappers?”

“We need some toys to stop a tank or a Helicopter. We should assume at least National Guard gear. We’ve built some stuff, but it’s not lethal enough to make sure the community stays safe.”

“Well, come on in to my laboratory – good thing I invested in all those battery banks. I’ve got all the info you need stored on CD-ROMS in my computer.”

Harold showed Dan and Mike his master inventory disk, and Mike said “Jackpot! Harold can I burn a copy of this disk, and this one, matter of fact, this whole series.”

“What you got to trade for it?”

Mike reached into his pocket, and pulled out a Canadian Maple Leaf gold coin “Will this work?”

“Heck for that, I’ll copy my entire library! Step aside Junior!”

Harold fired up his high-speed disk burner, and several hours later, had made an image copy of all the disks in his library, and packed them in scratch-resistant sleeves.
When he handed them to Mike, Dan asked Harold if there were anything he needed “Nope, got enough food and ammo to last 7 years. I doubt anyone would bother me out here, and if they come for me with overwhelming force, I’ve got the place booby-trapped, and I have a self-destruct device to take as many of them with me as possible.”

Mike and Dan shook Harold’s hand, then headed back to their truck, and drove back to Dan’s house; Mike fired up his computer, and started downloading all the CDs he needed. Harold’s collection had everything, including blueprints to make RPGs and bazookas, and detailed recipes for how to make plastic explosives and solid fuel rockets. Dan printed the blueprints on his large plotter, and Mike printed out the ingredient list for the rocket fuel and the plastic explosives. If they could put everything together, they could build RPGs that would defeat anything less than an Abrams M-1a tank inside a quarter-mile range. Mike got out the Yellow pages, and found some likely sources for materials – including (Halleluiah) a hobby store that sold Model Rocketry kits, and they advertised the huge jumbo rocket motors. The next day, they met with the Pastor, and it was decided that any property left over after someone died would be used by the community, and distributed to those who needed it the most. The owners of the Hobby shop were dead, as well as the local Hardware store, and the drug store. The Sheriff was a member of the Community Protection committee, and opened the doors to the buildings for a huge scavenging party lead by Mike and Dan who were looking for certain items. At the hobby store, they thought they struck out until someone leaned against a case and it moved. In a sealed box under the floor were the biggest rocket motors Estes made. They were over 2 inches in diameter, and 6 inches long. Mike found plenty of electric igniters, 6 volt batteries, and all the other stuff he needed. They boxed it all up and took it back to Dan’s house. At the Pharmacy, Mike was looking for specific chemicals, and was wondering what the Pharmacist was doing with such large quantities of potentially lethal chemicals, not that he was complaining. At the hardware store, they found 55 gallon drums of denatured alcohol and other solvents and petroleum products that he needed for his devices. Dan took all the pipe and tools he needed, and a couple he thought he could use, including several Dillon reloaders, dozens of cans of smokeless powder, primers, and bullets in several useful calibers. Dan was wondering what a Hardware store was doing selling reloading equipment, but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. He almost fainted when he spotted a Rock Crusher single stage reloader and dies for the BMG-50 round. He grabbed that too, and some more powder. Under a counter, someone found a huge quantity of black powder in sealed cans – and they took all of that too! Dan wanted to ask the sheriff if any Gun Dealers had died, but decided to wait another day. They took everything they needed to make the RPGs back to Dan’s machine shop, and Mike went into his laboratory, wishing he had kept his AC/DC CD – even though he was a Christian, sometimes the song “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” was appropriate, especially when you were about to blow thousands of Satan’s minions to Hell!

Mike asked Dan how many rockets he could build with the supplies he had, and then Mike decided to make twice as much C-4 as he needed for the rockets, since he could use it for so many fun toys. Mike was definitely a “Mad Scientist”! He got his ingredients together, grabbed a new filter for his gas mask and fresh gloves, and made 100 pounds of C-4. When it dried and gelled, he cut it into 1-pound blocks, and carefully wrapped the blocks of explosive. When he finished that, he stored them someplace safe, and started making the detonators. He wished there was an explosives dealer nearby, but the nearest was over 100 miles away, in “occupied territory” so he had to make his own. He made 100 electrical detonators, and stored them in Styrofoam lined cases with shunts across the leads. He stored them as far away from the C-4 as he could. Next he made some percussion detonators for the RPGs using the same ingredients except they were packed into empty .22 shells and carefully crimped. He made twice as much as Dan said he would need, so he wouldn’t have to do this stinky job twice. After 4 hours in a gas mask and rubber gloves, he needed someone to hose him down before he could go inside and take a shower. Dan obliged, and Mike threatened mayhem when he realized Dan was using ice cold water!

Dan spent the next several days making the rocket tubes, the warheads, and the launchers for the RPGs. The only difference between the Soviet designed RPG and their improvised design was that their rockets were electrically fired, and required a 6-volt battery, a switch, and a capacitor. The electric igniters were sealed into the end of the rocket motor, so all the operator had to do was connect the alligator clips to the rocket motor after sliding it into the tube launcher, sight along the aiming device, and press the trigger, which sent the power in the capacitor into the electric igniter, igniting the solid fuel rocket. The rocket burned out before leaving the tube, so there was no danger to the operator, and it left no tell-tale smoke trail for supporting forces to see and target the RPG gunner. It was slower to reload than the Soviet model, but they worked just fine on the other end. The percussion detonator fired on contact with a solid object, and the warhead was a shaped charge of C-4 designed to shoot a jet of hot gasses through the armor and kill the tank. When they were finished, Dan and Mike presented the community defense committee with 100 RPG rounds, and 10 launchers.

Dan asked the Sheriff if there were any abandoned Gun Dealers in town. The Sheriff said he knew of 2, and one that was alive, but forced out of business by Kerry’s stupid gun laws, and still had some inventory in his shop. Dan suggested they clean out the 2 from the dead guys, and go see the one that was still alive, he had an idea that would get him permanently out of the gun business, and off the ATF’s list. The scroungers hit the 2 gun stores with dead owners, and cleaned them out to the bare walls, and emptied the safes thanks to small pieces of C-4 supplied by Mike. This time they literally tore the store apart looking for hidden compartments, and found several things the ATF would have been seriously interested in, but would come in handy if the Antichrist forces attacked. Dan found a couple of cases of BMG50 ammo, and asked the Sheriff if anyone else in town owned one. The Sheriff didn’t know, so they decided to store all the extra weapons and ammo is a community armory. Later that afternoon, they met up with the owner of the other store, who admitted he had his whole life savings tied up in the store, and he couldn’t sell any of it. Dan took him aside, and told him of his retirement plan. Since this definitely was TEOTWAWKI, Mike didn’t need to hold onto his gold, and several other members of the committee had things he needed. All they needed was a John Doe that looked like him to take his place in the “Gun Store Fire” they were going to have right after the fire sale. The dealer told them they could have everything in the store for 10 ounces of gold, or anything equivalent in trade. Mike asked him how he was fixed for food, and he admitted not as well as he thought. He gave Dan a look, who nodded and Mike told him that they could give him a year’s worth of food and the balance in gold for the contents of the store. The Sheriff knew where a suitable John Doe was, and they stripped the store of anything usable, and left enough to fool the ATF, especially when Dan deposited his scrap ordinance metal in the store to simulate the melted guns. They rigged a gas explosion, and cleared out the neighborhood, and had the fire department standing by for the big blowout. At Midnight the store blew up, and someone called the Sheriff’s department to report the fire, so the incident would be logged in the system in case anyone checked. The dispatcher called the fire department, who lied and said they were en route. They let the building burn to the ground, and only put the fire out when it threatened to spread to other buildings. The firefighters rummaged through the building, making sure to destroy any evidence of arson. The Sheriff filed the appropriate reports, including the death of the gun shop dealer in a fatal gas fire that was probably caused by to earthquake damage. The community got all his weapons and ammo he had in stock, and the gun dealer got the food and gold he needed to survive the remainder of the time. He wanted to disappear, and had no intention of being seen in that town again, since he was dead. He had a nice spread out in the deep woods, and was told by Dan and Mike if he ever needed food to come to them, and they’d try to help him out. Dan guessed that so many townspeople died, that if they scrounged their stored food, they’d easily have enough to feed everyone who survived, and help anyone who needed it. The next day, Dan and Mike took stock of the weapons and ammo, and found out the most popular weapons were bolt-action hunting rifles in .308 or 30-06, and the most common rifle ammo was those same calibers. They had dozens of cases of each between the 3 stores. Next was pistols, with the 9mm, 45acp and 38/357 revolvers being the most common. Again there were about a dozen cases of ammo for each caliber. There were scores of .22 rifles, and almost 50 cases of .22 ammo. There was a smattering of 12 and 20 gauge shotguns, mostly suitable for bird hunting. Most of the ammo was 12 and 20 gauge birdshot, and some 00 and slug ammo. The birdshot wasn’t as valuable for self-defense, but was better than rocks. They had about a case of 12 gauge 00 Buck, and 500 rounds of 12 gauge slugs. They had enough scopes for all the bolt-action rifles, and enough holsters for all the pistols. Magazines were coming up short, with about 4 mags for each pistol. Dan wished there was a sporting goods store in town, so they could outfit everyone with an E&E kit, but he figured if the forces of the Antichrist descended on his town, there really wasn’t anywhere to go, since they were surrounded by “occupied territory”.

Chapter 8

The leader of the Rebels got a look at the homemade RPG’s and asked Dan and Mike if they could build some for them. Mike said they were out of rocket motors, and homemade solid rocket fuel was too unreliable for a handheld rocket. It could blow up on the shoulder of the gunner. Bill, the Rebel Leader didn’t think that was too good of an idea. Mike suggested there was a National Guard armory in the next town, and he didn’t know if it were defended yet, and they might be able to raid it to get everything they needed to go on the offensive, including LAW rockets, full auto weapons, which they sorely lacked, and military transport. Even an old outdated M-113 beat driving around in pickups if you expected to get in a gun battle. Mike wrote the address down, and Bill dispatched a 3-man recon team to check the place out and report back. They came back 2 days later, the place was wide open, there were no guards, and there was a bunch of Hummers and several LAV-25’s. Bill preferred the LAV-25 to the Bradley for urban warfare, it was a wheeled vehicle, and didn’t need a lowboy to transport it long distances, just a good supply of diesel. The recon team also saw several deuce and a halfs and towed 105 howitzers. Bill said “We want it all, let’s go get it tonight. Mike donated 2 pounds of C-4 and several electrical detonators to the cause, and Dan loaned them 2 45 caliber suppressed Stens, with the understanding that the raid team grabbed all the 45acp ammo in the armory. Dan hoped that they were a small State NG unit, and would be armed with a mish-mash of older weapons, and would be using .45 pistols instead of those 9mm Berretta POS’s! Bill went over the plan, they would drive up in pickups to a point a couple of blocks shy of the armory, the Rebels would secure the base, and the scavenging team would come in, and strip the armory to the bare walls.

They left after dark, and drove slowly with their lights taped to just light the road ahead. Bill hoped this armory had at least some night vision gear, since his drivers didn’t have any, and had to risk the lights. They arrived right after 10:00 pm. The recon team had told Bill the entire block was deserted, so they wouldn’t have any nosy neighbors calling the cops. Bill and Sam, his 2nd in Command, would be doing the actual B&E, so they had the suppressed Stens just in case anyone tried to stop them. They got out and sneaked up to the gate, as far as he could see the base was deserted, and no one was home. Sam took out his lock pick kit, and 1 minute later, they were in. They opened the gates as quietly as possible, and flashed a signal with his flashlight to the trucks carrying the security team and the scavengers.

The first thing they did was check out the vehicles while Bill and Sam tried the locks on the armory. The Rebel security force deployed in a defensive perimeter, in case the owners of the gear showed up, or the police showed up. Bill had talked with the Sheriff, and he told Bill the Chief of Police of this town was a total scumbag, and anyone who was still working for him was just as bad, so he would have no problem with Bill’s Rebels taking them out if they needed to protect their raiding party. The armory was inside a huge concrete block building, and it took 5 minutes to pick the lock, and they were in. Inside were the keys to all the vehicles in the lot, and a map showing where everything was. Sam said it would be quicker to blow the lock on the weapons locker than to try and pick it. Bill agreed, and they put a silver dollar sized piece of C-4 and an electric detonator on the lock, and unrolled enough wire to get safely outside the door, then attached the wires to a twist detonator. Bill took out his FRS, and keyed the mike, and said “Bang” then released the mike. He was warning the security team that they were about to make noise. Sam twisted the detonator, and a loud “Pop” was all they heard outside the building. The lock was lying on the floor, and Sam turned the handle, and the door opened.

Bill looked inside, and the vault was full of automatic weapons and ammo. He walked outside, keyed the mike on his FRS radio and said “Jackpot” then put the radio away, and went inside to check out the haul. There were racks and racks of M-16a1s, some with M-203 launchers mounted. Bill hoped that they had some high-explosive 40mm grenades for it, instead of just smoke rounds. Even CS and smoke rounds would be better than nothing, but they didn’t want to wound the forces of the Antichrist, they wanted to kill as many of them as possible. 2 minutes later, the Scavengers backed up a deuce and a half to the armory door, and they started hauling stuff out of there as fast as possible. They took every weapon and every box of ammo in the armory, and as soon as they had started, they started trying to start the vehicles since they had the keys. Almost all of them started, and they were driven over to the fuel depot and filled. Bill found out later that they had hit the jackpot when they found several 5,000 gallon fuel trucks, and took them to the fuel depot and filled them with diesel. Between the 4 trucks, they had 20,000 gallons of diesel, more than enough for what they needed. Several of the trucks had the 105’s still hitched to them, so they took the howitzers as well. Someone looked in the back of one of the trucks with a 105, and found it full of shells. Maybe the NG troops were alerted, and never deployed, then they deserted the base when the massive earthquakes and winds hit. Bill hoped whoever was still alive was far away. Some of the boxes were real heavy, and were stenciled M791 and M792. Bill knew from his experience in the USMC that these were the 25mm ammo they needed for the LAV-25, he made sure they got loaded first.

2 hours later, they had the vault unloaded, and had all the vehicles fueled. Sam carefully searched the grounds for hidden bunkers, and didn’t find any. Bill went through the office, and found a cabinet in the back full of paperwork with titles starting with FM. Knowing they were manuals, he grabbed the lot of them. If worse came to worse, they could use them for TP. On the floor of the cabinet was a box, and Bill picked it up. Inside were 4 Night Vision goggles with 3 spare batteries each. Bill thought “Score” and carried the box out to his personal truck. Since he had 4 experienced point men in the Rebels, issuing them NVG’s would make it safer to move at night. He wished he had 4 dozen NVG’s, but he remembered what his DI said about wishing. They were almost finished when Bill’s FRS beeped, and he heard the codeword “Blue Trouble”. He knew that there was a PD cruiser approaching the northeast corner of the armory. He ran out into the dark to intercept the vehicle before he could use his radio. As the cruiser rolled slowly down the road, he could see it turning right to check out the front gate. Luckily someone had closed the gate, and with the front door closed, there was no obvious sign that they were robbing the place blind, except some of the vehicles were out of place. The officer couldn’t tell that anything was out of place until he was to the front gate, and he had no intention of letting him get that far. He slipped through the gate, and moving as silently as a panther on the prowl, moved closer to the cruiser. He could see the officer was in “3rd Shift Zombie” mode, and not paying attention. He had probably driven past the armory every night, and nothing ever happened. Tonight would be different. Bill couldn’t let the officer live, because he would radio in a report. He was driving with his driver’s side window down for some fresh air, and that cost him his life. Bill popped up beside a parked car less than 10 feet away, and fired a single suppressed round into the head of the officer, then ran forward and grabbed the shift lever and threw it into park. Pushing the body over, 3 rebels quickly joined him, and stripped the vehicle and the officer of anything useful. They knew they had about an hour until someone seriously checked on the missing officer, so Bill started his stopwatch, they needed to be gone in no more than 45 minutes. They pulled the cruiser over to the side, and arranged the body to look like he was asleep, then quickly went back to the armory. Bill was monitoring the officer’s HT in case he didn’t have as much time as he thought. The radio was quiet, and half an hour later, they drove a huge convoy of military vehicles out the front gate. People in the community didn’t think twice about seeing military convoys on their roads due to the armory, and they made a clean getaway.

They parked the vehicles in a huge abandoned commercial building with a big roll-up door. When they inventoried their haul the next day, Bill realized they had enough firepower to take on another National Guard unit, or any one of a number of UN forces, since they were poorly trained and equipped third-world soldiers. He even found several cases of LAW rockets. The 25mm Bushmaster on the 6 LAV-25s would be his primary anti-tank weapon, since it could punch through anything but a M-1 Abrams tank. The LAW could take out any thin-skinned vehicle, and the 7.62 machine guns on the LAV’s would be their primary anti-personnel weapon besides the M-16s that they were equipped with. He counted 50 M-16s, half with M-203 launchers, 500 20-round magazines, 10 cases of 5.56 NATO rounds, and 40 12-round cases of 40mm grenades. 2/3 were M406 HE rounds, and 1/3 were either M680 WP smoke rounds or M651 CS rounds. The CS would be useless against front-line troops, but he didn’t think the Antichrist cared enough about his troops to equip them with MOPP gear. For the 7.62 coax machine gun, they had 20 cases of linked ammo, either M993 AP, or M-80 Ball. The real score was how much 25mm ammo they found. Most NG units were critically short of ammo for their Bushmasters, but for some reason this armory had 3 times the normal loadout, and had 2,000 rounds each of the M791 APDS armor piercing ammo, and the M792 HEI-T anti-personnel/thin skinned vehicle ammo.

They made Dan happy when they found 10 cases of .45 acp ammo, and Bill gave Dan 2 cases like he had requested when he returned the Stens. He asked Dan if he could get 5 more Stens for his team. Dan said if he could get the ordinance steel, he had the plans to make as many as they needed. Dan gave him all the info he needed, and Bill worked out a trade with the metal shop in town for enough metal to make enough for 20 Stens. When Bill arrived with enough ordinance steel for 20 Stens, Dan shook his head and muttered “Looks like I’ve finally become the armorer.” I took Dan a week to make 20 suppressed Stens, and bend enough sheet metal to make 200 magazines. He was really glad he had spent the extra money for the semi-automated lathes and boring machines. He drove into town, and met Bill at the Command Center. When he took the tarp off the back of his truck, Bill said “If you were a girl, I would kiss you!” when he saw the 20 Stens with 10 30-round mags each. Bill decided that if they located any more hardware that they weren’t going to use, Dan was first in line for it. Bill asked if he knew where they could get some Claymores, and Dan opened his big mouth, and said that Mike could make the C-4 if they could come up with the electrical detonators, the steel balls, the casing and the materials to make C-4. Dan handed Bill a shopping list, and said that was enough to make 100 pounds of C-4. Bill realized that 100 pounds of C-4 would have other uses too, and made procuring the chemicals needed to make C-4 a priority.

Chapter 9

Bill quickly located enough materials to make 200 pounds of C-4 and the chemicals to make 200 electric detonators. Mike didn’t ask any inconvenient questions and got right to work. 2 days later, he had 200 pounds of C-4, as much as he dared make at once. He made 2 batches of electric detonators, because he didn’t want to be playing with that much of those chemicals at once. He went through 2 filters for his gas mask, and was getting sick and tired of Dan blasting him with the hose and ice cold water. Bill delivered some sheet metal, some thin metal plate, and enough ball bearings to start their own roller rink. Dan got busy with the sheet metal break, bending sheet metal to form the cases while Mike embedded the bearings in a soft epoxy that stuck to the metal plate. Mike took several pounds of C-4 and rolled it carefully into a sheet, and cut pieces exactly the size of the plate, and inserted it into the case. Since Dan didn’t have a positive image stamp to stamp “This side towards enemy” Mike went into his office, and came back with a sheet of labels of a bomb exploding, and stuck them on the front of the claymores. The bases were already drilled for the detonators, and Mike carefully assembled the Claymores, and Dan folded the edge over the base. Dan hoped he didn’t sneeze, because they didn’t want to get blown into orbit with all this C-4 lying around. Finally they were done, and Mike got his revenge by hosing Dan off with the hose. They admired their work when Dan got tired of chasing Mike around the yard. Instead of the fancy legs that the Military Claymore had, they used 10d nails. They didn’t have enough detonators for 2 detonators per mine, so they made do with one. The mines looked like they had been assembled by a 3rd World factory, but that wasn’t too far from the truth, except they were located in the USA.

Mike called Bill to come get his Claymores and C-4, he wasn’t going anywhere with that much explosive. When Bill got there, he was amazed that Mike had made 100 Claymore mines, and had 100 pounds of C-4 and 100 electrical detonators left. He said if he wanted fuse detonators, that he’d have to wait until next week, and bring a couple of NBC filters for his gas mask. Mike reminded Bill he still needed the twist detonators or something that generated enough voltage to fire the electrical detonator. He told Bill that he needed at least 9 volts to fire the detonator, and not to keep the detonators with the C-4. Bill looked at the Claymores, and said “The detonators are in these mines!” to which Mike replied “One of the downsides of improvised munitions is you lose some safety factor, in this case, the detonators the military uses are too difficult to make with our equipment, so you have to live with the detonators in place, with shunts across the leads. I’d be real careful handling those, and oh, by the way, I wouldn’t use anything more powerful than your FRS around these puppies unless you want to get blown sky high!”

“Thanks a lot Mike; now I know why you didn’t want to transport these Claymores, they’re wired to explode!”

“Exactly, Nice knowing you Bill – Drive carefully!”

Bill lost 5 pounds of sweat by the time he got the Claymores to a secure storage site. They wouldn’t let them store the mines in the Armory, because they were wired to blow, so he stuck them in an empty Self-store building away from everything else. Bill vowed to use the Claymores at the first opportunity. Next time he’d ask for something that wasn’t as dangerous to him as it was to the enemy.

Bill got a call on his radio a couple of days later, it seemed that the UN forces were moving in to attack a nearby town, that while it wasn’t 100% Christian, had enough of them to be targeted by the Antichrist for elimination, especially when they refused to surrender their guns. Bill called a staff meeting to set up an ambush for the force of Blue Beanies that were supposed to attack the town. He wanted to use as many Claymores as possible. First of all he wanted to get rid of them, and secondly, he didn’t want to tip the enemy off that someone in the neighborhood had heavy weapons, not until they sent out a force worth wiping out. Someone in the UN had delusions of Grandeur, because he had sent a small company to subdue the town, when he should have sent a force 5 times that size. One of the guys in the Rebels knew that area, and identified a perfect natural chokepoint. They could use some C-4 to drop a couple of trees, and trap the force on a hard surface road with ditches and trees on either side and nowhere to go. They could wire the claymores to the trees and command detonate them, decimating the attacking force, then they would finish off the few survivors with small arms and take their supplies and be out of there in minutes. They would limit their comms to FRS radios, since Bill told everyone how dangerous the Claymores were since the detonators were already in place. Bill told them to wire them to the trees, connect the detonator wires, then remove the shunt right before they attached the detonators. Since they didn’t have enough twist detonators, they used an old fireworks trick, and rigged a nail board and a 12vdc battery to all the claymores, so someone could run a nail connected to the positive lead down the row of nails, detonating them in a line sequence. If he knew Mike, he probably made the Claymores way more powerful than the Military models, and told everyone to stay back 50 yards from the mines, and dig a deep hole just in case. He hoped the trees would absorb the backblast instead of his men.

Tomorrow was the day for the ambush, so Bill got his men together, and asked for volunteers to wire the claymores, telling them if they went off prematurely, they’d never know what hit them. The entire team volunteered. Evidently Christians could become Martyrs as easily as Moslems. Bill realized that before this war was over, he could easily loose half to ¾ of his command. They didn’t mind, as long as they got to send Satan’s Minions to hell first! They figured for every 5 they killed, they might have saved at least 1 Christian from a painful and horrific death. Bill selected 6 of his men at random to wire the claymores. His second in command volunteered to trigger the mines, since if there were any mines that created too much backblast, the guy at the nail board was the most vulnerable. They got as much sleep as they could, loaded up in the deuce and a halves, and brought 2 Ma Deuce equipped Hummers for security. They weren’t expecting Trouble, but Bill knew that trouble had a way of finding you! With that thought, he brought 6 LAW rockets and most of his HE 40mm grenades. If they didn’t use them, they could put them back up. They drove as quietly and slowly as they dared, and got there with several hours to spare. While most of the men dug foxholes, the 6 volunteer sappers wired 30 Claymores into the trees at ground level, and angled them up slightly so their pattern would encompass a deuce and a half. Bill figured 15 Claymores would do the job, but he wanted to have twice as many as needed, in case they didn’t explode. When they finished wiring the Claymores, they wired 4 big trees, 2 in front and 2 behind their kill zone, to trap the Blue Beanies in the area in front of their Claymores. 2 of his Rebels were sent a mile down the road as an LP/OP to warn them of the approach of the UN forces. Since others might use this road, they had a 2 word code system. Green for friendly, to let them pass, and Red for Enemy sighted. That way they would avoid long transmissions that might get picked up by the enemy. They also had emergency codes that everyone knew, but hoped they would never hear. If they heard “Archangel” it meant that they had been overwhelmed by a superior force, and to E&E as individuals as best as they could. They knew their chances for survival in that case were extremely low, and the Rebels that didn’t have families resolved that if they heard Archangel, they’d rather die fighting, and take as many with them as possible.

An hour later, they were waiting in their foxholes, when Bill heard “RED” on his radio, and hand signed “Enemy Sighted” to the rest of the Rebels, who got ready to attack. He made sure his #2 was good to go, and he had gotten the message. Everyone else was deep in their foxholes, except Sam, who had to see what he was doing. He saw a convoy of 5 dilapidated old Deuce and a halfs coming down the road, and waited until they were almost on top of the stopper, and fired the C-4 charges, which dropped 2 huge trees in front of them, then fired the 2 charges for the trees behind them, then ran the nail down the nail board, firing all 30 Claymores. The explosions were deafening, and when the smoke cleared, several trees that had Claymores attached were blown over, and the trucks looked like they were the victims of a strafing attack by a squadron of fighters. They were shredded and on fire. Bill blew his whistle, and to a man the Rebels moved forward, checking for survivors, and shooting anyone who might still be alive. Then they quickly stripped the bodies of weapons, ammo, and supplies. They hit the jackpot on the 3rd truck, which was disabled, and all the soldiers were dead, but it was full of cases of 5.56 ammo, 7.62 ammo and a whole bunch of other military munitions, so they threw the captured weapons and supplies in the 3rd truck. Bill wished it wasn’t shot to heck, but decided that it could be towed, and called his drivers in from their secure location, and rigged a deuce and a half to tow the damaged truck, since the tires had miraculously survived, and the steering and brakes still worked. When they were ready to go, he called the LP/OP, and they said the coast was clear, so they sent a Hummer to pick them up, and rejoin the end of the convoy as rear security. They arrived back in town shortly after dark, unloaded the vehicles, and transferred the remaining Claymores back to the shed.

Chapter 10

The next morning, Bill drove to Dan’s place to have a talk with Mike.

“Just how much C-4 did you put in those claymores? It was a good thing we tied them to trees, or I might have suffered 30% casualties from back blast!”

“Bill, I did the best with what we had, the sheet was between ¼ and ½ inch thick.”

“Mike, the spec calls for a layer of C-4 between 1/8 and ¼ inch thick – anything else I need to know?”

“Yeah, I had to leave the back plate out since it wouldn’t fit, and we didn’t have enough metal!”

“Mike, that backplate is critical – it’s what limits the back blast!”

“Oopsie! One little Mistake!”

“Mike, if you make anything else for me, follow the recipe exactly, or tell me in advance if you have to deviate from it. You could have made half as many Claymores to the recipe, and I would have been happier. The devices you built are as deadly to my men as the enemy!”

“Look Bill, I’m sorry! We’re working with primitive equipment here, and I didn’t have a safe way to roll the sheets thinner, since all I had was a wooden rolling pin, and it couldn’t put enough pressure on the explosive safely enough to avoid an explosion. If you want to, take the Claymores out to the mine and detonate them safely.”

“I think I can still use them with long wires, or backfilling them into trenches so the dirt behind them absorbs the back blast. Just make sure you tell me in advance from now on if you do anything like this. I don’t blame you for making the Claymores a little hot; I’ve never met a powder monkey that didn’t think that if 8 oz of C-4 was good, a pound would be even better!”

“If that’s the case, you’ll love my RPG’s – I used double the C-4 the recipe called for. We made the warhead bigger, and the pipe longer, so hopefully it will fly straight. The bigger warhead should take out a more heavily armored vehicle than the Russian Model.”

“Again, Mike, there’s a reason the warhead is the size it is. Bigger warheads need a longer stand-off distance to keep from killing or injuring the gunner when the warhead explodes. The RPG-7 was designed for a maximum flight of 400 yards, and a minimum of 50 yards. With your bigger warhead, we need to double the minimum range unless the gunner wants to commit suicide.”

“Ok, but we also put a more powerful rocket in it. It still burns out before it leaves the barrel, but the rocket is 50% more powerful than the Russian model, since we had the huge Estes rocket motors, we decided to build the rocket tube around it.”

“So what you basically did was build a bigger version of the RPG-7?”

“Yeah, except it has an impact detonator, since we couldn’t duplicate the Russian detonator with what we have.”

“What did you use for the detonator?”

“Fulminate of Mercury in a percussion cap.”

“Better tell the gunners to be real careful with those warheads; a good solid bump to the cap could detonate the warhead.”

“Like I said, we did the best with what we had!”

“You did duplicate the design of the warhead – right?”

“Exactly – it’s a shaped charge with a primary and secondary explosive charge to set up the plasma jet that should blow through the armor.”

“Just how much C-4 did you use per warhead?”

“Just about half a pound.”

“Wow – that could almost blow through an Abrams! That’s about how much explosive that’s in the AT-4!”

“Cool – so you want a few?”

“Just how many of those RPGs did you build?

“We’ve got 100 rockets and 10 launchers.”

“Who were you planning on fighting – the Russians? That’s enough RPGs to take out most of an armored division!”

“Cool – If we ever get attacked by an entire division, we’ll have enough RPGs – I hated making them – I spent most of the day in a gas mask and rubber gloves.”

“Well, you definitely made enough. We might borrow a few for our next mission.”

Later that day they all met at the Command Center. Bill gave them a rundown of the weapons and ammo found in the UN truck.

“Let’s see – 10 cases of NATO spec 5.56 ammo, 5 cases of belted 7.62 NATO, 10 cases of 40mm rounds, including 20 canister rounds, 80 rounds of HEDP, and 20 rounds of M651 rounds, plus 2 cases of BMG-50 ammo including AP and Ball. Funny they didn’t have any BMG-50 weapons, maybe they did the same thing we did and raided a NG armory. All their weapons were US Manufacture, as well as their gear. They were definitely UN troops, they looked like a bunch of Pakistanis. The truck wasn’t a total loss after all, our mechanic said the engine could be rebuilt, and the transmission was OK, but the rest of the truck is a total write-off.”

Dan spoke up “Didn’t one of the Military Surplus shops have an old military generator with a dead motor? Maybe I can fabricate an adaptor to run the generator head off the truck motor. If it’s a US Deuce and a half, it’s a multi-fuel truck, and I know where we can get a huge supply of veg oil.”

“What would an old diesel and veg oil do any good?”

“That generator head I’m thinking about was a 20Kw unit. If for some reason we lost power here, and I’m amazed it’s still on, we could run the command center and the hospital/clinic off of it burning veg oil instead of diesel. You’d need to start it on diesel, then once it was warmed up, throw a valve and burn pure veg oil. I think that food processor on the edge of town should have 5-10 thousand gallons of the stuff if we can get it over here. Are any of the diesel tanks in town empty enough to off-load the 18-wheeler tanker? That would give us almost 20K gallons by itself.”

They agreed to check into it, and send the scavengers out to see if they can get the stuff they needed. Bill suggested adding the seized ammunition and weapons to the community armory, and Dan seconded it. The vote was unanimous, since the armory was the safest and best place to store it. Dan asked Bill if the truck had a radio. Bill smacked his forehead and admitted no one had checked it out, since the Rebels didn’t know that much about radios. Dan volunteered to go check it out, and if it worked, to mount it as a base station in the Command Center in case they needed to contact the Rebels if they were away from home. Bill thought for a minute, and smacked himself again. Of course, if anyone knew the Rebels were away from town, they would be vulnerable to attack. He hoped that none of the UN commanders were smart enough to think of that tactic – draw their warriors out with a decoy while they attacked their base of operations. If the town were destroyed, the Rebels would be out of action as surely as if they had been wiped out to a man.

After the meeting broke up, Dan checked the radio. It was fine, good thing military radios were built so tough, the case was dinged and scratched, but nothing penetrated the case He dismounted the radio, including the wires and the antenna, and carried the lot back to the command center. He took a spare battery out of an abandoned car, and connected the power leads to the battery, then he mounted the antenna on the roof, and ran some new cable to the antenna, then switched it on. He instantly heard several transmissions on different frequencies, some in English, and some in foreign languages he didn’t understand. He called Bill on the FRS, and he returned to the Command Center with a couple of Rebels that spoke foreign languages. They listened to the transmissions, then grabbed a pen and a legal pad, and were writing like mad. 5 minutes later, the transmission ended, and they showed the translation to Bill, who almost had puppies right then and there. Seems someone had spotted them returning from the ambush and turned them in for the reward. The transmission they had heard was the Commander of the UN forces ordering the local commanders to attack the city of Clarksburg, West Virginia and level it. They complained they had no air cover, and he basically said “Tough – deal with it with what you have!” From the transmissions, he determined who was going to attack them and their probable line of advance. The idiots were going to come right down a freeway! He had a few tricks up his sleeve to deal with them, and turned to yell for Mike.

“Yeah, I’m right here – no need to yell!”

Bill filled him in, and asked him if the Claymores could be set up for radio detonating.

“How long do I have?”

“I need it ASAP, they’re coming tomorrow afternoon, after tea if you can believe it – I guess we’re facing a bunch of French and British idiots!”

“I’ll have a problem building that many radio detonators that fast, can I gang them together?”

“If you can gang them together in groups of 5 with 100 feet between them, that would be even better.”

“OK, how many detonators would that be?”

“Can you build 10 by tonight?”

“Do you have any FRS radios to spare?”

“Let’s go check Radio Shack, but that only gives us a half-mile radius!”

“Yeah, but with the FRS, I can set them on different privacy tones, so we can control as many gangs as we need from one radio, but no one else can be transmitting within a mile using those tones.”

“Cool – make it happen.”

Dan and Mike drove over to the Radio Shack, and grabbed all the FRS radios in stock. They had 15 Motorola FRS radios in stock, and they made sure they had plenty of batteries, and they were all fresh. They had a Motorola FRS/GMRS radio that Mike grabbed too, just in case he could use it’s longer range to detonate the claymores at a longer distance. He took them home, and opened the back of one of the FRS radios. He found the speaker leads in a minute, then took a multi-meter and measured the voltage and current, and realized it wasn’t enough. Thinking quickly, he realized that it would be enough to trigger a relay, and a larger battery could send the voltage over 200 feet and detonate the claymores. They drove quickly to an auto parts store and grabbed 15 relays and 15 12vdc 8Ah motorcycle batteries. They would have sufficient power to transmit enough voltage down 200 feet of wire to detonate the claymores. He connected the speaker leads to the SPST relay trigger lead and the battery leads to the other leads and pressed the PTT button on another FRS radio. The multi-meter jumped as he pushed the PTT button, and returned to zero when he released it. He quickly made 11 more copies of the radio detonator, and drove everything back into town.

He showed Bill how they worked, and Bill hugged Mike so hard he thought he might have broken a rib! He programmed each FRS with a different privacy tone, then programmed the FRS/GMRS radio with 12 channels, each channel had a different privacy tone, matching one detonator. He wrote a cheat sheet with the detonators that matched the frequencies on the radios, then numbered the radios 1-12 with a black permanent marker. Bill immediately dispatched his sappers to hide the Claymores along the highway between two overpasses they intended to drop. Bill smacked his forehead, and asked Mike if he could build 2 more detonators real quick, and Mike produced the extra radios, opened the backs, connected the speaker leads to a relay, and pulled 2 spare batteries out of his truck, and programmed the FRS radios with 2 different, unused tones, numbered them 13 and 14, then programmed channels 13 and 14 in the FRS/GMRS with those tones. Then he said “Fast enough for you?” Bill went to hug Mike again, and he said “You almost broke my ribs last time, can I take a rain check?”

When the sappers got back, Bill sent them back out with the 2 radio detonators, and 50 pounds of C-4 and several electrical detonators, with instructions to wire the two bridges to blow sky high with the radio detonator. He didn’t need to tell them to turn off their radios. Bill realized that the Claymores wouldn’t be enough to take out the forces he faced, since they had Bradleys and armored Hummers. He went into the armory, and spotted Mad Mike’s RPGs. He took 30 of them and all the launchers as well as the LAW rockets he had. He knew the LAW just barely had enough range to reach the freeway from where they were going to set up, but knew that they would each take out a Hummer, saving the RPGs for the Bradleys or any light tanks they might have come up with. He would have his LAVs and the TOW equipped Hummers in overwatch on a high bluff behind them in case the UN came up with some better armor. Realizing the FRS/GMRS radio easily had the range to hit all the detonators from the bluffs above the freeway, he would stay on top of the bluff with the Hummers and LAVs. The only people down on the freeway level would be in fighting holes armed with RPGs and LAW rockets. They also had their M-16s to take care of any survivors.

The next morning, the Rebels got into position, and waited. Bill didn’t need an LP/OP since he could see the highway from the bluff with his binoculars. Just in case, he set a team up on the other route the enemy could take, and gave them the frequency for the radio in the Command Center so the townspeople could get ready to defend themselves. Just when the radio transmission said they were supposed to, they rolled down the freeway like a bunch of tourists. Once the tail-end Charlie was past the bridge, Bill detonated it behind him, then blew the one up with the lead vehicle on it! Ooops- guess he waited too long – anyway the vehicle was as dead as if it had been hit with a Claymore, it’s just the occupants got to scream a lot longer as they fell 500 feet to their deaths. Bill wondered how you said “Oh Sh%t” in French! Next, as the vehicles came to a stop, he triggered the gang of Claymores in front of each vehicle as they tried to get their infantry out where they could defend themselves. All up and down the road, there were massive explosions, and clouds of red mist as Eurotrash was turned into hamburger. A couple of Bradley’s survived, so the Rebel RPG gunners launched 2 RPGs at them, and the resulting explosions were impressive to say the least! He’d have to thank Mike when they got back. He heard single shots from M-16’s as they cut down individual survivors. 15 minutes later all firing stopped as they finished mopping up. The Rebels advanced in order, and checked out all the UN Eurotrash to make sure they were really dead, then they gathered up weapons and supplies that were still usable. With the battle over, the Hummers and LAVs drove down an access road to the highway to collect the Rebels and any useable spoils of war. The Rebels threw Molotov Cocktails into the UN vehicles, and soon they were burning fiercely. The Rebels drove back up the access road and headed home. Bill called the OP/LP and advised them that the Rebels were RTB, and the Enemy column was wiped out.

Chapter 11

On the drive home, Bill had time to think, there was no way the UN would fall for that ambush again, the next convoy would be more spread out, and more heavily defended, possibly with air cover. He couldn’t do anything about the air cover yet, but he could change his tactics. Looking in the back of the truck, he had several items that he might be able to trade for what he needed. When he got into town, he broke away from the convoy and drove straight to the metal shop. They still had a bunch of ordinance steel in stock, and they would love to trade some of it for several unregistered full auto M-16s and magazines, and a case of ammo. Bill handed each of the people in the shop an M-16, and 5 20-round magazines, and gave them a case of NATO spec 5.56 ammo to split between them. They quickly loaded what was left of their ordinance steel and several sheets of sheet metal suitable for magazines. Bill drove over to Dan’s house, and got out. Dan offered him a cup of coffee, and they retired to his “office”.

Dan, I’m going on faith here, you did such a good job with those Stens, that I’m hoping you have plans for bigger rifles. I need 10 BMG 50 rifles, and I brought you the metal.”

“Bill, the rifles are one thing, suitable scopes and ring mounts are another. Where are you going to get 10 scopes for these rifles? Without really good scopes, there’s no point in building them.”

“Dan, you build the rifles, I’ll find the scopes one way or another.”

Dan walked Bill around to another table, and pulled a tube out from under it, and unrolled a full-scale and enlarged blueprints for a suppressed BMG 50 semiauto rifle. Bill looked at the plans, noticed that the design included a suppressor, and asked Dan about it. “Bill, the suppressor doesn’t do much for the noise of a supersonic round, but what it does do is cancel the muzzle blast, and really reduces the recoil due to muzzle blast. A suppressed semiauto rifle with a properly designed suppressor, even with supersonic ammo, has hardly any recoil compared to the original non-suppressed design, and almost no signature. Even if they hear the supersonic crack, it will be 90 degrees off from your actual shooting position, and they’ll really have to work to find you.”

Chapter 11

Bill was in a quandary – where to find 10 scopes suitable for a BMG 50? He drove back to the command center, and posed the question to his second in command. Sam thought for a minute, then asked him the difference between looting and scavenging. Bill looked at him funny, so Sam explained “Looting is when the National Guard is there, Scavenging is 5 minutes after they leave. There are a bunch of gun shops up north near that NG armory that should have what we need. I’ll check with the Sheriff to see if any of the owners are among the dead. How soon do you need it?”

“How about yesterday? I’ve got Dan building the rifles for us, and as soon as he’s done, I need to get them sighted in and ready to go, because we won’t be able to use the old ambush and Claymores trick anymore, they’ll just spread out their convoys, and give them heavier escorts.”

“How are the BMG rifles going to help?”

“I’ve got 10 guys who can hit the left eye of a gnat at 1,000 yards in the Rebels. I’m sure they could either put a round through the driver or the motor at 1,000 yards. Stops the trucks just as good as dropping trees or bridges.”

“Bill, I like the way you think! What if they’ve got air cover?”

“If it’s rotary, we might get a shot at them with Mike’s Super RPG. If it’s fixed, we’re SOL unless it’s flying low and slow, and we can get them to suck an RPG up the engine.”

“Man, what I wouldn’t do for a Stinger!”

“I know, I was hoping for some anti-air stuff at the NG armory. Maybe there’s another one around. Can you check?”

“Sure Bill, I’ll add it to my list!”

“You do that Sam!”

Sam decided to let his “fingers do the walking” and grabbed the Yellow Pages that covered the entire county. He found several promising gun shops, and called the Sheriff. He had an incomplete list of fatalities, and 3 of the shop owners were on the list. Sam thought “1 down, 1 to go!” Next he checked the listings under United States Government. “Let’s see – Recruiter, recruiter… Ok, here we go, Armory. Gee, there are 3 of them just south of us. If we split our forces, half can clean out the gun shops, and the other half can case the National Guard armories. We’ll need to get with the other committees, because this will take more manpower than we have.”

Sam found Bill and gave him the good news. Bill called the leaders of the Community Protection Committee, and the Saboteurs, and called a meeting for that afternoon. He had an idea to get the help of both groups on that night’s raid. They met an hour later, and Bill sprung his idea on them. He had guessed correctly, they wanted something to make it worth their risk. He offered the Saboteurs 10 pounds of C-4 and 10 fuse-type detonators. He jumped at the chance, with 10 pounds of C-4 plus what they would get out of the gun shops, they would be well equipped for striking back at the Antichrist System. He offered the leader of the Community Protection Committee whatever they found at the National Guard Armory that the Rebels didn’t need. He knew what they had got from the last NG Armory, and even 1/3 of that would make it very difficult for the OWG/UN invaders to try and take the town, so he agreed. They set the attack for dark, and 3 of the Rebels would accompany the Saboteurs to the gun shops, and strip them bare as fast as possible. He detailed 2 Hummers with Ma Deuces for security. He knew the PD didn’t have anything to stop them. The rest of their LAVs and Hummers would go south to try and break into the NG armory, and take as much as they could, as fast as they could. He knew the next time the UN attacked, it would be against armor, maybe with air cover, and he needed something more than LAVs and Hummers to defend themselves with. The 105 Howitzers were nice, but they were fixed, and couldn’t move and shoot fast, since they were short transport. If they detailed a deuce and a half to each gun, he didn’t have enough to move his troops. He wanted more transport, some armor, and he definitely wanted some anti-air capability.

They left at dusk, 2 convoys, one going south, and one going north. They stripped the town of all available men who were willing to go. It was a risk, but Bill thought it was worth taking because if they didn’t get something more useful than RPGs against armor, and some anti-air protection, they would eventually be doomed. Besides, he wanted to remove any potential threat against the community. If someone else got hold of the NG weaponry, and they turned out to be bandits, what would prevent them from attacking the town for what they thought it held. He needed to make sure that any local potential adversary wasn’t better armed than they were. Before they left, several Pastors gathered them together and held a quick prayer service, then blessed them and wished them Godspeed. They didn’t bring anyone other than their medics on this trip since 1) the community needed the one doctor they had, and 2) anyone who died from here on out at the hands of the Antichrist system would be a martyr, and the way Bill read Revelation, that wasn’t a bad thing.

The team that was going to check out the gun stores got to their first assignment first. The streets were deserted, but they stayed on high alert. The first shop they came to appeared damaged, like it had already been vandalized, but they checked it out anyway. The Rebel was pleased when they located 3 high-power scopes. He figured looters weren’t interested in long-range shooting, and ignored them. The safe was intact, so they set a small charge against the lock, and ran outside. When the smoke cleared, the safe was full of semiauto weapons, which the Rebels gave to the Saboteurs. They checked under counters and behind walls, and found hidden stashes of ammo and other Semiauto weapons. Since these weren’t what the Rebels wanted, the Saboteurs were getting better and better armed by the minute. This store didn’t have what they wanted, so they went to the next one. It looked to be in better shape, the building was still intact, even though someone had tried to pry or cut the bars. Steve thought “Silly people, you weren’t using the right tools” and rigged several small C-4 charges to cut the bars. They backed off, and the bars dropped with a bang, and the windows came crashing in. They were through in a second, and found tons of high-power scopes, including several Leupold scopes. They cleaned the store out as quickly as possible, including the safe.

On their way out, Steve’s radio beeped, and he heard the code word “Trouble”. Steve took his suppressed Sten gun and ran outside with it, and down the back alleyway, to catch the officer off guard. The officer had just rounded the turn where he could see the Hummers in the road, but thinking they were UN or NG units, didn’t think anything of it until it was too late. Steve walked up to him and put a round in his head at point-blank range, then pulled the unit into the alleyway, and the Saboteurs stripped the vehicle while everyone else cleared out the remainder of the store. Steve talked with the leader of the Saboteurs. Steve wanted to head for home, but the Saboteurs wanted to clean out the last gun store. Since there were more of them, Steve relented. He figured it would take several hours for the PD to realize that the officer wasn’t just off the air, he was dead. They set the window bars back as well as possible, so if someone drove by quickly, they might not see that it had been robbed. He took the officer’s handie talkie just to be safe.

They drove up to the third gun shop, and it looked like nothing had happened. Again, Steve used his explosive entry method to take care of the bars and the windows. This time an alarm went off. Steve notified the Hummers that they might be expecting trouble, and told the Saboteurs they had 15 minutes then they were leaving with or without them. They were disconcerted by the alarm, and they too realized the time was short. They cleared out all the high-powered rifles, AR-15s, and shotguns, then started grabbing cases of ammo. Steve found some more scopes and binoculars, including some Night Vision equipment and batteries, and grabbed all of it. 5 minutes later, he heard “Code Red” and the staccato roar of the Ma Deuce opening up on a police cruiser. Steve grabbed his FRS, and said “Bug Out”, then grabbed the leader of the Saboteurs and said they were leaving NOW with or without them, grab what you can and run. They made it out the door as 2 more cruisers showed up, and not realizing they were up against a Ma Deuce, tried to block the street. All that did was make them better targets for the gunners, who fired a burst into each vehicle. Steve blew his whistle, and everyone mounted up in seconds, then they made a hasty retreat with the Tail End Charlie’s Ma Deuce turned around backwards to discourage pursuit. Since it was late at night, Steve hoped the PD only had 3 cruisers on, and they had taken out all the opposition could throw at them. He really didn’t like killing Police Officers, even if the Sheriff said they were all corrupt dirtbags.

The team that was going to hit the National Guard Armory had better luck, and the first armory was deserted, but Bill could see rows upon rows of trucks, Hummers, and Bradleys on lowboy trailers with the 18-wheeler tractor rig already connected. He ignored them for now, and concentrated on the office and armory. Sam picked the lock, and they were in. This building was much bigger than the last armory, so they hoped it contained more stuff. Sam tried the lock, and some idiot had forgotten to lock the lock! The vault door swung open, and Bill thought he had just gotten Christmas and Easter all at once. The vault was stuffed with M-16s, Ma Deuces, M-60’s and stacks upon stacks of ammo boxes. One of the Rebels working security spotted an Igloo and picked the lock, then called Bill. He had found the missile bunker! Bill told Sam to take as many Deuce and a halves, and whatever else he needed, and get that bunker unloaded ASAP. The Rebel called back, and said there was a loading dock, and a couple of tractor-trailers next to it, and a couple of pallet jacks just sitting there. Bill told Sam to forget the trucks, and use the 18-wheelers, since they could haul a lot more stuff. Sam got busy unloading the missile bunker while Bill supervised unloading the armory. It took all night, but in the end, they took every round out of the armory, every missile in the bunker, including TOW, Stinger, LAW, AT-4, M-47 Dragon, and Javelin. They had hundreds of reloads for the TOW equipped Hummers, and a dozens of man-portable anti-tank, and anti-air missiles. They even located a bunch of fuel tankers, including several 18—wheeler dual tankers that could haul up to 30,000 gallons, and filled every one of them full. When the convoy pulled out at dawn, they had over 100,000 gallons of diesel fuel, 12 Bradleys on lowboys, 24 Hummers, half armed with the Ma Deuce, and half armed with a TOW launcher, 30 cases of 25mm ammo, 30 cases of 7.62mm linked ammo, 30 cases of linked .50 BMG ammo, 50 cases of NATO 5.56mm ammo, 100 cases of 40mm ammo, 100 M16’s half with M-203 launchers, 30 M-60s with 5 spare barrels, 50 Ma Deuces with pintle mounts and 5 spare barrels each. Bill knew they were now loaded for bear. The convoy was over 5 miles long leaving the armory, and every other vehicle was either a Hummer or a LAV, so if anyone tried to mess with them, they wouldn’t live long enough to regret it!

Bill arrived several hours after dawn, and spent the rest of the morning trying to sort out and store under cover everything they had liberated from the National Guard armory. One commercial building was full of ammo, one full of missiles, and the largest building held the LAVs, Hummers, and Bradleys still on their low-boys. Another building held the fuel trucks and deuce and a halves. Bill hoped there wasn’t much more hardware in the county, they were running out of room to store it. Bill had one more task for the day, then he could get some sleep. He drove out to Dan’s and gave him the scopes. Dan asked “How did you get so many scopes?”

Bill said “You don’t want to know!”

Chapter 12

Bill had the kind of problems some people only dream about – “Where do I put all this stuff – and I need to check that other armory!”

He checked with the committee leaders, and there were almost a dozen sympathetic truck stops that could handle another 20,000 gallons of diesel each, and reserve it for the use of the town and the Rebels. If they weren’t committed Christians, Bill might be worried that they would try to sell it. Then again, if they did, he had his .45! He had the truck drivers take the 18-wheeler fuel haulers to the truck stops he was told about, and give them as much diesel as they could hold. They all told Bill that they had backup generators in case the power went out, besides Bill had picked up several pony engines and pumps, so if necessary, he could pump their tanks. He scored several more of the huge armored tankers, and decided to reserve them for tactical refueling on long trips, since they were better protected than an 18-wheeler for a tactical environment, and could refuel the Hummers, Bradleys, and LAVs easily. The HEMTT 978 as the tactical refueler was correctly known, could carry 2500 gallons of fuel, had a range of 300 miles, and could keep up with the Hummers and the LAVs as long as they didn’t go much faster than 55 miles an hour. 2 HEMTT’s could carry enough fuel for all the vehicles to have a combat range in excess of 500 miles, and still have enough fuel to fight. 3 HEMTTs would extend that range to over 800 miles, but at a much slower pace, since the lightly armored fuelers were vulnerable to anything over .30 caliber and had to be protected. With a 98 inch track, they were wider than the Hummers, and 3 times as long, making travel on country back roads interesting in the least and hazardous at worst. They could ford small rivers and streams, but that was slower than using the bridge. But if the bridge wouldn’t hold them, or was too narrow, they either forded or turned around.

Once they got everything unloaded, sorted, and inventoried, Bill told everyone to get some sleep, because they’d have to hit the other armory that night. He called the leaders of the CD and Saboteurs, and said he would need some of their people, as many as they could spare without endangering the community, to go hit the other armory that night. He agreed to split the spoils, since he didn’t need everything there, he just wanted to deny it to a potential adversary. They agreed to send half their men, which between his Rebels, and half of each group, would amount to several hundred people, more than enough for the job. His Rebels would be armed to the teeth, since the other armory might be alerted by the other 2 raids, and if they couldn’t take it, they needed to destroy as much of it as possible, then bug out. He decided to bring some TOW armed Hummers as well as the Ma Deuce armed Hummers, in case they were waiting in ambush for anyone to try and take the armory. He knew that most National Guard troops in the South either had ancient M-60 tanks, or older M1a Abrams tanks, both could be defeated by a TOW missile. Just to hedge his bets, he gave each Hummer team 2 stinger missiles in case they had air support, but he could almost bet that any air support was daylight only unless the UN got hold of some Apaches and trained the pilots in night flying and fighting in an urban environment, which was much more dangerous for the helicopter than fighting in open desert like DS #1 and DS#2, namely they could run into electrical power lines, either local or high tension, that were really difficult to see at night. He’d leave the Bradleys behind to defend the town, and take the LAVs because they could travel faster than the HEMTTs, and didn’t need a lowboy, and could fight and move at speed at the same time in case they had to drive out of an ambush. He decided to lead the convoy with an LAV; he hoped the sight of what most people thought of as a tank with that huge cannon would convince anyone that they weren’t worth messing with!

The heavy convoy rolled out at dusk, lead by a LAV-25, with LAVs and Hummers interspersed with transports, fuelers, and 18-wheeler tractor trailer combinations. When they got close to the armory, a security detachment of 4 LAV-25s and 4 TOW-armed Hummers was dispatched to secure the perimeter. Once they were in place, with a TOW armed Hummer on each street corner surrounding the armory, and LAV-25s in reserve, a second contingent was sent to make sure there were no surprises waiting them inside the armory. The place was vacant, but Bill had an uneasy feeling they were being watched. 5 minutes later, a dozen M-113s drove down the main street in a show of force, not realizing the Hummers were armed with TOWs that would make mincemeat of them if the LAV-25s didn’t get them first. The commanders of the LAV-25s were eager beavers, and told their drivers to get the lead out, and charged the M-113 APCs, knowing that their BMG 50 machine guns weren’t automatically aimed and were very inaccurate at night. Once they were within range of the 25mm Bushmaster cannon, they engaged the M-113s with their M791 APDS-T anti-armor rounds, which turned the UN APCs into funeral pyres. The TOW-armed Hummers felt cheated, since they didn’t get to play, but Bill was glad that he had expended maybe 100 rounds of 25mm instead of 12 scarce TOW missiles. The coax machine guns on the LAV-25s took care of anyone who managed to make it out of the APCs. Bill realized the UN knew he might attack, and was expecting follow-on forces within a couple of hours, so he told the scavengers to grab the heavy weapons, missiles, and heavy weapons platforms and their ammo first, then worry about the small arms. He was going to set demolition charges to blow up anything they had to leave behind. He wasn’t leaving the UN or anyone else anything they might use against them. Remembering the radios in the Hummers would receive as well as send, he put a listening watch on the frequency the UN Commanders used last time using the French speaking Rebels.

Once he was set up, he called the Scavenger teams in, and within 2 hours had stripped the place practically to the bare walls. Again they located a Missile bunker, so they loaded the missiles into the 18-wheeler tractor trailers, and all the ammo into the deuce and a halves. They didn’t need any diesel fuel, since they had plenty, so Bill planned on setting charges to the fuel depot to deny it to anyone else. As far as he knew, they were the only group of Christians in their part of the state, so they wouldn’t be denying it to anyone they wanted to have it. When they were good to go, Bill used several wind-up alarm clocks as primitive timers for the demolition charges, and set them for 15 minutes once the convoy was already out the gate. He set the last charges in the most vulnerable spots of the fuel depot, ensuring the entire depot burned, jumped into his personal Hummer, and drove like a madman to catch up to the convoy. He wanted to be as far away from the armory when it blew. He was about 20 miles away when he saw a huge fireball in his rearview mirror, then a minute later, felt a huge blast lift up the back of the Hummer and set it back down. When his nerves had calmed, he called “Convoy – Status Check”. 2 minutes later Sam came back “Code 4” meaning they were all OK, or the damage wasn’t significant enough to report via radio, and give the enemy a radio fix. 10 minutes later, he caught up with the convoy, and it looked basically OK. He took up his position as tail-end Charlie, and told his 50-cal gunner to man the gun and swivel it back down the road, and to shoot anything that moved. Bill’s gunner was glad he was wearing his vest with the chicken plates, because the gunner in the Hummer was exposed from the waist up. Every 5 miles they made a random turn east or west to confuse anyone trying to get a bearing on their home base.

Early the next morning, they arrived back in Clarksburg, and took the rest of the morning unloading the take, sorting, and inventorying. Bill thanked the Saboteurs, and gave them all the .223 ammo (10 cases), half the M-16s so each Saboteur had 1, and half the 40mm grenades (10 out of 20 cases of 40mm HEDP grenades). He gave them all the explosives they found (10 pounds of C-4) all the det cord (100 feet) and half the detonators. Bill preferred military detonators, but knew the saboteurs weren’t safe using improvised detonators, which were much touchier than the military ones. Since the saboteurs couldn’t use the missiles, he gave them the LAW rockets they got last night instead. The LAW worked great against soft targets, which was the objective of the Saboteurs anyway. Once the Antichrist had control of the system, the idea was to equip 2-man patrols with as much as they could carry, and send them out to destroy selected targets that would cripple the Antichrist, like communication facilities including satellite relay stations, TV stations, newspapers, government offices, and high Antichrist Officials, if they could get close enough. The Rebels would concentrate on mutual support of nearby towns, and defending the community. Bill had an idea for defending the community, and caught up with the leader of the Community Defense committee. “Bob, I’ve got an idea for you. I’ve got way more than what I need for any military action. I want to pre-position my less-mobile equipment so that we can use it to defend the community. I’ve got 3 105mm howitzers that are very effective defensive weapons, but are a bear to move. If we set them up in the center of town, they can shell the perimeter with impunity unless they have air support or counterbattery weapons. I can give you all my Bradleys unless I need them for a specific mission since they need to be hauled everywhere, and the haulers make a nice big fat road-bound target. Their 25mm Bushmaster will make sushi out of anything besides an M-1a Abrams. We have tons of anti-tank and anti-air missiles. I can give you enough of each to defend the city, but air defense of such a big fixed target is going to be next to impossible unless they are really stupid!”

Bob thanked Bill and told him he would arrange storage of the equipment as close to the sites where they needed them as possible He thought a truckload of 105mm HE rounds with VT fuses would make the UN/AC soldiers very leery of attacking once he started shelling them. The Bradleys and the missiles Bill could spare would make things even better. When Bill left, Bob called a meeting of the Community Defense leaders, and gave them the good news. They decided to re-vamp their defense plans taking into account the new hardware. Dan suggested that they set up the 105s so that they could fire right down the main roads coming into town just by changing the elevation, instead of having to change elevation and azimuth to track a moving target. It would mean loosing their massed fire capability since they would be separated by over a mile, but with the inexperienced gunners, it made more sense. Besides 1 well placed 105 round would ruin a whole bunch of average Eurotrash UN troopers’ whole day. Dan mentioned getting ranges and bearings to landmarks so they would have their artillery pre-plotted, or else they could wind up wiping out someone’s house by mistake. Dan asked if anyone had a GPS unit, several people said they did, but they weren’t working too well. Dan asked them to try again, because if they could get at least 1 working GPS unit, they could pre-plot their targets to within 10 meters. One of the guys ran home, and came back with the good news that his unit was working again. Dan took out his small-scale city map, and pointed out landmarks that would make good registration marks for the artillery, and he said he would get right on storing them as waypoints in his system. Dan said if they could get those points registered, and got a GPS fix on the locations of the guns, the GPS units themselves could give distance and bearing to the targets. If someone could make up a spreadsheet with the plotted targets range and bearing, all they needed to do was look the range up in the Artillery range books to give the mil setting for the elevation, and convert the bearing to mils, then set the gun accordingly, it should be plus or minus 20 meters from spot on, eliminating the need for spotter rounds unless they were danger close to friendlies. With inexperienced gunners, he’d say anything within 100 meters of friendlies was considered “Danger Close”, and they didn’t have enough rounds to practice.

The next day, they had all the landmarks plotted, and had worked out the positions for the guns. One of the Rebels used to be in Artillery, and worked out all the math, and presented them a “cheat sheet” with the mil settings necessary to hit every landmark, and more importantly, the offsets needed for different ranges from the target in 10 meter increments. So if a spotter called in “#27, plus 10, right 50” they would look up the registration mark #27, add 10 meters, and move the spot right 50 meters, add the offsets to the mil settings for range and elevation, and fire. They could have pinpoint firing for any spot within 1000 meters of a registration mark. Since the registration marks were approximately 1,000 meters apart down the roads, they had things covered. They drove a surveyors’ stake into the ground with yellow tape where they wanted the gun tubes to be, so they could find the spot easily without having to re-plot everything, and hid the guns in abandoned barns. They divided the ammo load into 3rds, and loaded the ammo in the back of each truck they would use for positioning the gun, with the fuses in a shock-resistant case next to them. If necessary, the truck could take their remaining ammo to another gun if the attack was coming from only 1 direction. Bill returned the remainder of Mike’s “Super RPG” rockets and launchers to the CD team, since they had more than enough military anti-tank rockets. Bill kept the Claymores, since they were too dangerous for the CD team to mess with, and with the big back blast danger, would be of limited use in or near the town.

Dan had finally finished making the 10 BMG-50 suppressed rifles, and mounting the scopes to them. He boresighted each scope, then called Bill and said the rifles were ready to pick up. Bill was there in half an hour, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary. He was amazed at the workmanship that went into the rifles. They looked like they came out of the Barretts factory, except they had a huge integral suppressor, and the scope mount put the center of the scope almost 4 inches above the center of the bore because it had to clear the huge suppressor. Bill wondered how he made the stocks until he saw a mold and some pieced of machined aluminum. Dan must have had serious connections at one time to get all the materials and plans necessary to make a synthetic stock that was as good as a McMillan stock, but customized for the higher scope mount. Bill didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, so he said thanks, and high-tailed it out of there with his new-found toys. He took the 10 sharpshooters out to a mine, and had them sight in their rifles. They didn’t have match ammo, so they’d have to make do with military ball, which they claimed would work for 1,000 yards “Minute of Dirtbag”. Bill started laughing.

Bill had insisted on a 24 hour radio watch on known UN frequencies, with tape backup just in case the French speaking Rebels were busy. It paid off big the next day when the operator heard something on the radio, but couldn’t translate it. An hour later, the French speaking Rebel translated it, and his eyes got the size of dinner plates. He swore in his native Cajun patois, good thing neither the operator or Bill spoke Cajun! Bill felt like joining him when he read the message, all Hell was about to break loose. Someone higher up got tired of the halfway measures his subordinate used, and was sending a huge task force to deal with Clarksburg. It would include front line French and German troops with rotary air support provided by National Guard troops. Bill prayed that they were Cobras instead of Apaches. The Apache was a hard kill, but the older Cobras were more vulnerable. It would take the French General 2 days to assemble his forces, and they would attack from the North, which thankfully limited their lines of attack to the 2 pre-registered roads. Knowing their probable line of advance, and when they were going to strike, Bill got busy.

He called a meeting of all the committee leaders, and read the translation of the taped conversation, and the original tape, in case anyone spoke French. Evidently someone higher up in the Antichrist organization had heard of them attacking and stripping National Guard Armories, and they wanted to destroy them before they had a chance to use them. They brainstormed for several hours, and came up with several ideas. The Prayer warriors focused on the upcoming battle, and the Underground Railroad got all the women and children to safety. The Rebels, Community Defense, and the Saboteurs joined forces under the command of Bill, who had the most experience. They designed a defense in depth. Instead of just defending the town, and letting the battle come to them, Bill wanted to set up along their line of advance, snipe, and retreat before they could bring superior force to bear. They had plenty of anti-tank rockets, and they had plenty of TOW equipped Hummers. Bill came up with a brilliant but dangerous plan to whittle the UN/AC forces down to size. He’d deploy TOW-equipped Hummers along the enemy line of advance, and shoot up the convoy, going for the heavy tanks that would still be on their trailers, and when the enemy called in their air support, the Hummer would boogie, drawing the chopper right into a Stinger ambush with 2 Stinger gunners laying in wait for the chopper. Hopefully they’d kill the chopper before it got the Hummer. If they were Apaches, the Hummers were toast, but if they were the older Cobras, they’d have to get much closer to engage with guns, since they didn’t have the TOW missiles to waste on a Hummer. Bill thought that if the Cobra was within gun range of the rapidly retreating Hummer, he’d be in range of the Stinger crews, who would blow him out of the sky! Game, Set, Match – Rebels!

With their air support either blown out of the sky, or changing their drawers, the rest of the task force would be much easier to handle, especially if the Hummer crews were good and got a two-fer before boogying. 10 or 20 disabled and burning tanks would slow the convoy, cut down their numbers due to secondary explosions, and cause havoc because they would be forced to deploy after each attack, but there would be nothing to attack. Finally the commanders would determine that these were harassing attacks, and tell the troops to button up and drive through. The problem with that was a buttoned up tank was a vulnerable tank to the right weapon. He had dozens of Dragon anti-tank missiles, and if they were buttoned up, they’d never see the flanking attacks by the Dragons until they started impacting their tanks. They would still be out of artillery range of the town, but in sad shape and demoralized. If they were forced to continue the attack, the artillery would first engage them, then the remainder of the TOW missiles, then finally the Bradleys. If anyone got through all that with any inclination to attack, they were either suicidal or very determined. Every building in the city that had line of sight to the road would either have a machine gun, AT-4 rocket, or something else waiting for any unlucky UN/AC troops that made it that far. Bill remembered he had 10 BMG-50 riflemen, and debated using them, since they’d be exposed without a quick egress, and no backup. He started counting on his fingers “Driver, gunner, 2 Stinger gunners, back full of TOWs and Stingers, plus the BMG-50 and gunner – Nah, better use them for something else, besides they might not be within 1,000 yards.”

Chapter 13

Bill pored over his maps, looking for good spots to set up his Hummers. He was looking for ridges, plateaus, and hills that came within between 1 and 2 miles of the highway, he preferred locations further away, since the TOW missile had a range of over 2 miles, and he didn’t want the Hummers spotted too easily. The locations also had to have a ranch road or other access road up to the top that would allow the Hummer to escape at speed, encouraging the attacking commander to dispatch a chopper to deal with the pesky TOW equipped Hummer who was in the process of running away. He located 15 likely sites, and called Sam over to the map board, and asked his opinion. He liked Bill’s idea, but changed most of the sites. Several were too close in his opinion, and lacked a good escape route. He relocated 5 of his sites to hills that were a little further away. Bill agreed, the closest Hummer was now a 1.5 miles away from the road, and the furthest was almost 2 miles away, and they all had high-speed escape routes, and plenty of good spots to hide the Stinger ambush teams.

Bill called the Rebels together, and explained the situation, and his plan. One of the guys from the back quipped “What – you want to live forever?” when Bill tried to explain the risks. That put it in perspective. None of the Rebels minded dying for Christ, they just wanted to make sure the other guy died for his god first! Bill outlined his plans, and when he asked for volunteers, the entire Rebel team stood up as a man. Bill asked those with families to take care of to raise their hands. There were 10 family men out of the group of 50. He gave them the least risky job, but the most nerve wracking: Driving the Hummers. They had 15 TOW-equipped Hummers that could carry 5 missiles each for quick reloads, so that took 30 out of his 50 men. Including him and Sam, that left 22 men to cover 15 sites with Stingers. Bill and Sam looked at the map, and chose the sites that would get 2 Stinger shooters. Bill had a brainstorm and consulted with Sam briefly. They had plenty of Stingers, and wondered what the TOW gunner would be doing while the driver was trying to run away, and asked the gunners if they would like a couple of Stingers. Their reactions were like an 18-year old boy being asked if he wanted to drive his Dad’s fire engine red Ferrari Boxer V-12 on a date with a supermodel. Bill made sure each Hummer was issued 2 Stingers for self-defense. He explained that the Hummer being the first to nail a chopper was considered bad form, unless the other guy missed, or there were more than 1 chopper attacking the Hummer. The whole point of this exercise was to cut their air cover down to size, as well as blow up as many tanks as they could along the way. In order to sucker their choppers into range of the Stingers, they needed to act like bait instead of a Hummer with a Stinger just daring them to fly into range, so the gunners needed to be crafty and wait for the last second to grab the Stinger, turn, and fire. Besides, the best chance for the gunner to acquire the chopper in the missile’s viewer involved stopping the Hummer, making them a sitting duck for the chopper.

He picked the Stinger gunners, and told the 10 family men to pick a gunner from the remainder. Since most of the men knew each other since high school, they had established life long friendships, and they paired off. One guy said “If I’m going to risk my life as Cobra Bait, I want him watching my back.” That expressed the sentiments of the group. The rest of the Rebels paired off and flipped a coin for driver/gunner, or they knew that their team mate was either a better driver or gunner than they were, and it was quickly settled. The teams were told to pack E&E bags and plan to stay overnight. Their secondary job was to be an LP/OP tonight, and then be in position to shoot up the column tomorrow. If the other commander wasn’t a total idiot, he would try to infiltrate scouts to check out the route. He wanted to know where the scouts were, and what they were looking at. They had enough night vision equipment to issue each Hummer team a pair of night vision binoculars or a night vision scope. They weren’t the best, but it beat scanning the horizon with a Mark 1 Eyeball. They all had radios, and a series of short codes to give Bill updates about the progress of the scouts. He had a contingency plan for the removal of the scouts if they jeopardized his plan. Once the plan was finalized, they prayed together, shook hands, and several men hugged each other, because they knew they might never see each other again in this life. Outside the Hummers were filled, the TOWS and Stingers loaded, their personal weapons including at least 1 suppressed Sten, their E&E kits, and their overnight gear to make the long night spent watching and listening a little more bearable. They had time to write a last letter, or make a last phone call to a loved one, then they loaded up and moved out to face their destiny. Every vehicle made their own way to their spot, picking their route to minimize the chance of anyone outside town seeing them get into position. Once they were at their sites, they quickly turned their Hummers so they were facing away from the highway for a quicker getaway, and covered the vehicle with a camouflage net to break up its outline. Then they got comfortable and set up to wait. During the night, they saw all kinds of vehicles along the road, then at about 0200 the next morning, Bill got reports of slow moving vehicles moving south with blackout lights. They were UN Hummers, and the idiots didn’t even bother to remove the UN logos, which would have made an excellent aiming point if their mission was to take out the scouts. All they wanted was the scouts to drive down the road fat dumb and happy and report back to base the way was clear.

The next morning, several volunteers from the Saboteurs set up Dragon launchers closer to town to take out any tanks that made it through the gauntlet of TOW missiles. The Assistant Gunner could prep new missiles for firing, and provide covering fire if necessary. They were equipped with M-60s and several belts of ammo, basically as much ammo as the two of them could stagger with. They were dropped off as close to their shooting position by some very harried truck drivers that had to get all the teams in place before the dance started, then get back into town to help man the town’s defenses.

Several hours after dawn, the northernmost Hummer team announced “The British are coming”. Not entirely accurate, but close enough. All the rest of the Hummer Crews broke down their overnight kits, packed their Hummers, and got ready for business. The gunners were in place behind their TOW launcher at least an hour before they needed to be. The engines of the Hummers were warmed up for a quick start, but off. After they fired their first missile, they could start their motors, but not before in case they give away their position with diesel smoke. Meanwhile the Stinger crews had been dropped off, and were in position, with 2 missiles a piece, about all they could carry and still carry their personal weapons and E&E kit. The Stinger crews had the toughest jobs, since they might get left on the mountain if the Hummer had to bug all the way out to escape several choppers, or else might witness their friends getting killed, and it could be because they missed for some reason. In that case, Bill told the Stinger teams that they had better get over their guilt and get back home any way they could, since they needed every fighter they had. They had been dropped off separately from the Hummer crews, since Bill knew the last thing they needed to face was spending an hour driving with the people they were supposed to protect. Stuff happened in War, and good men died. He hoped he didn’t have too many casualties, but against what he assumed were front-line troops, he expected some casualties.

The first Hummer team realized the column of UN/AC forces didn’t have any air cover right overhead, and hoped they were sitting back at their base. They wished they had more than 5 TOW missiles, but made the most of them, and 5 M-1a Abrams were burning on their trailers, and the secondary explosions caused by their ammunition cooking off and the turret blowing destroyed the tractor/trailer hauling it, which caused further fire and explosions. Whoever was running this circus had his units packed too tightly together. Sometimes they bunched up thinking they could give mutual support, but it also meant that several vehicles could be damaged by one explosion. The convoy stopped for 5 minutes until a screaming colonel wearing a French beret got the convoy moving again. They hoped they were shooting up Frenchies, since they actually like the few Brits they met. Since they never saw any choppers, they picked up their Stinger teams, and received permission to drop them off down the line at 2 sites that only had 1 Stinger missile, then RTB to refuel and rearm. They wanted another crack at those Frogs.

2 miles later, the second team lit the convoy up, fired all 5 of their missiles, and bugged out without seeing a chopper. Either they had no air support, or else they were asleep in their beds waiting for orders to attack. Bill was worried that they had air support, and it was waiting until they got to the town to attack. The second team picked up their Stinger gunners, dropped them off down the line, and RTB to refuel and rearm. 3 miles later, the third TOW team got into the action, and just as their 4th missile streaked off the launcher, the TOW gunner heard a familiar sound, it sounded like a squadron of Huey Cobras. He hit the roof twice, the driver’s cue to take off, and held on for dear life while he grabbed a Stinger missile, but didn’t put it on his shoulder. Right when the lead Cobra should have opened up, a smoke trail jumped up from his right, taking out the Cobra with a lucky hit. The second Cobra dove to strafe the missile launch site, and another Stinger jumped up, this time from the left, and smoked the #2 Cobra, but that left 4 very mad Cobra pilots, and they were getting low on Stingers. They each had 1 left, and the Hummer had 2. For them to survive, they’d have to get very lucky. The driver kept going as fast as possible, if they escaped the area, they could stop when they were still in range, and get one of the Cobras. The road at the top was slow and windy, so if they were caught up here, they were toast. Down below, he could move faster, or go cross country if necessary to evade. They had 2 Stingers, and a TOW if they were still being attacked after they expended all their Stingers. Rob was driving as fast as he could safely negotiate the switchbacks, and Jeff was looking for the rest of the Cobras. “Here they come” he thought.

One Cobra gunner got off a burst, but narrowly missed the twisting and turning Hummer. Seconds later, a 3rd Stinger joined it’s buddies in the fuselage of a Cobra. So far the Stinger gunners were 3 for 3, but the guy on the left was now out of Stingers, and trying to find a place to hide. The other 3 Cobras dove on his position, forgetting about the Hummer. Jeff wanted to make them pay for that mistake, and launched his first Stinger as soon as he got a tone. The huge explosion told him he hit his mark. That left 2 Cobras and two missiles. The last 2 Cobras split up and came at them from opposite sides of the circle. Jeff could barely see the Stinger gunner aiming at one of the Cobras, so he aimed at the one coming out of the sun, forgetting that smart Cobra drivers came at a Stinger out of the sun, because the sun could cause the seeker to break lock. Jeff fired, and the Cobra saw the smoke trail, and rolled away, letting the missile track right into the sun. Jeff saw his death staring him in his face, then realized he had a TOW missile left, He was trying to get it mounted when the 25mm cannon rounds shredded him and the Hummer. As he pulled off, the Cobra forgot about the other Stinger operator and paid for his mistake with his life. The last Cobra rolled in and strafed the Stinger launch site, killing the Stinger gunner, then turned for home. The last Stinger gunner realized he had a long depressing walk home, but walked over to his friend to bury the body and remove anything useful from his cached supplies. The Hummer had burst into flames when a cannon round hit the TOW missile in Jeff’s hands, blowing him straight to Eternity. Rob joined his friend a split second later. There wasn’t anything left worth burying from the Hummer, so Jim took care of his buddy, and recovered his beloved Sten gun, 2 combat packs of ammo, 10 loaded magazines, his E&E kit, and a blood-soaked picture of him and Jim taken from when they were Rangers in DS#1. He dug a deep hole to bury his friend, then read the 23rd Psalm over the grave, left one of Ron’s dogtags on the grave, before he said “goodbye Ron” and turned and walked home.

At the next spot, the Hummer was waiting, when he heard all kinds of racket to his north, and the sound of many helicopters, then a strange and eerie silence descended on the area. Slowly, he heard an increasingly louder rumbling, and knew it was the column. Steve, the TOW gunner, loaded a round in the launcher, and as soon as they were within range, he let fly at the first Abrams he saw. It was a direct hit right below the turret that sent the turret flying in the air, killing people all around, blowing up the 18-wheeler, and igniting the 30,000 gallons of diesel in the dual-trailer fuel-hauling 18-wheeler right behind it. It was a lucky hit, but loosing the fuel meant that the attack was now a 1-way trip unless they survived and found some more fuel. The second TOW missile found another Abrams, but this time there wasn’t much collateral damage. Steve had sighted a MLRS Rocket launcher when he heard the noise of choppers. Glancing up, there were 3 Cobras headed for them. They were still out of range, so he shot his missile at the MLRS, and got a major bonus when one of the rockets cooked off from the explosion, saturating the area with highly toxic smoke. Anyone within 100 feet that wasn’t MOPPed up would soon either be dead, or wishing they were. When the missile impacted, Steve hit the roof twice, and reached for a Stinger. These must not have been very experienced Cobra pilots, because they were attacking in a V formation, and close enough together that one missile might take out all 3. Since they were almost in range, Steve got off a snap-shot right before George started driving away. He barely had a second to lock up, but he was pretty sure he heard the tone. George’s sudden acceleration broke his sight on the target, but the missile was already gone, and he could check his actions later, once he prevented himself from getting thrown off the Hummer from George’s wild driving. When he finally got his balance, he looked up and there were only 2 Cobras left, and one was visibly smoking. 5 second later, 2 more missiles finished off the attacking Cobras, so Steve hit the roof 3 times to tell George to Stop. 5 minutes later, they picked up the 2 Stinger gunners, their spare missiles, and their other gear. When they were driving down the hill, Steve saw an Orange flare. He thought it odd that anyone would have an orange flare, and said so. One of the Stinger missileers said “Did you say Orange?”

“Yeah why?”

“Bill gave all the Stinger teams an Orange flare so if we got separated, we could use them as an ID and a locator. Go get him!” Half an hour later, Jim was in the Hummer, telling everyone the story of what had happened on his hill. They were saddened by the loss of friends, but glad that they had taken out 4 tanks and 5 out of 6 Cobras. Back among friends, Jim took a combat nap. While Jim slept, George sent a brief coded message, and they were told to RTB, refuel, and rearm in case they were needed later. They drove back using as different a route as possible. Two hours later, they were talking to Bill in person, giving him a debriefing of the entire fight as they knew it. Bill knew he would take casualties, but still was saddened by the loss of 3 good friends, but knew they were in Heaven right now. While they rested, the Hummer was refueled, and they took another 5 TOW missiles and 6 more Stingers out of inventory, so everyone had a full load of 2 Stingers, and the Hummer had its full load of TOWs. Bill decided to keep them in reserve, in case the existing TOW teams and the Dragon teams didn’t stop the column, and they still had air cover. He plotted out spots to send them between the last Hummer team and the first of the Dragon sites. He didn’t want any friendlies between the Dragon sites and the town, since that was the domain of the artillery, and he didn’t want to be responsible for an accidental Friendly Fire incident.

While they were returning, several more Hummer teams engaged with TOW missiles, and either they were running out of Cobras, or their commander realized that they had Cobra traps set up, possibly by the loss of almost 2 squadrons of Cobras. Bill hoped they didn’t have too many more Cobras or they would be in a world of hurt if they could attack the artillery sites once they started firing. He might reassign the Stinger teams that made it back without firing a shot to defending the town, especially the 105 Howitzers, which would be a prime target for any Cobras left, since the Hummers had fried their MLRS launcher. He doubted the other commander would bring towed artillery, since it took forever to set up, and was vulnerable to counterbattery fire. He had to assume that Bill had access to the same equipment he did, since they were reported to have raided 3 NG Armories.

The next team fired all 5 of their TOWs, destroying 5 Abrams tanks and their haulers. They didn’t see any Cobras, so they picked up their Stinger crews, and were told to RTB to Refuel and Rearm.

The next team killed 5 tanks as well, and as they were firing their 5th TOW, the TOW gunner heard the dreaded sound of choppers, and pounded twice on the roof. They had an easy escape route, so they had to drive slowly enough that the choppers would still be in range of the Stingers when they got close. There were only 3 Cobras, and for that they were eternally grateful. Second later, the lead and his wingman were blown out of the sky by the 2 Stinger gunners. The TOW gunner took the last one while the Stinger gunners were reloading, then banged on the roof 3 times. They picked up the Stinger teams, and received instructions to RTB to refuel and rearm. When Bill got the word, he hugged the nearest Rebel. The other commander was using his Cobras, and must be running low, since he only sent 3 Cobras last time instead of 6. He left instructions with his radio operator, that if any other teams called in with unexpended missiles, they were to RTB.

By the time all the Hummer teams had checked in, they had each expended 4 or 5 missiles, and every one of them claimed a kill on an Abrams for each missile. That meant that the Column was now conservatively down 50 tanks and haulers, plus the MLRS and the diesel tanker. He considered the column was combat ineffective with 50 percent attrition. In a normal war, this would make the commander turn around and go home, but he remembered who was calling the shots, and Satan didn’t care how many people he killed – he actually wanted them to die horrible deaths. Bill realized he might have to kill every last tank to stop the attack. He had plenty of Dragons, plus the artillery.

Next to get into action were the Dragon teams. Since they were ground pounders, they couldn’t carry as many missiles, but there were more of them. The Saboteurs had detailed 30 men to the Dragon teams, so he had 15 teams of two each, and each team could carry 3-4 missiles, since they didn’t have to walk too far from where they were dropped off to their planned shooting site. The Dragon had a 1500 meter range, and was wire guided like the TOW, but had a lower PK due to the smaller warhead. The new Superdragon (1990) could penetrate 18 inches of armor, which was sufficient to kill an M-1a Abrams from the side or top. The front armor was too thick and sloped. Bill had told all his Dragon teams not to waste a missile unless they had a clean shot at the sides or rear of an Abrams. He hoped for at least 30 kills or at least a total disablement from the Dragon teams.

The Dragon teams were in place and set up an hour before the column got there. They were expecting all the Abrams and Bradleys to still be on their carriers, and be sitting ducks, unfortunately, their commander on the scene had realized that they were sitting ducks on their carriers, and off-loaded them farther out than usual. Realizing this was a one-way trip without the diesel, he overrode his commander’s orders to stay on the lowboys until they were 10 miles out of town, and offloaded the tracked vehicles and their crews 50 miles out of town, and told the carriers to wait there in case they needed a lift home. After their previous mauling, he wasn’t planning on too many tanks making it home. Whomever they were facing was a military genius, and his superiors were idiots! He had lost 50% of his tanks, and the only kills he could claim was 1 Hummer and its crew from the air support! If he lived that long, he was going to level that town, then get back to headquarters and shoot his superior!

The first Dragon team to come into contact with the enemy was surprised when the Bradleys and Abrams were maneuvering independently instead of sitting ducks on their trailers. They still had a job to do, but several Dragon teams were killed by coax fire from the Abrams and the 25mm Bushmaster of the Bradleys. One of them got word to Bill that the Abrams and Bradleys had gotten off their trailers early, and were maneuvering. Looking around, over half of his Hummer teams were back and rearming. He hated to send them back out to almost certain death, but he was out of options. If those Abrams made it to town, they could destroy the entire town. He gathered the remaining Hummer teams, and told them the good news. They weren’t happy, but they knew it was necessary. They left their Stinger teams behind to defend the town in case they still had some air support, and drove out to meet the enemy. Bill was in a quandary – again! If he deployed the Hummers into no-mans land, they would get destroyed by the planned artillery barrage. If they were deployed among the Dragon teams, there might be some fratricide. He hoped the Dragon teams knew that the enemy had no TOW armed Hummers. If he broadcast a warning to the Dragon teams, that might get intercepted, and tip his hand. He told the Hummers to stay more than 10 miles away from town until the barrage lifted. He’d have one of the 105s fire a star shell as an all clear. The Hummer drivers sought whatever cover they could outside 10 miles from town, and along the line of advance for the tanks. Right after they got set, they heard the faint sound of tracks on pavement, and got ready. They would have to engage at maximum range to have any chance of surviving. The Hummers were told to shoot and scoot, so they wouldn’t get a return shot from another tank. There wasn’t much cover out there that was proof against a 120mm smoothbore round. Every Hummer had a missile loaded, and engaged the tanks at maximum range. Knowing that they wouldn’t have a chance with a nose-on shot, they had to wait until they were broadside on to a tank, or else maneuver quickly to get broadside on. The problem with maneuvering is that it made them an instant target for the Bradleys in support of the tanks, who could move just as fast as the Hummers, and had the lethal 25mm Bushmaster cannon to deal with them. Most of them adopted a still hunting method, and hoped a tank would drive into their sights.

The Tanks were all buttoned up, and had limited vision out of their vision blocks, so some of the Hummers were able to hide until they were close enough for a quick broadside shot from around 2 miles away. 5 tanks died, but 3 Hummers got hit. At this rate, they’d run out of Hummers before they ran out of tanks. The Dragon teams saw the Hummers engage the tanks, and knew the Hummers were theirs, and started shooting Bradleys with their remaining Dragons, since a Bradley was an easy kill for the Dragon, and it was a deadly opponent to the Hummers. They quickly killed the 5 remaining Bradleys, with the loss of 2 Dragon teams. Now that the Bradleys were out of the fight, the Hummers could move and shoot, and got off at least 2 shots before being hit. Since the tank turrets couldn’t traverse quick enough to keep up with the agile Hummers, the commanders were forced to engage them with their Ma Deuces. One problem with that was an exposed commander was a vulnerable commander, and several were killed by shrapnel from exploding tanks or return fire, effectively taking them out of combat The Hummers attacked the tanks that were still in the fight, and eventually knocked out all the tanks, but at a horrific price. Half of the Hummers were shot-up, or burning fiercely. The remaining Dragon teams used their few remaining missiles and killed the few remaining tanks in revenge for killing the Hummer crews. One of the Dragon teams made it to a shot-up Hummer and was amazed the radio still worked. They told Bill that the Bradleys and Tanks were destroyed, but at the loss of half of his Hummers. Bill called the 105’s and asked them to fire a star shell. The exploding magnesium shell told the surviving Hummer crews the good news, the battle was over, and to RTB. The remaining Hummers tried to pick up as many Dragon teams as possible, and sent word to the trucks to come out and gather the rest of them.

Chapter 14

Bill spent the next several days getting a list of the injured and killed. The fatality rate turned out to be lower than he thought, but higher than he hoped. In all, he lost 20 out of 50 of his Rebels, and the Saboteurs lost 10 Dragon teams, for another 20 KIA. Bill had mixed feelings, on one hand; they had repelled a numerically superior force with better weapons between their courage, luck, faith, and a good plan. Several TOW gunners had felt a peaceful presence that almost seemed to protect them from the brutality of what they were doing. Several stinger crews couldn’t remember firing their rockets, yet they had a 100% hit ratio. The Stinger wasn’t known as a 100% reliable weapon. Bill didn’t know about the Stinger fired by the dead Hummer crew that performed just Stingers were advertised, and tracked into the sun. It really wasn’t the missile’s fault; it did track to the hottest heat source, just a smart pilot taking advantage of a known problem with ground-based IR tracking missiles! On the other, if he had better weapons, he might not have lost so many men. The Hummer was never designed to go up against Main Battle Tanks, but he didn’t have any choice. What he needed was a Miracle. Bill kneeled and prayed right were he was for the men he lost, for the families of the men he had lost, and for the strength to endure to the end, and for a miracle to help defend the innocent civilians of this town. Unless he replaced his combat losses, they were doomed when the next major attack occurred. They could barely fight off an organized attack by brigands or terrorists. Another assault by a large force of Main Battle tanks with proper support would mean the end. It was frustrating, according to the people in the Underground Railroad, they had evacuated almost a million Christians from occupied territory. The pastors were busy 24 hours a day ministering to the needs of their largely expanded flock. They needed help in a big way. He couldn’t do it; suddenly he realized he really hadn’t asked God’s help and his will in all this. He sank lower into the carpet on his face. He remained there about 10 minutes when he felt an indescribable feeling of peace, and he was surrounded by a bright white light, and he knew that God was helping, and that more help would come soon, not when he wanted it, but when he needed it. Bill had enough faith to trust God, so he thanked him for what he had done, and trusted that God would take care of his own. He got up from his knees in time to receive a report from Sam listing the dead and wounded, and how much hardware was damaged and destroyed. He cringed at the numbers, but had faith.

He met with the pastors to arrange a memorial service for the dead. The best speaker among them was an 80-yr old Baptist Minister, and he volunteered to do the service, with help from all the other ministers. They agreed the following Saturday was the best choice for a Memorial Service for all the fallen. The pastors met, and agreed to a basic service, with the eulogy given by Bill. When he heard this, he was first flattered, then dismayed, he knew not what to say – the last time he had buried anyone was in Afghanistan. That was a long time ago. The elderly pastor put his arms around him. “Bill, the Lord Will Provide!” “Amen Reverend!” Bill took out a legal pad and wrote some brief notes, and an outline. He hated reading canned speeches, especially at funerals or memorial services. Saturday came up unexpectedly fast, and he was uneasy before the Service, so he kneeled in prayer. Suddenly he had an image of the famous painting of George Washington kneeling, he thought it was at Valley Forge, and he knew what to say. When he got up, he heard the Music service ending, straightened his uniform, and he strode out to the Podium.

“Brothers and Sisters in Christ, while we all miss the people who died in the latest attack, know that they died as Martyrs for Christ. I truly believe we are in the Great Tribulation, and there are only 2 ways to Heaven now, either as a Martyr, or as an Overcomer. None of us are going to be alive in 7 years, those of us who survive and fight the good fight, will reign with Christ. The Martyrs will have a special place in the kingdom. The 20 brave men gave their lives for Christ, and also for their fellow soldiers. I’m reminded of John 15:13 “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Soldiers since time immemorial have laid down their lives for their brother soldiers, but we have a closer bond as Christians, and we truly know what we are fighting for, not a nation, or national pride, but the survival of our faith. If we were wiped out, millions of people that the Underground Railroad will help would be trapped behind enemy lines, to face the choice of dying for their faith, or denying that faith to live a little longer. These men gave their lives to give them the freedom to worship God. Thomas Jefferson once said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants.” I’d add to this an even older quote from Tertullian “The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.” I’ve been praying for guidance, and I know that God will provide. We must be faithful, and continue the good work God has started. These martyrs are just a down payment on the full bill of Martyrs; one way or another, we will all be reunited soon in Heaven. God Bless you.”

The audience stood, and in a rare show of emotion in a Church, applauded, and he heard several shouts of “Alleluia” and “Amen” from members of the congregation. The elderly pastor rendered the benediction, then the people were dismissed. After the service, the Reverend approached Bill “Young man, I was moved by your words beyond understanding. I’m sure the Lord is working through you. Keep your faith, and beware the sin of pride.” Bill reacted as if God himself had spoken to him, then embraced the reverend, and they prayed together. “Reverend, please pray for me whenever you get a chance, as well as my men and their families.” “Bill, I have been since the start, I’m glad to know that you are relying on the Lord. God Bless!” and with that, the Reverend left him. He spent the rest of the afternoon with his men, and their families. He cried a lot, but he was also comforted by the powerful faith of the survivors. One wife said, “Don’t worry General, I’ll see Jim again soon, it’s just like he’s on an extended overseas mission, except he can’t call, and this time I know we’ll be reunited.” Bill enveloped Jim’s widow in a bear hug and cried with her. Jim was Bill’s best friend for over 20 years, and too many battles to count. “I’m sorry Sally, I couldn’t bring Jim back from this one!” “Bill, it’s OK, he’s with God now.”

Eventually the wake broke up, and Bill had work to do.

Bill was reviewing the latest logistics and inventory information, when Sam came in. “Bill, you’re not going to believe this, but we just got a coded message from a National Guard Unit. The entire unit wants to defect. They heard about the battle we fought, and don’t want to be any part of fighting fellow Americans and Christians.

“Sam, how many of the guardsman are Born Again Christians?”

“I’ll check and get back to you.

5 minutes later, Bill’s cell phone rang, he was amazed, since it hadn’t worked since the meteor. He answered the phone, and before he could say anything, the caller asked “Is this KATN Tucker?” Very few people knew his nickname from Afghanistan, so he said “Yes”.

“Don’t say anything else, I have to be brief. The 278th ACR is going to desert as an entire unit, and relocate with you – minus the headquarters company, or part of it. Anyway, we were assigned to attack you, and we realized who’s running the show, and don’t like it. We’ll come up I-64 and our lead Hummer will be flying a St. George Flag. We’ll see you in tomorrow night around 2100. Have your lead Hummer fly a Gadsden or Confederate flag, so we know it’s you.”

“Acknowledged.”


The next thing Bill heard was a dial tone, so he closed his phone. He didn’t know how they did it, but someone at the 278th ACR not only tapped into the cellular phone system, but also found his private number. He hoped what he heard was true. The entire 278th ACR out of Knoxville Tennessee was a lot of firepower. Taking a quick look at his map, they would have been the next logical choice to attack him, they were “The Closest with the Mostest.” He thanked God for deliverance, because if they were on the UN/AC side, the next place he would be was Heaven, because he wouldn’t have a prayer against 41 Abrams and 41 Bradley M3A2’s plus their artillery and air wings, especially the Apache and the Kiowa Warrior. He called for Sam, and told him to locate a Gadsden or Confederate flag ASAP! Since he didn’t have a prayer against the 278th if they were on the other side, he decided to travel lightly, with a LAV-25 backing him up. He’d drive the Hummer, and take one of the BMG-50 equipped Hummers so he’d look less threatening, and leave the remainder of his force behind to either fight or flee if the news wasn’t good. When Sam came back with a Confederate flag, Bill told him everything, including the fact that he was going to personally meet the 278th ACR on I-64, and if they didn’t hear from him within 3 hours after he left, he needed to evacuate everyone, since the 278th would be within combat range in a little over 2 hours. Sam arranged everything so they could evacuate in 2 hours with essential equipment only, they’d leave anything they couldn’t take with them, and set it on fire on the way out. Bill spent the day in prayer, and at 1800, climbed aboard his Hummer, made sure the gunner had a belt loaded in the Ma Deuce just in case, and told the LAV-25 to lock and load. He had just enough combat power with him to improve his survival chances from none to slim. He could deal with any Brigands, but if he ran into elements of the 278th, and it wasn’t deserting, he’d go out in a Blaze of Glory. To make sure they could make it home, the Hummer carried 10 extra gallons of diesel in Jerry cans on the back. The LAV-25 had way more range than the Hummer, and didn’t need any extra fuel. By 2100 they were waiting just north of Charleston on I-64. They heard the noise of hundreds of diesel engines around 2055, and spotted the lead Hummer of the convoy flying the Saint George Flag, he could see the red cross easily against the white background. He thought it was a nice touch, since the Christian Crusaders flew that flag. He had his Confederate flag flying from the antenna, now all he needed was Daisy Duke and the General Lee! The Hummer stopped 50 feet from him, and Bill saw someone he hadn’t seen for years, his old Sergeant from Afghanistan! “Bill, how are you?”

“Damned glad to see you George. I hate to admit it, but your desertion ruse would have been a perfect cover to attack us under. Hang on a second, ET needs to phone home.” Bill called Sam with a one word code “Bullseye”, any other word would have initiated the bug-out plan. Bill walked back to George. “Why don’t you ride with me, so we can catch up on things?” George turned and waved his handkerchief at the Hummer, and Bill could see the Ma Deuce gunner relax and point his barrel in a safe direction. “I see you had a fail-safe too?” “Well General, as you know, you don’t live long by taking unnecessary chances.” They got in Bill’s Hummer, and the Hummer and the LAV turned around, with the LAV leading the way. Bill asked George for a sitrep.

“You’re not going to like this, but from what I’ve heard, Clarksburg is the only small town east of the Mississippi that was able to resist the forces of the UN/AC. Most of the big cities on the Eastern Seaboard were wiped out by the Tsunami – you realize the Tsunami was over a mile high in spots! The Appalachians were the only thing that stopped it from coming further west. Even the Southeastern states that bordered the Atlantic were devastated. Nothing below 6,000 feet survived. Florida was virtually washed off the map. Anyone that survived East of the Mississippi found themselves refugees, and wards of the State. With the destruction of Washington, DC, the reconstituted UN took over from Rome, and started running things. For a while we were doing disaster relief, then all of a sudden, we were acting like an occupying army. We didn’t realize what was going on until we heard the reports of your fight the other day through the rumor mill, then orders came down from on high to suppress a rebellion in Clarksburg, WV. That rang a bell, since I remembered you lived in Clarksburg, and you would never rebel against a legitimate government. I did some checking, and found out the “Rebellion” was nothing more than Christians fighting the AntiChrist system. I just confirmed that Solana really is the Biblical Antichrist. He was shaking hands in a crowd yesterday, when someone stuck a .357 double barreled derringer into his chest, and shot him twice. He must have been ex-Special Forces, since the rounds resembled the damage a “Cookie Cutter” round does, and blew his chest open, which would have killed anyone else. 5 minutes later, he got up, and he was glowing with power. The TV broadcast the entire incident live, which was amazing, since Solana has absolute control over the media. TV commentators all around the world were calling him the Messiah. I know for a fact there was only 1 Messiah, and he lived almost 2,000 years ago, so this guy had to be the Antichrist. He blamed the incident on “Radical Fundamentalist Christians” and initiated a program to wipe them out or make them renounce their “False Religion”. So far he’s publicly executed thousands of Christians who refuse to renounce Christ. He’s even instituted what he is calling a Citizen’s ID, but I’m pretty sure it’s the Mark of the Beast, because you can’t do anything without it, and we were given 30 days to accept the mark or resign from the military and face the consequences. Today was to be the 28th day, so our assignment to attack you was a godsend, since the travel orders must have been written by a noncompoop! They allowed us to bring “Any Equipment we felt necessary to destroy Clarksburg” so naturally we brought it all. We have practically every round in the armory, including all our artillery shells, and all our missiles, and every vehicle that was fit to drive. We took all the food too, so you don’t have to worry about feeding us. Oh, I almost forgot, out entire air wing joined us. That gives you 72 Apaches, and 12 Kiowa Warriors, with full loadouts, and 10 reloads in the trucks. Before we left, we shot the traitors, so we cleaned out every drop of diesel we could bring, and torched the rest. I’ve got almost 200,000 gallons of Diesel and jet fuel in the tankers behind us, and I hoped you didn’t torch all the armories, because we intend to pump them dry as well. I don’t think too many people will try to argue with us.”

“George, sounds like you got out just in the nick of time. We’d love to take you all in, and we’ll just have to make room for all of you. How many people did you bring anyway?”

“I’ve got a little over 10,000 people with me. As far as housing goes, don’t worry, we brought all of our own buildings with us. They were going to send us to Iraq before the meteor hit, and we are fully loaded out, including desert shelters, steel buildings, and a full MASH unit. I’ve got enough stuff in this convoy to be self-sufficient for a year!”

“George, if you were a girl, I’d kiss you! You’re an answer to our prayers. We were expecting to get attacked by a force about your size, and knew we wouldn’t have a prayer without God, so we prayed.”

“Bill, the funniest thing is 2/3 of my command are Born Again Christians, and the rest belong to main-line churches. It’s amazing what staring death in the face can do to encourage you to get right with God!”

“Amen, Brother – Remember that incident in Afghanistan where that Terrorist pointed a RPG at us, and it wouldn’t fire? By all accounts, I should have died then and there, but I know I was spared so we can save as many lives, and as many souls as we can. We don’t have much time, but we’re working as hard as we can.”

They drove on through the night, and at 0100 the next morning, arrived in Clarksburg. The MP’s traveling with the 278th directed traffic to pre-planned locations, and Bill just stood there watching the convoy go by. At 0300, it was still going by, and he was amazed at the combat power of an Armored Calvary Regiment. At 0500, the Apaches and Kiowas made their appearance, with a low-level flyby. They landed at the local airport, and were immediately fueled in case someone decided to attack Clarksburg. Solana would have to be insane to try it, but it doesn’t say anywhere that Satan was sane. Just to be on the safe side, George deployed his Air Defense teams on the outskirts of Clarksburg. Anything flying below 8,000 ft without the right IFF codes would be targeted and shot down.

Chapter 15

Once the 278th got settled, they made plans to accomplish 3 things: 1) Scrounge all the supplies they can get, especially the remaining diesel at the 2 National Guard Armories that he didn’t torch. 2) Drive the forces of the AntiChrist from the surrounding area, so they could expand their perimeter, have a buffer zone, and more housing for Christian Refugees. 3) Once they had eradicated the forces of the AntiChrist from their area, make connections to other Christian enclaves, and other NG and US Military units who were willing to fight for the right side, and organize a nationwide resistance to the AntiChrist. They had no idea whether it would succeed or not, but they had to try; besides no one was getting out of this alive anyway!

George and Bill got together will the rest of the leaders to map out plans and strategy. When George found out that Dan could build good suppressed weapons, he was one of the most popular guys at the meeting. He wanted to locate some CNC machines and ordinance steel, and make hundreds of copies of his .45 caliber suppressed Sten gun. When he saw the suppressed BMG, George asked him if he could make enough suppressors to equip his sniper’s rifles with suppressors. They had plenty of Barrett’s BMG rifles, but they all had thread-on muzzle brakes instead of suppressors. Dan explained that the suppressor on the BMG-50 not only suppressed muzzle gases, but also eliminated the dust cloud to make it darn near impossible to spot a well hidden sniper with a BMG-50. That gave George several ideas, and he wanted some BMG’s suppressed ASAP, he’d have targets for them as soon as they were built, they were going headhunting!

Several groups got together and planned on how to liberate the required supplies. George said that they could use all the firepower they felt they needed to take all the diesel from the National Guard armories. He said that if they sent an armed Kiowa Warrior to the nearest armory, they could tell quickly if the fuel farm was still intact, and if they sent a strong force, they could leave right after the Kiowa radioed in its report. Bill liked George’s ideas. He was tired of sneaking around, with all the risks that entailed. He asked George how many 18-wheeler tankers he had, and found out between the two of them they had enough tankers to pump the depot dry in one trip, and enough firepower to protect the defenseless tankers. George thought that a couple of armed Apache helicopters leading the convoy would convince anyone to pick an easier target. He called the airport, and a Kiowa took off to check out the National Guard Armory. Meanwhile, the 18-wheeler tankers dumped their loads into any available underground tank. One tanker filled the HEMTT tankers that would accompany the convoy. An hour later, George received the All Clear, so Bill told all the Hummers and LAV-25s to accompany the fuel tankers to the NG armory. Later that afternoon, they came back with full tanks, and the guy in charge of the convoy told George there was enough stabilized Diesel and Jet fuel remaining to make 3 more trips. George needed either to find some more tank space, or secure the armory. Since the armory was in the next town, and they were going to secure it anyway, this just accelerated his plans. He talked with Bill, and he thought it was a great idea. Bill said the existing Police Chief, most of the Police Department and most of the city council was totally corrupt, and it might just be an idea to shoot them outright. George decided to send a heavy convoy up there tomorrow to do just that. He gave his troopers the good news. Most were glad, because the scut work they were doing around town to prepare their buildings was a major drag.

The next day, enough firepower to level the entire town drove up the freeway north to Wheeling. A couple of Abrams rolled off their lowboys, and pointed their guns at City Hall, and fired, leveling the building. They swiveled their guns, and did the same to the Police Department. George got on the PA, and told the townspeople, “Citizens of Wheeling, we are here to liberate you from the forces of the UN/AC. You are either with us, or against us. Those that supported the Evil and corrupt UN/AC system are now dead. We have no intentions of harming any civilian non-combatants and propose a live and let live arrangement. All we need is to secure the National Guard base to deprive the UN/AC forces of it, and to use the fuel to combat any UN/AC forces in West Virginia and the region. As long as you don’t interfere with us, you are free to go about your daily lives. In the event of a UN/AC retaliatory strike, we will do our best to defend you. We will be restoring electrical and water service as soon as possible. His communications officer had recorded the little speech he gave, and drove it to the local AM radio station, who complained they didn’t have enough power to transmit. They dropped off a 40KW diesel generator and enough fuel for 48 hours of broadcast. They were instructed to play that message every hour on the hour. If they tried anything cute, the building would be leveled without warning. That got their attention! The program director was sweating bullets as he cued the tape up, and scheduled it to run every hour on the hour. George set a heavy garrison at the Armory, and told them if anyone even sneezed funny to call it in!

The rest of the team drove back to Clarksburg, and Bill bet George $20.00 that they wouldn’t make it 24 hours without the garrison calling in, or some other idiot in Wheeling starting something. It was a volatile mixture of liberals and arch-conservatives, neither of whom would take kindly to what they would perceive as a “Military Occupation”! 2 hours later, Bill collected his $20.00 when a bunch of teenagers in a pickup truck threw a Molotov cocktail at the garrison. It caused no damages, and the soldiers were ordered to only respond to a lethal threat. A Molotov cocktail inside the gate, landing on some vacant asphalt wasn’t perceived as a lethal threat, so they let the teenagers live.

The next day a “Citizen’s Committee” was formed to protest the “Military Occupation” of Wheeling. They were told the General in charge of the 278th ACR would meet with them in Clarksburg WV at 1200. They arrived early, and were searched gently and led into a conference room. They started whining as soon as they got in the door; George and Bill were both in full dress uniform decided to put a stop to it right then and there. George stood up, and said “Ladies and Gentlemen. I can assume you have no knowledge of what’s going on outside Wheeling due to the total news blackout. I can fill you in on several details, but first a simple question. Do any of you know the Book of Revelation? One of the members of the committee stood up and told them his name was Reverend Smith; he was the local Baptist Pastor.

“Reverend, can you tell me about the Signs of the Antichrist? Specifically Revelation Chapter 13?”

The Reverend started reciting from memory, and when he got to the part about the mortal wound that had healed, George interrupted.

“Excuse me Reverend, but do you know who Javier Solana is?”

“Of course, several internet sites had claimed he was a possible Antichrist.”

“A week ago, he was shaking hands in the crowd at Saint Peter’s Square in Rome, when a shot rang out. Someone had tried apparently successfully to assassinate him with 2 .357 magnum rounds to the chest, but 5 minutes later, he arose and the news commentators said he was glowing with an angelic glow. After that, he instituted a “Citizen’s ID” system with either a tattoo or a microchip implanted in your hand. What would that indicate?”

“My guess is he is the Antichrist, because the real Messiah came almost 2,000 years ago, and rising from the dead was supposed to be one of the Antichrist’s miracles.”

“Right before we deserted, we were ordered to report for implantation or tattooing. We were also ordered to destroy Clarksburg. We refused, since we realized the Antichrist was behind orders, and used the orders to desert en masse and relocate to Clarksburg. They have a refuge there for Christian Refugees, and we need to expand our safe area. Our Sheriff told us your Police Chief, most of his department, and the City Council was totally corrupt, and on the AntiChrist’s side.”

“I wouldn’t disagree with that – but blowing the buildings up was a little overkill, don’t you think?”

“Maybe, but any Christians in the building are in heaven now – what’s so bad with that? We’re going to join them soon enough.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to expedite their appointment with Eternity!”

“I’ll grant you that, but I wanted to make sure the entire City Council and Police Department was dead. We knew they were having a City Council meeting, and the Chief was in his office, so I decided that a couple of rounds of cannon fire was the best way to get them all with the minimal risk to my people. I take full responsibility for that decision. We want to live in peace, and don’t want to disrupt your day to day activities, but we’re staying, and you have a choice of dealing with us, or the AntiChrist.”

“Well since you put it that way, what choice do we have?”

“Not much! We’re working on reconnecting the power and water. If anyone in Wheeling can help, we’d appreciate it, and it would get connected quicker. Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

“We’re awfully short on food and medical services.”

“We’ve got enough food with us to last several years, but we need to immediately start planting gardens and farms to grow our own. I can guarantee the AntiChrist will try to cut us off from food, water, and power, and try to starve us out.”

“We’ve got several huge farm stores with seed; we could buy it from them.”

“Great, as far as medical services, we have a complete Mash unit with us. Anyone needed major medical care can be transported here to the MASH, and we’ll take care of them. As far as day-to-day stuff goes, if your doctors need medicines and supplies, we have plenty. Anything else?”

“You’re not planning on quartering soldiers in our homes, are you?”

“Not Hardly, we’ve got enough building materials with us to build nice living quarters for my entire command. We were set to deploy to Iraq when the meteor struck, so we were fully equipped for deployment.”

“If that’s all, I’ve got a mountain of paperwork to deal with. If you need anything, just let us know.”

They shook each member of the Citizen’s Committee’s hand as they left. The Reverend waited a minute, then spoke frankly to the General.

“It’s going to get much worse, isn’t it General?”

“I’m not a Theologian, but my take on Revelation is the United States won’t survive as a country much longer, and most of us will be dead or refugees, but for now, we can resist and attempt to save the souls we can.”

“General, I agree with your reasoning and motives, but you have some mighty strange methods!”

“Reverend, let me be Frank with you – unless we destroy any supporters of the AntiChrist system, we will ourselves be destroyed. My army is about to go on the offensive and do just that. We intend to kill any local leadership we can get our hands on, and their supporting troops.”

“What about “Vengeance is Mine…”?”

“OK, so maybe I just want to help!”

That got the Reverend laughing as hard as he had in years.

“OK General, I don’t agree with you 100%, but I will support what you are doing, since it seems you have our best interests at heart!”

“Reverend, we have a huge Underground Railroad, and a bunch of Prayer Warriors fighting this battle in their own way – If you want to help them, I’d appreciate it!”

“Ok, Thanks General!”

“Oh, Reverend, I just remembered something, do you have any Machine Shops with CNC machines?”

“I don’t know what a CNC is, but we have several machine shops – why?”

“Do you know if they are owned by Christians?”

“Several are members of my church. What’s up?”

“We need some devices built that before the crisis, would have gotten them thrown into prison for making them, now the point is moot, and we could use them. We have a local machinist with all the plans and drawings, but he can’t make enough fast enough.”

“OK if I have them call your machinist?”

“How about if you ask them if they’d be willing, then I’ll have him call them.”

“Ok, I guess that will work, but I don’t see what the big secret is!”

“Reverend, for your own protection, the less you know, the better. If you’re captured and tortured, you can blow our whole operation wide open.”

“Understood General – Thanks.”

They shook hands, and the Reverend joined the rest of the Committee for the ride home.

Chapter 16

The next morning, Bill woke to the sound of gunshots, he leaped out of bed, thinking that they were under attack, then realized it was a single volley. When he got dressed and got his nerves under control, he asked George what the heck all the shooting was about. “Sorry Bill, we executed some traitors at 0600 this morning. Seems some of the Headquarters Company wasn’t telling us the entire truth when they agreed to desert with us. We intercepted some encoded transmissions last night, and we captured most of them. Before they died, they told us everything they knew. The ones that survived the interrogation were shot at dawn this morning.”

Bill was taken aback, then realized they were in a fight for their lives, and if a few traitors died hard, that was their problem. He hoped the intel was worth it. At 0800, the Reverend called George with a list of Machinists the Reverend trusted. He handed the list to Bill, who called Don and asked him to come to Headquarters that morning. Dan said he was busy building all the parts they needed. Bill told him that if he wanted some help, he needed to get to Headquarters ASAP. Dan knew that Bill wasn’t one to waste his time, so he dropped what he was doing, and drove down to the HQ. Bill handed him the list, explained what they had done, and asked Dan to call them and ask if they could help. Dan smiled gratefully, he was busy 7/24 or was that 24/7? Heck, all he knew was he was up to his eyeballs in alligators!

Dan made the phone calls, and between mentioning the Reverend and the 278th, he got the cooperation of 3 of the machine shops that had the required equipment. Since he had his plans in a tube with him, he borrowed a Hummer and a Gunner, and drove up to Wheeling to meet with them They were scared by the armed Hummer until they saw the Rebel Flag flying from the Antenna. He told the gunner to wait with the vehicle, and got out, and introduced himself to the other machinists. They loved weapons, and were very patriotic. Until now they had only dreamed of what Dan was asking them to do. They agreed to help in a heartbeat, and had a huge supply of Ordinance Steel in town to make the barrels and receivers with. Dan asked them how much they had, since he was running low. They said they had enough to make a Sten Gun for every member of the ACR, the only problem would be the ammo. They knew of a Distributor in town with a warehouse full of cases of ammo, but it would take a Military requisition to get any of it. Dan solved that problem with a radio call. Bill spoke to George, who spoke to Reverend Smith, who spoke to the owners of the Distributorship, who were sitting on a mountain of ammo they were unable to sell thanks to Kerry’s stupid laws. They said they would consider a trade, and called Bill and George to negotiate directly. Dan overheard the radio call, and interrupted.

“Bill, I’ve got a solution for you, but I’ve got to talk to Mike. Let me get on the phone here, and give him a call, then I’ll call you right back!”

“Mike, Dan – I hate to do this to you, but the Military is in a bind. There’s a Distributor sitting on a mountain of ammo in Wheeling who wants to trade for his ammo. They desperately need the 45acp, since the 278th didn’t bring more than a case, since they all carry the M-9. Anyway, I know you’re sitting on all that gold, and it looks like you’re not going to need it after all. If we could give them 100 ounces of gold, they might do it, since they could pay their people and trade the rest for what they need.

“Lemme get this straight, you want me to donate 40,000 dollars to Uncle Sam? I wound up here because I was screwed over by that same Uncle!”

“Yeah, and you survived! What would your probability of survival if you were still in DC?”

“You got a point there – OK, I’ll donate 100 ounces to the cause. Good thing I bought all those Canadian Maple leafs.”

“Thanks Mike, see you this afternoon!”

Dan called Bill back “Bill, I’ve got 100 ounces of Canadian Maple leafs if they’re willing to trade.”

Bill and George conferred, and decided to open at 80 ounces, to give them some room to negotiate. Then they called Reverend Smith, who passed the offer on. As expected, they countered at 100, and Bill called back, offering 90 1-ounce Canadian Maple leafs. Reverend Smith called them with the counteroffer, decided 90 ounces of gold beat the Military driving up and taking it by force, and agreed, providing the 278th provided their own transport. George called them direct, since the deal went through, and got a list of all the ammo they had in stock, since the deal was to buy their entire stock of ammo, except what they had set aside for personal use.

He wrote down while he talked:

50 cases 45acp JHP ammo
50 cases 9mm FMJ NATO spec
50 cases 9mm JHP 147 gr. JHP
50 cases of 308 180gr SPBT
100 cases of 5.56mm NATO
20 cases of SS-109 5.56mm NATO
10 cases of .308 MATCH
10 cases of .50 BMG MATCH
1 case of .50 BMG AP
10 cases of 12 gauge Federal Tactical 00 Buck
1 case of 12 ga 1oz Brenneke Rifled Slug
100 cases of misc. 22 ammo
10 cases (total)of misc. civilian centerfire rifle ammo
10 cases(total) of misc. civilian centerfire pistol ammo

George estimated 2 deuce and a halfs could carry all that. He detailed a light convoy with 2 deuces, 3 Hummers, 1 TOW armed, and 2 armed with Ma Deuces to go up to Wheeling and pick it up. By then Dan was back, and walked into Headquarters. George showed him the list, and Dan grinned from ear to ear, they were easily getting $100,000 worth of ammo for $40 thousand dollars. Talk about “fire sale prices”! Then George gave him the really good news, they negotiated them down to 90 ounces. Seems Gold was worth way more than when Mike bought it. Dan drove home and gave Mike the good news. He took out 100 Canadian maple leafs, and told him to do what he wanted with the rest of them. Since Dan never owned any Gold, he kept 4 for his family, and decided to give the rest to Bill to use for whatever they needed. Later that afternoon, the convoy showed up at the distributors. Good thing they had a loading dock and forklifts, or else everyone involved would need a hernia truss! Both deuces were down on their overloads for the trip home, and the Hummers were wishing they could drive faster, because they were going to miss chow, and that meant dinner would be “Meals Rejected by Ethiopians”! Later that evening, after a long boring drive, they finally arrived at their warehouse. The tired drivers pulled the trucks into the loading docks, and shut them down – someone else could unload it later.

The next day, Dan remembered that the 278th had a bunch of 50BMG sniper rifles since he was building the suppressors for them, and called Bill and told him he had some plans for some long-range penetrator rounds like the BMG 50 SLAP rounds, and another round of his own design. Bill asked if he had any prototypes, and he admitted he had over 100 of each. Bill asked if he were willing to donate them to the cause, because the 278th was woefully short of SLAP rounds, since there were very few of those rounds in the pipeline when TSHTF. Even if they didn’t need them for tanks, they had other uses. Dan showed up at headquarters with several 50 cal ammo boxes, and George met him with one of his designated snipers with a Barrett’s light 50 Sniper Rifle. He was real leery of letting anyone fire anything that didn’t have a US MATCH headstamp on it through his baby. But when he got a look at Dan’s rounds, he miked them out with his micrometer to compare them to match rounds, then weighed them on his electronic scale, they were so close to match spec that he checked his figures twice. Finally satisfied, he agreed to go out to the abandoned mine, and shoot a couple of rounds at an abandoned car they would tow out there. Dan made sure there was gas in the tank, and invited Mike along for the test, he knew how Mike loved explosions, and would be mad if he missed it. They drove to the abandoned pit mine and waited while a flatbed wrecker deposited a junked truck in the bottom of the mine, put 5 gallons of gas in the tank, and made a hasty retreat. While they waited, the sniper got set up, and figured his first round would be just about dead on. He loaded a magazine full of 5 MATCH rounds, then told everyone to get their ears on, he was going to make some noise. Bill walked over to his left when they were all set, gave him a “thumbs up” and quickly retreated back to his spotting scope. The first 5 rounds punched right through the truck, but except for punching holes, didn’t do much visible damage. He reloaded the magazine with 5 of Dan’s rounds, then reset. The first round visibly destroyed the engine block, and he fired the second round into the gas tank for effect. The resulting explosion and fireball destroyed the truck. Mike was watching through his spotting scope whooping and hollering! “Do it again! Please!!!”

“Sorry Mike – I knew you’d enjoy it, but this was supposed to be a test for my rounds, not an explosives demonstration.”

The sniper took the remaining rounds out of his gun, and handed them back to Dan. “They work fine, and behave just like the SLAP. I don’t know how many of these we’ll need, but I’d like to have a couple of hundred available to give each of my snipers 5 or 10 rounds.”

Bill turned to Dan “Guess you’ve got some more projects ahead of you. I hope you made copies of the blueprints of the molds to make these rounds?”

“Yes sir, got copies already on these disks.”

He handed Bill a set of disks. “George, can you get these to the machine shop, and ask them to work on these as well, I’d like to have 500 rounds available when we’ve got all the suppressors made for the BMG 50 rifles. Make sure you tell them they are Match rounds. If they don’t match spec exactly, they’re practically worthless to us. Dan, I take it you have a reloader for BMG 50 ammo?”

“I found a rock crusher during our scavenger trips, but we’re going to need a bunch more, plus the dies.”

“I’ll get someone working on that. Thanks!”

Meanwhile, the Voice of Truth had been busy. With the security provided by the presence of the 278th ACR, they went on the offensive, flooding the airwaves with their message openly. They set up their transmitting towers in locations so that if the AC forces tried to blow them up, no civilians would be hurt. They also started openly broadcasting on Military frequencies, in the hopes of getting more units to join the fight. The operators fielded calls daily from hams and military operators asking for more information. Most of these were in code, and the most popular code was a book code based on the Bible. It was superencrypted by the fact that the chosen phrases were subject to interpretation as well, and they used several different versions of the Bible to keep the AC forces guessing. Several commands deserted on the spot, and most were looking for a way to escape the UN/AC. Some realized the quickest way to get out from under the UN/AC command was to assasinate their Commanders. Some succeeded, then the foreign commanders got wise to the plots, and many US troops were killed when their plots were uncovered. Unit morale was in the toilet, and any UN/AC forces sent out to fight were as likely to surrender and desert as fight.

Javier Solana was livid, not only did they refuse to worship him, they were in open rebellion. He demanded that the commanders fire their nuclear missiles and destroy the USA. Some tried, and when the orders were receipted, the missiles self-destructed in their silos. Seems some smart cookie had anticipated our own missiles being used against us, and programmed an electronic fail safe into the guidance computer that if the targeted coordinates were inside the CONUS, the missile would immediately self-destruct in its silo. Since the program was loaded into an essential chip of the guidance computer, and no spares were available since Silicon Valley was under 50-100 feet of sea water, the Antichrist could throw a big fit, and it wouldn’t do him any good! All the Chinese missiles were destroyed between the flooding and shock waves transmitted by the meteor strike, and no one was left that could operate the Soviet missiles, since the launch codes were only known by a few, and they were all dead. The French had destroyed all their ICBMs decades ago, and the few Britain had were under water and flooded. India had plenty of nukes, but the rockets blew up on the launch pad since the American company that sold them the guidance software put the same “bug” in their missile guidance package. Satan raged within his palace, seemingly impotent against a small band of rebels. What he didn’t know is that they had heavenly protection, for now at least.

In Israel, there was a near-riot as two bedraggled men started preaching and witnessing on the Temple Mount. Several Ultra-Orthodox rabbis tried to stop them only to be thrown back by an unseen force. “Heed this warning, you brood of vipers, you cannot stop Yahweh’s message from reaching the people. The hour of repentance is at hand, heed our warning, or suffer the consequences.”

A squad of Israeli trooper tried to attack them with Uzis, and as the Rabbis watched, the soldiers were consumed by fire.

One of the Rabbis realized what was happening, and worshipped God. The other Rabbis yelled “Blasphemy” and stoned him to death. Several other Jews saw this, and were reminded of the prophecies concerning the last days. Several people were converted on the spot, and the word spread. Soon the witnesses were surrounded by a mob, but a mob that was aware these witnesses could not be physically harmed, or attacked. Word spread throughout Israel, and soon the World. Satan attempted to renounce and ridicule them from his palace in Rome. Even Pope Alexander was having minimal effect. It seemed that there were 2 camps in the world: Those who worshiped The Antichrist, and could not be swayed by any argument, and those who worshipped God and Christ, and refused to worship what they were becoming convinced was the Antichrist. The rest of the world had a short while to make up its mind, or have the freedom to choose taken away from them as they fell under the influence of the Antichrist. Most of Europe had fallen, with pockets of resistance, and the same with Asia, or what was left of it. The United States, what was left of it, stood alone against the AntiChrist. He had his solid converts in the Big Cities that had survived the previous plagues, and those who just wanted to survive at any cost. As more radio towers were reactivated, the Voice of Truth was getting out, and could be heard all across the United States. Satellite communications were spotty at best, with only a few military satellites still working, but they operated on military frequencies that couldn’t be received by civilian receivers. They could however be used as relays, and as soon as people activated the relay stations on the other end, they could bounce microwave signals back and forth with no chance for the AntiChrist to intercept or jam them. The Word was slowly getting out. Several people who had accepted the Antichrist began wondering if they had picked the wrong side. All over the world, people were standing up for their faith, and becoming martyrs. Yet every time a street preacher was publicly executed, 10 took his place.

The truth was being withheld from Satan, because he had a nasty habit of having the bearer of bad news stretched on the rack and ripped limb from limb as he watched. Torture became a way of life around the palace, and everyone dreaded going there, because they could easily become Satan’s next victim. The News raised lying, obfuscating, Spin, and fabrication to an art form. If you believed the media, the UN/AC forces were winning every encounter, and millions were converting to the AC system every day.

The Voice of Truth told the truth – Millions were fleeing the AC, and settling in safe enclaves. Those who were trapped in the cities either died as martyrs, or joined the AC. The UN/AC forces were getting destroyed at each encounter, and were loosing forces to desertion.

Chapter 17

With their base of operations stabilized and every NG unit in the state of West Virginia either destroyed or deserted, the Saboteurs were turned loose to do what they did best, make like miserable for followers of the AntiChrist. They used the intel they had gained from the deserting NG troops to build a target list of government offices, TV and Radio outlets that were broadcasting the AC’s lies, and high government officials that were backing the AC. Since they had way more BMG 50 sniper rifles and snipers than they could ever use in a battle, Bill assigned 10 volunteers to join the Saboteurs and take out the officials at a distance. The Saboteurs divided into 2 man teams, loaded diesel pickups with fuel explosives and weapons, and were given a target list. There were 30 teams sent out, and 10 of them had a designated sniper to take out high–value targets. Every surviving member of Congress, and all Federal Judges were targeted, and any local public officials who were playing both sides of the fence. The teams destroyed government buildings, infrastructure, radio and TV towers, and the grid. Some of them were caught and killed, but at least half of the teams returned safely with dramatic stories of narrow escapes and divine interventions. For the near future, Solana’s AntiChrist system was decapitated and unable to effectively attack Christian enclaves in the United States.

With a relative peace in the United States, the people in Clarksburg turned their attention to long-term survival. They needed to plant crops, raise cattle, pigs and chickens, and store supplies for the days when the supplies would be cut off or run out. There was little or no manufacturing of new supplies in the USA, and store shelves were stripped bare. Those who had thought ahead located the warehouses and distributorships, and located huge quantities of supplies. The people of Clarksburg and Wheeling did just that with several warehouses and distribution centers. Between what the 278th ACR brought with them, and what they scavenged, they would have enough supplies for the next 10 years, so they had extra for refugees. They had diesel to burn, so they put the tractors to work preparing fields for farming whenever suitable land was located. One of their best scores was a Wal-Mart warehouse that had everything they could use, including cases of canning supplies, canners, and everything else needed to can produce for long-term storage. They distributed the guns and ammo to the people of Wheeling who needed it, and were Christians, since they weren’t about to arm the enemy.

The rumor mill was busy with rumors of government buildings blowing up, especially FEMA and ATF buildings. A building housing a party for the Ruling Elite suffered a mysterious natural gas explosion. The entire block blew sky high. One rumor that disturbed Bill was a rumor of women and children being held as sex slaves at the UN/OWG R&R camp near Cincinnati, OH. What he heard made him furious and violently ill at the same time. Teenage girls and young boys were being culled from the Clean Up the World Corp. It seemed that the children of Christians whether they were Born Again or not were specifically targeted for becoming Sex Slaves at Javier Solana’s express orders. Women were still being kidnapped based on their looks. What Bill heard was happening to those children in the R&R camps made him wish he had a nuclear cruise missile. Instead he talked to George, and they devised a plan to attack and liberate the camps, while destroying every UN/OWG compound in the area. They would risk a Kiowa warrior flown by volunteers to scout the route, then send a heliborne assault team 15 minutes behind consisting of the rest of the Kiowas; 5 Apaches, 1 armed with Hellfires, and 4 armed with rockets; 5 Blackhawks for the combined assault team to liberate the camp; and some Warthogs that had somehow survived the tsunami at their ANG base in North Carolina. When they heard that the 276th ACR deserted, they decided to join them. They brought 20 A-10 Warthogs, truckloads of Hellfire missiles, bombs, and ammo for their 30mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon. Their entire command consisted of the planes, pilots, maintenance, fuel trucks, ammo carriers, and an air defense component including 2 HAWK batteries, and a pair of M-113 Chaparrals, since the HAWK was better at long-range defense against fast movers, and the Chaparral was better suited to low altitude rotary wing defense. With the 20 Warthogs, they had a very formidable anti-tank weapon, and also close support for the Rebels in case they met up with any serious organized resistance. They doubted they would, since the UN/NOW forces were hundreds of miles from the front lines, and not expecting to be attacked. Several pilots had family that they lost contact with during the Catastrophe, and some of them were from Ohio, so when they heard what was going on, they all volunteered for the mission. While they waited their orders, their maintenance chiefs painted the shark’s teeth on their noses that they had sported during Desert Storm. Since the Apaches were carrying Hellfires, the Warthogs carried 2 sidewinders each for air to air, and either a dozen 500 pound bombs or 6 CBU-52s for targets of opportunity on the way back. They gathered for a pre-mission briefing.

“Gentlemen, tonight you will attack and liberate a camp that is holding women and children as sex slaves for the UN/OWG troop’s entertainment. Now I know some of you might have families in Ohio, so this mission is twofold.

1) Liberation of any prisoners
2) Destruction of compound and annihilation of any UN/OWG troops in the vicinity.

Obviously we can’t destroy the compound until the assault team goes in and tries to rescue any prisoners that are alive. Once the assault team is clear, you are to destroy the entire camp. Make sure you save some ordinance for targets of opportunity on the way out. Apaches – you’ve got to conserve Hellfire missiles since we have a limited supply. If you see at main battle tank or other target worthy of a valuable missile, by all means use it, but otherwise use your 30mm gun or rockets. There are 20 Warthogs flying with us tonight, and they all can carry a whole bunch of bombs, so let them do their jobs, and you do yours. Precision firepower is the motto tonight, there are friendlies or at least civilians in that camp, so make sure you hear the all-clear before you use the heavy stuff. On the way in note any high-value targets of opportunity, because this will be a deep-strike mission, and I fully expect empty bomb racks when you land. Any questions?”

When they got to the flight line, they saw that half of the A-10’s were armed with 6 CBU-52’s and the other half with 12 MK-82 500lb bombs. They all had 2 Sidewinders in case there were any enemy aircraft. Their flight leader explained the tactics. “Guys, we’re up against a mixture of soft targets and buildings. The CBU equipped A-10’s are to concentrate on enemy personnel, truck parks, and other stuff that the CBU works best on. The Mark 82’s are for blowing up large buildings, so you might not get too much work at the camp, so let’s spot and mark targets of opportunity on the way in to hit on the way out, Bill gave us a list of targets the Saboteurs haven’t gotten to yet, so divide them up as well.” The Hog drivers met with their Chaplain and knelt in a circle before they climbed aboard their A-10s. Across the base, the Kiowa and Apache pilots were doing the same thing. Bill pulled rank on George, and insisted on coming with the Assault Team. The entire team was now armed with the .45 caliber copies of the fully suppressed Sten Gun. They had grenades and other nefarious devices too. One interesting addition was several flash-bangs per person, as well as 1 pound of C-4 and a half-dozen pencil timer/detonators. The Flash-bangs were for the protection of prisoners, and the C-4 might be needed to blow the locks off prison doors. They each had 20 30-rd magazines full of Cor-bon JHP ammo. They weren’t interested in the Geneva Convention, besides they highly doubted Satan was a signatory. Some of the troops found some bacon and stuck their bullets into it in case some of the UN/NWO troops were Muslims, to guarantee them a quick trip to Hell. The Assault Team had an easy ROE, if it was an Adult Male, or armed, shoot it. They weren’t taking prisoners. It would take 2 hours to fly there at 150 knots, so they took off at 2400 local to arrive at 0200 the next morning. If they kept to SOP, the guards would change at 0300, so any guards that they had would be extremely fatigued, and not very alert. Besides, they were probably situated to keep the prisoners in instead of to repel an attack.

The Kiowa Warrior took off an hour before everyone so he could fly at 90 knots and carefully scout the route, and locate targets of opportunity for the trip home. The two-man team of pilot and gunner/spotter flew the direct path between Clarksburg and Cincinnati but zigged and zagged randomly to confuse anyone on the ground about it’s true destination, besides, they covered more ground that way, and ID’d several targets on the way in, including refineries, warehouses, armories, government buildings, airfields, etc. When they got within 5 miles of the camp, they flew slowly and flew knap of the earth, hiding behind trees, and popping up to observe the camp. There were 4 guard towers, and they were arranged just like a prison, with the guards looking in. There was a huge space in the center of the compound, and there were no overhead lines or other obstructions within 5 miles of the camp. Searchlights swept the compound, but it appeared no one was looking out. The gunner thought to himself “Dang, I could take this whole camp out by myself” but he knew that wasn’t his job tonight. They retreated 10 miles, and transmitted “Jackpot”. 15 minutes later, the lead Apache was visible with their NV goggles. The spotter turned on his FRS radio, and talked to the lead Apache, giving him the layout of the camp, and the probable locations of the prisoners. The fact that there was a central space made the assault team’s job easier. Once everyone checked in, 4 of the Apaches got into line abreast formation, and charged toward the compound at full throttle. They fired a couple of 3-inch rockets at the towers, and targeted the searchlights with a burst of 30mm. The Blackhawks were there seconds later, and landed in the center of the compound. The teams charged for 1 building each. The first man in tossed a flash bang, then realized he had entered the barracks, swept it with a burst to make sure everyone was shot, then tossed a grenade in behind him and closed the door. As he dove for the ground, the grenade went off, and blew the roof off the building. Steve attacked the building that was likely to house the prisoners. He walked in the door, and interrupted an Indian man sodomizing a young boy, so he shot him through the forehead, grabbed the kid, and told him to get dressed, and head for the choppers in the center of the compound. He said weakly “My Mom!”

“We’ll find her son – just go.”

He put his pants and shirt on with as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances. Next door, 3 middle-eastern men were gang-raping a teenage girl. Steve drew his knife, and slit their throats, then threw a sheet at the girl, and told her to head for the choppers in the center of the compound. Steve wondered what was behind Door #3. Behind the door was a UN General with a group of boys doing some very perverted acts to each other and him. Steve decided this guy deserved to go slow, so he snuck up behind him, and using half of a flexi-cuff, slipped it over his neck and pulled it as tight as he could. Once the General was thoroughly blue, he took his Sten, and fired a round into the General’s crotch. He told the boys to get dressed, and head toward the helicopters in the center of the compound. There was another door, and he kicked it in, and he had found the prison cells. Women, boys, and girls were caged in the nude, and a fat leering guard was pacing up and down the line. One of the women was crying, and Steve didn’t know why. Without waiting for an explanation, he shot the guard, and took his keys to open the doors. He was mobbed by women and children hugging him. He didn’t have any clothes to hand them, so they stripped the guard, and divided his clothes amongst themselves. Steve found out that the woman who was crying was the mother of the girl who was getting raped behind door #2. He told her she had been freed, and the SOB’s who hurt her were in Hell talking to their Boss. She smiled a lopsided grin, and went to hug Steve when they both noticed she was topless. Thinking quickly, he went next door, and grabbed the General’s coat and covered her. “Sorry about the promotion, but it was the best I could do.” Now that she was decent, she hugged and kissed Steve, and told him “Thanks for saving our lives.” He said, “You’re welcome Ma’am. Make sure you head to the choppers in the center of the compound, you’ll be safe there. Are there any other prisoners in this compound?”

“Just the other building like this. They keep us caged in the nude unless they want to take us in the rooms for sex. They rarely feed us, and have no compunction about killing us. My other daughter was raped to death the other day, and I thought the same thing was going to happen to my little girl. I prayed that God would send someone or something to spare us, then you guys showed up.”

“Ma’am, I need information, are there any other camps or anything you’ve heard about?”

“I think this is the only one around here, but their headquarters is 5 miles north of here. They took over City Hall, it won’t be hard to miss. They sleep there too, because the big shots call here to send women and children to City hall, and sometimes they don’t come back.”

“Thanks Ma’am. Make sure you head for the Choppers, we’ll take care of the other building.”

Steve picked up his radio. “Target, City Hall 5 miles north of here is Local UN fat cat headquarters, Send 2 A-10’s to level it.”

“Roger, En Route. ETA 2 minutes.”

The flight leader spoke on the radio to his wingman. “Drop 2 on my mark and get the hell out of here. READY..Mark” He pressed the Pickle, and 2 Mark 82’s fell off the racks, on a ballistic arc that ended in the center of City Hall in Cincinnati Ohio. His wingman dropped 2 at the same time, and followed his leader as they got the heck out of Dodge. The Mark 82’s were slowed by their drogues to give the aircraft a chance to clear the area. 4 500-pound bombs were set to detonate 100 milliseconds after impact with the roof, blowing City Hall and the buildings around it into low orbit. The Flight leader hoped everyone was home.

George was in charge of the other team, and he met scenes of depravity and perversion. He wished he had a slower means of death for some of the perverts who were sodomizing little boys and girls, some barely out of diapers. He used his Fairbairn Dagger several times, and made sure their trip to Hell was slow and painful. Several departed this world minus their manhood. Once he was sure the children were clear, he threw a thermite grenade into the building and watched it burn, hoping the SOB’s were having an interesting encounter with Satan. Once the buildings were clear, Steve called in the rescue choppers, and offered everyone a lift to safety. They climbed aboard the helicopter staffed by female medics who had a selection of clothes, food and water. Anyone needing first aid was cared for then and there. The main medical care would wait until they were back safely in Clarksburg. The Medevac lifted off first, followed by the Blackhawks. The Apaches formed a defensive cordon around the unarmed choppers, and they flew back to Clarksburg while the A-10s had a field day blowing up targets of opportunity. Their first target was the compound, which they dropped 4 CBU-52s on. They saved the rest of their munitions for targets on the return trip. They blew a refinery and fuel depot sky high, took out every armory in Ohio, Blew up a rail yard, took out the airport, and dropped a load of CBU on a taxiway full of aircraft creating huge secondaries. Bill had realized that they would probably have more bombs and bombers than targets of opportunity, so he got with the head of the Saboteurs while they were still planning the mission, and got a list of all the government buildings within reasonable flying time from the direct line between Clarksburg, WV and Cincinnati, OH. Someone suggested dropping bombs on Mt. Weather, but Bill pointed out that even their biggest non-nuclear bunker buster would only scratch the surface, and odds were that it was unoccupied, at least by the intended occupants, since he heard rumors about the crash of AF1 shortly before the meteor impact as Kerry and Heinz were running away. Knowing the character of Kerry, Bill thought he probably screamed like a girl right before the plane impacted the ground. Every State and Federal Government Office within range of the A-10’s received 1 or 2 Mk-82 500 pound bombs through the roof.

All planes, helicopters, and assault troops returned to base with nothing more serious than bumps bruises and scrapes. They had liberated 50 prisoners including 10 women, 30 girls, and 10 boys. The camp had held 75 prisoners, but the lady Steve had talked to told the medics they were killing at least 10 per week between torture, starvation, and rape. She had been at the camp for 2 weeks, and didn’t hold much hope of living much longer, since they had already raped her 16-yr old daughter to death, and were working on killing her 14-yr old daughter when Bill interrupted them. They were Christians caught behind enemy lines because her husband was a computer programmer in Cleveland, and made excellent money, so they didn’t leave when the disaster struck. They were captured within the first couple of months, and her husband was shot dead before her eyes after he witnessed the rape of his wife and daughters. The commander of the ATF team decided that they were pretty enough to keep, and brought them back to the UN compound, where he was promoted for service to the UN. Weeks and months of unspeakable torture and horrors followed. Kim suffered the worst, because she was not only sexually abused repeatedly, she was also forced to watch the sexual torture of her daughters. She was crying because of the death of her daughter Debby, but knew she was in Heaven, and her pain and humiliation was over. Some days she welcomed death, and others she wanted to live to get revenge on the Bastards that hurt her children. Medically she and her daughter were OK despite the violence done to their bodies and minds. Their bruises and injuries would heal. After she got medically checked out, cleaned up fed and dressed, she asked to see the guy that freed them. When Steve met her in the office, she looked nothing like the desperate mother he had met just days before. She walked up to Steve and held out her hand “General, My name’s Kim, and I’ve heard that you planned and executed the attack that freed my daughter and me. I wanted to ask permission to join the Rebels; I want payback in the worst way!”

“Kim, remember the Chinese Proverb “If Revenge is your goal, first dig two graves!”

“I don’t care; they killed my husband, tortured my two babies, and killed one of them. I’d give my life to stick a knife into the first UN officer I found. Besides, from what the Chaplain was telling us, we’re all going to be dead in 7 years anyway, I’ll just beat you there.”

“Kim, the Rebels don’t do suicide missions, but we do have a group of Saboteurs. You might organize the survivors of the camps, and see how many of you feel that way. Then I’d highly suggest counseling sessions with the Pastors before you commit to any suicide missions. By the way, please call me Bill – I resigned from the Army a long time ago.”

“OK Bill, if that’s what I have to do to kill a UN General, so be it. I’ll talk to the rest of the survivors then we’ll meet with the Chaplains and see what they say.”

“Kim, do you have any place to stay?”

“We’re staying in a lovely tent right now, and it’s freezing out!”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I have a 4-bedroom house in town, and I’m living by myself. Rebecca died several years ago from Cancer. It would be purely platonic with no strings attached.”

Kim thought that Bill was pretty cute, and thought she wouldn’t have minded if there were strings, so she took him up on it. Bill called for an aide, and requested that Kim and her daughter get transferred to his house. He hadn’t slept there in weeks anyway, so someone might as well use it. When they arrived, the house was dark and needed cleaning. It looked like no one had lived there in over a month. Kim and her daughter Kelly started cleaning the place up, and were moving a rug to sweep when they uncovered a trap door. Kim opened it, and it was as if she stepped into a Military Museum. There were guns, knives and all kinds of military stuff down there. She thought that Bill was definitely into preparedness. They climbed back up the stairs, swept the floor, and moved the rug back into place. After dinner, they went to bed. Kelly was old enough for her own bed, but insisted on sleeping with her Mom. They were both wearing nightgowns, so they held each other and cried themselves to sleep. Kim felt like a mother again for the first time in a long time, and she realized if she had her way and formed a suicide squad, that no one could protect Kelly. She knew that Bill probably would try, but he had an army to run.

Fleataxi

Chapter 18

The next day George and Bill met, and they came up with an excellent idea for a Psych-ops attack on the Anti-Christ system. The stories of the survivors of the Camps would wake up some of the sheeple, and at least make them realize the UN/NOW forces were really an occupying army. What they needed was access to the network satellites and local high-power radio and TV transmitters. First they recorded the harrowing details of the survivor’s stories. When Bill told Kim what they were doing, she volunteered to organize the tapings for radio and TV broadcast. Kim’s daughter Kelly was one of the first to volunteer.

“My name is Kelly Andrews. Up to a couple of months ago we were an average American family living in the middle-class suburbs of Cleveland. We were Methodist, but rarely went to church, usually Christmas and New years. Anyway, about 2 months ago, we were watching a movie, when the doors splintered inwards, and these thugs wearing ATF jackets were yelling “ATF, this is a Raid, everyone get the F#$% on the floor.” They cuffed us, and in the process of cuffing us, brutally groped my Mom, Sally and Me. Dad objected, so they duct taped his mouth closed and hog tied him. When they didn’t find any guns, they started raping my Mom right in front of all of us, demanding to know where the guns were. We were screaming and hollering for help until an agent pointed a gun at my head and told us to shut up and my Mom to either submit or I would get my brains splattered all over the couch. She stopped fighting, and they took turns raping the three of us the rest of the night, then they all sodomized my Mom. The next morning, when they were ready to leave, the leader gut-shot my dad and carried the 3 of us nude and duct-taped to their van. They continued raping us all the way to their headquarters, where the agent in charge turned us over to the UN and received a promotion to Captain for “Services Rendered to the UN”. We were transported to a camp and thrown nude into cells by ourselves. They had at least 75 women and children in this camp, and almost daily someone would come for 1 of us, and if we didn’t go with them, they shot us right then and there. We were raped, tortured, and sodomized repeatedly for over a month, then one day they came for Sally, my older sister. We could hear her screams from the next room and the noises of at least a dozen men taking turns raping and torturing her while they were joking and laughing. Finally after a whole day listening to her screaming and begging for her life, a single gunshot was heard, and moments later, a guard dragged her nude body through the cell area and threw her body on the trash pile, her body was covered with bruises, cuts and burn marks, and her face was barely recognizable. My mom freaked out, and the guard almost shot her. 2 days later, they came for me, and an hour later, I heard the sound of helicopters, and thought that they were bringing in a new batch of troops for R&R. I thought “Good, at least it will be over sooner” then the guy on my left fountained blood all over me, then the guy on my right, and the guy who was raping me. Then this man in black threw a sheet at me and told me to head for the center of the compound.”


Several other women and boys made similar tapes, and they were duplicated and when the local radio and TV stations serving the population centers were located, a heliborne assault team with a Bradley slung underneath their Blackhawk was dispatched to seize the stations and broadcast the tapes. Bill and George appeared on the end of the tape with a message.

“Americans, as you can see, the UN troops you see aren’t here to help. They’re following the orders of Javier Solana, and are intent on whittling the population of the US down to a more manageable size, and pacifying the population. By our estimates, they’ve raped, tortured and killed over a Million Americans in their camps. We’ve been invaded by a hostile force, and now we’re asking everyone to go on the offensive. Those of you that still own guns, shoot anyone from the UN, ATF, or FEMA you can find. Shoot all government officials unless you’re sure they’re on our side. We’re asking all US Military forces to desert if necessary and start fighting for your Country and Constitution. George, who is standing next to me, is the Lieutenant Commander of the 278th ACR from Tennessee.

“A month ago, we received orders from the UN/NWO Headquarters to put down a rebellion in Clarksburg West Virginia. Bill, my old Ranger CO from Afghanistan, lived in Clarksburg, and I knew he would never rebel against a legitimate government, so we hatched a plan to desert and join the resistance using our movement orders as an excuse to strip the base to the bare walls. We shot most of the Headquarters Company, since they were traitors and backed Solana. We now have the entire command based in West Virginia, and it was our helicopters that liberated the camp. I personally witnessed the horrors of the survivors when I burst into the building and discovered children no more than 5 or 6 being raped and sodomized by those perverts. They were all 3rd world men, mostly Indian and Pakistani, with some Arabs and Africans thrown in. The Generals were all European, including the French, Germans, and a couple of Brits. Folks, if we want to have a chance of a normal life, we need to kill all the invaders, and take no prisoners.”

The tape was broadcast all over the remainder of the United States. Some people, who had backed Solana, thought that maybe they had chosen the wrong side. Others quickly forwarded the information up the chain of command, and a day later, Solana was in a towering rage “Those Worms, I hate them all, why don’t they just die! Get me my Generals, I want the US destroyed!”

The truth had been withheld from Javier Solana for so long that he didn’t know that he didn’t have anything to attack the US with.

Within days, dozens of units deserted, and if necessary shot their commanders, and started shooting blue helmets wherever they were. A team of SEALS who had escaped the Tsunami because they were TAD for training in one of the safe areas heard the broadcast and decided to make their way to Clarksburg West Virginia and offer their services. They borrowed a couple of C-130’s and loaded all their stuff, and flew to West Virginia. When they got close, they broadcast on Guard that they were friendly, and please don’t blow them out of the sky. Bill decided to let them land, but the aircraft were surrounded by armed Hummers and Bradleys. The side door opened, and a single SEAL walked out with his hands in clear view. Bill studied him through binoculars, and he looked familiar. George recognized him first, and told the Hummers to stand at ease. The Gunners pointed their barrels in a safe direction, and George walked up to the SEAL. “John, how the hell are you? I thought all you guys were dead?”

“Well to quote Mark Twain, Rumors of my Death have been greatly exaggerated.”

John gave George a bear hug, then George asked “So, who did you bring with you?”

“George, we got out by the skin of our teeth, we were TAD to Fort Sill in Oklahoma for refresher Artillery Spotting training. Luckily we flew with our complete kits, since we could get called anytime for a military emergency. We borrowed anything not nailed down when we heard your broadcast, and flew here. I’m praying that our families were killed in the first wave, since we’re all from San Diego. I’ve got my entire team with me, and all our gear.”

“Great John, we could use the help. You know what or whom we’re up against?”

“From my understanding, the Great Tribulation started with the meteor, and Solana is the Anti-Christ. We have to resist him for 7 years or die trying to avoid his fate. Frankly eternity in a lake of fire is not my idea of a vacation. From what I’ve heard, you guys have been doing pretty good resisting on your own. I was hearing transmissions on the way over here, and I can tell you at least a dozen commands have deserted and want to link up with you. If you want, we could act as force multipliers and coordinate the various commands with the civilian militias that are springing up.”

“John, I hate to do that to you, but you guys are better at training guerillas and irregular forces than we are.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time we had to do it.”

Together they came up with a brilliant plan to use the C-130’s to drop pairs of SEALs at link-up points for the newly formed militias, and if necessary, air drop weapons and supplies they could capture from NG armories that were abandoned, and take the fight to the enemy. What George would really like to do was target Solana’s villa in Rome with a couple of ICBM’s, but if he remembered correctly, there wasn’t anything in Revelation about the Christians taking out the Anti-Christ, so they shouldn’t bother. It would be nice though! Once the SEALS were ready and in position, they would receive their targets or attack targets of opportunity. Over the next couple of weeks, the radio operators were busy making contact with National Guard units, and remnants of Air Force and Army units. Meanwhile, several operators were busy on the Ham radio side sending coded messages using Bible code. Bill realized that by using Bible code, they would limit the number of contacts to maybe a dozen or so people in the CONUS who were Ham Radio experts and knew the King James Version of the Bible well enough to decipher it. The message was super-encrypted by their choice of bible verses. Some of their contacts turned out to already be members of the Voice of Truth Network, and they agreed to pass the message on to some trusted contacts. Between the Hams contacting militias, and the Military operators contacting military groups, they had just enough 2-man teams to go around.

They split up into 2-man teams, packed their chutes, and rigged their gear for a night HAHO jump. George thought the night HAHO jump was too dangerous, and John explained that if they HAHO’d in at night about 5 miles away from the contact point, they would be safest, because they weren’t sure that 100% of the contacts were legitimate, so if they jumped away from the contact site, and were observing the site hours before the contact time, they could hopefully tell if they were legitimate or setting them up. Besides, they all had to die sometime, and since sometime was in the next 7 years anyway, their attitude was “Better Now than Later” with their usual fatalistic black humor, the SEALS made ready to jump into the unknown. They gathered with the Chaplains for a quick pre-mission prayer, and then boarded the C-130s. They reverse loaded, since they would be jumping hundreds of miles apart. The jumpmaster had the jump coordinates for each team programmed into his GPS, and told each team when to get ready, and when to jump. The plane flew a pre-determined route, and didn’t vary its airspeed or altitude during the entire flight. During the long night, they dropped over 30 teams across the entire central United States. 2 days later they reported success. 2 teams were set up, and they dealt with the traitors with extreme prejudice. They each stole a vehicle and linked up with nearby teams. Each team had what they called a SEAL phone, which was a specialized satellite communications unit with a small dish connected to a laptop computer. They had all been reprogrammed before the jump so only the other teams and Resistance Headquarters in Clarksburg could talk to them, or even understand them. With the destruction of DC, they knew the NSA was out of business, and they would have been the only people in the world capable of deciphering their transmissions.

As soon as they had established contact and verified their intentions, the C-130s began flying air drops or flying to any airfields that the Rebels had under their control near the new militias. They distributed weapons, ammo, grenades, and supplies to all the units that needed them. Several units were self-supporting Militias that had anticipated just such an event, and went into hiding until they realized what had happened, and made careful radio contact. These were mostly ex-military, with several hunters thrown in. After a couple of weeks of intensive training, they started taking the fight to the Anti-Christ System. All over what remained of the US, bodies wearing blue beanies started showing up hanging from telephone poles, lamp posts, and trees with a sign hung around their necks. “Satan’s Minions – Go Home!” Most of the UN/NOW troopers that were caught died hard, giving up all the information they knew, resulting in more attacks. The Militias made their way up the chains of command, and soon there weren’t any UN/NWO leaders left in the United States.

Solana wasn’t taking the losses lying down, and had rebuilt a large invasion force from every ship that would float. Since they were the only military ships left, they felt they could just float on over to the US unmolested. They found several small nuclear bombs hiding in Iraq and Iran. Funny thing was neither country had previously admitted owning them. They were crude small dirty bombs, but they were exactly what Javier Solana wanted, he wanted to cause massive casualties in the US, since they refused to worship him as their Savior. He had located several old prop-driven planes that were still capable of flying and carrying a bomb. He didn’t care that the pilot was an illiterate peasant, all he wanted was the idiot to take off and fly over the United States, and then the bomb would detonate by a timer. He knew where Clarksburg was, so he sent 2 of his best pilots to Clarksburg, and the rest to the Christian enclaves in the United States.

At the same time, he tried to silence the Witnesses, but everything he did failed. Every person and vehicle he sent against them was burned to a crisp. Finally, he was forced to shut Israel off from the rest of the world by destroying their satellite communications facility. What he hadn’t counted on was the use of high-powered radio, and the word spread. He signed a peace treaty with Israel, but broke it when it was convenient. Once he had his system in place, he started executing anyone who refused the implanted chip or tattoo as infidels or rebels. Millions of Observant Jews, Christians, and Moslems died world wide. Finally he decided the only way to get rid of the Witnesses was to attack Israel itself. He sent 2 armies out, 1 to recapture the USA and destroy it, and the other to take Jerusalem and destroy it.

Fleataxi

Chapter 19

The AC/OWG forces had no defense against the Harpoons that were destroying the fleet. The Commander of the invasion fleet barely got out a Mayday before the first Harpoon hit amidships right below the bridge, blowing him and his crew to Hell. Some ships were targeted by 2 or 3 Harpoons and sank with all hands. The troop transports were rust buckets that were scrapped after WWII. Since they still floated, the Anti-Christ demanded that his forces use them to transport his soldiers. They lived for months in squalor, and suffered huge losses to disease and malnutrition. For some, the missiles were a blessing and ended their suffering, at least on Earth. Out of 30 ships that steamed from Athens, only 3 were still floating at the end of the day, and they were badly damaged. The E-3 Sentry noted that they were still moving toward the US, so they called back, and a single B-52 was sent to finish off the cripples. As it flew over water, a sharp-eyed co-pilot saw something moving toward the US and it was moving too fast to be anything not man-made. They called the E-3, and the radar operators flipped a couple of switches, and immediately spotted the low-flying B-17. Since the B-52 wasn’t armed to deal with it, they called Clarksburg with the raid warning. Bill and George conferred, and realized the only place a B-17 could have come from was the ships of the AC fleet, since it didn’t have the range to fly across the Atlantic by itself. That meant it was on a suicide mission, and could be carrying a nuke. George scrambled the plus-5 Warthogs, and bumped everyone up. The air-defense systems were put on auto-enable, and George made sure the Warthogs had their IFF transponders on. The 2 Warthogs got a vector on the Bogie from the E-3, and went to max thrust. They closed on the bogey at 600 knots, with a closure rate of almost 900 knots, since the B-17 was flying low and slow. They climbed to 5,000 feet and activated their weapons systems, then turned and dove down on the unsuspecting B-17. It was still 10 miles off the coast when both Warthogs locked it up with the laser designator and each fired a Hellfire missile. The missiles’ seeker noses saw the reflected laser energy, and locked onto the slow-moving bomber. Both missiles were targeted at the junction of the fuselage and the wings. The sudden destruction of the plane triggered a hidden failsafe, and detonated the bomb 50 feet above the ocean, killing both Warthog pilots. The Sentry crew was far enough away to escape damage, but reported the explosion of the nuclear bomb, and the loss of both Warthogs. The B-52 crew heard about the loss of the Warthogs, and launched all 6 Harpoons at the transports, blowing them out of the water, then escorted the Sentry back to Minot AFB.

Bill was so mad he wanted to scramble the BUFFs and nuke Italy until it was a pile of slag. Just then the phone rang; it was the Baptist minister from Wheeling. “Bill, I was praying, and the Lord impressed on me to call you and tell you not to seek revenge against Satan, God will deal with him shortly.” Bill was stunned; the only way the Reverend would have known that he was contemplating nuking Italy was if God told him. “Reverend, what should I do?”

“Pray for guidance!”

“Thanks Reverend.”

Bill decided that there was no time like the present, so he went into his bathroom, knelt down and prayed. As he prayed, he thought of the 6th Chapter of Ephesians, so he went back into his office, opened his Bible, and read:

10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.


When he read this, Bill knew he was powerless to stand against Satan without the whole armor of God, so he spent the rest of the day in prayer. The next day he wrote a note to Javier Solana.

Dear Anti-Christ:

Your attempt to nuke the US failed when we put all 30 of your ships in Davey Jones Locker, and blew the B-17 that managed to take off out of the sky. If you try to attack the US again, I have a bunch of B-52’s with nuclear cruise missiles that could easily turn Italy or any other rock you care to hide under into a pile of molten slag.

By the way, Just in case you forgot – God’s Already Won – you loose!

Yours in Christ,

Bill

He gave the note to a prisoner that they had captured, and told him to make sure it got to Solana. Since the note was sealed, the prisoner wrongly assumed it was a note asking for surrender terms, and hand delivered it to Javier Solana. When the Anti-Christ read the note, he ripped the messenger apart with his bare hands, shook his fist at Heaven, and screamed “I will win; I will tear down your throne!” Then he ordered the full-scale assault on Israel “I’ll destroy his city and erase his name from this miserable planet.” He ordered his satanic armies to assemble from the 4 corners of the globe, and just as the Bible foretold, the armies of Satan met in the plain of Meddigo. From there they turned north toward Israel. The Israeli army was outnumbered 1,000 to 1, yet they fought like supermen, and fought a fighting retreat to give civilians time to get out of the way. Those that couldn’t were tortured to death by the forces of the Anti- Christ. Pregnant women were bayoneted in their bellies, killing their unborn babies, and children were hacked to pieces in front of their parents. The region was plundered, ransacked, and burned. Finally Jerusalem itself was surrounded. Every Jew in Jerusalem was praying for a miracle, when all of a sudden, fire came down from heaven, destroying the Anti-Christ’s army. Safe in Italy, far from the lines, Javier Solana was in a meeting with Pope Alexander when suddenly their bodies turned to piles of ash, and their souls were transported to the lake of fire. A shout was heard around the world, and suddenly the air above Jerusalem glowed with a supernatural light as a huge object descended from heaven. Bill felt funny, and looking in the mirror, he had changed to his youthful appearance, and he started to glow. Next thing he knew, he was flying through the air, and saw all the Rebels flying with him. Everyone on earth that resisted the Anti-Christ and didn’t accept the Mark was drawn upwards as if a huge vacuum was pulling them from all over the world. The streams congregated and were pulled into the huge golden glowing object. Bill remembered the last part of Revelation, and realized this was the Rapture. He was going to join Christ for the millennial reign.

The End