Authors: Rich Goldhaber
Survivors (33 page)
Arnie said, “It looks like they’ll have more
than 500 in the attack. I’ve got some ideas on our
best defense, but let’s wait until Lieutenant Monroe
and his men get here.”
Private Duncan said, “I talked to Captain
Stewart about an hour ago. They should be landing
in about ninety minutes.”
I’ll show you guys our weapon systems.”
We borrowed a jeep sitting on the tarmac
and drove across the base to a remote section. A
soldier in full combat gear was standing guard in
front of a huge warehouse-looking building. Arnie
introduced Private Jordan who helped the Major
unlock a small door near the front. There were two
separate combination locks. Two people needed to
enter numbers simultaneously for the door to unlock.
The guard remained outside the armory,
and Arnie led us into the darkened building with a
flashlight. He walked to a control panel near the
entrance and the heavy duty main door to the armory slowly rose upward. The bright sunlight filtering into the expansive armory revealed row upon
row of weapons placed on pallets for easy transport
and stacked in the most sophisticated storage system I had ever seen.
Arnie gave us a quick walkthrough tour of
the place. “You have to understand, we’re a rapid
deployment Air Force Base, and so our armaments
are based on those requirements. You can see all
of the smart bombs, thousands of them, but we
don’t have any aircraft here capable of delivering
them. They’re all redeployed at those desert bases
in Arizona.
“What we do have is one pilot who knows
how to fly an Apache Attack Helicopter, another
pilot who can fly big transport planes, and Blaine
who can fly smaller multi-engine business aircraft.
That’s our entire air force right now, but it’s more
than enough to get the job done.”
The sound of Ami Stewart’s KDC-10 aircraft
approaching the airbase stopped Arnie in midsentence. We left the armory in our jeep and met
the aircraft as it taxied up to the Threat Assessment Center. Captain Stewart, Blaine, Lieutenant
Monroe and his men squeezed out of the small entrance hatch. Ami, Vince and all his men saluted
Major Connors, who returned the salute and congratulated his troops on a job well done.
Arnie introduced Captain Sanchez to everyone, and we all moved into the air-conditioned
comfort of the War Room. Lieutenant Monroe had
been receiving reports on the buildup of troops at
Fort Gordon, but he hadn’t seen any pictures. Private Duncan showed the pictures to the newly arrived group, and then we adjourned to a conference room with a large map of southwest Florida
on the wall.
Arnie fixed some coffee while the rest of us
were debriefed by Lieutenant Monroe on their successful mission. With plenty of fresh coffee for everyone, the meeting began.
Major Connors started, “As you’ve seen
from the pictures, we have good reason to believe
an assault on the campus is imminent. You can
see from the pictures, they will be equipped with
Bradley M2 Fighting Vehicles and a large number
of trucks modified to carry fifty caliber machine
guns. We can expect as many as 500 troops to be
taking part in the attack. They will certainly have
access to night vision equipment, and most importantly, we believe a person familiar with the
campus will be taking part in the attack. We have
also observed two cars traveling at night from Fort
Gordon to the vicinity of the campus. They left the
campus area last night, and it’s presumed they
carried out reconnaissance as a prelude to the attack. We intentionally did not interfere with this
group, because we believe it would have tipped our
hand. The message we want them to bring back to
their commander is the campus is unprepared for
their attack.”
satellite coverage do we have?”
Private Duncan answered, “We’ve got a total
of fourteen birds providing sporadic coverage of the
Fort Gordon area. All of our birds are flying a north
to south orbit. There are a couple of ninety minute
windows without coverage, but other than those
time periods, we usually have about twenty-three
minutes between fly overs.”
Lieutenant Monroe stood up and used the
wall map “I agree with your assessment Major. If
the force is close to 500, then they’d be wise to attack from multiple points. Their modified trucks
will be restricted to roads, but the Bradley Fighting
Vehicles are a different matter.”
“They have tracks, not wheels, so they can
operate in most any terrain. So, if it was me, I’d
execute a coordinated attack on three fronts. I’d
have the M2s attack from the east, and come in
across those open fields. At the same time I’d have
the modified trucks attack from the two main entrances off Ben Hill Griffin Blvd. Then I’d mop up
with ground troops following the trucks.”
good guys. How do we stop them?”
Arnie said, “We’ve got two major advantages. First we know they’re coming, and we’ll
have eyes in the sky to provide recon. Second,
we’ve got airpower. I’ve had Private Duncan scan
the various air force bases in the area to look for
Apache helicopters and A10 Wart Hogs. He’s found
some over at Tyndall Air Force Base over by Panama City.
Captain Stewart, can you fly the Wart Hogs?”
“Major, if it’s got a fixed wing, I can fly it.”
Blaine added, “I can probably fly the A10
with a couple hours practice.”
Arnie gave him the look; the one seeming to
say who are you kidding?
Blaine noted the Major’s expression. “Arnie,
I’m assuming you’ve got flight simulators on the
base. Ami can check me out. If she says I’m good
to go, then you’ve got a second A10 at your disposal.”
Blaine’s response seemed to satisfy Major
Connors. He continued, “They’ll probably lead with
their M2s. We can strike just before the M2s are on
the bridge crossing the Caloosahatchee River on
Interstate 75. We’ll probably be able to destroy everything of importance in a few minutes.”
Arnie looked kind of funny at Jessie and
answered, “We want to defeat these guys and prevent them from attacking the campus.”
Jessie was in debate mode. “I have a different goal in mind. I want to wipe them out with no
survivors, no prisoners, and no more bad guys.”
There was silence around the table, and
then Captain Sanchez spoke. “Jessie, that sounds
like a little bit of revenge on your part.”
Jessie stared at Captain Sanchez and then
spoke calmly. “It’s not revenge. Let me explain my
thinking. If we don’t kill them all, then they’ll be
back later. They’ll lick their wounds and then reconstitute themselves into a new fighting force,
and the next time they’ll be better prepared. We
can’t let this go on for ever and ever. The problem
with Arnie’s proposed plan is that there are likely
to be plenty of survivors, and they’ll scatter into
the countryside and eventually make their way
back to Fort Gordon.”
plan?”
Jessie stood up and walked up to the wall
map. Monroe sat down and everyone was paying
attention to Jessie. She pointed to a small narrow
key located just south of Fort Myers Beach. It was
named Big Hickory Island. “I would try to trap
them on this small key and then concentrate all of
our destructive airpower on this isolated island.”
Vince Monroe asked, “And how would you
get them onto that isolated island? It’s almost ten
miles away from Interstate 75.”
except for one.”
There was a chorus of
whats
. Even I was
skeptical.
“Hear me out.” She said. “We blow the main
bridge over the Caloosahatchee River at Interstate
75 just before they arrive at the bridge. We station
a small but significant force just north of the
bridge, here at Bayshore Road. This will probably
be near the rear of their main force. The objective
of this skirmish is for our forces to make them believe this is our main defensive force.
“Then we fall back along Bayshore Road
and get them to follow us. If they have navigation
equipment in their trucks and cars, then they’ll
know there are seven bridges between Interstate 75
and the Gulf where they could cross the river. Our
forces will slowly retreat along Bayshore Road, and
we will blow all of the other bridges with the exception of the Cape Coral Bridge. If it’s dark, they’ll
see the explosions and think our only route of escape is across Cape Coral Bridge.
“Our forces will retreat across Cape Coral
Bridge and move south onto Big Hickory Island.
We will increase our resistance at the south end of
the island, and when all of their elements have
crossed onto the island, we’ll blow up the bridge
behind them.
“Our forces will then cross the bridge at the
south end of the key and blow the bridge up. Now
they’re trapped and we can destroy them all with
our aircraft.”
There was total silence in the room. The
military guys were clearly analyzing Jessie’s proposal, and I was internally gloating at Jessie’s ability to once again step outside the box and think
about the bigger picture.
Arnie was the first to speak, “Well I’ll be a
monkey’s ass. It might just work, and if it doesn’t,
we haven’t risked much at all. If they don’t follow
our troops into the trap, then we can still destroy
their weapon systems. We’ll have our aircraft attack them at the bridge if they don’t follow our
force into the trap.”
Jessie asked another question. “Captain
Sanchez, do you carry Cruise Missiles on your attack submarine?”
proposing?”
Jessie interrupted, “Yes Captain, I am proposing; I’m proposing you direct a few Cruise Missiles onto this narrow island and finish off the lot
of them.”
“Jessie, they’re Americans. I don’t think the
government ever planned on using our missiles
against Americans.”
Jessie answered, “There’re two Americas
now. You’re here with people from one of the Americas, and you’ve been visiting other small groups of
that America. But there’s another America, and
this other America is populated by groups like the
one trying to destroy us. I think it’s in the genes of
our species. There are always those who want to
live off the efforts of others.
“Even if we kill all these guys, others will
eventually replace them. Our only hope is for the
country to put together a new government before
these undesirables grow powerful again, and that’s
going to take years to accomplish.”
Sanchez looked in shock. He was clearly
struggling with the notion of his ship being directly
involved in the deaths of other Americans. Finally
Arnie intervened. “Captain, Jessie’s right. You haven’t been here to see the raping and pillaging
these types of thugs have been doing around here.
One group already killed dozens of people in the
Tampa area. We finally had to take them all down.
If you’re looking for a legal justification, then consider them terrorists. They fit the classical definition.”
Captain Sanchez was deep in thought and
finally spoke. “I never thought I’d see the day when
I ordered my missiles targeted on American soil,
but then again I never thought I’d see the day
when the world was hit by a global pandemic. I
agree with your logic. I’m going to talk this over
with my officers and crew, but my recommendation
will be for our ship and its crew to assist you in
any way we can. I’ll talk to them tonight. In the
meantime, I want your people to map out the GPS
coordinates of the entire road on Big Hickory Island.
We flew back to the campus in silence. Arnie stayed at MacDill to draw up the specific battle
plan with Lieutenant Monroe, and he promised to
send one of his soldiers to Big Hickory Island to
map out the critical GPS coordinates.
After landing, Sanchez left to talk to his
men, and Jessie and I called an emergency governor’s meeting to prepare for the upcoming battle.
At our meeting Jessie provided the details of her
plan to trap the attackers and everyone was on
board. We would announce a call up of all able
bodied men and women at dinner, and I would explain the need to kill 500 or so Americans. It was
just another day at the campus.
I spent the next hour preparing our rationale for going to war. We wouldn’t be taking a
vote or anything. We were a legally constituted representative form of government after all; but our
community needed to understand the stakes, because at the end of the day, we would be putting
their lives on the line.
In the middle of dinner I rang the meeting
bell and announced we would have an emergency
community meeting immediately after dinner.
When a thousand people whisper at the same time
it makes a lot of noise, and the place sounded like
a swarm of ten-thousand bees. The noise only
abated when I stepped to the microphone and addressed the crowd.
“Thank you all for coming tonight. I want to
review some recent events with all of you because
they directly affect the security and safety of our
community. For those of you who have been here
since the beginning, you know the countryside has
been ravaged by several groups of terrorists.
“In the beginning, Ralph brought us news
of a group of thugs in Georgia who he witnessed
kill a man and abduct women. Debbie was raped
and Bruce was beaten by a group of bad guys near
Arcadia. Several months ago another group of misfits attacked our community, and with the help of
the soldiers from MacDill Air Force Base, we were
able to defeat them. When we traveled to California
to meet with another group of survivors, they told
us of their own brand of local terrorists who were
also raping and stealing from their community.
Lieutenant Monroe and his soldiers flew out there
and helped defeat this group as well.