Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

At the HQ building he saw a few guys get into a four wheeler and head over to the prisoner building. The next view he had of them was when he spotted them at what he called building 12. They had a man with them. They took him inside and he didn’t see them for almost an hour. After that he watched them drag the guy from the doorway and back to the prisoner building. They must have beaten him something fierce. Haliday’s blood was boiling. He told Blake, “Mark down that they torture people.”

He watched again as they took a woman inside the same building. He waited again and noted the time. It had barely been half an hour before they brought her out and dragged her back to the building. “Damn it,” he said. He had an idea who these people were. He was ready to go down there guns blazing. Evidently he had been speaking aloud and mumbling because Blake had poked his head out again.

“Roger, do you think that’s who they thought we were?”

“Yes I do, and I’m f’ing beyond pissed off right now. I’m half tempted to go down there but that would be the end of me for sure. I’ll get even with these pricks, mark my word. I’ll get even with these pricks.” Blake had put his head back under the blanket. “Blake, you only need to poke your head under when I tell you info to write down, you don’t have to stay under there all the time.”

“It’s warmer this way.”

“It’s that or you like dutch ovens.”

“You’re a sick man, Mr. Haliday.”

No one else was taken out and interrogated that he had seen. It was late in the night and they started to close up a lot of the buildings. They seemed to still be working around the motor pool though. They had some kind of project they wanted finished; he just didn’t know what. He hadn’t gotten a close enough look inside that building to see.

He was watching this one when he saw a man walk out of one of the motor pool hangars. Haliday watched him and watched his motions. “Oh my god, you’ve got to be kidding me?” He told Blake to stop taking notes and look. Blake poked his head out of the blanket.

“It’s a guy waving his arms like at the airports.”

“No Blake, it’s a ground guide, watch.”

They could hear the rumbling of the engine and soon it appeared. Blake said, “Holy shit.”

“Ya, that’s what I say. I can’t believe it.” It looked like an M113, armored personnel carrier but slightly different. It had to be some kind of variation or prototype that made its way into civilian hands. He still couldn’t believe it.

The ground guide walked it out to an empty area between the hangars and one of the runways. Once there the driver ran it around in circles, spun in place a few times, shot up and down along the runway, and then eased it back toward the motor pool hangar. Quite a crowd had gathered around and was cheering. They walked it back into the hangar.

Blake looked at Haliday. “That’s pretty bad ass. I wish we had one.”

“Oh ya, hell I wish we had several. Some Bradleys, a few M1s, hell, why stop there. Couple Cobras and Apaches, a Blackhawk or two,” he was rambling now. He stopped himself. He looked at Blake, “no problem at all Blake. It won’t do them a damn bit of good.”

“Why is that?”

“Let’s get going back to camp. I’ve seen enough and I’ll explain it on the way.”

“Ok, Blake, let me explain a few things about tracked vehicles. They can’t really operate continually on paved roads. It tears up the track pads on the tracks and sooner or later they fall off. They start to fall off and expose the tracks, making them more prone to damage. There’s a reason they get trucked everywhere, so unless they get a truck and trailer going, I don’t think they’ll be running around the area with that thing.”

“What about cutting through all of the farms?”

“They could do that, sure. But it’s a large area with a lot of varied terrain. Eventually their luck is going to run out and they’ll throw a track or something else. I just don’t think they have the parts to really utilize it the way they hope to, or to make repairs in the field if something goes wrong. Maybe they hope to use it to defend their compound and that’s it. That’s what I would do.

“It has two firing ports on each side for rifles and whatever they wanted to use that upper turret for. Actually it’s not a turret, but really just a half armored turret. The gunner would still be exposed from the sides and the back. I doubt they have any light or heavy machine guns to mount. That would have cost them nearly as much as that track. At least I hope they don’t.

“Either way, whatever they plan to use it for, if we take it out it’s a done deal. I’d rather worry more about them getting those planes in the air. Yet another thing to worry about. They can spot us easily if they can do that. We’d be restricted to moving at night, and at night only, and that still wouldn’t guarantee anything. Air power is supreme. I’d settle for a paraglider about now.”

“You’re full of all kinds of good news, huh?”

“No, it’s just better that we understand what we are up against. With education we can make educated decisions. Now let’s be quiet because we have to cross through the residential area here.” He heard some chatter on the radio and stopped to listen.

“HQ this is Papa 2. We went by the Grindstone marina like they said. We found the boat and checked it out. It was exactly where they said it would be. We boarded it and searched it. We found food and weapons on board. Just a pistol and an AK47 with about 1,000 rounds total. The food looks like it’s about a couple of month’s worth. The boat does start and run, so we locked it down and seized it. The cradle it’s in can be lowered manually to put it in the water.”

“Did you confiscate the food and equipment?”

“Roger that, we loaded up everything worthwhile and will be bringing it back to HQ. They had some charts too, looks like they were heading somewhere offshore, maybe a cabin on one of the islands. We can check that out tomorrow when it’s daylight. See what they have out there.”

“Good job guys, not sure if they are with the hostiles or not. We’ll keep pushing them for info, but at least we have a new toy.”

Haliday was fuming now. “You see, Blake, I told you. I told you. I told you. These people were trying to get to their boat and get to their own camp and now these dick heads have beaten them, seized their food and firearms, and plan to do who knows what with them now. They are going to go to their cabin and take what’s left? I don’t think so.” What started as a reconnaissance mission and bug out ended up being much more for Haliday.

As soon as they got back, they called in to talk to the group.

“Everything is ok here. We had a patrol come by but they didn’t pull in. You still want us to shoot on sight?”

“I do, but only if you are certain they did not call in a location for the stop. If they didn’t, hide the vehicle, bury or burn the bodies, just get rid of them. We have a field operation to conduct in the morning so we won’t be coming in yet. I’ll call you guys later.”

The sporadic radio calls were wearing on the group. They almost couldn’t handle the suspense. But, they did what they were told. David and Kevin were at the ready to respond if they needed to. Kayla wanted to be involved, but she knew more about the house than anyone else and would need to stay behind. Hopefully they would not have to respond. They hated listening in though, and never knowing what to expect.

They went as far as they dared, and pulled over, and would wait until 0530. They filled the bikes’ tanks. They would need to get some more gas soon. They had about 100 miles of operating distance left now. They had about 15 miles to make it to the marina. 0530 rolled around and they took off.