Roger sat there in disbelief. He couldn’t grasp what he was hearing. The militia had at least 25 dead and maybe 12 injured, of which half of those were likely to die. This was almost half of their forces and yet they continued to hang on and keep up their BS. Roger spoke aloud; “You’d think they were sitting on Fort Knox or something.”
Dawn said, “No, you’d need a bigger army for that.”
“Hey Rob, do me a favor.”
“What’s that,” Rob asked.
Roger told him to put a lot more intel on the militia compound. “I want a complete count of everything and everyone. There has to be something else going on that we don’t know about and we might need to figure it out pretty quickly.” Roger said goodnight and looked over his notes.
Dawn asked him what was wrong. “I think you found the problem,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Their numbers are growing. I kept thinking I was screwing up the people count that I had, but that’s not it. Unless they have rabbits in there and they are spitting out full grown humans, then people are getting into that compound somehow. Somehow or at some time, more people showed up.”
He sat back in his chair and mumbled. “Meeting time!” he yelled. Everyone gathered around him. “I’m getting a little tired of this stuff,” he said. “I’m going to go meet with Rob and his crew tomorrow morning. I think the militia has been growing their numbers over the past week. I would venture to say they had people show up from out of town and they expect more.”
Mark looked at him and spoke. “That would explain why they still have the attitude. They are trying to hold on as long as they can until their entire group comes in. There’s no telling how many are on the way or how soon.”
“My point exactly,” said Roger. Everyone looked around at each other. They wanted to ask but knew the answer. The fight wasn’t over.
Roger sat for a minute more. He looked at Mark and asked him if he would join him to go meet with Rob and Brad in the morning. Mark slowly nodded, “I think I better. If you’re thinking about what I’m thinking about then ya, I better go too.”
“Ok, it’s settled.” Roger called Rob and set up the meeting. They would have to take that compound and disband the militia before any more of them arrived or they would have to leave the area themselves and that wasn’t an option.
They arrived for the meeting just outside of town. Rob, Brad and two more guys met them there. They sat down to talk about the militia and Haliday mentioned what he thought was happening. Brad looked at Roger. “I think you’re right. I’ve seen a couple of cars the past few days in town that I don’t really remember being there. Plug wires were missing, so not sure if they run or not, but one had Ohio plates on it.”
Brad finished speaking. “They must have come in, parked and then snuck in. No one had really been watching the whole compound until last night. We just watched the main gates and admin building. This poses a big problem for us.”
Rob shook his head. “We’re in deep, real deep.”
“And you don’t have a paddle,” Roger added. “However, this is what we are going to do. Take notes.”
Haliday and Mark spent eight hours covering everything they would need to gather as far as equipment went and what the plan was. They got a good count of how many people they had to work with and what types of firearms. They wrapped up the meeting and set the assault plan in motion. They would play it by ear as to when it would begin because everyone had preparations to make. Haliday and Mark went home and explained it to the group. Only Haliday and Mark would be involved, everyone else would be staying put.
Chapter 33
Rob had his people keep a closer eye out on the compound. They noticed that same night that there was indeed another group of people who snuck into the compound. It looked like it was two adults and a younger child around 12 years old. Brad and a few others had taken it upon themselves to check and mark the vehicles in the area so they knew which ones had been there and which ones were new.
Haliday told them to use chalk and mark the inside of a tire so it wasn’t obvious. They could double up by placing a small stone just under a tire. If the first number in the license plate was an even number it went under the drivers front tire, if it was odd it went under the passenger front tire.
They had remembered the newer vehicles that popped up and checked them out. With the help of the auto parts store, they were able to get two of the three running and confiscated them. They would use them for now and then return them if they could convince the owners to leave.
The next 48 hours were spent on preparing for the assault. Brad had brought out groups of people who were given a crash course on tactics they would need to employ during the assault. Some basics on cover, fire, escape and evade. Not nearly enough training, but more than any of them had ever had.
The exception was that Brad was able to find five veterans and three police officers in the group to help them out and take on roles as squad leaders. One of the police officers whose name was Chuck had formal SRT training and picked a few guys to help with building entry. There would be two teams for building entry.
After the initial assault, Mark would take over the main assault group while Haliday and Chuck split off with the two entry teams to do the building checks. Once they cleared the buildings another guy was assigned to lock them down. It was as simple as locking the door and then breaking a key off in the tumblers. They had a locksmith who could open them later.
They had found some more tractors to use and took them over to the metal fabrication shops in the area for armoring. They would armor the driver’s front and the buckets or dozer blades. These were only going to be used for the assault. Just enough to get some guys in and breach one side of the compound. The south end was fairly accessible, but most of the people and buildings were all at the north side of the airport.
They went through again and picked out the best hunters they could find. Each was assigned an area of the compound to cover. They were also each assigned spotters to watch in the area for any surprises or attacks from the rear. They had no idea who might try to sneak up behind them or even if they would.
Brad had a stock full of tannerite targets. He asked Roger what they could do with them. “Easy,” Roger said. “You lay a piece of scotch tape down, a line of heavy finishing nails on the tape and wrap it around the can of tannerite. Use the giant slingshot and launch them into the compound. The hunters will have a target full of flechettes to fire on.”
“The militia won’t want to touch them or come close after a few go off. Try and launch a bunch simultaneously and have the guys shoot them simultaneously as well. That will be a huge psychological kick in the pants. After word gets out when one lands near someone they’ll want to leave.”
Brad looked at him, “You’re a sick man.”
“Guerilla warfare Brad, that’s all it is. The days of taking twenty paces and dueling with pistols ended a while ago,” he replied.
They wrangled up as many tires as they could. They placed them around the outside of the compound in stacks. The militia laughed at them. Those things wouldn’t stop a .22 round was what they were thinking. What they didn’t know was that these would be lit on fire to create a smoke screen to help block some of their activities and to smoke out the militia as much as possible.
Haliday had them gather up bricks from the brickyard and use those to reinforce some of their fighting positions around the compound. He also had them place a good number of spike strips along the roads so any vehicles making a run for it would get flat tires. They would let people go, but would have to make their point so the militia would know it was over and they would be expected to disband completely.