“Hi everyone! It’s so nice to see civilization again,” Pam started as Martie gave her the floor. “The rest of our group will be arriving at RDU tomorrow, thanks to Martie. I know that our two pilots will be itching to help you guys, if you can loan them some wings. They are out of a job at the moment. I also am a private pilot and can help you as a spotter pilot, if you need me.”
Pam grinned at the murmur of laughter she heard. “On a more serious note, the other convoy coming south has roughly ten vehicles with what looks like three to six people per vehicle. We never really got close enough to see for sure, but they killed two innocent people for no reason. They passed us during our first night. We had driven down the northbound lane, only because it was the only lane we could get onto in New York and we never bothered to change. The other convoy was driving in the southbound lane so we do not think they ever knew we were in the vicinity. We tried to catch up with them at one point, until we came across the two freshly dead bodies. They had been shot several times and every vehicle in the convoy had run over the bodies, flattening them into the snow. This led us to believe that they were people to be avoided, and we transferred back to the other side of the highway and stayed away from them until we turned off for our second night’s stay at a small airport just north of the North Carolina state line.”
At this point, Pam paused as if she was trying to figure out how to word what she wanted to say. “There is something I think we need to deal with pretty quickly, and that is how to feed and provide good drinking water to the U.S. civilians. Mr. President, General Allen, Captain Mallory spoke about this at our last overnight stop, and I think our Southwest team would like to take it further. We had a long talk with some farmers up in Maryland, and the captain told them to start farming and breeding animals as soon as the weather allows, and asked them to spread the word across the country, telling people to hold on and start finding ways to become self-sufficient. The farmers must produce food for the hungry as quickly as possible, protect themselves from attackers, and help people coming south from colder areas.” She got resounding applause from the group, and the president gave her a nod of approval. “To conclude, our trip south on the highway was horrible. We must have seen thousands of people dead in their vehicles or around them. It’s very cold out there and there must be millions of people, dead or dying from being exposed to these horrible weather conditions. The snow on the highway south of New York was up to six inches deep and icy conditions just before New Year’s Eve must have been the cause of many of the accidents. Many of the big fatal accidents happened near tractor trailers going out of control, and the carnage—just on the piece of highway south of Newark—was terrible. Thank you.”
Martie stepped back in to continue. “I had my binoculars fixed on the other convoy while I was in the air, and it looked like the vehicles were full of people, as Pam said. If they are coming our way, they most likely turned off I-95 about an hour ago and should be on the outskirts of Raleigh by now. The dead vehicles on the incoming roadways will slow them down for the last 20 miles or so, but if they are coming here, they should be in our area within the next couple of hours.”
The general thanked the two ladies for their reports and asked First Sergeant Perry to give his situation report on the defense structure for this potential attack scenario.
“Mr. President, Mr. Ambassador, General Allen,” Sergeant Perry began. “We have set up a perimeter around this field that is ready to hold off an ambitious attack. We have completed our ambush scenario along the 300-foot dirt road leading to the asphalt feeder road, and have changed it slightly since our initial ideas this morning. The men have made and painted a simple wooden airport sign with an arrow pointing to the entrance of the airport—the way we want them to come in. This is to make sure they drive into our ambush. We have a wall of sandbags across the dirt road 50 feet before the gate entrance to this property. This is to make sure that any incoming vehicles will have to stop. There are no vehicles allowed in or out except Mr. Joe and Mr. David. They turn left any way and one of David’s two armored cars has been placed further down the road, 250 feet behind the barrier. Our latest scenario takes the entrance gate out of the ambush. The armored ferret is behind a double wall of sandbags to protect it from any shoulder-operated missiles. It is positioned where the lights of any incoming vehicles will light up the barricade, but leave the armored car in the darkness behind the barricade, if they decide to attack before dawn. After dawn, we will review the ambush zone and make the barricade across the road the main focus point. If they open fire at the barricade, we will know that they aren’t friendly and fire back. The barricade is 3-foot high and made of a triple line of sandbags behind the turned-over dining tables we brought from Seymour Johnson.”
Sergeant Perry paused to fish some notes out of his pocket to make sure he had the information listed correctly. “The barrier will be manned by 20 soldiers with M4s and a machine gun on either side in the shallow drainage ditches, again protected by sandbags and camouflaged with heavy brush. There is no way around the barricade, and the 200 feet of road where any enemy vehicles would need to stop is fully visible from the fire tower. A third and fourth machine gun has been placed on the fire tower, which will be invisible before dawn, but unfortunately very visible in the daylight. Two small 2-inch mortars have been placed 200 yards inside the wired perimeter and are ready to fire into the ambush point. My plan is that there will be three to four men in civilian clothes with hunting rifles ‘guarding’ the barricade. I want the barricade to look like a bunch of farmers protecting their road from visitors, so we have hidden any forms of military presence as best we can. As soon as the men see the lights of vehicles, they will get behind the sandbags and shout to anyone to stop. That is when we expect action. The men will be surrounded by Air Force troops along the barricade with automatic carbines.”
“Last, we cannot allow the ambushers to retreat. Carlos has explained that the first items we must find are the communications devices they are using. He thinks that they are small satellite cell phones. So, we have set up a first retreat kill zone in the trees the other side of the entrance on the feeder road. Thanks to Mr. Joe and Mr. David, we have enough mobile radios for all groups and the commanders of each section to be in radio contact throughout the fight. The attack armament for the retreating ambushes is the second rat patrol jeep facing down the short piece of road from the trees on the other side of the feeder road. Again, we have placed sandbags around it for protection. The two machine guns will wreack havoc on any retreating enemy.
“A mile north and south on the feeder road, I have placed a platoon of 30 men who are to stay hidden in the forest until any convoy passes, and then they will close down the road and shoot anybody who runs into them with two mortars and machine guns. In the forest to the east of the feeder road, and dug in to protect themselves from friendly fire, are another dozen troops, spaced out every 100 feet with night goggles. Their job is to bring down anybody escaping through the forest. My last ambush position is one flanking ambush squad of 12 men who are behind sandbags, and are facing towards the ambush road area, and inside the perimeter fence. The perimeter fence is 20 yards from the road—a little closer than I would like if the mortars land short, but their job is to kill the ambushers from the side and to make sure our perimeter is not breached. That ends my report.”