Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse

42. A Prodigy

The local volunteers mostly came from Prescott. Alex was disappointed that there were only two men that came from the town of Prescott Valley, which lay north of the highway between Humboldt and Prescott. Everyone met at the Conley Ranches clubhouse.

Cliff Conley did the initial organizing and rabble-rousing, but he soon handed the project off to Doctor K. Cliff opened the meeting, and after some introductions Doctor K. gave the “threat briefing.” In just a few minutes, he outlined what they had learned about La Fuerza, their ruthless history, their current location, and their likely next moves. Then he transitioned by saying, “I’d like to turn the next part of the briefing over to a young man who has earned my respect in the past few days. Please meet Jamie Alstoba of the Navajo Nation.” Doctor K. gestured with sweep of his arm to the back of the room.

There were loud murmurs in the crowd as a broad-faced boy, just thirteen years old and standing less than five feet tall, strode to the front of the meeting room. He wore scruffy stained blue jeans and a Pendleton shirt. Up until then he had hardly been noticed.

The boy spoke nervously in a high, early-adolescent voice, “Hey. My family, we live in Dewey, on East Antelope Way. The La Fuerza gang locked down the town 24/7, but they are fools and let kids my age and younger walk and ride our bicycles around, without hardly even noticing us. So I got to see exactly what houses they were in, and where they had their pea cups and armored cars parked. My dad sent me on my bike up here to get your help. I was sent to Mr. Conley, and he promised to help, and he sent me back to Dewey and Humboldt, to draw maps, the last two days. We transferred the Humboldt map onto this….”

Doctor K. and Ian Doyle then carried in a large whiteboard from another room and set it on a pair of the meeting room chairs. It was marked “HUMBOLDT-As of 1400, Wednesday.” The boy pulled a laser pointer from the back pocket of his jeans, and continued:

“Okay, so here is what I saw: about two-thirds of their gang is in Dewey, and about one-third in Humboldt. I counted four of the bank-type armored cars in Humboldt, and one of the Army-tank-looking ones, except on wheels.”

Ian Doyle corrected, “Wheeled APC.”

Jamie nodded and, using the laser pointer, said, “Right, APCs. I marked their positions, here, here, here, and a pair of them, here. As you can see, most of those are on East Prescott Street. I’m pretty sure of those positions, but of course they could have moved them since I left. I marked the houses with the gang members in them, in red. There were two houses on fire when I left. I marked those, and the ones that had already burnt down, in solid black. The ones that are just outlines I think are still either cleaned out by the gang, nobody home, or somebody at home but just waiting to see if the gang kicks them out. I marked some hills that you can use for cover to sneak up on the houses and the vehicles: it is what Doctor K. says is called a ‘defilade approach.’”

There were murmurs of approval. Lars Laine, sitting in the middle of the crowd shouted: “We need to get him an appointment to West Point!”

Jamie Alstoba went on, still quite nervous, “Well, sir, before you ’gratulate me, let me tell you about Dewey.”

Ian Doyle and Doctor K. carried out a second whiteboard, marked “DEWEY-As of 1400, Wednesday,” placing it on another pair of chairs to the right of the first whiteboard.

The Navajo boy continued, “I don’t have as many exact details for you about Dewey, since the town is so much more spread out than Humboldt. Okay, so I counted seven of the boxy bank armored cars, mostly at the east end of town, parked on the road called Apache Knolls Trail, and three APCs, and those were on Apache Knolls Trail and South Tomahawk Trail, which is, uh, parallel to it, just to the west. They also had twenty, maybe thirty pea cups, kinda scattered along Apache Knolls Trail and South Tomahawk Trail, Sugar Leaf Lane, and east Tanya Boulevard. I think they picked that part of town because it has whatcha-call ‘commanding high ground.’ There’s also some nice big houses there where they can party and crash. There are some hills with juniper trees on them behind them, which I think make the La Fuerza guys feel secure, but I think that is the best way to hit them: you sneak in on foot, coming down from those hills. And I noticed that their sentries spend all their time with their binoculars looking north and east, toward the highways, not looking behind them at the hills.”

Using the laser pointer, Jamie said, “They have machine guns on tripods set up in this house here, and this one here. For some reason they don’t park the armored cars and APCs in driveways. They keep them in a zigzaggy pattern all along both sides of each road. Doctor K. says that’s for ‘mutual supporting fire.’ And I’ve got to warn you, they sleep in some of their rigs. Some of their pea cups are in driveways and some along the roads. I didn’t see any of their rigs parked in garages or barns or shop buildings, but I could be wrong. Bottom line is, there is a boatload of pea cups, armored cars, and APCs. So what you have in Dewey… is what Mr. Doyle calls a ‘target-rich environment.’” The room erupted with laughter.

Jamie Alstoba waited for the laughter to die down, and then asked, “Any questions?

“Now, since then they may have looted a few more houses, but mostly for the last three days they seemed fat and happy. It’s just party-hearty time. They were pretty deep into Bizhee’ holoni—beer and booze drinkin’—even in the daytime. So if we attack them drunks in the middle of the night, we might catch them in a deep sleep.”

In all, fifty-eight men and three women would be going to Dewey and Humboldt for the raid, and a hundred more were involved in gathering the requisite gear and ammunition and upgrading defenses in Prescott.

Lars Laine was asked to explain the plan to set fire to La Fuerza’s vehicles. He rose and said, “If we get enough thickened gas burning in, on, or under most vehicles, it’ll do the job. We can speed things along by puncturing fuel tanks with rifle fire. Assuming we have to destroy fifty vehicles, we anticipate needing about two hundred Molotovs. And that’s the number we brought.”

Ian Doyle observed that they had brought a motley assortment of rifles and shotguns. They included everything from World War I-relic Mausers and Springfield 1903s to high-grade bolt-action deer rifles. He was glad to see that nearly half of the volunteers had semiauto battle rifles, including M1As, FALs, HK91s, L1A1s, AK-47 clones, and AR-15s in various configurations. Other than his own Ingram M10, he learned that they had only a few full-auto guns. These included a registered Stenling submachine gun (a Sterling SMG, built on a Sten receiver tube), an unregistered M2 carbine, and two unregistered AR-15 selective-fire conversions. Ian considered handing out a couple of his M16s but then thought better of it, realizing that in untrained hands semiauto rifles would actually be more effective in the assault.

Based on their intelligence, six ten-member squads would attack Dewey and two ten-member squads would attack Humboldt. The attacks would be coordinated to begin at 3:10 a.m., just before moonset. They wanted the skies to be as dark as possible to facilitate their escape following the raid.

Laine realized that many of the people involved had no combat experience. So, for fear of ruining the element of surprise with a negligent discharge, everyone except for the two men with sentry removal responsibilities were instructed to travel with their gun chambers empty until 3:09 a.m.

Ian’s sentry removal counterpart in Dewey would be Doug Parker, an Iraq war vet who owned an HK .45 ACP SOCOM pistol with a registered Gemtech suppressor. Parker seemed a bit boisterous, bragging that he’d make “one-shot stops to the ocular window.” That worried Ian, especially when Parker admitted that he had no formal handgun training. Parker’s small-arms training in the Army had all been with M16s, M4s, and M240Bs. In Iraq he had been on a 4.2-inch mortar crew.

It was decided that the two team leaders for the coordinated attack would be Lars Laine (for Dewey) and Alex Doyle (for Humboldt.)

They used a 60-power spotting scope. To reduce the risk of the sun glinting off the front lens of the scope, they made a foot-long extension tube from scrap cardboard and attached it with strips of olive drab duct tape. Their first vantage point was a long east-west ridge that lay between Humboldt and a mountain called The Anthill. Then they surreptitiously hiked to the military crest of a small hill on Eagle Drive, overlooking the sprawling ranchette developments of Dewey.

Prone in the brush, they had a great view of the closest houses that were occupied by La Fuerza. Lars thought that the full-length fur coats worn by their women looked comical. He noted that both the men and women carried rifles, carbines, or submachineguns at all times.

The scouting team’s observations confirmed what Jamie Alstoba had described. He was also apparently correct about the times that guard shifts changed: six a.m., noon, six p.m., and midnight. Lars mentioned that it was good that they were six-hour shifts: “We want them to be exhausted and not very alert when we hit.”

They ran through several rehearsals. The most important one, he stressed, was the “Break Contact Under Fire” drill. He told them, “You’ll need to do this and do it right, so pay attention.”

There were five eleven-member squads, plus two platoon leaders and Blanca, who was designated as the vehicle guard. The Molotovs and ignition papers were distributed evenly among the assault team members. Nearly everyone except the medics carried four Molotov jars each. The jars were carried in backpacks and satchels with sheets of bubble wrap for padding.

Each team member carried enough food and water for two days. “The goal is for you to be able to escape E&E-to get out of La Fuerza’s way and safely home. This is a one-shot deal, so use your own best judgment about how and when you get home,” Lars explained.

Doctor K. helped Lars conduct the inspections. They made sure that each team member carried a full canteen or hydration pack of water, and that each team had their rifles with loaded magazines but empty chambers. To check for noisy gear, they had each team member jump up and down in place.

Three squads were assigned to hit Dewey and the other two to hit Humboldt. Their approach was slow, circuitous, and cautious. The vehicles had all of their side and taillights covered with duct tape. Their headlights were covered similarly, leaving just half-inch slits exposed. This provided such poor road visibility that they drove toward Dewey at just over a walking pace. The infantry teams parked their vehicles almost a mile north of Dewey. Since they were quieter, the dragoons’ horses were tied up only a half mile away east of Dewey, in a brushy draw.

As per their instructions, the team members didn’t wrap the special ignition paper around their Molotovs until after they had dismounted from their vehicles and horses.

The two platoons split up just before midnight. They spent more than two hours approaching Humboldt and Dewey at a very slow pace. They sat spread out on line. The platoon leaders walked between their respective squads, pointing out particular vehicles to torch and whispering final instructions. At 2:45 a.m. both Ian Doyle and Doug Parker started their approaches to the two towns.

Parker was able to spot the sentries easily, since they were both smoking cigarettes. Approaching the first sentry from behind, he shot the man in the head from a distance of ten feet. The bullet went through both sides of the guard’s cranium and he dropped immediately, hardly making any noise other than the sounds of his arms and legs thrashing and a low gurgling. The pistol had made a sound that was much like a hardback book being dropped on a floor. Parker approached the downed sentry, who was still twitching. Wondering if he should use his knife to slit the man’s throat, he instead simply stood on his throat until he lay still.

Parker then walked toward the center of Dewey, to where he knew a second sentry was seated in the passenger seat of an open-top Jeep. The sentry turned toward him and asked, “Como?” Parker was seven yards away. He raised his HK pistol and pulled the trigger. The bullet grazed the side of the man’s head. Wounded, the sentry tumbled out of the Jeep and ran, stumbling. Parker fired twice more but missed. The sentry ran into the nearest house, and the door banged shut.

Because Parker did not have a radio, word of his botched shots did not reach Doctor K. for three minutes. Even though they had lost the element of surprise, he decided to go ahead with the attack as scheduled just two minutes later.

Meanwhile, in Dewey, Ian Doyle had approached the nearest sentry at a normal walking pace. He thought it was best to appear nonchalant. Ian said quietly, “¿Hola!” At a distance of less than three paces, the guard realized that he didn’t recognize Doyle. But by then it was too late. Ian raised the M10, which was loaded with subsonic ammo. The gun’s selector was set to semiautomatic. It coughed twice and bullets hit the sentry in the cheek and forehead. The man’s head snapped backward and he dropped into a twitching heap. With the large Sionics suppressor attached, the Ingram didn’t make much more noise than a loud hand clap. It didn’t even alarm nearby dogs. Ian soon repeated the process with the other two sentry positions that they’d scouted out before. The first was sitting on a Chinese nylon folding camp chair in front of a bank armored car. He never made it out of his chair. The other one was standing on a driveway with his back to Doyle, sipping from a wine bottle. Only this last sentry made any significant noise, when his wine bottle and Romanian AK clattered as they fell on the concrete slab driveway.

Ian glanced at his watch. It was 3:10 a.m. He was pleased that La Fuerza was still oblivious to their presence. He knelt and twisted the M10’s cocking handle 90 degrees, putting it in a safe position. Then he replaced the partially expended magazine with a full one from his satchel. Realizing that things would soon get very noisy, he flipped the gun’s selector switch to the full-auto position.

The three Humboldt squads crept forward, keeping roughly online. Lars raised a clenched fist, and the signal was passed down the line, signaling a halt. He checked his watch. It was 3:11 a.m. Ian Doyle trotted up to Laine, and whispered, “I got all three guards. I think the gang is still asleep and clueless.”

They shook hands and Lars said, “Good job, Ian. You can get back to your squad.” Lars waited, watching the nearby houses and frequently glancing down at his wristwatch. At precisely 3:15 a.m. he shouted, “Now!” They all started throwing their Molotovs at the parked vehicles. The firebombs burst into flames, making surprisingly little noise but lots of light. But then the shooting started, and it soon rose in an ear-shattering crescendo. A few of the Molotov jars failed to break, but most of these were soon deliberately broken by rifle fire. Any vehicle that wasn’t immediately set ablaze became the recipient of some of the remaining firebombs. There were so many Molotovs exploding that the street was lit up almost like daylight.

After the firebombs were expended, most of the raiders dropped down prone and continued shooting. Lars fired half a magazine from his Valmet M62, aiming carefully at muzzle flashes or movement inside the house windows. The volume of rifle fire from the houses soon surpassed that coming from the raiders. Laine could hear bullets snapping by and felt one bullet catch the brim of his boonie hat, nearly tugging it off his head.

Laine saw a man to his right go down hard. He was kicking and clutching his chest. Lars ran to him and saw that he had been hit twice in the upper abdomen and was gushing blood. The worst of the two wounds was next to his sternum. Laine had seen a wound like that-a “heart hit”-once before, when he was in Iraq. He saw that the man was a member of the infantry team. Two tracer bullets whizzed by, uncomfortably close. Realizing that the man would be dead in moments, Lars dashed away to get out of the line of fire.

After running behind some brush, Lars stopped and knelt down. He leaned his Valmet up against a rock and pulled out a pop flare cylinder that he had earlier removed from its shipping tube. He fumbled with his prosthetic hand, slipping the flare’s cap onto its base. He slammed it on the ground. After a bang and a whoosh, a red star cluster flare burst two hundred feet above him. That was the planned signal to withdraw.

Laine snatched up his Valmet and bellowed above the gunfire: “Alphas, cover! Bravos, move!” He deliberately fired the rest of the magazine wherever he saw movement or muzzle flashes in the houses occupied by La Fuerza. A stream of tracer bullets from one of La Fuerza’s machine guns went over his head. As he reached the bottom of his magazine, Pat Redmond ran by with his M1A at the high port position, shouting, “Let’s get the flock out of here!”

Now Lars shouted, “Bravos, cover! Alphas, move!” He jumped up and trotted to the rear, reloading his rifle as he ran. His rubber hand made reloading cumbersome. He dropped the empty magazine into the dump pouch on his belt, just as he had done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After traversing fifty feet, he stopped and turned to kneel and aim his rifle. He shouted, “Alphas, cover! Bravos, move!” He fired an entire magazine, shooting roughly once per second at any likely targets. Then he shouted, “Bravos, cover! Alphas, move!” He ran again, reloading as he ran.

In this leapfrogging manner, Laine’s dragoon team got over the hill in relative safety. Lars noticed that Hector Ruiz had his rifle slung while all the others had theirs held at high port. They quickly counted off and formed a Ranger file. They jogged two hundred yards over a second hill to their horses. With so much running while carrying a heavy load, Lars was winded by the time he reached Scrappy. The horse was prancing in place, obviously nonplussed by the gunfire and explosions. To his right, he saw that Johanna was looping the sling of her Galil over her saddle horn. Just as he was about to put a foot in the stirrup, Hector Ruiz ran up with his rifle still slung and clutching his left arm to his chest. He grunted, “I gotta little problem here, Johanna.”

Hector pulled back the sodden sleeve of his ACU shirt to display a nasty grazing wound that ran up the back of his forearm. The deep gash was eight inches long and spurting blood at the upper end. Pat Redmond held a red-lens penlight to provide Johanna enough light to see what she was doing as she positioned a Combat Application Tourniquet on Hector’s biceps. Then she strapped a large bandage over the wound.

As she worked, Johanna told Ruiz, “Let’s ride a couple of miles and then we can stop and I’ll staple this up. If we somehow get separated, loosen this CAT tourniquet after twenty minutes. If it starts bleeding a lot, then retighten it as needed. But don’t leave it on for more than thirty minutes at a time.” She seemed concerned that the bullet had chipped a bone in Hector’s elbow.

“We’d better get moving,” Laine urged. “I don’t want to be here when those bad attitudes come over the hill. That may be in just a couple of minutes.”

“Yeah, we better go. I’ll be okay,” Hector agreed.

Johanna nodded. “I’ll keep my horse right behind you, Hector.”

Laine’s team quickly mounted their horses and rode north. As they rode, they could see the majority of the infantry teams streaming over hills, heading east. Lars felt good, knowing they’d be back at their vehicles and out of the area before daylight.

The two squads that attacked Humboldt didn’t fare nearly as well as the Dewey teams. When they threw their Molotovs and started shooting, they were answered with withering return fire. The extent of their casualties did not become apparent until they returned to Prescott.