Chapter 21
Greg Baron was feeling much better. So good in fact, that he was chopping his way through a cord of wood. While his wound still bothered him, he was not a person to lie around when things had to be done. Adam was still worse off than he was. The poor kid had developed a severe infection and that had set his recovery back for weeks.
For the next fifteen minutes, Greg chopped away at the pile. After all, it was a huge fire place that had a voracious appetite. That was a good line for a novel. Too bad there were no publishers left in business. He had hundreds of ideas for novels that would have sold very well indeed. Unfortunately, most of the people left were probably living a lot of his ideas.
He finally stopped, a little breathless. He ached, but it was a good ache, with the exception of his chest. All in all he felt good. He took the ax and put it in the bin located at the rear of the house. He looked at the shovel, pick ax, the ax he just placed inside and the pry bar. A sledge hammer and two different types of hammers one with a claw and a handsaw rounded out the bins tools. Everything a house should have but never had room for.
Of course, they had a complete shop in one of the sheds with every tool imaginable, but a house needed to have some things directly at hand. Grinning, he locked the door to the bin and made his way inside for some ice cold water. He had worked up a good sweat and planned on taking a shower soon.
"General Sir?" Private Saul asked.
"What is it, private?" Greg asked.
"A message from the ranch sir. They would like your presence down there this afternoon if at all possible. Should I let them know you're coming?" The private asked.
"Tell you what. I will get on the radio and find out what they want. Don't worry about it, I'll handle it." Greg said.
The president of the United States was stunned.
"You're kidding. You mean to tell me there is a group or organization of people of like mind with this, what was his name, Gary?" The president asked agog.
"According to the investigation, the body, and the house turned up the reason for the attempted kidnapping and the attempted murder of General Baron. First and foremost was that the soldier that General Baron had executed was this man's little brother. After the execution of the soldier for sleeping on guard duty, this man developed a plan of vengeance.
"Also, a check of his house turned up a diary and papers that showed he was affiliated with a 'group of like mind'. What that means we still don't really know. Was it before the disaster, or before and after? We have no evidence on that. What we do know is what we found. We have documents of some sort of a support group that is active today. One paper specifically states that if he would hold off on any actions at this time, that an anti tank weapon would be transferred to him to take care of, "The General" quote unquote.
"That document alone sends a very chilling message sir. We can only assume that the general in question was in fact General Baron. That they have access to anti tank weapons is also frightening. We don't know anything about them. Who they are. How come they have access to anti tank weapons? Also, if they do have access to that weapon, what other weapons or materials do they have access too?" General Avery finished a little grimly.
"I don't like that either General. I also don't like the idea of an organization second guessing the US Government. Am I supposed to ask permission before I take a step now? No! I will not be blackmailed by a country like France or China; people in my own country who happen to disagree with the local authorities will definitely not intimidate me.
"Was he right in executing that soldier? It was his call, and I won't question the commander in the field. He was within his rights, and that's that. I just wish we had the FBI still going. This group needs to be eradicated." The president stated.
Four ships had been sailing in a south easterly direction for some time. They were the aircraft carrier Ronald Regan, one destroyer, and one missile cruiser one huge tender. One Los Angles attack sub also went with them. Their orders were to steam as quickly as possible around South America and sail north and take up station along likely routes to the US from North Korea.
They had been challenged twice as they got close to South America, and the challenges turned into requests for help from desperate governments asking if help could be gotten from America. Although the West coast areas of South America did not get hit with the tidal wave, they still had problems from the following rains and bandits.
Admiral Allen Page, task force commander, promised to forward requests through to the appropriate authorities. He was as good as his word. He relayed the request only to have to inform the countries in question that America had no assets with which to help them.
One country acknowledged the status with sorrow and regret and wished the admiral luck. The second country tried to stop the ships from leaving the area, and the admiral ordered them blown out of the air. A strike force was then sent and the runways of the offending country were bombed into uselessness.
Greg was spending more and more time at the ranch. He had teams roaming farther and farther, and they were in turn finding more and more stocks of canned goods, and they had even found one trailer full of cigarettes. Despite that fact that smoking was bad for your health, and most people had run out of tobacco months ago, they were quickly handed out to those who wanted them. After all, they would not last long.
While sitting in his office at the ranch Greg received a report of a roving group of raiders or survivors that were hitting the edge of his community. By now they had over 100 new soldiers trained to the point that they at least knew what to do. They still had not taken part in any combat, but that was likely to change if the reports were true.
Greg was also surprised to hear that the Navy now had ships back in the Atlantic. That would take the pressure off of the base down in Texas which was flying missions of watch along the new American coastline. He was still stunned every time he looked at the satellite photos of the North American East coastline. It was totally unrecognizable. He was a little curious about the configuration and the coves and harbors that had been newly made. It would be interesting to go and explore that new coastline.
Ft. Hood had been tasked with protecting the wheat that was growing. Satellite photos showed a very large group of people traveling in that direction from Mexico. Men, women and children were in the group, but a few leaders had already been identified. It was thought that this was another grab, and that the women and children were going to be used as shields.
There were trucks filled with people and buses. Empty trucks were there obviously to take back wheat. Short lived confrontations had shown this group to be mainly hostile. As much as it bothered him to do it, the president ordered deadly force to be used to stop the group prior to it's reaching the wheat fields. Several obvious methods of halting them had been used and failed.
The first had been people with loud speakers placed in front of the convoy of vehicles telling them to stop and return to Mexico. Those poor people had been killed. Bradley fighting vehicles had been pulled up and blocked the road. They had retreated at first as the woman and children were forced out of the trucks and were herded in front of the vehicles. The leaders were using the women and children as living shields.
Finally, the road itself was ordered to be destroyed in large 100 foot sections to stop the trucks. That worked briefly. Still the migrants and their leaders found ways around and slowly, they inched their way towards the wheat fields. An escaped woman with children told horror stories of being rounded up and forced to be shields. They were told you die for us, but you will die if you don't participate. The children were threatened in front of the parents if they objected. They were told they would be freed once they had the wheat.
Finally a plan was developed to kill off the leaders with snipers. It was thought if the leaders were dead, then the group would fall apart. Unfortunately, they did not get all the leaders, and in retribution, over 50 woman and children were killed, stripped and left in fields as a demonstration of the seriousness of the remaining leaders ideals and convictions.
This went on for several days and finally troops were brought in and a line was drawn on a map. No farther than this. The US forces were told to save as many of the woman and children as possible, but the primary goal was to stop the trucks and kill the remaining leaders. The president made it clear that this was a form of terrorism, and the US would not be blackmailed with it.
And so, at 2:00 AM on a moonless night, special forces moved up and into the migrants camps and started silently killing everyone who had been designated as a leader. It worked for the first 10 minutes. But something had gone wrong. One of the buses that had woman and children sleeping in it blew up. That woke the rest of the camp, and a fire fight soon started.
Indiscriminate killing took place, on the side of the invading migrants. The special forces took light casualties, but after 20 minutes of fierce fighting, it was over. Of the 300 forced migrants, only 119 remained alive. All the leaders or anyone who had carried a gun had been killed. Of the 119 living, a third had some type of wound.
Of the special forces that took the fight to the enemy, 6 were killed, and 4 wounded. The remaining 40 special forces operatives quickly called in medical help and started to interview the survivors. Now it fell to the higher ups to come up with a final solution as to what would happen to the remaining woman and children. No men from the invading force remained living.
Meanwhile, back in North Korea Jimmy Yong had started his journey south unaware that his intentions were no longer a secret. Carrying his briefcase of Top Secret materials on the deadly bio-weapon Jimmy nonchalantly walks out to his car.
A figure cloaked in shadow watches as his target drives out of the facility parking lot. Having read the Commanding Officer's copy of Major Yong's orders the dark figure knew exactly where the traitor was headed.
The man in the shadow reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his cell phone; punching a speed dial number he spoke on four words and hung up.
"He's on his way."
Breathing a sigh of relief Jimmy looks over at his briefcase and smiles. "Home free," he thinks to himself.
For some time the drive south was uneventful for Jimmy; he knew that it would only be a couple more hours and he would be at the North Korean base near the DMZ.
Just as he was rounding one of the many bends in the road Major Jimmy Yong spotted a truck blocking the road; men standing next to the truck with weapons ready. Jimmy's heart began to beat faster, so much so that he could hear it in his ears. Quickly he reached over and opened the briefcase, grabbed the DVD with a copy of all the documents and hid it in a secret spot under the carpet of the car.
"If they know what I am up to they will kill me and take the briefcase. At least this way a copy of it will still be available for someone to see and know that North Korea was behind the Bio attack on the U.S. I just hope that this is just a routine stop and I can be on my way." Jimmy muttered to himself.
Just as he was stopping his car he spotted his CO walk around the truck and he knew that he was in trouble. Once the car had stopped moving it was immediately surrounded by soldiers. The colonel walked up to his window and Jimmy rolled it down.
"Get out of the car, Major. We know what you are doing and where you are going."
"I don't know what you are talking about, Sir. I am just going to my next duty station."
"Right; and you just happen to forget that the information on the new bio-weapon we used on the U.S. is in your briefcase?"
Jimmy knew he was in trouble. He got out of the car and one of the soldiers spun him around and slapped cuffs on his wrists. Walking him to the back of the truck the soldier shoved him roughly into the back of the truck, climbed in, and sat across from him.
The Colonel reached into the car and took the briefcase out. He opened it and rifled through the papers and seeing all was there he closed the briefcase, walked over to his car, and drove back to his barracks.
Sitting there in the back of the truck, Jimmy was staring at the
floor, in total shock, terrified of what punishment awaited him upon
his return to the base.