Chapter 13

The hotel

The President stood up from the table, starting to rear back to throw the radio before realizing what he had and setting it down. Instead he turned to Jack and punched him square in the jaw. “Because of your incompetence on guard, that asshole thinks he can work against me. Not only that, but he probably thinks he can get in and out again!” His gray eyes cast about the room, glaring at each of the guards who were in the conference room in turn.

“If I hear of any guard falling asleep on duty they will be executed. This evening I want a couple groups out looking for that asshole. Any sign of that damned armored truck of his, shoot on sight.” He gripped the sides of the table he stood at, knuckles turning white with the pressure. “Any other people you see bring them in. Willing or unwilling, I don’t care. We need more people here. Use the number of our bitches available if any men need convincing to join willingly. If not, no killing but ... convince them to join. During the day we’re making a run on that Sam’s Club in Harker Heights. Clean out whatever food we can that hasn’t gone rotten.”

Jack stood back up to his feet, right hand coming up to rub at his jaw where he’d taken the hit. “I understand, sir. We also need to make sure we’ve got more gas and food. We had that run scheduled for today before any of this kicked off.”

The President nodded, eyes still holding the anger he felt. “I expect those to go off without a hitch. Any competition for goods needs to be finished. Ammo is getting harder to find, but there’s more stores or even pawn shops we can still find. We need to scoop that up before that asshole out there can get to it. Where the hell did he get multiple machine guns...” The question/statement trailed off as the Pres thought about it. “Do any of you know where those damn soldiers get their ammo from? I’m sure they don’t have it shipped in each time they’re doing a range. They’ve got to store it somewhere, right?”

The group looked around at each other before shaking their heads. “I think Chuck had talked about the ammo point a week or so ago. But he bought the farm on that last bitch raid we ran and hadn’t told any specifics about it.”

The Prez shook his head in frustration. “Hopefully that radio asshole is ignorant about it, too. Or at least doesn’t know how to get into it. I’m bumping up that food run to tonight. We’re running low on a few things and need to stay ahead of it. Plus anything we can grab means others can’t get to it. So get whatever food isn’t rotten that can be had. Keep one guard on the truck and the rest of you strip that store bare. Take a second vehicle so you can load up as much as the truck can handle.”

The group of men making the run tonight couldn’t help the anxious feeling they had after what had happened early that morning. They had the Prez with them. They were supposed to be the new government for the area at least right? Yet a handful of people at best had stepped away from interactions with them not only unharmed ... they had won. The Amazon truck that they were using for the run had two people in it, both armed. The pickup going along had four in the cabin and another two in the back.

The men had a mix of weapons, hunting rifles and a couple civilian assault rifles. All things that had been acquired from either personal weapons or some of the gun stores in the area. That was going to be tomorrow’s mission, weapons and ammo. Moving between the different gun stores and pawn shops that hadn’t been cleaned out already.

Thankfully for them the food run went off without any opposition. There just wasn’t as much food as they were hoping for. Sure, there were a few pallets of canned goods and cereal and the like but they had been hoping for a bigger variety. Plus it looked like someone had already cleared out most of the waters, juices, and sodas. They were going to have to report back that a second trip here wouldn’t net them much. Food runs would have to be getting spread out more.

The compound

After catching up on some sleep from the night’s mission the four of us met up for a late lunch and to do some brainstorming. Gonzo spoke up first. “I figure we’ve pissed ‘em off last night. You got close in and out without a shot fired. Hell, I don’t think they even knew what direction you went. I’m thinking they’re going to be trying for more guns or ammo, seeing us as a threat.”

I nodded my head in agreement, looking over at the man. I had to be grateful with whatever circumstances and karma had not only dropped a combat veteran with Special Forces qualifications in my lap, but one I had already known and served with. It was a bond and level of knowing each other that had allowed the two of us to slip back into the way things had been without missing a beat. Lindsey and Brandi were coming along. It helped that the four of us all had a solid work ethic. We would have to step up the training for the two women though.

As it was we were having to face the reality of a bigger confrontation coming. Personally I thought we had the ammo and weapons to fight it, but I also knew how quick ammo would be used in an active firefight. A thirty round magazine on full auto would be gone in well under five seconds, and the machine guns we had now could put that rate to shame. So we also ended up talking about trigger discipline. Controlled bursts on the machine guns of no more than three to five seconds at a time unless laying down cover for someone’s movement. With the women there was a trick to help them track ammo use: say “rat a tat tat” while firing and then stop. With the rifles we were wanting them kept on semi-automatic and firing controlled pairs. It was easy to talk about around the dinner table though, neither of them had experienced the real adrenaline rush and fear of an actual firefight. Hopefully when they did they would handle it well.

One thing new was brought up. It was something I had started looking into as a food source but hadn’t yet had the time to implement before things went south. It was a prepper food source, one that I had even placed an order with that just hadn’t shipped before the shit hit the fan. It was a company that sold food kits designed to be able to last up to 25 years, to include different meats. They had a warehouse location within about an hour drive. I had the hope it would be something others hadn’t thought about raiding yet, or that if they had it wouldn’t have been cleaned out. The general consensus was we would be smart about our food use, assuming we could get the prepper food. We would use what we had in order of how long it would last. The MREs and prepper food would be our low priority eating as they would last the longest.