Chapter 49

I left Sygor to watch Winslow’s headquarters, while the rest of us packed up and headed out to sweep the rest of the buildings about us. I wanted to make certain none of the bad guys were hiding in them, before doing anything else. I figured that securing our back would give me time to come up with a plan to take Winslow down without getting half my men killed. As we left, I ordered Tonko and his men to take the prisoners we had over to the mess hall and leave them there, for now. It would be better than leaving clumps of prisoners all over the place. I planned to do the same with those we’d left in the first building we took and anyone else we found and captured between now and when we went up against whoever was over there across the street in Winslow’s headquarters. The way I saw it, whatever way the attack went, there wouldn’t be too many people coming out of that place.

“What about the prisoners over at the two shelters?” Burton asked as we walked down the stairs of the building to the main floor. “Should we move them over as well?”

I cast an automatic look in the direction of the two shelters, even though we were still in the office building and there was no way of seeing them, musing about Burton’s question as I did. After a moment I gazed back at him and nodded my head.

“Do it,” I told the man. “Take Tonko and whoever you need to help move them over to the mess hall once he’s done moving this bunch. It’ll make the mess hall a bit crowded, but that’ll be okay. It’ll allow us to draw our people together instead of leaving them spread out on their own and it’ll mean we don’t need to use so many men to guard all these little groups. I’ll stay here with Monty and wait for you.”

That’s what I did. Monty and I stood sentry watching the backstreet while Dunbar and Burton took Tonko and his men to get the rest of the prisoners. It took fifteen minutes to accomplish, but once it was done and everyone was settled in at the mess hall, I had an extra hunter with me and that gave me a little more flexibility. I left Holgar at the mess hall to help stand guard with the man already there, and then we all headed out searching for more bad guys.

By now we’d been on the base for over an hour. In that time I’d been out of contact with Kim. As we headed back towards the first apartment that we’d swept to gather up the prisoners there, I gave a call out to Kim to get a report.

“So you’re still alive,” Kim responded with a chuckle once I’d raised her on my radio. “I thought you might be dead considering you haven’t been talking to me. What’s happening up there? Did you get Winslow?”

I chuckled in response, both at the fact that there was concern in Kim’s voice - even if she was teasing me as she spoke - and the fact that I’d contacted her for a situation report. Since I heard no urgency in her voice suggesting that things might have turned out for the worse down below, I gave her one. I did keep it short and sweet and to the point.

“Carmen’s with me, down here in the lower camp,” Kim interjected once I’d finished telling her what had happened up here and the fact that one of the gun trucks was hit. “There’s a sick bay down here and she’s making use of it. Durt’s alive. He’s hurt, but according to Carmen and the medic we captured, he’ll pull through. We did lose two of the men with him when the Humvee was hit. We’ve also got one more injured, but that is it. Carmen says he’ll live as well.”

That was good to know and I told her so. We’d grieve for our losses later, but learning that our casualties had been light so far made me hopeful that I wouldn’t have to bury too many when all this was over.

“What about resistance?” I asked as my mind turned to the fact that we still had to deal with Winslow and whoever was with him.

“Everyone down here was support personnel,” Kim replied without hesitation, “except for a handful of guards and most of those were female. You shot half their number when you left the mess hall and the rest surrendered the moment they realized that we had control of the quartermaster’s stores and the armoury. As for the rest of the people, they were cooks, clerks, mechanics, drivers and the like. All of them are just civilians that Winslow hired and convinced to go along for the ride with him. None of them were prepared for what they found here. They threw up their hands the moment I told them that we’d take care of them if they simply surrendered. I’ve got roughly seventy prisoners down here, tied up and waiting for the shooting to end. Of course some of those are locals that we haven’t sorted out from the others yet. We can get to them later.”

What she told me put a smile on my face. Between the people Kim was holding prisoner, the people I was holding prisoner, and those that we’d killed before today and now, it looked like we’d accounted for the bulk of Winslow’s population, regardless of the fact that part of that number was made up of captured locals. It meant that there shouldn’t be too many people in Winslow’s headquarters. Even so, I wasn’t jumping with joy at the prospects of storming the place. With all that remote weaponry, all it took was one man pushing a button to fuck up my day.

“I need Penny,” I told Kim hurriedly. “I want her to get into that armoury down there and find me something to use against Winslow’s defences. Have her look for mortar bombs or rocket launchers. The bastards were using them up here, and I’m hoping that there are more down there. Get the woman to work and then get back to me on it as fast as you can. Once we’re done clearing houses, we’ll be turning our attention to Winslow, and I’d like something to use in the effort besides my bare hands.”

I let Kim at that point go and talk to Penny. By now all the prisoners from the first apartment had been rounded up and moved to the mess hall up here.

“Okay,” I told the men gathered about me once we were all together behind the first apartment, “I’m taking Monty back to the Cougar to see about removing the grenade launcher from the turret mount that it’s in. If we can, and there is ammunition left, it gives us one weapon we can use against Winslow’s defences. While we’re at it, I want you people to clear these buildings. Take all the prisoners to the mess hall and hold them there. Oh, and be careful. Kim’s let me know that Durt is alive. So far we’ve only lost three men, and we’ve got three wounded. Let’s keep it that way. Burton, you’re in charge.”

Burton nodded his head and then started getting everyone else sorted. While he did that, I took off with Monty.

We got lucky. While the rocket that had taken out the Cougar had flipped the vehicle on its side, the grade of the hill had kept it from rolling completely over. Of course if the vehicle had gone completely over I would have been dead. It did mean that getting access to the weapon mount was easy. Monty and I ran to the vehicle and then slipped behind it. We found the grenade launcher intact and we found twenty rounds of HE left in the belt of ammunition. Hopefully it would be enough to do the job back at Winslow’s headquarters. We’d have to see.

Getting the grenade launcher out of the mount wasn’t hard. Once I’d cleared the breech and removed the belt of ammunition, it was a matter of pulling a couple of pins and sliding the weapon free. That did however leave me with a problem. With no mount to brace the weapon when it was fired, there was no way I was going to fire it. The first round down range would tear the weapon from my hands. Sighing aloud I got on the radio to Kim again.

“Are you with Penny?” I asked as she acknowledged my call. She was. “Tell her I need a mount or a tripod for a 40-mm automatic grenade launcher. Have her check the stores for one, or have someone check out the vehicle pool or maintenance for a Humvee with a mount. If we can’t find one then this weapon is fucked.”

Kim said that they’d look. I left her to it and I turned my attention back to the grenade launcher that was now lying on the ground. I handed Monty the belt of ammunition, and then I hesitated as a thought popped into my head.

“Stay here and stay under cover,” I told the man as I started scrambling up onto the side of the rolled vehicle. “I’m going to crawl inside that baby and see if there is a tripod inside.”

I looked. I found another belt of ammunition for the grenade launcher and a box of spare magazines for the vehicle crew’s personal weapons, but that was it. There wasn’t a tripod in sight.

I handed out the extra ammunition to Monty and then I pulled myself out of the vehicle. I then toted the heavy grenade launcher across the open slope to the street where we’d left the others. Monty trailed me in silence, huffing and puffing under the weight of what I’d given him to carry. Silently, I was glad I wasn’t the only one out of shape. We’d do something about that later, if we all lived.

By the time we got back, Burton and his men had swept three more apartments and a recreation hall that stood near the mess hall. Most of the people they found in the apartments were slaves, and most of those were women. They’d only found two more of Winslow’s flunkies and they were now dead. Both had been armed and both had started shooting the moment my people kicked in their doors. Thankfully my people had adhered to our training, and escaped with no injuries.

Monty and I left Burton and the others to finish up securing all the other buildings while we headed to the office building with our burdens. I told them that we’d be there if they needed us.

I found Sygor watching Winslow’s headquarters from the top of the roof of the building. He looked bored.

“When are we finishing this, Jake?” the young hunter asked when he noticed my return.

“We’ll end it as soon as we have the weapons I need to take it,” I told him bluntly, before setting down the grenade launcher. “Until then you wait.”

“I don’t see why we are waiting,” Sygor complained in reply. “There are only a few men at the gate to the big longhouse. We can easily shoot them, and then we can storm the place. Nobody can stop us.”

I sighed and shook my head in response. Then I stepped over to the edge of the roof near where Sygor had been standing. In silence I glanced about taking in what he’d been staring at.

Winslow’s headquarters was roughly two hundred feet across from the building we were standing on. It was in fact at least the same distance from any other structure, thus giving the remote weapon systems ample kill zones to sweep if anyone did rush the place. I was pretty certain that anyone trying to storm the place would end up dead in a hurry. I was also pretty certain that Winslow’s thugs knew we were in this building. I could easily see the few guards still manning the gate into the buildings compound, and if I could see them, then they could see me. My thought was why they hadn’t done something about us. Sygor had been standing here alone for the last half hour or more. Why hadn’t someone taken a shot at him, at the very least?

“Let’s go downstairs to the next floor and I’ll explain,” I told Sygor, suddenly feeling a little exposed.

Once inside the building I walked Sygor over to a front window and I pointed out each of the weapon emplacements that surrounded the place. On each corners of the berm that enclosed the place there was a remotely controlled machine gun mounted. The weapons could easily support each other. There were two more set up by the main gate and I told Sygor that there was probably the same set up behind the building if there was a gate there. There was also a point defence weapon mounted over the front entrance to the building. I was certain that fire from that system could easily rip through this building, if and when it opened fire. Then I pointed out the armoured truck with the grenade launcher, the men at the gate, and all the Claymore mines lining the exterior of the berm. In the end I told him that anyone stupid enough to try a head on attack on that building would end up dead. Sygor looked at me dubiously for a second, but then his face fell with resignation. I was serious, and he could tell it. Regardless of how stubborn he was when it came to his way of thinking, he knew that I wasn’t lying. In the end he just sighed and nodded his head, accepting what I’d told him as being true.

“Don’t worry,” I told him as we both stepped away from the window, “with luck Penny will find me what I need to take care of this mess and open the door for you to get in there. I can assure you that one way or another, this problem ends ... today.”

It took another hour for Burton and his team to finish clearing the area of people hiding in the apartments and the few outbuildings that had been erected here at the upper base. By the time they were done, they’d found four more flunkies hiding in their apartments, all of them women, and another twenty slaves. No one had been stupid when Burton and the guys had kicked in doors, so no one had gotten shot. All the prisoners were marched over to the mess hall and left there under guard. The place was now packed with Burton estimating that we had over a hundred prisoners in total, although at least half of them were slaves.

By that time Kim and Penny showed up with Carmen and with Ruba’s squad supporting them. Ohba’s squad had been left behind to stand guard over all the prisoners. With everyone trussed up in the mess hall down the hill, Ohba and her squad were enough to keep them under control, or at least we hoped they were. Kim did tell me that she’d warned everyone that if they acted up, Ohba had orders to kill them. With luck that threat would make them behave for now.

Penny brought me presents. She hadn’t found me a tripod for the grenade launcher, but she had found mortar bombs, four old style shoulder-fired, throwaway anti-tank weapons, and grenades for Burton’s grenade launcher. When he saw them, Burton grabbed a bandoleer and threw it over his shoulder.

“I’m ready,” Burton declared mirthfully as everyone looked at him. “So what are we going to do?”

We talked. Dunbar grabbed the mortar bombs and Penny and he headed off to where the mortar was still standing. Kim volunteered to call in fire to them, while I did my best to knock out the point defence weapon that covered the front of Winslow’s headquarters and the Cougar that was parked below it. Burton took everyone else with him. If all went well, he’d lead our forces through the front gate.

I took my shot from the roof of the apartment building kitty-corner to the office building. I figured a change of location would be in my favour given that the bad guys had seen us scrambling around on the roof of the other building. I readied the anti-tank weapon, armed it, and then brought it up to my shoulder to fire. As I did, to my surprise, a mortar bomb dropped down on the main gate exploding a few feet beyond it. The explosion actually made me hesitate.

I watched as another mortar bomb dropped down on the gate. By now what few people who’d been there milling about were nowhere in sight. I didn’t know whether the mortar had killed them or the men had jumped into a defensive trench. I did know that the second mortar bomb hit the gate, tearing it apart and throwing shrapnel in every direction. I also knew that something strange was happening. The point defence weapon on the headquarters hadn’t moved. Logically the bloody thing should had locked onto the mortar bomb as it came in and the system would have fired, hoping to destroy the mortar bomb before it did any damage. It hadn’t even tried. At that point a third mortar bomb came down right on one of the remote weapon stations.

Kim was definitely calling in pinpoint targets. The weapon system was torn apart by the mortar bomb, but that was it. There was no cooking off of munitions as the result of the hit. It was as if the weapon system was just a prop. It had me wondering.

I didn’t keep wondering though. I spotted the Cougar beginning to roll and I decided to deal with it before it dealt with any of my people. I brought the anti-tank weapon back up and I fired. There was a bastard of a bang in my right ear, and then the missile zipped away, slamming into the side of the Cougar a couple of seconds later. Then there was a thunderous explosion as the warhead detonated. When the smoke cleared, the Cougar wasn’t going anywhere.

I dumped the spent anti-tank launcher over the side of the roof and then I knelt down and picked up another one. Within seconds I’d fired at the point defence weapon and a moment later it was blown away.

“Fuck,” I swore aloud over my throat mic. “Did you guys see that?”

Burton and Kim came back saying they had. There’d been no explosion of ammunition from the point defence weapon. There should have been if it had been charged and ready to be used. More and more I was getting the impression that once again something had gone wrong for Winslow, and as always it looked like it was going to benefit us once again.

My suspicions weren’t entirely correct however. The next mortar bomb that fell set off a claymore. The mine tore up the ground in front of it, but that was it. However it did suggest that maybe not all of the defences were props and we shouldn’t assume they were.

By now Burton was getting into the fray. He dropped a couple of grenades across the road from the office building aiming at the other remote weapon system that was by the front gate. He hit it, knocking it out, and he also set off another claymore. There was a hell of a racket and a lot of smoke, but once again there was no cook off of ammunition and by now I couldn’t see a defender anywhere.

“I’m going in,” Burton shouted out, letting us know his intentions. “If I make it, send everyone else.”

He made it. I was surprised. He was out of the front door and halfway across the street towards the smashed gate before I could even think of telling him to stay put. By then it was too late and a second later he was jumping over wreckage and looking for a position to hide.

“He made it,” I shouted out frantically. “Hold your fire.”

As my order rang out Burton threw himself behind the ruined Cougar. As he did, small arms fire erupted from the steps leading up into Winslow’s headquarters. The rounds pinged off the Cougar and ricocheted around a bit, forcing Burton to keep his head down. Seeing where the fire came from I decided to give him a little help. I snatched up a fresh anti-tank weapon and readied it to fire. A second later I was deaf in my right ear again, as the weapon went bang and the missile shot out of the tube and it sped away. A moment later it passed through the pillars that decorated the front of the structure and then it exploded. When it exploded, people went flying, pillars collapsed, and smoke filled the air.

Burton didn’t wait for the smoke to clear. He came up and fired a grenade into the mess that I’d made, and then he dropped down behind the Cougar once more as the grenade went off. When it did, Burton leapt up and headed forward. By then he’d been joined by Sygor, Tonko, Ruba, Ozmat, and the rest of the men we still had with us. Two seconds later they were up the steps and into the building.

“Kim,” I shouted aloud as I tossed my spent weapon aside and I reached for my carbine. “I’m moving. Get Dunbar and Penny and meet me on the ground behind the office building. Do you hear me?”

Kim heard me. She acknowledged and told me she’d see me in five minutes, locked and loaded and ready for action. I smiled at that reply as I hurried off the roof of the apartment and then down the flights of stairs that would take me to the ground level. A minute wasn’t much time.

I got there a couple of seconds behind Kim, but I still made it before Dunbar and Penny. Carmen was there, as well. I smiled and nodded to each of them.

“Any word from inside that monstrosity?” I asked Kim as I came to a halt next to her.

“Not much,” Kim replied with a sigh. “Burton cleared the main entrance of resistance and now he’s clearing rooms with the others. So far all I’ve heard is a shot or two, but that’s it, and there hasn’t been a call for a medic so my guess is that whoever got shot is a bad guy.”

I nodded my understanding and then called out to Burton hoping to get something other than static. He answered me on the second call.

“We’re fine,” Burton shouted back. “The main floor has been secured. We’re about to head upstairs to the next level. So far we haven’t seen Winslow.”

“Hold your position, for now,” I told him curtly. “I’m on my way across with Kim and Dunbar. I want to talk.”

Burton agreed and I signed off, telling him we were on our way.

I didn’t take my time, but I wasn’t stupid either. I paused at the main doors of the office building and I scanned the building across from us before even stepping out side. I then flitted across the street with Kim covering me. Then Dunbar did the same with Penny covering him. We continued doing this making certain that there was no one upstairs trying to get a bead on us while we moved. It did take us a little more than a minute doing it that way, but in the end we made it to Winslow’s headquarters without getting shot.

“How is it?” I asked as I strode through the main foyer of the wrecked building, stepping over the mangled corpses of the people who’d been killed defending the place. There weren’t many, but all of them had been well armed.

“Everything is fine,” Burton replied with a grin. “We’ve just been chilling here waiting for you. By the way, I shouted up to whoever is up there and I asked them nicely to surrender. The only reply I got was a short burst of ammunition fired wildly about. I don’t know who they were wasting the bullets on, since we weren’t even on the stairs when I called out, but it did make it clear that there is someone up there, and they don’t like us.”

“Yeah,” I responded with an acknowledging sigh, “I guess you’re right. What do you intend to do?”

“I’m going to knock nicely with a grenade,” Burton admitted with a grin etched upon his face, “and then I’m going to say hello with my rifle. Hopefully, no one up there will take offence if I shoot first and ask questions later.”

I nodded my acceptance of Burton’s plan. I told him I’d keep out of his way and the way of the people with him, securing the main floor while he dealt with whoever was hiding upstairs. I did ask him not to hurt Winslow too much if he could. I wanted the man alive so people like Sygor and Ruba could see me punishing him. Deep down I knew my people needed closure. Hopefully I would be able to give it to them.

Burton did what he said he’d do. He stepped onto the stairs leading upward and he put a grenade up and over the upper banister, before throwing himself back and out of the way. When the grenade went off, the man leapt to the stairs before the smoke had even cleared. He was up them in a flash. Tonko and his team went with him, quickly followed by Sygor, Ozmat, and Ruba. A second later I heard small arms fire.

Thankfully the gunfire lasted only a few seconds. Burton radioed me the second it fell silent, reporting in. He’d dealt with the immediate opposition and his men were now sweeping the rooms on the floor above us before moving on to the next. At the moment, his people were fine.

I waited and listened. From time to time I heard a shot or two that were followed by a quick burst of automatic fire from a M16 or a carbine. When I did hear it, Burton would sing out that everything was still fine. Eventually he reported the floor secured. They’d killed three bad guys and they’d taken ten prisoners, of which two appeared to be locals. He was now heading up to the next floor.

The next floor ended up being a repeat of the one above where I was standing waiting. There was a little gunfire, but not much, and the bad guys paid the price of trying to hold out. Within an hour of entering Winslow’s headquarters, it was secured. That should have made me very happy, but it didn’t.

Winslow wasn’t there.

“Where the fuck is he?” I demanded to know of no one in particular. “He’s got to be here, somewhere.”

I was standing in Winslow’s office, and yes it was oval in shape. The man was certainly egotistical. I just couldn’t believe it, but for the moment I had to push those thoughts out of my head and focus on the fact that no one could find Winslow in the ruins of the place. I’d even searched the place and I hadn’t found him or any sign of a secret exit that he could have used to escape. I was definitely pissed off.

“I don’t know where he is,” Kim sighed in reply, just as pissed off and frustrated as I was. “I’ve spoken to a couple of survivors that Burton hogtied after capturing them and all of them said that they hadn’t seen Winslow or his security chief for the past week. In fact they told me that the Senator had been in charge for the last little while. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

I frowned at that. The senator had chosen suicide over being captured. I don’t know why, but it did eliminate an avenue of questioning that I could have made use of in my search for Winslow. I don’t know if she did it simply to save herself from being interrogated or she was afraid of the justice I’d impose upon her for her part in Winslow’s machinations. However thinking about it wasn’t helping me at all. The truth was that I had other things to worry about.

It was the noon hour now. Our attack had actually only taken a couple of hours to accomplish, much of it drawn out by the fact we had too few people to press our advantage, and too few heavy weapons to deal with what had seemed to be insurmountable odds. Then there had been the securing of the prisoners. That had taken time as well. Searching for Winslow had taken up more of it as well. Now I had to step back from the conflict and shift gears. After all I was the leader and now was the time to lead. People needed direction.

“We’ve got work to do, regardless of where Winslow took off to,” I stated flatly a few seconds later. “We need to sort out things here, and think about what we’re going to do with all the prisoners we’ve taken. At the very least we need to free the locals and speak to them. I guess I should do that first.”

“You should,” Kim agreed, “and you should start with the local villagers. I’m certain they’re scared shitless and wondering what’s going on by now.”

“Yeah,” I acknowledged, sighing as I did, “and we’ll need to think about feeding people.”

“I’ll get people on to that,” Kim offered, “while you head back down the hill to deal with the village and the asshole running it. Are you going to kill him?”

“I want to,” I informed her bluntly, looking at her with coldness in my eyes. “From what Burton told me, the bastard enjoyed being Winslow’s yes man. I can appreciate Otho’s resistance to me rocking the boat back at the other village. He was terrified for his people, but this guy down in the village outside the base took pleasure marching to Winslow’s tune. Still, I might have to let him live. I’ll see once I’ve had a word with him. In the meantime, start freeing the ex-slaves. Let them know that we’re not here to hurt them, but for now we’d like them to stay put and cooperate with us. Once everything’s been sorted out, and I’ve dealt with all the assholes that worked for Winslow and enjoyed being knuckle draggers, then we’ll talk about getting them back to their own villages. If those villages still exist. If not, then we’ll talk about whatever future the ex-slaves want to discuss, including coming with us when we leave.”

“Are we leaving?” Kim asked raising a questioning eyebrow at me.

“For now, probably,” I declared in a thoughtful manner, “but I know what you mean. There is too much stuff here to just walk away from this place, and there are too many people here to drag back to the valley. I’ve got to give it some thought, but unless I end up shooting everybody - which I don’t intend to do if I can help it - I’m going to have to rethink where our community is living and what the future is going to be like for all of us. For now, though, I need to find a vehicle to get me down the hill so I can get to work.”

I found Sygor and Ozmat outside the ruined building and immediately recruited them to go with me. I also asked Ruba to come along. She willingly volunteered. I sent the trio off to find a vehicle. I pointed to the rear and told them to look there.

Once the main building had been swept and everyone had been tied up and secured we’d taken a look out back. To our surprise the back of the enclosure hadn’t even been finished. We could have walked through it without a problem. All there had been was a pair of Humvee gun trucks parked there and neither of them had been manned. I told Sygor to bring both vehicles around to the main street. He could drive one and Ruba could drive the other. Then I told him I needed to speak to someone before we left.

“We’ll wait in the street for you,” Sygor told me, nodding his understanding as he gathered the others and turned to head off and do as I’d ask. “If you need help, just call out. We’ll come and give you a hand.”

I smiled at that. I guess my expression had said it all when I’d implied I had unfinished business to deal with before we took off. In truth it wasn’t very dramatic. I was going to fetch the two Forest women prisoners that we’d liberated and deliver them to their mates who were still waiting below, helping to guard the village with Lottie, Helen, and Sakkor. I figured that fulfilling my promise to them would be a good start to winning the peace now that we’d won the war. I’d have to see.