Chapter 5

Joshua and John had determined that there was no reason to worry about night vision goggles being used by the members of the New Life Church as they destroyed everything that even hinted of technology. What gave both of them pause was the certainty that any attack that lasted for an extended time would send the overseers into the slave quarters to kill the slaves. This problem was made even greater by the widespread distribution of the slaves within the stronghold. The sacred whores were concentrated in the one building by the Temple and guarded by the deacons 24 hours a day, while the household servants were spread through the priests and overseers quarters. The only good thing that Joshua could see was the field slaves remained near the fields and they had the least number of guards. These men had the worst job and treated the slaves under them with a viciousness that had to be seen to be believed. The use of a chain to whip the slaves who fell during work was common.

The problem remained that they needed to make simultaneous attacks on all the targets to keep the slaves safe. Both Joshua and John told me that there would be no prisoners taken from this group. They were true believers who would die rather than surrender to men that they considered to be sinners. In light of these facts John and Joshua decided that they would make a night attack on the compound. They told all of the troops to sleep during the day and Joshua chose a special squad to learn how to use the night vision goggles. He surprised me when he picked mostly women but he explained his reasons to me, " These women have heard from the spies and other people about the treatment the women slaves are subjected to. They can hide in a smaller area and will appear less threatening to the deacons and overseers if they are seen. They will be leading other raiders behind them when they enter the compound so they need to get the guards' attention and hold them up for 30 seconds until the others get there."

John agreed that the New Life Church thought of women as being nothing except instruments of the Devil. Any punishment one of the priests or overseers wanted to hand out was seen as merited by their being female. Any man who wanted to relieve their sexual needs used the sacred whores and the women were subjected to physical abuse as well. The overseers and priests, who were supposed to be able to control their desires allowed no other contact between men and women. For some reason the priests and overseers seemed to pick the prettiest and youngest women for their personal house slaves.

I asked Sue to find something for the former slaves to do that would help the slaves we liberated from the New Life Church, yet keep them out of combat. She had them divided into litter teams to bring victims to the doctor who would set up a triage site behind the main lines. They were given arms and told that they would be our reserve if the New Life Church tried to break out. I would hate to be one of the overseers who was caught by a group of them. They 'tasted' of a cold hatred and a desire for revenge.

We started out toward Redding about 6 o'clock in the evening. The men we had left watching the compound had not seen anyone leaving the area and we expected to catch everyone there. I was surprised at the venom I heard expressed over the radio from the spies. They had been calm and didn't react when they were observing the Baron's compound, in spite of seeing slaves being abused. I was afraid of what we would find when we liberated the New Life Church compound. Everyone involved seemed to be very emotional about this raid. I just hoped that this wouldn't lead to mistakes or revenge that would cause the attack to fail.

Joshua and John had similar worries and continued to stress to the raiders that they needed to kill them without mercy but not take revenge on them. Dead they couldn't do anything. Again and again they stressed this message. I got the feeling from 'tasting' the emotions of the troops that they would obey but if they saw anything that stressed their emotions too greatly this could turn into a massacre of the church members.

Ann made sure everybody got a hot meal about 8 o'clock and they began to head out toward the New Life compound. Joshua left me a radio and told me to stay away from the fight until they called me. The fight started around midnight and we could hear the crescendo of small arms fire rise up and end quickly. Fifteen minutes later I received a call to bring the vehicles in as quickly as possible. We hurried and 10 minutes later had arrived at the compound. I saw the people of the raiding party gathered around a large building in the center of the compound. Joshua and John were holding two figures prisoner and arguing with the men and women around them. When I arrived there was a pause in the argument. Everyone turned toward me and waited. I came around the cab and walked over to the group. Joshua just looked toward the building. I followed his eyes and saw something that I would have never believed. There were three crosses inside and three women hanging from them. They had been whipped and I saw cuts and bruises on every exposed portion of their bodies.

I turned toward the prisoners and I must have had the same look as the people arguing with Joshua and John. I wanted to take the women down and put the men in their place. Amy grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the group, "You can't put them on the cross or you'll be no better than them. Kill them yes, but don't stoop to torture or none of the other clans will ever trust you." Sue grabbed me and gave me similar advice. I held my rage in and walked over to Joshua and John.

"Why are these animals still alive?", I asked taking out my gun. With two shots to the head I killed them. Turning to the mob of the raiders, I told them, "Kill every member of the church, put their bodies inside, and burn them in their church. Leave nothing here except ashes."

I went in and started to take the women down from the crosses. As soon as I started I had people beside me helping me take them down. We removed the women to the outside of the church and began to bring in the bodies of the members. I noticed that many of them bore signs of having been beaten and hacked either before death or afterward. I pretended not to notice and when John started to talk, I just glanced at him. He shut his mouth and stood by me as they brought the bodies inside the church.

I looked around and saw the people we had freed standing around watching us carry the bodies. They looked like survivors from a concentration camp wearing tattered clothes or nothing at all in some cases. I saw many of the survivors with numerous bruises and cuts. The women with the most bruises seemed to be the youngest, but there wasn't much difference in the number of injuries between any of the women. I approached one of the women with Sue and Amy by my side. We reached out and hugged her to us. I picked out a young woman who had been badly beaten and gave her a road flare after striking it alight. Pointing her toward the church I told her to burn it. She walked up to the door and with a scream of rage she threw the flare onto one of the bodies. John walked up to her and held her in his arms while we watched the fire start to burn the clothing on the bodies. They stepped back only when the flames grew too hot to stand any more. Rita searched through the people we had rescued looking for her sister but didn't find her. She came and grabbed hold of my arm and cried out in her grief for her sister. I tried to comfort her as best I could until the doctor came up and gave her a shot. I held her as the fire burned.

The doctor came to where we were watching the fire burn and quietly told me that many of the survivors were too weak to move very far until she got them stabilized. Turning around I pointed to the building I had seen when I had first spied on the compound and told her to take them there. I informed Joshua and John to organize the raiders and get the survivors to shelter with the doctor. I stayed and brooded as I watched the fire.

If only I had acted sooner or insisted that we attack the New Life Church first! I should have done something as soon as I saw how brutal the overseers were! Joshua came up behind me, "Jon, I made the military decision to go after the Baron's keep first. You came and let us know about the New Life Church as soon as you found out. You can't beat yourself up because of someone else's actions. They were the ones who tortured those women and now they are dead. All we can do is make sure this never happens again."

Intellectually I knew he was right and I could 'taste' the sincerity in his emotions, but I still wished I had done something different. We waited until daybreak and made a search of the area. I'll never forget the scenes we ran into during that search although I often wish I could. Finally Mark and Ken came and took me back to the storage area. When we got there Amy and Sue took me to the bedroom where they held me until I finally fell asleep. I felt guilty about not insisting we attack the New Life Church first and stayed shut up inside myself, letting everything slide by, until Laura and the other clan leaders came up to inspect the presidential bolt hole.

Laura took one look at me and told my clan mates to leave us alone. She walked around me and finally kicked me in the butt knocking me off the bed, "Get up! You've felt sorry for yourself long enough!". She dragged me into the shower and threw me under the cold water and made me stay there berating me for giving up. When I finally began reacting to her and the cold water she let me out. "Look at you! You had to make a decision that had a bad result", she sneered at me. "Poor baby!".

"Those women would have been alive if we had attacked earlier!" I shouted back.

"How do you know? Were you there when they put them on those crosses? How do you know they were alive then?", she screamed back at me. Then she gentled her voice, "Jon, you will have to make decisions that will hurt people eventually, some of them people you know well. That is one of the problems of being the leader of a clan. You have to make a decision no matter what it is. You made one that night by giving the two priests a quick death instead of torturing them. I know you can do it, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and lead!"

I could 'taste' the sincerity and compassion in her and started to come out of my depression. I continued to have bouts of depression for the rest of my life about the New Life Church of the Reborn but it never caused me to break down again. After I got dressed and shaved she took me to the cave where the locked chests were. Laura introduced me to an older man who had been a thief before the dying. He was a member of the Reynolds clan and had been brought in to find any other doors and hidden areas in the caves. He also offered to open the chests while he was here as well.

I opened the door to the tunnel and turned the lever to keep the spikes away from the room. We entered the room and we walked around trying to see what was there. It took us over an hour to look at everything. The facility was equipped to supply a light combat arms team with arms together with housing and entertainment facilities for them and the government officials. There were numerous apartments and suites for government officials and a geothermal electrical generator. That explained why we had never had any problem with the power at the storage area. I was beginning to wonder if we were even connected to the grid at all.