Chapter 7

It was time to take my medicine and see what John has in store for me. I told the captain, "I guess I've played long enough. Take me to shore so I can earn my keep."

At the station I spoke with the Chief and found out that they were in the midst of tracking several escapees that were suspected of coming to Alaska. He said Bud Anderson was on his way as he had a line on them.

I called John, "Hey John. I'm in the Anchorage station and have found that Bud is on his way with some possible locations."

"Yeah, but that's not where I need you. I need you in Fairbanks. The local militants up there decided to blow up a state police outpost. Happily, there was no one in it at the time as the trooper was out in the latrine when it blew. The Bureau is tracking the materials and has the locations where these militants are, plus they have found a training base full of nutcases wanting to blow up America. Go get them. Go bring them all in and collect all of the weapons, as well as explosives. I don't need to tell you to be careful. Don't worry about your armament budget. Just get them. Use the Bureau, our men, anyone you can get. There may be as many as three hundred in this training camp, so be prepared."

"Ah, this sounds like something for the Strike Force."

John said, "It is, but they are here and you are there. Try to get the National Guard. You'll need them, but you'll probably get some of them killed. See if they have any recently rotated troops. Go get them. Go to Fairbanks and resolve this problem quickly. You do not have a budget, just do it."

He sounded worried. If he was worried, this was a big deal. I asked the station clerk for the telephone number for Fairbanks and called. They were about as optimistic as John. They actually sounded scared.

Next door at the Bureau, I asked the Chief if he had any contacts at State level. He said, "Call the Governor's office. She's supposed to be easy to talk to. Tell them who you are and that you will talk to anyone who has power to activate the Guard."

I asked him about transportation and he said, "Charter a plane. That's the easiest and fastest way. When are you going?"

"Either tonight or in the morning. I'll need some clothes."

"Get them up there. They'll dress you for the cold and combat. They have the gear so use it."

I called the station back and asked the Chief to assign a team leader for a raid. Next I called the Governor's office in Juneau and spoke to the Lt. Governor. I explained what was happening and he was willing to activate a unit to catch the bombers. I told him that I needed at least two hundred combat troops, and four hundred would be better.

The station clerk found me a charter to take me to Fairbanks, so I had a duty man take me to the charter field.

I rode an ancient Cessna 185 up to Fairbanks and we landed in the water next to the airfield. A duty man picked me up and took me to the station. I was able to get the five Bureau men and the eight deputies together and discovered that the Station Chief was going to be the team leader. He already had several recon photos, with some high definition blow-ups. The men we were to capture were set up in what looked like a true fort. It didn't look like they had any heavy guns, but probably had fifties that would play hell with APCs.

My first contact with the Army was from a Colonel Wilson. He was the commander of the National Guard Division. He said he was assigning us two small companies of recently rotated infantry that wouldn't hesitate to fire. We were going to be supported by eight tanks from an armored group.

The plan was to present the armor by having two tanks at each wall. We would have a hundred infantry at each wall to attack if necessary. We would announce our intention and give them opportunity to give up and come out. If they did not come out, we would begin using mortar and tank fire for fifteen minutes and attack by taking down the walls with the tanks. The infantry would follow and mop up. That was about the only way I could see it being done. Colonel Wilson agreed. We would do this at five tomorrow morning. We would begin setting up at three, so everyone going was sent home for an early day/night.

I made sure everyone going would have at least a hundred personnel tie-wraps as there was no way for us to get up a couple of hundred pairs of handcuffs. I checked out some clothes, vest, boots, and an MP5. The rifle was still in grease, so it took an hour to get it clean and ready to fire. I made sure that everyone had a clean rifle to use, and that they would have at least five magazines for it.

When I was ready, I had a duty man take me to a hotel with a restaurant, where I had a good meal along with a drink. In my room, complete with a spare toothbrush, I called Steve.

"Hey, Steve, I'm in Fairbanks and should be back by tomorrow night. They have a little problem they need my direction on. Tell everyone that I'll be fine. Have all the kids from the three boats pick out a guitar, use the tuner to tune it, and to practice their scales. There are additional instructions in the case. Any extra guitars will go on the market up here as this was a special deal Lisa got for me. The big box is an electric drum kit. Do you have a storeroom, as I don't know where to put something like that?"

Steve said, "Mercy has already told me you were going to be in danger. She told me to tell you to be careful. Do that, Chuck, be careful and come back to us quick."

"I'll see you tomorrow night, Steve."

I tried to go to sleep and ended up calling room service for a beer and a piece of pie. After my snack, I was able to go to sleep.

The alarm went off at one thirty, so I got up, showered, didn't shave, as I didn't have a razor, and dressed in my borrowed clothes. Downstairs in the hotel, I discovered a little restaurant that was open twenty-four hours a day. I had a quick breakfast while waiting for my ride.

The duty guy came in to get me as I was drinking my coffee. He said, "I'm ready, the Chief said for me to drive you out to the site. I saw the Army go by a little while ago, so they are probably setting up right now."

Out at the site, I had my first look at what these extremists had built. This was a concrete walled group of buildings, complete with battlements and guardhouses on all four corners. This was really a fort.

I found the Colonel and asked him his opinion. He asked me, "How bad do you want these guys, and how far are we allowed to go to get them?"

I looked him in the eye and said, "We have no restrictions, no limitations, except that we have to ask them, actually beg them to leave their compound and come out with their hands up. After that, once we start, we neutralize all of them until there is no opposition. There will be no such thing as collateral damage on this. Everyone inside is considered a terrorist, or in other terms, the enemy."

These people had not only built a strong fortress, but had planned for an attack. There was a cleared area of five hundred yards in all directions so there would be no sneaking up on them. One fear I had was of mines. If there were mines, then a frontal assault would be difficult.

I asked one of his troops with field glasses if he had seen any movement in the corner guard houses. He replied that as far as he could see there were no guards.

"Colonel, have your tanks blast holes in those walls. I want a round in each of those guard shacks first while the other tanks blow the first holes in the walls."

He nodded and began giving orders over the phone. He turned and asked me, "How intense do you want the mortars."

My answer was, "I want as many as you have to fire continuously until our men breech the walls. Make sure they move the mortars around to blanket that place with shrapnel."

Again he nodded and got back on the phone.

At five AM, the four tanks aimed at the guardhouses and began announcing over their speakers, "You are surrounded by U.S. Government law enforcement officers and Army National Guard. Give up and live. Everyone come out with your hands on your head. This is the only warning you will get. Give up and live."

The message was repeated for several minutes, and when I nodded, the Colonel said in his phone, "Go."

Four tanks blew up the guard shacks and holes appeared in the sides of the compound. We could see muzzle flashes from the battlements, so we now knew we were being fired upon. All eight tanks were firing round after round, opening up the walls even more while about fifty mortars were dropping rounds into the compound at about four a minute. There were fires inside and there was now hardly any return fire from inside the battlements. Our snipers were helping themselves to targets that presented themselves.

As the return fire kept diminishing, I had an idea. These people were big on tunnels so I told the Colonel, "Have your men begin going out from here hunting for any people movement. Stop and tie-wrap anyone moving on the street. Make sure no one gets out of our perimeter. They might have a tunnel or two out there."

The four hundred men immediately began moving out, searching for any movement. I told the agents and deputies, "Let's go in through the front gate. There is less likelihood of mines being in the main road than surrounding the place. Let's get the tanks to blow open the gates if they are not down yet."

Thank goodness nearly all of the Bureau men and deputies had military experience and followed the tank up to and through the front entrance. I radioed the Colonel to tell him we were inside so that his tank and mortar crews would stop firing.

We busted up into twos, going through each structure still standing and putting a spray painted X on the outside of the ones we inspected. We found no one alive, but we did find a lot of bodies everywhere. We finally found the entrance to their escape tunnel. I radioed the Colonel to tell him we found the entrance and would be going in to see what we could see.

The lead guy had good eyes, because as he was sweeping his flashlight in front of him, he called a halt. "Booby trap. There's a trip wire set up. Let's get some demo guys in here to take them down."

I looked at the wire and agreed as I couldn't see where it went to.

When the demolition crew came, they were using crazy string to spray to see where the trip wires were. They would find the wire, follow it back to the explosive, and disarm the trip mechanism. The process was slow but steady. When they were down in the main tunnel, they found rooms off to the side. One was full of explosives, another full of rifles and ammo. Still another was full of MRE's and several were built as bunk rooms.

The demo guys came back to me and said, "The tunnel is slanting up. Go check to see if they have found the other end of this thing. If we have them cornered, there's nothing to hide behind, and they may blow the thing just for spite."

I pulled them out, leaving a couple of guards in the dark so they could get their eyes used to the dark.

Outside, I called the Colonel and asked him about people moving around, and he said, "We haven't had any contact. Can you give me coordinates as to which direction the tunnel goes?

I walked outside the compound and found the Colonel lining him up with the tunnel and pointed, "You are standing directly over it now. It starts up about a hundred yards out, so the other end is in one of those buildings right there."

He said to his men, "Let's go flush them out. Come on. We walked and rode to the cluster of buildings that were in line with the tunnel."

I gave the orders, "Let's take each building one at a time. If everything is as I suspect, we'll get resistance from the building where the tunnel terminates."

The first two buildings were empty, except that you could tell people used to live in them. The next building was fairly large, with several windows. I put men at each window, and on command, we broke out the windows and poked our rifles inside.

Immediately, AK fire came back at us. I yelled, "Give up, you are surrounded, if you want to live, put down your arms, and come out with your hands above your heads. Give up or you will die."

More AK fire, mostly on automatic. I had my men grab some hand grenades and together, we tossed them into the building and hid below the windows.

The blasts coming from the building were really strong. I had the men get ready to do it again and then follow the grenades into the building.

Again the blasts were devastating. I dove through the window and rolled to the side. I could see an opening with dead people piled on top of each other. I crawled to the opening and called out, "Give up, give up, now or die. Put down your arms and come out with your hands overhead."

There was more AK fire, and also a lot of yelling from people who were disagreeing. We were pulling bodies away from the opening, keeping out of the way so we wouldn't be hit by one of the rounds that kept flying out of the hole.

I took another hand grenade and tossed it into the hole and the blast rushed out of the opening. Several yells in Arabic were cursing the U.S. and the infidels of the Army. We couldn't go in to get them, so we waited. We could hear them continue to talk, but couldn't understand them. Finally a G-2 guy came and was listening.