Chapter 10

Monday morning, I returned to the park and retrieved the disk from the recorder and changed the batteries. No one was at the park or visible at the houses on the cul-de-sac. Monday was the official celebration of the 4th of July which meant that government employees were off and the banks were closed because the 4th was on a Sunday. Traffic had been light both coming here and returning home, but was sure to pick up later in the day as the holiday crowd returned home.

Back at the house, I listened to what was on the disk. It was pretty much a waste of time. It appeared that all of them had continued to drink after we had left. The three leaders continued drinking after the remaining guests had left. Mostly what was on the disk was a bunch of drunks, who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket but were very loud, singing and laughing.

The one thing that I did get from the recording was that some of the remaining wireless mikes were running short on battery power. I had already changed the batteries on the ones in the living room on Saturday, and the most serious discussions seemed to take place there, so I wasn’t worried about the others not working by now. I did call Ed and let him know that there wasn’t anything new on the recording.

Tuesday I worked on orders. Wednesday morning it was back to the park to change the disk and batteries then more work in the shop.

We had originally intended to leave for North Georgia on Thursday, but Ed had an important client coming on that afternoon so we put off leaving until Friday morning. I spent part of Thursday afternoon preparing the equipment that we would be taking with us.

There wouldn’t be much need for explosives on this job, but I did take a couple of claymore mines along just in case a situation to use them presented itself. There also wouldn’t be any mortars needed. A couple of Uzis, shotguns and some pistols were the main items taken along with some large knives. All of the electronic equipment that was being taken got checked, and I made sure that were plenty of fresh batteries for everything. There wouldn’t be a convenient battery store in the Chattahoochee National Forest to replace dead batteries.

Last I stripped, cleaned, and reassembled all of the weapons that we were taking as well as their magazines. The last job was loading all of the magazines. There wouldn’t be a sporting goods store to buy extra ammunition out there either. I returned to the house to spend some time with my family and play with my daughters after packing the weapons and equipment in the cases that I had for them.

Ed and Esther arrived early on Friday morning. Esther had come in her blue car and had brought her suitcase again, as she would be staying here until we returned. Ed had come in his truck with the camping equipment, at least what little we would be using. There was a waterproof ground cloth, a couple of foam sleeping pads and light blankets. It was after all July, but the mountains still got a little chilly at night.

For a tent, he had what appeared to be a large, light weight, camouflage tent fly with some ropes so it could be put up between a couple of trees and the other ropes along the sides would hold the sides open. It was a very minimal tent, and if it rained we would get wet. Like we had never been wet before!! For meals, he had brought MREs (meals ready to eat). They weren’t exactly gourmet food, but would do in the field.

We had debated which vehicle to take. I was in favor of taking my pickup, but Ed pointed out that it was both large and noisy. His pickup, while smaller and less noisy wasn’t quite large enough. We certainly didn’t want to rent a vehicle, as that would leave a paper trail to us, especially if there were any blood stains found in the vehicle.

That basically left the SUV. I hadn’t been in favor of taking it, as I considered it too tall and difficult to hide in the woods because of its color. Somehow, Ed had come up with a large camouflage net to put over it to disguise its shape and hide its color. I had to assume that he had gotten it from another of his many sources.

While our wives made breakfast and fed the twins, Ed and I removed the child safety seats from the SUV and folded down the rear seat to give us more room. We moved the SUV down to the wood shop and loaded the weapons, ammunition, and electronic gear into the middle of the SUV. All of the gear was in containers that appeared to be large coolers. The camping gear went into the back of the SUV along with the clothing that we were taking, and several boxes of extra large, heavy duty, plastic leaf bags. Everything that was used would wind up in one of those bags. We couldn’t afford to leave any trash or clues behind for the police to possibly track back to us. Ed had even come up with a North Carolina license plate that we would put on the SUV before we reached the Chattahoochee National Forest.

Breakfast following this was a very quiet affair. Ashley looked distinctly unhappy, and both wives appeared nervous. The only ones to appear unconcerned about anything were the twins. All of the emotions surfaced when we were ready to leave.

“You be careful!” Ashley told me near tears, as I took her in my arms.

“We’ll both be careful,” I told her before I took her in my arms and kissed her nose, her eyes, and finally her mouth.

“You be careful too,” Esther said all choked up before Ed kissed her. “I already lost one husband,” she added. It was evident that both of our wives were very worried about us. We did our best to calm them down, but knew that it would do little good, as they would worry until we returned.

The twins saw us hugging and kissing our wives, and they wanted to be hugged and kissed too. Ed and I gave both of them big hugs and kisses before returning them to their mother and grandmother.

“We’ll call when we get back in cell phone range,” I assured both women. Ashley had one of the high tech government phones, and Esther had her regular commercial cell phone.

We were on the road by 8:30, and made fairly good time once we got out of metro traffic. It was after 11:00 before we got to the area of the two campgrounds. The license plate was changed at a gas station near the town of Suches before filling up. We didn’t want to have to stop for gas on the way out. Not anywhere near here anyway.

Arriving at the Frank Gross Campground, we paid the small visitors fee after parking. Ed got his fishing gear out to serve as a disguise, and we set off into the woods to do a thorough reconnaissance of the area again. There was no way to know where Haskins and his people would be doing their training, but several areas suggested themselves as possible sites, and we carefully checked each one out. The same went for where they would be firing their weapons. However, there was really only one area where it would be safe to do this, and we checked it out also. Of course, we didn’t know how concerned about safety they would be.

It was late afternoon when we returned to the vehicle. As Ed was putting his fishing gear away a Forest Ranger approached the vehicle.

“Catch anything?” he asked in a friendly fashion.

“No!” Ed told him. “It just wasn’t my day today. It took a while to find a place that I liked, and then I didn’t do more than disturb the water every time that I cast. Maybe tomorrow will be different,” he finished philosophically.

“Do you have a Georgia fishing license?” the Ranger asked officially, noting our North Carolina license plate.

“Yes,” Ed told him and pulled out his Georgia fishing license. The Ranger looked at it and noted that the address on it was in Georgia.

“My son-in-law is now living in North Carolina and came with me,” Ed told him noticing his questioning looks. The Ranger returned his license without any further comment.

“Better luck tomorrow,” he told us as he turned to leave.

We got in the SUV after stalling for a time and left also, but made sure that we were a long ways behind him. We stopped when we got to the area that we had previously selected for our hidden camp site. Fortunately, it hadn’t rained lately and the ground was dry and hard so we didn’t leave any tire prints as we drove off the roadway and into the cover of the trees well off of the road.

After parking well back in the trees, we got out the camouflage netting and put it over the SUV. There were poles that came with the netting to change the vehicle’s outline as well as hide it. We set up our camp behind the SUV to be as inconspicuous as possible. MRE heaters were used to heat the water to reconstitute our meals, and we were finished well before it got dark. A cat hole served as our latrine, and we used it before it got too dark to see. We went to sleep with the sun after a busy day.

The sun came up as we were getting up. The uniform for daytime today was camouflage clothing. Tonight, we would switch to our black working clothes. Breakfast was followed by another trip to the cat hole which we covered up after using it and we then camouflaged it before setting out for our first observation site for the day.

Despite their announced arrival time of 9:00 AM, neither Haskins nor any of his people arrived before 9:30. We had moved into our observation site by 8:00 in preparation for their arrival. We had the parabolic mikes with us to listen to what they said. It was well after 10:00 before the last of them arrived. Haskins had been grumbling about everyone being late since he had gotten here.

The final total was ten people in seven different vehicles. They set up in all eight campsites so that no one else could camp here that weekend. They had a varied collection of civilian tents in a rainbow of colors. Most of them didn’t seem very familiar with how to set them up.

It was after 11:00 before Harry called all of them together for a meeting in the sunshine of the parking area.

“We’re running late, so we need to start the classes right away. You can finish setting up your areas later,” Harry told them and then turned them over to Charlie who would be giving the class on ambushing.

“Let’s all move over into the shade,” Charlie told them, and they moved over into the trees where they found places to sit. Charlie had a large pad of paper on an easel that he used to sketch the various kinds of ambush formations and explained how they were constructed. It was all very basic military training, but I could see a couple of the men looking around and trying to imagine how they could do any of that out among the trees and undergrowth in the area around them. Others were simply not paying attention.

The class was fairly short. Perhaps it had been shortened even more than normal because of the late start. The men, hardly more than a squad’s worth, were then led out into the forest and placed in various locations. Charlie tried to tell them about cover and concealment, but it was easy to see that a lot of his instruction wasn’t getting through to them. I knew just what many of them were thinking, as both Ed and I had seen it before in our various assignments. They were thinking that they had the guns, and they would just shoot at whoever came along. There was no thought about coordination or what would happen if they tried to ambush a large group that had partly entered their ambush zone.

Ed and I also noticed that they moved like a herd of cows. Not only were their movements loud and disturbed the undergrowth around them, but they were talking and joking, and not listening to what Charlie was telling them or at least trying to tell them. They were worse than a bunch of recruits in basic training. It was easy to see that Charlie was doing his best with what he knew, but it was also obvious that it was having little effect.

Around 2:00 that afternoon the ambush class ended following a walk through the ambush site for each individual so they could see the various mistakes that were being made by the others. After a bit of derision by their fellow trainees, things improved somewhat. Harry and Haskins had been observing the training, and it was obvious that Haskins was unhappy with their performance.

Following this, they broke for lunch. Most of them had brought some food, but they had especially brought beer. Several, those on motorcycles, hadn’t brought any food with them expecting it to be supplied by the organizers. Everyone eventually got something to eat. Harry had been watching them carefully to be sure that none of them were drinking anything alcoholic.

After they finished eating, Harry got them together again and told them to get out their weapons and ammunition, but made a point of telling them to NOT load any of their weapons. As it turned out, he wasted his breath because two of them discharged their pistols trying to unload them. The rest swung their weapons around as if they were in the old west and were expecting an Indian attack. This was the most unsafe bunch that I had ever seen. Ed was cringing next to me at the sight of such a reckless display of weapons handling.

“They would kill each other in a real ambush. They are a bigger danger to themselves than they would be to an enemy,” he whispered to me. I had to agree with him. Harry eventually led them to the area that we had scouted to fire their weapons. He had set up some targets there while they were doing the ambush training. He gather them all around him for a safety briefing before allowing them to do any firing.

“The targets are twenty-five yards from the firing line which is marked with the white tape. When I tell you, load your weapons. When everyone is loaded, I’ll blow the whistle. Fire at the target in front of your position.