Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises (24 page)

Caleb was enthusiastic about the new task. He was talking with Jack after receiving the brief, “So Jack, about the militia guys in Harrisonburg.”

“Yes, what’s up?”

“Well, they called us the mountain men. That’s cool, but the guys came up with another name for the Company, for us.”

“Yea, what’s that?”

“Juggernauts. Jack’s Juggernauts. We needed something to work with ‘Jack’, so that’s it.”

“Really?”

“Yep, the Company is yours, Jack. Some of these guys think the sun shines out of your ass. They named themselves in your honor, after we smashed up the Regime in Harrisonburg - like a juggernaut.”

“Wow
,” said Jack, as Caleb walked away.

Following the return of the first rotation of IED teams into the valley after the battle, Jack was alerted to changes in Regime forces activity detailed in their patrol reports. It appeared that the battle group that had attacked Harrisonburg had settled near to the town. They were building a large forward operating base (FOB) just to the north east of the town, on the other side of the I-81.

It looked like this was going to be a location of their
battle group headquarters and at least an armored company. They were walling in an area around two kilometers square with dirt berms, concertina wire and HESCO bastions; these were large wire and fabric boxes that were filled with dirt; stacked two-high they stood around eight feet tall.

They were also building
small HESCO protected combat outposts (COPs) up and down the route of the I-81 through the valley, in an attempt to picket the route, dominating the valley and some of the main population centers.

There was some activity going on at the Bridgewater Airpark, which was located three kilometers west of the 1-81, some six kilometers sout
h west of Harrisonburg and ten kilometers from the location of the new main FOB.

It was
curious; they seemed to be walling in a large area of the airpark with HESCO walls. It included the airport buildings, hangers and a section of the runway as it ran behind the hangers, including a sizeable area of grassy field. But the HESCO walls were cutting off the main two thirds of the runway.

So they were not using it for fixed wing aircraft then?

Jack decided that he needed to develop more information on these two large FOBs. He tasked two squads with OP missions. This would entail establishing covert OP positions, with one squad overlooking each FOB location.

The reason for the squad size per OP was to allow longevity. He was going to put each squad in for a week. The number
s would allow them to run four men up in the OP itself, rotating through the observation and recording duties and a little rest, and the other four slightly back in a covert rest area, primarily resting, administering and pulling rear security. The two teams would change over routinely, usually every twenty four hours.

He allocated each squad an area of operations that included several likely suitable OP locations. They would be responsible for finding and establishing the exact location. Due to the lack of secure communications, the OPs would not be in radio contact. Instead, they used a dead letter drop system. Every second day, the OP would drop their log
and report in a concealed dead drop, at a location away from the OP, to be picked up by a courier. If Jack decided to maintain the OPs, it was through this system that a relief team could be rotated through, by meeting at the dead letter drop.

To make the dead letter drop work, they had to take in a pair of couriers with them, so they could find a drop
site that was in a suitable location to wherever the OP ended up being located. The couriers would then move away, returning every second day to pick up the reports and move them back through the network. These same couriers would also be able to guide in a relief OP team when the time came.

The dead drops also allowed a limited amount of resupply, such as water, if there was no source close to the selected OPs, which tended to be on high ground.
The OP parties still had to carry a lot of gear in with them to stay in place for a week: food, water, binoculars, night vision, lots of batteries and of course the thermal ponchos and camouflage netting to conceal the OP positions.

Jack still tasked IED teams to go out on mission during this OP phase, but he set boundaries, areas of operation,
that kept them away from the OPs, to minimize the chance of compromise.

Thus, with the patrol base down by Zulu, the OPs out in the valley, and the IED teams back on task, the Company entered a patrol phase of limited offensive operations. It was about information gatheri
ng. Jack wanted to see what the Regime was up to with the FOBs and the COPs. Once they had gathered enough information, he would be able to use it to plan further disruption operations.

Over the next few weeks, the information started to trickle back to the tactical operations center (TOC) at Victor Foxtrot. Jack ended up replacing the OP parties and leaving them in place to keep the enemy under surveillance. The IED teams had also had a few successes, with the targeting of patrols operating out of some of the COPs strung up and down the I-81. They had refined their techniques so that they were having better success with the IED ambushes and had not been spotted by Regime ground forces or aircraft top cover.

             
It appeared that the Harrisonburg FOB was indeed the battle group headquarters, housing an additional armored infantry company plus multiple support assets. Jack saw from some of the surveillance photos that it was now totally ringed by HESCOs, including several inner fortified compounds, and it reminded him of any number of FOBs he had seen in Iraq or Afghanistan.

No doubt the
Company assigned to the FOB spent most of their time manning the bunkers and towers dotted along the HESCO perimeter, as well as the two entry control points. It was the usual story: cooks to feed the guards, and guards to guard the cooks.

             
The Bridgewater Airpark FOB was smaller. The vital point was that it appeared to be a FOB for an Apache squadron group, supporting operations up and down the valley. There was a guard force of two platoons of infantry, manning bunkers around the HESCO perimeter, with an OP on a central rooftop. They were equipped with MRAP armored vehicles, which looked like armored Humvees on growth hormones.

             
The Apaches had started to move in and it appeared that a squadron of eight of them was assigned to the FOB, along with their support organization. That was a significant force and it would have a huge impact on operations for the Resistance in the valley.

             
The strategy of the Regime forces in the valley was becoming apparent. They had placed the central FOB at Harrisonburg with the attack aviation support FOB at the Airpark. They had a series of COPs strung throughout the valley to protect the main supply route (MSR) of the I-81 and ancillary routes. They were conducting patrol operations in the valley to attempt to disrupt and dislocate insurgent attack operations onto the MSRs.

The Apaches were divided between surveillance and reconnaissance operations in the surrounding area, and top cover for convoys transiting through. They did not have the availability to permanently fly top cover on convoys, so they tended to move in and out of it, sometimes dropping in to a top cover role on the way to and from surveillance missions.

It appeared that two Apaches were always designated as an airborne response force to react to incidents of troops in contact in the valley. It was the avoidance of these Apache that was the main challenge to the IED teams, who had to prevent themselves from being picked up on the Apache surveillance systems following an attack.

It was also apparent that the
Regime battle group had designated Harrisonburg as the main seat of government in the valley. They considered the ‘Battle of Harrisonburg’ as a hard won victory, not the bloody nose that it had been, and were now moving on to reconstruction operations. They were following the ‘clear, hold, build’ doctrine.

As well as the FOB, the
Regime forces had established a fortified ‘government center’ in what remained of the battered town center. They had civil affairs and psychological operations teams working the area, trying to get people to return. They had brought in some civilian development staff, Army Corps of Engineers, political officers, as well as civilian security teams to move them around to and from the government center and between the various reconstruction projects they had going on.

As a result of the activity of a covert close
recon team that Jack sent down into the town, the information came back that the Regime was running development and reconstruction operations out of the government center, as well as a registration and RFID chip office. They were offering food and reconstructed housing to those who were willing to return to the town.

Regime p
atrol activity in the town had overmatched the local militia and driven them underground. Arrest operations were ongoing, raids often resulting from information supplied by turned townsfolk who decided to take the RFID chip and the food. Many of the militia simply disappeared after nighttime raids. It appeared that the Regime had picked up the incumbent Mayor, who had turned, taken the chip, and become a puppet for the Regime.

The Regime was making a big effort in
Harrisonburg, paying willing contractors in electronic money and food handouts to work on reconstructing the town. They had started on the town center and persuaded several shops to reopen. They also sponsored a bar/restaurant/night spot only a block from the HESCO fortified government center.

The restaurant
became a regular spot for the Regime civilian and military staff as well as some of the battle group officers to socialize, along with numerous collaborators. It was a night spot for the local Regime elite, both civilian and military, to hang out with various cronies and collaborators.

It was around 2100hrs on a spring evening in Harrisonburg town center. The Regime squad patrolled tactically through the streets on a security patrol. There were two teams, a slight distance or ‘tactical bound’ between the two. They were armed with the usual M4 rifles with a SAW gunner in each team.

             
They rounded the corner into the street where the new Regime restaurant was located. It was down a ways on the left and as the squad moved down the street they could see a small convoy of vehicles pulled up at the curb. There were two military Humvees and two civilian SUVs. A couple of soldiers stood around the Humvees and a little way down were a small group of civilian security personnel.

             
The squad was led by Olson. He looked exactly the part, because he had once been the part. They had all shaved and cut their hair. As Olson moved down the sidewalk his squad was split in a file formation on both sides of the street. He could see a lone guard on duty at the top of the three steps that led up to the door of the restaurant. Light and music was spilling out from the windows into the street.

             
Olson walked up the steps towards the door. The guard looked surprised, he was expecting the patrol to keep moving down the street. Suddenly, Olson kicked him backwards through the door, at the same time raising his rifle and following through into the restaurant, followed by Gibbs with the SAW. As they burst through the doorway in pursuit of the falling guard, they pushed left and right, clearing the fatal funnel of the doorway, shot the guard, and opened fire into the restaurant.

Phillips and McCarthy
stood at the bottom of the steps and engaged the surprised soldiers and security guards, while the second team also supported, rapidly gunning down the loitering guards. The second team pushed forwards, double-tapping the prostrate guards, and took up security positions by the vehicles. Phillips and McCarthy then pushed through the door and joined Olson.

Inside, it was carnage. It had been a lively evening; drunken Regime elite were sitting about and propping up the bar, waitresses wending their way between the crowded tables. In a couple of places,
escort girls sat on officers laps, scantily dressed.

Gibbs had
gone cyclic with the box of two hundred rounds on his SAW, arcing the weapon back and forth across the crowd. Olson was supporting him with short bursts, paying particular attention to anyone with a weapon, as they were joined by the other two as they came through the door.

The team was
not aiming for the waitresses and escort girls, but they didn’t make a special effort to spare them. They were collaborators. The storm of bullets ripped across the room, tearing into flesh, sometimes passing through multiple bodies before coming to a stop.

The covert reconnaissance had suggested that there was a private room upstairs, and as soon as the
restaurant area appeared pacified, bodies heaped, Olson and McCarthy took off up the stairs. They left the other two to work over the crowd, making sure none were moving.

The pair raced up the stairs, pausing at the door to the upstairs room
. Olson kicked it open, McCarthy tossed in a flashbang, and as soon as it detonated they were through, going left and right and covering the room.