Retribution (Soldier Up - Book Five 5) (10 page)

President Washington sat at his desk in the Oval Office. He turned and looking out the window thinking about how quickly events were moving and how much control he really had over them.  He had his concerns about the military and if they really needed civilian leadership at this time or was he in the way. Or was he being paranoid? He had a sizeable military force heading his way from Pennsylvania, which might be able to topple the current government.  His own military was sizing up the situation. He really became aware of a change in the situation when he saw several tanks moving down Pennsylvania Blvd towards the White House.  They took up positions around it, guarding it. Was it to protect him or were they his jailer?  President Washington took a deep breath, closed his eyes and turned back to his desk realizing he was being paranoid.

              A Secret Service agent stepped into the office, “Sir, are you ready to leave for the Pentagon?”

              The President has forgotten about the meeting, even though he was briefed much earlier in the morning about it.  The President stared at the agent for a moment. “Yes, let’s hit the road.”  President Washington stood, adjusted his coat, buttoned down the front of it and stepped out of his office with the Secret Service leading the way to his car.  It wasn’t a long drive by any means and there was no traffic anymore to worry about.  He thought again that his paranoia was kicking in.

              Fifteen minutes later they were pulling into the underground garage at the Pentagon. General Wallace met the President at his car and escorted him into the war room.  The newly appointed Secretaries of Defense, Army, Navy and Air Force were present as well as the senior military member for each service.  Brigadier General John Clayton, special advisor to the President was also present. President Washington regardless of his current misgivings of the military trusted General Clayton and genuinely liked him.  President Washington felt that no matter what, General Clayton had his back and would do what was best for the country, which in the President’s mind he had already proven as the architect of the recovery.

              Because the President was present, General Wallace would give his own briefing, rather than some underling.  General Wallace launched into his briefing with an updated version of what military units were available nationwide, the nation being as it was at the time.  He covered the status of each unit, for all services, and what if any operations they were involved in.  It was amazing to President Washington that in a matter of weeks, what looked like a very dim picture when they were looking at Washington D.C. and the military surrounding it in Virginia and Maryland, looked brighter with the West Coast and Fort Bragg adding to the mix.                General Wallace’s briefing lasted an hour. At the end he asked for questions, and immediately General Clayton raised his hand.  “Yes General,” replied General Wallace.

              “I’m curious, who ordered the armor to the White House? Why are they there? And why were the tank crews removed and replaced with infantry?” General Clayton was on the verge of silent insubordination. 

              General Wallace glared at General Clayton. “I’m afraid that’s need to know General and you have no need to know.”

              President Washington quickly raised his hand. “General Wallace please answer General Clayton’s question.”

              “I’m sorry Mister President I can’t do that,” General Wallace was angry now.

              “You don’t have a choice General Wallace; it’s an order.” President Washington responded angrily.

              General Wallace stood in front of the group stoic, trying to figure out his next move. “I’m waiting, General Wallace.” President Washington said.

              “Sir.” General Wallace said. “The armor is attached to 3
rd
Infantry Regiment.”

              “I spoke with Colonel Lambert and he said he was ordered under strenuous objections to give up the armor by your office,” General Clayton shot back.

              “At ease General, I’m your superior and you will not speak to me in this manner.” General Wallace was pissed off.

              “And I’m yours General Wallace,” President Washington responded. “Why did you order the armor away from the 3
rd
?”

              “Mister President,” General Clayton said. “As your military advisor there is no military reason that armor should be where it’s at now.  Colonel Lambert had expressly asked me for it so he could conduct combat operations in securing the refineries.  There’s more to this sir, especially removing the crews. It smells of a conspiracy.”

              “You will shut your pie hole!” General Wallace yelled at General Clayton.

              “Calm down General.” President Washington stated, giving General Wallace a steely-eyed stare. “What’s going on General? You need to come clean or I’ll relieve you right here and now, and then have the MPs escort you to jail.”

              General Wallace stood in front of everyone while glaring at General Clayton, “Well General, what’s it going to be?” President Washington asked.

              General Clayton stood, walked out of the room and returned with four Military Police. They all stood at the rear of the room, clearly visible to General Wallace.  General Wallace remained stoic, and the President looked at the MPs. “Gentlemen, would you please take General Wallace into custody and to the stockade.  He’s not to go anyplace else other than the stockade, is that clear?” The President said.

              “Yes Sir,” All four of the MPs answered in unison. 

              Two of the MP’s moved forward, one standing on each side of the General, and a third marched up to the rear of the General, “Sir, please place your hands behind your back.”

              General Wallace complied with the order slowly. The MP took one wrist and handcuffed it, once that was done he took the other wrist and handcuffed that one.  The two MPs on either side grabbed an arm, slowly pulled the General back from the table then moved him forward escorting him out of the room.  It deathly quiet as the MPs took the General away, because no one knew what the President was going to do next.  All of their eyes were on him and he wasn’t shy at staring back at the country’s military leaders.

              “I want to make something perfectly clear to everyone in this room.  This is my sandbox, I’m the man in charge and if you can’t deal with it resign your commission now.” President Washington said. “The country, what there is of it, doesn’t need this bullshit right now.  Let’s put it back together and if you want me out of office, then work on getting the vote out.  We won’t have a military coup here. Any questions?”  No one said anything, “Great! Now let’s get down to business,” the President said.

              The Secretary of the Army, Ron Essy, raised his hand to speak.  “This isn’t a classroom, Ron,” President Washington said.  “Go ahead and speak up.”

              “Sir, what are your orders regarding the armor unit in front of the White House?” Rod asked.

              “General Clayton, please contact Colonel Lambert to collect his assets,” President Washington ordered.

              “Yes sir, what if the crews won’t turn over the vehicles?” General Clayton asked.

              “What are you thinking John? C’mon spit it out,” President Washington stated.

              “Sir, I think that those troops might be loyal to Colonel Magnus. I also happen to believe there are a number of officers and NCOs that are loyal to him and as he gets closer they will do anything and everything to complicate matters,” General Clayton replied.

              President Washington thought for a moment, “John please pass onto Colonel Lambert he has my permission to do whatever it takes to either get the vehicles back, which is preferable, and if he can’t I want them destroyed.  The other issue we’ll speak more about after the meeting.”

              “Roger that Mister President,” General Clayton said, he stood and exited the conference room.

              The briefing continued and was handled by the various DOD departments. As large as the Pentagon was, it didn’t take long for the information to spread that General Wallace had been relieved and arrested.  It wasn’t lost on Colonel Magnus’s supporters; they realized that if General Wallace was going down for treason, they wouldn’t be far behind.

Colonel Magnus was more than aware that there were Special Operations teams watching his every move.  He knew sending his own soldiers out to find them would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.  He wished they had captured at least one; they might have been able to break him and find out where he was from.  He was aware that the closest Special Operations units were the SEALs in Virginia and Special Forces at Fort Bragg; he wondered how they got them this far north. 

              He units had successfully cleared Fort Indiantown Gap and basically found no one home; all of their equipment, weapons, ammunition, food and water were gone.  He and his staff had determined the tracks they had found on three of the secondary roads at the back of the post, heading south, must have been their evacuation route.  Unfortunately, he had lost a Company in the process of clearing the post and tracking the Green Berets.  The Green Berets caused the most damage, but that was their job wasn’t it.  On the plus side, he knew they were being watched and they were in the process of creating their own hunter killer teams to attempt to track down the Green Berets or SEALS.  They’d pay for their treason, he thought. Damn right they will.

              Colonel Magnus ordered the fort torched if that’s the game they wanted to play. He’d be like Sherman through Georgia; he’d lay waste to everything in his path on his way to Washington D.C., and he’d play the game.  At 1900 he was set to have a briefing on the current status of all of his forces. Over the past week he was informed there were more than two thousand new recruits, some civilians, Army, Navy and Marine reservists and active duty, although he didn’t know the branch.  He was excited that people were flocking to the movement and believed like he did, it was time for a fresh start--that the country needed new blood.  After the 1900 meeting all units would be ordered to resume heading south, and would continue the march on the nation’s capital.

              Lieutenant Colonel Layton approached Colonel Magus in his CP. “Sir, may I speak to you for a moment?” Lt Colonel Layton asked.

              “Yes of course Colonel, what’s on your mind?” Colonel Magnus said.

              “Sir, are you aware the 19
th
Special Forces Group is out of Kenova, West Virginia, or elements of it?” Lt Colonel Layton said.

              “Are you saying the SF team we encountered is from there?” The Colonel asked.

              “Yes sir I am.  It’s roughly four hundred and forty miles away. I’m sure they could have driven the distance and would have the capability to return by car.”

              “Interesting Layton, have we located their vehicle?”

              “No sir, there might have been another way they got here.”

              Lt Colonel Layton now had Colonel Magnus’s full attention. “Go on Layton.”

              “Sir, what if they were inserted by aircraft?”

              “Aircraft are dead Layton.”

              “No sir, that’s not necessarily true.”

              “How so?”

              “Sir, we have focused on military aircraft and jet propulsion.”

              “Yeah so?”

              “Sir, theoretically, most of the prop driven aircraft should work as long as they aren’t operated by modern avionics, and even if they were that could be ripped out, and they could still fly.”

              Colonel Magus dropped his coffee, splattering it all over both of them. “You better not be shitting me Layton or I swear I’ll kick your ass from here to D.C.” Colonel Magnus stated.

              “Well sir, Muir Army Airfield is close by, and it wouldn’t take much to check out my theory.”

              “You take who you need and get your ass over there now! I want an answer by the 1900 briefing.  If you’re right this is a game changer, a big one.”

              “Yes sir, I’ll take a squad from one of the infantry companies, as well as Captains Hearts and Shirl. Both are former Air Force and flew C-130s.”

              Colonel Magnus raised his eyebrows at this news. “I didn’t know that about them, but yes, of course it makes sense.  Get it done Layton. I only care about results.”

              “Yes sir.” Lt Colonel Layton snapped to attention, saluted, Colonel Magnus returns the salute.  Lt Colonel Layton did an about face and marched out of the CP.

Lieutenant Colonel Clifford Layton was very diminutive, all of five feet one inches, barely making the Army’s cut off for size. He was skinny and wore glasses, since he was nearsighted.  He was an Army reservist in the Quartermaster Corps. His civilian job was a used car salesman. He wasn’t the greatest at his job, but he was able to make a living at it.  He relished his job in the reserves and wished he could have gone full time, but his size was always an obstacle, so he found it difficult for any command to readily accept him.  He was also a true blue supporter of Colonel Magnus, verging on hero worship. 

              He had been wondering about the aircraft issue for weeks. For some reason it bugged him, even though he wasn’t a pilot.  Although he read everything possible on the subject, he wanted to take lessons and get his pilot license, but it was too expensive.  The thoughts about privately owned prop- driven airplanes had been rattling around in his head for some time now.  It took every ounce of courage for him to march into Colonel Magnus’s CP and talk to him about it. After all it was Colonel Magnus.  Now he was, in his mind, being handed a gift by his hero, to prove himself and he felt he was up to the challenge. 

              Muir Army Airfield was a National Guard airfield home to the Eastern Army Aviation, various helicopter units, and a few fixed wing aircraft, some of which were civilian aircraft kept there by service members.  These were the ones that Lt Colonel Layton was after. Arriving at the airfield he found four immediately, but continued to search the airfield for more.  There were two more Cessna’s at the far end next to one of the hangers, but these were official US Army aircraft; the others were civilian.  He wanted the two captains to start with the civilian aircraft before moving on to the military ones.  He elected to ignore the helicopters altogether, feeling that with their modern aviation avionics there was no way they would run.  However, he forgot about the trainers. They were all engine and should run fine, but of course they wouldn’t ever check this out.

              Captain Heart checked out one of the two piper cubs and Captain Shirl checked out one of the Cessna’s.  Both men knew that after sitting for a year that the batteries would be dead in each aircraft, but they felt the need to try.  Each man did a visual inspection of each aircraft prior to moving inside to the cockpit.  They opened the engine compartment and checked the connections and oil. On each of the aircraft the battery terminals were heavily corroded and needed to be cleaned.  Captain Heart made his way to one of the aircraft maintenance sheds and grabbed the necessary tools to remove a battery and clean the terminal.

              Captain Shirl looked through the various hangers looking for a working battery. They could hold their charge a long time, even years, if they were properly stored.  Ideally, the battery needed to be stored off the ground and in a moderate dry location.  Captain Shirl was about to give up when he found one in the last hanger, almost a quarter of a mile away from where he started.  He found a single battery in a storage locker tucked away in the far reaches of the hanger.  He removed it and set it on a bench near the locker. He then looked for some sort of measurement device so he could determine if there was a charge or not.  He finally found an ohm-meter on a workbench on the other side of the hanger, left by one of the mechanics.  He returned to the battery, opened it up and checked all of the fluid levels and cleaned the terminals.  He then connected the negative wand from the ohm-meter to the negative battery terminal and the positive wand to the positive terminal, and there it was. The battery had a pretty good charge left, not a great one, but they really only needed to get one of the airplanes started.  Once one was started they could use it to re-charge all of the batteries. 

              Captain Shirl knew in his mind that the battery shouldn’t have really held a charge this long; everything else he had found was dead.  For some reason, this battery had some charge left after all this time.  He lugged the battery over to a battery wagon that the mechanics used to transport them over the airfield and headed back to Lt Colonel Layton and Captain Heart.  They now had at least one good battery and he hoped that was all it would take. Several minutes later he arrived back, pulling his wagon to the surprise of the Colonel and Captain.  “First things first.” Captain Heart said.  “Let’s see if they can start without the jump.”

              Captain Shirl held up the ohm-meter, “Or we can check real quickly to see if there’s any charge in them.” 

              “What’s the fun in that?” Captain Heart said smiling. “I’m all about the mystery and suspense.”

              “Suit yourself,” Captain Shirl responded.

              Captain Heart shrugged and jumped into the Cessna he had checked out. He turned the ignition, but nothing happened.  “Ready to switch it out?” Captain Shirl asked.

              “Nope, one more try,” Captain Heart responded. The entire time Lt Colonel Layton stood nearby and watched.  The squad of soldiers they had brought with them, instead or providing security, was watching the entire event unfold.  Captain Heart turned the ignition one more time. This time there was a response, something kicked, and the engine coughed and turned.  Captains Heart and Shirl were caught by surprise, and Lt Colonel Layton stood, his full attention directed towards Captain Heart.

              Captain Heart adjusted the throttle and mix, then tried the ignition. The engine coughed once, and then kicked to life as strong as ever.  The Captain revved the engine as the first mortar landed squarely on top of the Cessna killing the two Captains, Lt Colonel Layton and setting two of the three aircraft on fire.  The squad that was supposed to be providing security had scattered a bit, lost in the chaos they tried to find where the mortar had come from.  It was too late for them. Several more mortars had found their marks killing all of the squad members and setting the other aircraft on fire.

              2
nd
Platoon, Echo Company, 109
th
Infantry Regiment, 55
th
Infantry Brigade’s area of responsibility was Muir Airfield. They were part of the rear guard covering the other elements retreating out of the Fort.  It became apparent to Echo Company’s Officers what they were observing. If they got the aircraft up and running they’d be able to find the main body and formulate some sort of attack.  Unfortunately, for Echo Company, 2
nd
Platoon’s actions would give their location away eventually to Colonel Magnus’s forces.  However, they still had time to get out of dodge before they figured out the men they had just killed weren’t coming back anytime soon. 

              Captain Colton, Echo Company’s Commander quickly ordered the entire company to saddle up. They needed to put some serious distance between them and the airfield. They needed to head back into the forest and disappear.