Dan and the Bottle Ch. 11

They were in luck; the Chinese were all outside for some sort of assembly. They were being addressed by an officer who was walking up and down the rows of men, noting an unbuttoned collar here, an open holster there, making remarks to a subordinate who was following behind him, taking notes.

Phil counted two hundred and twenty men, including the two officers and the twenty men in the guard towers. This one would be a tougher nut to crack, obviously.

They spent an additional three days, talking numerous photos and notes, keeping track of guard patrols and when patrols left the compound to patrol the countryside, which direction they went in, which direction they came back from and how long they were gone, and what, if anything, they brought back with them.

The outside patrols were generally Humvee Pickups; mostly, they came back with bushels of fresh fruit and vegetables; two came back with freshly killed cows, and one came back with fresh deer; a doe and her fawn. Apparently, they didn't turn their nose up at any kind of meat.

One came back with another form of 'cargo' entirely; two young women, perhaps twenty five years old. The two women were stripped right there in the middle of the camp, inspected by the base Commander, who then sent them, under guard, to one of the buildings off the open square where they'd held assembly, the day after the scouting team had arrived.

Phil shot a look at Billy Jackson, whose face was set in a mask of outrage; he caught the volatile man's attention and shook his head.

"Not today, Brother."

"But Sir..."

"I SAID, NOT TODAY, CORPORAL!" he replied, in what he thought of as his Command Voice. "I feel the same way, but there's too damned many of them and not enough of us. We don't carry enough ammo for eight of us to take on two hundred. Let's get back to the truck, get this intel back to base. The Commander will want to do this right."

Jackson nodded, knowing his team Seargent was right.... still, it galled him, knowing those young women would undoubtedly be raped multiple times by those bastards while the coming operation was being planned out. He took solace in the fact that his sharpshooting skills were among the best at the base.... he would be among those firing the first shots at the enemy.... and if he got an open shot at that 'Commander', he'd peel the little yellow bastard's skull like a grape.

They made their way back to the small town, where they'd hidden their armored Humvee in an old warehouse building, and Phil mentally cursed.

There was a Chinese patrol there, standing before the now-open door of the building, looking over their transportation. From this distance, he also saw what had caught the enemy soldier's attention. They had left fresh tire tracks in the dirt leading up to the building. A rookie mistake.

"Well, Jackson, it looks like you'll get to kill someone, after all. Spread out, guys, north to south, and let's get a bit closer. If anyone tries to get in our truck, he's the first target. Low but quick, boys.... Go!"

Within two minutes, they were in position, and had chosen their targets. Within another thirty seconds, four Chinese soldiers dropped to the ground, bleeding from two rounds to the chest each.

Phil and Billy moved in, cutting each one's throat for good measure. They swiftly pulled the corpses deeper into the old building, piling boxes and crates on top of them, and leaving them for the local wildlife to feed on after stripping them of their rifles, ammunition, and other equipment.

Jim Morris left them with the final insult, whipping out his dick and pissing on the pile of corpses before tossing the ancient wooden crate on top.

Huett checked the fuel gauge of the Humvee pick up the soldiers had been driving; it was almost full, and they had two full five gallon 'jerry' cans, besides.

"Jackson, you and Willis take this one, we'll take the other two. We can always use an extra truck back at the base."

Almost two hours later, they pulled into the motor pool, turned the enemy Humvee over to the mechanics for inspection, and headed to the control center to report in, turning over the cameras for downloading, and sat down with Jim for a long debriefing. Explaining each photo as it came up on the big video monitor, the scouting team was kept busy for quite a while, consulting their notes as they went.

When they came to the pictures of the two young women, Jim became visibly angry, his knuckles going white as he gripped the edge of the table. Huett noticed it, nodding.

"I know.... I had to almost physically restrain Jackson from shooting the little bastard right then and there."

"Why did you?"

"Eight of us, two hundred of them... not good odds. Besides, that so-called 'officer' was standing right in front of one of the girls. I didn't want to get her killed."

Jim calmed a bit, nodding. "Ok, it was a good call.... although I wish I'd been there. You were right, though... it might have given away your position and gotten you all killed."

He rubbed his chin in thought for long moments and said "Ok, guys, go get some proper chow and some decent sleep. We'll have a council meeting in six hours, and I'll want all of you there to answer questions about anything I might have missed. Thank you, gentlemen."

Three hours later, his wife and four other computer techs had turned the numerous photos into a workable map of the base, and they had a fair idea of what they were up against. This one wasn't going to be easy. He guessed they would need at least twice as many troops as they'd used in their first operation, and even then, considering the dogs, with their keen hearing and sense of smell, it would be pretty dicey. They'd have to encircle the base from a much wider distance, and then move in from all four sides, simultaneously and quickly.

John Tyler picked up the phone at the training range. "Tyler."

"John, it's Jim Archer... How goes it?"

"It goes, Sir.... something on your mind?"

"Yup.... how many competent snipers do we have, currently? People who know how to factor in wind drift, figure their ballistics perfectly, that sort of thing?"

"Oh.... probably a thousand, Sir, maybe a bit more.... how many do you need?"

"Pick out your top eight hundred, people who can shoot in low light, tell them to give their rifles a good cleaning, and get their magazines loaded up. Make sure they each have at least.... oh, two, maybe three hundred rounds ready to go. Silenced rifles, of course, and silenced sidearms. Tell them to draw ration bars for at least a five day operation, bladder canteens, dark tiger stripe camo, veiled covers or boonie hats, the works. I want them booted and suited by tomorrow afternoon. I'll have further instructions within ten hours."

"Yes Sir.... anything else?"

"I can't think of it, but I know there's something I'm missing....."

"Are there any hostages on this one, Sir?"

"Yes, that's what I was trying to remember! Thanks! Make sure there are at least a dozen women, with bolt cutters, extra clothing in their packs, and a few extra food bars. Oh, yeah.... I want you to sit in on the council meeting and the planning session, in the council room. The scouting party will be there, too, so we won't have to wait for answers. That's going to be.... three and a half hours from now."

Huett and his team were the last ones to show up at the meeting, and the next two hours were lively, to say the least.... especially when John Morris' final 'contribution' was idly mentioned.

Johnny Corcoran shot a look at Morris. "Couldn't help it, huh?"

Morris grinned. "Hey, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. Besides, I was marking my territory.... which should bring in the feral dogs. Nature can take it's course."

Several of the women turned decidedly green as the implications of his remark sunk in.

Jim let the gallows humor continue for a moment, smiling a bit himself at this, then cleared his throat.

"Ok, people, the question remains, how are we going to do this? A one nighter, or do we do something a bit more.... frightening?"

Huett spoke up. "What do you mean, Sir?"

"Well, I like the idea of a quick, all encompassing strike. But.... what about this? Kill all of the guards in the towers and the foot patrols, including the dogs, then fall back about thirty, forty miles... let 'em stew for a week or so, then hit them the same way. We know they're already demoralized... we could build on that. Scare the hell out of them, a bunch of ghosts that take out their guards and vanish. A week later, it happens again. Maybe rig a few trip wire mines to their gates, Claymores or something similar. A few dozen 'Bouncing Betties', set fifty, sixty yards down the road from the main gates. More tripwired Claymores across every deer path heading into those forests... inside of three months, we could have them running in circles."

Huett nodded, an evil grin on his face.

"I like it, but.... you know, they could call for reinforcements."

Archer nodded. "That's the fly in the ointment. I'm leaning more towards the 'take 'em all out in one night' thing, but I wanted to float the other possibility too, just to get some opinions."

Corcoran nodded. "I like the idea, but let's stick to the original for this one. This is a much bigger base, and the idea of our people having to hike in from that far out doesn't really do it for me, Y'know?"

Archer nodded again, then shot a look at Tyler.

"Johnny, what about the village civilian troops? Where are they at, at the moment?"

"They're enthusiastic, I'll give them that, but I want to keep them in Basic for a few more months. They're farmers.... it's going to be a while before we'll really be able to count on them as anything but cannon fodder. Sending them into combat now.... hell, it would be kinder to just shoot them ourselves."

Corcoran looked up at this. "We can always use them as back up guards here, free up more of our people for this op. We've got three more bases in this state; they'll see combat, eventually, there's no doubt of that. We could probably keep them in training until next spring. We can do a bit more recruiting, too, from the group we just brought in. Hell, we still need to finish teaching that first group how to read, to say nothing of the driving and flight simulators."

Archer frowned at this. "How many pilots could we field, right now, if we had to?"

Jim Miller looked up at this, after consulting his notes. "Maybe a hundred, for the prop planes... another hundred on jets, which, by the way, is about twice what we actually have planes for. Same thing goes for chopper pilots, for that matter. We've got more tank and APC crews than we have equipment for, especially for the Shermans and Pattons. We've also got some new stuff that R&D have been working on."

Archer raised an eyebrow at this, and Corcoran nodded. "I sent them a challenge a few months ago, to build something bigger, patterned after the Browning M2... What they came up with, well.... let's just say it's what the founder would have called 'Not quite ready for prime time'. Friggin' thing's a monster".

Archer grinned. "How big?"

"The base of the bullet is an inch and three quarters across, and the bullet, without the shell casing, is a bit over four and a half inches long. The primer itself is three quarters of an inch wide, and the nose of the bullet has another primer, about three-eighths of an inch wide. That faces into an ounce of black powder inside the bullet itself, which in turn triggers a sixteenth of an ounce of plastic explosives.... a test fire, ten rounds, turned a six ton boulder into gravel. We've got an APC with two of 'em mounted, one on either side, armored feed belt going in the top and a discharge chute for the spent cartridges feeding back to a bin inside the APC so they can be reloaded... it has a low rate of fire, about twenty rounds a minute, but a ten second burst will turn a Humvee into a pile of scrap metal. One of the machine shops is turning out ammo for them around the clock. It's a good thing the founder stocked so much brass stock. They're turned from brass cylinders two inches wide and five inches long. The foundry melts down the scrap and recasts it into more cylinders."

Archer grinned and replied "And you were going to tell me about this When?"

"Well, your birthday is coming up...." Corcoran replied with a big smile.

Archer shook his head, grinning. "Friggin' smart ass!"

"Ok, folks, I guess we're going for a total clean out. Same plan as last time... get close, take out the guards, wait a bit, see if we woke anyone up, then go in and kill the bastards in their beds. Scorched earth, people. We leave nobody alive, aside from American hostages, and we bring them back here for medical treatment and counseling."

Phil Huett caught his eye.

"What about their supplies?"

Archer rubbed his chin in thought for a minute.

"Leave the rifles, we've got more than we know what to do with now. Take ammunition, explosives, grenades, RPG loads.... hold it to ten truckloads or so... leave their field rations... damned things are kinda nasty anyway. If there's any fresh food in the kitchens, take that, but leave the rest."

"While I'm thinking about it.... we need to take along at least one or two detonators per building.... I want to leave behind a pile of toothpicks and ground beef, nothing else. We're sending a message, people.... there's a new wolf amongst the sheep... if you're Chinese, you'll be chewed up and spat out." He favored them with his best evil grin.

"We leave at twilight tomorrow evening; I want our trucks under cover in that small town west of that base no later than midnight, and our people taking shooting positions all the way around the place no later than two thirty in the morning... just about the time the guards change shifts. We'll give 'em just enough time to get bored, then strike. Night vision gear for all of the advance scouts, of course, and everyone warned to watch for trip wires and mines the closer we get to the fences."

Huett spoke up. "One more thing... and I take full responsibility for this one, by the way... the Chinese found our Humvees because we didn't do anything about the tire tracks we made as we pulled them into that warehouse... we need to take along half a dozen brooms and rakes, so we don't repeat that mistake. Matter of fact, it might not be a bad idea to outfit every scouting party like that, from now on, as a precaution."

Archer nodded. "Good idea... leave no sign we were there, and no clue as to what direction we came from." He shot a look at Johnny Corcoran, who nodded. He'd see to it.

It was ten o'clock and they were still fifty miles from the small town where they would be hiding their vehicles when it happened-- they came around a curve in the road and ran right into a Humvee, being driven by two Chinese soldiers.

The Chinese, seeing the Humvees and the short line of trucks, naturally thought they were a resupply convoy, headed to the base. That was their last mistake. By the time they realized that these troops were wearing American uniforms, five men with sniper rifles were leaning out of the passenger sides of the trucks and had already drawn a bead on them, and the drivers of the trucks had pistols out; the two soldiers were dead before they could pick up a radio to request confirmation of their purpose.

Larry Willis pushed the two corpses into the back seat of the aging truck and jumped into the driver's seat, putting on a pair of driving goggles to protect his eyes from the dust, and kicked out the bullet-riddled windshield so he could drive the enemy vehicle into the small town, to hide it until the operation was over.

By eleven thirty, the vehicles were under cover, everyone had eaten something, guards had been set, and most of their force was getting a few hours of sleep. This time, the tire tracks were swept over, lightly, to make it seem, to casual inspection, that they were from quite some time in the past.

Billy Jackson eased his way in, to within sixty yards of the guard tower, and sat back to wait.

When the headset earpiece whispered 'Prepare to fire' in his right ear, he flipped up the lens covers of the night vision scope on his favorite Sniper's rifle, taking a bead on the furthest guard from him in the tower, and slowly worked the bolt, chambering a round in the silenced .270 Winchester as quietly as he could.

His first round connected perfectly, entering the Chinese guard's skull just below the ear and showering his buddy with blood and shards of bone and bits of grey matter... the other guard stupidly looked out of the side of the tower platform, and his next round took that guard right below his left eye socket. Two rounds, two kills... his instructor would have been proud.

Around the base, fifty guards and ten German Shepherds dropped dead in their tracks.

All around the enemy base, snipers sat back to wait; they would soon see if anyone else was awake in the enemy camp.

Within fifteen minutes, it was obvious that all was quiet, and two men ran up to places by the fence on all four sides; starting at the bottom of the fence, five feet apart, then cut lines straight up in the chain link fence to a height of five feet or so, before turned their cutting towards each other, creating holes wide and tall enough for their troops to duck through...

Once again, the operation went off with almost clockwork efficiency... almost.

In two of the barracks buildings, sleeping soldiers awoke before the Americans were fully in position, but it didn't matter... they just got shot first. Within ten minutes, all of the sleeping soldiers had been killed in their bunks, one man was killed as he walked in from an extended visit to the latrine, and Billy Jackson got his wish; he was the one who crept into the Commanding Officer's quarters, tapping him on the forehead to wake the little bastard up just before double tapping him between the eyes with the silenced .45 Colt Combat Commander in his right hand.

"Serves you right, you son of a bitch." He murmured at the corpse before turning to search the desk for whatever paperwork was there.

Sarah Jennison was the first one into the women's barracks, and was appalled at what she found. There were twenty three young women inside, all handcuffed to bunks that were incredibly filthy, none of them wearing a stitch of clothing, with buckets sitting alongside of the beds that were clearly used as toilets, and piles of rags within reach for use as toilet paper.

One by one, Sarah and her all-female squad used their bolt cutters to free the young women, none of which appeared to be any too healthy. They handed out ration bars and clean clothing, assuring them that they were here to help, and waited as the other teams finished up, getting the women loaded into a big truck as soon as it backed up to the door.

Elsewhere, a team was busily loading up five truckloads of munitions and supplies from one of the warehouses when they made a startling discovery; Wooden crates full of US Army M16 rifles. Further digging revealed other American equipment... cases of spare magazines, ammunition, and spare parts kits, M203 grenade launchers and dozens of cases of loads for them, 9mm and .45ACP pistols and ammunition for them, fragmention and incendiary grenades, LAW rocket launchers, and even case upon case of C-4 plastic explosives and detonaters, both timed and remote triggers.

When he learned of this, Jim Archer didn't hesitate, he nodded and replied through the headset to load up as much as they had trucks for and wire up the rest for demolition.

Mike Nelson spent twenty minutes looking over the equipment in the hanger, pronouncing it mostly unflyable and recommending it's destruction; the plane and several choppers were quickly wired up with charges of Semtex and left. This gave him another idea, and he spoke quietly into his mic to the men who were searching the ordnance warehouses; he was told that yes, in fact, there were numerous land mines in the inventory.