Red Hammer: Voodoo Plague Book 4 Page 10

  Rachel stood there, tears threatening to start, thinking about John risking everything to come in the water after her. Well, her and Dog. The damn obstinate man had more feelings for her than he was willing to admit.

  “And who do we have here?” Jackson asked, smiling at Madison who was on Rachel’s hip with her arms locked around her neck.

  “This is Madison and that’s Lindsey. And they have a story you need to hear.” Jackson gave her a quizzical look, then moved all of them out of the paddy and onto dry land.

  Rachel had Lindsey tell the story of what happened to their parents. He listened closely without interrupting until she was done. Resting on one knee so he was eye level with the girls he asked a couple of questions to make sure he was getting the whole story. Rachel filled in the details from after she and Dog had found the girls.

  “Lindsey, would you recognize the bad men that took your parents if you saw them again?” He asked.

  “That’s one of them right there!” Madison said, pointing at the group of men sitting on the asphalt with the two Rangers guarding them.

  “Which one?” Jackson asked.

  “The one on the left, with the tattoo on his arm. I remember him. He’s the one that slapped my mommy and called her a nigger.” Madison’s voice left no doubt that she was certain of her identification of the man. It also left no doubt what she’d do to the man if she was a little older.

  Jackson looked up at Rachel and she nearly took a step back when she saw the expression on his face. He stood up and started to turn to where the men were sitting, but Rachel reached a hand out and placed it on his arm. He stopped and turned to face her and she could feel the tension and anger rolling off him. Putting Madison on her feet, she told the girls to stay with Dog and walked Jackson a few yards down the road.

  “I don’t pretend to understand how this makes you feel, but it makes me sick to my stomach. You don’t know this, but I was taken by a group of men in Georgia and raped while we were trying to escape. John killed every one of them and rescued me. These men aren’t any better, and deserve whatever happens to them, but we have to do this right. If you go over there, pissed off and ready to start breaking heads, we may not get the answers we need. Perhaps you’d better call the Colonel?” Rachel kept her hand on Jackson’s arm as she spoke, her eyes looking into his. She saw his intent to commit murder and mayhem, then saw it tempered when she suggested calling Crawford. After a moment he took her hand in his and nodded.

  “Thank you. That’s probably best.” He gave her a tight smile, released her hand and turned away to use his radio in private.

  Rachel went over to where Lindsey and Madison sat on the edge of the road, Dog between them soaking up the attention from his two new best friends. Rachel sat down in front of them and Madison crawled into her lap, shifting around so she could still pet Dog. A few minutes later, Jackson walked over and sat down next to Rachel, smiling at the girls.

  “Who’s hungry?” He asked, pulling an MRE out of his pack. Both girls’ eyes got big and Dog’s ears went straight up. Jackson laughed and started preparing the meal, sharing it out between the girls. They finished every bite quickly and he pulled out another one, giving half of it to Dog before letting the girls wipe out the remainder.

  As they were finishing the meal, Jackson reached to press his earpiece deeper into his ear then stood and looked up and to the north. Four specks were approaching in a hurry, quickly resolving into a pair of Black Hawks escorted by a pair of Apaches. The two Apaches and one of the Black Hawks went into an orbit, the second Black Hawk swooping in and landing on the road fifty yards from where they sat. It hadn’t even settled on its landing gear before Colonel Crawford jumped out the door, escorted by two more Rangers and a woman in civilian clothing, and trotted up to them.

  “Good to see you ma’am.” He said to Rachel. “Was starting to think we weren’t going to find you.”

  “Thank you, Colonel. Thanks for not giving up on me.”

  “I’d like to take the credit, but it was that hard headed maniac you run around with. I think he would have shot me if I’d tried to call off the search.” Crawford said the last with a grin, then shifted his attention to the girls.

  “Girls, this is Mrs. Maybach. She’s going to keep you company in that helicopter over there while I go talk to these men about where your parents might be. Is that OK?”

  “Are you going to get our parents back?” Lindsey asked.

  “I’m going to do everything I can, sweetheart. I promise. Now, go with Mrs. Maybach and I’ll see you real soon.”

  Rachel got the girls on their feet, hugged them and assured them she would see them before they knew it. They held hands with the woman, one on either side of her, and the three of them walked to the waiting Black Hawk which took off and headed north as soon as they climbed inside.

  “Who’s she?” Rachel asked as they headed over to where the four men waited nervously.

  “She was on the train. Is, or was I guess, the principal of an elementary school in Nashville. She just happened to be talking to me about caring for the children on the train without parents when the Master Sergeant called. Thought it might be good to bring her along and have her get the girls away from here.” By now they were standing in front of the prisoners and Rachel pointed out the one that Madison had identified. The tattoo on his arm was a large swastika overlaid with the twin lightning bolts of the Nazi Germany SS.

  “I’m Colonel Jack Crawford, US Army. I’m going to ask you some questions and I expect nothing less than full and truthful answers. Do you understand?” He addressed them, looking each in the eye as he spoke.

  “Fuck you,” a wiry, balding man sitting next to tattoo man spoke up. “We’re the goddamn Sheriff’s department and the Army ain’t got no fucking authority here. That’s illegal. So why don’t you take this cunt and your pet nigger there and get the hell out of here.”

  Crawford looked at the man for a long moment, saying nothing. Without a change in expression he drew his pistol, shot the man in the head, then calmly holstered the weapon. The other three shrank away from the body, shocked expressions on their faces. Jackson and the four Rangers exchanged glances but said nothing and didn’t move a muscle.

  Rachel was caught completely unprepared. Not because of the violence or seeing a man die, she had grown used to that, but because she hadn’t thought of Crawford as the type of man that could calmly execute a prisoner. She wouldn’t have been surprised in the least if John had done it, in fact had killed a defenseless man herself back in Nashville, but she hadn’t thought of Crawford in those terms. You don’t wind up in charge of men like Jackson and John if you’re not one of them, she reminded herself.

  “Let’s try this again.” Crawford said, his tone as congenial and calm as if he were ordering lunch.

  21

  An hour later Jackson climbed aboard an idling Black Hawk on the tarmac at West Memphis airport. The helicopter was already stuffed with Rangers, and four others equally full were ready to go. Crawford climbed in behind him, taking the small, folding jump seat attached to the forward bulkhead that had been left open for him.

  “Let’s go.” He said over the intercom as soon as he pulled a headset on.

  In a coordinated ballet, the five helicopters lifted into the air and turned to the southwest, quickly accelerating as they climbed to 500 feet. Four Apaches flew cover at 1,500 feet, keeping an eye out for any Russians that might want to crash the party. One of the Rangers, a young Corporal, was fiddling with an iPod and nodding his head to whatever music he was listening to. Crawford looked around, found a spare intercom cable and after getting the Ranger’s attention handed it to him with a nod. The Corporal grinned, unplugged his headphones and inserted the cable into the jack. A moment later Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones blasted across the intercom, the pilot flipping a switch that also played it over speakers inside the cabin. Having expected rap, or anything other than a 50 year old song by The Stones, Crawford smiled an
d enjoyed being in the company of his soldiers.

  After he had shot the first man, the other three were so eager to talk they kept stumbling over their words. It turned out they weren’t really Sheriff’s deputies, but had taken the vehicles when the world fell apart. They were part of a white supremacist group that had settled in Arkansas a few years ago after having been run out of Kentucky. Their leader claimed to be related to Hitler and routinely preached that someday they would rise and join forces with all the other white men to rid their country of its racial stain.

  Until the attacks they’d been held in check by law enforcement to a degree, as well as the disdain of whatever community they found themselves in. They supported their quest by dealing drugs stolen from pharmacies, sometimes breaking in after closing time, but more often through violent, armed robberies. They stayed in touch with other fanatical organizations as well as outlaw motorcycle clubs, moving guns, drugs and underage prostitutes along the interstate system in the southeastern United States. All of them had done time in prison and were members of the Aryan Brotherhood.

  Now, after the apocalypse, they were two dozen heavily armed men living in an isolated compound on the edge of Arkansas rice country. Seeing the vacuum of authority, and taking it as an omen, their leader decided it was time to start cleansing the countryside of impure races. The first victims were blacks, taken to work as slaves in their fields and animal pens. If someone was too old, too young or too sick to work they executed them. With a good number of slaves, they had decided to branch out and start taking white women so they could start building the next generation of the master race. With none of them having an IQ greater than double digits, they all failed to see the flaw in that plan. But while they may not have been very smart, they were very dangerous.

  It was late afternoon, the flight of helicopters flying west into the sun. With help from the prisoners, Crawford and Jackson had located the compound, sending a Black Hawk on a reconnaissance flight to confirm. The pilot had flown at 12,000 feet, using the onboard imaging equipment to verify their target. The video stream had been beamed back to West Memphis, clearly showing three large structures, a barn, fields, and close to 40 people working out in the hot sun. Zoomed images identified the workers as black, heavily armed guards standing watch over them as they toiled.

  Crawford hadn’t even had to think about the decision to go get the captives. The government might be gone, but this was still the United States and he wasn’t about to let assholes like this get away with what they were doing. He had briefly wondered if he would have been as incensed if this was happening in another country, but dismissed the thought. Like most men who are drawn to the military, and especially any form of Special Operations, he had no tolerance for people who forced their will on others. These guys were about to find out what happens when you try to do that.

  The flight continued on to the west, past the target, turning and approaching from out of the sun. This wasn’t a military enemy that would have early warning radar or IR sensors, these were just a bunch of dumb white trash morons. The only tactical advantage Crawford needed was to not be seen until they started their attack runs.

  “Five minutes, Colonel,” The pilot spoke over the intercom, the music being silenced when he pressed the transmit button. Jackson waved at the Ranger and he unhooked the iPod and carefully wrapped it in a towel before storing it in his pack. He might be able to walk into any abandoned electronics store and pick up a replacement, but it wasn’t so easy to download music any longer.

  The Rangers busied themselves with a final check of their weapons. The five Black Hawks shifted into a pattern where they flew abreast of each other, spread out across half a mile of air space, Apaches setting up a five mile picket line around them. The helicopter Jackson was riding in had two door guns mounted, and both door gunners slid the side doors open, settled in behind their weapons and waited. They had thrown the attack plan together quickly, but it didn’t need to be complicated. Everyone knew what they were doing, and they knew the situation hadn’t changed, still getting a real time video feed from the Black Hawk that was orbiting at 12,000 feet.

  “Commencing run.” The pilot spoke, the vibration already increasing as they accelerated and dropped to 100 feet. Ahead, a large square plot of land, growing corn, was being worked by a dozen men and women. On each corner of the square, a man with a rifle stood guarding them. To the left, another field was being worked by close to 20 people, another four guards positioned to watch them. Beyond them, a few black men were working on some vehicles, being watched by a group of six armed white men that sat on chairs in the shade underneath a large Oak tree. There were supposed to be 20 Aryans and counting the four that had ambushed Rachel, they had accounted for 18 of them.

  “Weapons free.” Crawford spoke as they screamed towards the compound.

  The first shot of the battle was a hellfire missile targeted on the base of the tree where the six men sat. As it roared off its pylon, door gunners on all five Black Hawks opened up. The missile arrived before the first bullet, smashing into one of the men a fraction of a second before detonating against the trunk of the tree. The resulting explosion destroyed everything within a 30 yard radius, shattering the tree trunk and sending it toppling to the ground.

  There was a mix of miniguns and 7.62 mm machine guns mounted on the five aircraft, and as all of them opened up, the guards along the two fields were shredded. The ones struck by the machine gun fire had limbs blown off and holes blasted through their bodies. The ones hit by minigun fire mostly vaporized into a pinkish mist. In less than 20 seconds they had wiped out all of the guards that were visible. The people in the fields stood and stared up at the helicopters, some of them cheering as it was obvious they were being rescued.

  Jackson’s Black Hawk was the first to land on the hard packed dirt in front of the main house, the pilot coming in over the roof of the structure and dropping the final 30 feet to the ground. The door gunners scanned the area while Crawford, Jackson and the Rangers leapt out of the open doors and started spreading out. Jackson had argued with the Colonel, not wanting him to be on the ground until he and the soldiers had cleared the area, but Crawford overruled him.

  “You don’t lead from the safety of a hovering helicopter, Master Sergeant.” He’d responded, putting an end to the discussion.

  As soon as the last soldier exited the aircraft it roared back into the sky, two more landing and disgorging their loads. Directly ahead of Jackson was a large house that was in dire need of maintenance, the paint peeling so badly the wooden siding was warping away from the frame due to exposure to the elements. A sagging porch ran the length of the front of the house, its roof seemingly ready to collapse at the first strong breeze. Between them and the house were the vehicles the captive men had been working on, and Crawford and Jackson ran to them, the two Rangers Jackson had assigned to protect the Colonel staying close on their heels.

  The five men that had been pressed into mechanic duty had hit the dirt when the missile exploded and took out their guards. They were still lying on their bellies, two trucks and an ancient Buick sheltering them from the heat of the burning oak tree. Crawford skidded to a stop on his knees amongst them.

  “Gentlemen,” he greeted them with a nod. “How many of them are left, and where are they?”

  “There’s six of them in the house and two in the barn.” One of the younger men spoke up, pointing to the two locations as he named them. He was tall and looked like he was in good shape other than an eye that was swollen shut, a split lip and a large purplish bruise on his jaw. “And they’ve got eight women in the house and four in the barn. Haven’t been inside either building so I can’t tell you the layout.” The other men all nodded their heads in agreement.

  Crawford eyed the man for a moment, “You serve, son?”

  “Yes, sir. Lance Corporal James Lynch. Marine Corps. Afghanistan and Iraq.”

  “Good, Marine. Get these men out to the fields and get everyone rounded
up and down in the weeds. Don’t want any friendly casualties if we can help it.”

  Lynch grinned and staying low to the ground motioned the others to follow him as he headed out in a large arc that would get him to the fields without coming too close to any of the structures. Crawford glanced around to make sure all his troops were in place, nodding to himself in satisfaction when he saw they were. Three of the five Black Hawks had dropped Rangers in front of the structures, the other two unloading behind them.

  They had the remaining eight men surrounded. Six more than the prisoners had told him about. He wasn’t surprised. Fire from one of the upper windows of the house started up, bullets smashing into the ground around the men Crawford had just sent to safety. One of the Rangers who was using the Buick for cover and a shooting rest fired a single shot, silencing the sniper. Seven more to go.

  Jackson and Crawford had a brief conversation, then Jackson started relaying orders over the radio. All of the Rangers were already in place, and on a nod from the Colonel, Jackson transmitted the execute order. Covering fire immediately erupted all around the structures, more Rangers leaping to their feet and running towards their assigned buildings. They ran with their rifles up, spread into covering formations with each one aimed at a different window or door. Another sniper popped up in the barn, shooting through a small opening at the end of the loft, but his bullets didn’t find their target before the same Ranger at the Buick shot him through the throat.

  Crawford led the assault on the house, Jackson on the barn. They breached each structure within moments of each other, the Rangers on their heels spreading out as they entered each building. The Aryans didn’t surrender, and they didn’t survive very long. They had spent a lot of time “training”, but their training consisted of shooting rusting cans at the edge of one of the fields. Several of them got shots off, none of those finding their mark before they were killed. In less than a minute the assault was over, all of the captors dead or dying of multiple gunshot wounds.