Dan And The Bottle Ch 20

Okay, folks, first, I want to thank you for bearing with me.... health issues forced me to put this on hold for a few weeks, but I'm doing the best that I can to catch up. As promised, I'm adding some new areas, and new people, and bringing some old ones back around. I hope you enjoy the show.

Oh, as usual, I have kept the left wing nonsense to a minimum, and as I have noted numerous times in the past, I am a Constitutional conservative libertarian; if you don't understand that, or object to my views, don't whine to me about it. I couldn't care less.

*

Far away, in London, England, a Djinn was smiling. He'd just looked in, unannounced and unseen, on the ancestors of one of his old, and favorite, masters, and was happy to see that they were thriving without outside help.

He'd given them a few small nudges, over the fifteen-odd decades since their ancestor had released him from service... and done so early, no less.

None had been very big... small increases in their crop yields, when they were in danger of running short on food, a small bit of insight when one of their scientists had been stuck on a problem with much needed medicines, an urge to go in a certain direction, leading one of their number to caches of necessary parts for a piece of farm equipment; for the most part, though, he had left them to their own devices.

This time, though, he had been inclined to intervene. One of the Chinese invaders of their land had been on the verge of finding their hidden city.

It hadn't taken much effort on his part; a poorly fitted fuel line, a small spark, and the Chinese helicopter had exploded in a fireball that startled the men who had just been exiting the Cave. The Chinese copy of the Russian 'Hind' crashed to the earth, a mere four miles from the huge doorway through which their aircraft and heavy armor exited the complex.

The ensuing secondary explosions, from the assorted munitions carried by the big helicopter, had been spectacular to behold.

John McCarthy would wonder what had brought the big chopper down, though, until the end of his days.

He and his squad got to the crash site in a little under an hour, finding only a burned out shell. They merely shrugged and continued on their patrol.

The Chinese crew, on the other hand, took careful note of the directions the Americans had come from, and which direction they went. All of them had, by some miracle, managed to jump free of the craft when the fire had started.

That, too, was the Djinn's doing; he was, after all, forbidden from physically harming them. They began to backtrack the Americans to their hidden base...

But the Americans were well ahead of them, and had been re-seeding the area around the hidden entrance six or seven times a month, for the past decades since they had first exited their hidden complex, keeping it carefully covered to hide it from prying eyes.

Seth Jones, in Northern Kentucky, sat in his kitchen, going over the list of people he could count on. It wasn't very long, considering the sparse population in the area. He needed more people if he was going to start up a militia unit of his own. Harry, Jim, Sonny, Ed, and a few others, he knew he could count on.... most of the people in the area, though, worked from dawn til well after nightfall, just to feed themselves.

Aside from that, ammunition was always in short supply; much of what Was available was earmarked for hunting. The .308 rounds he'd gotten from that trader a few weeks ago, he knew, might have to last a Very Long Time. He had another four hundred rounds, for the AK he'd taken off a dead Cuban, and they had the small stash they'd taken earlier in the year, when they'd hit the camp the kids had been taken to, but even that wouldn't last forever.

Harry showed up, while he was thinking it over, bringing with him a huge jug of apple juice. He grabbed two glasses from the drain board by the sink, poured two fingers of 'shine into each glass, topped them each with apple juice, and set one in front of Seth as he took the seat opposite the younger man.

"Seth... something on your mind?"

The younger man nodded. "Harry, let me ask you something.... how long are we gonna put up with this crap?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well... these damned Cubans, that's what I mean. How long are we gonna let them push us around?"

"We didn't do too bad, when they took the kids."

"I know... and that's my point. We could be doin' a whole bunch more. They should never have been able to take them kids in the first place."

"Dangerous talk, Seth... could get us killed."

"Well, just sittin' here on our hands is gettin' us nowhere fast.... we need to get organized, get some folks together and start takin' those bastards out. I was talkin' to a trader the other day..."

"Huh? When did a trader come through here?"

"A few days ago. Didn't have much o' nothin', and I think I got the best of what he had. He was talkin' about a 'United States Militia', operatin' west of here.... around Montana and Wyoming. Said they're givin' the Chinese fits."

"What did he have, other than news?"

"I got two hundred rounds of .308 and four of these here Ranger manuals off of him... he said they were good training manuals. Ain't seen nothin' in 'em I didn't already know, for the most part.... most of it is just plain ol' common sense."

"Ok, so... you want to start recruitin', build up a proper sized militia of our own?"

Seth nodded. "If we can just get twenty, maybe twenty five people together to start with, we could build from there.... if we can get on to one of their bases, get a few truckloads of guns and ammo, that sorta shit, we could equip everyone proper-like, plus have stuff left over."

"Now, you know damn well that won't be easy."

"No, it won't... but it'll be the last thing they'll expect... that means we'll have a little advantage, right there."

Both men smiled at the prospect. They talked long into the night about the idea, fine tuning it to a fare-thee-well. Now if only they could get enough people together to pull it off...

Don Anderson sat back in the truck, the first of four that were headed back to the base they'd recently taken back from the Communist Chinese. The truck he was riding in, and the two behind it, were loaded with the people from the new militia base to the north, mostly, the locals that had been undergoing training there, along with the Doctors and technicians from the Wyoming base that had come to start up the hospital at his own new base. The last truck was loaded down with their equipment, including several portable X-ray machines and an MRI scanner.

His driver was one of the men he had met the first day that the Wyoming people had shown up, Greg Collingsworth. He had agreed to come down with them to start a driver's training class. He was also a pretty fair sniper in his own right, so he would be training one class a week in that, too. His own training had come from Jeff O'Neil, who was also training some of the new people.

There were at least a dozen other snipers at the new base they'd just left, and all were training new people, recruited from a dozen different villages and small towns in the area. This would prove important, as they'd discovered another Chinese camp, west of the base that Don and his people had already taken. This one was more than a bit on the crude side, as the Chinese were basically sleeping in tents; the only permanent structures, so far, were the few warehouses where they stored munitions.

Gene Dickinson sat back behind his desk, nearly exhausted from the day's activities. He'd come down with George Klein to train some of the California troops as scouts; he hadn't realized how many people they had. His current class was over fifty people, and his old teacher, George, had taken on nearly twice as many. He understood the urgency, but still, he longed for the day when he was only training a few squads at a time.

Mike O'Connell sat back in the living room of his ranch, waiting for a few of his friends to show up. They had been mostly silent since the day they'd killed the Cubans who had tried to raid Jake Steven's ranch, but most agreed that the time for silence was over. They had decided to get together to discuss who they could approach about forming their own militia. They'd even settled on a name.... the Lone Star Guard. Now they just had to figure out who they could trust.

Their fears were not unwarranted; out here in the country, there wasn't so much of a problem, but some of the larger cities were known for having more liberal attitudes, and the people there were known--some of them, anyway--for working hand-in-glove with the Cubans.

Personally, he thought that anyone who would sell out his country, no matter what price he was offered, should be horsewhipped and then dragged through town by a wild horse.

Frank McGuire, the Lieutenant left in charge of the small militia contingent in Sturgis, South Dakota, looked over the reports carefully. The Chinese from a base somewhere nearby were constantly probing; the only thing keeping them at bay were the new 'electric rifles' that his people were equipped with. When bodies of your troops were constantly turning up, dumped outside of town, with holes literally burned through their chests, it was a situation guaranteed to give any commander pause.

He called for his scouts, and when Jeff Gelder showed up, they sat down with coffee and started going over maps of the area, trying to figure out where the Chinese were coming from.

Jeff examined the map, pointing out that they might have come from the north, or the east, but there was little chance of them coming from the west, given the fact that much of the western area was firmly under Militia control. Still, he'd have his trackers watching for sign in all directions, just in case. If they could backtrack the next group attacking them, and find their camp, they could find out what, exactly, they were dealing with.

"What about the south? How are you sure they're not coming from that direction?"

"They never show up at the southern border... they're always coming from either the north or the east. The west, we've already covered. We can't rule it out entirely, of course, but it's a pretty safe bet."

Frank nodded. "Ok, well.... keep an eye on the situation, do what you can. Is there anything we can do, that we don't have in place?"

Gelder nodded. "We need more electronic surveillance in those areas.... motion activated cameras, night vision capable, preferably, feeding to monitors in one location that we can have a team watching around the clock. Maybe a rapid response team, ready to go the minute the sensors are tripped. If we could catch a few of these punks alive, force them to lead us back to their camp, we could have this mess wrapped up in a few days."

"What about aerial surveillance?"

Gelder thought it over for a minute, but shook his head. "We don't want to tip them off that we're looking for them. Better off staying on the ground, unless it's a last resort. We don't want them figuring it out and pulling up stakes, moving the camp while we're putting together the operation to take them out."

Frank nodded, but he was frowning. "Maybe we should go in the other direction?"

At Jeff's raised eyebrow, he continued. "We start regular air patrols in those areas, frighten them into flight, flush them into the open, and wipe them out in one quick move."

Jeff stroked his chin in thought, nodding. "Interesting thought. Not just yet, though.... we'll keep it as an option, just in case..... for now, let's get the cameras and motion detectors up and running, see what pops up."

"Well," Frank replied, "for the time being, it's business as usual.... we continue with the training, keep working on the upgrades, consolidate the locals in one area... we've got a lot of work to do."

Jeff nodded. He knew there were still at least five hundred people who couldn't hit a barn door if they were standing inside it, and that was being generous. Getting them properly trained was a chore he wasn't looking forward to.

Herb Montgomery sat in his office, going over reports of the latest operations. His people were doing well, taking out small Chinese camps almost as fast as they were finding them. They'd hit four in the past two months, and though they'd lost some people, they were killing at least eight or ten of the soldiers for every man they lost. He attributed this disparity to the rigorous training his troops were getting from their allies, and the superior firepower they were now hooked up with. He came to a particular report and smiled... it was an inventory sheet, listing the latest additions to his inventory.... a full sized tanker of av-gas, and another of diesel fuel, enough to fill the tanks at the Jackson hole base to the top with some to spare. He ordered the spare gas be loaded into the small tanker they refueled planes from, and the extra diesel into the five Abrams tanks and five Bradley fighting vehicles they had gotten in the past few weeks.

His complement of personnel was growing at a satisfactory rate, as well... once word got out that his people were accepting volunteers, new people from the surrounding countryside were showing up on an almost daily basis.

This, in itself, was proving problematic; even with the additional M-16s he'd gotten from the Militia, and the numerous AK-47s they were capturing from dead Chinese, there just weren't enough to go around.

Jim Archer looked over the map with a smile of satisfaction; the American Militia now had at least twelve major bases, and twice as many smaller camps, stretching from northern California to South Dakota, and were continuing to expand at a geometric rate. For the first time, they were actually starting to run low on rifles and ammunition. He would have to get some more of his people out, checking some of the recaptured American bases for more of the underground stashes that the old US Military had been so fond of. He had their own machine shops producing them, of course, and several others, besides, but supply just wasn't keeping up with demand.

The new 'electric rifles' were coming in handy, as well... although there were barely enough, currently, to deploy ten of these to a platoon, and construction of these were even more limited than the M-16s. Aircraft and armor were in equally short supply; while they hadn't actually lost any, so far, he knew it was only a matter of time. Repairing damaged aircraft and a few of the older tanks seemed to take forever.

They were also limited, currently, in personnel. Even with as many 'veterans' as they had, training a new platoon of recruits took months, and time was a luxury in very short supply.

A knock on his office door brought him out of his reverie, and he looked up to see Carl Walton.

"Sir, we just had a Chinese chopper crash about four miles from here..."

"Oh? What caused the crash? Did one of ours bring it down?"

"No, sir... that's the weird part. It appears to have just burst into a fireball all by itself. We don't know what happened."

"Odd. Well, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. What happened to the crew?"

"Not sure, Sir... by the time our people found the crash site, they were nowhere to be found. No remains in the wreck, so we don't think they died in the crash. They may have jumped free, and by some miracle survived the landing.... the ground in that area is pretty soft. I'm worried that they might be in this area, looking for us, Sir. I'm thinking we should go to a medium alert.... increase the electronic surveillance in the areas closest to the Cave entrances and send out a few extra patrols, just in case."

Archer nodded, frowning, and reached for the phone.

One of the cameras on the hilltop was the first to pick them up; not hard, considering the burnt-mustard colored uniforms they were wearing. On the opposite side of the hill, a concealed door opened, and six men in Ghillie suits slipped out. They split into two teams of three men each and quietly made their way around the hill from opposite sides. Making their way around the low hill, slowly, in a leapfrog pattern, both teams were soon in sight of the Chinese. Six silenced rifles spoke at once. Three Chinese crewman-pilots dropped in their tracks, never seeing the men who shot them.

Frank Bergen was, once again, busier than a man with three wives.

He knew that at least four of the new bases were crying for more rifles, and more ammunition. The ammo wasn't the problem; they never seemed to run out, or even to run low, a situation he never had been able to figure out.

Rifles, on the other hand, were a different story. The armory was scraping the bottom of the barrel, there, and even with the ramped up production, they were consistently behind. He sat down with a map, the GPS co-ordinates of eight of the new bases, and inventory lists for each, and was startled to find that six of the eight had never been checked out for underground storage.

'Well', he thought.... 'time to remedy that situation right now.'

Checking over the listings again, he found that three of the bases had Abrams tanks onsite, and two more had good sized bulldozers. In twenty minutes, he was airborne, with several of his best heavy equipment operators and tank drivers along.

The old Bell Huey they were riding in was surrounded by Cobra and Apache helicopters, as well as three F 16s and two Hawker Harriers. Behind them was a Chinook loaded with five big air compressors, half a dozen empty air tanks, and an assortment of hoses... just in case. The Huey they rode in was not without defenses of its own, either.... in each door was a post mounted M2 Browning, and recently added 'wing' pods carried three Sidewinder missiles on either side. He would take no chances with his people; he'd already lost too many.

Rick Jamison was out on the training grounds, running around the track with a new class of recruits. He had started doing this three months ago, running one circuit of the half mile oval every day, and was now up to five laps a day. He found that he enjoyed the better endurance he was feeling, and he'd already lost about thirteen pounds as a result. He also joined them for calisthenics three days a week, and was feeling stronger... and gaining in respect, both from his original crew and the new recruits. His daily regimen also included an hour at the rifle and pistol ranges, and he was, once again, gaining a reputation as a crack shot.

He knew they had at least two new operations coming up, and while he would, in all likelihood, be staying well back, running the operations over the radio, there was still no reason for him to be so out of shape that he couldn't participate, should the need arise.

Mike O'Connell sat back in his living room, speaking in low tones with half a dozen of the local ranch owners about what they were planning. He knew what they were planning was dangerous, but sitting on their hands, waiting for the Cubans to make the next move was far worse. He outlined what he had in mind, and while a few of the men he had called together frowned at his ideas, others were, at worst, thoughtful about his ideas.

It was Jake Stevens who finally spoke up.

"Damn, Mike.... you're ambitious, I'll give ya that. Problem is, we don't have enough guns.... all we have is, what? Six of those AKs we took off the dead Cubans last week, plus maybe thirty more from your private stash? That ain't near enough to take on a whole camp full o' Cubans.... and they've got the garrison in town, plus that camp twelve miles north of us, and another one, about twenty miles east o'here. Even if we did have the guns, we don't have near enough people to use 'em!"

"I know, Jake.... I know. We have to start gettin' organized, though. Do you want to just sit around, waiting on the next bunch to turn up at your ranch? We only won that last one, last week, because the rest of us were already here, talking about trading with the other farms in the area. You might not get so lucky, the next time. We need to get about forty, fifty people together, start some serious training."