Reinke Faces Life

It happened in Church - Chapter Eighty One – Ant tiss a pation

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It happened in Church - October 19, 1962
Chapter Eighty One – Ant tiss a pation

Wednesday Nov 21 (begins)

Underground Boredom

The code from the CB woke Roy from his drowse. It was hard to be alone; it was harder to sit patiently and wait. He fired up his rosary and prayed he would not hear any thing. He was most afraid the radio would chirp “zita”. Then he’d blow. He really wanted to blow when the Bravo Golfs were exercising their perverse endeavor. But, he was blind. So he’d have to settle for luck. Tomorrow! It was going to be a long prayerful dark ‘day’ for him. Babysitting a pair of live bombs!

+++++

June speeds

Yesterday ten recoveries. Ten this morning. Return to the school after lunch? Pack, compact, and stuff to the gills. She spoke to five team leaders and urged them to move things along. “Don’t forget what happened to Aunt Gertrude!”

She shared her thoughts with John. “Get back to the school and get organized for the last push.

There really was reason to hurry Thursday night they’d be in Vermont!

+++++

Brian muses

Brian awoke from his fitful sleep. He was having nightmares. Maybe he was wrong and they should just stay put and await rescue.

He was totally convinced that the trip would lead to a disaster.

He looked at June’s carefully stitched gang colors. Boxes of them. Once for every person, like she’d give Roy. And one for every vehicle. He loved the girl for trying but it would be fruitless.

Besides what if the colors had changed?

He pulled himself together and went for a shower, clean clothes, and hot chow.

It wasn’t like there was anything he could do to avoid his, their, fate!

+++++

John confers

After the usual routine of babies and breakfast, John had the leadership at the final Mobile Site convened. “As I see it: Brother Kevin University, Jody Tolentine, Sam BGHQ, Alyssa 145, Marie 207, June Mobile, and Brian School. Comments?”

June piped right up. “Brian has a problem and so do we. He has to load and has little help. We’ll be finished here at lunch time and be bored. I’d suggest that we go help him. With any luck, we might even be able to condense the Guest’s loot with the Classmate’s Treasures into one truck.”

With that there was a loud boom.

John thought: ‘Was that Zita? Was Roy discovered? Were things finally going to hit that proverbial fan?”

+++++

Signal Wall

The Colonel again today nodded to his adjutant. Out went the order.

Again at two opposite ends of the base of the state, three Regiments began to move.

The Western one was sprinting towards the Hudson where the their fellow brother Regiment aka “western firewall’ held the ground to speed them along, left turn, and a southern run. It was the long hook to fall in behind the children.

The Eastern one again right down the interstate. Under the cover and watchful eyes of their brother Regiment aka “eastern firewall”. They were the “short hook” that was going to “fall into” line in front of the children.

The Fighting First, abetted by some First Sergeants with grudges to settle, jumped off from Pownal in the center of the State’s southern border. It was about 400 men to quietly circle around the left of Pittsfield and 400 quietly the right. With crisp efficiency, they moved.

Then came the noisy 100. The stopper being banged into the bottle. They made no effort to cover or hide. They were itching for a fight. And, were ‘noisy’ about it. Heck, they shot trees and blew up outhouses just for practice.

Local phones and CB radios passed the word that trouble was a coming fast. And, in some cases, it had arrived. After calling, some Massholes decided that target practice was in order. Did they get a surprise! The Rules of Engagement were if fired on, nuke ‘em. In past missions, the Vermont troops were restrained to some very restrictive rules. They had to know who they were returning fire on and that there was no ‘collateral damage’. Now, the rule book was back at the base. And it was payback time for the abortive raid on Keane and the southern Vermont villages, towns, and farms. The troops took some wounds, but no KIAs. It was nice of the Opp For to self-identify. Amazing what a mortar round can do to a house. That word spread even quicker. Massholes were an endangered species today. They dispersed like a roach herd when a kitchen light is flicked on.

Unfortunately for them, there were encircled. By running ‘away’, they ran into the awaiting ambushes of the encircled troops. No mercy. No thought of it. These were the folks who’d been robbing, raping, and killing for the better part of six weeks. And, they were criminals before that.

Sporadic firefights broke out. However, if they weren’t over in minutes. The VTAF would run a gunship over and finish things very quickly.

The Massholes discovered that by disarming and moving East, they could escape slaughter. Unarmed walking east, free to go. Armed or motorized, drew fire.

Pittsfield was a ghost town by Noon.

The Regiment walked it to be sure. Not a shot was fired. The innocents who’d been terrorized came out to parlay. They were afraid that the troops were pulling back. They were assured there would be a new sheriff in town in the morning. Friday latest. And don’t be shocked if it was a red man. Most folks felt any lawman was a welcome addition. Whatever color.

Now the Colonel just had to wait for the results to come in.

“Adjutant, call the Pequot embassy and ask Jill if they have their sheriffs ready. Or whatever they are calling them.” “Will do, sir”

+++++

Guv sends

The book came out. A message was encrypted. “Old friend, I hate to do this but you’ve lost half your domain. The Injuns got it. They promised law and order. My advise is to accept change and enjoy what you have.” Another message was encrypted: “brother mine, time to come home. advise, thetroops are in the fields, take care.” The new loop player had the messages and they went out continuously. He’d listen at the appointed time for responses.

+++++

The Old Man is Snoring

John’s meeting was interrupted not by Roy’s premature bomb, but the mother of all thunderstorms.

It had been many days of clear, beautiful dry weather. Mother Nature had a surprise for them. It was like the heavens had opened up.

The streets were like rivers. What about Roy?

“Little Goose, call the mole and ask if he’s dry.” “10-4 boss”

John picked up his speech: “Guess it could be worse; it could be snow. Now where were we?”

Everyone was “enjoying” the storm. A reminder of the fact that there were much more powerful forces in the world.

June resumed: “Well I guess we’ll need rainwear now. I was saying that we should return to the school when the recovery finishes. We can organize for tonight’s activities — the rescue teams, I would think, would leave at dark. The depot teams as well. We can help Brian get organized and loaded.”

John continued: “Not to mention showers and hot food. A good night’s sleep. Brother Kevin and Jody will be out first at dark. Marie and Alyssa next to theirrespective depots. Finally, Sam’s assault teams. The balance of the folks out at early to load and standby. Roy blows the market. Sam destroys the BGHQ. Alyssa steals the trucks. We swing by and get Sam and Roy. Pick up Marie at the depot. Jody at Tolentine. Brother Kevin at the University. And, we’re in Vermont tomorrow night safe and sound.”

Everyone was very quiet. Said like this, they could all see so many things going wrong.

“Marie, what about driving teams?”

Marie had worked out the driving teams, but it was messy with everyone running around doing ’stuff’. “We have the following Convoy layout.”

*** begin quote ***

Scout1 - VW - BK takes over driving when Sam picks him up with Ava(8) Kayla (8) Morgan (8)

Scout2 - BreadTruck - Roy (from the Subway) & Jody with some others.

‘Classmates Treasure’ - Truck - DT#6 David(6) Olivia(5) Emily(5) led by Dylan(7) w Matthew(8)

“Guests Loot”- DT#1 - Sarah(6) [Zachary(5)] William(4) led by Tyler(7)

Insulin1 - Truck - DT#7 Brandon(6) Justin(5) Alexis(4) led by Destiny(7) w Joshua(8)

Insulin2 - Truck - DT#8 Adam(6) Grace(5) Abigail(4) led by Daniel(7) w Andrew(8)

Insulin3 - Truck - DT#9 Anthony(5) Ella(5) Sean(5) by Isabella(6) w Sten(8)

Fuel - Truck - DT#5 James(6) Richard(5) Jonathan(4) led by Joseph(7) w Michael(8)

Food#1 - Truck - DT#4 Jude(6) RyanR(5) Kyle(4) led by Nicholas(7) w Kaitlyn (8)

Food#2 - Truck - Blind Man DaveDuBois & Julia(6) as “eyes”

Bus#1 - Marie

Bus#2 - June driven by DT#3 Robert (4) and Taylor(7)

School Antibiotic - Driven by One Guest driver from Alyssa’s crew

Twelve ‘145′ Trucks — Alyssa and the eleven Guests

Rear#1 - Bread Truck#2 - Brian

Rear#2 - 57Ford - John driving Linda(7), Lisa(7)

*** end quote ***

“That’s all we got. Sorry. Unless there is some magic pindles, we are full up. I’m planning to leave the 207th depot when June arrives and take the Second Bus to pickup at the Dyckman Subway stop.”

“We only have twelve radios — four in the front and rear, eight sprinkled in the convoy. If there is a dispersal, they’ll have no communications. No recall. No knowledge of what is happening. We’ll go over the alternate left and right scramble, but with this many trucks there may no be enough escape routes.”

The peanut butter was very thin!

John concluded: “Marie, fine work. Would you be so kind as to send that out over the air for Roy, Brian, and our friends in Vermont.”

+++++

Intercept

The baby monitor repeated the bell ring. The Colonel could hear the hubbub. Clearly, he have preferred to hear nothing until the Children were in the barn.

John Junior knocked and entered in on feel swoop. “Message traffic from the NH Guv to his two assets. No real value, except that it does indicate that things are over.”

The Colonel read the messages over and over. Was there value either militarily or politically here? Over and over.

The bell rang again.

Pa D arrived: “The Children’s Order of March. They’ve got drugs galore.” Handing the Colonel the hand written list from the decoder, he said: “You should have asked them to bring the city. They’d have figured out a way to do it. They figured out how to double the convoy size.”

The Colonel had to admit these kids were impressive. He thought: ‘Can they actually pull this off?”

+++++

In the dark

Roy heard the thunderstorm above. The drains filled with rushing water. Other than it being damp and humid, he was in no danger. He moved things to “higher ground”. There were niches in the tunnel for unknown to him reasons that were like small rooms open to the tunnel. He moved his camp up to and in one close to the grate and his bombs.

Since he had to move stuff anyway, he assembled his Molotov cocktails off to one side of the grate. If he needed a diversion, he’d break a bottle near them, ignite the railroad flare, toss, and run. He was hoping that the other NINE bottles would explode and give him a firestorm. He knew that Brother Kevin had added two Styrofoam cups to each bottle before the gas was put in. Roy thought it had something to do with napalm, but he never asked. At the time, he didn’t care. Now he cared. Would it give him that small edge?

He heard the routine traffic of the Classmates on the CB. It reassured him that the time was nearing. He continued his never ending prayer for forgiveness.

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