Pappy’s Plan

Pappy rested his back against a tree as Manny and his communications specialist removed their gear from the boat.  Manny leaned his pack against a tree near Pappy as a formation of five fighter jets swooshed by low over the treetops.

“A second run?” Manny was incredulous.

Once again, the five planes dropped their payload in the area of the swamp where the three men had most recently lived.  Once again, the river washed in to fill the hole created by men and their machines.

When the rumbling of the explosions died down, Pappy chuckled, “Yup, ‘pears so.  A second run just for us.”

The men shook their heads as they sorted through their gear.  The big radio and encryption/decryption gear would go no further.  It was too heavy and bulky to carry.  Sealed in water-tight cases, the gear was cached in a vault buried at this high point in the swamp.

Once the radio equipment was stashed, the three men consulted a map.  Manny took a reading with a compass and then the three of them shouldered their packs and weapons and set off toward the northwest.

Roughly a half mile away, at another high point in the swamp, Pitcher, his mother and his sister went through a similar procedure.  Heavy equipment was stashed.  A map was consulted.  Pitcher took a compass reading and the three set off toward the same point as Manny and Pappy.

Back at Ft. Benning, General Wei and General Watanabe were celebrating.  The pilots had reported back that the American’s camp was completely annihilated – nothing left but a smoldering patch of ground quickly filling with river water.

“Chalk up a big win for us,” Wei raised a glass of baijiu.

The two generals clinked their glasses together and then sat in silence for a few moments savoring the brandy-like liquor.

“What of your captured scout?” Watanabe wondered.

“He has received his just reward for being captured,” Wei’s mood turned dark as quickly as his spirits had risen only moments before.

Watanabe leaned back in his chair and eyed his counterpart carefully.  He knew Wei held his position largely due to his family’s place in Chinese society, but he was surprised at the absolute lack of any empathy for a soldier lost.  Deciding that it was better to remain silent, Watanabe tipped his glass again and relished the warmth of the baijiu as it slid down his throat.

Wei tossed back his brandy and poured another for himself not even bothering to offer to refill Watanabe’s glass.  Like Watanabe, Wei knew a thing or two about his counterpart.  He knew that Watanabe’s family had emigrated from Japan some time after the end of the war to end all wars.

Wei snickered at the thought of a war to end all wars.

Watanabe looked up from his drink, a question in his eyes.

“To war,” Wei raised his glass again.

Watanabe raised his as well … with far less gusto.

Pitcher’s mother was struggling.  She was not used to carrying a backpack and the terrain was beyond difficult.  Her hips ached and the harness was rubbing raw spots on her shoulders.  Pitcher had offered to carry her pack but she had refused.  Their progress was measured in feet and yards as they weaved their way through the swamp.

Several miles away, Pappy and the two Rangers by his side were making much better headway toward their eventual destination.  Pappy was nearly 70 years old but he was still strong and nimble.  The two Rangers carried the bulk of the load evening the field even more.

The radioman had his chin tucked into his chest and his shoulders pushed forward into the straps of his pack as he carried a portable radio in addition to the rest of his gear.  Manny carried most of the three men’s food and cooking gear as well as a hand-held radio formerly owned by one late Chinese scout.

“You have a spot in mind for camp tonight, Pappy?” Manny asked.  “Or are we just going to keep moving?”

“We’ll settle in for the night,” Pappy replied.  “We don’t want to use lights and the swamp ain’t no place to be stumblin’ around in the dark.”

Unfamiliar with the swamp, Manny and his cohort quickly agreed.

“How do you reckon they found us so quick?” Pappy addressed the question to Manny.

“They probably had some sort of tracking device on the scout,” Manny replied.  “Jerry went through his radio while we were on the boat and couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary so I don’t think the device was in his radio.”

“I sort of wondered about that,” Pappy seemed relieved.  “You got any ideas for gettin’ us those whirlybirds?”

“I’d imagine they’re based at the Lawson Airfield on Ft. Benning,” Manny began.  “All of us Rangers know that place like the back of our hands.  Once we get a read on their exact locations and troop strength, we can come up with something more concrete, but the basics will probably involve surprise and the cover of darkness.”

Pappy rubbed his hands together, “If we could add just one of those ‘copters to the stash we already have up in the Chattahoochee Forest ….”

“That means we’re either going through, over or around Atlanta, right?” Jerry asked.

“Ayup, that’s right, son,” Pappy agreed.

“One Blackhawk won’t carry all of us and our gear,” Jerry was solemn.

“We got us a couple smaller stashes with vehicles along the way,” Pappy reassured the comms specialist.  “Might not need all of us to go after those choppers either.”

Manny and Jerry looked at one another and then fell silent, deep in thought.

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Scout Tracker

General Wei Tsu Tin finished pulling on his dry socks as one of his soldiers ran up and saluted.  Wei returned the salute as the soldier reported.

“Sir, we have the tracking device up and running.”

“Good,” Wei replied.  “Where are the scouts?”

“They seem to have separated, sir,” the soldier reported.  “One is about four kilometers due south.  The other is approximately five kilometers southeast of the first.”

Wei was puzzled.  He was not an expert in scouting maneuvers but he assumed that it was rare for two scouts to work so far apart.

“Are they moving?” Wei asked.

“Neither one has moved since we fired up the receiver a little more than five minutes ago,” the solider replied.

That puzzled Wei even more.  Unless … unless they were dead.

Wei swore bitterly – a rarity for PLA generals.  Protocol demanded that the general stand head and shoulders above his troops in all ways, including his use of language and demonstration of emotion.  The reporting soldier pretended not to have heard.

“I want two squads to go in after the scouts,” Wei ordered.  “Locate the bodies ….”  Wei paused.  “Locate the scouts and return with a report.  Do not engage the Americans if at all possible.”

“Yes, sir!” The soldier saluted again and turned on his heel to do his general’s bidding.

Wei laced up his boots alone with his thoughts.  The Americans had proven themselves challenging adversaries time and again.  This time appeared to be no different.  Wei realized that he needed a difference-maker … a force multiplier … something to give him an edge.

Lost in thought, Wei didn’t notice as his radio operator approached.

The communication specialist stopped a few feet from Wei, giving him a moment to return from his reverie, and then saluted.  Wei returned the salute without standing.

“What is it sergeant?” Wei demanded.

“Sir, there’s a call for you on the radio,” the comms guy was obviously nervous.

Wei took the handset from the man.  “Wei here.”

“General Wei,” the transmission was laced with background static but clearly discernible, “this is General Watanabe of the PLAAF.  I understand that you are pursuing some American rebels in the Okefenokee Swamp.”

“That is correct,” Wei replied.

“I am the commander of the third air wing,” General Watanabe continued.  “My orders are to support you in your mission any way possible.”

Wei’s face lit up like a lantern.

“Much appreciated, General Watanabe,” Wei replied.  “Where are you located?”

“My squadron is currently marshaled at Ft. Benning, approximately 320 kilometers, by air, from the north end of the swamp,” General Watanabe responded.

“What equipment do you have at your disposal?” Wei went on.

“We currently have eight Xian JH-7 fighter-bombers and two Shannxi Y-8 transports at our disposal,” Watanabe outlined his squadron’s capabilities.

“Excellent,” Wei rubbed his free hand on his cheek and then wrinkled his nose at the remaining smell from his damp socks.  “We are working to locate the American headquarters.  Once we have done so, may I reach you on this channel for further planning and tactics?”

“Certainly,” Watanabe replied.  “We will staff this channel twenty-four hours a day until we hear from you.”

“Copy that,” Wei tried to sound as much like a military commander as possible.  “Wei out.”

“Watanabe out,” the other general closed the connection.

General Wei stood and looked down at the radioman.  “Tell the colonel to get those recon squads moving now!”

“Yes, sir!”  The communications specialist saluted and double-timed back to the main group a few yards away.

Roughly eight kilometers away, as the crow flies, Manuel Colón was finishing up a friendly conversation with the surviving U.N. scout.

“Stay here,” Manny instructed the scout.  “I’ll see if I can get you something to eat.”

The scout’s eyes lit up.  Even though they were well supplied back at the FEMA camp, food had been in short supply during their foray into the swamp.

“Thank you,” the scout replied as he decided that perhaps the Americans weren’t as bad as they’d been made out to be.

Manny hustled back to Pappy’s cabin where Pappy and a half-dozen other men, many years his junior, sat on the porch.

Manny pulled up a rickety wooden chair with a woven cane seat.  The seat sagged and the chair groaned in protest under Manny’s 165 pounds.  The group of men stopped talking as Manny sat down.

“They have a pretty sizable force already here in the swamp,” Manny began.  “He’s not sure how far away they are because he lost his bearings a bit as Pitcher brought him here.”

Heads turned to look at Pitcher.

“Hey, I was jut trying to maintain opsec,” Pitcher turned his palms upward and shrugged his shoulders.

The group of men chuckled.

“Based on what the guy said,” Manny continued, “I’d put them within six to ten miles away on a straight line.”

“That gives us some time even if they’re already on the move,” Pappy stroked his beard thoughtfully.

“My guess, based on what I found out, is that they’re waiting for the scouts to return before they make a move,” Manny replied.

“With that said,” Pitcher tried to redeem himself, “if the scouts don’t return as planned, they’ll either send out a smaller group of troops to find them or the whole bunch will come crashing through the swamp looking for us.”

“True enough,” Pappy spat tobacco juice off the porch and into the dirt near the steps.  “Either way, we best be getting ourselves prepared.”

Handy Manny

Pitcher struggled under the weight of the man on his back.  The man was not large, but navigating the swamp was no easy task to begin with.  As he stumbled over an exposed root, Pitcher swore dispassionately.  The man on his back stirred and began to fight against Pitcher’s grip.  Pitcher had bound the man’s wrists and ankles with vines.  He wasn’t going anywhere, but he could make a lot of noise if not silenced.

Dropping the Chinese soldier roughly on the ground, Pitcher reached into the cargo pocket of his pants and pulled out a small metal box the size of an Altoids tin.  The box was wrapped in duct tape.  Pitcher peeled a length of duct tape from the box and secured it over the smaller man’s mouth.  The man’s eyes fluttered as he began to regain full consciousness.  Pitcher put his index finger to his lips signaling to the man that he should remain silent.

The U.N. scout’s eyes grew even wider as he took in Pitcher still covered in mud and swamp slime.  Pitcher slapped the man lightly on the cheek to focus his attention.  He then pointed at the muzzle of the man’s rifle and then to the man’s forehead with his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a pistol.  Pitcher pulled his hand back slightly and let his thumb fall like the hammer of a revolver.  The U.N. soldier got the picture.

There was no reason to continue to carry the Chinese solider now that he was conscious Pitcher decided.  He reached down and quickly slipped his folding knife from his right-front pants pocket.  The blackened blade of the Benchmade Presidio flicked open with an ominous automatic click.  The scout began to squirm.  His eyes went wide again.

“Not yet,” Pitcher chuckled as he slipped the razor-sharp blade between the man’s ankles and cut the vines holding them together.

Relief flooded the scout’s face as he realized that his time had not yet come.

“Up,” Pitcher commanded as he motioned with his left hand, the scout’s rifle held steady on the man’s chest.

The Chinese soldier struggled to his feet without the use of his hands and looked at Pitcher with questioning eyes.  Pitcher once again motioned with his left hand while holding the rifle in his right.  The motion was made with a flat, bladed hand held vertically.  Pitcher’s arm chopped forward at the elbow signaling the direction.

“Move,” Pitcher growled.

The smaller man nodded his head and began to walk in the direction that Pitcher had motioned.  The two picked their way slowly through the swamp.  From time to time, Pitcher would nudge the man in a new direction.  As they navigated the difficult terrain, the scout made mental notes … just in case.

After nearly an hour, the two came into sight of a cluster of shacks sitting on pilings near the headwaters of the Suwannee River.  Long before, the river was made famous in the Stephen Foster song, Old Folks at Home.  Pitcher laughed to himself every time he thought of Foster and the song.  Foster had never visited the river when he wrote the song.  He had even misspelled the name of the river “Swanee”.

As the U.N. scout took in the shanty camp, he was in no mood to laugh.  The bank of the river bustled with activity.  There were no less than 50 people swarming around like ants at a picnic.  Every one of them appeared to be well-fed and in good health.  Most carried side arms and, the soldier noted, there was a rack of rifles nearby that appeared to be U.S. military weapons.  Many of the people were busy performing tasks that were beyond the scout’s experience.  Perhaps most disconcerting was a group of three men expertly butchering an alligator.  A deer carcass hung nearby, blood pooling beneath it.  Several alligator and deer hides were in various stages of curing.  Something boiled in a large cast iron cauldron over a bed of glowing coals.  A sturdy looking woman, dressed in bib overalls, stirred the cauldron with what appeared to be the remnants of a boat oar.

Pitcher gave the U.N. soldier a shove in the direction of a shack built on land perhaps fifty meters back from the bank of the river.  In front of the shack was a large fire pit.  Behind the shack the dense woods closed in limiting visibility to only a few yards beyond.  The scout looked around as he walked slowly in the direction of the shack.  Several boats were tied to the pilings supporting the river shacks.  The scout puzzled over the boats with the large fans in the back.  He had never seen boats like these at home on the Yangtze.

When Pitcher and the scout were within a few feet of the shack, an elderly man emerged from the front door and stood on the porch.  His hair was curly and mostly gray with a few sprinkles of black.  He wore a light-colored, long-sleeve cotton work shirt and gray striped overalls.  The U.N. scout sized up the man and guessed his age at near 80.  He appeared to be in excellent condition for an octogenarian, however.  The scout continued to be amazed at the health of this group of people living in the swamp without support from their government.

“Manny!” the octogenarian’s voice boomed.

A Hispanic man, who appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties, turned from his alligator butchering duties and responded, “Yeah, Pappy?”

“Come on over here,” the older man’s voice was thick with Cajun drawl.

Manuel Colón put down his knife and wiped his bloody hands on a towel.  He removed his bloody butcher’s apron and hung it from the branch of a nearby tree.

Manuel, or Manny as he was called by anyone who had known him for more than about three minutes, was a naturally friendly guy who also happened to be a very deadly Army Ranger and Chinese linguist.  There were easily a dozen souls who had left this earth shortly after seeing Manny’s teeth flash in what they thought was a friendly grin.  Manny’s natural ability to connect with people had made him a lethal combination of cobra and teddy bear.  As a backup to his ability to get information from informants through positive means, Manny had also developed a full suite of less pleasant interrogation skills.  Manny had established himself as the go-to guy, before the crash, when his unit needed information from anyone that spoke Cantonese or Mandarin.  Manny had proven his value once again as the Chinese U.N. troops advanced into Georgia.

“Manny, we need to know what this here fella knows,” Pappy said, a placid look on his face.

Manny’s pearly whites flashed as he shifted his gaze from the grizzled old man to the young Chinese scout.  After a quick assessment, Manny spoke softly to the Chinese soldier.

The scout was surprised when the olive-skinned American spoke in Mandarin.  The dialect wasn’t quite right, but the scout understood Manny perfectly.

Manny gently took the scout by the arm and led him over to one of the thick logs that circled the fire pit.

“Here, sit down,” Manny invited in flawless Mandarin as he flipped the short section of log on its end making a flat seat.  “You must be tired.”

The scout looked at Manny, a little bewildered, and then nodded his head and sat.

“This will hurt just a bit,” Manny said as he reached for the tape across the scout’s mouth.

The young U.N. soldier flinched as Manny reached toward him but then noticed Manny’s winning smile and held fast.  Manny peeled the duct tape from the young man’s mouth as gently as he could.

“You OK?” Manny looked into the scout’s eyes with what appeared to be genuine compassion.

The scout nodded as he returned the gaze.

Manny pulled up a second log and sat down next to the young man.  He continued in a conversational tone for several minutes building rapport and ferreting out bits and pieces of information that he might be able to use later … if necessary.