TOCABAGA (Revised Edition) (Book #1 of The Tocabaga Chronicles) (8 page)

“No problem
, General, I will watch them as I do my own family, so no need to worry. I will arrange some housing close to mine and provide your wife with whatever she may need.”

“Thank you Jack I know I can count on you and the good people living here.
It is a great relief to know they will be safe.”

Pulling up to the bridge to
NO MAN’S LAND the General said, “I have eighty men now securing Fort Desoto and getting it ready for the rest of the Rangers. Please have these cars moved out of the way. Also, move the cars at the main bridge when our convoy shows up.”

I asked Tommy,
“Can you make sure that is done?”

Tommy re
plied, “Yes Sir, no problem.”

Tommy
had the cars moved to the side of the road.

I told the
Colonel and Captain, “Your Rangers can make use of these cars if they need them for patrols. The keys are in the ignition. This channel is called the shark channel. It is full of sharks and fast-moving water. If anyone tries to breach the island this is a weak point that should be guarded. We had one man killed here when the gang tried to land here the other day.”

Captain
Sessions replied, “I understand and will place two men here 24-7 as this is the entrance to the Fort. That takes care of the north and south bridges. What about the east and west side of the island?”

I
informed him, “We put four men on each side. If you’d like, we can still cover that or we can show you the locations we use for the best views.”

Captain Sessions comme
nted, “We will cover that also in the future. Please have one of your men show Master Sergeant Smith the locations.”

I got on the radio and called Eddy
, asking him to show Sergeant Smith the east and west side security points.

We jumped
back into the trucks and drove into NO MAN’S LAND.

I told them, “
Please note we are farming this land and it helps feed our compound. The gardens are outlined with white string on sticks. Our people come here almost every day to tend the crops.”

We pulled up to the old fort built in 18
98, now the headquarters, set up by the Rangers. Colonel Turner told Captain Sessions to warn the men not to destroy the gardens. Lucky for us the Black Hawks did not land in the fields but in the roadway.

Satisfied
that his men were progressing well at Fort Desoto the General said, “Let’s go back to town.”

I
asked the General, “How about some grilled fish and fruit for lunch?”

“
That sounds great, Jack,” replied General Harper.

We
loaded into the trucks and headed downtown to the bar.

The General asked
me, “How do you feed everyone?”

“
All most everyone provides for their own family. But we have community fishermen, hunters and farmers who mass-produce what we eat. It is brought to our three restaurants to divide up. Anyone can choose their portion between the hours of 7am to 9pm. We have a goal of 500 pounds of fish a day and whatever rabbits or squirrels are killed over in NO MAN’S LAND, excuse me, I mean Fort Desoto. In addition, we have a chicken farm here supplying eggs and sometimes the whole chicken. It is just down the road about a half mile. The chicken farmer lives there.”

General Harper asked
me, “Can you increase the food supply and also provide my Rangers meat and vegetables?”

“
Absolutely, we just need to plant more crops and increase the number of men we have fishing and hunting, and since we will not have as many men on security, it should be easy. I will discuss the details with Captain Sessions.”

The Colonel replied, “
We cannot have hunters walking around the Fort area with guns near our Rangers as someone could get hurt. So hunting with a gun is out, you need to use traps. As a matter of fact, no one can enter the Fort without a pass. We will issue everyone an ID badge on Camp Tocagaba, to avoid an accident. I will have the badges ready in about a week; they’ll only have a number on them with no pictures or names. You can add the names and pictures later.”

“Great
Colonel, when they are ready let me know. I’ll give you a list for your reference. I suggest you have about 1,000 printed up.”

“That sounds perfect
, Jack.”

We all agreed
as security was the number one concern.

Colonel Turner asked, “
How many men do you have on security detail?”

I advised him, “
We have a total of 96 trained men and women on our security teams. Each team has sixteen people on every shift, around the clock.”

“To make this easy keep your
security teams as they are for now. We will keep two Rangers at the bridge to the Fort and assign four Rangers at the main bridge along with two Bradleys and the Abrams when they arrive. That should suffice for now and we will sort it out further when our main force arrives.”

Returning
downtown, we walked into the bar and Tony asked, “What would you gentlemen like?”

General Harper
replied, “Son, give us some cold beers. “

“Well
Sir I have cool beers but not cold ones. We have no ice.”

I
said, “General Harper, this is Tony. If you need anything done right he is the go-to guy. Tony, this is General Harper the man in charge of the Rangers so treat him well.”

Tony re
sponded, “It is a pleasure to meet you Sir. We are happy you’re here.”

“Good
to meet you Tony. Cool or cold, I’ll take a beer and we will arrange for you to have ice in the future.”

I asked, “
Tony can we get some smoked fish and a variety of fruit brought in so we can have lunch with the General?”

Without a
nother word Tony was on the radio and asked Steve, the best cook we have, to please bring lunch to the bar for five VIP people.

Tony has been the barkeep forever and is a handy guy to have around. He went to med school but dropped out in his fourth year, so he knows more about medical issues than most people. Steve is a great cook and expert in preparing fish; he has been a cook for thirty years. Steve loves to cook for people and all you need to do is bring him the fish or whatever you want to eat and he turns it into a delicious dish. He makes a pretty mean rabbit and rattlesnake stew.

After lunch the Colonel said, “General Sir, I received a message that a troop of 100 Federal Police with armored trucks is heading in this direction. I think they will make Camp Tocabaga a target. They’re about two days away so I suggest we move the Abrams and two Bradleys here now from Tampa along with 100 Rangers. We need to protect this camp and fort.”

The
General replied, “Ok Colonel, make it so. Double-time it; I want the armor here tomorrow. Do the Feds have any air support?”

“General,
I believe they do, but we are not sure at this time.”

Gen
eral Harper stated, “The Colonel is in command now, I need to go to SOCOM and make sure my Rangers and Armor arrive soon. Remember, if the Feds show up give them a chance to surrender but take no risks. If any Federal officers surrender take their fingerprints, DNA and pictures. They must sign a pledge not to enforce Executive Order 13603 or fight the Military. We will let them go home or they can enlist in the Army and join our side. In any case, Colonel Turner contact me if any situations arise. I bid you all a good day and thank you for lunch.”

We
said farewell to the General as Sessions and Turner saluted him. He returned a salute and the General with his security team mounted up in the Black Hawk. The motors wound up, the blades screaming louder and louder, and it lifted off in a blast of wind and noise.

Sessions
said, “I’ll have four Rangers posted at the main bridge and two at the Fort bridge within the hour, so please advise your security people.”

Tomm
y radioed everyone to inform them of this with the click of a button.

Ca
ptain Sessions and Colonel Turner advised us they must leave to oversee the security and plans for the new Rangers coming. We all shook hands and Sessions gave me his military radio to contact him if anything developed tonight. Jumping in their Black Hawk, they lifted off and flew to the Fort for the night.

I was thinking
,
I sure hope the 100 extra Rangers get here with the tanks before the Federal Police arrive
.

April 2
4, 2025

Early the next day two Bradley fighting vehicles and one Abrams tank rumbled up to the bridge. Captain Sessions must have been at the bridge before daylight. He was giving the Bradley and Tank operators their positions while we moved our cars to the south of the bridge on the side of the road, out of the way, keeping them there for future use if needed.

Along with the
tanks were thirty trucks loaded with 100 Rangers and supplies. The trucks rolled over the old bridge and it creaked from their weight. I knew the Abrams tank could never cross the bridge because it weighed too much; the bridge could collapse.

As the trucks rolled down the street people lined up, cheered, waved, threw
flowers and shouted, “Welcome Rangers, thanks for coming!”

The Rangers were surprised by the welcome.
The trucks continued past our downtown area on to NO MAN’S LAND. They had orders to set up camp, which meant housing, cooking areas, a mess hall, shower areas, latrines, and so forth. They had a lot of work to do.

Sessions placed the two Bradleys
on each side of the road at the foot of the bridge and put the Abrams tank right in the middle of the road. The tank was so wide it just about covered the two ten-foot wide lanes. No car could get by the 60-ton tank. These are the biggest bad-ass fighting machines ever made. After the vehicles were in position Sessions, Tommy and I walked down to get a closer look at these incredible machines. The tank had a name painted on its side, “Iron Maiden.” As we looked at it the top hatch opened up and to my surprise out popped a woman’s head.

Sessions asked her
, “Did you encounter any gun fire on the way here, Captain?”

She replied, “
No Sir, who would be nuts enough to fire at us?”

Sessions
then announced, “Jack, this is Captain Riley the tank commander. Captain, this is Jack Gunn Director of Security for Camp Tocabaga, and his son, Tommy Gunn.”

I
said, “Captain, it is a pleasure to meet you. I like the name of your tank.”

She responded, “
The pleasure is mine Sir. We are here to help protect Camp Tocabaga and Fort Desoto and we will not let you down.”

Tommy replied,
“You’ve got a big gun for a woman, but I like it. Welcome to Camp Tocabaga.”

Captain Riley gave no reply to
Tommy’s comment.

Captain
Sessions took us over to each Bradley and introduced the commanders. The Bradleys are commanded by a Staff Sergeant or higher and operate as a unit along with the Abrams Tank. They are under the overall command of the Tank Captain. Each Bradley can hold six fully armed Rangers.

One
Bradley was named “Predator,” and the other “Gun Smoke.”

The Bradley M3 Fighting Vehicle, named after General Omar Bradley from WWII, has a three-member crew, weighs 27 tons and is fully armored. It fires a 25mm chain gun that can destroy most tanks and has a 7.62 M240 machine gun to mow down ground troops if needed. Some also have tow missiles that can blow up anything, even a building.

The M1 Abrams
Tank named after General Abrams, fires a whopping 120mm laser-aimed cannon and never misses its target. The cannon can blow up buildings. It has one M2 50 Caliber Heavy Machine Gun, and two 7.62 M240 machine guns. Bullets and other large projectiles just bounce off the sides of this big boy. Now we were talking real security!

Colonel Turner and Captain Sessions asked Tommy and me, along with the armored-vehicle commanders, to meet to discuss clearing the building where the gang was located. We sat under the bridge in the shade and I drew them a picture in the dirt of the building layout, parking area and the main entrance to the building. I briefed them on the weapons the gang may have and the fact that they may have some explosives.

I told everyone that I thought
they were on the top floor of the ten-story building. Each floor has four condo units. I advised them we were looking for a woman named Shanda. We didn’t have her description but there couldn’t be too many women there. I added that she may be dangerous but we didn’t know for sure.

The beautiful
Captain Riley asked, “Tommy, would you come along and help search for this Shanda while the Rangers are doing security and room clearing as necessary?”

“I wo
uld be pleased to go with you, Captain Riley,” Tommy replied.

“
Great, we will have 11 Rangers, the two Bradleys and the tank will go for extra support. Let’s be ready to roll out at 15:00 hours,” Sessions ordered. “If nothing else, you are all dismissed.”

Tommy hung around after the meeting talking to Captain Riley
, much to my dismay. Tommy doesn’t need to mess around as he has a great wife and little girl. I thought,
I will chew his ass out later.

It was
another hot day; as I drove to the bridge, it was almost 15:00 hours or 3 pm standard eastern time. I watched as the Rangers and Tommy mounted up in the Bradleys. They went down the road one at a time with the tank last. Spaced about 100 feet apart, moving about 10 mph, it would take them about ten minutes to reach the building.

Soon you could hear
rifle fire and the Bradley 25 mm rapid fire chain gun. From our position on the bridge we could only see smoke but we did listen to the radio. Gun Smoke, Predator, and Iron Maiden surrounded the building, the Rangers dismounted, and in rapid order they entered it. We heard small arms fire; they had to run up ten floors, clearing four condos on each floor to ensure it was safe to move up.

We heard on the radio a request for
the Abrams tank to fire into the top floor west side of the building. We heard a large… KABOOM, which meant the big 120mm cannon had been fired. After about two hours we heard on the radio the building was clear for Tommy Gunn to come in.

T
hirty minutes later Tommy radioed us, “We have no one alive, sorry to say. They were all killed in the clearing. We found one woman on the tenth floor and she has an ID card stating her name is Shanda Jones. She was shot in the head but not by us. It looks like she has been dead for a while.”

I thought
,
Don’t mess with the Rangers. They just killed everyone in the building, and good or bad they are all dead.

Tommy br
ought back the ID card which had a picture on it and gave it to Amy. Amy showed little Shanda the picture ID and asked, “Is this your Mommy?”

She replie
d, “Yes! Where is she?”

We were all s
ilent.

“
Shanda, honey, your Mommy and Daddy have gone to heaven. You know what heaven is?”

“
Yes, I had a puppy that went to heaven.”

Amy replied, “
Yes, that’s right. So don’t worry; this is your home now and we will be your new family.”    

Little Shanda said,
“Good I like it here. Do I call you Mommy now?”

“Yes
, if you like, call me Mommy.”

S
he hugged and kissed Amy on the cheek, then little Shanda went outside, jumped on the red bike I gave her and pedaled away.

Amy
yelled, “Don’t go far. Stay close to home!”

Shanda
called back, “OK, Mommy!”

It seemed little Shanda did not fully understand what had happen
ed to her mother and father. At that age, who does? Little Shanda was going to be fine as now she had clean clothes, meals, toys, family, and a nice home to live in where she could sleep in the safety of her own bedroom. She was better off here with us.

Maybe one day she will call me Grandpa.