Chapter Fifteen.
Chief Warrant Officer Lucinda Bottas and Warrant Officer the First Tessa Juarez were Kiowa Scouts in the Army of the Republic. The scouts were on the eastern slope of a hill, lying prone. East of the Rio Grande. Half a kilometer from the river’s edge.
Hiding in tall grass, the two were peering through high-powered binoculars at the small settlement below. The range-finder placed it nine hundred eighty meters away. They had been observing the small fort since the sunrise. It was getting close to game time, and they needed information.
CWO Bottas, call sign “Bottom,” was reporting to her teammate. “Nothing to suggest any enemy forces. Populace seems calm. Twenty-two adult males. Eighteen adult females. Eight little people. Seven adolescents. One infant. No fighting or screaming. No prisoners in chains. The adults are all doing jobs consistent with normal frontier life. Six of the children are playing some kind of ball game. Two dogs playing with the children, two dogs on sentry duty, one on the western gate, one on the eastern. One dog each with the working parties in the fields. One party northeast, and one to the south of the fort. Each working party also has an armed guard, looks like a lever action camp rifle or carbine. Sentries are protecting, not supervising.”
W01 Tessa Juarez, call sign “Argus”, replied “Copy that” as she copied that into her log-book, taking notes to use later when filling out mission reports. Putting down the notebook, she picked up her binoculars and resumed studying the people working in the fields to the south of the palisade walls. They were using iron gardening tools on wooden poles. Rakes and hoes. The compound showed no sign of a smithy. The town must have a trading partner nearby. Half a kilometer to the east, at the edge of the tilled fields, they could see a large burn pit and garbage dump. Seven kilometers past that, there was another walled fort. There were two more forts to the north.
The sentries in the fields were a big question mark for the scouts. Daylight meant no Walkers. That meant someone required a young man to stand around and do nothing but keep watch instead of contributing. The sentries faced outward, not at the people working. That meant the workers were not prisoners. She made more notes in her notebook.
Bottom finished her sketches and made notes in her own notebook. “Time to start the game. You want to roll or pick?”
“Pick.”
Bottom reached into the pocket sewn into the upper arm of her battle dress uniform and pulled out a suede pouch with a drawstring closure. ”Pick!”
“D8, high!”
Bottom opened the pouch and poured the polyhedral dice onto the ground between them. Normally used for role-playing games, scouts used them to make random decisions. A roll of the dice being more useful than tossing a coin. Dice gave a range of options or percentages.
Here, the eight sided die had a seven showing. According to the rules, Argus won the roll and got to pick. “You stay on over-watch and I’ll go make new friends and ask questions.”
“Damn.”
Argus laughed. “You are too old an ugly to make friends. People would run screaming if you showed up without an introduction.”
“Piss off. I’m only six months older than you.”
“And don’t you forget it!”
Lucy gathered up her dice, then used her right foot to give Tessa a nudge. “Look at me, Warrant Officer.” The younger scout lowered her binoculars and looked at her team leader.
“Next time, you will be on over-watch. It’s my job to train you and part of that is over-watch. Someday, you will need to service a target in order to protect your teammate or the mission. I know it makes you uncomfortable, but it’s a training requirement.”
Tessa grimaced and responded with, “Yes, ma’am.”
“No one likes it, but every scout has to be prepared to do it.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Fall back to the encampment.”
They gathered up their equipment and low crawled around to the backside of the hill. They rose to a crouch and returned to camp.
Both women were about the same height and weight, about 1.6 meters tall and weighing roughly 60 kilograms. Their uniforms were cargo pants, over-shirts called blouses, and brown suede boots. The pattern on the fabric was called digital-camo. It was designed to blend in with the desert. The purpose of the uniform was to identify members of The Army. Reducing the number of “Friendly Fire” incidents. Identifying your friends on a battlefield was important.
Just like the red coats worn by the British Army over four hundred years ago.
Each scout wore a light-weight, body armor/load bearing system. Made of a thick fabric woven from a long-chain polymer named Kevlar-Plus. It would stop small arms fire, and bullets from most black-powder weapons. The vest provided decent protection, but its primary job was to hang stuff off of it. The vest had a bladder that held water and a long straw for drinking. Soldiers called it a camel back. It had buckles to secure a backpack to the vest.
The equipment carried on the scouts’ bodies was pretty light. Most important was her radio with spare power cells and a long wire antenna. A reverse osmosis water purifier. After that came a pair of range finding binoculars, then a couple of ammunition magazines for her carbine and pistol. A few grenades. Their night vision glasses. Ration packs. Medical packs. A large camp knife called a ‘Toothpick’, a compass, and map making supplies.
They carried small water-proof bags for leaving maps and dispatches for following forces.
They also carried a weapon called a Gardener’s axe. Designed with a 76 centimeter wooden handle fitted into an axe head made of stainless steel. It had a black matte finish. The face of the axe was a half moon shape. Instead of a sharp edge, it had a rod welded to the edge of the blade.
The disk side was two hundred and ten millimeters from top to bottom. It had a rounded spike that stuck out of the back side. It had no sharp edges. It had been designed it so that when employed it wouldn’t get stuck or wedged into its target. That target being a Walker’s head, arms, or knees. The rounded edges ensured that even with a glancing blow, it would concentrate all the force behind the strike in the smallest possible area. In skilled hands, the Gardener’s axe could easily plant a walker in the ground.
Scouts carried personal equipment based on their mission requirements and personal preferences. Scouts only carried the essentials on their bodies. The warhorse carried everything else. Her saddle and saddlebags were a complete system for transporting a rider and her belongings. The bags had attachment points for securing long carbon-fibre poles for a travois which carried their equipment. More food, camping, and fishing gear, a large bladder for water, mission specific stuff such as a Sniper Rifle and ammunition.
Scouts had a plethora of explosives and detonators they could employ. As well as other assorted objects designed to cause chaos if she had to make a run for it.
Scouts had to be sneaky, so they had a cloak/ghillie suit. The ghillie suit was covered in burlap strips, as well as foliage from the surrounding area. Scouts wore large floppy brimmed hats with that broke up the silhouette of their head. The scouts adorned the hats with twigs, grasses, and leaves. Scouts could disappear in plain sight.
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Tessa removed her cloak and hat and rolled them up, then tied them to the saddle of her current mount. Currently, Bottom and Argus were not on a normal mission. They were scouting ahead of the third platoon of the 31st Assault company. Third platoon screened the main formation on the west side of the river.
Bottom and Argus were half of a Scout/Patrol Team code named Fastball Thirty Two-Five. They were Fastball Two-Two. The other half of their Patrol Team was called Fastball Two-Three and was comprised of CWO Heather Hernandez and CWO Roslyn Planche. The two teams were leapfrogging up the east bank of the river. Not at the normal sneaky pace, the teams were moving with a quickness. Each team had four horses between them.
The scouts ran 5 kilometers beside the horses. After riding for 5 kilometers, they changed horses and covered another 5 kilometers. Then rest and allow the horses to graze, and water them. Then they would run again. Scouts could run for hours and sleep in the saddle.
The horses were the limiting factor. A horse could gallop at great speed if needed, like if the scouts had to make a quick getaway. But a horse couldn’t run a marathon. They needed too much water.
Tessa placed all of her equipment into her pack, except for her weapons and the telescopic sight from her carbine. She rummaged in her saddlebag and came out with her disguise. A black wig with a braid and a green headscarf. Lucy helped her put the wig on straight and then pressed down on the clips that held it to Tessa’s hair. The wig had a sticky layer underneath. It was made to remain stable even if a baby tugged on it. She placed the scarf on her head and tied it under her chin.
Bottom ordered, “Take the sleeve off of a MK21. Take one CS gas grenade, one smoke and leave the rest. Take the carbine and try to look as non-threatening as possible. Keep your ear piece in and set your radio Mic to VOX on channel three. I’ll be on the western slope of the hill in a hide. You will approach from the south and then make certain you remain out of my line of fire. Do you copy that?”
“Roger that.”
“Give me twenty to set up a hide. While I do that, you take care of the horses and reset the camp perimeter alarms. All of our speculation during observation will be totally wrong. Keep your eyes open, dial the caution up to eleven. Let’s do this.”
“You got it Chief.” They bumped fists.
***
Argus was jogging toward the southern field where the farmers were farming. Crop types were typically included in reports. The young green shoots were unidentifiable and all she could smell was soil. She slowed to a walk when the dog barked. The sentry had been looking at the mountain and hadn’t noticed her approach. When the young man turned her way, he raised his rifle stock to his shoulder. The farm hands behind him ceased all activity and stared at her. She stopped where she was and raised her hands over her head. She judged she was at the far end of that short-barreled rifle’s range.
She shouted out, “¿Hablas Ingles?” They all just stared at her. “¿Hablas Español?”
Nothing but blank stares. That was making her nervous. A young woman with a garden hoe snapped something at the guard. Tessa could see him blush. The farmers gathered and started to look around. The sentry made a quick scan of the area, then moved between her and the workers. He scanned the area again, then he made a beckoning gesture. He looked very nervous.
Argus started walking toward the group, with her hands still above her head and a pleasant smile on her face. It looked like a genuine smile; it included her eyes. That was the important part to selling a smile. It had to reach your eyes. Despite the kidding between the two, both of the scouts were attractive women.
With their haircuts, uniforms, and body armor, it could be hard to tell at a glance. This was one reason for the wig and its braid. The scarf held down the long hair. The braid draped over the shoulder and hung down the chest.
Tessa was a pretty young woman. Who was just wearing some very odd-looking clothing which had some very odd-looking odds and ends hanging off of it.
In her earpiece, Bottom’s voice said, “Move eastward another five meters.” Without responding, Argus angled her approach eastward as she moved forward. She could feel the slight breeze causing the sniper’s concern.
CWO Lucinda Bottas was a qualified Scout/Sniper/Forward Observer. The current mission had not required an actual sniper rifle, so the Company had issued the M-65 Designated Marksman rifle. It looked like a standard M-6 6.5mm battle rifle, but the barrel was longer, heavier, and fluted. The manufacturing process for the barrel, upper receiver, and bolt was very exact. The unit armorer had worked the trigger group over with files and sand-paper, the result being a rifle with outstanding accuracy inside of 1,200 meters.
Add the powerful range-finding telescopic sight and you could “drive tacks” with the system. CWO Bottas was one of the best snipers in the 31st Scout Group, able to “drive tacks” with the M-65 even in high and variable winds. Rain or shine.
When talking about Bottom, her colleagues muttered things about a crossroads in the hinterlands; a moonless night, and a dark man named Legba. Argus didn’t give a rat’s ass about super-natural influence. She was just grateful she was under Bottom’s protection.
First contact situations were always nerve-wracking. When she was fifteen meters away, she shouted, “¡Buenos Dias! I mean you no harm.”
The sentry asked, “Who are you?”
“My name is Tessa.”
“Why are you here,Tessa?”
“I want to learn things. A week ago, men on the west side of the river attacked and plundered several homesteads. Can you tell me the number of men? Or anything else that may help me?”
“Help you do what?”
“What is your name, señor?”
The young man eyed her with distrust. Studying her until the young woman who had reprimanded him earlier barked, “Benito!!”
Once again, a flush rose on his face, followed by a scowl, “Silencio Nena!”
The young woman casually shifted her grip on the garden hoe she was holding.
Argus noticed the shift. Uh oh. That was how you held something when you were gonna smack someone in the head with it.
Tessa waved her hands and spoke, “Benito? I want to know what happened across the river.”
The young woman answered instead, “A shepherd saw smoke coming from our neighbors’ place across the river. He thought he heard gunfire. Men were sent to help. When they got there, the casa was on fire and there were bodies everywhere. They were all dead. The horses and the burros were gone. Only one dog was still alive, but she was hurt bad.”
The rifle-wielding youth grew angrier. He was not liking the perceived challenge to his authority.
Time to calm things down a little. Tessa looked asked politely, “May I speak to the don? We can talk out here, or near the walls. I needn’t enter your home.”
The young man barked out, “Jesús, go tell señor Cantone that a stranger is asking questions about the Santanna ranch.”
A teen-aged boy with a hat a size too large dropped his rake and took off at a run.
Argus dialed the smile on her face up to eleven. She asked, “Benito, do you mind if I lower my hands? My arms are getting tired.”
“What is that thing on your leg?”
Bugger. “It’s a pistol, señor. I also have a rifle on my back, as you can see.”
Benito’s eyes narrowed. “You will not approach the don while you have a gun.”
“Maybe we can come to an agreement. I will remove my weapons, and place them in a pile and then sit down five paces from them. I will talk to your leader that way. None of you will come closer than fifteen paces to me while I am unarmed.”
The girl with the hoe spoke, but Benito shushed her. “She could be one of them.”
The girl rolled her eyes so hard Benito felt it, even if he couldn’t see it. He scowled again.
Argus waved her left hand at him and asked, “What do you say, señor? May I put my weapons down?”
Looking nervous, he nodded his head.
Argus locked her gaze with his and slowly held her right forefinger and thumb apart. Then she reached down, and with the two fingers, pulled her Glok out of its holster. She set it on the ground in front of her. Tessa removed the carbine from her back, holding only the strap. She gently placed it next to the pistol.
Next, she pulled out her Gardener’s axe and then her knife. Argus ensured they got a good look at the craftsmanship of the weapons.
Moving eastward, she sat on the ground two meters from the pile of weapons facing northwest. Legs crossed, she leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and appeared to relax when she saw a small group of men hurrying out of the gates of the homestead.
Argus had set the trap. Time to see if they stepped in it.