CHAPTER 15

Trainer, Pennsylvania

Dead trees, trash, debris, and even a waterlogged corpse were lodged into the long dock, made of metal and concrete, that protruded into the Delaware river from the Monroe Energy refinery. Instead of getting tangled up in the mess, the Recon team elected to beach the pair of rubber Zodiac watercrafts on the riverbank instead.

After pulling the boats out of the water, that were heavily weighted with food supplies looted from the Philadelphia casino, the team fanned out across the riverbank and held security for well over half an hour. Using their night vision devices, they scanned up and down the sparsely vegetated riverbank and as far into the refinery as they could see. Nothing was moving between the rows and rows of enormous round cylindrical metal petrol holding tanks that sprouted from the ground as far as they could see.

The night air was still and disconcertingly quiet. Raymond had expected to hear both of the kill-o-matic loudspeakers from this location. The entire purpose of positioning the contraptions up and down river, was to draw Grays away from this site so the team could do a proper recon of the refinery without fear of running into a horde. He breathed heavily and prayed upon the bright stars in the night sky, that the infected’s enhanced hearing, would be good enough to drive them towards the bait.

Gray’s had a particular odor that Raymond had learned to notice as an early warning system. But there was a rancid smell to this place that stung Raymond’s nostrils, a mixture of dead fish and gasoline fumes that teased of a headache. His tactical sensory ability wouldn’t do him any good on this objective.

Beckett gave a short whistle to get his teams attention, then raised a hand in the air and made a circular lasso motion gesturing them to rally on him. 

Beckett leaned in close to the radio operator, “Did you call us in as feet dry?”

“Roger.” Darkness confirmed. 

Beckett spoke a little louder to address everyone, “At the end of that dock, is a gravel road that leads to a small admin building at the center of this complex. That’s our foot hold for tonight. Take it slow and easy, good dispersion in a tactical column. Stay alert.”

One at a time they stood and began a slow walk towards the dock. When the point man got twenty yards away, the next man stood and followed. Raymond took his normal position in the center of the formation. 

The massive size of the calendrical tanks was astonishing. Each one, the size of a building. They passed row after row of them that had above ground pipelines linking them all to a central network. They were nearly out of the holding tank farm and close to the admin building, when the point man held up a fist commanding the formation to freeze. 

The night air seemed to shift with an energy that tickled the hair on the back of Raymond’s neck. He cranked his head to the side and reached up to focus his night vision on a large dark shape that he couldn’t make out but seemed out of place. A warning was on the tip of his tongue when blinding lights flooded them from the flanks, washing out their night vision goggles.

“Contact left!” Doc yelled.

Beckett pulled a soup can sized object from his vest and threw it halfway between the team and the series of blinding lights. A loud POP and HISS delivered a quickly forming cloud streaming from the high concentrate smoke grenade which blocked visibility.

Rios had already shimmied up a sixty-foot metal run ladder and was setting up an overwatch position on top of a petrol holding tanks.

Squeezing a metallic button on his forehead, Raymond flipped the useless night vision goggles up and out of the way when more bright lights flashed on from the opposite flank causing him to squint his eyelids.

“Contact right!” Darkness yelled.

“Back to the boats!” Becket yelled, pointing his weapon to his flank.

The point man turned to the rear and took off running. When he passed the first teammate he yelled, “Last man!” and didn’t bother slapping his teammate for a physical confirmation that he normally would have done in the dark, or in a loud firefight that would muffle his announcement. 

The second teammate stood, turned to the rear and bolted towards the third teammate which was SSgt Beckett. Right when he was about to yell “Last Man” a line of vehicles skidded to a halt across the gravel road in front of the dock, effectively cutting off their escape.

“Shit!” the point man said as he slid to a knee, raising his rifle at the newest threat. They were in a really bad spot, pinned in on three sides.

“To the office building!” Beckett redirected them. 

No sooner than Beckett gave the order, even more vehicle lights turned on between the team and their objective building. They were completely surrounded in a 360-degree ambush that made absolutely zero tactical sense, if the aggressors had wished to kill them. At this point, neither side had fired a single shot.

“I have multiple targets of opportunity.” Rios said from his elevated platform, speaking into the team’s comms channel.

“Hold your fire Rios, but designate priority targets incase this thing pops off.” Becket said, assessing their situation.

“Keep weapons on safe and take cover!” Beckett commanded his team out loud. He then slung his rifle to his back and stood in the center of the gravel road with his hands on his hips. 

Engines revved. Big block engines with performance exhaust from the sound of the roar. Drivers crept their vehicles forward from all directions, tightening the noose around the team. Beckett kicked himself for being so careless. The team had been so focused on the dangers of infected, that fighting against healthy human beings, here in America no less, was low on the tactical threat assessment. 

Going straight into an objective rally point was a rookie mistake that should get him fired, that is if he survived the night. The team should have instead flanked wide around the property then J hooked back into the O.R.P. from the opposite direction to ensure the area was safe. That is Infantry Basics 101, and Beckett had just failed the class.

A shadowy figure of a human walked in front of the series of headlight between Beckett and the admin building. He tried to squint and hold up a hand over his brow to block the light for a better view, but it did no good. The engine rumble began to fade as the drivers killed their engines in no particular order.

Beckett could finally hear himself think and began formulating a plan when first contact was made.

“Tell me why I should keep you thieving trespassers alive?” A gravelly voice bellowed.

“My name is Staff Sergeant Beckett, United States Marine Corps. Are you the one they call Toecutter?” He shouted back to the shadowy figure.

“I don’t know who that is.” The man trailed off as someone else spoke to him from the dark void, interrupting his conversation. “Toecutter huh? Well, it seems a fitting name to apocalyptic gunmen who are controlling the fuel source. But I prefer Immortal Joe from the later Mad Max movie.”

Becket could hear the tensions ease a bit, but then the man told him to raise his hands, in which he complied.

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. You’re going to turn around, and we’re going to escort you back the way you came from.” Joe said confidently, “Try something stupid, and we’ll kill you where you stand, and your fancy equipment is ours to confiscate.”

“Sounds fair enough, we didn’t know this property was occupied and don’t want any trouble. We only came here to check the condition of the refinery.” Beckett said.

“If you need gas, you can take yourself down river to the Delaware City refinery and take what you want, but this place is ours.” Joe stated.

“Do you know who owned this facility before the attack?” Beckett asked.

“Monroe Energy. It says so, right there on the sign.” Joe pointed to the placard on the white metal container. 

“Yes, but Monroe was a subsidiary of?” Beckett asked.

The shadow outline suggested that Joe shrugged his shoulders.

“Monroe Energy was a subsidiary of Delta Airlines.” Beckett told him.

“Ok, and? What does that have to do with us?” Joe asked annoyed, placing a hand on his holstered pistol.

“Delta purchased this place to make jet fuel which significantly reduced their main operating cost.” Becket informed him. “The Delaware City refinery down river didn’t make jet fuel. Joe, we represent the US military which needs JP-8 and diesel for reconstruction and stabilization operations.”

 “Bullshit!” Joe yelled, pointing a finger at Becket. “You’re a damn liar. There is no government left. It’s every man, woman, and child for themselves out here!”

“I didn’t say government, I said military.” Beckett corrected him. “Can I put my hands down?”

“No. Who’s to say that you’re not just a bunch of rednecks that looted an Army Navy store and coming in here to steal our gas?”

Beckett slowly interlocked his fingers, then rested his heavy hands on the top of his head while he gave a slight nod to Darkness who already had radio comms with their air assets on standby. 

“Listen, each one of these holding tanks contains five hundred thousand gallons of petrol. If you kill us here and now, what do you think a hellfire missile would do to your little road warrior operation that you have going on here? I bet the fireball would be seen by the poor bastards stranded up there on the international space station.” Beckett said, pointing towards the heavens. “Joe, we don’t want to steal your fuel. We want to buy it from you.”

An unexpected heavy beating began to reverberate off the refinery machinery. Joe, looked around, abruptly contemplating the situation at hand. Shadows shifted off the round white container walls as confused individuals stepped in front of their vehicles searching the night sky for the thumping sound that grew louder. 

“Turn off the headlights!” Joe commanded his crew. “Turn them off now!

One by one the vehicle drivers who surrounded the Recon team turned off their lights, casting the area back into darkness in attempt to hide their position. But it was too late, the Apache helicopter pilots already had their grid coordinates.

The fabric of black night sky was ripped apart as two Hydra M257 rockets launched from across the river leaving a glorious streaking display of burning rocket motors that impersonated shooting stars until they were directly over the refinery. Rocket motors are extremely loud, but not as loud as when a one million candle power illumination parachute flare pops to life.

Night turned to daylight as the two flares slowly drifted towards the Earth. To intensify the show of force, the Apache attack helicopters flew low, directly over the refinery seeing people running away, some hiding behind vehicles, others lying flat on the ground and the Recon team in the center, giving an appreciated salute for the assistance.

Beckett no longer held his hands up high; he was now in charge of this conversation and he only had ninety seconds of illumination to drive home his message.

“Joe!” Beckett yelled over the fading helicopter rotors. “As I said, we represent the US military, and we are in need of fuel. Are you willing to assist us?”

Joe picked himself off the ground and wiped the dirt from his pants. “Take all the jet fuel that you need, we only need the gasoline for our rigs.” Joe said humiliated.

“Well, that’s not exactly what we need from you Joe. The fuel in these holding tanks has expired, if not it will soon begin to separate without massive amounts of stabilizer. We need some fresh stuff Joe, and lots of it on a regular basis.” Beckett informed him.

Flanked by personal guards, the man walked closer to Beckett who was now standing casual. The bearded man who he spoke with wore black leather boots, a tattered Phillies baseball cap, grease-stained blue jeans and a Carhart jacket that had his name JOE embroidered on the chest. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, there seems to be a permanent power outage. Even if we knew how to refine crude oil, it’s hard to do so without electricity.” Joe said sarcastically.

“I’m going to make this really easy for you. We have naval engineers that can wire up generators, big ones used to power factories. I am confident, that they can also teach your group of gearheads how to safely operate this place.” Beckett said in a smooth used car salesman voice. “But wait, there is more! For the icing on the cake, there are a few battleship Skippers who are fighting each other for the chance to float a captured oil supertanker up this river that is hauling two million barrels of crude oil. Just for you.” 

“Too good to be true. What’s the catch?” Joe said, crossing his arms.

“No catch, your people get a working refinery. Keep, use, trade all the gasoline you want. But you produce JP-8 and diesel for us.” Beckett shrugged. 

“For how long? I’m not enslaving my people to factory work indefinitely.” Joe said cynically.

“It’s not like that.” Beckett said shaking his head. “You’ve never won a government contract before, have you? Not only will they set everything up, but they will also pay you for the product. Of course, forms of payment will need to be negotiated due to the current economy.”

The two of them staired at each other until the parachute flares fizzled out and the dark night sky once again blanketed the area.

“If this so-called military of yours screws us over, we’ll detonate this place ourselves.” Joe said, extending an open hand forward.

Beckett gripped it in a firm handshake. “Sounds like we have ourselves a deal, Joe. The first order of business that requires attention, is your perimeter security. It’s in desperate need of improvement before the big brains get out here and start making a bunch of racket.”