I love it when a plan comes together (Cumberland Saga)

Sig beckoned Gregor as the meal ended. “Why don’t you and me take a walk to settle our stomachs?” Sig suggested.

Since the suggestion was so out-of-the-ordinary, Gregor agreed, sure that Sig had something he needed to talk about.

They had walked a couple hundred yards north and had enough time to light their smokes, Gregor his cigar and Sig his pipe when Gregor asked “What do you want to talk about?”

Sig prefaced his remarks with “I ain’t the kind of man who candy-coats what he says. I don’t have the patience for it and I never was any good at it anyway. So if what I say comes out kinda rough, know that I love ya and have your best interests at heart.”

That caught Gregor’s attention. He had rarely heard his father admit to any shortcomings.

Gregor cocked his left eyebrow in the universal sign “tell me more…”

“It about you and Rosa…” Sig said.

Sig and Ellie had gone around-and-around on this. Both of them were painfully aware that Gregor wasn’t getting any younger, and after meeting Rosa...neither was she. By Copperhead Cove standards she was a spinster approaching senility at the ripe age of 27 years-old.

From Sig’s viewpoint, they were both over-due and it shouldn’t have been any surprise that the romance overwhelmed both of them like an avalanche in late winter.

“We are both adults” Gregor bristled.

“That ain’t where I am going with this” Sig cut him off. “I suspect you and Rosa are doin’ things that me and your ma might not approve of and I appreciate you not rubbin’ our noses in it. But that ain’t where I am goin’ with this.”

Gregor cast Sig a sidelong glance. He wasn’t used to his father...his pastor...giving him a mulligan on behaviors.

Seeing the glance and knowing his son, Sig forestalled his questions. “Bunch of places in the Bible where the cart mighta gotten ahead of the horse. Ruth, fer-instance.”

“Christ came for us sinners. And we all sin. Ain’t for me to say what ya are doing is unforgivable if you make it right in the end” Sig said, dancing around the specifics of what he was SURE Gregor and Rosa were doing.

“So, why ARE we havin’ this walk?” Gregor asked.

“There is a time and a place for everything” Sig said. “It is time for you to pull your head out of your ass and get ready to play your best game!”

“Huh?” Gregor asked, truly confused.

“You are gonna go on the raid to get Miss Shannon’s place back, right?” Sig asked.

“Yeah” Gregor admitted. Of course Sig knew that. He had watched Gregor walk off the construction site every day for this two hours of training.

“And Rosa is going to be one of the leaders, right?” Sig pressed.

Some people have a gift. Samson had been quick to recognize that Rosa was one of the two-in-a-hundred who is blessed with the gift to lead. She conveniently solved the problem of the staggered attack on the house, necessitated by the rooms on the left being “down-range” of the main room. Rosa would lead one prong of the attack and Samson the other.

“Yes” Gregor said.

“I ain’t gonna be the person who says that you and Rosa can’t be on this mission together. We ain’t got that many boots-on-the-ground where we can be that fussy” Sig said. “BUT both of you gotta pull your heads out of your asses and be at the top of your game. A lotta people are counting on you and Rosa. If you are too stupid or too tired or too worried about what is happenin’ to the other...a lotta people will get hurt.”

This was a new thing for Gregor, his father treating him as a peer. “What do you think we should do?”

Sig hesitated. “The Bible says that God gave Eve to Adam to be his help-mate, to match him stride-for-stride and to be ever at his side. I might be way off in the weeds, but if you and her were teamed together, it might be easier for both of you to have your heads 100% in the game in front of you.”

“That...and maybe between now and the raid you and Miss Rosa make a point of getting at least 7 hours of SLEEP a night” Sig concluded.

Several hours later Gregor told Rosa that his dad, Sig, had advised in the very strongest words that they had to “cool it”.

Rosa frowned. “Just EXACTLY what did he say?” Rosa demanded.

“He insisted that we get at least seven hours of sleep a night” Gregor said, morosely.

“Well, I guess we ain’t going fishin tonight “Rosa said. “They ain’t bitin’ that good anyway.” 

***

Once Gregor and Rosa were paired together on the “first” point, everything started falling together.

Samson mapped the infiltration. Miss Shannon loaned him her smartphone. If the WIFI was up, it would automatically sync-up and Samson could turn off the external security.

In a thrown-together raid like this, there are always some who are not as capable as the others. Their spirit is willing but their skills are not developed. Placed in positions that they were capable of executing flawlessly, they would be assets. Given tasks that were beyond their capabilities they would screw the pooch and become lethal threats to their team.

Samson decided to have two of them posted together at a corner of the house to secure  where the team entered and to stop “runners” who might leave via secondary exits like the man-door on the garage. One was to be scanning south and east, the other was to be scanning west and north. The primary mission of "Southeast" was to prevent outsiders from entering the house BEHIND the team. The primary mission of "Northwest" was to stop runner from heading toward Lliam and Eddie.

Samson also planned the post-raid hardening of the facility. A truck with supplies would be driven in and then a tree dropped across the drive with a chainsaw. The optimum place for the roadblock was just east of the gully. Any people who approached the roadblock and then abandoned their vehicle would have few options for exfiltration.

Various trick-plays were offered by the participants but Rosa and Samson were on the same page. Samson summarily dismissed the trick plays because gimmicks rarely work as well in the field as they do in the originator’s mind. There is very little that can go wrong with 9 pellets of 00 traveling at 1250fps or a 55 grain soft-point traveling 3000fps.

Rosa rejected them for different reasons. “Spraying somebody with wasp spray is lethal force in the eyes of some judges. You are spraying somebody with POISON! Same thing for hitting somebody in the head with a baseball bat. Why would you use ‘lethal force’ that might work when you should be using lethal force that will work?”

The plan rapidly took shape as information about the coming-and-going of the gang who had taken over Miss Shannon’s farm started trickling in from the observation outpost manned by Lliam and Eddie.