Thankfully, Morgan waited until morning to tell me. But then, he couldn't wait anymore and called…

"Hello? Drake? This is Sheriff Singh. I've got terrible news."

It was only 5:34 am and I was a bit groggy… "Yes… What news is that?"

"They attacked last night after 2 in the morning…"

"That same Iranian gang from the tattoos on their dead."

"Oh no, what happened?"

"They arrived with a SWAT truck and four pickups. The video shows them stopping about 200 yards from our gate and then opening fire with all their guns. My cousin, Bertrand Singh, only 20, the only one on duty, was about to launch a drone when they ripped him apart with multiple bullets.…" Morgan had to pause to catch his breath he was so emotional. "They wiped out all of the cameras, speakers and blew all of the booby-traps that Derek and Wondah had engineered."

"Did they kill anyone else?"

"They rammed the gate and came into the village firing in every direction. All the explosions wakened everyone, including me, and I was firing from the police station, others were firing from the Rambler and from the hotel. So far, we have 3 dead and about 15 wounded. We killed 5 of them and probably wounded some of the others that got away in the SWAT truck with 2 of their pickups that were still running. It's a real mess here." Morgan shook his head in disgust. "We have to do something about it."

"Derek, Wondah and I will be there as soon as we can."

Melody and I dressed quickly and headed to Marsha's for breakfast to tell the others. But Derek and Wondah arrived just as we did and she had what was left of the video showing the vehicles arriving and the first bursts of gunfire until all of the cameras blacked out.

We got to the ship just in time as the security committee convened. Immediately, we offered our assistance as they discussed what to do. The members were upset and angry. Some of them losing friends and relatives. Some of them even wounded. They wanted revenge, and I didn't blame them. I told them, "This was obviously an attempt to get food from the market. It looks like they had information that helped them."

Sheriff Singh reported. "Yes, this morning, security on the ship found a cell phone in the possession of the three we have in custody. Undoubtedly, they had told their gang members that there was food to be had here, and that's why they raided. When they got to the market, most of the fish and seafood had been put in cold storage for the night and they got very little food just to get out with their lives while we fired upon them.

I offered my suggestion. "I think we should leave them be. They are starving and probably are dehydrated or sick from lack of clean water. Your response last night let them know that the village can defend itself."

Derek spoke up, "Wondah and I will get busy right away and beef up your defenses again. We will be sure to put cameras and sensors further away from the gate this time to give you early warning of anyone coming. We are really sorry for your loss, Sheriff Singh, and the others who have lost friends and relatives."

But the overwhelming vote from the committee was to seek revenge. To seek out and destroy all of the gangs still alive in the LA area. I tried to explain to them that there were ten major gangs and perhaps 200 or more others in the area. They were deeply entrenched in their ethnic communities. It would be very hard to wipe them out and history has proven that when a people are oppressed or attempted to be destroyed, they get stronger… Even gangs. I suggested a lesser strategy. I finally agreed to work with what the committee was morning to do if they changed their tactics.

"Okay, we have a tank that Derek drives expertly. We are supposed to go back to the Central Valley in a week to deal with gangs in Fresno, but we've got the time in between to scout for gang enclaves, find them and destroy their vehicles and firepower. But that's as far as we want to go."

Sheriff Singh agreed with me. "They tried to wipe out my people many times, but we prevailed, even making our way here to the United States and serving as law enforcement officers like me and long-haul truck drivers. I know where the LA Police Department has its SWAT vehicles. If any of them are still there, we can commandeer them for the village."

During the final vote, the committee agreed not to try to kill any gang members except in defense and not to destroy their homes, just their attack vehicles and armaments. We all agreed to start the next morning.

Sheriff Singh left a deputy in charge and returned to the compound with us to search the Internet and lay plans for what we would do in the coming days. What we were going to do would be a good training ground for what we would do in Fresno. Fortunately, many of the areas where there were gangs were destroyed by the flood. With our plans laid, we followed the tank to the police garage where the SWAT vehicles and equipment were stored.

We broke in a side door and discovered everything was still there. We secured that door again while we loaded up two armored SWAT trucks with robots, drones, armored suits, shields and ammunition. We had all that we would need to penetrate gang strongholds, hopefully without firing a shot but with enough firepower to shoot if we had to.

Early the next morning, Derek and Wondah arrived at the port with the tank where we filled it with diesel and they picked up a veteran from the Ukraine war who had recently arrived in the port and was very familiar with tanks. Nicholas Eubek was 37 and had operated a captured Russian tank in that war. We then set out for our first target with Sheriff Singh, Melody and me and with three other recruits fully suited to go into our first gang neighborhood, closest to the port.

In Victoria Park there were the Manos on one side and Pit Grips on the other. We rolled up to the obvious entrance of the Manos and no one was stirring. Derek pushed through the gate where the vehicles were kept and nothing was moving there except a scrawny dog. Sheriff Singh used our loudspeaker but no one moved. We sent a team in of three and they came back out with a report that all they found were dead and rats eating them. We found considerable guns and ammunition that we took with us. Destroyed what we couldn't take. I thought, it can't be this easy.

The same proved true for the Pit Grips. But Grips were more organized and those that had been in the Park may have moved to join others. At least that's what we thought. We moved on to check in on the Centerview Pros. Nothing there to worry about either.

We moved on to and arrived at George Washington Carver Park. We began to hear bullets pinging off metal and knew we were being fired upon but we didn't know from where. Something that we would experience often in the coming days.

Near where the Carver Park Grips headquartered there were two pickups out front equipped with machine guns in their beds. Derek, with Nick's help, tore both of them in half with two well-placed exploding shells. A drone soon spotted what looked like a 10-year-old girl shooting from a rooftop.

When Morgan called out to her, the shooter turned out to be a 12-year-old, stunted by circumstance, boy. He gave up and told us that the older ones that survived the epidemic went on raids to get things so they could survive. But almost every time they left, some of them didn't come back. He started crying and Melody had to console him. He had been shooting dogs, cats and rats to eat and finding water in gutters and cisterns that were drying up fast all around him.

Carlos Ramos came with us and Melody gave him some treats to start regaining his strength. We were just about to leave the park when we heard a pickup coming with two guys with their hands up. We took a defensive stance with our guns on them when they pulled up near us and a man and a woman got out of the pickup and the ones in the bed turned out to be a 15-year-old girl and her 13-year-old sister. All of them were desperately in need of assistance. The last of the Compton Barrios gang.

We called ahead and told them to go to the port to get food. But because of their tattoos they wouldn't be accepted there and would have to continue to live here. The woman, Maria, who a cousin to the man, Alfred, began to cry and pleaded with us. But what we had experienced had hardened everyone, and we told her that maybe, if they showed cooperation and traded with the port fairly, eventually they would be accepted. We asked Carlos if he wanted to go with them, but he adamantly clung to Melody and declared, "No!"

As we moved into Watts in the afternoon, I could feel the hairs on my neck stand up as the streets closed in on us the deeper into the side streets we got. A hundred years of poverty had walled in the streets and covered them with graffiti over graffiti making the place very dark even in the bright sunlight, trying to fade all of that paint on paint. The Grips were deeply ingrained here and it showed.

As the streets turned into alleys of disabled vehicles with only one lane we heard something coming up ahead and it was one of those pickups coming around a street corner and firing on the tank as if it had a chance. Derek fired one exploding shell into its radiator and the pickup and its occupants were no more. Then, I saw a Molotov cocktail come flying over the fence and land on the tank as I heard another pickup coming from behind with its machine gun firing into the SWAT truck behind us.

There was no time to think. Melody and the Sheriff were out the other side firing at where the Molotov cocktail had come from but it was a high concrete wall, so they came back and threw grenades over the wall as I grabbed a fire extinguisher and begin putting out the fire before Derek and his crew would be roasted alive inside.

Meanwhile, behind us, that SWAT crew opened up on the pickup behind only to find to their horror that there was only a teen driver and a teenage girl at the gun. Both dead for nothing. We blasted a door open to that wall. And then, with some flash bangs over the wall ventured inside. Back in the labyrinth of rooms we found what was left of the mighty 112th Street Grips. Two followers who had been shot and were bleeding out beyond our help and a grizzled old, tattooed warrior confined to bed from wounds and malnourishment. The room stunk from the infected wound in his side crawling with maggots. He begged us to kill him. Morgan put him out of his misery.

The trappings of his leadership around him in the room, guns, drugs and bling did him no good anymore. What was really disgusting was that bones he had apparently been chewing on and thrown aside were from human arms and legs. In the kitchen behind more grisly evidence of cannibalism was found. That's how far this group of survivors had come to eat. We couldn't wait to get out of there after making sure no one could use any of the ammunition and guns left there.

We had seen enough for one day, so decided to head back to the port so that Morgan, Derek and Wondah could begin to restore the entry to the port before nightfall. Burial at sea for those who died would be the next morning.

Carlos told Melody and me much about what it was like growing up without a father and thinking he would join a gang because that was all that anyone in the neighborhood could do. The snacks he was eating seemed to energize him and he asked us a lot of questions.

After introducing him to the kids at Marsha's, we met up with Ray and I decided to go on an evening hunt taking Carlos with us to relax. Carlos proved his skill with guns by taking 3 quail and one rabbit with a shotgun. Ray got a deer and I shot a wild pig. We had wild meat again for the compound and everybody pitched in with cleaning it when we arrived back for a late barbecue.

The next day after the funerals we were at it again getting closer to gangs we knew closer to our construction projects in South Los Angeles. But like before, while most neighborhoods where clearly marked, they were quiet. It wasn't until 2 o'clock when we came upon the Pillage Green and they gave us one hell of a firefight. It took everything we had to stop them from firing at us from both sides of the street. Including a couple of our lethal drones… one shot down… And the other getting the shooter. If we hadn't had our heavy SWAT equipment we all would've been wounded. I got hit a couple of times. The second time it knocked my wind out. And Melody told me later that she was hit once.

"Really scared me! To think I would've died!" I could see the concern in her eyes. This wasn't a shooting game. It was life or death. It was war. We had to have superior firepower and protection. Thankfully, we did.

Once inside their compound we found two women and five children cowering in hiding. After Melody talked with them and found out they had been captured by the gang and made to serve them both physically and sexually, Melody told us she wanted us to take them in. One bothered me because she was heavily tattooed like the guys and I suspected her. Morgan told me that he would put her in custody and find out from the others if she was telling the truth.

The next day we were closer to home. Also finding most of the streets where the Santa Monica gangs hung out to be quiet. But about 11 o'clock as we approached the headquarters for the Sophia 13 we faced another vicious battle. But with rockets and the tank we were able to take out their vehicles that came at us and we eventually rounded up four gang members, one of them a woman, who gave up after they saw their comrades dying and they were losing.

Sheriff Singh's jail was now starting to fill and we had to get ready to go to the Valley so we decided to stop our cleanup operation for now. So far, we had only touched on about 10% of the gang area of the city. But we estimated about 25% were wiped out by the flood, if not the occupants who may have moved.

Moving into new territory would be difficult if they came upon other gang territory with food as scarce as it was. We had not encountered any of the Blods yet. We knew them to be very prevalent on the east side. But they were far enough away from the port that we could relax a little bit after what we'd done during the week.

Of course, I knew there were surprises coming. I just didn't know from whom, what, or where.

Copyright 2023 © Ronald W. Hull

10/18/23