The following report was received at ZWN today: dated 6/01/08
ZWN is not responsible for factual errors or any other content liability in this report:

Posted 6/01/08
Submitted by: Cheston "Rifle" Keck

1st Tactical Response Team

OP: Border Twilight

First, let me apologize about the name, not my idea. We have just gotten home from our first operation as a zombie hunting team. We are a 5 man team made up of family and good friends. There is Big Country (my brother), Big K, Ghost, Finger, and Rifle (myself) right now. I wish I could say things went wonderful for us, but they didn't. It started a month ago when we got a call from the Columbus, NM police. They just want some extra help working the US/Mexico boarder. It would be them, the county sheriffs department, and us. Simple work, ridding in with them to help secure any body coming across the boarder. They had heard that Necro's were being smuggled into the country and want some "professional" helping dealing with them if they found. We had put up our ad about a week before and were looking for some light stuff to get some field time under our belts, simple milk run.

Arrival

We arrived mid-day into Columbus and meet with the county sheriff and the police chief. They filled us in with what was going on. In the past week, there had been an a lot more illegal traffic across the board and not enough people to catch them all. They wanted us to help add to there man-power plus responded to any stops that they thought were more than just drugs. The team looked at each other and just nodded our heads, "It's a deal" I told the police chief and shook his hand.

We went out to his office and meet the locals that we would be working with for the next month. They were a small group that gladly accepted the help, the sheriff smiled and left…very quickly followed by the police chief. Officer Watkens walked over to me and introduced himself to me, I will always remember him. We talked shop and they were shocked to learn that this was our first operation and that none of us had killed a necro before. We went out for some dinner before our first night of work with the team that we would be working with.

When we left dinner, an odd looking man came up to us and asked us about being the Zombie Hunters that had just came to town. We said yes, and he just smiled. "Good luck, you'll need it" he said and walked away.

Calm before the storm

For over two weeks, we sat around each night waiting for something to happen. Lots of traffic my butt, I would always think. We had one or two calls a week as we patrolled our area for the night. One was a group of illegal immigrates that were too worn out and underfed that they were mistaken for zombies. Some drugs here and their, or a coyote that moved at the wrong time and got nailed by one of our shotguns. Nothing big and fast like we were expecting.

One night that strange man came to my room at the motel. "They moved off," he told me

"Who," I asked

"The Zombie Smugglers, they are afraid that you will kill the cargo," he said and left.

The next day I went to the police chief and told him about the plan the team had made in order to get somebody that might be smuggling necros. We would leave, make a big deal out of it in the papers. The reality was, we would camp-out in the middle of nowhere and wait for calls that truly needed us. He agreed and we left to our little hidden spot in the desert.

Desert Fire Fight

Five days after we had set-up our base camp, came a chilling call over the radio. "CPD to anyone receiving, we are pinned down just south of millers point, taking heavy fire." We looked at each other and had our gear on in less than a minute. The trip would take us about 20 minute's off-roading it the whole way. We double checked everything on the way, our weapons (mainly shotguns, pistols, and our three modified SKS rifles) were placed hot and safety's off. We soon started hearing gun fire, then about 3 minutes later it stopped. "TFT to CPD, our eta is 5 minutes. Please respond," Ghost called over the radio. A garbled transmission came though, but it sounded like, "stay away…federal troops."

We stopped everything about ½ a mile away and jogged the rest. We stopped on a small vista point and took a look through the pair of NVG's we had. Big K reported that he saw Mexican Troops taking money from a man in plains clothes while the others searched the two dead bodies. Finger checked out GPS coordinates, making sure we were still in the USA and sure enough we were about a mile from the border and on the US side. We waited and watched the Mexican troops leave, only to be followed by three other cars that pulled up.

As the people in the cars came out, we made our way down to get in close to the smugglers. We could hold them here until the cavalry arrived. We got into place as they started to get ready to leave, when two dune buggies came out of no where. The smugglers opened fire on them, as two trucks came into view also. From the beds of the trucks came gun fire. One of the trucks turned towards us, we were caught in the headlights and soon gun fire was coming our way also.

We opened fire on the truck with three SKS rifles, scoring a lucky hit on the driver causing the truck to come to a stop. Everyone from the back jumped out as we started moving forwards. A couple of them went down as they went for cover. They started to yell some sort of rhetoric at us along with gun fire. Finger was hit in the leg by one of them. After about five minutes of exchange, the small group stopped firing. We rushed forwards and secured the weapons from the dead, mostly off the shelf AK's and hunting rifles.

Our focus turned to the second truck that was exchanging fire with what was left of the smugglers. We radioed what was going, and were told that the closest back-up was still 20 minutes away.

We proceeded to close in on the second truck, with the two dune buggies on the far side of it, and set up a skirmish line, having Finger watch out back. They had somehow managed to mount a full auto M60 and were using it to pin down the smugglers. Big Country was able to take out the gunner with a head shot while Ghost and myself started picking of those that were assisting the gunner. Another 10 minute gun fight erupted as we and the smugglers dealt with the forces that came in on the attack. Once they were down, we swept the area they were firing from.

The smugglers started to come over to us, probably happy that they had the help, and weren't prepared to meet with us when they saw who we were. We took this opportunity to convince all but one of the remaining smugglers, into custody. The 'one' had pulled a gun when we announced who we were and managed to get a shot off, grazing myself on the arm, and was meet with two quick rounds from Big K's shotgun. They wouldn't tell us what they were smuggling, and when we went to open the van one shouted, "Don't! They will kill us all!" Ghost used some persuasion on him and told us what they were caring. Inside the big truck was a load of M-Bomb drugs and two kids that where zombies because they wanted to try the stuff. They figured that they could sell the two as an added bonus.

When the locals arrived, we did a though search of the area. Those that attacked were from some radical group that saw Necro's and those transporting going against the will of god, got to love religious zealots. We had to find some some way of dealing with two zombies in the van without the possibility of causing the virus to get loose. The locals didn't want to go near the thing until the zombies were re-killed. I went ahead and volunteered to open the door while Big K, Ghost, and Big County stood by with their shotguns to dispatch them before they could attack me. All in one big movement, I opened the door and two seconds later shotgun blasts went off as I dove down. It took 5 rounds, but both were killed and luckily non of us were bite or had contaminated blood hit us. As a precaution, I went with Finger to Silver City Regional by air and was placed in quarantine with a private room and a nurse that would come and check on me.

After Action

Finger and myself took part of the debriefing via video conference from the hospital. The team was both heavily blamed and recognized for our actions. More agencies had hit town in two days that I was at the hospital, DEA, FBI, Boarder Patrol, and a Homeland Security weenie. DEA personal that were there could give us real street value of the drugs as this was one of the first large M-Bomb busts to be made, or that he was willing to say. The religious zealots that attacked were from a group calling its self "New Dawn". They believe that the Nerco Virus is Gods way of starting the end of times and that they are his chosen ones to spread the virus until Jesus's return. To make matters worse, the FBI claimed to have been watching that cell and wanted to catch them with the drugs, I had a few choice words for them about the lack of help response not only to our situation but also to the two local sheriffs that were gunned down by the Mexican Military. At that point the FBI and Boarder Patrol both stated that there never was any foreign military on US soil.

I returned home two days ago, 100% clean of the necro virus, along with Finger. The FBI was nice enough to let us use one of their Lear Jets for the ride home. Big Country told me when we arrived that our actions had brought us about a nice bonus from the government and that US Boarder Patrol was offering us a contract along the California boarder. We were able to talk our sister into leaving her job as a local EMT to join our team. The team is planning on shipping out in the next two weeks to California as soon as we work on some new tactics and buy some more modern assault rifles.

The following comment by Captain 'Hawk' Heath does not necessarily represent the views of ZWN. It's editor or staff.
:

Thanks for the report Cheston, seems like you finally got your action. Could have been a lot worse. At least you were not thrown in too deep. You also got a frustrating but ultimatly valuable lesson in the confusion and uncooperation of different departments, and governments. Welcome to my world.

Stay frosty.

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