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that was just here was engaging with the criminals now living in the condos. With any luck they would kill each other off. It was dark now and we wondered what would happen next.
    What will we do tomorrow?

April 18, 2025
     
    Last night nothing happened except we heard continuous sporadic gunfire. We left ten people on guard at the bridge, figuring that would be enough until others could arrive. I don’t think anyone slept well, worrying about what would happen the next day. I dozed off a few times, getting about an hour of sleep. My whole family slept together that night. We took turns serving a two-hour guard duty just in case.
    Ron, Tommy, Robbie and I drove down to the bridge around 7 am after a great fried fish and orange juice breakfast. Rick was there, it seems he spent the night on guard duty.
    I asked Rick, “Anything new?”
    Rick re plied, “Nothing, you can only hear gunfire every now and then. Jack, I am sorry about yesterday; you were right and I will back you up that they were making a move for their guns.”
    I stated, “I don’t think anyone is going to put me in jail for killing two bad guys, so forget about it.” I think Rick chose to pull guard duty all night because he was sorry for chewing us out over killing the two dorks.
    I suggested, “Rick , let’s have a meeting to decide what we’ll do next. We can’t let a force of thirty armed people control our one and only way out of here for very long.”
    Rick asked, “Who do you think should attend the meeting?”
    Eddy , who was standing there with us, said, “How about the head of each security team, the Board, and anyone else who wants to attend.”
    Rick said, “ That’s what I was thinking, please pass the word to meet in two hours.”
     
    Eddy has three main jobs, brewing beer and wine, growing pot, and pulling security duty. Ed used to be a full-time brewer of beer in the big city. Everyone likes Ed’s beer so he is a popular guy. Ed likes pot more than anyone and once he starts smoking he becomes very weird. I don’t know who is crazier, Eddy or Mark. Anyway, Mark and Ed have the pot under control and get along just fine. Ed won’t tell anyone how he makes beer, keeping it a secret for some reason, maybe to make himself more popular or to feel needed. Ed is married and his wife does a lot of the farming in our community garden.
    We have six security teams made up of 16 people each for a total of 96 people who can shoot. Each team has a team leader, meaning six people in the meeting plus the five Board of Directors which is made up of Rick as President, me as Vice President and Director of Security, Steve as Treasurer, Robbie as Member at Large and Bill as Secretary. The Security Team Leaders are Police Bob, Army Mike, Navy Ron, Marine Tommy, Deputy Matthews, and Big Steve, using the nicknames that everyone calls them. Rick would put up a notice at the town hall that anyone could attend the meeting but the final decisions would be made by the Board.
     
    At the meeting, we decided to do a recon of the area to see just what this gang was up to and exactly where they were located in case we needed to attack them. The recon would be conducted by Tommy and me. If my son was going then I was going with him. Tonight would be perfect for this surveillance because there was no moon and the darkness would provide us excellent cover. Tommy was a Marine Scout Sniper and an expert at doing recon so I relied on him as we got ready, suited up, checked our weapons, gear, put on our camouflage paint, bulletproof vests and then duck-taped anything down that made noise.
    We had about a mile to go to reach our destination with fairly good cover. The bad guys could be waiting along the way or lying in the brush watching us. Either way it would be dangerous. We drew a map and made a plan with set meeting points in case we became separated from each other.
    Once we crossed the bridge and were beyond the car roadblock, we had to cross an open space of