Cascadia Fallen: The Complete Trilogy, page 72
Once inside, Alex had procured several electronic parts, servos, batteries, wire, solder, tools, and the most important pieces—IR sensors. He filled his grandfather’s old duffel bag so they would have more than they could ever think they would need.
The other half of the mission had been to a black market that had been set up in Kent, near the largest Amazon warehouse in the region. At almost one million square-feet, it had been ransacked less than two weeks after the disasters, as people were quickly overtaken by a desire to ‘get theirs’ before everyone else had stolen the good stuff. By this point in the disaster, the place had been stripped clean, and a series of markets had sprung up all over the city. They were looking for Infrared markers—battery operated beacons that were invisible to the human eye but would scream like a spotlight to anyone wearing night-vision devices.
Fortunately, they would seem broken to the vast majority of people who possessed them. On the flip side, who would want a broken flashlight? That would let the savvy know that they’re worth something.
To barter for them, they had pre-packaged several zip-lock bags with the apocalypse’s favorite currency—.22LR ammo. John had advised them to use that as their fallback plan, first offering a handful of other items they considered spare. Most of the members of Phalanx had been preparing for years. They found spare water filters, stainless water bottles, and expired MREs that people in the group had been holding onto for years for just such a bartering emergency. Disposable lighters were now worth their weight in silver—literally. Preppers who didn’t have several dozen packs of dollar-store lighters stored just for bartering were kicking themselves. They also explained the mission to the residents on the south side of the river, who had responded with more bartering donations.
“You’ve been awfully quiet tonight, boss,” said Renee Sherman, one of the two people on front gate duty with him. They were parked in the little wood yard-shed while Erin’s daughter, Lacey, took her turn out near the gate, scanning for potential threats with the night-vision binoculars.
“Oh, sorry,” John said, knowing he really wasn’t. “Thinking about the haul the team came back with today.”
“So, what was that all about?” Renee asked. “Everyone seems pretty hush-hush about it.”
John turned to look at the young woman. “Well, we have a chance to try and make a…let’s just call it a special tool. There’s some trouble brewing with the gangs. We may need all the special tools we can get.”
“Okay,” Renee replied, somewhat disheartened she couldn’t be trusted with the plan. “I get it.”
“Look, kid, don’t take it personally. We just need to compartmentalize everything. The more one person knows, the more they can spill if one of the bangers get them.”
“Well, did you all get everything you need?”
“Hopefully. Apparently, we need to go raid a hobby store or two next. One thing at a time, I guess.”
Renee could tell John was just appeasing her, so she quieted. John went back to thinking about payload delivery. This whole idea had too much complexity, which made the chances of failure high in John’s mind. The former cop was a firm believer in the KISS method—keep it simple, stupid—when it came to warding off Murphy. He knew at least four of the Phalanx team members that had managed to procure everything from grenades to construction grade plastic explosives over the years. Making their airborne weapon go boom wasn’t his concern—getting it over the cartel intact…that was what worried him.
They had learned on the radio that not only did they shoot down the National Guard helicopters early on in the engagement, they had actually captured one. The cartel owned the skies. Nobody in their right mind would try to fly a small plane near downtown Seattle. Not that we have an aircraft or pilot anyhow, John thought. At least…not a fixed-wing pilot.
11
Mind Over Matter.
About five weeks after the disasters, a dynamic in the paradigm shifted in the Western cities in America. The years earlier had been strife with polarizing politics, giving rise to organizations on both ends of the political spectrum that had been preparing for all-out conflict. But something unheard of had happened just one federal election cycle prior, when a third-party candidate had taken the presidency by taking the majority of the electoral votes. Things had remained tense, but the rhetoric had ratcheted down just a bit, as had the violence that had been plaguing the cities.
But as the on-going economic, electric, and internet crises continued to take their toll, a power vacuum developed in cities like Denver, San Diego, Sacramento, and Portland. The gangs had already established a firm foothold in Los Angeles and San Francisco many years earlier, but now they were actually impacting almost every city in the West. Taking a cue from the success of the Mendoza cartel’s powerplay, all of the sub-branches that collectively were called MS-13 by the American media had begun to take a more direct control over their cities, one neighborhood at a time. The American president had been too distracted by the increasingly violent skirmish between China and Russia and too trusting that the governors would be able to handle the problems in their states.
Some of the governors and mayors had been trying to stay ahead of the gangs’ influence by calling National Guard units and placing their police on overtime. All that did was reactivate the Marx-based organizations that had fought so hard to enact socialist ideologies disguised as a fight for rights and liberty. The protests started and evolved into riots as the police state grew. All the gangs really had to do was sit back and watch, ready to pick up the pieces when the vacuum had taken full hold.
Tahoma’s Hammer Plus 36 Days.
“Gene! You doing okay?” Tyler asked his partner, unsure how many hours had passed since the last time they’d spoken. He was guessing it had been two days since they’d even been out in the main shop, getting tortured. He was in immense pain, both from physical damage and from a splitting headache. Sleeping, or more likely just laying still, was the only way to find relief. There was only so long one could lay in the fetal position before even that started to hurt, though.
The guards brought them water and dog food twice per day, allowing them out to use a bucket. Must be that sadistic leader’s way of feeling humanitarian, Tyler thought. Or he just doesn’t want to step in our waste the next time he tortures us…
They’d even been given some rags from the shop. Tyler instructed Gene in stuffing those into his armpits and crotch. “Keep the skin warm in places where the blood is close to the surface,” he explained.
Gene began to rustle a bit. “Uuugghh…yeah, but I think my balls may be…be…”
The Navy veteran was a computer jockey—he’d never been trained in how to handle this. He started to weep because he couldn’t openly admit he thought his testicles would be damaged beyond repair if he survived this. After he got his tears under control, he decided to check on his comrade. “What about you?”
“Stiff…sore…cold. Even if they opened the cage door, I don’t think I could move. I j-just can’t seem to warm up!” He gave that a moment to sit there, and then asked Gene, “How long you figure we’ve been holed up down here?”
“Feels like a few days…but I have no way of knowing for certain. My injuries are making it difficult to think about anything else.” He thought for a moment longer. “And like you, I don’t think I’ll be able to run.”
The pair went quiet for a good ten minutes, but Tyler wanted to keep Gene talking to keep his mind off his electrocuted nuts. “Gotta ask you a serious question, Gene.”
“O-okay,” he said weakly.
“Why do born-again Christians target gays so much?”
Gene had been expecting the conversation before they were tortured, but at this point it caught him completely off-guard. “I—I d-don’t understand…”
That caught Tyler off-guard. “Whaddya mean you don’t understand?” How can he NOT understand the Christian history of forcing their belief systems on anyone who believes in gay rights…abortion… “I mean, how can you not see how you changed when you found out Teddy and I are married?!” Gene shuffled around a bit. Tyler could hear him groaning in pain. “What…what are you doing?”
“I’m sitting up. You and I are about to have a serious conversation. I don’t care how much pain I’m in. I want to be lucid and understand everything clearly.”
“I’m not trying to start a debate, Gene,” Tyler said. “I was just hoping that we could be honest with each other after all of this…”
“There is no debate, Tyler. You and I are just two people with our beliefs.” He gave a strategic pause. “But the truth doesn’t care what you or I believe, it’s just the truth.”
“Well, that didn’t take long,” Tyler said in a frustrated tone. “That’s exactly my point! You guys always think you’re right!”
“So do you!” Gene countered.
The pair were quiet while they each thought about their next points. Tyler finally said, “Look—I’m not going to argue. We need each other, and I think you and I can at least agree on that. But I do want you to know that it became glaringly obvious by how you treated us that you weren’t pleased to find out we’re gay.”
Just then, the door from the shop flew open and a cartel soldier holding a lantern came pounding down the concrete steps with two dog food bowls and a jug of water.
“I am truly sorry if I treated you and Teddy badly,” Gene said. “Truly. And I want to pick this back up when we can.”
“Hey, Phil!” he heard Horn say as he stepped off the office’s front patio. There was a hard November rain pounding from the southwest. He had pulled up the rain hood on his camo coat and was about to climb into the Gator. “I don’t know how you managed to do it, but thanks for procuring that special paint. I gave a sample tag a good coat and tested it inside one of the conex boxes with a UV light. Glows like a champ. Once it hardens, I’ll see if some clear coat will protect it.”
“Ah, good. Finally, something’s going right. And good thinking on the clear coat.”
Phil wanted to know if this idea would work, but he was in a hurry to get in the gator and go check on two of his other pet projects. Savannah’s coloring project had given Phil the idea to paint a secret phrase on the new metal tags that would replace the now-compromised SPP patches. They could spray paint over it and put some sort of phrase or sticker over the spray-paint as a decoy. If a patrol ever doubted the validity of the tag some other Posse group presented, they could scrape the paint off and check with a UV flashlight.
Several years earlier at the annual banquet, Phil had given all thirty range officers a little flashlight with a UV bulb and glow-in-the-dark body as a thank you gift for their hard work that year. While not all of them had made it out to the club after the disaster, he had the surplus—the club had purchased a bulk of fifty.
As Phil turned to climb into the Gator, Horn continued. “Say—what did you want the control word to say?”
Phil finished climbing behind the small scooter’s wheel and just stared at Horn. “Uhh…I hadn’t even thought about that. Gimme a little bit, and I’ll get back to you before you mass produce.”
“Right on,” Horn acknowledged.
Phil started the Gator and headed for the road that diverges from the main gate and head’s up range. He crossed over the range and stopped off by a conex near the southern perimeter. He hopped out and hobbled over to the door and gave it a little rap with his knuckles. He saw a pile of cardboard tubes laying on the ground outside.
“Come in!” he heard through a mostly closed steel door.
Phil entered and saw two dim lanterns providing light to the father and son duo of Theron and Stephan Middenberg. “How’z it goin’?” he asked. The box was strong with the scent of saltpeter and sulfur.
Stephan pointed in the corner. “If the old man would just let me lead, there’d be twice as much by now.” He was pointing at a tightly sealed tub of powder from the self-contained fireworks. While the big show quality mortars had proven useful, and probably would again, all the smaller stuff they had procured from the local crime family weren’t much use just as a firework. The Middenbergs were disassembling them for parts.
“Maybe you should just have a nice, tall glass of ‘kiss my butt’,” said the plump father to his lanky son.
Phil laughed. “I think maybe you guys should prop the door open just a bit!”
Though he knew Phil was joking, Theron explained, “Can’t. We’re already trying to dehumidify in here.” He pointed to three of the plastic-bucket, desiccant dehumidifiers that people had provided from their RVs.
“Hmmmm,” Phil said. “Yeah, moist potassium nitrate isn’t much good, is it? Just thought I’d check on you guys. Just…be careful, okay?”
“Stuff’s pretty stable,” Theron commented. “We might’ve made a few ‘Dupont spinners’ for fishin’ over the years.” He was smiling sheepishly as he said it.
“Was there anything left to eat?” Phil asked, laughing. “I thought grenade fishing was a joke.”
“Yeah,” dead-panned Theron. “It’s a joke. We’ll just go with that.”
“Alright, fellas. I’ll get out of your hair.” He went back to the Gator and took the southern perimeter road to the field up on the hill. Phil parked the Gator next to the Command Post trailer and tent at the south end of the field. Sloppy, sloppy mud, he thought looking around at the mess. Gonna need to get some pallets out here…maybe build a deck. He remembered the back deck had collapsed on his split-level home just two miles north. Maybe some of the lumber will be usable.
“Hey, everyone” he said as he ducked into the walk-in carport style canopy.
The club’s lead HAM radio operator, Jerry Horst, was in the middle of teaching a few others the fine art of calculating how long to make an antenna that would be resonant on several of the HF frequencies. They had been using a long pair of wires called a di-pole, but now he wanted to use a loop hanging from the trees.
“Howdy, Phil. Everything alright?” Phil only showed up to the CP when there was something specific to discuss.
“How’s your local AmRRON net been holding up? You all still passing local intel up and down the peninsula?”
“Three to four times per day, like clockwork. Plus there’s still some traffic on the local emergency management nets to monitor. Why?”
“As much as I don’t want to, I think we need to get our scouting and salvage patrols going again. Just wanting to get a bead on any security issues you might be hearing about.”
“Ohhh,” Jerry said. “Just the usual stuff. Murders. More and more people being found dead from starvation or just plain old suicide. There was a big fight at the FEMA camp in Bartlett this morning.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say,” Phil said with a dark tone. I need to tell Charlie to get his family back out here, he thought. Enough’s enough.
“So, what’s the issue?” Jerry asked.
“Food,” Phil mumbled as he opened the zipper flap and exited. “Always food.”
He found himself wondering if the rain had driven the team who was working on his special project to the east side of the range to seek shelter. I should go check on Eli and the guys. He passed the two, large ‘poor-man’s’ greenhouses made out of PVC pipe and plastic, realizing they were going to need to do something better if they wanted those things to last through winter. Of course, they’ll be working still. That’s what these people do—just keep plugging. I can’t recall a time I’ve seen a better example of the American Spirit, he thought. It will help us get through winter, and just maybe save our Washington…
As he got to the mid-field trail that led east to their eastern perimeter, his eyes caught a motion in the exposed garden to the north. There was a small doe, about eighty meters away, grazing on grass. Phil took his slung rifle off his back. He flipped his magnifier in front of his red-dot sight to expand the view several times. Scrawny. The temptation to shoot was strong. Fudge-cycles. She wouldn’t even dress out to be sixty pounds, I bet. Phil didn’t want to hunt a deer with a caliber like 5.56 mm anyhow, but when people weren’t getting enough food, some things became ethically fuzzy. The doe looked up at Phil, and her nose twitched the air just a bit. He re-slung the battle rifle onto his back and started limping east again, wondering what the next big crisis would wind up being.
12
Tough Choices.
Tahoma’s Hammer Plus 29 Days.
The night before had gone somewhat smoothly for Josh, Stu, and Jeff. They had pitched themselves a low-angled and low-height lean-to style tarp that was big enough for two of them at a time. They piled up debris on the low side gap to keep wind and rain from being pushed under. One guarded while the others slept.
If someone had told Josh a month earlier that he would be camping with his nephew and a Jewish plastic surgeon, he’d have slapped them. As it were, the training that he and Phil had rushed Stu through was evident. He had been keenly aware of his muzzle and finger anytime he was handling the rifle that Phil had lent him.
Each of them chowed on a can of tuna for breakfast. They broke camp and hiked back out through the underbrush and low-hanging cedar and fir branches back out to the highway. It started to rain.
As they progressed west, they occasionally moved off to the side of the road to give plenty of clearance to a much larger eastbound group. About once or twice an hour a vehicle would stop by, sometimes with groups of people fleeing to higher hopes, sometimes with groups that resembled a civil patrol of some sort. It was during one of these occasions that Stu ventured too close to the shoulder, slipping down a particularly muddy and steep slope. He slid down the wash for a good twenty feet, slamming into the base of a tree where it leveled out.
