Their first project was a World War II–vintage Sten Mk II submachinegun. These 9mm SMGs had a very simple design using a tubular steel receiver. Parts sets for the guns (sans receiver) were cheap and plentiful. Finding several ads in the Shotgun News, Ian bought a “hand select” parts set for $220. From another vendor, he bought a 4130 steel receiver tube blank that already had a cutting template glued on. The magazines came from a third vendor who sold used but serviceable (and very greasy) thirty-two-round magazines for just $9 each. Doyle also bought just one scarce forty-round magazine, which cost $40 just by itself. All of these mail orders were paid for with U.S. Postal Service money orders that Doyle paid for with cash.
When the greasy parts set arrived, Fong was a bit disappointed by its condition. Several of the parts had rust pitting, and Fong pointed out that the stock extension was slightly dented, so it wouldn’t fit on the receiver tube blank. Ian laughed and said, “Don’t sweat it, Dan! We’ll just cut to size, file to fit, and paint to match. It’ll be easy!” Assembly did indeed turn out to be fairly simple. Aside from a touch-up weld and final finish, the Sten was built in just one weekend.
Their next project was more ambitious: an Ingram M10 submachinegun. Like the Sten, its parts set came from an ad found in the Shotgun News. The frame came to them in three pieces, to get around a recent BATFE ruling. The two side pieces of the frame came from one vendor, while the middle piece came from another dealer who advertised this as “The Missing Link!” After they spent an hour building a jig block to ensure that the pieces would be held at precise 90-degree angles, welding the three pieces together took just a few minutes.
Welding together the frame and assembling the M10 took the trio just one day. The time-consuming part was making the parts for the sound suppressor that attached to the M10’s factory-cut muzzle threads. The suppressor was a clone of the famed Sionics brand, which was codeveloped with the Ingram SMG in the 1960s. The suppressor project took several weekends.
Dan and Ian started with a set of Sionics machining diagrams that they found advertised in Gun List. Ian was able to buy seamless aluminum tubing stock from a local vendor. The same company provided some aluminum bar stock that would be drilled and lathe-turned for the internal spirals. Fong botched cutting the threads on the first two tubes, but the later ones turned out nicely. Luckily, they had plenty of extra tubing stock, so they didn’t need to make a second purchase.
The final touches in the welding and painting of the two guns were done in Michigan. This was because Todd’s mother objected to the smell when her kitchen oven was used to cure the Alvin high-temperature engine paint that was used on many of the gun parts. Over a three-day weekend, Todd, Ian, and “the Fongman” took a road trip to Plymouth, Michigan, and worked in the garage at the home of Doyle’s parents, who at the time were away on vacation. When he had been invited to join them, Tom Kennedy declined, declaring: “I don’t know what your fascination with full-auto is! I can squeeze my trigger finger pretty fast, and that’s not a felony.”
The last-minute welding work in Michigan included attaching the front strap hanger for the Ingram and touching up the trigger-guard welds on the Sten, which Fong had declared “imperfect.” For this they used Gray’s portable oxyacetylene torch, which they brought along on the Michigan trip. This was the first time that Todd ever helped Ian and Dan do any of the welding. The paint curing was done in the oven of the Doyles’ “summer kitchen” fruit- canning range, which sat in the screened back porch. The welding and painting weekend in Michigan turned into an extended pizza and root beer party for the trio.
Later that school year, Dan and Ian drove to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to test their two new toys. They did so at Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park on a rainy weekend. Hiking deep into the forest for two hours on deserted trails across patchy snow assured them privacy for test-firing the guns. First they fired the M10 using special subsonic-velocity ammo. With suppressor attached, each shot sounded like little more than a hand clap. They fired just sixty rounds through it, mostly with the SMG’s selector switch turned to the semiautomatic position.
After stowing the Ingram and its magazines in Ian’s backpack, they got out the Sten gun. Because the Sten was not suppressed, they fired just twenty rounds through it. The first eighteen rounds were loaded into magazines with just one cartridge per magazine, to test to see if they were stripped out of the magazine properly when the bolt slammed forward. Like the Ingram, the M10 fed flawlessly. Finally they reloaded two magazines with three rounds each. These Dan shot in two quick bursts. The gun functioned as expected. They then pulled the stock off the Sten and re-stowed it in Dan’s backpack. They didn’t stop grinning for hours.
Originally the completed Sten was going to belong to Fong, while the M10 would be owned by Doyle. But after their test, Fong got cold feet and claimed that he didn’t have a secure place to store an unregistered Class 3 gun. He asked Ian to buy him out of the Sten project. Doyle, who had a more cavalier attitude about legalities, was happy to do so. He hid the guns and their accessories in a wall cache in his parents’ basement.
Eventually, Ian bought a spare barrel for the Sten that had a threaded muzzle. He and Fong then spent another two Saturdays in the Grays’ shop, completing a 9mm suppressor that was almost identical to the “can” that they had built for the Ingram.
The two guns and their accessories were stored for most of the next fifteen years in the wall cache, sitting well oiled in plastic bags, each of which also contained a large packet of silica gel desiccant. All this time, Ian’s parents were oblivious to their presence.
Three years before the Crunch, Ian had a permanent change of station (PCS) back to Luke AFB. Just after that move, he took Blanca and their daughter, Linda, on a two-week driving trip to visit relatives in Wisconsin and Michigan. While in Plymouth, he retrieved the submachineguns, bringing them home in tape-sealed boxes marked “Books.” Once back in Arizona, he more extensively test-fired the guns out on a section of BLM land north of the old copper-mining town of Ajo. He put nearly three hundred rounds through the guns, with just one jam on the Sten, which he traced to a dented magazine feed lip. Not wanting to risk another jam, he buried that magazine at his impromptu shooting range. He spent the next day at home, cleaning and lubricating the guns and suppressors, and painting all of the magazines to match the guns. He stowed them in a pair of military surplus 20mm ammo cans and buried them under the crawl space of the rental house.
36
Emboscada
“If you’re not shootin’, you should be loadin’. If you’re not loadin’, you should be movin’. If you’re not movin’, someone’s gonna cut your head off and put it on a stick.”
—Clint Smith, director of the Thunder Ranch shooting school
Marathon, Texas
September, the Third Year
Andy’s journey through Texas and New Mexico went by in a blur. He often pushed Prieto fifty miles in a day. His stops were predicated upon increasingly infrequent sources of feed and water as he progressed into desert country. When riding in open country near Marathon, Texas, Andy saw a group of five men who were standing around two pickup trucks parked on the shoulder of the highway. Since there were no houses nearby, it seemed an odd place for them to be stopped. He didn’t like the feel of the situation. It smelled like an ambush. At a distance of eighty yards, he yanked the reins to the left and reinforced his intent by leaning leftward and applying pressure from his knee to urge Prieto into a tight turn, yelling, “¡Ándale!” His horse responded by breaking into a full gallop. Glancing over his shoulder, Andy could see one of the men raise a handgun, and two others shouldered M4 carbines.
The situation didn’t look good. There were just a few undulations in the ground—very little to provide good cover. Andy jabbed with his boot heels and alternated jerks on the reins, putting Prieto into some rapid serpentine turns. He could see a small rise about six
ty yards ahead. It was no more than three or four feet high. There was no other cover in any direction. Andy grunted to himself, “This’ll have to do!”
He heard the crack of a rifle, followed by the distinctive snap of a bullet going past his ear. As he topped the rise, there was a tug at his sleeve as a bullet passed through. Andy reined Prieto to a halt at the base of the hill, which was thirty yards wide. He did his best to pommel off the saddle, even before Prieto came to a full halt in a cloud of dust. As he hit the ground, the AK jabbed painfully into his chest. There were several more rapid shots.
As he had practiced several times before, Laine ordered the horse down with a shout of “¡Bájate!” and a firm tug downward on the reins. Prieto obediently knelt and rolled to the ground. Andy was startled to see one of the reins hanging loose in his hand; it had been shot in half. He dropped to the ground, holding the remaining rein, and tugged Prieto’s nose to the ground. The horse obligingly stayed on its side. The horse was still breathing hard and its nostrils were flaring. Andy lost sight of the men on the other side of the rise, but could still hear shots and bullets flying overhead. He extended the stock of the AK and flipped down its safety to the middle position. He crept slowly forward, low-crawling up the reverse slope of the rise. Once he could just see the tops of the men’s heads and the roofs of the pickup trucks, he lay prone and shouldered the rifle. He could hear Prieto’s heavy breaths behind him and hoped that the horse had the sense to remain prone. Laine took careful aim at a man armed with a rifle. He estimated the range was about 220 yards. He fought to control his breathing, paused, and slowly squeezed the trigger. The AK’s wire stock bucked against his shoulder. The man that he had aimed at went down hard. Seconds later the others also dropped to the ground, out of sight. Andy cradled the AK in his arms and slithered backward down the hillock. He crawled over to Prieto and whispered reassuring words. He took a moment to wrap the remaining rein twice around a large flat rock that was size of a bread loaf. Rubbing the horse’s chin consolingly, he said, “Stay down—quédate abajo, Prieto.”
He high-crawled five yards to his left and again crawled forward to near the crest of the hillock. He could see the pickups but could not see his attackers, who were concealed by some low scrub brush. Andy fired six times, aiming at the side and rear windows of the pickup trucks, doing his best to put the fear of God into the bandits. The windows disintegrated in showers of tempered glass chunks. Andy again backed off the hillock and swapped magazines, inserting a full one. Then he crawled behind Prieto ten yards to his right before gradually working his way back to near the crest of the hillock. He again found that he couldn’t see any of the bandits. There was no more shooting coming from them. He scanned intently. Then he spotted one of the men, armed with a pistol, crawling toward one of the pickups. Taking a deliberate aim, he shot the man twice through the chest.
He could indistinct shouts from the men in the distance. Then, more clearly, he heard, “¡Ahora o nunca!” Andy echoed in a whisper, “That’s right, it’s now or never, and it’s you or me. This, boys and girls, is where we divide the quick from the dead.” Andy heard one of the pickup doors slam—on the far side. He caught a glimpse of someone dashing toward the other truck and fired three rounds rapidly before the man disappeared behind the pickup. He heard another truck door slam but couldn’t be sure which one. He could hear the engines being started. Andy began firing in a rapid tempo, concentrating on the driver’s-side doors of the pickups. The two pickup trucks lurched forward, kicking up dust, and they drove away quickly. He fired six more shots in rapid fire at the back windows of the pickups. He stopped shooting when they were four hundred yards away. In his excitement, he shouted, “Concealment is not cover, you dumb mothers!”
Andy crept back down the hill to assess his situation. He again switched the AK’s magazine, then checked himself and the horse for injuries. All that he found was a hole in the right sleeve of his shirt and the severed rein. He muttered, “Thank you, Lord.”
Andy again reassured the horse, patting his neck and repeating, “Superhorse. Excelente caballo. Superhorse.” He decided it was best to wait, just in case the bandits hadn’t all gotten away or the one that he’d shot had not yet bled out. After twenty minutes he pulled his binoculars out of his saddlebags, crept to the top of the hill once more, and spent a half hour with the binoculars, scanning the area where the trucks had been parked. He could see two bodies, one faceup and one facedown. Andy rose to a crouch and walked back to Prieto. He unwrapped the rein from around the rock. Without any urging, the horse stood up and shook off some dust. He led the horse fifty yards farther away to a substantial mesquite bush and tied on the rein.
Laine turned and walked in a wide semicircle, stopping frequently to look through the binoculars. He paused at seventy-five yards, knelt, and shot the two men once more each, both in the head. He then cautiously approached the bodies. He found that they were both black-haired Mexicans in their twenties. One of them wore a fancy black silk shirt and black jeans. The other was in faded blue jeans and a plaid shirt. A Browning Hi-Power pistol lay on the ground next to the hand of the one in the black shirt. There was no gun near the other body, but there were at least eight pieces of fired 5.56mm brass. It was obvious that one of his partners had taken the fallen man’s M4.
Andy carefully examined where the trucks had been parked. There was a lot of blood on the ground, and chunks of broken grass. Then he walked back and more closely examined the two bodies, rolling them over and patting them down. All that he found in their pockets were a loaded thirty-round M16 magazine, two loaded Hi-Power magazines, and a Chinese pocketknife with a broken tip.
Andy pocketed the magazines and then picked up the Hi-Power pistol. He found that there were only three cartridges left in the magazine. He reloaded the gun with one of the full magazines and thumbed up its safety lever. Returning to the horse, he put his binoculars, the captured pistol, and the extra magazines in his saddlebag. He took a minute to redistribute the ammunition and magazines, putting a full magazine in the AK and three full magazines back into his belt pouch.
Before he left, he searched the ground behind the hillock and found the three-foot length of horse rein that had been shot off. He tied it on, rejoining the break with a square knot. “I’ll have to stitch that,” he said to himself. His throat felt parched, and he took a long draw of water from his canteen, taking down nearly half a quart. Finally, he eased himself up into the saddle.
He turned to ride south on the pavement for a half mile, then cut northeast across the desert. His plan was to take a wide roundabout, just in case the bandits were waiting in ambush farther north on the highway. This wide detour cost Andy a full day of riding.
After the excitement near Marathon, the rest of Andy’s ride seemed mundane. Many of the locals were wary. They talked a lot about recent Mexican gang attacks and desperate looters from El Paso. “Watch out for the narcotraficantes,” they warned. Only a few people were willing to trade silver for food. One man even wanted to charge Andy just for letting his horse use his watering trough. Clearly, West Texas was not the land of plenty. But near Valentine, Texas, Andy was able to trade the captured full M16 magazine for nearly a week’s worth of food that included some ground cornmeal fried into bread balls, called dodgers. It was the first time that he’d ever seen or eaten them, but he had heard Kaylee talk about them.
Laine pressed on, noticing that the summer weather was abating. The nights were getting chilly. Approaching the New Mexico state line, he made a wide arc to avoid El Paso. He was jubilant when he was able to turn due north. He paralleled Highway 25, staying away from cities as much as possible. Trees were infrequent and even brushy patches became sparse, so he often had to camp more than a mile from the nearest road to avoid detection. He heard a lot of gunfire as he passed by Socorro. He cut west at Los Lunas to avoid the population in the vicinity of Albuquerque. Highway 550 would take him directly to Farmington.
>
His next Tuesday night radio contact was unsuccessful. Andy concluded that he failed because he was inside of the HF skip zone. This is the zone that is beyond line of sight (which is limited to about forty-five miles because of the curvature of the earth) but inside the minimum distance for an ionospheric “hop” for a radio wave. He missed conversing with Kaylee, and he ached just thinking about her. But he took comfort knowing that he was so close to home.
He camped next near Cuba, New Mexico, and ate heartily, knowing that he probably had just two more days of riding to make it to Bloomfield. As he passed through the town of Cuba, he heard that there was an operating hotel, restaurant, and laundry fifty-five miles northwest, at the Blanco Trading Post. Hearing the words “They got electricity there” was captivating to Andy. He envisioned a land of milk and honey, endlessly hot bathtubs, and clean sheets.
The weather was getting uncomfortably cold, and Andy was increasingly anxious to get to the Bloomfield ranch. As he drifted off to sleep, he told Prieto, “One more hard day’s ride and you’ll be sleeping in a stall and eating oats, boy!” He awoke at dawn and brushed the frost off his bivy bag before rolling it up.
After a grueling all-day ride, Andy reached the Blanco Trading Post just after sunset. The trading post was just a wide spot in the road, twenty miles out of Bloomfield. In the years before the Crunch, it had become more of an art gallery than a trading post, catering to tourists who were visiting nearby Chaco Canyon. But as the economy crumbled, the store quickly reverted to its roots. In addition to a trading post for food and horse tack, it was also a small hotel for travelers.
Laine learned that the owners had been able to stay in business in part because they were one of the southernmost outposts on the Farmington Electric Utility System (FEUS) mini-grid. Many of the farmers and ranchers who lived even farther south came for miles for the chance to trade food and various goods, to get their grain milled, to wash their laundry, and to charge their batteries. The trading post was so successful that they had recently expanded and constructed a new barn and stable.
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