It was Mark who spoke next, and directly to Joel.
“Okay, my friend. You’re in the military. What do we do about it?”
-5-
The old mine was still in pretty good shape. During their breakout from the bowels of Salt Mountain three years before they’d kept it in caretaker status.
Just in case they ever needed it again.
They kept a limited number of vehicles there, and performed regular maintenance on them. Even started them up and let them run for ten minutes every week or so. Just to keep the batteries charged.
The generators which powered the mine were maintained in a similar fashion. As was the small wind turbine atop Salt Mountain which generated electricity on breezy days.
They’d maintained the mine because it was relatively easy to do so, and because it gave them a place to run if they ever needed a safe place to hide.
Early on they were thinking that if it was ever used again it would be to hide from bands of marauders bent on overrunning the compound and stealing their livestock.
Later on the threat was the United States Army, who demanded they surrender their livestock for the “public good.”
At that time, they’d taken half their cattle, half their pigs, half their chickens into the mine for safekeeping. They were still there and still being visited and fed twice a day. Their milk was still being gathered, as were their eggs.
They later settled with the Army and agreed to give up half of their stock to avoid a war.
But the Army never knew they’d been shortchanged. That they didn’t get half of everything. They got half of what was still above ground.
Nobody, not even Hannah or Sarah, could have foreseen that they might have to use the mine not because of a human threat. But from one from the heavens.
Saris 7 had devastated the earth. There wasn’t much left to destroy.
Cupid 23, if it ever arrived, would be like adding insult to injury.
Everyone hoped Hannah was wrong. Hannah herself hoped she was wrong.
But no one could ignore the fact that she’d been right the first time. She was the one who blew the whistle to the world. She was the one who told the public about Saris 7 because NASA wouldn’t do it. She was the one who called out Washington when they were keeping it a secret.
She was the one who told her family and friends that President Sanders was lying. That he didn’t really have a plan to divert Saris 7… to change its trajectory… by exploding a rocket-launched nuclear weapon near it.
“I think he’s just pacifying the public to keep them under control while he gets himself and his cronies to safe harbor,” she said.
And she was right. About all of it.
No one in the compound could dispute any of that.
So they had to give her the benefit of the doubt. They had to assume she knew what she was talking about. That Cupid 23 might be a very real and very deadly threat.
As much as they hated the thought of reliving the agony of the past by having to move back into the mine, they couldn’t just bury their heads in the sand and think the possible threat was going away.
Karen summed it up nicely when she said, “We’ve been through hell for the last ten years. We haven’t had it easy yet. There’s no reason to believe we ever will.”
They’d pretty much resigned themselves to prepare for the worst. And to hope for the best.
The mine was no longer in caretaker status. Now it was a beehive of activity, as everyone who wasn’t on active security detail at the compound was doing their part to help out.
They began to systematically slaughter their livestock above ground. Karen’s kitchen was in full operation, twenty four hours a day. With the exception of short breaks to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner, the mission of Karen and her staff was to prepare for a second strike.
The beef was cooked, then canned or turned into jerky.
Eggs were scrambled or boiled, then canned.
David had commented to Karen as she’d started the operation, “I didn’t know you could can a pot roast or boiled eggs.”
She’d said, “You can can anything, David, if you know how to do it.”
And she definitely knew how to do it.
She also had four food dehydrators working full time to dry out chunks of chicken and sliced vegetables. In the years ahead, whether Cupid 23 was a reality or not, they’d be able to make chicken vegetable soup merely by mixing dried meat and vegetables with water, flour and bouillon.
-6-
In the mine itself, long tunnels which extended into the mountain for up to half a mile were opened.
The group called the tunnels “bays.” During Saris 7 only the front part of each bay was used, for a variety of purposes.
But this time they needed more space.
A lot more.
Their logic was simple. If Cupid 23 really hit the earth, they’d have plenty of time when trapped in the mine to sort everything out. For the time being, the emphasis needed to be on the gathering end. As much as they could gather as quickly as they could. There was no time to be neat and orderly. Neat and orderly would slow them down at a time when every minute counted.
Rachel was bored. She, like everyone else except for the small children, was working from sunup to sundown.
Her role was simple, yet significant.
But as important as it was, she felt as though she weren’t contributing.
Most of the time she was sitting on her butt waiting for something to happen.
She was positioned at the mine’s entrance, just inside the enormous overhead door.
Her job… her only job, was to open and close the door on demand, when Brad or Rusty or Mike or Frank approached the mine hauling a 53-foot trailer behind them.
Or, after they’d dropped the trailer inside the mine, in the back of bays 22 and 24, and they needed back out to hunt down their next load.
Some of the handheld radios worked better than others. But none of them had a range of more than eight miles or so. The four men who were driving big rigs and gathering up abandoned trailers along the highway were scattered near and far. They were trolling every major highway in the area, as well as in both directions along Interstate 10.
And since they were going and coming from all different directions, Rachel didn’t know when to expect the next arrival.
Until they radioed in from five miles out or so.
Five miles out meant ten minutes at most. She didn’t have time to come running over from the bowels of the mine or the compound to open the big door, and it could only be opened from the inside.
She had no choice but to wait there, sitting on her butt and being supremely bored, while she awaited the next truck.
It was a maddening way of doing business.
But there was simply no better way.
The radio at her side suddenly sprang to life.
“Control, this is Rusty.”
“Go ahead, Rusty.”
“Four minutes out.”
“Ten Four. You copy Rachel?”
Rachel keyed the microphone and said, “Rachel copies.”
She took her sidearm from its holster and made sure it was ready to fire.
It was the only thing she worried about regarding this particular operation. It was Frank’s idea.
“We’re not going to tell you to open the door until we make sure everything looks clear on the surveillance cameras. However, looking clear and being clear are not necessarily the same. It’s possible someone might be hiding in the woods, outside the camera’s view, waiting for a chance to scamper in the open door.”
Brad had been giving her weapons training in recent months by taking her and her sister Rebecca into the back of the mine for target practice.
She was a dead shot on a man-sized target at thirty yards.
But the target wasn’t moving.
And it wasn’t made of flesh and bone.
How she did against an actual aggressor remained to be seen.
Rachel hoped she’d never find out.
But she considered herself ready if the need arose.
The radio came to life again.
“Control, this is Rusty.”
“Go ahead, Rusty.”
“Outside the door.”
“Ten Four. Swap out your battery before you head back out. You’re getting a little weak.”
“Ten four.”
“Control to Rachel.”
Rachel said, “Go ahead.”
“All clear. Let him in.”
Rachel pushed the green button marked OPEN and the massive overhead door began to rise. It creaked and groaned every inch of the way.
As she listened to it rise she went to one knee and scanned the clearing between the door and the woods. Ready to shoot anything that made a break toward her.
As soon as the door cleared his smokestacks Rusty pulled his tractor-trailer combination into the mine. As he rolled past, Rachel noticed that two of the rear tires on the driver’s side of the trailer had blown during his journey.
Those remaining looked overloaded and ready to burst.
The big orange trailer was unmarked, but must be chock full of goodies.
Brad’s standing instructions to all the drivers was to crawl inside each trailer before they hooked onto it. And not to waste their time with it unless it had something they could use.
As soon as the rear of the trailer cleared the doorway Rachel rose and pushed the red button marked CLOSE.
Then she went back into her shooter’s stance and watched for trouble until the door came to rest upon the salty ground.
Rachel keyed the microphone again and stated, “He’s in.”
Sami, on the other end of the radio and seated at the control center, said, “Ten Four” and added another hash mark to the tally sheet in front of her.
Load number fourteen for the day.
-7-
Collecting supplies in such a manner was a hit-and-miss method. Everybody knew that. But they didn’t have a lot of choices, and they figured this way was much more likely to gather the most amount of supplies in the least amount of time.
With that in mind, Brad’s instructions were quite clear.
“Our priority is diesel fuel, drinking water and everything else, in that order. If you come across a diesel tanker, water tanker or Coca Cola truck, stop and try to see how much is in them. Dip the tanks. Don’t just beat on them. If they’re half full or better we’ll take it. Even if you have to change a couple of flat tires or a bad air line. I know that’ll cost you an hour, but we’ll be better off in the long run.
“Bypass any trailer that’s been looted. Also ones which have no seal. They’re most likely empty. If you come across one that’s got a lock and a seal, stop and cut them both off. Crawl inside and see what’s in it. Then use your own judgment. If it’s something we can use, hook up to it and bring it back.”
They were now in their fifth day, and Debbie was keeping a rough tally of what they’d collected so far.
She volunteered for the duty. Although climbing onto one trailer after another and rooting through one pallet of boxes after another wasn’t exactly suited for her, she still wanted to do it.
“I’ve been wanting to lose a few pounds anyway. Maybe this is the way to do it.”
It wasn’t an easy task. The floor of the trailer was even with the bottom of her chin. Dragging a stepladder around with her was one option. But that wouldn’t be any fun. She chose to climb aboard each one monkey style, by grabbing the hand rail and lifting herself up.
Once aboard the going wasn’t any easier.
Shipping companies and distribution centers tried to maximize space whenever possible. They piled cargo almost ceiling high whenever they could, and two pallets which were forty inches wide each left little aisle space.
She had to climb, squeeze and curse her way to the front of each trailer, where she methodically inspected each pallet. As she worked her way back to the end of the trailer, she got rough estimates of the valuables on board.
A typical entry might read:
Trailer 004572
Logo: Walmart
4 pallets drinking water
2 pallets misc soft drinks
4 pallets dry foods
1 pallet misc clothing, men’s
2 pallets misc pet food, dry
Dry pet food could be used to feed the hogs and rabbits. So could canned pet food, for that matter.
Anything Debbie didn’t find as having any value was left off the list.
The plan was to grab a hundred or so trailers and to cram them into the mine. That way, if Cupid 23 struck without warning they’d have at least some of the materials and supplies they’d need.
Once they hit a hundred trailers they could get the heads together, go over the sheets, and crunch some numbers.
They might decide at that point they have enough water, and start bypassing the Coca Cola trucks.
Or, they might decide they had enough food and clothing and decide to bypass all trailers in search of diesel tankers.
It was as good a method as any under the circumstances.
Rusty backed the newest trailer into place in the back of Bay 22. He hopped out of the cab and removed the pigtail and air hose, then lowered his landing gear.
He slapped the side of the big orange trailer and said, “Welcome home, big Mama. I hope you like it here. It’ll be a damn sight warmer in here come winter, and you won’t get rained on.”
No one knew exactly when Rusty started talking to inanimate objects. It was a peculiar if not endearing habit, and made him the butt of a lot of jokes.
He didn’t seem to mind, though. He wasn’t the only one in the compound with a curious habit or two.
He climbed back on board and eased the big tractor forward, disconnecting the trailer and leaving it behind. Then he crept slowly through the main tunnel, back toward the entrance, but stopped short at the unmanned control center.
He hopped out of the cab and removed the battery from his two-way radio, then placed it into a six-place charger. He took a fresh battery and was back in his cab within a minute.
Rachel heard the big Kenworth as its engine echoed through the cavernous mine and knew Rusty would be upon her within a couple of minutes or so. She was preparing to call the security desk to request permission to open the big door, but someone else beat her to the punch.
“Control, this is Brad. Do you copy?”
“Go ahead, Brad.”
“Four minutes out.”
“Ten Four. Rachel, do you copy?”
“Rachel copies. And Rusty is ready to pull out.”
“Copy. Brad, wait until Rusty is clear of the door before you pull in.”
“Ten Four.”
Three minutes later Brad pulled into the clearing and swung wide around its perimeter to give Rusty wide berth.
“Control, this is Brad. I’m outside your door.”
“We see you, Brad. Coast is clear. Let him in, Rachel.”
“Ten Four.”
Forty seconds later Rusty was back in the fresh air and heading for his next load.
Brad was pulling in to drop his.
Opening the door as few times as possible made good sense. For it was probably the most dangerous part of the whole operation. And the only time when the mine was left vulnerable to attack.
-8-
Every fifth day the big rig drivers took a day off.
Oh, they didn’t rest. But they did take a break from running up and down the state’s highways in search of loads.
What they were doing was very stressful. They were all driving solo, since doubling up meant it would take twice as long to gather what they needed.
And not having someone riding “shotgun” meant they were vulnerable to someone who might see them hooking up a rig or replacing a flat tire.
There were still highway nomads out there. People who lived exclusively on the highways, bouncing from one abandoned rig to another. They g
arnered their clothing, their medicine, and all their food from such trailers. And there were enough trailers with their tractors still attached to give them a dry place to sleep each night as well.
One of the men’s chief concerns was that a nomad might spot them when they were out of the truck and most vulnerable.
That same nomad might think it rather cool to have his own working tractor, so he could hook onto a trailer of his choice and drag it to some isolated location. There he might live off it for months, without having to worry about sharing it with anyone else or falling victim to a random act of violence.
That same nomad might be willing to exact his own act of violence, against whichever hapless driver happened to cross his path.
Each time a driver found a promising trailer… each time he climbed aboard to see what was on it… each time he hooked up and sat in his cab waiting for the air to build… each time he carted it away and struggled to get up to speed… each time he drove the trailer down the highway, he worried that any second a bullet might strike him dead.
It was a very stressful job, and by the time each fifth day came around they were all frazzled and in sore need of a break.
So even though they didn’t really get a day off, because there was always something to do, they did get an occasional break from the potential hazard zone of the road.
On those days when the drivers stayed home, David carried out his own agenda.
Although Marty had opted out when giving the option of riding out the storm in the mine with his friends, David had planned for an influx of new people anyway.
“Look,” he told the others. “Marty only opted out because he thought he could do more good for the people of Eden by preparing the old prison instead. Many of you have the same doubts I do about making that place survival-ready.
“I have even more doubts about him gathering everything he needs to survive for the duration. I’ve actually been in that prison. I used to go in there one day a week to pull and fill teeth. I don’t think it’s big enough to hold enough supplies to feed and water seventy people for four years. I just don’t.
A New Start: Final Dawn: Book 9 (Volume 9) Page 3
