by T I WADE
“Will do, but don’t try to land. This place has trees everywhere and the only open place is the two-lane road in front. We heard a bit of gunfire a few minutes ago in two different directions and I don’t think it’s safe for you to land. We are okay, but come over and case our surroundings anyway. We have a ton of stuff we are packing into the truck and we will need to return again to clear all the stuff we could use. I won’t say more in case someone is listening in.”
It only took a minute as Joe guided them in close to David’s home and they circled a couple of times and found nothing out of the ordinary. They said goodbye and headed toward downtown Raleigh. Here, the buildings were taller and many were occupied. As they got overhead at 2,000 feet, people started waving at them from the taller buildings. One even had a helicopter landing pad on top and people quickly gathered and waved them down.
“We can’t stop,” explained Buck. “We don’t have enough fuel and I’m sure those people have supplies for a few days.” The other two agreed and they flew on to RDU airport.
They could see a large fire on the other side of the airport and decided to fly over there before coming in to land. Buck repeatedly tried to get Air Traffic Control on several different frequencies, but the radio stayed silent.
As they flew over the fire, which was actually several dozen houses in flames in a housing subdivision, they saw the tell-tale signs of an aircraft crash—a line of blackened houses in the direct path of one of the airport’s runways. The flames were still high in some areas with other areas already blackened and smoldering. There were no fire engines or police cars or any other vehicles apart from stationary ones that could be seen everywhere. It was time to land, as their fuel gauges were close to the reserve markings. There was still no wind, so the smoke from the fires hovered and the several windsocks around the airport drooped towards the ground. They came in to land away from the commercial terminals on the apron where several destroyed and some still burning private aircraft were located.
Preston and Carlos surveyed the scene, while Buck decided to land close to some smaller fuel tanks by one of the hangars close to the smaller and private aircraft terminal. It was surreal. There were several aircraft, mostly Southwest and Delta specimens, sitting with their “walk-way” doors pressed against them—looking as if they were loading or unloading passengers. There was even a Southwest supply van standing in the middle of the tarmac, deserted. A fuel truck was sitting next to a smaller twin-engine Delta jet, and looked like it was being refueled. Again the whole apron area seemed deserted.
The private aircraft terminal looked worse. A small aircraft, probably a jet based on the amount of damage caused to many of the Cessna single-engine aircraft that must have gone out of control at takeoff, had left the runway and ploughed into several stationary aircraft. Preston looked at the runway and saw two more commercial aircraft just sitting on the runway in unusual places, as if they had just been left there. They were all complete, except one, it looked like it had landed with its wheels up and gouges could be seen on the runway behind it. Preston reckoned that the small jet must have been taking off when its systems went down, went out of control, flew somewhat, and then rolled into the group of parked aircraft. It had missed the terminal by feet and a smoldering pile of blackened remains lay a dozen yards or so on the grass past the terminal. Out of the 20 or so aircraft on the apron, there were piles of smoldering aircraft and several aircraft still untouched.
Buck landed the Huey and they looked around and nobody came out to greet them. He had touched down a few yards away from the gas tanks, one housing jet fuel and the other normal aviation gasoline.
“I’m sure I’m going to have to hotwire them to get them working,” he suggested to Preston. “The gauges won’t show how much we put in, and your gauges on the farm won’t either, but full tanks are full tanks. Do you think we are safe?” he asked.
“I haven’t seen movement anywhere, but I want to go over and look at those three gas trucks over there. Carlos, I think you should stand guard, just in case.” Carlos nodded.
It took Buck several minutes, but Preston heard a motorized pump start up and turned to see Carlos helping Buck get a line to the Huey’s gas tanks Preston got in each truck. They were tractor-trailer gas trucks with a company logo on them, and they were dead to the world. The keys were in the ignition, but the trucks were stationary dinosaurs.
He went around to the trailers where the fuel controls were. The first was a pretty old trailer, and the dials came to life when he operated the on-off switch. The three gauges showed full tanks and the notation “Jet Fuel” was underneath each gauge and showed 2,000 gallons each. The other two trailers were similar, and one was bigger, showing 3,000 gallons on its three gauges. It was full of aviation fuel, not jet fuel. He switched on the master switch of the last tanker to start the pumps, but apart from the gauges showing the tanks were full, the motors were as dead as the truck’s engine.
He spent several minutes looking carefully around the underside of the belly of the tanks and saw manual wheels that could be opened to at least dispense the insides with gravity. “The system to clean the tanks,” he said aloud, “but I’m sure Buck could hotwire these pumps as well.”
Preston looked around, but there was still no movement. “Where is everybody?” he shouted to Carlos coming towards him.
“I would assume they’ve gone home to be with their families. There couldn’t have been any more flights after the remains we saw coming in, and the last one out I presume was the one we saw in the lake. Most of the aircraft over there,” Carlos said, pointing to the commercial terminal, “look like they were overnight flights ready or being readied for early morning takeoffs. Let’s go and look around.”
“Okay. Baby Huey is nearly full,” Preston replied. “Buck is going to take off and place her away from the terminal in case we have company.”
Carlos fell into step with Preston as they headed toward the smaller terminal. “I had a quick look in the windows,” said Carlos as they walked. “The building is completely locked, the gates are padlocked, and someone would have to climb over the fence to get onto the airport grounds. I think the whole airport is on lock-down since security would have come over to us by now to see who we are. I’ve never seen an airport so full of stuff, but so empty of people. Let’s see if the commercial terminal is open.”
They did, and walked up the stairs by a Southwest Airline 737 sitting at a gate. The door opened and they walked up the passenger walkway connection to the security door that led into the terminal building itself. It was closed, but because there was no reason to have security on the outside, it opened. Carlos realized that if it shut they would not be able to get back out, so he asked Preston to hold the door while he went to get a chair from the lobby. He rammed it into the doorway so that the door couldn’t close, and then, with their exit open, they went on an inspection tour.
There were papers, food bags, cleaning bins, and vacuum cleaners everywhere. The terminal was completely empty of people and it looked to both Preston and Carlos as if there had been a semi-orderly clearing of the building before it had been closed and locked down by security. The bar area was clean, the bar stools neatly stacked on the bar and the whole area locked down with a steel mesh. They could see bottles of alcohol still on the shelves. The newspaper shop was locked down, but yesterday’s newspapers and hundreds of books still lined the shelves. The lobby areas were clear, and apart from the windows letting in light, the place was dark and void of life.
“We had better get moving,” suggested Preston to Carlos. “I want to be back by 11:00 and we only have an hour left.” Carlos agreed, and they moved back to the door from which they had entered and down the passenger aisle. Carlos tried the door to the aircraft on their way by. It wasn’t locked, so he walked into the plane. The aircraft had been cleaned inside and, as he had suggested to Preston, was ready for flight the next morning.
“Such a pity, such a beautiful airplane,” Carlos
stated to Preston.
“I’ve always wanted to own one of these. Like John Travolta, who can go anywhere around the world in his. The private version is totally inter-continental with the extra-large fuel tanks. Let’s see what works on the flight deck?”
It was as dead as the General’s fancy Air Force plane, and Preston felt sad seeing such a piece of beauty totally helpless. They left the aircraft and walked down to the ground to discover that Buck had moved Baby Huey closer to them.
“I saw a small truck and what looked like an old Toyota Camry, or whatever they used to call them in the 70s, drive past the airport terminal on the road side,” explained Buck. “I couldn’t see more, but I thought I’d get over here in case you were in trouble. I checked out the Southwest supply truck. It’s as dead as a doornail and so is the fuel truck over there by the Delta jet. But, it’s still full of fuel and I could hotwire the fuel pumps if we needed more fuel.”
“I checked out the ones by the terminal and we could do the same to them,” added Preston. “That’s about 20,000 gallons of both jet and aviation fuel in these four trailers. If we need them, Joe’s got two old semi-tractors that still work and we could come over and connect them up. The connection attachments are manual labor anyway.”
“The Southwest truck is full of stuff. Since we are empty, I reckon we should full the Huey up with what’s in there before somebody else decides to help themselves.”
“Do you know how much crap I’ve got?” laughed Preston, thinking about his stash of stuff already in the hangar.
“I’m sure,” replied Carlos. “But we could be in this for the long haul and I’m sure that if we need to help other people we will most probably need every bit of food we can get our hands on. Think, guys, every freezer in every supermarket is not working anymore. Every refrigerator and freezer in every house, apartment block, or office building isn’t working. How long before people run out of food and become hungry? I reckon it’ll be less than a week before this place, and every other place where food can be found, will be a mass of people grabbing anything they can find—even the bottles from the bar we saw back there. I reckon we have a week to arm ourselves and protect what we have at your farm. I think we have to stock up as much as we can. Thank God we have Pete Allen and the Air Force bases to back us up.”
Carlos then turned to Buck. “Hey, I want to use my share in Baby Huey here and head up to Washington to get my father and his uncle. I reckon we are the lucky ones so far and the larger cities are already in chaos.”
“Sure,” answered Buck. “We can fly her up together once we’ve had our 11:00 meeting. I’m sure we can get the General’s permission to hotwire the fuel tanks at Andrews.”
“Let’s load this baby,” interjected Preston. “We can always repay it if the world gets back to normal.”
They had an hour to get back, so they worked fast. The re-supply truck had everything from cleaning utensils to boxes of miniature alcohol bottles and soft drinks. There were over a hundred cases of supplies and they took everything that could be of—even the clean towels and the pile of cabin blankets.
Now sweating, they closed the door and Buck lifted the heavier Huey off and headed out of the airfield. As they left, they could see an old truck and a blue car leaving the airport area. “I bet they’re casing the joint and we scared them off,” said Carlos.
The farm became busy for a few minutes as everybody got back at once. Preston could see Joe opening the gate to the airfield and Joe circled his arm around his head to tell Buck to go around—presumably to see if they had been followed. There was no movement or any other vehicles the three men in the Huey could see, but they did hear the two C-130s patch into Preston’s airport frequency and ask for landing instructions. Carlos undid his seat straps, climbed out of the right seat, and gave Preston the headphones.
“You are now Air Traffic Control, literally,” smiled Carlos to Preston as they passed in the narrow space.
“Preston to Sally and Jennifer,” Preston spoke into the mic. “I recommend using first names instead of aircraft descriptions in the future. A precaution, nothing more, nobody needs to know who we are. Wind is zero. What’s the temperature down there, Ground Control?”
“Martie here. Outside temperature is 45 degrees, zero wind.”
“Roger, Preston, Martie—a good idea about identification,” responded Pete Allen’s voice. “We should use as little information as possible in flight. We are on long finals incoming from the south.”
“Roger that,” replied Preston. “We have you visual and you are cleared for landing. We will land after you. Over.”
It was amazing to see the C-130s land. The first pilot touched down where the lights should have been. Preston assumed that Martie had moved them earlier. The large aircraft turned on the runway, returned, and stopped on the side of the apron next to the refueling point before the second one came in on final approach. It landed the same way and parked on the apron as close to the hangar door as possible
Buck then brought Baby Huey in and landed her on the dirt next to the hangar to get her unloaded. Martie came running up and stopped short when she saw what was inside. More cases of candy, this time with ‘Southwest’ written all over the boxes. Maggie came running up and a line was formed by the growing group.
“Bottles of miniatures of gin, rum, and whiskey?” she asked of Preston as the boxes passed her. “We need this stuff?”
“Better than dying of thirst,” Preston replied, smiling sweetly at her. “The truck was sitting by itself on the tarmac and there were weird-looking vehicles driving around trying to figure out who we were. It was Carlos’ idea.”
“There must be a million little bags of peanuts,” Martie sighed looking at the sky above her.
“I would like Tom refueled first,” asked the General, as he came up to see what was going on.
“Sorry, General,” replied Preston, smiling. “We’ll only be another few minutes. Carlos wants to get up to Washington to get his father and uncle and he and Buck are taking off ASAP. Buck, go and hotwire Tank #-3 while we empty your Huey for you. That’s the jet fuel the General needs.” Buck nodded and went over to the refueling area.
“Understandable,” General Allen replied, and turned to whistle in the direction of the closest C-130. A dozen Air Force troops came out running to help with the unloading. A minute later, Buck and Carlos were preparing for take-off as the last boxes were carried into the growing pile in the hangar. Martie ran into the house and returned with two Tupperware containers and a small cooler.
“Lunch for you two since you are heading out. We packed sandwiches, a bag of potato chips, cookies, and an apple for each of you—also a six-pack of cold Cokes.” Carlos and Buck, already in the seats, thanked Martie as Preston reminded them about first names. General Allen gave Buck two automatic carbines and told the Huey pilots that he would be landing at Andrews a few minutes after them once he refueled the C-130.
Baby Huey took off a minute later, and Preston walked over to see Jennifer waving out of the small open pilot’s window. “Fill her up lad, unleaded, and 2,000 gallons. Hurry up!” she shouted down at him and Preston presented her with one finger of his right hand.
“How do we fill her up?” asked Preston as the General caught up with him.
“We have openings on top of the wings for gravity filling. It looks like your gas line should reach our guys who are climbing up there right now. We can’t fill her fuselage tanks because they need pressurized filling, but Captain Watkins can drain the fuel we put into the wing tanks into the fuselage tanks. I want just enough to get to Andrews and back. That’s two hours of flight so about 1,800 gallons would be safe.”
“Our meters don’t work, General. Can Captain Watkins tell when she has enough?”
“Easily. Fill the left wing tank. That should hold a thousand gallons,” responded the General. “Captain Watkins can route the fuel into the fuselage tanks, fill the same wing tank again, and then she can route the second a
mount into the other fuselage tank. That will keep our center-of-gravity balanced and get us there and back. Now let’s go in for some lunch and I can fill you in while they refuel.”
Maggie and Martie were out giving Jennifer and Sally lunch boxes, so Preston led the way into the house. Joe and David were already there eating with Michael, Barbara, Grandpa Roebels and the kids, and Preston noticed that Joe’s truck was full of military gear.
“Lunch, everybody,” stated Preston. “Thanks guys for waiting for us workers out there.”
“Orders from General Martie who overrides you, Captain Strong,” joked Joe, his mouth full of food.
“I have 20 minutes to eat and then we will have our 11:00 meeting at 11:30,” stated General Allen with a smile. “Discipline has gone to pot.” Sally, Maggie, and Martie came in and joined in the group.
“Well, since we’re all here, I guess we can get started. I’ll share my news while I’m waiting for Detective Smart to come back online,” stated General Allen. “Joe, David, you can report after I do, and then we’ll hear from Preston. Hopefully by then we can hear from California. I’m sure he’s running late.”
The general sat down while Martie worked on serving the two men some lunch. “Seymour Johnson is down, and so is Pope Field and the whole of Fort Bragg. I think they have two old jeeps between them that did garbage duty or something. At the moment, we have the only two flying Air Force aircraft. Pope has a couple more C-130s that will take a few days to get flying again. Both bases have zero communications, but are on high alert. There are a couple of radios that we can have operational in a day or two, but not long-range like yours, Preston. Neither bases have any electricity at all. There are several old generators and we have engineers working on them right now, but they will take a week or more to service and get active. Preston you told me the other night that you have a few big diesel generators to spare? I need them. How many can I have?”
