The two men’s weapons were missing. There was also a body burned beyond recognition in the back of the pickup that Lisa had set on fire.
When they examined the pickup nearest the house, they found that the driver was very, very dead. He had been hit by at least ten bullets. In the cab of the pickup, they found a Smith and Wesson Model 66 .357 magnum revolver with a four-inch barrel. Luckily, it had not been hit in the fusillade, and it was still serviceable. In the glove compartment of the pickup, they found a variety of road maps. These were later closely examined because they bore a variety of marking and marginal notations.
In the bed of the pickup they found four empty five-gallon plastic hydraulic fluid containers, which had apparently been used to carry gasoline. All four containers had been punctured by bullets, but had been empty at the time they were hit. They also found a sleeping bag, several cans of beer (some punctured by bullets), a spare tire, three pornographic magazines, and half a case of canned tuna.
Not much was recognizable, and even less was usable, in the burned truck. It had mainly carried food, much of it in cans. The only salvageable item that was found was an eighteen-inch pipe wrench. Down at the county road, they found the abandoned pair of bolt cutters. Twenty yards down the road, next to the body of the man Lisa had shot in the back, they found a badly pitted Ruger P-85 nine-millimeter pistol. In the man’s pants pockets, they found a Case pocketknife, a set of lock picks in a leather case, and two loaded magazines for the pistol. On his belt, there was a crude handmade leather holster for the Ruger.
In case the group of looters turned out to be the vengeful type, Mike ordered that a second LP/OP be set up and manned continuously for the next twenty days. This put an extra burden on the group, but both he and Todd thought it prudent. The second LP/OP was set up on a low hill near the west property line. Because it was temporary, it was not dug in. It consisted of a diamond-shaped camouflage net supported in the center to a height of eighteen inches. This gave the observer just enough room to lie down comfortably. A length of WD-1 was run from the new LP/OP to the house. A TA-1 was set up at the LP/OP, and a second TA-1 was added to the C.Q.’s desk.
After setting up the new LP/OP, Todd called for another group meeting. There, he asked everyone to reorganize their backpacks as “bug out kits” to use in case the retreat was completely overrun. For this purpose, most of the group members’ packs carried a selection of contents similar to Doug Carlton’s pack when he first arrived at the retreat. At the same meeting the group discussed various options for additional security enhancements.
All of the usable items salvaged from the looters were locked up by Todd in the same locker that held the items seized from the pair of cannibal looters the previous year. The two wrecked pickups presented a problem. Neither of them could be easily towed because their tires no longer had integrity. Rather than fabricate a towing dolly, spare wheels from the group’s vehicles were temporarily mounted on the two trucks until they could be towed away. After they were towed to the grove of trees behind Kevin Lendel’s house, the trucks were put up on blocks so that the borrowed wheels could be taken back off.
Fixing the chain-link fence took four people an entire day. First, the sections of the fence that were damaged were cut away from the rest of the fence. Next, two fence poles were straightened, and another replaced entirely, with scrap pipe. Then, using two cable-ratchet hoist “come-alongs,” the mangled section of fence was straightened out. The bumper of the shot-up pickup and the bumper of Todd’s Power Wagon provided the anchoring points for the process.
Finally, this section of fence was put back into place and lashed back into the mesh, using three strands of baling wire that was twisted together to provide the necessary strength. The finished job was far from aesthetically pleasing, but it was functional. Jeff Trasel declared the repair, “Crude, but effective.”
Mike Nelson also replaced the cut lock at the gate on the county road with the last of Todd’s spare Master locks. Soon after, with two other Group members posted as security, Lon welded a special sleeve to the galvanized steel gatepost. It was made from a three-inch diameter pipe for the lock to fit into, so that it would be immune from attack by bolt cutters. The chain itself was a special rubber-coated type, normally used to secure motorcycles, which Todd had bought before the Crunch. It was guaranteed as virtually “un-cuttable” by its manufacturer. After they had done all this, Mike went to talk with Todd.
“Do you suppose that they’ll come back?” Mike asked.
“I really can’t say, Mike. If they do though, it won’t be nearly as easy to stop them. They’ll either try for a stealth blitz or come back with something so well-armored that they can just bull right in here with our bullets bouncing off of them.”
“There’s only one way we could stop something like that, and that’s some dynamite.”
“Well, Mikey, why don’t you put your thinking cap on and develop a plan to use some of your goodies in the basement.”
The next day, Nelson began the construction of his first fougasse, a sort of homemade cannon. He used some six-inch diameter pipe he found in the scrap heap behind the garage. All the material had been left behind by the farm’s former owners. It was heavy-gauge pipe. It looked like the same variety that he had seen used for water well casings. With Lon’s help, Dan cut off a six-foot length of pipe. Then, using some of the scrap left over from the window-plating project, they welded a one-half-inch thick cap on one end of the pipe.
With the help of several “stray bodies,” Mike moved the pipe down the hill to the front gate. Just inside the front gate there was a gently sloping grass-covered mound of earth six feet high and about fifteen feet in diameter. It sat about ten feet back from the road. It appeared to be soil left behind many years ago when a bulldozer was used to first cut the grade for the road up to the house. Using a pick and two shovels, Mike and his assistants cut away a strip of sod, and then dug a seven-foot-long trench across the top of the mound. They made the trench just wide enough to accept the six-inch pipe. Next, the pipe was laid down in the trench, with the open end facing the road. Mike ensured that the pipe pointed slightly downhill.
The next stage of the fougasse construction was the dangerous part. Mike went down to the basement and dug out the oldest of his three cases of Dupont 75 percent dynamite sticks. He found the dynamite to be in excellent condition. Mike pulled nine sticks of dynamite out of the case, and after thoroughly examining each of them, laid them in a cardboard box that was half filled with Styrofoam pellets. He handed this box to Rose, who with very wide eyes—it was her first time handling explosives—slowly and carefully carried them down to the front gate. “Get out of the way, I’m a suicide jockey!” she shouted, as she walked up the stairs from the basement.
Todd, who was standing at the top of the stairs, gave a hearty laugh. He quipped, “You can relax, Rose. There aren’t any blasting caps in those sticks.” From the other end of the basement, Mike gingerly opened his box of blasting caps.
He had a total of eighty-five caps. Fifty were of the electric variety. The rest were fuse type caps. As he examined them, he said to himself, “My little babies!
How are you today?” He selected two of his Ensign-Bickford electric caps for the fougasse. Holding the caps by their wires at arm’s length, Mike carefully walked up the stairs, out the front door, and down the hill to the gate. He then gently set the caps down, well away from the box containing the dynamite.
Mike went back up the hill to gather the materials he would need to finish the job. He collected ten pounds of scrap metal—mainly bent nails, rusty hardware, and the like; two pounds of broken glass; half a paper shopping bag of old rags; a reel of WD-1 commo wire; a pair of wire strippers; a roll of black electrical tape; a caulking gun loaded with a tube of clear silicone sealant; a box of plastic trash bags; a long push-broom handle; and a large plastic coffee can lid.
When he got back to the base of the hill, Mike began preparing his charge. First, he bundled
the sticks of dynamite together with the electrical tape. He formed a circular bundle just over five inches in diameter. Next, he whittled a point on a wooden stick and used it to poke holes into the ends of two of the sticks of dynamite. Rose asked, “Why go to all the trouble of whittling a stick? You could use a screwdriver or a penknife.”
Mike replied, “I always try to avoid using metal. That rules out the risk of a spark of static electricity.” Rose frowned, and then nodded in agreement.
Next, with his hands trembling slightly, Mike inserted one blasting cap into each of the holes he had made. The caps were then securely fastened with several wraps of the black tape. He explained, “The second cap is just for redundancy. This could be buried for a long time before we ever have to touch it off.”
By now everyone except Rose and Doug were already back up the hill, hoping that they didn’t hear a big bang. They stayed to watch and get further instruction on the fine art of blasting from Mike.
Mike next cut off a fifteen-foot-length of commo wire, and stripped the ends of the pair of wires. In a few minutes, he deftly spliced the two sets of wire from the blasting caps to the commo wire, and covered the splices with electrical tape. He explained, “Again, I used two caps for extra insurance, just in case one is bad. It doesn’t happen very often, but for an application like this, it would be more than just embarrassing if it didn’t go off.” He then ran several loops of the commo wire around the bundle of dynamite and secured the loops with electrical tape. “This is so if there is any tension on the wire, it won’t pull the caps apart or out of position,” Mike explained. Next, he wrapped two thicknesses of plastic from one of the trash bags around the bundle, and sealed it with tape.
Then, with his breath held, but trying to appear calm, Nelson slid the bundle of dynamite down the metal tube of the fougasse. Once it was at the end of his arm’s reach, he completed pushing the bundle to the back-plate using the broomstick handle. “As you can see, I just left the commo wire dangling out the front of the pipe. I’ll deal with it later.”
Next, Mike began stuffing the rags down the pipe.
“What are those for?” Rose asked.
Still looking down at his work, Mike replied, “They act just like the wad in a shotgun shell.”
After he had lightly tamped in the rags with the broomstick, Nelson began tossing the rusty scrap metal and broken glass into the mouth of the pipe.
These, too, he tamped with the broomstick. An odd look came across Mike’s face, and he let out a chuckle. Turning to face Rose and Doug, he pressed the ends of his eyebrows upward with his fingertips. He quoted, “If propelled with sufficient force, they would make formidable projectiles.”
Doug began laughing uproariously. Rose didn’t get the joke.
Doug said, “What’s the matter, Rose, didn’t you ever watch Star Trek? Remember the episode where Captain Kirk has to duel with the captain of the Gorn spaceship, the giant lizard man?”
“Oh yeah, now I remember,” Rose said with a smile. “Is that where you got the idea for building this ‘foo-gas?’”
Mike shook his head. “No, the basic concept is the same, but the design for this is straight out of one of my Army Engineer field manuals. This sucker isn’t portable, like Captain Kirk’s. However, it’s also about ten thousand times safer to use.”
Mike was nearly finished with the job. Using his pocketknife, he poked a hole near the edge of the plastic coffee can lid. He then threaded the ends of the length of WD-1 through the hole. Mike then slid the lid down the wires until it fit over the end of the six-inch pipe. “An almost perfect fit,” he declared. Next a bead of silicone caulking was run around the lip of the pipe, and another dab was squirted through the hole through which the commo wire passed. He then shoved the lid onto the pipe. “Doug, can you hold this in place while I secure it with some tape?” Mike asked.
Carlton stepped forward with a loud, “Yes, Sir!”
After a few wraps of tape were in place over the lid, Mike placed two thicknesses of the plastic trash bag over the cap. Then, it too was secured with several wraps of tape. Brushing his hands together, Mike offered, “Okay, that oughta keep it watertight.”
During the next half hour, Mike, Doug, and Rose back-filled the trench and relaid the sod over the top of it. Less than an inch of sod covered the muzzle of the fougasse. Unless someone knew what to look for, the existence of the fougasse was not detectable.
Later that afternoon, with the aid of several more shovels and shovelers, a shallow trench was dug from the fougasse up to the house. After another splice was made and wrapped with electrical tape, the WD-1 was reeled out in the trench. At the house, the WD-1 was fed into the house via an air vent in the brickwork. The far end of the commo wire was positioned at a front window with a good view of the gate. The ends of the two-conductor wire were then connected to a Claymore mine firing device, commonly called a “clacker.”
The clacker belonged to Dan Fong. It had been given to him several years before by a coworker at his cannery who was an Iraq War veteran. After testing the circuit with a volt/ohm meter, the clacker, with its heavy wire “safety bale” in place, was then put in a cigar box that was marked with a hand-painted red warning sign. It read, “Hands Off. This means you. By order of the Tac. Coord.”
Todd liked the fougasse so much that he had Mike and his understudies build five more over the next seven days. This used up most of the rest of the scrap six-inch pipe. The second fougasse was lined up with a large downed tree some fifty yards away from the house. Todd picked this spot because the tree would be a tempting piece of cover for anyone attacking the house. Todd said, “If we spot anyone laying behind the log and shooting at us, Ka-Boooom! End of story.”
The third fougasse protected a blind spot beneath the LP/OP. The fourth was aimed at a trail junction at the edge of the wood lot. As a cue to trigger this fougasse during hours of darkness, a trip flare was strung at chest height. The fifth was aimed at the area behind the barn—the blind spot that the last group of looters had used to their advantage. The sixth and last fougasse was planted in a hole in the middle of the county road, in the center of the ambush zone covered by the spider holes. This fougasse, designed to fire vertically, was specially designed to defeat vehicles. It was loaded with a single pointed three-inch diameter hardened steel penetrator backed with a small coffee can filled with two pounds of scrap metal shrapnel and all the powder from a thirty-minute road flare. This coffee can had slits running its full length, cut at one-inch intervals. This was designed to delay the spread of the shrapnel until it entered a vehicle.
The clacker in the cigar box was soon replaced by a control panel, built by Kevin. It had enough indicator lights and switches to control up to ten devices—be they fougasses or Claymores or anti-vehicular explosive charges.
The first five fougasses were wired into the panel soon after it was tested. Using her artistic talent, Mary added numbers and diagrams of the expected fans of effect for the fougasses to the sector painting next to the window where the “Mr. Destructo” control panel was placed. All the operator had to do was spot a target, consult the sector painting, and hit the correspondingly numbered button. A child could handle it. So a child couldn’t handle it, Kevin had included an electrical key switch to the panel. This key acted as a master cutoff for the motorcycle battery that powered the panel. The battery was constantly trickle-charged by the house’s twelve-volt DC power system.
Still concerned about the threat of vehicles crashing through the chain-link fence surrounding the house, Todd asked Mike to coordinate the construction of a trench completely surrounding the fence. This upgrade was suggested to Todd by Kevin Lendel. The trench, which was affectionately referred to as “the moat” by most of the group members, took the entire work force of the group a week of hard labor to dig.
Consulting one of his “five series”Army Engineer manuals, Mike specified that in order to be effective, the trench should be in a sloping L-shape. The short end of
the L was a vertical wall on the side closest to the fence, while the gradual upward sloping part of the trench faced outward. The trench was sixty inches deep at its deepest point. The total width was nine feet. A narrow wooden footbridge covered with some half-inch plywood was positioned over the trench in front of the gate.
In a private conference with Mike, Todd expressed his continuing concerns about another attack by the band of looters. He told Mike, “I guess that we’ve done all that we can, under the circumstances. I’d feel better if we were able to put up some antipersonnel barbed wire, but there’s just none available. If I’d only thought to buy some surplus concertina wire, or maybe some civilian razor wire. The surplus stuff was real cheap, too. I could have bought it for practically scrap metal prices. It must be worth a fortune, now.”
He and Mike then shared a now familiar facial expression with their jaws gaping. In unison they chanted, “Oh well, hindsight is twenty-twenty.” After some consideration of numerous alternatives including pungi stakes, Todd and Mike decided to install “tangle foot” wire.
Mike gave a quick briefing to his assembled crew of workers. “Okay, the idea behind tangle foot is to slow down anybody trying to rush your position. In this case, it’s the house. What we’ll be doing is driving metal fence T-posts into the ground all over the yard inside the fence in a semi-random pattern, but no more than ten feet apart. Next, we’ll be stringing baling wire at random heights between six inches and forty inches off the ground between all of the fence posts. It forms a sort of giant spiderweb. This way, anyone who manages to get over the fence won’t be able to just dash up to the side of the house. The tangle foot will slow them down considerably, forcing them to cut it, or step over it, or crawl under each strand. During this interval, we’ll have more of an opportunity to spot them and take them out.”With all available hands at work, the construction of the tangle foot array took only three hours.
Patriots Page 24
