Phoenix Rising

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jake had invited everyone on his team to come to his house for dinner. Since it was getting increasingly more difficult to come by food, the meal would have been incentive enough, even if they hadn’t been interested in his idea of a survival team.

Jake served Meals Ready to Eat—or MREs. He also had several containers of fresh water, having taken that precaution before the water stopped running. There was no electricity in his house, but there were several candles on the dining room table so there was adequate light. He had two Coleman lanterns, but he wasn’t using them because he wanted to be sparing of the fuel.

His house was ten miles from the base and he wasn’t sure if all would be able to find transportation, but was relieved when he saw that Deedle, Warner, and Stark had arrived with Clay in his Jeep Liberty. Deon Pratt and Julie Norton arrived with Karin in her Camry.

“Oh, a candlelight soirée,” John Deedle teased when they came into the candlelit house. “Been a while since I went to one of them.”

“Ha,” Marcus Warner said. “I can just see you at a candlelight soirée.”

“I’m sorry that I can only serve MREs,” Jake said as he passed out the little packets.

“Major, I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning,” Deon Pratt said. “To me, this is like a Thanksgiving feast.” Pratt tore into the packet, emptied the food on his plate, then began wolfing it down, ravenously.

Jake held up his hand. “That’s another thing,” he said. “The Army is no more, so I am no longer a major. I am Jake, to all of you.”

“Now, Major—I mean, Jake, for an old lifer like me, that’s goin’ to take a little gettin’ used to,” Clay Matthews said. “I’ve been in this Army, man and boy, for thirty-one years.”

“It ought to be easier for you than anyone else, Clay,” Jake teased. “I remember when I was an officer candidate and you used to chew my ass.”

“Yes, sir, well, sometimes your ass needed chewin’,” Clay replied, and the others laughed.

“I know that Clay, Marcus, Willie, and John all know each other. Karin, you and Julie know each other. Deon and I know each other, so what I’d like is for you all to get acquainted while you are enjoying the delicious meal that I spent all day preparing for you. After that, I’ll tell you why I’ve gathered you together, and what I think we should do. I’m going to need two things from you. I’m going to need your willingness to participate, and I’m going to need some input as to how best to accomplish what we need to do.”

“I’ll get us started,” Clay said. Clay was just over six feet tall, with a square jaw and a flat-top haircut. Dark at one time, his hair was now gray. “My name is Clay Matthews. I am a fourth-generation soldier, born at the base hospital at Fort Benning, Georgia. However, there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that I was issued on a DA form 3161.”

The others laughed.

“I’ve known the major—that is, Jake—for almost twelve years, and he is as fine an officer as I ever served with. He has shared with me what he has planned, and I am happy to be a part of it, but I’m getting a little long in the tooth, so I just hope I can pull my own weight.”

Clay sat down.

“Clay, you were only about a year younger than you are now when you pulled four men out of a burning Hummer just before it exploded. I’m pretty sure you can pull your weight with us,” Jake said.

“I’ll go next,” John Deedle said. Deedle was very short, and had a rather large nose on his narrow face. He had heavy brows and deep-set, dark eyes. “I’m a mechanic, and the way Sarge—uh, that is Clay—was born to the Army, I was born to maintenance. My dad owned a mechanic shop—he worked on cars, tractors, trucks, anything that had an engine. When I was no more than five years old, my dad would hold me by my heels and dangle me down into engine compartments because I was small and could get to nuts and bolts.”

Willie Stark held up his hand, and Clay nodded.

Willie Stark was average height and weight with red hair and light blue eyes, which seemed slightly enlarged behind his glasses. “I’m Willie Stark, I’m in avionics—that is, I was in avionics until the Army had no further use for me. I’m also what you might call a computer geek, but there isn’t a lot of call for that right now, either. But I do like radios, all kinds of radios, and I built my first complete radio with I was twelve years old. Before that, I built a crystal radio set.”

“What’s a crystal radio?” Julie Norton asked.

“It’s a radio that doesn’t use power, doesn’t need a battery or electricity. It gets its power from the radio waves themselves.”

Willie sat down, and Julie stood. Julie was tall and willowy, a black woman with blemish-free skin that was the same shade of golden brown as a piece of toast. She had huge, almond-shaped, very dark eyes under long black lashes, a physical attribute that had served her well in the beauty contests she used to enter.

“I’m not sure why I was invited to join this group, except maybe because I know Captain—uh, that is, Karin Dawes. And if that is the only thing that got me in, then I’m thankful for it. About the only thing I’m good for is keeping track of things. And since we no longer have anything to keep track of, not even that talent is worth anything now.”

“I think just the opposite is true,” Jake said. “It is when things are very scarce that we need to keep track. And if we are going to succeed, we are going to have to be organized. Karin tells me that you are the best at that of anyone she has ever seen.”

“Yes, sir, well, I guess I get that from my mama. She worked for Mr. Simmons at the mill, kept all his books for him, kept his schedule too. He wound up making her his second in charge. Oh, did that make my grandmother proud. My grandmother had never been anything but a maid and here was her daughter, my mama, bossing around white men who used to boss my grandmother. Anyway, Mama started me out by making me keep my own things neat and in order, and it just sort of grew from there.”

“You are my friend, Julie,” Karin said. “But more than that, you are someone we are going to need.”

“I second that,” Jake said. “Marcus? Or do you prefer Mark?” Jake asked.

“I’ve always gone by Marcus.”

“All right, Marcus, what do you bring to the table?”

“Hola, mi nombre es Marcus Warner. Soy mecánico de aviones, y hablo seis lenguas,” Marcus began. When he saw the others looking at other in confusion, he laughed. “I just told you my name, explained that I was an aircraft mechanic, and could speak in four languages. I spoke to you in Spanish, but could have spoken to you in French, Italian, German, or Portuguese. I don’t know that we will run into anyone from any of those other countries, but if we do, we will be able to talk to them.”

“Deon?” Jake said.

Deon Pratt was dark-skinned with wide shoulders, powerful arms, and a flat, rock-hard stomach. “My field is weapons, explosives, hand-to-hand combat,” Deon said. I’m a warrior without a war. Hell, I’m a warrior without even an army. But I’m glad to be with you guys, and I’ll do whatever I can to make this thing work.”

Karin was last to introduce herself, stressing only that, as a nurse, she would do what she could to keep everyone healthy.

“Thanks,” Jake said when all had finished. “Now I suppose it is time for me to tell you what I have in mind, and I can say it in one word. Survival.”

“I’m all for surviving,” John said. “Where do we start?”

“What I propose now is that we spend the next several hours rounding up as much survival gear as we can. As soon as we are ready, we’ll leave this area and set up a survival base.”

“Where are we going?” Clay asked.

“Fort Morgan.”

“Where?” Deon asked.

“It’s an old fort, built long before the Civil War, down at Mobile Point, a little spit of land that separates Mobile Bay from the Gulf of Mexico. You may have heard the term, ‘Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.’ Fort Morgan is where Admiral Farragut was when he ran under the guns of the fort, and through the mines that blocked the entrance into Mobile Bay.”

“What’s at the fort now?” Willie asked.

“Now, there is nothing there but old casements and stone walls. But inside the fort is a rather large area of arable land, probably the only place down on the beach that has real soil, rather than sand. We could grow a substantial garden there.”

“Sounds good to me,” Julie said. “I use to love to work in my grandma’s garden.”

“I’ve chosen Fort Morgan for a number of reasons,” Jake said. “Number-one reason is perhaps, the most obvious. It is a fort, and as conditions deteriorate even further in the country, I believe there are going to be armed bands of hooligans preying on anyone and everyone they think might have something they could use. As we are going to be well off, relatively speaking, we would be a prime target for such groups. The fort will provide us with protection.

“And as I said, there is arable land inside the fort where we can grow vegetables. Plus, there will be plenty of fish, and there is a considerable amount of game, from rabbits to possum to alligators.”

“Alligators?” Marcus said. “Alligators as game?”

“Fried alligator tastes . . .”

“Like chicken, right?” Willie interrupted, and the others laughed.

“Wrong,” Jake said. “It’s a lot better than chicken.”

“How are we going to get there?” John asked. “What I mean is, how will we get enough gas to drive that far? For that matter, if there are going to be these roving gangs you are talking about, I’m not sure I want to drive through them. I saw what IEDs could do in Afghanistan, and there we were in up-armored Humvees, or even armored personnel carriers. I wouldn’t want to face one of them in a car.”

“We aren’t driving down, we’re flying. We’ll take one of the helicopters from Fort Rucker. I don’t think the Army will miss it.”

“We may have a problem there, sir—I mean, Jake,” Marcus said. “For the last month, people have been stripping the helicopters down pretty good. I know for a fact that we don’t have one flyable ship on the entire base.”

“I know that too,” Jake said. “But that’s where you and John will earn your keep. We’re going to take parts from as many aircraft as we need in order to get one that is flyable.”

“What about fuel?” Marcus asked.

Jake chuckled. “Clay, you want to handle this?”

“Several weeks ago, when the major saw this coming, he asked me to find some way to put a little fuel aside as an emergency. I have fifteen fifty-five-gallon drums of JP-4 hidden away.”

“Wow! That will top off the tanks, and give us one hundred ten gallons extra,” John said.

“That’s right,” Jake replied.

“I have a question,” Deon said. “There are already a lot more civilians roaming around the base than there are soldiers—looking to see what they can rip off. If they see us building a helicopter, they are likely to give us some trouble.”

“We’ll find a secure hangar to build the helicopter,” Jake said. “And, from this day forward, we will wear no uniforms. That way if anyone sees us messing around out there, they’ll think we are no different from them, we are just trying to find something to trade.”

“May I make a suggestion?” Deon asked.

“Of course you can.”

“Wherever this hangar is, I think I had better provide a little security.”

Jake smiled. “I was hoping you would say that.”

“You going to move out onto the base, Jake?” Clay asked. “Because if you don’t, this drive back and forth to town is going to get long, and use up what gasoline you have left”

“I am going to move onto the base. In fact I think we should all bivouac together in the hangar. But before we leave town, I suggest we go on a scavenger mission. We need to round up as much useful supplies as we can.”

“From what I have heard, people have been looting stores for the last three weeks. I doubt there is much left,” Willie said.

“Mostly they have been stealing canned goods, packaged foods, that sort of thing. Some of them have even been stealing TV sets, though God only knows why since there is no more television,” Jake said. “We need to be a little more discriminating on what we take.”

“Like what?” John asked.

“I’ve made a list,” Jake replied. Opening a drawer on the bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room, he began reading from the list. “A multi-tool knife, compass, flashlight with the windup generators, first-aid kits, blankets, matches, a lighter or lighters if we can come up with them, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, whistles and signal mirrors, nylon cord—that we can get from parachutes, and we’ll use the parachute canopies as well. I already have two parachutes laid aside. Anyone have something they would like to add?”

“How about MREs?” Deon asked.

Jake smiled. “Are you enjoying these?”

“Yeah, but I’m weird, I always have liked MREs.”

“Good, because we have fifteen cases of them down in the basement. That’s one hundred eighty meals, which will last us for a little under two weeks if we have no more than two meals per day.”

“What happens at the end of that two weeks? Marcus asked.

“Fish, game, whatever wild vegetables we can come up with. If we haven’t found a way to be self-sustaining within two weeks, then we probably wouldn’t make it anyway,” Jake said. “Any other suggestions?”

“How about some tablets and pencils?” Julie asked.

“Yes, very good idea.”

“How about toilet paper?” Karin added. “I mean this roughing it goes only so far.”

“Toilet paper is good,” Jake said. “But no matter how much of it we round up, there is going to come a time when we go through it. Then we’ll have to come up with something else.”

“Well, hell, Jake, if we can’t find enough food, maybe we won’t even be needing any toilet paper,” Marcus said, and the others laughed.

“I’d rather face the problem of having to find toilet paper,” Clay said.

“Me too,” Willie agreed.

“If we are going to maintain this helicopter once we get down to Fort Morgan, we are going to need a full mechanic’s toolbox, as well as some special tools,” John said.

“If I have guessed right about you, you have your toolbox hidden away somewhere,” Jake said.

John smiled. “Yeah, I do.”

“We’ll also be needing some replacement parts, especially filters, gaskets, and so forth,” Marcus added.

“And at least one machine gun to mount in the doors,” Deon said.

“You’re right, an M240 machine gun might not be a bad thing to have once we get down to the fort,” Clay said.

“Where are we going to find those?” Marcus asked. “Weapons were about the first things to go—a lot of soldiers sold them to civilians.”

“I know where there is an untapped armory,” Deon said. “M240s, M16s, pistols, ammunition. I don’t know anything about repairing helicopters, and I don’t know if we are going to have enough food to sustain us. But I know for a fact that we will be heavily armed.”

“Good man,” Jake said.

“What about radios?” Willie asked.

“I’ve been anticipating this for a while now,” Jake said. “I have two Midland Radios, XT511 base camp emergency crank radios with GMRS two-way radio technology—AC, DC or hand-crank charger for BATT5R batteries.”

“Wow, you went all out, didn’t you?” Willie said.

“I’m reasonably sure there will be some, at least, shortwave radio out there. If there is, we will need to access it and, perhaps, to communicate with others like us.”

“What about money?” Marcus asked.

Jake shook his head. “Money is only as good as the government that backs it,” he said. “And as of now, we have no government.”

“Gold coins?”

“No. Gold might be good if there was a viable market. We not only don’t have a government, we don’t have a market. When you go ‘shopping’ tonight, just take what you find, but don’t take it from anyone else unless you barter something for it. I am all for our survival, but I’m not ready to put someone else at risk.”

“When do we get started?” Clay asked.

“We start now,” Jake replied. “We’ll go into every store and abandoned building in town. Also, the mall. Clay, you want to pass out the arms?”

Clay nodded, then walked over to the corner to an olive-drab B-4 bag. “I don’t have as big an armory as Deon is talking about, but I’ve got enough for us to get by right now.” Opening the bag, he pulled out an M9 pistol and held it up. “I have one of these for each of us,” he said. All eight pistols have full, fifteen-round magazines, plus I have five hundred additional rounds of nine millimeter ammunition.”

“Carry these pistols with you,” Jake said, “but use them only if it is absolutely necessary to defend yourself.”

“I’ve never fired one of these,” Julie said as she was given the pistol.

“It’s easy enough,” Deon said. “Here is the safety. When the safety is off, all you have to do is pull the trigger.”

“I also have four flashlights and four small RadioShack special two-way radios. The small limited-range two-way radios will serve us well for keeping touch with each other. And four is all we will need, as we will deploy in two-man teams,” Jake said.

“Good idea. And it is probably safer that we deploy in two-man teams,” Deon said.

“Thanks for the endorsement,” Jake said. “Karin, you go with me, and Julie, I suggest you go with Deon. The rest of you team up however you want.” Jake looked at his watch. “It is nineteen thirty hours now, we will rendezvous back here at twenty-four hundred. Any questions?”

“Yeah, I have one,” John said. “When we get to the checkout counter, do we ask for plastic or paper bags?”

The others laughed.

“Major, these radios are pretty standard,” Willie said. “That means that anyone who wants to can listen in. I suggest that we adopt call signs, rather than use names.”

“Good idea, Willie. How about you assign them?”

“Okay. You’ll be Vexation Six.”

“Negative,” Clay spoke up quickly. “Six designates the commander. Anyone out there listening who has ever been in the Army will recognize that in a heartbeat. I think we should keep the call signs as innocuous as we can.”

“Yeah,” Willie said. “You are right. Okay, how about Mickey Mouse one through four?”

“Alright. Jake, you and Karin are Mickey Mouse One; John, you and Marcus are Mickey Mouse Two; Deon, you and Julie are Three; and Clay and I will be Mickey Mouse Four,” Willie said.

“Let’s test them out,” Jake suggested.

The four radios were checked; then radios, pistols, and flashlights were tucked into pockets.

“Back here at twenty-four hundred,” Jake reminded them as they left on their appointed rounds.