Dan and the Bottle Ch. 21

Three of the remaining enemy APCs turned and ran, a Bradley following them at a distance. When asked over the radio just what the hell he was doing, the commander of the big APC replied that this might be the only chance they got to find the location of the enemy base. One of the Apache pilots thought it was a good point, and followed at a short distance.

Jan Archer got up from the computer desk at the old research factory, stretching and yawning, realizing she'd missed dinner--and lunch, for that matter--again. Jim was out on the rounds, checking up on the progress being made at some of the new Militia bases, and wasn't due home for another two weeks.

He'd made her promise to remember to take breaks for meals, and her stomach was growling; shooting a glance at her watch, she saw that it was only two in the morning. She got up and made her way to the top floor to see what was left in the refrigerators.

In the kitchen, she found she wasn't the only one... George Miller and Tom Townsend were both there, small bowls of alfredo pasta in front of them as they argued over something.

"Damn it, George, I'm telling you, it isn't practical! We tried their prototypes.... the best we were able to get from them was four shots and the fuel cells were drained!"

"So we try changing the power levels somewhat.... or try to reduce the power consumption rates with some form of transformer. Ah, Good morning, missus Archer."

"Morning, Gentlemen... what's the project of the day?" she replied, though she thought she already knew.

"Plasma rifles, Ma'am..... we've got a dozen different prototypes for them, but none work very well. Power consumption rates are off the scale. A battery for one of those 'electric rifles' barely gets four shots off before it's drained completely."

"What about mounting them on some sort of vehicle, using the charging system to fire them?"

Tom frowned and shook his head.

"We tried that, on a Humvee equipped with double alternators.... it stalled the engine out."

"So you need something that will yield an extreme amount of voltage, with a minimal input." she replied, scratching at her chin as she made a sandwich for herself, a thoughtful look on her face.

George nodded, smiling slightly. He silently wished his girlfriend understood these problems half as well as this woman did.

Grabbing a mugful of coffee to go with her roast beef, she sat down nearby, chewing without really tasting, thinking the puzzle over.

"Have you gentlemen considered using one of those ignition coil packs, off a car engine? Those generate, what? Thirty five, forty thousand volts?"

Tom's eyes went wide, as he considered the electronics involved. That might just be the missing piece of the puzzle. That would step up the voltage nicely... and considering the battery packs for the laser rifles were seven hundred and fifty volts to start with, he was sure they could come up with something. This lady thought out of the box.

Mark Powell had rested for a week, waiting for more of his traders to return, telling them to take a few days off and rest up. One had found an old gunpowder factory that was back up and running, though nowhere near full capacity. He'd traded almost his entire stock of small arms for plastic buckets full of fresh powders of several types, after extensive testing showed that they did, indeed, burn as advertised. After adding in five cases of assorted rifle and pistol primers, he happily traded them over a hundred pounds of foodstuffs, too.

They also had an impressive reloading operation up and running, and he'd managed to barter a hundredweight of smoked beef for a thousand rounds each of 9mm and .223 rifle ammunition.

Another had run across a small village, made up mostly of women, who had extensive fields of numerous crops, which they canned or dried for their own use and for trading.... he had bought ten boxes full of canned tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberry jam. For these, he had traded three old shotguns and four hundred rounds of shells.... plus several nights of his own 'services'.

Mark knew better than to ask what those might be.

Seth Jones sat back in his living room, eleven others joining him to talk over what they needed to do, and what they needed to do it with. A few of them had reloading equipment, though the variety of die sets was limited; Harry had a small smelter, and four different sizes of bullet molds, not to mention a small forge set up by his own great grandfather. Jim Harper had a small milling machine; if he could get the raw materials, he could make some of the parts for silencers. The Kentucky volunteers were coming together, albeit slowly. Tonight, he had issued them a challenge; find just three people who they thought could be trusted, preferably outdoorsmen, like themselves, and just quietly sound them out, see what they thought of the militia movement in other parts of the country.

If they responded positively, they might be good recruits for their own group; if not, they could be watched, to see if they attempted to go to the Cubans to report to them.

Harry was planning a run to the local junkyard for the next day; his supply of castable lead was running low, and he needed some new alternators to hang off the front of the small four cylinder engine he used as a generator. Jim volunteered to go with him, thinking there might be some good pieces of steel to work with. Both men would carry pairs of pliers and coffee cans, collecting every old wheel weight they could find. One good, five gallon bucket full could keep him casting bullets for a few days.

Two hours in, they ran into an old friend... Ken Lafferty, a friend who did a lot of primitive smelting, rolling out small, thick sheets of steel., along with several sizes of steel ingots.

Over the course of the next three hours, the three of them settled on an agreement; Ken would smelt the steel and supply the basic shapes and ingots and plates; Jim would do the basic machining, making new bullet molds, reamers for rechambering weapons, and new rifle and pistol barrels and parts. Harry would cast bullets, of course. He and Seth would also run through as many rounds as they had powder for, reloading until they ran out of supplies.

On the East coast, Mark Powell and his crew, consisting of four old bread trucks, four even larger moving vans, and fourteen men, were hard at work.

The first five lockers they'd gone through had been filled with crap; nobody cared about old toys and women's sleepwear these days. Soon, though, their hard work started to pay off... one of the bread trucks was soon full of tools, including several small generators and a good quality wire welder, complete with seven rolls of wire.

Over the course of the next three days, they slowly filled all eight trucks with all manner of goods, including two four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, one six-wheeled amphibious thingamabob, and what appeared to be the overflow stock-in-trade of an entire sporting goods store's fishing department. Those lockers alone had filled two of the larger moving vans completely along with part of a bread truck.

Another had been filled, partially, with freeze-dried and dehydrated foodstuffs, while two more were full of case upon case of traps and several dozen more guns, everything from .22 small game rifles to fine, semi-automatic shotguns, and dozens of cases of ammunition. Yet another was full of reloading equipment and supplies, including buckets full of spare brass casings, boxes of rifle and shotgun primers, and plastic jars full of various powder propellants.

Another large locker turned up a decent sized speedboat, set up for fishing, while the one next to it was filled from front to back with hydroponic growing supplies, everything from lights and timers to all manner of dried fertilizers. This one also yielded up four bicycles, including an adult-sized recumbent trike with a small trailer, and half a dozen food dehydrators, still in the boxes.

A subsequent stop, at an old bookstore in an adjacent town, had yielded up a dozen boxes of books, everything from cookbooks to books on gunsmithing and auto mechanics, hunting and fishing, farming techniques to outdoor survival to books on the chemistry of gunpowder and various explosives.... those would come in handy.

It was from one of these that they learned that one massive weapon they'd found, which looked like some sort of percussion-cap cannon, was, in fact, called a 'punt gun', used primarily by market hunters for killing entire flocks of ducks and geese in one shot.

By this point, Mark had a smile on his face that couldn't be removed with a crowbar; his store would be stocked for the next six months, at least, and he knew some of the guys would go through the piles of stock they'd found, taking their pay in trade.

The punt gun, though, would stay with him. A dozen ducks, or geese, or more, with one shot? He could keep his refrigerated poultry cases full with almost no effort at all.

When they returned, it was to find another of his wandering traders waiting for their return. Kip Grassley had been over in the Texas panhandle, and had brought back a bit over five hundred pounds of dried and canned beef, six big barrels of high octane gasoline, and two more, filled with forty weight motor oil, all bought from a small group who were hijacking it from Cuban convoys. The ranchers he'd bought these from had informed him that they'd trade for any kind of ammunition he could find, and weapons, anything from sniper rifles to full auto, would bring good prices.

The Cubans, it seemed, had a small refinery back up and running.

Jerry Duncan was, again, out on a scavenging run.... he'd heard of a small town on the western side of the state that was mostly intact. He hoped it was true; he was always looking for more people to trade with. The bed of his truck was nearly full; he'd brought along two small generators that he'd found and managed to get running, along with four big boxes of tools and a few guns he had no use for.

He was still twenty miles out when he ran across the stranger who saved his life, warning him that the next town was basically a trap, and wandering traders and scavengers like himself were the prey.

They turned off at another small town, looking for a safe place to fix a hot meal and trade information. Finding an old Ford dealership on the edge of town, they jimmied the side door, rolling up one of the service doors and pulling Jerry's truck inside, out of sight, before firing up his small camp stove and filling up a small stew pot with freeze-dried chili.

While the chili heated up and the old, battered coffee pot perked, Jerry got out his book of maps and pointed out the areas of the state where he'd found trouble, so far.

Ed Harrison nodded, pointing to the area where he'd found the town full of scammers.

"The sign outside of town says 'Goodwill', but I think that's just part of the scam, to lure you in.... once you're there, and out of your truck, they surround you with armed men. By that point, it's too late to do anything, and they take what you have and run you off, tell you to be glad you're gettin' away with your life. Bastards." he turned his head and spat on the ground.

Jerry nodded.... he'd seen such things before, mostly nearer to Detroit. It seemed there was no shortage of people who wanted something for nothing these days. "What did they take from you?"

"They got my truck, and all of my food.... wasn't much, just a couple of week's supply, but it was all I had. Got a good pistol and my old shotgun, too."

"Well.... we're in the right place to set you up with a new truck.... we should be able to get one of these running in a day or two. I can stake you with some food and other supplies.... don't have any shotguns, but I've got an extra pistol and a decent old .30-06 rifle I can give you."

"Mighty nice of ya... kinda generous."

"You kept me from walking into their trap.... that counts for something, with me. Besides, I can load up on some of these tools here, and spare parts, use 'em for trade goods.... won't miss one .45 and a rifle, and a couple of milk crates full of food."

"I don't suppose you've got any gas to spare, do you?"

"Not really, no, but most of these places protected their gas supplies with a layer of argon gas, to keep it from spoiling.... we can probably get all we need right here."

Over the course of the next three days, they found an old/new full sized pick-up that still had a good engine, and set about making it roadworthy again, no small task, these days. A lower shelf in one of the storage rooms turned up several old batteries that weren't totally dead, and after swapping one out, refilling it with fresh sulfuric acid, and letting it charge from a jump from Jerry's truck, managed to get the old engine running. As Jerry had predicted, the old dealership had a decent supply of fuel, protected by an inert gas, and they happily split every spare gas can in the place, each of them leaving with full fuel tanks and over fifty extra gallons of gas apiece.

The big toolboxes they each loaded into the backs of their trucks were, basically, icing on the cake. Another storage room turned up dozens of spare tires; choosing those that showed the least amount of dry rot, they spent an entire day mounting extra sets of these by hand, a serious chore all by itself. Sitting down for dinner that night, each man felt a good sense of accomplishment at the work they'd done in the past few days.

The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, the two men said their goodbyes and headed out, Jerry to the northeast, Ed to another road that traveled in a more northerly direction.

Don Anderson sat back in his office, pondering the new stock that had come in over the past few days. Ten thousand M-16s, with a bit over a million rounds of ammunition, would go a long way, and the addition of a thousand grenade launchers and two thousand 9mm pistols didn't hurt either. Bergen had been generous; there were also four truckloads of dehydrated foods and a nice case of scotch to top everything off.

His own men had also been busy; in nearby towns, they'd found three seperate machine shops, none of them very big, and had carefully shipped the assorted mills, lathes, and other machine tools back to Klamath, setting them all up in one of the vacant buildings. One of Bergen's teams were even now working diligently to get the equipment set up and running again. Another building was set up as a smelter, and was already turning out steel in small amounts, using the contents of several nearby junkyards for raw materials. Old, wrecked cars they had in abundance.... they still had towtruck crews out running twelve hour shifts, clearing the old roads and freeways.

Yet another crew was busy building more hanger space; the extra planes from Juniper base were lined up all along the runways, which made him nervous. The new hangers would be a bit on the crude side, basically enormous log cabins, but anything that got the numerous fighters and fighter-bombers out of the weather and concealed from prying eyes was a good thing. Bergen had left behind five enormous, but portable, sawmills, as well, and those were busy day and night, turning massive logs into usable lumber.

The logs came from land they were clearing for farmland, so nothing really went to waste, and much of the bark and sawdust, as well as the roots, were run through grinders and used either as compost or kindling, or as bedding for the numerous animals on the farms.

Ed Norton was busy out on the fringes of the Stevens spread, fixing sections of the barbed wire fences that had been broken by cattle over the previous winter, when he spotted them... four Humvees and two deuce and a halfs, headed towards the western edge of the property. He laid his tools down, reaching for the portable radio.

"Norton to base."

"Go ahead."

"Sir, be advised.... four Hummers and two big trucks, coming from the direction of Dead Oak pass, headed west. Looks like they're headed for Marsh Johnson's place."

"Thank you, Mister Norton.... pack up and head for the eastern bunkhouse for the moment. We'll spread the word."

Within twenty minutes, every man on the Stevens ranch was mobilized; horses were saddled and rifles and shotguns were handed out from the armory, and word had been spread to several other nearby ranches and farms.

Mike O'Connell was there with his own people, waiting behind a ridge in the land for some of the other members of the Guard to join them.

Dan Jenkins was the first to show up; he and his men were all carrying old hunting rifles, many of them scoped. Within half an hour, they were joined by men from half a dozen other local ranches and farms, spread out in a wide semi-circle around the entrance to the Johnson spread.

They began a slow advance across the top of the ridge, nearly a hundred strong, and as they cleared the top, the situation on the other side became apparent.

The vehicles were pulled up in a line at the gates to the Johnson ranch, and the Cubans had apparently already shot the gate guards. Now they were struggling to get the lock off the heavy chain securing the front gate. Just as the old boltcutter did its job, the men of the Guard were spotted, and opened fire.

Cubans fell like bowling pins, although three of them managed to get shots off; one of Jenkin's men took a round in the shoulder, while McConnel's foreman was down with a gutshot.

Three of his ranch hands responded in kind; two Mac 10s and an old Thompson spoke, and several of the men in the green uniforms went down at once.

The man in charge, a seargent, growled and started to draw a pistol; his body was riddled with rounds from four different rifles before he quite got it clear of the holster. The final two soldiers started to raise their hands, but the Texans were beyond caring whether they surrendered or not; both men died with their hands up.

Marshall Johnson pulled up at the front gate of his place to see several of his neighbors cleaning up the bodies of more than a dozen Cuban soldiers, along with three of his own men, who had been on duty at the gate. He calmly spoke into his hand radio, and as they finished policing up the bodies, several of his own men turned up, riding four-wheelers, and jumped in to help.

They left most of the old AK-47s with him, of course, figuring it was proper compensation for the men he'd lost. The bodies would be buried in his compost piles, under layers of manure; next year, he'd have a good bunch of fertilizer as a result.

Jimmy Archer, junior, sat back in the small cove, Debbie Bergen at his side. They had been friends for years, and their friendship had evolved into a lazy, loving relationship over the past few years. They'd laid out their blankets in the same place that BJ, Mickey, Jeff, Doris, and Cassie had used, a few years back.

Jimmy was mixing drinks for the two of them, while Debbie tended to the fire and the hot dogs on the folding grill they'd brought along.

"Babe?"

Jimmy looked up at the questioning tone in her voice. "Hmm?"

"Have you ever thought about, well, leaving the Cave?"

He handed her a cup filled with apple juice and whiskey before answering.

"I've thought about it, yeah.... your dad says there's lots of opportunity out there right now. I was talking about it with him before he left for the Klamath base... he said there's at least a dozen new towns that need good gunsmiths, and he's looking for someone to restart that steel mill they found a few weeks ago, down in Nevada. I studied all of that in school, wanted to know how it was made, so I'm kinda equipped for it by default."

She looked up sharply at this, anxiety clear on her features. She knew Nevada was directly in the path of the radioactivity from the accident they'd had last year.