Phoenix Rising pr-1 Read online

  “Because I know where there is a thousand gallons of gasoline.”

  “What?” Marcus asked, surprised by Bob’s comment. “Where?”

  “Clay hid nineteen barrels of Mogas in a hangar at TAC-X.”

  “TAC-X? A stagefield?” Bob asked.

  “Yes, at Samson. Do you know it?”

  “I know where Samson is,” Bob said. “Don’t know TAC-X. I know TAC-Able.”

  “TAC-Able? Don’t you mean TAC-Alpha?” Willie asked.

  “You are dealing with an old soldier here, Sergeant. Before the phonetic alphabet changed in 1956, the letter A was Able. Able, Baker, Charley, Dog, Easy, Fox, George, Haystack, Item, Jig, King, Love, Mike, Nan, Oboe, Papa, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle, Victor, William, X-ray, Yoke, Zebra.”

  “Wow,” Willie said. He laughed. “And you still remember all that?”

  “When you are my age, Willie, you will still remember the current phonetics.”

  “That’s interesting, but let’s get back to this thousand gallons of gasoline at TAC-X,” John said. “How do you know it is there?”

  “Sergeant Major Matthews put it there,” Jake said. “Just for something like this.”

  “Yeah, but what good does it do us up there, if we can’t go get it?” Marcus asked.

  “We can go get it, if Bob really can tell John and James how to build a machine that will convert wood into gasoline,” Jake said

  Bob shook his head. “Not gasoline,” he said. “Wood gas. When you burn wood, or charcoal, or coal, or any other fuel, if you don’t completely consume the fuel, it will emit a gas that is combustible. Sometimes, for example, if the mixture in a gasoline engine is too rich, the exhaust gas can be burned. That’s what happens when you see flame coming out of the exhaust pipe.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen that,” John said.

  “All we need to do is construct a unit that will create this gas, then pipe that gas into the fuel injector on James’s truck. The fuel injector will introduce the gas into the cylinders, and that will run your engine.”

  Using a hot-water tank for the combustion chamber, John and James, following Bob’s instructions, built the gasification device in one afternoon. While they were building the device, Jake, Marcus, Willie, and Deon made charcoal, as it would be much easier to handle than wood. By evening they had the truck equipped with the gasification device, charcoal made and loaded aboard, and they were ready to go.

  “With this thing taking up so much room back here, I doubt we can get all nineteen barrels loaded onto the truck,” James said.

  “You won’t need this thing anymore,” Bob said, patting the side of the gasification machine. “Once you get there, you can dump it, and put regular gas in your car.”

  “Will the truck still run on gasoline then?” James asked. “Or will this have messed up the engine?”

  “It’ll still run,” Bob promised. “Remember you haven’t run anything through your system but gas.”

  “Yeah, I can see that,” John said.

  It had grown dark by the time they finished building, and testing the device. So they gathered around a cinder-block cooking stove, oven, and grill for a supper of grilled snapper, the fish provided by Jerry Cornett.

  Fort Morgan—Thursday, August 23

  Jake and John left in James’s truck, leaving before dawn the next morning. Jake took John in case they had mechanical problems with the truck on the way. They left James behind because he was too valuable in building their quarters. The others stayed back simply because there wasn’t enough room in the truck for them.

  A drive that, under normal conditions, would have taken no more than three and a half hours, took seven hours and they arrived at TAC-X at noon. The bad thing was that the power generated by the gasification machine was so inefficient that they could not go over thirty miles per hour. The good thing was, they saw no traffic during the entire one-hundred-and-seventy-five-mile trip. They also encountered no obstacles to their journey.

  “You think the gas is still here?” John asked as they approached the locked gate.

  “I think so,” Jake said. “Otherwise I think the lock would be broken.”

  “Unless somebody changed the lock,” John suggested.

  “Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. This is the key Clay gave me. If this key fits the lock, then yes, I think the gasoline will still be here.”

  Jake slipped the key into the lock, then was gratified when it opened easily. “Alright,” he said.

  Jake pushed the gate open as John drove the truck through. Then he shut the gate behind them and relocked it. That way if someone happened by, they wouldn’t notice anything different.

  When they reached hangar three, Jake unlocked it and opened the door, then closed it once John drove inside. The closed door made the hangar darker, but there was enough light, filtered through the dirty panes of the high-mounted windows to allow them to see what they were doing.

  John and Jake moved the empty drums out of the way, removed the trash from the tarp, then peeled back the tarp to disclose nineteen barrels. The top of each barrel bore the broken lettered stenciling, in yellow.

  GASOLINE, AUTOMOTIVE COMBAT MIL–G–3056

  FOR USE IN ALL MOBILE AND STATIONARY SPARK-IGNITION ENGINES

  “John, we have just struck gold!” Jake said, happily. “Let’s get them loaded.

  The first thing they did was get rid of the gas generator that had brought them up here; then they put gasoline into the truck. They did that by rolling one of the barrels up into the bed of the truck, then using a hose to siphon gas from the barrel and let it flow into the gas tank. It worked well, though it was much slower than it would have been at a normal gas pump.

  When the truck was fueled, they rolled the remaining drums onto the back of the truck. There was only room to get fifteen barrels loaded so, reluctantly, they left four barrels behind, including the one they had drawn the fuel from for the truck. John started to put the tarp back over the remaining barrels, but Jake stopped him.

  “We might be better off spreading that tarp over our load,” he said. “If somebody sees us driving a truck with all these barrels, that would be like having a big sign that says, ‘We have gas, please take it from us.’”

  “Yeah,” John said. “I see what you mean.”

  “The problem is going to be holding the tarp down,” Jake said.

  “Not a problem,” John insisted. “We’ll tie it down with safety wire.”

  “Where are we going to get safety wire?”

  “I’ll show you,” John said. He walked over to the hangar wall, then stuck his hand down behind the cross brace, and pulled out a spool of safety wire.

  “Damn, how did you know it would be there?” Jake asked.

  John laughed. “Before they closed this stagefield I came out here to do some first-echelon maintenance. I hid the safety wire there so that if I came out to do any more maintenance I would have it. But they closed this field and I never came back.”

  “That was against regs, wasn’t it? Wasn’t the safety wire supposed to be returned?” Jake asked.

  “So, take a stripe from me,” John said, and both men laughed.

  With the safety wire it was easy to secure the tarpaulin, so within twenty minutes they left, locking both the hangar and the gate behind them.

  They made it all the way back to Fort Morgan Road before they ran into trouble. John was driving, and he stopped when they saw that the road in front of them was blocked off by a pile of old refrigerators. There were at least ten men sitting on top or standing on the ground around the blockade. All were armed.

  “Oh, oh,” John said. “That doesn’t look good.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Jake replied.

  “What do we do?”

  “Nothing for the moment. They aren’t mobile—we are.”

  “A lot of good that does us. This is the only road. We’re blocked here.”

  “I wonder how far we are from Fort Morgan,” Jake said.

/>   “That mileage marker says seven,” John said.

  “Let’s see if we can raise Deon and Willie. It’ll be a long hike for them, but if they come up behind the blockade, we might be able to force our way through.”

  Jake cranked in some power to the radio, then picked up the mic.

  “Phoenix Base, this is Phoenix One, do you copy?”

  “Phoenix One, this is Phoenix Base, over.”

  Jake recognized Karin’s voice.

  “Phoenix, we’ve run into a little trouble here. We are at the seven-mile marker on Fort Morgan Road. There is a barrier across the road in front of us, as well as several armed men.”

  “Are you in danger?” Karin asked, and Jake could hear the concern in her voice.

  “Not immediate danger,” Jake replied. “We are mobile and they aren’t. The problem is, we can’t get through. We may need a little backup.”

  “Phoenix One, what do you propose?” This was Deon’s voice.

  “It’ll be a long hike for you, but maybe if you came up from behind, put pressure on them, we could get through here.”

  “Will do. Out.”

  Jake put the microphone down and continued to stare through the windshield at the barrier in front of them.

  “What do we do now?” John asked.

  “We wait.”

  Fort Morgan

  “Marcus, Willie, grab a weapon. We have a long hike in front of us,” Deon said. Deon picked up the M-240 machine gun.

  “You don’t have to hike,” James said. “We have plenty of bicycles down here.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, you do, don’t you?” Deon said.

  “You can ride a bike if you want to,” Bob said. He was looking at the Huey. “Or, we could bring some heavy firepower down on them.”

  “What do you mean?” Deon asked.

  Bob pointed to the helicopter. “Marcus, when you left Hanchey Field, did you have a full load of fuel?”

  “Yes, sir,” Marcus replied.

  “You flew straight here, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bob smiled. “Then you’ve got at least a hundred and fifty miles’ operating range remaining,” he said.

  “What are you thinking, Mr. Varney?” Deon asked.

  “Didn’t you tell me your dad was a door gunner in Vietnam?” Bob replied.

  “Yes, sir, he was. He was with the sixty-eighth.”

  Bob nodded. “Sixty-eighth? Ahh, Top Tiger,” he said. “Good outfit. How would you like to be a door gunner?”

  “Wait a minute, are you saying you are going to try and fly that thing?” Marcus asked.

  “I’m not going to try, I’m going to do it,” Bob said.

  “Oh, Bob, no!” Ellen said. “You haven’t flown in almost forty years!”

  “I hadn’t ridden a bike in a longer time than that, but first time I got on one down here, I was able to ride, wasn’t I?”

  “That’s not the same thing and you know it,” Ellen said.

  “Sure it is. The only difference is, I have a hell of a lot more time in one of these than I ever did on a bicycle. What about it, guys? You want to try it?” Bob asked.

  A huge smile spread across Deon’s face. “Hell yes,” he said. “Let’s go!”

  Deon and Willie began putting their weapons in the helicopter while Marcus untied the blade. Bob did a walk-around pre-flight inspection, and as he climbed up onto the deck to examine the rotor head, it was as if he had done this just yesterday. He took another look at the jury-rigged drag brace; then he jumped down and started to get in.

  “Wait a minute,” Jerry said. “I’m going too.” Jerry was carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows.

  Willie laughed. “Do you plan to scalp them too?” Marcus laughed as well, but Deon held out his hand. “No, wait,” he said. “I’ve got an idea. Wait here for a moment.”

  Deon jumped out of the helicopter and ran into the nearby casement. When he came back he was carrying something.

  “I’ll be damned,” Marcus said. “That’s a good idea.”

  “What’s a good idea?” Willie asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s C-four,” Marcus said.

  Deon got back into the helicopter. “Hand me a few of your arrows,” he said.

  Jerry complied, and Deon wrapped the C-4 plastic explosive material around the arrows, then, using a knife to cut off the arrow heads, replaced them with blasting caps. He did four arrows that way.

  “Now,” he said. “When we go in, we are going to go in heavy.”

  “Clear!” Bob shouted as he pulled the starter trigger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Is that a helicopter I hear?” John asked.

  “It is, yes,” Jake said. “I hear it, but I don’t see it.”

  “It’s close,” John said. “Look, they hear it too.” John pointed to the men who were standing by the barricade. They could be seen searching the sky and talking to each other, obviously looking for the helicopter.

  Suddenly a Huey popped up just over the roof of the houses along the beach. “Damn! That’s our Huey!” John said. “Who the hell is flying it?”

  Jake laughed. “It has to be Bob,” he said.

  The helicopter did a quick pass by the barricade, and Jake saw an arrow streaming down.

  “What the hell? He’s shooting arrows at them?”

  There was a loud explosion where the arrow hit, the blast big enough to throw several of the refrigerators around.

  Jake laughed out loud. “C-4!” he said. “They’ve put C-4 on the arrows!”

  The helicopter made another pass. This time Jake and John could see tracer bullets coming from the cargo door. There was also a second arrow fired, and another explosion.

  Some of the men at the refrigerator barricade started shooting back at the helicopter, but the M-240 in the cargo door of the Huey was too much for them and those who weren’t killed began running. The Huey chased down the runners and fired again, until the area was completely cleared of any would-be bandits.

  “That old man can handle it, can’t he?” John said.

  “Phoenix One, this is Goodnature, do you copy?”

  “Goodnature?” Jake replied.

  “It was my call sign in Vietnam. I figured I may as well use it again,” Bob said.

  “Roger, Goodnature,” Jake answered.

  “If you can negotiate the barricade, I’ll fly cover for you back to base,” Bob said.

  “We’re on our way,” Jake said.

  “If you can’t get through, get out and move one or two aside,” Bob said. “Do not get off the road—if you do you’ll get stuck axle deep in the sand.”

  Starting the truck, John drove up to the barricades, then stopped. “We’re going to have to go around,” he said.

  “No,” Jake replied. “Bob lives down here, so I’m sure he knows what he is talking about. We’re going to have to push a couple of the refrigerators out of the way.”

  John put the truck in neutral, and he and Jake got out and started pushing refrigerators aside until they had opened a path big enough for the truck to get through.

  “I think we can do it now,” Jake said.

  “Yeah, we’ve got it made in the shade,” John said with a happy laugh.

  Jake heard the solid thunk of the bullet hitting John. Blood and brain detritus erupted from the wound on the side of John’s head and he fell toward Jake.

  Jake caught him, and held him up.

  “John! John!” he called.

  John didn’t reply, and as Jake made a closer examination of him, he realized that he was dead.

  Another bullet whistled by Jake’s head, coming so close that he could hear the pop of as it snapped by his ear. The only weapon Jake had with him was the pistol he was wearing on his belt. He jumped behind the refrigerator then tried to look for the shooter. The only thing he knew was that the shot had come from the row of houses nearest the beach.

  Jake could hear the radio in his truck,
but he couldn’t get to it.

  “Phoenix, this is Goodnature. Keep your head down.”

  A moment later the Huey passed low overhead with the machine gun firing from one cargo door and an M-16 from the other. It zoomed up over the beach houses, then made a circle back. This time there was no fire coming from the helicopter.

  “Phoenix, target neutralized. You are clear to proceed,” Bob’s voice said.

  Jake waved at the helicopter; then he picked John’s body up and put it in the cab of the truck. Starting the truck, he managed to pick through the rubble and residue until he was on the other side of the barricade. Now, with an empty highway, and the truck running on gasoline so that the engine was at full efficiency, he opened up. Running at eighty miles an hour, it was all the Huey could do to stay with him, until he pulled in to the fort.

  The Huey landed shortly after Jake arrived.

  “Jake!” Karin said, running to him as he stepped down from the truck. She threw her arms around him in gratitude over his survival, but her joy over seeing Jake was mollified when she realized that John was dead.

  Ellen greeted Bob and Gaye greeted Jerry with equal enthusiasm as they stepped out of the helicopter.

  “I was so worried about you,” Ellen said.

  “Why were you worried? Not one bullet came close.”

  “I wasn’t worried about you getting shot. I was worried that you might not be as good a pilot as you think you are.”

  “Trust me, Ellen,” Jake said. “I’ve never seen a helicopter handled better. For an old man, he did damn well.”

  “Poor John,” Karin said.

  “That’s two that we’ve lost,” Jake said. “Clay and John. I don’t plan on us losing anyone else.”

  Fort Morgan—Thursday, November 22, Thanksgiving Day

  In the next three months after John was killed, the men and women who called themselves Phoenix turned the fort into a comfortable and sustainable community. The garden was productive and Jake, harking back to his Amish background, led the others in canning food. They had acquired the jars necessary by raiding the many empty houses up and down the beach.

  The motel was complete and comfortable, each unit equipped with a fireplace for warmth in the coming winter. They also had electricity, James having installed solar panels complete with batteries, a charge controller, and inverters. That gave them heat and electricity, and with the desalination device, they had an unlimited supply of water. Bob had even brought his TV down and hooked it up to the same satellite dish he had used back at his house. The others had teased him about it, but he said it comforted him to see it, because it gave the illusion of normalcy.