William Johnstone - Phoenix Rising

Karin laughed.

“Wait, that’s not the half of it,” he said. “Two weeks later, there was a report of survey done for the damage, and the inspection team wanted to know what happened. Sergeant Alain explained about the fire drill, told them his job was to simulate hitting the foam button. ‘But I didn’t simulate it,’ he said. ‘I actually hit it. ’” Jake laughed. “Then he . . .”

“Don’t tell me, he hit it again?” Karin asked, laughing.

Now Jake was laughing so hard that tears came to his eyes. “If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’,” he said. “He hit it again.”

Jake started toward the hangar. “That’s the one,” he said.

“Phoenix Base, hit the foam generator.”

“Ha, he told you,” John replied. The hangar door started up, and as they came closer, they saw Marcus pulling the chain to raise the door. As soon as they were inside, the door went back down.

Jake parked his dark gray Volvo next to Clay’s red Liberty. As he exited the car he looked at the Blackhawk helicopter they had selected. At first glance it looked as if he could climb in, light the engine, and pull pitch, but he knew that looks were deceiving. “It looks good,” he said. “What does the logbook say about it?”

John shook his head. “We have no idea. The logbooks are all stored on the mainframe server and with the server down, we have no way of accessing the records.”

“There is something to be said for hard-copy logbooks,” Jake said.

“You got that right. But we are doing a very thorough periodic inspection, so we are finding and correcting all the faults.”

“Do we have any idea as to the total hours?”

“Onboard system says twenty-seven hundred and fifteen hours, but of course, that’s just the airframe. We have no idea of the total hours on the engine, engine components, transmission, or rotor system.”

“There has been a lot of cannibalization on this aircraft,” Marcus added. “Neither engine has a fuel control. Igniters are missing on engine number two. No filters anywhere, engine or transmission. We’re missing a pitch change link on the main rotor.”

“Why would anyone take a pitch change link?” Jake asked. “What on earth would they use it for?”

“Beats me. But we’ve got almost a hundred helicopters to draw from, I’m pretty sure we’ll find one we can use.

“Have any trouble coming in?” Clay asked.

Jake and Karin exchanged looks.

“You did, didn’t you?” Clay said. “What happened ?”

Jake told about their encounter on the road with the two young men who had stopped them.

“There’s going to be a lot more of that,” Clay said. “Especially if anyone finds out how much fuel we have.”

“But we have jet fuel, don’t we? What good would that do in a car?” Karin asked.

“A gasoline engine will not run on jet fuel, but a diesel engine will,” Jake explained.

Clay pointed to his Jeep Liberty. “That will not only run on jet fuel, it is running on jet fuel.”

“I was going to suggest that,” Jake said. “I am just about out of gasoline, so any running around we have to do in the next few days is going to have to be in your vehicle.”

“We could go out to TAC-X,” Clay suggested.

“No, not yet,” Jake said. “We’ll keep that as an emergency supply. There may come a time when we will be in desperate need of it.”

“You’re probably right,” Clay replied.

The others expressed some curiosity in what Jake and Clay were talking about, but none of them asked any questions, and neither Jake nor Clay made any attempt to satisfy their curiosity.

Saturday, August 4

“I need some Kleenex,” John said. “At least six boxes.”

“Six boxes? Wow, you must have some runny nose,” Deon said.

“Not for my nose. We aren’t going to be able to find any new filters, so I’m going to have to make some. Kleenex tissues will work.”

“Alright,” Clay said. “I’ll check the commissary and the PX. If I can’t find any there I’ll run in to town.”

“Better try Enterprise or Dothan. I know there aren’t any in Ozark,” John said. “We looked yesterday.”

Clay started toward his Jeep SUV.

“Deon, go with him,” Jake said. “After what Karin and I ran into on the way out here today, there’s no telling who or what might be waiting for you.”

“All right,” Deon said. He walked over to the wall where their weapons were, picked up two M-16s, then put them both back down. Instead, he picked up an M-240, a machine gun.

“You plan on starting a war?” Julie asked.

“No,” Deon said. “I don’t plan to start one, but if I happen to get into one, I damn sure plan on winning it.”

“I like the way that man thinks,” Clay said.

Although they passed several abandoned vehicles on the way in to Dothan, and even more once they reached the city, they did not run into any trouble. Seeing a Winn-Dixie on Westgate Parkway, Clay pulled into the parking lot, weaving around abandoned cars and trucks. He pulled all the way up onto the wide sidewalk in front of the store.

“Let’s see what we can find in here,” Clay suggested.

The inside of the store was a jumbled mess—overturned shelves and counters, broken glass, empty boxes, shredded paper, and signs that mocked with their cheery false promises.

Winn Dixie Brings You the Freshest Produce!

“We aren’t goin’ to find anything in here,” Deon said.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Clay admitted. “But we may as well give it a try. If there is anything, it will more than likely be over here,” he said, pointing toward a sign that said PAPER PRODUCTS.

The two men looked through the residue under the sign. Suddenly Deon raised up and pointed. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

Clay looked in the direction Deon was pointing. There, on the floor, was a huge pile of currency in denominations from ones to one-hundred-dollar bills.

“How much do you think is there?” Deon asked.

“I don’t know. A couple hundred thousand dollars, probably.”

“It’s just lying here. You know there’ve been hundreds of people that have picked through this store since everything collapsed, but nobody took any of the money.”

“You want to take some of it?” Clay asked.

“No. What good is it?”

“There you go, that’s why nobody has taken any of it,” Clay said. “We better try someplace else. We aren’t going to find anything here.”

The next place they stopped was a Bruno’s store, and there they found several boxes of a house-brand tissue that were water damaged.

“What do you think?” Deon asked.

“I think this will have to do.”

John had only asked for six boxes, but they found ten boxes that looked to be in pretty good shape, figuring that the extra boxes might make up for any that were too damaged to be of use.

On the way back to Fort Rucker, they saw a pickup truck parked across the road in a blocking position. There were four armed men, and three of them were pointing their weapons at them, while the fourth held up his hand in a signal for them to stop.

“Uh-oh,” Clay said.

“Stop here,” Deon said.

“What for? We’re goin’ to have to face them so we may as well see what they want.”

“You know damn well what they want,” Deon said. “They either want this vehicle or the fuel. Stop here; let me get up on top.”

Deon reached in the back and picked up the machine gun; then he got out of the jeep and climbed up on top. He loaded the weapon, chambered a round, lay down on top of the car facing forward, braced his feet on the top railing, then hit his hand on the roof.