Founders. Part 5

Most of the 341st's offices were in trailers that had been towed into the hangar and cl.u.s.tered around two of the heaters. Because of the trailers and the coal pile, they never lost the feeling that they were camping out inside the hangar.

General Woolson's office was spartan. A black-and-white still photo from the 1936 British movie Things to Come decorated the wall behind his desk. The photo showed a post-apocalyptic warlord chief in a crudely made Angora wool jacket, wearing a steel helmet, and holding a revolver. It was meant as a joke, but Woolson sometimes felt like the man in the photo, especially when the talk in the office turned to cannibalizing aircraft.

When the western power grid collapsed, the widely separated MAFs reverted to backup power. Their generators were fueled by tanks that averaged 1,800-gallon capacity. It didn't take long for Woolson's logistics planners to do the math and conclude that an order had to be given soon to shut down the backup generators. It was better, they concluded, to keep some fuel on hand for contingent needs rather than to run the tanks completely dry.

After the backup generators had been shut down, the MAFs became essentially uninhabitable. So Woolson's command had to rely on volunteer "eyes and ears" to make sure that the unmanned MAFs and LFs remained secure from intrusion. There were surprisingly few security breaches. In the first year after the Crunch began, only two deserted but locked MAFs had their aboveground offices ransacked by looters. There were also signs of a halfhearted attempted forced entry at one of the silos at the far end of Judith Basin County, but given the design, whoever had cut through the fence soon gave up on attacking the ma.s.sive door.

Farmers and ranchers on the land surrounding the silos and MAFs were deputized by the 341st. They were given written "authorized deadly force" orders for anyone making forced entry. Coordination of security for each MAF and its a.s.sociated silos was made the responsibility of one senior airman, usually E-5 or higher. Joshua Watanabe was one of just two E-4s entrusted with this job. The only other E-4 who had been given the responsibility was a security forces specialist.

9.

Decrees.

"I, as President do declare that the national emergency still exists; that the continued private h.o.a.rding of gold and silver by subjects of the United States poses a grave threat to peace, equal justice, and well-being of the United States; and that appropriate measures must be taken immediately to protect the interest of our people. Therefore, pursuant to the above authority, I hereby proclaim that such gold and silver holdings are prohibited, and that all such coin, bullion or other possessions of gold and silver be tendered within fourteen days to agents of the Government of the United States for compensation at the official price, in the legal tender of the Government. All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial inst.i.tutions have been sealed pending action in the due course of the law. All sales or purchases or movements of such gold and silver within the borders of the United States and its territories, and all foreign exchange transactions or movements of such metals across the border are hereby prohibited."

-Proclamation by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 5, 1933.

Bradfordsville, Kentucky.

March, the Second Year.

Sheila Randall owned a tidy little general store in Bradfordsville. Nearly half of the store's display cases held gardening seeds. This was the inventory that first made Sheila well known in Marion County. The rest of the cases held a wide variety of sewing supplies, hand tools, canned foods, batteries, flashlights, fis.h.i.+ng tackle, knives, rucksacks, and other artifacts of the recently ended age of ma.s.s production. By current standards, Sheila Randall was a very prosperous business owner. She had patiently and shrewdly built up the store's inventory, carefully trading from her initial supply of garden seeds, which had fit in one car trunk, when she, her son, and her elderly grandmother fled Radcliff, Kentucky, during the worst of the chaos in the early days of the Crunch.

Six months into the Crunch, Sheila learned that a Provisional Government (ProvGov) had been formed at Fort Knox, Kentucky. It was the brainchild of Maynard Hutchings, a member of the Hardin County board of supervisors. Although he had originally intended it to govern only Hardin County, it quickly grew beyond county lines and state lines, because it had the cooperative muscle provided by the U.S. Army units at Fort Knox. And, with the backing of the National Gold Depository, the Hutchings government had gravitas.

In Bradfordsville, ProvGov representatives delivered posters to be placed prominently at the post office, town hall, Bradfordsville Performing Arts Center, and at the old Bradfordsville School building. The latter had in recent years been turned into a senior center and designated storm shelter. The Provisional Government's new poster read: B-A-N-N-E-D.

Effective Upon Posting in a prominent place in each County and in effect until further notice, the following items are hereby banned from private possession by the recently enacted Amplified United Nations Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) Normalization Accord: 1. All fully automatic or short-barreled rifles and shotguns (regardless of prior registration under the National Firearms Act of 1934).

2. Any rifle over thirty (.30) caliber, any shotgun or weapon of any description over twelve (12) gauge in diameter.

3. All semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, all rifles and shotguns capable of accepting a detachable magazine.

4. Any detachable magazines, regardless of capacity.

5. Any weapon with a fixed magazine that has a capacity of more than four (4) cartridges (or sh.e.l.ls).

6. All grenades and grenade launchers, all explosives, detonating cord, and blasting caps (regardless of prior registration under the Gun Control Act of 1968 or state or local blasting permits).

7. All explosives precursor chemicals.

8. All firearms regardless of type that are chambered for military cartridges (including but not limited to 7.62mm NATO, 5.56mm NATO, .45 ACP, and 9mm Parabellum).

9. All silencers (regardless of prior registration under the National Firearms Act of 1934).

10. All night vision equipment, including, but not limited to, infrared, light amplification, or thermal, all telescopic sights, and all laser aiming devices.

11. All handguns-regardless of type or caliber.

12. Other distinctly military equipment, including, but not limited to, armored vehicles, bayonets, gas masks, helmets, and bulletproof vests.

13. Encryption software or devices.

14. All radio transmitters (other than baby monitors, cordless phones, short-range wireless devices, or cell phones).

15. Full metal jacket, tracer, incendiary, and armor-piercing ammunition.

16. All ammunition in military calibers.

17. Irritant or lethal (toxin) chemical agents, including, but not limited to, CS and CN tear gas, and OC pepper spray.

18. All military-type pyrotechnics and flare launchers.

Exceptions only for properly trained and sworn police and the military forces of the UN and the Sole and Legitimate Provisional Government of the United States of America and Possessions.

Any firearm or other item not meeting the new criteria and all other contraband listed herein must be turned in within the ten (10) day amnesty period after the UN Regional Administrator or sub-administrator, or their delegates, arrive on site. Alternatively, if Federal or UN troops arrive within any state to pacify it, a thirty (30) day amnesty period will begin the day the first forces cross the state boundary. All other post-1898 production firearms of any description, air rifles, archery equipment, and edged weapons over six inches long must be registered during the same period.

Anyone found with an unregistered weapon, or any weapon, accessory, or ammunition that has been declared contraband after the amnesty period ends, will be summarily executed.

As ordered under my hand, Maynard Hutchings, President (pro tem) of the Sole and Legitimate Provisional Government of the United States of America and Possessions.

The reaction to the decrees was almost uniformly negative. One of Sheila's general store customers summed it up best when he quipped: "Well, at least we can still use our fists and harsh language to stop crime. That is, until they ban harsh language, too."

10.

Courting and Quirting.

"If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs."

-President Theodore Roosevelt.

Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana.

March, the Second Year.

Since the U.S. dollar was worthless and by extension any check issued by any government ent.i.ty was worthless, the cadre at Malmstrom resorted to barter. The coin of the realm was JP-4 jet fuel.

One of the tenant units at Malmstrom had been the 301st Air Refueling Wing, which was inactivated in 1992. When the 301st deactivated, it left behind a huge pair of fuel tanks-S-1 and S-2. These each held 1,050,000 gallons. The year before the Crunch, a Strategic Air Command (SAC) order designated Malmstrom as an alternate base of operations for the 305th Air Mobility Wing, which was normally based at McGuire AFB in New Jersey. SAC's contingency was for KC-10s of the 305th to be able to operate out of Malmstrom in the event of hostilities in Korea or the Taiwan Strait. (For proximity, they wanted to be able to use an Air Force base in the northwest, but runway and fuel tank farms at McChord AFB, near Tacoma, Was.h.i.+ngton, and at Fairchild AFB, near Spokane, Was.h.i.+ngton, were already in full use.) So the formerly mothballed S-1 and S-2 fuel tanks were again both filled with JP-4.

Meanwhile, Malmstrom's H-1 and H-2 fuel tanks normally used by the 40th Helicopter Squadron (each with 210,000-gallon capacity) were kept full with JP-4 and JP-8, respectively. With more than two million gallons of fuel available for their own operations and for barter, Woolson found that his units at Malmstrom could still carry on with a reasonable level of activity.

Nearly 800,000 gallons of the fuel were held in reserve for use by the 341st Security Forces Group and the 40th Helicopter Squadron, which still had four airworthy UH1-N Huey helicopters. The rest of the JP-4 was made available for barter. This was traded to local farmers and even backyard gardeners. Depending on their rank, each airman still on active duty was given vouchers for 40 to 110 gallons of fuel per month in lieu of pay, and those on "special reserve" status were given an average of 165 gallons of fuel per year. This didn't include the fuel allocated for facilities patrolling, which was variable, depending on the distances driven.

Since JP-4 and JP-8 can be used as subst.i.tutes for both diesel fuel and home heating oil, there were plenty of locals who were eager to barter. The base also bartered from the RED HORSE Squadron's enormous piles of AM-2 airfield matting. These pierced aluminum mats were designed to link together on leveled ground to form runways and taxiways. The local ranchers soon learned how to use them for livestock corral panels. The panel fences were quicker and easier to construct than building with wood.

The RED HORSE Squadron was unusual. RED HORSE was an acronym that stood for Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers. It was a composite unit that included both active Air Force and Air National Guard (ANG) units, one of the first ever created by the Air Force.

Other tenant units at Malmstrom included the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Civil Air Patrol, and the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office. Malmstrom also had offices for on-site contractors from Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and ATK. A few years before, when the Guidance Replacement Program (GRP) was still in progress, there had been a lot more contractors from Northrop Grumman and subcontractors out at the launch facilities, but that number had dwindled, as they reverted to routine maintenance and minor upgrades, mainly with communications systems. When the Crunch set in, all but a handful of the contractor staff evaporated.

Some of the most demanding maintenance tasks were "down hole" at the LCCs and LFs, and involved removing floor plates. These covered both battery compartments and storage compartments for survival kits.

Battery maintenance at one LCC or LF was a ch.o.r.e, but driving many miles between LCCs and repeating the exact same steps five or six times over and then doc.u.menting every detail of the tasks became absolute drudgery.

Joshua often used a T handle floor plate removal tool to lift up the floor plates to access the survival kit supplies and/or maintenance teams accessing the batteries. The floor plate screws were loosened using a large screwdriver. Then the T handles were screwed into the threaded holes and used to lift up the heavy floor plates. Depending on the size of the floor plate, one person could lift it, but it was easier with two.

In the capsule, seventy-five feet underground, electronics racks lined both walls. During alerts, officers sat in red-upholstered, high-backed swivel chairs. At one end was a cot with a hospital wardstyle curtain designed to block light and sound so that one man could sleep, but it wasn't very effective.

The electronic equipment was a mix of old and new. Since the system was more than four decades old, some of the older components looked very 1970s. A couple of places hidden inside the racks, he found "Dharma" and "180" graffiti-references to the communications bunker in the television series Lost.

Fifty missile silos in Toole and Pondera counties were deactivated between 2007 and 2011, and their facilities were stripped of all useful equipment for recycling by the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office (DRMO). When the Crunch came, some of that gear was still heaped in the DRMO warehouses, awaiting surplus and sc.r.a.p sales.

The DRMO yard became the hub for Malmstrom's barter economy. In addition to trading JP-4 fuel, some gla.s.s windowpane units salvaged from Malmstrom's many disused buildings were bartered for food. Locals from all around Great Falls wanted windows for building home greenhouses. These became the rage in the post-collapse economy throughout the northern states.

After September 11, 2001, security upgrades to the Minuteman III defense system began in earnest. Contractors poured thicker concrete around the silos, while others installed new security cameras and upgraded pa.s.sive IR sensors. The rapid response team from the 341st Security Forces Squadron was expanded and issued new equipment.

Great Falls, Montana One Year Before the Crunch Joshua had been introduced to Kelly Monroe at a church picnic, just a year before the economic turmoil engulfed the nation. Peter Blanchard, a missileer lieutenant in the 10th Squadron, had invited Joshua to come with him to the harvest picnic. They wore casual civilian clothes, so only their severe short-cropped haircuts signaled that they were from Malmstrom.

Peter Blanchard had said that he was interested in dating a young lady named Stacia, but she wasn't there. Peter and Joshua walked over to Stacia's friend Kelly. Peter said, "Hi! This is Joshua, from the base."

Kelly said h.e.l.lo back with a smile.

"Where's Stacia?" Peter asked.

"Sorry, she had to work today. But she should be at church tomorrow."

"Oh. So I don't suppose she'll be at the Hawk Nelson concert tonight, either."

"Nope. She said that she has to work until nine this evening. Sorry."

Peter muttered, "I don't know how I'll ever have my schedule match up with hers so we can go to a concert or a dance."

Then he elbowed Joshua and joked, "Joshua here already has s.h.i.+rley, so his dance card is full."

Joshua laughed and said cryptically, "I can get s.h.i.+rley to trot, but she doesn't foxtrot."

Kelly c.o.c.ked her head and asked, "Are we talking about a young lady, or a horse?"

"You nailed it. s.h.i.+rley is my mare."

"What breed?

"An American Bashkir Curly."

Kelly beamed. "Those are gorgeous. How tall and how old is she?"

"She's just shy of fifteen hands, and four years old. Her ground manners are a little lacking, but I'm working diligently on training her."

"My horse is a bit of a brat, too. He's a standard-bred gelding, three years old-"

"Well, my eyes are glazing over," Peter interrupted, "so I'll leave you two avid equestrians to talk while I get myself a hamburger." He stepped away.

Kelly asked, "Is he like that at the Bachelor Officers Quarters, too?"

"I wouldn't know. I live off-base. And I don't spend that much time with the officers. I'm just here because the lieutenant knew that I'm a Christian, and he thought that I'd enjoy the company."

"You love the Lord?" Kelly asked in a more serious tone.

"Oh yes, with all my heart. I was saved when I was twelve."

Kelly blinked and said, "Coming here with Peter, I just a.s.sumed that you were an officer, too."

"No. I'm just a lowly E-4."

"Is that like a corporal in the Army?"

"Yeah. It's the same pay grade."

Kelly smiled and said, "My dad was a corporal in the Army. He was in the Field Artillery. He drove a multiple rocket transport thingy. He didn't like the Army much."

Joshua liked Kelly's smile, and her expressive blue eyes. She was above average height, slender, and had a fairly plain face. There was a two-inch-long jagged upward-curving white scar on her chin and left cheek that he later learned was from when she had been thrown from a horse onto a barbed wire fence. That had happened when she was ten years old. Her hair was dark brown, worn in a ponytail, mostly hidden by a brown suede baseball cap. The hat had a stylized horse's head and shoulders with a flowing mane embroidered on it. She was twenty years old, but looked a bit older since she had spent so much time outdoors.