Dan and the Bottle Ch. 20

In the short term, at least, his shortage problem was over, though he knew it wouldn't stay that way for long. He knew, too, that Jim Archer and Johnny Corcoran were recruiting as fast as they could, and the training cadre was growing every month. Within two days, he would send twenty truckloads of ordinance out to the various bases, including four for the new base in California.

Back in northern California, Don Anderson watched as the four big panel trucks drove through the gates of the base. He knew where this bunch had come from, and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to Frank.

Louanne Willis and John Medford had pretty much become an item; even Emily, John's daughter, seemed to approve. The pair of them made a good team, bouncing ideas off of one another and turning them into full blown plans before presenting them to Don.

John had gone through the scout training with George Klein, and had, in fact, gone out on several patrols already; in the last patrol they'd been out on, they'd come back with a wild tale of taking out a small Chinese patrol, just the two of them. Don had been skeptical, at first...

Until the quartermaster had reported that they had come in staggering under the weight of eleven AK-47s and nearly two hundred pounds of other gear,... and that was just the gear they'd loaded into their Humvee.

They'd also brought back a wealth of intelligence, including a crude map showing the locations of four new Chinese camps... even now, he had scout teams out looking for them.

The computer technician sat back, stretching his arms up, and groaned mightily. He'd been at the desk for nearly twenty hours straight, but he thought he'd finally tracked down all of the assorted computer glitches, and maybe the program would run right, now.

Grabbing the phone, he punched in the numbers and waited a moment.

The other end was answered. "Yeah, Mike.... what's wrong now?"

"Not a thing... want to come down and check this new simulator program over? I think it'll work now."

"I think I've heard this song before...."

"Yeah, but this time I really think I've got it. C'mon, Billy, what have you got to lose?"

"Another twenty minutes setting up planting schedules."

"Oh, joy.... C'Mon, you can do those later. This is more important."

"Ok, ok! You're right.... this is just catch up work. I'll be over there in five minutes."

It was closer to twenty minutes; he'd insisted on finishing up the planting rotations for five more fields before leaving, making sure that all of the fields got their full allotment of compost and plowing ahead of the spring planting before printing up the schedule and posting it to the bulletin board.

At the training center, he was surprised to learn that Mike had, indeed, gotten it right this time. He climbed inside the enclosed simulator, selected a Hawker Harrier as his training aircraft, and ran through his pre-flight, checking what types of weapons the 'plane' was equipped with, and checking how everything was running.

The simulated take-off went smoothly, and he set out on a 'patrol' at a fifty mile range.

"Ok, I'm going to set you up with some Migs first... watch your radar." came through the headset he was wearing.

He was, according to the read-outs, a bit over forty miles out from his base when the Mig-25s pounced; too far to lead them back into the range of the anti-aircraft batteries. He executed a tight turn to face them, unleashing two Sidewinders before going into a steep climb, intending to come down at them from an altitude advantage... but the simulated enemy fighters matched his move.

He looked on in satisfaction as the Sidewinders did their work, flying straight up the tailpipes of the first two of the six fighter planes.

He turned and went into a steep climb, pushing the simulated Harrier to it's limits, then turned almost enough to make himself black out and went into a steep dive, heading straight for the opposing Mig, his 20mm Vulcan roaring, nearly tearing the other plane in half as he ripped through the enemy formation. His threat detection system lit up like a Christmas tree, and the entire simulator pod rocked on it's foundation as his 'plane' took hits from cannon fire and short range rockets alike.

His heads-up display flashed red for several moments, then the words 'Game Over.... thanks for playing!' showed up and the simulation was over.

He was scowling as he exited the simulator pod, and Mike was waiting for him when he got out, stretching to work out a bit of a cramp.

"Just had to toss in that last bit, huh?"

"You bet... you did better than I did, Billy. Now we just need to get five more of these hooked into the same feed, so we can train people a squadron at a time. If we can get five, six people flying together as a cohesive unit, we can make up for lack of big numbers with coordinated attacks."

"Sounds good... how long to set it up?"

"A week, maybe two... depends on how many techs I can get down here at once."

"I'll talk with George Marshall; get you as many people as you need. We need a proper air force down here, and we need it now."

"Can you set this thing up with different programs? We need to get something going for ground support, too.... I hear there's a base east of here, has a shitload of A-10 Warthogs.... tank killers, those things are... might come in handy, sometime in the future."

Mike nodded. "There's three different programs, focused on those... just have to go through them, make sure there aren't any corrupted files. There's another dozen different kinds of files in there, everything from Stealth fighters to choppers, and with enemies ranging from Russian jets and assorted armor to Chinese ground troops. Perfect for training with the A10s."

Within six weeks, the new California base would boast over twenty new pilots. All of them were trained on the F-16s and F-22 Raptors, fifteen had moved on to the Stealth fighters and the helicopters, and five more had gone in the other direction, learning extensively the tactics of ground support in the A-10s. The 30mm cannon in the nose of the A-10 made it the perfect plane for attacking supply convoys; the planes took out the first and last vehicles, and those in the middle could be looted at will by ground troops. Since the Chinese had a nasty habit of running an APC or light tank in the front and rear of their supply convoys, the A-10s would come in handy.... especially considering the twenty more that were even now being brought up from an underground storage facility for flight testing.

Jerry Duncan finally made it back to his cabin in south central Michigan, after taking a circuitous route back from the Dearborn area. Pulling the ancient Ford pickup in to the attached, log walled 'garage', he grabbed out his backpack and briefcase and several boxes of scavenged supplies from the bed of the old beater and almost made it inside before being intercepted by a huge ball of fur.

"Down, Bear! Down, ya overgrown beast!"

The big mixed breed settled down and waited patiently, until his human friend got the door open, and followed him inside, looking on expectantly as he started unloading the box fill of canned goods.

Jerry looked sideways, knowing That Look. He reached over to scratch the big mutt between the ears with a grin.

"Sorry, pup.... no canned food again this trip. I'm afraid you'll just have to put up with A-rab filets."

"Woof!"

"Yes, I got 'em from more than one. Oh, wait... I did find one of these!"

He pulled out a smaller box, opened it up, and tossed the dog a biscuit, which disappeared almost in a single swallow.

The big mutt fixed him with an almost accusatory stare.

"Sorrr-rry! That old pet store didn't have a whole lot of selection, and it was full of friggin' raiders, besides! Gimme a break, will ya?"

Tires crunched in the gravel and dirt driveway, and he got out the grinder for Bear's 'special' food as he waited. The door opened momentarily, and feminine footsteps sounded behind him as he continued turning the hand crank, turning long strips of meat from the cooler into something close to ground beef.

"Hi, Bear!" Janet exclaimed, giving the dog first acknowledgement. Stepping over to the counter, she picked up the box of dog biscuits. " 'Small dogs'? Really, Jerry?"

"Hey, give me a break, huh? That was the only box in the whole damned store, alright? Hell, it cost me nearly a full mag of 9 millies.... "

"Well.... when you put it that way... I guess Bear-pup and I can forgive ya."

" 'Pup'.... yeah, right... damn dog weighs more'n I do."

"Well, then, you need to feed him less and you more."

"Honey, I ain't eatin' the food he eats."

"Why not?"

"Because that's a chunk I sliced off the ass of an Arab I killed over in Dearborn."

"OMIGOD! You feed the dog human meat?!"

"Well..... 'Human' is open to debate. If you saw them punks doin' what I caught 'em doin', you wouldn't be so quick to call 'em 'human'."

"Ok, I'll bite.... what were they doing?"

"Tryin' to drag a little blonde girl into a van. She couldn't have been more'n nine or ten years old. And the way they had the van set up, I'm willin' to bet it wasn't the first time they did it, either."

"So you stopped them from doin' it again."

He nodded. "Shot all four of them, set fire to their van, the works.... and sent the little girl home. My 'good deed' for the day." he grinned.

"Ok.... I guess I can forgive you for Bear-pup's 'diet', then. I'm not sure it's good for Bear, though. Get anything else good offa them?"

He frowned for a minute. "You're probably right.... it was a spur of the moment thing, though." Then he smiled and nodded, digging into the box again.

"I'm almost out of venison, and I don't want to give him too much old canned beef stew. I'm only gettin' .... oh, maybe two cans in ten that are any good, anyway."

He paused a moment to think about it and tally up, and then concluded his answer to her.

"Two five gallon gas cans, both full, filled up both of my spare cans from their tank, plus topped off my tank from theirs. Used some of what was left in their tank to spray the inside of the van and set it off. I got these off the dead bodies." he concluded, laying out three identical 9mm pistols, six spare magazines, and four wallets stuffed with bank notes.

"Can I have one of those?" she asked, pointing at the pistols.

"Help yourself. I'd suggest the one in the middle, it appears to be the cleanest of the bunch; take a couple of the spare mags, too."

"Have you still got a cleaning kit?"

He nodded. "Hang on a few minutes. I want to get the beast fed first."

He went back to turning the hand crank, dropping the last strip of meat in the bowl and making sure the teeth of the grinding wheels caught hold, adding in a handful of the dog biscuits, and once again turning the crank.

After feeding the big dog, setting the meat grinder in boiling water, detergent, and alcohol to soak, and washing his own hands thoroughly, several times, he went back out to the truck to get the rest of the boxes.

"Hot zone's getting smaller.... according to the counter, most of Dearborn's clean, now. I found a drugstore that hadn't been completely trashed.... got some oxy and a bunch of amoxicillin there, still in sealed bottles."

"No shit? Geez.... half a dozen oxys are good for a full box of 30/06 rounds."

"I know.... but I won't be needing any of those, either."

He continued unloading the drugstore box, revealing a dozen boxes of bandages, several rolls of bandaging tape, four big bottles of alcohol, and a huge bottle of aspirin. At the bottom of the box was the real prize, though.

"Your Dad's still seeing patients, isn't he?"

"Only a few... he's mostly retired, but some of the folks trust him more than anyone else around town."

"Ok... give him these, then. He can probably use them."

He checked the labels, handing over two big bottles of oxycontin and two more, of the strong antibiotic.

"Tell him he owes me a quarter of beef, the next time someone brings him a side as payment."

She grinned and slipped the bottles into her bag. "You got it.... did you bring back anything else?"

"Got these.... seems the Arabs like their coffee. I think they're bringing it in from northern Africa."

He reached in to the second box, producing four big cans of coffee. Beneath that were his real prizes.

"Found an old hardware store that hadn't been looted too badly, too." Three boxes of 9mm, two more, of .45 ACP, seven boxes of .22LR, and four big plastic jugs of rifle reloading powder joined the coffee on the table. Under that were several big boxes of laundry detergent and a plastic wrapped stack of bars of hand soap.

"Wow. That's enough for.... how many rounds?" She asked, looking over one of the jugs of reloading powder.

"Depends what caliber I'm loading.... I think I could probably get about three, maybe four thousand rounds of .223 out of it."

"Can I get some of those .22s? Dad has an old single shot.... he could use a bunch of them for rabbits in spring."

He grabbed three of the boxes and handed them over without a second thought. Janet's father had been treating him for various ailments for years, and they'd hunted deer and small game together for the past twenty years on Jerry's land.

She smiled as she put them, too, in her bag. "Have you had dinner yet?"

He shook his head. "I was going to stop and get something, but then I got caught up in that mess.... didn't want to stick around for the 'rabs to find the bodies and start lookin' around for who killed them. 'Sides, I had a hungry Bear to feed." he reached over to scratch the dog behind the ears; Bear gave a contented 'woof' and walked over to his pile of old rugs and blankets by the fireplace and stretched out on them.

Janet got out the mixing bowl, throwing in the ingredients for biscuits, and started sifting flour. "Any plans for the weekend?"

"Not really... was thinking of doing some fishing, My freezer's runnin' low, an' I hear they've been gettin' some big perch out of a couple of lakes around here."

She nodded absently as she rolled out the dough, folding it over several times and using the rim of a small glass to cut out the biscuits. He, meanwhile, put the remains of a venison roast in a big steel pan, adding in potatoes, carrots, peas, chopped peppers, and a bit of water, sliding it into the oven section of his big homebuilt woodstove, and adding more blocks of wood from his cut-off bucket to the firebox beneath to re-stoke the fire, knowing the night was only going to get colder.

Within twenty minutes, the interior of the small kitchen section of the old structure was again toasty warm, and he turned on a few of the fans to distribute the heat to other rooms, including the bathroom and his bedroom.

Janet, meanwhile, slid the big pan of biscuits in on an upper shelf above the roast, and sat back down at the table. Jerry filtered enough water to fill the large percolator, filled the filter basket, and set the battered old coffee pot on the stovetop to perk. After dinner, they settled in the living room, cups of coffee in hand, to relax after what had been a long and productive day.

"Jerry, where do you see us going?"

"My bedroom, hopefully."

She slapped him on the shoulder, playfully.

"C'Mon, you know what I meant. Where do you see us in the future?"

"Honey, you know I don't like long term plans.... we both could be killed next week. Life might be semi normal, but until we manage to get control back from those Muslim bastards, we'll never be completely free. I can only do so much on my own, and not too many others are hunting them, just yet."

"Did you get any news, while you were out that way?"

"Most of it bad, yes... a farmer's market this side of Ann Arbor got raided by some 'Nation of Islam' punks.... they didn't leave much, more's the pity. I wanted to get a couple of bushels of corn and some brewer's yeast, but that was all gone."

"Cocksuckers."

"Agreed. I was tempted to go after the bastards, but with a two hour head start, they could be anywhere. One little grocery store had some fresh food brought in... I guess some of the old factories are getting started again. I got three big jars of peanut butter, not sure how good it is, but I was willing to take the risk.... especially since one of those Arab rapists was paying for it. It's under the counter in the cupboard. I heard a rumor about an old auto parts store, still has some oil filters, might fit my truck... gotta be careful with that one, though. Could be a set-up for an ambush of some sort."

"A little paranoid, don't you think?"

"No, I'm just very alert. One guy was talking about militia groups starting up, around the country; Wyoming, down south, out in California somewhere.... not sure how much credit to give them, though. Sounded a little too good to be true."

After a brief pause, a moment to think, he continued, "Besides.... being 'a little paranoid' is what's kept me alive out there."

What young Janet didn't know was that scrounging wasn't the only thing her boyfriend was doing... he was also taking his vengeance. Four years earlier, his wife, Rita, had been gang-raped and murdered by Muslims, soldiers of the Caliphate that had invaded this part of the country.

He had sworn, that day, that he would take revenge.... and his thirst for revenge ran very deep, indeed. His body count now ran in the low four thousand range, and without an end in sight.

Not that he'd run out of potential victims any time soon; Muslims had been infiltrating this part of the country since the late 1950s.

Dearborn, Michigan had been host to the largest middle-eastern population in the country. Sleeper cells were as thick as cockroaches, and Homeland Security was so far behind, by the time it was created, that there was no way they could have caught up if someone had handed them a detailed list.

The sleepers had not been idle, either... they had bought up failing businesses all over the area, everything from gas stations and convenience stores to small machine shops and car dealerships, and they had quietly brought in their relatives, by the ones and twos, at times by the planeloads. By the time anyone realized what was happening, it was already far too late.

For weapons, they hadn't had to look very hard.... the people who had come in before them had been quietly buying them for decades, using America's own thirst for oil against it, spending enormous amounts transferred over here a little at a time over decades to buy up pretty much whatever they wanted.... and they wanted a Lot. AK-47s were their weapon of choice, of course, but the didn't turn their noses up at any of the others.

There had been a small contingent of people known as the Michigan Militia, but after decades of derision and false accusations by liberal politicians and the media, and harassment by law enforcement, they basically stayed home in droves. Their carefully built-up stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, rations, and other survival supplies would be used to protect neighbors, friends, and family, but for the most part, the community at large had shown them nothing but antipathy and insults; false accusations of 'domestic terrorism', among other things, had been the last straw.

When the war had started, the liberal governor, who had been the first one to accuse them of everything from helping to blow up a federal building to robbing numerous banks to finance their own activities, was told, point blank, that he was on his own when he had asked for their help.

Jerry's great grandfather had been one of those. He had been a prepper, one of the people who were publically sneered at when he had built up a survivalist retreat in the rural part of the state, building a unique home using shipping containers, over five dozen of them, carefully positioned, connected together with short sections of steel tunnels, covered with several feet of concrete and buried under tons of earth and rock. With help from his own grandfather and father, who had both been veterans in their own rights, and had, in fact, been machinists, mechanics, and their own building contractors, he had built up a home that was well over four hundred thousand square feet, had plenty of room for storage of dried and canned foods, generated it's own power by several different means, supplied with it's own water supply, and was sitting under land that was still farmable, for the most part. When the war had started, they had moved in enough of their livestock to keep themselves supplied with a fair amount of meat, dairy products, poultry and even a few rabbits, ducks and small deer, and had quietly waited things out. Several families of friends had joined them, bringing along their own tools, supplies, and skills, and they had basically stayed underground for the next hundred-odd years.