Post Grid: An Arizona EMP Adventure

by Tony Martineau

  “What the…?” Kelly ratcheted the key in the ignition again, more forcefully this time. She got out and slammed the door. Going around to the passenger's side, she retrieved her four-wheeling, survival backpack and set it in the seat, then upended the belongings bag into it. The medical supplies were added, along with the phone charger which she yanked from the cigarette lighter.

  A large man, sweating heavily, pushed a wheelbarrow past Kelly, conveying a young woman. Her bloodied, singed blouse was torn by bits of what might be fragments of an exploded airplane. She lay there with her mouth agape, head bobbing, her complexion that pale grayish cast worn by the dead. The man did not stop, but pressed on in the direction of the ER.

  Kelly took off running east before turning south, past the crash, in a gait the military calls the airborne shuffle—more than a jog, but less than a true run. How many hours had she run like this during officer's training?

  How surreal it all was. She couldn't ever remember feeling this insignificant or inadequate. Tears welled in her eyes. I can cry now, I'm alone and don't have to be strong for anyone. Her sight was blurry at best while navigating the parking lot to the street.

  Vehicles rested at odd angles in the roadway and over curbs. Fires, ignited by the exploding transformers, grew where they had fuel available from brush and homes. People were gathered on the street corners in awe, looking toward the crash site. The early September temperatures, still in the high nineties, forced people into whatever shade they could find.

  “Go help evacuate the hospital,” Kelly pleaded with everyone she passed on her way downtown. Most people just looked at her blankly. It was then she realized her scrub uniform was smeared with blood from clutching the newborn and her lacerated arm. Her long hair had escaped her neat bun, and unruly tendrils now hung, framing her face. She pushed it aside in vain.

  “Get hold of yourself,” Kelly said out loud. “Remember your mission… fire department, downtown, run!” This set her resolve.

  Several blocks into her journey, Kelly saw a bicycle lying in a front yard. Her moral compass struggled, only momentarily, with stealing it. She approached the bike, scanning for anyone who might have an objection to her borrowing it, lifted the bike by its handlebars, then threw her right leg up and over. Adjusting her backpack straps, she hoisted the pack higher onto her shoulders. The yard sloped toward the street, making her departure effortless.

  Kelly zigged and zagged along the street, avoiding people and parked cars. Ignoring those who called out to her, she pressed on, and the four miles to downtown whirred past. She rode up onto the sidewalk, around the light pole and potted plants, right up to the front steps of the fire department. Kelly had her right leg in the air before completing her stop. The bicycle landed up against a chunky concrete pillar, meant to keep vehicles from driving into the lobby. Taking the stairs two at a time, she hurled herself at the entrance.

  Inside stood a rotund uniformed police officer. He opened the heavy glass door just wide enough to speak. “Hold it right there, miss.” He looked taken aback by her appearance.

  “My name is Kelly Wise,” she exclaimed, breathless, lifting the ID badge pinned to her uniform to reinforce her statement. “I'm coming from the hospital. We need help. The hospital's been hit by a plane and is on fire. We have severely injured patients and our power is out.”

  “Emergency Operations has been set up here in the lobby because of the lack of lighting in the basement. Wait here, miss,” the officer said, visibly shaken.

  How can he just leave me here, standing quietly, bursting apart on the inside?

  The officer let the glass door close. He kept one eye on her, but hurried into the large lobby and spoke to another man.

  “Come on, come on!” Kelly thought.

  The two men conversed for a moment and then the officer hurried back across the lobby and held the door open for her.

  It's obvious no one here had witnessed the horrific scenes playing out near the hospital. How can they all be so calm?

  “I'll need to search your backpack, Miss Wise,” the officer said, putting on vinyl gloves from a pouch on his duty belt.

  “I understand why you are doing this, but really, I need to talk to the command staff,” she panted. “We need help, this is life and death. There's a jetliner crashed into the hospital. It's simple!” Her words spilled out half whine, half scream.

  “I'm sorry, but we don't know what the threat is.”

  Kelly, exasperated, let her backpack fall off her right shoulder, but caught it with her left arm. It was so heavy that her whole frame jerked to the left. The officer grabbed the pack at that point and finished lowering it to the floor.

  “I'm sorry, miss, but I need to search your person as well before I can let you in. Spread your legs and put your arms straight up.”

  She did it just like she had seen in police dramas. The officer frisked her.

  Not waiting for the backpack to be searched, she bolted forward, leaving it at the officer's feet, and practically ran toward a long table near the reception counter. There were tables set up all along the room's perimeter, but the dry erase board behind her target table said Incident Commander, whereas the others were labeled Operations, Logistics, or Planning. Several men sat at the table with yellow legal pads in front of them; one had a name tag that read Fire Chief Lane. The “white shirt brigade” stood as Kelly approached. She stood at mock attention out of habit. “I'm here from the hospital. It's burning down.”

  All of the men behind the table and all those within earshot listened intently, brows furrowed, as the nurse started to recount her tale.

  “Stop, stop,” Chief Lane said after just a few words from Kelly. “Everyone over here,” he said, waving his arm in a sweeping motion, beckoning everyone in the lobby. “You've got to hear this.” Thirty people stood mute, glued to her account, until she finished.

  Chief Lane let his large frame fall backward into his chair. He put his elbows on the table and ran his hands through his silver hair, his face pale and blank. “We sent two bike officers to investigate the plane crash, but they haven't returned,” he said hesitantly, as if carefully composing the words that were to come from his mouth. “I really don't know what we can do at this point. The city doesn't seem to have a single running vehicle. We've seen a few old clunkers running around, but they weren't stopping for us. A few police officers and firefighters have reported to our makeshift EOC (Emergency Operations Center), but others have left to check on their families. We don't have any real personnel count. Our radios and phones aren't working. We'll try to round up some resources, but at this point, we have very little to offer.” Chief Lane stood, bent forward, hands still on the table so he was eye-to-eye with Kelly. “This is not a routine plane crash or power outage.” A grave look came over the chief's face and he looked down as he spoke. “It's much more.”

  “That's it?” Kelly shouted, slamming her hands on the table.

  “Yes, ma'am.” He said, looking up slowly, meeting her gaze again. “What would you have me do?”

  There was an audible gasp from all present, including Kelly.

  She stared blankly. She wanted to yell, jump up and down, something. Her shoulders fell. She didn't know what she had expected to find when she got to the fire department, but this wasn't it.

  “Oh, my...” The words escaped her thin lips in a mere whisper.

  Chapter 2

  CAP (Civil Air Patrol) - Day 0

  It was a beautiful morning. Jess, a strapping lad of sixteen, looked up from the Arizona Gazetteer, the all-in-one topographic map book for the state of Arizona, to identify the large mountain he saw on the map and try to get his bearings.

  “Hey, Dad, is that Mount Ord?” Jess asked, pointing out the car window to a rounded, towering peak to the southeast with a cluster of radio antennas and cell towers on it.

  “Yes, Mijo,” Jose called Jess by his Spanish nickname.

  Jess was a Civil Air Patrol cadet. The United States Air Force
Auxiliary, the Civil Air Patrol, was a step in Jess's plan to get an ROTC scholarship and then fly F-35s for the Air Force. He had flown with his dad for as long as he could remember. Soon, he would solo.

  Jess had interrupted his father and Major Rabbinowitz chatting in the front seats about some article in Scientific American magazine. Captain Jose Herrero looked down from watching the road and glanced at the GPS suctioned to the windshield. “What's our next turn, Mijo?”

  “You've got the GPS right there on the dash, Dad, and I saw you program the coordinates at Mission Base. Can I stop this now?”

  “No, you are supposed to be navigating by the map all day today, for practice.”

  “I got checked off a year ago on map and compass when I got my Ground Team qualification, and I'm getting a little queasy back here,” Jess said, puffing out his cheeks to emphasize his discomfort.

  Jose cleared his throat in a manner only fathers can do.

  “Yes, sir,” Jess said in the sing-song voice of compliance. “Looks like about a half mile to our turn-off. We're going to turn left, west.”

  “Good job, you're right—I mean correct,” said Jose.

  Jess smiled to himself. He glanced over at Cadet Sergeant Rabbinowitz, who was sitting in the back seat with him. The guys in her Civil Air Patrol squadron called her Lynn. The younger Rabbinowitz' long, jet-black hair was rolled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, military fashion. High school volleyball had toned and tanned her entire body. Jess hoped he hadn't had a stupid look on his face when he glanced over at her.

  “Let me see that map,” Lynn said. She reached for it, but Jess moved it just out of her reach.

  “I'm the map reader. You can be the survival expert, first aid person or anything else you want today,” Jess said.

  “Oh, come on,” said Lynn. “It's not like we're looking for a real crash site or anything.”

  “No, but on these SAREXs (Search and Rescue Exercises) you have to pretend—prepare for the real thing.”

  “We don't get that many here, do we, Dad?” Lynn looked to her father for reinforcement.

  “Don't get me in on this, Lynn,” said Major Dennis Rabbinowitz. “But they do say we have too much good weather here in Arizona for many plane searches—the land of the never-ending sun.”

  “I got to go on a real search,” said Jess. “It was in the White Mountains. A helicopter crashed in a deep canyon. We drove almost all night to get there, then went into the canyon at dawn.

  “You did not,” chided Lynn. “You couldn't have been qualified yet. I didn't get my SAR qual 'til six months after that search.”

  “Did too, you can ask my Dad. He was there.”

  “Yep, Lynn,” said Jose. “He'd passed his SAR practicals not two weeks before.”

  “It was cool, there were two dead bodies,” Jess said, then wished he hadn't said it with so much enthusiasm. Lynn wrinkled up her nose and turned her head away. “I mean, they didn't let us see them up close or anything, because we weren't supposed to mess up the evidence. Just Major LaGuardia got to go in, he's a paramedic.”

  Captain Jose Herrero slowed and steered the lifted, fire-engine red Ford Expedition onto the dirt road from the Beeline Highway. The phone in Lynn's BDU (battle dress uniform) pants pocket fired off three loud beeps.

  “Dad, it's time for Ops Normal,” Lynn looked at Dennis and held out her hand.

  “Mic please, Major Rabbi Daddy.”

  “There you are, Sergeant Daughter,” Dennis said as he handed the radio microphone over the seat to Lynn.

  Lynn cleared her throat and got ready to transmit. “Mission Base, Red Rock Three Seven, over.”

  “Red Rock Three Seven, Mission Base, over.” A young teen voice replied from the VHF radio speaker. Jess thought it sounded like a cadet in his squadron.

  “Ops Normal, Red Rock Three Seven, out.” Handing the mic back to her dad she said,” Now the Incident Commander knows that we are safe and secure, I feel much better.”

  “That must have been John on the radio,” said Jess. “I mean, Cadet Curry. I thought he was supposed to be marshalling aircraft on the flight line today, not working the radios.”

  “They could have him doing both. They were short on cadets today for Mission Base; most were out in the field,” said Dennis.

  “This is a very big SAREX (search and rescue exercise) this weekend,” Jose said, “And it's especially important that Mission Base keeps track of us. Since we are the special surprise. We are not on the regular mission plan, but are supposed to be off doing something else. We don't have a tactical call sign for this mission either. As far as anyone listening knows, the good chaplain and his helpers are out ministering to the troops. Dennis, why don't you have a more distinctive call sign—say, Gawd One?” Jose asked, changing God into a two syllable word.

  “That is a bit much for a humble Torah student like me,” retorted Rabbi Rabbinowitz.

  Jess and Lynn both suppressed a laugh on hearing their fathers' banter. The SUV turned off the pavement toward the mountains, dust obscuring brown brush and small desert trees in their wake.

  “We are crossing over the old, single-lane, Beeline Highway now and will take this dirt road an hour or so into the mountains and then drop into that valley over there,” Jose gestured toward the mountains in front of the truck.

  “So what exactly are we doing, again?” asked Jess.

  Lynn rolled her eyes. “Weren't you listening? Our assignment is to place a practice ELT (emergency locator transmitter) and have it transmitting by noon. One of the mission aircraft has orders to return to Deer Valley Airport and stop answering the CAP radio, simulating a missing search plane. Our ELT is supposed to be that plane. That should shake up the mundane weekend training.”

  “Mission Base radio will know that something is wrong when the aircraft doesn't report Ops Normal on schedule,” said Dennis, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. “The radio operators will let the command staff know right away.”

  “How long will it take to send the planes from the practice search to look for what they think could be a real missing CAP aircraft?”

  “That is what the SAREX evaluators want to know,” Jose answered. “The Incident Commander has to be flexible and adapt to problems, sometimes very serious problems, during a mission. The 'real' missing aircraft has priority, of course. We will hear on the radio when our practice ELT is heard by search teams. We are supposed to be sitting here waiting for the ground team to locate us.”

  The SUV lumbered along the dirt road, skirting the hills following a dry wash. The truck left the wash and worked its way up the side of a mountain on a road that wasn't much more than a bighorn sheep trail.

  “What's that?” asked Jess, pointing to a collection of dilapidated buildings in the distance.

  “Well, what does the map tell you, Jess?” asked Dennis.

  “There's a mine symbol,” said Jess.

  “Yes, that's the old Sunflower Mercury Mine and processing buildings, or what's left of them after the brush fire a few years ago,” Dennis answered.

  The Expedition crested the hill and began descending into one of the countless valleys.

  “This is the area where we're supposed to set up,” said Jose. “Jess, check the GPS coordinates, but this valley looks like the one on our mission map.”

  “Yep, it's a match. Pull over under those trees, and we'll pitch the sun shade,” said Jess.

  They found a spot with patches of shade among some low, scruffy junipers and parked. It was September; temperatures were still in the nineties. Lynn reported to Mission Base that Red Rock Three Seven had arrived at their assigned coordinates. The group quickly erected a shade fly next to the SUV, and placed a folding table and chairs under the fly. They positioned the practice ELT in the middle of a small clearing nearby.

  “Ahhh, this is the life,” said Dennis, stretching out his arms as he sat in the low-slung folding chair. “Some of the other ground team leaders are leading their cadets ov
er rough terrain for a hot, all-day hike and we're sitting here, in the shade. We start the ELT transmitting in about a half hour. Then, I think lunch is in order.”

  “Dad, can I start a campfire?” Jess asked.

  “That would be awesome,” Lynn exclaimed.

  “Let's see, it's ninety-five degrees and we don't need to cook lunch,” said Jose. “City kids and campfires—they just have to have them. Normally I would say yes, but I don't want to give any extra help to the searchers by sending up smoke signals.” Jose paused, then asked, “Anyone up for a game of cards?”

  As the group settled into the card game, Dennis said to Jose, “That is quite the SUV you've got.”

  “Thanks. Jess and I spent hours and hours working on it. We lifted it, beefed up the suspension, fabricated the brush guard, added undercarriage armor, installed the CAP radio, mounted the winch and even added a snorkel. It may be overkill for our needs, but I'm a project kind of a guy and it is good for Jess to learn to work with his hands.”

  “I think it's a very pretty truck, too,” said Lynn, poking a little fun. “You do good work,” she said, looking at Jess.

  He looked at her incredulously.

  “Really,” she said sincerely.

  “I had a lot of fun welding, bending metal, and wrench turning,” Jess said. “Dad had me draw the plans for the brush guard and armor on his drafting program. He thinks I should be an engineer like him. But I don't wanna sit at a computer. Aeronautical engineering would be okay while I'm in ROTC.”

  “Oh really? So in college you'll do ROTC and learn engineering in your spare time?” Dennis asked. “Most of the engineers I know worked very hard to graduate.”

  “It's all about flying fighters with that kid,” Jose said. “Dennis, you seem to know your way around science and math. The cadets really love your model rocketry program. I also notice that you know a lot about the Air Force. Is that a big part of rabbinical training?”

  Dennis chuckled. “That Air Force knowledge was gained first hand. I joined as soon as I could after high school to avoid going to rabbinical school. Oy vey, my father the rabbi,” Dennis said in an exaggerated Yiddish accent.