Jake gave this some thought. “How about dinner at my place?”
Ellie’s face broke into a bright smile. “I’ve been waiting for that invitation a very long time, Mr. Dent.”
A cryptic expression came over Jake’s face, one Ellie found both curious and endearing.
Jake blew Ellie a kiss. “Seven P.M., sharp,” he said. “And bring your handcuffs.”
He drove off with his arm out the window, waving good-bye.
Ellie’s mind wasn’t 100 percent on speeders. When Ellie saw the Chevy Impala crest over the hill, she had been thinking about Laura and wondering what it was like to be with Jake back when he played baseball. Laura and Jake had just started their life together when it all came crashing down. In a way, Ellie could understand Laura’s motives, but that didn’t justify abandoning her son.
The Chevy blew by Ellie as if her cruiser were hidden behind shrubs, not out in the open. She checked her computer to make sure no calls needed her attention.
This would be fun.
Ellie put on her flashers and got right up on the Chevy’s bumper. Although this was a routine traffic stop, Ellie’s training kicked in. She didn’t know what she didn’t know. Was this driver high on drugs and potentially dangerous, or just late for work?
She picked up her radio mike and announced her intentions to dispatch. “644 Traffic.”
“Go ahead, 644.”
“Minnesota plate GTL732 at Wade and South Merrimack.”
“Minnesota GTL732 at Wade and South Merrimack, copy.”
The name came back Laura Collins, not Dent, but Ellie was wondering if this was Jake’s Laura. She approached the Chevy steadily, but carefully. She checked to make sure the trunk was latched, satisfied nobody would pop out to surprise her. The driver had her window down.
“Hi, I’m Officer Barnes. The reason I stopped you is because you were going eighteen miles over the speed limit. May I see your driver’s license and registration?”
Jake hadn’t described Laura in detail, but Ellie was increasingly suspicious. With documents in hand, Ellie returned to her cruiser. Using the computer, Ellie ran the plate and saw that the car belonged to the driver. When Ellie returned, Laura looked sheepish and embarrassed.
“I’m so sorry I was speeding, Officer,” Laura said.
“What brings you from Minnesota to Winston?” Ellie asked.
“I’m here to see my son,” Laura said. “He goes to the prep school in town.”
Confirmation. “Well, Mrs. Collins, I’m afraid I do have to issue you a citation today. Watch your speed and have a nice day.” Ellie’s face showed a stern expression as she handed Laura her citation, but inside she was beaming. It was petty for sure, but Laura deserved a lot more payback for what she had done to the man who now shared Ellie’s bed.
At quarter past nine, Ellie pulled up stakes and set off for Pepperell Academy. The access road was notorious for speeders who were running late for class. Minutes later, Ellie made the right turn off 120 and drove another mile when she saw the accident. Her instinct was to put on the strobes and rush over to help, but she could see from a distance that it was a tanker truck that had crashed. Ellie instinctively applied the brakes. This was a hazmat response. She’d been trained to proceed with caution. Until Ellie knew what that tanker was hauling, she would stay back, even if the driver were in distress.
Stepping out of the car, Ellie made sure she was upwind before retrieving her department-issued binoculars. The air was definitely foul. Whatever was leaking out smelled poisonous. Through the binoculars, Ellie searched for the hazmat placard posted in several locations on the tanker. This would identify the material without exposing her to any deadly fumes. Ellie saw what she was looking for. She had also observed the condition of the cabin. If the driver of the truck were alive, it would be a miracle to rival the turning of water into wine.
The mobile data terminal in her patrol car gave access to the material data sheet, and Ellie entered, “aluminum sulfide.” The MDS returned a plethora of data: The material with a chemical formula, Al2S3, causes irritation to the respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. Harmful if swallowed. The hydrogen sulfide gas, if formed, is poisonous. Victims who suffer from inhalation exposure need to be closely monitored for signs of respiratory distress. There was no data on explosion limits or auto-ignition temperature, but firefighters were advised to be equipped with a NIOSH-approved, positive-pressure, self-contained breathing apparatus and full protective clothing.
Police procedures required Ellie to stay back and put in a call to the fire department. They had the expertise to handle the spill, and would take command of the situation. It wasn’t long before fire and ambulance arrived on scene. Ellie coordinated the roadblocks, rerouted traffic, and kept the area clear of pedestrians, while Captain Steve Singer assumed incident command.
Steve Singer was a fifteen-year vet of the Winston FD. He had at his disposal a 2005 Smeal engine, a newer Spartan truck, a Tower truck, two ambulances, and a Hackney heavy-duty rescue truck. Singer dispatched them all. He called in support from two neighboring towns as well.
The first task was driver rescue. To ensure their safety, the first responders donned respirators. Singer could see the body of a man—the driver, presumably—thrown about twenty feet from impact. The man, heavyset and in his midfifties, wasn’t moving. It appeared his neck had been broken. Poor guy, Singer thought. Some of the EMT folks might have grown accustomed to seeing horrible things, but Singer would never be numb to the sight of a dead body.
Minutes later, Singer’s suspicions were confirmed. The fatality was placed on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance. Singer had dealt with plenty of blazes over his career, but a chemical spill of this massive proportion was a nightmare scenario for all involved. Singer’s team had already been overexposed to the noxious fumes, and they needed proper chemical suits before doing anything more. Somebody would need to remove all sources of ignition and make sure they did not contaminate the air by raising dust levels.
Morning dew clung to the tall grasses and reflected the many lights from the dozen or so emergency response vehicles on the scene. Singer returned to his car and dialed a number he had called maybe a total of three times during his tenure with the Winston FD.
“This is Jackson.”
Jackson West was the field coordinator for Clean Air Environmental (CAE) Services, one of the largest private environmental and hazardous-waste management services in the country. Singer had worked with West in the past, so the two were familiar with each other. Clean Air dealt with incidents as small as bottle mercury and as large as an oil spill. This disaster was probably a Level B or A, closer to the oil spill category.
“Hey, Jackson. This is Steve Singer with Winston Fire Department.”
“Steve, how are you? What can I do for you?”
“We have a major incident here,” he said. “A tanker carrying what has to be thousands of gallons of aluminum sulfide tipped over on the access road to Pepperell Academy by Route 120.”
“Aluminum sulfide, you said?”
“That’s right.”
West groaned, confirming Singer’s suspicion that this would indeed be an ugly mess.
“Okay, I’ll dispatch a team right away. We can assist with the evacuation effort as needed.”
Clean Air had a network of emergency-response service centers. With a phone call, it could deploy hundreds of experienced and certified workers to tackle any level of incident.
“What’s the recommended radius?” Singer asked.
“For safety, I’d give it a half mile.”
Singer checked his map. “Okay, so that’s two businesses and about a dozen residential properties. We have four chemical suits. That will be our evacuation team for now.”
“Again, we can help with that once we get on-site. I’ll bring in extra crew.”
“That would be great,” Singer said. “We could use all the help we can get here.”
“Is there any immediate ri
sk of fire?”
“No,” Singer said. “We’ve got one fatality. That’s it. I’ll put in a call to the trucking company and see what we learn about the driver.”
“Okay,” West replied. “For now, I’d advise that you keep your crew a safe distance away and make sure everyone outside has on a respirator. We’ll be there soon.”
“Will do,” Singer said.
Twenty minutes later, the first emergency trucks from Clean Air Environmental Services arrived on the scene. Singer led the Winston FD on evacuations. A team leader from CAE greeted Captain Singer with a quick, perfunctory hello. They had work to do. The first task was absorption, and for that, Clean Air had brought along their tanker truck. Clad in yellow protective suits, five workers set to the task of applying a mix of vermiculite, sodium carbonate, and other dry noncombustible adsorbents. Soon enough, the scene was swarming with workers in bright yellow chemical suits. They worked efficiently and without direction from the Winston Fire Department, even though Captain Singer remained in command of the entire operation.
Captain Singer checked in with Ellie Barnes to make sure the roads were still blocked.
“Hey, I just heard on the radio that somebody over at Pepperell Academy called the station to report an ammonia smell in the air,” Ellie said.
Shit.
Singer got West on the phone and told him the bad news.
“We’re going to have to expand the evacuation radius,” West said. “I’d say two miles, just to be safe.”
Winston checked his map. “That includes another three businesses, a whole bunch of residences, and Pepperell Academy.”
“I guess the prevailing winds decided not to cooperate,” West said.
Singer sighed loudly. He didn’t have enough manpower to manage something this large, and West knew it.
“Don’t worry, Steve,” West continued. “We’ll help you out with the evacuations. I can even get buses there if you’d like us to deal with the school.”
“That would be great,” Singer said. “We can transport the students and faculty to Winston Regional High School until this gets sorted out.”
“Might want to have the Red Cross help with shelter.”
“Can you take care of that, too?”
“Of course,” West said. “I’ll dispatch a crew over to the school right now. I bet we can get buses there in about twenty minutes.”
“Sounds pricey,” Singer said.
“I’m sure your taxpayers aren’t going to love it, but what can you do? You’ll be able to recoup some of the cost from the trucking company, I’m sure.”
Singer chuckled. He could already imagine who at the upcoming town-budget meeting would be most vocal about the bill.
Singer agreed with West’s plan and dispatched police and fire to Pepperell Academy. Hopefully, with CAE’s help, the chaos would be kept to a minimum.
Hidden in the trees on a hilly rise overlooking the school, Fausto Garza waited in a parked white cargo van until he saw the blue and red strobe lights of the emergency responders racing down the access road before he radioed his crew. He took a moment to check his phone again. The photo Carlos had sent him was perfect. He had followed Fausto’s instructions to the letter. The image showed four large oil drums each linked together by thick wires. The wires terminated into a brass box affixed to the side of a fifty-five-gallon lime-green metal drum. Lining the top of the lime-green drum was a special seal that was secured in place with a five-inch bolt. A metal tag bolted onto the drum beneath that seal would mean something very significant to the right people. He was glad to have the photo, even though Fausto hoped he would not have to use it. If he did, it would mean their mission here had been compromised. This operation had many variables, many moving parts, and Soto who understood the necessity for such a contingency plan arranged with Carlos to have the contraption created, photographed, and sent to Fausto without delay.
Through high-powered binoculars, Fausto studied the unfolding emergency response. Sanchez had been right. The evacuation-zone radius would not initially include the school. This gave his team time to get into position. The members of the police and fire departments scurried about like ants on a chaotic but controlled march.
Patience . . . patience . . .
He had waited until the hazmat crew had shown up at the tanker crash before phoning the police to report an ammonia smell at the school. He could wait a little bit longer before he blended his crew in with the actual emergency responders.
CHAPTER 17
Trust in God, but have a deep larder.
Prepping wasn’t about having a supply of food to last a few days. It was about how to survive for the rest of your life. Jake believed that when The Day came, society would cease to function, and he’d have to hunker down for the long haul. It was as simple as that. The larder in his bug-out location, and the other provisions he stockpiled, were the means by which he would endure the coming collapse.
Now Andy wanted it gone, and Jake had to give this serious consideration. He made a promise. Jake was prepared for everything, except to say good-bye to this part of his life. It was like ripping a security blanket from the hands of a young child or taking a teenager’s cell phone. He’d feel naked without it, lost, alone—and, worst of all, vulnerable.
Jake slumped down on a stack of bags filled with brown rice. He had come down here not just to check on his supplies, but also to connect with the space, to think. He’d built this from nothing, and the sweat equity made this more than just a storage area.
When Jake first discovered this underground room, it was filthy, in complete disrepair, covered in cobwebs and infested with rodents, as were most of the abandoned tunnels. It took hours of work to clean it up, and countless lost weekends to get the rooms suitable for storing his supplies.
The rooms and tunnels were still connected to the school’s power supply, so getting light down here was as simple as replacing and reconnecting lots of forgotten wiring. Jake thoughtfully selected natural daylight fluorescent bulbs to bring a bit of artificial sunshine down below. Now the space was lit, clean, and organized as any general store. It was massive like a store, too: almost seven hundred square feet with eight-foot-high ceilings. Thick, concrete brick walls and a lack of windows made the room a bit dungeon-like, but posters of the outdoors—mountains, lakes, and forests—lightened the dreariness.
Jake looked at the freestanding shelves and could recall loading and stocking each item there. The twenty pounds of salt, bags of brown sugar, and raw honey would give the food some needed flavoring. He’d thought about keeping flour down here, anticipating that Andy would want his famed pancakes, but the grain stored poorly and rotating it was more than a bit cumbersome. Andy would get used to wheat berries, and it was a more nutritious breakfast anyway.
In addition to other grains, like buckwheat, dry corn, and quinoa, he had plenty of canned fruit and vegetables, beans (stored, like the grains, in pails certified for food), peanut butter, coffee, tea, powdered milk (nitrogen-packed from Walton Feed), as well as tins of olive oil. He had cans of meat and tuna and other supplies such as toilet paper, soaps, lighter fluid, and bottled water.
The temperature never got much above sixty-five degrees in the summer, and Jake siphoned off heat from the preexisting ductwork so nothing ever froze in the winter. In the event of a power failure, kerosene heaters would keep the larder and sleeping quarters toasty warm. Jake kept careful records of his inventory, and any food item close to expiring would be moved from the larder and brought to his home so nothing went to waste.
How to dismantle it all?
If it came to it, most of the equipment could be sold, Jake supposed. Items like his hand-cranked grain mill, home dehydrator, and the vacuum-packing machine (great for sealing plastic bags and evacuating the air from mason jars) would probably sell for close to what he paid on sites like craigslist.
The real money would be in the guns and ammo. Jake had chosen his weapons carefully for their versatility.
No single firearm could be counted on to do every job, plus he had to limit the cartridges to what was readily stocked in most places that sold ammo. If he needed to go scrounging for bullets, it would be better to look for .22 LR ammunition, by far the most common in the world.
For hunting small game, Jake had a Ruger 10/22 with a ten-round rotary magazine. The recoil and noise were minimal, making it a good gun for Andy to shoot as well. Newer shooters, afraid of noise and kickback, often developed bad habits such as poor shooting posture and flinching when firing a higher-caliber weapon. Jake had recently added an AK-47 to his arsenal. The AK-47 shot a 7.62x39mm round, and Jake would use that gun for hunting larger game as well as defense. When the collapse came, he’d need to be able to fight force with force.
The long guns had better velocity and a longer sighting radius, but they were not always practical to carry, which was why Jake had pistols down here as well. The SIG SAUER he kept at home, but here Jake’s Glock 19 served him well. It was a reliable gun, and the 9mm round was a popular choice, useful to have on hand when bartering with others who survived the coming collapse. Jake also had a Smith & Wesson .22 LR rimfire pistol, with a ten-round capacity, and a Ruger LC9 in his arsenal. The Ruger was an easily carried backup pistol, and at one pound fully loaded could be worn day and night without second thought.
For mobility, Jake used a Condor H-Harness chest rig with a battle belt. He could carry plenty of mags on the move. If he had to, Jake could slip a mag into his back pocket, just in case. Even though he had refinished the rifles using Cerakote H-Series materials finish, Jake still stocked plenty of RIG (rust-inhibitive grease), and he maintained his guns with the same thoroughness as he rotated his inventory.
If the larder went, though, the guns would go, too. Jake knew he couldn’t keep a window to this part of his life open even a sliver. Just like with baseball, it would be too tempting to open it all the way and climb right back in.
The brown rice shifted and made a rhythmic sound as Jake stood. He walked to the back of the larder, where a thick metal door opened into a smaller adjacent room. Jake flicked the light switch and made a quick inspection of his fuel and power supplies. The storage room, half the size of the larder, locked from the inside and doubled as a safe room, but Jake wouldn’t want to stay in there for long. He had a stockpile of rechargeable batteries for various electronic devices, including his communication equipment, and rechargers for each type. Two solar-powered rechargers would serve as backup, should the electricity go out. The underground tunnels and many of the rooms were wired to run off the school’s generator; and if the grid went down, Jake had a fuel-transfer pump to keep that generator humming. The pump ran off a 12v motor that could siphon ten gallons of gas per minute. He could get gas from abandoned cars, or even dig up a tank at a gas station if necessary.
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