Percy's Mission (16 page)

“I’m not going to argue your priorities. I’m not sure what we’d be doing if it wasn’t for you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Things are going to be fine. Don’t you worry. Either of you.”
Percy dropped them at the estate, leaving them in Mattie’s capable hands and headed back to where he’d left the man on the side of the road. The car was there but the man wasn’t. Percy assumed he’d been picked up by someone with a car that hadn’t been disabled by the EMP. He’d tried the phones at the estate and they weren’t working.
He tried the radio and told Susie he was headed back. He stopped in the act of turning around when he saw a yellow and black dirt bike approaching, the rider wearing the same colors. Percy was sure it was Randy Phillips on the bike. He’d seen him race at the Fourth of July Picnic.
“I’m glad I caught you, Mr. Jackson,” said Randy. “I was on the way out to see you. Look. I’m willing to give you free welding service for life if you’ll help me dig in my shelter. I converted an old tank into a shelter, but Reynolds is booked solid and can’t help me. I don’t know anyone else that can. I’d never get it done with a shovel. I’ve got to get my family into shelter, Mr. Jackson.”
“Calm down, Randy. I’ll help you. You go back home and get everything ready. And don’t worry about that for life welding thing. I’ll be in with one of the Unimogs to take care of it. It’ll take me maybe an hour to get there, but I will be there,” Percy assured the young man.
Percy radioed Susie and had her go out and mount the backhoe on the Unimog Percy had used to build the berms. The front bucket was still on it. He told Susie how to swap out the computer with a spare if the Unimog wouldn’t start. He breathed a sigh of relief when Susie radioed back and told him the truck started all right.
He had EMP protection on all his electronic equipment and it seemed everything had survived without damage at the estate except for the tower mounted camera and a couple of other minor items.
Susie was almost finished with the attachments to the Unimog. Percy checked with the Bluhms. They were settled in all right. Melissa was calm, cool, and collected now, all signs of her previous moments of panic gone.
“I’ll go with you,” Jock said when Percy explained what he was going to do.
“Your skills,” Percy said, “are too valuable to lose if something were to happen. I’d rather you stay here and help Mattie and Susie. You are a free agent and I won’t say no, but I’d like you to think about it. If things go the way they might, doctors are going to be of prime importance.”
Jock looked at Percy for several long moments. “Okay, Mr. Jackson. I’ll stay here. But I have to be doing something.”
“I expect you to lend a hand here, in ways that won’t jeopardize your ability to be a doctor. Susie knows what she’s doing on the estate. Just follow her orders, and speak up if she asks you to do something you can’t do, or shouldn’t do.”
He turned to Susie. “I don’t expect many, if any, people to show up at our doorstep. If it is someone we know, or someone with important skills, let them in. Unless it’s a really good vehicle, have them park in the field across from the gates. We can take up to thirty additional people. But we are not a public shelter. If this goes the way it might, this place is going to be very important to the community and I intend to protect it.”
“Yes, sir,” Susie replied. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know. I need to get going. Randy is good people. There’s a chance someone else will want some help. I have my dose and rate meters. I’ll work as long as there is no radiation. If we do start getting any, I’ll head home immediately. Mattie, you know where the meters are. Keep an eye on them and let Susie know if we start getting fallout.”
Mattie nodded.
“Doctor Bluhm,” Percy said then, looking over at the young woman. “If you could help Mattie, I would appreciate it. The same stipulation that I gave Jock goes for you, too.”
“I understand,” she replied
“I’ll see you all later. Oh. Mattie, Sara should be showing up around seven. I doubt if I’ll be here. Make her comfortable and reassure her I’m okay. She should be able to get me on the radio. I’ll have one of the handhelds with me when I’m out of the truck. Keep an eye on the news and let me know of anything important.”
“I will. Good luck and take care of yourself.”
Percy was just pulling up to the gate when it opened. He’d added the circuit for the opener to the ones the generator for the house fed. Sara had opened the gate with her remote. Percy hopped down out of the truck. “You’re here. Thank God. I’m off for a little while. Mattie will see to your needs. I’m really glad you came out early.  I take it the EMP didn’t fry the hybrid’s computers in the agency's parking garage.”

“All I know is when I tried to start it, it did. When the power went out they sent us all home. There was no reason not to come on out. Where are you going?”
Percy was holding Sara’s hand through her open window. “Help out a couple of people. I’ll be back… when I’m finished.”
“Oh, Percy,” Sara almost pleaded. “Be careful. You like to help people. Don’t let that get you hurt.”
“I won’t,” Percy replied, “I promise.”
“I love you, Percy,” Sara said softly, looking into his eyes.
She saw it there before he said it. “I love you, too, Sara. I’m glad you decided to come. If you want, have Mattie put your stuff in my rooms. But only if you want. I want to marry you.”
“I want to marry you, too, Percy, but let’s wait until things calm down before we jump into anything.”
“I guess you’re right,” Percy said. “But the question, such as it was stands. Will you marry me?”
“When you ask me again, after we know what’s going to happen, Percy. Now go help someone. I want to get settled so I can help Mattie.”
“Okay. Bye. I love you.”
“Bye. I love you too.”
Despite the slight delay, Percy made it to Randy’s within the hour he’d specified. It took only a few hours to dig the hole, place the converted set of tanks, bolt them together, then backfill and mound them over with three feet of earth dug from the trench.
“I owe you for life,” Randy said. I would never have got this done in time. It’s only a matter of time before we get some fallout from somewhere.”
“You don’t owe me for life. Just trade me some labor sometime in the future for this. That’s all I want. Do you need help getting your stuff into the shelter?”
“No. You’ve done enough. We can handle the rest. Thanks again, Mr. Jackson.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be on my way, then.”
He’d barely hit the edge of town on his way back to the estate when someone was flagging him down. “Hey! You for hire? I’ll give you five hundred bucks to dig some dirt and pile it around my basement walls.”
“No money but you’ll owe me twenty hours of labor on my farm sometime.”
“Sweet. You got it. Just knock down the fence. You’ll have to pile some dirt at the one corner after you move what you can, and I can move it the rest of the way on the back of the house with a shovel.”
It took less than an hour. The man and the rest of the family stayed busy shoveling some of the dirt into emptied out dresser drawers and cardboard boxes to stack over one corner of the basement.
Neighbors were coming over to see what was going on. It was close to midnight before Percy got back to the estate. He’d done various excavations and earth moves for a dozen people.
Mattie and Sara were waiting up for him. They had insisted the others go to bed. “Any additional news?” Percy asked as Mattie handed him a sandwich.
“Not really. Just snatches here and there. The satellite seems to be working, but only a few channels are up, and that is intermittent. All we know for sure is that at least one device was detonated almost right over us.”
Before Mattie could say anything else they felt the dome vibrating. It was different from the quake caused by the nuke on the New Madrid fault line. It was enough to bring the Bluhms and Susie running into the kitchen. They were all in their nightclothes.
Percy hurried to the den and the others followed. He flipped a switch and a hollow rumble sound filled the room. The room began to shake even more and everyone crouched beside the heavy desk until the shake passed.
“Was that an earthquake, a bomb, or what?” asked Jock.
“Earth tremor, I think. But it’s different from the others. The roar became louder for a moment then faded away. The TV screens were all tuned to the same channels as they had been for the last several days. All were blank.
“I don’t know for sure, but it kind of felt like the movement was from the west. I’m going to take a look outside.” He checked the radiation meters first, then went to the front door and stepped outside. The others followed. All they could see was the night sky.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Calvin had been a bit worried about trying to cut his hours at the bank, but there were no problems. The bank actually welcomed it. They needed additional tellers with the heavy traffic due to the new banking laws. There were less of other types of bank work, so mid-level staff was being cut back, anyway.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays Calvin would work at the bank. At a significantly reduced salary, of course. But he did still receive enough to cover what few monthly payments they had with that salary. Everything they made with the equipment was available for anything they wanted.
The Stubblefield’s essentially took over the equipment based portion of Andersons’ businesses. It was easy to just continue getting many of the jobs through the Andersons and give them a cut. They got business on their own, too. Even Herbert was amazed at the additional work they were able to do with the new equipment.
There seemed to be a backlog of work that had accumulated, due to the fact that Anderson simply didn’t have the equipment needed to do the work. Fortunately, Anderson was willing to teach Calvin and Nan how to do most of the work that he had not been able to do due to lack of equipment.
One thing Anderson wouldn’t do was use the aerial bucket. One of the beds Calvin had purchased for the Unimog was a utility bed with a forty-foot reach aerial lift with material winch. Herbert didn’t like heights. He would direct the work from the ground, but refused to get into the bucket.
“Okay, Nan,” Calvin called up to his wife. “That looks good. You can ground.”
Nan let the hydraulic powered chainsaw rest on the edge of the bucket as she lowered the boom to bring the bucket to the ground. She unhooked the chainsaw hydraulic hoses and the safety cable and handed it to Calvin.
“This is cool, Calvin. I like the high work.” Nan parked the boom and bucket on the rack and climbed down.
Calvin grinned at his wife. “I know. You’ve mentioned it a time or two. But there is ground work, too. Come and help me with the chipper.” He walked over to the Toolcat. A limb chipper was mounted on the front. He fired up the machine and began feeding the limbs Nan had trimmed from the tree into the chipper.
Since the homeowner wanted the chips for mulch, Calvin had aimed the discharge to form a pile just inside the property line. With hardhat, face shield, and earmuffs on, Nan began to help. Calvin was likewise outfitted; including similar gloves to those Nan wore. It went quickly with both of them working.
“I love these toys!” Nan said, her enthusiasm obvious. They had loaded the Toolcat onto the trailer now attached to the Unimog. When they started to climb into the cab of the truck, a car stopped beside them. Nan walked around to join Calvin.
“Hi. My name is Joe Brenderman. I live on the other side of town. I was wondering… Do you install fallout shelters?”
“I’m sure we could,” replied Calvin, without hesitation. “Do you need one buried?”
“Yeah. Stubby said he could reinforce a shipping container and equip the inside. Now I need someone to dig it in. I was going to get Anderson with his backhoe, but he recommended you guys. He told me you were working over on this side of town.”
Calvin looked at Nan. She nodded. Turning back to Joe, Calvin said, “Let’s go take a look.”
They followed Joe back to his house. There was a forty-foot long shipping container sitting in Joe’s back yard. “Stubby said it would be better to wait to fix up the inside until after it was buried. He just finished the reinforcing yesterday. Can your stuff handle the thing?”
“I’m sure we can,” Calvin said. “How deep do you want it?”

“Two-thirds. We can use the dirt out of the hole to mound it over.”
Calvin shot Joe a price and Joe eagerly accepted. When Nan and Calving were headed home, Nan asked, “Are you sure the truck will handle it?”
“Sure,” Calvin replied. “The material hoist won’t, but the crane will be here tomorrow. It’ll handle it easily.”
“Oh. I’d forgotten the crane. I’m glad we ordered it, too.”
“This has gone a lot better than I ever imagined,” Calvin said. “Thanks for encouraging me for us to do it.”
Nan rested her hand on Calvin’s shoulder for a moment. “No need to thank me. This is good for me, too.” Her hand slid away. “It’s been helping me keep my mind off the world situation. Until today. That fallout shelter. I never think of our home that way, but it is, I know. We planned it that way. But it’s just home to me.”
“We are lucky ones, I guess,” Calvin replied. “Being able to do the things we’ve wanted.”
“Luck played a part, I admit. But it was our hard work and foresight that put us where we are today. I feel sorry for those that simply can’t see what’s really happening.”
“I know,” Calvin said. “The people around here have been good to us. Maybe we should thank them in some way. Say special discount rate for anything survival related. Like digging the shelter in for Joe. Other things. I’m not sure what. But there are bound to be things people will be doing. You’re right. The way we did things, I don’t think about individual aspects.”
“We can’t make people do things, but we could print up flyers say something like ‘for your preparedness needs.’ We could even order food and supplies for people. Where we’re getting the stuff we could even buy retail and make a little on it and it’d still be cheaper than what little you can find around here.”
“That’s true. Retail is a lot of work. You sure you want to take that on with the woodcutting and the equipment work?” He chuckled. “Of course, you don’t have to do much at the Andersons’ anymore.”
Nan smiled. The job hadn’t lasted very long; since they had started doing most of the work almost immediately after Mrs. Anderson had hired her.
The day didn’t start at all well. Pakistan nuking India was all over the news. They talked it over, and Calvin and Nan decided to go ahead and do the job they had scheduled for the day. When they got there, they kept the radio on all the time, to get updates on the situation.
They were stopped often, by people anxious for them to help with getting a shelter dug. There was plenty of work lined up for the next several days now. They were tired when they got home, both mentally and physically.
The next day was better. No additional bad news, just the ongoing situation with Pakistan and India. Not all the work was preparedness related. Most of the septic tanks had been installed at about the same time, as the area developed. There was a lot of heavy clay, and those that had not taken good care of their septic systems needed new drainage fields.
Shortly after they sat down to have their dinner Nan looked up and asked, “Did you feel something?”
Calvin responded questioningly. “What? Feel something? No, Did you?”
“Yeah. Something… I don’t know.” Nan got up and turned on the small TV in the kitchen. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed. Calvin hurried in to join her.
Supper out of their minds, they hurried to the living room to watch the reports of the terrorist attacks on the larger screen TV it boasted. They looked at one another. Calvin said, “It must have been the New Madrid quake you felt.” Nan could only nod. They watched the news coverage late into the night.
They were up at their usual time the next morning. The phone rang as they were having breakfast. Calvin opened his cellular phone. “Yes. Yes. We’ll be there this morning to take a look at it.”
“We’re getting the crane delivered today at the Andersons’ yard,” Nan said.
“I know. That was Audrey Blankenship. She wants us to berm up around their house. They’re going to build a shelter in their basement. I told her we’d take a look.”
“Oh.”
Calvin’s cell phone rang again. He had a conversation almost word for word like the first one. “That was one wanting a hole dug to build a shelter.”
They didn’t need to print any flyers. Calvin and Nan stayed busy in the area helping people prepare shelters. From digging trenches and cutting timber for people to build expedient shelters as illustrated in Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson Kearny, to setting factory and home built shelters from the simple to the elaborate. The library had a copy of the Kearny book. The librarian was kept busy copying the various plans for people. She wouldn’t let the book out of the library.
After a short discussion, they took half of their assets and converted them to gold and silver, and bought a huge order of LTS food. They had planned to sell most of it to those who were having difficulty getting ready for whatever might happen. Only the fact that they’d been a regular customer did the company they used agree to send even a fourth of the food they wanted. The company wouldn’t guarantee delivery, but would not charge them if they didn’t ship.
Every other company they contacted refused the order. Like the company Calvin and Nan used, the other companies were only filling orders for regular customers. There were vastly more orders wanted than all the LTS food companies combined could now fill.
Nan was on the backhoe on the A300 digging a pit for Harley Jacobson to bury a septic tank he was converting to a shelter when the ground began to move. She saw Calvin and Harley both fall down then try to climb back to their feet, without success.
With the bucket curled and resting on the ground, Nan clambered down off the hoe. She wished she’d stayed on the Bobcat. The ground was still shaking and it was making her nauseous. The Bobcat had been moving, but somehow feeling the earth move under your feet was worse. She almost fell, but managed to keep her feet as Calvin and Harley finally scrambled back onto theirs.
“Crimeny!” exclaimed Harley. That was a hell of a…” The words faded, either because he quit talking or they were drowned out by the massive sound that throbbed in their ears.
All three covered their ears with their hands, the sound was so intense. It seemed beyond loud. Almost like a living being. And it lasted, like the shaking had, seemingly forever.
But fade it did, finally. Calvin took his hands from his ears, and when Nan did the same he asked, “Can you hear me?” He was worried he might be deaf, the silence was so total.
When Nan responded in a normal sounding voice, he was relieved. “I can hear, but that was loud enough to hurt. What was it? A nuke?”
Calvin was looking around. “Felt like it could have been, but I didn’t see any kind of flash and there’s no mushroom cloud. A nuke would have been close to cause that much shaking. Try the radio.”
Nan ran to the Unimog and climbed into the cab. “Nothing. Not even static.”
“Nuts!” Calvin called out. “See if the engine will start!” He breathed a sigh of relief when the engine turned over and started with nary a grunt. He looked over at Harley. “Harley, try your Ford.”
Harley went to his pride and joy. A brand new Ford F150. He tried to start it. It didn’t start, even after several tries. There weren’t even any clicks you’re prone to hear when a battery is just weak.
“EMP,” Calvin said. “There was a nuke.” He continued to look around. “But there is no sign.”

“Oh, my God!” Nan said quietly. What if it was a nuke at Yellowstone?”
Nan saw Calvin blanch. “That wouldn’t account for the EMP. But if there was a general attack there would be at least one high altitude blast as an EMP bomb.” He’d been staring off into the distance as he’d talked. Now he looked at Nan. “We need to get home.”
“But what about my shelter?” wailed Harley. “I’ll die!”
Husband and wife looked at one another. They’d read up on fallout and studied the possibility of Yellowstone blowing. “We have time. But that’s it.” Nan said. “We do this, and then go home.” Calvin nodded.
Working quickly but carefully, Calvin and Nan set the two piece septic tank into place. They took enough extra time to help Harley knock a hole in one end to act as the entrance. With the dirt from the hole mounded over the septic tank and the used railroad ties that were leaned against one end to make the right angle entrance they were finished.
Again, working quickly but carefully, they loaded up the A300 and Toolcat onto the transport trailer and headed home. Both were tense, afraid that someone would want them to stop and help. But no one did. They’d barely left town when dust began to rain down.
“Had to be Yellowstone,” Calvin said. He slowed down even more than usual. Volcanic ash was highly abrasive. He didn’t want any in the engine through the filters. He even preferred stopping occasionally to clear the windshield by hand rather than run the wipers and risk scarring it.
They began to breathe a little easier when they got to the section of road they’d improved. They’d be home in a few minutes. A few seconds later the NukAlert on the Unimog key ring began to chirp. Just one chirp, then another a few seconds later. But then the chirps came much more rapidly.
“Fallout, too,” Nan said softly.
“We’re almost home,” Calvin said, equally softly. “We’ll be okay.”
They were silent the rest of the way. It only took a few minutes. The NukAlert was chirping continuously when they pulled around the circle drive and stopped. Both jumped from the truck and ran to the house.
“Wait!” Nan said. “We need to decontaminate. The hose.” They stripped and took turns holding the hose for the other to thoroughly wash off the small amount of ash and fallout that had accumulated on them during the dash from the truck to the house. Leaving the clothing where it lay, Calvin unlocked the door and they entered the house, shivering slightly.
Nan went to get them some clothes. Calvin turned on the TV. The power light came on, but it wasn’t working. “Crap,” he muttered. “The EMP.” He put on the robe that Nan handed to him, and then hurried to the garage. There was the box.
Calvin took down a storage box from the shelves lining one side of the garage. He opened the box and took out a 5” battery operated television. Carrying the TV he returned to the living room. Nan was using their survey meter to check areas in the room for radiation.
“We’ve got radiation coming through the door. Not much, but we need to stay out of the line from the front door to right here by the door out to the garage.
“Okay,” responded Calvin, going over to the big screen television. He swung one edge of the entertainment center away from the wall. It took only moments to unhook the antenna cable and connect it to the portable. “Get me some D batteries, Nan.” They didn’t have an AC cord for the little TV.
Nan hurried to, then back from the kitchen, carrying the batteries. Another few moments and the TV was on. It had been a waste of time. Calvin ran the dial up and down. Not a single channel was working. Nan went back to the kitchen and tried the radio in there. Also nothing.
Calvin joined her in the kitchen and they looked at one another for a few moments. “Finding out what is going on will have to wait. I could be wrong, but I think Yellowstone has blown, maybe because of a nuke. That’d be the ash. And the missile silos have probably been hit. The winds are right for them to be the source of the fallout. We in for some rough times, but if we’re careful, we’ll be all right.”
Nan stepped over to him and put her arms around him, her head on his shoulder. “I know. Thank God we’ve done what we’ve done. Let’s sit down a minute and think this through.”
Nan’s hands were shaking as she got water from the refrigerator for both of them. She had to hold her glass with both hands to be able to take a sip.
“Okay,” Calvin said. “You do what you were doing before. Survey the whole house and find where we’re safest from the radiation. We built this house with this in mind, so we have a pretty good idea where those spots are. Just confirm them.
“I want to go ahead and disconnect all the antennas from everything in case there is another big EMP blast. At least we’ve been keeping the other gear disconnected. I’m afraid to hook up the Shortwave receiver and other monitors. I think the one scanner we have hooked up is dead. It’s not scanning. Neither is the weather radio. I just hope some of the antennas are still okay.”
“We do have the backup antennas,” replied Nan, sipping her water as she tried to calm herself.
“True, but we won’t be going out for some time. Not with the radiation and ash coming down the way they are. I suspect we’re going to be cooped up in here for some time to come. You up to continuing? I want to check the rest of the communications gear and the power system. We’ve still got electricity, but I want to see if the rest of the gear is okay. At least we had thyristors protecting the power systems.”
Nan nodded and stood. She picked up the survey meter from the table and headed for the living room again.