The Siege (25 page)

     So their tunnel entrance had to be very well hidden.

     It would also be helpful if there
were reasons for their attackers not to look too closely at the tunnel’s entrance.

     Like the possibility of getting electrocuted, for example.

     Months before, when they were going through the trailers they’d pulled off the highway, Mark found a huge electrical cabinet. It looked like a typical breaker box found in millions of houses around the country. Only this one was made for the electrical room of a very large building. By Mark’s estimation, it probably would have wound up in the basement of a very large high rise somewhere.

     But then the freeze happened. And instead of a high rise it was sitting in a truck in a hidden compound not far from Junction,
Texas.

     Go figure.

     When they stumbled across it, Mark scratched his head, wondering if they might ever find a use for such an electrical box. He determined they wouldn’t, and they put it aside as something to haul to the trash pit at some point.

     But as fate would have it, they never got around to disposing of it. It was still sitting on the back of one of the trucks, mixed in with a pile of other unnecessary “stuff.”

     “Okay,” Mark said as he shared his plan with the others. “The wall to our electrical room is an exterior wall. It had to be to give the load wires an easy access to the room from the ground below. So there’s only one wall between the electrical room and the compound.

     “It won’t be a very big hole. The size of the electrical box is five feet high and twenty four inches wide. The hole in the wall will have to be just a bit smaller than that. Also, we can’t put the electrical box on the floor. It’ll look suspicious.

     “So what we’ll do is cut a hole in the wall twenty two inches wide and four feet ten inches high. There will be a six inch step to step over. It’ll be tight, especially for the men. But it’ll be big enough for everyone to squeeze through one at a time to get into the tunnel.”

    
Bryan was intrigued by the idea, but still couldn’t picture it in his mind.

     “So, how exactly are you going to mount it? And how are you going to secure it?”

     “We’ll build a two by four box frame around it. When the hole in the wall is finished, we’ll mount it with heavy duty box hinges, but they’ll be hidden on the inside of the two by four frame. It’ll swing open, like a door, when we need it to evacuate.

     “We’ll secure it by means of an electronic lock. I’m going to install some green and red activity lights on the panel at random places just to make it look like it’s live and has
power running to it. In reality, the little LED lights will use only a tiny bit of power, and will run off a battery pack we’ll install behind the box.

     “The electronic lock will be hidden from view, of course. It’ll be powered
through the regular electrical system. We’ll run conduit from the top of the fake box, along the ceiling to a real breaker box on the adjacent wall. There’s conduit running all over that room anyway, so it won’t look out of place at all. To unlock the fake box, we’ll just go to the real breaker box and trip a certain breaker that only we will know. The fake door will unlock and we can swing it open like a door. Then we turn the breaker back on to reactivate the lock. When the last one walks into the tunnel, he or she will simply pull the door closed behind them and it’ll relock.”

    
Bryan smiled. He couldn’t see a single flaw in Mark’s plan.

     “I love it. It’ll have electrical shock warning signs and high voltage stickers all over it. So nobody will want to mess with it. And if anybody does get curious enough to open the door panel, the LED lights will convince them it’s live and nothing to fool around with. I guess my big brother did get a little bit of the family intelligence after all.”

     “Right. We’ll have to be careful. I’m pretty sure what gave away the tunnel entrance last time was the muddy footprints on the false floor of the feed barn. We cannot make the same mistake here. Any time we work in this tunnel, or open it for any reason, we need to sweep and mop the floor in front of the door thoroughly. We want the entire room spotless at all times, so it doesn’t raise any suspicion.”

     “Mark, do you have copies of the
floor plan? Can you safely knock a hole in that wall without hitting any electrical or plumbing lines?”

     “Yes, and yes. And since the electrical room is such a small room, the walls on either side will provide plenty of support. So we won’t weaken the structure to any degree by making the hole.”

     “After the hole is made, can we work on both ends of the tunnel at the same time?”

     “Yes. The ground underneath us right now isn’t salt. It’s dirt. It doesn’t transition to salt until about halfway between us and
Salt Mountain. That’s good in a way, because we can dig it out faster. But it’ll require more bracing and will leak more after a hard rain. But that’s minor. What we’ll do is take empty sandbags to the electrical room to put the dirt in. We can move them with a dolly down the hall to the safe room to provide a couple extra layers of protection. We’ll dig from both ends until we meet in the middle.”

     And that’s exactly what they did.

Chapter 5
3

     It took Bryan and Mark three days to make the hole in the outer wall of the electrical room. The hardened concrete resisted the power of their hydraulic drill, and they kept hitting pieces of rebar embedded in the wall. Once the drill broke up the wall, they were able to break the concrete out in chunks. Then they cut out the rebar with a cutting torch, careful to cut the rebar into the concrete so there were no jagged edges. They didn’t want anybody to cut themselves while evacuating. In wartime, a casualty is a casualty whether it’s generated by friend or foe.

     To soften the concrete’s edges, they covered everything in the electrical room with heavy plastic and then brought in a sandblaster. They had a hell of a mess to clean up when they were finished, but at least they’d have a doorway to the tunnel that wouldn’t rip people to shreds as they squeezed through it.

     By the time they were finally moving dirt in the electrical room, the other end of the tunnel was moving at a fast clip. Brad and Jason were expert tunnelers now, and under their leadership the back end of the tunnel was advancing at a rate of ten to twelve feet a day. At just over seventy yards, it would be their shortest tunnel to date.

     And
their fastest, too.

     The third tunnel was finished in two and a half weeks, from start to finish. Every adult in the group helped in one way or another. By day twenty, everyone had been taken into the electrical room a couple at a time
s and shown how to operate the door.

     “The door is behind that huge electrical panel over there,” Mark said each time he held a demonstration. “But to unlock it, you have to come over here.”

     He led the small group to one of several smaller breaker boxes on another wall. He opened the door and pointed to the second breaker switch on the left side.

     “Remember it’s the second switch from the top. If you forget which one, look at the guide sheet. It’s marked “Walk-In Freezer.” You might recall that we had a walk-in freezer in the mine. However, we don’t have one here. That’s what Blue would call ‘a clue’ and it’s a subtle way to say that’s your safe passage to the mine.”

     He flipped the switch.

     “Once you flip the switch it will let you open the panel one time, and it will automatically relock when it closes again. You’ll need to trip this switch each time you open the door, so it’s a good idea to keep it open until everybody has gone through it.

     “If you’re the last one through the door, simply close it behind you. The electronic lock will secure it.

     “As you’re going through the tunnel, watch your head. If you’re tall, you’ll have to bend over. Go through single file, and don’t panic.

     “After seventy two yards, this tunnel will open up into the main tunnel. There will be someone there with a clipboard taking a head count. Be sure they see you so they can check you off as being safely out of the compound. This is very important because if we don’t check you off before you go to the mine, we may consider you missing. And someone may go back into the compound to look for you, at great peril to themselves.”

     He looked around.

     “Are there any questions?”

     Rachel meekly raised her hand and asked, “I’m claustrophobic. I’m afraid I might panic in the tightnes
s of the tunnel. Can I just climb over the wall instead?”

     Rachel’s question caught everyone totally off guard. It had never occurred to anyone that someone might have
such an issue.

     “But you evacuated through the main tunnel before. You didn’t have a problem then?”

     “I wasn’t comfortable, but I was able to get through it. But remember, the main tunnel is different. It’s much wider. Wide enough to where I can hold my arms out and not touch the walls. The way you describe this tunnel, it’s not like that. I’m afraid if I can feel the sides of the tunnel as I go through it, I might freak out and freeze.”

     Hannah said, “Why don’t I work with you, dear? We’ll go into the main tunnel and I’ll walk a little ways into the narrow tunnel with you. If you feel uncomfortable we’ll turn around and go back. Maybe if you take it in small doses and get used to it a little at a time you can get the confidence to do it.”

     “That might help. Thank you, Hannah.”

    
Jason put an arm around Rachel’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, Darlin’. If you try that and can’t do it, let me know. When we evacuate, I’ll find you and we’ll climb over that wall together.”

     She hugged him and said, “Thank you…”

     Mark said, “In the coming days Brad and I are going to take the Kenworth out and see if we can find a trailer full of railroad ties or four by fours. There are hundreds of abandoned trailers out there, so there’s a good chance we’ll find one. If we can, we’ll use it to widen the tunnel so it’s the same size as the main tunnel.”

     A couple of days later, Marty and Lenny came to call, driving their own rig. It was the first time the group had entertained guests since John’s friend Frank Woodard came to call, and they were fine hosts. While Mark and Bryan were helping Marty herd a handful of
cows and a steer into the back of his trailer, Helen was cooking  up a batch of her southern fried chicken. It had become a favorite meal among the residents of the compound.

     Hannah would comment later that the best part of the meal was watching Marty and Lenny wolf down the first home cooked chicken dinner they’d had in over seven years.

     Mark mentioned that they’d be out looking for railroad ties, and Lenny said, “Shoot. Don’t bother. I know where there’s a whole flatbed full of them. He looked at Marty, who asked him, “You mean the ones on the back row of the field, next to that load of pipe?”

     “Yep,” Lenny said. “Don’t even bother breaking out your rig. I’ll haul it over here about this time tomorrow. Is there anything else you’re looking for?”

     “No, actually, we’re pretty well set on everything else.”

     “Consider it
done. It’s the least I can do in exchange for this meal.”

    Marty asked Helen for the recipe.

     “Are you a cook, Mr. Haskins?”

     “Me? No, ma’am. But eventually we’re going to open up that diner. Occasionally we get offers from the local folks who get bored because they no longer have jobs to go to
. I’ll eventually find a good cook. And I want her to serve something like this to our guests. We’ll put it on the menu as ‘Miss Helen’s Heavenly Fried Chicken.’”

     Helen blushed.

     “Well, in that case, Mr. Haskins, I’ll be happy to jot it down for you.”

Chapter 54

     On Buena Vista Drive in San Antonio, things weren’t quite so rosy. For three nights in a row, their night sentry had reported seeing shadowy figures off in the distance, appearing to show an interest in them. But never approaching closely enough to challenge or call out to.

     Of course, it could have been the same man on t
hree different occasions. Perhaps a homeless scavenger looking for food. There were hundreds of those now, out and about every night begging for scraps from the neighborhoods who’d been successful in growing crops.

     They were only homeless i
n the technical sense. The number of vacant houses in the city outnumbered them at least five to one, and no one would have challenged them if they’d just chosen one and taken up residence there.