Читаем Survivors – A Novel of the Coming Collapse полностью

When the boys reached a level spot a mile up French Mesa Road, Shad called a halt. They looked back on the patchwork of fields in the valley below. Shad said, “Mr. Aguilar wanted me to wait until we were away from the center to get this out. He didn’t want the headmaster to make a big fuss, since all that he told him about us getting was the .22s.”

Handing his horse’s reins to Reuben, Shad loosened his bedroll bag from behind his saddle and rolled it out, exposing the two halves of a well-worn Marlin Model 1893 takedown rifle. The front half was nestled in a scabbard. With a bit of fumbling, Shad assembled the rifle, just as Aguilar had showed him how to do, and loaded it with seven flat-tipped .30-30 cartridges. He emptied the remainder of the twenty-round box into his jacket pocket and snapped it shut. Then, after attaching the .30-30’s scabbard to his saddle, he stowed his .22 rifle under the hitch ropes on his packhorse. “Okay, now we got us a rifle that can knock down a deer or stop a predator.”

“Yeah, the kind that come on two legs,” Matthew added.


Luke Air Force Base, Arizona Late October, the First Year

Ian Doyle’s last two days at Luke Field were surreal. As he drove through the Lightning Gate at the corner of Litchfield Road at 0635, he could see that it was completely unmanned. Incongruously, a “Threat Level Orange” warning sign was posted next to the gate. He spent the morning driving around the post, looking for anyone still on duty and doing a visual inventory of the base’s assets. At the NCO housing complex, he saw a group of gang members brazenly loading loot into the back of a pickup truck.

Doyle found that there were no aircraft remaining on the ramp. All of the military vehicles had also disappeared-either “requisitioned” or stolen. This included all of the fuel trucks. The C-21 Learjet used by the general staff and several F-16s were gone.

Ian then spent most of the afternoon searching for fuel containers. He couldn’t find any gas cans. He eventually found dozens of empty two-liter soda pop bottles in the recycling Dumpsters near the BX. He took these to the POL terminal and found that someone had left a small Honda generator there. They had rigged it to energize two of the fuel pumps. One of these pumps dispensed 100LL, a leaded high-octane aviation gasoline. That afternoon he returned to Buckeye with almost 140 gallons of 100LL in the cargo area of his Suburban with the rear seat folded down. A few of the containers had leaking caps, so he spent most of the drive with his head out the window, sucking fresh air. He prayed that he wouldn’t be ambushed, since the slightest spark would surely cause a huge explosion.

Ian waited until after dark, then he and Blanca carried the fuel containers to the backyard and covered them with a tarp.

The next morning he was back on base at 0615. He spent the morning wandering through the largely abandoned 56th Operations Group (OG) and 56th Maintenance Group hangars and buildings. By 0930 he found only a few young pilots and a couple of E-5 NCOs. The rest were lower-rank enlisted airmen. After finding such a pitiful contingent still on base, Doyle was dejected. He went back to the 56th Maintenance Group hangar and office buildings and came upon a lieutenant who was rummaging through closets and wall lockers, vainly looking for something edible. “Lieutentant, spread the word. I want you to announce that there will be an all-hands formation, for all groups, in the main 56th OG hangar at 1100 hours,” he ordered.

By 1100, only twenty-one ground crew and seven pilots had gathered. There was just one other captain. They quizzed each other and found that Doyle’s date of rank was eighteen months earlier, giving Ian seniority. In the distance they could see smoke rising from fires all over Phoenix, and there was an almost constant crackle of gunfire. Some of it sounded nearby, in Glendale. Doyle ordered the assembled gaggle to fall in to a proper formation. He called: “Attention! Stand at . . . ease!”

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