Chapter 88
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I’ll miss you, Jack thought as he watched the snowmobile disappear beneath the icy waters of the lake. The now-silent machine slid under like a misshapen submarine, water boiling and hissing into oily steam as the too-hot exhaust manifold hit the water. It was a huge temptation to keep the machine.
As much as he disliked the machine, it had cut a day and a half from his travel time. He needed two days to rest and reconnoiter. He passed fifty or sixty cabins on the way east down the valley on the south side of the lake. Ninety percent of them were unoccupied summer cabins.
The urge to break into one of the cabins and fire up a propane heater, or start a roaring fire, was strong enough to be physical. He filled a mental shopping list as he passed the cabins shut for winter. Finally he made it to the Forest Service fire station. The Caterpillar tractors out back were indestructible, waiting for a fresh battery, a little patience and a few gallons of diesel. He tapped one of the elevated fifty-five gallon drums on the way by. The one he tapped was about half full.
The greenhouse behind one of the largest homes might do. He slipped the lock and saw the bags of nitrogen-based fertilizer he was looking for. Jack was sure he could find batteries with juice and few watches or alarm clocks.
He hummed “The Wizard of Oz” as he stumbled through the falling snow. He loosened the parka, feeling suddenly too warm. The stars blinked and spun. His fever was back with a vengeance. If he didn’t do something about the fever and fluid in his lungs, he wouldn’t last the four days he had to last.
He hiked back to the fire station. His tracks in the snow looked like a drunk’s. The front door was a stout metal fire door with hinges on the inside where they were supposed to be and had a Medeco Maxum 11WC60L deadbolt. He said a silent apology to the poor schmuck who would have to fix the lock as he kicked the back door open and stumbled inside.
It felt twenty degrees warmer inside. He had been fighting the wind so long that stepping out of it he felt like a fighter who’d stopped taking punches. The hotel-sized walk-in freezers in the kitchen were empty and unplugged. He had expected a bunkhouse and instead found what could have been a state college dormitory. Two full beds to a room, one desk, a table with two chairs, two dressers and two nightstands. There was a four-bed infirmary, stripped for winter.
The metal lockers looked like something from his old high school. All empty, but the locked footlocker wasn’t. After thirty seconds’ work with the pry bar he had lifted out of the garage, he found their stash. There were boxes of aspirins, Tylenol, and ibuprofen and sheets of antacids. He hadn’t really expected to find any antibiotics, but he’d hoped. He heated chili he’d lifted from one of the homes over a hiking stove he’d borrowed from another.
He had to fight dehydration, but he couldn’t find any saline drip solution and had no way to create a drip anyway. One of his neighbors had thoughtfully donated Gatorade to the cause. Warm Gatorade washed down naproxen sodium to reduce his fever and saturate his blood with the anti-inflammatory to reduce the swelling in his shoulder, ribs, and knee. If he did have a bleeder in his head, the naproxen would thin his blood enough to kill him, but he had no choice.
The urge to prepare for his upcoming visit to the compound was strong. The Eskimos said food was sleep. Sleep could be food too. He lay down on the bed and pulled the eight blankets up to his chin. Sleep wouldn’t come as his mind raced around the course of his life. He wondered about Meghan and Dvora, and Lee and Bob and Alice and Captain Yan and he wondered whether he would ever know all of it.
He’d been bothered by insomnia most of his early life. His insomnia went away in the army, forced to by the exhaustion of fear. He was afraid and exhausted now, but still sleep wouldn’t come until he slowed down the mind race. First he breathed deep and steady. Then he listened to the words racing around his brain. Thoughts were made up of words and to control the thoughts he controlled the words.
Thoughts like: I’m too sick to do this. I won’t remember how to make the devices…they have Lee and they’ll kill her. I should turn myself in. I can’t…were replaced with better words.
I can do this. I remember how to make the presents. They will keep Lee as a bargaining chip. Turning myself in is not an option. I will… Soon he replaced the words with: It is time to sleep. It is time to rest. It is time to replenish and renew.
And, then deep, controlled breathing and slower thoughts. It…is…time…for…sleep. I…..am……falling…..asleep. I…
He put himself to sleep with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and his alarm woke him four hours later. His fever hadn’t budged. He dosed himself with more food, hot Gatorade, and naproxen, knowing he had to alter his plan. He needed to get the freaking fever down. A few of his tasks would be too exciting with hands shaking from chills and fever. He pulled on parka and squall pants and trudged through the door.
He had almost given up, but in the seventh cabin he found something more valuable than gold-an unopened pack of Keflex. Many people never took their antibiotics or didn’t take the full course, one of the major reasons there were so many nasty, antibiotic-resistant bugs around.
The date said the drugs were six months expired. Even his Special Forces general medical training was good enough to tell him the antibiotics were still 100%. He took his booty to the workshop and went back to sleep, dosing himself with food, hot Gatorade and the Keflex. His fever was down to 103. His coughing fit on waking only lasted a few minutes now.
He propped himself into a sitting position so he wouldn’t choke on the crap in his lungs while he slept. He was back to sleep within minutes. He repeated the process two more times. He’d slept sixteen hours in the last eighteen and still had two days in hand. His fever was down to 102 and his pee was barely pink.
THE LEUPOLD binoculars pulled the compound into a painful clarity. The fifteen fenced acres were on the northeast shore of the lake. Farm buildings spread out past the airstrip closer to him and north of the fenced area. The compound looked like it had started life as a resort with the main lodge and attendant docks on the water. The slips were empty. The sheet of ice on the lake would make boat driving difficult.
The white wooden church across the little creek from the other structures wouldn’t have been out of place on a “Gunsmoke” rerun. Further east was the newest-looking building. It was an opulent log and field stone lodge house, single level, but it had to be seven thousand plus square feet. Behind the lodge house was another fenced area with satellite dishes and a microwave relay aimed over his head and behind to the south. There had been no major changes since Jack had looked at the images from Google Earth.
A gray minivan with stylized cross stopped at the gate. The guard stepped out of the shack and made the van driver open the sliding side door. The guard checked inside and then used a mirror to check underneath the van before he waved the vehicle through the sturdy electric powered gate. The land around the compound had been bulldozed flat. The church bell tower commanded a clear view of all the approaches and the glint of a reflection off of binoculars or scope showed the bell tower manned.
He clearly heard the ringing of the bell calling the faithful to worship. Fifteen minutes before noon. The thought of wading in icy water started him shivering, but the only way in was the creek. If they had thermal imaging from the surrounding hills, then he would show up like a searchlight.
The banks on either side of the creek were sharp and steep. Near him the cut was from five to ten feet from the top of the bank to the water. As the creek rushed down through the compound to the lake, it widened and flattened, the effect of the backflow from the lake.
MY WORLD for real blasting caps, Jack thought. He would take too many risks planting the explosives to have them fail. There was no good replacement for fulminate of mercury or lead azide and Jack didn’t have the time or materials to make either. So, like any good former Special Forces soldier, he used old-fashioned Christmas lights. Progress sucked. The first six sets of inside Christmas lights he found were LED. He needed heat. The nine-volt batteries he used to cook the little wires were easier to find. He had only been able to make six dependable electro-mechanical triggers. Each one took an hour to construct. He tested two to destruction. He couldn’t test the completed device. The timers were as accurate as mechanical clocks could be. Some of his new neighbors wouldn’t be happy with their involuntary contributions, unless they knew what they were for. He hoped he made it through the next few days so they would find out.
Clocks closed the switch that sent current from the batteries into his homemade blasting caps. These fit inside PVC pipe bombs, filled with cordite from shotgun shells. If his Karma held, this would create sympathetic explosions in the diesel fuel-fertilizer-cordite mix.
He had three primary targets. His first target was the fuel dump next to their garage. His second target was the propane gas tank and valve near the lodge house, and finally the aviation fuel tanks at the end of the too-short runway. He felt confident about getting in and a little less confident about planting his little presents. It was getting out he didn’t have much hope for.
He had agreed to signal Bob by email when he made his assault. None of the cabins he checked had computers in place, at least with outside access. There was only one place nearby where he was absolutely certain that they had email: Inside the compound.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, because I am the baddest motherfucker in the valley.
His laughter sounded maniacal even to him before it turned into a wet, rattling cough that left him dizzy. His A-team and twenty-five Kurds had taken out six Scuds loaded with sarin gas. To get at them, they’d fought their way through two motorized rifle companies in reinforced positions. He should be able to get past a few religious fanatics and rescue his girl from serial prayer, shouldn’t he?