The Three Amigos – Chapter 1 – New Beginnings

“What’s up partner?” Ron said answering the phone.

“Mark Twain once said, ‘Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.’” Gary re-
plied.

“Huh? I know we haven’t talked in a while Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “What are you talking
about?”

“Just finished my latest story about an abrupt climate change scenario,” Gary explained.
“I killed you and me off.”

“Thanks a bunch, partner,” Ron chuckled.

“You died of old age Ronald,” Gary explained, “But I got myself shot.”

“How old was I?” Ron asked.

“A month shy of 83,” Gary answered.

“So Clarence outlived both of us?” Ron asked.

“Somebody had to write our memoirs,” Gary answered.

“It has been a long time, hasn’t it,” Ron observed.

“October, 1992,” Gary recalled. “You ever finish The Ark?”

“Kind of strange reading a story where I’m in it,” Ron said, “Nope, never did.”

“Been to a meeting lately?” Gary asked.

“Still have the wing in the sling,” Ron said. “Nope. And I’m sure you haven’t had Sharon
take you, right?”

“True, but with Amy and the kids back in the house while she goes through this divorce,”
Gary responded, “Sharon is pretty short on time.”

“I can dig it,” Ron chuckled. “We still have our nightmare living with us, again.”

“Under foot all the time?” Gary asked.

“Stays in his room and sleeps all day,” Ron said.

“Well, I was just calling to say howdy,” Gary said signaling the end to the call.

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“We’ll get to a meeting just as soon as I get my arm back,” Ron replied. “Ciao”

And that was what it was really like for The Three Amigos in Palmdale in the fall of
2004. Bush had just announced he was pulling 70,000 troops home from Europe and
the Far East and, of course, Kerry was naturally saying that was all wrong. But if Bush
had said he was keeping the troops where they were, Kerry would have said we should
bring them home. According to most polls, it looked like Bush was going to have to
come from behind to win reelection, too. That was a scary thought. That was just what
the country needed, some liberal from Massachusetts as President. And, having
watched a little coverage of the campaigns, Gary had concluded that John Edwards
wasn’t much better. Not that Bush had been the perfect President, but his heart was in
the right place, most of the time.

Gary didn’t agree with everything Bush stood for. Maybe Gary just had a liberal streak
buried under that conservative veneer, but he didn’t see the harm in something like
stem cell research. Anyone with half a brain knew that eventually the research would go
forward and if not in the US, in Europe and Japan. It held great promise for the field of
medicine. They might even come up with a cure for diabetes if they were allowed to re-
ally research. Gary checked all of his news sources looking for something he could
base a story on. There wasn’t much there. The Laci Peterson trial was delayed, again.
Didn’t matter if Scott did it or not, he was not going to get a fair trial. Crude oil hit record
prices at $48 a barrel, but another paper reported that despite the rise in gas prices,
SUV sales were up 15%. The US was living life in the fast lane and this was all going to
come to a screeching halt one of these days.

Even TV was in reruns. The only new show going was SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis and
Gary couldn’t decide if he liked the new show or not. He even checked the movie list-
ings to see if there was a movie worth seeing, but there wasn’t. Anything that half inter-
ested him would be on cable soon enough. It was hell to be ‘middle aged’ and infirm.
His friend Fleataxi gave him an idea for a story and he’d thought about it, but decided
that the story of the three amigos would barely fill a page. There simply wasn’t much to
tell. Clarence and Gary had gotten close when Gary sponsored Clarence’s nephew,
Fred. Ron and Gary had a history, but there really wasn’t much interesting about it. For
years, they’d worn cowboy boots and hats and gone to meetings. Some folks called
them Bill and Dr. Bob. But with the turnover in the meetings, they hardly knew anyone
anymore.

And so what if he didn’t start another story anyway? They accused him of being on a
caffeine IV and knew nothing about his Energizer Bunny that kept him cranking out as
many as 4 and sometimes even 5 chapters a day. He wasn’t on drugs, he was charged
with electricity. At least his last story had earned a flashing asterisk that was a first. Us-
ing Microsoft Word to write stories just made it harder. Between the Spelling Checker
and the Grammar Checker, and words like their, there and they’re, and to, two and too,
you went nuts trying to write a story. Obviously the person who did those checkers

2
didn’t understand plainspoken English. Did Microsoft secretly farm their programming
out to India too?

Speaking of Microsoft, Sharon had asked him to download SP2 for Windows XP. Gary
went into her sewing room and checked. SP2 wasn’t available for download yet. He no-
ticed Sharon’s tape measure, the 50’ one she’d bought to measure for last year’s quilt
show. Bored and with nothing to do, Gary took the tape to the back yard and measured
from the shed to the tree, 23’, and from the patio to the short wall for the bushes, 33’.
He looked carefully at the lawn and realized that this half of the lawn was nothing but
weeds.

Well, 20×30’ was 600 ft² and that would make a very respectable shelter. The thing was,
if he started a project like this, he was going to have to see it through or he’d never hear
the end of it. Then he calculated the cost of putting in a foundation and slab. 600 square
feet of concrete 4” thick was 200 cubic feet of concrete or about 7.4 yards. Plus, he
guessed that he’d need a foundation about a foot wide and 6” thick for the 100’ circum-
ference. That was another couple of yards. He could get a load of concrete that big, 9.5
yards on one truck. It would cost him about 9.5×$55 or $522.50 for the concrete and
another $150 for a pump. And, he guessed that he could put in an 8’ high wall around
foundation for about $30 a lineal foot so that was another $3,000; plus another 7.5
yards of concrete for a roof, $412.50 and another $150 for a second concrete pump.

So, just putting a box in the ground would cost them about $4,235, assuming he dug out
that 33×23×8’ of dirt by hand. That was almost 225 yards of packed, hard dirt. Assum-
ing that he could get ¼ yard in a wheelbarrow, he probably couldn’t pick it up and that
was 900 wheelbarrows of dirt. And it was more likely that he’d be lucky to get 3 cubic
feet of dirt in the wheelbarrow and that translated into 9×225 or 2,025 loads. Way back
when he’d leveled the back yard, the guy had hauled away 5 truckloads of dirt for $175.
But Gary didn’t want all the dirt hauled away, he just wanted some of it excavated and
piled on his patio. After he had that box put in, he intended to pile all of that dirt back on
top of the box as protection against radioactive fallout. But he couldn’t do that either,
that would make too high a pile of dirt.

“Sharon, I’d like to start a project,” he’d told her.

“What kind of a project dear?” Sharon had asked.

“It doesn’t make any darned sense to me not to have a storm shelter,” he’d told her.
“That’s about half the reason I’ve always wanted to move back to Iowa.”

“How big of a shelter are you talking about dear?” Sharon had asked.

“Twenty by thirty,” he’d replied softly, ducking his head a little.

“Are you out of you mind?” she’d asked getting a look on her face that could have killed.

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“Well, I measured the lawn,” he’d told her, “and that area back there that isn’t growing is
about 23’ by 33’. I figured that I could transfer what little bit of sod was worth saving to
the other side and fill in those blank spots. Then, I could dig down about 4’ or so and
pile the dirt on the patio. After that, we’d be able to hire someone to excavate the next 6’
down.

“So, we’d have a big hole in the ground and what would that cost us?” she’d asked.

“I called an excavation contractor and he’d remove and haul the 169 yards of dirt for
$1,000,” Gary had explained. “And I’ve calculated that I would get the actual shelter put
in with a combination of my labor and a contractor for about $4,235.”

“So we’ve have a $5,235 dollar hole in the ground?” she asked.

“Actually it would be a bit more,” he’d been force to admit. “We’d have to put in a stair-
well, too. That would take another 8’ of wall plus 3’ for the end or about another $330.
But, I figured I could rototill in some compost and seed the covering over the hole after I
got the dirt back in place so we’d have a full lawn.”

“What else have you been figuring out?” she’d asked. “Surely having an empty hole in
the ground wouldn’t satisfy you. What about stairs and something to cover the entrance
to the stairs?”

“I hadn’t gotten that far,” he’d been forced to admit.

“Assuming, and that’s just assuming I’d go along with a crackpot idea like this,” she’d
said, “I suppose you’d have to get a piece of that scrap ¾” metal plate and figure some
way to spring load it so you could get the plate open. Then you’d have to scrounge
around for some used metal stairs or build your own out of wood.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he’d admitted. “And, I’ve have to put in some of that ¾” metal
plate as a door at the bottom of the stairs, too.”

“If we got that far,” she’d said, “Assuming I’d go along, we have enough furniture in
storage to outfit the shelter, but what would you do for power and cooking and the like?”

“How about one of those stove/refrigerator/sink combinations like they use in motels?”
he’d asked, “Assuming you’d go along.”

“That might work,” She’d said, “If they came with an electric stove, and you put in a big
enough generator to provide for the kitchenette and lights.”

“Well, I’ve been looking at diesel generators for all of those stories I’ve been writing,”
he’d reminded her, “And we could put in a big enough generator and a 300-gallon fuel
oil storage tank.”

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“Gary,” she’d said with a tone that made him think the conversation was about to end,
“You couldn’t get by with 300-gallons of fuel for a generator. You told me any number of
times that in the case of a nuclear attack, we’d have to stay in a shelter for 340 some
hours. How much fuel would it take to run a generator for 340 some hours?”

“Well,” he’d explained, “The home standby units are natural gas or LP vapor, at least
those manufactured by Onan and Generac. The only way we could get a diesel standby
unit would be to go with an Onan or Cummins. But you’d have to buy the transfer switch
and all of that separately.”

“And how big a propane tank are you talking about?” she’d asked.

“Gee, I don’t know,” he’d been forced to admit, “Maybe 5,000-gallons.”

At this point in their discussion Gary sensed that Sharon was warming to his sugges-
tion. Maybe not completely, but since she was getting into details, she must have some
interest. One thing Gary’s research had shown was that the Onan and Generac genera-
tors ran on Natural Gas or LP Vapor. However, the Onan RS 12000 ran on both. Gary
down loaded the installation and operator manuals and studied them. Conversion was
as simple as inserting an orifice in a pipe and adjusting the carburetor. However, he
would hate to do that in the dark. Maybe he could put in a Y-adapter type valve and put
in two of the intake pipes, one with the orifice and one without. Then, he’d be able to
switch from gas sources with the turn of a valve. The RS 12000 ran $3,999 and the
transfer switch another $642.86. Then there was the LP gas tank to buy, too. He would
have preferred to rent one, but that would never do. A rental tank had to be 10’ away
from any structure, not inside of the structure. A used 5,000 gallon tank would run
$7,500 plus shipping. Maybe Ron could find him a ‘deal’.

Now Gary might be slow, but he wasn’t stupid. And what Sharon didn’t know couldn’t kill
him, yet. So he’d gone back to Sharon and had told her that he’d found the generator
and tank but they didn’t need to think about that just yet. Sharon was engrossed in a
quilt show on HGTV and she just sort of nodded at his comment. So, he’d then asked,
“Can I go ahead with the project,” and she again nodded. Never look a gift horse in the
mouth.

With permission granted, Gary stripped what little sod there was to move and began
moving the dirt, wheelbarrow full by wheelbarrow full to the patio, starting at the rear
and moving forward. It took him quite a while to move that dirt, but a few weeks later, he
was ready for the excavating contractor to come in and take out the remaining 6’. He
reminded Sharon that they had to have $1,000 to get the dirt hauled away and she gave
him one of ‘those’ looks, but agreed and told him not before the 28th of the month. Gary
called the guy and scheduled the work for the 28th. That fella did in hours what had tak-
en him weeks and he took out an extra two foot of dirt. Gary leveled out the bottom of
the hole and started to dig for the foundation. Ron came by and told Gary that the foun-
dation had to be a foot thick, not 6” and 2’ wide not 1’.

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“Then you get your butt in this hole and help me dig, Ronald,” Gary said.

“I’d have to go home and change clothes,” Ron protested.

“I don’t care if you have to go home and have lunch,” Gary said, “You’re the one who
wants this foundation twice as big so get a move on.”

Ron even brought back his own shovel and they got those holes 12” deep and 24” wide
after a long day’s work. Of course that changed everything too. Now Gary needed a to-
tal of 12 yards of concrete for the foundation. He went back to Sharon and she told him
after the 4th when the Iowa bank deposited the money he could get his concrete. That
gave Ron, who was now officially drafted whether he liked it or not, and Gary time to
build the forms. The problem was that a 2×4 wasn’t 4” and a 2×6 was too wide. But it
was easier to use 2×6’s and move a little dirt. On the morning of the 5th, the concrete
pump showed up followed ½ hour later by the concrete truck with 12 yards of concrete.
Let me tell you, they really quickly discovered that they didn’t have much room to work.
But, using a 2×4, they leveled the slab and then, using a large steel trowel on a pole
he’d rented, they managed, somehow, to get a fairly decent finish on the slab. Gary told
Ron he really appreciated the help but when it came time to put in the roof, Ron was go-
ing to have to help him out.

“Just what in the hell are you building here, Gar-Bear?” Ron asked, “It’s too deep for a
swimming pool.”

“Ronald, old buddy, old pal,” Gary said, “I’m building a storm shelter.”

“Yeah, right, Gar-Bear,” Ron replied, “I know a bomb shelter when I see one.”

“Well then why did you ask?” Gary asked.

“Oh, I just wanted to see what you say,” Ron laughed. “Does Sharon have any idea how
much this little project of yours is really going to cost before it’s all over?”

“Shush, don’t say that too loud, Ron,” Gary cautioned. “I figure to get it far enough along
that she won’t have any choice except to continue.”

“You are positively suicidal,” Ron laughed.

“Maybe, but it’s worked so far,” Gary grinned.

“What’s next on the agenda?” Ron asked.

“About 111’ of concrete block walls,” Gary said. “At $30 a lineal foot.”

“I see where you’re coming from,” Ron said, “By the time you’ve spent that much mon-
ey, Sharon will be committed, won’t she?”

6
“Unless she has me committed, yes,” Gary agreed.

“You realize, I hope,” Ron said, “That putting in a concrete roof is going to take a lot of
wood to support the plywood and the weight of that concrete roof I expect you’re plan-
ning on.”

“Yeah, I know Ronald,” Gary said, “But I thought I might ask Clarence to help us put it
in.”

“You aren’t above abusing all of your friends, are you?” Ron commented.

“Me, abuse my friends? Whatever do you mean Ronald? When the bombs start falling,
all of my friends are going to show up wanting in and people who haven’t helped out are
going to have a real problem,” Gary replied.

“After the walls, what?” Ron continued.

“I’ve have to put in the propane tank, generator and the kitchenette before the roof goes
on,” Gary pointed out.

“You’re really going to make it hard for us to put up proper supports for that roof, huh?”
Ron remarked.

“Do I have any other choice?” Gary asked.

“I suppose not,” Ron admitted, “At least so far as the tank goes. The tank is about ten
by four foot.”

“And the kitchenette is 60” wide, so that has to come in too,” Gary said.

“How big is the generator?” Ron asked.

“45” long by 34” wide,” Gary said, “But we will have to install the generator because of
the intake and exhaust before we do the roof. And the installation manual says to leave
3’ free space on all sides of the generator so it can be serviced.”

“But we don’t have to install the tank, right?” Ron asked.

“We’ll have to put fuel pipes in the wall, but I suppose not,” Gary answered.

“Is this an LP or Natural gas generator?” Ron asked.

“Both and I’ve figured out how to plumb in both settings permanently,” Gary explained.

There was enough money left in the Iowa account to do the wall, Sharon said, but after

7
that, all money was going for Christmas presents. What did Gary want for Christmas if
she had money left over? If she came up short, Sharon said, that hole in the ground
was going to be his Christmas present. Well, if she had the money, Gary said, she could
get him a Winchester Model 94, Legacy in .45 Colt. And if she didn’t, the hole in the
ground was just fine. Sharon wasn’t stupid either and she had a pretty good idea how
much that hole in the ground was going to end up costing. She figured in the neighbor-
hood of $15,000 minimum before it was all done. To date, Gary had spent $1,000 on
excavating, $660 on concrete, $150 for the pump and that wall was going to run $3,330.
He had $5,140 committed to date. And, he hadn’t bought the kitchenette nor had he
said a word about how much the generator and tank were going to cost; probably
$4,500 for the generator, ? for the tank and $2,500 for that kitchenette. There was also
the roof and probably a bunch of survival food.

So far as the roof was concerned, from what Ron had said, Gary was rethinking this
roof thing. It probably made more sense to put in some I-beams and a permanent ½”
plate to support the roof. That way, he could avoid support posts eating up the floor
space. Gary figured that he’d wall off a separate room for the generator and supplies. It
was then that it struck him that he hadn’t given any consideration to water. How was he
going to drain that sink? And, what about drinking water and water to put in the sink?
Hell, it was time for plan B and he hadn’t even finished plan A.

Then Gary remembered something his friend Lee Roy had mentioned to him. Lee had a
property over at Holiday Lake west of Des Moines. They only had a 2” drainage system
with a pump in it. It was a special pump of some kind, Gary could remember that and he
could always call Lee and get the particulars. Anyway if he could pump the stuff, he
could put in a small septic tank and field just big enough to handle the shelter. And, he
could put it in just below ground level. A water tank could go in to the west of the shelter
in that small empty space between the shed and the back wall.

Just out of curiosity, Gary searched the net for sewage pumps and found that he had to
look no further than Home Depot. “The SEL40 is a 0.4 HP sewage ejector pump that
transfers residential sewage to nearby municipal hookups and is also applicable for
home septic tanks. The pump can handle up to 2 in. solids and is manufactured with a
replaceable, piggyback float switch for automatic operation. This pump can move up to
5800 GPH.”

Better add a water purifier too. It only made sense to put in the sewage lines now before
the walls went up and just made it harder. Should have thought of that before they
poured the slab, but, they could run the lines the 1½’ -2’ to the outside of the slab and
connect them up before the wall went in. Gary figured he could handle that without even
calling up Ron. The beauty of this was he could go to a flush toilet instead of a compost-
ing toilet.

There was also a question of a hot water heater and Gary decided that they could get
by with one of those miniature electric models. Somewhere in this whole process, he
realized that the costs were getting away from him, but so long as Sharon kept saying

8
yes, he was going to keep on going. Gary talked to Chris about the used metal plate
and Chris asked him what he wanted it for. Gary explained, but the look Chris gave him
was one of those, “Are you out of your mind?” sort of looks. Nevertheless, Chris said
he’d see about finding the plate, but it would be up to Gary to pay for it and the delivery
to Palmdale. Gary sort of planned to cross that bridge when he came to it. Right now he
had more irons in the fire than he could handle.

He rethought the generator and dug out enough soil to pour a separate slab outside the
existing slab and poured his own using sackrete. That would increase the wall footage
by 27 lineal feet, one more I beam and more steel plate. He’d also have to soundproof
the room and the door between the shelter and generator room.

Gary talked to the firm that was going to erect the walls and pointed out that he needed
some I-beams of proper size and properly spaced to support a ¾” steel plate and 6” of
concrete. They told him sorry, but they only did concrete block work. Gary had to pay an
engineer to tell him the size and spacing of the I-beams. He passed this information on
to the block man and they left notches for the I-beams. That was it until after the first of
the year. After that, he was going to have to part with some large money before he
could put on the plates and pour the roof. He decided that the generator could wait. The
January distribution would barely pay for the tank, kitchenette, I-beams and steel plate.
That generator would have to wait until March or so. But, in the meantime he could tar
the outside of the block wall, put in the pipes and fill the walls with mortar.

It turned out to be pretty troublesome to put in the pipes, then pull them out, put in mor-
tar and reinsert the pipes. He did that before he tarred the outside so he could get a tar
seal around the pipes. Ron came over and helped him set the tank in place above
ground and run the pipe to the shelter. But something kept nagging at him. It was some-
thing he read in the installation manual for the generator he’d downloaded. Then he re-
membered; he had to have the gas company change out the gas meter to a higher ca-
pacity meter. When they finished filling the blocks with mortar, they installed the I-
beams with a lot of help and with even more help laid the steel plates. With the plates in
place, it occurred to Gary that if they welded a 6” vertical lip on the plates, he would
have permanent forms to hold the concrete. He paid Chris welded on the lips for him.

By this time, they were well into March and there was money in the bank so Gary or-
dered up the 11+ yards of concrete for the roof. It was the same routine, except it only
took one 12-yard truck this time. $700 and a little work with a 2×4 was all it took to seal
in the shelter. There was money enough for the septic system and the electrical transfer
switch so Gary bought the switch and had it professionally installed. By the way, he got
that rifle for Christmas. Sharon had been bargain shopping all year and had money for
the rifle. Septic systems weren’t legal within the city limits so Ron, Clarence and Gary
put it in themselves. Once the septic system was in, Gary back filled the hole. That
sewage pump ended up under the platform built for the toilet. It might need to be re-
paired some day and because the drain lines were an afterthought, the toilet had to be
raised 6” above the floor. With help from Ron and the occasional piece of advice from
Clarence, the shelter was done. All that remained to be completed was the stairway

9
cover and the steel door sealing off the shelter. Chris took care of those and even
picked up the ¾” plate for Gary.

When the June distribution came, Gary bought the generator, made the modifications
and got it installed. He even tried it out on the natural gas and it worked just fine. Oth-
erwise, they would never have to worry about another blackout during the summer.
From start to ‘finish’ the project had taken 11 months and close to $15,000. But wait, he
bought but hadn’t installed a toilet or the water tank or the water heater yet. And, there
was the question of food for the shelter. At least they had furniture and were saving the
$100 a month they paid for the storage locker. They could buy lots of food for the shel-
ter with that $100 a month. He was still waiting on Ron for news on a used propane
tank, too.

10
 The Three Amigos – Chapter 2 – Finishing Touches

“So, Ron tells me that this storm shelter of yours is really a fancy bomb shelter,” Clar-
ence commented.

“Storm shelter, bomb shelter, what’s the difference?” Gary replied. “It will work if we ev-
er get a tornado in the high desert and if some nut nukes LA, we’ll have a place to hide
from the fallout.”

“You got any radiation detection equipment in that bomb shelter of yours Gary?” Clar-
ence asked.

“Clarence, I don’t even have the toilet, water tank or a hot water heater installed yet,”
Gary explained, “And all the food I have is 25# of beans and 25# of rice. But, we’re
ahead $100 a month on not paying for that storage locker so I’ll get the food in.”

“What about the other stuff Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

“It’s just going to have to wait until I get the next trust distribution fellas,” Gary offered.
“Together with the Geiger counter and some more ammo for my new rifle.”

“Let’s see that new rifle Gary,” Clarence requested.

Gary went to the bedroom closet and got the gun. He didn’t have a gun safe so he had
to endure the trigger lock mandated by the state of California. He took the rifle to the
kitchen, jacked the action open and handed the rifle to Clarence.

“Gee, a cowboy gun,” Clarence responded working the lever a couple of times.

“To tell you the truth Clarence, I’d rather have had a M1A Super Match, but it was a
Christmas present from Sharon and I wasn’t sure I’d even get this rifle.”

“Oh? Why not?” Clarence asked.

“That storm shelter of mine turned into a financial nightmare,” Gary said. “I figured I get
by less than 10 grand, but I’m at 15 grand and it isn’t done yet. And, before I do any-
thing else, I have to rototill in some compost and plant grass. And before that I have to
put in a new sprinkler system.”

“Make those slopes real gentle Gary,” Clarence suggested, “And it won’t be so hard to
mow the grass once it comes in.”

“And that’s another thing,” Gary said. “My beautiful bride bought a lawn mower so she
could mow the lawn and I’ve mowed the lawn every time since she bought it except the
first time.”

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“I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject Gary,” Clarence apologized.

“That’s ok Clarence,” Gary smiled, “Things sort of have a way of evening out.”

“Like your storm shelter,” Ron chuckled.

“Exactly Ronald,” Gary smiled. “She’d better not complain after all that quilting stuff she
bought.”

“I’ll help you with the lawn Gar-Bear,” Ron offered.

“Hey, you can count on me,” Clarence said.

“Yes, you can hide out in my storm shelter when they start dropping the a-bombs,” Gary
laughed.

“What about the water tank Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

“I found a company that sells a 2,400-gallon capacity water tank that’s 90”×150”×50”
Gary replied. “The price is $1,670 and I figured that I’d put 2 in side by side. 4,800 gal-
lons of water isn’t much water when you have a lot of people in a shelter, you know.
Figure it out pal. Say you have 20 people using a toilet twice a day,” Gary explained.

“That’s 32 gallons of water with one of these stools compared to 60 gallons a day for a
regular stool. By the time you figure in all the water usage those 400 gallons of water
you save in 2 weeks add up. And what if the usage is 4 times per person per day?
That’s almost 800-gallons. So yeah, it makes a difference. Anyway, I can do the 2 water
tanks, in one fell swoop. We can install the shower, stool and sink I bought and hook up
the kitchenette.”

“I kind of like this rifle,” Clarence said handing it back, “I might get me one just like it.”

“Hell Clarence may she’ll give us an extra discount if we buy two,” Ron suggested. “I
sort of like the looks of the lever action rifle myself.”

“Buy a lot of ammo Ron,” Gary suggested. “And don’t let that clerk in that store screw
you around either. The .45 Colt and .45 Long Colt is the same round. It’s the .45 short
Colt that’s different.”

“Still mad cause he didn’t know the difference?” Ron asked.

“Well you’d think that a guy who worked in a gun store where they sold ammunition
would know something as basic as that, even if I didn’t,” Gary replied. The next guns I’m
buying are a set of three of Ruger case colored Vaquero’s, one in each barrel length.
And I’m gonna get me one of them Kirkpatrick double holster Laredoan with a straight
holster and a cross draw holster. I’ll get a separate holster for the 7½”, a Paladin rig.”

12
“Better get it with suspenders,” Ron laughed.

“You trying to say my butt ain’t fat enough to hold up the weight?” Gary snapped.

“Ron, I wouldn’t touch that with a 10’ pole if I were you,” Clarence advised.

“I didn’t say you didn’t have a fat butt Gar-Bear,” Ron said.

“Are you trying to say I do have a fat butt?” Gary pursued.

“Ron I told you to let it be,” Clarence laughed.

“Gary I don’t have any opinion about your butt, it’s your head that’s fat,” Ron continued.

“That’s better,” Gary said. “You were starting to po me for a minute.”

“How about them Cubs?” Clarence said.

“I didn’t know you were a Cub’s fan Clarence,” Gary said.

“I’m not Gary,” Clarence admitted. “So when are you putting in the finishing touches to
your storm shelter.”

“September,” Gary replied, “What about the Cub’s? They ain’t half bad for a team that
can’t win for losing.”

“September, huh?” Ron said. “You gonna dig the hole for those tanks yourself?”

“What tanks?” Gary asked.

“Those M1A2SEP water tanks,” Ron replied.

“They aren’t M1A2SEP water tanks Ron they’re model number TN2400WT,” Gary re-
plied. “An M1A2SEP is an Abr… Say, are you trying to make a fool out of me?”

“Me? Nope, you’re doing a pretty good job all by yourself,” Ron replied. “I don’t know
about you Clarence, but I’ve got to get a move on. Call me when you’re ready to do the
yard, Gar-Bear.”

“I got to go too, Gary,” Clarence said rising.

Gary had been running a portable sprinkler on the bare dirt each day helping it to settle
and compact a little. And his neighbor, Jose, was a gardener by trade and had the skills
and equipment to handle the task of mixing in the compost, installing the sprinklers and
seeding the lawn. Gary had also been watering the area behind the shed, softening the

13
dirt. He started to haul dirt once again. Had the area behind the shed been a foot small-
er in either direction, he would have been in trouble, too. He only dug down about 5’.
This would leave the top of the tanks about 10” below ground, but once he covered
them with the dirt he’d excavated, they’d be okay. And like the friends they were, Clar-
ence and Ron had helped out. Besides, he got tired and it got hard to dig any deeper.

There were all those details, too. Like shelving to hold the food and such. Gar-Bear
emptied the shelves in the garage, dismantled them and lugged them to the shelter
where he reassembled them and attached them to the walls as insurance against an
earthquake. And of course there was the matter of running a water line to the hole so
that once the tanks were in, they could be filled and topped off from the city water sup-
ply. That looked like it was going to be a problem until Gary realized that he could cut
into the supply line for the sprinkler control valves and would only have to run about
100’ of water line. His two pals kept showing up and helping out, almost as if they had a
work detector installed and knew when he was going to take on another difficult task.
Ron and Clarence even spread the bags of compost and rototilled them in without being
asked.

When the next big trust distribution came, Gary had ordered the water tanks. With Chris
and Matt to help the 5 of them manhandled the tanks into place. And connected the wa-
ter lines. Gary even added an electrically controlled valve to cut the water supply to the
tanks in an emergency. Then they hauled the dirt back, covered over the two tanks and
spread a little more compost. Jose installed the sprinkler system and Gary seeded the
lawn. Except for the fact that the west half of the back yard was now elevated about four
feet between the shed and the tree and a little higher behind the shed, the yard didn’t
look all that unusual. Yeah right.

Gary hired Jose to maintain the lawn; he was just too tired to keep it up. And, every
month, Sharon and he went to Sam’s Club and Costco and added a little more food to
the shelter. And when next the trust fund made a distribution, Gary went to see Sandy
and bought those 3 Vaqueros and ordered the rig from Kirkpatrick Leather and Alfon-
so’s. He also added 1,000-rounds of full power .45 Colt Buffalo Bore ammo to the shel-
ter.

This might be a good point to give you a tour of the shelter. The 3×4×1¾” trap door to
the stairwell was hinged a foot in from the back edge. It was counter balanced to a de-
gree and further aided by some garage door springs. It was opened and closed by a
Stanley door opener that activated some sort of arrangement Chris had figured out on
his own. The stairs were wood with a 9” rise, making them rather steep. Underneath the
stairs were the sewage pump and some non-essential supplies that could be accessed
by swinging the stairs up on their hinge, which was about halfway down the stairs. At
the bottom was a flush door to the left. The door swung outward and was normally left
open. Chris had been most generous with the hinges, using so many, in fact, that it al-
most looked like a piano hinge.

The interior of the stairwell was painted with a light grey concrete sealer, applied by

14
hand. The interior of the shelter was likewise painted with the sealer and a coat of off-
white paint topped that. Just after you enter the shelter, you encounter the kitchenette;
and beyond that were shelving filling the remainder of the south wall. The generator
room contained the generator and shelving for extra supplies. The main room was
sparsely furnished. It had a 30”x60” table where Gary intended to put in some Ham gear
and a computer. There were 3 sets of bunk beds on either side of the door leading to
the generator room 2 pair on one side and a single pair on the other. There was also a
sofa and folding chairs. A 19” TV sat on a stand next to Gary’s desk, facing the room.
And, above the TV was a rifle rack.

The only table was an 8’ folding table that could be taken down and stored to make
room for the cots. The shelter was quite Spartan, containing only the essentials for sur-
vival. Gary didn’t have transceivers yet, only a receiver. Adelphia had graciously run a
cable TV feed to the shelter, for a fee of course. The installer hadn’t been allowed into
the shelter proper, he had terminated the cable connection in the stairwell and Gary had
taken care of the rest. Lighting inside the shelter consisted of 2 48” florescent fixtures in
the generator room and four of the fixtures in the main room with the bulbs in each on
separate circuits, allowing them daylight and evening settings. The shelter, though not
plush, was well thought out. A box with a pair of switches allowed them to remotely shut
off the water feed to the tanks and the natural gas feed as shown in the generator instal-
lation manual.

For the fun of it, Gary, Ron and Clarence and Sharon, Linda and Lucy spent a weekend
in the shelter once it was finished. They locked it down and simulated a real emergency.
The first day hadn’t been bad, the women gathered into a group at one end of the table
and the men did likewise at the other end. The little refrigerator was well stocked with
steaks and the like and they got through the weekend without a major fight breaking out.
With water being a precious commodity in an emergency situation, rather than installing
a regular showerhead, they put in one of those hand held showerheads people usually
attached to a bathtub faucet. Navy showers were the order of the day. Gary also added
deodorant to the supplies he had stored.

A second and far more important discovery was made. They ended up leaving the door
open and the ground lid cracked about half way because they ran out of air. There is a
solution to every problem and Gary ordered an air filtration system from that company
up in Oregon called a Safe Cell. The Safe Cell came in 60CFM and 120CFM models
and the prices were $4,125 and $6,600 and replacement filter sets were $690 and
$1,390 respectively. The generator pulled its air from the shelter and exhausted its gas-
es through a pipe with a blast valve. Gary spent the $6,600 so the generator wouldn’t
get radioactive, a change in plans.

Three months later, they ran a second drill and this time, it worked out fine. The real
test, however, would be if they had a real emergency and had to spend 2 weeks rather
than 2 days in the shelter. Then, it wouldn’t be steaks every night and a party-like at-
mosphere. It would be survival rations and a lot of tense days. Ronald picked up a cou-
ple of dozen 1,000-piece puzzles and told Gary to find space for them in the shelter.

15
Gary went looking for some used Ham gear and antennas he could install. Clarence
and Ron bought themselves each a Ruger Vaquero in .45 Colt and a Méxican gun belt.
Clarence also expanded his wardrobe to include a cowboy hat, boots and jeans. [Note:
There are the original Ruger Vaquero and the ‘New Vaquero’. All references are to the
original model.]

Having the shelter in Gary’s back yard did two things. It brought the 3 men closer to-
gether for one thing, and it gave them a certain measure of reassurance that in a
TSHTF scenario, they at least had a chance. When occasionally the three of them
showed up at a meeting, they took a terrible razzing over the western attire, especially
Clarence. But, they just smiled and let it pass. And after every meeting, they stopped by
Sandy’s store, which was less than a block away and ogled the guns. Gary added a
Winchester 9422 to his gun collection and a Mossberg 590A1 12-gauge shotgun. Ron
and Clarence soon followed suit, they liked the lever action rifles and everyone needed
a shotgun. They also stocked up on 12-gauge ammo including an assortment of the 3”
15-pellet 00 buckshot and some 3” Brenneke 1⅜oz Black Magic slugs. They bought
bricks of .22LR ammo when it was on sale.

It appeared that President Kerry didn’t really know what he wanted to do once he had
taken office. In a narrow, but uncontested election, he and Edwards had booted Bush
and Cheney from the White House. And although the American voters had seen fit to
remove Bush, they elected a lot of Republicans to the House and Senate. There was
near instant animosity been the Executive and Congressional branches of the govern-
ment, and most of the legislation that Kerry introduced was killed in Committee in either
the House or the Senate. Kerry couldn’t even get the Assault Weapons Ban re-adopted.
Out in California, Arnold had showed his true colors and the man in Sacramento was
clearly a RINO. Kerry had started a pullout of the US troops in Afghanistan, declaring
the War on Terror to be won. The problem was that the dang fool actually believed that
crap.

Maybe it was the drawdown of US troops that made Gary nervous, or maybe it was just
the news on TV and in the papers. The Three Amigos decided to do a real drill with the
shelter now that all of the mechanical problems had been solved. Over a 3-day week-
end, they started a day early and spend 4 days locked down in the shelter, feeding the
generator with natural gas and experiencing what it might really be like for an extended
period. It was then that they added the VCR and a large collection of films to the equip-
ment in the shelter. Although the women seemed content to work on the jigsaw puzzles,
the men tired of conversation and called a halt to the test, retrieved Gary’s VCR and
500 movies and resumed the test. If there were faults in this concept, this was the time
to find them and the solutions. When it came to a real survival situation, they couldn’t
open the doors and go looking for any darned movies to watch.

They also added an air filtration system to keep down the odors as a result of the 4-day
test. The generator required 777cfm of air to keep the engine cool. Running it for 96

16
hours non-stop revealed another chink in their armor, heat buildup. It was quite a feat of
engineering, but Chris, who had experience building racecars figured it out. He routed a
cowling to the air exhaust and exhausted the heated air to the outside air. The direct-
drive, centrifugal blower forced the heated air out the inlet pipe, back to the outside.
Problem solved.

No matter what you do to prepare, you’ll never be 100% ready. In the end, you will dis-
cover something you overlooked and wished you had. The real beauty of all of those dry
runs was that they had identified mechanical and people problems and had done their
very best to solve them before they ever had to be put to the real test. Chris and Matt
had been a big help getting the shelter ready. So, Gary put some folding cots under the
bunk beds just in case a real emergency ever arose. The men and their wives also
stocked up on first aid supplies and prescription medicines that they rotated in and out
of the shelter. Gary found his used Ham equipment and put up antennas. Amy’s old lap
top computer also made an appearance as well as a large collection of CD’s containing
everything from the Encyclopedia Britannica to topographical maps of the states of Cali-
fornia and Arizona. Gary even added a 25-watt transceiver that was capable of operat-
ing on the same frequencies as Chris’s racing radios.

Kerry’s withdrawal of the American forces from Afghanistan had caused less trouble
than anticipated. However, certain actions by the Bush administration had some long
reaching effects that were beginning in the fall of 2005 to be felt around the world. “Has-
ta la vista, baby?” Always be careful what you ask for, you just may get it!

One of the many headaches that the US has had was the Puerto Rican Island of
Vieques. In the waning years of the Clinton administration, protesters demanded that
the US Navy abandon bombing and naval gunfire exercises that had taken place on the
largely uninhabited island for nearly seventy years.

Liberal icons bumped into one another to fly to Puerto Rico, boat over to the island,
trespass (but never on a day that there was an exercise scheduled) and get arrested for
the benefit of the New York Times or Newsweek. They included the Reverend Al Sharp-
ton, Mrs. Jesse Jackson, Joan Baez, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Edward James Olmos,
Michael Moore and Ramsey Clark, just to name a few.

In 2002, the bombing exercises were transferred to an Air Force bombing range in cen-
tral Florida, not far from the Jacksonville and Pensacola Naval Air Stations. In January,
many of the protesters were back in Puerto Rico, celebrating the final bombing exercise
on Vieques and waved Puerto Rican flags and placards that read “US Navy, get out of
Puerto Rico.”

The following Feb, SecDef announced that the US Navy will close the Roosevelt Roads
Naval Air Station in Puerto Rico in 2004, eliminating 1200 civilian jobs as well as 700
military positions. This naval facility is estimated to put nearly $300 million annually into
the local economy.

17
The next day a stunned Governor Sila Calderon, held a news conference in San Juan,
protesting the base closure as a serious blow to Commonwealth’s fragile economy. The
governor stated that “The people of Puerto Rico don’t now or never did have an interest
in closing the Vieques bombing range or the Roosevelt Roads naval base. We are in-
terested in both staying in Puerto Rico.”

When asked, the Commander-in Chief, Western Atlantic Command, said, “Without
Vieques, I see no further need for the facility at Roosevelt Roads. None.” So, Yanqui go
home? Fine. But we’ll take our dollars with us. Hasta la vista, baby!

On February 21, 2004 the SecDef also announced that starting this year, the US Euro-
pean Command would begin moving most, if not all, of its active combat and support
units from bases in Germany to others being established in Poland, The Czech Repub-
lic, Hungary and Turkey to “better position them for rapid deployment to likely hot spots
in those parts of the world”.

Immediately the business and government leaders in the German states of Hesse,
Rhineland and Wurttemburg, protested the loss of nearly $6 billion in revenue each year
from the bases and manpower to be displaced. A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry
speculated that the move may be “what the Americans call ‘payback’ for the actions of
this government in opposing military action in Iraq.” Does anyone know the German
translation for “Hasta la vista, baby?”

Oh, ain’t it nice to see a government with guts and a good memory? What fun! GOD
BLESS AMERICA! [It came in an email and had to make it into the story. Thank you
Jim.]

And if that weren’t enough, no sooner had the last American left Afghanistan than the
Taliban made a reemergence, overwhelming the shaky Afghani government. Add to that
the drawdown of 70,000 Americans stationed around the world, a move also initiated by
the Bush administration and one soon realized that half the world was angry for one
reason or another with the US of A. And the French, as usual, were still criticizing the
US for going into Iran and Afghanistan in the first place. And, what was happening in
Iraq? Well, the President, in his infinite wisdom, was drawing down the troops there, too.
He’d stopped sending replacements and when a soldier’s year was up, he or she was
brought stateside. This resulted in an increase in American loss of life. Finally, perhaps
in desperation, he ordered all American forces to withdraw to American facilities in the
neighboring semi-friendly Arab states for transport back to the US.

The growing unrest made the 3 men very, very uneasy. Maybe that explains why they
forced the money out of their budgets and each bought a M1A Super Match rifle with a
Springfield Armory 6-20×50mm Pro-Plex BDC Government Model scope and Harris bi-
pod. Derek acquired magazines for them and Sandy was able to provide six cases of
the .308 NATO surplus ammo. She also got them 3,000 rounds of Black Hills 175gr
BTHP Match ammo divided equally among the three. And, for a large consideration, she
got in touch with a class III dealer and purchased 3 Surefire FA762S with the fast attach

18
mounts. Sandy wasn’t above doing a favor for a friend and she installed the mounts and
the suppressors for the 3 men.

In office for less than a year, John Kerry was almost wishing he hadn’t run for President.
Almost. Bush had taken his defeat gracefully and retired to Texas to work on his library.
He was very silent and it seemed as if he fell off the face of the planet. Cheney had
gone back to Halliburton, raising questions as to whether he’d ever really left. The Unit-
ed States of America was the fastest growing country in the Western Hemisphere, partly
due to European immigrants, but mainly due to the unending flow of Méxicans across
the border. The economy was in the toilet.

Gary emptied out the shed that set next to the shelter and carefully organized the less
critical emergency supplies. These were the less critical items that they would need in a
TSHTF situation like extra toilet paper. When he ran out of storage space in the shelter
for food, he put the remaining food in the shed, too. Most everyone in Palmdale had a
shed in the backyard, so there was nothing about the shed that made it stand out from
the other thousands of sheds. And, with the purchase of those suppressors, our 3 boys
had crossed the line. They were honest law abiding citizens in every way but one. But
for some reason the US seemed to think that a suppressor was an evil instrument used
only by criminals and inappropriate in the hands of the ordinary civilian. But then the US
had a long history of trying to legislate morality for its citizens.

And, the 2nd Amendment? The courts and the liberals said it didn’t mean what it said in
plain language. It was that language about the well-regulated militia that threw them, but
the truth was that they just plain feared or hated firearms; or perhaps both. They were
confusing the availability of firearms with the mindset of those that would use firearms
wrongly, regardless of the availability. Where did those gangs in LA get the full auto AK-
47’s? Surely not from their friendly gun store down the street.

Knowledge is power. As a police officer I strive to acquire as much knowledge as possi-

ble regarding the potential threats I may have to face. Obviously the threat posed by an
armed criminal is high on my list of concerns. In researching that potential threat I’ve
learned that the public perception and media portrayal of the matter is far from realistic.
The subject of so called Cop-killer bullets is a prime example.

The inflammatory headlines aren’t hard to find; Deadly Teflon Bullets Blast Through Po-
lice Vests; NRA Opposes Cop Killer Bullet Ban, etc. Likewise, the misleading scenes in
television crime dramas and in movies are numerous. A memorable scene in one of the
Lethal Weapon movies had Mel Gibson’s character firing Cop-killer bullets through the
blade of a bulldozer! The real story is significantly less dramatic.

In the mid 1960’s, Dr. Paul Kopsch (an Ohio coroner), Daniel Turcos (a police sergeant)
and Donald Ward (Dr. Kopsch’s special investigator) began experimenting with special
purpose handgun ammunition. Their objective was to develop a law enforcement round
capable of improved penetration against hard targets like windshield glass and automo-
bile doors. Conventional bullets, made primarily from lead, are often ineffective against

19
hard targets especially when fired at handgun velocities. In the 1970’s, Kopsch, Turcos
and Ward produced their KTW handgun ammunition using steel core bullets capable of
great penetration. Following further experimentation, in 1981 they began producing bul-
lets constructed primarily of brass. The hard brass bullets caused exceptional wear on
handgun barrels, a problem combated by coating the bullets with Teflon. The Teflon
coating did nothing to improve penetration; it simply reduced damage to the gun barrel.

Despite the facts that KTW ammunition had never been available to the general public
and that no police officer has ever been killed by a handgun bullet penetrating their
body armor, the media incorrectly reported that the Teflon coated bullets were designed
to defeat the body armor that law enforcement officers were beginning to use. The myth
of Cop-killer bullets was born.

In January of 1982, NBC Television broadcast a sensationalist prime time special titled
Cop Killer Bullets. Law enforcement officials had asked NBC not to air the program as
the use of body armor by police officers was still not common knowledge and the KTW
ammunition was virtually unheard of outside law enforcement circles. The safety of law
enforcement officers took a back seat to ratings at NBC however and they not only
broadcast the show, but re-broadcast it again six months later.

Following significant media hype and widespread misconceptions, Congress got into the
act and proposed legislation that would have outlawed any bullet based on its ability to
penetrate certain bullet resistant material. The FBI, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and
Firearms, and other forensic experts cautioned that the proposed ban was too vague to
be enforceable. The NRA opposed the proposed law since it would have banned not
only the controversial armor piercing handgun rounds, but nearly all conventional rifle
ammunition as well. (Most rifle ammunition will easily penetrate the most commonly
worn protective vests.)

The NRA proposed alternative legislation based upon the actual design and construc-
tion of the bullets. The final, approved version of the bill (H.R. 3121 passed in 1986)
prohibited the sale of armor piercing ammunition [which may be used in a handgun]
other than to law enforcement and the military. Representative Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.)
the original bill’s sponsor, stated that the final legislation “... was not some watered
down version of what we set out to do. In the end there was no compromise on the part
of police safety...”

Gun control advocates and the news media jumped on the NRA’s opposition to the orig-
inal, vague and ineffective proposal. They ignored the NRA’s contribution to the final
legislation insisting to this day that the NRA wants Cop Killer bullets to be available to
the public.

Here are the facts:

• “Armor piercing” ammunition is only legally available to law enforcement agencies and
to the armed forces.

20
• Rather than opposing the ban on “armor piercing” ammunition, the NRA was in fact
instrumental in crafting the law that Congress ultimately passed.

• When properly wearing the appropriate body armor, not one law enforcement officer
has ever been killed by a handgun bullet penetrating their vest. The National Institute of
Justice (NIJ) certifies three levels of body armor. The most commonly worn, Level IIA,
offers realistic protection against all .22, .25, .32, .380, and .38, caliber handgun ammu-
nition, against most 9mm, .357 Magnum, .40 S&W, .45 ACP and .44 Magnum handgun
ammunition and against 000 buck shotgun pellets. Level II and Level IIIA armor protects
from even greater threats including 12 gauge shotgun slugs and the “hottest” .44 Mag-
num rounds.

Cop-killer bullets are a myth born from media hype and nurtured by unrealistic Holly-
wood portrayals and the deliberately misleading claims of the anti-gun lobby. An objec-
tive, rational look at the facts quickly separates the myth from the reality. Knowledge is
power.

The above article is by Mike Casey (a pseudonym) who is currently a Patrol Officer,
Firearms Instructor and Field Training Officer in a municipal police department in Maine.
He previously served as a Deputy Sheriff in the Detroit area and as a US Army Armored
Cavalry officer. Mike has served in a variety of law enforcement positions including
horse-mounted patrol, bicycle patrol and as a Special Response Team member. He
holds a BA in Criminology.

21
 The Three Amigos – Chapter 3 – The Real Test

The trial runs had allowed them to debug the shelter and get used to being together in
cramped quarters. The men had no idea how important that would become in the days
ahead. And, one might think that 4,800-gallons of water was a lot and it would have
been had things worked out differently. Remember that Gary and Sharon had Amy and
her 2 kids still living with them (+2 cots) and Lorrie, David and the 5 kids weren’t but 4
miles away. On top of that there were John and Kevin to consider, and of course Clar-
ence’s sister. The combined Olsen family numbered 12, the Green’s 4 and the Rawl-
ings’ 3. Add to that Chris and Patti and their 2 kids. The potential population of the shel-
ter was 23. It all depended upon who made it before they closed those doors. Chris’s
solution to the cooling of the motor had a major strength/shortcoming. The shelter was
quiet, but you couldn’t hear anyone knocking on the outer hatch.

The trial runs had also shown that were a real emergency to arise, they needed to clean
out the fresh produce from their refrigerators and grab whatever potatoes and onions
they had on hand. The latest addition to the shelter had been a small freezer, a 12.8 Cu.
Ft. Frigidaire Chest Freezer that the manufacturer claimed held 448 pounds of food. It
had been reasonably priced at $237 at Lowe’s. Gary and Sharon had started using the
freezer for most of their meat and had even stocked up a little at Costco on some of the
12% ground beef and some roasts. The freezer was not full by any means, but there
was enough for a crowd for a couple of weeks.

Ron had ‘found’ a used 5,500 gallon propane tank and had it delivered. It needed a new
safety valve and pressure tested but he assured Gar-Bear it was sound.

During the waning days of 2005, most of the troops were either home or on the way.
The Threat Level seemed to be a rubber ball, bouncing between yellow and orange.
However, there seemed to be no cause for alarm, the military was apparently on DEF-
CON 5, normal, and it was difficult to figure out what information the government had
that kept causing them to raise the threat level. They weren’t even explaining the
changes beyond saying they had a reasonable certainty that the US was facing a terror-
ist attack. That all changed on November 11th, 2005. The Threat Level was raised to
red and an announcement made that the FBI had ‘reliable information’ that one or more
terrorist cells were planning on detonating either dirty bombs or small nuclear devices in
several major cities.

5. Severe Condition (Red). A Severe Condition reflects a severe risk of terrorist attacks.
Under most circumstances, the Protective Measures for a Severe Condition are not in-
tended to be sustained for substantial periods of time. In addition to the Protective
Measures in the previous Threat Conditions, Federal departments and agencies also
should consider the following general measures in addition to the agency-specific Pro-
tective Measures that they will develop and implement:

22
• Increasing or redirecting personnel to address critical emergency needs;
• Assigning emergency response personnel and pre-positioning and mobilizing specially
trained teams or resources;
• Monitoring, redirecting, or constraining transportation systems; and
• Closing public and government facilities.

Gary guessed that explained why all flights were grounded and Amtrak and the bus
lines weren’t running. He also guessed that it accounted for what amounted to a news
blackout. The government was trying to prevent panic by not being more specific on the
threat. But, this sounded serious so he suggested to Sharon that she pick up an extra
20# bag of spuds and some milk at the store. He also checked over the supplies in the
shelter before she left and decided that they didn’t really need anything else. Sharon
called Lorrie and told her to keep an eye on the news. When Amy got home from school
Gary suggested that she stay close by and keep her cell phone on if she left for any
reason. The ‘new’ propane tank had a new safety value and passed the pressure test. It
now contained 3 500-gallon deliveries of propane out of the 10 planned deliveries.

“Ronald, what do you make of this Red Threat Level?” Gary asked over the phone.

“Hell, partner, I have no idea, but it doesn’t sound good,” Ron replied. “I sent Linda to
the store to pick up a few things in case we end up in that bunker of yours.”

“Yeah, Sharon’s there now picking up potatoes and milk,” Gary responded.

“That’s what Lyn is getting plus some fresh veggies,” Ron related.

“We may have to move that spare refrigerator of mine to the shelter with all the milk and
produce we’re going to have,” Gary raised an alarm.

“I’ll get Clarence and we’ll be right over partner,” Ron suggested, “I have a bad feeling
that we are going to need the refrigerator pretty soon.”

Twenty minutes later Ron and Clarence appeared. They used Gary’s 2-wheeler and
moved the refrigerator to the entrance of the stairwell. After setting the 2-wheeler at the
bottom of the stairs, they grunted and groaned the refrigerator down the stairs and
wheeled it to the main room. They then carried the food that had been in the refrigerator
and all of the soda Gary had stocked in the garage to the shelter. Gary thanked his
friends and they returned home, probably to watch the news. Gary went back to the liv-
ing room and dropped into his recliner to listen to CNN. They were carrying breaking
news of an arrest of 4 individuals believed to be in the possession of one of those dirty
bombs. A Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) was in route to the site.

If necessary, NEST can deploy approximately 600 individuals to the scene of a terrorist
threat, although actual deployments have rarely involved more than 45 people. Accord-
ing to a Nevada Operations Office briefing, deployed personnel come from a pool of

23
about 750 individuals, most of who work for Energy or its private contractors in other
primary capacities. In addition to NEST members based at the team’s Las Vegas head-
quarters, personnel are pulled from three Energy Department labs (Lawrence Liver-
more, Los Alamos, and Sandia), and from three contractors (Reynolds Electrical & En-
gineering, Raytheon Services of Nevada, and EG&G).

NEST personnel also have a wide variety of specialties. NEST briefing slides list 17 dif-
ferent categories of personnel, including four types of physicists (nuclear, infrared, at-
mospheric, and health), engineers, chemists, and mathematicians, as well as specialists
in communications, logistics, management, and public information. As a result, the or-
ganization chart for a full NEST field deployment contains a multitude of divisions and
subdivisions – what one might expect at a large government agency.

Gary was just reaching for the phone to call Ron when Sharon came in. She wanted
help unloading the car and needed to give someone a piece of her mind. Albertson’s
had been an absolute mad house, she said, and she was lucky to get what little she
had. Gary took the milk and potatoes to the shelter. When he got back, Ron was on the
phone.

“I don’t like the looks of this one darned bit Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “That NEST Team be-
ing sent to the site suggests to me that all hell is going to break loose.”

“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet Ron, but if you’d feel better, why don’t you all
come over here. I can stand to watch FOX News for one night,” Gary replied.

“You seem pretty laid back in light of what’s happening,” Ron retorted.

“I’m only 100’ from the shelter entrance, I can afford to be a little laid back,” Gary ex-
plained.

“I’m bringing all of our stuff for the shelter, just in case,” Ron announced.

“That might not be a bad idea partner,” Gary agreed.

“See you in a bit,” Ron said and hung up.

The phone was barely back in the cradle before it rang again. This time it was Clarence
with essentially the same concerns Ron had expressed. Gary suggested that Clarence
get his stuff, Lucy and his sister and come over. Ron and Linda were on the way and
they’d just make a party out of it. Sharon got on the phone to Lorrie and suggested in
the strongest terms that they get some clothes around and come to the house. The
Three Amigos were, without realizing it, circling the wagons. And Patti was at the door,
having just returned from her usual shopping at Costco and Sam’s Club. She and Sha-
ron were visiting about whether Patti should unload her car at her house or put the food
in the shelter. Sharon suggested that Patti just keep out what she needed for the night
and put the rest of her food in the shelter. Gary decided that if Sharon were that con-

24
cerned, he’d better move the food they kept in the garage to the shelter too. It was
mainly coffee and his cigarettes, but you never could tell. He kept out a pack of smokes
and moved all of the other things to the shelter. He also moved his guns to the shelter,
just in case.

Ronald showed up hauling his entire gun collection several cases of ammo, a suitcase
with changes of clothing, their prescriptions and the things Linda had gotten at Stater
Brothers. Everything went into the shelter. They barely had time to put Ron’s stuff away
when Clarence showed up. As you might have guessed, Lucy had been to the market,
too. The stairway into the shelter was becoming a regular thoroughfare between Sharon
and Patti and Gary and the Amigos. When everything was in the shelter, Sharon got
Gary to slice the ham she’d prepared for dinner and everyone made do with ham sand-
wiches and deli potato salad (8 pound box). Lorrie and David showed up with the kids
and the three old geezers retreated to the shelter so they could hear the TV. David
joined them with his dinner and they turned on FOX News.

The NEST Team was still in route, but the fire department and police department bomb
squad in Denver had checked the device over and the readings they got on their Geiger
counters essentially confirmed that the device was radioactive. On the advice of the
NEST Team they were not to touch the bomb. There was no timer counting down or any
indication that the device had been armed and the feds wanted to see the weapon in its
pristine state.

As it happened, at that very moment, there were probably more terrorists in the US than
in the Middle East. The Muslims had been slowly moving people into the country one or
two at a time for a couple of years. These people were essentially no-name suicide
bombers. They’d plant whatever weapon was assigned to them and set the timer, if
permitted, but would otherwise blow it up in place if they were caught. The Denver ar-
rest had been a fluke event but the terrorists had a contingency plan in case any of their
cells were discovered. They were to drop everything and plant their weapons, timed to
detonate exactly 24-hours after the arrest. It was very thoughtful of CNN and FOX news
to announce that, “At 4:34pm local…”

Given the nature of the weapon in the terrorists’ possession, DHS chose to treat the 4
Muslims as enemy combatants and any civil liberties they had vanished in an instant. A
team of specialists (thugs) was assigned to question the men and they ended up spilling
their guts, literally and figuratively. But the men knew only that more than one cell was
to plant weapons and not the identities of any of the other teams. The men also knew
and revealed that in 24-hours all of the remaining weapons would be detonated. How
would you like to be the Secretary for Homeland Security or the President knowing that
one or more nuclear devices were set to explode at 4:35pm MST on 12Nov05? And,
what would you do? Warn the American people? A city the size of New York or Los An-
geles could not possibly be evacuated in 24 hours, let alone the time they had remain-
ing, less than 10 hours.

There are some situations for which there isn’t a right answer and anything one chooses

25
to do is going to be viewed in hindsight as the wrong choice. The closest thing to right
that anyone could come up with was to warn the American people but tell them to take
cover and hunker down. Assuming that he could send people somewhere in the time
allotted, what was to say that he wouldn’t be sending them from a place of relative safe-
ty to a place of danger. And the US hadn’t had a Civil Defense program for 25 or more
years.

The instructions the President gave the public were to go to a place of safety, e.g., the
subway or a community building and take cover. Teams would search for the bombs up
to the last moment, but to evacuate was practically a guarantee that they were exposing
themselves to being killed. A lot of people took the President’s advice, but just as many
thought they could beat the traffic. Consequently, the freeways and thruways and most
highways became congested and eventually ground to a halt. Law enforcement agen-
cies did their best, exposing themselves to incalculable risk trying to get people to plac-
es of shelter. But in the end, it was all for naught. Millions were caught in the open when
at 3:34pm PST. 6:34pm EST, the bombs exploded.

The terrorists had a mixture of man portable nuclear devices, the so-called suitcase
bombs and the dirty bombs containing a high explosive charge and radioactive material.
Major cities were exposed to both hazards. In New York City, for example, a suitcase
nuke went off in the financial district and the dirty bombs went off in the five boroughs.
In Los Angeles, the dirty bombs were placed near the coast to take advantage of the
prevailing winds and the nukes went off in the downtown area and Van Nuys. The nu-
clear devices had all been placed in the financial districts of the major cities and thirty of
the devices were exploded. The dirty bombs were all placed to allow the wind to blow
the contamination across populated areas and were, for the most part, placed in the
western parts of the cities. The initial count of exploded ordinance was some 150 dirty
bombs and 30 of the small man-portable nukes.

The announcement came approximately 8½ hours before the devices exploded. NEST
Teams located and disarmed only 20 of the dirty bombs and 4 of the man-portable
nukes. The 7am PST, 10am EST announcement was recorded and a tape loop set up
by most broadcasters to continuously broadcast the announcement. Everyone had done
something, right or wrong, to avoid the explosions but a lot of people simply didn’t make
it. The men had watched TV well past midnight and had gotten up early to follow devel-
opments. When they caught the broadcast, the 23 people were assembled and Gary
and Sharon’s home and an hour early the people and their pets headed for the shelter.
Since Palmdale didn’t seem to be a likely target, they actually didn’t button up the shel-
ter until around 3:30pm. FOX was broadcasting a live inset picture of New York and
CNN had a split screen playing the announcement on one side a showing a live feed
from Washington on the other.

At 3:34 PST, give or take a minute, a flash was seen in the street cameras and mo-
ments later the complete feeds were lost. There was a little quiet sobbing, a lot of head
shaking and even a little cursing in that little shelter in Palmdale. Just moments before
they buttoned up, Dick showed up and was admitted to the shelter. There were 24 peo-

26
ple, 5 dogs and cats in the shelter. The dogs went into the generator room and the cats
stayed in the main room. And yes, they’d brought a couple of litter pans for the cats,
some piddle pads for the dogs and food for both. There were a few anxious moments
until the dogs either came to accept each other or somehow realized the gravity of the
situation, probably the former. (600÷24=25ft²/person)

They turned on an AM radio and a FM radio to get the news because no TV channels
were broadcasting. The first stations that came back on the air were KTPI-AM and
KTPI-FM. It wasn’t long before the generator kicked in signaling the interruption of elec-
tricity. Gary flipped the switch cutting off the water feed to the tank. A short time later,
the generator cut out and the battery powered emergency lights came on. Gary manual-
ly switched the fuel feed valve to propane and restarted the generator. He then hit the
switch that cut off the natural gas at its source. They were now on full emergency sta-
tus. Gary checked the output meter on the generator and it was putting out a minimum
load. On propane at 25% load, the generator burned 1.2 gallons per hour, giving them
1,250 hours at minimum load. They planned to cut the generator each night at 9pm and
restart it each morning at 6am, extending the propane, if necessary.

This was possible because of a large bank of deep-cycle batteries, a charger and an
inverter that provided enough power for the ventilating system, the refrigerators and the
freezer. The next morning’s breakfast preparation consumed 75% power for a period of
1 hour. Gary then calculated that the propane consumption would be 1×2 gal + 12×1.2
gal or 16.4 gallons per day. At that rate of consumption, they had enough propane for
about 91½ days. The battery bank, charger and inverter had been a late addition that
came about when Gary calculated the propane consumption at 25% power and discov-
ered that at 25% or 1.2gph, they only had enough propane a short time. The 2 addition-
al propane deliveries were now factored into the new calculation. They need to stay in
the shelter for 343 hours and Gary figured that without the batteries, they’d never make
it. He’d obviously been right based on the load during meal preparation.

Fortunately, there were only 3 small children not counting Daniel, who was 22 years old,
6’2” tall, weighed 230 pounds and had the mind of a 3-year-old. A stack of Disney mov-
ies and cartoons kept the children under some level of control. However, by the end of
the 24 hours, it was evident that this would be a long 2 weeks. Those 600 square feet
were crowded and that was an understatement. On the other hand, there were 3 36
count boxes of candy bars, sodas, ice cream cups and bars in the freezer and an as-
sortment of games for each age group. And, it wasn’t as if they really had much choice
in the matter. They’d have to switch to powdered milk before it was all over, but if that
were the worst that happened, they’d get though. I forgot they had one other guest,
some guy named Murphy. Murphy had been expected and they were as prepared for
his presence as humanly possible.

According to the hourly newscasts on KTPI, The final count on dirty bombs was 152 and
30 suitcase nukes. So far, the background radiation level in Palmdale was rising, but
was still within the tolerable range. Reports out of LA were very sketchy, and no official

27
reports had been issued by the government to that point. The terrorists, it was speculat-
ed, had hit major population centers only. Gary connected the antenna leads and start-
ed listening to the ham bands for any news.

“Frankly guys,” Gary said, “I hadn’t figured that we’d lose the natural gas so fast. But
when I was rereading the owner’s manual on the generator I realized that I’d under pur-
chased the propane. So, I figured out this battery setup and had it installed. I’m sure
glad now that I spent that money.”

“I’m sure glad that we have the shower and the air purification system,” Ron observed.
“These 24 people and all of these pets would have made this place uninhabitable in
short order.”

“I agree with that Ron,” Gary said, “Those test runs were a smart step. I’d really hoped
we never have to use this place, But you can’t imagine how happy I am that I got bored
that day.”

“I wonder what things are like on the outside?” Clarence asked.

“The radiation level is tolerable partner,” Ron pointed out, “But I’ll bet there are a lot of
panicked people.”

“The nightmare I’ve always had was what would happen when all those people started
streaming out of the San Fernando Valley,” Gary said. “They will be sick, tired and hun-
gry. And no doubt some of them will have guns.”

“I never thought of that Gary,” Clarence reflected. “But I think maybe you’re right. Do
you think we’ll be able to get out of this shelter without getting our heads blown off?”

“I’ve given that a little thought my friend and I think we can get out ok, but I’m not certain
what we’re going to find,” Gary responded. “That’s why I wanted all of the firepower. I
wanted to put in a block wall on both sides and a block and wrought iron enclosure on
the front. But I got started way too late on the whole thing. So, I made the shelter the
first priority.”

“Next time you build a shelter,” Ron chuckled, “Use the entire back yard and connect
the sewage to the city sewer. I guess I never thought about what it would be like living in
a 20×30 room for 2 weeks with 23 other people.”

“You said that the radiation level is tolerable, Ron,” Clarence said, “What is tolerable?”

“I printed out an article I found on the net, Clarence,” Ron replied, “There’s no simple
answer. It was one of the best articles I ever read on the subject though. I stuck it in my
suitcase and you can read it later.”

“I just thought that if the radiation level were low, we could leave early,” Clarence said.

28
“Clarence, there’s that 10/7 rule we need to observe,” Gary added. “The rule says that
for every seven fold increase in time radioactivity will decrease by tenfold. The rule of
sevens effectively covers the period of time it takes radioactive fallout to fall to 1/1000 of
the initial level. We have those potassium iodide or iodate pills to take after we leave
the shelter and prevent radiation from building up in the thyroid.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Clarence said. “Can we leave early or not?”

“No!” Ron and Gary chorused.

“Well ok,” Clarence accepted, “But Ron’s right Gary, next time build a bigger bomb shel-
ter.”

There were so many downsides to 24 people living in a shelter that was only designed
to hold 6 people. Showers had to be scheduled and enough time allowed between for
people to use the only toilet. They couldn’t cook many of the food items because they
consumed too much electricity. At least this alleviated the problem of a steady diet of
beans (wink). But people who aren’t allowed to move around and exercise become rest-
less, no matter what movie there is to watch or puzzle to assemble. It simply hadn’t
been practical or possible to run either a weekend test with 20+ people or a two-week
test with the six of them. But, they’d solved the mechanical problems associated with
living in the shelter. Fourteen days was 336 hours; thus to stay in the shelter for the
‘mandatory’ 343 hours they had to remain for 14 days and 7 hours. That meant that they
could leave around 10:30pm PST on the November 26, 2005.

Obviously Palmdale hadn’t been directly hit; KTPI was still on the air. Wearing head-
phones so as not to disturb the others, Ron monitored KPTI-AM, Clarence KTPI-FM and
Gary searched the Ham bands gathering such news as was available. It was becoming
apparent that the government had been better prepared for this ‘event’ than anyone
thought possible. Had Kerry taken a smart pill, or perhaps realized that he wasn’t really
up to the task and just passed the buck? FEMA was in charge; that much was apparent.
They were telling everyone to do this and not do that and were promising that the gov-
ernment would begin supplying food by the end of the initial 2-week period that it would
take to get everything organized. Yeah right! From the National Food Stockpile that was
next to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? I don’t think so, but what do I know? When did
the government stop buying commodities? 1994? Earlier?

After a few days in the shelter, time began to lose meaning. Only the artificially created
days and nights and a large calendar on the wall with the days crossed off gave the 24
people any sense of the uniform flow of time. There were some minor ‘miracles’ that oc-
curred that changed a lot of things. KTPI announced that the water supply had been
thoroughly tested and was safe to drink. Gary flipped the cutoff switch and refilled the
water tanks. Three days later KTPI announced that the natural gas service had been

29
restored. Gary flipped the gas cutoff switch, shut down the generator and changed the
valve. After a little tweaking of the carburetor, the generator was again running smoothly
on natural gas, albeit at the reduced 10.5kw level rather than at the 12kw level that pro-
pane provided. Although they now had power 24/7 The Three Amigos decided that they
would be better off maintaining the artificial day/night routine.

With the extra water available The Three Amigos said people could take longer show-
ers, but that didn’t really change anything because the hot water heater only held 19
gallons. They were only able to maintain order as time slowly passed by maintaining rig-
id discipline. And, this was a group of civilians not particularly accustomed to rigid disci-
pline. The possibility of someone leaving the shelter early had been dealt with at the
outset. A padlock was locked on the hasp and ring on the inside of the door and Clar-
ence wore the key on a chain around his neck. The spare padlock key, by the way, was
in a magnetic box on the inside of the generator cover.

With only a little over 3 days remaining out of the 343 hours, the men began to plan for
the exit. It would be late at night, reducing the likelihood of someone being there to
greet them as they emerged. They had 3 M1A’s, 3 shotguns, 3 .22LR rifles, 5 Ruger
Vaqueros, 3 Winchester rifles, the guns in Ron’s gun collection, Clarence’s .38 revolver
plus Gary’s 2 pistols. There were more than enough guns to go around; Ron could have
armed everyone with his gun collection alone. They didn’t have any night vision equip-
ment, due in part to an oversight and in part to a lack of funds. The funds problem had
forced them to concentrate on essentials and a pair of night vision binoculars hadn’t
been considered essential.

Although they had an ample number of firearms, they didn’t intend to pass them out wil-
ly-nilly. Dick, Chris and Matt were given a Winchester in .45 Colt. David and his 4 boys
got the 3 shotguns and 2 rifles from Ron’s collection. The Three Amigos would carry
their M1A’s and wear their pistols or revolver. Ron selected revolvers or pistols for the
women according to their preferences. The women who had only a vague familiarity
with firearms were given .357 Magnum revolvers loaded with .38 Special ammo or given
nothing at all. The guns were assigned, but not issued, until needed.

27Nov05…

Uncertain of what awaited them, there was a tension in the atmosphere in the shelter on
the day of their ‘coming out’. Figuring the condemned were entitled to a hearty meal,
they had thawed steaks and baked some potatoes. There was no lettuce for a salad so
they opened a few cans of mushrooms to sauté. A hour before their departure, they
placed red cellophane over the emergency lights and with 30 minutes to go turned off
the lights, bathing the shelter in a dim, red glow. The firearms, which had been loaded
earlier, were passed out and at 10:30pm Clarence unlocked the door. Using his recondi-
tioned Civil Defense survey meter, Gary checked the radiation level in the stairwell and
found it to be normal. He then triggered the remote control and opened that hatch. The
people with the shotguns were the first out of the shelter, followed immediately by the
others. It was a cool night and the skies were clear. He called for everyone to come out.

30
After bundling up against the coolness, everyone came out of the shelter to get a first
breath of fresh air in 2 weeks. The men went to the house and searched it carefully.
There was no evidence that anything had been disturbed or that the house had been
broken into. Dick relit the hot water heater and furnace for Gary and the group of men
did a once around the Moon Shadows housing tract, looking for anything out of the or-
dinary. There appeared to be no problems and after a brief conversation, and a second
check with the meter, Chris and Patti and the kids returned to their home, absent the
firearms. Dick also handed over the rifle saying his shotgun would give him any protec-
tion he might require and he went to his home.

After a brief conversation followed by an even briefer argument, that included such
mundane topics as family lineage and the like, the insolent pup (Kevin) returned to the
shelter to spend what everyone hoped would be his last night in the shelter. The Three
Amigos couldn’t see any signs of trouble, but they were uneasy. Although water and
natural gas service had been restored, there were no streetlights, indicating the power
had yet to be restored. The men had made a quick decision to remain near the shelter
until the morning when they’d have the light of day to better gauge their situation by.
Kevin had wanted, naturally, to return home so he could get back in his room and sleep
in privacy.

For some reason, a song was bouncing around in Gary’s head. Remember the chorus
to “Tin Man”?

Oh, Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man

That he didn’t, didn’t already have
And Cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad

Better yet, remember the name of the group who recorded it? (America) The reason
that the lyric was bouncing around in his brain might have to do with the fact that the 24
of them had managed to survive the first 2 weeks in the aftermath of what might prove
to be the worst terrorist strike in the history of the world; at least in modern times. And
they had done so by their own efforts. Oz hadn’t given them anything either. They’d
done it with sweat, money, imagination and one man’s crackpot belief that there was no
such thing as being over prepared. Over prepared was having 200,000 rounds of .308
ammo for your one M1A rifle. They had 6 1,000-round cases of surplus plus 1,000-
rounds of Match ammo per M1A rifle. If anything, they were under prepared.

You see I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La, la ...

31
 The Three Amigos – Chapter 4 – The Morning After

There’s got to be a morning after

If we can hold on through the night;
We have a chance to find the sunshine –
Let’s keep on lookin’ for the light.

No one got much sleep that night, either the people who stayed in the shelter or the
people who stayed in the house. By the time the sun came up the men folk were ready
to go. They needed to check Ron and Linda’s home, Clarence and Lucy’s home and
David and Lorrie’s home. Since this didn’t appear to be the time for timidity, they loaded
their weapons and began to check on the homes. The first two, Ron’s, and Clarence’s,
were intact without any sign of damage. However, as they neared the area where David
and Lorrie’s home had been they could see that a 4-block area of homes had burnt to
the ground and their house was among those lost. Good luck on trying to collect on an
insurance claim on that home, they figured. To get to the area, they had crossed
Palmdale Boulevard on 40th Street East and gone to Avenue Q and then west. In so
doing, they had avoided a couple of roadblocks on Palmdale Boulevard East; one at
20th Street East and one at 30th Street East.

However, when they took 22nd Street to Palmdale Boulevard and turned east to return
home, they found themselves between the two Sheriff’s Department roadblocks. City
trucks blocked off 25th Street, so they had no choice except to proceed to the 30th
Street roadblock. Ron looked in the mirror, apparently considering turning around and
retracing their steps, but a patrol car was behind them, too. Had they not been armed to
the teeth, one can suppose that the Deputy might have waived them through, but given
their firearms, the Deputy at the roadblock wanted to see some ID. When he took Da-
vid’s he must have realized that the address was in the burnt out area. The remainder of
the ID’s got a casual glance and he had a word or two about transporting firearms in the
trunks of the vehicles. After the lecture, he let them go, but the patrol car followed them
all of the way back to the Moon Shadows tract.

They got out of the car and went into the house. The patrol car lingered for a moment or
two, the Deputy was on the radio, and then left. The LA County Sheriff had noticed them
but it was too early to speculate what it all meant. The suppressors had not been
mounted on the M1A’s and the magazines were stuffed in their pockets, so unless the
Deputy was familiar with the Surefire Fast Attach mount, he shouldn’t have suspected
anything. Well, they did technically break the law by not having the weapons in the
trunk, but if he were going to push that, he would have instead of chewing their butts.
And, that Deputy who followed them was probably just verifying that they lived where
they claimed. And, the harder they tried to convince themselves that this was the case,
the less they believed it.

David and the boys had left to give Lorrie the bad news. Knowing Lorrie as he did, Gary
knew that she’d be pretty upset, but would get over it quickly. They’d lost possessions
but were alive and possessions could be replaced. He warned Sharon that the kids had

32
lost their home and that Lorrie would be around seeking answers, which they didn’t
have, and comfort. Then he went back into the living room where Ron and Clarence
were sitting.

“Did either of you see any people besides those Deputies?” Gary asked.

“Say, now that you mention it I didn’t see anyone,” Ron said. “How about you Clar-
ence?”

“Just that roadblock at 20th Street when I looked over my shoulder, that patrol car that
was following us and the roadblock at 30th Street,” Clarence responded. “That’s mighty
strange. A town of 125,000 and not a soul in sight.”

Just about that exact moment Patti came barging in the front door like she owned the
place. And she didn’t stop when the door was ½ open as she usually did and call out;
she barged right in and closed the door.

“There’s something wrong,” Patti announced. “I went to check on Darlene and she and
the kids were gone. Chris went over to Dave’s and there was no one there either. So,
Chris and Dick went door to door and the only people in this housing tract are those of
us that were in the shelter.”

“We went and checked on the houses Patti,” Gary explained. “Ron and Clarence’s
homes were ok but we didn’t see any people. That area between 20th East and 22nd
East north of the mall there was all burned out and David and Lorrie lost their home. We
were just talking about the fact that the only people we saw were some Deputy Sher-
iffs.”

“Did one of those Deputies follow you guys home?” Patti asked.

“Yes. And he stopped for a moment or two and made a radio call,” Gary explained. “But
he left.”

“Not really,” Patti replied, “There’s a patrol car parked across the street from the en-
trance to the tract.”

“Ron was there anything on KTPI about an evacuation?” Gary asked.

“Not a word,” Ron replied. “It was 55 minutes of uninterrupted music followed by 5
minutes of very uninformative news. Come to think of it Gar-Bear, I didn’t hear a single
commercial starting about the 3rd day. And they must have changed announcers, too.
There was some new guy I never heard before starting the fourth day.”

“Patti, why don’t you go get Dick and the rest of your family?” Gary suggested. “I don’t
like this one bit. It sort of reminds me of a movie I saw on the Sci-Fi Channel once and I
don’t like it. We all need to talk this over. And, tell Dick to bring whatever guns he has.

33
“I’ll be back in a little while,” Patti agreed. “All of our food is in your shelter anyway.”

“I remember that movie Gar,” Ron said, “It was some sort of a monster movie. You
aren’t thinking monsters are you?”

“The only monsters there are Ronald,” Gary replied, “Are in the movies and in the hearts
of men. But, you know, the traffic on Ham radio started to drop off to the point that there
wasn’t very much at all. You would have expected just the opposite.”

“Something else is a little strange, Partner,” Ron pointed out. “Why is Adelphia still off
the air? That satellite system they have picks up every channel in the country. They just
pick and choose what to broadcast according to the FCC rules. And, they have their
own news staff and backup power, so why aren’t they on the air?”

“You are making me really wish I’d built the fence around the front of the house,” Gary
commented. “And we aren’t so well off as before, either. There is less than 1,000 gal-
lons of propane left if the natural gas gets cut off again. We’d eventually run out of pow-
er.”

Just then, Patti, Chris, Matt, Daniel and Dick came into the house without the benefit of
knocking. Chris had the radio case and Dick was carrying a shotgun, and a Ruger 10/22
rifle. Matt was helping Dick out and he had a box that appeared to contain some ammo
and Dick’s 2-meter transceiver.

“I’ve got some more radio gear at the house Gary,” Dick said. “Matt and I’ll go get it and
we’ll be right back.”

“I brought the racing radios Gary,” Chris announced.

“Ron why don’t you get John and Kevin to get some fans running and air out that shelter
real good?” Gary suggested. “And have them restock what we used in the shelter from
the stores in the shed.”

Ron left to unlock the shed and get John to set up the fans and start moving the extra
food and toilet paper and whatever else they used to the shelter. He didn’t even bother
to ask Kevin. The shelter had been tolerable, barely. Gary had special ordered 2 65-pint
Whirlpool dehumidifiers from Lowe’s and they had run at full capacity the entire 2
weeks, keeping the humidity at a barely tolerable 50%. They required a lot of watching,
too. You would have thought that the manufacturer would have put in a large catch pail.
John was more than willing to help out and Ron suggested that a couple of David’s boys
give John a hand.

Those trial runs had led Gary to add the air purifiers and the dehumidifiers. Had it been
up to Ron, he would have just added one of each, but Gary always thought in big terms
and he’d added 2 of the 65 pint dehumidifiers and 2 of the 550ft² air purifiers. At the

34
time, Ron thought his pal was crazy. But, it turned out he was crazy like a fox. The units
were even Energy-Star appliances with high efficiency and low power consumption.
About the only thing Gary had screwed the pouch on was the amount of propane in tank
and Ron admitted to himself that it was partly his fault. He’d never thought they’d ever
be underground for 2 weeks without natural gas and hadn’t looked for the tank when he
should. Gary had filled the tank as rapidly as his limited funds allowed. Ron had been
wrong, but that was just so much spilt milk, he told himself.

When Dick and Matt had returned with the remainder of Dick’s things, they noticed a
patrol car pulling into the tract. They were barely inside the house when the car pulled
up out front and stopped. Four Deputies got out of the car and one of them, a Sergeant,
came to the door and rang the bell.

“You may not remember me Gary,” the Sergeant said, “I’m Johnny Jones, Darlene’s ex-
husband. Can we talk?”

“I guess,” Gary said, “Come in, Johnny.”

“Hey Chris,” Johnny said entering the living room. “How are you folks making out?”

“We’re ok,” Gary responded. “What’s going on and where are all of the people?”

“The people are ok, Gary,” Johnny replied. “By order of FEMA, we were forced to round
everyone up and house them at the area High Schools. They really didn’t give us much
choice in the matter, you know.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Gary asked, “To round us up too?”

“The people are being released and allowed to return to their homes,” Johnny said. “So
long as they have an adequate supply of food on hand. I assume that you have an ade-
quate supply of food on hand?”

“I can feed all 24 of us for a year so long as we don’t get too picky about what we eat,”
Gary replied.

“Where were you folks?” Johnny asked, “We checked every house and there was no
one here.”

“I have a storm shelter Johnny,” Gary said, not offering any details.

“Is there anything you folks need?” Johnny asked.

“I could use about 4,000 gallons of propane,” Gary said.

“AmeriGas is back making limited deliveries,” Johnny explained, “I’ll pass it along to
them. Anything else you folks need?”

35
“News, Johnny,” Gary said, “What in the hell is going on out there?”

“I don’t really know what is going on folks,” Johnny shrugged. “The feds clamped on a
total news blackout. They even put an Army DJ in at the only Valley radio station on the
air, KTPI.”

“I don’t understand,” Gary said.

“I don’t either,” Johnny admitted. “The President issued an Executive Order, something
about a clear and present danger and imposed martial law. The only troops we’ve seen
are some federalized CNG people, and a few FEMA people. Everyone is as tight lipped
as I’ve ever seen.”

“What about us Johnny?” Chris asked. “They going to drag us to the camp?”

“No Chris, you have food and resources so you people don’t meet the criteria. Besides,
what they don’t know won’t hurt them, right?”

“What’s with the extra Deputies?” Ron asked.

“Normal precaution for an abnormal time,” Johnny said. “Well I’ve got to be going. Keep
your powder dry.”

Johnny returned to the car and the 4 Deputies climbed in and left.

“What do you suppose he meant by that?” Clarence asked.

“Meant by what Clarence?” Ron asked.

“That crack about keep your powder dry,” Clarence explained.

“It’s just an expression, Clarence,” Gary said, “It means be careful.”

“I knows that Gary,” Clarence said, “But I don’t believe that’s what that Deputy had in
mind.”

With all of the references to ‘enough food’ they concluded that it wouldn’t do them any
good to go to a grocery store to stock up. Besides, they didn’t really absolutely need an-
ything. What meat they had could be stretched and there was no shortage of staples.
And then, Ron did a strange thing. He took a card out of his wallet and called a number
scribbled on the back.

“Sandy,” the call was answered.

“Ron Green,” Ron said. “What’s your situation?”

36
“I’m at home obviously,” Sandy said. “We weathered the 2 weeks in our shelter. There
are some strange things going on, though.”

“We know, Sandy,” Ron said, “Look the reason I called was to see how well supplied
you are with merchandise.”

“I had more stuff at home than I did in the store,” Sandy replied, “And we emptied out
that store starting early, so everything I have is here.”

“How’s my credit?” Ron asked.

“Normally good, Ron,” Sandy replied, “But these are cash and carry times. But you have
a lot of guns Ron. I should know, I sold them all to you. Maybe we could work out some
kind of trade.”

Ron had 6 5.56 bolt-action rifles and about 5 cases of 5.56 ammo. He also had an ex-
tensive collection of handguns in oddball calibers. With each handgun purchase, Ron
had purchased a single box of ammo. He had shot up about ½ a box of ammo in each
of the handguns and had saved the other ½ box so he had some ammo on hand. A lot
of the guns were presentation grade and having fired the guns; Ron had cleaned them
and stored them, probably never to be fired again. They loaded everything in his collec-
tion, except for the M1A, the Winchester and the Vaquero and the .357 Magnums, to-
gether will all of the ammo for the guns they were taking and The Three Amigos headed
for Sandy’s home.

“All of these Ron?” Sand asked. “Are you sure? I’ll give you 90 cents on the dollar of
what you paid for the guns as a credit. But, that’s absolutely the best I can do. What are
you looking for?”

“You had some Garand rifles in the 7.62×51mm caliber in the store Sandy,” Ron said,
“Do you still have any?”

“You mean those Fulton Armory rifles?” Sandy asked. “I couldn’t give them away. Is that
what you’re interested in?”

“Those, some 8-round clips, 7.62×51mm, a 20” barrel for a Remington 870 (Dick’s shot-
gun), and some .357 Magnum and .45 Colt ammo,” Ron replied.

“I’ll give you my cost for that ammo you have and add that to the credit,” Sandy said.
“You should have enough credit to take all 8 of the Fulton Armory 7.62×51mm Gar-
and’s, the 20” barrel, and a few thousand rounds of ammo.”

“Stack it up Sandy,” Ron said, “You have yourself a deal.”

Sandy took Ron’s weapons and ammo to her basement and she and her husband re-

37
turned carrying the Garand rifles. They went back to the basement and brought up 8
cases of the surplus (8,000 rounds), 4 cases of .357 Magnum (1,000 rounds) and 4
cases of .45 Colt (1,000 rounds). She also had 2 plastic bags of 100 empty 8-round M1
Garand enbloc clips. Ron and Clarence began to load the purchases into Ron’s car and
Gary stepped up.

“Sandy, I could use some of the 7.62 and .45 Colt if you have more,” Gary said.

“Name your poison Gary, its $150 a case for the 7.62 surplus and $175 a case on the
.45 Colt,” Sandy said.

“Give me 5 cases of the 7.62 surplus, 2 cases of the .45 Colt and a case of .45ACP
Gold Dot,” Gary said.

“That will be $1,300, Gary,” Sandy said, “Are you sure you want to spend that much
money at a time like this?”

“No, but I need the ammo anyway,” Gary admitted, “So you get it for me and I count out
the money.”

After Ron and Clarence finished hauling their things to the car, they started carrying
Gary’s ammo to the car. By this time, the car was riding low in the rear. Clarence picked
up 2 cases of shotgun ammo for Dick, one each of 12-pellet 00 buck and 1-ounce slugs.
They now had 31 1,000-round cases of 7.62 surplus plus the 3,000 rounds of Match
ammo. They had a total of 14 cases of .45 Colt and 5 cases of .357 Magnum. In addi-
tion, Ron had one case of .38 Special. And, they had 4 cases of 15-pellet 00 Buck and 4
cases of 1⅜ ounce slugs, 1 case of 12-pellet and one case of 1oz slugs plus all that
surplus 5.56 and 7.62 plus 30 bricks of .22LR and Gary’s Gold Dot. They returned to the
house and got everyone to help them unload their haul. They had just about finished
when an AmeriGas 3,000-gallon delivery truck showed up. They moved the car so the
driver could back into the driveway. His hose would just reach the inlet pipe for the tank.

While the driver filled the tank Ron visited with him. They’d known each other for a long
time, dating back to when Ron had worked for AmeriGas. The driver told Ron, when
asked, that the only rental tank left was a 2,200-gallon commercial tank. No one had
wanted to rent it, he said, because of the requirement that it be fully filled after it was
installed. Ron told the guy not to leave before he had a chance to visit with him again.
Ron went to talk to Linda.

“Lyn, how much cash do we have?” Ron asked.

“I did what you wanted, Ron and took all the extra cash out of our account,” Linda said.

“Yes, but how much is that, honey?” Ron asked.

“$12,500,” Linda said, “Why?”

38
“Well, I pretty much steered Gar wrong on the getting that propane tank put in, Lyn,”
Ron explained. “The only rental tank that AmeriGas has is a 2,200-gallon tank and
they’ll only put that in if you make a purchase of 2,000-gallons of propane. I was think-
ing that we should have that tank here.”

“How much will 2,000-gallons of propane run, Ronald?” Lyn asked, her eyebrows rising.

“About $3,500,” Ron replied.

“That’s a lot of money Ron,” Linda observed.

“I know babe,” Ron said, “But I was thinking we ought to stay here, close by the shelter
and besides, we owe our butts to crazy old Gar-Bear.”

“Well, you do whatever you think is right Ronald,” Lyn said, “But there probably won’t be
any money when this is gone, so keep that in mind.”

“Thanks babe,” Ron said, leaving to have a talk with the AmeriGas driver.

“When could you put that tank in?” Ron asked his friend.

“Later this afternoon Ron,” the driver replied. “I’ll send them over with the tank and a
crane to set it. I’ll need $700 for this delivery and we’ll bill the balance.”

“I’ll get Gary for you,” Ron said.

After Gary paid the driver and the delivery truck departed, Ron explained to Gary that
he’d arranged for the delivery of a rental tank and would pay for the first shipment of
propane. After that, it would be up to Gary to keep the tank topped off.

Gary was lost in thought, comparing what was happening to all of those stories he’d
written about the 3 of them surviving in Moon Shadows. In his stories, Gary had a much
more elaborate setup with hidden gunrooms, water tanks on patio roofs, etc. In some
ways, the real experience paralleled his stories. He always had M1A rifles and suppres-
sors, but in some ways the reality was far different from the fiction. He’d never crammed
24 people in one 600ft² room in any of his stories. They had never crawled out of a
cramped shelter after 2 weeks to find a deserted town. And, in most of his stories, the
first thing they’d done was start scrounging.

Before they’d ever gone into the shelter, for real, they’d set out the cots. One went along
the east wall and one against the west wall. Then, they’d put in a row of 7 cots perpen-
dicular to the east and west walls and two cots in the center. There was just room for 18
cots. But, the cots were right up against each other and that hadn’t permitted any
movement during the night. Audrey and Junior slept on one cot, reducing the total to 17
and Jeffrey slept with Lorrie further reducing the number to 16. That left a barely nego-

39
tiable space in center where there otherwise have been 2 cots. In the end, the only
people who couldn’t get up and move around freely at night were the people in the beds
against the wall. Adjustments were made to accommodate those people, like Ron, who
frequently got up during the night. But any way you looked at it, it had not been easy.
They had 18 cots, but only ended up using 16. In theory at least, they could have taken
2 more people into the shelter. But, 24 had proven to be almost too many.

And what now? They had food, water, and natural gas until it was shut off again, 4,000-
gallons of propane and more coming. They had weapons and ammo. And, if Johnny
were to be believed, not even the LA County Sheriff’s Department knew what was going
on around the country. Say, come to think about it, Johnny hadn’t said what had hap-
pened in Los Angeles itself. And, if the LA County Sheriff didn’t know what was going on
in his own County, no one did. Obviously, Johnny had not been totally forthcoming. Why
was that, had LA been hit really hard?

At least they’d improved their situation considerably by making the deal with Sandy.
Gary had dug around in a box and come up with his old 7-round mag extension and
spring for the 870 he had at one time. That allowed Dick to up his 870 to a 7-round riot
gun plus one up the pipe. They had just enough 7.62 rifles so that almost each male
had one, except for Daniel, of course. Ron didn’t trust Kevin with a gun and John was
more than happy with a shotgun and a .357 revolver.

Late in the afternoon of their first full day out of the shelter, three trucks pulled up out in
front. One was a crane, the second a transport with 3 concrete tank stands and a large
propane tank and the third was the propane delivery truck. Two men got out of the
trucks, grabbed shovels and went into the back yard where they began to level places
for the tank stands. The crane lifted the stands to the backyard and set them in place.
The tank went next and when it was settled, the delivery truck started to fill the tank.
The driver gave some heavy-duty hose to Ron, and Dick and Ron were busy connecting
the fill line of the larger tank to the outlet valve on the new storage tank. By the time the
tank was filled, everything was plumbed together. Dick’s regular job was for Southern
California Gas Company as an installer. From start to finish, it had taken under 2 hours
to set the new tank, plumb it and fill it. They now had 7,000-gallons of propane on hand.

The shelter was well aired out and that night the women and younger children spent the
night in the shelter, albeit with the door and hatch open. They did a head count before
bed, because Ron hadn’t seen Kevin for most of the day. The headcount confirmed that
Kevin had gone missing. Who knew where he was? Ron hoped that Kevin at least had
the good sense to go home, he had extra insulin and syringes there. Linda wanted Ron
to go look for Kevin, but Ron reminded her that the Deputy Sergeant had said they were
under national martial law and though the Deputy hadn’t said, he presumed that meant
a dusk to dawn curfew. He would go check on Kevin in the morning, he told her. But, if
Kevin wasn’t at their home, he wasn’t going to look any further. Kevin was old enough to
know better than to run off and if that was his choice, Ron wasn’t going to interfere. Kev-
in, Ron said, was the prodigal son and he’d had 4 chances to come home and clean up
his act. That was 3 more chances than Kevin deserved, he also pointed out.

40
28Nov05…

They had slept a little better that night. David, his 4 boys and John had kept watch.
Chris and Patti had returned home to sleep, as had Dick. Ron and Clarence had taken
the bunks beds in Amy’s room and Gary had slept in his own bed. The others made do
with the recliners and couch and floor in the Living Room. Aside from a patrol car once
every 4 hours, the night had been uneventful. There were a few loose ends to attend to,
the missing prodigal son, more clothes from home and any other staples they might
have on hand to move to Gary and Sharon’s. They had a brief discussion the evening
before. Lorrie and David were obviously staying; they had no place to go to. And the
other 6 adults had decided that maybe they ought to stay close by the shelter until they
had more information and knew where they stood.

Gary, Ron, Clarence and John went to check on Kevin and pick up extra clothing and
the remaining staples. This time John took one of the Garand rifles instead of a shot-
gun. The previous night, while they pulled guard duty, all 200 of the Garand clips had
been charged. John was wearing a coat with large pockets and the pockets were filled
with the 8-round clips. Frankly, no one knew what they might run into. What they found
at Ron and Linda’s was evidence that Kevin had been there and gone. His clothing was
missing, as was his supply of insulin and syringes. The pet raccoon was dead in its
cage and Ron took a couple of minutes to dig a hole and bury the animal. Then, Ron
and John gathered up extra clothing and laundry soap. They also gathered the few re-
maining staples and the four men moved on to Clarence’s home. While Clarence filled a
couple of suitcases, the other three emptied the kitchen of usable staples. They
strapped Clarence’s suitcases on the roof of the car and returned to Moon Shadows.

After they got home and had unloaded everything, Ron filled Linda in on the Kevin situa-
tion. Kevin had been home and was gone, he said. He had his clothes and insulin, Ron
explained and it was too risky to go looking for him. Kevin, Ron said, would know to
come here if they weren’t at home waiting for him. Besides, Ron said, something was
very, very wrong here and they had to take care of themselves.

Gary picked up the phone and called the Sheriff’s Department. He was the fellow out on
Moonraker Road and they were interested in improving their security. Was there any
chance they could send Johnny Jones around to talk to them? It wasn’t five minutes be-
fore Johnny pulled up in front of the house, alone this time.

“Dang, that was fast service,” Gary said.

“What are you talking about?” Johnny asked.

“I just called the Sheriff’s Department and asked them to send you around,” Gary ex-
plained.

“And I need to speak to Ron Green,” Johnny said. “He’s here isn’t he?”

41
“Yes, come in Johnny,” Gary said. “What do you need to talk to Ron about?”

42
 The Three Amigos – Chapter 5 – The Highway to Ventura

‘Cause the free wind is blowin’ through your hair

And the days surround your daylight there
Seasons crying no despair
Alligator lizards in the air, in the air

Did di di di dit ...

Johnny ignored Gary’s question. When he got inside, he said, “Ron Green?”

“You caught me, partner,” Ron replied good naturedly, “What can I do for you?”

“Do you have a son name Kevin Green?” Johnny asked.

“A step-son named Kevin, yes. Why?” Ron asked suddenly alarmed.

“The CHP picked him up late last night on Highway 126, the highway to Ventura,” John-
ny said. “He was driving his mother’s car, but was out after curfew and doesn’t have a
driver’s license.”

“Is he all right?” Ron asked.

“He got pretty mouthy with the CHP and they had to tap him on the noggin, but he’s ok,
yes,” Johnny said.

“Where is he?” Ron asked.

“In the jail in Ventura,” Johnny explained, “And the car is in the impound yard. Now if he
had permission to drive the car, he will only be charged with speeding and resisting ar-
rest. If he didn’t have permission to drive the car, he will also be charged with Grand
Theft Auto.”

“And if he had permission,” Ron said, “What about the car?”

“Under the law, it will be impounded for 30-days,” Johnny said. “The fees will run from
$1,000 to $1,200.”

“Really?” Ron responded surprised. “And if he didn’t have permission?”

“He’ll get 3-years and a fine that could run up to $5,000,” Johnny explained. “Plus you’ll
probably have to hire a lawyer for him.”

“Been there, done that,” Ron replied. “Hang on a minute while I talk to his mother.”

“How’s Sandy?” Johnny asked Gary.

43
“Sandy who?” Gary responded.

“Sandy your friendly gun dealer running her gunshop out of her home, Sandy,” Johnny
replied. “You guys must have gotten a lot, the car was on its springs.”

“You have a log of when I pee too?” Gary snapped.

“He didn’t have permission to take the car,” Ron said returning to the room. “And tell him
he can use a public defender, we aren’t going to bail him out this time.”

“Ok Ron,” Johnny said. “Gary, you might be surprised what we know about you Three
Amigos. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“I’d like to put up a fence to protect the front of the house Johnny,” Gary explained.

“So what’s stopping you?” Johnny asked.

“Information Johnny,” Gary said. “Are we free to travel and get fencing materials? What
about the roadblocks? Are there any stores open that sell fencing material?”

“If it was me,” Johnny said, “I get to that feed and grain where you usually buy your pro-
pane for your barbeque Gary, down on Sierra Highway. They sell barbed wire and those
10’ steel posts for cyclone fence. I’d buy myself some of those posts, some Sackrete to
set them in and a lot of barbed wire. Did you know you can make concertina out of
barbed wire by unrolling it two turns and pulling a loop off the end?”

“Uh, yeah, I knew that, Johnny,” Gary replied. “Say, how come you haven’t given us any
news about Los Angeles?”

“I told you there was a news blackout didn’t I?” Johnny asked.

“Yes, but you’d have to know what happened in LA, Johnny,” Gary insisted.

“I didn’t say that I didn’t know what was going on in LA Gary. I said that I didn’t know
what was going on around the country,” Johnny replied.

“So what is going on in LA Johnny?” Gary asked.

“I can’t tell you because of the news blackout, sorry fellas,” Johnny replied.

“You can’t say good or bad?” Gary pressed.

Johnny paused to make sure he had everyone attention. “I just can’t say, sorry,” Johnny
replied looking at the floor and shaking his head.

44
°

You Three Amigos? Wait a minute here, obviously someone in the Sheriff’s Department
read Gary’s fiction on the Frugal Squirrel website. But the question remained unan-
swered whether the Sheriff’s Department had been watching them or had been watch-
ing Sandy. And what was this ‘where you buy your propane for your gas grill’ stuff; or
the careful advice about how to put in a barbed wire and concertina fence? It was obvi-
ously some very good advice that Gary intended to take. And, how were they going to
haul all of that stuff? Dave’s pickup and trailer were sitting there across the street.

“Chris, do you know where Dave keeps the keys to his pickup?” Gary asked.

“On his keychain,” Chris replied, “But if you want to use his truck, he has a spare key in
a magnetic key box in the engine compartment.”

“Do you suppose he’d mind if we borrowed his pickup and trailer?” Gary asked.

“Probably,” Chris said, “But he’s not around to ask is he?”

“That was some good advice Johnny just gave us about the fence, fellas,” Gary said.
“Maybe we ought to take it. I’ve got about $800 cash left.”

“I can match that, Clarence offered.

“I will too, Gar-Bear,” Ron added. “Can we do what we have to do on $2,400?”

“We won’t know until we try, will we?” Gary responded. “But let me get some measure-
ments first.”

It was 45’ from the fence to the sidewalk on either side of the house. The lot was 65’
wide. That meant that each stand of wire had to be about 155’ + 2’ to enclose the front.
Wait a minute, what about a gate? Add 2’ and subtract 3’ to allow for the extra ends and
the gate itself. So, 156’ per strand total. Barbed wire came in 200-yard and 400-yard
spools the last Gary knew and one strand per foot for 7’ added up to 364 yards. One
spool would handle that. The concertina was going to be a problem, though. Standard
military concertina was 2 opposing strands of wire and they wouldn’t be able to create
that stuff easily. Six foot of wire would form about a 2’ loop and 9’ foot of wire would
form a 3’ loop. Therefore, a 400-yard spool would form 133 3’ loops. They had better
figure on about 3 400-yard spools of wire per row of concertina and on 5 rows. That
made for a total of 16 spools. Since the lot was 125’ deep that meant that the side fenc-
es were 80’ long and with the back fence a total of 225’, 5 spools ought to put one row
of concertina on top of the fence. So, they needed 21 400-yard rolls of barbed wire in
total plus posts and 2 gates, one 3’ wide for the sidewalk and one 16’ wide for the
driveway. Say 5 posts on each side plus 9 for the front. Make it 20 posts, just in case.
Gary had his shopping list and they were ready to go. Figure on a sack of Sackrete per
post.

45
All of that would fit in Chris’s pickup and in one passenger car, so they wouldn’t have to
borrow Dave’s pickup and trailer after all. So, off they went with their $2,400, Chris’s
pickup and Ron’s car. They would need a posthole auger too and wire ties to attach the
barbed wire. Maybe they’d better buy 2 posthole augers if they could afford it. If only it
had been that simple. They got the posts, barbed wire, Sackrete, and 1 3’ wide 6’ high
gate and 2 8’ wide 6’ high gates at the feed and grain, but they didn’t have posthole au-
gers. On a wild guess, Gary stopped by Lowe’s home improvement. And, they were
open but only God knows why, there weren’t more than 6 customers in the whole store.
Gary bought an Earthquake, 1 Man Powerhead Gas Powered Auger and an Ardisam 6”
Earth Auger that would dig a hole 32” deep. With the power equipment, they had the
holes in, the poles in and the Sackrete poured by the end of the day. And, it wasn’t a
bad day’s work at that, all things being considered. The feed and grain only had 22 400-
yard rolls of wire, so they bought the extra roll, just in case.

29Nov05…

The first thing that they did that morning was to hang the gates and make sure they
worked the way they wanted them to. Chris laid an eyeball on the gates and said that
they were pretty flimsy. What they needed, according to Chris was a couple of bars
across each gate to give them a little strength. He hopped in his pickup and headed
back to the feed and grain to buy more fence posts. The rest of the men began the dan-
gerous task of stringing and stretching the barbed wire. Johnny came by around noon,
stopped his patrol car and got out. He looked over what they’d accomplished and
grinned. Apparently not everyone needed to get shot in the head to get their attention.

“He sure left with a big grin on his face,” Clarence said.

“Either we’re doing the right thing, or he thinks we’re crazy,” Ron suggested.

“Guess it doesn’t much matter what he thinks,” Gary added, “I know that I’m going to
sleep a whole lot better when we get this lot fenced.”

Chris had returned and taken the fence poles into his garage. He came over, measured
the gates and returned home. A while later, he came back with 2 17’ poles and returned
home to pick up 2 40” poles. He didn’t have a welder he could use, but he had his ½”
electric drill and an extension cord. At 2’ off the ground and 4’ off the ground, Chris
drilled holes in the sidewalk gate and the poles next to them. Then, using Carriage
bolts, Chris mounted some straps he’d formed by bending some 3/8” strapping after
heating it with his torch. Each strap was attached to the pole with two bolts. When Chris
had the 4 straps installed on the sidewalk gate, he dropped in the 40” section of post.

“There you go,” Chris said, “Try that gate out.”

“Solid as a rock,” Ron offered after shaking on the gate’s fencing fabric.

46
“Good,” Chris said, “Let’s see if it works as well on the car gates.”

Chris then repeated the process only this time it took 6 straps for each rod. A couple of
hours later he was finished. Ron checked the car gate and it was nearly as solid as the
sidewalk gate. The first layer of barbed wire was also done, effectively fencing off the
front yard of the home. They had more than a few scratches from handling that barbed
wire, but the property was fenced in on all 4 sides. They had no idea how long it would
take to put in the concertina. It might take one day, but more likely two. After he’d fin-
ished, Chris had gone to the backyard. Chris had spent some time examining the fence
and took a few measurements.

The builders of the housing tract had solved the problem of which way to face the fenc-
es in typical fashion by alternating the good sides and the bad sides, a bad side being
the side with the 2×4 supports. A number of people planted shrubs to hide the bad side
as in the case of Dan and Dawn, Gary’s neighbors to the east. Some neighbor’s just put
up with it, like the kids to the west. Gary had always wanted to replace the wood fence
with a high concrete block wall. But, at $30 a lineal foot, had never been able to afford it.
And, when finally Sharon and he were in a position to afford it, Gary got caught up in the
shelter project and he never did get that block wall finished. He sort of planned to do it
when the shelter was done, but it turned out the shelter was never quite done and the
fence went wanting.

The fence on Dan’s side of Gary’s backyard didn’t really pose a problem because of the
shrubbery, the kids to the west hadn’t planted any shrubs and that fence posed a prob-
lem. All a person had to do was yank a few nails and a whole section of fence could be
dropped. It would be an understatement to say that this was not a good thing. What
Chris had in mind was to switch the good sections of fence and apply them to the other
side, effectively making all of Gary and Sharon’s fence sections ‘bad’ sections. Neither
neighbor should object, they were getting to decorative side of the fence, assuming they
ever showed up to complain in the first place. The next day, Chris was going to Shang-
hai Matt from the barbed wire fence crew and do a little fencing of his own.

30Nov05…

Chris needed 20 2×4’s ‘stud’ length to complete the modification he had in mind. After
Matt and he turned the fence sections, Chris intended to add an extra brace to each
fence section. Because of the placement of their home on their lot, Chris figured he
might as well get another 10 ‘studs’ and do his fence as well. This was a quick job to
accomplish, in his opinion. Matt and he made a run to H & E, also open but nearly de-
void of customers, and picked up the 30 studs and 2 boxes of nails. Chris decided to do
his fences first for practice, because Gary was such a darned perfectionist. He got all of
his extension cords out of his truck and ran power to his house to power the 7½” circular
saw.

They pulled down the sections, knocked off the end boards and reversed the section,
nailing them into place. The dried out fences had gaps, so Chris didn’t have to be too

47
precise. He ripped the two boards, cut a notch in the top corner to match the other fence
sections and Matt climbed the fence and nailed them in place. Chris climbed a stool and
looked over the fence. It looked good to him, so they did all of the remaining fence sec-
tions, skipping the step of reinstalling the last two boards. It didn’t take very long at all
doing it that way and Chris left Matt to put in the strips and he went down to Gary’s. He
commandeered one of David’s boys and by the time Matt was finished with their fence,
the two of them had all of the sections switched. Chris left Matt to finish up all of the
strips for Gary’s fence and returned home to add the third support 2×4. Admittedly, it
would have been faster if Chris had kept the power saw, but he had so few boards to
cut, the cutting went quickly. He used 6d ring shank nails to attach the fence slats to the
new supports and returned to Gary’s to add the supports. Matt was about done, so
Chris waited for him to finish up so he could use the power saw.

After the new supports were in, Chris intended to let Matt do Dan’s side and he’d do the
other. It wasn’t going to be any picnic trying to add those extra nails while sitting in
some bushes. But, Chris had learned a lesson doing his own fence. It was a lot easier
to hit the support 2×4 if it was installed flat against the fence rather than on edge. He’d
have to try and remember to pull those nails that hit nothing when he had the time.

Out in front the concertina part of the project was coming along about as well as could
be expected. After several abortive starts, they’d figured out that they needed to make a
full roll of concertina before attempting to install it. They got two pairs of people busy
creating the rings and the old guys stayed inside of the fence and wired the concertina
to the barbed wire once they started to install the concertina. They developed a rhythm
once they got started with the actual installation of the rolls of wire and things were mov-
ing along smoothly. Back when Joe had lived between Gary and Chris in the late ‘80’s
Joe had given them several rolls of the wire he used to tie rebar together. Now, it can’t
be said that the old men were approaching anything like the speed with which Gary re-
membered Joe tying the rebar, but they were moving along at a fair rate. The people on
the other side of the wire had the dirty job anyway, trying to keep those coils of wire
separate. And when they got to the east side where Dan had those bushes planted,
Gary lost it. He’d been fighting those bushes for a long time and Dan never seemed to
trim them up to the property line. Gary told Josh to get an axe out of the garage and get
rid of the bushes. If Dan came back, he could mow around the concertina until Gary got
around to taking it out.

Having figured out how to prep the concertina, they actually managed to get all 5 rows
installed in a single day. Chris and Matt also finished up the fencing in the backyard. All
that was left to complete was the 205’ of concertina around the backyard fence. When
they finished up just before sunset, they stood out front and just admired the fence. The
USMC would be pretty proud of that fence, considering it had been conceived by a
Deputy Sheriff and installed by a bunch of civilians who didn’t really know what they
were doing. Anyone driving by 4560 Moonraker Road would get the idea that they prob-
ably weren’t welcome.

48
And if, Heaven forbid, any of the squirrels showed up they have to know the name of
the ranch in his last story to gain admittance. Gar-Bear had gotten to the point where he
wrote the stories just because he enjoyed writing the stories. And if he made the same
point often enough, maybe people would listen up and start to prepare for the inevitable.
Sometimes Gary felt like a zealot. Sort of a modern day John the Baptist, the voice in
the wilderness, only his message wasn’t ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord’. His message
was far simpler, “Prepare, the life you save may be your own.”

They had chili and rice for dinner, one of Gary’s favorite meals. He’d picked up a taste
for it in the service. Come to think of it a lot of the food they ate had its origins from
when he’d been in the Air Force. Gary had eaten Air Force Cooking and Navy Cooking.
He far preferred the Navy Cooking. Especially since where he’d been stationed was on
submarine rations. [OLF San Nicolas Island, part of the Pacific Missile Test Range.] Af-
ter dinner The Three Amigos sat and watched a movie just to relax. It was John Wayne
in ‘She Wore a Yellow Ribbon’.

Thursday, 01Dec05…

“They’re all dead, except one, you know,” Ron said.

“Who’s all dead?” Clarence asked with alarm.

“The actors in that movie we watched last night,” Ron said, “All except Harry Carey, Jr.
who lives down the road in Saugus.”

“Dang Ron, warn a fella when you’re going to talk like that,” Clarence said, “You scared
the crap out of me.”

“Oh, is that what I smell?” Ron joked.

“Get serious, guys,” Gary butted in, “We have to get the rest of that wire up today.”

“And just how are we going to that Gary?” Ron asked. “Glue it on top of the fence?”

“I was going to staple it,” Gary said seriously.

“With your Swingline?” Ron laughed.

“No, I was going to suggest we get some more of the steel posts and string some
barbed wire between them and spread out the concertina after we tightened the wire,”
Gary explained. “We only would need about 10 more posts. We can use lag screws to
attach them to the 4x4 fence posts and can put some spools of concertina on the wire
and then pull the wire tight. Then we use some fence staples to staple the concertina to
the top of the fence of the front of the fence, depending upon how high we make the
wire.”

49
“I see,” Clarence said.

“Then explain it to Ron, Clarence, I’m going to ask Chris to pick up more posts and
some lags screws,” Gary said, turning to leave.

“Ron, you see what Gary has in mind is…” Clarence started to say.

“Never mind pal, I get it,” Ron said, “I was just trying to have a little fun with Gar-Bear.”

It ended up that the taller members of the group got the lucky duty of tying off the con-
certina to the top strand of barbed wire. And, they realized that they only needed one
strand, just the one to hold the wire up, except for the back wall. So, while Clarence and
Dick wired the concertina in place on the top wire in place Ron and Gary stapled it to
the top of the fence. Everyone else was either pulling guard duty or sitting on the back
patio laughing at Gary and Ron as they tried to staple the wire to the fence. Clarence
and Dick finished up well ahead of Ron and Gary. After they were finally done with the
project, spoilsport Chris came along and pulled on the bottom wire along the back
fence. In the center areas between the center post and the end posts, the wire pulled in
far enough to allow someone to crawl under the concertina. They used molly bolts in the
concrete block bent over to hold the bottom wire in place every 10’. The project was
now complete.

Johnny showed up late in the afternoon and asked to be admitted. Gary asked the
name of the ranch in his last story and Johnny said Los Tres Amigos. You gotta watch
out who you let on that website, it might be an undercover Sheriff’s Deputy from LA
County Sheriff’s Department. Johnny had come to tell them that they had done a fine
job on the fence. Johnny couldn’t really tell them what he wanted to tell them, but, he
could make suggestions, now couldn’t he? Like maybe they should maintain a 24-hour
guard detail and that it wouldn’t really be a bad idea if Dick and Chris and Patti and the
kids started spending the nights inside of the fenced in lot. He also suggested that they
get something like an air horn to announce trouble to the entire company of people if
something unusual happened. Chris agreed, but said that he was bringing his torch in
case someone snuck up on them and put a chain and padlock on those gates. The
fences would do a good job of keep others out, but they sort of felt like they had just
built their own prison.

Gary intended to write this story up someday and post it on the forum too; assuming
they got through this alive and there was still a forum to post it on. No doubt others
would point out mistakes they’d made along the way. That was perfectly fine with Gary.
He didn’t claim to be an expert on this stuff and he’d just done the best he could. There
might be suggestions offered about how he should have done it and hopefully the newer
generations of squirrels would take that advice in the spirit it was offered and consider
those suggestions when they made their preparations. When it came to some things,

50
Gary had no experience and he’d just done the best he could, given the money and cir-
cumstances. He was but one of many voices telling people to get prepared and how to
do it.

02Dec05…

The folks had accomplished a lot in their first week outside of the shelter. They’d im-
proved their security 10 or even 100 fold and they had lots of propane for when the nat-
ural gas went out again. Murphy must have been afraid of all those people in the shel-
ter, too. He’d only made an occasional appearance and then hadn’t even followed his
own rules. But Murphy always seemed to put in an appearance when you least ex-
pected him and they’d held their breaths, figuratively, for the entire 2 weeks waiting for
him to show up. And since they were obviously expecting him, Murphy had been hard
pressed to make an appearance. Murphy was a persistent Devil, however, and he could
wait and catch them napping.

This was the first day since they came out that they weren’t burdened by a list of tasks
almost too large to manage. In fact, they didn’t have any tasks on their agenda for this
day except for keeping an eye out for trouble and trying to get some information about
what was really happening out there. They didn’t know it, but things weren’t good.
Those 30 nukes had done some damage but, because of the advance notice the White
House had put out, a lot of lives had been saved, too. The terrorists had focused on
concentrations of people and had exploded multiple dirty bombs in the larger cities and
thereby spared smaller cities.

New York City, for example, was well into this preparedness thing and Mayor Bloom-
berg ordered the power cut in the subway system and herded millions below ground.
The financial district was a loss, but a whole lot of people who would have otherwise
died, survived. Los Angeles was a study in contrasts. LA had followed New York’s ex-
ample, but the subway system in LA was small. And Californians practically lived in their
autos and naturally the first thing they thought of was to throw a few things in the car
and take off. The inevitable roadblocks cropped up and despite the best efforts of Law
Enforcement, many were caught in the open and exposed to the radiation from the two
small nukes. Maybe that was why the Sheriff had clamped a lid on things. While the ini-
tial death toll in LA had not been particularly alarming, in the days and weeks that fol-
lowed, the numbers succumbing to radiation sickness ran way out of proportion.

No effort had been made to clear the traffic jams, because of the initially high levels of
radiation, effectively condemning a majority of LA’s population to a lingering and painful
death. Another study in contrasts was San Francisco with its BART system. Residents
of that city, more accustomed to traveling via mass transit, hadn’t automatically turned
to their autos as their first avenue of escape. There were a lot of sheeple in San Fran-
cisco and they did what the leadership had suggested. The Governor, safely tucked
away to avoid the radiation in Sacramento, had told the LA County Sheriff to clamp a lid
on the news. But the Sheriff had already done so and the order fell on deaf ears.

51
FEMA had used the military to seize and operate any functional radio and TV stations.
The TV stations were simply kept off the air, they were so visual and they typically
broadcast pictures of everything. Military announcers manned the radio stations that
were allowed to remain on the air and they didn’t pass on much news at the top of the
hour. All of that would change in the days to come, but for the moment, there wasn’t
much good news to report. The FEMA mandate had been clear, only report the good
news.

The Antelope Valley was an Oasis of sorts. The Valley hadn’t been subjected to an at-
tack and the winds were in their favor, thus little radiation had fallen on that area in Cali-
fornia. And FEMA had managed to persuade the Governor to round up the people and
provide them with food. It would have been far simpler to just distribute the food to the
people in their homes, but the government mindset sometimes avoided the obvious and
went for the difficult. And, Johnny had been telling the truth, those people who could
prove that they were adequately prepared were being allowed to leave the shelters and
return home. But, a lot of people refused to give the government details on how much
food they had put away, perhaps out of fear that the government would seize the food.
Catch-22: is a logical paradox arising from a situation in which an individual needs
something that can only be acquired by not being in that very situation; therefore, the
acquisition of this thing becomes logically impossible. Catch-22s are often spoken with
regard to rules, regulations, procedures, or situations in which one has knowledge of
being or becoming a victim but has no control over it occurring. Specifically, Catch-22
ensures that no pilot can ever be grounded for being insane – even if he were.

Most of the carnage in LA was in the Downtown area where the suitcase nuke had been
detonated and in the San Fernando Valley. Further south, in Orange County, more of
the dirty bombs had been detonated, but there was a strip south of downtown LA where
the people had managed to avoid the radiation by crowding into community centers.
You know the area; on TV shows, they call it South Central. It was Gangland, USA, the
home of the Bloods and the Crips. This one fact, more than any other, had alarmed the
Sheriff and he had several of his Deputies in the Antelope Valley Oasis helping resi-
dents to form small, well-protected enclaves. There were several in the AV and more
were forming each day, despite the slow releases from the temporary camps sponsored
by FEMA.

Sandy was an important part of the scheme of things. For one thing, she only took ½
the usual markup on guns and ammo, and sold more merchandise than all of the other
gun stores combined. Sometimes she went a little too far to help a good customer, but
the Sheriff’s Department just made a note and turned a blind eye. Yes, Sandy sold high
capacity magazines, but so what? The Sheriff’s Department had bigger fish to fry like
the booming methamphetamine manufacturing occurring in the AV. And, Sandy was
pretty careful about who she sold what to, so they just let her make some of the deci-
sions. She was, after all, an American Patriot with links to several of the militia groups
around the Valley. And, you didn’t see too many of those militia members in any of the
FEMA Camps, either, come to think of it.

52
 The Three Amigos – Chapter 6 – End of the Blackout

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

Don’t let ‘em pick guitars or drive them old trucks.
Let ‘em be doctors and lawyers and such.
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.
‘Cos they’ll never stay home and they’re always alone.
Even with someone they love.

Mt. Weather…

“How bad is it out there?” President Kerry asked.

“It pretty much depends upon where you look Mr. President,” the Secretary of Home-
land Security replied. “New York, for example came out of it pretty good, as did San
Francisco. But Los Angeles really took it in the shorts.”

“But what is the overall picture here?” Kerry asked.

“Overall, we lost areas of major cities, but it could have been much worse,” the Secre-
tary replied. “We lost maybe 15% of the population to the bombs. We did make some
mistakes along the way, Mr. President. Those camps seemed like a good idea at the
time, but it has turned into a nightmare trying to decide who to let out and who to keep.”

“Let them all out and shut down the camps,” Kerry announced. “You can use the camps
as distribution centers for food and medical treatment, but people aren’t going to put up
with being detained for very long. Besides, we have bigger problems. I’ve gotten word
that in some of the bigger cities gang activity is at an all-time high. You aren’t my only
source of information you know.”

“What do you intend to do about the gang problems, Mr. President?” the Secretary
asked.

“I haven’t really decided,” Kerry answered. “I could send in the Army, but there are the
Posse Comitatus considerations. And, most of the nations of the world are raising hell
about their Ambassadors and UN representatives. About the only people who haven’t
been raising hell have been the British.”

Palmdale, CA, later afternoon, 02Dec05…

“KTPI announced that TV will be back on the air tonight,” Clarence reported.

“Well, it’s about time,” Ron replied, “Maybe we’ll start getting some news about what
happened for a change.”

53
“I wouldn’t count on that too much Ronald,” Gary commented, “It depends on who is
running the networks and how much information the government is willing to let loose.”

“They can’t continue the blackout forever,” Ron protested, “The people won’t stand for it.
And, they’re going to have to shut down those camps pretty soon or people are going to
start rioting.”

“If they shut down those camps,” Gary observed, “We’ll probably get most of the neigh-
bors back. I’m not looking forward to explaining to Dan and Dawn about cutting his
darned hedge out.”

“He’ll probably take one look at the barbed wire and the people toting guns and load his
family in that trailer of his and bug out,” Chris laughed. “He’s all mouth and a little short
on being a good neighbor anyway.”

“It’s a shame that we don’t have more barbed wire,” Clarence said. “It might not hurt to
ring this whole housing tract with concertina.”

“There are several fence companies in the Antelope Valley Clarence,” Gary observed,
“Maybe we could find barbed wire at one of them.”

“And how are we going to pay for enough wire and posts to put concertina around this
whole housing tract Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

“It won’t take that much wire or that many posts, Ron,” Gary suggested, “At least not if
we continue the approach we used on my back wall. And, it will give us an extra layer of
security.”

“How many houses are there in this tract?” Clarence asked.

“When I took Missy for her walk, I counted them,” Gary replied. “I guess I always had
the number wrong. There are 29 homes on the outside ring and 10 in the center. Some
of those houses face out on 2 sides, so I’d guess that we should plan on 29+4-1 or
32×3=96 posts. But, I don’t suppose that it would hurt to get a few extra, either.”

“What about Sackrete for the posts?” Ron asked.

“I don’t believe that we have enough money for 100 bags of Sackrete Ron, but we’ll play
that by ear,” Gary replied. “We can probably tamp that earth enough to support the
posts. The holes are only 6” in diameter. And, I don’t have any idea how much barbed
wire it will take either, so I guess we’d better start with 50 400-yard spools and then buy
extra if we need it.”

You may recall that a 400-yard spool of barbed wire produced 133 3’ loops, or enough
concertina for about 66’ lineal feet of fence. 50 spools would produce enough concertina

54
for 3,325 feet of block wall spacing the concertina on 6” centers. Gary had also counted
the houses on the north-south streets, 8 and the east – west streets, 9. All of the lots
around the periphery appeared to be 65’ wide. That meant that the north-south street
was about 65×8=520+125 or 545 feet long. Better call it 550’ feet just to be safe. Now
the east west streets were 65×9=585+125=710 feet. That was probably more like 700’
feet. Thus the periphery of the housing tract was about 2,500’. That would take 38 rolls
of wire and the two stringers would take another 5,000 feet or 4+ rolls of wire. 38+4=42,
but the extra wire would allow them to build some extra defenses for the entrance. Gary
calculated the actual versus perceived need before they left and decided that 44 rolls
would be enough. So, they needed posts and wire and a lot of sweat.

They ended up getting PVC pipes for posts. The barbed wire ran about $37.50 per 400-
yard spool, forcing Ron to add a little extra money to the pot. They also had to forego
the Sackrete, but they ended up with the materials they needed and began to erect the
concertina, starting at the southwest corner of the tract and working to the north and to
the east. In so doing, Dick’s back wall was the first to be protected on the north-south
western wall and Chris and Patti’s house was the second to be protected on the east-
west southern wall. And, with more people unrolling the barbed wire and forming the
concertina loops, they made a lot of progress that first ½ day. In many ways, Gary’s fic-
tional stories had provided them with ideas of how to install the concertina and then they
had all of that experience gained fencing in 4560 Moonraker Road.

My fellow Americans, Kerry began.

I apologize to the American public for not making an announcement sooner. The scope
of the attack on this great nation of ours forced us to limit the news during the period
immediately following the terrorist attack. As most of you are aware, FEMA set up tem-
porary camps to feed the citizens of this great country. In all honesty, this did not work
out as envisioned and effective tomorrow morning everyone will be released from the
camps. However the camps will remain open to provide food to our citizenry. They will
also provide medical treatment in the event that area hospitals are overcrowded.

The United States faces many challenges in the coming days. Of course the most im-
portant of these is the recovery and burial of the approximately 43.5 million people, ap-
proximately 15% of this nations’ population, who died as a result of the attack and its
immediate aftermath. I won’t minimize the loss of life that occurred. I did not become
aware until 10 hours before the bombs were set to detonate that the terrorists had a
contingency plan to explode all of the bombs in their possession. We made such an-
nouncements as we thought appropriate in the circumstances. Unfortunately, as feared,
some Americans choose to ignore the advice and, as a result, perished. One clear ex-
ample of this was found in the city of Los Angeles. Rather than protect themselves in
community shelters, many Angelinos chose to flee. Unfortunately many of those who
made that choice perished. On the other hand those that took our advice survived.

55
A clear contrast can be seen in the cities of New York and San Francisco where people
followed the proffered advice and sought shelter. Most of those people survived. How-
ever, because of how the terrorists chose to set the so-called dirty bombs, areas of
some communities escaped unscathed. One such area was the area known as South
Central in Los Angeles.

Perhaps there is some truth in the old Maxim that the good die young. My fellow Ameri-
cans, we have a problem. This country has long been beset with problems with urban
gangs. This has never been more apparent than the present moment. In many of the
large cities, the gangs fared better than the average citizen. These gangs are armed to
the hilt with automatic weapons. This might have been different if I had been allowed to
pass the Assault Weapons Ban, but the NRA insists it would have changed nothing and
this is not the time to resurface that argument.

One choice I have, as your Commander-in-Chief, is to employ the US Army and Ma-
rines in an effort to bring the gang violence under control. To the extent that such activi-
ty does not fly in the face of the Constitution, I intend to do that very thing. However, be
forewarned, if I see a need to temporarily suspend Constitutional guarantees and laws
that limit my ability to protect this country, I will not hesitate to do so.

In the interim, citizens are urged to gather together in groups and arm themselves as
best they can to protect themselves against these gangs. Yes, America, you heard me
correctly, arm yourselves to protect yourselves against these gangs. Despite the best
efforts of the Democratic Party to reduce availability of these Assault type weapons,
there seems to be a surplus in this country. It’s like they told us when I was in the ser-
vice during the war in Vietnam. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

In truth, I cannot tell you what to expect in the coming days and weeks. The US military
will be called upon to clean up the bodies and to protect our citizens. There simply are
not enough members of the armed forces and the National Guard combined to deal with
both things effectively. Consequently, until order if fully restored and the cleanup com-
pleted, I am extending martial law and the dusk to dawn curfew.

One final matter requires mention. The terrorists exploded 30 stolen suitcase nukes and
182 dirty bombs. The terrorist teams that we caught all consisted of 4 people. We be-
lieve it fair to assume that there are about 848 terrorists out there among you. You
should not automatically assume that every person of Arab heritage is a terrorist. This
country has a diverse heritage and has many citizens of Arab heritage among its popu-
lation. But, neither does that mean that you should avoid a reasonable amount of skep-
ticism about people of Arabic heritage. My best advice in this matter would to be to bring
anyone you have suspicions about to the attention of your local authorities and let them
handle the situation.

My fellow Americans, we will survive this catastrophe and be all the stronger for it.
Washington, DC was the hardest hit of all of the areas with 15 of the 30 nuclear devices
being exploded in our nation’s capital. As a consequence, it will be necessary for the

56
branches of your government to continue to operate out of our emergency facility at Mt.
Weather.

Thank you and good night.

“Well fellas,” Ron asked, “What did you think of that speech?”

“It sounded good,” Clarence said.

“That’s true, Clarence,” Gary chimed in, “It sounded good, but then the man has had 3
weeks and the benefit of a gaggle of speech writers to make it sound good. I think I’ll
just reserve my opinion until we see how this whole thing shakes out. But, it appears
that the news blackout is over so maybe the next time we see Johnny, we can find out
more about LA.”

“Well, at least we have an idea who we’re protecting ourselves against,” Ron opined.

“Yeah we do Ron,” Clarence replied, “But there is an inherent danger in this. Most of
those gang members are minorities, like blacks and Hispanics. It would be awful easy
for this thing to turn into a race war. And, then there’s that entire Arab thing. I’m not so
sure I’d have said what the President said. By bringing it up, he as much as pointed a
finger at all Arab-Americans.”

“Surely Americans must realize that not all Italians and Sicilians are Mafia and that not
all blacks and Hispanics are gangsters,” Gary said, “The same thing applies to Arab-
Americans. Hell, my family physician is an Iranian.”

“There’re probably only a few dozen Caucasian doctors in all of LA Gar-Bear,” Ron
chuckled. “None of my doctors were born in the US.”

“Well, tomorrow, we’re going to have to put up as much concertina in as possible,” Gary
commented. “Regardless of whom the enemy turns out to be.”

03Dec05…

Everyone was up at the crack of dawn installing the concertina. By 10am, the easiest
task, installing all of the posts, was completed and everyone took a coffee break. The
Three Amigos had volunteered for guard duty that morning because 2 of the 3 were just
too short to be of any use. It was for this reason and this reason alone, that Gary hap-
pened to have his Super Match rifle out and a magazine in it. Around 10:15am a school
bus pulled in and began to disgorge Moon Shadows residents. Included among the
Passengers were Dan and Dawn and their two daughters. Dan took one look at the
missing hedge and came storming through the gate looking to raise hell. Gary saw him
coming and stood and picked up the M1A, holding it at port arms.

57
“Where in the hell is my hedge?” Dan demanded.

“I can’t say as I can remember what we did with it,” Gary replied, “Maybe we burned it.
We capped all of those sprinklers, too.”

“What gave you the right to cut down my hedge?” Dan demanded.

“What gives you the right to be trespassing on my property and what right did your
hedge have trespassing on my property?” Gary asked.

“I ought to bust you in the chops,” Dan said.

“Go ahead Dan,” Gary said, jacking a round into the chamber of the M1A.

“Now you’re threatening me with a gun, darn it,” Dan said.

“Dan, I’m on guard duty here and I just remembered that I didn’t have a round cham-
bered,” Gary replied evenly.

“I’m going to call the Sheriff,” Dan said.

“The number is 267-4300 (really),” Gary replied, “Be sure and ask for Deputy Sergeant
Johnny Jones, he’s the guy who got us to put in the fence.”

Dan left, but he must have tried to call Gary’s bluff. Not 10-minutes later, a patrol car
showed up driven by Johnny and carrying a total of 4 Deputies. Dan came storming out
of his house and starting giving Johnny a piece of his mind and pointing a finger toward
Gary. Johnny listened to Dan patiently and when Dan finally calmed down, walked over
to Gary’s gate, which was still standing open, blocking the sidewalk.

“Los Tres Amigos,” Johnny said and entered the property. “You neighbor seems to think
you threatened him with a gun, Gary. What’s your side of it?”

“Well, he was trespassing and I did get up with my rifle,” Gary admitted. “I pointed out
that he was trespassing and he threatened to hit me. It was about then that I remem-
bered that I was on guard duty and jacked a round into the chamber. He said I was
threatening him with my gun and I explained why I chambered a round. It was a coinci-
dence, although I can see now what he must have thought.”

“Well, no harm, no foul,” Johnny said. He turned to Dan who was standing just outside
the gate. “Mister, a man has a right to protect his property. Did he tell you that you were
trespassing?”

“Yeah, but,” Dan replied.

58
“And did you threaten to hit him?” Johnny continued.

“Yeah, but…” Dan replied.

“And did Gary explain why he chambered a round in his M1A?” Johnny asked.

“Yeah, but…” Dan continued to try and object.

“Well, this is just your garden variety neighborhood dispute gotten a little out of hand,”
Johnny summarized. “For your information, Mister, I suggested that they build that
fence. And if your hedge was on Gary’s property, he had a right to remove that part on
his property. I can see those bush stumps from here and it looks to me like you planted
those bushes right up against the property line. I’m sure that Gary will replace the bush-
es after this emergency is over, but in the meantime Mister, I’d suggest that you stay
away from Gary or I’m going to have to arrest you for assault.”

“What assault?” Dan demanded, “I never laid a finger on him.”

“That’s battery Mister,” Johnny said, “An assault is an unlawful attempt, coupled with a
present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another. A battery is any will-
ful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another. Also you made the
assault during the process of an unlawful trespass. Now, I’m going to let you off with a
warning, but if I have to come back, you’re going to jail.”

Dan stormed off and entered his home. Johnny gave Gary one of those looks that said
a mouthful. Since Gary hadn’t pointed the rifle, he’d narrowly avoided arrest himself, in
theory. But Johnny used to live in Moon Shadows and he heard all about the ongoing
feud between Gary and Dan. And the feud had started when Gary had put in a nicer
lawn than Dan’s back in 1988. Dan, or so Johnny had heard, was a drunk and a but-
thole. Johnny just did what he usually did; settle a neighborhood dispute and avoided
bloodshed. However, Johnny had no doubt that had Dan been armed, he’d be lying
dead on the ground inside of Gary’s fence.

The coffee break and entertainment was over and everyone except The Three Amigos
returned to the task of putting up the concertina. Johnny and the Deputies did notice the
concertina going up around the tract when they’d arrived at Moon Shadows and ap-
proved of the steps the men were taking to protect their neighbors. About ½ hour later
Dan began to load things into his camping trailer. The trailer, a Tahoe Lite 5th wheeler
was pulled by an extended cab pickup. When they had everything loaded, Dan and
Dawn and the 2 girls took off, bugged out, just as Chris had predicted. Of course Dan
had the final word, giving Gary the bird as he drove by. Gary just smiled, at least he was
leaving. That truck and trailer would make a nice mobile command post for some gang-
sters.

“Chance favors the prepared mind. Assumption is the mother of all frick ups!” Remem-
ber that movie? Maybe that movie and a couple dozen others explained, in part, why

59
Gary wanted to be prepared; or, maybe not. Be that as it may, by the end of the day,
they had the concertina completed to the front and part way across. They had also
reached the eastern end of the south wall and had turned north. One more day would
see the concertina installed. And, in one more day, they would be able to poll the resi-
dents of the housing tract and see how many of them were willing to get involved in de-
fending the place. If nobody was, they could get some more wire and posts and wire in
Chris and Patti’s house and Dick’s house. If they were, there was some assessing to be
done and some assignments to be worked out. (From Under Siege 2, spoken by Travis
Dane; the first remark was originally made by Louis Pasteur. In the fields of observation
chance favors only the prepared mind.)

04Dec05…

There were many pairs of extra hands helping this Monday morning. There was a
shortage of leather gloves, but the people were: 1) glad to be home; and 2) concerned
about security having seen the President’s address while in the FEMA Camp. Several
people were helping with the concertina, gloves or not. That took care of the first ques-
tion, whether or not anyone would be willing to get involved. On the other hand, there
was quite a difference between helping to put in a little barbed wire and standing guard
at the front entrance of the housing tract with a firearm. And, they couldn’t put just any-
one on that front gate either. Individual firearms skills had to be assessed with temper-
ament. Someone who was a hothead, like Dan for example, wouldn’t do to be in the
front line of defense.

FEMA had given the people enough food for a few days; it was all most of them could
carry. They had also handed out a schedule of when people could pick their next rations
up. It was one of those alphabetical schedules that divided the alphabet into 7 divisions.
A, B, and C on Sunday, etc. That was how it would be for a while, too. Once a week,
you would be issued so many calories of food according to the number of persons in
your family. It was as fair as a system could be, but it didn’t really take into account per-
sonal preferences. Those were resolved by means of a system of barter that quickly
sprung up. This was survival 101 and you know what? Chance did favor the prepared
mind.

“I don’t know just what in the hell you expected a survival situation to be like Ronald,”
Gary said, “But it’s only a little different from everyday life, if you are prepared.”

“I don’t seem to recall walking around with a gun strapped on and carrying a rifle be-
sides,” Ron observed.

“Maybe not, partner, but there were a lot of times that your mental state wasn’t any dif-
ferent than it is right now,” Gary claimed. “Think about it. Always looking over your
shoulder wondering when the other shoe was about to drop. Hoping, one more time that
your kid wouldn’t get in trouble; one eye open on the freeway, watching out for a CHP
officer sneaking down some off ramp to bust you for something.”

60
“You must have lived in a different part of California than I did,” Ron chuckled, “Of
course I never had a heavy foot like some people I know. I can relate to the kid thing,
but with both of my two troublemakers in prison or headed for prison, I don’t have to
worry about them for a while.”

“Nope. It’s just a different set of worries, partner,” Gary insisted. “Now we’re worried
about when will the gangsters from LA show up in greater numbers and better armed
than we are. And, will the ATF or the state of California get wise to those suppressors
and bust us? And, how long will the gas stay on? It’s just a different way of looking at
the same problems we’ve always had.”

“Well, I guess I’ve led a sheltered life,” Ron admitted, “I never had a carload of armed
gangsters show up at my front door in the middle of the night looking to rip my place off
because my daughter got to running with the gangs for a while.”

“I never have either, Ron,” Gary said, “That happened to Sharon while I was out making
a fool with myself with the bimbos.”

“I tried to tell you about her, but you just wouldn’t listen,” Ron said for the 1,000th time.

“Let’s not get off into that again,” Gary said. “But it was a good experience in a way, it
just taught me a different set of survival skills.”

“We may be getting old partner,” Ron said, “But don’t kid yourself, life is a constant
learning experience. When you stop learning, you might as well hang it up.”

“So true,” Gary agreed. “Say, tell me something. Why did we buy expensive match
grade ammo for our M1A’s? None of us has good enough vision or is steady enough to
need to use match ammo.”

“We might not be the one using the M1A’s,” Ron suggested. “We may just end up using
our Winchesters. They are lighter and a lot easier to handle. And, since you have to
work the lever between each shot, it has been my experience that we tend to aim our
shots better. A guy can rip through 20 rounds with that M1A in about ½ the time that you
can get off the dozen in the Winchester. I’m just happy that we don’t use any of those
M16’s. Even in 3 round burst, you can burn off a mag in nothing flat.”

“How would you know something like that?” Gary asked.

“I didn’t say that we didn’t have any M16’s, only that we didn’t use M16’s,” Ron replied.

“But Ron, you sold Sandy your 5.56 ammo,” Gary protested. “If you really have an M16,
why would you do something like that?”

“I didn’t say that I had a M16,” Ron replied.

61
“No, you didn’t, partner, but you implied as much,” Gary retorted. “Do you have a M16?”

“Hm, ‘do I have a M16’,” Ron repeated Gary’s exact question. “I’d have to say no, Gar-
Bear, I do not have a M16.”

“Then why do I get the impression that you do have a M16 and that you’re mincing
words with me?” Gary asked. “But you never brought a M16 over here and you never
brought the subject up before. Ergo, I think you’re just playing with me as usual.”

“Let me ask you this Gar-Bear,” Ron continued, “If I had an M16 would you use it?”

“Probably not,” Gary admitted, “I wouldn’t want to use any weapon at night unless it had
a suppressor to conceal the muzzle flash.”

“Do you mean like that M4-FA suppressor that Surefire makes?” Ron asked.

“Exactly partner,” Gary said, “From everything I’ve read about that unit, it’s perfect. It
reduces the sound about 30dBs, it increases the muzzle velocity about 50fps and it
lasts forever.”

“And if the rifle or carbine were fitted with a Surefire M4-FA,” Ron pressed, “What model
of rifle would you prefer?”

“Well, I expect that the perfect rifle would be one that shot semi-automatic, 3-round
burst and full auto,” Gary replied.

“I suppose you would,” Ron said, “But the only weapon I know of with a trigger group
like that is the H&K MP5. What would your second choice be?”

“Since we’re just speculating here,” Gary said, “Probably the A2 model with the 3-round
burst.”

“Um hum,” Ron replied. “What about the A4 model in 3 round burst?”

“I can’t see that there’s much difference,” Gary said, “A2 or A4, either one.”

“So what you’re telling me is that if you had access to a M16A3 or A4 with a Surefire
M4-FA suppressor, a bunch of mags and enough ammo, you wouldn’t turn it down,
right?” Ron summarized.

“Probably not Ron,” Gary admitted, “Hypothetically. But I do like my cowboy guns”

62
 The Three Amigos – Chapter 7 – Desperados

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?

You been out ridin’ fences for so long now.
Oh, you’re a hard one, I know that you got your reasons,
these things that are pleasin’ you can hurt you somehow.
Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy,
she’ll beat you if she’s able,
you know the queen of hearts is always your best bet.
Now it seems to me some fine things
have been laid upon your table,
but you only want the ones that you can’t get.

05Dec05…

Bright and early the next morning, Ron and John left to ‘pick something up’ from Ron’s
house. They weren’t gone long and when they got back, Gary didn’t see them take any-
thing out of the car. The car did, however, seem to be riding a bit low. Gary assumed it
was just his imagination and he walked down to Chris and Patti’s to visit with Chris. Ron
and John took advantage of Gary’s absence to move the contents of the back seat and
the trunk into the shelter. Gary wanted to talk to Chris about the next step, assessing
the willingness of the residents to participate in protecting the housing tract. And, to the
extent that anyone was willing to participate, what their individual skill levels were and
what sort of temperament they had. Not surprisingly, Chris said that this was a job for
Patti and Darlene, Johnny’s ex-wife.

Gary knew about Darlene and what a busybody she was. He’d even used her as a
character in a couple of his novels that he’d based right here in Moon Shadows. Dar-
lene was definitely a type A personality and she also knew everyone’s business. But,
Patti wasn’t far behind Darlene in that department. Between the two of them, they knew
absolutely everyone’s business. But it was Darlene, more than Patti, who had met most
of the people. Gary wasn’t quite sure how Johnny would take to getting Darlene in-
volved in the running of the security of the housing tract. He was therefore a little reluc-
tant to get Darlene involved. But then, Chris had insisted that it ‘was a job for the girls’
and Gary ended up without much choice in the matter. He went home and got Sharon to
arbitrate any problems that might come up when he discussed the matter with Patti and
Darlene.

Because of their close relationship, Sharon was frequently at Patti’s and knew Darlene
a lot better than Gary did. Gary explained to Sharon what he needed to know for the
moment and asked Sharon to talk to Patti and Darlene. He’d come along, but only to
answer any questions they might have. He wasn’t about to open his mouth in front of
Darlene and have the whole neighborhood knowing his business by the next day, he
claimed. Actually, Sharon figured that Darlene just intimidated Gary like all women with
type A personalities did, but she kept her peace and didn’t bring up a sore subject. They
returned to Chris and Patti’s and Sharon explained to Patti what Gary needed to know.

63
“Well, we will have to get Darlene involved in any discussion of this sort,” Patti said.
“Come on guys and don’t let her intimidate you Gary.”

“She doesn’t intimidate me one bit, Patti,” Gary insisted.

“Yeah right,” Patti laughed. They walked up to Darlene’s house, the second house from
the corner on Northstar on the periphery of the tract. Darlene invited them in and Patti
and Sharon explained to Darlene what Gary needed to know.

“Why didn’t you just ask me yourself Gary?” Darlene asked. “Is it because women with a
type A personality intimidate you?”

“I’m not intimidated,” Gary mumbled barely loud enough to be heard.

“Patti and I can poll the neighbor’s and see who is interested,” Darlene suggested. “But
more than that, we’ll assess their personalities and who would be fit to guard the front
gate. Of course you will want to know who has what for firearms, too, unless I miss my
guess. I was married to a Deputy Sheriff for all those years.”

“That’s exactly what we need to know Darlene,” Gary admitted. “And it might not hurt to
find out how much ammunition they have for their firearms.”

“Give us a day or two and we’ll know everything about them except their shorts size,”
Darlene said.

“And probably that too,” Gary thought to himself.

With that out of the way, they returned home and Gary went looking for Ron. He found
him in the shelter stacking the last case of 5.56 ammo into the corner next to the pro-
pane tank.

“What’s with all of the 5.56 ammo, partner?” Gary asked.

“I told you I didn’t sell all of my 5.56 ammo to Sandy,” Ron replied. “John and I went
over to the house and picked up the other 15 cases. I figured that some of the folks
might have 5.56 caliber rifles and that we ought to have it on hand in case they needed
any.”

“That’s a likely story Ronald,” Gary said. “Ok, where are the M16A3’s?”

“What M16A3’s?” Ron asked.

“The hypothetical M16A3’s we were talking about last night,” Gary said.

“I told you that I didn’t have an M16A3,” Ron replied.

64
“Yeah? Why then why do you have 15 cases of 5.56 ammo?” Gary asked.

“Does ‘just in case’ work for you partner?” Ron asked.

“I suppose,” Gary said.

“Well then I have 15 cases of 5.56 ammo just in case it’s needed,” Ron explained.

Gary stood there looking at those 15 cases of 5.56 ammo. He knew Ron pretty well af-
ter 12 years and a moment later, he gave a brief nod of his head and dropped the sub-
ject. He had figured it out, have you? With that mystery solved, Gary was free for the
remainder of the day. He volunteered for guard duty just to have something to do. Only
this time, he didn’t bother with the M1A, it was too heavy to lug around all afternoon and
he had the roving patrol. The rover walked the circuit around the tract, keeping an eye
on the concertina. Gary’s feet really weren’t up to the task, so he walked slowly, half
memorizing the layout of each lot. He walked so slowly that he only covered 4 blocks in
20 minutes. But with each passing lap, Gary became more familiar with the housing
tract. Usually when he walked Missy, they walked on the inside around the 10 homes in
the center. However, Gary really wanted a feel for the place and began to memorize
where all of the gates were and the obstructions on each lot. By the time his 4-hour tour
of duty was up, Gary’s feet were on fire, but the 12 trips around the tract had had given
him information for future use.

They definitely need some golf carts or something for The Three Amigos to do roving
guard patrol. But when Darlene and Patti disclosed how many of the residents were in-
terested in participating, Gary forgot all about the golf carts; at least, for the time being.
Every home in the tract was willing to provide at least one person for guard duty. Of
those, Darlene said that everyone was fit to be a guard, but that some would be better
as a rover. Patti fully agreed with Darlene. When they got to the question of armaments,
it was an entirely different story. Some people didn’t have a firearm at all. Others had a
shotgun, usually a 20-gauge or a 12-gauge and a .22 rifle. Only a few had .30 caliber
center fire rifles and most of those were .30-06. In a pinch, the .30-06 rifles would be
okay, the caliber was fit enough, but only a single rifle was a semi-auto and the remain-
der were bolt-actions. There is nothing wrong with a bolt-action rifle; the military had
used them for a very long time. But a military bolt-action is usually intended to be re-
loaded with a stripper clip, greatly reducing the reloading time. At least, that was what
Gary knew of firearms. He was no expert on the various military rifles throughout histo-
ry, and stood to be corrected if he were wrong.

Nevertheless, Gary wanted semi-auto rifles for the residents of the housing tract, pref-
erably something that was fed with a box magazine. Any of the several AK models
would be suitable if he could get them. Unfortunately, this was California. It was time to
have a talk with Sandy. Sandy told Gary that the Romanian AKM, Hi-Cap Rifle with
Original Hardwood Pistol Grip Stock, 1 30-Rd and 1 40-Rd Mag, Sling, Cleaning Kit,
Manual Etc. were available for $265. Additional 30-round mags were available for $8 a

65
pop. Now, the rifles were illegal in California and so were the mags. 10-round stripper
clips were $20 a hundred and ammo was $75 per 1,000-rounds. She would have to pick
up the firearms herself with her FFL license. If they’d cover her expenses, she would
make the deal AT HER COST. (above) What did Gar-Bear want to do? 40 rifles and,
200k rounds of ammo, plus 800 mags and 800 stripper clips, he told her and he’d get
the money and payment was guaranteed.

265*40=10,600; 200*75=15,000; 9*800=6400; 20*8=160. The grand total was $32,160

÷ 40 equals $804 for each rifle with 21 30-round mags, 1 40-round mag, 20 stripper
clips and 5,000 rounds of ammo was $804. That was a lot of money, she told him, was
he certain he could raise the cash? He told her he would get back to her and not to go
ahead unless he had cash-in-hand. $32,160? It might as well be $1 million. As it was,
they had pretty much gone through all of their cash just doing what they had done.
Maybe they had $3,200 among them. But, they didn’t need any firearms; they were set.
Well, the only thing to do was to see how many of the volunteers could come up with
$804 apiece. It probably wouldn’t be many. Gary walked down to Patti’s and filled her in.
$800 wasn’t a lot, considering what they would be getting for their money, but on the
other hand $800 was a lot of money for anyone to come up with period. Patti pointed
out that they had used about $100 per house, maybe more, maybe less putting in the
concertina. She was way high, but Gary didn’t want to interrupt. And, she went on that
the people should be expected to contribute to their common defense.

Gary told Patti that contributing to the common defense was why they paid taxes. That
was then and this was now, she retorted. Leave it to Darlene and her, she said. They’d
talk to the people and see how many guns they could sell at $804 a pop. Gary was
more than willing to do that. Darlene and Patti would probably do a little good guy-bad
guy and end up laying a guilt trip on the people until they were begging to buy a rifle.
But, no matter what Darlene and Patti did, what were the odds that the 40 families could
come up with $800 apiece for a rifle, accessories and ammo? The ammo amounted to
about half the total, he reminded himself. And that was $375 of the $800. He went back
to Patti’s and pointed out that the actual rifle itself with the magazines was $429 plus the
delivery cost, maybe another $21 per rifle. That cut the total to $450 a rifle. People
could look at it that way, he said, and only buy as much ammo as they could afford.

With free time on their hands The Three Amigos really had time to discuss that speech
they’d watched on TV the other night.

“It was a nice speech,” Clarence repeated.

“And like I said Clarence, he had a gaggle of speech writers and 3 weeks to prepare
that speech,” Gary insisted. “Look, take his opening; he was all apologetic and admitting
the administration had screwed up. I agree with what he said, but I don’t ever remember
him being so honest during the campaign.”

“Yeah,” Ron said, “He sounded more like Bush than Kerry, and even Bush wasn’t that
open and honest.”

66
“Well, he did warn the population 10 hours in advance,” Clarence pointed out.

“He did do that,” Ron said with Gary nodding in agreement.

“And he passed the buck on who was responsible for 43+ million American dying,” Gary
pointed out. “I don’t dispute what he said, BUT how in the name of Heaven did a bunch
of terrorists get that many bombs into the country? And they were all nukes or conven-
tional bombs with radioactive materials added. They had to import all of those radioac-
tive materials!”

“Funny he didn’t mention the bombers they did catch, Clarence admitted.

“And that appeal to the American public to band together, didn’t particularly ring true ei-
ther,” Gary said. “He did take his shot at Assault Weapons, but why is it up to the Army,
Marines and Guard to clean up the mess? There are plenty of civilians who would be
more than willing to pitch in and help.”

“He didn’t miss the chance to bring up his war record either,” Ron added. “That ‘smoke
‘em if you got ‘em” comment was a not so funny double entendre, if I ever heard one.”

“I said that I was going to reserve judgment on that speech,” Gary reminded them, “And
I see no reason to change my position. We could pick it apart one word at a time and
not know more than we know now. I guess 2 things bothered me. First, he will withhold
action and protect the laws and the Constitution. I don’t believe that for a moment. He
probably has a whole pile of Executive Orders to spring on us. Second, the tone of that
speech was definitely un-Kerry like. I didn’t like him as a candidate, I didn’t vote for him
and I still don’t like him. I simply don’t trust the man.”

“Why’s that Gary?” Clarence asked.

“Let’s just say that he a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts married to a billionaire
and pals with Teddy Kennedy and leave it at that,” Gary replied. “Those 5 reasons are
enough.”

“Five?” Ron repeated.

“Five,” Gary explained. “Liberal-Democrat-Massachusetts-Billionaire-Kennedy.”

“He does try to have his cake and eat it too,” Ron said, “Voted for the war in Iraq, but
against funding it.”

06Dec05…

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It had been a quiet night. A patrol car had passed the tract about once an hour, but
there hadn’t been any other traffic. Apparently everyone was adhering to the extended
curfew. They’d borrowed a couple of construction barriers to block the entrance, too. It
wouldn’t stop anyone, but they were still working on a more intimidating barrier for the
entrance. It would be finished up today and installed. Chris and Matt had gone out and
scrounged up some scrap steel pipes somewhere and he’d ended up moving his welder
down to Gary and Sharon’s. The welder had just about overloaded the generator, but
Chris had put together quite the gate. It was constructed from 6” pipe and consisted of 4
sections. They had used the posthole auger to dig 2 holes at the edges of the street and
2 more in the center. The hardest part had been getting through the concrete road, but
Chris pulled his pickup up fired up his 5kw generator and they used the ½” drill and ma-
sonry bits to drill a 6” circle and then chipped out the concrete.

The four support posts needed help getting to the bottom of the holes, so snug was the
fit. But, Dick had a sledgehammer and eventually they were all driven to the bottom of
the 32” deep holes. Several men lugged the massive gates to the entrance and they
hung them one at a time. To make sure they would swing, Chris had attached a small
wheel at the opposite end from the hinged side. They got the first two in blocking the
incoming lane and then dropped the cross beams in place. Now, that was one solid
gate. They then hung the two gates on the outgoing lane and dropped the cross beams
in place. That gate might not stop a tank, but your average car couldn’t get through it.
With that accomplished, they put in some more of the poles and blocked the small area
between the gates and the block wall with barbed wire and concertina. Moon Shadows
was declared to be secure.

Darlene and Patti had finished their crusade trying to browbeat everyone into buying at
least one Assault rifle per household. They had orders for 37 rifles and 45 cases of
ammo. One family had deep pockets, apparently, and had offered to help out the neigh-
bors who were a little short on cash. And that same family had ordered 2 of the rifles
and 10 cases of ammo. Everyone else had been hard pressed to come up with the price
of 1 rifle and one case of ammo. This was actually pretty good news and far better than
Gary had expected. Darlene had missed her calling; she should have been a used car
salesperson. Gary called Sandy and gave her the good news. 37 rifles, fully equipped
plus 45 cases of ammo and he had the cash in hand.

Sandy informed Gary of several things in return. She’d been thinking about it and had
decided to buy 100 of the rifles, a couple thousand magazines and ½ million rounds of
ammo. She would have more rifles in the future if they needed them, but with a 20%
markup. Gary expressed a concern over security and Sandy informed him that she was
going to be accompanied by 2 off-duty Deputies and would be escorted all the way to
the Nevada state line by the Sheriff’s Department and CHP and the Nevada Highway
Patrol would take over from there. “Yeah right,” Gary thought, “The LA Country Sheriff,
CHP and the Nevada Patrol is going to provide security while you break a bunch of
state and federal laws.”

A lone semi left Palmdale bound for Nevada. Inside the cab were the driver, 2 off-duty

68
Deputies and Sandy with a briefcase full of cash. The vehicle was escorted to the LA
County line by 2 patrol cars and the CHP picked up the escort from there. There was no
traffic on I-15 and that empty rig made near record time to the Nevada state line. The
Nevada HP provided a 2-car escort to Vegas where the truck stopped at an out of the
way warehouse. The driver backed the truck up to the loading dock and a forklift-
transferred pallet after pallet of merchandise to the truck. Sandy entered into the ware-
house carrying the briefcase and returned empty handed except for a handful of paper-
work. Elapsed time, under one hour. The semi pointed itself south and the Nevada HP
escorted it to the border where it was met by the same 2 CHP cars and escorted to Vic-
torville and west on state route 18. At the LA County line, two Sheriff’s patrol cars
picked up the escort and took the truck into Palmdale. The 14-hour trip had broken
enough laws to put everyone in jail for a very long time. The contents of the truck were
unloaded into an empty facility in the same complex where the Palmdale Group held its
meetings. And Johnny posted a patrol car to keep an eye on the building.

07Dec05…

On the 64th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the phone rang early
at the Olsen household.

“This is Sandy,” Sandy said, “Come pick it up. It’s the building in the row behind the
Palmdale Group with the Deputy sitting out front.”

$20,025 and an hour later, the security at Moon Shadows was greatly improved. Every-
one had his or her rifle and was busy loading the 7.62x39mm ammo into stripper clips
and magazines. Each rifle came with a manual and the folks took the time to get familiar
with their new toys. Sandy, by the way, had mentioned that she also had a large as-
sortment of 20” shotgun barrels and magazine extensions. Shotgun ammo was definite-
ly not a problem, especially the 12-pellet 00 12-gauge buck shot and slugs. She only
had a few cases of 20-gauge, but she could shorten the barrels on those shotguns,
crown them and cold blue the ends. And, she said, if money were a problem, she would
shorten the barrels on the 20-gauges for $25 a pop.

So far, FEMA had been true to Kerry’s word and was handing out food, no charge, and
providing medical assistance when requested. But at Moon Shadows certain elderly
gentlemen were waiting for the other shoe to drop. They didn’t have long to wait.

My fellow Americans, President addressed the nation on TV and radio.

Unfortunately the scope of the damage to our beloved country is far worse than initially
anticipated. As a consequence, I am requiring each family to contribute one hour of la-
bor assisting in the cleanup of the affected cities per 1,800 calories of food issued by
FEMA. Martial law will remain in effect for the foreseeable future. I also found it neces-
sary to issue an Executive Order suspending Posse Comitatus, Habeas Corpus and the
4th Amendment. I assure you that these measures will be temporary and the Executive
Order rescinded as soon as this emergency is over.

69
Thank you and good night.

“Now that’s more like the John Kerry I didn’t vote for,” Gary announced.

“I thought that Habeas Corpus was part of the 4th Amendment,” Clarence said, “Why
did he single it out?”

“Clarence, Habeas Corpus is part of Article II of the Constitution,” Gary explained. “The
4th amendment is the search warrant article in the Bill of Rights. Posse Comitatus is a
separate law entirely. The government can now use troops just like police, bust into
your home and search it without a warrant, and throw you in the slammer without the
benefit of being arraigned or the right to a quick and speedy trial. It’s the USA Patriot
Act expanded 10-fold, and applied to everyone.”

“They are getting all of the energy they’re giving the people in food back, too,” Ron ob-
served. “A man with a wife and 2 kids will be working a lot of hours paying for the food
for his family.”

“I think the point here is that it didn’t take Kerry very long to change the rules, fellas,”
Gary said. “I wonder what other rule changes he has up his sleeve?”

“I wonder when they are going to get around to restoring power.” Clarence remarked.
“We got gas and water, but most furnaces don’t do you any good without electricity.”

“That’s a good question Clarence,” Gary said, “I guess since we have generator power,
it hadn’t crossed my mind.”

“Chris and Patti are getting by because of that little generator in his truck,” Ron pointed
out, “And I noticed that Dick has an extension cord running from the generator on his
travel trailer. But you kind of have to wonder how much firewood people have for their
fireplaces and how much propane they have for their gas grills.”

“Some of those gas grills are probably hooked up to natural gas, Ron,” Gary replied,
“And we can refill the propane bottles for a while. We are setup to do that, aren’t we
Ron?”

“Yep. I made sure of that when they put in the 2,200-gallon tank,” Ron explained. “The
tank has a wet leg.”

“Everyone had trouble coming up with the money for those Assault rifles,” Gary ob-
served, “So I doubt that they have money to go buy a portable generator. And running
on natural gas, our generator only puts out 10.5kw, so we don’t really have much power
to spare.”

70
“Maybe we need to ask Johnny about the lights,” Ron suggested.”

“I agree partner, not having street lights just makes security all that much harder,” Gary
commented. “On the other hand, we need to tap into the street light electrical feed and
put a switch in it to cut the lights in the tract in case of a night attack.”

“We’d better do that tomorrow before the power comes back on,” Ron suggested.

“Good idea Ron,” Gary replied. “Well, my pills are kicking in so I think that I’ll call it a
night.”

08Dec05…

With 39 houses in the tract, but extra people, they had worked out a guard schedule
that required 4-hours shifts, 24/7. 4 people were in the front entrance at all times and 2
persons were rovers. People were expected to pull 5 shifts of guard duty a week.
7×6=42 4-hour shifts per week ×6 persons per shift = 1,008 man-hours of guard duty
per week, divided by 20 hours per person = 50.4 people. With Ron, Clarence and Gary
plus David and his 4 boys and John plus Chris and Matt, the Olsen and People’s
households were supplying the missing manpower. They were providing 11 people. The
remaining households were only required to come up with 39 people out of 37 house-
holds.

They took the shotguns to Sandy and asked her to cut, crown and blue the ends of the
barrels. With a mag extension, each refit ran about $40. She told them she’d need 3
days to complete the work. Remember the fella around the corner on Moon Dance
Drive with the deep pockets? His pockets were actually pretty deep and he was a good
guy. He had 2 bolt-action .30-06’s, 12-gauge and 20-gauge Remington 870 Express
Combos and 8 shot magazine extension for both of his shotguns. Both he and his wife
were shooters and they didn’t have any kids, perhaps explaining why they had some
money. He offered to pay for getting everyone’s shotgun worked over and for 20 more
cases of the 7.62x39mm Russian ammo. He even offered to buy 5 cases each of 00
buck and slugs. Now, the man’s wife was an absolute beauty queen and maybe that
explained why he was so generous. Maybe he was putting out the extra money to make
sure that no one laid a hand on his wife. Or, maybe he was just the generous sort. In
California?

To understand the layout of Moon Shadows Phase VI, as the tract was actually named,
one could envision an almost square block of land. Stardust Place was the entrance
street extending about 75 feet north of Northstar Drive to Avenue R. If you traveled
south on Stardust, you were forced to turn left on Moonraker Road. Moonraker Road
extended to the east right up to the block wall, but before the end of the street, you en-
countered Moon Dance Drive, another left turn. Travel north on Moon Dance and you
came to Northstar Drive and when you turned left on Northstar drive, you ended back
up at Stardust place. There were 29 homes on the periphery and 10 in the center.

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Those homes in the center had huge, deep lots, too.

The next night, the roving guard duty would fall to Ron, Gary and Clarence. None of The
Three Amigos were quite up to making the circuit and that night, after curfew, they
drove over to the golf course at 40th Street East and Avenue P. They borrowed Chris’s
truck and car trailer. The gentlemen helped themselves to 3 dang nice looking golf
carts. The 1999 Club Car 2 passenger golf carts were in excellent condition and had an
all-aluminum frame, forest green body and beige upholstery. They also had good 48
Volt batteries (6 8-volt Trojans) heavy-duty crosshatched tires, and beautiful bronze
wheel covers. They came complete with a 48-volt charger and 3.1 HP GE motor, hard
vinyl beige top, and clear split hinged windshield. The Three Amigos had the entire next
day to fix those golf carts up to suit themselves too.

09Dec05…

They had a terrible time finding scabbards for their weapons. Eventually, however, they
tracked down 6 of them. Chris gave them a hand and affixed some small brackets to the
golf carts, a pair on each side, and they mounted the scabbards. The Winchester went
in the scabbard on the left side of the vehicle, the shotgun went in the scabbard on the
right side of the vehicle and the M1A’s went on their laps. The Three Amigos were
ready to ride! And, between those suppressors and the stolen golf carts, our friends
were now properly classified as desperados.

But, they left a note saying that they were only borrowing the golf carts and would return
them when they had finished with them. They’d signed the note ‘Manny, Moe and Jack’,
an idea Gary had gotten from one of his earlier stories. Yep, it was time to Ride, Sally,
Ride. [Lou Reed, from his album, Sally Can’t Dance.] Gary hadn’t even known that it
had been the Eagles who had recorded Desperado, but then bimbo #1 had given him
the Eagles Greatest Hits, Volume 2 and he’d had to go find Volume 1 and had even
ended up with the video of theirs, ‘Hell Freezes Over’.

Yeah, Hell would freeze over before old Gar-Bear went chasing bimbos again. Bimbos
were a thing of the past. Gary wondered how bimbo #2 and her new boyfriend had
made out living down there in the San Fernando Valley. But, that thought didn’t last too
long. Marie had a nice bod, but like so many things the contents weren’t nearly as nice
as the package. Gary had told the truth when he’d said that the bimbos had taught him
a lesson or two in survival. A painful lesson to be sure, the grass on the other side of the
fence was greener, but it was filled with rocks and broken glass and barbed wire and
the occasional snake. Listen up folks; this lesson is thrown in at no extra charge. Those
snakes have big fangs, too.

72
 The Three Amigos – Chapter 8 – Blowing in the Wind

How many roads must a man walk down, before they call him a man
How many seas must a white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand
How many times must the cannonballs fly, before they are forever banned
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

It was a real shame that those extremists didn’t listen to Bob Dylan. They had made a
real mess out of the country and now the government seemed to just be making things
worse. If you believed the President, these were just temporary measures. But if you
were a skeptic, you had already written a lot of your freedoms off. If you were to ask
The Three Amigos, they would simply tell you that those freedoms would end up being
restored. But there was a tone in their voices that added, ‘one way or another’. The 3
guys rode around in their ‘new’ golf carts for part of the day and then set them to re-
charge. Those carts needed to see them through a 4-hour shift. Ron had the 8pm-
midnight shift, Clarence the midnight to 4am shift and Gary the 4am to 8am shift. And
so far as TV went, it was mostly just reruns from the networks’ archives with very little
news. They did not, for example, have a very clear picture of what was brewing in LA.

The cleanup parties were transported to LA via a vast assortment of busses. They had
started at the 14-5 junction and loaded the bodies onto trucks and they were taken and
unceremoniously dumped into mass graves. The vehicles would run and once they
cleared the accident that has caused the backup, the vehicles were driven up I-5 to
Santa Clarita and parked in parking lots or other available space. That had started on
10Dec05.

Every day thereafter, 7 days a week, the armada of busses made its way to the SF Val-
ley and eventually, I-5 began to open up. They had cleared from the 5-14 junction down
to the 5-405 junction and stopped. They now had access to the Valley and every day,
more and more bodies went into the trucks and from there to the mass graves. Since
The Three Amigos and their family members didn’t partake of the FEMA offered food,
they didn’t need to worry about working on the cleanup detail. It was a gruesome busi-
ness, or so they heard from the residents who were working on the details. The feds
provided them with rubber kitchen gloves, N-95 mask and a tarp. The bodies were
rolled on the tarp, hauled to the trucks and dumped and then the cycle repeated itself.
And with the moderate weather in LA, every day the stench grew a little worse. Most of
the people learned to carry a jar of Vicks, which when liberally applied, at least it re-
duced the smell a little.

The government had been trying to keep good records of who worked and who didn’t,
but they fell behind in their record keeping. The week before Christmas, they finally got
caught up and realized that the people in the Palmdale area had put in enough time to
cover their rations until late January. They still hadn’t had any interaction with the gangs
from LA and many began to wonder if there really was a threat. But at Moon Shadows,
the guards were maintained and people began to turn their thoughts to Christmas. This

73
would be a Christmas unlike any other in memory. There wasn’t any money to buy pre-
sents and if it weren’t for the government food dole and dole of prescription drugs, no
one would have had anything. So, things reverted to a century or two earlier and people
made gifts for each other out of materials at hand.

Sharon had enough yarn stored in the garage for a half dozen or more projects and
yards and yards of cloth dating back to her stitch and sew days. She freely passed
these things out because it was obvious that she would never live long enough to bene-
fit from their presence. That sure did clear up room in the garage. And, there were all of
those boxes of books, many of them new and never having been read. These went to
the fellas to give to their wives. Everybody started going through the stuff they had
stored and although a lot of the Christmas presents were used, there were things that
people always thought they wanted. Then the miracle came; the day before Christmas
the power was finally restored.

They hadn’t realized what was going on for a moment or two. The power came on just
before dusk and the furnaces kicked in. Since the attack back on the 12th of November
had come during daylight hours, most people had their lights turned off and had never
bothered to turn them on. But, when the streetlights began kicking on and people finally
figured out that the furnaces were working, the entire neighborhood began to light up. At
a hastily called meeting at Chris and Patti’s it was decided to leave the streetlights on,
too.

The folks there at Moon Shadows didn’t have those neighborhood meetings like one
might have expected. Darlene and Patti had become the sort of unofficial group liaisons
and passed along ideas to the 4 residents most responsible for keeping the tract going,
Dick, Chris, Gary and Randy Hunt (Deep pockets). Although Ron and Clarence were
living there and were equally responsible, it was one vote per home so most of Gary
votes were a consensus of The Three Amigos. However, Ron and Clarence did attend
the meetings of the four residents and they were vocal in their opinions, probably influ-
encing the votes of the others. But, I’m straying from the subject of Christmas.

This year was going to be very special and Ron knew it but didn’t realize that Gary knew
it too. If Gary had any doubts, the minor modifications Chris made to the golf carts elim-
inated them. Several stations were able to get a live feed from Rome and had the Mid-
night Mass ceremony from St. Peter’s Basilica. Other stations ran reruns of prior year’s
Christmas shows. They had a nice dinner and crowded around the TV’s in the shelter
and in the Living Room. They had even put up the tree and hung lights because they
had power from the generator and later from Edison. As was tradition in the Olsen
household, Christmas gifts weren’t to be passed out until the following morning. This
was one of the two days a year that Sharon made her special breads, Monkey Bread
and Pecan Rolls. Both were baked in a Bundt pan and the Monkey bread was tube bis-
cuits cut in half and rolled in a cinnamon sugar mixture with a liberal application of a Ka-
ro, butter and brown sugar syrup and walnut pieces. The Pecan rolls were made out of
the frozen bread rolls dumped in the pan, sprinkled with a regular butterscotch pudding
powder and topped by a butter and brown sugar mixture and pecans. Both were good,

74
but Gary preferred the Monkey Bread. Sharon preferred to make the Pecan Rolls be-
cause they were quicker and easier.

Of course the children were still of an age where Christmas was a big deal. A quiet ex-
change had gone on among the parents trading the prior year’s good used toys. Fortu-
nately nobody with children had put Christmas shopping off to the last minute so there
were a lot of new things for the kids. The adults received a lot of homemade presents,
but in most cases, the homemade and the bargained for trades were more pleasing
than the stuff usually purchased in a rush from some store. More thought had obviously
gone into the gifts this Christmas. All of the presents had been passed out and Gary
had to confess that he was a bit disappointed. He had expected a gift from Ronald
McDonald, but nothing had materialized. He concealed his disappointment and they put
on a movie to watch. Gary needed a little cheering up and he selected one of his favor-
ites, In Harm’s Way. The 165 minute black and white movie had been released in 1965.
Included in the characters was a very much grown up Jill Haworth, who made her first
movie appearance in Exodus in 1960 at age 15. She was something to behold at age
20 in this John Wayne epic. That had been her last major movie.

When the movie was over, dinner was served. There was turkey this year only because
Sharon had bought two in late October or early November in planning for Thanksgiving
and Christmas. Considering that they were living on ‘survival’ rations, it was quite the
feast. A couple of items normally found on the table at Thanksgiving and Christmas
were missing, but either no one notice or everyone was just being polite. The kitchen
table expanded to 8’ and they brought up the 8’ folding table from the shelter to seat
everyone. There was even pumpkin pie for desert and cool whip from the freezer. When
everyone had eaten their fill, Ron made some remark about an extra desert and he and
John got up and went to the shelter. They returned carrying rifle boxes and a large pa-
per bags filled with what turned out to be 30-round magazines. Clarence and Gary each
received a box and Ron sat back down and opened his. Each box contained a M16A3
with a Surefire M4-FA suppressor. The paper bag contained 18 of the high quality
USGI, Teflon coated 30-round magazines packed 3 per magazine pouch for each rifle.

Even though Gary had figured it out much earlier, he was still in awe of the weapon. He
checked and the suppressor went on and off just like Surefire claimed it did. The weap-
ons were new and still had their light oil coating from the factory. Clarence was even
more taken with the new rifles than Gary. Clarence had never handled an AR-15 or M-
16 before in his life and he just sat there speechless. When finally Gary and Clarence
recovered, there were endless ‘Thank You’s’ and comments of admiration for the new
rifles. Gary didn’t much care for the 5.56 caliber, but the 3-round burst feature was
something he’d given a lot of thought to and he figured that 3 5.56 rounds probably
would do just as good a job of stopping a bad guy as one .308 round. Maybe he was
right and maybe he was wrong, but it was now a moot point. The rifle weighed 7.5
pounds and a full 30-round mag only added an additional pound. That compared favor-
ably with his Winchester, which tipped the scales at 6¾ pounds empty. It beat the hell
out of the M1A Super Match, which weighed 11.8 pounds unloaded and without the
scope. This rifle also had the detachable carrying handle allowing them to add a wide

75
range of optics.

Ron didn’t bother to explain where he’d come with the military rifles and neither Gary
nor Clarence asked. But, it was a good bet that Sandy was involved one way or anoth-
er. There was one other thing and Gary didn’t have a clue. After the gun-trading inci-
dent, Ron had gone back to Sandy and had explained that he had only sold her the 5.56
ammo to throw Clarence and Gary off the scent. She was more than willing to return the
5.56 CCI ammo from Walmart and Ron paid her cash for the credit she’d allowed him.
So, in fact, they had 20,000 rounds of 5.56 ammo for the rifles, not 15,000. Those 5
cases of ammo were buried under a pile of book boxes in Gary’s garage.

I can’t quite picture 3 old men, all in their 60’s driving golf carts that had a Winchester, a
shotgun, an M16A3 in an upright bracket mounted to the right side front and one or two
Ruger Vaquero’s strapped on plus the M1A on their laps. All of that extra weight proba-
bly cut the battery life by 5-10%. Chris solved the M1A on the lap situation with his other
Christmas present. It was an identical mount for the left side of the vehicle to hold the
M1A rifles. And Sharon, bless her heart, had crocheted little blue booties to keep the
dust and snow out of the upright rifles. (Wasn’t that cute?)

Did you every pay close attention to kids at Christmas time? I have and whether they
get 5 presents or 50 presents, they always seem to be looking for one more. Later on
Christmas Day, Ron caught Gary looking in a gun magazine reading an article about the
M203 grenade launcher. Sandy had those on hand too, but she wanted $400 apiece for
the launchers and $12.50 each for the HEDP grenades. According to one Field Manual
Ron had seen, the normal load out for a Grenadier was 36-rounds. That put the M203
and grenades far out of reach, assuming that they wanted them in the first place. Was
one grenade worth the cost of 167 rounds of that Russian rifle ammo? Probably not at
this time, but who knew what the future held.

One thing the future held that has not been mentioned to this point in time was a re-
sumption of the banking system. Wells Fargo, for example, maintained its computerized
banking equipment not in San Francisco, but in Oregon. It had taken a little extra work
but Wells Fargo had its system up and running. No announcements had been made;
hence Gary didn’t know that he could access his checking account. And it took the feds
awhile to sort the problems with their computer systems, but thank Heaven for redun-
dancy. Early in December the feds made the end of November payments for things like
Social Security. And, the state of Iowa had essentially escaped unscathed and had
made his pension payment into his Wells Fargo account. Since the phones were up, the
Internet was up, but it was mostly an on-again, off-again proposition. Discovering during
the week after Christmas that he had money in the bank raised Gary’s curiosity. He
spent several days trying to access his Iowa checking account on the net. Finally he got
lucky one day and was able to access the account. Hell, he was rich; there was over 5
grand in the Iowa account.

Gary and Sharon didn’t have an ATM card on the Iowa account because they charged
$10 a year for the card. Thus, assuming that the ATM links were up, he still had no way

76
to access that account. He had checks, but who was going to take a check on a bank
located 2,300 miles away a month and a half after this disaster? Their WF account held
$4,652 plus change. That was the $30 and change they’d left in the account plus two
months of $2,321/month disability pay and pensions. Because they were down to not
much more than pocket change, Gary talked it over with Sharon and they decided to
withdraw the $4,632 from WF and leave the $30 and change in the account. Sharon
drove Gary to the nearest Wells Fargo branch that was open and they went inside. Gary
wrote a check to Cash for $4,632 and got in line.

“How are you today?” the clerk greeted them.

“A whole lot better since we found out that we have money in the bank,” Gary replied
handing her the check.

“Do you want this large or in $20’s?” the clerk asked.

“Whatever you have that spends,” Gary chuckled. “Say tell me something would you? I
have a checking account in Iowa but I don’t have an ATM card for that account. How
would I get money from my Iowa account to Wells Fargo? Could we do a reverse trans-
fer or something?”

“Do you have checks for that account?” she asked.

“Sharon?” Gary asked. Sharon reached in her purse and took out the Iowa checkbook.

“How much can I make the check for?” Gary asked, figuring they’d limit him to a few
hundred dollars.

“Well Mr. Olsen, you shouldn’t make the check for more than you have,” the clerk re-
plied straight faced.

Gary was thunderstruck. He checked the check register and wrote out a check for
$5,368, about $500 less than was in the Iowa account. The clerk took the check, ran it
through her MICR reader and waited for the computer screen to announce, “BAD
CHECK.”

“How would you like the money Mr. Olsen?” she asked, “Same as before?”

“Uh, sure, that would be fine,” Gary said.

The clerk was about to say something about not walking around with that much cash
when Gary stepped back slightly and she caught sight of the Ruger Vaquero. She didn’t
say a word. Gary had become so accustomed to wearing the double revolver rig that
he’d completely forgotten he was wearing the guns. Maybe that explained why the
guard was nervously fingering his pistol. It wasn’t until they were halfway home that
Gary or Sharon spoke a word.

77
“I wonder why she didn’t give me hell about walking out of the branch with $10,000 in
cash,” Gary asked rhetorically.

“She was probably afraid you’d shoot her with one of those Rugers,” Sharon laughed.

“Oops,” Gary laughed. “I guess that explains why that guard never took his hand off that
pistol he was wearing.”

“One of these days, dear,” Sharon remarked, “You’re going to get your dang fool head
blown clean off.”

“I hope not,” Gary replied, “That would hurt like a mother.”

“I said head, dear,” Sharon laughed, “It probably wouldn’t even be fatal.

“Sharon you’ve got to quit hanging out with Ron so much,” Gary scowled.

When they got back to the house, Ron asked Gary how he’d made out at the bank.

“A billion here, a billion there” Gary smirked, “Pretty soon you’re talking about real mon-
ey. Cleaned out the Wells Fargo account and all but $500 from my Iowa account
Ronald.”

“Hmm, I guess that Lyn and I had better head to the bank,” Ron replied.

“Tell me something Ron, does Sandy have any M203’s?” Gary asked.

“She had some yes, Gar-Bear, but they’re $400 each and those darned rounds are
$12.50 a pop,” Ron replied.

“But we wouldn’t need one on all three M16A3’s would we?” Gary asked.

“I suppose not,” Ron said. “But I have about $3,100 left plus two months of pension so
we’ll have maybe $5,500 after we go to the bank. I can afford the launcher, but the am-
mo is pretty prohibitive.”

“Well I think the normal load out is about 36 rounds, partner,” Gary said, “What say I buy
a launcher and one load out of those grenades?”

“You probably ought to mention it to Clarence, too Gar-Bear, maybe his pension is in
the bank too,” Ron suggested.

“He gets a pension and Social Security Ron,” Gary said, “They might be in pretty good

78
shape. I know that their home is paid for.”

“We can talk some more when I get back from the bank,” Ron said and got up and left
to find Linda.

Gary went and found Clarence sitting on the back patio bundled up and smoking a can-
cer stick.

“Clarence,” Gary said, “The bank is working again, at least Wells Fargo is. You bank
there don’t you?”

“Doesn’t everyone who doesn’t bank at Bank of America?” Clarence chuckled. “That’s
good to hear Gary, I ought to get down there and get some cash. I’m down to less than
$100.”

“Well, if you hurry, you might catch Ron and Linda,” Gary suggested, “That’s where
they’re headed.”

“I’ll try and catch them,” Clarence replied and hurried to the house.

About 45 minutes later they 3 of them were back from the bank.

“Did everything go ok?” Gary asked.

“I’m better off,” Clarence said, “By the tune of about $5,200.”

“Gar-Bear you wouldn’t believe it,” Ron said, “Not only was my pension money there,
but Linda had one month’s rent on that office building. We have $5,000 more than I
thought we would.”

“Gary, Ron and I were talking on the way to and back from the bank,” Clarence said. “I
understand that you want to put those M203 grenade launchers on our M16A3’s”

“Ron and I talked about it yes, Clarence,” Gary said. “A normal load out of 36 grenades
would run $450 and the launcher is $400, so a launcher and load out would be $850. I
think I’m going to spend the money and cut corners somewhere else.”

“We both decided to do the same thing, Gary,” Clarence announced. “Just as soon as
old Ronald can get in touch with Sandy, we’re going to switch from minor to major des-
perados.”

“Clarence, as old as we are, just about any jail sentence we’d get would be a life sen-
tence,” Gary reflected, “So I don’t really see that we have anything to lose by adding
explosives to our arsenals. Anyway, if those gang people ever show up, we may need
all of the firepower we can get.”

79
“You don’t suppose that she’d have any of those bulletproof vests do you?” Clarence
asked.

“I don’t really know pal,” Gary said, “But it probably wouldn’t hurt to ask. With all of the
equipment we’re going to be carrying, we ought to consider some of that ALICE gear
too.”

Ron hung up the phone and said, “Sandy says to come over now.”

They piled into Ron’s car and headed to Sandy’s house. When they arrived, she an-
swered to door promptly and let them in.

“Ron said on the phone that you 3 yard birds are looking to accessorize your 5.56 ri-
fles,” she said and winked.

“Then you know what we’re looking for?” Gary asked.

“The 3 of you are almost predictable,” Sandy chuckled. “I picked them up when I got the
rifles for Ron. The thing is fellas, I only have 144 rounds, and they are pretty hard to
come by.”

“Is the price still the same as you quoted me before?” Ron asked.

“$400 for the launcher and $12.50 per round,” Sandy confirmed.

“We’ll take 3 launchers and the 144 rounds,” Ron said.

Each of the men counted out $850 and Sand brought the 2 cases of grenades and the 3
launchers up from the basement.

“Sandy, do you have any bulletproof vests?” Clarence asked.

“You mean like the Interceptor QTV with level IV plates?” Sandy asked.

“Yeah, like that,” Clarence said, “That’s the kind that the military uses.”

“And only the military uses,” Sandy came back. “They’re made by Point Blank Body Ar-
mor and they cost the government $1,586 per vest. And, Point Blank can only sell them
to the military. I’m afraid they’re out of my league. Sorry Clarence.”

“Dang,” Clarence muttered, “We ought to have some bulletproof vests.”

“I have some of the concealable vests Clarence,” Sandy announced. “They won’t stop
rifle bullets but they will stop most, if not all, handgun cartridges.”

“Are they expensive too?’ Clarence asked.

80
“MSRP on a regular sized level III-A vest is $450 and for a tall guy like you, $475,”
Sandy explained. “These are the ProMAX vests and they offer side protection too. Now,
I can give you boys 20% off the MSRP, but a girl has to make a little profit.”

“So $360 for the regular and $380 for our tall friend?” Gary asked.

“Say you’re pretty good with math Gary,” Sandy said. “Yep. That’s the price.”

“Can you fit the three of us?” Ron asked.

“Clarence and Gary are easy Ron,” Sandy replied, “But I’ll have to see if I have an extra
fat in stock. You fellas might also want to get some of those wicking T-shirts that go be-
tween the vest and your skin. Sweat is pretty hard on a vest. I can let you have them for
$11 each.”

“Must be a pretty fancy T-shirt at $11 a pop,” Gary observed.

“Not fancy, but elaborate,” Sandy said.

“I don’t know about you 2 fellas,” Gary said, “But I’ll take a vest and 3 T-shirts, Sandy.”

“Well, here we go again,” Clarence grumbled, “Spending money like we have some.
Count me in.”

“I believe I can get by with an XL or and XXL,” Ron said, “I’ll take the vest and T-shirts,
too.”

“Wise choice fellas,” Sandy said, leaving for a bedroom. She returned with 3 packages,
one labeled ‘Gary’, a second labeled “Ron’ and the third labeled ‘Clarence’. It occurred
to The Three Amigos that she hadn’t been gone long enough to wrap one package, let
alone 3.

“Hey, what gives?” Ron asked. “You didn’t have time to wrap those 3 packages.”

“Men, are SO predictable,” Sandy laughed. “And no, I don’t carry MOLLE or ALICE
gear. You’ll have to make a run on White’s surplus.”

The Three Amigos counted out the extra money for the vests and T-shirts and loaded
their purchases into Ron’s car. Except for the vests. Sandy suggested that they use her
bathroom and get into the T-shirts and vests right away. The vests, she pointed out
wouldn’t do them any good in the trunk of Ron’s car. After they were properly attired,
The Three Amigos headed for the White surplus store on Palmdale Boulevard. White
had been busy, or so it appeared. The price tags on everything had the old price
crossed out and a new, higher price written in. White, (honestly) was of the Hebrew per-
suasion. He had a longstanding reputation for adjusting his prices in accordance with

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the current situation. Right after 9/11, he’d doubled the price on everything, but cut them
back when he got no takers.

The Three Amigos picked out a pair of canteens each, one with a cup and one with a
stove, canteen carriers, pistol belts and Y-style padded harnesses, 1 leather flap holster
and 2 2-clip mag pouches, (Ron had given them the M16 mag pouches, remember?), a
compass pouch, a bandage pouch and a couple of utility pouches to hold their 40mm
grenades. White added up the prices of the items and gave them a price. Ronald pulled
out the Vaquero and began to examine the firearm closely. White blanched, and re-
added the purchases, using the original prices. They paid for their purchases and left.
The only words spoken had been by White. First he told them the price and later the re-
vised price. He still made out like a bandit.

“I feel like a fool,” Ron said on the way back to Moon Shadows.

“Why’s that Ron?” Clarence asked.

“I’ll tell you Clarence,” Ron replied. “In the first place, I’m 64 years old, and that’s awfully
old to be playing dress up. In the second place, if I’d wanted to be a soldier, I’d have
gone in the Army in 1960, not waited until I was 64 years old with a bad ticker.”

“Ron, a man got’s to do what a man’s got’s to do,” Clarence observed. “We may feel
foolish or silly, but I don’t care how old we are. We have an obligation to our families to
do the best that we can. Maybe those gangs will never get it together and attack any-
one. And even if they do, maybe they will attack somewhere else. But, we can’t count
on either thing happening. It’s like Gary always says, the secret to survival is being pre-
pared. But, there’s more to it than that. Gary not only took the time, effort and money to
get prepared, but he insisted that we try everything out. You could have all the guns in
the world, but they wouldn’t do you any good if you didn’t know how to shoot. If we
hadn’t done those trial runs on that shelter out there in the backyard, we wouldn’t have
knowed that there was problems to fix, like those dehumidifiers. If Gary hadn’t gotten off
into writing all of those dumb assed survival stories of his, he wouldn’t have done the
research and knowed how to do some of the things we done to get through this mess.
So, I reckon that I don’t mind feeling a little foolish or silly.”

“Clarence,” Ron replied, “I do believe that’s the longest speech I’ve ever heard you
make. Planning on running for President are you?”

“Well, maybe I should,” Clarence half joked. “I couldn’t do any worse a job of it than that
John Kerry those liberals elected.”

“Don’t pick on John Kerry, Clarence,” Gary said, “He’s a genuine war hero. He got him-
self 3 Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star.”

“Yeah,” Clarence said, “After he dictated the write-ups to his CO. Then he came home
and gave away somebody’s medals. Say, did they ever figure out if he gave away his

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own medals or someone else’s?”

“Does it really matter?” Ron asked. “Only thing he ever did wrong was marrying the
wrong woman. Jane Fonda was more to his temperament.”

“Yeah, but old Hanoi Jane ain’t as rich as that Heinz woman,” Clarence pointed out.

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 The Three Amigos – Chapter 9 – Sunshine

We’ll sing in the sunshine,

We’ll laugh every day,
We’ll sing in the sunshine,
Then I’ll be on my way.

I will never love you,

The cost of love’s too dear.
But though I’ll never love you,
I’ll stay with you one year.

Maybe that should be called The Bimbo Song. The skies were clear and moving into
January, it began to get colder. Being they were armed to the teeth and had the extra
warmth of their bulletproof vests, The Three Amigos volunteered a lot for roving patrols.
They had those golf carts, so it was just a lot of fun circling the tract. And, because of
the golf carts, they could make more rounds per hour. They spaced themselves ½ a
tract apart and the tract got excellent coverage when 2 of The Three Amigos were on
duty. They even carried a thermos of hot coffee and except for when Ron had to make a
frequent stop because of his ‘water pills’ they made good time.

President Kerry had been on TV and radio a couple more times announcing the pro-
gress of the cleanup and encroaching a little more each time on the Bill of Rights. So
far, he’d steered a wide berth from the 2nd Amendment, but The Three Amigos agreed
that it was just a matter of time until that came up. There wasn’t any more news of the
gang problem and people began to assume that it was just another of Kerry’s gimmicks.
Not so in the opinion of The Three Amigos. They remained convinced that Murphy’s
laws were in play and they kept up the patrols and maintained the guard.

Murphy’s Law had originated at Edwards AFB in the late 1970’s. Aerospace manufac-
turers picked it up and used it widely in their ads during the next few months, and soon
it was being quoted in many news and magazine articles. Murphy’s Law was born.

The Northrop project manager, George E. Nichols, had a few laws of his own. Nichols’
Fourth Law says, “Avoid any action with an unacceptable outcome.”

The doctor, well-known Col. John P. Stapp, had a paradox: Stapp’s Ironical Paradox,
which says, “The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment
an incredible miracle.”

Law 1: If anything can go wrong, it will; Corollary: It can; MacGillicuddy’s Corollary: At

the most inopportune time.

Law 2: If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the
most damage will be the one to go wrong.

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Law 3: If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

Law 4: If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go
wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop
Corollary: It will be impossible to fix the fifth fault, without breaking the fix on one or
more of the others.

Law 5: Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

Law 6: If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

Law 7: Nature always sides with the hidden flaw Corollary: The hidden flaw never stays
hidden for long.

Universal Rule: Mother Nature is a bitch.

Murphy’s Law of Thermodynamics: Things get worse under pressure.

The Murphy Philosophy: Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.

Quantization Revision of Murphy’s Laws: Everything goes wrong all at once.

Murphy’s Constant: Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.

Murphy’s Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support whatever theory. Re-
search supports a specific theory depending on the amount of funds dedicated to it.

That should just about cover Mr. Murphy and his laws. There are more, but you get the
idea, right? The funny thing was that Gar-Bear rode past the sled track every morning
on the way to work at the Rocket Site and had never heard of Murphy back then. But,
Gary was at EAFB from 1962 to 1965. It might not be a bad idea to keep Murphy’s Laws
in mind when you are preparing for survival. The laws seem to be a constant in all forms
of human endeavor. Col. Strapp did his rides years before Gar-Bear made it to Ed-
wards.

And, what was with the gangs anyway? Well, LA is a pretty big city and there was a
wide strip that had avoided radiation. The gangs had plenty of places to loot and no one
tried to interfere. The military slapped a cordon around the area inhabited by the gangs
and let them have free reign. They weren’t hurting anyone but themselves in the opin-
ions of many. LA had endured the Watts riot of 1965 and the Rodney King riot of 1992.
Angelinos had simply endured the riots and rebuilt. And, in the intervening years had
found it necessary to defuse more than one situation that was a purely criminal matter
that threatened to take on racial overtones and generate another riot.

Speaking of Los Angeles, what about all of those people who did make it to safety in
community buildings? As the cleanup crews and the military worked their ways through

85
the San Fernando Valley, they surfaced. They had been raiding grocery stores to get
water and food. No one had a Geiger counter, however, and they weren’t certain about
how much radiation remained. As a consequence, except for the brief forays for food
and water, they remained hunkered down until the military showed up and advised them
it was safe to leave. Lacking any better place to put the people, the military and FEMA
reopened the camps in Palmdale and other cities and provided food and shelter for the
surviving Angelinos. The camps in Palmdale could contain about 125,000 of the relo-
cated people. Lancaster could also house another 125,000.

The new camp residents were also required to work for their calories and the one bene-
fit of the entire situation was that there was a limited amount of transportation available.
Therefore, the regular Palmdale and Lancaster residents got a longer than anticipated
break after Christmas. Sandy was now doing a land office business, but only selling to
the people that Johnny and other members of the Sheriff’s Department vouched for.
Eventually, Johnny and the others would have to turn around and collect all of those il-
legal weapons, unless the laws were changed, but for now, they let the people arm
themselves because they couldn’t handle it by themselves and the military didn’t pro-
vide enough Guardsmen and soldiers to protect the greatly increased population of the
Antelope Valley.

Several groups in the AV had taken the entire situation very seriously, like those 3 old
guys at Moon Shadows. But, Johnny and the other Deputies noticed that not as many
were taking the matter as seriously as one would have thought they should. Lancaster
was far better prepared, as a whole than Palmdale, for example. But then Lancaster
had been the principle community in the AV for a long time and it had a lot more of the
militia types. These were the people who didn’t really need to buy anything from a gun
dealer except a little extra ammunition. And when the state told everyone to turn in their
illegal guns, the people in Lancaster had seemed to become deaf in a big hurry. Lan-
caster was probably one of the best armed communities in California. Lancaster had
grown over the years, changing the demographics slightly. But, Palmdale had been the
fastest growing city in California for a long time and had outgrown Lancaster. Lancaster
was fairly conservative, but Palmdale was populated by a lot of liberals form LA.

It should be noted that Sandy wasn’t a class III dealer. That wasn’t to say that she didn’t
deal in the class III weaponry, but just that all of her class III activities were illegal as
hell. She ran a scrupulously honest gun store, adhering to the letter of the law. Periodic
visits from the ATF always saw her getting a clean bill of health. And, when the feds
asked the LA County Sheriff’s Department about Sandy, the Deputies universally gave
Sandy glowing reports about honestly and her conformance with the state and local
laws. You have to realize that Sandy was an extremely cautious individual. She refused
to buy any ‘illegal’ arm that happened in her door. This fact was something Gary had
commented on in an earlier story when he told about how he’d regained his tricked out
Mini-14. Sandy hadn’t been interested in buying the rifle because of the Butler folding
stock and the flashhider. Before she could resell the gun through the store, she’d have
had to remove the flashhider and replace the stock. Her class III side business was just
that, a side business, totally separate from her gun store. At least it had been until the

86
present emergency.

And when Sandy made trips to places like Nevada to pick up things like those rifles, she
used the name ‘Cash’, as in greenbacks and folding money and you don’t really want to
know my name anyway. So while Hasher had a point in his comment, don’t let it throw
you. It was nice to have an illegal arms dealer in Palmdale and those Deputies were
some of her best customers. They could have acquired the arms legally, but at a higher
price and besides, what the Sheriff didn’t know couldn’t turn around and bite them on
the butt. A bad guy with a gun illegal or otherwise was in for a heap of trouble. However,
a good guy in possession of a questionable or illegal firearm sometimes was allowed to
keep the weapon if the Deputy was well satisfied with the individual’s character. The on-
ly real difference between California and states where automatic weapons were legal
under the state law was that the weapons in the other states were frequently in the ATF
database. California had no such problem. And, if the local, state and federal authorities
couldn’t disarm the gangs, what made anyone think that they could disarm the good cit-
izens who kept a very low profile because they knew they were breaking the law and
were nervous about it? Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

Monday, 17Jan06…

This was a National Holiday according to the calendar. It didn’t much feel like a holiday,
but what does a holiday feel like? There hadn’t been any attacks on Moon Shadows and
the residents were a little restless. Good fortune had smiled on some as their employers
had reopened their businesses, usually manufacturing plants, in LA to fill mostly gov-
ernment orders. Perhaps they were restless because after having gotten back to work,
finally, they had to take a day off to observe the holiday. It hadn’t been easy there in
Moon Shadows after the folks got their Christmas break from the cleanup activities
down below. Some of the residents had gotten the idea into their heads that they didn’t
like the system of internal government that had been setup to keep Moon Shadows
safe. They approached the 4 ‘ruling’ members of the tract on that day and suggested,
rather forcefully, that the tract might be better served if the entire population were al-
lowed to vote on the more important issues.

In all the town and all the cities, there are no statutes to committees, Gary said after the
representatives of the other group had left.

“Huh?” Ron responded.

“It’s just something I learned in college, Ronald,” Gary explained.

“I heard you say it before Gar-Bear, but what’s the point?” Ron asked.

“Just this, partner,” Gary went on, “When decisions are made by a committee or con-
sensus vote of a lot of people, it becomes decisive in a couple of ways. First, you usual-
ly have two or more camps springing up. Second, when they do reach an agreement it
isn’t always the best decision for the group. That’s why very large corporations are

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managed by very small superstructures, like the CEO and the Board of Directors. That’s
essentially what we’ve had here up to now, a Board of Directors. Patti and Darlene let
us know about problems and the four, well I guess six, of us respond to the problem or
issue.”

“What are you going to do about what those people wanted?” Clarence asked.

“Nothing,” Gary said.

“Nothing?” Ron reflected.

“That’s right partner, nothing,” Gary explained. “I’m going to go along with what Chris,
Dick and Randy decide. We have our own little compound here and if necessary, I’m
going to secede from the housing tract.”

Johnny Yuma was a rebel…

he roamed through the west…
did Johnny Yuma, the rebel…
he wandered alone

Ron began to sing in his deep voice.

“He got fightin’ mad…

this rebel lad…
he packed no star…
as he wandered far…
where the only law…
was a hook and a draw…
the rebel, Johnny Yuma

“You got that right partner,” Gary said, “And as far as I’m concerned, you can add,
screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke. Sometimes there simply too much democracy for
anyone’s good.”

“Gary, how do you really feel on the subject of home rule?” Clarence asked.

“Well, Sharon rules this home and that’s all I need to know,” Gary joined in the laughter.

The committee of 4 discussed the matter brought before them by the homeowners and
they reluctantly agreed that the homeowners had a right to have a voice in the running
of the tract. Just as he said he was going to do, Gary went along with the majority. Then
he announced that the folks at 4560 Moonraker Road were withdrawing from the guard
duty assignments. After the meeting The Three Amigos returned to the house.

88
“Well, I hope this works out like you planned, Gary,” Clarence said.

“Frankly Clarence, I don’t care,” Gary replied.

Then Gary did something a bit out of character, even for him. He dug around in a box in
the garage and came up with 2 3×5’ flags. One was the Gadsden Flag and the other
was the Stars and Bars. Gary took handles off 2 old brooms and attached the flags. He
then took the 4-step step stool out to the front patio and mounted the 2 flags. They
moved the 3 golf carts to the back patio and Gary explained to everyone that 4560
Moonraker Road was on its own until the yahoos came to their senses. Patti came
down later and had a talk with Sharon, but left shaking her head. The Three Amigos no-
ticed later that there were no more roving guard patrols. Was this going to turn into a
case of cutting off your nose (or ear) to spite your face? Only time would tell, I guess.

18Jan06…

“Have you figured out that sight for the M203 yet” Gary asked.

“Yeah,” Ron said, “It just works in the reverse of a normal sight. Nothing much to it, but
it will take a little getting used to.”

“It’s a shame that Sandy didn’t have any practice rounds,” Gary offered, “It would be
nice to know how the thing works before we actually have to use it.”

“True,” Ron agreed, “But she didn’t and I don’t think it would be prudent to waste a good
round figuring the gadget out. We’ll just have to trust the sights and get a little OJT.”

“It would suit me just fine if we never have to figure out how to fire those things,” Clar-
ence said.

“That would be nice,” Gary agreed.

“It sure didn’t take them long to eliminate the roving patrols,” Ron observed.

“Did they eliminate the guards on the entrance?” Gary asked.

“Don’t really know partner, no one has been off the lot since you got in your snit,” Ron
replied.

“Snit? Did I hear you say snit?” Gary asked.

“Yeah, why?” Ron said.

“No reason. I’m going to walk up to the corner and see if there is anyone on the gate,”
Gary said.”

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Gary took the two crossbars off the gate and swung it open. Missy was in the yard and
came running, so he closed the gate, went into the Living Room, got her harness and
leash and took her with him. He walked to the corner in front of Chris and Patti’s and
looked towards the entrance. The entrance was unguarded.

“They decided that we didn’t need any guards,” Chris said coming out of his garage.

“Do you agree with that, Chris?” Gary asked.

“Not really, no,” Chris replied. “But that’s what the majority wanted so we went along.”

“Chris, they are wrong,” Gary responded. “I went along with the majority just to keep the
peace. However, it just seemed prudent to keep the people living at our house out of the
fray.”

“Is that why you put up those 2 flags,” Chris chuckled.

“In a way, I suppose so, yes,” Gary answered. That Don’t Tread on Me flag is called the
Gadsden Flag and it’s been around since the beginning of this country and is a symbol
of Independence. The Rebel Flag just signifies my disagreement with the new power
structure.”

“Well, I just went along for the same reason and so did Dick and Randy,” Chris an-
nounced. “The three of us are going to find some more barbed wire and posts and fence
in our properties.”

“I’m sure that everyone at our house will be happy to pitch in and help with that Chris,”
Gary responded. “You just let me know where and when and we’ll all be here to lend a
hand.”

“Gee, thanks,” Chris said, “I thought you were really po’d.”

“I am, but not at any of you folks,” Gary replied. “But a ship can only have one Captain,
so to speak and I thought we were doing a pretty good job of running the security of the
tract the way it was going. But no, all those liberals insist on a democracy so let them
have it.”

“Dick has been spending his nights with us,” Chris announced, ignoring the liberal re-
mark. “He can’t stay up 24-hours a day. And I understand that Randy and Pam have
been staying up half nights taking turns guarding their home. With Dick and Matt, we’re
a little better off.”

“I suppose that you and Dick and Matt, together with Randy and Pam and all of the folks
at our house could resume the security, Chris,” Gary allowed, “But it just really bothers
me that we should have to be the ones to provide security for the others. But I’ll tell eve-
ryone to keep an eye out on your place. We can’t really see Randy and Pam’s from our

90
house.”

“We’ve also been talking about just fencing Dick’s place and all of us moving in there,”
Chris pointed out. “The problem with that is that my house affords the best view of the
entrance.”

“If you decided to do that Chris,” Gary said, “We could use your house as an Observa-
tion Post (OP) and I could get some of our guys to man it. But you know, if you can get
enough wire, why not wire up all three places and still stay at Dicks? That 2 story be-
tween Dick’s house and your house has an even better view of the front entrance than
your house does. I know, I checked it out for one of my stories. That east upstairs bed-
room of the house in between has the best view of the entrance in the tract.”

“What we could do is wire up the 3 houses and stay at home,” Chris offered. “You have
that 25 watt base station on my racing radio frequencies so we could move it to the
Klein house and you could maintain the OP.”

“That would leave my house without a radio on the same frequency,” Gary objected.
“But that’s the start of an idea. Let us bounce it around and see what we can come up
with. Meanwhile let me know when you’re ready to put in the barbed wire. Come on
Missy, you get to walk the whole neighborhood today.”

“Later,” Chris said as Gary and Missy began the tour.

Gary was wearing the 2 Vaqueros and he also had on his Laredo’s. Between Missy pull-
ing and the weight of the guns and those boots, he decided that from now on, Missy
was going to get a walk while he drove the golf cart. He could always add 6’ of rope to
the leash. When he got back, he sat down with Ron, Clarence, David and John to dis-
cuss what Chris and he talked about. When they got to the part of about the radios,
Clarence suggested that they look in the Yellow Pages and find a radio dealer. Maybe
they could come up with some more of the Radius 50 radios. Gary told Clarence that
they hadn’t made them in a long time, but that if the Internet would cooperate, he’d look
up what Motorola was now offering.

From that website, Gary was able to determine that the Motorola CP200 was the closest
model to Chris’s Radius 50’s.Gary had the CM300 in the shelter. With the Li-ion batter-
ies, these new CP200 radios beat the hell out of the old Radius 50’s. For one thing, they
had 4 channels instead of two. The price wasn’t much different from what he’d paid for
the Radius 50’s 10 years before. Just $100 a radio cheaper that was all; it was sort of
one of those cheaper at ½ the price deals. And in the AV, there was a Motorola dealer
listed. They needed 9 radios if they were to all have one and that would set them back a
little over $1,000 per amigo, but it certainly would improve security. Gary borrowed one
of Chris’s radios and took it and his CM300 just to make sure all of the frequencies were
the same.

There had been some talk of building an OP in the backyard to give them a better view,

91
but having an OP in the empty Klein house beat that idea all hollow. It took the guy a
while to program all of the radios, the two frequencies on Chris’s radios were crystal
controlled and set the baseline, but they now were well equipped in the radio depart-
ment. Gary suggested that the dealer get 2 more of the CP200’s and 1 more CM300 set
up for the same frequencies. He was going to send his friend Randy over to get 2 port-
able radios, a base station and a base station antenna.

When they got back to the tract, Dick and Chris were unloading Chris’s pickup. They
must have had every spool of barbed wire left in the AV (not really). They had 10’ steel
posts, too, not the PVC kind. Gary returned Chris’s radio and took the new radios and
put them in one of the two 6 slot fast recharging stands they’d picked up. He went over
to Randy and Pam’s and filled them in on the radio business and told them that the
dealer was saving them a base station, a base station antenna and 2 portable radios, all
preconfigured to the frequencies they were using. Gary gave Randy the dealer’s card
and returned to pick up everyone so they could help Chris, Matt and Dick. Since Dick
had been staying at Chris and Patti’s, they did Chris and Patti’s house first. That took
the rest of the 18th and the 19th.

On the afternoon of the 19th, Gary sent one of David’s boys to put in the postholes at
Dick’s and at Randy’s; and later that day, two more of the boys to put in the posts. On
the morning of the 20th, they were ready to start the wire at Dick and Randy’s. The thing
was, the 20th was a Friday and they didn’t want to have to work Sunday. They had ex-
tra help from Patti and Darlene and on the morning of the 20th the concertina was
coiled, ready to install. So, while Chris took care of the gates, they worked well into the
night. They used the lamps that Chris used in the pits at the racetrack to provide light.
Darlene wasn’t part of the homeowner’s movement and late Saturday night after they
put the finishing touches on the three homes, she asked when they were going to wire
up her home. Gary jestingly suggested that Darlene move in with Dick. And, what had
started out as a joke turned into reality. I don’t mean to suggest that they were sleeping
together or anything, but Darlene and her son and daughter did pack 3 suitcases and
move. Dick had a 3-bedroom house so they probably worked out some sort of sleeping
arrangement. (Forget it, if Dick and Darlene had wanted to get together they didn’t need
a disaster for an excuse and probably would have done so before now.)

This new arrangement worked out fine. Randy, Dick, Chris, Matt, Gary, David, Jason,
Justin, Josh, Jesse, Clarence, Ron and John worked out a perfectly acceptable guard
schedule among the 13 of them. Patti, Darlene and Pam even volunteered, making 16
people to share the responsibility of guarding the 4 homes. But, Gary wasn’t quite ready
to give up his mad and he suggested that they just communicate by radio; the rest of
the residents’, he said, could fend for themselves. Consequently the old battle klaxon
that they’d found at the junkyard wouldn’t be sounded in case of an attack. Gary did not
have a grudge against the other residents. God helps them that help themselves, or so
the some book says. Maybe these people knew something he didn’t, but don’t put a lot
of money on it. Fleataxi insisted that the difference between a liberal and a conservative
was that the liberal hadn’t been mugged, yet. Hell, this bunch of liberal democracy lov-
ing neighbors had probably even unloaded those AK’s.

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Sunday, 22Jan06…

Johnny showed up during the late morning. When he didn’t find Darlene and the kids’
home, he went to Chris and Patti’s to see what had happened to them. Patti told him
they’d moved in with Dick. She called Dick and Dick opened the gate and invited John-
ny in. Darlene and her daughter were still sleeping. The boy woke up and got his sister.
Johnny took due note of the fact that Darlene was sleeping with the daughter. Not that
he minded one way or another, but there were proprieties to be observed, especially
around his young son. On the other hand this was California and the year was 2006 and
Johnny hadn’t been perfect either.

After Johnny had visited with the kids for a while he surveyed the situation at Moon
Shadows. Chris filled him in on what had transpired with the other resident’s and how
the four, oops five, families had decided to go it alone. He showed Johnny the OP with
its commanding view of the entrance and Johnny generally approved. Then, Johnny
gave him the bad news, which was why he’d come by in the first place. The LA gangs
had broken out of the Army’s cordon and were doing a pretty thorough job of razing the
Inland Empire. Johnny said that he thought they would settle there until the supplies ran
out. The Army had been unable to stop the gangs, but they had managed to get the few
survivors in the Inland Empire to Palm Springs and set up in a FEMA Camp in that city.
They Army was now actively assaulting the gangs, too, but apparently the gangs had
raided several armories in the LA area and were as well equipped as the Army.

Johnny went on to say that the Army had erected what amounted to an armor barrier
over in the Banning area. The gangsters wouldn’t be able to penetrate that barrier with-
out a heavy loss of life and he, Johnny, expected that they would go north on I-15 out of
the Inland Empire. Now, if they kept going on I-15 that would put them in Victorville 50
miles to the east. Conversely, if they picked up highway 138 at the foot of the Cajon
Pass, it would put them in Palmdale. Either way, they’d taken about 2 months to work
LA over and you could expect that it would take them nearly as long to work San Ber-
nardino and the surrounding communities over. Maybe the end of March, or the first part
of April, trouble could be heading their way. At the moment, there was no way to tell.
However, Johnny did point out that regardless, once they finished with Victorville, as-
suming they went that way, there wasn’t a hell of a lot to the north to appeal to them ex-
cept Barstow and then Las Vegas.

Nice rocket launchers those boys down at the other house had, Johnny said. Probably
got them from you know who. Chris said that he didn’t know, but Johnny was probably
right. Those 3 guys were always looking for something bigger and better. They only had
48 grenades per rifle according to what one of them had said. Johnny mumbled some-
thing about that being a fact worth knowing and said he had to get back to the Sheriff’s
station. As it happened, Johnny knew for a fact that Sandy had one hell of a lot more of
the grenades and launchers. And in all of the chaos that usually results from a disaster
of this magnitude, the Sheriff’s Department had received a shipment of refitted
M16A2’s. The normal policy of the Sheriff’s department was to switch out the sear or

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trigger-housing group to render the weapons incapable of anything other than semi-
automatic fire. Because of the disaster several of the weapons had ended up in
Palmdale and Lancaster at the Sheriff’s substations in unmodified condition. And, to
compound the error, the paperwork had gotten lost in the shuffle. The paperwork wasn’t
all that had gotten lost in the shuffle, 1 of the 4 cases of weapons had disappeared. The
Department had been looking high and low for those 12 weapons, but they hadn’t come
up with them yet.

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 The Three Amigos – Chapter 10 – Seminole Wind

Ever since the days of old

Men would search for wealth untold
They’d dig for silver and for gold
And leave the empty holes;
And way down south in the Everglades
Where the black water rolls and the saw grass waves
The eagles fly and the otters play
In the land of the Seminole;

Chorus
So blow, blow Seminole wind
Blow like you’re never gonna blow again;
I’m callin’ to you like a long-lost friend
But I don’t know who you are;
And blow, blow from the Okeechobee
All the way up to Micanopy (pronounced: Meh-can-o-pee)
Blow across the home of the Seminole

The alligator and the gull

Progress came and took its toll
And in the name of flood control
They made their plans and they drained the land
Now the Glades are goin’ dry
And the last time I walked in the swamp
I stood up on a cypress stump
I listened close and I heard the ghost
Of Osceola cry

Chorus X2

[And now you know Sharon’s favorite song…we got to see JA live once at the Lancaster
Performing Arts Center, wonderful!]

Why do a group of Indians in Oklahoma and Florida belong in a story about a post-
nuclear holocaust in California in 2006? The Seminoles of Florida call themselves the
“Unconquered People,” descendants of just 300 Indians who managed to elude capture
by the US Army in the 19th century. The Medal of Honor, this nation’s highest honor for
valor, was awarded to four Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts. Buffalo Soldier Regimental
returns show that after twelve engagements and twenty expeditions, not one of their
men was killed or seriously wounded in their seventeen-year history from 1868-1885.
These young men of pure African or mixed black and Seminole ancestry, dressed, act-
ed and possessed trailing, hunting and fighting skills like those of the plains Indians.
Their number varied between thirty to fifty scouts. They were probably the best desert
fighters and trackers in the history of the United States Army.

95
Clarence, you see, had an interest in the Seminole Indians. It might be because of his
special feelings for the Buffalo Soldiers, as the 10th Cavalry was known. Now some
might tell you that the Nez Perce deserved that honor. Chief Joseph, however, was
more famous for his speech.

I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is
dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ He who led
the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children
are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no
blankets, no food. No one knows where they are – perhaps freezing to death. I want to
have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall
find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad.
From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

And, Gary and Sharon had a special place in their hearts for the Indians, the Native
Americans, too. And maybe, just maybe, Gary had a little of Osceola’s spirit in him, but
none of Chief Joseph’s. Joseph had done what he had thought best for his people and
given up. Osceola had been captured during peace negotiations, while under a white
flag. He died a short time later of Malaria. The Three Amigos weren’t about to give up.
There was the tradition of Osceola and the 10th Cavalry to uphold. They might not fight
with their fellow residents over something that was of small import, but if the gangs did
show up, they were in for the fight of their lives. Got it? Good.

Those rocket launchers that Johnny was referring to were the M203 grenade launchers,
of course. Johnny figured that Sandy owed him a big one or two or three. So he went to
see her and when he got there, it went like this:

“Hi Sandy,” Johnny said, “I have 6 genuine M16A2’s and I want to make a trade.”

“Where did you steal those, Johnny?” Sandy asked.

“What makes you think they’re stolen?” Johnny asked.

“Well, the word is that the Sheriff’s Department is missing a case of 12 M16A2’s that got
shipped to Palmdale or Lancaster by mistake,” Sandy explained. “You showing up with
6 of them is a little obvious, wouldn’t you say?”

“Be that as it may, and I can neither confirm nor deny that these are part of that bunch
of missing rifles,” Johnny said, “I happen to know that you have a bunch of those
M203’sand I want to trade these 6 rifles for 6 M203’s and a reasonable supply of gre-
nades.”

“Well a M203 and a M16 cost me about the same, Johnny,” Sandy said, “But those gre-
nades are expensive. What else do you have to offer?”

96
“Information, Sandy,” Johnny said, “Just information. What I want is 72 M433 HEDP
rounds for each of those 6 M203’s plus another 108 rounds to give to some friends. On
top of that, I want about 144 of those canister rounds. Plus 27 practice rounds.”

“That must be some pretty valuable information Johnny,” Sandy said. “Assuming I could
fill that order, that’s something on the order of 700 grenades.”

“711, to be precise,” Johnny interrupted.

“Johnny, 711 grenades at $12.50 each is $8,887.50 worth of grenades,” Sandy protest-
ed, “That information you have must be solid gold.”

“It is,” Johnny assured her, “How much money have you made off the business we’ve
sent your way over the past few years that you’ve been an illegal arms dealer?”

“I never counted,” Sandy replied, “A lot I suppose.”

“Like every dime you’ve ever made selling illegal arms Sandy,” Johnny said, “But I don’t
want to put a fine point on it.”

“What do you mean every dime?” Sandy objected. “I screened some of those customers
myself like Ron and the boys.”

“Care to know who the very first customer you ever had was?” Johnny asked.

“You’ve known about my side business for that long?” Sandy said.

“Since I was a rookie,” Johnny grinned. “Besides, you are inflating those prices a whole
lot. I happen to know where you bought those stolen grenades and you only gave that
sucker $5 apiece for them. So, you’d only actually be out $3,555, girl. And, assuming
you remain in business, you’d make up the loss in about 3-4 days.”

“What do you mean assuming I’d remain in business?” Sandy snapped.

“Well now, that brings us right back to the information, doesn’t it?” Johnny replied.

“It sounds like blackmail to me,” Sandy said, “But what choice do I have?”

“All right, I’ll give you the information for free Sandy and if it isn’t worth $3,500 to you,
we’ll just forget the whole thing,” Johnny said.

“I’m game, Johnny,” Sandy said, “But I can’t imagine what information would be worth
$3,500 to me.”

“The ATF has been snooping around in Palmdale and Lancaster,” Johnny said. “They’re
pretty certain that one of the local gun dealers is involved in the illegal arms trade. They

97
are thinking about a sting operation. I happen to know who the guy is that they’re going
to use in the sting operation.”

“Did you bring someone to help you haul the grenades?” Sandy asked.

“I did not,” Johnny said. “I figured you could just deliver them to The Three Amigos over
there in Moon Shadows and I’d take it from there.”

“Are you talking about Ron, Gary and Clarence?” Sandy asked.

“Those are the guys, Sandy,” Johnny said, “They sometimes go by the name The Three
Amigos.”

“That’s 59+ cases of grenades you know,” Sandy said, “I guess I’d better get started
loading.”

“Don’t forget the M16A2’s,” Johnny said.

“Those 6 M16A2’s are going to be the most expensive M16’s I’ll ever sell,” Sandy said.
“Don’t forget to let me know who the sting guy is or you’re going down with me.”

“Got you covered, Sandy,” Johnny said and then gave her the guy’s name.

Sandy recognized the name immediately. The guy had an appointment for 9am the next
morning. Johnny didn’t bother to tell her that he’d been standing next to the guy when
he’d made the call. Sometimes, timing was everything. Johnny took the 6 M203’s and
put them in the trunk of his patrol car with the other 6 rifles. There was also a cardboard
box full of used mags that had new springs and followers. His next stop was Moon
Shadows to talk to Chris and Dick. Darlene and he might be divorced, but the kids
needed protecting and those 6 M16A2’s might make all of the difference in an attack if
one came. God did indeed help him who helped himself, although maybe God hadn’t
meant it EXACTLY that way.

A closed delivery truck pulled up in front of Gary and Sharon’s house. Sandy got out
and hollered for someone to open the gate and give her a hand. They took one look at
what she had and unloaded the truck in a New York minute, as if they were taken com-
pletely by surprise. Sandy explained that Johnny would be by later to explain how to di-
vide up the grenades. They didn’t tell Sandy that Johnny had come straight to Moon
Shadows from her home. Johnny did also happen to mention that Sandy had only paid
$5 per grenade. The guys were to take 36 M433 grenades, 16 of the canister grenades
and 3 of the practice grenades for each of their M203’s. They’d paid Sandy a total of
$1,800 for the original 144 grenades. This gift from Johnny lowered their cost to $4.95
per grenade or $.05 less per grenade than Sandy had paid for them in the first place. It
sort of turned out that everyone was happy. Johnny gave the 6 rifles to Chris, Matt,
Dick, Randy, Pam and Darlene. He also left precise instructions concerning distribution
of the grenades.

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Do you recall that Johnny had said rocket launchers when he meant grenade launch-
ers? Do you know what a Freudian slip is? It is a verbal mistake that is thought to reveal
an unconscious belief, thought, or emotion. Johnny must have been thinking about
rocket launchers when he made his slip of the tongue. It seemed that Sergeant John
Jones had a few acquaintances in the Department in Los Angeles that got involved in
cleaning up a ransacked armory. The Deputies had picked up a trunk load of LAWS
Rockets with every intention of turning them over to the Army. But then, a major disa-
greement had broken out in another part of LA and they had to respond to the call Code
3. The disagreement had turned into a standoff situation aka barricaded suspect and
had gone on for several hours. In the chaos that followed, which included one of the two
Deputies nearly getting killed, the men had simply forgotten the trunk full of Rockets.

And, when they finally did remember the next day, Johnny happened to be in LA. John-
ny had responded to another of those ‘all units’ calls and had run into the two guys.
They mentioned that they were going to have to put off making their next call because
they had a trunk full of LAWS Rockets. Being the good-natured fella that he was, John-
ny offered to help them out. He’d take care of the Rockets for them so they could make
that next call. Well, the guys figured that the matter was closed because a Sergeant had
taken the Rockets. The Sergeant had taken the Rockets all right, straight to Palmdale.
They were sitting in his garage.

“Well hell partner,” Ron said, “We sort of ended up on the good end of that grenade
deal.”

“I probably wouldn’t have taken them,” Gary replied, “But when I found out how much
Sandy jacked up the price, I figured what the hell.”

“In a pig’s eye, you lying sack,” Ron said, “You’d have taken them if they cost Sandy
$12.49 apiece.”

“Can’t scam you on anything, can I?” Gary laughed.

“Maybe yes and maybe no,” Ron said, “But even if I was born yesterday, I was down-
town all day playing with the big kids.”

“That saying is older than you are,” Gary groaned.

“Maybe, but it works for me,” Ron replied.

“Are you two at it again?” Clarence asked entering the Living Room. “I swear that you
two have a contest going just to see who can out do the other.”

“I guess our secret is out Gar-Bear,” Ron laughed. “Of course good old Clarence never
takes part in any of the tom foolery.”

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“Well, I didn’t say that Ron,” Clarence grinned. “I have my moments.”

“When are we going to get the horses?” Clarence continued.

“What horses?” Gary asked.

“Ron told me that you write horses into most of your survival stories, Gary,” Clarence
explained. “What’s this story about some horse named Salina?”

“Clarence that happened in 1976, for crying out loud,” Gary shook his head. “If you
know that much, Ron must have told you the whole story.”

“He did, but I just wanted to hear your version of it,” Clarence acknowledged.

“Clarence, you’ve heard most of the things that happened to me when I was young,”
Gary said. “For example, you know about the sidewinder we caught in the john and the
gopher snake story and the Mojave Green rattlesnake story. I do believe I mentioned
getting almost electrocuted on San Nicholas Island, and the story about the time I got
drunk on payday and knocked down a concrete wall. And about the time I got drunk and
went hunting the bimbo with a .30-30 rifle. We probably all have a bunch of stories
about the strange things that happened to us back in our drinking days.”

“Have you been having trouble with bimbos for that long Gar-Bear?” Ron interrupted.

“Ron, I’ve almost begun to believe that with notable exceptions all the women I meet are
bimbos,” Gary said.

“Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “We’ve had this discussion before. There is nothing wrong with
the women, partner. It’s your picker that’s broke.”

“What about the horses?” Clarence asked.

“Forget it,” Gary and Ron both said.

“I’ll tell you what Clarence,” Gary continued, “If it’s important to you, you can get Chris to
paint the name Salina on my golf cart.”

“Not to change the subject,” Clarence lied, “But when did Johnny say those gang bang-
ers might show up?”

“End of March, first of April if they come here,” Ron repeated “And end of May or the
first of June if they go to Victorville first. But Victorville and the Apple Valley are pretty
small Clarence. About the only thing there is the Roy Rogers museum. I’d think sooner
rather than later.” [In 2003, the Museum was moved from Victorville to Branson. At-

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tendance fell off and it was later closed. The final auction of the Museum contents oc-
curred the weekend of April 9, 2001 in Texas.]

“Really?” Clarence asked. “Crap.”

As more for their own protection than that of the residents, The Three Amigos decided
that they ought to man the front gate they’d put in for the housing tract. Their plan, if you
could call it a plan, was for one of them to stand by the gate in his golf cart in 4-hour
shifts. This wasn’t to replace the observer in the OP, but to allow them to keep the gate
locked with their golf cart. The gate would be attached to the front of the golf cart with a
short piece of rope and when someone they knew came, they’d simply back the cart up
opening the gate. But, therein lay another problem. They didn’t know everyone in the
housing tract. So, it was necessary to get a Polaroid camera and take pictures of all of
the cars. Patti and Darlene agreed to help them out with their scheme because Patti
and Darlene knew everybody and everybody’s car (and probably their underwear size).
It took a full two weeks before they had all of the pictures. It also irritated the hell out of
the other residents who were members of ‘the other side’. But the story about Gary and
Dan had made the rounds a few times and rather than have Gary or Ron or Clarence
pull down on them, the residents grudgingly went along.

A couple of times during those two weeks, people who genuinely didn’t belong were
turned away, but not before a snapshot of the car was taken. A few other times, visitors
of the other residents were held at the gate until the guy on the gate got someone with a
radio to go get the resident and vouch for the visitor. It’s hard to say what happened, but
eventually someone must have realized that the guys weren’t doing the guard routine
for their own amusement and eventually the residents started to warn the guys when
they had expected visitors.

Probably the single event that began to change peoples’ minds was when the soon to
be ex-husband of a woman who had moved in with her sister got an unexpected visit
from the husband. The husband was a violent type and was under a restraining order to
stay at least 100’ feet from the wife except when they were both in the courtroom. He
showed up one afternoon with a snootful and had tracked the wife down to Moon Shad-
ows. Clarence had the duty that afternoon and Clarence routinely loaded a canister
grenade in his M16A3 and used the M16A3 when he was on guard duty.

Clarence with his 20+ years of sobriety had been out on any number of 12-step calls
and knew how to deal with a drunk. He also could spot a drunk from 20 feet away just
by the person’s behavior. The guy pulled up and blasted on his horn. Clarence took one
look at the guy and realized that he didn’t belong and that he was drunk. Ron was up in
the OP and when he heard the horn blast he grabbed his binoculars and started to pay
close attention. Clarence had his radio set to vox and he simply said, “I’ve got a drunk
here who doesn’t belong.” Ron picked up his radio and told Gar-Bear to call the Sheriff.
Then, Ron went down and got in his golf cart and headed to the gate as fast as the
pokey golf cart would go. Meanwhile, Clarence slipped the selector to auto on his
M16A3 and got up to challenge the man.

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“You got business here?” Clarence asked.

“What the business is that of yours?” the drunk asked.

“Sir I’m the security guard for this housing tract,” Clarence responded, “and I can’t let
you in unless you have business here.”

Ron was about ½ way to the gate by this time and old Gar-Bear had called 911 and was
on the way to join his pals, but hadn’t rounded the corner from Moonraker to Stardust.

“I got business here,” the drunk said, “Get the hell out of my way or I’ll just run over you
and that golf cart of yours.”

“Who do you wish to see?” Clarence asked.

“My wife,” the drunk said, “I’m telling you for the last time to get the hell out of my way.”

Ron had arrived and his M203 wasn’t loaded, but it didn’t take him long to put a M433
into the launcher, switch his M16A3 to auto and crank one into the action. And Ron
wasn’t being quite as nice as Clarence; he pointed that M16A3 right at the drunk. His
golf cart was also against the gate making if twice as hard for the drunk to carry out his
threat of pushing the golf cart(s) out of the way. Gary was bringing up the rear and
about ½ way to the gate by this time and Ron and Clarence could hear a sirens ap-
proaching in the distance.

Ron was perfectly willing to shoot the butthole if it came to that, but only as a last resort.
The guy gunned his motor slightly and began to push against the gate. Ron pointed his
rifle at the car’s grill and let go with a burst. That didn’t stop the guy, who must have
been pretty darned drunk. Even though he now had water leaking from his radiator, the
guy pushed against the gate again and both Ron and Clarence now fired a burst into
the grill of the car. By this time Gary had arrived and he had his shotgun in hand. It was
loaded with 00 buck and slugs alternatively and the round in the barrel was 00 buck.

Gary slammed his cart into the gate and without even getting out of the cart, let loose
with that load of 00 buck into the grill of the car. By this time the car was leaking like a
sieve and you could hear 3 or 4 sirens approaching rapidly. But drunks sometimes tend
to have a single-minded focus and the guy just pushed harder on the gate. Gary jacked
the slug into the chamber and pulled down on the guy prepared to shoot, his adrenalin
running by the gallons and he was visibly shaking. Just at that moment a patrol car
skidded to a stop almost striking the drunk’s car. The Three Amigos immediately ported
arms to avoid a hassle from the Deputy. The Deputy sized the situation up in a second
or two and pulled his service pistol while shouting to The Three Amigos to put down
their guns. The three men didn’t require any further prompting and when the Deputy ap-
proached the car, he could smell the booze. Noting that the three old guys had complied
immediately the Deputy told the drunk to get out of the car.

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Just then, a second car slid to a stop followed moments later by a third car driven by
Johnny. Since Johnny 1) knew The Three Amigos and could see that they had put down
their weapons; 2) could smell the booze; and 3) recognized the drunk and knew of the
restraining order, he ordered the other two deputies to get the drunk out of the car and
cuff him.

“What’s going on here fellas?” Johnny asked.

“We got a deuce and he tried to force his way into the tract,” Ron said.

Clarence nodded in agreement as did Gary.

“Would you happen to have a gal named Janice Worth living here with her sister?”
Johnny asked.

“We ain’t too good on names Johnny,” Clarence replied, but there’s a new redhead
moved in the other day with her family.

“Redhead, about 45 with two kids and a figure that’s hard to forget?” Johnny asked.

“Well, that sounds like her,” Clarence asked. “I was on the gate and I asked him if he
had business here. He did say he was here to see his wife.”

“I see you managed to shoot the crap out of his car,” Johnny grinned.

“Not until he tried to use his car to push the golf carts out of the way,” Ron said. “Then I
put a burst into his grill.”

“What happened next?” Johnny asked.

“He tried to push both Ron and my carts out of the way and we both put a burst into his
grill,” Clarence replied.

“And then?” Johnny continued.

“I arrived and put my cart against the gate and put a shotgun blast into the grill, Johnny,
15-pellet 00 buck,” Gary explained.

“Go on,” Johnny continued.

“I pumped in a slug and was about to put one in him when he kept pushing on the gate,”
Gary continued, “But the Deputy over there showed up and asked us to put down our
guns so we complied.”

“Any more to the story?” Johnny asked.

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“The Deputy told the drunk to get out of the car and the two of you pulled in,” Gary con-
cluded. “End of story.”

“Did any of you see a gun?” Johnny asked.

The Three Amigos all shook their heads in the negative.

“Hold on a minute,” Johnny said.

Johnny walked over to the Deputies, had a brief conversation with the first officer on the
scene. When they’d frisked they drunk, he had a Browning Hi-Power stuck in his back
waistband that was now in the second Deputies front waistband. The Deputies put the
drunk in the rear of one of the patrol cars and the Deputy with the drunk, left. The other
Deputy got on his radio to order a tow truck.

“Well, it looks like you 3 are in the clear,” Johnny said. “We could bust you for discharg-
ing a firearm within the city limits, but under the circumstances, you may just have
saved Janice Worth’s life. So, I think we can let it pass. An investigator will be out later
to take each of your statements. Do me a favor, guys. I want you to all tell the investiga-
tor that you were using shotguns, ok?”

“Shotguns?” Ron replied, “Shotguns it is.”

“Look, you 3 did the right thing, but it isn’t such a good idea to advertise the automatic
weapons,” Johnny said. “Sometimes the Sheriff will appoint civilian guards as Deputy
Sheriff’s but only for the period that they are on duty. I’ll run that up the chain of com-
mand. But, you three will have to get armed guard cards, is that a problem?”

All three men shook their heads indicating that it was not a problem.

“All right. I’m not telling you not to carry your rather extensive arsenal on those golf
carts, but until I can get that authority for you and all of the other guards, you fellas
should stick to shooting the legal weapons,” Johnny continued, “It’s funny, I was on my
way here when the call went out. Let me in, I have something in my trunk I think you
three might like to have.”

The Three Amigos moved the golf carts and opened the gate. Clarence put his M16A3
in the rack, took out the shotgun and resumed his duties. Johnny followed Ron and
Gary back to 4560. He opened his trunk and told Ron and Gary to put the LAWS Rock-
ets in the garage. They were to give 2 each to each of the 4 households and keep the
remainder. Johnny admonished them that the Rockets were only for the most serious
emergency, like if the gangs attacked. The husband, he told them before leaving, faced
charges of driving while intoxicated, attempting to violate the restraining order, carrying
a concealed weapon, criminal trespass and ADW which was what he did when he at-

104
tempted to push their cars out of the way and run over them. He then left to track down
Janice Worth and talk to her.

[Shortly after we moved to California, Sharon had her purse snatched. When the Detec-
tives later showed up, they had no idea what to charge the woman who had the purse,
now in her car and had dragged Sharon. They should watch more TV, the charge was
ADW and I explained it to them, the car was a deadly weapon. The DA confirmed it and
the broad was charged. But Sharon couldn’t ID her in the lineup and she went free. I
learned that in 3 places: law school, Dragnet and Adam-12. Old episodes of Adam-12
are used for training purposes.]

By the next morning, the story of the events that had occurred that afternoon had made
the rounds more than once. The residents were positively friendly. It hadn’t hurt that The
Three Amigos had taken every effort to see that the interference with the traffic flow
hadn’t been any more intrusive than necessary to protect the tract. It especially hadn’t
hurt that due largely to their efforts one of the members of ‘the other side’ had perhaps
had her life saved. In fact, several residents who had not yet resumed work approached
Randy and asked to be allowed to return to the guard duty chores. Not everyone was
willing to participate but according to the rumor mill (Darlene) the folks had reloaded the
magazines for their AK’s. Maybe there was hope for this group of residents after all.

105
 The Three Amigos – Chapter 11 – Country Boys

The preacher man says it’s the end of time

And the Mississippi River, she’s a-goin’ dry...

The interest is up and the stock market’s down

And you only get mugged if you go downtown...

I live back in the woods, you see,

My woman and the kids and the dogs and me...

I got a shotgun, a rifle, and a four-wheel drive

And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive...

Back in ‘86-’87 when phase VI of Moon Shadows was being constructed, Avenue R was
a 2-lane blacktop and the housing tract was at least ½ mile from the nearest anything.
The areas where Ron and Clarence’s homes now sat were large empty patches of de-
sert. The morning that the developer actually opened up Phase VI for sale, Gary and
Sharon had arrived early hoping to be first in line. The couple in front of them bought
4560 and they were forced to settle for 4548 (Chris and Patti’s). Gary wisely put an op-
tion on 4560 in case the couple, who were before them in line of, financing fell through.
Didn’t happen that way. The couple listed their existing home and it sold immediately.
The new buyer wanted in quick and that couple was forced to buy a different home in a
tract that was further along. Gary was allowed to exercise his option and they ended up
with the house they wanted, 4560. Gary and Sharon didn’t like 4548 because it had a
huge front lawn, a lot to mow, and a postage stamp sized backyard.

In ‘87 when they moved in, 07Nov87 to be exact, Moon Shadows was out in the coun-
try. It was strictly a blue-collar neighborhood at the time, a product of the so-called
‘white flight’ from LA. As the tract aged, the demographics slowly shifted. That single
black family turned into 2 (Kevin, the cop) and by 2004, the tract was about ⅓ original
‘white’ residents, ⅓ new black residents and ⅓ Hispanic residents. Some homes in the
tract turned over more often than a restless sleeper. The house between Gary and
Chris was a good example. By 2004, it had had 7 or 8 owners. The house between
Chris and Dick and turned over 4-5 times and was sitting empty, again, on 12Nov05
when TSHTF.

Moon Shadows wasn’t so isolated anymore in some ways. Avenue R was finally a 4-
lane concrete road, and the 2 old houses across Avenue R had been razed. To the
west, a few developments had gone in. A large one on the other side of the road begin-
ning at 40th Street and ending at 45th Street, and of course on the other side of 45th
Street was Grecian Isles. To the west of that, a small condo tract had gone in plus a
large low-income housing area. And, they had even put up a stop light at 47th and R a
few years back, finally. But the actual intersection of 47th and R was nothing but empty
land on all 4 corners.

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It was a zoning thing, wouldn’t you know. The City of Palmdale had reserved a strip of
land along Palmdale Boulevard for commercial buildings. The boulevard turned into
47th street East at the big curve to the northeast ⅓ of a mile away, but the commercial
zoning extend all of the way south on R to R-4, 4 blocks south of Avenue R. Every time
someone tried to build on the commercially zoned property on 47th Street the liberals
came out of the woodwork and blocked the project with the City Council.

At the corner of 45th East and R, there was a small lot, maybe an acre or so that still sat
empty. Thus on the north and the east Moon Shadows was surrounded by empty land
and on the west, almost the complete wall was up against that empty lot. On the south
side, some developer had put in homes in a tract that extended from 45th to the com-
mercially zoned strip of land on 47th east. In many ways, in 2006, Moon Shadows was
still an island of homes surrounded by desert. The upshot of all this was, given the cur-
rent disaster, the residents had free fields of fire to the east and north and almost a free
field of fire to the west. And to the south, they had a layer of housing to protect their
backside.

To be perfectly honest, Gary didn’t care one way or another about some of ‘the other
side’ returning to the fold. They revolted once and pulled out of the smoothly run securi-
ty operation and he half expected that when the chips were down they might do the
same thing again. Common sense was one of those things that had come late in life for
old Gar-Bear, and it still wasn’t his strongest suit. Ronald was the great people analyst
at 4560 and Clarence wasn’t far behind. Down the street, Patti was every bit the match
for Ron when it came to sizing people up. Darlene was pretty nosey but she was a tad
shy on figuring out people. However, since she knew everything about everybody, it sort
of made up for her shortcoming. Of the people who lived in Moon Shadows, the original
residents were probably the most reliable and could be counted on in a crunch. They
had been the last to leave and first to return to the fold. And without exception, they
were very quick to volunteer for guard duty, including some who were back at work but
thought they owed it to themselves and the tract to participate.

That made 14 families that Ron said they count really count on, the original residents
plus Randy and Pam. Randy was well off, a self-made plumbing contractor with bucks
to burn. Pam was a high school teacher, born and raised in the Midwest who had ended
up in what was then called Newhall where she’d met and married Randy. Newhall was
now part of Santa Clarita, physically the 24th largest city in California and 4th largest city
in Los Angeles County. Population wise, it didn’t come close to a few dozen large cities,
but it was a fast growing suburb of LA up until 12Nov05. The population had jumped ra-
ther drastically with the FEMA camps in the community, but it still was a city filled with
wide-open spaces.

Sunday, 05Feb06…

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With a reorganized guard force in place, Moon Shadows felt a little safer, but only mar-
ginally so. Patti and Ron had gotten together and they made up the A list, B list and C
list which indicated the most trustworthy, A, to the least trustworthy, C, residents. The A
list people were given leadership roles in the home guard and the C list people had to
be accompanied by an A list or B list person when they pulled duty. The C list people
were probably only in the group because of some perceived peer pressure thing. The B
list people had their hearts in the right place but they were the people that Patti and Ron
couldn’t decide to put on the A or C lists. In fact, they were probably a little bit of both.
There was no more talk about ‘the other side’ but it undoubtedly still existed.

Gary had a military field manual on his computer pertaining to the use of the M72 LAWS
Rockets and he printed out a few copies for them to study. Those rifle grenades had a
greater effective range than the LAW’s, but the LAW’s was a 66mm projectile. These
particular 30 Rockets were the M72A3 models with extra 0.4-pounds of explosive. De-
veloped for use during the Vietnam War but had later been replaced by the 84mm M136
AT-4.

Both weapons were single-use disposable Rockets. They studied the minimum and
maximum ranges of the weapons, how to extend the tube to prepare the weapons for
firing and so forth. They found that some of the folks were a little short when it came to
their ability to judge distances. Another trip to the Golf course solved that problem. In
the sport shop, they found some Bushnell Yardage Pro Sport Laser Rangefinders that
were good out to 800 yards. They also borrowed 3 more golf carts and left another
Manny, Moe and Jack note right beside the first note.

Palmdale was your typical city with a Radio Shack every couple of miles and they man-
aged to come up with a pretty good assortment of the FRS/GMRS radios to outfit the
guard force. On top of that, Ron had been into CB radios heavily at one time and he had
a large box of the 40-channel radios over at his house. If wasn’t too hard to adapt the
13.8 volt radios to run off the golf cart batteries. The 6 golf carts were equipped with the
CB’s and Ron’s Uniden President base station went into the OP. It had been a simple
matter to pull the ring and turn the electric meter at 4542, the Klein house, to provide
electricity. In fact, Lorrie and David and their kids had moved into 4542 to alleviate the
overcrowding at 4560. Thus the OP duties fell to that group of folks.

Johnny came by from time to time to visit his kids, but he had no more presents for
them. He did, however, have more news. Those gangsters were burning through the
Inland Empire faster than expected and the military wasn’t having much luck containing
them. It wasn’t totally true that Johnny came totally empty handed; sometimes he had a
case or part case of 5.56 ammo, and other times some tear gas, CS or flash-bang gre-
nades. It was riot control stuff, but it might come in handy in a pinch. The Three Amigos
weren’t about to turn down any freebies. The more things they accumulated, the more
confusing it became, too. Finally they mounted a tray/open box on the golf carts and
used Sharon’s label maker to label what each device did.

There hadn’t been any more incidents like the one with the drunken husband and those

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C list people soon lost interest and they were permanently scratched from the roster of
people who would participate in protecting the tract. And, any indecisiveness that Ron
and Patti had about those folks on the B list was likewise resolved. Some of them were
permanently dropped and some made the A list. The well to do plumber, Randy, went to
the folks who had been dropped and bought back the AK’s so they could be put to bet-
ter use. In many cases the buyback price was low because these people hadn’t had the
full price in the first place and Randy had helped them out. With the buyback, the weap-
ons were redistributed to the A list households and time was spent to familiarize the
folks with the weapons. They even found a place to shoot less than a mile from the
housing tract and the A list folks became reasonably proficient in the use of the weap-
ons.

The situation on this 5th day of February was pretty straightforward. Half of the resi-
dents were deeply involved in protecting the housing tract and the other half expected to
be protected. It is hard to say how that stacked up with anyone’s expectations.

“I got to tell you, having those extra golf carts has been a real Godsend,” Clarence
opined.

“They aren’t going to reopen that golf course anytime in the near future,” Ron said,
“Maybe we should go pick up another half dozen carts.”

“We’d better look around for some batteries, too Ron,” Gary suggested. “If we came up
with some battery chargers and inverters, we could fix up the A list families with some
backup electricity in case the power goes down again.”

“Now you’re thinking,” Ron said. “I’ll maybe scrounge around for a couple of generators
too, so they can recharge those batteries. Maybe one generator for every 3 or 4 house-
holds.”

“Well, if you find generators, you’d better get plenty of fuel for them,” Clarence advised.

“Why don’t you take care of that Clarence?” Ron suggested. “Find some used 55-gallon
drums and fill them up. I’ll kick in some money for gas.”

“I can do a little gas money, too,” Gary agreed. “You’re the shortest on funds, so maybe
you can just contribute your labor, Clarence. I’ll go talk to Randy and Pam to see if they
want to get in on this.”

Randy and Pam had not been idle. In the period since they had returned to the tract,
Randy had withdrawn a substantial sum from his business checking account and they
had made several improvements to their home. Randy could easily afford the 10,000-
gallon water tank, the 30kw generator and the 5,500-gallon propane tank that he bought
outright. A contractor friend had dug up their back yard and put in a shelter that filled the
entire backyard, double the size of Gary’s shelter. The hardest part had been finding
food to stock the shelter, but Randy knew a lot of people and a few well-placed dollars

109
had taken care of that through a grocery wholesaler friend of his. Randy had made his
own trip to see Sandy, too and he had loaded up on M1A’s, AR15’s, M1911’s and am-
mo. His shelter was far better stocked than Gary’s. But, though his shelter was only
twice the size of Gary’s, it had cost him nearly 6 times as much. That was the price one
paid for being a Johnny-come-lately. Randy peeled off a handful of $100’s and told Gary
to get all the gasoline they could find and afford.

So that Sunday afternoon, Ron went golfing and Clarence took Dave’s pickup and trail-
er, Dave had never returned home, and went in search of 55-gallon drums. Ron and
Chris took the car trailer and they returned with the last 8 golf carts, bringing the total to
20, and a lot of batteries. It appeared that the golf course had been in the process of re-
placing most of the 6 batteries in the carts and they had a lot of new batteries still in the
boxes. What was it that Travis Dane had said in Under Siege 2?

Clarence came up with 14 drums, all that Dave’s pickup and trailer would hold. The 770
gallons of gas had been a little hard to come by, harder than the drums, and it had cost
$3,000, but their preparations were getting better.

06Feb06…

They were out early this morning. They had acquired 120 deep cycle batteries at the
golf course, but that didn’t give them but 6 batteries per household. Then again, Gary
and Randy didn’t need batteries, so that left an extra 12 batteries to divide among the
remaining 18 A list homes. They were going to need 5 generators, 5 battery chargers,
and either 18 heavy-duty inverters or a passel of lighter duty inverters. Chris had a hand
crank oil pump for a 55-gallon drum so that solved the problem of getting the gasoline
out of the drums. They set out this Monday morning armed with a pocketful of cash,
thanks to Randy, and a short shopping list. Clarence had seen 6 more drums so he took
Dave’s pickup and went after them and more gasoline. The full drums had been un-
loaded from the pickup using Chris’s shop crane. 55-gallons of gas went about 450
pounds, you know.

They spent the entire day shopping. The drums and gas were easy, because all that
took was money. The generators proved to be more elusive, but their persistence paid
off and they came up with 5 6kw gasoline fueled generators. The deep cycle batteries
were equally elusive, but in the end, they had a grand total, including the 120 batteries
from the golf course, of 360 batteries. A RV business had been the source of the invert-
ers; that part had been easy. Pep Boys had plenty of battery chargers and they got units
big enough to take full advantage of the 6kw the generators would provide. Some of the
businesses had been open and they paid for those purchases. Others were closed and
they saw fit to leave a Manny, Moe and Jack note. It seemed especially fitting that they
had done so at the Pep Boys store that was locked up tighter than a drum. They had
1,100 gallons of gasoline, everyone’s propane tanks were full as were everyone’s pro-
pane bottles; or at least among the 20 A list families.

It was ironic, in more way than one. The people who were back to work were the long-

110
term residents. They were already putting in long hours on their jobs between the work
time and the commute time. But these people found the time to pull guard duty and par-
ticipate in the things important to the needs of the tract. The other 19 families, none of
whom was working, had plenty of time and could have participated. But they just sat on
their hind ends waiting for their next dole of food from the government. The more things
change, the more they stay the same. And these same good for nothing people weren’t
shy about asking to ‘borrow’ a cup of sugar or flour or gallon of milk when they ran out.
The 20 A list folks just smiled and said things like, “Sorry, fresh out,” or a similar reply.
These same folks were saving back a small portion of the food they were getting from
the government too and could have easily supplied the deadbeats with what they need-
ed.

A person doesn’t get to choose his neighbors, but that didn’t mean that they had to as-
sociate with them either. There were clearly two camps in Moon Shadows, the haves
and the have-nots. The haves were the industrious folks on the A list, in case you’re un-
certain.

12Feb06…

Over the course of the past 6 days, the 18 homes were all outfitted with 20 batteries
each and an inverter. Realizing that they had screwed up, Ron and Chris had gone
back to Pep Boys and picked up 18 trickle chargers to keep the battery banks topped of
while power was available. They wired an extension cord into the furnaces and had run
heavy-duty extension cords to the kitchens. When needed, the extension cords could be
plugged into the inverters and provide power to the furnace and some power to the
kitchen. They had loaded up on candles and Coleman unleaded gas lanterns to provide
light, too. It was a just in case thing. Johnny was by again to see the kids. He didn’t
spend long with them however; he wanted to visit with the reestablished Council of 4.

“What’s the Situation in Berdoo?” Chris asked.

“Not good Chris,” Johnny said. “Those gangsters have formed up and are attacking the
troops on the north side of town. It looks like they’re trying to make a breakout on I-215.
It’s really hard to say how long the military can hold out.”

“Why the hell isn’t the President supplying more federal troops?” Gary asked.

“Doesn’t have them to supply would be my guess,” Johnny answered. “I suppose that
explains the semi-blackout of news.”

“That’s a fine bit of news,” Clarence observed, “Do you have any more good news for
us?”

“The President has been busy issuing Executive Orders,” Johnny remarked, “But the
distribution is very limited. Our Department only gets copies of those orders that directly
affect us.”

111
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re holding back on us?” Gary asked.

“You are familiar with USA Patriot Act II, right?” Johnny asked.

“Yeah sure Johnny,” Gary laughed, “I wrote about it in one of my stories.”

“I’m not talking about your fiction here Gary,” Johnny said, “I’m talking about the real
USA Patriot Act II. You can download it off the Internet you know. It’s a fairly quick
download.”

“Never heard of it,” Gary said.

“Well, after the election in 2004, Congress dusted it off and they passed it,” Johnny ex-
plained. “It was Dubya’s bill but he was waiting until after the election to put pressure on
Congress to adopt it. He must have been afraid of a backlash. Anyway, despite Kerry’s
objections, the bill passed both houses of Congress with such an overwhelming majority
that Kerry had no choice except to sign it into law. Read the law boys; it will scare you to
death.”

“I can’t take any more good news,” Ron groaned, “Do you have any bad news?”

“Now that you mention it Ron,” Johnny said, “I do.”

“Me and my big mouth,” Ron lamented. “Well…”

“You remember the former Bill of Rights don’t you?” Johnny asked.

“Former?” Gary snapped, “What the…?”

“Temporarily suspended by Executive Order,” Johnny shook his head.

“He can’t do that,” Gary insisted.

“You mean he can’t get away with it Gary,” Johnny said, “And you’d be right. But until
the Supreme Court rules on it and knocks it down, we’re going to have to live with it.”

“But some federal court will issue a stay order and the Executive Order will be blocked,”
Gary insisted.

“You would think so, but it is not going to happen, Gary,” Johnny insisted. “You’d have
to read the exact wording of the Executive Order to understand why. Kerry didn’t make
a frontal attack on the Bill of Rights, he used PA I and PA II and some pretty free inter-
pretations of those laws to do the deed. Individually, each provision is well within his
rights as President. Taken as a whole, they essentially suspend the Bill of Rights.”

112
“Well I’ll be a SOB,” Gary said shaking his head.

“The ATF and FEMA are getting more aggressive too,” Johnny pointed out, “That’s how
I got those M203’s and grenades from Sandy. I warned her off an ATF sting.”

“What say fellas,” Gary remarked, “Let’s go off the wagon and tie a real one on.”

“I’d do that Gar-Bear,” Ron laughed, “But there ain’t enough booze in Palmdale to finish
off that drunk so I’ll pass. You will too, partner.”

“Amen,” Clarence said.

This was not exactly what one would call a good news day. Gary went out and checked
the net and found all kinds of references to PA II. He had dreamed up a PA II for one of
his stories, but had never known that the truth was worse than the fiction. And the more
he got into the legislation, the more he realized that the nightmare scenario he’d
dreamed up paled in comparison to the real thing. It was easy to see where the Presi-
dent could take a snip here and a snip there and actually suspend the Bill of Rights. It
wouldn’t last, but was even a moment without a basic freedom a short time? He thought
not. Maybe they needed to be more worried about the White House, er Mt. Weather,
than the gang bangers.

Not so, it was a question of priorities. All of the freedom in the world wouldn’t do you a
bit of good if you were dead. It was a shame about the 19 families who didn’t want to
participate in protecting the tract, but they were better off without them. At least the 20
families who made up the A list were dedicated and they wouldn’t shrink from giving de-
fense of the tract their all. The Three Amigos had gotten to know all of these people, it
was their way of making sure that the people belonged on the A list, and to a man, they
were convinced that the people would be in there pitching.

One of the themes he’d always made in his fiction was the reference to George S. Pat-
ton and Patton’s assertion that “Fixed fortifications are monuments to man’s stupidity.”
Maybe that was true if you were fighting the German Army, but when all you had were
the concrete block walls around the housing tract, what could you do? They had added
homemade concertina, but had they overlooked anything? The north wall wasn’t par-
ticularly accessible because the developer had put in a ditch for the storm drains to run-
off into and a 6’ high wrought iron fence surrounded the deep ditch. That side was rea-
sonably defensible. The south side of the tract was up against the other housing tract
and it, too, wasn’t much of a concern. The west wall was 6’ high but in the open and that
east wall was barely 5’ high. Maybe what they needed was a front-end loader to pile
some dirt up against those walls. And, in the process, maybe the operator could create
a ditch of some kind that would have the effect of making the walls more inaccessible.

Randy was the plumbing contractor with all of the connections and the big bucks, so
The Three Amigos, after discussing Gary’s concerns about the east and west walls,
went to talk to Randy.

113
“What can I do for The Three Amigos today?” Randy asked. “Need more money for an-
other project?”

“Maybe money, Randy,” Ron said, “But more than that, we need advice. Gary pointed
out that the north wall is pretty well protected by that ditch but the east and west walls
are in the open. He had some idea about pushing dirt up against the walls and creating
a ditch in front of them to make the walls effectively higher.”

“Cat got your tongue Gary?” Randy asked.

“No Randy, but Ron expressed my belief pretty well, what do you think?” Gary replied.

“I’ve had a few nightmares about the wall behind my place,” Randy said, “But you may-
be have hit upon a solution. The ditch isn’t a bad idea, but I’d rather have the dirt inside
to absorb anything that hit the wall. But that really isn’t practical because of the 19 gold-
bricks. Maybe I could talk to a contractor friend and get some ideas from him.”

“Whatever you can do would be better than what we have.” Gary agreed.

Randy talked to a couple of contractors in Palmdale and the best solution offered was to
put in a wood wall in front of the block wall. Then they could use an excavator and fill
the space between the two walls with dirt excavated out to form a ditch. The fence, it
was suggested, could be built out of the same prefab panels that some developers used
to put in fences between properties in their developments. All that would take would be
some post holes, some 4x4’s, the panels and a few nails. Randy went back to The
Three Amigos and outlined the idea. They could put in the postholes and set the posts,
which he would provide. They could then put in the fence sections; Chris was pretty
good at that, he reminded them.

The contractor who had suggested the idea owed Randy a lot of favors, he said, and
the guy would do the excavating and fill in the fence area if they could get the fence up
before Wednesday. He had taken the liberty of ordering the posts and fencing, he ex-
plained, but they were going to have to work fast to have that fence up before Wednes-
day. Obviously, Randy hadn’t seen Chris do fences. They started at dawn the next
morning and before the delivery truck arrived with the fencing and posts, had the holes
in. Being he wasn’t worried about good side/bad side, Chris and Matt were able to keep
up with the people setting the posts. It only took 8 nails to hold a fence section in place.
By sundown the same day, the fencing was up on both ends of the housing tract. The
slowest part of the process turned out to be auguring the dirt out of the postholes.

Tuesday was a down day waiting for the excavator to complete the project. It was also
Valentine’s Day. There was no place to get candy, flowers or a card. The ladies obvi-
ously realized this and nothing was said. Gary had had time to think about this situation
with John Kerry and the USA Patriot Act II. The more he thought about the subject the
angrier he became. That jerk from Massachusetts with his cronies Teddy, Hillary and

114
Chuckie, had probably gotten together with John McCain and a few others and were
planning the overthrow of the government. They’d want to turn it over to the UN or
something.

Whoa there Gar-Bear, don’t lose sight of the priorities. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience
to God. John Bradshaw (1602–1659), British lawyer, regicide. Motto. Inscription at
Bradshaw’s final burial place near Martha Bay, Jamaica. Bradshaw, the President of the
Parliamentary Commission which tried and sentenced King Charles I, was originally
buried in Westminster Abbey, but his remains, along with those of Cromwell and Ireton,
were dug up in 1660, and hanged at Tyburn, London, where rebels and common crimi-
nals were executed. Both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were attributed with
sayings similar to Bradshaw’s epitaph, and the words appeared on Jefferson’s seal.

The excavating contractor showed up at first light on Wednesday and with the equip-
ment he had, they had a ditch and the fence filled by lunchtime. By 4pm the west end,
being a little shorter, was also done. Another layer of security had been added to Moon
Shadows Phase VI. In a way, however, Patton was right. There is a limit to what you
can do to get a housing tract ready to repel attackers. And, another point should be
made. They really had no idea what to expect from these attackers, assuming they
came. If they had ransacked armories in Los Angeles, they could be armed with about
any weapon in the CNG arsenal. And if the US Army was having trouble with these
gangsters, what hope was there for a housing tract with only 20 families participating in
the defense? About all they had going in their favor was home field advantage. Unlike
Gary’s fiction they didn’t have M14, M16 or M18 mines. Hmm, home field advantage.

Maybe the answer lay elsewhere. Maybe they needed to take the battle to the enemy.
The enemy, in this case the gang bangers, wouldn’t be on their home turf. They would
be in unfamiliar territory. With the 3 sniper rifles, the suppressed Super Match M1A’s,
maybe they could pick off some of the gangsters before they ever got to Palmdale.

“Ronald, who are our best shots?” Gary asked.

“Got me partner, not the 3 of us, that’s for sure,” Ron replied, ‘Why?”

“Well, if those gangsters come up 138, there are dozens of good ambush spots. With
those Super Match rifles and the suppressors, a good marksman could take out several
of the bad guys and slow them down,” Gary thought out loud. “We need to find out im-
mediately who can handle those 3 rifles the best. We also have the suppressed 16A4’s
so we could arm the spotter with a suppressed weapon too. I believe that if we have
them spooked by the time they get to Palmdale, we’ll be a whole lot better off.”

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 The Three Amigos – Chapter 12 – Tom, Dick or Harry

“I don’t want any Harry using my guns.” Clarence said, when he heard about Gary’s
idea.

“I believe that the expression is Tom, Dick or Harry, Clarence,” Ron said.

“Yeah, but Gary is TOM and Dick is on our side, so I only object to Harry,” Clarence ex-
plained.

“Well relax Clarence, the only guy named Harry around here is on ‘the other side’,” Gary
noted.

“That’s what I said,” Clarence insisted, “He can’t use either one of my guns.”

This was another of those “Who’s on First’ routines and Gary and Ron just stopped talk-
ing before Clarence really had them confused. The Council agreed with phase I of
Gary’s idea, finding out who the best shooters were. They would only agree to imple-
ment the plan if 3 accomplished snipers and 3 good observers/marksmen were availa-
ble. They agreed that the area from Cajon Junction to the Phelan turnoff was suitable
for a running sniping attack but from that point on into Palmdale the country was too
open. In those few miles, however where 138 snaked through the mountains, there
were areas that Gary said were better than Thermopylae for holding back invaders.
That was an understatement, especially if the observer used the M203 and took out the
car. Highway 138 was extremely narrow in spots as it wound through the mountains.

The shots along the mountain road would run from a minimum 400 yards to as far as
700 yards. A couple of the tight spots were accessible from about 400 yards so they
had a good chance of being able to attack a vehicle. The M72 was rated as effective to
200 meters on a stationary target and 165 meters on a moving target. The maximum
range of the rocket was 1,000 meters. The M203 was rated as effective to 350 meters
on an area target and 150 meters on a point target. The maximum range of the grenade
was 400 meters. And remember, they didn’t have any mines. There was an alternative,
assuming they went forward with the plan. The observer/marksman could position him-
self along the road in front of the line of travel and the sniper could cover him.

18Feb06…

They got to the range around 10am and began to sort out who had rifle skills of the kind
needed and who didn’t. Age seemed to have a real bearing on the question and David’s
4 boys came in 1 through 4 with Matt a close 5th. Darlene’s son was on the young side
to participate in the contest. They worked at it for 3 hours and then called it a day. They
practiced only with the M1A’s and the M16A3’s. The next day, Sunday, the boys were
back on the range and three hours later the 2 snipers and the 2 observer/marksmen
were identified. The twins, Justin and Jason would be the snipers and the other two
boys, Josh and Jesse the marksmen. In a heart wrenching decision, The Three Amigos

116
agreed to let Josh and Jesse each fire 1 LAW’s Rocket to get accustomed to using the
weapon. They used a stationary target at 200 meters to simulate an oncoming car. Both
boys hit the target. From that point on, the boys were on the range each day burning up
the match ammo. By the end of February, they were extremely proficient with their as-
signed weapons. Ron and Gary’s rifles were loaned to the boys to use and Clarence
was told they didn’t want his damned weapons anyway because this was going to be a
‘hairy’ mission. (groan)

“Hey Gar-Bear, what was the name of the British Prime Minister who favored wearing
women’s clothing?” Ron asked.

“That’s a dumb question Ron, everyone knows who that was,” Gary replied.

“I don’t,” Clarence said.

Gary made a couple of quick hand signs to Ron who confirmed that Gary knew the an-
swer. They both told Clarence to think about it. The Council was satisfied with the boys’
marksmanship and they reluctantly approved the plan to snipe the gangsters if they
turned up 138. To make any such plan work, they needed very good intel and they con-
tacted Johnny and explained what they had in mind.

“Those boys are awful young for a mission like this,” Johnny suggested.

“Jesse is almost 18 the twins almost 19 and Josh is almost 20,” David said.

“So, they’re 17, 18 and 19,” Johnny summarized. “Well, David, you’re their father, so if
you approve, I’ll just stay out of it. What do you fellas have in mind to do with these
guys?”

“Jesse and Josh are outstanding shots out to 600 meters and can put everything in a
silhouette out to 800 meters,” Gary explained. “Let me show you on this topographical
map. We hit them first just as they come into Mormon Rocks, right here. That will be a
LAW attack and sniping attack combined. We can snipe effectively from here, here and
here,” he said pointing to the map. “Right here, we can do a second LAW/sniping attack
and stop them again. And right here before they get to Phelan, we can use the third and
final LAW Rocket. The boys will take some of Dave’s mountain bikes to move from spot
to spot. Dave must have 2 dozen of those bikes at least.”

“And after that?” Johnny asked.

“The boys will come back here and we’ll wait for the attack,” Gary replied. “We’re going
to need pretty good intel to pull this off, can you help out?”

“I can do better than that,” Johnny said, “The Army hasn’t been able to use their Apach-
es very effectively in Berdoo. But with them strung out on 138, assuming they go that
way, the Army would have a turkey shoot. Don’t stop them at Mormon Rocks, fellas. Let

117
them get to that second spot and stop them there. The Army can come in from the rear
and just walk their way to the front.”

“What about if they go up the pass?” Ron asked.

“I’ll fill them in on what you’re going to do and see if they can get some people to do the
same thing in the pass,” Johnny replied.

“We’ll start writing up the Purple Heart recommendations right now,” Ron said.

“They haven’t been wounded Ron,” Johnny said, “Aren’t you a little premature? And be-
sides, I don’t believe there is an equivalent Medal to the Purple Heart for civilians”

“Premature? Nah, they’ll get a scratch or something like Kerry did,” Ron replied, “But if
there is no equivalent, I’ll just forget it. Say, what did Kerry get his Bronze Star for, may-
be they can do that?”

“Pulled some guy out of a river, Ron,” Johnny said, “There aren’t any rivers up there in
the mountains.”

“Yeah and besides, they’re civilians, right?” Ron responded.

“Right,” Gary said.

After Johnny left, The Three Amigos continued to visit.

“Well, if Johnny can get the Army to attack those gangsters with Apache helicopters,”
Clarence said, “I don’t see the point in sending David’s boys out to risk their butts.”

“Quit bitching Clarence,” Ron said, “They aren’t taking your rifles.”

“That’s not my point Ron,” Clarence protested, “If the Army can block the Cajon Pass,
why can’t they block 138?”

“That’s so obvious a question Clarence that it never occurred to me, but you’re right,”
Gary agreed, “If the Army can block Cajon pass, they ought to handle 138 and the boys
could stay home.”

Gary picked up the phone and dialed the Sheriff’s Department.

“Sheriff’s Department,” a Deputy answered.

“Is Sergeant Johnny Jones back yet?” Gary asked.

“Just a moment and I’ll connect you,” the Deputy said.

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“Sergeant Jones,” Johnny answered.

“Gary Olsen, Johnny,” Gary said, “We just came up with a question. If the Army can
block Cajon Pass, why can’t they block 138?”

“No reason,” Johnny said, “I just figured it was something you fellas wanted to do.”

“The plan yes,” Gary said, “But we were only going to do it because we figured the Army
couldn’t or wouldn’t. But since you can get them to block the Cajon Pass, we think they
should handle the whole thing.”

“Gary I said I’d see if they could cover the Cajon Pass, not that they would,” Johnny
pointed out. “But you have a point. I’ll ask them to cover both spots. It is a pretty fair
idea.”

“When will you know for sure whether or not they’ll do it?” Gary asked.

“Gary, I’d expect that they’ll say they’ll look into it and either do it or not and never let us
know one way or the other,” Johnny explained.

“You are a big help,” Gary commented.

“I’m just telling you how it is Gary,” Johnny replied, “The Army is the Army and they
don’t like civilians telling them what to do. I was going to backdoor it through a Master
Sergeant I know. There was not going to be anything official in the works at all.”

“What’s the Army so busy doing that they can’t handle this problem?” Gary asked.

“Gary, this is an open line, I have to go,” Johnny said and hung up.

“Huh,” Gary said and hung up the phone.

“We heard half the conversation partner,” Ron remarked, “Care to fill in the blanks?”

“There is not going to be anything official in the works at all,” Gary said, “And when I
asked him that last question, he said it was an open line and hung up.”

“I knew it,” Ron said, “He’s been holding back on us the whole time.”

“I’m sure he has to some extent,” Gary agreed, “But he’s been awful good to us, too.”

“The man’s just been looking out for his family,” Clarence suggested. “If I were in his
place, I do the same thing.”

“I just don’t know what to think anymore fellas,” Gary admitted. “Assume for a minute
that what Johnny told us about Kerry issuing those Executive Orders is true. In that

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case he has turned into a tyrant. But, he’s accomplished that by using the laws and just
pushing them to their limits. I’ve thought about this a little and have concluded that it
won’t be settled until it hits the Supreme Court. I could be wrong, but for the sake of ar-
gument, let’s say I’m not. Back in the election of November 2000, they pushed those
cases over the Florida election results to the Court in record time. But that was during
peacetime and the country wasn’t in the middle of trying to clean up from a terrorist at-
tack and didn’t have open gang warfare going on against the general populous.”

“I don’t know, but I think the court will give this its full attention, regardless of the cir-
cumstances,” Gary continued. “But where is the Supreme Court? Are they in Mt.
Weather with this psychopath? Did they get killed in Washington? I have the questions
but with the limited amount of news Kerry is putting out, I don’t have the answers.”

“I remember you talking about some research you were doing for one of your stories,”
Ron said. “That was one of the stories where you were dealing with the 1st Amendment
and prior restraint. I seem to recall that you said that the only time the 1st Amendment
could be subject to control was a prior restraint permitted by a showing that there was a
clear and present danger or something like that.”

“Tom Clancy wrote that book and they made it into a movie,” Gary said. “The clear and
present danger test isn’t even clear cut. The simplest definition I could find was Learned
Hand’s definition, “In each case courts must ask whether the gravity of the ‘evil’ dis-
counted by its improbability, justifies such invasion of free speech as is necessary to
avoid danger.”

“Man, I hate to hear the complex definition,” Clarence said.

“Actually it’s easier to understand,” Gary laughed. “However, remember 2 simple things
guys. One, the danger must be immediate and harmful; and, two, the original decision
of 200 years ago have been interpreted and reinterpreted to the point that you have to
Shepardize the point before you can litigate it.”

“You lost me on Dead Man’s curve there,” Ron said. “Shepardize?”

“It means to follow every citation of the original case and the subsequent cases on a
point of law right up to the present,” Gary said. “Let me give you an easy example. On
Law and Order the lawyers are in the judge’s chambers arguing a point of law. One at-
torney cites a case and the other attorney cites some other case that contradicts the
first case cited. They found the cases to cite by Shepardizing the point of law and identi-
fying every case where that point of law was brought into question and a judge made a
ruling. Anyway, that’s why it takes an attorney so much time to prepare for a case. And
the more complicated the case, the more legal research. My point is that it will take a lot
of lawyers a lot of hours to prepare to deal with the President’s alleged basis for gag-
ging the press under the clear and present danger test. And until the courts resolve the
issue, USA Patriot Act I and II give the appearance of granting him those powers.”

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“It would be one hell of a lot easier to just shoot the SOB,” Ron said.

“I’d have to agree with you partner, but this in a nation of laws, not men,” Gary said.

“Huh?” Clarence responded.

“Clarence, no one is above the law, not even John Kerry,” Gary explained.

“I seen that movie,” Clarence smiled, “Steven Segal.”

“Then you understand the principle, pal,” Gary smiled. “A bunch of CIA types acted as if
the law didn’t apply to them and Segal took them out as usual.”

“How did we get off on this discussion/lecture series?” Clarence asked.

“Someone is gagging the media big time and they can’t do that,” Gary said, “Even if it’s
nice not to hear Geraldo giving away our troops positions. Which, by the way, is an ex-
ample where prior restraint of the media and freedom of speech might be appropriate.”

“I thought Geraldo was dead,” Clarence said.

“600 yards,” Gary murmured. “No, the SOB is still alive and kicking. Gets his foot in his
mouth every time he opens it, too. That man has 2 fan clubs, the people who like him
and the people who want to kill him.”

“Well we’re so far off the original subject here I don’t even know what the original sub-
ject was,” Ron said.

“Whether or not to send David’s boys to intercept those gang bangers,” Gary reported.
“And unless I get definite information from Johnny that the Army is going to intercept
them I’m going to vote to send the boys.”

04Mar06…

“We haven’t heard a word from Johnny fellas, and the boys have burned through the
match grade 7.62, so I’m going to contact Sandy and see about some more match am-
mo,” Gary said.

“I’ll ride along,” Ron offered.

“Yeah, me too,” Clarence said.

Gary had a 9am appointment with Sandy and he’d explained that he was primarily look-
ing for some 7.62 match ammo, a good used M1911 and some .45ACP ammo. They

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bought the flap holsters from White’s surplus but had never picked up any pistols.

“500 rounds of match enough Gary?” Sandy asked.

“I’ll take 1,000 if you have it,” Gary said. “Did you find me a decent M1911 in your inven-
tory?”

“It’s got some miles on it but we worked it over, replaced the barrel and the barrel bush-
ing and tightened up the slide,” Sandy said. “I can let you have it for $350.”

“Magazines?” Gary asked.

“All you want of the 7 round GI surplus, but brand new, for $8 a pop.”

“I’ll take 4 extra plus a case of the surplus ball ammo,” Gary said.

“Pretty conservative today aren’t we?” Sandy teased.

“Well, I’ll take 100 each M14, M16 and M18 land mines if you’ve got them,” Gary chuck-
led.

“They’re not a stock item Gary, but if you’re serious, I could look into it,” Sandy said.

“Big bucks, right?” Gary suggested.

“For something like that, you bet,” Sandy said.

“I figured as much,” Gary said. “Some plain old dynamite would do the trick if I could get
blasting caps, both fuse type and electrical plus some fuse and some wire.”

“Know anything about dynamite?” Sandy asked.

“No, but I could learn if I had a good teacher,” Gary said. “We all made it through the
classes and got our guard cards and are Acting Deputy Sheriff’s when we’re on guard
duty.”

“Are you boys on duty now?” Sandy asked.

“No, but we make up the guard schedule and could be with a phone call if it was im-
portant,” Gary said.

“Actually those guard cards and your badges are enough,” Sandy said. “It just makes
certain purchases legal under state law.”

“For example?” Ron asked.

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“LEO stuff like batons, high capacity magazines, etc.” Sandy explained.

“Like 8 round instead of 7 round mags for the M1911?” Gary asked.

“No, they’re both legal, but high capacity mags for Glock’s and stuff,” She said.

“Don’t have any of that stuff,” Gary said, “And our high capacity rifle mags are legal
when we’re on guard duty.”

“What about the explosives?” Sandy said.

“What about the explosives?” Gary asked.

“How much do you want?” Sandy asked.

“I told you I don’t know anything about explosives Sandy,” Gary said.

“I’ll throw in an hour’s free instruction by my licensed husband,” she said.

“What can I get the best buy on?” Gary asked.

“Some stolen 1¼-pound blocks of military C-4,” she said.

“Expensive or inexpensive,” Gary asked.

“I gouged the soldier pretty good so inexpensive,” Sandy replied.

“How much will a grand get me?” Gary asked.

“I gave him a grand for everything he sold me including a large assortment of detona-
tors,” Sandy said. “Buy some wire and some extra electrical caps and a couple other
things and I’ll sell you everything for $1,400. That will give me a $250 profit on the stuff I
got from him and my normal 20% markup on the legal stuff, plus full retail on the extra
caps. It’s a good deal and I really want to get rid of it.”

“No more $5 grenades for $12.50 each?” Gary asked.

“I have more but they’ll cost you $6.00 each,” She said.

“Any practice grenades?” Ron asked.

“Yes Ron, $6 each.”

“Sandy I take my original order plus the explosives,” Gary said, “And I’ll pay any rea-
sonable amount so we’re reasonable trained and won’t blow ourselves up.”

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“Deal,” Sandy said.

“How many practice grenades, Ron,” she asked.

“3 dozen and a case of the 7.62 match,” Ron replied.

“1,000-round or 500-round case?”

“Make it 1,000 Sandy,” Ron said.

“Clarence?” Sandy asked.

“1,000 rounds of 7.62 match,” Clarence replied.

After they loaded everything into the car, Sandy made an appointment for instruction out
in the desert northeast of Palmdale. One hour for free, $50 per hour thereafter.

05Mar06…

They ended up owing Sandy’s husband an extra $150 because they made him go
through the training a couple of extra times and had quite a few questions. Gary had
commented that The Three Amigos, and he especially, had a sweet spot for ANFO.
Sandy’s husband told Gary that ANFO was the most commonly used explosive in the
world, but that it was mostly used in mining operations. However, there was nothing
wrong with ANFO. Then Gary remembered one of the other squirrel’s stories where
he’d made some homemade Claymore like mines. Gary’s memory wasn’t the best and it
seemed to him that he’d even used the things in one of his stories. ‘Barrel Claymores’
kept popping into his head for some reason. He decided that they should get some high
nitrogen fertilizer and some diesel fuel. He could search the copies of his completed
works, which he kept on the computer, and look for the reference to barrel claymores.

As Gary posted new chapters on the forum, he spent some time proofreading them a
3rd time. After they were proofread, he copied the corrected text from the little editing
box into his clipboard and posted the chapter. Then he moved over to completed works
and added the new chapter. Even doing it this way, he sometimes missed a glaring er-
ror in a story, but most of the time he caught 99% of the mistakes. In completed works,
he pasted the new text, changed the final chapter number in the heading and clicked
edit. Then the wait began because every time you clicked edit, the website software that
Frugal used checked the entire document from start to finish for inappropriate language.
When finally the updated work in progress posted, Gary went to the last chapter and
copied it to his clipboard. That copy went into a second file on his computer labeled
something like ‘The Three Amigos – Completed Work’.

Sometimes Gary caught a glaring error that he’d missed. If the error was of great signif-
icance, he went to Frugal’s and corrected the document in completed works right then
and there. If it was a smaller error, he wrote it down and made the correction the next

124
time he added a chapter to the Completed Works section. He never bothered to correct
his original document, but did make the changes in his copy of the Completed story file.
Recently he had a problem where his spell checker shut down and refused to work. Af-
ter considerable time working on Word, including running the repair function, he was no
closer to a solution. In desperation he changed the name of the story by adding ‘1’ to its
name and opened the completed work file. He saved it as the original document without
the ‘1’ in the name and then used the clipboard to move the partially completed chapter
to the new work file. Problem solved. Gary compared the files sizes of the new work file
to the old work file. There was a tremendous difference in the file sizes. Apparently he
had embedded something in the work file that screwed everything up. He had then de-
leted the original work file and resumed working on his story in the new, replacement
work file.

Apparently Gary hadn’t used the term ‘barrel claymore’ in any of his stories, because a
search of the files that evening failed to get a single hit. But he sort of remembered that
you put some ANFO in a container and added a detonator. Then, you filled the contain-
er with nuts and bolts and other small pieces of scrap metal. It was a bear to get old and
lose your short-term memory. By the time he remembered the exact details, he’d prob-
ably be 70-years old. And, at the moment, he just wanted to get to age 64 in 2007.

The fertilizer and diesel fuel were easy to come by. They always saved their coffee cans
and they had a lot of them. So the following day, they got the fertilizer and mixed it
about 94% fertilizer and 6% fuel and dumped in nuts and bolts. Chris must have had
half-dozen pails of bolts and nuts he was willing to contribute to the project and the
junkyard sold them the remainder of what they needed. The improvised mines went on
the east side, in the empty lot between the fortified wall and 47th street. They made up
a control panel of sorts that let them individually detonate the mines or detonate them in
sets. Gary was pretty handy at building control panels and Radio Shack had lots of
switches. Chris even drilled holes in a large aluminum plate and mounted the switches
for Gary. Gary remembered where this idea came from, his very first story titled ‘The
Ark’.

Meanwhile Johnny was busy organizing the citizens of Palmdale into a militia unit.
There were plenty of people in the city who were well armed. There were cowboy action
shooters, hunters with a range of high-powered rifles and all kinds of people with the
same mindset as The Three Amigos. They had decided that they didn’t want those
gangsters to get anywhere near to Palmdale and had gone out to the four-corners and
had started digging fighting holes and the like. Four-corners is the junction of Pearblos-
som Highway and 47th street about 4 miles down the road from the corner of Avenue S
(1 mile south of R) and 47th Street. There’s a Chevron station there and a large area
used for a swap meet, called of all things, the Four-Corners Swap Meet. Gary didn’t do
swap meets all that often, but he knew about the place. Bimbo #1 used to keep their
books at one time.

Having a firefight next to a gas station might not seem like a very good idea. However
that Chevron station had run completely out of gas in early December 2005 so there

125
wasn’t much danger of a fire. Besides they put fighting holes in on both sides of Avenue
T-Pearblossom Highway. Hundreds of people had been organized and Johnny had
been detached from his regular duties just to handle the new Palmdale Militia, as they
called themselves. Hmm, there something mighty familiar about that name, I wonder
why?

126
 The Three Amigos – Chapter 13 – An Explosive Situation

“Well,” Gary said one night a few days later. “I finally got Frugal’s website up and went
searching for barrel claymores. I checked all of Fleataxi’s stories and the only reference
I found to anything like an improvised claymore was in Bugged in Elko. But the guy in
that story used pipe, not coffee cans, to make his improvised claymores.”

“That makes sense,” Ron said, “A coffee can wouldn’t do much to contain the explo-
sion.”

“You’re right Ron,” Gary agreed, “So this afternoon, I got Chris to help me find some 6”
pipe and caps for the ends. Tomorrow we can rebuild all of those claymore mines.”

“I don’t know if I want to go near them,” Ron said. “They have those blasting caps and
one of them could blow up in our face.”

“If one did, you’d never know what hit you,” Gary said. “But, I can unplug the panel and I
put in a switch that shorts out every pair of wires. I also have a short wire with two alli-
gator clips we can short across the cap leads where they connect to the wires. I think
that we will be safe enough.”

“How are they coming with that big setup for the Palmdale Militia down at Four-Points?”
Clarence asked.

“Haven’t been down there in a few days Clarence,” Gary explained, “But, the last time I
was there, they looked to be ready.”

“Anymore word on the gangsters?” Ron asked.

“Not a word Ron,” Gary said, “It’s like we’re out of the information loop.”

“Johnny has been pretty busy now that the Sheriff put him in charge of the Palmdale Mi-
litia,” Clarence observed. “I hardly ever see him here visiting his kids.”

“Speaking of Johnny,” Gary said, “I sure wish we knew what he isn’t telling us about
what is going on around the country.”

“I would have thought that the President would be on TV every day making announce-
ments,” Clarence commented. “But he must be busy rescuing another guy from some
river in Vietnam.”

“I doubt that very much Clarence,” Ron said, “But you do have a point. No doubt the
country is busy cleaning up after the attacks. It didn’t take them all that long to clean up
ground zero after the 9/11 attacks so I’d guess they’re doing pretty good cleaning up the
country. You’d think that all of the rebuilding would be good for the economy, too. That’s
a lot of money turning over a lot of times, if I remember my basics from Economics.”

127
“Say, not to change the subject,” Clarence lied, again, “But when do you think they will
get mail service restored?”

“Expecting a big check in the mail, Clarence?” Ron chuckled.

“No, but I wouldn’t want them to cut the utilities to Lucy and my home,” Clarence ex-
plained.

“Clarence, it might be a long time,” Gary suggested, “But look on the bright side, we ha-
ven’t had any junk mail in months. And, until the utility company can deliver a bill to us
they can’t cut our utilities.”

“Sez who?” Ron asked.

“Sez me,” Gary replied. “At least if anyone shows up here trying to turn off the utilities in
this housing tract, it’s going to be a one-way trip for the guy.”

“Come to think of it, Gar-Bear, there haven’t been any people around reading the me-
ters, have there?” Ron agreed.

“They could bill on average usage,” Gary opined, “But what’s the point with no mail ser-
vice? That’s why I didn’t set up one of those automatic bill pay accounts. I always fig-
ured that they’d find a way to help themselves to my money if I used Wells Fargo to pay
my bills directly.”

Mt. Weather…

“What’s the status on the cleanup?” Kerry asked.

“All of the bodies have been buried and about 75% of the damaged buildings have been
knocked down and the debris hauled away,” the Secretary DHS reported.

“And we’ve managed to accomplish this all with impressed labor, right?” Kerry contin-
ued.

“We have, yes sir,” the Secretary replied. “But once we get to the reconstruction phase,
we’re going to have to hire contractors to rebuild the buildings.”

“But only the governmental buildings,” Kerry said, “The population is going to have to
pay for their own rebuilding, right?”

“Right, Mr. President,” the Secretary agreed.

128
“How is the food distribution going?” Kerry asked.

“Well, we’ve had a little problem there, so we cut them from 1,800 calories to 1,500 cal-
ories and told them they were getting higher calorie food to explain the reduction in vol-
ume,” the Secretary outlined.

“How’s that court case going challenging my Executive Orders?” Kerry asked.

“Well, we got Kennedy, Clinton and Schumer to call for a Congressional investigation of
the opponents to the Orders,” the Secretary explained. “Plus the Solicitor General has
filed enough motions to keep the case tied up in the lower court for at least a year.”

“What’s the status on the gangs,” Kerry asked.

“We have the gang problem handled in New York and the other big cities, Mr. Presi-
dent,” the Secretary replied. “California is an entirely different story. The gangs broke
out of LA after a couple of months and moved toward the San Bernardino area, looting
along the way. They cleaned out several armories and are extremely well equipped. We
tried to move in on them in San Bernardino, but it was almost impossible for the attack
helicopters to fire in the city area. And, of course, they joined up with the gangs in San
Bernardino, increasing their number.”

“Is that where they are now, San Bernardino?” Kerry asked.

“Actually no, Mr. President,” the Secretary explained, “They couldn’t go east because of
the armor we set up and there wasn’t any reason for them to return to LA. They could
have gone north or south from there and we guessed wrong and put most of our forces
to the south. They went north and broke through our lines before we could reinforce
them. We sent in the Apaches, but they must be only traveling 2 to a car, thousands of
cars headed north out of San Bernardino and there were more targets than the Apaches
could handle.”

“So they’re northbound on I-15?” Kerry asked.

“Most of them yes, Mr. President, but a small contingent split off on California route 138
and headed in the general direction of Palmdale,” the Secretary commented.

“Palmdale? Isn’t that were Plant 42 is located?” Kerry inquired.

“It is, yes,” the Secretary continued. “We wouldn’t want anyone seeing some of the stuff
we have there. Lockheed moved the Skunk Works to Plant 42 a number of years ago.
And, that’s where they’re building the Aurora. Anyway, we did some recon flights and
the citizens of Palmdale have built up quite a fighting position about 4 miles southeast of
the city. I should also mention that one of the Generals forwarded an unofficial request
up the line. A Sergeant with the LA County Sheriff’s department made a backdoor re-
quest through an Army Master Sergeant. It seems that some guy or bunch of guys

129
came up with the idea of ambushing those gangsters if they turned onto that 138 high-
way. They had the idea of blocking the road by blowing up a couple gangster cars with
LAW’s Rocket’s and then the Army could send in the Apaches and blow up the gang-
sters cars.”

“Now that’s what I mean,” Kerry said, completely changing the subject, “We have civil-
ians out there armed with LAW’s rockets. They probably have automatic weapons, too.
We need to send the ATF boys in there to arrest the whole lot of them. The public has
no business owning firearms. But no, that danged Congress wouldn’t pass the Assault
Weapons Ban.”

“Well, the way you had the ban rewritten, it would have outlawed most hunting fire-
arms,” the Secretary said. “Of course Congress was wrong, but those Executive Orders
of your neatly circumvented that. What do you want to do about those gangs, Mr. Presi-
dent?”

“Send some troops to Plant 42 in case those gangsters get past that area southeast of
Palmdale,” Kerry said, “But put all of the attack helicopters on I-15 northbound. We can’t
have them getting to Vegas, now can we?”

23Mar06…

“You don’t look any older Gar-Bear,” Ron said commenting on the fact that it was Gary’s
63rd birthday.

“I don’t feel any older either partner,” Gary admitted. “But then, I’ve felt like I was 70 for
the past 5 or 6 years, so I guess it will be a while before I feel any older. What’s in the
box?”

“Clarence and I went in together and got you a very nice birthday present from Sandy,”
Ron explained.

Gary opened the box. “Wow,” he said, “This is nice Ron, but what exactly is it?”

“I thought you’d recognize it right away, Gar-Bear,” Clarence said, “That there is a genu-
ine Kimber, Custom TLE/RL with the nightlight and everything. It is identical to the one
shown on the back cover of the August 2004 issue of American Rifleman. We even got
you the .22LR Conversion Kit so’s you can practice with cheap ammo.”

“But that won’t fit in my flap holster with the light mounted,” Gary said. “Don’t get me
wrong, fellas, I absolutely love the gun and the thoughtfulness that went into you picking
it for me. I’ll get out on the net and find a new holster, no problem.”

“That won’t be necessary Gary,” Chris said handing Gary a second box.

130
“Thanks Chris,” Gary said. “Say this is an odd looking holster, what brand is it?”

“It’s a handmade copy of the US Cavalry swivel holster, the ‘Pershing model’,” Chris ex-
plained. “I have a friend who is into leatherwork and he took the original swivel holster
and dismantled it. Then, he put together a new holster part big enough to hold that
Kimber with the light mounted.”

“Guys, I don’t know what to say,” Gary beamed. “An LA SWAT pistol and a custom hol-
ster to hold it. Thanks a million.”

Bianchi makes the T6500 Tac Holster LT which offers security, comfort and ease of
draw. Adjustable to fit most pistol mounted tactical lights, it also features a hold down
strap to prevent movement when attached to the Modular Accessory Panel. The thumb
break includes a secondary security strap for double retention. Right and left hand to fit
most large frame semi autos. If you happen to be into nylon holsters, and aren’t inter-
ested in looking like George S. Patton.

Now Gary had a holster to wear on his ALICE gear setup for the M1A (the Kimber) and
on his ALICE gear set up for his M16A3 (the 1911 he bought from Sandy). The boy was
moving in tall cotton after his birthday party. Ron and he had retrieved their M1A’s and
M16A3’s from David’s boys when they had decided that the Army could guard Hwy 138.
And, if the Army didn’t, there was always the Palmdale Militia down at the Chevron Sta-
tion at Four-Points. The militia group had steadily grown and they had just kept putting
in more fighting positions ($9 name for foxhole) to accommodate the new members.
They added more fighting positions on the Littlerock side of the intersection too, so that
they could hit the bangers before they even got to the intersection. Of course no one in
Palmdale knew that Kerry had abandoned them in favor of protecting Las Vegas. Kerry
didn’t know it, but he was going to be a one-term President, one way or another.

With the modification of the improvised claymores into something hopefully resembling
what Fleataxi had described in his story, The Three Amigos were about as ready as
they could get. With the free time on their hands, they began to discuss a variety of mat-
ters.

“It’s funny about that redhead,” Ron said, “What was her name?”

“Janice Worth,” Clarence said.

“That’s right, Janice Worth with the worthwhile front end,” Ron laughed. “She was out of
here the next day. And that sister of hers was on ‘the other side’.”

“Well Ron,” Clarence suggested, “Once that husband of hers was in jail, there was no
more reason for her to stay here, was there?”

“I guess not, Clarence,” Ron agreed. “And can someone explain to me why Randy built

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a huge shelter double the size of the one that Gary built? Seems like closing the barn
door after the horses have run away.”

“Which horse?” Clarence asked, “Salina?”

“Would you get off Salina Clarence?” Gary snapped. “I let you name my golf cart Sa-
lina.”

“Oh all right, if you’re going to be sensitive,” Clarence said. “Ron, maybe Randy figured
that a shelter might come in handy if we couldn’t stop those gang bangers. His shelter is
big enough to provide a place for all of the other families that are on the A list.”

“Did someone remember to turn off those dehumidifiers?” Gary asked. “Those little pails
would be pretty full by now.”

“You did it yourself, Gar-Bear,” Ron replied, “Man, your memory must really getting bad.
It’s a shame we couldn’t get in touch with that friend of yours up in San Francisco. We
have enough shotgun ammo that Thumper would really add to our firepower.”

“What does Bambi have to do with Moon Shadows?” Gary asked.

Different Thumper, Gary. Ron was talking about the 12-gauge Gatling gun from The
Ark. But, if those gang bangers had raided some armories, they were probably armed
with M60’s, Ma Deuces, and who knew what else? Ronald might have a point about that
Gatling gun. It was a real shame that the only machine guns they had were a few
M16A2s. Did Sandy deal in heavy-weapons? Well, Sandy said she could get them
M14s, M16s and M18s but at a price they couldn’t afford. So, the answer was probably
yes, but they probably couldn’t afford them either. On the other hand, there was that
armory on 30th Street East. No one had thought to check it out. Maybe a little late night
recon mission was in order. To the best of their knowledge, no one had hit the armory
yet and it had been over 4 months since TSHTF.

The California National Guard Armory on 30th Street East in Palmdale was home to
Company B, 1st Battalion, 185th Armor Division of the Army National Guard. California
Senator George Runner had also secured funding in the State Budget for the acquisi-
tion and construction of a National Guard Armory in the City of Lancaster, so it ap-
peared that they had more than one place to check out on their night mission. Night
mission meant night vision and they had never gotten around to getting any night vision
equipment. They borrowed a pair from Johnny on the pretense that they wanted to
check them out and see if they were worth the investment.

Now, it seemed that those Abrams tanks had 4 guns, the 120mm smoothbore cannon, a
M240 coaxial 7.62mm machine gun, a M240 for the loader and an M2HB .50 caliber
machine gun, both removed and stored because you couldn’t leave the detachable ma-
chine gunsmounted, now could you? There were the Ma Deuces and a pretty fair supply
of ammo, but no tripods. But, there was a fella named Chris who could weld anything

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and with lots of pictures of M2 tripods. The military would just have to replace the M2’s
and they were going to be busy welding for a few days.

Gary returned the night vision goggles to Johnny and told them that they were nice, but
he wasn’t sure he could afford a pair. Gary must have caught Johnny either in a good
mood or busy as hell, there had been a break-in at the armory on 30th Street East the
prior night and Johnny had been pulled off duty with the militia to run the investigation
for now. Johnny told Gary to keep the binoculars.

“Well that beats a sharp stick in the eye,” Gary said, “Johnny said I could keep the bin-
oculars.”

“Strange,” Ron replied.

“He was busy trying to find out who did the burglary at the National Guard Armory last
night,” Gary explained.

“We’ll be ok as long as he doesn’t look in that shelter of yours,” Ron said.

“Thing is Ron, once we have to use the machine guns, there won’t be any denying
where we got them,” Gary observed.

“Then, I suppose we’ll just have to give them back, assuming we’re alive to do it,” Ron
responded.

“Why do you always assume that we’re going to get killed Ron?” Clarence asked.

“Clarence there are only about 60 of us on the A list and if this housing tract takes a ma-
jor hit, we’ll be lucky if any of us survives,” Ron answered.

“Ron any gang bangers who get by that trap the militia have set up at Four-Points
shouldn’t be much of a problem,” Clarence insisted.

“Clarence it all depends,” Gary tossed in his two cents. “If it is a big enough group, they
can go north out of Littlerock and end up right up there at the curve where the road
comes from north of Littlerock. If they go west or north from there, we’ll be ok. But if they
turn south, they’ll be all over us.”

“Why would they be all over us?” Clarence demanded, “We could just let them go on
south.”

“Clarence if they go on south, they’ll probably be trying to flank the militia and attack
from the rear,” Ron said, “If I know my Gar-Bear, he’s suggesting that we engage those
gangsters to keep them from attacking the militia.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself, Ronald McDonald,” Gary grinned. “We won’t have a

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choice, Clarence, we’ll have to attack them.”

“Well, all right,” Clarence said, “But I think you’re just looking for an excuse to shoot
those machine guns we don’t have in Gary’s shelter.”

And, be careful what you wish for, Gary, God has a sense of humor and…

The gangsters split-up up when they got to the 138 junction with I-15. The majority,
about 80%, continued north on I-15, headed for Las Vegas and points in between like
Victorville and Barstow. Maybe Kerry had made a wise decision and no one realized it.
North of Barstow, in the vicinity of Fort Irwin, I-15 was blocked with armor, just like I-10
had been blocked with armor. That would be the end of that group of gangsters’ jour-
ney. Blockades were also set up on I-40 eastbound and on state route 58 west bound.
Those 8,000 or so people weren’t going to get much out of Victorville and the Apple Val-
ley, because they had been evacuated. The folks in Barstow were also moved out to the
west, and tanks sat on every off ramp for Barstow. Anyone who ventured off the free-
way would get their butts shot off with the 120mm cannons. Even John Kerry got some
things right and he did have military advisors. He didn’t listen to them very often, but he
had this time, at least with respect to the Fort Irwin trap.

No one was watching 138 and the gangsters just tooled along headed for the high de-
sert. A few of them swung over to Phelan but that didn’t take long. Neither did Piñon
Hills, further up 138. They could have taken Highway 2 into Wrightwood and then the
road down to Valyermo and on into Pearblossom. But, the signs said Palmdale and they
just followed the signs. Thus, it wasn’t until they hit the LA county line just past Piñon
Hills that the Sheriff’s helicopter picked them up. The Deputies couldn’t really see in the
back because of the heavily tinted windows but they certainly could see the two people
sitting in the front seat.

Patrol cars started announcing over their loudspeakers that the Palmdale Militia should
get to their posts. The word spread quickly and almost all of the militia was in place be-
fore the first cars hit Pearblossom. Now Pearblossom barely slowed the gangsters
down, there are only a few businesses in the small town and those gangsters soon
learned that the stores had been stripped. There weren’t any people in Pearblossom or
in Littlerock for that matter; Johnny had moved them into Palmdale for their own protec-
tion several days earlier, per instructions.

By now, you should realize that there were nearly 1,000 cars, give or take, headed to-
wards Palmdale. If 80% of the total gangsters were about 8,000 people, then there must
have been a total of 10,000 of them and I did mention that they were traveling 2 per car,
remember? The only reason that is significant is that a string of cars, nearly 1,000 vehi-
cles long really strings out at highway speeds. Pearblossom had caused them to bunch
up some and Littlerock a little more. It’s about 4 miles from Littlerock to Four-Points.
Therefore, when the bad guys arrived at Four-Points and came under fire from the

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Palmdale Militia and the Sheriff’s Department, two things happened. For one, the vehi-
cles began to bunch up again. And with the bunching and the sound of gunfire, the
gangsters started to look for ways out of the trap. Some took Avenue T-8 only to run in-
to a semi-trailer across the road protected by some of the militiamen. In fact, all of the
off roads between Littlerock were blocked and manned by militiamen.

Those people who took 87th street East northbound, got lucky, or so it appeared. North
of Avenue T, they didn’t go that way because they could hear the gunfire, 87th curved
into 90th East and continued north to East Palmdale Boulevard. The gangsters would
have been smart to just keep going north on 90th East to Avenue K and turned west,
taking them into the heart of Lancaster. Well maybe not so smart, the guys in Lancaster
had East Avenue K pretty well covered too. But, they were going to Palmdale and this
was Palmdale Boulevard, so the 150-200 remaining cars turned to the west.

Johnny wasn’t anybody’s fool, he’d had the city pull several dump trucks just past where
47th St. splintered off from the road to Four-Points and the road was blocked protecting
their backs. He had figured that some of the gangsters might go north on 87th Street
East and a Deputy was dispatched to Plant 42 to get the Army to move some troops to
block East Palmdale Boulevard. Johnny had it all worked out with some Captain, but on
that very day, the Captain’s superior had flown into the airport at Plant 42. When the
Deputy arrived and tried to get the Captain to move his troops to cover the Boulevard,
as agreed, the Captain’s commander, Murphy wasn’t it, vetoed the plan and ordered the
Captain to remain in place and protect Plant 42. Captains are allowed to disagree with
their ‘superior’ officers, but that only goes so far. There comes that point in every young
Captain’s career when he must decide to follow orders or mutiny and do what he thinks
is right. This particular officer hadn’t been a Captain very long and decided that the Ma-
jor knew best.

What difference did it make if a few gang bangers got into the Skunk Works and got a
peek at the secret aircraft? And I’ll personally vouch for the assertion that it is secret air-
craft. Those reports from Cal Tech about the Aurora sightings on their seismographs
came as no surprise. Anyway, those cars were on Palmdale Boulevard East headed for
the intersection of 47th Street East and Palmdale Boulevard and the intersection was
unguarded. The Deputy, frustrated at the lack of response from the Army, got all availa-
ble patrol cars, it wasn’t many, and they threw a quick cordon across Palmdale Boule-
vard east of 40th Street using a semi-trailer. The Deputy radioed Johnny, but got no re-
sponse.

When the alarm had gone out, The Three Amigos got into Gary’s shelter and with some
help, got the Ma Deuces and ammo out of the ground. Chris had made some tripods,
and he’d also made some mounts that slipped over the fence at the end of Moonraker
Road. The guys loaded the machine guns onboard the golf carts and ferried them to the
east fence. Three of the weapons went into the mounts Chris had fashioned and several
others were set on their tripods on top of the earth filled place between the two fences.
Ron and Gary got boxes to stand on and manned a Ma-Deuce. Clarence also manned
one of the .50 caliber weapons, but he didn’t need a box to stand on. They only worked

135
with the machine guns long enough that they knew how to load them and how to clear a
jam. Because of the sensitive nature pertaining to how they acquired the heavy machine
guns, they hadn’t thought it prudent to test fire the weapons. Johnny was still looking for
the perpetrators of the burglary.

When the gangsters arrived at 47th Street East and Palmdale Boulevard, they could
clearly see the roadblock the Deputy had thrown up. They had a choice, turn right and
go north or help out their buddies by turning south towards the sounds of the gunfire.
The man in the lead car was torn between his desire to escape and the thin loyalty he
felt for his gangster friends. He hesitated and then turned left, to help out his friends. In
the words of the Knight guarding the Grail in ‘Indiana Jones and the last Crusade’, “He
chose poorly.”

“Here they come,” Ron said.

“Let them get a little past and take out that lead vehicle with a LAW Rocket,” Gary sug-
gested.

“I’ll do it,” Justin said.

“I’ll get the vehicle in back,” Jason offered.

When the Deputies saw the cars turn left off Palmdale Boulevard, they called the Sher-
iff’s Station and told them to warn Johnny. They had been unable to raise him on their
radios, they said. The station advised them that a few stragglers from the militia had
shown up at the station and were looking for guidance. The Deputy told the station to
send them east on Palmdale Boulevard, their assistance was badly needed. Well, those
weren’t his exact words, but you get the idea. It is against the law to swear on a radio
isn’t it? Or, are Deputy Sheriff’s exempt from that?

Cliffhanger (1993), starring Sylvester Stallone in the role of Gabe Walker and John Lith-
gow as the bad guy. Lithgow didn’t make a very good bad guy in Gary’s opinion. Janine
Turner, 35C-23-36, didn’t make the movie hard on the eyes, though.

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 The Three Amigos – Chapter 14 – How Time Slips Away

Well hello there,

my it’s been a long long time
How am I doin’,
oh well I guess I’m doin’ fine
It’s been so long now and it seems that
It was only yesterday
Mmm, ain’t it funny how time slips away

It seemed as if only 8 days or so had passed since Ron and Gary had had the conver-
sation that began this series of events. But, like old Willy said, Ain’t it funny how times
slips away? And here The Three Amigos were facing a firefight. They couldn’t see all of
the cars; they stretched back to Palmdale Boulevard and to the east. When the lead car
was about even with the end of the commercial zone. Gary nodded and Justin fired the
LAW’s Rocket. Justin quickly grabbed a second rocket and took out the second car that
was trying to go around the burning first car. When Justin reached for a third rocket, Ja-
son hit the third car, also trying to bypass the pile of burning wreckage. Jason was right
on the money and southbound 47th Street East was effectively blocked. Justin then
turned to the north and let his third LAW Rocket fly at the car stuck in the turn onto 47th
street East. A short street extended south from the intersection of Palmdale Boulevard
and from that street, one made a left turn onto the southbound street. By hitting the car
where he did, Justin almost had the other end of the line of cars stopped up. Jason let
loose with his second rocket and about 100 of the 150 + cars were stuck between the
two piles of wreckage. The remainder of the gangsters headed north on 50th Street
East.

47th Street East curved to the right just north of the intersection and became 50th Street
East. On the east side of Palmdale, that was the favored way to get to Lancaster. The
Deputies on the roadblock were on the radio to the Lancaster Sheriff’s station at Lan-
caster Boulevard and Sierra Highway and they were sending all units Code 3 to assist
the Palmdale Deputies. In fact, most of the Deputies were almost to Palmdale because
they’d been following the action on the radio and hadn’t waited to be asked.

Meanwhile, as soon as the Rockets began to stop the gangsters’ cars, The Three Ami-
gos and the others with the Ma Deuces opened up. At the range we’re talking here, you
didn’t need to be any rocket scientist to handle the Ma Deuce. It was at most 40 yards
to the nearest cars and fewer than 300 to the cars furthest away. And with 8 Ma Deuces
capable of pouring out 550 rounds-per-minute, the cars and gangsters were going down
fast. The old boys knew better than to just send off a steady stream of fire, Gary had a
lot of field manuals on his computer, and they put 2 or 3 bursts into a vehicle before
moving to the next. The other members on the A list who were manning the wall that
day had the M16A2’s and the boys’ M16A4’s and they poured fire into anyone who
managed to get out of the vehicles alive. There had been something happen like this
back in the big one, WW II, only it involved airplanes. I seem to recall it being called the
Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. It had been on Monday, June 19, 1944.

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In the early morning hours Japanese reconnaissance finds US Task Force 58 while re-
maining undetected. The Japanese immediately launched 372 aircraft, in four waves, to
strike the American fleet. Overall, the Japanese have about 550 planes (including those
on Guam) while the Americans have roughly 950. Furthermore, US radar provides sig-
nificant advance warning of the attack. There is enough time to launch an air raid on
Guam before the Japanese can arrive over their target. American fighters begin inter-
cepting the incoming Japanese planes while 50 miles away.

Many of the attackers are shot down before reaching the American fleet; US anti-aircraft
defenses account for many more. The only hit achieved by the Japanese is on the USS
South Dakota which is damaged by one bomb. The Japanese lose 240 aircraft and the
Americans lose 29. The attackers fly on to Guam where American aircraft strike and de-
stroy another 50 Japanese planes. Meanwhile, the Japanese aircraft carriers Taiho and
Shokaku are sunk by the US submarines Cavalla and Albacore. American participants
refer to the day as “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” because of the ease with which
the Japanese forces have been suppressed. You folks need to watch the History Chan-
nel more.

I’m not sure that this particular day would go down in history as the Great Palmdale
Turkey Shoot. But a couple of the gangsters did rush the tract and Josh, who was in
charge of the improvised claymore mines that day, got to flip one switch and they now
knew that the improvised claymore mines were bloody well effective, almost. And for-
tune smiled on The Three Amigos. The moment the firing stopped the M-2’s went back
on the golf carts and were rushed back to Gary’s shelter. Several people kept watch
while others quickly policed the brass and threw it into trashcans. They checked twice,
just to make certain that hadn’t missed a single piece of brass. The power was also dis-
connected from the mine control panel and it was returned to the locked steamer truck
they kept it in for safety’s sake.

The Three Amigos knew full well that once the bodies and vehicles had been examined
their secret would be out. Regardless, they weren’t going to advertise what they had in
their possession. The Sheriff’s Department was going to have to ask before they willing-
ly gave up the 8 Ma Deuces. They’d give them up only when it became apparent that
they didn’t have much other choice. And say, maybe I forgot to mention how many of
those M16 rifles they picked up on that little midnight requisition. You can get a pretty
good idea from the story. It was a Company sized unit assigned to the Armory.

Tank units have 2 M4s in each tank and some M16A2s for the support people. The
tankers’ all carry an M9 as their standard firearm. They took the M9s too, but only for
the women and to use as trading goods with Sandy. One thing you could count on, the
ATF would have a whole contingent of people in Palmdale trying to track down that ar-
mory theft. But if push came to shove, they’d just return the weapons to the Armory.
They usually wore those latex exam gloves when they cleaned weapons anyway. They
didn’t like getting the Hoppe’s and break free CLP on their skin.

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What, you wanted more action? Those gangsters never had a chance. Hell they barely
got off a shot. A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next
week. A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied
ten minutes later. America loves a winner, and will not tolerate a loser, this is why Amer-
ica has never, and will never, lose a war. A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.

Needless to say, The Three Amigos were jubilant. They had caught the gangsters com-
pletely off guard, and had mowed them down before most of them had even been able
to get out of their mostly stolen cars. The gangsters who had made a quick decision to
turn north on 50th Street were intercepted by the Deputies from Lancaster and between
the Deputies and a bunch of those militiamen from Lancaster, the gangsters all died.
Down the road, the Palmdale Militia hadn’t had it so easy. They’d managed to stop the
gang bangers, eventually, but had paid a stiff price. Armed as they were with a combi-
nation of hunting rifles, some Mini-14s and a few of those illegal AR-15 Hbars, they
were out gunned by the bad guys. However, their superior numbers had prevailed in the
end. About 30 Palmdale residents were dead and between 200 and 300 of them were
wounded. Johnny and the other Deputies on the scene hadn’t interfered when the citi-
zens helped themselves to the stolen M16s and the AKs carried by the gangsters.

However, when the Palmdale Militia people began to pick up things like M60s and AT-
4s the Deputies did step forward. A compromise of sorts was reached. The machine
guns, e.g., the full auto, belt-fed weapons would be maintained at the Sheriff’s Depart-
ment along with the Rockets. The people who had participated in protecting the com-
munity would be allowed to keep the shoulder arms and handguns. Ambulances were
called and some quick stopgap first aid applied to the wounded before they were hauled
to the only hospitals in the area in Lancaster. The Palmdale Hospital had been closed
years before. It sat almost on top of the San Andreas Fault and was a financial disaster
anyway. I’m sorry to report that not everyone transported to Lancaster survived the trip.
And, with so many wounded to treat, the Lancaster hospitals were overwhelmed and
some folks died awaiting treatment. The hospitals triaged the wounded, but there were
more seriously wounded people needing surgery than they could handle at one time. In
the end, 56 members of the Palmdale Militia were dead.

[Palmdale finally opened a new hospital in 2010.]

The Three Amigos soon lost their jubilancy, too. A fella named Trevor with the Lancas-
ter Militia had come on into to Palmdale to see the boys’ handy work. He was mighty
impressed, right up until he got to the improvised pipe claymores.

“You boys are plenty dang lucky that bomb went off,” Trevor said.

“What do you mean?” Gary replied, “We used ANFO, the most popular explosive in the
world.”

“I can see that fellas,” Trevor said. “Let me tell you a few things about ANFO. I’m not
sure what research you did or your sources on ANFO but, Ammonium Nitrate is very

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Hydroscopic so fertilizer grade AN is coated to keep it from absorbing moisture. This
also degrades the absorption of Fuel Oil/Diesel Fuel.”

“Fertilizer AN needs to be water Washed first, then dried at 100-110 degrees in an oven
for an hour or so to remove the coating which will increase the absorption rate of the
Fuel Oil/Diesel Fuel by 20%-30%,” he continued. “This also sensitizes the AN for easier
detonation by reducing its density to around 0.6 g/ccm to 0.8 g/ccm. Standard ANFO
without sensitizing will NOT detonate with the standard commercial #8 or Military blast-
ing cap 99% of the time. ANFO that is allowed to settle for a period (hours to days) of
time will become dense enough that it will NOT detonate and it’s a good practice to add
Micro-Balloons as used in Fiberglass to keep the ANFO from becoming too dense to
detonate if it is to be allowed to set for any length of time.”

“Now,” Trevor went on, “For added kick change out the Fuel Oil/Diesel Fuel to 95% Ni-
tromethane (model airplane/drag racing fuel) and you can increase the explosive power
by 30% by making ANNM. You can also add 4%-6% Aluminum Powder #300-#600
Mesh for even a little more kick. One source of 100% Pure AN is Instant Cold/Ice
Packs, just open them up and dump out the AN pills and toss the (sodium chlo-
ride/water) pop bag away.”

“Frankly,” Trevor said shaking his head, “I’m downright surprised that even one impro-
vised Claymore went off. Ever since Timothy McVey blew up that federal building in Ok-
lahoma City, the public has had this big attraction to ANFO. It is the most commonly
used explosive in the world, but we’re not talking homemade ANFO. It is commercially
prepared stuff, usually in the form of a slurry.”

“Well, that explains that,” Gary said.

“What do you mean?” Trevor asked.

“That control panel is set up to allow us to detonate the claymores individually or in

groups,” Gary said, “Josh threw a group switch, but only one mine went off.”

“Was there anything special about the mine that did go off?” Trevor asked.

“We ran out of ANFO and that one had a charge of C-4,” Gary explained.

“Boys, I’ll stick around for a few hours and help you redo those improvised Claymores,”
Trevor offered. “It sounds to me like you’re a mite shy on knowledge when it comes to
improvised explosives. If you have enough of that C-4, we can put together something a
whole lot more reliable.”

Help comes from the strangest places. But, The Three Amigos weren’t ones to turn
down advice, especially from someone who seemed to know what he was talking about
when it came to ANFO. Exercising a great deal of care, Trevor dismantled the impro-
vised Claymores and replaced the homemade ANFO with an appropriate amount of C-

140
4.

“Well, you boys are set, but I’d like to have a look at that control panel you use to deto-
nate those mines,” Trevor said, “If you don’t object.”

“It’s right over here in the steamer trunk,” Gary said. Trevor looked at Gary’s setup.

“You would be a whole lot better off if you used DPST switches,” Trevor advised. “That
way in the off position the leads to the explosives could be wired to short out.”

“We cleaned out Radio Shack, so we have the switches,” Gary said, “I’ll rewire the pan-
el.”

Rather than dismantle the existing panel Gary asked Chris to make him up a new one.
The existing panel might have its problems, but it would work until Gary could assemble
the new improved model. Gary worked late into the night, making the connections and
carefully soldering each wire into the huge Cannon plug. It was almost morning by the
time he finished, but now everything was properly shorted in the off position and got the
jolt of electricity in the on position. Gary figured that the odds favored them never need-
ing to use the panel again, because the gangsters were all dead. But Gary hadn’t been
thinking about the national political scene that night, and so the thought of needing to
deal with a President who was running amok never crossed his mind.

Johnny had come by later and supervised the cleanup of the gangsters’ bodies. You
didn’t have to be Albert Einstein to realize that someone had used .50 caliber machine
guns on those gangsters. That solved the mystery of the missing Ma-Deuces as far as
he was concerned. The next morning Johnny ‘closed’ the investigation, noting that per-
son or persons unknown took the weapons from the armory. The case wasn’t officially
closed, but it became a “dead file”. Johnny also surveyed the machine guns collected
from the now dead gangsters. There was a disproportionately large amount of .50BMG
ammunition. Well, he had an idea where some of that ammo belonged and he loaded
up the back of the Department’s pickup and dropped it off when he went to visit his kids.

“What’s with all the .50 cal ammo, Johnny?” Gary asked.

“You could probably use some extra ammo for the machine guns you don’t have,”
Johnny replied.

“Are you implying that we’re the guys behind the burglary at the armory,” Gary asked.

“I’m implying nothing, Gary,” Johnny said, “Besides, I gave up on that investigation and
moved the file to the dead files. Are you folks sufficiently equipped with mags and am-
mo for the M16s you have on hand?”

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“I guess,” Ron said, “But you can never have too many magazines and ammo. I figured
that with the gangs out of the picture, we’d be ok.”

“Gentlemen,” Johnny responded, “The gang problem is solved, but this country has big-
ger problems than those gangs. I can’t really get into it because of confidentiality, but let
me tell you one thing. Those Ma Deuces and M16s that you stole from the armory are
the least of your worries. Every semiautomatic weapon you have is illegal except when
you’re on guard duty and acting in the capacity of Deputy Sheriff’s.”

“Dang,” Clarence uttered, “So it’s come to that, huh?”

“I talked to the Sheriff in person to see about making you folk’s fulltime Deputies,” John-
ny said, “But since you don’t have the formal training, he denied my request. The only
alternatives that I can think of is to schedule everyone on the A list to be on guard duty
24/7. I’d be the first one to admit that it is pretty weak, but unless I can convince him
otherwise, it’s all you have going for you. I’m going to try the Reserve Deputy bit the
next time I see the Sheriff. After what you folks accomplished with those gang bangers,
I think maybe I can make that fly. Everyone has an armed guard card, so it isn’t like you
don’t have any training.”

“We helped ourselves to some of the stuff those gang bangers had, Johnny,” Ron re-
marked. “So, we’re a lot better off than we were on weaponry. We have enough M16s
for everyone and then some. On the other hand, we’re not long on ammo for those Ro-
manian AK’s we have. We could let the Palmdale Militia have the AKs.”

“Collect them while I visit with my kids and I’ll see that they find a good home,” Johnny
offered.

When Johnny came back, all of the AK’s, magazines and ammo were in the back of his
truck. There were several of the M16’s, too, all absent magazines. The M16’s were in
pretty tough shape from the looks of them. The Department was going to need to give
them the once over and make repairs before they could be issued to the members of
the Palmdale Militia. There was an assortment of other weapons in the truck, too. M1
Carbines with magazines and ammo, for example. The M40 and M25 rifles however
didn’t make it to the pickup.

The Three Amigos and the others had been busy checking out the rifles and when they
couldn’t get one to function properly, they had put it a pile of discards. As it was, they
were armed to the teeth with more than one M16 in good working order for every man,
woman and child in the families who were on the A list. They also had added a lot of
hand grenades to their inventory and some of the M136 AT-4 Rockets. It was a good
thing that Sharon had plenty of tape for her labeling machine. Those 20 golf carts now
sported a box on top containing a good assortment of carefully label hand munitions,
ranging from flares to M67 grenades. None of the M16s turned over to the Sheriff’s de-
partment had a M203 attached, either.

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°

Some of the gang bangers had the Interceptor vests in the back seats of their cars. All
of the vests had been collected and passed out among the A list people. Apparently the
bad guys had thought they were bulletproof, only a few of them had been wearing the
vests. The vests, as good as they were, hadn’t stopped the armor piercing ammo in the
belts feeding the Ma Deuces. Everything, it was obvious, had its limitations. And those
Kraut helmets the US had gone to? In the back seats, too, for whatever reason.

15Apr06…

“I guess I won’t worry about filing any tax return,” Ron announced. “There ain’t no mail
service so it seems pointless.”

“The IRS be looking for you Ron,” Clarence suggested.

“Yeah, along with the FBI, the ATF and FEMA,” Ron chuckled. “Instead of sitting around
here visiting about the alphabet soup of feds looking for us, we ought to be planting the
mines we took off that bunch of gangsters. Those boys had a fair assortment of mines
in the trunks of their cars. And, we haven’t done anything to protect our western flank
between us and Grecian isles.”

“Now I realize why the name Palmdale Militia means something to me,” Gary said. “In
one of my stories I dreamed up a Palmdale Militia and housed them all at Grecian Isles
Trailer Park.”

“Big outfit like what we have here in town?” Ron asked.

“Don’t exactly remember, you know, but I think it was a small outfit with about 50 mem-
bers more or less,” Gary said. “But you’re right about those mines partner, I’m going to
call that Trevor fella and see if he has time to help us with them. He sure knows a lot
more about explosives than we do.”

Trevor was a good-natured fella and he’d be glad to help them to the extent he could.
They also put in a call to Sandy and she sent her husband around. Trevor and the hus-
band got to visiting and ending up laughing their heads off at the attempt The Three
Amigos had made at producing homemade ANFO. The guys had the right idea, they
agreed, but they were just a little short on knowing how to do it. Can’t really say who
ended up putting in the M14s, M16s and M18s, but they were put in. Trevor told Gary
that he needed to build another smaller panel to fire off the genuine Claymores. Gary
already had Chris drilling out another aluminum plate. Trevor showed Gary the wires
from the M18’s and they worked together, shorting them out and soldering them into the
female Cannon plug. They wrote down which connector went to which mine so Gary
could properly wire the new panel. Moon Shadows was one step closer to excellent se-
curity but security from what enemy?

143
°

Mt. Weather…

“Putting the Army on I-15 worked out pretty well,” Kerry said.

“The bunch in Palmdale accounted for the remainder of the gangsters, Mr. President,”
the Secretary DHS remarked, “They tried to get the Army involved but by good luck,
Major Murphy was at the Plant and he stopped that Captain from sending out troops to
help.”

“Give Murphy a promotion to Lt. Colonel and bust that Captain back to 1st Lieutenant,”
Kerry ordered. “We can’t have the Army getting involved in what is obviously strictly a
civilian problem. Terry and I are going to take a couple of days off any go to Vegas,”
Kerry announced. “You see to it that there are plenty of Army troops guarding the town,
will you?”

“I’ll take care of it Mr. President,” the Secretary said, “But shouldn’t you be making that
request through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs?”

“That SOB seems to object to some of my Executive Orders,” Kerry noted. “No, I can’t
trust him to cover my back. You’d better handle it yourself.”

“I’ll do that,” the Secretary replied, “But you’d better do some fence mending with the
military Mr. President. They are all that’s standing between you and the public booting
you out of office.”

“What’s bugging the public now?” Kerry asked.

“We had to cut the rations from 1,500 calories to 1,200 calories, for one thing,” the Sec-
retary explained. “They aren’t buying the line about higher calorie food anymore. That’s
got a bunch of them up in arms. And, apparently word is getting out about you’re ban-
ning all semiautomatic weapons. I tried to warn you about getting into banning legiti-
mate hunting firearms.”

“Now look, if you don’t want to carry out my orders,” Kerry said, “Chuckie is dying to be
the Secretary of DHS. As far as that goes, Hillary wouldn’t mind the job either.”

“What about Senator Kennedy?” the Secretary asked.

“What about Teddy?” Kerry chuckled. “Someone came up with a warehouse full of high
quality liquor and the Senator hasn’t been seen since. I think he found someplace here
in the Mountain to drink in private. No, you can forget about Teddy. Probably has some
bimbo with him too, if I’m any judge of character.”

“When do you want to go to Vegas?” the Secretary asked.

144
“Make it next week,” Kerry replied, “And Mr. Secretary, get Terry and me separate
suites. Some of those bimbos in Vegas are pretty easy on the eyes.”

“Yes sir,” the Secretary said shaking his head.

The hotel in Vegas was accustomed to requests for separate suites. It seemed that the
Clintons frequently had gotten separate suites while they were in Vegas. And a friendly
bellhop had provided bimbos to both suites. Go figure, maybe Fleataxi knew something
about Hillary that the rest of us had missed.

In Palmdale things were fairly quiet for the moment. The ATF had been in looking for all
of those arms stolen from the southland armories by the gangsters, but none of them
had shown up, yet. They tried to run another sting on the gun dealers too, but just know-
ing that the ATF was in town kept Sandy on the straight and narrow. She wouldn’t even
sell anything to her regular customers, claiming she had completely sold out of stock on
everything. And when the ATF Agent asked her about semiautomatic weapons, she told
them that she had stopped selling them because she’d heard a rumor that they had
been outlawed. They asked to see her firearms log, but Sandy pointed out that her store
on Avenue Q that had been burned down. The Fire Department, she said, had told her
that they suspected arson.

The ATF brought in FEMA to lend them a hand. They were convinced that those military
weapons were here in Palmdale. An informant had supplied them with a list, purported
of the members of the Palmdale Militia, for a handsome price. And, when they started
door-to-door searches of the homes of the names on the list, the people freely admitted
to belonging to the Militia. But, to a man, those folks were only armed with bolt-action
rifles or single shot weapons. The ATF did have some good luck, of a sort. They found a
large pile of discarded M16 rifles in a warehouse but none of those weapons were ser-
viceable. They also found a large assortment of empty M136 AT-4 casings, but no live
weapons.

They could have brought in ground penetrating radar and metal detectors, but,
Palmdale was a large community and frankly, they had no idea where to begin looking.
Someone had said something about those boys out at Moon Shadows, but when the
ATF got there, they couldn’t see any sign of the shelters that the person claimed were in
the back yards. It had only taken a few inches of dirt and some transplanted flowers to
completely hide the entrances to Randy and Gary’s shelters. While they were at it, they
did a house-to-house search too. Nineteen of the families claimed that the other 20 fam-
ilies, purportedly the other families were on something called the A list, were armed to
the teeth with everything from grenades to rockets to machineguns. But the agents
found nothing to give them a hint that it was the case and they left, chalking the infor-
mation up to a bunch of malcontents.

145
The Captain at Plant 42 had resigned his commission rather than be subject to military
discipline for doing nothing wrong. The Sheriff, after much heart and soul searching,
went along with Johnny’s suggestion that the A list folks be made Reserve Deputy Sher-
iff’s. Johnny had the personal pleasure of issuing the new Reserve Deputy badges and
swearing everyone in. He took note of the fact that Gary had been reading his own fic-
tion and had concealed the entrance to the shelter just like he’d concealed the entrance
to the big tunnel in his first story, The Ark. It was a shame that the ATF and FEMA didn’t
read the Patriot Fiction at the Frugal Squirrel website. Had they done so, they would
have known most of Gary’s secrets and gimmicks.

Some of those 19 families in ‘the other side’ finally got tired of the hassle and put their
homes on the market and moved out of Moon Shadows just to get away from the open
hostility of the A list folks. They all moved into a vacant apartment building closer to the
high school where FEMA issued the food. Gary dug out the C, C & R’s for the Moon
Shadows housing tract and made a few revisions on his computer. These revised C, C
& R’s were provided to the Realtors who had the for sale signs posted on the vacant 19
homes. Most of the Realtors just put the document in the file without looking at them.
One or two took time to skim the documents, however, and made some interesting dis-
coveries. Shocking would be more like it; the documents clearly included several provi-
sions that violated California and US discrimination laws. But there was a tremendous
housing shortage, the sellers were anxious to sell and it wasn’t difficult to find blue-collar
working stiffs who actually had a job and were unopposed to firearms. The 19 homes
sold quickly and the buyers seemed to fit in well at Moon Shadows.

The homes went for a significantly reduced price despite the housing shortage. And, the
sellers were so anxious to sell that they took the first offer that came along, that covered
the balance of their mortgages and the realtor’s commissions. That sort of po’d the real-
tors’; the homes could have brought so much more, increasing their commissions. But
the housing market was booming with people trying to avoid moving back to the San
Fernando Valley and the realtors moved on to sell other homes.

“I thought I’d seen it all Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “What made you think you could get away
with changing those C, C, & R’s like you did?”

“Nothing in particular Ronald,” Gary chuckled, “But I figured it was worth a try. The court
system in California is virtually non-existent since 12Nov05, so those homes would have
gone empty for an awful long time while someone tried to fight the provisions I added.
Besides, it worked, didn’t it? We have our nice blue-collar neighborhood back and eve-
ryone has a job and almost all of them have a reasonable number of firearms.”

“It didn’t seem to change the racial mix much,” Clarence said, “I knowed we could get
black and Hispanics that were hard working blue-collar class people. Some people just
assume that if you’re black or Hispanic you aren’t a member of the silent majority of
hard-working citizens.”

“Anyone who doesn’t fit in won’t last long,” Gary said. “We need to bring our new neigh-

146
bors up to speed on all of the preparations we’ve made in Moon Shadows. It wouldn’t
do for someone or someone’s kid to get hurt by some of those preparations. And while
we’re at it, we have more than enough Assault Rifles to go around, so when we’re sure
that people are appropriate to have an Assault Rifle, we can arm them and they can be-
come members of the Guard Force. We’re going to end up with everyone in this hous-
ing tract being a Reserve Deputy Sheriff before it’s all said and done.”

“What’s your definition of ‘appropriate’?” Clarence asked.

“I don’t know Clarence,” Gary said, “I suppose anyone who belongs to the NRA ought to
be given an automatic pass. But that’s just my opinion and I’m wrong as often as I’m
right. Why don’t we do like we did before and have our personnel experts, Ron and Pat-
ti, get to know the people and make recommendations to the Council?”

“Works for me, Gar-Bear,” Ron acknowledged.

147
 The Three Amigos – Chapter 15 – Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962) Starring Katharine Hepburn gave an explosive
account into author Eugene O’Neill’s explosive home life, fused by a drug-addicted
mother, a father who wallows in drink after realizing he is no longer a famous actor and
an older brother who is emotionally unstable and a misfit. The family was reflected by
the youngest son, who was a sensitive and aspiring writer. The Great American Family
at its worst. James Tyrone is an aging actor and skinflint whose miserliness has been
the ruin of his family. His wife, Mary, has been a morphine addict since the birth of their
youngest son, Edmund. Their eldest son, Jamie is an alcoholic, unable and unwilling to
find work on his own, he has been ‘forced’ to take up his father’s profession. Edmund,
who has been away as a sailor has returned home sick and awaits the doctor’s diagno-
sis of consumption. Each of them is so self-centered, and self-pitying, that they cannot
help one-another. None of them even know what they want and they can’t bear it.

In this story the expression had an entirely different meaning. It referred to the passage
of the country from a country of men ruled by laws into a country ruled by men rather
than the laws. Even worse, those very men used those very laws to rule the country.
Confused? You shouldn’t be, just imagine what would happen if some despot were in
charge of the country and was generating laws to satisfy his own version of how things
should be. No names, but just imagine what could happen. A fella could be talking
about Dubya or John Kerry or perhaps even Chuckie or Hillary or Teddy. Maybe even
some of the extreme right-wingers who made it to Congress but never to the White
House, er, Mt. Weather. Imagine the possibilities… A takeoff from a movie, Roswell
(1999) hilarious dialogue.

Mt. Weather…

“Good morning Mr. President,” Chuckie said, “I can’t begin to tell you how much I ap-
preciate your appointing me as the new Secretary of Homeland Security. Say, what’s
that song you’re humming, it sounds familiar, but I can’t place it?”

“Chuckie,” Kerry replied, “It’s Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha. What do you
have for me today?”

“We tried cutting the food from 1,200 calories per day to 1,000 calories per day,” Chuck-
ie said, “But that’s splitting the hair a little too fine. So, we went to 900 calories instead.”

“Well, Americans are too fat for their own good anyway Chuck,” Kerry chuckled, “But we
won’t be able to keep that up for long. How’s the planting coming in the Midwest?”

“They’ve barely gotten started Mr. President,” Chuck Schumer, former junior Senator
from the state of New York, explained. “We won’t really know until this fall how much
food we’ll have to distribute. We have people crying for food, Mr. President.”

“Well, like Josephine said,” Kerry pronounced, “Let them eat cake.”

148
“That was Marie Antoinette, Mr. President,” Chuck said, “And a recent biographer
claims that Let them eat cake was actually spoken by Marie-Therese, wife of France’s
Louis XIV, 100 years before Marie Antoinette, but no one couldn’t find anything online to
corroborate this. Ultimately, we will probably never know who uttered this infamous
phrase.”

“It doesn’t matter who said it Chuck,” Kerry snapped.

“Of course not Mr. President,” Schumer replied.

“Did the ATF and FEMA ever come up with those missing weapons in Palmdale?” Kerry
asked.

“No sir and we did house-to-house searches, ran another sting operation on the gun
dealers and about everything we could think of,” Schumer replied.

“Those weapons have to be somewhere,” Kerry insisted, “They can’t have all just dis-
appeared. Just what I need is some burg out in California, home of liberal ideas, armed
to the teeth with military style weapons. And, in the Antelope Valley, no less. My advi-
sors tell me that when I was over in Vietnam saving Democracy, the Antelope Valley
was a hotbed of militia groups.”

“That was a long time ago Mr. President,” Schumer replied. “I’ve heard those reports,
but over the years, the militias seemed to disappear with the influx of people from Los
Angeles.”

“They probably just went underground Chuck,” Kerry said. “Send the ATF and FEMA
and the FBI and the CIA if you have to. We need to find the militiamen who have the
weapons.”

“Actually, the Palmdale Militiamen all admitted to membership,” Schumer explained,

“But they were armed with bolt-action and single shot rifles and they are technically still
legal.”

“I can issue another Executive Order and take care of that oversight,” Kerry said.

“Probably wouldn’t do you any good Mr. President,” Schumer replied. “Those weapons
would just disappear like the automatic weapons.”

Was Charles Schumer, the new Secretary of Homeland Security smarter than he
looked? Probably not, but even buffoons get lucky from time to time or make a smart
guess. Ron and Patti had taken time to get to know each family that had moved into
Moon Shadows. There wasn’t a ringer in the lot. Gary had even taken the time to get to

149
know the new neighbors and though he had trouble with names, got so he recognized
everyone. The M16s and assorted weapons were issued to each family and some time
was spent at the firing range east a mile or two getting the people familiar with the
weapons. Johnny had shown up with a pickup full of military ammo seized from the
gangsters from time to time when he came to visit his kids. If there was one thing
Palmdale wasn’t short of, it was 5.56 ammo. They weren’t particularly short on anything
except for stuff like Armor, the tracked kind.

With the gang threat removed, the Army no longer saw fit to guard Plant 42 either. And
except for the food shortage, Palmdale was returning to normal. Lots of people planted
‘victory’ gardens that year to fill in for the food shortages. The heirloom seeds were es-
pecially in demand and some folks, like Gar-Bear, had a good assortment from places
like Walton Feed. Gary had never thought he’d end up farming again and he didn’t. He
provided the seeds and others provided the labor. Being preparedness freaks had its
advantages, too. The Three Amigos got a jump on most people in Palmdale and had
gotten more than enough quart jars, lids and rings. Pressure cookers weren’t in great
supply and Gary had a couple of those blue granite colored canners that they used for
canning some of the veggies. But, I’m getting ahead of the story.

01May06…

“It sure does seem like a shame to till up that sod on the east end of your lawn, Gary,”
Clarence said.

“That’s the part over the septic field Clarence,” Gary explained. “The pipes are deep
enough, barely, to filter out the bacteria and there hasn’t been any use of the field for a
while so we should get a good crop off that patch. And rototilling the ground twice is do-
ing a pretty good job of breaking up the sod.”

“What kinds of food are you planting?” Clarence asked.

“The label says that each can contains 1 each seed packet of tomato, carrot, squash,
cabbage, onion, zucchini, Swiss chard, cucumber, lettuce, radish, pepper, beet, spin-
ach, and 4 packets each of beans, peas and corn,” Gary read. “I don’t care for some of
those things, but I’m a picky eater. I don’t think that anything will go to waste.”

“What about things like spuds?” Clarence asked.

“I carefully dried the potato peelings with eyes in them,” Gary explained. “Back when I
was going to Law School, my brother tossed a pan of potato peelings on a pile of grass
and they sprouted. Even if I only get a few of those eyes to sprout, we’ll get some pota-
toes.”

“Well if it works, good,” Clarence said, “And if it don’t I guess we’ll just keep doing with-
out spuds.”

150
“The real problem is that we’ve been out of meat for a while,” Gary said. “I should have
put in a larger freezer, but I had no idea that the situation would take this long to re-
solve.”

“What are you going to do, start raising cattle?” Clarence chuckled.

“No, not me, pal, I left the farm for good in 19 and 52,” Gary said. “But when I was in
college in Waverly, Iowa, I cut meat for old Huey up in Nashua. The cheap SOB only
started me out at 50 cents an hour and acted like he was doing me a favor to pay me a
buck an hour. But, I did learn to cut meat, so every cloud seems to have a silver lining.”

“What you mean by that?” Clarence asked.

“We can buy us a beef if we can find one and I can cut up the meat,” Gary announced.
“Sharon bought the grinder attachment for her Kitchen Aide mixer so we can even make
ground beef.”

“Don’t meat have to age before you cut it up?” Clarence asked.

“We can hang the meat in the shelter and leave the door to the freezer open Clarence,”
Gary replied. “The ambient temperature of the shelter is about 56 degrees so the freez-
er should keep it pretty darned cold down there. In fact, I expect we’ll have to close the
lid on the freezer from time to time to keep the shelter from freezing up. I’ll have to move
the radio equipment and such out while we age the meat, but that’s only temporary.”

“Don’t you need power tools to cut up meat?” Clarence asked.

“It makes it a lot easier, but they used to use hand saws before those band saws came
along,” Gary explained. “I can get by in a pinch. When I was a little kid living on the farm
north of Greene, I saw a butcher cutting up pork chops with a cleaver once. But in all
the time I worked for Huey, I could never get the hang of using a cleaver. It won’t be
pretty, but I have the saw for my miter box and I’m going to use it to cut the meat if we
can find some.”

“How long you going to age the meat?” Clarence asked.

“I don’t know a lot on the subject partner,” Gary said, “But here goes. Carcasses or
meat are aged by holding them at refrigeration temperatures for extended periods of
time after slaughter and initial chill. Aging (or conditioning as it is called in many coun-
tries) improves the tenderness and flavor of meat. There are two methods for aging
meat: wet aging and dry aging.”

“Dry aging is much more expensive and takes longer than wet aging. Meat that is dry
aged is hung in a very clean, temperature and humidity-controlled cooler for a period of
two to four weeks. During this time, enzymes within the meat break down the muscle
and connective tissue making it tender. Moisture is lost from the outer parts of the car-

151
cass causing an inedible crust to form, which must be trimmed off and discarded. The
carefully controlled environment, the time involved, and the loss of outer portions of the
carcass make dry aging a costly process,” Gary said, “But that’s our only choice. Wet
aging occurs when meat and its own juices are vacuum packed in plastic and boxed for
distribution. Because the plastic packaging does not allow loss of moisture, the meat
may absorb more moisture, which results in an increase in juiciness and tenderness.
Both methods of aging work well and can create a better product. The difference is that
dry aging gives a more distinctive flavor while wet aging is much less costly and allows
for a quicker entry to the market and therefore a much longer shelf-life.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Clarence said.

“Two weeks, Clarence,” Gary replied.

“Now that’s an answer that I can understand,” Clarence chuckled. “Why is it you have to
turn every question into a lecture subject?”

“It must be the school teacher in me,” Gary laughed.

Clarence wisely let the subject drop. He got together with Ron and the two of them
started scouring the area in and around Palmdale looking for beef on the hoof. During
early June, they finally found a farmer who was willing to part with a couple of steers, for
a price. They agreed to pay the sum demanded and the farmer agreed to deliver the
two cattle. The deed was done and that led to a series of problems that had to be
solved. There was some discussion about the proper way to kill the beef, but Gary
solved that with his Vaquero. There was some discussion about bleeding the meat out,
but Chris solved that with his shop hoist and a sharp knife. There was the question of
skinning the beef but Gary had been a trapper when he went to college and cut meat,
so he did his best. Then they used a handsaw and cut the carcasses in half and then
into quarters. The beef ended up in the shelter being aged and Gary scraped the hides
with some assistance from others and they brain tanned the hides just like Fleataxi
wrote about in North to Alaska or was it Escape From The Rat Race or both?

Butcher paper and tape were easy enough to come by; Costco had everything but food
and some other essentials. So, after the meat had hung for 10-days, Gary started to
butcher the meat. You’ll have to realize that butcher is exactly the right term. Gary
hadn’t really cut meat for a living since 1969 and the carcasses got butchered all right,
and that ain’t a compliment. Gary’s freezer wasn’t large enough by far for 4 sides of
beef, and it didn’t hold one. But he had the freezers on his refrigerators and they were
pretty bare. The other 3 quarters of beef were distributed around the housing tract, mak-
ing The Three Amigos residents of the year. The other residents had to open the pack-
ages to see what was inside in many cases. In Iowa, in 1969, they had different names
for a lot of those cuts of meat. Gary had never heard of a tri-tip or a watermelon roast
until he moved to California. And, to be perfectly honest, he still didn’t know exactly
where they came from on the beef. But once it was roasted, just what in the hell differ-
ence did it make?

152
[A Watermelon Roast goes by many different names: Diamond-cut Roast, Full Rump,
Manhattan Roast, Melon Roast, Rump Tail, Round Tip Roast, Rump Roast, Rump Tri-
angle, Wedge-cut Rump Roast, Sirloin Tip Roast... A George C. Roast. It’s also called
the Tri-Tip.]

“Those are pretty skimpy steaks you cut, Gar-Bear,” Ron suggested.

“You eat too large of a piece of meat anyway Ronald,” Gary countered. “Those are
boneless 8-ounce steaks and if you don’t like them, give yours to Clarence. I don’t hear
him complaining about the size of the steaks.”

“Eight-ounce?” Ron bellowed, “I never ordered anything smaller than a 12-ounce steak
in my life.”

“Yeah, I can see that for myself, partner,” Gary replied. “It’s right up front for everyone to
see.”

“I’ve been losing weight, I’ll have you know,” Ronald said.

“You hat is a little loose on your head, partner,” Gary laughed, “I think I know where
you’ve been losing the weight from.”

“Haven’t we had this discussion before?” Clarence asked.

“Your memory isn’t very good Clarence,” Gary said. “The previous discussion was about
the size of my ass and my head, not Ronald’s.”

“That’s right, I remember,” Clarence agreed. “He’s right Ron, you do sort of have a fat,
uh, everything.”

21Jun06…

Stringbean, aka Clarence, was more than a little disappointed in his 2 amigos. It
seemed that sometimes Ron could dish it out, but just couldn’t take it. Gary had been
right about Ron and so had he for that matter. Ron was a little on the pudgy side at 5’ 5”
and 230 pounds, but Ron claimed it was all ‘muscle’. Most of Ron’s muscle was be-
tween his ears, at times. Clarence had bowed out of the discussion after he’d put his
foot in it. Gary was being pretty reasonable about the whole thing, but Ron was another
story. What they needed here was a crisis to bring them back together. Clarence, did I
ever tell you about God’s sense of humor?

Around 10am, the whole darned federal government showed up at Moon Shadows. You
had the ATF, the BIA, the CIA, the DIA, the EPA, FEMA and everything almost up to the

153
letter Z. The BIA? Well, they’d probably heard that Gary liked Indians and were check-
ing to see if he was holding any Indians as slaves. Every single house in the tract was
searched from top to bottom. They had that ground penetrating radar and metal detec-
tors and it didn’t take them long to find Gary and Randy’s shelters, either. What they
didn’t find was a single illegal firearm; or, for that matter, a single legal firearm, either.
Now, if they had just checked out east of Palmdale a mile or two at what the boys used
for a shooting range, they’d have come away fat. And to make matters worse, the Sher-
iff of Los Angeles County had made every adult in the housing tract Reserve Deputy
Sheriff’s. So, unless they came up with actual stolen military hardware, these folks could
legally own all sorts of things.

It occurred to the feds that they must have a leak somewhere, but with so many agen-
cies involved, they didn’t know where to start looking for the stoolie. After much debate
and arguing, mostly among themselves, the alphabet departed to harass the Palmdale
Militia. Now the raid accomplished 2 things. It seemed pretty clear that these people ei-
ther didn’t have any firearms or had found an awfully good hiding place. Moreover, it
settled the running dispute within the ranks of The Three Amigos.

“I’m sorry you have a fat butt, Ronald,” Gary said.

“Think nothing of it partner,” Ron said, “I could stand to lose 5 pounds.”

Five? Let it be Gary, you just put one over on him anyway. Ron thought you said you
were sorry that you said he had a fat butt…

My fellow Americans, Kerry started.

We have a problem in this great land of ours. (Oh, really?) Until the harvest is complet-
ed this late summer and fall, we have a tremendous shortage of food. We realize that
many of you have planted gardens to tide you over and you are to be commended. I as-
sure you that as soon as the food enters the distribution network we will increase the
ration up from the present 1,500 calories to the previous 1,800.

But I come before you tonight not with regard to the food crisis, but because of the fire-
arms crisis. I have issued Executive Orders to restrict slightly the public ownership of
firearms. I fail to see why someone needs an automatic weapon to hunt deer. (That’s
semi-auto, dummy.) This administration is aware of several groups around this country
who believe that they have a right to form a militia and arm themselves. This is a gross
misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Congress has not seen fit to enact the Assault
Weapons Ban I proposed. I have, in accordance with the powers granted me by the
USA Patriot Act and the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, issued certain Executive
Orders. Pursuant to those Executive Orders, all full and semi-automatic weapons must
be surrendered to your local authorities. Provisions of other Executive Orders I have
been forced to issue have been made known to the appropriate authorities charged with
enforcing those orders. (What, it’s a secret? How can we obey if we don’t know what the
new rules are?)

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As some of you may know, I found it necessary to replace the Secretary of Homeland
Security with a real American Patriot. Charles Schumer, the former junior Senator from
the great state of New York is now the Secretary of the Homeland Security Department.
Secretary Schumer assures me that the Department of Homeland Security will do eve-
rything in its power to remove those Assault Weapons from the hands of the American
public. I ask that all of you cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security in this
effort to clear these deadly weapons from our streets.

The cleanup of the cities attacked by the terrorists this past November 12th in now
complete. Your government will continue to rebuild the public buildings destroyed during
those attacks. The insurance industry has informed this administration that they would
be unable to fully honor the many claims that have been filed as a result of those at-
tacks. To ensure a fair and equitable settlement for all parties involved, (big business
with deep pockets) all claims will be prorated at 33 cents on the dollar, with certain ex-
ceptions. (big business with deep pockets, again)

My fellow Americans, we are all in this together. No person is more equal than any other
person. If we pull together, the United States of America will be reborn as a stronger
and more powerful nation. Beware of the man who would tell you that the old way was
the best way. These are different times America, and some of those guarantees that the
founders of this country thought necessary are no longer appropriate in a nation of the
21st Century.

Thank you and good night.

“Was that John Kerry or George Orwell that we just listening to?” Gary asked. “It sounds
to me as if Kerry has a new speechwriter. It has been a long time since I read the book
(Animal Farm). Any opinions fellas?”

“Who was George Orwell?” Clarence asked. “I know the name, but can’t put a face on
it.”

“George Orwell wrote a book called Animal Farm,” Gary said.

“I remember, that was where the pigs was in charge and All Animals Are Equal / But
Some Are More Equal than Others,” Clarence announced.

“That’s the book, Clarence,” Gary said. “I found the remark that Kerry made to be of
great interest.”

“Which remark?” Ron asked.

“No person is more equal than any other person,” Gary replied. “Everything else he said
seemed to contradict that remark.”

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“It almost sounds to me like you have an agenda Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “What is it that
you’re trying to sell?”

“The same thing I’ve been trying to sell all along Ron, preparedness,” Gary replied. “I’m
trying to prepare the two of you for the eventuality that someday, someone will get in
power in this country and will use the laws of this country to bring it down. Let’s face it;
the law was simple at one time. Now, something is either obscene or not obscene de-
pending upon the community that you live in. Rather than address such fundamental
questions of what’s naughty and what’s nice, the Supreme Court begged the question.”

“What does that have to do with the President’s speech tonight?” Ron asked.

“Don’t you find it a little bit convenient that he used one lie to introduce another?” Gary
asked.

“What are you talking about, Gary?” Clarence asked.

“The present 1,500 calories to the previous 1,800 calories,” Gary said. “You know that
we’ve never gone on the food dole, but I’ve seen what they hand out as 1,500 calories.
If it’s 1,000 calories, I’d be shocked. Now assuming that was the lead-in lie, he moved
right into that attack on the 2nd Amendment. He disputes that a well-regulated militia is
necessary to preserve the state and uses that as a springboard to take away our fire-
arms. And I don’t believe for one minute that the insurance companies can’t do better
than 33 cents on the dollar. You would expect some reduction, but that is ridiculous.
And finally, he was off with the Orwellian crap about everyone being equal. Whenever
someone starts talking like that, I get nervous.”

“We did have half the housing tract sitting on their behinds living off the dole,” Ron
agreed.

“And where is the money coming from to pay for the dole, Ron?” Gary asked. “You were
commenting in April about not paying taxes because there was no way to mail in your
return. Did the government suddenly plant a money tree or are they taking from some
and giving to others?”

“Don’t the government always do that?” Clarence asked.

“To some extent of course, Clarence, but it’s been getting steadily worse since the great
depression and FDR getting into office,” Gary said. “You fellas shouldn’t have gotten me
wound up. I get mad just thinking about welfare and all those people living off the middle
class. Every time they cut taxes, they just create more loopholes for the rich and cut the
taxes of the poor and who gets stuck? Us; the middle class and the little guy in the mid-
dle. Bill Gates makes a jillion dollars, but he tax shelters a bunch of it with his founda-
tion. And what’s the maximum tax rate? 39.6% last time I looked. If you’re making 10
billion dollars a year, who cares if you only get to hold on to 6 billion of it? Six billion is
still a lot of money.”

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“Gary you need to take a Xanax or something,” Ron suggested.

“I need to go out to that shooting range and get my Super Match and head for Mt.
Weather is what I need to do Ron,” Gary said. “But I won’t. There’s no need to. Unless
Mr. Kerry is able to fix the election in 2008, he’ll be out of here and we’ll just have some
other heartache to deal with.”

“You make it sound as if there isn’t much hope my friend,” Ron said.

“Ronald, hope is the only thing we have,” Gary replied, “But we can hope until Fleataxi
stops holding his breath and we won’t be a bit better off than we are. Unless the people
of this country take matters into their own hands, there might not be a country by 2008.”

“You’re talking about another revolution, Gary,” Clarence said.

“You darn tooting I’m talking about another revolution Clarence,” Gary replied. “I may be
wrong and if I am, I won’t get much support from the population as a whole. If I’m right,
and I think I am, once we get the ball started rolling, it will be like a snowball rolling
downhill gathering in size and momentum. Now, the simple question is, ‘Are you with
me or against me?’ I won’t hold a grudge if you don’t want to join in. But, I’m going to
talk to some people and see if we can get the ball rolling.”

“Well hell,” Ron said, “You can’t live forever can you, count me in.”

“Me too, Gary,” Clarence said, “We’ve been in this thing together for a long time. It’s
The Three Amigos, and don’t you forget it.”

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 The Three Amigos – Chapter 16 – What We’ve Got Here Is…

In a bar in Toledo across from the depot

On a bar stool she took off her ring
I thought I’d get closer so I walked on over
I sat down and asked her name
When the drinks finally hit her she said I’m no quitter
But I finally quit livin’ on dreams
I’m hungry for laughter and here ever after
I’m after what-ever the other life brings

In the mirror I saw him and I closely watched him

I thought how he looked out of place
He came to the woman who sat there beside me
Had a strange look on his face
The big hands were calloused he looked like a mountain
For a minute I thought I was dead
But he started shaking his big heart was breaking
He turned to the woman and said

You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille

With four hungry children and a crop in the field
I’ve had some bad times lived through some sad times
But this time your hurting won’t heal
You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille

After he left us I ordered more whisky

I thought how she’d made him look small
From the lights of the bar room to a rented hotel room
We walked without talking at all
She was a beauty but when she came to me
She must have thought I’d lost my mind
I couldn’t hold her ‘cos the words that he told her
Kept coming back time after time

You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille....

… failure to communicate. Cool Hand Luke (1967) and, Anything so innocent and built
like that just gotta be named Lucille. (George Kennedy, same movie)

How does a revolution get started? Where does a revolution get started, might be the
more correct question. A revolution starts in the heart and in the mind of someone who
just has plain had enough. A revolution is an idea that, like a bean, puts down a root
and puts up a shoot. With nurturing, the bean, like the revolution, grows. It starts small,
but in the light of day, and even during the darkness of night, grows to a more respecta-
ble size. And like any growing plant, it begins to bear fruit. The fruit might be small at

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first, barely a little ball behind a large blossom. But in time, the little ball gets bigger, just
like that snowball rolling down the snowy slope. The ball gets bigger and gains momen-
tum. And, the fruit, be it a pod of beans or a round little berry that turns red, grows. And
before you know it, you have a mature bean ready for picking. A bright red strawberry,
hard, but softening as the berry matures and the sugar comes out. And when the berry
is fully matured, it is sweet, oh so sweet.

What does a farm wife named Lucille have to do with The Three Amigos? Nothing that I
can think of; that was an accidental find while I was looking for something else and I
happen to like Kenny Rogers. But what that Warden said in Cool Hand Luke and Luke
repeated at the end of the movie is important. What John Kerry had in the early summer
of 2006 was a major communications problem. He might have thought he was doing the
right thing, what liberal doesn’t? But in reality, he was walking all over the Constitution
and the American people and the American people were hungry and tired and starting
to get very, very angry. Lincoln said, You can fool all the people some of the time, and
some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. John Ker-
ry was lying to all of the people all of the time and Lincoln said that you couldn’t do that.
Or, do I misinterpret? But, what the hell, Lincoln was a Republican, so what did he
know?

Who, what, why, where, when and how are the classic questions. Never ask why, or so
they taught me in school. The only correct answer to why is, why not? Let’s deal with
when, it is a good starting point. When does a revolution begin? When some middle-
aged, average guy had been through the most horrific experience in his life and sur-
vived only to have to end up fighting for his life and doing things he would never have
done otherwise. When that same middle-aged, average guy has been lied to, blatantly
for so long that he begins to see plots within plots within plots and has had enough.
When his two best friends in the world agree with his interpretation of the events. That
tacit agreement is when the revolution really begins. It’s long before anyone pickups up
a weapon and takes action. It is when reasonable people agree that they have no
choice but to use force to combat a perceived evil.

And what do these middle-aged, average and otherwise reasonable guys do? Do they
grab their guns and grenades and rush off half-cocked to fight the forces of evil? Not
hardly; they’re older now and not so spry as they once were. They tend to their garden,
that’s what they do. They plant the seed, the idea, among other like-minded people and
let the seed germinate and grow. The like-minded people are their friends and neigh-
bors, fertile soil for the seed to germinate in.

They carefully tend that now germinating seed making sure that the ground is free of
weeds and that the seed has a chance to grow. And sometimes the seed takes very
good root in the soil of discontent and grows at a surprising rate. Those friends and
neighbors talk to other friends and pretty soon that little seed becomes a grapevine,
spreading out. And, in the US of A in the early summer of 2006, there were a lot of peo-
ple like The Three Amigos around the county; people who were tired and hungry and
didn’t like to be lied to. From Atlanta to Seattle and from San Diego to Portland, there

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were many gardeners, tending the garden that would spawn a second revolution.

How does such a thing happen? Like anything else it needs a trigger. Was the trigger
the lies emanating from on high? Was the trigger the terrorist attack? Did it go back fur-
ther than that to perhaps even before The Three Amigos were born, like in the time of
the Great Depression when the US suddenly took on a socialist bent? Who knows the
real how? It may beg the question, but there’s an answer there, no matter how elusive.

And what of the rest of the world, one might logically ask? Where have they been during
the hours, days, weeks and months since 12Nov05? Lending a hand, of course, that’s
where they’ve been. But sometimes this hand-lending thing goes too far and surprising-
ly, even shockingly, when the United Nations, offered to lend a helping hand, it came in
the form of Peacekeepers. Not aid, or medical assistance, although they were part of a
PACKAGE deal, but Peacekeepers to restore order in the good old US of A. Maybe the
US’s longtime allies like France and Germany were behind the UN’s offer; they were still
piqued over Iraq. Maybe Russia saw an opportunity to defeat a country with which it had
waged a war that lasted from WW II to the 1990’s. But, in a move that surprised many,
Kerry rejected the UN’s offer because it came with so high a price tag.

Canada and México helped, of course, and so did Great Britain. The United States had
many allies and a few friends and the help came. The helpful bound the wounds arising
from the attack and tended to the ill. But the countries were limited in their abilities to
help and in time, when all of the bandages had been applied and their resources ex-
hausted, and it was a matter of cleaning up a few remaining sites and rebuilding, the
Canadians, Méxicans and British left to deal with their own demons and needs. The ter-
rorists had their own snowball they were trying to roll downhill and countries that aided
the US began to experience their own nightmares, except, perhaps on a somewhat
smaller scale. And, while they couldn’t exactly put a finger on it, there was something
changing in the US and it perhaps frightened the Canadians and the Méxicans and the
British.

First there had been that gang unrest and an apparent reluctance on the part of the US
administration to get involved. Then, there was the fiasco over the food. It was apparent
to most outside observers that Kerry was lying about the food. But, that was an internal
matter within the US and besides, there were hungry Méxicans and Canadians and Brit-
ish and what about the people in Sudan? No country was willing to interfere in an inter-
nal matter of what was still the most powerful nation on the planet or risk having an
American Carrier Task Group off their shores. On the eve of the 230th Birthday Party for
the Declaration of Independence, America found itself quite alone in the world. Since
the end of the Cold War, the US was seen by many to be the dominate power in the
world and after Clinton’s Peace Dividend and the abortive deal in Somalia, and after the
attack on the WTC on 9/11 and Bush’s subsequent War on Terror, America had lost the
respect of some, perhaps many, and those arrogant, Ugly Americans could go it alone.
We’ve all heard the expression, ‘The Shot Heard Round the World’. But what of the
second shot heard round the world?

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The second shot heard round the world wouldn’t be so dramatic nor draw much notice.
In fact many would fail to recognize it for just that, the beginning of the second American
Revolution. It wasn’t April 19, 1775 and it didn’t happen on the Lexington Green and
spread to Concord. It was July 4, 2006 and it was 10:06am and it was in California. It
occurred when some heavy-handed alphabet agency goons pushed the wrong people
on the wrong day at the wrong time. And it didn’t involve The Three Amigos, at least not
directly. It occurred when some poor slob didn’t have a chance to hide his illegal M16
rifle and rather than allow himself to be arrested, shot a couple of the goons and his
neighbors, also members of the Palmdale Militia, joined in and killed the other goons.

It occurred at 12:01pm in Lubbock, Texas under similar circumstances on the same

day. It occurred in Mississippi and Georgia and Virginia and in so many other cities, but
all on the same day, 04Jul06. The second shot heard round the world wasn’t heard all
that far from the actual shooting and it was a series of events, not a single shot, just as
had happened on Lexington Green and at the Bridge at Concord. There had been many
shots fired on April 19, 1775. There were many shots fired on July 4, 2006. One would
have thought the feds would take the occasion of the 230th Anniversary of the Declara-
tion of Independence off. But no, it was the perfect time to make raids on some unsus-
pecting people who were high on the feds radar. Or on second thought, maybe it was
the worst possible time. “Jacta alea est – The die is cast”, supposedly utter by Julius
Caesar on crossing the river Rubicon to invade Italy in 49 BC.

The die was cast on that July day and once cast, there was no turning back. The Three
Amigos heard about the shootings later in the day. They were eating fried chicken, a
treat, and fresh veggies from their garden and having a pretty good time of it. There was
ample iced tea, food and perhaps even the occasional can of beer or soda. The entire
housing tract had turned out for a monster block party to celebrate Independence Day.
In one front yard a net was up and kids of all ages were engaged in a volleyball match.
In another yard, two of the new neighbors were tossing horseshoes of all things. There
was the softball game across the street in the open field and the 3 friends were sitting at
a table with an umbrella in front of Gary’s house. The gate was propped open and kids
were constantly being reminded to ‘be careful of the barbed wire’.

There was that wasn’t there? Barbed wire around Gary and Chris and Dick and Randy’s
homes; it was a constant reminder that all was not perfect in the world or even in the
country. And during the early afternoon Johnny came by. The Three Amigos saw him
and thought he was there to spend some time with his kids. But, to their surprise, John-
ny pulled up right in front of Gary’s and came out of his patrol car with a, was it deter-
mined, look on his face. There wasn’t much to tell.

Earlier that day, some ATF people thought they had the goods on one of the Palmdale
Militiamen and they’d gone barging in on a no knock search and caught the guy red
handed with a M16. The militiaman had just finished cleaning his weapon and had no
sooner inserted a fresh magazine in the weapon than his front door burst open. He
chambered a round and fired before the ATF boys were able to get off a round. His M16
was an older model with full auto and he’d moved the selector to full, chambered the

161
round and fired in the blink of an eye. The two feds went down, the fusillade of fire
penetrating their level II vests or perhaps catching them in the face, Johnny never said.

When the militiamen’s neighbor’s, also members of the Militia heard the firing, their
weapons appeared, as if by magic, and they finished what their neighbor had started.
And, in Palmdale, California at approximately 10:06am, the die was cast. And in the in-
tervening hours, reports of other shootings around the country had begun to surface on
the now restored computer network used by law enforcement.

“I do believe that it has begun,” Gary announced.

“The Revolution?” Clarence asked.

“What else would old Gar-Bear be talking about, partner?” Ron asked. “That has been
the entire subject of conversation around this place since John Kerry made that stupid
speech about Animal Farm.”

“I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” Gary said, “What do you want to hear
first?”

“Let’s hear the good news, Gary,” Clarence urged, “We’ve had enough bad news for
one day.”

“Gentlemen, the American people are about to recover what is rightfully theirs from a
government that had turned into a tyrant,” Gary stated.

“What’s the bad news, Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

“I’m too old for this crap.” Gary smiled.

“You’re too old?” Clarence replied, “You’re the youngest of the three of us.”

“I guess that makes the 2 of you too old for this crap, too,” Gary acknowledged.

The questions began to fly. Where do we start? What are the ground rules? What tar-
gets do we hit and what is permissible and what is off limits? Do we hit the military or
just the civilian governmental employees? Are we going to lead the fight or are we going
to remain in the background and just lend our less than considerable wisdom to the
fight? What about if the military decided to get involved and use tanks and jets and
bombs against the revolutionaries? What, what, what? There were a lot more questions
than answers on that July afternoon.

The Three Amigos sensed, rather than knew, that this was bigger than they. Johnny
had made that more than evident when he described some of the events that had oc-
curred round the country on that day. The Three Amigos didn’t even have a plan. They
had been out stirring up the soup so to speak, and hadn’t given much thought to what

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they were going to do if the sales pitch bore fruit. Most of their attention had been fo-
cused inward with an eye to protecting their families and homes and the housing tract;
except for selling of the idea of a revolution, that is. But, now that you’ve closed the deal
and sold the customer the car or the new home or the bag of steer manure, you find
yourself in the position of having to deliver the goods, don’t you?

With any new venture, you start small, taking those first baby steps. The Three Amigos
decided that in the end the military might turn out to be their best friend so the questions
of who to hit were resolved to hitting civilian employees of the government; unless the
military took some action against them. And, some of those alphabet agencies came to
mind immediately like ATF and FEMA, just to name their favorites. At first, it was easy,
the ATF and FEMA wore jackets with A-T-F and F-E-M-A emblazoned on the back. But
after a few rounds in the T and between the E and the M, they switched to jackets that
said P-O-L-I-C-E. There wasn’t any shortage of targets, at least not at first. ATF and
FEMA were in Palmdale and other cities on a mission, but it wasn’t a mission from God.
Well, Kerry might dispute that, but really, it wasn’t a mission from God. [Am I going to
vote for Kerry in November? Can pigs fly?] The Three Amigos sat at Moon Shadows
and conducted the orchestra. They really were too old to go on many missions.

“It don’t seem right,” Clarence said, “All those young folks is having all the fun. I gots me
a $2,000 rifle with a $1,000 scope and 1,000-rounds of match grade ammunition and
alls I gets to do is sit here directing traffic.”

“You could let someone else use that rifle, you know,” Ron suggested.

“Harry can’t have my rifle Ron and that’s final,” Clarence said foreclosing that discus-
sion.

“Well, we could take those M16A4’s and a bag full of grenades and lob a few into that
office the ATF and FEMA set up in the Library,” Gary suggested.

“And do what, burn books?” Ron protested, “Adolph Hitler burned books; I ain’t going
there partner.”

“We could get them when they get in those armored Suburban’s they drive,” Gary sug-
gested.

“Are you sure you know how to operate that grenade launcher Gary?” Clarence asked.
“I wouldn’t want to get all setup to start an ambush and have you not know where the
trigger was.”

Gary mimicked loading a grenade into the M203 and grasped the rifle’s magazine with
his finger on the M203’s trigger. “Good enough?” he asked.

“It would work better if you put a grenade in it,” Ron chuckled.

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“Haha, Ronald McDonald,” Gary said, “I’ve got your grenade right here.”

“Don’t load the darn thing now Gar-Bear,” Ron snapped, “Wait until we get to the Civic
Center.”

“Load a grenade, don’t load a grenade,” Gary sing-sang, “You must think I’m a complete
idiot.”

“I don’t know about the complete part,” Ron countered.

So, The Three Amigos and 3 of David’s boys left for the Civic Center well after dark.
The Civic Center is located on Palmdale Boulevard at Sierra Highway, about 5.5-6 miles
from Moon Shadows. There was still a curfew in effect, but only the feds were enforcing
it and only when they dared run the risk. To make sure that the feds couldn’t hold them
if they were stopped, everyone was wearing their Reserve Deputy badge. Gary had
taken a minute or two and had switched holsters so he had his Kimber rather than the
M1911 on this night. They intended to park the car about a block from the Civic Center
and proceed carefully on foot. Further would have been better, but Gary insisted on
wearing those darn Laredo’s and his feet hurt.

Sometimes Gary reminded his friends of the Staler Brothers song, Flowers on the Wall
and its lyric, Playing Solitaire ‘til dawn with the deck of 51. Was our boy 2 cans short of
a six-pack? They got into position, finally, and hunkered down to wait for some feds to
come out of the office. The feds used to keep 9-5 hours, but since they’d been getting
shot in the back so often, they were working 24/7. Shift change, if you can call it that,
occurred around 11pm. The feds had taken to making late night, no knock searches of
the Palmdale Militia folks and other people they suspected of having illegal weapons.
Aware of the feds tactics, the Palmdale Militia had gone underground with their firearms
and it was an exercise in futility for the feds. Where do they get these guys?

At 10:45pm, several Suburban’s pulled into the Library parking lot and the agents hur-
ried into the building. They seemed to be agitated about something. A few minutes later
the entire group rushed out of the building, the 2nd shift and the graveyard shift. Obvi-
ously something was up. The six of them opened up, first lobbing a HEDP grenade with
the M203 and following on after with six weapons firing 3-round bursts, one after the
other. The grenades did most of the dirty work and many of the feds were on the ground
dead or mortally wounded. Those who escaped the initial onslaught moved quickly be-
hind vehicles for cover and began to return fire with their H&K MP-5’s. We all know that
The Three Amigos had M4-FA suppressors on their rifles, so there was no muzzle flash
or loud sound to give away their position. Having seen the benefits of the suppressors
first hand, The Three Amigos had prevailed upon Sandy to part with more of the devices
and David’s boys were also using suppressed M16A2’s.

The feds didn’t have targets to shoot at so they were liberal in their fire and were hosing
down the general area. The few remaining feds, inside the Library, came boiling out to
help their comrades. Boiling out right into heavy fire from the 6 Moon Shadows resi-

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dents. Gary wondered, “Are we having fun now, Clarence?” as he changed mags yet
another time. The inevitability of the situation must have finally dawned on the feds and
they made a break back for the cover of the Library. All that accomplished was make
the inevitable a certainty. When the sounds of firing stopped, The Three Amigos and
David’s boys assumed that the feds were all down.

How many times had Gary preached, ‘never assume it makes an ass out of u and me’?
But, that was theory and this was real and the adrenalin was pumping about a pint a
minute. They were cautious; don’t get me wrong, but not cautious enough. One of the
feds was playing dead but when he saw the boys administering coups de grace to his
fallen friends, he took a deep breath and opened up with his MP5. Everyone was wear-
ing Interceptor OTV with Threat Level IV TAP IV hard armor plates. The plates, at over
9 pounds, were heavy but this night they took the precaution.

A hard armor plate only does you some good if a bullet strikes the plate. The fed was on
the ground, playing dead and he rolled a little and opened up. He hit legs and he hit
body armor and he hit Jason on the forehead with a glancing bullet. No one was dead,
although it appeared for a moment that Jason was down for the count. But, they were
shot up, that much was certain. And their vehicle was at least a block away. But the
door was open on one of the Suburban’s so they gathered up all of the feds MP-5’s,
magazines and piled into that Suburban. They dropped Clarence off at their vehicle; he
had escaped getting shot, and the two vehicles convoyed down Avenue R towards
Moon Shadows. Sirens were everywhere as Deputy Sheriff’s came to count the bodies.
At Moon Shadows they were able to assess their situation. Clarence was in the clear,
not a scratch on him. It figured… the whole thing had sort of been his idea. Jason had a
deep gouge out of his forehead and possibly a concussion. Ron had a 9mm round go
through his left leg, missing bone and blood vessels. Gary had a round in his left leg
too, but it had nicked something and was bleeding profusely, although not in spurts.
Josh had a graze on his leg that would heal up but leave a nasty scar and Justin had a
hole in both pant legs, but no wounds.

The Suburban went into a neighbor’s garage and they started tending to the wounds.
This wasn’t a situation where you could call your friendly family physician and have the
wounds tended to. One of the new neighbor’s wives was a nurse and she did the best
she could to patch the people up. The grazes were easy enough and she left those to
others to handle. Gary was bleeding so he got her attention first. She cleaned out the
wound as best she could and determined that the bleeding was capillary in nature. She
fully debrided the wound and closed each hole with a single stitch. All, I might add with-
out the benefit of Lidocaine or anything to numb the wounds. Fortunately, Gary had
passed out when she cleaned the wound initially and he didn’t feel a thing. Ron then got
her attention and he gritted his teeth through the whole affair, never giving in to the pain.
Everyone was eventually given a starter dose of 2 500mg capsules of Keflex to ward off
possible infections and some Vicodin ES for the pain.

The 6 men had scored big on their outing. Only 4 of the 6 had been shot and they had
14 MP5 9mm submachine guns, 12 serviceable. And they had all of the magazines for

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all 14 weapons. They later found more magazines in the back of the Suburban when it
was checked over before being driven to a drop site. The feds also had an assortment
of other gear, which they helped themselves to. But the question remained had it been
worth it? The submachine guns were a nice addition to their arsenal. Ron and Gary
were on crutches and Josh limped pretty well. Jason did have a concussion after all, but
except for the headaches, he was getting better.

“I hope your happy, Clarence,” Gary growled.

“Of course I’m happy, I gots me a MP-5,” Clarence replied. “And I got me 2 of those
feds, too.”

“That isn’t what I meant and you know it,” Gary growled again. “Every single one of us
had bullet holes in them or their clothing except for you.”

“The really humorous part about it Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “Was that this thing all started
with Clarence talking about his M1A rifle and we all ended up using the 5.56’s”

“Next time you shoot somebody, don’t go near ‘em till you’re... sure they’re dead!” Gary
said.

“I know that one,” Ron said. “El Dorado (1966) starring John Wayne and Robert Mitch-
um.”

“Speaking of which,” Gary said, “You’re as bad as Mitchum was in that movie.”

“What do you mean, I liked him in that movie,” Ron protested.

“I’m referring to you and that crutch, partner,” Gary laughed, “You’re just like Mitchum in
the movie, first you put it under one arm and then under the other.”

“Big deal,” Ron snapped, “You really have to admire a guy who would say something
like, ‘I started out to be a sex fiend but couldn’t pass the physical’.” (Mitchum)

“Only about half the people who made that movie are dead,” Gary said. “That was a re-
make of Rio Bravo with Robert Mitchum instead of Dean Martin and James Caan in-
stead of Ricky Nelson. When Sharon and I went to Tombstone that time, we went to the
studio in Tucson where they made both movies. They actually did use the same set as
many critics claimed. Only thing they did was reverse things and walked across the
creek the other way.”

“They did not Gar-Bear,” Ron said. “You’re confused again. They shot Rio Bravo and
Rio Lobo on the same set and turned them around. You told me yourself after Sharon
and you got home from Tucson and Tombstone.”

“I did?” Gary asked. “I’m surprised I could remember it all the way home from Tucson.”

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GAILY bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Sing-
ing a song, In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old – This knight so bold – And o’er his heart a shadow Fell as he found No
spot of ground That looked like Eldorado.

“And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow – ‘Shadow,’ said he,
‘Where can it be – This land of Eldorado ?’

‘Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,’
The shade replied, - ‘If you seek for Eldorado !’

“Hey, Gary said, “That’s what James Caan was saying in the movie. Where did you find
out the lines from the script?”

“I didn’t Gar-Bear,” Ron laughed, “That’s a famous poem written by none other than Ed-
gar Allan Poe.”

“I didn’t know that,” Gary remarked.

“You don’t know a lot of this partner,” Ron laughed, “If we hadn’t run out of ANFO, none
of our homemade claymores would have worked. That fella with the Lancaster Militia,
Trevor was it? Anyway, he really bailed us out on that one. And just how in the hell are
we going to do a revolution walking around on crutches? Explain that one to me would
you?”

“What, I’m suddenly the Wizard of Oz?” Gary said. “Hell, I don’t know, I guess we’ll have
to let the others do the fighting for us.”

“Send Clarence,” Ron said, “He never seems to get shot or killed off in any of your sto-
ries.”

“That’s the difference between real life and Patriot Fiction, Ron,” Gary explained. “In the
fiction I get to choose who gets shot and who doesn’t. I think that last story I wrote was
the first story where I even gave us a scratch, but to tell you the truth, I can’t remember.”

“You can take pills to improve your memory,” Clarence said, “I seen it on TV.”

“I used to see the ads, too Clarence,” Gary acknowledged his friend’s attempt to help,
“But there isn’t any pill that will fix what’s ailing me. You might just get to find out your-
self if you let your diabetes gets out of control and get neuropathy.”

It seemed as if, despite their injuries, The Three Amigos were back to normal. Their in-
juries would heal, perhaps in time to get them into the fight. It had taken from 19Apr75
to 04Jul76 for the founding fathers to declare Independence. And the Constitution had

167
taken another 11 years or so. And this wasn’t quite the same as fighting a bunch of red-
coat conscripts or Hessian mercenaries. This would be American against American,
both groups fighting for what they believed in or thought they believed in. You could al-
ways ambush someone, but sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn’t. Reality
can destroy the dream; why shouldn’t the dream destroy reality? – George Moore

The Three Amigos would end up in the thick of it, you could count on that. They might
need to take a little time to build up a head of steam, get fresh ideas, or whatever. But
the fight wasn’t over, it was just beginning…

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 17 – Baby Steps

Preface…

The last-minute, virtually unplanned attack on the feds at the Library had pros and cons.
The guys learned that it didn’t pay to go off hack-cocked in search of glory. The mission
was a success, in many ways; they had a dozen serviceable MP-5’s with suppressors
someone found in the back of the Suburban and came carrying asking, “What are
these?” Fourteen of the total complement of 24, 8 per shift, feds were dead, too. They
hadn’t kept the Suburban because that was a little obvious. And, they’d paid a hefty
price on their first outing with 4 wounded. They had learned valuable lessons and had
wounds to heal. The old joke really was true; time heals all wounds and wounds all
heels.

The story resumes…

“What would happen if we started a revolution and nobody came?” Clarence asked.

“What do you mean nobody came?” Ron asked, “Of course people would come, it
would be a great show. I mean with the cannons booming and the Star Spangled Ban-
ner Flying playing in the background at dawn’s early light and…”

“I ain’t goin nowhere near no cannons,” Clarence said.

“I was just making a point,” Ron insisted.

“BS,” Clarence replied, “You’re just mad ‘cause you got shot and I didn’t.”

“Clarence! Chill, bro,” Gary commanded. “We have time to think this revolution of ours
through now and make it work. I’d be willing to call that screwed up attack on the feds
our first encounter in this revolution.”

“We should have kept the Chevy truck,” Ron said.

“A bulletproof truck would have been nice, partner,” Gary said, “But it would have at-
tracted a little too much attention for my liking.”

“So, what’s next?” Ron responded, “We going to Mt. Weather and shoot that SOB, Ker-
ry?”

“Do you have any idea how much security they must have at that place?” Gary asked.

“Well, no,” Ron admitted.

“Neither do I,” Gary said, “But it probably would have been easier to walk into the Oval
Office and shoot his butt than our trying to attack Mt. Weather.”

169
“In that one story you told me about,” Ron said, “We killed 2 or 3 Presidents.”

“That wasn’t us, Ron,” Gary said, “I used different characters in that story and besides, it
was just fiction.”

“One thing about you partner,” Ron chuckled, “Is that it’s hard to tell where the fact
stops and the fiction begins.”

“Writing the fiction is just a hobby,” Gary explained, “But I’ve learned a lot in the process
with all of the story research.”

“To hell with the fiction,” Clarence said having recovered from the chill command, “What
are we going to do next?”

“First things first, Clarence,” Gary said, “We have to let our wounds heal.”

“So when are we really going to start the revolution?” Clarence asked.

“It’s already started, Clarence,” Ron said. “It started on the 4th of July this time. You
can’t honestly believe that all of the liberals are suddenly going to become gun-toting
counter-revolutionaries, can you? In my opinion, Kerry is a coward and he’ll try to get
others to fight his battles for him. Look, we’re not trying to rewrite the Constitution here;
all we’re trying to do is restore it and the Bill of Rights. We’re going to do that at the bal-
lot box, not fighting in the streets. What we have to accomplish is to show the nation
that the people can still have a say in their government.”

Labor Day 2006…

In the time since the raid on the Library, the bodies had healed to the point that The
Three Amigos were road worthy again. Watching the problems his 2 friends experi-
enced trying to heal from their wounds had been another sobering experience for Clar-
ence. The feds had flooded Palmdale looking for the killers, but though they had suspi-
cions, they didn’t even have enough information to act under USA Patriot Act II. They
had all but given up searching homes in the Antelope Valley; they couldn’t find the ille-
gal firearms and munitions. Everyone in the AV, except for the feds, knew exactly who
was behind the Library Raid, as it was now called. The Palmdale Militia had figured out
that they had someone with a big mouth and the person simply disappeared. He was
probably at the bottom of one of those mine shafts that littered the AV.

Has anyone ever noticed how black people use words prohibited to the remainder of
society? Having a black son-in-law had been an enlightening experience for Gary in
many ways. Udell could use the N word with impunity, but the one time Gary had
slipped and used the word, Udell had accused him of being racist. Clarence was quite a
bit older than Udell and he didn’t use that disallowed word very often. But when he
heard that the Palmdale Militia had routed a spy and the fella had disappeared, he had

170
been overheard saying, “Well, that’s one N word in the woodpile that won’t bother any-
one again.” But, Clarence was black, so he was permitted to use the forbidden word.

The Three Amigos were planning a road trip. They wanted to get a feel for the mood of
the country and wanted to stir up a little crap if they thought they could get away with it.
Kerry had finally cancelled martial law now that the rebuilding had started; it slowed
down the contractors’ work too much. The harvest was coming in and grocery stores
were open. The shelves were missing many items, but the country sure was a different
place than it been only a few months before. FEMA didn’t have time to hand out food
and medicine any more either; they were too busy trying to collect the guns. The more
liberal members of society were complying, too. They were taking the $100 being of-
fered for firearms by the government because the government must know what was
right for the people. They had probably inherited the guns, anyway.

The FBI hadn’t caught many of the terrorists responsible for the 12Nov05 attacks either.
They were too busy helping the ATF and FEMA sort through all the purchase records of
firearms. Most gun dealers had ‘fires’ and the form 4473’s had disappeared. The ATF is
pretty tough on dealers who fail to maintain proper records, so the dealers actually
made sure that there was a fire and the fire department was called. The ATF knew it
was being had and had arson investigators check out every single one of those fires.
Arson investigators look for, among other things, evidence of accelerants and determine
the point of origin of the fire.

It seemed that a lot of gun shops were plagued with faulty wiring, but they could find no
evidence of accelerants and the fires were ruled accidental. In response to all of the
faulty wiring, the ATF promulgated a regulation requiring that all gun dealers have the
wiring inspected at their places of business on an annual basis. Do you have any idea
how much an electrician charges to perform a certified inspection of the wiring in a
business in conformance with those ATF Standards? It was another loop in the noose
around the government’s neck.

“Now that we’re healed up and able to travel,” Gary observed, “We ought to be out there
seeing how this revolution of ours is doing.”

“It’s doing just fine without us Gary,” Ron announced. “I was talking to Sandy and she
said that even though she had a new store, she’ll have to have the electrical wiring in-
spected every year. She’s madder than a wet hen.”

“Seen Johnny lately?” Gary asked.

“Not since the 4th of July,” Ron answered. “Well, I didn’t see him, but he was around
after the Library Raid checking up on us.”

“Did they tell him we got all shot up?” Gary asked.

“No, they told him I was having a brief problem with my heart and you were in bed with

171
your diabetes,” Ron explained. “I’m not sure that he believed anyone, but he’s on our
side, remember?”

“When are we leaving on our road trip?” Clarence asked.

“How about a week from today, Clarence,” Gary suggested, “Monday the 11th of Sep-
tember.”

“Where are we going first?” Clarence asked.

“I sort of figured we’d take I-10, pal,” Gary answered. “That will get us all the way to
Jacksonville, Florida. One thing about the southern tier of states is that they all have
pretty liberal state gun laws. I expect we’re going to meet up with a whole bunch of
modern-day Johnny REBS.”

“Johnny Yuma…” Ron began.

“Shut up Ron, we’ve heard the song already,” Gary said.

“I’m a Reb, Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “Texas born and bred.”

“Yeah and you left Texas when you were 10 days old,” Gary responded, “I’m not so
sure that counts.”

“When we gets to Alabama,” Clarence said, “We can look up some of my kin.”

“We haven’t even filled the gas tank yet and you fellas have us going to family reunions
and are bragging about your southern heritage,” Gary laughed. “This ought to be a fun
road trip. I’m the only real Rebel here, anyway.”

“You aren’t from the south,” Ron pointed out.

“I think the hospital was on the south side of Alameda,” Gary said, “And Iowa is south of
Minnesota. But, I don’t cotton to that Yankee President we have so maybe they’ll make
me an honorary Confederate. And, who was it pointed out what Kerry was doing with
that speech and got the ball rolling?”

“What are we going to take for weapons?” Clarence asked.

“Just the usual load out Clarence,” Gary said, “Our M1A’s, M16A4/M203’s, our Win-
chesters and Vaqueros, our 1911’s, shotguns, some 40mm grenades, LAW Rocket’s,
hand grenades, C-4 and a few thousand rounds of ammo.”

“Are we taking a pickup or a semi?” Ron asked.

“Yes,” Gary answered. “Actually I figured a 24’ U-Haul would handle the weapons and

172
ammo and we can pull an Airstream with the pickup.”

“I can only see a couple of problems with that, Gary,” Clarence said. “In the first place,
we don’t have a pickup. In the second place, we don’t have an Airstream. In the third
place, we can’t afford to rent a U-Haul truck and put 15 or 20 thousand miles on it.”

“But Clarence,” Gary said, “This is America. We can buy a pickup with one month down
and 60 months to pay. We can buy an Airstream with one month down and 240 months
to pay. And, we can steal a U-Haul truck and change the license plates. Then we can
stop making payments on the pickup and Airstream and by the time they run us to
ground, our trip will be over. After that, we can file bankruptcy and start all over.”

“Where did you ever learn to think like that Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

“When I worked at Target, Ron,” Gary explained. “Back in 1972, Target had a pretty lib-
eral return policy. People would buy a pair of shoes, wear them out and then bring them
back and exchange them. And the coffee pots; man, I’ll tell you, every time someone
got married, we’d have a run on those coffee urns and the following week, we’d get
them all back as defective. In those days, everything that was returned as defective had
to be returned to the manufacturer. Eventually, Target got smart. They’d wash out the
coffee pots, test them, and if they worked, put them on an end cap on clearance.”

“Aren’t you being a little hard on the American public?” Ron said.

“The hell you say Ronald McDonald,” Gary retorted, “Listen to the gangsta rap these
days if you can stomach more than about 5 seconds of it. Every other word begins with
“F” and they want us killing the police. And the sad thing about that is…well, the kids
listen to that crap.”

“Look who got up on the cynical side of the bed this morning, Clarence,” Ron pointed at
Gary.

“Ron when I write fiction, I use the handle, ‘Tired Old Man’,” Gary explained. “I’m not so
old, but I sure am tired. I’m tired of music that has no music. I’m tired of all the teeny-
bopper girls running around half dressed. I’m tired of the baggy pants and what passes
for style among the younger generation. I’m tired of uneducated kids getting high school
diplomas. Dubya didn’t want any child left behind, boys, but I believe we left a whole
generation behind.”

“I see what you mean Ron,” Clarence said. “Gary, is there anything you do like?”

“I liked the 1950’s,” Gary said, “And then I graduated from high school and nothing was
ever the same afterwards.”

“You just growed up, Gary,” Clarence said, “And your perspective changed.”

173
“I’m not so sure I ever grew up Clarence,” Gary retorted, “I think that I just got older.”

174
 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 18 – Shocking Reality

“Gary, don’t let me burst your bubble,” Clarence said, “But we ain’t gonna haul a truck-
load of munitions around the country and if, and let me repeat that, IF we buy a pickup
and an Airstream, we’s gonna make all the payments likes we’s supposed to.”

“Clarence is right, Gary,” Ron nodded. “However, if we weren’t Reserve Deputies, but
real Deputies, AND, we were on an assignment for the Sheriff’s Department, we could
probably get by with taking a few weapons. Some states offer professional courtesy to
LEO’s and some states don’t.”

“Doesn’t the Sheriff ever send Reserve Deputies on missions?” Gary asked, much cha-
grinned by his friends’ reactions.

“I’ll check with Johnny and let you know Gar-Bear,” Ron replied.

“I have your answer for you,” Ron said.

“I didn’t know that you talked to Johnny,” Gary replied.

“I couldn’t get a hold of him, so I looked on the LA County Sheriff’s website,” Ron ex-
plained. “I tried to just copy the material, so I could cut and paste it for you, but I got a
message that it was copyrighted, so I just wrote it all down. Reserve Deputy Sheriffs are
utilized to supplement the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s law enforcement
manpower. Like Full-time Deputies, Reserve Deputies are professionally trained and
duly sworn law enforcement personnel. In most cases, Reserves are assigned to the
same duties as Full-time Deputies. Since Reserve Deputies have the same powers of
arrest as Full-time Deputies they are required by law to meet the same hiring, back-
ground, medical and psychological standards as Full-time Deputies.

“I also found out that, Reserve Deputy Sheriffs enjoy the challenge and excitement of-
fered by law enforcement, as well as the satisfaction of providing a worthwhile commu-
nity service; Reserve Deputy Sheriffs first complete the extensive state mandated train-
ing and then work assignments on evenings and/or weekends as their regular jobs per-
mit; Reserve Deputy Sheriffs are issued a badge, an identification card, uniforms, a
Beretta 92FS duty weapon, handcuffs, baton, and most other necessary equipment;
Reserve Deputy Sheriffs have full peace officer powers when on duty, and if issued a
CCW permit, may choose to carry a concealed weapon when off duty; Reserve Deputy
Sheriffs volunteer 20 hours per month of their time with the regular compensation being
one dollar per year;

“Reserve Deputy Sheriffs may also qualify for shooting bonus pay of up to $32.00 per
month, and some paid special event assignments are occasionally available. Reserve
Deputy Sheriffs serve at the will of the Sheriff, must obey all Departmental regulations,

175
but do not fall into the framework of the civil service system; and, Reserve Deputy Sher-
iffs supplement the regular operations of the Sheriff’s Department by working in their
choice of Uniform Reserve (Patrol), Mounted Posse, Search and Rescue or as a Spe-
cialist,” Ron explained.

“But we didn’t get all of that training,” Gary said. “And, we don’t work 20 hours a month
like you said.”

“The website is probably talking about regular Reserve Deputies,” Ron observed. “I
think that we are Specialist Reserve Deputies and are only Reserve Deputies in the first
place because Johnny got us special dispensation from the Sheriff. I don’t know what
the real story is without talking to Johnny. But, you know how some people like to screw
up a perfectly good story for you.”

“Yeah I know Ron,” Gary said, “Every once in a while I’d get my hackles up when
someone was overly critical of my storylines. I always tried to accommodate legitimate
criticism, but some people just went too far. I always managed to let them know one
way or another that I perceived that they crossed over the line.”

“So what are we going to take with us for weapons?” Clarence, who had taken in the
exchange, asked.

“I’m not sure what to say, Clarence,” Gary answered, “Maybe a slingshot, or the Beretta
92FS Duty Weapons that Johnny conveniently forgot to give us.”

“I don’t know why we’re driving anyway,” Ron said, “Maybe we could get pilots’ licenses
and form our own Survivalist oriented airline. Then we could build a bunch of super-
dooper airplanes that fly at 2,000 miles per hour upside down in a blizzard and land
straight up and straight down.”

“Can’t get a pilot’s license if you have diabetes, Ron,” Gary said, “So that let’s Clarence
and I out of that scenario.” (fact)

“Well, lookie here,” Clarence said.

“Look at what Clarence?” Gary asked.

“I was rubbing on the badge to shine it up for the trip and the word ‘Reserve’ came right
off,” Clarence said. “I reckon that we be having regular Deputy Sheriff’s badges.”

“Let me try that,” Ron said, grabbing the Brasso and cleaning cloth. “Well, I’ll be darned,
Gar-Bear, he’s right, the word ‘Reserve” rubs right off.”

“I guess that solves one problem fellas,” Gary said, “Since we have real Deputy Sheriff’s
badges, we’d better stick with the slingshots.”

176
They didn’t, of course. What they did do was to buy an Airstream on the friendly 240
equal monthly payments plan and a Sierra Hotel Dodge diesel pickup with the big en-
gine and everything else including a winch (they wanted a wench, but she was tied up in
the dealers office wearing only handcuffs and a grin) on the friendly 72 equal monthly
payments plan. Then, The Three Amigos got their mechanic friend, Chris, to make a
bunch of modifications to that Airstream. When Chris was done, you couldn’t even tell
that he’d made a single change. But, buried inside that Airstream, somewhere, were
their M1A rifles, their M16A4/M203 rifles, the MP-5 sub machine guns, the 1911’s, some
40mm grenades, LAW Rocket’s, hand grenades, C-4 and a few thousand rounds of
ammo. The Ruger Vaqueros and the Winchester rifles were locked in a gun safe and
just to make sure that no one gave them any trouble, they had trigger locks on the
weapons and the ammunition was stored separately.

Gary figured, maybe rightly, maybe wrongly, that it wouldn’t hurt to hang a pair of those
dice from the inside rearview mirror, too. So, on Monday September 11, 2006, The
Three Amigos set out, all by themselves, to see the country and raise a little hell if they
thought that they could get away with it. Those overload springs on the pickup proved to
be a wise choice too, because you couldn’t even tell the trailer was grossly overweight.
But before they left, they checked the laws in the states through which they planned to
pass and weighed the truck, the trailer and so forth and unloaded enough of the ammo
that they were within weight limits. It simply wouldn’t do to get caught transporting a
very illegal arsenal because they were overweight. They even checked all of the driver’s
license laws, just in case. The Three Amigos were just 3 LA County Sheriff’s Deputies
out burning up their accumulated vacation time prior to their retirements. And, they
drove the speed limit, too, 55mph.

“Didn’t you bring any real food, Ron?” Gary asked, “All I can find is a bunch of Tex-Mex
stuff in the cupboards.”

“There ain’t no chicken?” Clarence asked.

“I figured we would do the Tex-Mex stuff for lunch fellas,” Ron explained, “And eat out at
night.”

“Hey, that could get expensive,” Gary protested. “We’re on a budget here since y’all in-
sisted on paying for the truck and the trailer.”

“We’ll stop at a grocery store and get you a head of lettuce,” Ron laughed, “You can eat
like a rabbit if you want, but I’m eating steak.”

“And I’m eatin’ chicken,” Clarence added.

“Drop me off at the McDonalds,” Gary replied.

Ron caught that y’all, of course. Johnny Yuma was a rebel… he started in. Sang the
whole song and started over. The amigos had a list of sorts, courtesy of their friend

177
Johnny who had ‘borrowed’ it from FEMA before they blew town. It was several pages
long and listed the names and addresses of suspected militia groups and a suspect
contact person. Several pages were a bit of an understatement, I suppose, it looked
more like a phone book.

“Where are we starting to contact people?” Ron asked.

“We can get the California people later, Ron,” Gary said, let’s start in Quartzsite, Arizo-
na.”

Quartzsite…

The list gave the name of a fella named Clyde, (sorry can’t use last names) who was a
long time resident of Quartzsite. They found Clyde without much difficulty, but then had
to figure how to make the introduction. These militia types tended not to be forthcoming
about their extracurricular activities, you know.

“Your name Clyde?” Gary asked.

“Who wants to know?” Clyde asked.

“My name is Gary Olsen and I’m from Palmdale,” Gary said. “I’m sure that you’ve heard
of me and my two amigos, right?”

“Can’t say that I have,” Clyde replied. “What can I do for you Olsen?”

“Nothing much, Clyde,” Gary replied, “We are out seeing the country and the poor con-
dition it’s in.”

“You said a mouthful there fella,” Clyde agreed. “Course it’s a lot worse out there in Kali-
fornia.”

“Say Clyde,” Ron butted in, “You wouldn’t know where the nearest reservation is, would
you? We’re a mite short on cigarettes.”

“What’s your name mister?” Clyde asked.

“Ron Green,” Ron said, “And the tall guy is Clarence Rawlings.”

“Olsen, Green and Rawlings, huh?” Clyde said. “It’s illegal to buy smokes on the Res.”

“It’s just a danged tax law,” Ron said, “You sure you never heard of us?”

“I’d didn’t say I hadn’t Green,” Clyde replied, “I said that I couldn’t say that I had. Maybe
I’ve heard of you and maybe I haven’t.”

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“Did you know that your name is on this FEMA list of militia contacts around the coun-
try?” Gary asked holding up the thick book. “Our names are too, if it’s of any interest to
you.”

“You fellas part of some militia group, are you?” Clyde asked.

“Not exactly,” Clarence said, “But old Gary there is on the ruling council of the Moon
Shadows housing tract.”

“Moon Shadows?” Clyde said. “Say wasn’t that the place all over the news because you
killed a bunch of gang bangers?”

“That’s the place,” Clarence agreed.

“They was saying on the news that a lot of them gang bangers died from machine gun
wounds,” Clyde noted.

“Yeah,” Ron said, “I heard that too Clyde. Of course they never came up with any ma-
chine guns, now did they?”

“Seems there was talk of some M16’s or grenade launchers or something, too,” Clyde
fished.

“I heard that too, Clyde,” Clarence replied, “But they never found any of those either.
Say, wasn’t it a shame about all those feds who were killed at that Library Raid?”

“Word around was that the guys that pulled that one off got their hands on 14 MP-5’s,”
Clyde remarked.

“I heard that only 12 of the 14 were serviceable, Clyde,” Gary announced.

“Say where are you staying tonight?” Clyde asked.

“We’ll get someplace to park the Airstream here in town,” Gary answered.

“Well, you might want to try John down the road there,” Clyde said, “He’s one of those
Patriots, you know.”

“That ought to work out just fine, Clyde,” Ron said, “We are too.”

“You don’t say,” Clyde chuckled, “I never would have guessed.”

I told you that they didn’t know quite how to approach Clyde, didn’t I? But they had
about run out of hints by the time Clyde warmed up to them. What they needed was an
introduction of some kind so they didn’t have to spend an hour trying to tell the guy they
were Patriots, too. That evening after dinner, low and behold, who should show up but

179
Clyde?

“The Colorado River Indian Reservation is just northwest of town if you’re still looking for
cigarettes,” Clyde said.

“Hi Clyde, thanks,” Ron said. “What are you up to?”

180
 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 19 – Introductions

“Well, I bought a bottle of the good stuff,” Clyde said, “The bars in this town ain’t much
and I thought you might like a little taste.”

“Clyde, we surely do appreciate the sentiment,” Ron explained, “But the three of us are
all recovering alcoholics and we’ll have to pass on the offer.”

“I heard that about you fellas, too,” Clyde smiled. “But a fella has to be careful, you
know.”

“You boys sure were a hemming and a hawing down there at the store today, new at
this are you?” Clyde asked.

“New at contacting other people yes,” Gary admitted. “There has to be a better way for
the militia groups to keep in contact.”

“We have a way Gary,” Clyde said setting the unopened bottle on the floor. “The popu-
lar one this season is ‘friends of Dubya’.”

“Then you’ve decided that we’re on the up and up?” Gary asked.

“Made a couple of calls, sent some emails,” Clyde said, “Anyway, you got by John and if
John says you’re ok, that’s good enough for me.”

“Our John is named Ron and Patti,” Gary said. “You know, the subject of getting ac-
quainted with some new residents came up a while back. My first instinct was to give
the NRA members a pass, but I thought better of it and had Ron and a gal in the hous-
ing tract, Patti, check out the people anyway. Just because you’re a card carrying some-
thing doesn’t automatically make you a good anything.”

“Decided we aren’t some FEMA undercover guys, huh?” Ron observed.

“If you were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Clyde smiled again. “You boys
would be engaged in a new occupation.”

“Oh, what might that be?” Clarence asked.

“Pushing up daisies,” Clyde replied, deadpan.

It seemed as if there were some seriously minded militia groups to be found after all.
And, it wasn’t as simple as being a ‘friend of Dubya’. There was more to the recognition
than that and Clyde patiently explained to Ron, Clarence and Gary what else was in-
volved. It turned out that Clyde was a ‘friend of Bill W.’ too, just like The Three Amigos.
Bill sure did get around; he seemed to have a lot of friends. But that is an entirely differ-
ent story. It was suggested to The Three Amigos that, should they happen to be in the

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Buckeye area, Frank was a nice fella to visit with. But, before they left, Clyde shared a
few plans he and some friends had made. There wasn’t a whole lot going on in a town
like Quartzsite, but it did have one advantage. It seemed to get a lot of snowbirds every
year and there were a lot of flea markets that sold more than fleas and those polished
pieces of quartz.

Buckeye…

“Clyde said you fellas might just show up,” Frank said after The Three Amigos had in-
troduced themselves and said all of the right things. “You know boys, we sort of adopted
a tactic from those terrorists. If the A-rabs can use cells to keep the government from
figuring who’s on first, we can do the same thing. In my case, I know Clyde and one
other fella with another group. That way, nobody can rat too many people out if the gov-
ernment boys get their hands on them.”

“We never heard much about the FBI catching any of those people who did all that crap
on 12/11/05,” Ron said.

“Government didn’t catch a lot of them from what I’ve heard,” Frank agreed, “But that
doesn’t mean they didn’t get their come uppance.”

“Do tell,” Clarence said.

“Well fellas, carload of them people came boiling out of Phoenix before we even had
that announcement,” Frank explained. “Anyway, they got into a fender bender and just
plain went nuts. They were acting awfully funny, I can tell you that. I got the call, you
know, and when my partner and I showed up to write up the accident report, we both
noticed how anxious they seemed to be to get out of the area. We ran the plate and the
car wasn’t stolen or anything, but we hauled them in on a technicality. They had insur-
ance but couldn’t prove it and we had to call the company. Anyway, they were sitting
there looking at the wall clock and their wrist watches and looked like they were about to
melt down. But, to make a long story short, the insurance came back ok and we wrote it
up and let them go. That was about an hour before the President came on the TV.”

“So you had them and let them go?” Ron asked.

“Well, Ron, we didn’t have anything to hold them on,” Frank continued. “Then that an-
nouncement came and it all made sense. So naturally we went looking for them, want-
ing to know where they planted their bomb.”

“And?” Gary asked.

“And we thought they headed west because of the prevailing winds and all,” Frank ex-
plained. “Went all the way west to the country line at exit 69 looking for them. We also
had a few cars down on 85 towards Gila Bend. We found them all right, about 5 minutes
before those bombs went off. It was a crazy time about then, what with the dirty bombs

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and the one suitcase bomb in near the Capitol. Well, a couple of the boys also happen
to belong to the militia in addition to being Deputies. They sort of lost it, you see, what
with family in Phoenix and all and they drug those A-Rabs out to the desert and gave
them a proper cross-examination. Man did those A-Rabs spill their guts.”

“So did you find out a lot?” Clarence asked.

“Found out who their contact was and more than they ever wanted to know about the
Quran,” Frank said.

“What happened to them?” Ron asked.

“The Deputies? Oh, nothing, they kept their mouths shut and it all blew over,” Frank ex-
plained.

“No the terrorists, Frank,” Ron said, “What happened to the terrorists?’

“Is it true that those A-Rab boys believe that if they die for the cause they go to Para-
dise?” Frank asked. “Cause I’d sure feel bad if I knew those boys got to go to Heaven.
The A-Rabs? Well, those deputies are Apache, have you ever seen what an Apache
can do with a sharp knife?”

“Cut them up some, huh?” Ron surmised.

“Hell no, Ron. Those Deputies had family in Phoenix,” Frank said. “They skinned those
4 A-Rabs alive. Then they buried them face down in the desert facing to the west.”

“Sounds like they got what was coming to them,” Clarence said nodding his head.

“Now the guy they gave up was hard to find,” Frank continued. “We went out of jurisdic-
tion and got him in Kingman. Turned him over to those two Deputies. They lost family,
you know. Don’t know what they did to him, but I’ll bet it wasn’t pretty. Heard tell that
they took him down to the Res and gave him to the women.”

“Man, the death of 1,000 cuts,” Clarence said.

“Clarence, I can’t tell you that that’s truth, legend or myth,” Frank said, “But I expect he
was a while dying.” (True, used in China until 1905. Lookup ‘slow slicing’.)

After entertaining The Three Amigos with his tale about the terrorists and their fate,
Frank took them around to meet some of the militia people. The radiation, he told them,
was all cleared out now, but it had taken its toll. The FEMA people and ATF had taken
their toll, too, he pointed out. But then, some of those FEMA people went up against the
wrong group and just disappeared. Hadn’t made the headlines, Frank said, probably
because Kerry was afraid to announce the disappearance so soon after that Massacre
out in Palmdale. Frank said he wouldn’t mind meeting the people who were responsible

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for that ambush. He’d be mighty proud to shake their hands. The Three Amigos didn’t
tell him that he’d gotten his wish. Frank told them they ought to look up a fellow named
Otto over in Apache Junction. And don’t let the name fool you, because Otto was a full-
blooded Mescalero Apache.

Apache Junction…

“Got an email from Frank,” Otto said after the introductions were done, “He said to make
you boys comfortable and fill you in on our operation.”

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Gary asked, “But how does a full-blooded Apache end up with
a name like Otto?”

“My daddy admired this fella from Sweden or Norway or someplace like that,” Otto
laughed. “Made a bet with the guy and if he lost, he had to name his first born son Otto.”

“I won’t ask who won the bet,” Ron chuckled.

“Tell me a little about your group Otto,” Gary requested.

“Glad to, but tell me about yourselves first,” Otto came back.

“As you must know,” Gary began, “We’re from Palmdale, California. Aren’t part of the
local militia group, just some friends and homeowners looking out for themselves.
We’ve had some good luck and some bad, but mostly good. Did one operation without
thinking it through and got shot up some. Haven’t lost anyone out of the group, yet. Very
good assortment of weapons, especially considering we live in the great Kalifornia,
birthplace of liberalism and home to 10% of the nations’ population. Before 11/12, LA
County was the most populated county in the country. The terrorists hit LA especially
bad, lost a lot of people. We weathered it out in a small shelter intended for 6 people; all
24 of us. Killed some gangsters, did some feds and that’s about it.”

“That’s close to the way I heard it,” Otto grinned. “We’re a small group here, all
Mescalero Apaches. Weapons never were much of a problem in Arizona until after the
strike. Then the feds did their thing and Arizona became like a lot of other places, so far
as guns go. We don’t much kill the feds so much as terrorize them. We’re doing to the
white man what they did to us last century. They raped and killed a lot of Apache wom-
en and children, you know. So, we keep these people in mortal fear for their families.”

“That doesn’t sound like it would accomplish much,” Ron offered an opinion.

“You’d be surprised how effective it is, Ron was it?” Otto said. “They’re so busy trying to
keep their families safe that they are very ineffective.”

“Why haven’t they just moved their families out?” Clarence asked.

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“They tried that,” Otto explained. “We blew up the vehicle they had those families inside
and killed the lot of them. Payback is a bear, but we did to them what they did to us.”

“Back when he was still alive,” Gary mentioned, “My dad and step mom used to winter
in Farnsworth Village East.”

“That’s just down the road, Gary,” Otto said, “But we don’t get so many snowbirds any
more. Radiation got a whole lot of those folks, coming in November like it did. Terrorists
put a dirty bomb in there by Dillard’s and the Village took the greatest hit. Radiation
sickness killed most of them. The place is pretty much a ghost town now.”

“Maybe we’ll swing down that way,” Gary suggested. “See if anyone is living in dad’s old
house. If not, maybe we can put up there for a couple of nights.”

“Odds are the place is empty,” Otto replied. “Give me the address and we’ll look you
boys up before you leave town.”

Gary directed Ron to Farnsworth Village East and down past the golf course and to the
street before the one his father had lived on. Gary had Ron turn right at that corner, go
to west end of that street, turn left and then turn left again at the next corner. None of
the houses looked alike and yet they all looked alike. Gary always did have trouble find-
ing his dad’s house, but the new owners hadn’t changed the distinctive porch lights and
Gary found the place like he always had, by the porch lights. It was a ghost town. When
his dad had sold the house in 1990, he sold it furnished. The front door was unlocked
and they went in. Gary was nearly bowled over with remembrances; almost nothing had
changed.

Whoever this guy was that had bought his dad’s house had been a gun collector like his
father. But, unlike his father, this guy was into shoulder arms. In checking the house out,
they found that the guy had converted the little pantry off the kitchen into a gun storage
room. Strangely, the guns were still there. This guy must have been closer to the mini-
mum age of 55 and must have really been into competitive shooting. They found sever-
al rifles, all bolt-action. One was a .308, a second a .338 Lapua and a third .50BMG.
The latter two calibers were flat shooting, long-range sniper calibers. Then Gary noticed
the framed awards and military stuff. This guy had been a sniper in the service. That
explained the rifles, especially the .338. It was primarily a sniping cartridge and was only
outperformed by the .50BMG. These rifles and the large quantity of match ammo ended
up in the Airstream. Nice, and they were legal, too because they were bolt-action rifles.

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 20 – All My Ex’s Live in Texas

All my ex’s live in Texas

And Texas is the place I’d dearly love to be
But all my ex’s live in Texas
And that’s why I hang my hat in Tennessee

They had spent a few days in Mesa and then had made stops in Tucson, Lordsburg,
Las Cruces, and were in the El Paso area. It was late in September and Texas was
warm. They had been through some roadblocks, had the Airstream searched more than
once and had run into about what they expected. Some of the local LEO’s were into
professional courtesy and some weren’t, but they were doing ok, so far. Tucson was a
mess; the suitcase nuke took out a lot of downtown. They’d ventured over to the studio
and so Gary could show Ron the sets for those movies of John Wayne’s. The place had
burned down a second time.

A lot of the cities had only a few feds assigned, or none at all. But, with the passage of
time, they were finding fewer and fewer of the feds. And, the Army and other military
units had been able to resist getting into the fray. That Chairman of the Joint Chief’s
must have some big ones. For that matter, all of them must have had big ones; Kerry
had fired about 3 or 4 of them by this time. The replacements turned out not to be any
different than their predecessors and they refused to let the military get involved in what
the military deemed to be a civilian matter. So far, the military was standing by its oath
to protect and defend the Constitution and Kerry was the President, not the Constitution,
although he was doing his level best to gut that document and the laws of the country.

There were several groups in El Paso, and having met most of the coordinator’s, the
boys moved on to San Antonio. When they hit San Antonio and met the people and saw
the Alamo, they changed their plans. San Antonio was on I-35 and Derek lived on I-35.
At least he had before TSHTF. Gary had only heard from his son sporadically since
11/12 and he wanted to see him and the grandchildren. This naturally got Ron to think-
ing about his kids in Ft. Smith and they ended up making a detour. Brenda and Jennifer
were finally located and Ron insisted that they pack up their belongings and head for
Palmdale. The Three Amigos ended up spending 3 weeks in Ft. Smith while Ron got
that all coordinated. By this time, it was getting well into October.

“We can take 71 on up to Kansas City and pick up I-35 there,” Ron explained when they
got ready to leave Ft. Smith.

“Can’t say as I know this part of the country,” Gary replied. “Only time I was in Arkansas
was Christmas of ‘64 when I drove my car back to Iowa from Edwards. Went through
Texarkana into a town named Magnolia and from there up to Little Rock. Seems like I
picked up 65 in Pine Bluff and took it through Little Rock all the way to Des Moines, but I
can’t really remember. All I can remember was several hundred miles of bad road.
Drove non-stop from Magnolia to Charles City. Man was that the trip.”

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“My people was waiting for us in Arkansas,” Clarence reminded them.

“This is just a detour Clarence,” Gary explained. “You can understand Ron and I want-
ing to touch bases with our kids can’t you?”

“Of course, I can Gary,” Clarence smiled, “But I’d like to see my kin. What are you two
planning after we find your kids?”

“Clarence,” Ron spoke, “We can get a line on Gary’s two boys in Iowa and my daughter
in Austin and then head east and south. There are several interstate highways to
choose from and we can get to either Mississippi or Alabama from Illinois. Probably
make Alabama around Christmas time.”

“So far we’ve been lucky fellas,” Clarence said, “But it seems to me that the tempera-
ment of the country is changing. I know it’s probably pretty risky, BUT I think we should
move some weapons into the pickup.”

“Good way for us to end up in jail, partner,” Ron responded.

“We have our badges, maybe that will help,” Clarence insisted.

Whatever was bothering Clarence was really bothering him. So, against their better
judgment, Ron parked the pickup and they got out the MP-5’s and stashed them in the
pickup. They were in a bit of a hurry to get to Iowa and drove straight through from Ft.
Smith. Just south of a town named Harrisonville, Missouri, they ran into trouble. A bullet
pinged off the hood of the pickup causing Ron to floor the gas pedal. The pickup had a
powerful motor but it couldn’t accelerate that fast pulling the near the weight limit trailer.
They made it about ¼ mile before a shot took out the right front tire. The vehicle was a
bear to keep under control, but Ron managed to bring it to a stop about another ¼ mile
up the road. By this time, the pickup was taking fire from several directions. The fire
wasn’t concentrated, but it was enough to cause The Three Amigos grave concern.
Clarence passed out the MP-5’s and the men slid out of the truck and took cover as
best as they could manage.

“There’s one of them on the west side of the road in that clump of trees,” Ron an-
nounced.

“Looks like a couple of them behind us, too,” Gary added.

“I got me one over here,” Clarence shouted. “We can’t stay here guys, it’s just a matter
of time before they get all three of us.”

“I wish we had brought one of those sniper rifles,” Gary announced regretfully.

“You’ll get killed trying to get into the trailer Gar,” Ron hollered from his ditch on the west
side of the road. “Let’s do like Stormin’ Norman and do a Hail Mary.”

187
The reference was obviously a reference to the tactic employed by the US in the Gulf
War. The US forces had flanked the Iraqis and come in from the side, destroying vast
numbers of the enemy. Gary started down the right ditch towards their rear; Clarence
belly crawled to the left, as did Ron. It wasn’t easy for the three old men, but in time,
they got to positions where they could put the MP-5’s to good use. In the span of a few
short minutes, The Three Amigos opened up with the submachine guns and put down
the attackers. Then, having learned a lesson from the Library, they waited. After a suffi-
cient time had passed, they approached the attackers. They were apparently gang
members out of KC, but that was only a guess. Their firearms were junk, not even worth
picking up, so The Three Amigos left the bodies and the guns lay right where they were.
When they got back to the truck, Gary got the 3 sniper rifles out of the trailer and put
them in the pickup while Ron and Clarence changed the right front tire.

“How did you know that was going to happen, Clarence?” Gary asked.

“I didn’t, Gary,” Clarence admitted, “But the hairs on the back of my neck were getting
prickly and I just went with my gut.”

“I’m going to bypass KC altogether,” Ron announced. “We can take 291 here and go
right into Liberty.”

“From Liberty, I think we can make Huxley in 4-5 hours,” Gary suggested.

“Grab some boxes of those 9mm rounds and reload the mags, Clarence,” Ron directed.

The Three Amigos made it to Huxley in 4½ hours. When they pulled up in front of Derek
and Mary’s home, it was well into the evening and Derek was home from work in Des
Moines.

“Hey kid, how are you doing?” Gary said embracing Derek.

“Where did you come from?” Derek asked.

“We’ve been out seeing the country and making contact with militia groups since the
week after Labor Day,” Gary explained. “When we hit 35 in San Antonio, I decided that
we ought to get to Iowa and find you and your brother.”

“What’s with the bullet holes?” Derek asked, “Did you have trouble?”

“Got jumped south of KC. What was the name of that place, Ron?”

“Harrisonville,” Ron replied.

“Did you skirt KC or go into town?” Derek asked. “Reason I ask is that KC has had
some trouble. Some holdout gangsters from Chicago made it down there and have

188
been raising hell.”

“There’re 4 less of them now than there were before,” Clarence said, “Hi. I’ve heard a lot
about you, Derek. My name is Clarence Rawlings and your Dad and I go back a ways.”

“You’re the 3rd amigo,” Derek said. “I feel like I know you from my Dad’s stories.”

“Don’t believe everything he writes about me,” Clarence laughed. “I’m taller, better look-
ing and smarter than your Dad makes me out in his stories.”

“Come in, come in,” Derek said.

“Clarence, would you and Ron get the match ammo for those 3 rifles we picked up in
Mesa from the trailer?” Gary asked. “I’m going to give those rifles to Derek, he’s a regu-
lar Davy Crockett when it comes to rifles.”

“Come on Ron, give me a hand,” Clarence said.

Gary got the 3 rifles and 3 SMG’s from the pickup and went into the house.

“Where did you get the MP-5’s?” Derek asked.

“Some feds at the Library in Palmdale didn’t need them anymore,” Gary replied.

“That was you?” Derek asked.

“Yeah, it was the 3 of us and 3 of David’s boys,” Gary said. “Got our butts shot to hell,
too.”

“Tell me about it,” Derek said pouring his Dad a cup of coffee.

“Nothing to tell, Derek,” Gary said, “Half-baked plan, fairly well executed, but we got
careless and one guy shot 4 of us. Nothing life threatening, but it taught us a lesson.”

“Man, those are some nice shooting irons, Derek said referring to the rifles, “Where did
you come up with those?”

“We spent a couple of nights in Dad’s old house in Mesa,” Gary explained. “The guy
who bought it from dad was a former military sniper and must have been into the shoot-
ing sports. Anyway, I thought that you might like to have them.”

“Man, would I ever,” Derek grinned.

“So how’s the job going and what do you hear from Damon?” Gary asked.

“Job stinks, and Damon is in Mason City, laid off,” Derek replied.

189
“Ever think about moving to California?” Gary asked.

“All the time, Dad,” Derek answered. “Why?”

“I was thinking that it might be nice to have you boys living in Palmdale,” Gary said.
“You can put the house on the market and move when it sells.”

“It won’t sell in 10-years,” Derek said.

“Well then, how about I give you some money and you just pack up and leave?” Gary
suggested.

“I can’t just walk away from this house,” Derek said.

“Why not?” Gary asked, “I didn’t think you had much equity.”

“Don’t have any,” Derek admitted. “Prices are down and we’re in a negative equity situa-
tion.”

“Then, walk away,” Gary suggested. “Get a fresh start in Palmdale.”

“That wouldn’t be right,” Derek replied.

“I agree, but it’s your best option, son,” Gary said. “I’ll buy you a used trailer and you
can pull it to Palmdale with Mary’s truck.”

“What about DJ?” Derek asked.

“Pick him up on the way and don’t let Junior give you any crap,” Gary said, “You’re DJ’s
father and Junior isn’t getting any younger.”

Derek and Mary talked about it late into the night. The next morning, they were agreed
to take Gary’s suggestions and Gary and Derek found and bought a used trailer. They
loaded everything Derek and Mary had worth taking on the trailer and Gary gave Derek
ample cash to get them to California. He also loaned Derek his M16A4 and gave Derek
some ALICE gear, magazines and an assortment of grenades. He loaned Mary the MP-
5 and gave her ⅓ of their magazines and extra boxes of ammo. Then, The Three Ami-
gos set out for Mason City to find Damon. Damon wasn’t hard to find, he was shacked
up with the latest girlfriend. It didn’t take much discussion to get Damon to agree to
dump the broad and move to Palmdale. Clarence loaned Damon his MP-5 and Gary
gave Damon a wad of cash. Damon said he was going to find a pickup somewhere, get
the kid’s from Garner and head out. He figured he could buy Carrie off cheap.

Charles City was just 31 miles east of Mason City and southeast of Austin. The boys
drove over to Charles City and Gary went into the bank alone to have a talk with Matt,

190
the banker. Helping the boys had tapped Gary out. He came out of the bank with a
smile on his face and his right front pocket bulging; so Matt must have been able to help
him out. Next stop, Austin, Minnesota. Austin is north on 218 maybe 60 miles northwest
of Charles City. That’s where Paula and Mark were.

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 21 – Austin to Birmingham

When they arrived in Austin, Paula and Mark were very happy to see Ron. And, they
took almost no convincing to get them to load up a trailer and head for California. They
were both California natives anyway and didn’t take to the Midwest. Ron was a little light
on cash and they weren’t well off, so Gary loaned Ron enough money to get them to
California. Ron sent his M16A4 and MP-5 with the kids. From Austin, the 3 Amigos
headed east, picked up a series of interstates and eventually ended up on I-65 headed
into Birmingham. They spent a few days in the Birmingham area so Clarence could visit
with his family. They had arrived just before Thanksgiving, earlier than anticipated.

Ron and Gary were without portfolio in the Birmingham area but they still had the
phonebook sized list of militia groups and contacts. They managed to locate one group
of good old boys. Their trip from Austin to Birmingham, though long, had been unevent-
ful. Those good old boys told them that they ought to think about returning to Palmdale
rather than continuing to the east. Things, they said, were heating up and like it or not,
there would soon be open fighting in the streets. It seemed that unable to control the
country the way he had intended, President Kerry had invited UN Peacekeepers in and
the US military opposed the move. The Three Amigos were surprised, but no one more
than Gary. He had said that it would never come to a fight in the streets and that they
would win their fight at the ballot box. Gar-Bear was wrong again, but what was new
about that?

Having returned all US troops from overseas, Bush, and then Kerry, had created a sur-
plus of soldiers in the US. Kerry solved that problem by ordering the US military cut
back to 8 divisions. Then, the strike by the terrorists had come and between the active
duty military and the reserves and National Guard, there had been insufficient forces to
handle the disaster. This had led Kerry to ration food, impress civilians into cleanup ef-
forts and had prevented the military from being effective in dealing with the gang prob-
lem. It wasn’t that there weren’t enough tanks and jets, but there weren’t people to op-
erate the equipment. Minor victories scored by Kerry, like the protection of Palm Springs
and the demise of the 8,000 gangsters on I-15 were just that, minor victories. But, one
would have never known that to be the case, given the play the Executive Branch gave
the events.

And then, the revolution, as soft spoken and quiet as it had been, had begun. Kerry
found himself losing ATF and FEMA staff almost as fast as he could replace them. And,
given that situation, Kerry had begun to withdraw the federal civil servants into camps,
arm and train them and hire more. However, the growing activities of the militia groups
finally led Kerry to request help from the UN. The UN, France, Germany and Russia,
especially, had exacted a high price for their help. It was a price that Kerry was willing to
pay but that America was not. The military began to disobey the President.

“How fast can you get this rig back to Palmdale, partner?” Gary asked.

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“I don’t know; how far is it from Birmingham to LA?” Ron asked.

“That be about 2,050 miles, give or take,” Clarence answered.

“Figure about 41 hours pulling this trailer non-stop,” Ron projected. “We’ll have to get
fuel several times and go over the Continental Divide.”

“So, maybe midnight tomorrow?” Gary asked.

“Give or take,” Ron replied, “We gain some time zones.”

“How many?” Gary asked.

“Two, Gary,” Clarence answered.

“Put the pedal to the medal fellas and don’t look back,” Gary suggested strongly.

It is difficult in normal times to get radio stations in parts of the western US. The Three
Amigos headed out on US 78 to join up with I-40 in Memphis. They could have taken I-
59/I-20 to US 82 and that to Texarkana and joined I-40, but for whatever reason, they
didn’t. It was probably 6 of one and a half dozen of the other. They took the opportunity
to refuel every time they found an open station and were soon enough on familiar
ground, I-40. They optimized their stops, Ron suspending taking water pills, and com-
bined fuel and pit and food stops, saving a lot of time. They were in Palmdale almost
before they knew it. They were exhausted, but they were now on their home turf. Paula
and Mark had only beaten them by a day. But, the families were all assembled and their
only problem was finding places for everyone to sleep. The Three Amigos went to one
of those storage facilities were people put up their campers for the winter and borrowed
a few. It was less than perfect, but all of the families had a bed.

Randy had seen to keeping everything topped off in the housing tract and had even
popped for some extra fuel tanks and fuel. Johnny had kept dropping off the occasional
pickup load of ammo or, in some cases, munitions. The Three Amigos got their loaned
out guns back and equipped the families from their growing armory. They had made it
just in time, with barely hours to spare. Those Airbuses filled with French, German and
Russian soldiers began to arrive in the US the following day, 02Dec06. The fighting was
about to begin. And Kerry had it all wrong, those soldiers who he’d booted out of the
military sort of liked defending the Constitution and if the Army wouldn’t let them do it;
the militias they joined surely would.

Planes and boats and trains brought the soldiers. They were coming to America. Cana-
da, probably because of Great Britain, aligned with the US locals, but México aligned
with the UN. Somehow I can just visualize Geraldo on TV screaming, “The Russians

193
Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.” and drawing a map on the blackboard show-
ing where all the US military units and militia groups were located. That was one case
where prior restraint would have been appropriate, but it was a live TV feed. Should
have shot the SOB (600 yards).

John Kerry admired Canada, probably because of their Socialized medicine that they
funded with a combined 15% GST & PST. But, he was in charge here and he hadn’t in-
vited the Canadians to help out the US Army and Navy and Air Force. He told the Ca-
nadian Prime Minister to stay on his own side of the border or there would be trouble
the Canadians couldn’t handle, a clear nuclear threat. The American military units held
back waiting to see how it played out. And, they had dispersed to remote areas of the
country like out in the western deserts, the Appalachians and the Rockies. They were
going to give those UN Peacekeepers the first move. And when they screwed the
pooch, they were going to give them something else.

The difference in cultures came into play almost immediately. Americans were used to
freedom, even under Kerry’s heavy-handed tactics, and when those foreigners began to
push, they pushed back. The French who had shown such great religious tolerance by
banning head scarves for Muslim women in their school system took offense to some
Amish folks in Pennsylvania. Amish aren’t really fighters; it is a matter of their religious
beliefs. Nevertheless, those same neighbors who were known to occasionally give the
Amish a hard time came to their defense. Determined militiamen and a few Companies
of Army troops who joined them took out the French Foreign Legion troops, their so-
called Special Forces. The Russians brought forth their Spetsnaz to counter the Ameri-
can assault and the Americans countered with a small armored force. US-2, UN-0.

The UN fielded troops around the US and the Russian, French and German fighters
kept the American Air Force, reduced as it was, at bay. At the moment, the UN enjoyed
Air Superiority. The American military held back, waiting to see how the UN forces were
deployed. The US military was now ready to strike. The militia units weren’t waiting for
no flippin’ final setup to strike, they wanted the UN out and out now. Many battles were
fought during December of 2006, mostly between the patriot militias and the UN. How-
ever, once the UN was in place, the US military attacked. Patton had said, “A good plan,
violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan in ten minutes.” The US military had
waited to execute the perfect plan. US-2, UN-1.

Mt. Weather…

“This is working out better than I thought it might,” Kerry said. “The Army waited too long
and I think the UN has the advantage.”

“Mr. President, I realize that there were some questions about your military service dur-
ing Vietnam, but how can you pit the UN against the American Army?” Chuckie baby
asked.

“Mr. Secretary,” Kerry glared, “I’ll remind you to keep your liberal place. As soon as the

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UN disarms the American public for us, we’ll send them packing.”

“Mr. President, John, are you sure about this?” Schumer asked. “You opened the door
to the UN and they may never leave.”

“That’s enough,” Kerry said. “Hillary wants your job so bad she can taste it, so you stop
sounding like a Republican or you can be a Republican and she can have your job.”

“Sorry Mr. President,” Schumer said. (Hillary wanted Kerry’s job.)

“We’re going to have to give some consideration to getting out of this housing tract
Gary,” Ron suggested.

“Why would we want to leave the tract Ron?” Gary was quick to respond. “We have
everything we need here.”

“Everything except real security, Gary,” Clarence jumped in. “You don’t want to leave
because of your shelter. But, when a big UN force comes into town, those shelters of
yours and Randy’s aren’t really going to provide much protection for the folks in the
housing tract.”

“Randy, what do you think?” Gary asked.

“They have a point, Gary,” Randy said. “On the other hand, we’re secure here so I vote
to stay.”

“Derek, do you have anything to add?” Gary asked.

“I agree with Randy, Dad,” Derek said.

Gary picked up the phone and punched in a number. “Johnny Jones, please,” he asked.

“Sergeant Jones,” Johnny answered.

“Johnny, Moon Shadows is battening down the hatches,” Gary said.

“What do you need?” Johnny asked.

“Can you put your hands on any extra food, Johnny?” Gary asked.

“We’ll grab a couple of grocery delivery trucks and send them over,” Johnny answered.
What’s your munitions situation like?”

“Fair to good, why?” Gary asked.

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“I’m going to distribute everything we have to the militia and I thought you might want
some too,” Johnny replied.

“We’ll send the pickup over,” Gary said, nodding to Clarence. Clarence grabbed David’s
boys and headed for the pickup. He mouthed ‘Sheriff’s Department’ and shrugged and
Gary nodded.

“So what’s going down, Gar-Bear?” Ron asked when Gary hung up.

“Johnny’s sending food and Clarence went to pick up ammo,” Gary explained. “I don’t
know how defensible this place is, but it’s what we have.”

“Push comes to shove partner,” Ron said, “We can head for the mines up near Mojave.
There are 4 of them there.”

“We should be all right on water,” Gary suggested, “The Palmdale Water District’s dis-
tribution system includes over 345 miles of pipeline ranging in size from 4 inches to 42
inches in diameter. PWD also operates 27 water wells, 10 booster pumping stations,
and 19 reservoirs (storage tanks) with an overall storage capacity of 34.6 million gallons
of water. The District also maintains two interconnections between our system and that
of the Antelope Valley East-Kern Water Agency and Littlerock Creek Irrigation District,
which can be used in an emergency to transfer water from one system to another.”

“Electricity could be a problem,” Ron noted.

“We’re just going to have to play that by ear,” Gary said, “Natural gas, too. I wish we
had a bigger generator or some alternative energy sources.”

“We’ll have to make do with what we have, Gar-Bear,” Ron smiled. “We’ll be ok. But, I
saw a standby generator sitting down at the Palmdale Hospital. Is that place still tied up
in litigation over the bankruptcy?”

“I guess. I don’t really know,” Gary said.

“I’m going to get Chris and Dick and we’re going to get that generator,” Ron said. “See
ya later, partner.”

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The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 22 – The Fuel Problem

Ron, Chris and Dick brought the generator back from Palmdale Hospital. It was another
anomaly, just like the hospital itself. The hospital had been built too near the San An-
dreas Fault and had always been a problem. It closed around 1994 and was still just sit-
ting there, empty. It makes a lot of sense to put a natural gas fueled generator in at a
hospital that might lose its lights and gas in an earthquake, doesn’t it? Dick said he
could convert the thing to run on propane if he could get the right parts and Chris could
install them. They took off the first thing the next morning, headed for a generator com-
pany in Lancaster. Lord love a duck, they got the parts. Now all they needed was a big
tank of propane.

“I’ll find a tank somewhere,” Ron assured everyone. “The question is, where we are go-
ing to put it and the generator?”

“The power comes in underground from the west on Avenue R,” Gary said, “Why don’t
we double fence the lot between us and Grecian Isles and put the tank and generator
there? I can’t remember for sure, but I think that I did that in one of my stories.”

“Start putting in post holes about 6’ in and 12’ foot in,” Randy said. “I’ll get my buddy to
dig a ditch and fill the fences. I’ll also get some more posts and fencing.”

“Try to get some barbed wire, too,” Ron suggested, “We’ll need more concertina.”

“You can knock down a section of my back wall once you get the other wall in,” Dick of-
fered.

AmeriGas had an idle rental tank that Ron could have, either as a rental or as an out-
right purchase. The tank was manufactured by Trinity in 1971 and held 30,000-gallons.
It was 47’ long, 11’ in diameter and rated for 250 psi. The tank was empty and could be
loaded on a flatbed with a crane and hauled to Moon Shadows the same day. Ron rent-
ed the tank, purchasing it was out of the question. The cost to fill the tank was about
$50,000. Ron had paid Gary back and had nowhere near the money it took to fill the
tank. Neither did Gary. Deep Pockets came to the rescue, but he said that he expected
to be reimbursed for the fuel, he wasn’t made of money, he claimed. It was hurry, hurry,
to get a slab in for the generator. AmeriGas delivered the tank and began the filling pro-
cess. They could only spare a single truck for the process. Murphy was there, too.
Randy’s excavating contractor friend was tied up and the ditch had to be dug by hand.
The fence went in quickly and The Three Amigos ‘supervised’ the digging.

“You know Ron, I seem to have it in mind that US Borax used an underground mine be-
fore they started that big pit,” Gary said. “Since we’re not doing anything spectacular,
maybe the 3 of us should take a trip up to Boron and see if my memory is correct. I
have it in mind that I saw a film when I was in the Air Force about them storing records
underground in the mine.”

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“If we’re trusting on your memory, we’re probably just wasting gas, but it beats telling
people how to shovel dirt,” Ron said.

“They cleared out Edwards AFB and moved most of the stuff to Area 51,” Clarence said,
“We can cut across the base and save a lot of miles.”

“How do you know that Clarence?” Gary asked, “Have eyes in the sky?”

“No. Johnny told me,” Clarence smiled.

“Good, we can finally get on base and I can show you fellas which barracks I lived in,”
Gary said.

“Who cares which building you lived in in the 1960’s?” Ron said.

“Oh, all right, we’ll skip the tour, this time,” Gary agreed.

Boron, CA…

“I believe you could put half the town of Palmdale in this mine,” Ron said.

“We’ll keep it as our Plan B, Ron,” Gary said, “Just in case we have to bug out.”

“We ought to go to that place where we borrowed those campers and set up a bunch of
campers in this mine,” Clarence suggested. “Then if we had to bug out, we wouldn’t
have to worry about housing.”

“I suppose we could put those 2 semi loads of food here too,” Gary pointed out. “I was
reading somewhere that US Borax produces its own electricity here so we wouldn’t
have to worry about power.”

Gee, I don’t remember these guys ever having an actual Plan B before, do you? The
semis of food were diverted and about 50 camping trailers were borrowed from the
storage lot. That lot was now as bare as a newborn baby’s butt. Because the ammo was
still on the pickup, it went to Boron, too. Gary really was getting prepared for a change,
no more 24 people in a shelter designed for 6.

The Nighthawks had been refurbished at Area 51, and the B-2’s transferred there. The
USAF began a campaign, using the stealth aircraft, to start bringing the UN down to
size. They limited themselves to night missions and the 20 B-2’s and 54 F-117’s carry-
ing bomb loads of GBU’s and CBU’s began to punch holes in the UN forces. Air superi-
ority didn’t mean squat if you couldn’t get the birds on radar or see them. American ar-

198
mor was quietly moved into position to hit the UN forces when the USAF had them
trimmed down to size. The bad thing about tanks was that they weren’t really bulletproof
on the top, a fact soon brought to the attention of the UN forces.

When the F-22 Raptor program was conceived, it was planned to have 381 aircraft by
2013. As of the 11/12/05 attack, the USAF had most of the F-22s in inventory but
wouldn’t have the full, smaller, fleet until 2007. While superior in nearly every way to the
UN aircraft, the US was mighty short of the real Stealth fighters. They were used spar-
ingly to avoid loss and the UN was losing air superiority only slowly to the fighters.
However, the USAF wasn’t above bombing aircraft sitting on the ground and the bomb-
er fleet was doing a reasonable job trimming down the UN Air Force. Unfortunately, the
French and Germans were able to manufacture replacement aircraft almost as quickly
as they were destroyed. Almost.

Where was Curtis LeMay when you needed him? Finally, the USAF decided to mount a
couple of missions to Europe. It wasn’t doing one bit of good destroying the UN aircraft
at the rate they were being replaced. Ten B-2’s were sent to Germany and ten to
France. The single strike by those 20 bombers did more to slow down the German and
French fighters than any other thing. Russia hadn’t built a new plane in a while and
Russia had a lot of nuclear weapons.

The current problem with the French had seemed to originate after WW II, but in truth,
France had probably wanted what later became the US to be a French instead of a Brit-
ish colony. They could stick one to their archenemies, the British, and buy themselves a
colony. Didn’t work out that way 230 years ago and they’d been difficult for a long time.
The Free French, under DeGaulle had been a difficult ally to work with during the big
one and after, DeGaulle had been not so pro American. There were many differences
between the Americans and French, some cultural and some philosophical. And in the
latter part of the 20th Century and the early 21st Century they’d only gotten worse. The
American and British were two peoples separated by a common language and you
could add the Aussies to the mix. On the upside, it was easy to find the French UN de-
tachments, you could smell them.

Having conquered Los Angeles when a few thousand residents gave up, the UN forces
began to spread out throughout southern California to capture the illegal American
weapons. They loved the US Interstate System, Freeways in California, and one of
those Freeways, SR-14, led to the Antelope Valley. After the token resistance and even-
tual surrender in LA, the UN forces got quite a shock when they rolled over the hill into
the AV. They took heavy casualties from the combined Lancaster and Palmdale Militias.
It’s probably a good 10 miles from the site of that ambush to Moon Shadows, as a point
of reference. At the sound of the far-off gunfire, someone triggered the battle klaxon and
Moon Shadows went onto alert. The effort was for naught; the UN got its butt kicked,
that day.

If anyone knew the name of that pass into the AV, where the Sierra highway and 14 cut
through, they didn’t live in Moon Shadows. There are a lot of ways into the AV, but

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many weren’t so obvious, and, that pass was a great chokepoint. There was Bouquet
Canyon and others to the west, plus 138 coming in from the east, just to name a few.
The Antelope Valley was bordered by mountains on 3 sides; to the north was the Teha-
chapi Range; to the west the parts of the Coastal Ranges; and, to the south the San
Gabriel Range. And, almost all of the roads into the AV came through the mountains
and had hundreds of natural ambush sites. After several aborted attempts to take the
AV, the UN gave up and created essentially an isle of resistance surrounded by the UN.

This gave the residents of the AV the home field advantage. They knew all of the routes
through the mountains and were easily able to avoid UN checkpoints and patrols.
Around the US, the UN wasn’t faring any better and perhaps not nearly as well. The mi-
litias snipped at their heels and the Army, Navy and Air Force confronted them face on.
In New York City, a small militia group who didn’t know that ANFO wasn’t the hottest
ticket in town, loaded up a couple of rental trucks and parked them at the UN Building,
er, former UN building. And, to think, the UN had just finished refurbishing the building
after the 11/12/05 attacks.

04Jan07…

“I’m really glad that you guys got that generator from Palmdale Hospital,” Gary said.
“But I’m worried we may run low on propane.”

“Maybe in a few months when it’s warm out,” Ron said, “But we’re keeping the tank
topped off for now.”

“We need to make a run to Boron and pick up one of those semi loads of food from the
mine, too,” Gary commented. “I think that the UN is just trying to starve us out.”

“Go take a chill pill Gar-Bear,” Ron suggested, “We’re fine on food and fuel and every-
thing else.”

“Yeah, Gary,” Clarence said, “Be laid back like me.”

“If I were as laid back as you Clarence,” Gary shook his head, “I’d be unconscious. Are
you still worried that if we had a Revolution nobody would come?”

“I be right proud of the way Americans is taking on the UN,” Clarence said. “Course if
you believed that news on TV, the score would be UN-1,000, US-0.”

“Geraldo seems to be happy now that he has his own prime-time one-hour news pro-
gram,” Ron observed dryly. “He’s the best asset the UN has.”

“He sure seemed happy that Chuckie baby resigned as Secretary of Homeland Security
and Hillary was appointed to take Chuckie’s place,” Clarence opined.

“That just put’s her one step closer to the throne,” Gary said. “I thought it was nice of the

200
Republicans to win all of those Congressional seats in November, but since the UN
won’t let the new Senators and Representatives take their seats, the election was a
wasted effort.”

“Gary, an election is never a wasted effort,” Clarence said sharply. “Even if we was on
the road and didn’t get to vote this time.”

Mt. Weather…

“Some of the things that the UN wants are ridiculous,” Kerry said.

“It’s your own danged fault John,” Hillary said. “If I’d have been President, I would never
have agreed with some of the crap you agreed to.”

“Let’s show some respect for the office Hillary,” Kerry protested. “It’s Mr. President to
you; I’m not your husband and you’re not the First Lady.”

“BS John, you’re a one term President and you know it,” Hillary responded. “You could
have been a 2-term President, but no, you wanted to be King.”

“It’s not my fault those terrorists blew up half the country,” Kerry protested.

“No, but you went overboard on cutting the military and using FEMA,” Hillary said. “Now
you’ve got the entire country po’d at you. And, you really can’t blame the French and
Germans for being po’d because the Air Force blew up those aircraft factories.”

“Your language is awful for a Lady, Hillary,” Kerry remarked.

“Who ever said I was a Lady?” Hillary asked.

“Well Madam Wannabe President,” Kerry responded, “At least you could pretend.”

“Why?” Hillary asked. “You screwed things up so I won’t get to be President until 2016
and I may be too old by then.”

[A controversial chapter - discusses the mixed feelings a parent has about any war and
the possibility that he may lose a son or daughter. - TOM]

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 23 – Taking the Fight to Them

“I’m getting tired of sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Gary announced.
“We need to take the battle to the UN if we’re going to have any fun.”

“Sounds like what I said before we went to the Library,” Clarence remarked.

“Six foot tall and bulletproof,” Ron snickered, “You can be in front, Clarence.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that we do the fighting,” Gary objected, “But there are a lot of
younger men in the tract who could get out there and raise a little hell. We could blow
up the Littlerock Dam, but that would be cutting off our noses to spite our face.”

“Those UN Forces are better equipped than we are Gary,” Clarence pointed out.

“That’s ok, Clarence,” Gary chuckled, “We’ll use our Corbamite device.

“Our WHAT?” Clarence asked.

“Our Corbamite device, a bluff, pal,” Gary explained. “The UN doesn’t know that they
have us out gunned. We do have 40mm grenades, AT-4’s and LAWs Rockets. And, we
have that .50 caliber rifle we picked up in Mesa.”

“Ron, what’s a Corbamite device?” Clarence asked.

“Since the beginning of Star Fleet…” Ron began to say. “The episode was named ‘The
Corbomite Maneuver’. It was the 9th episode aired during the first year of the show,”

“Oh, I thought you were talking about something real,” Clarence said.

“There is nothing unreal about a bluff, Clarence,” Gary said. “If we can bluff the UN into
thinking that we’re more powerful and better equipped than we are, if might force them
into wasting resources protecting against a phantom menace.”

“I seen that movie,” Clarence said, “It was awful.”

“I wasn’t referring to the Star Wars movie, Clarence,” Gary said. “I was referring to their
thinking that they were up against a powerful enemy that required extra security.”

“How will that help us?” Clarence asked.

“It won’t help ‘US’ pal,” Gary said, “But it will help other militia units. We don’t have to be
in the front lines all of the time. Anything we do to screw with the UN helps with their
removal and the success of the Revolution.”

“How IS the Revolution going?” Clarence asked.

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“When John Kerry invited in the UN, we won,” Ron said. “The UN still has to be booted,
but the US can handle that. For every atrocity, the UN will get it back 10-fold. Remem-
ber those folks over in Buckeye? Remember what those two Apache Deputy Sheriff’s
did to those terrorists? Partner, you ain’t seen anything yet.”

Americans always had the capacity for cruelty, but usually the decency not to employ it.
This was a horse of a different color. The militia groups around the country weren’t
above a little cruelty if it helped to get rid of the UN. Gary took the 3 rifles they’d picked
up in Mesa to Sandy.

“What can I do for you this time, Gary?” Sandy asked.

“These rifles are a little on the noisy side, Sandy, can you help me out?” Gary asked.

“The .308 and the .50 BMG won’t be a problem,” Sandy replied, “But I’ll have to see
about the .338. I think that Reflex makes a suppressor, the T8M - 338 Lapua Mag, but I
don’t know if I can get one.”

The North American supplier for Reflex Suppressors was a Canadian firm. Sandy sent
them an email using only ‘T8M-338’ in the body of the message. They replied just as
cryptically, $465. God Bless VISA. There was no mail service, yet, but UPS was back in
business. A week later, she received a plain brown package labeled, ‘Repair Parts.’ She
made the installations and notified Gary that he should come by and bring money. From
reading those articles, it seemed that the US was fine until Congress overreacted to
gangsters using submachine guns and silencers and passed the NFA and created the
ATF. And, of course, the states with high population densities had the most perverse of
the state laws, like CA and NY just to name a couple.

“What do I owe you?” Gary asked.

“Make it $1,500,” Sandy said, “That covers shipping and gives me about a dimes worth
of profit.”

“How quiet are the rifles?” Gary asked.

“Given the range they’ll be used at, quiet enough,” Sandy replied.

Gary returned to the tract with the weapons and gave them back to Derek. Later that
day, he got into a conversation with Ron.

“You know what, partner, I’m scared.” Gary said.

“We’re all a little scared, Gar-Bear, it just the times,” Ron replied.

“Not like that, Ron. This is scared to the core, scared,” Gary continued. “I think it started

203
in the fall of 2003. That’s when I found out Derek was going to Kosovo. It’s easy when
it’s you that’s going off to war, but it’s different when it’s your kid.”

“What do you mean, different?” Ron asked.

“Take that Vietnam Memorial, for example,” Gary said. “I have friends and relatives
whose names are on that wall. It’s part of life and you just accept it, no matter how bitter
it is. But, when I found out Derek was going to Kosovo, about the only thing I was happy
about was that he wasn’t going to Iraq. Man, I started to sweat. Then, he wasn’t there a
month and TSHTF. That was maybe April of 2004. A couple of the Iowa Guardsmen got
medals out of that event. And I know he got home ok, but then I sat afraid they might
turn right around and send him to Iraq.”

“If he’s in the Guard, that’s the risk he takes,” Ron said.

“I know, Ron, but it doesn’t make it any easier,” Gary said. “Always afraid that some
Serb or Muslim or someone would dust his butt. I guess I never got over being scared
after that. Man, I don’t know how to explain it.”

“He’s here now and safe,” Ron pointed out.

“Yeah, until we send them out on a mission to hit those UN people, he’s safe,” Gary
said, “But what then? It will be those same old worries all over again. And, like I said, I
haven’t gotten over the last time.”

“Gary,” Clarence interrupted, “That’s just the way of things.”

“Why is it always our kids, fellas?” Gary asked.

“I suppose because we’re too old to fight anymore,” Clarence replied. “Our eyes are bad
and the hearing is shot. We don’t have the physical stamina to fight, it’s as simple as
that.”

“Yeah, but we have years of being underhanded and sneaky and lying,” Gary said,
“That experience has to count for something.”

“It does count for something Gar-Bear,” Ron suggested, “It puts us in a position of get-
ting the things that the young people need to fight things like tyranny and oppression.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” Gary said.

“I know it Gar-Bear,” Ron admitted, “But you put your time in same as a lot of people. If
you were 2 years younger, you would have ended up in Southeast Asia instead of col-
lege in the late 1960’s. There are just some things that we choose and some things that
God chooses for us. We don’t get to choose when we are born. The only choice we
have is how we choose to live our life. Maybe we could have done better and maybe

204
not.”

“Amen,” Clarence added. “Every time you get behind the wheel of a car you take your
life in your hands. Even if you drive defensively, there’s always the other guy. There is a
finite limit on how prepared you can be. When it comes to survival preparedness, the
limiting factor is usually money. Just be glad you don’t live in someplace like Florida
where they have Hurricanes.”

“Yeah,” Gary said, “Or California where they have earthquakes or Iowa where they have
tornados, huh?”

“Partner, when your number is up, it’s up,” Ron said, “And if it isn’t, it isn’t.”

“That’s an awfully fatalistic view of life,” Gary countered.

“Prove I’m wrong,” Ron said.

Philosophy (Greek Φιλοσοφία, love of wisdom) is the study of the ultimate reality, caus-
es, and principles underlying being and thinking. It is often referred to as the works of
major philosophers collectively; it can mean the academic exploration of various ques-
tions raised by philosophers; it can also mean a certain critical, creative way of thinking,
and none of these meanings can be considered distinctly. Philosophy, in brief, has sev-
eral connotations in common speech. Just knowing that didn’t help Gary deal with the
uncertainties of life nor did it prepare him for whatever life would bring. Being fatalistic
was just one of many philosophies and it wasn’t any better or worse than any of the
others. Maybe being fatalistic helped Ron deal with life, but it didn’t help Gary. As a
child, Gary had worried about his parents growing old and dying, and it hadn’t changed
anything. They got old and died.

Now, he was getting old and would one day die. But like every parent, Gary was con-
cerned not with the natural scheme of things where one gets old and dies but rather
when one was young and died. Gary realized that if he did his role very, very well and
provided Derek, for example, with the best tools and best skills, he had done all that he
could do to see that Derek outlived him. After that, it was up to God to choose the times
and places where ‘fate’ had its say. What if that bullet that hit him in the thigh had been
18” higher? It wasn’t about living and dying after all. It was all about how you lived your
life.

“Derek, this isn’t about dying for your country,” Gary said when he sent Derek out on
that first mission. “Now I want you to remember that no SOB ever won a war by dying
for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb SOB die for his country.”

“Dad, Patton didn’t say that,” Derek argued, “It was only in the movie.”

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“He actually said, ‘The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other
bastard die for his.’ But would you rather I say, ‘A man must know his destiny… if he
does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most,
three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder… if he has the imagina-
tion, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should
take, if he has the guts, he will take it’.” Gary said, “Patton said that. Or how about, ‘It’s
the unconquerable soul of man, not the nature of the weapon he uses, that insures vic-
tory’.”

“I’d rather you just say ‘I’ll see you later’,” Derek replied.

“See you later kid and keep your powder dry,” Gary smiled.

Derek and the others returned later, their mission successful. That .50 caliber with API
was a fearsome weapon. Between it and the rockets and the grenades, some of those
UN folk’s families would get the dreaded notification, rather than some American fami-
lies. There wouldn’t be any tears in Palmdale that night, they would come in a few days’
time when the poor dumb SOB’s family got the news in France or Germany or Russia or
somewhere else. Their son or daughter, who had volunteered for the armed forces of
his or her country to protect that country from invaders on his or her home soil, not to
hassle some Americans over a gun law, would be another victim of a political agenda.
Not his agenda, but some politicians agenda; perhaps some politician who would be
King. And Milosevic had claimed the trial was a sham. Yeah, right, that’s how it was with
politicians, lawyers and reporters.

Gary didn’t show this side of himself very often; most people would think he was unpat-
riotic. Was it unpatriotic to worry about your kids? Probably not. Was it unpatriotic to on-
ly approve of a defensive war? Patton haunted Gary on this point with his:

Live for something rather than die for nothing.

So as through a glass, and darkly

The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness

What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o’er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,

Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 24 – The Worry Factor

The closing lines of Through a Glass, Darkly by Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. were used
in the movie. Patton also said, No sane man is unafraid in battle, but discipline produces
in him a form of vicarious courage. Derek didn’t view the situation the same way as his
father. He might, if it was his kid going off to fight, but it wasn’t. And Derek was ‘Gung-
Ho’, too. Considering that he was ex-Army and not ex-Marine Corps, which was quite
the definition.

They’d had a good night attacking the UN forces. Although they had no confirmed body
count, the UN force protecting Bouquet Canyon was in disarray. Derek had spent those
6 months in Kosovo and, although he didn’t realize it at the time, had picked up a lot of
lessons about how to mess with UN forces. Derek had made a fair number of friends
among the soldiers from other nations during those 6 months, too. Perhaps this ex-
plained why although the disruption was disabling, they had no confirmed body count of
UN Forces. The UN equipment was thoroughly disabled and there probably was some
collateral damage, but those were the fortunes of war.

To avoid creating a discernable pattern of activity, they had written the names of loca-
tions they intended to assault on slips of paper and placed them in one borrowed cow-
boy hat. A second borrowed hat held slips of paper with a number 1 through 5 written
on it. The second slip told them how long they were to wait before the attack on the next
target. Given his fresh military experience, it fell to Derek to organize and lead the raids.
All 3 of the rifles recovered from Mesa were bolt-action, single-shot rifles and were cus-
tom built. Each had proven itself capable of shooting sub-MOA groups with match am-
mo. Since The Three Amigos brought the previous owner’s ammo, Derek had ammo
that was matched to the rifles. The scopes were the latest thing and high quality optics.
All 3 rifles had a variable power scope that ran up to 20X and MUNS night vision.

“The next target is the UN Camp on the road south of Lake Hughes in 4 days,” Derek
said reading the two slips he’d drawn.

“Where’s the UN Camp,” Gary asked.

“Overlooking some lake,” Derek replied.

“Let me see the map,” Gary asked. “Hey, I know this road. I used to drive it to get to 101
back 40 years or so. I don’t know how much it has changed, but it’s a winding mountain
road with a lot of good ambush sites. You boys be careful traveling down that road.”

“Would you quit worrying, Dad,” Derek said, “We’ll be ok.”

“I can’t help it son, it just goes with being a father,” Gary explained.

“When we get an easy target, I’m going to drag your gimpy butt along with us,” Derek
said. “Then, once you see that everyone knows what they’re doing maybe you’ll quit

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worrying.”

“I’d just slow you down Derek and I have no doubts about peoples’ abilities,” Gary re-
plied. “Besides, it wouldn’t do anything to keep me from worrying. There’s always Mur-
phy’s Law, you know. And don’t worry about me worrying. That’s a father’s job so his
son is free to go do what he must.”

“I wish the 3 of you were younger,” Derek said, “It might be fun to watch you in action.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t like that son, we’d be more likely to shoot someone in the back than
risk a face-to-face confrontation,” Gary remarked. “After we screwed the pooch on the
Library Raid and got our butts shot up, we got careful. We shoot them when they’re
down and then wait to approach them.”

Mt. Weather…

“What do you mean Vice-President Edwards is dead?” Kerry screamed. “He is, was, a
young man.”

“John, I’ll be damned if I know what happened to him,” Hillary said. “Anyway, you need
to appoint a new Vice President under the 25th Amendment and I know just the woman
for the job.”

“What, do you think I’m nuts Hillary?” Kerry replied. “I make you Vice-President and I’m
probably a dead man, too.”

“Are you implying that I had something to do with John’s death?” Hillary snapped. “Lis-
ten Mr. President, I’ve got the votes tied up for my confirmation so you just get to nomi-
nating.”

Although he was convinced that he was signing his own death warrant, Kerry nominated
Hillary when he found out she had the necessary votes to confirm her appointment to
the Vice Presidency. The UN had proven to be far too intrusive into the internal affairs of
the US, but that’s what you get when you make a bargain with the Devil. Kerry was right
in his suspicions about Madam Hillary and didn’t know that she had been working close-
ly with several top UN officials. Although the UN Building in New York had been de-
stroyed, the UN just reorganized itself and opened a new headquarters in Brussels,
Belgium.

Elsewhere…

The military was winning the war against the UN, but it was a slow process. The Presi-
dent controlled the PAL codes for the nuclear weapons in the military’s possession and
the way the bombs and warheads were built, it was essentially impossible to circumvent
the protection scheme. Had that not been the case, the war with the UN would have
been over before it ever started. But with the F series PAL’s the nuclear weapons were

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useless to the military. In the early days, a PAL could be defeated by a Boy Scout with
his trusty knife. But with the digital revolution, the warheads and bombs had been retro-
fitted and couldn’t be exploded without the 12-digit/character PAL code and input from
external environmental sensors.

But with the destruction of the French and Germany factories, the tide began to turn for
the American military. That they we being helped by a whole lot of civilians who didn’t
follow any rules of war didn’t hurt either.

24Mar07…

On the day after his 64th birthday, Gary felt like “Big John”, another day older and
deeper in debt. He had made his mind up that The Three Amigos were going to have
one last hurrah, providing he could talk Ron and Clarence into it. Well, maybe not the
last, but a big hurrah, nonetheless. That led to the nightmare conversation.

“I don’t know if I want to go out a mission or not,” Ron responded to Gary’s suggestion.

“We can take 50th East to Avenue M,” Gary started.

“They call that Columbia Way now,” Ron interrupted.

“And we can take that to 10th Street East,” Gary tried to continue.

“They call that Challenger Way, Gar-Bear,” Ron again interrupted.

“And we can take that to Space Shuttle Avenue,” Gary said, trying to be a smartass.

“Don’t recollect a street named Space Shuttle Avenue,” Ron said.

“They used to call it Avenue I,” Gary snapped.

“Still do,” Ron replied.

“Anyway, we’ll go up to Tehachapi and do a little fooling around and then come back to
Palmdale and exit 10th Street West and turn on Avenue P,” Gary finished the general
outline.

“They call that Rancho Vista, now,” Ron said.

“Call what Rancho Vista, 10th or P?” Gary growled.

“Avenue P, but only to 40th Street East, after that it’s still Avenue P,” Ron explained.

“That doesn’t make any sense, Ron. It’s only another mile to 50th East and Avenue P
ends.” Gary said. “Why’d they do that?”

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“Ran out of money for signs?” Ron snickered. “How the hell should I know why the City
Council does anything?”

“When we going on this adventure of yours?” Clarence asked.

“Whenever you want Clarence,” Gary said thinking he had an ally in Clarence.

“We can’t go tomorrow ‘ cause it’s Sunday,” Clarence said.

“Ok, there’s Monday,” Gary suggested.

“Can’t go Monday, I have an appointment for a haircut,” Ron said.

“Hmm. Well we can’t go Wednesday,” Gary said, “Because I have an appointment for
outpatient open heart surgery.”

“Where are you having it done?” Clarence asked. “Course, it will take you a day to heal
up Gary, so that let’s Thursday out, too.”

“Right Clarence, a whole day?” Gary responded, “Never mind, I’ll just go alone.”

“You can’t drive,” Ron said.

“Why not?” Gary asked.

“Because you don’t have a driver’s license,” Ron insisted.

“Yes I do,” Gary said, “It was manufactured by H&K.”

“Ron, we’d better stop toying with Gary afore he gets po’d,” Clarence suggested.

“I don’t want to use your dang jack anyway,” Gary said.

[Old joke about a guy with a flat tire, without a jack, on a country road ¾ of a mile from a
lit up farmhouse. At ¼ mile on the way to the house the guys thinks, maybe he doesn’t
have a jack. At ½ mile, he thinks, maybe he has a jack and won’t lend it to me. Near the
farmhouse, the guy thinks maybe he won’t answer the door. Guy knocks on the door,
Farmer says, ‘Hi, can I help you?’ and the guys says, ‘I didn’t want to use your dang
jack anyway.’ Thinking about some things too much can lead to trouble.]

So, the boys were going to Tehachapi and mess with the UN contingent that was block-
ing 58 to Bakersfield. The Three Amigos weren’t going to use 58 to get there either.
There was a ‘back way’ into Tehachapi on old route 202. They planned the mission
carefully, taking their Super Match rifles and M1911’s. For backup, they slung the MP-
5’s. Gary wanted to try some sniping and had spent a lot of time lately on the range. He

210
was, with all the extra practice, able to shoot about 1½-MOA. The UN, according to
what they’d heard around town, had 58 blocked with some Russian armored personnel
carriers. They ignored the UN imposed curfew and set out late at night, driving without
headlights. It was back roads all the way and if there hadn’t been some moonlight they’d
have never made it.

Derek waited 10 minutes for The Three Amigos to leave and he had Mary’s pickup.
Damon and another 10 residents were piled in the truck and the 12 men were loaded for
bear. Chris had made a pedestal to mount a Ma-Deuce in the bed of the pickup. It took
all of 5-minutes to bolt it in place and head out after the 3 old men. The ammo boxes
were filled with API and APIT in the usual 4 to 1 ratio. And all 12 of them had
M16/M203’s and they’d tossed a couple of AT-4’s in the bed of the pickup, just in case.
The shoe was on the other foot, but instead of worrying about it, Derek did the sensible
thing and just covered their backs.

Derek had an advantage, too. The Three Amigos might not be using headlights, but
they’d forgotten to remove the bulbs from the back light fixtures in Ron’s car and every
once in a while they’d spot brake lights or a turn signal. Chris had wired in switches in
Mary’s pickup so you could disable the lighting circuits from the cab before they ever
started their missions against the UN. And, Ron was driving pretty slowly, so it was easy
to keep The Three Amigos in sight. The problem with The Three Amigos, in Derek’s
opinion, was that they watched too many of those John Wayne movies.

When they slipped into Tehachapi, Ron drove to a site overlooking the UN roadblock.
The Three Amigos got out, unlimbered their Super Match rifles and began to snipe the
UN forces. They got about 6 of the Russian soldier’s before the Russians realized they
were under fire and took cover. The Russians officer had guessed where they had to be
sniping from and his remaining troops had The Three Amigos pinned down, unable to
move. Derek and the ‘reserves’ arrived and between the .50 cal and their 40mm gre-
nades, brought the situation to an abrupt end.

“Well, I think we’ve had enough fun for this year,” Gary said, grateful to be alive.

“It’s humiliating to have to be rescued,” Ron said.

“It might be humiliating Ron,” Clarence countered, “But at least we’re alive.”

The API and the APIT had chewed up the thin armor of the Russian vehicles, disabling
them temporarily or perhaps even permanently. The Three Amigos got in the car, and
took off, this time using the headlights. While there was a danger of being spotted if a
UN helicopter happened to be in the area, The Three Amigos didn’t care; they just
wanted to get back to Moon Shadows as quickly as possible. Ron even let Gar-Bear
drive; Gary had a lead foot, to be sure. Gary also had his H&K driver’s license slung on
one shoulder so Ron figured it might be okay, just this one time. They made it from
Tehachapi to Moon Shadows in 50-minutes, compared to the hour and a half it had tak-
en Ron to get there in the first place. Mary’s pickup couldn’t keep up and it arrived back

211
at Moon Shadows almost 15-minutes after The Three Amigos.

They decided to call the venture off after their near disaster and returned to Moon
Shadows. Gar-Bear had gotten a severe cold and was reduced to lying in bed on oxy-
gen trying to beat the cold. Sharon had to go somewhere with a friend and Gary was in
bed sleeping with the oxygen. Through some 6th sense, Sharon got Patti to check on
Gary around lunchtime and Patti found Gary’s breathing labored and he was cyanotic.
Patti called Sharon’s friend to rush Sharon home and Sharon suggested that the tired
old man go to the doctor. Old Mr. Macho wasn’t going to have any part that foolishness
and told Sharon to forget it, he’d live.

Sharon wasn’t having any part of that nonsense and she called Dr. J. Dr. J said to bring
Gary to the office. Sharon’s car was in the shop and when she told J the good news, he
told her to call an ambulance and put Gar in AV Hospital. Good choice. Gary would
have never made it to LA. After what could only be described as an adventure beyond
belief, Gary escaped from the hospital on his 3rd attempt. Saved by a broken sparkplug
wire.

Upon hearing of Gar-Bear’s near demise, a rich guy, Bill somebody, hired Gary to set
up a new hospital to provide affordable, quality medical treatment in Palmdale to pro-
vide medical care for the poor and uninsured as a charitable activity for his and his wife
foundation. The name of the new hospital would be The Citadel.

212
 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 25 – The War Heats Up

John Kerry, being a New Englander was fond of shellfish. There was always a danger
eating shellfish of PSP poisoning. After the appointment of Madam Hillary as the new
VP to replace Edwards, Kerry had been especially careful when he ate shellfish, insist-
ing that the cooking staff eat some of the shellfish before he did. Paralytic shellfish poi-
soning (PSP) is a serious illness caused by eating shellfish that have consumed large
amounts of a poison-producing microscopic organism called Alexandrium catenella. The
Alexandrium toxins are extremely potent nerve poisons; in fact, as little as one milligram
(0.000035 ounce) is enough to kill an adult. The poisons themselves, as well as the ill-
ness they cause, are referred to as PSP. The poison acts very rapidly, and no antidote
has as yet been discovered. The toxin is not affected by freezing or cooking.

Hillary knew of this and also knew that the CIA had maintained stocks of shellfish toxin
for years. Advances in medical equipment had led companies like BD to produce insulin
syringes with tiny little 31-gauge needles only 8mm long. Gary, for one, used that very
syringe for his insulin injections. But a little Monica Lewinsky-like behavior got Hillary a
syringe of the toxin and someone to deliver the package. The next time they had shell-
fish on the menu, John Kerry got a little more PSP than he’d allowed for. And, the injec-
tion site was so small that the autopsy failed to reveal the dastardly deed. Fleataxi was
probably happy now, his favorite woman, the Wicked Witch, was in power. Not wishing
to disturb the balance of the new Presidency, Hillary selected Senator Barbara Boxer
from California as her new Vice President.

Moon Shadows…

“Jeez,” Ron said turning off the TV. “We got 2 of ‘em in office. This country could be in
real trouble if it’s the wrong time of the month for both of them.”

“Real trouble?” Clarence growled not his usual cheerful self, “What you call what we al-
ready got?”

“We’re winning the war on terror, Clarence,” Gary said, “And we aren’t doing so bad on
the UN, either. By the way, Derek and the guys are going out tonight on another mis-
sion.”

“Remind me to stay away from you until they get back,” Ron said, “Man you should tri-
ple up on the Xanax when Derek goes out on a mission.”

“I can’t Ron,” Gary said, “I’m down to my last 5,000 pills.”

“That’s a 13-year supply Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “We can find you more. Take 3, they’re
small and who says we’re going to live another 13-years?”

“I’m going to live forever,” Gary smiled, “Somebody has to worry about Derek. And, at
least I have boys worth worrying about.”

213
The remark came right out of left field, and it stung Ron. Ron was used to Gary’s out-
bursts, but this time, old Gar-Bear had gone just a little too far. Neither man had raised
the majority of children in question. Ron’s ex-wife had raised Scott and she hadn’t done
too good a job of it. Joyce had raised Damon and Derek and had earned fair marks for
Damon and good marks for Derek. Ron had raised Kevin, but Kevin’s type-I diabetes
had led to an outrageously codependent mother and Kevin’s ruination. Neither of the
women in Ron’s life had really allowed him to influence the 2 boys. But, Ron had a thick
skin and he shrugged off the crack. And, Gary took 3 Xanax when he realized he’d put
his foot in his mouth.

The UN had 2 choices when it came to dealing with the Antelope Valley. They could pull
troops from other areas and attempt to beat the residents into submission. In the alter-
native, they could withdraw the troops and use them elsewhere where they were much
needed. They chose wisely and pulled their troops. Thus when Derek and company
went out on the next mission, there was no UN to attack. They took it as a victory and
on their return to Moon Shadows began to plan even further ranging activities.

“Where is that Underground City you wrote about in one of your stories?” Derek asked
Gary.

“I’m not exactly sure Derek,” Gary said, “But if I got the directions right, it’s right about
here,” he said pointing to the map of California. “What do you want to know that for?”

“We need a forward operating base,” Derek explained.

“The borax mine is stocked in Boron,” Ron pointed out. “Can you use that?”

“It’s not far enough out Ron,” Derek declined. “With the UN pulling back from southern
California, we either go north into the San Joaquin Valley, northeast in the direction of
Vegas or east close to the Arizona state line.”

“Surely our efforts aren’t responsible for them pulling,” Gary observed.

“They probably didn’t hurt,” Clarence suggested.

“I think that it’s a combination of things fellas,” Derek explained. “We made it difficult for
them, that’s all. But the military has been kicking butt and taking names and I think that
it’s just them consolidating their forces more than anything else.”

“Instead of locating a new base of operations, Derek, why don’t you create a light mo-
bile force and stay on the move?” Gary asked.

“We could do that,” Derek agreed, “But only if we were assured a source of fuel.”

“There are those extra fuel tanks that Randy put in,” Clarence pointed out, “If’n you

214
could find a fuel trailer or truck; you could use that fuel.”

“Most of the vehicles are gasoline,” Derek stated, “Randy put in diesel fuel.”

“Well son,” Gary leaned back with his hands behind his head, “We’ll just have to get
some diesel powered vehicles for you to use. You can take our pickup for a start and
pull the Airstream. Randy put in diesel because he bought a diesel pickup; maybe you
can use his vehicle. And we can canvas the town looking for abandoned diesel
pickups.”

“It probably wouldn’t hurt to get Chris building another pedestal for a second Ma-
Deuce,” Ron suggested.

“If we around go picking up used diesel pickups,” Derek said, “We will have no idea
what condition they’ll be in. It could delay us for weeks while we get them all running
right and ready for a long road trip.”

“Then have your brother borrow a few from the Palmdale auto mall,” Gary suggested.
“And while you’re at it find some camper shells. You can get trailers from the mine in
Boron that we put up there.”

Over the course of the next week, Damon borrowed a half dozen new diesel pickups,
camper shells to fit them and they made a run to the mine in Boron to get trailers.
Randy’s pickup was fitted with the second pedestal and the road trip began to come to-
gether. They found an abandoned Chevron tanker on I-14 and Chris was able to get it
running. The front tank was full of gasoline but the trailer tank was empty. The gas was
transferred and the truck mounted tank filled with the available diesel. An extra 12kw
portable diesel generator was added to one of the pickups. They sorted through the
food stores and made up bundles of food to take with them. They rounded up some 20-
gallon bottles of propane and a propane cook top for their meals on wheels.
Since none of the men were particularly good cooks, The Three Amigos ended up tag-
ging along as the support group. Gary and Ron would handle the cooking and Clarence
would keep tab on the supplies.

“Looks like you’re finally going to get a chance to pull KP, Ronald,” Gary laughed.

“That’s why I brought all of those paper plates and plastic silverware and glasses,” Ron
explained. “We can burn them and I won’t have to wash them.”

The thing that Gary didn’t have was recipes suitable for about 24 people. A search of
the net using the term ‘chuck wagon’ got him more recipes than he cared to try. It
seemed strange to be able to surf the web when the country was in the middle of a
revolution and had been invaded by the UN, but that was probably because a Democrat
had invented the Internet. And, his inventing the Internet had probably been the only
worthwhile thing he’d done in his entire life.

215
Perhaps to compensate for his gaff in Iraq, Geraldo was now passing along UN posi-
tions to the Patriots. Or, maybe that was just the man’s nature. Back in 2004 they’d sent
him to Florida to cover that hurricane named Frances and instead of giving weather re-
ports, Geraldo had taken the opportunity to assail the manufactured housing industry.
And now, our old pal couldn’t help himself and much to the chagrin of the UN was de-
tailing their locations. Maybe the boy just couldn’t keep a secret. Or maybe, the boy just
thought that he was the one to decide what the public needed to know and everyone
else was wrong.

Because of the news reports, Derek had decided to skip the Underground City altogeth-
er. They simply wouldn’t have any worthwhile targets from the Blythe area. When Derek
announced that they were going to just play by ear and hit targets of opportunity, no one
was satisfied.

216
 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 26 – The Citadel

The B & M G Foundation, long involved in supplying 3rd world medical needs and com-
puters to educate America’s young decided to put a hospital in at Palmdale. The hospi-
tal was to be a totally philanthropic hospital servicing only the poor of Palmdale. Bill de-
cided upon hearing of Ron and Gary’s recent near death experiences to venture into the
new field; he must have been a secret Frugal Squirrel. Gary, Ron and Clarence were
funded with $1 billion to build a completely state of the art hospital in Palmdale. Ser-
vices would be rendered only to the poor and Medicare/MediCal patients. The hospital
would provide total state of the art medical treatment and would accept Medicare and
MediCal payments as payments in full for all treatment.

The first task facing The Three Amigos was to procure a medical staff to assist them in
the design and equipping of the hospital. Ron’s Cardiologist, Dr. E was the premier car-
diologist in the AV. His partner, Dr. T was Clarence’s cardiologist. Gary had his own
cardiologist, Dr. P in Northridge. The 3 doctors were recruited to guide the new cardiol-
ogy program at the Citadel and selecting the equipment. Gary’s Gastroenterologist and
Hepatologist in Grenada Hills had been responsible for introduction of the use of endo-
scopic and laparoscopic techniques in LA. Gary and Ron’s eye surgeon was the #1
Ophthalmologist in the AV. Clarence’s Neurologist, Dr. L, was the #1 guy in the AV.
Gary’s Dermatologist was a hot shot from Grenada Hills. To round out the team, Gary’s
family doctors, both Internalists and Emergency Medicine specialists, were recruited.
The depth of the medical talent The Three Amigos used probably explained why they
ever lived past 50. Gary’s family physicians were Persians and close personal friends
with Dr. T, the top LA neurosurgeon. Also, a pair of Pulmonary Specialists, Dr. K and
Dr. S, both from Lancaster who were board certified Internalists certified in the treat-
ment of pulmonary diseases and critical care. A long-term friend of Dr. N, one Dr. R,
displaced due to the closure of Grenada Hills Hospital, was recruited to establish Radi-
ology.

Back in 2003 when Gar-Bear had his great cancer scare, one of the examinations he
received was made using a CT Scanner that combined an ultra sound. At that time
there had been only one of the devices in Los Angeles. Dr. R immediately knew how he
wanted to equip the Radiology Department. He wanted the combined CT/ultra sound
and both a closed MRI and open MRI. Although open MRI’s had become popular, the
closed units had much higher resolutions. His new department would include the CT
scanner, ultra scan and both MRIs. He recommended a Pathologist, also formerly from
Granada Hills Hospital to operate the Laboratory Department. The lab was to be
equipped with state of the art diagnostic equipment, too.

While a site was selected for the new hospital, an Architect and Engineer were engaged
to design the facility within a narrow set of criteria specified by the Foundation. In view
of the attacks against the US and the ongoing revolution, together with rumors the
Foundation had heard about the two underground shelters in the Moon Shadows tract,
the Foundation specified that the Citadel be a 6-story structure, with 3 stories above
ground and 3 below ground. At the time it was built, the Banker’s Trust Building in

217
downtown Des Moines, Iowa was the tallest ‘weathering steel’ building west of the Mis-
sissippi. The 36-story building was sheathed in weathering steel that in time rusted giv-
ing the building a distinctive brown metal color. Affectionately known as Banker’s Rust,
the building was of the style of other Bankers Trust weathering steel buildings in New
York City that had withstood the 9/11/01 WTC attacks especially well.

An additional consideration for the building was that Palmdale lay on the San Andreas
Fault. Those 2 factors alone supported the Foundation’s choice for a weathering steel
building. The Foundation wanted more and the building had a secondary purpose, that
of being a shelter. Consequently, while The Three Amigos located a building site for ap-
proval, the Foundation chose the engineering features of the building. Although
sheathed in a 1½” steel sheet, the building was to be of the old-fashioned skyscraper
construction popular in NYC for years, steel frame construction. And, those shelters of
Gary and Randy’s influenced the Foundation to design and build a hermetically sealed,
Constant Positively Pressurized hospital environment, essentially creating a ‘clean
room’ atmosphere. Imagine the challenge. The Architect was into reinforced concrete
construction in a major way, allowing the Citadel to be constructed as a steel encased,
concrete reinforced cube.

Although the Palmdale Hospital had closed in the mid 1990’s, plans by Lancaster
Community Hospital to build a new hospital in Palmdale had never materialized. In the
15 years between the late 1980’s and the early 2000’s the Antelope Valley had lost 2 of
its 4 hospitals. The second hospital to close was the Los Angeles County High Desert
Hospital. During the same time, the population in the AV had at least quadrupled. AV
Hospital had been a Trauma Center and Lancaster Community was (is) an outstanding
cardiac care facility. Although the Trauma Center was now technically gone, AV Hospi-
tal retained the role but without Los Angeles County sponsorship. And, if you had heart
problems, go to Community if you wanted to live.

As the doctors began to make their equipment selections it seemed apparent that they’d
spend the whole billion on equipment if allowed free rein. However, when called to task,
they pointed out that the inherent advantages of their selections would reduce staffing
and provide ‘better diagnoses’.

“What I can’t understand is why they have to buy Cadillac’s instead of Chevy’s,” Clar-
ence groused.

“You’re absolutely right partner,” Ron chuckled, “We’ll even skip buying a defibrillator
and just use an extension cord plugged into an outlet instead. We can save thousands.”

“You know Clarence, I once visited the company who invented the portable defibrillator
and saw the very first one they built,” Gary added. “Dr. K. William Edmark, a cardiovas-
cular surgeon determined to reduce the number of sudden deaths during cardiac sur-
gery, founded Physio-Control Corporation in 1955. His research, showing that a very
brief electrical current could correct an abnormal heart rhythm, led to the development
of the first commercial defibrillator. Building on Dr. Edmark’s discovery, Physio-Control

218
dramatically changed the face of emergency medical care. In 1972, Physio-Control in-
troduced the LIFEPAK 2 defibrillator/monitor, designed for use in hospitals as well as
the nation’s new emergency vehicle program. This defibrillator/monitor was the first
portable defibrillator to allow transmission of the patient’s ECG (electrocardiogram) sig-
nals by telephone. But, if you want to take a chance, we can get an extension cord for
about $2. As for having both an open and a closed MRI and a ultra sound equipped CT
scanner, we’ll just skip those and buy a used X-Ray machine from some retiring doctor.”

“I told you not to put so much chili powder in the beans,” Clarence said, “Probably made
you sweat and you caught cold and ended up in the hospital.”

“Huh?” Gary stared.

“He’s just changing the subject because we made fun of him,” Ron laughed.

“I was dead serious,” Gary said, “It’s the two of you with the bad hearts. But, we can
save a couple of thousand if you’d prefer. Besides, it’s doctors who kill everyone any-
way.”

“How do you figure that?” Ron asked.

“Easy. According to California law you aren’t dead until a doctors says so,” Gary pointed
out. “I therefore conclude that nobody would die unless a doctor killed them.”

“Are you nuts?” Clarence asked.

“While I was in the hospital, my brother-in-law dropped dead,” Gary explained. “His doc-
tor refused to sign the death certificate. Consequently, until the Kern County Coroner
did an autopsy and signed a death certificate, he wasn’t legally dead.”

“Was he breathing?” Clarence asked.

“Nope,” Gary replied.

“Was his heart beating?” Clarence pressed.

“Nope,” Gary again replied.

“Sounds dead to me,” Clarence insisted.

“Just because you’re not breathing, your heart is stopped and you have zero brain activ-
ity doesn’t make you dead,” Gary pursued his tease. “In California, there’s only one way
to be sure you’re really dead.”

“What’s that?” Ron asked.

219
“When your wife receives the check from the insurance company,” Gary laughed.

The Foundation approved the proposed site for the Citadel at 40th Street East and
Palmdale Boulevard. One of two sites originally picked by Lancaster Community Hospi-
tal for the new Palmdale Hospital, The Three Amigos picked the location because it was
within walking distance in case they had a heart attack or got shot. At least, that’s what
they told everyone. The first phase of construction was to dig a 400’x400’x50’ deep hole
for the foundation and below ground level portion of the building. Once the excavation
was completed, a well digger was lowered into the hole by crane and the deep water
well was dug.

Underground lines were put in for utilities and the foundation and basement floor were
poured. Because The Three Amigos and their families had survived the 11/12/05 at-
tacks in a cramped little shelter, they weren’t interested in building small and the build-
ing would contain 960,000 square feet of floor space. Maybe they were overreacting a
little, but the Citadel certainly wouldn’t be cramped. The actual location of the hospital is
38600 Medical Center Drive, which isn’t on Microsoft Maps.

A late breaking report on the Communist News Network (CNN) indicated that a Repub-
lican Senator had accused Madam President of murdering both Edwards and later, Ker-
ry. Dan Rather at CBS insisted that Hillary couldn’t possibly be guilty of such a thing and
produced a memo written a year before Kerry died attesting that Hillary was of ‘good
moral character’ and incapable of murder. Several Republicans claimed the memo was
a forgery. Did Dubya really mess around in the Guard causing him to lose the 2004
election or had it really been a secret campaign by the Swift Boat folks all along? Did
anyone really care either way? The only thing you could be sure of was that Kerry had
given back someone’s medals, Jane had gone to Hanoi and Kerry had confessed to
committing atrocities but had refused to say what they were. And, Dubya hadn’t pushed
for the AWB so The Three Amigos figured he was ok in their book.

And all the while, Gar-Bear was milking Medicare for all it was worth. (Tongue in cheek.)
Medicare only paid for 80% of the cost of diabetic testing supplies, e.g., test strips and
lances, but they would pay 100% of the cost of a Nebulizer and the Albuterol the doctor
wanted Gary to use but failed to prescribe. Liberty Medical advertised on TV that they
would sell you the diabetic supplies and bill Medicare for you. Trouble was that they
marked the stuff up so high that the 20% cost Medicare didn’t cover equaled 50% of the
cost of the supplies over the counter. And the shipping and handling charges were ri-
diculous.

The sitar-playing doctor had put old Gar-Bear on insulin, but he already had insulin. He
had also put the tired old man on Prednisone so he could develop osteoporosis and
Prevacid, 30mg QD, even though it cost $5 a pill and Gary had no insurance. Gary got
around that by sucking up to Drs. E and N and getting physician’s samples. Gary didn’t
have any stomach problems either and had only used Prevacid in the past for GERD.
Prevacid, generic name Lansoprazole, decreases the amount of acid produced in the
stomach. Lansoprazole is used to treat and prevent stomach and intestinal ulcers, ero-

220
sive esophagitis (damage to the esophagus from stomach acid), and other conditions
involving excessive stomach acid such as Zollinger-Ellison syndrome.

Go figure. Must be that stomach acid caused asthma. Gary finally figured it out. Predni-
sone, the corticosteroid he didn’t want to take, could also cause ulcers and the Prevacid
was to prevent him from getting an ulcer. Of course Medicare paid 100% of the cost of
all asthma inhalers so naturally the doc couldn’t prescribe one of those instead of the
Prednisone and Prevacid. Maybe doctors were related to lawyers, reporters and politi-
cians. Gary had a new candidate for his enemies list, doctors, the only people officially
allowed to kill you in California. Prednisone is now over the counter and less expensive.
However, it only comes in 15mg capsules.

“Man, I hope that we never really do get sick,” Gary said to Ron.

“Why’s that partner?” Ron asked.

“It would be giving the doctors a license to kill,” Gary laughed.

“They already have one of those Gar-Bear,” Ron laughed, “It’s called a medical license.”

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 27 – License to Kill

Mt. Weather…

“Do you believe this crap, Babs?” Hillary remarked, “That Senator is saying I killed Ker-
ry.”

“So, what’s the big deal?” Boxer asked, “You killed both of the SOB’s didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but I thought I’d covered my tracks better than that,” Madam President observed.

“No biggie girl,” Barbara said, “When the Republicans introduce the resolution for an in-
vestigation, we’ll get Diane to filibuster it.” (A demotion from Senator to Representa-
tive?)

“Yeah, huh? That’s a good idea,” Hillary replied. “She’s long winded enough.”

“Yeah and she never says anything either,” Barbara chuckled.

“I’ve got to be going,” Hillary said, “Got a hot date tonight.”

“Oh? Anyone special?” Barbara asked.

“You don’t know her,” Hillary cut off the discussion.

“I want to make a suggestion, if you can take a minute,” Barbara said.

“What’s on your mind?” Hillary asked.

“The UN is getting its butt royally kicked and because the UN is in the US, we never re-
taliated against the terrorists who started this whole mess in the first place,” Barbara
said. “You know how poorly my people and the Muslims get along anyway. What I want
to know is if you intend to give those ragheads a free ride?”

“Well, we wouldn’t want to po the UN,” Hillary said. “What exactly did you have in
mind?”

“Hillary, we have 20 B-2 bombers each capable of carrying 16 1.2-megaton B-83

nukes,” Barbara grinned, “I want some A-Rab butt!”

“What about the Russians?” Hillary asked.

“We can save the other 284 B-83’s for the Russians,” Babs said, “And don’t forget, we
have the Minutemen and the Tridents.”

“Gee Barbara, I don’t know about this,” Hillary said. “Let me give it some thought.”

222
It appeared to Boxer that Hillary’s cojones were about the size of Kerry’s. The only dif-
ference was that Hillary had an excuse. And in her mind, Barbara finally realized why
being President was such a risky job. She decided to check with HER friends at the CIA
and see if they had any shellfish toxin left. If she worked it right, she could eliminate Hil-
lary, nuke the A-Rabs and resign, all in a good afternoon. Besides, Hillary had already
been President for 8 years and was going for 16.

On Creation…

Not to challenge anyone’s belief system, but I’ve got to tell you that even God can have
a bad day. God really pushed on the Universe Project and got it done in less than a
week. But, he was tired one day and overlooked the fact that He had created a pretty
complicated life for man. And then there was that whole tree thing. According to Chapter
2 of Genesis, God planted 2 trees in the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life and the Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Must have been fatigue, but that was His bad. And,
it wasn’t a bad looking tree either. Rather than mess up his Garden, God decided to
leave the good looking tree and tell man not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Overall,
God was pretty satisfied with the project and decided to create a companion for man.
He created woman as a companion and called him Adam and her Eve. I have it good
authority the Eve was a blonde. Anyway, the snake talked Eve into eating the apple and
the rest is history. One little mistake!

Then it really went south on God. He couldn’t just let man get away with disobeying, so
he kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden lest they eat from the Tree of Life. The
snake received even worse punishment, but let’s face it God couldn’t make rules for
man and not enforce them. Anyway, Adam and Eve had a couple of sons, Cain and
Abel. The boys both gave offerings to God and God sort of took a hankering to the gift
from Abel. We all know that this really po’d Cain and he killed his brother. Now it gets a
little complicated here so bear with me. God created Adam and Eve and they created
Cain and Abel. The Bible fails to mention God creating any other people, but Cain mar-
ried a woman from the Land of Nod. Hmm, where did she come from? God wasn’t as
pleased as He had been, so He decided to give man a break in the form of certainties;
however, He left these certainties for man to discover on his own. An example of one of
the certainties is, “How can you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving!”

Anyway, that’s why we’re not all nudists. This other debate we sometimes hear about is
the controversy over Creationism versus Evolution. Never really ever heard anyone say
God didn’t do it, but people sure could argue about how He’d gone about it. You can
find the story about all of this in a book called The Bible, all 100 or so versions of it.
There weren’t enough people to lead, so God used the leftover politician types as law-
yers and reporters. And, if you could believe Gar-Bear, maybe some doctors.

Boxer’s contact at the CIA had some leftover shellfish toxin and all she had to do was
figure out how to feed it to her fearless leader, Hillary. Nobody ever figured out how
she’d pulled it off, but Babs gave Hillary a dose of her own medicine. The B-2’s were

223
already airborne when Babs was sworn in and she transmitted the PAL codes to the B-
2’s. Except for the 40 pilots and the ground crews, no one had a clue about the opera-
tion until the bombs started falling. The way I heard the story, Putin called Babs up and
threatened to retaliate. She told him to go for it, but every nuke in the US arsenal was
targeted on Russia. On the other hand, if Putin would just keep his mouth shut, he could
have the Middle East. Apparently Putin saw this as a way out of the growing problem
between the US and Russia and accepted the offer. Babs announced that the job was
proving to be too much for her and resigned, right after she ordered the UN out of the
US.

Thus, the US found itself in the exact position, as it had been on 11/12/05, leaderless.
The Speaker of the House, a Republican, automatically became the new President and
he appointed the Senate Majority Leader as his Vice President. As it turned out, the
New President was pro-gun and anti-USA Patriot Act. He rescinded all of the Executive
Orders on the books and introduced legislation to repeal PA II and I. And, as quickly as
the revolution began, it ended. Babs had dropped from sight and the Republicans de-
cided that as long as she stayed lost, they’d drop the whole thing.

Palmdale…

“Man, I’ll bet that was the shortest political career in history,” Ron chuckled.

“Six hours wasn’t very long, was it?” Clarence replied. “Say, there’s something awfully
familiar about the music you’re playing, Ron, what’s the name of that tune?”

“Oh, it’s from the Wizard of Oz, Clarence,” Ron said. “I think the title is Ding Dong, the
Witch is Dead.”

“So, how are they coming on the Citadel?” Gary asked.

“They’ve erected the 3 underground floor frames and are installing the rebar,” Ron re-
plied. “Then, they’ll install all of the backup systems in the lowest level and start pouring
the walls and floors.”

“Ron, I’ve been looking at all of these Architectural drawings and can’t find the win-
dows,” Clarence commented, “Am I missing something?”

“Ain’t no windows partner,” Ron shook his head. “When this building is done, it will look
just like a 400’x400’x50’ brown steel box.”

“I see, but where are the windows?” Clarence repeated his question.

“Clarence do you understand the concept of what we’re creating here?” Gary asked.

“Yeah a brown steel box with no windows or doors,” Clarence replied. “But how are we
going to get in and out?”

224
“Through the doors, Clarence, of course,” Gary said.

“Well, if you ask me, it’s a pretty dumb idea to build a hermetically sealed hospital,”
Clarence snapped.

“Why’s that Clarence?” Gary asked.

“You’ll be trapping all of those germs inside the building,” Clarence announced.

“Our air purification and filtration systems will use ultraviolet negative ionization and in-
put filtration air purifiers. This system will be supplemented with a low level ozone pro-
duction systems as required,” Ron explained. “The air will be exchanged at the rate ex-
ceeding 100% per hour. The Engineer says that this is the ultimate air purification sys-
tem.”

“Sounds real healthy to me living inside of a box without sunlight,” Clarence groaned.

“So, what do you get from sunlight that we can’t produce with our lighting system de-
sign?” Ron asked.

“One of those vitamin thingies,” Clarence responded.

“The lighting systems produce a full light spectrum Clarence,” Ron explained, “That
does even more to purify the atmosphere in the building.”

“Yeah right,” Clarence said. “And how do we get in and out again?”

“Fully automatic airlock,” Gary tried to explain.

“Are you sure the name of this place is the Citadel and not the Starship Enterprise?”
Clarence persisted.

“I suppose we could change the name if you wanted, but Bill Shatner is busy trying to
get his job back from Priceline.com,” Gary said. “You’re concentrating on the obvious
and overlooking the more subtle problems with ‘living in a box’.”

“Like what?” Ron asked.

“We can create a physically healthier atmosphere inside the box than we live in,” Gary
remarked. “However, that’s physically. Psychologically, it’s akin to living through a
month long rainstorm. Did you ever notice how when the sun doesn’t shine for several
days’ people get depressed? Thus no one is going to live inside of that box unless it’s
brought into use as a shelter.”

“Let’s get back to our discussion about the bimbo,” Clarence suggested.

225
“Which bimbo?” Gary asked, “I’ve known so many.”

“Barbara Boxer,” Clarence replied.

“They ought to give her the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Gary chuckled.

“I think that they did, indirectly,” Ron grinned. “But now I’m curious about something.”

“Yes?” Clarence asked.

“Did we win the war on terror yet?” Ron asked.

“Can’t tell you partner,” Gary said, “But I think we finally won the Crusades.”

“What about the UN?” Clarence inquired.

“I’ll bite, Clarence, what about the UN?” Ron responded.

“Do you think that they’re going to leave peacefully?”

“CNN said the Russians were pulling out,” Gary observed. “And without the Russians to
back them up, the French and Germans will probably run their mouths a bunch, but tuck
tail and run.”

Had the boys been thinking clearly, they might not have been so certain about the Cru-
sades. “This is a simple webpage to show the total Muslim population worldwide. We
have gathered all the data from authentic sources and calculated the Muslim population
in each countries and ultimately in the five continents.

“We also wanted to show that, by even taking data from General Sources, like CIA Fact
Sheet, we can easily establish that fact that total Muslim Population in 2003 is 1.48 bil-
lion which is far greater than currently estimated 1.2 or 1.3 billion. Under general source
section, we have taken all the data from popular sources such as CIA Fact Sheet, Holt,
Rinehart & Winston, etc.

“We think that in some countries the total numbers of Muslims are more in percentage
than shown in general sources, like in China and India. For all those few above cases
Islamic Sources, news items and thought provoking articles came in great help. Our re-
search shows that the total Muslim Population is 1.70 billion in year 2003.”

The Muslim population is roughly divided up between Africa 48.10%; Asia 26.39%; Eu-
rope 7.04%; North America 2.05%; South America 0.30% and Oceania 1.09%. Wiping
out the Middle Eastern countries had eliminated less than half of the world’s Muslim
population. The Three Amigos also overlooked the fact that the 9/11/01 plot had origi-
nated not in the Middle East, but in Indonesia. This Citadel of theirs might just come in

226
handy after all.

The UN outright refused, at first, to remove itself from the US. The new President or-
dered the 20 B-2’s loaded with B-83’s and invited the Secretary General and the Ger-
man and French Ambassadors to the UN to Whiteman AFB. The 3 UN representatives
were invited to inspect the weapons bays of the B-2’s. When they had completed the
inspection, the Secretary General told the Air Force on-scene commander that the US
wouldn’t dare do such a thing. The General smiled and said, “Sir the planes are sched-
uled for takeoff in 49 hours.”

Although the planes were indeed loaded with B-83 bombs, the US only had 284 of the
1.2-megaton weapons left. The loads were rounded out with the 350-kiloton B-61-7’s,
but nobody had noticed. And nobody had to really assure the UN representatives that
the US had the wherewithal to drop nukes because the Security Council was still debat-
ing Boxer’s attack on the Middle East. The German’s didn’t even bother to give the mat-
ter lip service; they simply announced that the US mission had been successfully com-
pleted and began withdrawing their forces. All other participating nations, except for the
French, simply began immediate withdrawals. The French pushed it right up to the 48-
hour mark before announcing that their mission was complete.

In order to avoid problems with the Russians, the President had invited Russian repre-
sentatives to be present at Whiteman during the UN inspection. As soon as the UN
people left, the Russian observer noted that the US had unloaded the weapons as had
been agreed in advance. Although the Americans and Russians had been ‘at war’ for 45
years until the Wall fell, neither of the two major world powers wanted a confrontation.
The US had its share of troubles with terrorists, as had Russia. For all of its frivolity, the
policy of MAD had always worked. Even Nikita had blinked when it came right down to
testing the issue. My barracks was about 1.5 miles from those 12 loaded B-47’s sitting
in the shotgun area at Edwards. I think I went about 8 days without sleep.

Not everyone in the US feels that the country is under an obligation to export Democra-
cy. Support, perhaps, but not export. Well some of us, anyway. Thus when Putin react-
ed far differently in 2004 in response to Russia’s 9/11, the attack on the school, the US
objections to his new policies were, for the most part, limited to political rhetoric. But, it’s
more fun to talk about the ragheads. Anyway, as I understand the Quran, a Jihad is a
Holy War to repel invaders. Unfortunately, the Quran is a little like the Bible, different
strokes for different folks. As I said earlier, the debate over Evolution and Creationism is
about HOW He did it, not whether He did it. So, why do people debate Intelligent De-
sign? I’ll never claim that God isn’t Intelligent!

And life does have its little uncertainties. Back in 2004, hurricane Ivan killed about 25
people, indirectly. It wasn’t the category 4 winds that killed the people; it was the torna-
dos and mudslides and other associated phenomena. Is it really that hard to keep 10-
gallons of gas on hand and a couple of flashlights? And, why the rush to buy plywood?
If I lived there, I expect that I’d hang on to the plywood for the next hurricane. Unless
you think that we’re going to stop having hurricanes. $400-$500 is a lot of money to

227
have sitting around in a small portable generator, too. On the other hand, some folks
have more than $500 worth of meat in their freezer.

228
 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 28 – The Big Brown Box

“You know Ron, I was reading that story of Fleataxi’s on the net and he had some pretty
good ideas about little bugout kits,” Gary mentioned.

“Who is this Fleataxi character you’re always talking about?” Ron asked.

“He’s a lawyer,” Gary said, “Has a Law named after him.” Gary teased. “Problem is he
has his characters going around murdering sweat pants.”

“What makes you think he’s a lawyer?” Ron asked, “Did he tell you he was a lawyer?”

“Nah, claims he’s disabled like we are,” Gary said.

“Well, if he’s disabled, maybe he is qualified to be a lawyer,” Clarence observed.

“Fleataxi is ok fellas, he killed Geraldo in his story, too,” Gary insisted. “But I don’t re-
member the range.”

600-yards?

If you’ve ever spent a lot of time around 3 long-term close friends, you’ve probably no-
ticed that they have their own form of confidential communications. We’ve all heard of
body language and other forms of unspoken communications, but with guys like The
Three Amigos it goes further. It is sort of like being inside of each other’s head. ‘Fools
rush in’ might be an example. Now, if Gar-Bear wanted to say something to Ron in front
of someone else, he might drop a song title. Like ‘fools rush in’ for example. Back in the
Tony days, Gary and Ron had polished the technique to a fine art. Tony never had a
clue what they were saying about him right in front of him. Were Gar-Bear to say, ‘fools
rush in’ Ron would just run the lyric of the song through his head until he got the mes-
sage. And, when you’re talking about 3 recovering drunks, you’ve managed to add an
additional dimension. For all of their differences, drunks have a lot of common experi-
ences. Recovering drunks have even more because there is a rhythm to recovery. Del
Taco. (Been there, done that) You get the idea, I hope.

The Citadel was turning into a project where The Three Amigos needed to communicate
in code half the time. It was one thing to go to these doctors of theirs for years for medi-
cal treatment, but it was a far different thing to actually work around them. Dr. J was a
good example. Medical students where Dr. J attended school (In England) got exactly 4
hours of direct education on alcoholism. Of course, doctors spend a lot of time keeping
up with their profession, but it is an entirely different experience for the doctor to be ed-
ucated about alcoholism by a recovering alcoholic who took time to become a certified
alcoholism and drug counselor like Gar-Bear. But, unless the doctor was an alcoholic
him or herself, the doctor frequently lacked the insight that the drunk had about his own
disease. In 1956 the AMA declared that alcoholism was a disease. Around 1973, if
memory serves, they refined the definition. But there you go; it was mostly all clinical

229
stuff. It’s the old ‘you had to be there to understand’ thing.

In this particular case, Gary educated Dr. J about alcoholism and Dr. J took time to ex-
plain medical things to Gary. You would have had to be there back about 1991 and
seen Dr. J’s face when Gary told him that he was an alcoholic. Dr. J actually argued
with him for a minute or two. And then, he considered some of Gary’s medical condi-
tions and realized that he’d missed the obvious. Now he understood the hypertension,
elevated triglycerides, acceptable cholesterol level, chronic pancreatitis, etc. One of the
things that Gary got from the doc was insight about his own body and how it functioned.
Fair trade. One of the best treatments for diabetes is an active lifestyle. This also serves
to raise one’s high-density lipoproteins and with a proper diet the patient has a lower
cardiac risk ratio. The cardiac risk ratio is the ratio of low-density lipoproteins to high-
density lipoproteins. The higher the ratio, the higher the risk for cardiac related illness.

In Gary’s case, his LDL’s were always in the acceptable range. However, due to his
sedentary lifestyle, his HDL’s tended to be low, e.g. 20-25. The neuropathy was severe
enough to preclude the active lifestyle so Gary used plan B and improved his HDL’s
through diet. That behavior plus walking the dog 4 blocks every other day was the best
he could do. His CRR was 3.6 and according to the scale used by the lab Gary used
was 0.2 BELOW the minimum acceptable level. And, lower is better. Gary figured he’d
live forever unless he actually got sick enough he had to go to a hospital. (It’s currently
2.2 as a ratio of total Cholesterol to HDLP and the HDLP are greater than the LDLP, 50
v 47. Triglycerides are a bare 67. Yea… I’m going to live forever…)

In terms of the backup equipment installation in the lowest basement level of the Cita-
del, the guys had provided for backup water and opted to go with a propane based sys-
tem for the generators. Diesel generators might be a great choice, but that would have
forced them to go with electrically energized cooking systems. In the end, they pur-
chased several used large volume (30,000 gallon) underground propane tanks and
went with generators that could be operated via the Palmdale natural gas utility and by
propane if they lost natural gas. The sewage system was also tied into the Palmdale
system with a large backup septic system. Both Cummings Power and Generac could
supply modular generation systems and the amigos left the choice of equipment up to
the mechanical engineer. But, even a backup generator requires time to kick in, so they
went with true uninterruptible power units for all critical systems. In a true UPS, all of the
electricity is inverted battery power and the only limitation on run time was the size of
the batteries used. The unit is essentially a large battery, an inverter and a battery
charger.

The guys were a trifle short on designing hospital systems, but they certainly had ideas
about the capacities they wanted for their system. They wanted pure, disease free air,
lighting that was the closest thing possible to natural sunlight and a ‘warm’ building. The
warmth (not heat, but emotional warmth) was necessary, in their opinion, to avoiding a
depressing atmosphere. So, despite the inevitable ‘discussions’ with the doctors over
equipment issues, they skipped the Cadillac and went right for the Lamborghini. The
ground level floor of the building was equipped with what amounted to airlocks. Trip

230
beams opened the outer doors via computer control and only when the outer door was
sealed did the computer signal the inner doors to open. Had they built such a system
back in the days that Star Trek had been on TV originally, you would have agreed with
Clarence’s assertion that the building was the Starship Enterprise.

Interestingly, with the initiation of the Citadel construction, Lancaster Community Hospi-
tal began construction of their new Palmdale Hospital on 40th East and Palmdale Boule-
vard. Why is life always a case of feast or famine? In truth, the construction of the Cita-
del made it possible for the second hospital to be built because the new Palmdale Hos-
pital could refer all Medicare and MediCal patients to the Citadel and actually have a
profitable operation. Stranger still was the fact that the Citadel was better equipped in
terms of medical equipment, as in the case of the ultrasound equipped CT scanner and
both open and closed MRIs. And while the new Palmdale Hospital had a quality labora-
tory, the Citadel’s lab was the best in the area.

The only thing that Palmdale Hospital had over on the Citadel was bed count, with
125% of the number of beds provided by the Citadel. In terms of building construction,
the Palmdale Hospital met current hospital construction standards. It was rated for an
8.0 earthquake but sheathed in aluminum alloy and glass. And, for the doctors, they had
the best of both worlds. The Citadel paid them a reasonable living, gave them great tax
write-offs and the ‘charity’ work. The Palmdale Hospital let them charge (gouge) their
patients as much as they wanted.

The 3rd basement of the Citadel attempted to maintain a 6-months inventory of every-
thing plus the extra equipment needed in the event the facility was turned into a shel-
ter/hospital. Even as construction continued on the 3 above ground stories of the Cita-
del, the shelter storage area was being fully supplied. Back to the subject of hospital
beds for a moment; ever price one? They have MSRP ranging from $5,000 to $12,000.
Ever price one of those IVAC electronic thermometers? They have an MSRP of $495.

No damned wonder it cost so much to stay in a hospital. Every bed needed a patient
monitoring system, oxygen, vacuum and the inevitable TV, usually one that couldn’t be
made to work. Add a chair or two for visitors and that ‘bed’ cost about $25,000. The lat-
est trend was to have monitors that checked blood pressure, pulse, oxygen saturation
and heaven knows what else. Then, there was the equipment like the IVAC thermome-
ter, portable BP units, pill cabinets and all of that nursing ‘stuff’. IVAC sold the ther-
mometer covers in 10,000 unit cases for a measly $250. Now, in the ‘good old days’ a
patient usually got a tub, toothbrush, comb, toothpaste, Kleenex, and maybe even a Bic
razor. No more, folks, sorry. These things were only provided to patients on an as
needed basis. And then, there were the drugs. $4 for a Tylenol? Ouch! Of course the
BP cuffs that hooked up to the patient monitor were DISPOSABLE.

All in all, $25,000 per bed wasn’t where the real costs lay anyway. Hospitals used
gloves and Foley’s and disposable syringes by the case on a daily basis. And adminis-
tering an IV required an infusion monitor, etc., etc., etc. Hell, maybe even a couple mul-
tiple infusion devices. And that bar they put on beds to help some patients pull them-

231
selves up? $1,200 for the cheap one. It was probably just a matter of time before hospi-
tals went to disposable bedding if they hadn’t done so already. The Three Amigos let
the doctors choose the medical equipment, but when it came to the ‘bed’ it was Lam-
borghini time. MSRP per bed worked out to a neat $50k. Then the negotiations for the
best prices began. Final delivered cost per ‘bed’ came in around $30k. These were the
4 bed wards. Certain rooms were private rooms as in the case of ICU, CCU and isola-
tion areas.

And, in the year of our Lord 2007, everything in the hospital was computerized. When
Gar-Bear had been in the hospital for his ‘cold’, he’d spent 3-4 days in CCU in an in-
duced coma, 2 more in a private room and the last 48 hours in a 3-bed ward. 95% of the
‘stuff’ they’d used was plastic and disposable, but probably cost like it had been made
from stainless steel. The only good thing our pal had done when he’d left the hospital
was to not steal the towels like the guy in the next bed had. Always heard about towel
thieves, but had never met one before. It was probably a good thing the guy’s sheets
weren’t clean or he’d have taken them too. The really ironic thing was that the guy had
been in the hospital for surgery to repair a herniated disc. They had him on a morphine
drip for the pain, but because he was going to be discharged, discontinued the drip. His
BP was borderline high anyway and when they took his BP to discharge him, it was
something like 190 over 110. They couldn’t let him go in that condition but had no or-
ders for BP medicine. Of course this is the famous Catch-22. No morphine because
he’s being discharged, no discharge because the pain is raising his BP and no other op-
tions. Of course all of this is agitating the guy, raising his blood pressure even more.

And, for lunch, the guy insisted on having soy sauce for his chow mien. Fortunately, the
hospital didn’t have any soy sauce or the guy would probably still be in. It got so bad,
Gary had some nameless individual sneak in a couple of Xanax so he could get the guy
chilled out and gone. Well, moments before Gary got hooked up in anything totally
questionable, the doctor ordered 3mg of morphine IV and the guy’s blood pressure
dropped like a rock. Now, the guy is dressed and ready to bolt and the doctor also or-
ders 0.25mg of Xanax for the guy to be administered orally in front of the nurse. The
guy had driven himself to the hospital for the surgery and intended to drive himself
home. But the nurses said he couldn’t drive and insisted on calling him a taxi and the
guy was broke. Can’t tell you how it worked out, but Gary never saw the guy again. Hey,
I don’t make this stuff up folks; I just take good notes. Like I told someone, always take
a Xanax tablet with you when you go to the hospital, it’s your ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card.
(That’s an opinion, not medical advice!)

The Citadel was turning into a fun project for The Three Amigos. They were getting to
build a dream bomb shelter with a really good medical facility, all on the other guy’s
money. And most everything was new and shiny and expensive. Old Gar-Bear was in
hog heaven when it came to all of those computers, too. He was in favor of putting in a
screen, keyboard and mouse for every bed to allow the patients to surf the web. They
ran that by the Foundation and it was a go as long as the Foundation could supply used
computers equipped with Microsoft wireless keyboards and mice and running Windows
software. Yeah, yeah, I know, but what the hell, the Foundation could get a really good

232
price on the Microsoft products.

The UN was almost totally gone and the US was pushing to finish rebuilding from the
11/12/05 attacks. Somewhere along the line, Washington had ‘gotten religion’ and was
actually responding to needs of the country. In Iowa they say make hay while the sun
shines and the US was on the move. All of that money in the economy finally fueled it
sufficiently to allow for a bit of an economic recovery too. This was truly a good thing,
because the Republicans were looking at a trillion dollar deficit and needed the reve-
nues the recovery would bring. From all outward appearances, the war on terror was
over, too. Yeah, from all outward appearances.

Maybe God figured that the US had gotten a big enough break, who knows, but it was
hurricane season again and they were lining up in the eastern Atlantic like they had
back in 2004. And the Gulf Stream really was slowing down. Anyone checked the sky
lately looking for rocks? Did you ever stop and think about what a challenge it is just to
live in the US? In the north you have bitter winters and in the east you have hurricanes.
In the Midwest, you have tornados and on the west coast you have earthquakes and
those Pacific winter storms. Add the drought, El Nino, La Nina, the Santa Ana winds,
forest fires and you have a real challenge. And Kalifornia couldn’t seem to generate
enough electricity in the summer and the lights periodically browned or blacked out. I
sure hope that bite of apple was worth it! The Citadel was being wrapped up, as a build-
ing, and was looking forward to a September 1, 2007 opening date.

“Man, Cheyenne Mountain ain’t got nothing on this place,” Clarence observed as The
Three Amigos toured the new building.

“I was thinking it might be nice to live here,” Gary said.

“Why?” Ron retorted. “You said living in a building like this was just naturally depress-
ing.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Gary laughed. “Well, you know me. I’m always depressed any-
way so it seems sort of like a natural thing to do. On the other hand, I’d have direct ac-
cess to a T-3 line.”

“What’s a T-3 line?” Clarence asked.

“Broadband with an attitude,” Gary replied.

“It sort of makes sense for Gar-Bear to make the move Clarence,” Ron observed. “He
spends all of his time in front of his computer or sleeping anyway.”

“What he needs to be doing is taking Missy for a walk and getting some exercise,” Clar-
ence said. “Then something like the common cold wouldn’t put him in a hospital for 8
days.”

233
“I don’t think we have to worry about me going to the hospital anymore, Clarence,” Gary
observed dryly, “I think I’ve been blacklisted.”

“Man, that’s no good,” Clarence said. “What are you going to do if you get another
cold?”

“I think I’ll try Vitamin C next time,” Gary laughed. “Hell, I was unconscious most of the
time anyway and missed all of the fun. Besides, I caught one of the nurses writing ‘DNR’
on my chart.”

234
 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 29 – A man’s got to know his
limitations

“Not to change the subject,” Clarence said to indicate that he was, “But something is
missing on this project of ours.”

“What’s that pal?” Gary asked.

“Well, if I knew, I’d tell you,” Clarence said, “But I don’t know what it is. Every time I look
at the roof, though, I get the idea we’ve overlooked something.”

“I don’t know what it could be,” Ron commented. “We put a second steel plate roof over
the elevator equipment and such to protect them. All there is up there to see is 160,000
square feet of rusting steel. The roof will be the first thing to rust, too with the sun beat-
ing down on it like that.”

“That’s it,” Clarence said, “We’re letting all of that sunshine go to waste.”

“What do you mean?” Ron asked.

“Can’t we put those panel things on the roof to generate electricity?” Clarence asked.

“Quick, get the snakebite kit,” Gary chuckled. “Of course, Clarence. If it had been a
snake we’d have gotten bitten. And if we tilted the panels at about 45 degrees, it would
give us about 320,000 square feet of solar panels. I was reading about a solar panel
that puts out 165 watts per 12.5 square feet. That means that we could generate
320,000 divided by 12.5 times 165 or 4,224,000 watts from the roof. You earned your
keep today partner.”

“That’s great for when the sun shines,” Ron said, “But what about at night?”

“Remember that great big gel cell battery that our old IP had I was telling you about?”
Gary asked. “We could put in a bank of those and store one hell of a lot of energy. Man,
we’d be so redundant that we might never need to fire up the standby generators.”

If you missed that in ‘The Ark’, the gel cell was 48”x48”x84” tall. It could store enough
electricity to power the IP’s entire operation for 4 hours and this guy used a lot of ener-
gy. Gary was on the phone to the Foundation in a New York minute. Free was good
they said, but how much was ‘free’ going to cost them? It would all fit nicely within the
budget they were told and Gar-Bear was given the go-ahead. But then Gar got to think-
ing about that 60’ high 400’ long southern wall. If he used the top 50’, he could pick up
another 20,000 square feet and generate another 264kw, giving them almost 4.5 meg-
awatts. And, the beauty of the entire thing was that they didn’t need to rush the solar
project to completion. So, Gary gave the engineer the go-ahead, in turn, to find a con-
tractor and get the system installed.

235
“You know fellas, I think I’m going to take a break from writing for a while,” Gary said.

“Why’s that Gar-Bear? Running out of people to offend?” Ron chuckled.

“Not really. I’ve bad-mouthed Blacks, Méxicans, Muslims, Jews and Christians. Been
known to be a little harsh on Republicans and Democrats,” Gary replied. “Hell, I’ve
managed to say something bad about just about every nationality there is, including the
US Marine Corps. But, it’s like Harry Callahan said in ‘Magnum Force’, ‘A man’s got to
know his limitations’.”

“How did you ever get started writing in the first place?” Clarence asked.

“Well, I got to reading Lights Out and Pax Americana and then Battle of Jakes,” Gary
replied. Ended up reading every story I could find on Frugal’s website. Just thought I’d
toss in my 2 cents worth on the subject of being prepared.”

“Did it do any good?” Ron asked.

“Don’t rightly know, partner,” Gary replied, “If I managed to get one guy in Florida to buy
a pack of flashlight batteries then I did a good thing. Besides, I’m so darned busy writing
that I have to stay up nights just to get any reading done. And like Fleataxi and I were
discussing, when you get writer’s block it stops being fun.”

“I’d think twice about quitting writing if I were you,” Clarence urged.

“I can’t come up with any more ideas Clarence,” Gary shook his head.

“What have you done so far?” Clarence pressed.

“A half dozen terrorist attacks, an abrupt weather change, my version of Deep Impact,”
Gary explained. “You know; the usual TSHTF stuff. I’ve invaded the US by everyone
who is capable of such a thing and even a couple of countries that would have to have
big ones to try.”

“Tried an earthquake?” Clarence suggested.

“Called it ‘The Big One’,” Gary replied. “Even had a bunch of white racists in one of my
stories. I mean hell fellas, how many times can you tell the same story?”

“I don’t know, but they attacked the World Trade Center twice and the Pentagon,” Ron
pointed out, “And that was after they’d blown up the Embassies in Africa and the Marine
Corps barracks in Lebanon.”

“Yeah Gary, you’re looking at this disaster thing all wrong,” Clarence agreed with Ron.
“How many school shootings have there been in the US?”

236
“Too many,” Gary scowled. “The thing is that I have to concentrate on large scale disas-
ters to make my point. It’s not about people killing people for me. Hell, I don’t write such
hot action sequences anyway. Of course several of the stories include a lot of deaths
because they’re some variation on a war theme, but that’s not what I’m into. It’s like the
Citadel. The place is a hospital with extras.”

“Man, I’ll say extras,” Ron laughed. “That place we put together is the best equipped
hospital I’ve ever seen. And like Clarence said, the survivability of the place just about
beats out Cheyenne Mountain. I’d bet that we could house the entire population of
Palmdale in the place if something big happened.”

“That was the idea, you idiot,” Gary laughed. “After spending 343 hours in that little shel-
ter in my backyard, I had claustrophobia worse than ever.”

“Speaking of that shelter of yours,” Ron responded, “You going to keep it now that the
Citadel is almost finished?”

“Yeah, I’m not from Florida. I don’t throw the plywood away after the hurricane,” Gary
said.

“You never throw anything away,” Ron said, “That’s why you can’t park your car in your
garage.”

“That’s not fair partner, that’s all perfectly good stuff that I just don’t happen to be using
at the moment.”

“How many MagLites do you have in your garage?” Ron asked.

“Three.”

“Go get me one, I want to see it,” Ron insisted.

“I don’t know where in the garage they are, Ron.”

“I think it’s about time we cleaned out your garage Gar-Bear,” Ron laughed, “How long
has it been since you’ve seen the MagLites?”

“Four years.”

“Well when we do find them, we’ll probably have to throw them away due to battery cor-
rosion,” Ron shook his head.

“I had all of my stuff organized until I came back home,” Gary retorted. “Then everyone
started moving stuff around and I sort of lost track of it.”

“So what you’re telling me is that you might have 3 corroded MagLites, either in the gar-

237
age or in the shed, right?” Ron started to get serious.

“Unless someone took them, yes,” Gary responded ruefully.

“You ever heard of something called a garage sale, Gary?” Clarence asked.

“Had a couple of them Clarence,” Gary explained, “I think that’s when I began to lose
track of my stuff.”

“Look partner, I think this situation is beyond redemption,” Ron groaned. “You got all of
the medical stuff organized pretty good so why don’t you go buy some new MagLites
and batteries and start organizing your emergency supplies the same way? You can
empty out that office supply cabinet in the Office and put all of your medical and emer-
gency stuff in the cabinet and keep it locked.”

“Won’t do me any good locked in a cabinet,” Gary insisted.

“Won’t do you any good if you can’t find it when you need it either,” Ron snapped.

“We have all of that stuff in the shelter Ronald, so why bother?” Gary asked. “Besides,
I’ve definitely decided to move to the Citadel.”

“When did you decide that?” Ron asked.

“About the time you started wanting to see my MagLites!”

Aside from the shelter, Gary and Sharon had a ton of survival gear, somewhere. True,
they had done a pretty good job of cleaning out the garage when they had started mov-
ing stuff into the shelter, but all of those empty holes in the garage were begging for
something to be stuffed into them and it hadn’t taken long for the garage to get right
back into its original condition. Ron did have a point though and Gary decided that start-
ing the next day he was going to make the first pass at clearing a path. Right before or
after he mowed the lawn, which he intended to do right before or after he walked Missy.
Sharon and he had spent a whole week there in 2003 and they managed to clear half
the floor. Then Amy moved in and when they finally left, the garage was still full. The
only way to keep their garage empty was to not use it in the first place.

“Say Ron, did I tell you my brother-in-law died?” Gary asked.

“Yeah, happened when you were in the hospital right?” Ron replied.

“Nope, he died Friday, when they signed the death certificate,” Gary said. “Had DVT
(Deep Vein Thrombosis) and popped a clot. Cause of death was a pulmonary embo-
lism. The ironic thing was that according to the pathologist, he might not have had Par-
kinson’s Disease, but they won’t know until they get the test results back.”

238
“I think that’s why they call it the practice of medicine,” Ron replied.

“Could be, partner, but I sure wish they’d find someone besides the 3 of us to practice
on,” Gary observed. “I’ve got to start taking Vitamin C.”

“How are you doing on getting your blood sugar down?” Ron asked.

“Sharon just told me today that the Prednisone forces the blood sugar to stay high ac-
cording to the nurses at the hospital,” Gary announced.

“Lovely, you’re taking a drug that you don’t want to take and that’s forcing you to take a
drug you can’t afford and it is screwing up you blood sugar, right?” Ron asked.

“Right, but I’ve only been on the stuff for less than 2 weeks, so I’m going to cut from 2
pills a day to 1 pill a day and then cut it out altogether, near the end of the week,” Gary
explained. “I’ll get Dr. J to prescribe something more appropriate than that dang steroid
to handle my asthma. Besides, I’m using the Nebulizer and the Albuterol QID/PRN.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” Clarence asked.

“Yes, I had my blood sugar under perfect control, I just didn’t respond properly when I
caught that cold,” Gary responded. “Besides, I have always had a weight control prob-
lem and I’ll be flipped if I’m going to take some drug that screws up my blood sugar,
makes me gain weight and po’s me in general. Dr. J has been shocked at how well
Sharon and I have been maintaining my health in light of the insulin dependency. And, if
that isn’t bad enough, he has me on that 500mg Levaquin antibiotic and I’ve had to start
taking Difulcan to counteract the effect of the Levaquin.”

“Really? What do they use Difulcan to treat?” Ron asked.

“Ask Linda, I’m not saying another word,” Gary laughed. “But, I checked the label on the
Prednisone and he didn’t give me any refills anyway so I just get off it now before I have
to go through a long-term supervised withdrawal from the drug. That’s the other problem
with Prednisone partner, if you’re on it several weeks you can’t just stop it cold. But, I
pulled the PM dosages from my caddy and will take 10mg each morning through the
end of the week. You gotta watch ‘em, like a hawk.”

“So you know more than the doctor, right?” Ron said.

“I don’t have his fancy education, but I can read and he isn’t the only doctor in the state
of Kalifornia,” Gary said. “You know that I always discuss decisions like this with Dr. J
anyway. People should never put stuff in their body without finding out what they’re tak-
ing. Sharon is allergic to Penicillin and Sulfa and they gave her an Rx one time that
when I looked it up on the net before we filled it found out it contained both. I’m sure
glad it wasn’t me on the other end of the phone line during her follow-up call to the doc-
tor.”

239
“Gary, I can see your new storyline as plain as day,” Clarence asked.

“What might that be, partner?” Gary asked.

“How the doctors have a secret conspiracy to kill off everyone,” Clarence laughed.

240
 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 30 – The Great Medical
Conspiracy

Clarence was right in a way, although Gary was pretty certain that there wasn’t any
conspiracy. The doctors couldn’t want to kill off their patients because those patients
were their bread and butter. Gary had lost faith in the medical system in 1997 when
through a purely irrational act he’d ingested an excessive quantity of Tylenol. The triage
nurse had left him sitting in the ER waiting room for hours despite being made fully
aware of the medical circumstances. And he’d been paying for that moment of lunacy
ever since. It had triggered a rapid onset of the diabetic neuropathy and was a bill he’d
be paying the rest of his life. And physicians were complaining about the high cost of
malpractice insurance. Insurance rates are based on insurance companies’ experiences
so if the rates were high, that meant that they’d been paying lots of claims. Part of that
was no doubt a fault of the legal profession, but surely some of the claims must have
been founded in fact. In recent years, doctors had been forced to make excessive tests
to avoid possible malpractice claims, forcing the price of healthcare up. This had forced
up the health insurance premiums and had without doubt resulted in reduced health in-
surance coverage’s.

Gary’s decision to stop the Prednisone was logical and probably quite rational in the cir-
cumstances. It didn’t matter to him one bit that his 2 amigos thought his decision rash.
Moreover, he’d call Dr. J the next day and get an appointment, even if it meant that he
had to do a walk-in and wait for a while. In the meantime, he’d use the Albuterol and ½
the prescribed dosage of Prednisone. This attitude had been a hard won lesson relating
to when he’d stopped drinking. Alcohol is a sedative hypnotic drug by classification.
That category of drugs also included barbiturates, benzodiazepines and a miscellane-
ous category that included Meprobamate and Quaaludes. Anyway, as with most drunks,
Gary had sleep problems when he’d discontinued his primary sedative, alcohol. By
chance, the doctor had prescribed Xanax for Gary and it became his new sedative.
Most pharmacists would agree with the assertion than Xanax was nothing more than
‘freeze-dried alcohol’.

Like every drug, there were associated risks in its use. Xanax was highly addictive, a
known side effect of benzodiazepines. And once you started using Xanax as a sleep
aide, you played hell sleeping without it. However, if one strictly followed a protocol per-
taining to the usage of Xanax, the ‘addiction’ could be kept in check. Nevertheless, it
was like doing a juggling act using 3-lit sticks of dynamite. Gary had switched from
Xanax to Benadryl in an effort for eliminate the drug usage, but it hadn’t worked out.
One of the side effects of Benadryl was that it produced drowsiness. In fact a high per-
centage of the over-the-counter sleep preparations were nothing more than Benadryl.

Xanax was cheap, about 10 cents a tablet for 0.5mg generic tablets. Non-prescription
Benadryl was available in 50mg capsules for 5 cents each. But, after 3-4 weeks of us-
age, the body usually overcame the sedative effects of Benadryl, leaving you right
where you started. Gary had taken Allegra for years for his allergies, but it was also ex-
pensive and he lacked insurance. Using Benadryl helped with his allergy problems

241
cheaply and effectively, but it didn’t make him sleepy. Thus, Gary had ended up back on
0.5mg of Xanax QPM for sleep. He’d managed to talk his doctor into the prescription to
help him get off of Vicodin ES, which he began taking after his cancer surgery for pain
and the added side effect of drowsiness. His Rx was for 0.5mg of Xanax TID even
though he only used 0.5mg QPM. At last count, he’d saved up quite a few leftover
Xanax.

Vicodin ES is 750mg of Tylenol plus 7.5mg of Hydrocodone, a synthetic form of Co-

deine. Opium produces two drugs, morphine and codeine. The natural forms of the
drugs were far safer than the synthetics, but you took what you could get. Now, long-
term opiate use produced a drying effect on the intestinal tract and the body adjusted to
the usage by adding moisture to overcome the drying effect. Cessation of opiate use
required the body to readjust the moisture in the intestinal tract, so the natural side ef-
fect of getting off opiates was diarrhea.

There is nothing really simple about using any drugs. Even long-term usage of aspirin
had its downside, irritation of the stomach. By the way, Demerol, the synthetic form of
Morphine, was falling into great disfavor. It wasn’t as effective as Morphine and the
medical profession had learned that you sometimes ended up killing a patient trying to
stop his or her pain. One other piece of medical trivia that might interest you is the cod-
ing some drugs carry. A drug labeled LD50 indicated is followed by a number giving the
dosage where 50% of the people taking it die. The maximum daily dose for Tylenol is
4,000mg, 8 500 mg tablets, and the LD50 was 7,000mg or 14 500mg tablets. The liver
processes Tylenol and an overdose clogs the liver producing death.

Before his cold put Gary in the hospital he was managing to get by on 3 pills in the
morning and 6 pills at night. But after his hospital stay, Gary’s pill caddy was barely
large enough to hold all the junk they had him on. If was ironic that when Gary had been
forced to go to physician’s samples after he lost his insurance coverage how many few-
er drugs he’d needed. He went from 21/day to 9/day and that included the aspirin tablet.
It seemed perfectly logical and rational to Gary, therefore, to eliminate as many of the
new drugs as possible. As far as Gary was concerned, the doctors were out to get him,
confirming his suspicions that they belonged on his enemies list.

Richard Nixon had made the use of enemy lists popular back during his Presidency.
Poor Dick had done a Martha Stewart and lied. Didn’t people like Dick and Martha real-
ize that the best response to questions like those that had gotten them all into trouble
was to take the 5th Amendment? Maybe Martha used insider knowledge and maybe
she didn’t. Who cares? But, instead of getting a good criminal attorney, she went with
corporate lawyers and shaded the truth. She was convicted of lying to the feds, not for
insider trading. You sort of have to give old Al Capone credit; all they ever got him on
was tax evasion. And as good as Nixon was, yes, some of us liked him, old Dick didn’t
have the brains to say yeah we did it, so what? He had a criminal attorney by the name
of Mitchell. Or should that be phrased that he had an attorney criminal? By the way, are
John Mitchell and John Ashcroft related? Sometimes I wonder about things like that.

242
Personally if I ever got into trouble, I’d hire Jerry Spence and Johnny Cochran and take
the 5th. Hell, maybe even 2 fifth’s if it got bad enough. Johnny could always argue that it
was a racially motivated case because two of my grandchildren are of mixed race and
Spence ought to be able to get anyone off. Even Alan Dershowitz thought Martha got a
raw deal and you know how liberal that guy is. Maybe I’ll have to swap the positions of
the bottom of the ocean between the lawyers and the doctors. Do you know what you
call 750 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean? A GOOD start!

September 1, 2007…

With much fanfare and ado, the Citadel was open for business. There was a lot of re-
sentment over the fact that the hospital outclassed the new Palmdale Hospital, and that
other than rendering lifesaving immediate aid, the Citadel would not treat anyone not on
Medicare or MediCal. Ambulance drivers were now required to ask if the patient had in-
surance and if the answer was yes, they went to Palmdale Hospital. All of the no folks
went to the Citadel. I suspect that all sorts of folks began dropping their group coverage
at the next open enrollment period, but have nothing to back that up.

They managed to locate some of those submarine batteries made in Germany by Exide
and the contractor made a bit of an extra effort to complete the solar project by opening
day. He actually succeeded in getting the 340,000 square feet of solar panels installed,
but the subbasement wiring was incomplete. I recall mentioning that the building had a
1.5” weathering steel covering but believe that I failed to mention that those concrete
walls were 6’ thick. And to avoid that closed in feeling, the outside walls of the building
were all painted with murals like those you see in restaurants with fake windows.

Gary and Sharon left everything sitting except for their clothes, personal items and the
‘small’ gun collection. They took a small apartment on the lowest basement level and
Gar-Bear made sure that he could access the T-3 line through the hospital’s network.
Their new apartment was ‘comfortable’, e.g., small enough that it didn’t require much
cleaning. They sprung for a new King sized adjustable bed with one of those Swedish
Tempur-pedic mattresses. Gary sprung for a new 6 GHz Dell computer with a serial
Raid array consisting of 6 of the 1,000 Gb HDD’s and the 10/100/1000 port. He really
didn’t much care for the new Windows operating systems, but if the truth were known,
Gary still liked DOS. Since they intended to take their meals at the hospital cafeteria,
they opted for a 60” stove, refrigerator, microwave and sink appliance. Sharon’s quilting
room was about the size of the master bedroom and Gary’s office was just big enough
for a huge gun safe, the computer and his printers and the office supply cabinet. I sort of
wonder if that claustrophobia bit of Gary’s was all about getting out of the restraints, be-
cause that cramped little office suited him just fine.

And since the apartment was not considered public space, Gary sort of ignored the law
about smoking in public buildings. He just put in one of the Sharper Image ionic air
cleaners to catch the smoke before it hit a smoke detector. Heaven is a 6 GHz 64 bit
processor with onboard memory and with 8Gb of ultra-high speed ram, a T-3 connec-
tion and Microsoft Office 10. Derek and Mary were stuck with the job of cleaning out the

243
garage and shed. Rumor has it that they found 4 corroded MagLites and all of Gary’s
extra gun stuff. Now about this smoking thing; the respiratory therapist suggested, off
the record that since Gary had been smoking for 46.5 years that he couldn’t do much
more damage. She suggested he cut down to ½ a pack a day and enjoy his few remain-
ing days. It worked for him, but living in the hospital subbasement put him awfully close
to all of those medical people. Dr. J had to increase Gary’s antidepressant drug dosage.

Getting off the Prednisone and eating the ‘healthy’ food prepared in the hospital cafete-
ria did the trick for regulating his blood sugar. And, along the way, Gary made an inter-
esting discovery. On the days that he kept his smoking to a bare minimum he suffered
from low blood pressure with readings of 100/45 not being uncommon. They could only
manage to sneak in Missy and three of the cats, however. To avoid trouble over having
a dog in the hospital subbasement apartment, Gar-Bear bought a Seeing Eye dog har-
ness with an extra-long handle and a white cane. Everyone was amazed to see a guy
Gary’s size with such a small Seeing Eye dog. Unfortunately for Gary, Missy wasn’t
confused about going for walks and she dang well knew the difference between walking
around the Citadel and around the 3rd subbasement. They solved the floor-wetting
problem by getting the 11-year-old puppy trained to use a cat litter pan. Life was good
and getting better.

2007 Hurricane Names:

Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dean, Erin, Felix, Gabrielle, Humberto, Ingrid, Jerry, Karen, Lo-
renzo, Melissa, Noel, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van, Wendy

There are six lists of storm names that are recycled. And, for each of the earth’s storm
areas, there is a separate list. The 2004 names will be used again in 2011 unless one or
more of the names are retired. It would seem likely that Charley, Frances, and Ivan are
good candidates for retirement. Significant storms have their names retired and the
world organization responsible for maintaining the lists has multiple criteria for defining a
significant storm. Andrew has been retired for example. Can’t say that I’m going any-
where with this, but found it to be interesting.

Anyway, life was good and getting better. Damon and Derek stayed on as much be-
cause they had nowhere to go as for any other reason. Gary and Sharon gave Derek
and Mary the house and what little equity that they had in it. Damon got an apartment
for himself and the kids and everyone was back in their homes trying to readjust to un-
troubled times. Linda and her sister’s office building had come through ok and they had
a nice income stream again. And The Three Amigos took payment for their services in
kind in an effort to hide the income. It didn’t hurt any that Gary was a retired tax auditor.
Tax agencies set a thief to catch a thief and it usually boils down to which of the individ-
uals is the cleverest. Gary had a pretty impressive record on some of his cases having
even taken on a Fortune 100 corporation at one time for fraud. Needless to say, the
amigos probably wouldn’t have too many tax problems.

The hospital cafeteria meals were part of Gary’s in-kind payment. Meals of this sort are
usually considered income, but if there aren’t any records, there must not be any meals,

244
right? And all Three Amigos and their family were considered to be family members of
one or the other of the doctors and received gratis medical treatment and drugs. It all
got back to the absence of records thing. How many doctors to you know who keep fi-
nancial records of treatment they provide members of their immediately families? That
many huh? I don’t agree with that, the number is much lower and close to zero. And
their families are the first ones to benefit from physician’s samples, too. Now let’s face it,
you don’t need much income when you don’t have to buy anything but clothing, gas for
your car, and the occasional carton of smokes, now do you? Sharon and Lucy were the
only two who didn’t smoke and the others weren’t interested in quitting. And Medicare
paid for all of their respiratory meds so they were home free. They were going to live
until they died.

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 31 – The News Conference

Antelope Valley Press, September 2, 2007 – Headline – Hospital or Bomb Shelter?

“The new hospital for the uninsured opened with much fanfare yesterday. The public
was afforded an opportunity to inspect the facility although many of them will never be
able to use it. The hospital only treats charity cases. That’s right, if you have insurance,
they won’t treat you.

“The hospital, called The Citadel, is the best equipped, state-of-the-art medical facility
this reporter has ever seen. It is also built like a bomb shelter. There are no windows
and the two entrances to the facility are airlocks. Why do we need a bomb shelter in
Palmdale?

“Apparently there are 3 aboveground floors and at least 2 below ground floors, but visi-
tors were limited to a single below ground floor. The atmosphere is pleasant and from
outward appearances, patients will receive the best of care.”

The reporter went on to describe the facility in some detail and harped on the bomb
shelter angle. He also expressed rather strong negative opinions about the hospital not
treating everyone in the community. It was the typical reporter stuff, trying to make a
story out of nothing. Gary was more amused by the article than anything and he’d about
half been expecting something like this to happen. He’d given a list of media contacts to
a Secretary and requested that she contact everyone on the list to announce a news
conference to be held at 4pm that day. All of the news networks and several newspa-
pers were on the list. It would be a closed news conference with admission by invitation
only.

“Gar-Bear, you see this article in the AV Press?” Ron roared into Gary’s home office
holding the paper.

“Yeah. It’s about what I expected, partner. I called a news conference for 4pm,” Gary
grinned.

“What did you do that for?” Ron scowled.

“I don’t know. I guess I just always wanted the chance to hold a news conference,” Gary
chuckled.

“Are you nuts? Never mind, I know the answer to that one,” Ron replied. “I hope you en-
joy your little party.”

“You’re going to be there and introduce yourself and Clarence, Ronald,” Gary said.
“Then you can introduce me and watch the fireworks.”

“I don’t know if I like the sound of that,” Ron said, “You’d better watch yourself Gar-

246
Bear.”

“I’m going to watch the reporters, chief. You can watch me,” Gary was almost laughing.

4pm, The Citadel…

“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ron Green and I am a member of the board of this
facility. The Gentleman to my left is Clarence Rawlings and he too is a member of the
board. The Chairman of the Board is Gary Olsen, the gentleman to my right. Mr. Olsen
will make a brief statement and then field a few questions.”

“My name is Gary Olsen and I’m going to outline the rules for this news conference be-
fore I begin. I am only going to answer each question one time. There will be no follow
up questions, period. This organization has nothing to conceal and you may be sur-
prised by my candor. Is the reporter who wrote this article in the AV Press here today?”

The reporter waived a limp wrist to indicate his presence.

“Would you stand up Sir?” Gary asked. The reporter hesitated and stood.

“I’d like to thank you Sir for this article,” Gary said holding the paper aloft. “I was only 5
years old in 1948 when Harry Truman held up the newspaper announcing that Dewey
had won the election. I’ve always wanted the opportunity to do the same thing. You
have made this possible and I’ll be eternally grateful to you. You can sit down now.

“Where were all of you on November 12, 2005?” Gary began. “I can tell you where I
was; in a cramped little storm shelter designed to hold 6 people with 23 friends and rela-
tives. And that’s where we stayed for the next 14 days. Although it proved later to have
been unnecessary, at least the 24 of us were safe from any radioactive fallout.

“In the months that followed, this country went through a rough time, especially in its po-
litical leadership. But, most of you know how all of that worked out. Anyway, Ron and I
both ended up sick about the same time a while back and somehow the B & M G Foun-
dation heard about it. For whatever reason, the Foundation decided to enter into a new
arena of public service. You will have to speak to the Foundation about that.

“The Foundation put up a significant sum of money to construct this facility. As those of
you who toured the facility know,” Gary said glaring at the reporter from the AV Press,
“This facility is state of the art. And yes, it is a bomb shelter. The building is wrapped in
1½” of weathering steel over 6’ thick reinforced concrete walls. There are two entranc-
es, both airlocks. The building is maintained under constant positive pressure to prevent
any foreign bodies from entering the building, as in the case of a clean room. The build-
ing’s artificial lighting is full spectrum florescent lighting using what some people call
grow lights. The atmosphere within the building is highly filtered and exchanged at a
rate exceeding 100% per hour. Our air purification and filtration systems use ultraviolet
negative ionization and input filtration air purifiers. This system is supplemented with a

247
low-level ozone production system as required. The air in the building is more pure than
the outside air.

“The Citadel has 6 floors, 3 above and 3 below ground. The lowest level is dedicated to
the typical equipment one would find in any typical bomb shelter, including a well, back-
up generators, and so forth. The facility maintains a 6-months’ supply of everything it
uses plus an additional supply of food. In the event that the facility was to be used as a
shelter, it could house the entire population of the City of Palmdale for up to 2 weeks. A
system is in place to allow open access to the facility in the event of such an emergen-
cy. The details are in the handout.

“Some would suggest that the Citadel is under some obligation to the community as a
whole to provide healthcare. This is a non-profit corporation whose sole mission is to
provide quality healthcare for the disadvantaged. The facility accepts Medicare and
MediCal as payment in full for all services rendered. The new Palmdale Hospital on
Palmdale Boulevard and 40th East is an excellent facility and can meet the needs of the
remainder of the community. In the event of a life-threatening emergency, the Citadel
will not turn anyone away. However, if the patient is not a qualified recipient of this facili-
ty services, he or she will be transferred to another facility as soon as it is medically ad-
visable.

“All of the doctors who are on staff at the Citadel are also on staff at the new Palmdale
Hospital and at one or both of the hospitals in Lancaster, so there will be no loss of con-
tinuity in treatment for any patient thus affected. In terms of number of beds, this is the
smallest hospital in the Antelope Valley. The Citadel considers itself to be a partner in
the medical community of the Antelope Valley and will work closely with the other 3
hospitals to provide the best possible medical care.

“I will conclude my statement with this. Somewhere during the last century or so the
population of this great country of ours concluded that companies have no rights. Once
you open your doors for business, you are not free to choose whom you will serve.
That’s a crock and the product of some form of liberal mass hysteria. Everyone is so
worried about being politically correct that they don’t worry about actually being right.
We intend to change that. I will take a few questions at this time. If you ask a question
that I’ve already answered, my response will be ‘asked and answered’ and I will move
on to the next question. Shall we begin with our illustrious friend from the AV Press?

“You admit, then, that this facility is a bomb shelter,” the reporter asked.

“Asked and answered, next question.”

A reporter from the LA Times raised her hand and was recognized. “I note that the Se-
curity staff of this facility is armed, how do you explain that Mr. Olsen?”

“The entire Security Staff of this facility is made up of Reserve LA County Sheriff Depu-
ties and since this is private property, we have elected to arm the staff. Next question.”

248
“Ron James with CNN,” the reporter said, “What gives the Citadel the right to decide
whom it will treat?”

“Asked and answered. However, what gives anyone else the right to tell us whom we
may choose to serve? Next question”

The news conference continued for about another half hour in the same manner. Re-
porters must be the most stupid creatures God ever created because they just kept try-
ing to ask the same questions over and over again. When Gary had all he could take,
he concluded the news conference and walked out of the room followed closely by Ron
and Clarence. The only people left in the room were those armed security guards and
the media people. The media tried to question the guards, but the guards appeared to
be deaf unless the questions were for directions to a rest room or an exit.

California law does not permit any hospital to refuse to treat anyone. However, every
law has loopholes and by not refusing to treat unqualified persons in life-threatening sit-
uations, the Foundations lawyers felt that they were narrowly in compliance with the
law. Certainly if it were litigated, it would be a groundbreaker. Most cases of this sort in-
volved hospitals refusing treatment to the disadvantaged, not to those who could afford
treatment. Gary’s handling of the press conference was the source of much amusement
to many viewers who saw coverage of the event. He hadn’t left the media a single open-
ing and when they tried to force one, cut them off at the pass. The media coverage was
scathing in its criticism of the goals of the facility. This led a rather liberal Democrat from
the California Assembly to call for an investigation, but the Assembly got tied up in an
argument over the matter and no investigation ensued. Governor Schwarzenegger was
interviewed in his smoking tent and when asked his opinion of the new hospital replied,
“Works for me.”

Had not other more dramatic stories arisen, the media would have probably given the
Citadel far wider coverage, but in the end only the reporter from the AV Press continued
to pursue the issue. Regrettably, he died in an auto accident attributed to a faulty brake
line on his automobile and coverage of the matter ended abruptly. Accident investiga-
tors were puzzled by the reporter’s accident because they’d never seen that type of
damage to a brake line before. Although they suspected foul play, there simply wasn’t
enough evidence to open a criminal investigation and the matter went away.

The Three Amigos went through Johnny and set up a meeting with the LA County Sher-
iff and City of Palmdale Administration. The purpose of the meeting was to work out a
contingency plan in the event the Citadel was ever called upon for use as a shelter. One
of the features of the facility was the ability to bypass the airlocks in an emergency. With
the proper computer command, the air pumps kicked into maximum output and both
sets of inner and outer doors opened simultaneously, allowing for a steady ingress or
egress from the building. The City Council set about arranging a transportation plan to
rapidly move the population of the community to the Citadel in the event of an emergen-
cy. The Sheriff agreed to reassign all Deputies to the hospital in the event of such an

249
emergency once the Deputies were satisfied that all of the residents had been safely
transported. In that event, all of the Security Staff of the facility would be placed on ac-
tive duty with the Sheriff’s Department.

There was no way that the Citadel could provide for the 120,000 residents of Palmdale
in an emergency. While there was technically enough floor space, there was no way
they could store 120,000 cots. The Three Amigos considered the issue carefully and
decided to go with a basic ensulite pad and blanket for everyone. There was the further
problem of trying to feed that many people. Even running 24/7, the cafeteria only sat
about 300. Even if you limited people to a scant 10 minutes to eat, that was only 43,200
seats in 24-hours. The lowest level soon began to fill with MRE entrees and accessory
packs, over 5 million of each.

“I’ve been doing some calculating here partner,” Ron announced. “We have a problem.”

“What might that be Ronald?” Gary asked.

“Well, this building is 400’x400’x6 floors, right?” Ron asked.

“Right.”

“Ok, that’s 960,000 gross square feet, right?”

“Right.”

“And 960,000 divided by 120,000 is 8, right?”

“Right.”

“And, that’s gross square feet, not net, right?”

“Right.”

“Then there isn’t enough space to hold all 120,000 residents of Palmdale,” Ron con-
cluded.

“Right again, Ronald,” Gary smiled.

“Then would you explain to me why we’re planning on serving all 120,000 residents in
the event of an emergency, please?” Ron frowned.

“We’re not,” Gary said.

“But you said…” Ron began.

“In the event that the facility were to be used as a shelter, it could house the entire

250
population of the City of Palmdale for up to 2 weeks,” Gary responded. “That’s techni-
cally true, but everyone would have to stand up for the 2 weeks. Ron, 85% of the people
in Palmdale who are employed work in Los Angeles. Although the population of
Palmdale is 120,000, you’d rarely find everyone at home at one time. I’m just guessing
mind you, but if you assume each family is 2.3 people and each family has only one
breadwinner, you’d typically have about 75,000 or less people in town, mostly women
and children. I’d translate that to the equivalent of about 50,000 adults. Now, your gross
square footage per person increases to 19 square feet. And, that’s assuming that you
had all of the people in the shelter.”

251
 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 32 – The Prelude

“If you ever hear me say that my mama didn’t raise no fools, feel free to correct me,”
Gary said.

“What’s that all about partner?” Ron asked.

“I just needed a little exercise and took Missy for a walk,” Gary explained.

“That must have been fun,” Ron chuckled.

“It was something, but I don’t know what,” Gary replied. “Stupid, that much is certain.”

“You ever get that blood sugar problem resolved?” Ron asked.

“Now that you mention it, I did, thank you,” Gary smiled. “My feet swelled up so badly
from the Prednisone that I couldn’t get my shoes on and my blood sugar level just kept
creeping up. I just said screw it and stopped the stuff. My blood sugar level fell from 365
to 241 in 2 hours and I ate breakfast in between the two tests. I’m more convinced than
ever that the so called doctor is really that Sitar player in disguise,” Gary joked. “Then, I
checked it again 4 hours later and it was 140. I know how to manage my blood sugar
partner, but if I was following doctor’s orders, it would probably be 450.”

“Was it safe for you to stop the Prednisone like that?” Ron asked.

“Are we talking with each other?” Gary asked. “Must not have killed me. I’ve been on
the crap before. Usually, they have you take 4 pills the 1st day, 3 pills for the next 2
days, 2 pills for the next 3 days and 1 pill for the next 4 days. That gives your adrenal
glands a chance to kick back in slowly. But, I wasn’t on the crap that long, and they
never gave me large doses except in the hospital. So, I just accelerated the withdrawal
a little.”

“One of these days you’re going to end up killing yourself doing stuff like that,” Ron said.

“Good, then my feet will quit hurting,” Gary laughed.

Jakarta, Indonesia…

“This is an ambitious plan, my brother,” the man said.

“Not nearly as ambitious as that plan to bomb airlines we had a few years back,” the
other replied.

The two men were members of Jemaah Islamiah (JI)—the organization accused of the

252
Bali bombings in October 2002. The speakers were referring to the abortive 1995
scheme to plant bombs on 12 US airliners. Their names are of little import, but what
was this new plan they were referring to? JI’s real interest lay in Indonesia; however the
country’s population was 88% Muslim and they had an issue with a certain ‘temporary’
President of the US who had seen fit to attack fellow terrorists and innocent Muslims in
the Middle East. The speakers were dedicated to the principle that the US must pay for
its actions. Never mind the fact that those actions were in retaliation for actions against
the US by their fellow Muslim terrorists. Reason and passion rarely travel in the same
company. The plan was for Indonesian terrorists already living in the US to steal a large
quantity of explosives, preferably TNT if possible, and to destroy an American Icon, the
Hoover Dam. Destroying the dam wouldn’t necessarily result in a huge loss of life, but it
would really make a statement and tell America that it wasn’t exempt from retaliation for
its behavior.

“Has Ali located the explosives yet?” the first speaker asked.

“No names, my brother,” the other man hissed. “Never use names. Yes, our brother has
secured a large quantity of product.”

“And the plan?” the first asked.

“It will go forward as planned although I believe that it would have a far greater effect if
we could have accomplished it last month. This state of California of the Americans is
constantly on the ragged edge of electrical consumption, especially during the warm
months. The loss of the energy from the target would most assuredly have pulled down
the grid during the hot months. But, It is late September and it will now depend solely
upon the weather,” the second explained.

“So at best…” the first man said.

“We destroy the target and bring down the grid,” the second man replied. “And at the
worst, we destroy an American icon.”

“When...” the first man began.

“The day after tomorrow, Sunday, September 17th, in the United States,” the second
replied.

Washington…

The NSA forwarded the intercept to the FBI and DHS with an uncharacteristic efficiency.
The advice the second terrorist had given the first terrorist had been sound, if not timely.
However the entire conversation was just cryptic enough that the analysts who received
the intercept were initially at a loss to determine what the target was. They knew that
one or more terrorists were going to attack a target in the US using explosives on Sun-
day. They had one first name, Ali. The reference to the grid and electrical consumption

253
suggested an electrical generation source. But the American icon thing had them
stumped for a bit. What American icon generates electricity? Ah, the target was Hoover
Dam. The information was hand carried to the White House where the President imme-
diately ordered military units to the dam to protect it. On the off chance that they
wouldn’t intercept the bombers, DHS issued an Orange threat level for California, Ne-
vada and Arizona and warned Méxican authorities of the possible danger to the dam.

Palmdale…

“What’s this threat level orange all about?” Ron asked.

“From what I can get from FOX and CNN, the government intercepted a telephone call
between two terrorists in Indonesia,” Gary said. “Apparently, they’ve figured out that the
terrorists are planning on blowing up Hoover Dam on Sunday. Anyway, they issued the
warning in case they aren’t able to stop the terrorists and the dam goes. Frankly, I’m
surprised that we have that much information.”

“What’s our worst case scenario here partner?” Ron inquired.

“We’re in no danger whatsoever at the Citadel, Ron,” Gary replied. “It’s a couple of hun-
dred miles to the river, so water is no threat and hopefully even if the dam goes it won’t
pull down the electrical grid. The temperatures haven’t been that bad so I think the state
is ok on electricity, too.”

“Do we need to touch bases with the Sheriff and City?” Clarence asked.

“Gee, I wouldn’t think so, no,” Gary replied. “I mean even if we lost power, which I think
is unlikely, why would anyone need shelter?”

[Gar-Bear, I’m ashamed of you! Haven’t you heard of Murphy’s Laws? Oh well, live and
learn, you crusty old curmudgeon.]

California imports a substantial portion of the energy it uses. There hadn’t been any new
construction of electrical generation plants in over ten years according to one source.
But, the picture in 2007 wasn’t nearly as bleak. Gary was right to be unconcerned, but
he hadn’t left room for Murphy, and the devil is in the details. Of course Gary hadn’t told
Ron that since he quit taking the Prednisone, his left hand hurt so badly that he couldn’t
type. Apparently he’d sprained his hand during his first escape attempt while in the hos-
pital. But, his blood sugar was down and high blood sugar would kill him faster than the
sprain.

The military sent a SEAL Team to examine the base of Hoover Dam just in case Ali and
his friends had already planted explosives. They failed to locate the large quantity of
TNT attached to the timer and buried in the mud at the foot of the dam. Murphy had
struck for the first time. A stuck water valve at the San Onofre 2, San Clemente, CA
forced a safe shutdown of the reactor. Murphy had struck again. And an unexpected hot

254
day pushed energy consumption to record levels for a September 17th. Murphy was
done and so was California.

On the early afternoon of Sunday, September 17th, 2007 at 2:00pm the contacts closed
on the timer and the TNT detonated. A large waterspout rose from behind the dam and
subsided. Everyone realized that the SEALS had missed the bomb. Most of the soldiers
assumed that the explosives had been poorly placed and that everything was all right.
The explosives experts knew better and sounded the alarm. They hadn’t needed to see
the movie Force 10 from Navarone (1978) to know what was about to happen. Water
doesn’t compress and dams are fragile creatures in certain circumstances. The accu-
mulated mud at the base of the dam placed the explosives well up on the face of the
dam. From that point on it was a matter of physics. FOX News happened to be doing a
live feed from the dam when the TNT detonated and The Three Amigos just happened,
believe it or not, to be watching the news. They were hoping to get some information
about the threat against the dam, but got more than they bargained for.

“Oh crap,” Gary said when the waterspout appeared on the screen. “There goes the
dam.”

“What do you, mean Gary?” Clarence said, “The dam is still standing.”

“Clarence, you need to go to the movies more,” Ron grimaced.

“We’ve got to cut the electrical feed,” Gary urged, “Before the dam goes down and pulls
our system down with it.”

“I thought you said we were ok,” Ron said.

“I think I forgot about Murphy, Ron,” Gary answered, “I saw a local item earlier that Re-
actor #2 at San Onofre had to be shut down because of a stuck water valve. And in the
same newscast they were expecting record temps today. I think that I put my foot in my
mouth.”

Gary turned to a computer terminal, entered a password and instructed the computer to
cut the electrical feed of excess energy to the grid. As The Three Amigos sat and
watched, the troops began to rush from the dam in response to the warnings from the
military specialists. It sure went faster in the movie, but there’s just something about the
laws of physics and the dam began to crack and a small stream of water appeared from
the face. As the crack began to open, the TV suddenly went off the air.

“Well, the grid just went down,” Gary announced. “But, the TV should be back up as
soon as their backup generator kicks in.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before the TV signal returned.

“I guess they were watching, too,” Gary chuckled. The 3 men sat transfixed as the dam

255
came apart.

“Davis will go next,” Gary announced, “And then we’ll lose Parker. Laguna Dam is lo-
cated 13 miles northeast of Yuma, Arizona, and about 5 miles downstream from Imperi-
al Dam. But, I’d expect we might lose them too.”

“Hasn’t this country been through enough?” Clarence asked. “You’re talking losing 5
dams here all on account of one measly little explosion.”

“Just be happy they didn’t take out Glen Canyon Clarence or we’d be out Lake Powell,
too,” Gary grimaced again.

“Tell me something Gary Olsen,” Clarence said. “Is there anything you don’t know a little
something about?”

“More things than there are stars in the heavens pal,” Gary said, “But I like to watch
those educational channels on TV and they usually get me curious about things so I surf
the web and find out all I can. Knowledge is power Clarence. Besides, I do a lot of re-
search for my fiction and every time I run across something I can maybe use in a story, I
bookmark it for future reference. I still make plenty of goofs, but you have to be essen-
tially accurate in a story if you want your stuff to be believable. Now if you were to ask
me what I had for breakfast, I’d have to stop and think about it and maybe couldn’t re-
member. But ask me the height of the Eiffel Tower and I’d tell you 986’. I read that in a
Superman comic book, I think, when I was in Junior High School. You should have
known me when my memory was working full time, it would have really po’d you.”

True to Gary’s prediction, the floodwaters along the Colorado River began to take out
the dams. With the collapse of each successive dam, the volume of water grew, making
the collapse of the next dam even more likely. When finally the water had made its way
to México, the entire Colorado River basin was destroyed. In 1901, the California De-
velopment Company, seeking to realize the Imperial Valley’s potential for unlimited agri-
cultural productivity, dug irrigation canals from the Colorado River. Heavy silt loads,
however, inhibited the flow and new residents of the valley became worried. This
prompted the engineers to create a cut in the western bank of the Colorado to allow
more water to reach the valley. Unfortunately, heavy flood waters broke through the en-
gineered canal and nearly all the river’s flow rushed into the valley. By the time the
breach was closed, the present-day Salton Sea was formed.

256
 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 33 – Aftermath

When Air Force One arrived at Nellis AFB around 10am on September 18th, the Gover-
nors of the states of Nevada, California and Arizona were waiting for the President. A
VH-60-N Whitehawk had been ferried in overnight so the HMX-1 pilots could take the
President and the Governors on a tour of the Colorado River Basin. They began at
Hoover Dam and followed the path of destruction to Yuma. Marine One landed there to
refuel and afford the President the opportunity to deliver his planned news conference.
Hoover Dam had been constructed during the years 1931-1935 at a cost of $175 mil-
lion. It impounded water for Lake Mead and at full capacity, the lake held 28.5 million
acre-feet of water. Parker Dam, the third dam to fall had been built in the years 1934-
1938 and supplied water to Los Angeles. While Hoover could produce 4 billion kilowatts
of energy per year, Parker’s capacity was about 1 billion kilowatts. Between the two lay
Davis Dam, which had been completed in 1953. It produced between 1 and 2 billion kil-
owatts of electricity per year. Further down, Laguna and Imperial Dams were diversion
dams that didn’t generate power. Davis Dam’s primary purpose was to ensure delivery
of approximately 1.5 million acre-feet of water to México.

Many people had died as a result of the dams bursting, but the loss of life was far less
than expected, primarily due to the orange threat level issued by DHS. Economically
and in other terms, the event was a major disaster. Los Angeles, San Diego and Tucson
had lost their water supplies or major portions thereof. Initial estimates of the cost of re-
placing the dams ran to $3 billion. And time was most certainly a factor. The same whiz
kid had estimated it would take between 6 and 8 years to replace the 5 dams. And al-
ready enduring power shortages, California was in big trouble, with a capital B.

The best that California could hope for was accelerating the construction of the new
power plants under construction. Governor Schwarzenegger had issued an immediate
Executive Order banning the use of water for all but drinking purposes until the ramifica-
tions were known for all of southern California. By the time Marine One reached Yuma,
Arnold was ready to resign. The President made a few remarks on the scope of the dis-
aster and promised to immediately introduce legislation for have the dams rebuilt. The
Arizona Governor spoke next, outlining the problems the event represented for his state
followed by the Governor from Nevada.

Arnold came last and he tried to break the somber mood of the crowd with his opening
remark, “And I thought Gray Davis had problems!” He went on to indicate that all power
plant construction in California would be accelerated but that southern California now
faced an even larger problem, the loss of the water. At the urging of a staff member Ar-
nold indicated that he would immediately introduce legislation for the construction of de-
salinization plants to meet the needs of southern California, but that it was far too early
to speculate on the adequacy of that solution.

Jakarta, Indonesia…

The three men were gathered in a private residence. Riduan Isamuddin, better known

257
as Hambali and the two men whose telephone conversation had been intercepted by
the NSA had met to discuss the near failure of their ‘American Project’.

“Fools,” Hambali said. “Your carelessness almost cost us this operation.”

“But leader,” the second, more cautious man from the earlier phone conversation said,
“The operation was a far greater success than we had ever anticipated.”

“This is not to your credit, brother,” Hambali retorted. “Had not our brother in America
planted the explosives earlier than planned, we would have been found out and the ef-
fort would have been wasted. As it was, only chance prevented those American SEALS
from discovering and disarming the explosives. And how is it that you were so foolish to
use a name over the telephone? Are you not aware that the Americans have been
tracking our brother Osama through his phone calls?”

“We were guarded in our conversation leader,” the second man spoke.

“Obviously not guarded enough, brother,” Hambali snapped.

“What of the next phase of our plan, leader,” the first man finally found his voice.

“We shall have to postpone the next phase until we can be sure that the American FBI
has not discovered who our brother in America is,” Hambali responded, his anger clear.

“In the meantime, you will remove yourselves from my sight before I lose control of my
anger.” Hambali announced.

Washington…

“It would appear Mr. President that this new terrorist campaign is part of a larger plan,”
Director Mueller said. “The name we have could be anyone of more than a dozen indi-
viduals. And we only have locations on six of those people. Our field agents tell me that
none of those 6 persons could have been involved because they have been under con-
stant surveillance. Therefore we are going to concentrate on locating the other six per-
sons.”

“How certain are you of your information?” the President asked.

“Candidly, about 80%,” Mueller replied. “However, if we cannot identify who Ali really is,
we could be in trouble here.”

“And I’m told that the explosives that they used were stolen American explosives, is that
true?”

“Regrettably yes Mr. President, the Bureau was working closely with ATF to identify the
thieves, but we kept coming up empty.”

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“I can’t really justify doing anything to Indonesia, you know,” the President observed.
“They’ve been doing their best to get the terrorism in check over there. That guy they
convicted of being behind the Bali bombings was railroaded, you know. He was behind
it all right, but they couldn’t really prove it. Hell, they convicted him anyway.”

“There are times, I’d have to admit, that I wouldn’t mind our being able to do that,”
Mueller chuckled. “But the USA Patriot Act had as many downsides as benefits, so I
suppose we’d better just stay with what works.”

“I want you to hook up with the DCI and the DHS Secretary and put together a task
force,” the President ordered. “I’ll touch bases with the other two so they’ll know to ex-
pect you. Better get the ATF involved too, they’re the explosives experts.”

“Yes sir,” Mueller replied. “Will there be anything else Mr. President?”

“Not unless you can come up with a few billion to rebuild those dams, no,” the President
chuckled.

“Sorry sir, I’m afraid that one’s outside of my job description,” Mueller chuckled.

Michigan…

The cell that Ali belonged to operated out of Dearborn. He and one of the others were
highly qualified divers and explosives experts. The other two members of the cell were
essentially their security for when a diving mission was on. Ali had stolen the TNT used
to blow Hoover from a Michigan explosives distributor and hauled the stuff halfway
across the country. He had intended to use an 8-day timer for the detonator and plant
the TNT 4 days prior to the scheduled explosion. However to ensure that they could
complete their mission timely, they 4 men had elected to leave 3 days early. Once they
arrived at the dam, they realized that placing the explosives might be a bit harder than
they had anticipated so they had gone ahead and started right away. The soft silt at the
foot of the dam made a perfect hiding place for the charges and they buried the explo-
sives as deeply as possible. His last dive was to set the timer and that was 6 days be-
fore the scheduled explosion. By the time the US government had uncovered the plot,
Ali and his companions were already back in Dearborn.

Ali had received a message from Hambali directing that he and his companions lay low
for a while until the government’s search petered out. This turned out to be perfect for
Ali because he couldn’t risk hitting the same distributor for explosives and he needed to
find another source. It seemed as if every state had one or more major explosives dis-
tributors and Ali began to surf the web identifying possible candidates for his next theft.
It occurred to him that he had to make the next theft as far away from Michigan as pos-
sible or he risked waiving a flag at law enforcement and the ATF. The TNT that Ali pre-
ferred to use was rather hard to come by because most mining operations used the
ANFO slurry. Having located several promising targets, Ali and one of the security men

259
set off to check out the security at the various locations.

“This is the one, my brother,” Ali said, “Their security is so poor that we can get all that
we need from this source.”

“I agree, you would have thought that after our success at that dam, the Americans
would have tightened up security much more than we can see,” the companion replied.
“How much of the explosive do we require for the next mission?”

“I believe that we can do it with 1,000-kilos,” Ali replied, “But, if we can get more, we
should. This will reduce our risk of discovery. I have gone to that AFT website and it
was most revealing. As Allah wills it, I believe that we should take several thousand ki-
los.”

“I know nothing of explosives, my brother,” the companion said, “So it shall be as you
say.”

Two nights later, the explosives distributorship was burgled. The thieves made off with
what amount to a truckload of high order explosives, detonators, timers and det cord.
The theft wasn’t discovered for about 5 hours. By that time, the Hertz rental truck was
halfway to Dearborn with Ali in trail in the car. When they arrived in Dearborn, the truck
was quickly unloaded into a storage locker and they drove the truck to South Bend, In-
diana where they turned it in as originally agreed with the rental company. Ali and the
companion returned to Dearborn to await further instructions.

Palmdale…

“What’s up Ron?” Gary asked.

“I don’t know where to begin,” Ron shook his head. “First, we had a call from Edison
wanting us to release power to them. They are offering quite a premium at the moment;
do you think we should do it?”

“If our marginal return exceeds the cost of the fuel, I suppose we might as well,” Gary
replied. “My best guess is that we might be able to supply them with as much as 6 meg-
awatts if we run the generators and the solar array.”

“I thought that you might feel that way so I told them yes,” Ron smiled.

“Well if you’d already told them yes, why did you ask?” Gary countered.

“So you could feel like you’re in charge around here,” Ron replied.

“What’s second?” Gary ignored the remark.

“Did you hear about the explosives theft last night?” Ron asked.

260
“No, where did that happen?” Gary asked.

“West Virginia of all places,” Ron said, “Apparently the thieves made off with about a
truckload of high order explosives. ATF held a news conference and they all up in arms
and apparently DHS, ATF and the FBI are putting together a new taskforce to try and
track down the thieves.”

“You don’t suppose that it was the same guys who blew Hoover Dam, do you?” Gary
asked.

“Hell, nothing would surprise me partner,” Ron responded. “Apparently the explosives
that they used on the dam were stolen and that job last night netted them about 3 times
as many explosives, if you can believe CNN.”

“Do you have any other good news or can I go hide in my computer room now?” Gary
smirked.

“Well, now that you mention it…” Ron said.

“What?” Gary asked.

“That’s all I have.”

“Have you seen Clarence lately? It’s like I have BO or something. He hasn’t been
around in a couple of days,” Gary inquired.

“What with all of this new found wealth of ours, Clarence has started a project,” Ron
commented.

“Oh, what’s he doing?”

“You’re sitting down, right?” Ron said.

“You can see that I am, butthead,” Gary snapped, “What’s old brother Clarence up to?”

“He’s building a bomb shelter in his backyard,” Ron laughed.

“Why in the hell would he do that when he has the Citadel to come to?” Gary asked
shocked.

“Oh, probably for the same reason that Lyn and I are,” Ron said, “To avoid the crowds.”

“Say what? There’s plenty of room in this building,” Gary glared.

“There was, until you invited the whole darn town to move in,” Ron retorted. “I got a ruler

261
and marked out 19 square feet on my kitchen floor. It’s a rectangle 6’4” long by 3’ wide.
No thanks partner, we’re putting in our own shelter and I’m putting in a big screen TV.
I’ll use it as a hideaway when Lyn and I are fighting.”

“I thought the two of you didn’t fight anymore,” Gary observed.

“We still fight, I just don’t win anymore,” Ron laughed.

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 34 – Danger Zone

Revvin’ up your engine

Listen to her howlin’ roar
Metal under tension
Beggin’ you to touch and go

Highway to the Danger Zone

Ride into the Danger Zone

Headin’ into twilight

Spreadin’ out her wings tonight
She got you jumpin’ off the track
And shovin’ into overdrive

Highway to the Danger Zone

I’ll take you
Right into the Danger Zone

Guess it’s been a while since I mentioned Top Gun, huh?

The Indonesian terrorists were sitting in Dearborn cooling their heels. They tried to get
jobs at a 7-11, but weren’t Iranian. They ended up working at a carwash instead.

Director Mueller, together with DCI Goss and the new Secretary of DHS, a fella named
Rick Santorum, had brought in the head of ATF, Truscott for a sit down conference.

“The President told me he’d let you know what he had in mind,” Mueller said, “Is every-
one up to speed on why we’re here?”

Continuing, Mueller said, “What does the ATF have on the theft of the TNT they used on
Hoover Dam and while you’re at it what about that explosives theft?”

“We’re at a dead end for now on the first theft,” Truscott admitted, “And it’s way too ear-
ly in our investigation to know about this truckload of explosives that were taken.”

“Up against a stone wall?” Mueller asked.

“We had one lead Bob,” Truscott replied. “Apparently a Filipino rented a Hertz truck the
day of the burglary, but so far that appears to be a dead end. He made a one way trip to
South Bend and turned the truck in there as agreed.”

“Did you run it for forensics?” Mueller asked.

“It was too late, they’d already detailed the truck,” Truscott explained.

263
“How did the mileage compare with the normal distance for a trip like that?” Mueller
asked.

“Well, it was a little high, but the fella told Hertz that he got lost and ended up putting on
the extra mileage. He even tried to get them not to charge him for the extra miles claim-
ing he was a college student.”

“Did you check that?” Mueller asked.

“He has a valid student Visa to attend college in the US,” Truscott said.

“Ok, but is he enrolled in a college in the South Bend area?” Mueller asked.

“We’re still checking, but as of now, no,” Truscott explained.

“Well, it’s mighty thin, but it has to be checked out,” Mueller said, “Do you want to finish
it up or have us take over?”

“We’ll work it for now and let you know if anything turns up.”

“Ok by me,” Mueller replied. “Rick, what’s your thinking on the threat level?”

“We’re back at yellow for now, but I’ve been talking to the President about going back to
orange until those explosives turn up,” Santorum answered. “However, we’re a little
leery of going back to orange without something more definite.”

“Port, what’s going on in your shop?” Mueller asked.

“We’re pretty sure that Hambali from JI was behind it, but no one can find the guy,” Por-
ter Goss replied. “NSA gave us a copy of the tape and we’re trying to do some voice-
print analysis and matching at the moment.”

“Let me know if there’s anything we can do to help, Port,” Mueller acknowledged.

“Rick, since you’re the highest ranking member in the room,” Mueller suggested, “I’d
feel a whole lot more comfortable if you’d Chair this taskforce.”

“Bob, I don’t have the time. Thanks, but no thanks,” Santorum replied.

“We have 2 teams of Special Agents working the West Virginia area looking for anything
we can find,” Mueller finally offered. “As much as I hate to say it, I think that we’re doing
everything we can for the moment. I don’t suppose that there have been anymore NSA
intercepts have there?”

“Haven’t heard anything Bob,” Porter remarked.

264
Palmdale…Flash!! Medical update…

It had come time to start visiting the doctors as a final follow up to his earlier hospital
stay. It was such a waste of time, but, why take a chance? Gary started with the Sitar
player. Gary had been asked 1,000 times if he were related to the famous baseball
player with the same last name and he couldn’t resist. The doc must have had the same
experience. He wasn’t related, but he sure knew a lot about his namesake, like the guy
had remarried and his new wife was 32 years old. Gary told the doc flat out that he re-
spected the medical profession, but that he considered doctor’s instructions to be medi-
cal advice to be considered but not necessarily followed. The doc was amused and re-
torted with, “I knew you were going to be trouble the minute we took you off the respira-
tor.” Gary told him that he’d discontinued the Prednisone and all the doc said was,
“Good, I was going to take you off it anyway.” Then the subject of computers had come
up and it turned out that the doc and Gary had started using computers at the same
time, right after IBM brought out the PC. The only lingering problem Gary had was ede-
ma of his feet and ankles. The doc said they’d have to keep an eye on that and wrote
Gary Rx’s for a Nebulizer and a bunch of the Albuterol.

Old Gar-Bear had been doing the physician’s samples bit for years and he had noticed
an ad for Diovan taped on the office wall. When the nurse came by, Gar hit her up for
some Diovan. All they had was the 80/12.5 so Gary passed. But then, when the doc
said his feet were swollen, Gary decided that the 12.5 might be a good idea. That was
the diuretic they added to the drug. Made out pretty good on samples at the doc’s office.
Then Sharon drove Gary to LA to pick up the Nebulizer. While they were there they
dropped by Dr. J’s office, list in hand, looking for samples. They made out pretty good
there too. As an afterthought, Gar asked if they happened to have any Prevacid. He
scored 6 5-capsule boxes. After they picked up the Nebulizer, Gary stopped by another
of his doctor’s offices and scored 10 more 5 capsule boxes of Prevacid.

It wasn’t a bad day’s work. $600 worth of drugs free and it only cost them $20 for eats
and $10 for gas. By the time they’d gotten home, Gary’s feet were the size of balloons.
Well, now, Dr. Olsen went to his drug box and prescribed himself some Dyazide 50/25
to help with the swelling. Then, like the fool that he sometimes was, he took one of the
pills before he went to bed. Bet you can guess what he spent the night doing. Ron was
probably right; one of these days old Doc Olsen was going to self-medicate himself to
death. Reader’s Digest had claimed for years that Humor is the Best Medicine. When it
came to dealing with those doctors, Gary applied that philosophy. Not one of his doctors
was short in the humor department. And the Sitar player had managed to one up our
amigo at every turn. This was going to work out just fine.

Washington…

Despite the posturing, none of the agencies had a clue who might have taken the ex-
plosives. The ATF was reasonably convinced that this Filipino lead was a dead end, but
it was all they had so they put a dozen agents on the project. They had forensic artists
work with the rental clerk and the turn-in clerk and ended up with a couple of sketches

265
that bore only the slightest resemblance. And, they were hitting the campuses looking
for the ‘Filipino’ and coming up empty. It took a while, but someone finally put 2 and 2
together and they decided that they might just be on to something after all. For whatever
reason, Muslims tended to congregate in certain locales and Michigan was one such
locale. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack! Truscott passed the information
along to Mueller, Goss and Santorum and the next thing you knew, Indiana and Michi-
gan were swarming with feds.

One of the idiosyncrasies of many Americans was that ‘all Orientals looked alike’ to
them. And when you got right down to the fine point, an Indonesian and a Filipino were
first cousins. The Philippines’ had two official languages - Filipino (based on Tagalog)
and English; eight major dialects - Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocan, Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, Bi-
col, Waray, Pampango, and Pangasinense. Indonesians spoke Bahasa Indonesia (offi-
cial, modified form of Malay), English, Dutch, local dialects, the most widely spoken of
which is Javanese. Did you notice the word ‘Malay’? The population of the Philippines
was Christian Malay 91.5%, Muslim Malay 4%, Chinese 1.5%, other 3% while the popu-
lation of the Indonesia was Javanese 45%, Sundanese 14%, Madurese 7.5%, coastal
Malays 7.5%, other 26%.

It was a darned miracle that the feds could find any of the terrorists living in the US.
And, if you were talking about someone from the now crispy Middle East, how much dif-
ference was there between an Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Jordanian, or Saudi? And, the US
was the great melting pot, after all. Nine times out of ten, the feds catch a break in a
case like this when someone comes forward with some information. Ali and his compan-
ions were fairly reclusive and no one had a clue that your friendly Indonesian terrorist
cell was living right down the block.

Jakarta…

“It would appear that the American authorities have been unsuccessful in locating our
brothers in America,” Hambali said. “This is most fortunate for the two of you. It was
they who made the large explosives theft that CNN reported. According to the leader,
they have enough explosives for the next three objectives.”

“Then we will resume?” the first man asked.

“Yes, we will resume,” Hambali replied. “However, I have decided to change objectives.
It is starting to get cold in America with the winter coming. These Americans have such
a fragile balance during the winter when it comes to fuel supplies that any severe dis-
ruption of their energy supplies could be disastrous.”

“What is the new target?” the second man asked.

“Only our leader in America and I know that, my brother,” Hambali replied, “You still
have to re-earn my trust.”

266
Palmdale…

“What do you make of Arnold’s proposal to build 4 desalinization plants?” Ron asked
Gary.

“Too little, too late,” Gary replied. “Of the more than 7,500 desalination plants in opera-
tion worldwide, 60% are located in the Middle East. The world’s largest plant in Saudi
Arabia produces 128 MGD of desalted water. In contrast, 12% of the world’s capacity is
produced in the Americas, with most of the plants located in the Caribbean and Florida.
To date, only a limited number of desalination plants have been built along the Califor-
nia coast, primarily because the cost of desalination is generally higher than the costs of
other water supply alternatives available in California (e.g., water transfers and ground-
water pumping).”

“I see you’ve been back out on the net,” Ron chuckled.

“Well, when I heard that proposal he made, I got curious, so naturally I went searching,”
Gary said. “Information is power, pal.”

“I see where the feds are concentrating their search for those terrorists in Indiana and
Michigan,” Ron commented.

“If the feds are looking there, that probably means the terrorists are in Chicago,” Gary
laughed.

Substantial portions of the homes in the US are heated by natural gas. In the northeast-
ern US, fuel oil is widely used in certain areas. In order to succeed disrupting the ener-
gy, e.g., fuel supplies, all Ali and his companions had to do was blow a couple of natural
gas pipelines and a couple of fuel oil pipelines. Done at the right time of the year, the
effect would truly be devastating as people began to use up their fuel oil or lost their
natural gas service. And, a pipeline is such a small target as compared to a dam. The
US is a web of pipelines and all of them pass through rural areas. At Hambali’s direc-
tion, Ali began to research the American pipeline system. Low and behold, he ran into a
problem. Apparently in response to the 9/11/01 attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, the
government had seen fit to remove a lot of information about pipelines from the Internet.

There hadn’t always been an Internet and Ali was forced to do what millions had done
before him, visit the Public Library. It took a full day worth of searching, but he ended up
with a list of targets. He and his fellow diver began to consider the targets and narrow
their list. They carefully mapped a route that would allow them to start in Kansas City
and end in New York. Their best estimate was that they could make the run, set the ex-
plosives and be back in Dearborn in 8 days, and they had so many of those 8-day tim-
ers. The cache of high order explosives included any number of shaped charges and
the two men decided that they could get by with about 100 kilos of the high order explo-
sives. Then, Ali sat back to watch the weather channel, waiting for the arrival of the next
big storm.

267
 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 35 – Baby It’s Cold Outside

The Weather Channel announced that Thanksgiving was going to be a problem in 2007.
One of the most widely traveled holidays, long range forecasts were for a winter storm
commencing east of the Rockies the day before Thanksgiving and moving to the east. If
the predictions were correct, the storm would hit New England about 4-5 days later.
This was what Ali had been waiting for and they retrieved about 150 kilos of shaped
charges from the storage locker together with a dozen timers. Their vehicle, a closed
van, was old and non-descript and no one would give it a second look. The 4 men
headed for Kansas City.

Timing is everything and the men were set for a wild ride. The week before Thanksgiv-
ing, they planted explosives on 2 natural gas pipelines and one fuel oil pipeline in the
Kansas City area. All 12 timers were preset and activated at the same time to ensure
that when eventually they tripped, it would happen simultaneously. The men then began
the mad dash to the east coast, planting charges along the way. On the 7th day, they
arrived back in Dearborn, having traveled non-stop to complete their mission. Every-
thing was in place and they’d even managed to plant explosives on their alternate tar-
gets. The trip had been slow, but steady and they hadn’t attracted a bit of attention.
These Americans were so easy!

Palmdale…

“I’m sure glad we don’t live where the snow falls,” Gary said, “Have you seen the
weather forecasts?”

“FOX said that they’s going to get up to 10” of snow in Denver,” Clarence nodded.

“Perfect time for a terrorist attack,” Ron said, “Take out a few pipelines in the middle of a
storm like this and people would freeze their butts off.”

“Bite your tongue, Ronald. Speaking of terrorists attacks, did either of you happen to
catch that story on CNN about the final cost estimate to replace the 5 dams? $14.75 bil-
lion with a B. Their best guess is 4 years completion time, too. Man there won’t be any
unemployment in this country for the next 4 years.”

“How’s the country going to afford that?” Ron asked.

“Hell, I don’t know, crank up the printing presses and print more money?” Gary laughed.

On the day after Thanksgiving, 12 pipelines were set to explode. When the pipelines
went, the US would face a disaster almost as great as it had when Hoover Dam had
been taken out. Power plants that depended upon natural gas as fuel to power their
generators would be brought down in short order due to fuel starvation. Forewarned of
the pending storms, however, most New Englanders who depended upon fuel oil to
heat their homes had filled their fuel tanks. The sudden demand for fuel oil caused the

268
price to rise 11 cents per gallon, but people just bought the fuel and grumbled. The Na-
tional Weather Service was predicting that this storm had the potential of being ‘the
storm of the century’. One of the most intense Nor’easters to ever strike the Eastern
United States did so in the second week of March, 1993. Record low pressures, wind
speeds, low temperatures and snowfall amounts were more than enough for this storm
to gain the status of “Storm of the Century” even during its existence. Indeed, this storm
was monumental, killing over 250 people and cancelling 25% of the United States’
flights for two days.

There was to be a collision of two weather fronts, one coming in from the west and ex-
pected to hit Denver the day before Thanksgiving and a Northeaster expected to strike
New England on Thanksgiving Day. Those folks in Pennsylvania were really in for it.
The odds on such an occurrence were astronomical, but stuff happens. What were the
odds on Florida being hit by 3 back-to-back hurricanes in 2004? As Mr. Spock would
say, all things are possible.

Washington DC…Monday, November 19, 2007

The task group leaders, Santorum, Mueller, Goss and Truscott were gathered on the
Monday before Thanksgiving to review what they had learned.

“I realize that it’s like shutting the barn door after the horse is gone,” Truscott an-
nounced, “But we pulled the licenses on both of those explosives distributors who were
burgled. Our investigation showed that neither of them had anything like adequate secu-
rity to protect against those thefts. They were so far out of compliance with the Safe Ex-
plosives Act that this will put them out of business. As I told all of you, this lead we have
with the Filipino student is very promising, but we haven’t found him yet.”

“We haven’t had any better luck finding him either,” Mueller acknowledged. “But, I
agree, finding this guy is the key to unraveling this entire mess. CIA have anything
new?”

“We’ve heard some rumors over that past couple of days, but nothing specific,” Goss
stated. “I only received enough information this morning to be able to bring the subject
up. And, the rumors are so vague as to be almost useless. All we’re hearing is that
there is something brewing for around Thanksgiving. But, it’s pretty thin and we don’t
have a clue what it is.”

“Darn it,” Santorum responded, “Here we are faced with what some meteorologists are
saying will be the storm of the century and we’re also facing a terrorist attack. Do you
know how many million people travel over the Thanksgiving holiday? The President is
going to love this.”

“I don’t envy you one bit Mr. Secretary,” Goss responded. “Either way you go on this,
you’re going to be burned. If you raise the threat level, that’s going to mess up travel
and if you don’t and the terrorists do pull something, the public and press will put you

269
through the meat grinder.”

“I’m going to pass the buck on this one, maybe,” Rick said. “Ultimately, it’s the Presi-
dent’s responsibility. But, I will recommend that we go to orange and follow his lead.”

The men visited a while longer and adjourned the meeting. Santorum made an ap-
pointment to see the President on an ‘urgent matter.’ When he got to the White House
he outlined what little they knew and bit the bullet recommending that the threat level be
raised to orange for the entire country. The former Speaker of the House wasn’t plan-
ning on running for election in 2008 so he wasn’t burdened by personal political consid-
erations. Nevertheless, if he made the wrong decision, the Republican Party would take
it in the chops in 2008. As he sat there, he remembered his days in Korea at the Chosin
Reservoir. The threat level was raised to orange and Santorum left to arrange for the
announcement.

Palmdale…same day…

“I’m sure glad I’m not the President,” Ron said. “Can you imagine being forced to issue
an elevated threat level over Thanksgiving?”

“Weren’t we on orange on Thanksgiving of 2001, right after the WTC?” Clarence asked.

“Got me fellas,” Gary said, “I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning.”

“I can’t remember when they established DHS, Clarence, so I can’t tell you either,” Ron
said, “But, I suspect not. I’ll tell you one thing that I’m becoming pretty certain about,
though. We are not winning the war on terror.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to win a war on terrorism Ron,” Gary observed. “As long as
you have one crackpot out there with an agenda and the means to carry it out, you’re
going to have the threat. Do you remember those hearings back in 2004 that resulted in
George Tenet resigning as DCI? They started gutting the CIA in the 1970’s and then
Clinton sort of finished the job. I think the CIA did a remarkable job, given the limitations
imposed on them. They’ve been forced to rely so much on ElInt that they barely have
any HumInt assets anymore. I would have to agree on the turf wars criticisms, but that’s
just good old normal American politics that turns around once in a while to bite you on
the butt. They put the Goss fella in as DCI, but he said it would take him a while to get
up to speed. As I remember it, the CIA was so screwed over that the best estimate was
5 years to rebuild the agency. Hell, in 5 years the Democrats could be back in power
and start gutting the agency again.”

“For the President’s sake, I almost hope the terrorists do strike, even though I can’t think
of anything I’d like less,” Ron replied.

It began snowing during the early morning hours of November 21 east of the Rockies.
By noon road advisories were out for the entire states of Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas

270
and Nebraska. By early evening the airport had been forced to close in Denver, serious-
ly disrupting the plans of holiday travelers. It would only be later that the disgruntled
travelers learned just how lucky they’d been NOT to be able to travel. The storm was
moving rapidly, perhaps 30mph, to the east. The winds were just shy of 60mph and
gusting even higher. It was perhaps one of the worst blizzards in recent memory. Some
of the airlines diverted their Denver flights to Kansas City and Chicago, but O’Hare was
already about maxed out and as a consequence, hundreds of thousands of travelers
had their travel plans cancelled by Mother Nature.

The following day, Thanksgiving, the Nor’easter blew in. It wasn’t quite as bad as had
been expected, but was nearly the equal of the 1993 storm. Given the advanced warn-
ing of the storm, most folks were in pretty good shape when it came to the home heat-
ing oil. People changed their plans and many of them rescheduled their travel for the
Christmas season. Like it or not, most of America ended up staying home or nearby for
Thanksgiving, 2007.

On Friday, November 23, 2007 at 08:35 EST, the 12 timers’ contacts closed. Ali and his
diver buddy had done an excellent job of placing the explosives and the dozen pipelines
bit the dust. Back in 2004, the US had experienced a rash of pipeline bombings by Iraqi
insurgents. Most of the time, it took a couple of weeks to get the pipelines repaired and
the product flowing. Most of the time; and they had near ideal working conditions in Iraq.
But here we were in the middle of what was being debated as to whether or not it was
the storm of the century and we had 12 broken pipelines, mostly natural gas. There was
no way to send out repair parties, the visibility was maybe 100’ under ideal conditions
and there weren’t many ideal conditions to be found.

The effect of losing the natural gas pipelines was dramatic, even traumatic. Utilities that
depended upon natural gas to power their equipment shut down immediately, causing a
widespread power blackout. Homes and buildings that depended upon natural gas for
heating not only lost their electricity, but also their heating. Even the folks who used fuel
oil to heat their homes were mostly up the creek because they had no power to run the
fan motors on their furnaces. The fortunate few who had fireplaces and wood to burn in
them were able to tough it out. It was so cold outside that they simply emptied the con-
tents of their refrigerators and/or freezers and put the stuff on a back porch or in their
unheated garage.

Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people didn’t have that luxury, however.
This wasn’t 1776 and not every home in America had a fireplace. And, some of those
that did had a gas log, hence no firewood. They could always have removed the gas log
and burned wood in the fireplace, but to be able to burn wood, you must first have it on
hand and the fireplace had to have been intended to burn wood. If it were intended to
burn a gas log from the outset, retrofitting was extremely expensive.

The western states, so badly hit by the downing of Hoover Dam, essentially escaped
any problems. But then, they were dealing with problems of their own like the worst wa-
ter shortage in history. And it was winter and electrical consumption was well down so

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those Californians, Nevadans and Arizonans did just fine. Up in places like Montana,
the people were making out pretty well, except for dealing with the storm. But, across
the Midwest to the east coast, people were in trouble. When the power grids began to
fail, they pulled down the grid servicing Michigan and even Ali and his ‘brothers’ began
to freeze. In a matter of hours, all of the Radio and TV networks had somehow man-
aged to get back online and they began to broadcast horror stories about people being
stranded in their homes without electricity and/or fuel to heat their homes.

“Did you bite your tongue like I told you to, butthead?” Gary asked Ron.

“I said it would be a perfect time for terrorists to strike, now didn’t I,” Ron retorted. “It’s
not my fault they listened. Man, that must be a bear being stranded in a home in freez-
ing weather without any electricity or heat.”

“I remember when I was about 4 years old something like this happening,” Gary started.
“It was when we lived west of Greene, say about 1947. That little old house didn’t have
a fireplace or nothing. The only source of heat was the wood-burning kitchen stove.
Come to think of it, we didn’t have electricity, either, just oil lamps. Anyway, my dad had
plenty of firewood laid in next to the house, I guess. Man, that stove was almost glowing
cherry red trying to get that house warm. That house wasn’t insulated either. Hell, we
couldn’t even go to the outhouse and had to crap in a pail. So I guess you’re right Ron,
it’s probably a real bitch for all of those soft folks used to turning on a light switch or ad-
justing the thermostat.”

“You don’t sound like you have much sympathy for them,” Clarence observed.

“Pity, maybe, but everyone just assumes that the lights will always work and never is
prepared for anything,” Gary replied. “Sharon put a gas log in the house on Moonraker,
but we kept the firewood, just in case. Back in ‘90 my folks were over for Christmas and
we had that fireplace stoked up so hot it almost drove us out of the house. But, here I go
again, preaching to the choir. How are your shelters coming along?”

“Done,” both men answered in unison.

“Did you put up that Recreation Room sign like someone suggested?” Gary asked Ron.

“Yeah, if you see the guy, tell him thanks, will you?” Ron laughed. “That shelter is the
best darned doghouse I’ve ever been in. And, when Kevin gets out and comes back
home, I’ll have somewhere to hide.”

“I gots mine fitted out pretty nice too Gary,” Clarence added. “Don’t have no darned 42”
big screen, but it’s right comfortable. Got all of those supplies you recommended too. I
decided to put in 3 of those 300-gallon home heating oil tanks and a diesel generator,
but it ought to last us pretty good if we ever need to use it as a shelter.”

“I did the same thing Gar-Bear,” Ron said. “Figured we could always make that bio-

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diesel stuff if push came to shove.”

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 36 – Oops

“It is so cold,” the terrorist complained.

“Think of all of the Americans freezing in their homes, my brother, it will warm you,” Ali
responded.

“I will never be warm again,” the man continued.

“Be still you fool,” Ali cautioned. “This attack worked out so much better than planned.
Even our cousin didn’t expect the buildings to fall back in 2001. This is a great day for
our cause.”

“We should move to a warmer climate here in America,” the man continued to complain.
“Perhaps we could move to Los Angeles where it is warm and there are a lot of our
brothers.”

“Perhaps,” Ali replied, “I will speak to our leader about moving the operation to the city
called Pasadena in California. There are many of our brothers living in that area.”

Had Gary heard that conversation, he would have heartily agreed. Back in 1982, when
the state of Iowa had moved him to Los Angeles, Gary ended up looking in the Pasade-
na area for an apartment. The apartments he looked at were teaming with people just
sitting around. His friend, Paul, took one look at the group and told old Gar-Bear that he
wouldn’t be caught dead living with any towel heads. Gary hadn’t been back to Pasade-
na since, except to the business district.

Not only were the crusades not over, the terrorists’ war against the US was beginning to
heat up. Hambali realized that he ran a great risk having operations so closely together,
but he also knew that eventually the US government would catch up to his operatives in
America. Thus when Ali forwarded a message suggesting that the cell move to Pasade-
na, Hambali agreed. Perhaps, he thought, this will give them additional opportunities to
strike at the Americans. California, after all, held about 10% of the population of the US.

It had taken the storm 6 days to abate to the point where the utilities were able to send
out repair crews. In the interim, the automatic shutdown valves had prevented a signifi-
cant loss of gas and fuel. Thousands of people had either frozen to death or taken ill as
a result of the blackout and loss of heat. As soon as they were able, the four terrorists
rented a Ryder truck, purportedly to move to San Diego, California. They loaded the ex-
plosives aboard the rental truck and loosely convoyed the vehicles to Pasadena. Once
in the LA area, the men rented another storage locker, emptied and turned the vehicle
in at a Ryder facility in San Diego. Without realizing it, they had spelled the doom of the
terrorist cell.

In the weeks that followed the pipeline bombings, the size of the task force grew. Even-
tually, an ATF agent happened across a Ryder rental facility asking questions. He had

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the composite drawings with him and the clerk said that he’d rented a truck to a college
student who looked a little like both drawings, but not exactly like either. A forensic artist
was brought in and using the clerk’s memory and the two previous drawings, the artist
and the clerk were able to construct yet a third drawing. When the artist was finished,
the clerk announced, “That’s your man!” The ATF took the new sketch back to the turn-
in clerk in South Bend and after studying the new drawing, the clerk agreed that this
new picture was closer than his original drawing. The third drawing was also faxed to
the office that had originally rented the Hertz truck and the clerk there also agreed that
the likeness was more correct.

There hadn’t been any doubt from early on that the Hertz truck had been used to
transport the explosives. Trained dogs had been brought in and their reaction had guar-
anteed that explosives had been present in the truck at one time or another. According
to Ryder’s records, the truck had indeed traveled to San Diego and had been turned in.
The ATF ordered an immediate hold on the truck and dogs were brought in, once again,
to confirm that the truck had been used to transport explosives. Interestingly, the mile-
age on the truck was almost exactly what it was expected to be, so apparently there had
been no detours. However, when an FBI agent joined the ATF agent in the second in-
terview with the turn-in clerk in San Diego, they learned that the Ryder mileage as-
sumed that the renter passed through Los Angeles on his way to San Diego.

When this information was passed up the line, FBI and ATF agents began to flow into
LA. Then, the feds had a stroke of luck. Someone wondered out loud where the terror-
ists would have stored the explosives and the general consensus was that they might
have rented a storage locker. There are thousands of storage lockers in the greater LA
area, but the agents realized that given the travel time and such, the men had probably
rented a locker within a narrow time frame. They decided to begin checking locker rent-
als starting 3 days before the truck was turned in. It took dozens of agents hundreds of
hours, to assemble a list of potential lockers. The noose was closing on Ali and his cell.
It took another week before they hit pay dirt and a locker company employee recog-
nized the 3rd drawing. The trained explosives dogs were brought in to check the locker
from the outside and their reaction was immediate. The ATF contacted the LAPD bomb
squad and the explosives were removed under great security. A couple of news organi-
zations heard about the action at some storage locker company and tried to send re-
porters, but they were turned away several blocks from the business.

One of the news organizations then attempted to send its news helicopter to cover the
location but the pilot was politely but firmly informed that the airspace in a two-mile radi-
us of the site was closed. The pilot, somewhat of a local celebrity in his own right,
wasn’t about to disobey the FAA regardless of the urging of the newswoman aboard the
helicopter. Consequently the news organizations could only report a mysterious police
activity in a general area. Given the pressures of the news that day, only one station
ended up carrying the story and the station was known to be owned by a Jewish family.
Ali and his companions disliked the station because of the ownership and they never
watched it.

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The ATF and the FBI began a long-term stakeout of the storage locker. At the end of
the month, when the locker rental came due (1/1/08), the facility received a postal mon-
ey order in the mail to pay for the next month’s rental. The agents were not deterred alt-
hough they had hoped that someone would show up in person to pay the rent on the
locker. Meanwhile, the ATF and FBI labs had confirmed that the explosives they had
seized from the locker carried the same signature as the explosives used to destroy the
pipelines. The money order was subjected to forensic analysis too, but it bore only the
fingerprints of a post office employee and the clerk at the rental company.

Jakarta…

During mid-February, Hambali met yet again with the two bunglers.

“It is time for our next attack,” Hambali said. “Our brothers in America remain undetect-
ed and we must move before the American law enforcement agencies discover some-
thing to lead them to our brothers. I have forwarded instructions to our leader in America
to plan and make his next attack. This time, we shall attack another great American
icon, the bridge in San Francisco called the Golden Gate.”

“An admirable goal my brother,” the first man spoke. “Do they not guard the bridge?”

“The bridge stands on 2 great piers, my brother, and the piers are not guarded,” Ham-
bali replied.

“When…” the second man began.

“Soon,” Hambali replied.

Pasadena…

“We have our new mission my brothers and we shall need all of the explosives in stor-
age,” Ali said. “Rent a moving truck and meet me at the storage locker in 2 hours.”

The two security types left to rent the truck and Ali and his fellow diver loaded their
meager personal possessions aboard the van. When they had finished, they carefully
wiped down the entire apartment with a towel wetted with a mixture of isopropyl alcohol
and water. Two hours later both vehicles arrived at the storage locker within minutes of
each other. Ali, who had the only key, and his fellow diver were the last to arrive. By this
time the FBI had a SWAT team in place. The SWAT team had been on short notice and
arrived just moments before Ali. They waited until Ali reached for the padlock to insert
the key. Gottcha.

“This is the FBI! You are surrounded! Put your hands out from you bodies!”

The men were startled but only for the briefest of moments. They began to rush to the
van where their weapons were stored. The FBI SWAT team snipers took all four men

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down in a matter of seconds. The JI terrorist cell was dead.

Washington…

“Great news Mr. President,” Santorum said, “The FBI SWAT Team just took out that ter-
rorist cell at the storage locker in Burbank.”

“No survivors?” the President asked.

“No Sir, they made a move for some weapons, apparently and SWAT just took them
out.”

“Rick, can you keep a lid on this for say, 24-hours?” the President asked.

“Yes Sir, for as long as necessary, may I ask why?” Santorum inquired.

“The Law Enforcement Community in this country has taken a beating at the hands of
the media ever since those 9/11/01 attacks,” the President explained. “I want you,
Mueller, Goss and Truscott with me tomorrow when I hold a press conference to an-
nounce this thing. It’s about flippin’ time that the American public realized how much
work goes in to solving one of these cases.”

“We did get a couple of lucky breaks, Mr. President,” Santorum pointed out.

“Hog wash. You make your own luck in this business. Think about it, this thing was re-
solved through good old fashioned police work and we didn’t need to violate anyone’s
rights getting it done,” the President said. “There is nothing more valuable than experi-
ence in these cases. Now I know somebody probably made a lucky guess or two, but
that’s what they call intuition and experience. 1:00pm tomorrow in the briefing room.”

“Yes Sir,” Santorum said a smile on his face.

White House Briefing Room…

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

I have a brief statement to make and then these gentlemen whom I’m sure you all rec-
ognize and I will take a few questions. At 11:20am yesterday morning in Burbank, Cali-
fornia, the FBI’s SWAT Team killed the terrorists’ known to be responsible for the bomb-
ings of those pipelines the day after Thanksgiving and believed to be responsible for
bombing and destroying Hoover Dam.

The President paused as a murmur arose in the room and those idiot reporters stood
and applauded. He held up his hand to silence the reporters.

The ATF caught its first break in the case when someone identified an alleged college

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student, purportedly Filipino, who rented a Hertz truck to transport the explosives stolen
in that second explosives burglary. We ended up with two composite drawings of the
renter, neither of which was totally accurate. Despite an extensive search, we were un-
able to locate this individual. A task force under the command of Director Mueller and
including Secretary Santorum, Director Goss and Director Truscott conducted a mas-
sive search in the states of Michigan and Indiana.

After the second bombing we continued to follow up and identified another vehicle rent-
al. This vehicle was headed for California. We used good old-fashioned police work to
eventually locate the explosives in a storage locker in Burbank. The explosives were
removed and surveillance was maintained on the locker. Yesterday morning, the terror-
ists finally showed up to retrieve their explosives and after a brief altercation were killed.
At this time identification of the bodies is pending. We are absolutely certain that these
are the individuals responsible for the pipeline bombings. Because of information avail-
able to us which I am unable at this time to discuss, we are 99% certain that these
same individuals planted that bomb at Hoover Dam.

The United States has good law enforcement. Cases like these are very difficult to
solve, especially when a foreign national blends in with other foreign nationals living in
our country. The Directors and I will now accept a few questions.

The questioning lasted for about 30 minutes at which time the President departed. The
Task Force members remained for another half hour answering questions, but never
revealing that they had identified the terrorists as members of JI. You have to know
what the main news was in the media for the next 3 days.

Palmdale…

“I sure as hell wish it had been us that caught those terrorists,” Gary announced.

“What for, the FBI took them out?” Ron said.

“I wouldn’t have minded having those explosives, though,” Gary said.

“Yeah partner, but the feds picked those up a couple of months ago.”

“I know, but you can never have enough explosives,” Gary said. “We might have to fight
another revolution next year if the Democrats get in the White House.”

“Man, you really have it in for the Democrats,” Clarence said, “What’s that all about?”

“I don’t know Clarence,” Gary admitted. “I think maybe it goes back to the 2004 election.
We never did really find out where anyone stood on anything. And the BS with Dan Ra-
ther and CBS really made me angry. Rather went to Nam and he was a pretty good re-
porter at one time. But he did that story on Bush’s Guard service like maybe it was im-
portant and didn’t even get his facts straight. I could have lived with that I suppose, but

278
then Kerry picked it up and ran with it for a while. Is there some kind of a law that says a
politician has to be stupid? The Santorum guy seems pretty sharp and I’ve heard a lot of
good things about him. Why can’t they all be like that?”

“Politics make strange bedfellows Gar-Bear,” Ron suggested.

“That much is sure,” Gary said, “Not to speak ill of the dead but someone told me that
Bill and Hillary met because they had the same taste in women.”

“I never thought much of Boxer either, but her nuking the Middle East was refreshing,”
Gary continued. “And frankly, I don’t really care what her motivation was either. Maybe it
was because she was Jewish and maybe it was just because she wanted to do the right
thing.”

“Do you think the President will do anything to Indonesia?” Clarence asked.

“From what I’ve read, Indonesia is doing all they can to stop the terrorism, so I expect
not,” Gary opined. “Anybody check the sky lately? About all we need is for a comet to hit
the earth.”

“Just pray you’re standing under it when it hits partner and it won’t bother you one bit,”
Ron said.

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 37 – Destination Unknown

I see life and it’s passin’ right before my eyes

And the past is the past don’t regret it, time to realize
I need to walk on the wire just to catch my breath,
I don’t know how or where but I’m goin’ it’s all that I have left

It don’t matter where it takes me

Long as I can keep this feeling runnin’ through, my soul

Never took this road before -- destination unknown

Oh oh oh ohohoh -- destination unknown
Won’t be coming back this way gotta go it alone
Oh oh oh ohohoh -- destination unknown

See a chance gotta take it wanna meet my fate

‘Cause the last thing I ever wanted was to find out it’s too late
No way out when you’re in it deeper than the night
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel and I see it burning bright

It don’t matter where it takes me

Long as I can keep this feeling soarin’ through, my soul

Never took this road before -- destination unknown

Oh oh oh ohohoh -- destination unknown
Won’t be comin’ back this way gotta go it alone
Oh oh oh ohohoh -- destination unknown

One thing that Israelis did that Gary more or less agreed with was their terror campaign
aimed right back at the terrorists. Unfortunately it got them a lot of bad press, especially
from the liberal media. Probably the only reason that the Israelis hadn’t killed Arafat was
that it was guaranteed to start a war with their Arab neighbors. However, they no longer
had any Arab neighbors so maybe they’d get off the dime. Everyone thought that God
had said, Thou Shalt not Kill in the Bible, but the correct translation was Thou Shalt not
Murder. Apparently Israel occasionally thought themselves above God’s Law, but they
had held their own since 1948 so who could really blame them. Rabin had been a man
before his time, as had Sadat. And, it had gotten them both killed. That Sharon fella was
just a whole lot too militant to suit Gary’s tastes and every time CNN or any other media
dropped the name Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, Gary gave a silent prayer that it could be
so. It had been his brother Jonathan who had been killed in the Raid on Entebbe, the
sole Israeli military fatality. They used his nickname Yoni in the movie about the raid.

Babs must have warned the Israelis when she sent the B-2’s because they escaped the
carnage completely. Of course that meant that some of those Palestinian camps on the
West Bank and in Gaza got a pass, but without all of those Arab neighbors to interfere,
the Israelis seemed to be doing pretty good. About the only group in the world going

280
through leaders faster than the US was Hamas. Every time you looked, the Israelis
were killing another Hamas leader. Man, those guys must be down to the janitor trying
to stay in business. And Sharon had somehow managed to hang on, despite all of the
criticism. Must have been the reason for his stroke.

The UN had changed the makeup of the Security Council and at the moment was
pressing for Boxer to be tried for war crimes and genocide. There wasn’t any genocide
involved whatsoever. Those B-83’s didn’t check to see if you were a Christian, Muslim
or Jew, they just exploded. Boxer had dropped so far from sight that she’d probably die
of old age before they ever found her and charged her with war crimes anyway. And,
she’d given Libya a pass because Libya was at least trying to clean up its act. On the
political front, the Republicans were holding their own because of the President’s deci-
sion to go to level orange over Thanksgiving. Only CNN wouldn’t let it go, but that was
par for CNN.

The 2008 political campaigns were in full swing now and that Rick Santorum fella had
decided to make a bid for President. Santorum was well thought of in Pennsylvania, the
Senate and the country in general. The President had let it be known that Santorum
was behind raising the threat level over Thanksgiving and had given Santorum a strong
endorsement. The Democratic Party didn’t really have a good candidate for 2008, ei-
ther. The Three Amigos couldn’t put a finger on it but they were all in favor of Santorum
becoming the next President. The guy had a good rep and had done a reasonable job
as Secretary DHS. And, unlike 2004, this campaign was about the issues, not some 30-
year-old war records. The economy had pulled itself out of the toilet and it was hard for
anyone to make that an issue. And after an appropriate wait, DHS had identified the 4
terrorists as belonging to JI. Whoever was managing this campaign had his or her stuff
together and Santorum was leading his Democratic opponent by a margin of over 2 to
1. Would the US be able to weather having a pro-gun, clear thinking man in the White
House? A guy who didn’t appear to have any agenda except rebuilding the country?

Palmdale…

“Man, they’re really making progress on those dams,” Gary observed. “According to
FOX, they have all of the debris cleared and are ready to start construction. I didn’t real-
ize that Hoover was 660 feet thick at the base, I guess that I should have paid better at-
tention to those programs on the Discovery Channel.”

“Who are you going to vote for, Santorum?” Ron asked.

“Oh hell yeah, partner, although I’m not sure the country can handle having a guy like
him in the White House,” Gary replied.

“Why’s that?” Clarence asked.

“Are you kidding Clarence?” Gary retorted, “This guy’s a Republican who actually has a
domestic agenda. That’s almost an oxymoron. Putting in those desalinization plants is

281
going to really help the water situation in the long run, too. But, I guess that Arnold didn’t
have much of a choice, did he?”

“Sure he did Gar-Bear,” Ron chuckled, “We could have blamed him for things beyond
his control and recalled him just like we did Gray Davis.”

“You know I voted to recall that Davis fella,” Gary said, “But I sort of think in light of eve-
rything that came out he got a raw deal. Of course when California deregulated the utili-
ties, they were asking for trouble. As much as I liked Ronald Reagan, I never quite
agreed with all of the deregulation he pushed through. But do you know who I really
blame for 90% of the troubles we have in this country? The Justice Department, that’s
who. They broke up Ma Bell and it’s been going downhill ever since. And the funny thing
is that MCI has the highest phone rates in the country.”

During the last half of the 20th Century, America had undergone some fundamental
changes. All of a sudden, everyone was his brother’s keeper whether he wanted to be
or not. It had started in the 1960’s with the opposition to the war in Vietnam and just es-
calated. It really didn’t matter if one was speaking of Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush
Sr., Clinton or Bush Jr. and the others that followed. There had been fundamental
changes in the American society. Guys like The Three Amigos and the Squirrels were
now pretty much considered old fashioned and ‘out-of-step’ with the times. Never mind
that all they believed was that the Constitution was the heart of America, the liberals
were trying to rewrite the Constitution, a paragraph at a time. Gary often used his Con-
stitutional Law book from college when he worked on his stories. The book, which was
published in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s, stated that the 2nd Amendment wasn’t im-
portant. Yeah right, neither was breathing unless you wanted to live.

The 2nd Amendment was, in Gary’s mind, the thing that kept the Constitution working. It
permitted an armed society and with an armed society, it was nigh on impossible for an-
yone to circumvent the Constitution and turn the country into a dictatorship. But, these
days, people didn’t do such a good job of raising their children at times and those
spoiled brats seemed to think it was perfectly good thinking to take a gun to school and
shoot up their classmates.

It only seemed to take a single individual or a small group of individuals to mess it up for
everyone else. Someone had taken a weapon to a school in Stockton, California and by
the time the dust settled and the bodies were counted, the citizens of California had lost
a major portion of their rights to keep and bear arms. What in the hell difference did it
make if a rifle had a bayonet lug, a pistol grip or a standard military flashhider? Most of
that stuff was cosmetic anyway. Who the hell ran around with a bayonet? And a flash-
hider? Talk about a misnomer. The only real way to hide the flash on a rifle was to in-
stall a suppressor.

You could just about tell which states had the most repressive guns laws because they
had the highest crime rates. They’d put you in jail in California for importing a 30 round
magazine for your Mini-14. These liberals seemed to emphasize form over substance.

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That guy who had shot Reagan had used a .22 handgun, not an AK-47 or an AR-15.
And the argument that ‘who needs a 30-round magazine to go deer hunting’ was just so
much fluff. Nobody needed, or for that matter probably used, a 30-round magazine for
deer hunting. 30-round magazines were in the domain of the Assault Rifle and the Con-
stitution didn’t say the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,
except for blah, blah and blah.

What the US was experiencing was a resurgence of the roaring 20’s where gangsters
got their hands on the latest firepower, i.e., Thompson Sub machineguns, etc. The na-
tion had overreacted to the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and it was doing it again
70 years later. And as the US moved from an agrarian society to an industrialized nation
forcing people to congregate in cities, the liberals among society had an even greater
say. As far back as Wyatt Earp the population was being disarmed. At least Earp didn’t
say you couldn’t own a gun, just that you couldn’t wear it in town. In some parts of the
world, you just went down to the corner market and picked up your AK. In other parts of
the ‘more civilized’ world, it was almost impossible to own a shotgun.

01Mar08…

“It sure is nice to have some peace and quiet for a change,” Ron smiled.

“I agree Ron,” Gary said, “And I’ve been taking some time to watch the election cam-
paign coverage on TV. They are actually running a civilized campaign. It sure is refresh-
ing to see the candidates discussing what they’d like to accomplish in the next 4 years. I
just don’t know what’s happened to the Democratic Party. They used to be pretty rea-
sonable even though they were liberal. But man, this candidate of theirs is proposing a
total ban on firearms. He claims that no one hunts for food anymore and that firearms
are relics from a bygone era. Claims that they all belong in museums.”

“Has Santorum countered his claim?” Clarence asked.

“Yeah, he pointed out that the more restrictive the gun laws, the worse the crime rate.
But I’ll tell you something; since all of those terrorist attacks, the mood of the country
has changed. A whole lot of people must feel like they’ve been mugged.” Gary reported.

Several of the anti-gun organizations had banded together under the leadership of Sa-
rah Brady. Her husband had been shot in the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan
and survived but was permanently injured. She had made it her life’s work to try and
ban handguns and eventually had gotten the Brady Bill passed. The Brady Bill provided
for the instant background check. Yeah right, instant as in 5 day waiting period. Did an-
yone really believe that making someone wait 5 days to acquire a firearm would accom-
plish anything? Had John Hinckley purchased his handgun the morning of the shooting?
Nope, maybe 4 months earlier to replace his guns seized at an airport while he was
stalking President Carter.

Anyway, the new organization of anti-gun groups was throwing its full support to the

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Democratic candidate. And as in the case of the pro-lifers, the new organization had
within its ranks militancy. That was quite the contradiction, but what can I say. The mili-
tant pro-lifers killed doctors who performed abortions and there was some talk among
the militant anti-gun folks that what gun-loving Americans needed was a dose of their
own medicine. Never say never, because never is a darned long time.

Things were changing around Palmdale, too. A couple of Hispanics gangsters had sto-
len a car and tried to run it through the storefront of Sandy’s gun store. They didn’t pen-
etrate the steel cage until the third try and by that time the Sheriff’s Department had re-
sponded and arrested them on the spot. (really) Johnny Jones had been promoted to
Lieutenant with the Sheriff’s Department. Everyone was getting accustomed to having
two hospitals in town, too. The Citadel had been forced to sell energy to Edison well into
the winter, stopping only around the 24th of February when a new power plant went
online in Kern County. Damon had a job working with an insulation company, the same
as he had in Iowa before he came to California and Derek was now the assistant man-
ager of an auto parts store. Chris was working on a new show because ET had finally
dropped him. And, Gary was getting pretty tired of living in the hospital basement. Gary
and Sharon had managed to accumulate a fair amount of money between his various
sources of income and the in kind payments from the Citadel.

“Let’s build a new house and get out of the hospital,” Sharon suggested.

“Why?” Gary asked, “You sure can’t beat the rent we pay for this apartment.”

“I suppose it’s ok if you like living in a dungeon,” Sharon said, “Don’t you want to take
the money we’ve saved up and build your own house with a bomb shelter and all of
that?” Boy, did that woman know which buttons to push.

“Do you think we have enough money saved up to do that honey?” Gary asked.

“If we don’t, I will after I collect on your life insurance,” Sharon THOUGHT.

“I think so dear,” Sharon said.

“But you know how I want to build a new house with a basement under the basement
and all of that,” Gary said, “Are you sure?”

“Just get off the dime, dang it,” Sharon THOUGHT.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she replied.

“Well, but we’re going to need someone to design the home for us,” Gary agreed.

“No we don’t, dear,” Sharon said, “Just take one of those 50 or 60 blueprints you’ve
drawn and get an engineer to look it over.”

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“I knew she’d come around,” Gary THOUGHT.

The truth was they both wanted out of the cellar and in their own home. While the
apartment had its advantages, the sun never shined and they were both tired of that.
Gary had even written about his ‘perfect’ home in one of his stories. It had a sub-
basement shelter and a basement for a family room. That way they could keep the main
floor spotless and never had to be embarrassed if unexpected company showed up.
House cleaning wasn’t one of Sharon’s strong suits and Gary was hardly any better. He
finally learned not to leave dirty socks laying all over the house and put trash in the
trash cans, but that was the limit of his being domesticated. And to be perfectly honest,
Gary wasn’t getting any stronger. Since that last hospital stay, he’d recovered to a point
and then had sort of leveled off. His blood sugar and blood pressure were well managed
and he had a Nebulizer plus oxygen for sleeping, but he never fully regained his
strength. It seemed like every time Gary got sick, he lost a little ground. Maybe that just
went with growing old.

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 The Three Amigos Part II – Revolution – Chapter 38 – The New House

Over the years, Gar-Bear had designed several dozen homes. It was sort of a hobby of
his when he was bored with everything else. The latest design was for a 40’x80’ one-
story mansion. Both ends of the home had a huge bedroom suite and they were mirror
images of each other. Each included a full bathroom, walk-in closet and huge bedroom.
Gary had even drawn in the furniture to make sure the plans worked. The bedroom
suites were 24’ wide for a total of 48’ leaving a 40’ deep by 32’ wide area. This he divid-
ed front and back. The front half was a living room with a couple of those conversation
pits and the back half was divided up among the dining room, kitchen and a laundry
room. In front of the laundry room was a powder room for guests. This was his best plan
and because it contained so few corners, the cost of building the plan was deceptive.
What gave every appearance of being a $300 thousand house in Palmdale could be
built for $200 thousand.

Gary intended to spend the full $300,000, but a lot of that would be hidden from view.
The sub-basement would have 2’ thick reinforced concrete walls, floor and ceiling. It
would contain a second 2’ thick wall with a blast door separating it from a stairwell down
from the basement. The steel staircase would be accessible from the basement through
a secret panel. He had used this set up in one of his previous stories where the 3-
amigos moved to Holbrook. The difference was that now he could build it for real. He
had decided that Ron and Clarence had a point about using a diesel generator and in-
tended to put in a Cummins power 40kw model DGBC 60 Hz generator. That would al-
low him to go all-electric. He intended to look around and find a large, used fuel tank for
diesel fuel. At 100% power, the generator would burn ~ 25,400 gallons per year. He had
a source for the blast door and the air filtration system. He’d learned writing his stories
that the best solution to the waste problem was to use a sewage pump.

Gary had also figured out from his stories that the generator ought to go in the stair well.
That meant a second blast door at the top of the stairs, but it was worth avoiding carbon
monoxide poisoning in case the exhaust system developed a leak. He didn’t really in-
tend to make the shelter too fancy. He’d get his radios from the old shelter for the
comm. room and get Derek to help him move the antennas. The gun safe was more
than adequate for his selection of weapons and he could put it in the storeroom with all
of the ammo and other weapons. Their previous experience had shown Gary that they
needed to avoid overcrowding at all costs. That had been a miserable two weeks with
24 of them in a 6-person shelter. Since the 11/12/05 event, they’d done a lot of experi-
menting with vacuum bag sealers and various ways to store food for extended periods.
He opted for a 25ft³ chest freezer and a smaller upright upstairs. He also opted for a re-
frigerator without a freezer because the combination unit wasted space. He decided on
a 6-burner electric cook top, realizing it was over kill, but a burner didn’t use electricity
unless you turned it on. To round out the kitchen appliances, he added an electric deep
fat fryer, Kitchen aide industrial mixer and assorted small appliances like a can open-
er/knife sharpener, etc.

They had that bed they bought when they moved to the hospital so he decided to put it

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in the shelter and buy 2 identical new beds for the bedroom suites on the main floor.
The furniture store had some really nice solid oak furniture and since they were partial
to oak, they went with two identical sets. The old bedroom furniture went with the old
bed to the shelter.

Upstairs he would have preferred gas appliances, but he was going all-electric so he
essentially duplicated what he chosen for the shelter. When it came time to put in a
washer and dryer, he got Sharon those fancy Maytag units she wanted for upstairs and
something far more modest for the shelter. Once he had the appliances all contracted
for, Gary met again with the engineer so that the engineer could make any necessary
changes before construction actually began. They had about $250,000 of the $300,000
needed for the project. But, that was going to cut them awfully tight on cash so they ar-
ranged a bank loan of $100,000 and held on to the extra $50k. Gary knew from his pre-
vious experience that there’d be a dozen things he’d overlooked and wanted a little flex-
ibility.

In terms of the main floor construction of the actual home, Gary wanted to do a few un-
usual things. For example, he wanted Kevlar in the walls and some really heavy duty
rolled steel shutters so they could button up the house tight. The home itself would use
the “Farnsworth” construction method with masonry walls lined with a 2×6 core and the
foam plus fiberglass insulation. When it came time to select the windows Gary ran into
his first major problem. It seemed than no one made the high e-rated windows in bullet-
proof glass. That’s right, bulletproof glass. He suggested that the engineer had better
find them somewhere. The engineer contacted Pella Roll Screen and special ordered
the windows, and they weren’t cheap. That left them with the doors to secure. The ex-
pensive windows forced them to go with hot rolled ¾” plate as an outer security shutter.

The masonry walls could be of any construction and Gary decided that 12” of reinforced
concrete was an excellent idea. And, every little change he made to the project added
to the cost. In the end, they would have needed a bank loan anyway, so both Gary and
Sharon were happy that they decided to borrow the $100k.

It took a little over two months to construct the home and Gary was there every day fol-
lowing the progress. The engineer had suggested that they put a layer of stucco over
the concrete but Sharon wanted zero maintenance vinyl siding. When it was finally
done, the house was impressive. And most of the better features of the home weren’t
even visible, like the Kevlar wall lining and that sub-basement shelter. Of course the
home stuck out like a sore thumb with that vinyl siding; most homes in Palmdale were
stucco. But, they’d built the home a bit off the beaten path and with any kind of luck it
would be years before they had to contend with having neighbors.

With all of the durable medical equipment Gary had accumulated he could pretty well
equip a small first aid room in the shelter. But he used that equipment on a daily basis,
his side of the bed looked like a hospital room, so he decided to just move the stuff if the
need arose. The outer doors ended up being ¾” hot rolled steel plate, like the shutters.
They were sectioned and connected with heavy-duty piano type hinges. It was strictly a

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manual affair, requiring old Gar-Bear to walk the house and close the shutters. Sharon
followed along inside of the home dropping the bars into the brackets, firmly locking the
shutters closed. They’d made a couple of trial runs just to see how long it would take
and that turned out to be a good thing. Although it looked like an easy task, it actually
required a little practice to make the operation run smoothly. Their best time was 9
minutes to button up.

Gary promised to do a better job picking up after himself and said he’d try to help get-
ting the trash out. Sharon said she’d do a better job of keeping the house picked up.
Then they laughed at each other and called Ginger’s Maids and arranged for them to
come clean the house once a week.

When the electricians had wired the house, Gary had them wire in multiple category 6
Ethernet outlets in each room. They had also wired in multiple telephone and CATV out-
lets. Years of never being able to move furniture around because of a single TV outlet,
etc. had suggested to Gary that the easiest way to deal with his frustration was to plan
ahead and pay for the extra outlets. The electricians put a double box on one side of a
stud and a duplex on the other. The double box had a CATV connector, a phone outlet,
a cat 6 outlet and one reserved space. The duplex had the top half switched and the
bottom half hot. The real secret lay in the fact that despite the electricians’ objections,
Gary had a pair of boxes every 6’. Of course, the electricians hadn’t objected too stren-
uously, they charged $50 a box for a duplex and $75 a box for the double boxes.

The cat 6 cables were all terminated in a patch panel in the Family Room basement.
The patch panel was mounted in one of those equipment racks and it also contained a
synchronous DSL connection through a router, a 24 position gigabit Ethernet switch, a
firewall and a true UPS. His monster half-tower computer that he used at the hospital
was converted to a server and for the first time, Gary had a true network with a file
server. He bought a new Dell computer slightly less powerful than his server. Gary con-
tracted with a local firm for a maintenance contract to keep his network up. Everything
he knew about networks could be written on the head of a pin. And, with the T-1 con-
nection Gar-Bear had 1.5mb upload and download and he could hardly tell the differ-
ence from being hooked into the network at the hospital.

Late Spring, 2008…

Linda’s father had passed early in the year and the estate had finally settled. True to his
word, Ron and Lyn had placed their house on the market. They had long planned to sell
their home and move to New Mexico so Ron could be near his brother Robert and quite
honestly had been waiting for Linda’s father to die and for her to receive her inheritance.
They old guy was in his 90’s and had cancer, among other things. God, how Gary hated
to see The Three Amigos break up. The altitude where Robert lived was 6,200’. Gary
was pretty certain Ron was signing his death warrant making the move but he kept his
mouth shut. Ron, like Gary, had COPD and Ron, unlike Gary, had major heart prob-
lems. It was just a matter of time, in Gary’s opinion, before Ron dropped dead. Their
home sold quickly and it seemed as if in an instant they were gone. But there was still

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his amigo Clarence who the next time he saw him announced that Lucy and he were
moving back to Alabama. And, in another blink of an eye, they were gone, too. But, life
is like that, isn’t it?

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 39 –
Old Friends

God, how Gary missed Ron and Clarence. They’d had a pretty good run as The Three
Amigos, dating all of the way back to 1992 when Gary had met Ron at a RAFT meeting.
There had been a couple of gaps in their friendship, like from 92 to 95 when Gary
wasn’t ready to accept his alcoholism and then again in the 97 to 99 period when Gary
had gone through that thing with divorcing Sharon to chase the ‘bimbos’. Apparently old
Ronald McDonald had assumed that Gary would figure it out sooner or later and get his
act together. The only real surprise had come when Sharon had accepted Gary back
and they’d remarried. Gary seemed to have some sort of natural born luck, it was a
shame he wasn’t a gambler. Gary didn’t gamble because he found it to be as addictive
as the booze and how many vices could one person manage?

And now they were gone; their nice homes with the bomb shelters owned by someone
else. Surprisingly, the bomb shelters had returned more than their cost when the homes
were sold. Gary didn’t know for certain, but he sort of speculated that a couple of sur-
vival-oriented families had purchased the homes. Damon had been promoted to a lead
worker position and seemed to really enjoy working for the insulation company. Derek
had been advanced to store manager at another of his company’s stores, this one in
Lancaster.

Santorum had won the election handily, the margin was large enough that the media
called it a landslide, and the country was continuing the recovery from all of that terrorist
business. First there had been the 30 suitcase nukes and the 182 dirty bombs. Then,
they’d had to contend with the UN for a while. Finally some Indonesian terrorists had
blown Hoover Dam and the resulting flood had taken out the 4 downstream dams. And
finally, those same terrorists had hit several American pipelines the days after Thanks-
giving 2007.

In the meantime, the B & M G Foundation had decided to get into a new venture, charity
hospitals, and their first project had been to build the Citadel right there in Palmdale.
The Three Amigos had been hired to supervise construction of the place and they’d built
a combination Hospital/Bomb Shelter that was totally energy independent. It was the
only ‘public’ building in Palmdale that truly qualified as a bomb shelter. Gary and Sharon
had even lived in the place for a while until it began to depress them. After that, they
built a nice ‘Dream Home’ out in the boonies a ways and that place was a veritable for-
tress.

They rarely used the main floor of the home except to sleep and do laundry. The base-
ment was subdivided into an area for Gary’s computer set up/office and a large portion
for Sharon’s quilting room. They called the basement their Recreation Room and spent
most of their time there doing one thing or another. They didn’t even use the dining
room upstairs. There was a small table with 2 chairs and a bench stuck in one corner of
the kitchen and they just took their meals there when they ate at home. Gary was still
technically on the Board at the Citadel and was entitled to ‘in kind’ compensation in the

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form of meals and free medical services. So when they went out to eat, they invariably
ended up eating at the Hospital Cafeteria.

Gary couldn’t go near the hospital without thinking about his amigos, Ron and Clarence
and eventually they cut their eating out to about 4 meals a year. Those were always
trips to Outback were they could get a good steak. A full year, and perhaps a bit more,
had passed since Ron and Clarence had left. There had been some phone calls at first
from New Mexico and Alabama but they had sort of dried up. Gary had even gone back
to the DMV and reapplied for a driver’s license. He ended up being required to get a
note from Dr. J, taking the written and driving tests, but eventually acquired a restricted
driver’s license. The restriction was that Gary had to resubmit a medical compliance
certificate annually.

This gave Gary the ability to make the occasional AA meeting, but he almost hated go-
ing because everyone was always asking him about Ron and Clarence. But, alcoholics
who recover through AA had made a long-term commitment to attend the AA meetings.
It kept their perspective fresh and reminded them what it used to be like. The single
greatest risk a recovering alcoholic ran was getting over confident and stopping meet-
ings. Every once in a while, some ‘old timer’ would go out, e.g., get drunk, fall off the
wagon, or any of a hundred things you could call it. The problem with that was that he or
she picked up right where he or she had left off.

Recent studies seemed to indicate that the genetic aspect of alcoholism was that a de-
fective gene allowed the brain to metabolize alcohol in addition to the liver metabolizing
alcohol. When that occurred the resultant Tetra Hydro Iso Quilinines, aka THQ’s or
THIQ’s were stored in the brain. The THQ’s had the quality of being an endorphin like
substance and the body never removed them from the brain. Endorphins produce a
pleasurable effect. They were activated when the alcoholic consumed more booze and
produced some new THQ’s. That explained why an alcoholic picked up his or her drink-
ing right where they’d left off. Gary needed that reminder that even ‘old timers’ could get
right back into their disease.

Gary decided to catch a 9:30am Wednesday meeting. He steeled himself for the inevi-
table questions about Ron and Clarence and headed out. When he pulled into the park-
ing lot he happened to notice a car that looked a lot like Clarence’s but attributed it to
coincidence. But he almost had a heart attack when he walked into the room and his
amigo Clarence was sitting there. There was a lot of hand shaking and hugging in the
minutes that followed. Gary sort of figured that Clarence would share during the partici-
pation meeting so he didn’t badger Clarence with a lot of questions.

“My name is Clarence and I’m an alcoholic,” Clarence began when he raised his hand
to share. “My Lucy and I moved back to Alabama about a year or so back. There is
some famous saying about you can never go home and that sure turned out to be the
case with us. We’re old enough that most of our friends have died off or moved away
and it was like being in a strange land. I got’s some relatives there but after a while even
their company got old. We never got around to buying a home either. Anyway, we

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talked it over and decided to move back to Palmdale. We left most of our stuff in storage
to be delivered when we got a home, so most of our stuff never left town.”

Clarence went on to share some of his other experiences, and then several other peo-
ple shared. As typically happens Clarence’s sharing had created a topic and everyone
who shared related similar stories about moves gone wrong, etc. After the meeting Gary
asked Clarence if he could buy him lunch, he really wanted to visit with his friend. Clar-
ence wanted to visit with Gary just as about as badly, so they headed to the Country
Café.

“Wow! I haven’t been in this place since the Tony days,” Gary observed after they
placed their orders.

“You ever hear any more from that SOB?” Clarence asked; Tony had taken Clarence for
a pile of money too.

“Nope, I’m just hoping that he got his when they nuked LA,” Gary said. “So it didn’t work
out going back to Alabama, huh?”

“Well Gary, it was like I said in the meeting, most of Lucy and my friends were gone;
you know died or had moved on,” Clarence began to explain. “Spent some time with my
kids that live back there, but they have lives of their own now. The other relatives, well,
you can only find so much to visit about. After a while I sort felt out of place. Lucy and I
talked it over and realized that most of our current friends, plus my sister, are here in
Palmdale, so we just got in the car and headed home. Places change, people change
and the times change. It just wasn’t home and Palmdale is.”

The waitress dropped off their lunches and they continued to visit.

“So, what have you been doing to keep busy?” Clarence asked.

“Well partner,” Gary said, “I finally got off my dead butt and got my driver’s license back
so I could get around a little better,” Gary explained. “Sharon said she was willing to
take me to meetings, but it seemed to inconvenience her quite a bit. Say, where are you
and Lucy staying?”

“Lucy is at my sister’s at the moment,” Clarence said, “I expect we’ll get a motel until we
can find another home.” (Clarence’s sister has the cleanest apartment I’ve ever been
in.)

“You’ll do no such thing,” Gary said, “You know that the dream house we built has 2
complete master suites. You and Lucy are going to stay with us.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose, Gary,” Clarence said.

“You wouldn’t be, man,” Gary insisted. “We have never even had occasion to use our

292
dining room. Besides, housing is pretty tight at the moment and I have an idea that I’d
like to run by you.”

They finished their lunch making small talk and Clarence said he’d pick up Lucy and be
by the house in about an hour. Gary went straight home and helped Sharon make up
the bed in the second master suite. They never even bothered to make up the bed be-
fore; they’d just put on the bedspread for appearances. Even the sheets were new and
still contained the sizing. Clarence had either never heard of Lombardi time or didn’t
much pay attention to it, Lucy and he didn’t arrive until about an hour and a half after
they left the restaurant. Sharon and Lucy were glad to see each other and the 2 amigos
unloaded the car into the second master suite. They sat down for a cup of coffee and
after, Gary gave Clarence the grand tour while Sharon showed Lucy the upstairs and
her quilting area.

Clarence was a bit surprised at some of the things Gary had done. Plate steel shutters
for the windows and doors on the main floor, outlets for TV, phone, and computer eve-
rywhere you looked and even Kevlar in the walls behind a foot of reinforced concrete.
Gary took Clarence to the basement and proudly showed off his network setup. Clar-
ence, by this time, was simply shaking his head. Gary picked up a Stanley garage door
opener and pointed it towards a blank wall. The wall slowly rotated open to reveal a
blast door.

“This is where it gets good, partner,” Gary told Clarence, “Check this out.”

There was a set of stairs going down. They descended to the foot of the stairs and Gary
pointed out the diesel-powered generator under the stairs. He told Clarence that it was
a 35kw prime, 40kw standby generator and that he’d put in a used 40,000-gallon fuel
tank and had just recently finished filling it. The fuel, he said, was all stabilized with PRI-
D. Clarence knew about Gary’s plans for the shelter. Gary spun the wheel and opened
the blast door, revealing a second blast door, which he opened and they entered the
shelter.

Man what a sight that was. This sure wasn’t any cramped little shelter. Immediately to
the left of the door as you entered was a lounge area with tables to seat maybe 24 peo-
ple and a 27” TV. To the right of the door was a kitchen area with cafeteria type serving.
Further on to the right was a small room with a sign on the door saying COMM Shack,
and behind it was what turned out to be a bedroom. On the left side of the shelter,
across from the COMM Shack and Bedroom, were 2 more bedrooms, just a shade
smaller than the one on the right. At the end of the hallway, a door opened into a large
storage room. Off to the left, there was a small area that looked a lot like an examining
room in a doctor’s office. To the right of that sat a gun safe. The remainder of the stor-
age room contained a large chest freezer and shelving filled nearly to over flowing with
food and supplies.

“Man, this ain’t nothing like that little shelter you worked so hard to build in your back-
yard,” Clarence said.

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“I was never going to go through an experience like that again, Clarence,” Gary ob-
served. “In a pinch, this shelter can handle the same 24 people, but without making you
feel like you’re in a closet. Since our kids can all ride one out in the first shelter I built or
at the Citadel, I don’t expect that we’d ever have more than a dozen people in a TSHTF
scenario.”

“So what’s this idea you had?” Clarence asked.

“I ended up buying 2½ acres go get the land for this place,” Gary explained. Being out in
the country like it is, I had to put in a septic system and a well. You know how I operate
pal; I put in a septic system big enough to handle five homes this size, hell, maybe even
6. I don’t know if you noticed but the southern roof of this house is covered by those so-
lar panels and I built a 6 stall detached garage out back with solar panels on its roof too.
Put in a 6” well because it just didn’t cost that much more than a regular well. Right now,
we’re running on a small 1,000-gallon water tank, but I was planning to upgrade that as
soon as more homes were built on this site. I’ll give you a ½ acre lot if you’ll agree to
build a new home out here next to us.”

“Gee, I don’t know,” Clarence replied. “From the looks of things you must have spent a
half million dollars on this place.”

“Clarence, the house and basement came in at a cool $200 grand,” Gary smiled, “Alto-
gether I only have $300 grand in the place including the shelter and that detached gar-
age. We were about 50 grand short for the project, so I borrowed 100 grand and kept
the 50 we had to supply the shelter. Of course it didn’t run near that so I actually have
money in the bank and am ahead in paying off the 100 grand loan. For about $200
thousand, Lucy and you could put in a home just like ours and we could connect it from
your basement to that stairwell with a tunnel. Doesn’t make much sense to me to have a
shelter under every home.”

“I don’t know what to think Gary,” Clarence said, “But I’ll talk it over with Lucy and see
what she thinks.”

“Fair enough, how’s steak sound for supper?” Gary asked.

“Sounds good to me Gar-Bear,” Clarence relied.

Gary pulled 4 individually wrapped New York strips from the freezer and they headed
upstairs, locking up behind themselves. Darn, that felt good, no one had called him Gar-
Bear in over a year. Gary sat the steaks on the kitchen counter to thaw and checked
their supply of potatoes. They needed to make a grocery run for potatoes and some
mushrooms to go with the steaks so Gary asked Sharon if she minded running to Al-
bertsons. Sharon had seen Gary carrying the steaks to the kitchen and she was already
getting her jacket on and had her purse, so that went well. And oh, she just remem-
bered, Ron had called and wanted Gary to call him back.

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“Let’s go down to my office so we can use the speaker phone.” Gary suggested to Clar-
ence.

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 40 –
Old Friends 2

Gary sorted through a pile of papers and finally went to his Windows address book.
Gary was one of those people who kept everything important on his computer. He found
the number, picked up the handset and dialed the number. Lynda answered, as always,
and they visited a few minutes. Gary asked to speak to Ronald and she told him Ron
was bedridden but that she’d take the portable phone to him.

“Ron Green,” Ron answered. Gary could hear the weakness in Ron’s voice.

“Hey uglier than me, how’s it hanging?” Gary asked.

“Is that you Gar-Bear? Ron replied.

“Yeah, it’s me and I have someone here with me who wants to speak to you so I’m put-
ting this on the speaker phone,” Gary explained.

“Can you hear us okay Ron,” Gary asked after pushing the speaker button.

“Clear as a bell you old fart, what’s up?” Ron asked.

“I’m just returning your call,” Gary said.

“I didn’t call you, that must have been Lyn,” Ron protested.

“Hello Ron,” Clarence said.

“Is that you Clarence?” Ron asked, “Gar-Bear said you moved to Alabama.”

“Ron, it didn’t work out and we moved back to Palmdale,” Clarence explained. “How are
you doing?”

“To be perfectly honest fellas, not worth a crap,” Ron announced.

“My sister in law died about 4 weeks ago, Robert was taking it pretty badly and at the
Cemetery he had a major heart attack. They transported him by air ambulance to Albu-
querque, but he died 5 days later,” Ron explained.

“Ron I’m really sorry for your loss, but you don’t sound so darned hot yourself,” Gary
boldly stated.

“Well, I picked up a cold, Gar-Bear but it should be ok,” Ron said.

“Bullcrap,” Gary remarked strongly, “Put Linda back on the phone, I’ll talk to you later.”

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“Yes Gary?” Linda asked.

“Ron had a lot of shortness of breath since you moved to New Mexico?” Gary asked.

“Well, yes,” Linda replied, “But he seems to be acclimating.”

“I’m going to be straight with you Linda,” Gary said “If you don’t get that crusty old hus-
band of yours on an air ambulance and fly him to the Citadel, he’s going to be dead in
weeks, perhaps even days. You remember back in 2001 when my dad died don’t you?”

“Well yes,” Linda replied. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“My dad had congestive heart failure the same as Ron and he caught cold,” Gary re-
minded Linda. “He spent 7 weeks in the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and died anyway. I’m
no medical expert, but the Citadel is the best hospital in Palmdale and maybe even in
California. Now are you going to fly him here or do I have to charter an air ambulance
and come after him? I’m not going to lose one of my best friends to a common cold.”

“Well, all right, but I think that you’re definitely over reacting,” Linda reluctantly agreed.

“Look, I’ll have the Citadel contact an air ambulance for you,” Gary suggested, “Where’s
the nearest one to where you live?”

“I think the nearest one with the kind of range it would take to get to Palmdale might be
in Albuquerque,” Linda said, “I’m not sure.”

“You throw some clothes together and get someone to pick up your animals to board
them,” Gary said, “The ambulance is on the way. I’ll talk to you later.”

Gary dialed the Citadel and identified himself. He told the operator that this was a medi-
cal emergency and that he needed to talk to Dr. E stat. For the one time since that
whole Citadel thing had come up, Gary began to really throw his weight around. Dr. E
was on the phone in about 4 minutes and Gary carefully recounted the situation with
Ronald, putting extra emphasizes where he thought it necessary. Dr. E had been Ron’s
cardiologist since 1992 and he didn’t really need to see Ron’s file to remember Ron
Green. And apparently his professional assessment, based on the limited information
Gary was giving him was enough that he agreed with Gary. Dr. E said he’d get some-
one to immediately order an air ambulance out of Albuquerque to transport Ron to the
Citadel. Gary asked Dr. E to instruct the ambulance crew to allow Linda to ride along
and the Dr. agreed.

Kevin was due to be released from prison any day now, but Kevin was as useless as
teats on a boar. Gary tracked down John, who was working security at the Citadel and
filled him in. Jennifer and her family plus Brenda and her husband had since moved
back to Ft. Smith and Gary got their numbers from John. He then put in a call to Jen-
nifer and filled her in. Jennifer told him that they wanted to come, but money was just a

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little tight. Gary told Jennifer that she should make reservations on the next flight out
and call him back with the details and he’d pay for the tickets. Gary knew in his heart
that were the situations reversed, his best friend Ronald would do the same for him, if
he could.

Linda called and said the air ambulance was there and that they’d be airborne in a few
minutes. Ron, she said, wasn’t doing so hot either. Gary told her that Jennifer and
Brenda were on the way, too. Some people seem to work best under pressure and this
was definitely a high-pressure situation. Gary hadn’t felt so alive in years and he was
making things happen. He arranged for Mary, Derek’s wife, to pick up Jennifer and
Brenda at LAX and stopped to take a breather. Clarence just sat there awestruck, he
had never seen Gary operate when he was at his best.

The hospital called sometime later indicating that the air ambulance from New Mexico
was inbound. They’d had to stop to refuel, but should be at the hospital within 30
minutes. Gary reached into his desk drawer and pulled out his Hospital ID tag along
with Clarence’s. Gary had kept both Ron and Clarence’s ID’s when they resigned from
the board. Then Gary put in another stat call to Dr. Shankar and filled him in on what
was going down. Shankar had treated Ron for his OSA and was familiar with Ron’s his-
tory. By the time Gary and Clarence finally got to the hospital, the helicopter was sitting
on the pad. The two amigos went straight to the emergency room but stayed back out of
the way and observed. Dr. E had Ron wired for sound and was closely monitoring Ron’s
cardiac condition. Dr. S had ordered Ron placed in an induced coma and they were us-
ing a respirator on him. The doctors seemed to have everything well in hand and after a
bit, the two of them came over and talked to Gary and Clarence.

“How did you know?” Dr. E asked, “This was a close call.”

“Dr. E, I had no idea, but back in 2001 my Dad died after being in Mayo Clinic with the
same sort of situation,” Gary explained. “I just assumed a worst case scenario and put
the balls in motion.

“Your friend,” Dr. S explained, “Has some pneumonia and his lungs are slightly en-
larged. What’s the altitude where they live now?”

“I understand that it’s about 6,200 feet,” Gary replied. “Is he going to be alright?”

Dr. E took the lead. “If my colleague here can get his lungs cleared up it doesn’t appear
that there has been any significant damage to his heart, so my best guess is that he’ll
be ok.”

“Dr. S, do you remember how much trouble you had with me back when I was admitted
to AV a while back?” Gary asked.

“Do I ever,” Shankar chuckled.

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“Listen, I don’t mean to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong (like hell),” Gary said, “But
I believe that you’ll find Ron to be an even more difficult patient than I was. You might
want to consider keeping him under like you did me, until he is completely off that respi-
rator. Compared to old Ron, I’m laid back.” Most everyone remembered Gary’s last stay
in AV hospital. Sharon had suggested strongly that they keep Gary under for as long as
possible because once he was awake, he was the most bull-headed, strongest-willed
individual that they had probably ever encountered. They hadn’t listened and had
learned for themselves that Sharon had a gift for understatement.

Linda had her nose pressed against the glass watching everything they did to Ron.
When it finally seemed apparent that they had Ron stabilized she turned around and
saw Gary and Clarence standing there visiting with Dr. E and Dr. S. Linda looked totally
exhausted and Gary suggested that she come home with Clarence and him and get
some rest. Ron’s prognosis was good, he told her, and she wouldn’t help anything by
getting sick herself. Besides he said, Jennifer and Brenda should be at the house in
about an hour or two.

Then, before they left the hospital, Gary called the furniture dealer. He explained that he
had a bit of an emergency and needed a couple of those adjustable beds and those
Swedish mattresses. Was there any chance, he asked, that they had any in stock. They
did, they told him, but it would be a couple of days before they could deliver them. Op-
erating under pressure, Gary never took no for an answer. He told the furniture store
that he didn’t care how they managed it but that he wanted those beds and mattresses
at his home in 2 hours. He’d pay extra or pay for an outside delivery company to deliver
them, if necessary. It wasn’t that Gary and Sharon were such good customers as it was
that every stick of furniture in every home they lived in had come from that same furni-
ture store since 1987. The furniture store said they’d make it happen, somehow, but
wanted to know how Gary intended to pay for the stuff. Gary told them he’d be in the
next day and pay cash and that he’d need a couple of nice oak bedroom suites to go
with the beds. They told him they’d figure it all out and have the beds there within 2
hours.

Gary Olsen wasn’t exactly what you’d call a people person. But 19 years of being a tax
auditor for the state of Iowa had taught him how to work with (manipulate) people. When
he made his mind up that he wanted something, it happened 95% of the time. The other
5% of the time, he made the people’s lives so miserable that he eventually got what he
wanted. He didn’t do that very often, you understand, but when he got on a roll, the only
smart thing to do was get out of his way. Back when he still worked for Iowa, the stand-
ing joke was, “If all else fails, we’ll send in Gary, he gets what we want.” Gary did not
have a type A personality. He was soft spoken and never pressed. Neither did he give
up once he had his mind made up. “His greatest line was, “I may just be a dumb old
farm boy from Iowa, but…” And, anybody who knew Gary knew that when that line
came from his lips, he was about to cut the listener off at the knees.

Old Gar-Bear wasn’t the sharpest tack in the box, but he was a deep thinker. People
often temporarily put one past him in the heat of a conversation, or so it appeared. But

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Gary just sat there and chewed it over in his mind, waiting for an opening. Gary had an-
other aspect to his personality that most people never saw, or if they did, didn’t recog-
nize. Gary had a passive-aggressive personality. The best way to describe a passive-
aggressive personality is with the statement, “I don’t get mad, I just get even.” And, I’m
here to tell you that Gary had refined the getting even part to a fine art. Even with a
short-term memory loss problem, that part of Gary’s brain that controlled the passive-
aggressive portion of his personality worked just fine.

By the time they finally got Linda to agree to go to the house and actually made it there,
the furniture truck was unloading the beds and frames. Gary wasn’t about to let those
delivery guys get an eyeball on his shelter so he told them to drop the stuff in the base-
ment and he’d take it from there. The delivery guy was a member of the family that
owned the furniture store and he commented that the store had two identical bedroom
suites to what Gary had put in his master bedrooms. Gary told the guy to have them
write them up and deliver them tomorrow. He’d make a run to Lancaster and pay for the
entire purchase. Originally Gary had planned to suggest that Clarence and Lucy and
Ron and Linda provide their own bedroom furniture for the shelter, but circumstances
had changed those plans in a hurry.

Gary called Derek and Damon and asked them stop by the house after work and lug the
new beds and frames to the shelter and set them up. About that time, Mary showed up
with Jennifer and Brenda in tow. Sharon and he had plenty of Eastern King sized sheet
sets, still new in their wrappers. Sharon and Lucy made the beds and they now had
room to sleep Linda, Jennifer and Brenda, in the shelter. Jennifer and Brenda would
have to double up, but it beat having them stay in a motel. He also told the boys to
come back the next night and bring a couple of trustworthy people. There were two bed-
room suites that had to be moved to the shelter, too. Derek said he’d see if Randy and
Chris were available to help, or maybe Chris and Matt.

23Jun2009…

Gary was still pretty worried about Ronald McDonald and after a quick breakfast, Clar-
ence, Linda, Jennifer, Brenda and he piled into his used Dodge diesel 6 passenger
pickup and they headed to the Citadel. Ron was still in ICU, but Dr. S (Ravi Shankar,
really) happened to be there checking on him. When the doctor had finished up, he had
come out and explained to them that Ron appeared to be responding to treatment, albe-
it slowly. Dr. E had been in earlier, he said, and Ron’s heart was holding up just fine. Dr.
S then went on to say that if they returned to New Mexico, Ron would be dead within a
year, probably less. Ron had COPD and he simply couldn’t handle living at 6,200’. Gary
and Clarence left the women at the hospital and returned home.

“I’m not trying to rush you pal,” Gary commented, “But did you get a chance to visit with
Lucy about building a home next to ours?

“We visited some, Gary,” Clarence replied. “We was thinking maybe we could move my
sister into the other master suite and put a spare guest bedroom in the basement. But

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we’re a bit short on paying cash for the home outright.”

“That’s what banks are for Clarence,” Gary replied. “If you can put at least two-thirds of
the price up, you shouldn’t have any problem financing the remainder. “Besides, if you
use the same floor plan and same contractors we did, you can probably shave a little off
the cost. A lot of the stuff we did was original and they had to figure it out. They won’t
have that problem building an identical home.”

“I don’t know if I like that vinyl siding on your home,” Clarence observed. “I’ve always
been partial to stucco.”

“That’s what the contractor and engineer wanted to do, Clarence, stucco the house,”
Gary explained, “But Sharon wanted that low maintenance vinyl siding so we ended up
paying extra for it. If you go to stucco, you’ll probably just cut the cost of your home
some more.”

“Well alright then,” Clarence said, “You’ve talked me into it.”

Gary let out a mental sigh of relief. He’d found a spare moment somewhere during the
course of the previous day and had made an appointment with the engineer and prima-
ry building contractor for 2pm that afternoon. He knew he was being presumptuous, but
what the hell, Clarence was a clear-headed individual and Gary more than suspected
he’d come around. At least he hadn’t made an ass out of you and me by assuming, this
time.

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 41 –
New Places

2pm, same day…

The problem with guys like Gary, who occasionally took it upon themselves to manipu-
late a situation, was that it took them a while to wind down once they got on a roll. Ron
was still on a respirator and Gary had pretty well made up his mind that Ron and Linda
were moving back to Palmdale, whether they wanted to or not. Not that there weren’t
better solutions perhaps, but Ron had doctored with E since 92 and with S for over 6
years. It just didn’t make any sense to Gary for Ron to not get the best medical care
possible and the best to be had in the area was right there at the Citadel. Hell, Ron’s
brother Robert had to go all the way to Denver to get the treatment he and his wife had
needed, so it was evident to Gary that Ron belonged in Palmdale. Besides, Gary had
missed Ron so much he’d darned near gone nuts.

The engineer and contractor took a seat at the folding conference table Gary had set up
in the basement. Gary had barely let them get seated before he started in on them.

“My friend Clarence here, wants to build a home just like ours except without the sub-
basement,” Gary explained. “What’s the best price you two think you could come up
with?”

“Build exactly like yours, Gary, $200k,” the contractor answered.

“Ah bull,” Gary said, “I happen to know that part of the cost of my home was due to all of
the engineering you fellas had to do to make mine work. You aren’t going to have to re-
invent the wheel here, so how about a little more realistic estimate.”

“Bottom line, assuming we leave the Kevlar out of the walls, $175,000,” The contractor
said. “With a foot of concrete, you don’t need that Kevlar anyway.”

“Clarence wants stucco walls,” Gary added.

“Ok $170,000, but I won’t go a penny lower,” the contractor said.

“Clarence, what do you think?” Gary asked.

“Sounds pretty good to me Gary,” Clarence replied.

“Now, before we get all worked up over this, I have another question,” Gary said. “How
much more could you cut the price if you built two homes at the same time, both with
the stucco?”

“I told you $170,000 was as low as I could go,” the contractor said, “And that goes
whether you build one home or a dozen.”

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“Ok, fair enough,” Gary said, “But how about putting in a tunnel to connect the base-
ments of the three homes in the stairwell of my subbasement?”

“I suppose that I could throw that in,” the contractor said, “It isn’t a lot of materials and
the excavating won’t be that much.”

“When can you start?” Gary asked.

“Say about 3 weeks,” the contractor replied.

“Clarence?” Gary asked. Clarence nodded.

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Gary said. “I’ll get the lots staked out and you can start in
three weeks.”

The contractor and engineer rose as if to leave.

“Hold on there a minute fellas,” Gary said, “There’s more. When can we start on the wa-
ter tank upgrade?”

“You wanted a 50,000-gallon tank, right?” the engineer asked.

“I somehow had it in the back of my mind that we’d talked about a 100,000-gallon tank,”
Gary said, “Is my memory letting me down?”

“Well, yes and no,” the engineer replied. “You asked me how much extra it would cost to
double the tank size to 100,000-gallons and I believe I told you about 25%. I also point-
ed out to you that the 6” well would be pushed to keep that 100,000-gallon tank full, de-
pending upon your water usage.”

“Let’s go with the 100,000-gallon tank,” Gary said, “We can always dig a second well if
we have a problem. When can a contractor start on that tank?”

“I don’t really know,” the engineer said, “But my best guess would be about a month.”

“If you fellas want to get everything arranged and draw the papers up, we’ll sign them
when they’re ready,” Gary announced.

After the men left, Clarence began to hit Gary with questions.

“What about a garage for my car?” Clarence asked.

“Darn, I knew I’d forgotten something, Clarence,” Gary said, “Do you want the house to
the right of our home or the left of our home, looking from out front?”

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“Oh, the right one, I guess,” Clarence said, what difference does it make?”

Gary went to his storage cabinet and pulled out a box. It was filled with carefully labeled
Stanley garage door openers. He sorted through the box until he found the opener for
bay 6, the far right bay of the 6-stall garage and gave the opener to Clarence.

“That opener opens the far right bay in the garage,” Gary said.

“Man that garage sits a way back Gary,” Clarence said, “That’s going to be quite a walk
in the winter.”

“No it’s not Clarence,” Gary laughed, “That contractor doesn’t know it yet, but he’s also
going to put in a tunnel from the garage to the tunnel connecting the two homes to my
shelter.”

“I don’t know when I’ve ever seen you like this Gary,” Clarence remarked.

“Enjoy it while it lasts, Clarence, it’s going to wear off soon and I’ll be back to the mouse
I usually act like,” Gary explained.

“That sounds like a good title for a movie,” Clarence said, The Mouse that Roared.”

“1959, starring Peter Sellers,” Gary said.

They made their way back to the Citadel to check on Ron and see how the ladies were
making out. Ron was showing a marginal improvement and Linda told Gary and Clar-
ence that the last chest X-Ray had shown that they were doing a good job of getting his
lungs cleared out. Dr S had suggested to her that about 3 more days on the respirator
should see Ron completely out of the woods and up and around. Gary suggested that
since Ron was in an induced coma, they probably should get back to the house, have a
bite to eat and rest. Once Ron was awake, he’d probably want someone there 24/7.

When they got back to the house, Gary and Clarence sat down with Linda to visit. She
filled them in on a few other details about Ron’s condition and Gary decided it was time
to bring up a sensitive subject.

“As I understand what Shankar said, Linda, Ron can’t go on living at 6,200’. Have you
given any consideration to where you might move?”

“Well, the girls and I were visiting at the hospital and they’re suggesting that we might
want to move to Ft. Smith,” Linda replied.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Gary said, “But what kind of medical treatment is available
in Ft Smith and what’s the climate like?”

“Why do you ask?” Linda asked.

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“Well, Ron and I both suffer from COPD and according to conversations I’ve had with
Shankar, the Antelope Valley is one of the best climates in the country if you have
COPD,” Gary explained. “I don’t know much about Ft. Smith, but I’d be willing to bet that
the relative humidity is one hell of a lot higher than it is here.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Linda admitted.

“Did Sharon give you a tour of the house?” Gary asked.

“Yes, you really have a nice home,” Linda said.

“How would you like to have one just like it?” Gary asked.

“We couldn’t afford anything this expensive even after we sold our home in New Mexi-
co,” Linda said.

“How much do you think this house cost, Linda?” Gary asked.

“I don’t know, $400 or $500 thousand,” Linda ventured.

“Pal, you aren’t even close,” Gary laughed. “What if I told you that you could have a
house just like this one, without the shelter of course, for $170,000?”

“I’d say you were out of your mind,” Linda laughed.

“Clarence, tell the lady the facts of life,” Gary urged.

“Linda, Lucy and I bought an identical home this morning for $170,000,” Clarence said.
“The only difference between our home and Gary’s home is that shelter downstairs. And
the contractor agreed to connect all of the homes to Gary’s shelter via tunnel at no
charge.”

“I wish I had been here,” Linda said, “I’d have probably bought one too at that price.”

“What about Ft. Smith?” Gary asked.

“Well, if what you tell me about the AV and COPD is right, Gary,” Linda said, “I guess it
isn’t much of an alternative.”

“And how mad would you be at me if I told you that I took a wild chance and ordered a
home for the two of you, just in case?” Gary asked.

“In our names?” Linda asked.

“No, in my name,” Gary said, “But I was truly hoping that I could persuade you to stay

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here in the AV, so I took a chance. Of course if you don’t want it, it’s no problem, I’ll just
sell it to someone else for what it’s really worth, like $250,000.”

“Ron always said to watch out for you,” Linda smiled, “He said that when you got the bit
in your teeth, you were a wild man.”

“I don’t think there’s another human being on the face of this planet that knows me bet-
ter than Ron,” Gary agreed, “But Clarence makes a close second.”

“You knew that Ron bought himself one of those Barrett M82A1M rifles didn’t you?” Lin-
da asked.

“No, Linda, we haven’t talked all that much since you guys moved, “ Gary said, “But it
just so happens that I bought a Tac-50 from our favorite gun dealer.”

“Hey, I want one of those, whatever they are,” Clarence said. “What is an M82A1M,
Gary?”

“Clarence, it’s a .50 caliber rifle manufactured by Barrett,” Gary explained. “It shoots the
same cartridge as a .50 caliber machine gun. They are a heavy darned thing, but man
do they have a reach. Oh, and they’re 100% illegal in California.”

“Sheesh, Gary,” Clarence said, “I didn’t figure you’d buy one if they were legal. How ex-
pensive are they?”

“The McMillan Tac-50 is about 9 grand including optics,” Gary replied, “are you sure you
want one?”

“The Barrett?”

“More.”

“I’ll have to wait and see how much money we have left over after we pay for the house,
Gary,” Clarence said, “But if I can talk Lucy into using our old furniture, I can afford a
rifle.”

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 42 –
New Places 2

“We had to return all those trailers and pickups we borrowed, but somehow we never
got around to returning all of those golf carts, partner,” Gary pointed out. We just doc-
tored the serial numbers on three of them and repainted them. They’re parked in one of
the bays in the garage.”

“I’ve have never thought you’d stoop so low as to steal those golf carts permanent like,
Gary,” Clarence said.

“Well, they’d already collected the insurance claims on all 12 carts by the time we got
around to returning the 9 and the guy at the golf course made a remark that he hoped
he didn’t get the others back because they had spent the insurance money on new
carts. Hell, I just accommodated him,” Gary explained.

“Still…” Clarence said.

“Yeah, I know, but I got over it, so you can too,” Gary pointed out. “What the hell, part-
ner, that armory we have built up is more military weapons than it is stuff we bought.
Somehow, I have a feeling in my gut that this country hasn’t seen the last of terrorists or
trouble. At least we have a good one in the White House. This Santorum fella is a con-
servative Republican, but he sure doesn’t act like it. I’ll tell you one group he has really
po’d is those anti-gunners. I sure hope that the Secret Service keeps him under tight
wraps. One of these days, one of those militant members of that Sarah Brady crowd is
going to take a pot shot at him. Hell, they aren’t a whole lot different than those right-to-
lifers that go around killing doctors as far as I am concerned.”

“I know that I’ve said this before,” Clarence quietly commented, “But hasn’t this country
been through enough?”

“Clarence, I’ve begun to believe that the US has a bullseye painted on it,” Gary replied.
“As a whole, we enjoy the greatest level of freedom of anywhere in the world. Our
standard of living is unsurpassed except for perhaps a few countries, none of which I
could name. Hell, there’s always someone starving to death, like Somalia or the Sudan
or somewhere. And every time we try to help, we end up being the bad guy. I have
more questions than answers, for sure. The US is danged if it does and danged if it
doesn’t. So I suppose as long as the world is less than perfect, someone who is jealous
of what we have will want to punish us.”

The US was far from perfect, but it beat the hell out of whoever was in second place.
Santorum had instituted a program to eliminate outsourcing of jobs and that had made
the manufacturers angry with him. He’d introduced legislation to repeal the Gun Control
Act of 1968 and that had really po’d the Brady bunch. Doing background checks appar-
ently seemed to make sense to him and he hadn’t actually tried to repeal the Brady Bill.
Anyway, the NRA considered Santorum to be a friend and spent a lot of ILA funds pro-

307
moting his proposed legislation, further angering the Brady crowd.

Then there were the pro-choice vs. the right-to-lifers. Santorum kept his mouth shut on
that issue and left it to the Judiciary to resolve that debate. That wasn’t to say that he’d
never expressed himself on the subject, but since he’d been elected, he dodged every
question posed to him in that area. Gary wished that Santorum would take a stand and
say that abortion was illegal except in the case of rape or incest, but no one had asked
Gary’s opinion and Gary wasn’t in a volunteering mood.

From Gary’s viewpoint, right or wrong, it seemed that some people used abortions to
select the sex of their children, something he felt was very wrong. And, it wasn’t like you
couldn’t take birth control pills or use a condom if you wanted a sexual relationship that
didn’t run the risk of producing a pregnancy. Hell, there was even the morning after pill,
just in case. But rape and incest were involuntary acts and Gary believed that pregnan-
cies resulting from that involuntary illegal and immoral behavior should be terminated if
that was the woman’s choice. To force a woman to have a child that she hadn’t volun-
tarily conceived just seemed to be so wrong to him.

Santorum had stepped in it big time with that controversy he created when he made a
strong anti-gay statement. Gary couldn’t blame him, he felt the same way. The thing
about it was, Gary was not and never would be a politician.

30Jun2009…

Ron was off the respirator and doing well. It looked as if they’d release him in another
couple of days. Clarence and Lucy had switched bedrooms with Linda so Ron wouldn’t
have to climb any stairs. Gary knew, based on his experience in the hospital that Ron
would need 3-4 weeks to get back to feeling like a human being. Gary had actually done
pretty well after his hospitalization except for the edema. It had taken a while to get his
legs, feet and ankles back to normal. He knew he needed to walk for exercise, but every
time he took Missy out, he paid dearly. And getting his blood sugar regulated had taken
nearly as long. So, Ron could have the run of the main floor when he got out of the Cit-
adel and then, as he was able, he could try walking and climbing stairs.

Linda had carefully explained to Ron the problems he faced living in New Mexico and
had gone on to explain that they had a new home which would begin construction in a
few days. She must have caught Ron at just the right moment, because he didn’t raise a
single objection. And then when she explained that the house would only cost $170,000
but would be worth $250,000 the minute it was finished, Ron brightened considerably.
Gary, she said, had given them a ½ acre lot for the home and had done the same for
Clarence. The Three Amigos, she said, would ride again. Ron asked about the house in
New Mexico and their possessions, but she just told him that everything was being tak-
en care of and declined to provide further details.

Gary and Clarence hadn’t missed a day visiting Ron and they were actually at the hos-
pital when the doctors brought Ron up off the drugs. The first words out of Ron’s mouth

308
were, “Hey uglier than me, what are you doing in New Mexico?”

Gary retorted with, “New Mexico? Hell, partner you’re in Palmdale, you’d have died if we
left you in New Mexico. You’re at the Citadel, the hospital you helped build.”

Ron had dozed off immediately and Gary and Clarence left so Linda could sit with Ron.
There was a time and place for everything and this was neither the time nor the place to
renew the friendship. Ron did look pretty good, though. His color was one hell of a lot
better and he seemed to be breathing easily enough. Dr. E stopped Gary and Clarence
in the hall and Gary asked how Ron had made out on his heart. Because Gary was
technically staff, being a member of the Board, Dr. E explained that Ron hadn’t suffered
any additional permanent damage to his heart but that it would take several weeks for
him to get back up to speed.

When Gary and Clarence got back to the house, they got a big surprise. The contractor
had actually started early and already had Clarence’s basement dug. Ron’s basement
looked like it would be done before the day was over too. Gary saw the contractor talk-
ing to a man Gary presumed was one of the foremen and walked over to have a visit.

“You got started earlier that you planned, I see,” Gary said.

“Had a couple of down days on the excavating equipment and figured it was as good a
time as any to dig your holes,” the contractor said.

“Say, a small issue came up after we signed those contracts that I wanted to talk to you
about,” Gary said, “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure, what’s up?” the contractor asked.

“That danged garage is so far back from the houses,” Gary started, “That Clarence and
I got to wondering how much you’d charge us to run a tunnel from the garage up to the
tunnel connecting the homes.”

“Well hell,” the contractor said, “The excavator is already here and will be digging the
tunnels in the morning. I’ll just tell him to dig a tunnel to the garage too.”

“You realize that we want those tunnels at the same level as the subbasement don’t
you?” Gary asked.

“I figured as much, Gary so that’s what I planned on, yes,” the contractor said.

“And how much do you figure that extra tunnel is going to cost us?” Gary asked. “We
were sort of thinking that before this project is all over, there might be several more
homes here.”

“Really?” the contractor said. “Aw hell, Gary, it won’t take much concrete, I’ll throw it in.”

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“Why thank you,” Gary said, “I really appreciate that.”

Gary walked back to where Clarence was standing (within earshot) and the two of them
walked to the house.

“You spent too much time around Tony,” Clarence said, “You could charm the pennies
off a dead man’s eyes.”

“Did I say one word to the man that was a lie?” Gary asked.

“No.”

“Did I ask him to give me anything or did I just ask the cost?” Gary asked.

“You just asked the cost,” Clarence said, “But you implied that there were several more
homes involved.”

“All I said was, we were sort of thinking that before this project is all over, there might be
several more homes here,” Gary retorted. “That the gospel truth Clarence, there MIGHT
be several more homes here.”

“Yeah and there MIGHT not be several more home here, too, right?” Clarence said.

“True, but it wasn’t my greed that got him to throw in the extra 100’ of tunnel,” Gary said.
“Hell he’s making money on these two homes or he wouldn’t be doing them. All I did
was cut his profit margin a little.”

“Man, can you split a hair,” Clarence laughed.

Two days later, Ron was released from the Citadel. Given his status as a former Board
member he didn’t have to go through the usual hurry up and wait routine either. He was
considered a VIP and accorded appropriate treatment. Gary had seen to a lot of stream
lining of procedures as a board member, based on his experiences with hospitals, but
there were medical considerations and there was only so much a person could do.
Ron’s discharge was a perfect example of what Gary had been trying to achieve. After
all wasn’t every patient a VIP? Gary would talk to the Foundation about getting Ron and
Clarence back on the Board and maybe they could team up on the staff and make a
point.

“Man, I feel like a million bucks,” Ron said on the way back to the house.

“Don’t get used to it yet partner,” Gary said. “About this time tomorrow, you’ll feel like
you’ve been drug through a knothole backwards. Clarence and I’ve visited with your
doctors and you’re going to be a while getting back up to speed. Just for meanness, I
ought to drag your sorry butt to an AA meeting a week after you get out of the hospital

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like you did to me. Took me 3 days to get over that little outing.”

“What the hell has gotten into you?” Ron asked. “You seem to be a bit on the aggres-
sive side.”

“Well partner, when you got sick, I switched into that management mode I told you
about,” Gary explained. “But now that you’re out of the hospital and I can quit worrying
about you, it will wear off. Give it a couple days and I’ll be a mouse again.”

As they pulled into the driveway Ron noticed the building construction that was now
moving at a rapid pace.

“Which one is mine?” he asked.

“The one on the left, Ron,” Clarence said, “And mine is on the right.”

“Are those concrete walls a foot thick?” Ron asked.

“Sure are partner,” Gary replied, “If you’re up to it tomorrow I’ll show you the finer points
of these homes. I’m not sure, you know, but I speculate that they’d take a pretty heavy
direct assault from anything under a 25mm round. I know for a fact that a guy with a .50
BMG and armor piercing would have a tough time getting through my walls. I added 20
layers of Kevlar to my inside framing.”

“You mean I don’t have the Kevlar lining?” Ron asked.

“No, did you want it? It will add $5,000 to the price,” Gary pointed out.

“You dang right I want it,” Ron said, “Is it too late to change the plans?”

“Nope, I just have to tell the contractor that we need a change order for the Kevlar,”
Gary said.

“Gary, have him put the Kevlar in our home too,” Clarence said, “I can handle the extra
$5,000 without a problem.”

“I’ll go talk to him now before they get too far along,” Gary said. “Clarence, do you want
to help our amigo into the house?”

Gary walked over to the contractor.

“Say, the fellas want to put in a change order on those homes,” Gary said.

“Kevlar?” the contractor asked.

“Yeah, how did you know?” Gary asked.

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“Ah hell, you survivalists are all alike, and besides, I’ve heard about the three of you,” he
laughed. “I have the Kevlar already to go in with the framing and the change order pre-
pared.

“You’re the guys that pulled that library raid, right?” the contractor asked.

“What raid was that?” Gary said a twinkle in his eye.

“I’ve read all of your stories, Tired Old Man,” the contractor said, “You do fair, but your
stories could use more action. But I’ll tell you one thing. One of these days, the feds or
the state are going to get confused over your mixture of facts and fiction and come look-
ing for all those illegal guns you claim to have.”

“Fine by me,” Gary said, “They won’t find a thing. The problem is that once they get their
mind made up, they’ll harass me to death.”

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 43 –
New Challenges

Having the experience of constructing Gary and Sharon’s home, the contractor had fig-
ured out a lot of short cuts. Consequently he had the project done sooner that he
thought he would. And, getting the project done sooner meant that his profit margin was
just a little better than he’d planned. Even putting in that extra 100’ of tunnel hadn’t cut
into his profits. If Gary was serious about building more homes in the near future, he
could probably still put them up at $170,000 a crack, despite the rising costs in building
materials.

Linda had flown to Albuquerque just before their home was done and met with the mov-
ing company she’d hired. They were going to move everything except Ron’s 2 gun
safes. She’d heard a few horror stories about moving companies and had persuaded
Damon and Derek to drive to New Mexico, load the gun safes aboard a pickup and haul
them to California. They were going to use a cover story to get past the border check
and Gary had dug into his files and come up with some blank bills of lading. With Da-
mon proving guidance, they’d made up a fake bill of lading for two used guns safes. And
they checked to make sure that the loaded safes wouldn’t make the pickup over weight.
They’d ended up borrowing Randy’s pickup because it had overload springs and the
appropriate weight permits. Damon had been an over-the-road trucker for about 3 years
and he knew all the tricks of the trade, including how to avoid weigh stations if it came to
that. But, according to their calculations, they had 1,000-pounds to spare on the truck
licensing.

Linda had left on Wednesday and the boys took Friday afternoon off. They planned to
drive straight through to Ron and Linda’s, load up and drive straight back to Palmdale.
The trip outbound went without a hitch. They had to struggle a bit but they got the first
safe on the pickup with the door facing to the rear. The second safe was loaded on the
pickup with the door facing to the front. Damon took extra pains to strap the safes down,
the last thing they needed was a shifting load. Then they headed back to California.
Damon knew of a truck stop favored by truckers because it had a very accurate scale.
They weighed the pickup and they were 940 pounds under the weight limit for the per-
mits on the truck. They figured they were home free and proceeded to head home on I-
40. They actually made it to the California border before TSHTF. When they pulled into
the Agricultural Inspection Station in Blythe, they went through the truck lane. Some
over eager newbie directed them to pull off so he could inspect the load. They produced
the bill of lading, but this jerk actually wanted to look inside the guns safes.

Derek gave Damon a look that said, “What are we going to do now?” Damon winked at
Derek and motioned for Derek to follow him. They walked over to a bench and took a
seat.

“Well, what the hell is going on? Derek whispered.

“Looks like we got us some guy who just started on the job and wants to impress some-

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one,” Damon replied. “That truck is definitely not overweight. And, we’re under no obli-
gation to help them inspect the cargo since the entire cargo is plainly visible. Now, as it
happens, those gun safes have combination locks and I don’t know the combinations,
do you?”

“No, Linda didn’t give me the combinations,” Derek replied.

“So let them look,” Damon said. “And don’t volunteer to help that jerk out either. If he
wants to move the safes, he can get some of those California folks to help him.”

The inspector came walking over and told Damon to unstrap the safes. Damon tilted his
face up and said, “The cargo on that manifest is plainly visible, if you want those safes
unstrapped, do it yourself.”

The inspected turned beet red and went into the building to, apparently, visit with his
supervisor. He returned with his supervisor in tow. “My man says that he asked you to
unstrap the safes is that true?” the supervisor asked.

“Sure is,” Damon said, “And I told him that since the cargo on the manifest was plainly
visible, that he’d have to do it himself.”

“We’re going to have to take a look inside those safes,” the supervisor said.

“Suit yourself,” Damon said, “No skin off my nose. The problem is that my brother and I
are just doing a favor for a friend. The guy has been in the hospital for quite a while in
Palmdale. They had to fly him all the way in an air ambulance and he darn near died.
Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. You just get your search warrant and cut the
locks off those safes. They didn’t give us the combinations.”

“Are the safes empty?” the supervisor asked.

“I don’t really know one way or the other,” Damon replied. “The guy’s wife just had us
load them and haul them. But I can tell you this much, the people involved lived in
Palmdale until about a year ago. They guy moved to New Mexico to be with his brother
and the brother died a while back. Then the guy, his name is Ron Green, by the way,
caught a cold and darn near died from it. My dad and him are best friends and we’re just
trying to do them a favor. You know, I drove over the road for a few years, and of all the
BS I ever had to put up with, I never ran into a situation like this. But, I suppose that you
just have a job to do so you do your job. Me, I’m just going to sit here and watch.”

“Did you weigh that truck?” the supervisor asked the kid.

“Yes Sir, it was 940-pounds below the weight limit,” the kid answered.

“If we get a warrant and cut those safes open and they’re empty, we’re going to look
pretty damned foolish aren’t we?” the supervisor commented.

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“But we have the right to inspect those gun safes,” the kid said.

“Yes we do,” the supervisor said, “So you go ahead and do whatever you want to do
and I won’t interfere.”

The kid was still beet red. And, he was po’d. But, it just seemed to him that his supervi-
sor wasn’t backing him up, or so he assumed. He just stood there for a minute or two
thinking. Heaven only knows what was going through the kid’s mind. Damon was almost
choking himself suppressing a grin. Finally, the kid handed the bill of lading to Damon
and said, “Forget it,” turned on his heel and walked away. Damon and Derek walked
over to Randy’s pickup and Derek got in. Damon checked the straps to make sure they
were secure and climbed in the passenger side of the pickup. Derek started the motor
and eased the pickup back into traffic.

“Jeez, I thought we were dead back there,” Derek finally said.

“I figured it was about 50-50 myself, but I never said anything that wasn’t true, Derek,”
Damon replied. “We haven’t seen inside those gun safes so we can’t say for sure what’s
inside them now can we?”

“You know darn good and well that they full of guns,” Derek said.

“Do I?” Damon said. “I might think that they’re full of guns but having never seen inside,
I don’t know that for a fact.”

“You’re as bad as Dad about splitting hairs,” Derek said.

“Why thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” Damon laughed.

The remainder of the trip to Palmdale was completed in relative silence. Derek rather
admired his Dad’s ability to split hairs, too, but he’d never gotten the knack of it. It about
half po’d him that Damon had appeared to have mastered the art. They arrived at the
house and unloaded the gun safes into one of the garage stalls. Gary came out and
asked if they had any trouble. “Damon replied, “Nothing special, just the usual BS. But
we made it so it’s not worth mentioning.”

Derek took Damon home and turned around and drove right back to Gary’s. He filled
Gary in on exactly what had happened at the border. Gary told Derek that he really
needed to learn to lighten up; the truth, he said was a precise thing and as long as what
you said was true, you were under no obligation to volunteer any information. He then
went on to explain in intimate detail what splitting hairs was all about. Never lie, he said,
because a lie could trap you. However, that didn’t mean that you had to tell the WHOLE
truth, unless you were in court and sworn to do so. Gary assured Derek that with time
he’d learn how to control the amount of truth he felt obligated to tell. In the meantime,
Gary said, he rather admired Derek’s position. He then turned to the subject of tact. Did

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Derek understand that tact involved exactly the same principle? Gary then told his son
something he’d never admitted to another human being. He’d had the same problem as
Derek and he’d been in his late 40’s before he’d learned to be tactful. After that, splitting
hairs just seemed to naturally follow.

When Gary returned to the house a second time, Ron wanted to know what was going
on. Gary explained what had happened at the Agricultural Inspection Station and the
close call the boys had. He then shared with Ron the problem that Derek was having
with the concept of splitting hairs. Ron told Gary that he should explain tact to the boy
and he’d figure it out from there. Gary said that great minds must run in the same
groove, he’d done that very thing. Ron allowed how it was a shame that Derek was pret-
ty much a teetotaler, if the boy drank a little more, he’d figure it out real quick. Gary re-
minded Ron the alcoholism was genetic and if Ron didn’t mind, he rather have a teeto-
taler than a drunk for a son. It was late and Ron was beginning to show the inevitable
fatigue that Gary had warned him would follow his release from the hospital. Ron’s
CPAP was on the truck coming from New Mexico, so Gary loaned Ron his spare and
his nose mask.

One of the things that Shankar had done was change when Gary took his insulin. Since
Gary took his pills at the same time, right before supper, he tended to miss one hell of a
lot of TV. But given that state of TV programming in 2009, he didn’t figure he was miss-
ing all that much. Everyone settled in and by 9pm only the brave and hardy souls were
in the basement watching TV.

July 4, 2009…

“Well fellas it’s a holiday,” Gary said, “I wonder who is going to attack the US this time?”

“I don’t know Gary.” Clarence replied, “But I picking up one of those McMillan rifles so
I’m ready for bear.”

“What kind of ammo are you getting for it?” Gary asked.

“Well, I wasn’t quite sure what to buy so I thought I’d 10 of those 80 round cartons that
Barrett’s sells,” Clarence replied.

“You’d be better off with 750gr Hornady A-MAX Match,” Gary said.

“Well, I wasn’t sure what to get so I held off until I could talk to you boys,” Clarence ad-
mitted.

“I’m not saying the one scope is better than another,” Gary replied, “But I went with a
Night Force 12-42×56 Mil Dot plus a McCann Night Vision Rail Mount and that Titanium
Jet Suppressor. Extra magazines are expensive so I only bought 8, giving me a total of
10. My ball ammo is Hornady A-MAX 750gr Match plus our lady friend found me some
Mk 211MP. Hey Ron, what did you put on your Barrett for a scope?”

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“Leupold Mk 4, Gar-Bear, Ron answered. “Suits me just fine.”

“The Tac-50 includes an Mk 4, Clarence. The Night Force only costs $70 more,” Gary
added.

“Where can I get one of those scopes?” Clarence asked.

“Well, Sandy usually has a couple in stock and she’ll install it for free,” Ron said. “This is
like the good old days after 11/12/05. Running around on golf carts looking like a porta-
ble armory.”

“Clarence, if you go with the Tac-50, the scope I got will only cost you about $70 and
comes installed. Sandy can order the Jet Suppressor for you and get it installed. The
magazines are $330 each but it comes with two. Ron, how are you feeling?”

“That nose mask you loaned me is about 10 times better than the one I had,” Ron said,
“Where did you get that?”

“Down in the Valley where I get all of my stuff,” Gary explained. “How long has it been
since you got your nose mask?”

“It’s been at least a year,” Ron replied.

“Then why don’t you let me call down there and we’ll each get a new nose mask?” Gary
suggested. “Medicare will pay for a new mask after six months. And the way I see it,
we’re paying some awful Medicare premiums these days so we might just as well get
our fair share.”

“Suits me, Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “Give them a call.”

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 44 –
New Challenges 2

“Say, did the doc put you on Albuterol and Atrovent?” Gary asked.

“Yeah, why?” Ron asked.

“Did he give you an Rx?” Gary asked.

“Yes, of course,” Ron said.

“Did you fill it yet?” Gary asked.

“Do you have any idea how much it would cost to fill the Rx he gave me?” Ron asked.

“Sure do, nothing,” Gary replied.

“How do you figure that?” Ron asked.

“Take the Rx to Walgreen’s and show them your Medicare card, Ron,” The co-pay will
come up zero. “As for the Nebulizer, you can rent one from that place in the Valley and
Medicare will pay 80% of the cost.”

“That must be why he wrote separate Rx’s.” Ron said.

“I’ll call Robert tomorrow and tell him that we need new nose masks and that you need
a Nebulizer. In the meantime, I have plenty of the drugs and I have Audrey’s Nebulizer
so we’ll rig you up and you can start those treatments right away. I even have a new
spare Nebulizer mask in a sealed package, so we’re good to go.” Gary explained.

“Are those Nebulizer treatments all that important Gary-Bear?” Ron asked. “My dis-
charge papers said QID/PRN, whatever that means.”

“Four times a day as needed, partner,” Gary replied, “Hell yes they’re important, that’s
why he wrote the Rx. But without an Rx for a nose mask, you’ll have to take your old
one along so he’ll know that you’ve been prescribed one. Then he can follow up with
Shankar for an Rx.”

“You seem to have a handle on this stuff,” Ron said, “How did you get so well in-
formed?”

“Del Taco, Ronald.” Gary said “Been there, done that. The only thing I don’t know squat
about is heart attacks. Never had one of those. And if I never have one of those, that’s
plenty soon enough to suit me.”

“Have you seen those home defibrillators?” Ron asked.

318
“Yeah, but they’re flippin’ expensive and if you’re by yourself, you only have a 50/50
chance,” Gary said.

“Why’s that?” Ron asked.

“Do you know what a defibrillator does?” Gary asked.

“Restarts the heart,” Ron said.

“Yeah and brown cows give chocolate milk,” Gary laughed. “A defibrillator stops the
heart momentarily and allows the normal regulator to reestablish a normal sinus rhythm.
But if the heart doesn’t restart, you need CPR. Before they went non-prescription, you
could only get one if you had a family member certified in CPR. And if you go out on the
web, what you’re going to find is that one of those home defibrillators is considered a
part of the treatment with CPR constituting the remainder.”

“How’s that different from a heart attack?” Ron asked.

“A heart attack is typically a MI, Myocardial Infarction. That happens when an artery
feeding blood to the heart gets blocked and the muscle starts to die,” Gary explained.
“It’s when the electrical pulses to the heart get screwed up and the heat beats out of
synch failing to provide any blood flow. They include cardiac arrhythmias, ventricular
fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. From what I’ve read, your chances of
surviving go down about 10% for every minute you are in defib. That’s when you need
the home defib and someone to administer CPR.”

“What about the Paramedics?” Clarence asked.

“Crap Clarence, they’re part of the fire department and you know how long it takes for
the fire department to get anywhere in Palmdale. Figure you have to be defibbed and
have CPR applied within 5 minutes for a good shot at survival. You ever call the para-
medics in Palmdale?”

“For a dope who doesn’t know crap about heart attacks,” Ron said, “You seem to be
pretty well informed.”

“Well, I have a treadmill and an echocardiogram every 6 months,” Gary said. “I always
write down any questions that occur to me and grill the doctor. When are you two yard
birds going to learn that knowledge is power?”

“Well, all that fancy knowledge didn’t save your butt when you ended up in AV Hospital,”
Ron said.

“Like hell it didn’t, Ronald, I knew enough to know I was in over my head and told the
Paramedic that I was cool with going to the Hospital. Hell, I even remember my moth-

319
er’s advice and put on clean drawers and a clean T-shirt. I’m not a doctor and have
never claimed to be one,” Gary said, “But what the hell is wrong with having a little basic
knowledge?”

“Nothing, but you have a tendency to treat yourself, my friend,” Ron groused.

“Only the simple stuff, man,” Gary replied, “And since that last trip to the hospital, I now
know that me getting what I think is a cold is dangerous and I’ll act accordingly. If I nev-
er set foot in a hospital as a patient again, that will be too soon for me.”

“Other than not using the Nebulizer, Ron,” Gary asked, “Are you following the doctors’
orders?”

“Right down the line, Partner,” Ron said.

“Good, then we’ll get you fixed up with the Nebulizer and you should be back to 100% in
no time.” Gary said.

What the Barrett rifle was missing was a suppressor. Gary had called Sandy and let it
be known that Ronald wanted a Jet suppressor for his M82 and that she might just as
well come up with a Jet Suppressor for Clarence’s new rifle, the Tac-50, which she’d
better order from Phoenix. The following day, Gary called the Valley and set up the
mask appointment and then Clarence and he went to see Sandy. Sandy told them that
she needed a week this time because things were a little different these days.

Gary figured that what she was trying to say was that the ATF was all over her and
didn’t ask what she meant. The McMillan rifle only had to come from Phoenix, but the
Jet suppressors had to come from Texas. Gary ordered more A-MAX and that had to
come from Nebraska. She told him she’d have to see about the Raufoss. She’d have to
check with the guy she knew at Olin.

Linda arrived after the furniture delivery truck showed up. The movers had pretty much
just unloaded the truck and put the furniture where they wanted it to go. Linda took one
look at the mess the movers had made and came unglued. She’d only stopped the one
night in Flagstaff, but those movers must have driven straight though. John was more
than willing to help his mother, but he couldn’t do it alone. Gary called his 2 boys and
asked if they could spare an hour to get ‘Uncle” Ron’s furniture squared away. They
showed up about 30 minutes later and within an hour, had Ron and Linda’s new home
squared away, more or less. At least, all of the furniture was in the right rooms.

Clarence rented a truck and got some friends of his to help. It took one hell of a lot less
time to square his place away and then they went for his sister’s stuff. Before it was all
said and done, they ended up spending a day getting Clarence and Lucy’s new home
squared away, because his sister had more stuff than he did. They put her bedroom
furniture in the second master suite and a portion of her living room furniture in the living
room, creating a second conversation pit. The remainder of her things ended up in the

320
basement.

Gary and Sharon were happy to have their home back, but Gary still had that nagging
foreboding that something wasn’t right with the country or the world. He’d pretty much
learned to trust his gut, so he called Derek and asked Derek to bring The Three Amigos
share of the armory over to the house. Derek was beginning to feel like a go-fer for his
dad, but he went through the armory and loaded up everything marked Ron, Clarence
and Gary.

“What’s got you all worked up now?” Derek asked as he began to unload the weapons
and ammo.

“I can’t tell you,” Gary said.

“Why not,” Derek asked his dad.

“Because I don’t know what’s got me worked up, Derek,” Gary replied. “If I knew, I’d tell
you, but I just don’t know. Most of the time when trouble is brewing, I get this sinking
feeling in my gut well in advance. It’s not 100%, but I’ve learned to trust it. Say I don’t
see any mines in this load.”

“The mines are in boxes and stored, Dad,” Derek explained. “You can’t want mines too,
can you?”

“I’d feel a whole lot better if we had a couple of dozen of those M-18’s for our perimeter
and maybe 18 of the LAW’s,” Gary replied.

“And I’d feel a whole lot better bringing that stuff over here if I had some idea what was
up,” Derek replied sternly.

“You aren’t going to believe what I think, but if that’s what it’s going to take to get you to
give us back our stuff, I’m willing to hazard a guess,” Gary commented. “But remember,
this is strictly a guess. I was thumbing through the Farmer’s Almanac. We are forecast
to have a real hot streak starting in a couple of weeks. The gang unrest in LA and the
other major cities is at an all-time high. And I saw one of those militant members of the
Brady bunch being interviewed on The Factor. He was saying that the gun crisis in the
US would soon resolve itself when all hell broke loose and Congress had no choice ex-
cept to pass some ‘reasonable gun laws’ totally outlawing guns.”

“Huh. Well, all right, I’ll bring the Claymores,” Derek said, “Is there anything else you
want while I’m at it? I’m feel like a go-fer at times and I have a life you know.”

“You brought the 40mm grenades for the M16/M203’s, right?” Gary asked. “And some
of those hand grenades?”

“Get me some paper and a pen, Dad and we’ll make a list,” Derek chuckled, a little.

321
Gary got the paper and pencil and Derek started a list. As Gary went through the weap-
ons and ammo Derek had brought, he’d raise a question from time to time and Derek
would just add the stuff to the list.

“It looks to me like you forgot explosives,” Derek shook his head.

“Don’t want no flippin’ explosives,” Gary snapped. “The three of us never really figured
that stuff out and we’d probably end up blowing our darn fool heads off. Say, have you
been keeping that propane tank filled?”

“Money has been a little tight, Dad,” Derek replied.

“Crap. I’ll call tomorrow and have it filled for you,” Gary said, “And it might not be a bad
idea for you to take a few evenings and make sure all of the weapons are cleaned and
ready to go. Get some of the residents at Moon Shadows to help you.”

“We took down all of that barbed wire and concertina, too, Dad,” Derek said. “It wasn’t
safe with all of the kids. I suppose you want me to put it back up too, huh?”

“Nah, but I really do think you should service those weapons,” Gary replied.

“I’ll load this stuff up and bring it back tomorrow night,” Derek said.

“Thanks a lot kid, I really appreciate it,” Gary answered.

Maybe it was some of that ‘getting even’ in Gary’s soul, but the next morning he an-
nounced that the three of them needed a meeting. Clarence was eager enough, but
Ron must have felt about like Gary did when he’d drug Gary to a meeting a week out of
the hospital. Sandy should have the rifles ready, too and Gary figured to kill 2 birds with
one stone. He told his amigos to be sure and bring their checkbooks, because they
were stopping by Sandy’s after the meeting.

There is no such thing as a ‘bad’ AA meeting, but some of them are one hell of a lot bet-
ter than others. They endured this meeting and after headed for Sandy’s. She saw them
walk in the door and brought out a large hard sided case. Some of the other customers
in the store were a bit curious considering the size of the case, but The Three Amigos
just shined them on saying that the case contained a high grade precision target rifle.
Well, it was mostly correct. The 3 old geezers loaded the weapon onto the back seat of
the pickup and headed home. Gary could tell that Ron was done in. That would teach
him. Olin would deliver in three days and Hornady tomorrow. Mike over-nighted the
suppressors and she’d installed Clarence’s.

When they got back to the homes, Ron said that he needed a nap and Gary asked
Clarence to grab one of the golf carts and a trailer and give him a hand. Clarence head-
ed for the garage and Gary put on a pot of coffee. Derek had just dumped the weapons

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and ammo in the living room like Gary had asked. When Clarence came in the first
words out of his mouth were, “What the hell?”

Gary suggested that they have a cup of coffee and he’d fill him in about what his gut
was telling him.

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 45 –
Heat Wave

“Clarence, it’s like I told Derek last night,” Gary said as they settled in to drink their cof-
fee. “The Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a heat wave, the gang unrest is at record lev-
els and the bunch of militants associated with Sarah Brady is making threatening
sounds.”

“So you had Derek bring over part of the arsenal?” Clarence replied.

“Well, he’ll be bringing the rest tonight, he forgot some stuff,” Gary said. “Now, do we
want to distribute this stuff or put it in the shelter?”

“My sister is afraid of guns,” Clarence replied. “I feel a whole lot better just putting most
of it in the storage room in the shelter.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Gary laughed. “All right, after we finish our cof-
fee, we’ll sort out a little stuff to distribute and haul the remainder downstairs.”

I guess I failed to mention that Ron’s gun safes were in the shelter. After Damon and
Derek had unloaded them in one of the garage stalls, Clarence and Gary had gotten an
appliance cart and manhandled the safes down the stairs in the garage to the tunnel
and wheeled them to the shelter. Darn near killed them too, but they wouldn’t admit it.
Clarence didn’t have a gun safe, so they’d mounted his open gun racks on the wall and
had hung most of his guns on the racks. Each of them kept their Super Match M1A and
a .45ACP M1911 at home, in case of trouble. Gary had placed Clarence’s Tac-50
in the storage room after they had gotten back from picking it up while Clarence was
getting the golf cart and trailer.

Gary set aside the 3 M16/M203 assault rifles and the ALICE gear that went with them
for distribution. Clarence took the golf cart back to the garage and came back with the
appliance cart. It took some time, ammo sure can get heavy, but they got all of that
ammo and the weapons to the storeroom. Clarence grabbed his ALICE gear and M16
and headed home. Gary grabbed Ron’s ALICE gear and M16 and headed to Ron’s. Af-
terwards Gary went out to visit with the fellas working on that 100,000-gallon water tank.
They told him that the tank was done and had been flushed. All that was left to do was
to finish painting it. It was filling now, but that would take a while.

Gary had thought about putting in a fire hydrant system, but the houses weren’t likely to
burn, so he had the engineer put in a row of outlets in the water tank that the fire de-
partment could hook up to in case of a fire. He, to be perfectly honest, was pretty proud
of what they’d managed to accomplish. They had 3 solid, nearly bulletproof homes; a
bomb shelter if worse came to worse, and plenty of supplies. But, more importantly, The
Three Amigos were back together. And, by God, they were a formidable team when
they set their minds to a task. Yes they were old and not in the best of health. But what
they lacked in physical ability he figured that they made up in cunning. With a house all

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battened down with the shutters and everything, the average punk didn’t stand a chance
breaking in. And, with all of the trouble the country had been through since 11/12/05,
none of the three of them was afraid to shoot someone when shooting was required.

That evening he checked the 10-day forecast on the weather channel. It looked like the
Farmer’s Almanac had been right; they were in for a hot spell over the next 10 days.
Hell, it was already hot enough to fry an egg on the hood of your car; this was just what
they needed. The forecast for LA was predicting temperatures in the hundreds, too.
And, as a rule of thumb, you could add about 20 degrees to the LA temperature to get
the temp in the high desert or 30 degrees to get the temp in the low desert around Palm
Springs. It was a darned good thing they didn’t live in Palm Springs. That was like
Phoenix in the summer.

Gary called Derek, mainly to say hi. Derek didn’t seem to be in a particularly good mood
so he asked Derek what was bothering him. Derek finally revealed that he couldn’t get
anyone to help him clean the weapons and that he’d just spent two long nights getting
everything shipshape. Gary told Derek he was sorry that no one would help but that
people in California had trouble deciding whether to be patriots or sheeple. When times
were good, Gary said, they said Baa a lot. Maybe, Gary said, they should give some
thought to selling that house on Moonraker Road and building a new home out where
The Three Amigos lived. That got them to discussing the amount of equity in the home
and Derek and Mary would only be short about $30,000 for a new home if they sold and
rebuilt. Gary went on to point out that he had an earlier floor plan for his home that had
4 bedrooms and that it was something to think about.

Derek said that he was sorry, but he’d completely forgotten to bring by the second load
of stuff. Was Gary still sure that he wanted it? Gary told Derek that the 10-day forecast
was for a major heat wave and he surely did want the other items. They visited a while
longer and Gary let Derek go to spend some time with Mary and the kids. Sharon was
down in the quilting room working on one project or another, so he went to the master
bedroom, did a Nebulizer treatment and settled in bed. He wasn’t all that sleepy, so he
turned on K-CAL channel 9 to listen to the news. They were steaming some live video
from their chopper and Gary couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. Then they cut
to the announcer who summarized the video that they’d just shown. Apparently the
Bloods and the Crips had broken their long-standing truce and had gone at it. LA had
gotten a new police chief back in 2003 or 2004, a cop from New York. Unlike previous
police Chiefs, this guy had sent in all the cops he could spare in an effort to quell the
disturbance. That hadn’t worked out particularly well because those gangsters were bet-
ter armed than the police. The minute the police had shown up the gangsters quit
fighting among themselves and had joined together to take on the police.

As of the moment, K-CAL 9 didn’t have any information about the numbers of dead and
injured, but promised more news at 10:00pm. After all of the trouble earlier, the gangs
had been pretty well decimated. But, it hadn’t taken all that long for them to re-form and
the gang problems were worse than ever. LA had 3 principal gangs, the Bloods, the
Crips and MS-13 in East LA. With the country crying for labor to rebuild the dams, one

325
would have thought that those young people in LA would have been grateful to have
work, but it was a problem that went back for several generations and had only wors-
ened when cocaine had entered into the picture. And, the problems weren’t limited to
Los Angeles by any means. Anywhere there was a ghetto containing 5th and 6th and
7th generation welfare recipients, there seemed to be trouble. Gary turned off the TV,
got up and took another Xanax and settled in to sleep.

The next evening, Derek showed up with his pickup fairly well loaded with the stuff Gary
had wanted. Derek looked beat, so Gary helped him and they just piled the stuff in the
living room again. Then an armload at a time, Gary hauled the stuff to the storeroom in
the shelter. Derek had offered to help but Gary had just lied to him and told him that
Clarence would help. It didn’t really take all that long anyway, there wasn’t that much
stuff. There were the 24 M-18 mines, 18 LAW’s, 3 cylinders of 40mm grenades, 3 cases
of hand grenades and about 500 rounds of .50BMG API. Gary wasn’t even sure why
he’d bothered with the hand grenades, he wasn’t sure he could toss one far enough to
avoid the blast radius, but it had seemed like the thing to do at the time.

And there was the other thing that Gary had screwed up on. With the houses all but-
toned up, they were bulletproof as far as small arms fire went. And that was from the
inside as well as from the outside. Gary had been so enthusiastic about sealing the
places up that he’d never given a thought to leaving firing ports in the window shutters.
He’d been thinking about this since Ron and Clarence’s homes had been finished and
the closest he’d come to a solution was thinking about installing CCTV. But, that still
wouldn’t let them return fire; it would just let them know what was coming their way. He
guessed that they were going to have to cut holes in the shutters and mount a plate that
could swing down to cover the hole when the firing port wasn’t in use. Well, he had to
do something, so he called Chris up to see if Chris could cut the holes and make the
plates.

Chris suggested that Gary had it backwards, but what was new about that? They dis-
cussed the possible dimensions of the firing ports and agreed that 8” wide by 12” high
ought to work. Chris said that before he cut the ports, he’d need to make the plates. The
plates, Chris suggested ought to be about 18” by 12” and all that he needed to get
started was the number of windows. Gary told Chris that he really hadn’t ever counted
the windows so he’d do that and get back to him. The living room had a large (and very
expensive) window plus smaller windows on either side that opened, allowing for 2 firing
ports. The master bedroom suite had two windows along the long wall allowing for two
more firing ports. Since there were 2 master bedrooms, that made 6. The sliding glass
door at the back of the bedroom didn’t seem like a likely firing port, so Gary skipped
that. Then, there was the dining room window, 7, the kitchen window, 8 and the laundry
room window, 9. He called Chris back and said they needed 9 plates per house for each
of the three houses. The shutters, he pointed out were ¾” hot rolled steel plate.

Chris and Patti hadn’t had the chance, or hadn’t taken the time, to visit Sharon and Gary
in their new home. Chris had been thinking that Gary had probably put up some ½”
steel shutters, but realized that he should have known better. When Gary did some-

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thing, he tended to overdo rather than underdo. Chris really didn’t have the tools to work
with that ¾” hot rolled steel plate, so he got on the phone and priced the 27 plates. Ini-
tially, he’d figured on drilling a hole at the top of the plate and letting it hang from the
hole with a bolt, but he realized that that wouldn’t do either. So, he got on the phone and
started shopping for some really heavy-duty piano hinges. He wasn’t having any luck so
he called Gary back. Gary told him that the shutters used piano hinges and gave him
the contractor’s name. Maybe, Gary said, the contractor could steer him in the right di-
rection. An hour later, Chris had located the piano hinges and all he had to do was buy
the stuff, weld the hinges to the plates, cut the holes and weld the hinges to the shut-
ters.

Chris also realized that each port represent a cut of 40”. And knowing Gary, he wouldn’t
be satisfied unless the cuts were smooth. Now that meant that either he’d have to cut
them with his torch and grind them smooth or use a saw and cut them as smoothly as
possible. But, he’d told Gary he’d do it and he had a pretty good idea where he’d be
spending his nights for the next 27 days. Meanwhile, Gary was thinking that putting 9
holes in the shutters was going to be a lot of work for Chris. So, he called Chris up to
see how he was coming with his project. Chris told him that he’d located the piano hing-
es and would be ordering the plates the next day. Chris also pointed out that it was go-
ing to be a lot larger project than he’d planned on and would take a while to complete.
Gary asked Chris if it would help if he only put 4 plates in each house, one on each ex-
posure. Boy would it, Chris had said, so Gary told him to just plan on 12 plates instead
of 27.

No one realized it at the time, but The Three Amigos had just gotten lucky. That gang
problem in LA had forced the new Governor to call in the CNG to restore order. And
when the Guard showed up, LA erupted into what one can only describe as open war-
fare. After being nearly wiped out by the Army, the gangs weren’t about to let that hap-
pen again. Then word of the LA riots, as the media referred to them, hit the evening
news and all hell began to break loose around the country. The disturbances started out
small enough, to be sure, and the various Governors involved also called out their state
Guards. But, not every Guard unit is equipped with Abrams or even Bradley’s and the
whole thing took about a week to get out of hand. President Santorum was finally forced
to federalize guard units from several more states to restore order. And, wouldn’t you
know it, another one of those massive hurricanes was headed for Florida.

When Chris showed up to start installing the firing ports, Gary suggested that under the
circumstances he put the front port in each of the homes first. With the riots in progress
in LA, Chris was on hiatus, and he had plenty of time to work on the projects. So, Chris
put in the front ports, followed by an end port on Ron and Clarence’s homes followed by
the rear ports. He worked from sunup until sundown and in 6 days had all 12 firing ports
installed. Gary didn’t particularly think of this as a freebie and Chris was pretty surprised
when Gary handed him a check to cover his materials and labor. You could always tell
when Chris was grateful because he said “Tanks”.

Whoever was in charge of the Guard units in LA must have had his head stuck where

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the sun didn’t shine. Either that or those gangsters were smarter than anyone thought.
Who knows, maybe they’d been watching reruns of the war in Iraq on the History Chan-
nel and got a few ideas from the insurgents. Nah, that wasn’t likely. But they were
darned effective and the kill ratio was running in the gangs’ favor. In other areas of the
country, the mass influx of additional guard units was having quite the opposite effect
and the gangs were slowly being beaten into submission. Santorum contacted the Gov-
ernor of the state of California, but his offer of additional troops was politely refused.
Santorum told the Governor that if the CNG didn’t get a handle on the situation quickly,
he’d nationalize them and send in Guard units from other states to restore order.

The new Governor, a Democrat, didn’t much care for Santorum and his domestic agen-
da. And he figured that if he let the President send in additional troops it would reflect
badly on how he was doing the job. And then Santorum had threatened him and that
had really po’d him. He called for the Commander of the CNG to make his presence
known in the office immediately. The Adjutant General, Major General Eres was ap-
pointed as the 43rd Adjutant General of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
on March 4, 2004. As the Adjutant General, he served as Director of the State of Cali-
fornia’s Military Department and leads the largest, most tasked National Guard force in
the United States, with an authorized strength of 18,000 Army National Guard and
4,900 Air National Guard members. General Eres began his military career in the Cali-
fornia Army National Guard in 1965 as an enlisted infantryman. He received his com-
mission in 1970 through the California Military Academy. Major General Eres currently
had about 40 years of military service.

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 46 –
Heat Wave 2

Eres didn’t care for the Governor’s style. At best, he considered the Governor to be ar-
rogant and at worst incompetent. But, he showed up only to get an ass reaming that
would have made a drill instructor proud. The Governor gave him exactly 48 hours to
have ‘that nasty little mess in LA’ resolved. Obviously, the new Governor had never
heard of Dale Carnegie. Eres tasked his Assistant to fly to LA and assess the situation.
About 4 hours later, the Assistant was on the phone. The problem, he said, was that the
gangsters were fighting about like those Iraqi insurgents had back in 2004. The Guard
wasn’t particularly doing anything wrong, but if Eres wanted to activate more troops,
they’d probably be able to get a handle on the situation a lot quicker.

Eres went ahead and issued the orders activating the remaining Guard units. He then
phoned the Governor’s office and told the Governor what the assessment of the LA sit-
uation was and what he was doing about it. The Governor wanted to know if Eres had
also activated the Air Guard units. Eres told him no, he didn’t think that fighter aircraft
were called for in a city like Los Angeles. Man, did that set the Governor off and after a
tirade of about 2-3 minutes he hung up on Eres. Eres had about 40 years in and he’d
never been abused like this during his entire career. He pulled out a sheet of letterhead
and hand wrote his resignation. It seemed clear to him that the Governor was looking
for a fall guy and it wasn’t going to be him. He picked up the phone and called the Gov-
ernor’s Secretary asking for an immediate appointment to see the Governor.

The Governor’s Secretary said that if it were urgent, she could work him in about 2
hours later, but only for 5-10 minutes. Eres accepted the appointment and assured her
that 5 minutes would be more than adequate. Eres then contacted his Assistant, Briga-
dier John R. Alexander and gave him a heads up. He went on to tell Alexander that he’d
activated everyone but the Air Guard and shared a bit of the Governor’s tirade with Al-
exander so that Alexander would know what he was up against. Alexander had 2 more
years of military service than Eres and they had one thing in common, they were Mus-
tangs. Alexander thought about it for a while and hand wrote his resignation, too and
faxed it to Eres. Eres received the fax shortly before he left for the Governor’s office. He
looked at it and grinned, obviously Alexander wasn’t willing to put up with the Gover-
nor’s BS either.

When he was shown into the Governor’s office, Eres walked up to the desk and stood at
attention. When finally the Governor’s looked up at him, Eres handed the Governor the
two resignations.

“What’s this?” the Governor asked.

“Those are the resignations of my Assistant and myself Mr. Governor,” Eres said. “Since
you seem to know so much about how to run the Guard, we’re stepping down to give
you free reign.” With that, the General turned on his heel and left the Governor’s office.

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It probably took all of an hour for news of the resignations to reach the White House.
And, when he got the news, Santorum was furious. He issued orders federalizing the
California, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon National Guards and ordered that all infantry
units be sent to Los Angeles to quell the unrest. He then directed that his secretary in-
form the Governor of California of his action while he called the Governors of the other
three states.

National Guard units can’t mobilize in minutes and hours would be fairly quick. CNN
picked up on what was happening and put it on the air. One of the gang members was
flipping channels on a new TV he’d looted from an electronics store and he happened to
pass CNN at just the right moment. In a matter of minutes the news that the President
was sending in a whole lot of National Guard troops was buzzing among gang mem-
bers. Some of them were going to stand and fight, but a small, non-vocal group began
to make other plans. They weren’t about to get their butts shot off in a lost cause.

They grabbed a couple of cars, filled them with gas and jumped on the southbound
Harbor freeway. They took the 110 to the 91 and headed east where, eventually, they
picked up the 15 and headed north. All of which was possible because the on-scene
Guard Commander hadn’t thought it necessary to guard the 110 south. When the two
carloads of gangsters got to 138, they took it, intending to cut across on 138 and pick up
I-5 in Gorman so they could get to San Francisco. Say, did I tell you where Gary had
bought the 2½ acres? It was on Pearblossom Highway between Pearblossom and Lit-
tlerock. Pearblossom Highway has a number, state route 138.

What was it Rick had said in Casablanca? “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the
world, she walks into mine.” Those three houses were at least 3 miles from the next
nearest house. KCBS’s helicopter happened to pick up the cars fleeing down the 110
and broadcast a live camera shot. But, after the cars turned east on 91, the chopper
had to return to the airport and refuel. And, an LA County Sheriff’s helicopter tried to
pick up the fleeing cars, but couldn’t find them in the traffic on 91. CNN rebroadcast the
brief live feed from KCBS and Ron was resting, watching TV. He was on the phone in
moments warning Gary and Clarence that a couple of carloads of gangsters had broken
out of LA. Now Gary and Clarence figured that the odds of those 2 carloads of gangster
ending up on their doorstep were about a million to one, and probably less. But what the
hell, they decided to button up anyway, just in case. Clarence went outside and closed
his shutters while Lucy locked the bars in place. Gary and Sharon did the same thing.
Then, the two of them headed to Ron’s to help him button up. In short order, the three
amigos were perched on kitchen chairs with the snouts of their .50 BMG rifles poking
out the front gun ports.

By this time, the LA County Sheriff and the San Bernardino County Sheriff had all of
their choppers in the air looking for the fleeing cars, but weren’t having much luck. De-
pending on traveling conditions and such, the trip from the Harbor Freeway to Palmdale
takes from 1½ to 2 hours. Those punks sure didn’t do a very good job of stealing cars
either. About ½ - ¾ of a mile before they got to those three homes, one of the cars had
a blowout. They slid to a stop just within view of the three houses. They looked in the

330
trunk and the spare was flatter than a pancake. The spare to the 2nd car was fine, but
the wheel was wrong, so they couldn’t use it.

Overhead, out of their hearing, an LA Country Sheriff’s chopper spotted the two cars
and radioed Palmdale requesting patrol cars. The punks, unaware that they had been
spotted, decided to walk down to the houses and see if maybe they could steal a new
car and be on their way. Clarence was the first to spot the punks and he keyed his mike
and announced that there was a bunch of guys headed their way from the east. Ron
and Gary got on the radios and suggested that they hold fire and see if those guys
passed them by. The Three Amigos had taken their rifles to the range the day after they
picked up Clarence’s because installing a suppressor invariably changes the aim of the
rifle. They had them sighted in for about 300-yards when Ron got tired and they had to
call it a day. They hadn’t had a chance to get back to the range. But it was only about
100-yards to the Pearblossom Highway, so they figured they were in pretty good shape.

There were 11 of the gangsters, punks or whatever you want to call them. They walked
up to the front gate of the property and found the gate locked with a chain and padlock.
Of course, they all had a master key of one form or another. Some were 9mm and a
couple were .45’s. Even so, it took 2 shots to bust that lock. And, that was all The Three
Amigos needed as an excuse. The suppressed .50 BMG rifle makes a sound about
equivalent to an unsuppressed M1A. There were three bangs and 3 of the gangsters
went flying from the impact of the .50 BMG bullets. The other 8 didn’t see where the
shots came from and barely heard the shots, but they saw their friends flying and hit the
dirt. They began returning fire at the homes, but no one fired back. And it seemed to
them as if their bullets were just bouncing off.

Overhead, the Sheriff’s chopper was watching the action down below. The observer in
the chopper knew who lived in those homes and he got back on the radio and reported
that the 3 old geezers from Moon Shadows were taking fire in their new homes. He also
reported that 3 of the gang bangers were down, probably for good. Normally in the AV
patrol cars carry one Deputy. However, since this was a tactical alert, each of the three
cars speeding towards the scene carried four Deputies. They had to slow a bit for Lit-
tlerock and then came rushing on. Meanwhile, Gary, Ron and Clarence were holding
their fire. They couldn’t really find a good target and decided to wait until the guys out by
the road rushed them. About that time they began to hear the sirens in the distance.
They had a quick radio conversation and put the .50s away opting to switch to their
M1A’s. There was no sense in inviting trouble.

Those punks obviously heard the sirens, too because they began to scatter. The patrol
cars pulled to a halt and the Bear in the air directed the Deputies to the spots where the
punks had taken refuge. Over the course of the next 20 minutes or so, the Deputies
managed to round up all of the punks and had them sitting on the ground next to the pa-
trol cars in handcuffs. Meanwhile The Three Amigos had opened the shutters on their
front doors and were gathered in front of Gary’s house holding their rifles. One of the
Deputies examined the 3 bodies and walked their way.

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“You three old farts hold your fire,” Johnny said.

“They dead?” Clarence asked.

“Not many people walk away from being shot by a .50 BMG rifle,” Johnny said.

“Hell we were using these M1A’s with hollow points,” Gary said.

“You don’t need to lie to me Gary,” Johnny said, “I could care less what you shot them
with, they did shoot the lock off that gate and fire on your homes, right?”

Gary got a stricken look on his face and turned to look at his home. That vinyl siding
that Sharon had insisted upon was pocked with bullet holes. He turned back to Johnny.

“Yeah and that darned vinyl siding took a beating too,” he replied.

“Are those steel shutters on the windows?” Johnny asked.

“¾” hot rolled steel plate and the walls are 1’ thick reinforced concrete,” Gary proudly
announced.

“Then you folks weren’t really in any danger were you,” Johnny observed.

“Of course we were Johnny, one of those gangsters bullets could have come through
one of our firing ports.” Gary explained.

“So you were in danger then,” Johnny said.

“Well of course we were,” Ron said.

“Besides,” Clarence added, “They fired first.”

“The three of you ought to take that act on the road,” Johnny laughed. “Ok, we’ll write it
up as justified homicide and run it by the DA. It’s just a good thing for you that those .50
BMG bullets passed right through the bodies, we probably won’t be able to prove that
you didn’t use those M1A’s.”

“By the way Ron, did you know that Kevin was released last week?” Johnny asked.

“No, but if you see him, don’t tell him where we are, Johnny,” Ron said, “The last he
knew we had moved to New Mexico.”

“Say would you fellas mind giving me a tour of one of your homes?” Johnny asked, “I’m
just dying of curiosity to see what you built.”

“I’ll show you mine Johnny, it’s the one with the shelter,” Gary offered.

332
They started on the main floor and moved on to the basement. During the course of
showing Johnny around the basement, Gary palmed the Stanley garage door opener
and then handed it to Ron.

“And now the shelter, Johnny,” Gary said looking at Ron. Gary clapped his hands 3
times and said “Open Sesame”. Ron pushed the button on the door opener and the wall
slowly opened to reveal the stairs.

“You’ve got to be shining me on,” Johnny said.

“We were,” Ron said holding up the garage door opener, “But you should have seen the
look on your face.”

They descended the stairs and Gary opened the outer blast door and swung it open.
Gary pointed out the generator and the entrance to the tunnels.

“If you go straight, you get to the garage, to the right, Clarence’s and to the left Ron’s,”
Gary explained.

“How come you don’t have a blast door on this opening?” Johnny asked.

“Huh. Well, I guess that I forgot,” Gary admitted.

Gary opened the inner blast door to the shelter and they did a quick tour. When they got
to the storage room Johnny noticed that there were 3 gun safes and a rack for rifles. All
of the rifles had the California legal locking devices. He also noticed several other
things, but kept what he saw to himself.

“You three old guys are still technically on the books as inactive Reserve Deputies,”
Johnny said. “It might be a good idea for you to put on your Deputies hat’s and take an-
other look at this room.”

Gary’s head snapped in the direction on the cases of grenades and stack of LAW’s.

“I see we need to add another storage cabinet or gun safe,” he said.

“Now that might not be a bad idea,” Johnny chuckled. “If you use a cabinet, be sure it
has a lock.”

Gary escorted Johnny back to the main floor and said that Johnny knew where to find
them if he needed anything. They needed to wipe down the M1A’s and clean the rifles.
And, Gary obviously had a few loose ends to tie up, like getting a storage cabinet for
those other munitions. And it just never occurred to him about the blast door,
But, he needed to have one of those installed, too. Hell, come to think of it, he couldn’t
even remember how big that used tank was that he had put in for diesel fuel; it was

333
40,000-gallons, wasn’t it? Gary went back to the shelter to help Ron and Clarence clean
the .50 caliber rifles, but all three rifles were clean and back in the gun safes.

He checked the M1A’s and his was sitting there not wiped down and Ron and Clar-
ence’s were missing. “Oh, that’s right,” he thought, “We keep those upstairs, don’t we.”
He grabbed his ALICE gear, the rifle and his silicon gun cloth and went upstairs, locking
up as he went. He wiped down the M1A, slipped it into its rack and hung the ALICE
gear in the closet. It was time to check his blood sugar and take his blood pressure then
medicate for the evening. His BP was normal and his BS was around 140, so Gary took
his insulin, pills and headed for bed. He undressed, did his Nebulizer treatment, which
took about 15 minutes, and then took off his watch and crawled into bed.

The next morning Gary got up, showered, did his meds and ate breakfast. Then he sat
down and made a list of those loose ends he needed to tie up. He got on the phone and
ordered another blast door first. He got in his pickup and drove to Staples where he
purchased a preassembled office cabinet. He hauled that home and gave Clarence a
ring to see if Clarence could help him get it down stairs. Clarence said sure, he’d be
glad to help, and he wanted to talk to Gary anyway. Gary went out to the garage to get
the appliance cart and returned home waiting for Clarence to come help him unload the
truck. Clarence showed up a few minutes later and asked him if he were ok now. Gary
said he was fine and they hauled the cabinet to the storeroom and put the LAW rockets
and grenades in the cabinet. The two of them walked the cart to the garage and Clar-
ence invited him to come over for coffee so they could visit.

When the coffee was done Clarence poured them both a cup and sat down at the table.

“What happened to you yesterday?” Clarence asked.

“I was about to ask you the same thing, Clarence,” Gary replied. “I walked Johnny up-
stairs and came right back down to the shelter but Ron and you were gone. So I went
back upstairs, wiped down my Super Match and put it and my ALICE gear away. Then I
took my meds, did a Nebulizer treatment and went to bed. How did the two of you get
those rifles clean so quick?”

“Huh. Is that how you remember it Gary?” Clarence asked.

“Yeah. Do you remember it different?” Gary asked.

“Well, Ron and I waited for you for over half an hour,” Clarence said. “We figured you
must have gotten tied up with Johnny so we went ahead and cleaned the rifles. After
that when you still hadn’t shown up we came upstairs to check on you. You were sitting
in a chair in a trance. We talked to you, shook you and simply couldn’t get your atten-
tion. Man, you were in Never-never-land. We told Sharon to keep an eye on you and
went home. She called about 2 hours later and said that you’d gone down to the shelter,
gotten your ALICE gear and rifle and locked up the shelter on your way back upstairs.
Then, apparently, you sat down in that chair again and went back into the trance. About

334
two hours after that, she called to say that you did your meds, did the Nebulizer thing
and went to bed. And somewhere in between the meds and going to bed, you went out
again. You ever have an experience like that before?”

“I kept looking at my watch yesterday afternoon and every time I looked at it, I’d lost an-
other 2 hours, Clarence,” Gary replied. “Hell I just thought it was the watch acting up.
I’ve never had anything like that happen before, that I know of anyway.”

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 47 –
Return to the Citadel

Clarence believed that Gary had never had that the problem before; at least he’d never
seem any indication of it. Nonetheless he talked to Ron about it and Ron said that they
somehow needed to get Gary talked in to going to the Citadel and checked out. How to
accomplish that, Ron said, was an entirely different matter. Gar-Bear might be the sole
member of the board at the Citadel, but getting him to go in for a physical would proba-
bly be impossible. You folks all believe in God, right? Well, if you don’t, you ought to re-
consider. Gary received a call from the Foundation that day informing him that Ron and
Clarence were back on the Board. The Foundation also informed him that due to their
ages, all 3 of the amigos had to have an annual physical and that they expected the re-
sults within a week.

“Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” Gary announced. “The good
news is that you two crusty old farts are back on the Board. The bad news is that all 3 of
us have to go in immediately for a physical.”

“OH, REALLY?” Ron said. “Thank you, Jesus,” he thought.

“I called and set them up for tomorrow morning,” Gary continued, “Is that ok with you
guys?”

“Well of course, Gary,” Clarence replied. “Thank you, Jesus,” he thought.

Ron asked if Gary would excuse him for a moment and he quickly called Sharon. He
filled her in and asked if she could call Dr. J and persuade him to be present at the Cit-
adel the next day. Sharon was reluctant, she and J didn’t quite have the same friend-
ship that Gary and J enjoyed but when she called the office, the nurse put her right
through to Dr. J. Sharon explained to Dr. J what had happened to Gary and that he was
scheduled for a physical the next day at the Citadel. She was calling, she said, to see if
Dr. J could possibly be there and participate in the physical. Dr. J told her that he was
scheduled to be at the Citadel tomorrow anyway, but that even if he’d hadn’t, in this in-
stance he would have changed his schedule. What he didn’t tell her was that he didn’t
like the sounds of this business one bit.

Dr. J and Dr. E ran their office on a schedule where they alternated mornings and after-
noons. For example, if Dr. E had the duty Monday morning, Dr. J had the duty Monday
afternoon. Then on Tuesday, Dr. J had the morning and Dr. E the afternoon. Calling
their office and actually getting to speak to a doctor was like flapping your arms and fly-
ing. It rarely if ever happened. Back when Gary had that breathing problem that landed
him in AV Hospital had been the first time Sharon had ever been put through to the doc-
tor. Anyway, Dr. J was on the phone, talking to his friend Dr. T, the famous neurosur-
geon (He really is famous). They were discussing what little J knew from the conversa-
tion with Sharon and both doctors agreed that it was likely that old Gar-Bear would need
surgery. Dr. T said he’d clear a spot in his schedule, but that he wasn’t on staff at the

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Citadel so they’d probably have to transport Gary to Northridge for the operation. Dr. J
laughed and told Dr. T that by the time he got to Palmdale, he’d not only be on staff,
he’d probably be the head of Neurosurgery. Gary, he explained was the Chairman of
the board of the Hospital and his 2 best friends made up the remainder of the Board.
Besides, J said, you had to see this hospital to believe it. It had absolutely the latest and
greatest of everything.

“I don’t like the idea of somebody I never doctored with before poking and prodding,”
Gary said on the way to the Citadel. “If it had been up to me, I’d have gone down to the
Valley and gotten the physical from Dr. J.”

“Well Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “Maybe you’ll get lucky and it will be his day to be at the
hospital.” Ron had talked to Sharon after she’d talked to J.

“Ron the odds of that happening are about like the odds of those 11 gang bangers
showing up on our doorstep,” Gary groused.

If Gary knew what was planned for him, he’d no doubt have turned the pickup around
and headed home.

The Three Amigos were afforded VIP treatment, that po’d Gary from the get-go. And
low and behold, who should walk into the examination room but none other than Dr. J.
Gary was glad to see Dr. J, but his mind was racing. Gary had a bit of paranoia and he
didn’t know whether it was just his good luck or there was a conspiracy going on here.
The truth was, it was a bit of both, but that never occurred to Gary. Dr. J gave Gary a
thorough going over and then suggested that it might be a good time for an MRI to see
how the diabetes was affecting his brain. They’d done that a few years back and the re-
sults had been interpreted that Gary had a stroke. But, Gary had never had a stroke and
eventually it was decided that the results reflected the effects of his diabetic neuropathy.
The bottom line was that Gary never suspected the real reason for the MRI.

As much as I hate saying it, it was like leading a lamb to the slaughter. Dr. J happened
to remember Gary talking about his previous experiences with closed MRI’s and he or-
dered that Gary be ‘knocked out’ so that he didn’t wiggle and screw up the results. And
unbeknownst to Gary, Sharon had gotten that envelope that Gary kept by his desk with
the MRI photos from 1998 and had brought them to the hospital and given them to Dr.
J. This was the full spine MRI that had been used to diagnose Gary’s spinal stenosis
and he kept them around as a souvenir.

Dr. L, Clarence’s Neurologist, the Radiologist, Dr. J and the technician were in the MRI
control room. Dr. T had suggested most strongly that while they had Gary in the MRI
they run a Cervical and Thoracic series on Gary’s spine, he wanted to know how far the
stenosis had progressed on C-3, C-4 and C-6. The state-of-the-art in 2004 permitted
doctors to tell, most of the time, if a tumor was malignant or benign. By 2009, the state-
of-the-art had advanced by leaps and bounds and had eliminated 99% of the guess-
work.

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They’d given Gary a fairly healthy dose of sedative and he was in LA-LA land. They slid
him into the MRI and did his brain first. It was like Dr. J had suspected, Gary had a be-
nign tumor in his brain about 1.5cm in diameter. Dr. L said that he could assist in an op-
eration to remove the tumor, but that he didn’t have the experience for this particular
operation, Dr. J told Dr. L that Gary’s regular neurologist was Dr. T and that Dr. T was
on standby in case an operation were necessary. That almost spooked Dr. L, Dr. T’s
reputation was something else. They proceeded to run the Cervical and Thoracic spinal
series and old Gar-Bear’s spine was pinching off significantly.

They compared the MRI’s from 1998 and the current set and Dr. L voiced the opinion
that it looked like they were going to have to do some work to decompress C-3, C-4 and
C-6 on top of removing the tumor. Meanwhile, they had taken Gary out of the MRI, giv-
en him a bit more of the sedative to keep him under, and had taken him to the CCU.
One of the advantages of a long-term doctor-patient relationship is that the doctor gets
to know the idiosyncrasies of his patient. Dr. J knew that if they let Gary come out of the
sedative, he’d be hell on wheels. While Dr. J was on the phone setting up surgery the
next morning with Dr. T, Dr. S was in the CCU giving Gary the once over to make cer-
tain he could handle the surgery without difficulty. Dr. S was very happy that Dr. J had
kept Gary sedated, he still remembered the trouble they’d had with old Gar-Bear, as his
friends called him, back in AV Hospital. Mr. Olsen wasn’t exactly the best of patients
and he didn’t seem to care for hospitals very much.

Dr. J had given Dr. T directions to the Citadel and had filled him in. Dr. L, the Chief of
Neurology had observed the MRI’s and had expressed the opinion that Olsen needed
his spine decompressed as well. Then, Dr. J called his wife, a fine nurse from Ireland,
and told her that he was staying over for Olsen’s surgery.

I should point out that when it came to getting medical treatment Gary Olsen had phe-
nomenal luck. Back in 1990, he’d needed his gall bladder removed. This was in the glo-
ry days of Grenada Hills Hospital. One Dr. R had recently begun doing Laparoscopic
Cholecystectomies. (Surgical removal of the gall bladder using endoscopes and little
incisions.) Well now, in 1990, that was a radical procedure in LA and Dr. R was the
Chief of Surgery at Grenada Hills Hospital. A colleague, the head of surgery at another
hospital had volunteered to assist so that he could learn the procedure. In fact, several
doctors planned to observe the operation. As it happened, the weekend before the sur-
gery was scheduled, Gary had ended up in Grenada Hills Hospital with an attack of
Pancreatitis. I don’t know if I’ve ever told that episode in any of my stories, but if I ha-
ven’t and you’re interested, it’s quite the story.

Anyway, Gary hadn’t had the Laparoscopic procedure because of the inflamed Pancre-
as, which was just as well, because they’d have had to ‘convert’ to the standard proce-
dure anyway. It seemed that Gary’s blood vessels in and around his liver and pancreas
were all screwed up. But, while they were sewing him up, Gary started throwing PVC’s
(Pre-Ventricular Contractions) and that was when he’d met Dr. P, his cardiologist.
Gary’s electrolytes were screwed up, probably because he was still drinking in those

338
days and a dose of magnesium fixed him right up. And, it also established Gary’s long
record of having problems with nurses and hospitals. They had Gary on one of those
machines where you could dispense a little dose of painkiller every 10 minutes or so.

The bottle had run dry and the nurses had put in a new bottle of Demerol. No big deal,
except they charged $250 a bottle for the Demerol. Well now, this one nurse had been
on break and she had never done the bottle switch before. When she got back from her
break and found out they’d changed the bottle without her being present, she threw a
regular hissy fit. So much so, that the other nurses gave in and allowed her to remove
and reinsert the bottle of Demerol. The nurse was a clumsy thing and she’d dropped
and broke that bottle of Demerol. And they’d had the nerve to charge old Gar-Bear for
the broken bottle of drugs! To top it off, Gary and that nurse were both pretty strong
willed people and it had gotten so bad that the Cardiologist had ordered the nurse out of
CCU before Gary had a heart attack. (I really don’t make all of this stuff up; it’s been an
interesting life. Fleataxi says I could write a story just recounting my real adventures.)

The next morning, Dr. T arrived at the hospital early, around 7am, and he reviewed the
MRI’s. Dr. L had it right, that little tumor needed to come out. And C-3, C-4 and C-6
needed the roto-router treatment. They took Gary into surgery and about 3½ hours lat-
er, he was as good as new and in the recovery room. They had quite a debate whether
to let Gary wake up of not. Once he was awake, he was a real pain in the butt. Medical
procedure outweighed common sense in this case and they moved Gary to ICU and let
him slowly wake up.

The last thing Gary remembered was getting a shot before he went into the MRI. He
woke up and looked around and after a moment recognized that he was in ICU. “Gee,”
he thought, “I wonder if I had a problem in the MRI?” A nurse came in and after the
usual pleasantries suggested that Gary not move around because that was some pretty
heavy-duty surgery he’d had. Well, doctors aren’t perfect and they’d forgotten to tell that
ICU nurse not to mention the surgery. The surgery had gone perfectly and Gary was
going to be all right. Unfortunately, Gary didn’t know that. He didn’t know that his head
was wrapped in bandages and that he had an 8” incision along his spine.

And, all of a sudden, Gary was po’d. Hell, his blood pressure shot up setting off the
alarm on the monitor and the next thing you knew the nurse was in the room injecting
something into his IV. The doctors, it seems, had remembered to write an instruction to
sedate Gary if he reacted badly to waking up. The next thing Gary knew, some luscious
redhead who was built like the proverbial brick outhouse was leaning over him. Appar-
ently Ron had found time to read ‘Mountain Man’. The nurse said, “Hi, my name is Jen-
nifer.” (In Mountain Man, Jennifer was a doctor) Gary contented himself to just lie there
and enjoy the view, if you get my drift. Gary always claimed he was a ‘leg-man’ but the
legs were a bit further down on the body. About that time, Dr. J walked into the room,
Gary was no longer in ICU, and he started to explain to Gary what had happened. Now
Dr. J always had a calming effect on Gary and having that redheaded nurse in the room
didn’t hurt one bit. Dr. J had to tell her to leave so he could get Gary’s attention. Gary
hadn’t even noticed that Sharon was in the room. But, Sharon and Gary had been mar-

339
ried a long time and she was well accustomed to his antics. Odds were she’d been in-
volved in hiring the redheaded nurse in the first place.

340
 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 48 –
Return to the Citadel 2

“Gary, you had a small, benign tumor, about 1.5 cm in diameter in your brain,” Dr. J ex-
plained. “We also checked your spine and C-3, C-4 and C-6 were pretty severely com-
pressed. Dr. T did the surgery with Dr. L and me assisting. Your prognosis is excellent
and you should be out of here tomorrow.”

Ninety-nine times out of 100 a doctor would never talk to a patient like that. Remember
what I said about the doctor-patient relationship? It had taken years for Gary to train J to
talk to him in plain medical language. Anything he didn’t understand he could look up on
the net. Well now, Gary understood everything J had said, in this instance, and he didn’t
have a single question unless it was what that redhead’s phone number was. But Gary’s
bimbo days were long over and he didn’t even joke about that. He just contented him-
self to lay back and enjoy the view. Of course, the second thing old Gar-Bear had
checked was the ring finger on her left hand and she had a darned nice wedding ring
and diamond. Figured.

Now ‘Jennifer’s’ real name was Barbara. And, before Gary had woken up, Sharon had a
visit with her. She half apologized, in advance, and told Barbara that despite Gary
claiming for years that he was a legman, he had some sort of a breast fixation. Barbara
lamented how she was pretty much used to it by this point in her life and if Gary wanted
to be a dirty old man, let him. Didn’t they already make this movie and call it ‘Conspiracy
Theory’?

“Hey you old reprobate,” Ron said entering the room, “It’s good to see you awake.”

“Check that out Ronald,” Gary said nodding to ‘Stacy’.

“She’s married,” Ron said.

“Yeah, I know, but what a sight to wake up to,” Gary chuckled.

“Some people have all the luck,” Clarence chimed in. “How are you feeling?”

“You know fellas, that guardian angel that I have must be getting pretty tired,” Gary re-
plied. “Either that, or I have more dumb luck than the law allows. How are the two of you
doing?”

“Well, it’s been a long ten days,” Ron replied. “You scared the crap out of me this time.”

“Yeah, Gary,” Clarence added, “Ron and I was trying to figure out how to get you to the
Citadel for a checkup and then you came and told us about that annual physical. Man,
is God watching out for you.”

“Which one of you is behind hiring the redhead and what is her real name?” Gary

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asked.

“I did,” Ron admitted, “But Sharon was involved too. And her real name is Barbara.”

“I’d bet dollars to donuts that Sharon probably told her I was a dirty old man, too,” Gary
laughed. “What’s going on with the gangs? All of that happened the day before I came
in here for that physical?”

“Well,” Clarence said, “Apparently the Adjutant General and his assistant resigned from
the CNG. Santorum heard about it and nationalized the Guards from California, Arizona,
Nevada and Oregon. Before they could mobilize, those 11 gangsters that we ran into
bolted and ended up on our front doorstep. By the way, the DA, said it was justifiable
homicide. Anyway, once the Guard forces got to LA, they had the whole thing wrapped
up in about 3 days. So, I guess everything is pretty much back to normal.”

“Wasn’t there a major hurricane off the Florida coast?” Gary asked.

“Man, they must have fixed your memory while they were digging around in that brain of
yours,” Ron answered. “There was, but about 100-miles off the coast, it unexpectedly
changed course and dropped from a category 4 to a tropical storm by the time it made
landfall further up the Atlantic coast.”

Whether or not it had been medically advisable, the hospital had taken Gary off the Fo-
ley before waking him up. As a consequence, he was feeling pretty dang good. And, his
medical chart revealed that left unhindered by all of his manipulations, he was in excel-
lent condition. His BS and BP were well managed and he was well enough to be dis-
charged. In fact Dr. J, the physician of record, had already written up the discharge or-
ders. And, Dr. J had fixed old Gary up with a goodly supply of Physicians samples. The
next morning after breakfast, Sharon showed up with some clothes and Gary was dis-
charged. Life was good and getting better.

Damon and Derek had been to the hospital any number of times to check in on their
Dad, but the hospital was keeping Gary sedated at the time. That evening they stopped
by the house to see how Gary was doing.

“Dad, haven’t I told you that you have to quit doing this sort of stuff?” Derek asked.

“Kid, if it had been up to me, I’d probably be dead,” Gary laughed.

Gary was a little tired from the hospital stay and the boys only stayed a few minutes.
Sharon told Gary that supper would be ready in about 30 minutes, so he did his evening
BP/BS routine and took his meds. They had a light supper and Gary settled in to watch
a little TV. Naturally, he put the TV on CNN to see what was going on in the world. It
was the tail end of Larry King live and Gary wasn’t interested so he started channel
hopping. The next thing you knew, he was back to CNN having found nothing of inter-
est. He turned the TV off and picked up his cane and walked to the closet. Well, his

342
M1A was where he thought it should be, so he remembered that right. Normally, Gary
didn’t use a cane, anymore, but he was a bit on the weak side and had decided not to
take any chances.

“I’ve probably got a mailbox full,” he thought, “Guess I’d better go clean it out.”

Once, in a weak moment, Gary had checked on one of those Canadian Pharmacies on
the web. Ever since he’d done that, he’d been receiving about 50 pieces of junk mail a
day, including ads from porn sites. There was supposed to be a law against this stuff,
but apparently those websites weren’t much interested in following the law. Gary had to
reboot the computer and then he brought up SBC. He just wasn’t up to dealing with
400+ pieces of mail and shut down the Internet. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he
had that sinking feeling again in his gut. He sloughed it off, did a Nebulizer treatment
and went to bed.

Washington…

When Santorum had been elected President he picked a real humdinger for a Secretary
of DHS. Most people had never heard of the guy, but he really had his act together. The
guy’s name was Prescott. Santorum had kept Mueller and Goss on board and together
the 3 men had made substantial inroads into improving the security of the US. For one
thing, inspections of cargos entering the US were now being inspected at nearly the rate
of 50% rather than the 2% as had been the past practice. The inspections were con-
ducted in the ports of origin of the cargos. Santorum had realized that the US Immigra-
tion policies needed an overhauling and together with Congress had come up with
some reasonable, legitimate laws that recognized that the US depended upon immi-
grant labor for its agricultural needs. Not that everyone agreed with the new law, but it
was realistic, if nothing else.

Indonesia had failed to capture Hambali after the attacks on the US dams and pipelines
and he was still running around planning yet another attack on the US. Unfortunately,
the improved US security was interfering with his plans. He’d lost his American cell in
that shootout in Burbank and hadn’t been able to fully replace them. He’d only managed
to get 3 men into the US before the security tightened up and he really wanted a 4-man
cell. And, it wasn’t like Indonesia wasn’t trying its very best to locate the terrorist. It had
gotten to the point that the UN Security Council was discussing human rights violations
in Indonesia. Interestingly, Indonesia had a major ally in the UN, the US, and the Securi-
ty Council wasn’t getting anywhere.

Hambali decided to make what I suppose you’d call a full-court press. He was going to
flood several points of entry into the US with operatives in the hopes that at least one of
them got through. He had spent a lot of money getting together especially good sets of
forged papers and the operation was already underway. Forged, in this instance, was
perhaps a misnomer. The documents were in fact stolen genuine French documents
that had been carefully altered by a master craftsman. As part of its routine admissions
procedures, the US scanned foreign passports. But a system was only as good as the

343
information one put into it and the French government wasn’t cooperating with the US.
As a result, 5 of the 6 men who attempted entry into the US made it past inspection.
The sixth man’s papers worked too, but he somehow didn’t pass muster and was re-
fused entry. All of a sudden, Hambali had not 1, but 2 fully operational cells within the
US.

The Indonesian terrorists had been well schooled and as had the previous cell, they
went to ground. They realized from following CNN that the American ATF had really
been doing a job on hammering explosives distributors who failed to maintain adequate
security. That was ok, they had a full container of explosives on a ship headed for the
US. The container of explosives was labeled to be just what it was, explosives. The only
thing wrong with the whole thing was that the company that the explosives were des-
tined for didn’t know that they were receiving a container of explosives. That way, when
the terrorists stole the shipment in route, no one would be the wiser. Well, the driver
would be, but he was going to disappear, now wasn’t he? Hambali had been very care-
ful to hire an independent trucker to haul the load. A background check on the trucker
had revealed that he was a single man with no apparent next of kin or even a steady
girlfriend for that matter. It might be some time before he was even missed.

Palmdale…

Gary was out of the hospital a week now and he was feeling pretty darn good. Once he
got those sutures out, he figured he would feel even better. As fast as he healed it didn’t
make much sense to him to keep the stitches in as long as the doctor wanted, but he
wasn’t about to raise hell with someone who’d save his life. The thing was, that that
gnawing sensation he had in his gut was slowly getting worse. At first, he thought may-
be his stomach was bothering him, so he’d taken a course of treatment with the
Prevacid he had left over from before. But, that hadn’t changed anything and he’d dis-
continued the treatment, realizing that it was just his warning alarm going off, one more
time.

“Dang Ron,” Gary said, “I don’t like this one bit. I’ve got that old sinking feeling in my gut
again and you know what that means.”

“You need to stop that Gar-Bear,” Ron said. “Hell; you’re barely healed up from the
hospital. You aren’t even back to fighting trim, yet.”

“Clarence did you check out the possibility of putting scabbards on those golf carts for
the big rifles?” Gary asked. “I sort of half promised that guy that I’d look into it.”

“Ain’t no way in hell we’re going to make that work, Gary,” Clarence replied. “What I did
was put in a couple of uprights and hang one of those pickup rifle racks to hold the
guns. Man between those Winchesters, the M16A3/M203, the M1A and now the 50s
any danged fool who comes up against us had better get in the first shot.”

“Watch it Clarence,” Ron said, “Remember about God and his sense of humor.”

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“Oh, that’s right, Ron, thanks,” Clarence said. “God, if you’re listening I wasn’t serious
there.”

“How are they coming on getting those dams rebuilt?” Gary asked.

“Hoover and Parker are coming along nicely, ahead of schedule,” Ron replied.

“Good,” Gary said. “Say isn’t it about time we started a recall on that dope they have in
Sacramento?”

“We can’t do that, Gary,” Ron chuckled, “Arnold is making a new movie and isn’t availa-
ble. Besides, I think they have term limits or something.”

“Yeah and Charlton Heston has Alzheimer’s,” Clarence added.

“Well, what about Steven Seagal?” Gary asked. “He hasn’t made a good movie in
years.”

“Nah,” Ron said, “I could never vote for anyone dumb enough to divorce Kelly LeBrock.
Did you see her in ‘Weird Science’?”

“It’s on my top ten list Ronald,” Gary laughed.

“I thought you was a leg man,” Clarence said.

“How many times do I have to tell you Clarence?” Ron retorted, “The legs don’t start 8”
below the chin.”

I-80, Pennsylvania…

The trucker had just finished eating and making a stop at the john. He headed back to
his truck. He checked the tires and was about to get in when he felt what he took to be a
gun barrel in the small of his back. A moment later, he felt nothing at all as the 9mm
slugs ripped into his spine. The two terrorists took the man’s keys and loaded the body
into the sleeper of the semi as quickly as possible. The driver had left the tractor running
for some strange reason. These Americans were so wasteful! They continued the trip as
before, however when they got to the Ohio turnoff for the original destination, they by-
passed it and continued on their way. Their first stop was a barn on a deserted farm
somewhere in Indiana. There, they planned to alter the numbers on the trailer. After the
trailer was disguised, they were going to pull it to a location where several companies
had cargo containers that they used as storage. They had rented a space under an as-
sumed name at Hambali’s direction and no one would think to look twice at the trailer.
After, they planned to dump the tractor back in eastern Ohio, along I-80 pointed west-
bound.

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The terrorists had screwed up again. They didn’t know it and it would take quite some
time to surface, but that trucker had met a gal at a truck stop and they had gotten on
quite well. He’d ended up moving in with her about a month before he’d picked up that
load of explosives. Most of the time he called her daily except when he got really busy.
He’d called her from the truck stop shortly before his untimely demise and had told her it
would be a few days before he called again. He also mentioned that he was hauling a
load of explosives for a firm in Ohio, but she didn’t catch the name.

A week later, Marie (the girlfriend) was getting pretty alarmed. She hadn’t heard from
Rob (the trucker) in a week and he’d told her that he’d only be out of touch for about 3
days. Finally Marie went to the police and filed a missing person report. The police usu-
ally take these to be a routine matter, but when Marie happened to mention that Rob
was hauling a load of explosives, all hell broke loose. They immediately notified the ATF
that they possibly had a missing truck driver who was hauling a load of explosives. And,
while the ATF was in route, the police began to question Marie, trying to elicit every
possible piece of information they could about Rob.

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The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 49 – Manhunt

Don’t believe what you see in the movies or on TV. The police can be pretty efficient at
times and this was one of those times. By the time the ATF showed up at the police sta-
tion, a seasoned detective had coaxed about everything they needed from Marie. The
ATF agent took the information and got on the line to the New York office. He passed
along the information and the ATF put the wheels into motion. It didn’t take them all that
long to come up with a copy of the bill of lading for that shipment of explosives. But,
when they contacted the company who was the supposed recipient of the shipment,
they knew nothing about it. This information was passed immediately to the director of
the ATF, Truscott, and he was on the phone to Secretary Prescott at DHS in minutes.
Prescott called Santorum and gave him a quick overview of the situation. Santorum
suggested that Prescott immediately form a taskforce to deal with the matter and he’d
take care of the paperwork. The same group as last time, Santorum suggested and out-
lined what needed to be done.

A high priority APB/BOLO was put out to be on the lookout for Rob’s tractor, trailer and
Rob. The bulletin was most specific that Rob wasn’t wanted for anything and was con-
sidered as ‘missing’. About twenty minutes earlier, an Ohio state trooper had ticketed
Rob’s tractor. When he heard the broadcast, he immediately did a U-turn and headed
back to the tractor, code 3. As he drove, he passed along the information to the dis-
patcher and asked for backup. The trooper arrived at the tractor just moments before
his backup. He hadn’t noticed anything particularly out of the order when he’d ticketed
the vehicle earlier, but this was a whole new ballgame. With pistol drawn, the trooper
approached the cab of the vehicle much more cautiously this time. He tried the handle,
but the door was locked, something he hadn’t checked the first time. He holstered his
pistol and climbed up to look in the window. It wasn’t until he got out his flashlight that
he noticed what appeared to be bloodstains on one edge of the seat.

The trooper got back on the radio to the dispatcher and filled her in. She advised him to
preserve the scene, that the FBI had a crime lab on the way. About an hour later, the
trooper began to wonder if that FBI crime lab was coming from Timbuktu. Timbuktu, in
case you don’t know, is in Mali (west Africa). Apparently the FBI had a crime lab in
Pittsburg and it arrived shortly thereafter. The trooper was already on overtime and he
radioed the new dispatcher that the FBI was on-scene and asked to be relieved. He got
a “Standby one” and was essentially put on hold. A few minutes later the dispatcher
came back on and advised him that he was free to leave as soon as his replacement
arrived. The twenty minutes it took the replacement to arrive was an eternity, but even-
tually the trooper was on his way.

The FBI specialists started on the outside and worked their way in. It wasn’t until about
the time that the trooper left that they’d unlocked the tractor and entered. The trooper
had been right; the stain on the right side of the seat was blood. And, there was a lot
more of it in the sleeper compartment. They ran a quick blood type test and confirmed
that the blood probably belong to Rob, the driver of the truck. One of the agents took

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time to pass this information up to Washington.

Washington…

Prescott, Truscott, Goss and Mueller were gathered in a conference room at DHS.
When they received word that the on-scene people had a tentative blood match, they
knew they were in trouble. An ATF agent had already been to the alleged recipient of
the explosives shipment and the company didn’t use explosives. Someone had found a
chink in their armor.

“You know, I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if this wasn’t some more of Hambali’s work,”
Mueller remarked.

“Let me check with my people and see if they’ve heard anything,” Goss replied. “We fi-
nally have some HumInt assets in Indonesia.”

“What are we up against here?” Prescott asked.

“Well, according to this bill of lading,” Truscott said, “We’ve got a pretty big problem. It
was a mixed load of explosives and included quite a mix. About the only thing those
people don’t have is timers and detonators. I’ll tell you one thing; this is a new one on
me. I think that Bob is right, Hambali’s stamp is all over this thing.”

Prescott excused himself to go to the office and call Santorum.

“Mr. President,” he said, “We found the tractor in eastern Ohio. There were bloodstains
consistent with the driver’s blood type, but there’s no sign of the driver. Mueller thinks
that this is the work of Hambali and Truscott agrees with him. Goss is checking their
HumInt sources in Indonesia.”

“I’ve worked with those boys before John,” the President replied. “If they think it is Ham-
bali, I’d be inclined to go along with them. If I were you, I’d start thinking about bumping
up the threat level.”

“Yes Sir,” Prescott replied, “I’ll take that under advisement.”

Prescott returned to the conference room and told the others that Santorum had rec-
ommended thinking about bumping up the threat level. They talked it over for a bit and
agreed that the President was perhaps a bit premature. However they were at blue and
it wouldn’t hurt all that much to bump it up to yellow. So, Prescott ordered the level
bumped to yellow and called a press conference to make the announcement.

Palmdale…

“Ron Green,” Ron answered the phone.

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“I told you,” Gary said.

“What are you talking about Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

“DHS just bumped the threat level to yellow,” Gary replied.

“You know if you’d quit getting those feelings like that, the whole flippin’ country would
be better off,” Ron chuckled. “What is it this time?”

“I only caught part of the broadcast Ron, but apparently they have a missing 40’ con-
tainer load of explosives and I believe I heard Indonesia mentioned,” Gary replied.

“You pal Fleataxi was right,” Ron said, “They should have nuked Indonesia.”

“For crying out loud Ron,” Gary said, “That would be like nuking New York to kill a rat.
I’m sorry, but you and my friend Fleataxi have nukes on the brain. Now if it were France,
I’d probably go along with you.”

“When do you get those stitches out?” Ron asked.

“I wasn’t supposed to get them out for another couple of days, but the way they itch, I
think they can come out now,” Gary replied. “At least I’m headed for the Citadel and am
going to do my best to get them out. I’ll talk to you later.”

As it happened, Dr. L was at the hospital and after much cajoling, he agreed that the
sutures could come out. It seemed that despite being a diabetic, Olsen healed awfully
dang fast. Relieved of his sutures Gary headed home. Dr. L had told him to take it easy
for a couple of days and he intended to do just that, for a couple of hours. It was like
he’d told Dr. S. All doctors’ instructions were medical advice and it was up to him to de-
cide whether or not to take the advice. Dr. L figured that Olsen would ignore him and it
really didn’t matter, the incisions were fully healed. Still, he had felt obligated to at least
give the usual warning to Olsen, just in case.

The terrorist cell had buried Rob’s body on the farm in Indiana and had dropped off the
container at the container facility. They’d dropped the tractor a full hour before that Ohio
trooper had happened on it and they had gone to ground. Both cells had keys for the
lock on the trailer and were free to operate independently. One of the groups was in
New York City and the other in Dearborn, Michigan, not more than 3 blocks from where
the previous cell had been holed up. Apparently Hambali figured that the Americans
would never think to look in Dearborn.

When he got home, Gary got his golf cart and mounted a steel pole on it with a yellow
flag attached. Then he went home and started to load up the golf cart like WW III was
about to go down. He put his ALICE gear for both rifles on the bottom hooks of those
rifle racks Clarence had mounted and the Tac-50 in the middle row. The Winchester
went into the scabbard and the other two rifles also went on the rifle rack. Gary loaded 2

349
magazines for the Tac-50 with Raufoss and wrapped a piece of red tape around them.
He put match ammo in 3 more magazines. Since the Kimber was in a holster on the AL-
ICE gear, Gar-Bear strapped on the Vaquero. He mounted up on the golf cart and
headed for Ron’s. When he got there, he let out a blast of air from that air horn he al-
ways carried. Ron bolted out of the door, took one look and started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Gary asked.

“If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand,” Ron replied the tears rolling down his
cheeks.

“I was just checking things out Ronald,” Gary said. “This is the first opportunity I’ve had
to do that. Anyway, what do you think of my flag?”

“What’s it for?” Ron asked.

“Ah. I can’t remember, but it sure seemed like a good idea at the time,” Gary admitted.
“Oh, I know, it’s the threat level.”

“What difference does the threat level make to us?” Ron asked.

“Ok,” Gary said, “If you don’t like it, I’ll take it off.” Gary fired up the golf cart, and took off
the flag before he forgot why he’d gone to the garage and headed for Clarence’s where
he let loose with another blast from his air horn. Clarence came out of the door like the
house was on fire and just stood there and stared.

“Before you ask, Clarence,” Gary said, “I just wanted you to see how nicely that rifle
rack of yours worked out.”

“Why thank you Gary,” Clarence said suppressing his grin, “That was mighty consider-
ate of you.”

“See you later,” Gary said and headed for home. He unloaded all of the weapons, put
them away and returned the golf cart to the garage. “That,” he thought, “Ought to keep
them guessing for a while.”

Clarence called up Ron. “Ron was Gary over to your house?” Clarence asked.

“Hell yes, partner, he was all decked out like WW III was about to start,” Ron said, “He
even had a flag on that golf cart of his.”

“Well, he didn’t have no flag when he showed up to my place,” Clarence said. “He
claimed that he was here to show me how well the rifle rack worked.”

“Knowing Gary’s sense of humor,” Ron said, “I suspect he was just shining us on. But I
suppose we’ll have to keep an eye on him for a couple of days. I wouldn’t worry about it

350
partner, we’ll know one way or the other in a couple of days.”

“Well ok,” Clarence said, “But until we figure it out, I’m planning on sleeping with my
eyes open.”

“Now I know he was shining us on, Clarence,” Ron laughed. “I’ll bet $50 dollars Gar-
Bear is sitting in his recliner thinking that his little stunt will keep us guessing for a
while.”

“Really?” Clarence said. “I’ll take that bet.”

“All right, I’ll meet you at Gary’s in 5 minutes and bring your wallet,” Ron laughed.

The 2 amigos rang Gary’s doorbell. Sharon answered and there he sat in his recliner.

“Gary if I asked you a question, would you tell me the truth?” Ron asked.

“Unless I lied to you, sure,” Gary smiled.

“What were you just thinking?” Ron asked.

“That my little stunt would keep you guessing for a while,” Gary replied. “Didn’t work
huh?”

Ron held out his palm and Clarence counted out $50.

“Gary, that $50 is coming out of your hide,” Clarence laughed.

“I must be losing my touch fellas, I’d have bet it would have taken you another day or
two to figure out you were being had.”

“Yeah,” Ron said, “But you’ve been sick, remember?”

“No, what did I have,” Gary kidded.

“I’m not sure Gar-Bear,” Ron said, “But I can sure tell you what you’re going to have if
you don’t knock it off.”

“What’s that, partner?” Gary asked.

“A fat lip,” Ron chuckled.

“Jeez, I’m sorry fellas I was just trying to let you know I was back to my old self,” Gary
replied.

“You still owe me $50,” Clarence said.

351
“Here,” Ron said handing the $50 back, “I sort of took unfair advantage of you Clar-
ence.”

“What do you mean?” Clarence asked.

“Well, I noticed that Gary had red tape on two of those magazines,” Ron explained.
“That’s when I knew he was just pulling something. What did you have in those mags,
Gar-Bear?”

“You guys aren’t any fun anymore,” Gary acknowledged. “Two mags of Raufoss and
three with Hornady A-MAX.”

“Actually that was a good idea Gary,” Ron admitted. “Clarence, get some red tape from
Gary and wrap 2 of your mags with red tape and I’ll wrap one of mine. Only load Mk 211
in those mags.”

“Where do I get that?” Clarence asked.

“Hang on a minute guys and I’ll get you two 20 rounds,” Gary announced.

5 minutes later Gary was back with 20-rounds of Raufoss and the roll of red tape. Clar-
ence got up and went to his house to get 2 of the 5-round Tac-50 magazines. He taped
the magazines and returned the tape. Ron got up, went home and got 1 of his mags
and did the same thing. They visited a while and Ron and Clarence left. Gary was a little
disappointed; he had figured it would take old Ronald McDonald at least a day to catch
on. Either he was losing his touch or Ron knew him better than he thought. As with most
things the truth lay somewhere in between. Gary’s failure to conceal the red tape had
given Ron a clue and Ron actually knew Gary a whole lot better than Gary knew Ron.

352
 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 50 –
Manhunt 2

Jakarta…

Hambali depended heavily on CNN to keep him informed. CNN, or so it seemed, was
the terrorists’ best friend. Not only did CNN have a big mouth, they often invited in so-
called expert commentators to give an extra perspective on the news. He had to admit
that he’d gotten more than one idea from those expert commentators. And, it served,
also, to keep him informed of the activities of his cells. 5 of the 6 men he’d sent to the
US had made it in and only a fluke had kept the 6th man out. He’d also learned that the
container of explosives he’d sent to the US had made it through and that one of the
cells had managed to successfully hijack the truck. At the moment, he was far ahead of
schedule and hadn’t even picked out the next targets. Fortunately for him, CNN had
covered a range of security topics with that special they carried about the changes in
DHS, forcing him to eliminate several possible targets. But, his 2 cells were safely
tucked away waiting for his orders and they would remain right where they were, blend-
ing in, until he sent them their target data.

Washington…

The task group had made an erroneous assumption. They assumed that Hambali only
had a single terrorist cell in the US. After a whole lot of discussion, they decided that
Hambali, who was usually about a step ahead of them, might be counting on that and
they sent a substantial portion of their task force back to Indiana and Michigan. During
the course of the investigation and search that followed, an FBI agent ran across a po-
lice report filed by some farmer claiming that someone had used his barn without his
knowledge. It occurred to the agent that there was an outside chance that the terrorists
they were looking for might have been the people who used the barn, though for what
purpose, he was unsure. He had a copy of the photo of the tractor’s tires tracks and de-
cided that it couldn’t hurt to check it out. Imagine his surprise when he found some
matching tire tracks at the barn. The agent immediately notified his AIC and the AIC
passed the information to the task force. A few hours later, the farm was teaming with
agents from the FBI and the ATF, plus a portable FBI crime lab.

The ATF came up empty handed, but the FBI technicians matched the tire tracks to the
tractor. They now knew for certain that the terrorists had used the barn, but still had no
idea why. As the lab technicians continued to process the scene, someone commented
that this remote farm would have made an ideal place for the terrorists to have hidden
that trucker’s body. That made sense to the AIC and he sent for some cadaver dogs. In
the meanwhile he had the agents fan out and start searching for evidence of a grave.
Just about the time that the cadaver dogs showed up, a pair of agents happened upon
what had all the indications of being a shallow grave, so they took the cadaver dogs to
the site. Given the reaction of the dogs, the AIC directed that the gravesite be excavat-
ed. Within 30 minutes they found the trucker’s body under about 12” of soil.

353
Meanwhile, in the barn, an evidence technician discovered what turned out to be some
black paint droppings, leading them to speculate that the terrorists had used the barn to
disguise the trailer. They also realized that even if they had a picture of the container
when it left New York, it wouldn’t be of much use to them now. That container full of ex-
plosives could be anywhere. They decided to concentrate their search in the area be-
tween the barn and eastern Ohio, where the tractor had been found, along the I-80 cor-
ridor. To this point, US law enforcement was batting 1000.

Gary had gone out on the net at one time and read up on this Hambali character. May-
be it was Time where he’d found the article. Anyway, this Hambali (Riduan Isamuddin),
which was a nickname, was one clever SOB. He’d masterminded the 95 thing with the
12 airliners that had never come off and was most likely mixed up in those Bali bomb-
ings. Some speculated that he was the real brains behind the 9/11/01 attacks on NY
and Washington, but for some reason, since Osama had actually paid to put the plan in
motion and used his own people to do it, Hambali never got much media coverage in
the US. At one time, he had even been in US custody, for crying out loud (And he is
again, sitting in a cell at Gitmo). And though he had been tried and convicted in an In-
donesian court, they hadn’t been able to convict him of the Bali bombings and he’d only
gotten 4 years for treason. He was back on the street and they were looking for him,
again, but couldn’t find him. Now as with most things, the whole truth would probably
never be known.

After the golf cart business, Gary decided that he’d better cool it for a couple of days.
Most people would have probably used blue or silver tape on the magazines, too, the
color of the bullet tips, but all Gary had was a roll of red tape. Anyway, he wasn’t sure
whether Clarence was po’d or not and maybe he had gone a little far with the joke. The
Citadel had actually put Dr. T on staff, though to preserve Dr. L’s feelings, hadn’t made
him Chief of Neurosurgery.

It had actually taken Gary a couple of days to notice that Sharon had someone take off
all of the vinyl siding and stucco the place, like they should have done in the first place.
$5,000 extra for that high-grade vinyl siding and probably another $5,000 to replace it.
He wasn’t going to ask, he didn’t really want to know how much that boondoggle had
cost. But, seeing Damon and Derek had gotten Gary to thinking. He’d feel a whole lot
better if the boys were living there with The Three Amigos. Since they’d given the house
to Derek and Mary, Gary didn’t have any qualms about being an ‘Indian Giver’ if the cir-
cumstances required. Without consulting with Derek, Gary called up a realtor he knew
from the Tony days and asked the guy if he had time to drive by the house on Moonrak-
er Rd and get a rough estimate of its market value. The realtor said he’d make the time
and drive by then come out to visit with Gary.

Two hours later, the realtor was ringing the doorbell. Gary let him in and they went into
the dining room to visit.

“Say, you wouldn’t be interested in selling this house, would you?” the realtor said, “I
could get you about $400 thousand in a New York minute.”

354
“Oh really?” Gary replied. “Not interested, but that’s good to know. What about the
house on Moonraker Road?”

“I read in the paper some time back about a bunch of you folks sitting out that 11/12/05
mess in a bomb shelter,” the realtor said, “Is that the house?”

“Yes,” Gary replied, “Does that make a difference?”

“Is that bomb shelter still fully operational?” the realtor asked.

“Last time I knew, yes. Say, what’s this all about?” Gary asked.

“I’ve got this client looking for a house like that,” the realtor explained. “The guy has
been driving me nuts. He says that he’s willing to go $350k for the right house. There’s
no way that house on Moonraker is work more than $275k. But having the functional
bomb shelter could push it to say $300k.”

“OH REALLY?” Gary replied more than a little surprised. “What’s the commission these
days on selling a house?”

“10%, but if you decided to sell, you could make it for sale by owner and avoid those all
together,” the realtor advised.

By this time Gary was getting pretty excited. So excited, in fact that he either had to use
the powder room or pee his pants. And, he needed a minute to think, so he excused
himself, took care of business and rejoined the realtor.

“Sharon and I gave that house to my son,” Gary explained when he got back. “But I
think I might be able to talk him into selling. I really would like to get all of my kids living
out here with the 3 of us.”

“The Three Amigos?” the realtor asked. “I don’t know if you know it Gary, but the 3 of
you have become notorious in this area.”

“Good,” Gary said, “Maybe people will learn to just let the 3 of us live in peace. We
aren’t getting any younger and we seem to spend more time in the hospital than out.”

“I read about your operations in the AV Press,” the realtor said.

“Dang newspapers are always invading people’s privacy,” Gary remarked.

“Well, the 3 of you put together one hell of a hospital and it’s not every day that we get
someone as famous as Dr. T (Asher H. Taban) coming to Palmdale to perform a series
of operations on one of our residents,” the realtor observed. “The hospital absolutely re-
fused to give a news conference and that just made it all the more mysterious.”

355
“Those doctors all know how I feel about reporters,” Gary said, “It’s good to know that
they took my instructions to heart. Let me talk to my son and I’ll get back to you in 48-
hours or less.”

Gary called Derek after dinner and told him that he needed to see him and Mary right
away on an urgent matter. Derek grumbled something about missing some TV show but
said they’d be there in about 15 minutes. They were, too.

“Kid, do you like this house we live in?” Gary started out.

“Who wouldn’t?” Derek said.

“I had a realtor over today and he said this house would bring $400k in a New York mi-
nute,” Gary shared, “And he didn’t even know about the shelter. Anyway, I had him
drive by your house and he said he could probably get you $300k for it. What’s the bal-
ance of your loan on the house?”

“About $85 thousand,” Derek said.

“That’s about what I figured Derek,” Gary said. “Now if Mary and you were to sell that
house, you could have one like this free and clear.”

“How do you figure that?” Derek asked, “You just said that this house was worth $400k.”

“I did, didn’t I,” Gary chuckled, “But what I didn’t say was how much they cost to build.”

“Ron and Clarence’s houses cost them $175k apiece.”

“Quit pulling my leg, Dad,” Derek said.

“So help me kid, $175k apiece,” Gary replied. “Now, since you’d want a 4-bedroom
model, we’d have to go to that earlier floor plan I drew up, but even so, I figure that you
can get a new home for around $200k. The plan divides that master suite on the other
end into 2 bedrooms and tacks on a third into the living room area. Plus, it makes that
powder room a full bath and moves the bathroom from one end to between the other
two bedrooms.”

“I sort of like the sounds of this,” Derek said, “But we’ll have to talk it over.”

“I expected that, kid,” Gary said, “But you might point out that you’d be going from a ½
paid for 1,254 square foot home to a 3,200 square foot home with a full basement, fully
paid for.”

The thing about it was, these homes that Gary had designed were a contractors dream
when it came to building them. Corners cost money and labor and even the 4-bedroom

356
model that Gary had on paper had one hell of a lot fewer corners than your typical
home. If you actually sat down with the blueprints for both models, the 4-bedroom mod-
el only had one more corner than the model that The Three Amigos lived in. Gary sort of
figured that building costs had raised some and that the extra corner would add $5,000,
but still, they ought to get the thing built for $200k.

Of course that didn’t solve Damon’s problem and he knew that if he started moving the
boys out to their little housing area, Sharon would be all over him about moving the girls
out there too. Like Damon, Amy lived in an apartment and she hadn’t remarried. Lorrie
and David had talked about getting married a half dozen times, but had decided that
marriage would just mess up a good thing. Society sure had changed since Gary was a
young boy. These days, couples seemed to only consider marriage after they’d decided
that they were sexually compatible. Hadn’t helped the divorce rates much, but there you
go.

357
 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 51 –
Moving the Kids

After Derek and Mary left, Gary sat down and had a long talk with Sharon. First he ex-
plained about Derek’s and Mary’s home. Then he began discussing the fact that he also
wanted Damon out there and that he presumed that she’d want the girls out there. The
thing was, he said, he just didn’t know how they could manage the whole thing. Sharon
asked him if he’d checked the bank balances lately and he admitted that he hadn’t. She
told him that The Foundation was now paying each of The Three Amigos $250k a year
and that they had a bank balance that was mind-boggling. Not enough, she said to pay
for everything, but enough so that if David and Lorrie also sold their home, they could
probably come pretty close to paying for everything. And, she went on; for sure there’d
be enough equity in the homes that a bank loan was very feasible.

Gary got so excited over the prospect of having all of their kids living with The Three
Amigos that it became a 3-Xanax night. He didn’t wake up until noon the next day.
While Gary was in LA-LA land, Derek had called and talked to Sharon. Mary and he
were good to go with his Dad’s suggestion. Sharon had picked up the realtor’s card
from the dining room table and she called the realtor, identified herself and told the guy
that their son Derek had his home on the market for sale by the owner. She gave the
realtor Derek’s phone number and then called Lorrie.

David was home, it was Saturday, and Sharon carefully explained the whole thing to the
two of them over the phone. If they were interested, she told them, Gary and she would
make it happen. Man, were they ever, especially David. David said that they probably
had about $100k equity in their home after the realtor’s commission was paid. Sharon
asked David if he’d ever finished that bomb shelter he’d decided to build in his backyard
and he told her that it was fully operational. She told David and Lorrie to sit tight, she’d
have to talk to Gary, but they might be able to save them the realtor’s commission.

Then, Sharon called that building contractor who had built the 3 homes. She asked him
if he could come by, she wanted to talk to him. I should point out that when Sharon gets
her mind made up about something, she’s hell on wheels. And she’d been with Gary an
awfully long time and knew just exactly how Gary operated. And, this woman had a
mind of her own, at times, and if you were smart you just got out of her way.

Gary had pulled out the older floor plan the night before and reviewed it. He’d left both
floor plans lying on the dining room table after he’d taken his Xanax cocktail and gone to
bed. Sharon studied the plans to refresh her memory and by the time the contractor
showed up around 10:30am, she was very familiar with both sets of plans. The contrac-
tor didn’t realize that he was dealing with Gary’s alter ego and he tried to pull one on
Sharon. She cut the guy off at the knees and they got down to a serious discussion. The
cost of building materials had indeed raised, but not all that much.

As the contractor studied the floor plan he realized that there was only one more corner
in the 4-bedroom floor plan and constructing the home wouldn’t take more than a day or

358
two longer than the other three. The amount of extra building materials was nominal and
he figured that he could build the home for about $185,000 and still make a nice profit.
Then Sharon pointed out that the homes were to be stuccoes, and connected to the
tunnel system and that she darn well expected that the price he was offering included
the tunnels. He was about to tell her that he couldn’t do that when she dropped the
bomb. They didn’t want 1 home, she said, they wanted 4. The contractor agreed right
on the spot and said he could begin construction almost immediately. Sharon said that
Gary had forgotten to install a blast door for the tunnel system and that it was sitting in
the garage, could the contractor handle that too? He told her he’d have someone out
there the next day and get the door put in. Finally, Sharon called that realtor back and
asked him to check out David and Lorrie’s home. It had a bomb shelter in its backyard
too.

Gary woke up around noon, but it took him about 3 cups of coffee to get awake. He
asked Sharon what she’d been up to and she said, nothing much. When he was finally
awake, he did his meds, a Nebulizer treatment and took a shower. She then presented
him lunch. While he was eating lunch, Gary commented that he needed to call Derek
and find out what Derek and Mary had decided. Sharon informed him that Derek and
Mary had sold their home that morning around 11:00am. Then, Gary brought up the
blast door and said he needed to talk to the contractor about installing the door and find
out how much the new homes would cost. Sharon told him $185,000, including the tun-
nels, and that the contractor would be installing the blast door the next day. Construc-
tion on the 4 new homes would start in the next few days. By this time, Gary’s head was
reeling and he looked at his watch to see what day it was. The watch said SAT, but
Gary was beginning to wonder which Saturday. Maybe, he thought, I over medicated
and slept for a week. Remember that 2,000-calorie diet that the sitar player had put
Gary on when he’d gotten out of AV hospital back when? Gary didn’t really do all that
much and he’d found that if he consumed between 1,200 and 1,500 calories a day that
his blood sugar and weight were right on the mark.

About that time the doorbell rang and Sharon got up and answered the door. It was the
realtor, again. The 3 of them sat down at the dining room table and the realtor struck up
a conversation with Sharon. He’d been by the house, he said, and told her what he
thought it would bring. The neighborhood wasn’t quite as good as the house on Moon-
raker, but he had another nut looking for a house with a bomb shelter in the $275k price
range. Sharon suggested that he drive by and talk to David and Lorrie and that she call
them and let them know he was coming. He said fine and got up and left. Sharon called
David and told him that a realtor would be by in a bit and to pick the house up. They’d
probably be able to get about $275k for their home and that she’d already ordered con-
struction on their new home.

Gary said to hell with it, took a Xanax and went to the basement to play with his com-
puter. He had no idea what was going on, but apparently Sharon had gotten in one of
her rare moods and had been busy. He checked the clock on the computer just to be
sure he hadn’t slept for a week. He checked his email, cleaned up that mess and went
to Frugal’s to read the latest chapters. After that, he went to the bedroom, turned on the

359
TV and flopped in his recliner. He changed the channel from HGTV to CNN and began
to get up to speed on what was going on.

Some trooper had found the semi in Ohio and some FBI agent had found the farm and
later the body of the missing trucker. DHS was running another one of those task forces
and they had flooded Indiana and Michigan looking for the terrorist cell. Yep, it was
business as usual and his gut was really nagging him. “That Hambali’s one smart cook-
ie,” he thought, “Hell he probably has 2 or 3 cells in the US this time and they’ll never
find that container, it’s probably sitting in some K-Mart storage area.” Close, but no cigar
Gar-Bear. And the more that Gary listened to CNN the more he was thinking that they
should rename the network TNN, The Terrorists’ Network. Gary got to thinking that he
sure liked to visit with Ron and Clarence, but he’d better let that lay another day. It
seemed like a good time to service the weapons, so he grabbed his M1A, M16 and AL-
ICE gear from the closet and headed to the shelter.

He didn’t remember leaving the shelter door open, but oh well. When he walked into the
storage room, who should be sitting there but Ron and Clarence, cleaning weapons.

“Hey fellas,” Gary said, “It seemed like a good time to clean my rifles, but I see that you
had the same idea.”

“How are you today, Gary?” Clarence asked.

“Well,” Gary said, “I got so excited about the possibility of my kids moving out here last
night that I took 3 Xanax. I didn’t wake up until noon. And by the time I did wake up,
Sharon had sold Derek’s house, ordered 4 more new homes, and talked to a realtor
about selling Lorrie and David’s house. There’s more, but you get the idea.”

“Feeling like a 5th wheel are we?” Ron asked.

“I have no idea how you feel partner,” Gary replied, “But I figure I should have just
stayed in bed.”

“You didn’t happen to catch any of the news on CNN did you?” Ron asked.

“I’m think that we ought to rename those SOB’s TNN, the Terrorists’ News Network,”
Gary smiled. “Yeah I caught a little news. I see they found the driver and that tractor and
have flooded Indiana and Michigan with feds again.”

“FOX had some coverage on the container,” Ron explained. “Those guys have enough
of those high order explosives to blow up half the country. Apparently the only thing
they’re missing is timers and detonators.”

“Hell partner, by this time they probably even have those,” Gary replied. “That Hambali
is one smart cookie. I wouldn’t put it past him to have fixed his boys up with fake ATF
explosives cards.”

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“How many of those terrorists do you think is in the country, Gary,” Clarence asked.

“Who knows, Clarence, probably 2 or 3 cells was what I was thinking earlier,” Gary re-
sponded.

“I guess we know what’s behind the threat level being at yellow,” Ron commented.

“If it were I,” Gary observed, “I’d have that sucker at orange and ready to go to red. By
the way, did you two know that we’re notorious in this area?”

“Good,” Clarence said, “Maybe people will leave us alone.”

“That’s what I said when I heard,” Gary laughed. “Anyone check our supply inventory
lately?”

“The wives have been handling that Gar-Bear,” Ron explained. “They’re doing a pretty
good job of it too.”

“I sure do like this Kimber you guys got me,” Gary said.

“That’s nice to hear, Gary,” Clarence said. “You know, I was going to suggest that you
quit trying to carry both of those Vaqueros. Those are a pretty heavy load for someone
our age.”

“I’d have to agree with you there pal,” Gary said, “Dang handgun is a close up weapon
anyway. I think I’ll just get me a new holster for the right side for that short barreled
Vaquero and quit trying to pretend I’m Matt Dillon.”

“Matt Dillon?” Ron said, “Hell I thought you were pretending to be Paladin.”

“Actually, Kirkpatrick calls that a Tequila Rig,” Gary explained.

For you younger folks, The Three Amigos were referring to Gunsmoke and Have Gun,
Will Travel. Professional gunfighter Paladin was a West Point graduate who, after the
Civil War, settled into San Francisco’s Hotel Carlton were he awaited responses to his
business card: over the picture of a chess knight (a Paladin) “Have Gun, Will Travel ...
Wire Paladin, San Francisco.” Matt Dillon was the Marshall of Dodge City. That Gun-
smoke is the greatest TV western of all time is hard to dispute. It may be the greatest
TV show of all time. Think of what your favorite show might have been like after 20
years on the air and then compare it to Gunsmoke, which was probably as good as any-
thing on TV for its entire twenty year run.

All the while The Three Amigos were visiting they were cleaning firearms. They had, as
you may recall, quite an arsenal. More than ½ of the guns they had were so illegal that
regardless of what law came into play, they’d probably end up in jail for the rest of their

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lives if they got caught. You may also recall that Johnny Jones was a Lieutenant now
with the LA Sheriff’s Department and there wasn’t anything that Johnny didn’t know
about what The Three Amigos had on hand. Most of the weapons had been purchased
from Sandy, a local gun dealer who also ran a little business on the side. They even had
some suppressed MP5’s that some feds had no longer needed. Johnny was a very
good cop and not much went on in Palmdale that he didn’t know about. Apparently he
figured that if The Three Amigos minded their P’s and Q’s, he could afford to leave them
alone. But you can darn well bet that if those old guys ever really got out of line, Johnny
would be right there with the cuffs.

For years, Gary had been under the misimpression that Clarence had been born in
1939 and was 2 years older than Ronald. Turned out that Gary was mistaken all this
time. In fact, Clarence had been born in 1942 and was right between Gary and Ron in
age. That was sort of fitting, too. Ron had a bad heart and Gary had really bad diabetes.
Clarence had both. As I said earlier, The Three Amigos were recovering alcoholics and
if they hadn’t had the best medical care possible, they’d have all surely been dead by
now. Ron and Clarence had already had bypass surgery but Gary’s heart was as fit as a
fiddle. On the other hand, Gary had a case of diabetic neuropathy that left his left hand
and right foot 70% numb and his right hand and left foot about 30% numb. Gary also
had a terrible problem with his short-term memory. And, in 2009, our boys weren’t get-
ting any younger, but they sure were getting better. Maybe that comes with age, who
knows?

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 52 –
Moving the Kids 2

I can tell you one thing; The Three Amigos had more blind dumb luck than the law al-
lowed and they also must have had guardian angels working overtime. Maybe that was
their reward for cleaning up the mess they’d made of their lives as young men and hav-
ing sobered up. Back in 1992 when Ron had his heart attack and the bypass, he’d actu-
ally died. They’d managed to jump-start his heart and here he was, 17 years later doing
fine. Ask any doctor how long a coronary bypass is good for. You usually get a number
smaller than 17. But, Ronald had lots of angioplasties over the years and Dr. E had
managed to keep everything up and running. Ronald had also had prostate cancer and
it had saved his life. When they did a treadmill to see if he could handle the surgery,
they’d discovered that the arteries in his neck were 98% blocked. Clarence had gone to
the doctor with what he thought was a cold. The next thing you knew, he was getting a
bypass, too. Then, just to complicate matters, he had a stroke in the recovery room. The
Three Amigos were living on borrowed time, but they really didn’t care. They planned to
live until they died and then were going to kick the Devil’s butt.

Dearborn…

“The US has sent many agents into Michigan, my brother, perhaps we should move,”
the terrorist suggested.

“Moving was what got Ali and his cell killed you fool, if Hambali says that we should stay
in Dearborn, then we are not going to move,” the leader replied.

“But this waiting wearies me,” the first man said.

“Perhaps you would rather be dead,” the leader replied. “We have secured the detona-
tors and timers and Hambali knows that we are ready to strike. This American banking
system even allows us to use the bank to pay the rental on that space where we have
the container stored. Patience, my brother, patience, our time will come.”

Three of the four men had been living in Dearborn for some time. The first speaker was
one of the late arrivals. Hambali had insisted that the men take jobs in delicatessens,
especially those owned by Jewish shopkeepers. Unfortunately, the late arrival had been
unable to get a job in a deli and was forced to work in a car wash. Perhaps this ex-
plained his impatience, or perhaps there was an entirely different explanation.

New York…

The four new arrivals had located themselves in a Muslim community in New York. As
instructed they had taken jobs in delicatessens owned by Jewish shopkeepers. This had
proven to be a whole lot easier than for their comrades in Dearborn. Getting the timers
hadn’t proven to present much of a difficulty, but they’d played hell getting their hands
on those detonators. They had finally resorted to theft and had the detonators and they

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too were ready to proceed with their mission when instructed to do so. The theft of det-
onators, taken from an upstate explosives dealer, had been noticed by the dealer and
reported to the police and the ATF. The dealer had a good security system and couldn’t
be faulted. Whoever had stolen the detonators was well schooled in alarm systems. The
ATF agent who investigated the theft thought it odd that all the thieves had taken was
detonators and he reviewed the bulletins his office had received. Then, when he read
the right bulletin, immediately notified Truscott’s office as directed by the bulletin.

Washington…

“My agent reported that all the theft involved was detonators,” Truscott said.

“And this was in Syracuse?” Mueller asked.

“Yes. The dealer had a pretty sophisticated security system, too,” Truscott went, “So
whoever did it was pretty well trained in alarms systems. I think, gentlemen, that that
terrorist cell has acquired the detonators and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they didn’t
already have timers as well.”

“What did the CIA’s HumInt ever come up with in Indonesia?” Prescott asked.

“Now that’s interesting,” Goss said. “For one thing Hambali is laying low. But, two of his
lieutenants ended up dead a while back. We suspect that those were the two guys that
NSA caught on that cell phone conversation, but have no way to be absolutely certain.
The US had him in custody at one time. We really screwed the pooch on that one. All
the Indonesians were able to convict him of, as you probably recall, was treason.”

“We’ve been assuming that Hambali only has one cell in the US,” Mueller observed.
“What if he managed somehow to get a second cell into the country?”

“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Prescott said, “Our border security is a whole lot tighter
than before.”

“Do you remember that problem we had with the French a while back where they
wouldn’t give us passport information?” Mueller asked. “What if Hambali slipped a
bunch through during that period using French passports? I checked and during that
time, a guy with a French passport was refused entry because even though the docu-
ments checked out, he didn’t seem right.”

“That pretty thin,” Prescott said.

“I’d be the first to admit that Mr. Secretary,” Mueller agreed, “But what if?”

“Let’s see if I have this right,” Prescott said, “What you’re suggesting is that during that
period that the French were balking at giving us passport information, Hambali took ad-
vantage of it and send in what, 2 or 3 additional terrorist cells?”

364
“Yes sir, stranger things have happened and we all know how clever that SOB is,” Mul-
ler replied.

“Any other explosives thefts?” Prescott asked.

“No, but in a lot of states, it a whole lot easier to get explosives than in New York,”
Truscott commented. “Anyone who could come up with a French passport could proba-
bly come up with a counterfeit AFT Explosives permit. And, by the time the fake permit
came to light, the people could be long gone.”

“Is there some way you can check that?” Prescott asked.

“Yes, but it won’t be easy,” Truscott replied.

“Look, you get your folks checking on that and I will visit with President Santorum about
what we discussed today,” Prescott directed.

Prescott talked to Santorum about the discussion the task force had. Santorum sug-
gested that they try and field some additional agents in New York State, if possible. He
went on to suggest that Indiana probably wasn’t going to yield any results and that per-
haps the taskforce might want to consider using the agents in Indiana in New York. Af-
ter he’d hung up the phone, Santorum muttered something about he’d wished the
French had waited a couple of more hours before pulling their troops out.

The FBI pulled its agents from Indiana and the ATF intended to do so as soon as they
had a chance to check on the permit numbers from the dealers’ records. They were es-
pecially looking at transactions that involved only detonators and timers. The agents in
Indiana came up empty, but not so the agents in Michigan. They identified a suspicious
transaction at a Detroit explosives dealer’s and further checking revealed that the Ex-
plosives license was invalid. Rather than transferring the ATF agents to New York, the
entire Indiana group was moved to the greater Detroit area. That’s when the FBI and
ATF got lucky. Some of the agents were having lunch in a deli and one of the agents
noticed a busboy who bore a striking resemblance to someone he’d remembered see-
ing on a set of photos of suspected JI members. The agent decided he rather have egg
on his face than let a possible terrorist get away and he pointed the busboy out to the
other members of his party. Another of the agents agreed that the resemblance was
remarkable.

They decided to keep an eye on the busboy and check with their AIC. The AIC sug-
gested that they get a photo and run it through the computer and see if the faces
matched. He instructed that in the meantime they maintain the surveillance. The agents
got a telephoto digital image of the busboy and ran it through the computer. They got a
hit; the busboy was the same guy as in the photo of suspected JI members. When the
busboy left work that evening he was covered from 6 different ways. The surveillance
teams followed him to an apartment in Dearborn. They immediately set up surveillance

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on the apartment. As the terrorists began returning from work, the FBI was busy taking
photos and running them through the computer. Before morning, all 4 of the individuals
had been identified as possible JI members.

Mueller was following the developments in Detroit closely and he ordered the HRT (the
HRT’s purpose is to serve as a domestic counter-terrorism unit, offering a tactical reso-
lution option in hostage and high-risk law enforcement situations. It was originally com-
posed of 50 Operators; however, this number has since increased to well over 90 full-
time Operators) from Quantico to Detroit at all possible speed. He then passed the in-
formation to the taskforce and to Santorum. Santorum was delighted with the news and
told Mueller to make darn good and certain that the news didn’t leak out. He invoked the
little used clear and present danger provision and ordered a total media blackout. As
you know, only when there is a clear and present danger to the security of the US can
prior restraint be used to bar the media from anything considered newsworthy.

Detroit and Dearborn police were brought in to prevent any of the news media from get-
ting anywhere near the area and all news media choppers were ordered grounded. Both
Detroit and Dearborn have SWAT units and they set up to cover the apartment until the
HRT arrived. When the HRT arrived later, the 3 units did a most unusual thing; they
worked together rather than get into one of those jurisdictional disputes. Unlike the
shootout in Burbank, everyone agreed that they wanted to take these guys alive. In fact,
the FBI HRT leader flat told the Dearborn and Detroit SWAT teams that there was a
possibility that the terrorists had more than one cell in the US and that it was vital to get
all 4 men alive, if possible.

By this time the media was raising holy hell and screaming about their 1st Amendment
rights. Santorum had his Chief of Staff contact the various media organizations and set
them straight. They were told that the blackout was temporary and would be lifted as
soon as the situation, whatever it was, was resolved. In the interim, the President had
decreed that the situation constituted a clear and present danger to the US. Anyone at-
tempting to circumvent that decree would be arrested because the situation was actual-
ly that serious. The media didn’t like it, you can pretty much count on that, but, for a
change, they did as requested. By this time most of them had pretty much concluded
that it somehow involved a terrorist threat.

When the SWAT units and the HRT were in place, they poured into that apartment like
a locomotive running wild and managed to subdue the terrorists before they even had
time to get out of bed. The word was immediately passed to the White House and San-
torum lifted the media blackout. The 4 terrorists were hustled into a FBI van and trans-
ported immediately from the scene. Four hours later the 4 men found themselves sitting
in FBI headquarters being interrogated in their native language. While there was cer-
tainly cause for celebration, Prescott ordered all of the task force members to New York
State to follow up on that explosives theft. It was now obvious to the task force that
Hambali had at least two teams/cells in the US.

TNN was the first network to break the story. There really wasn’t anything to see except

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a live shot of the apartment building in Dearborn, but that didn’t keep them from specu-
lating. Jakarta is GMT+7. Detroit is GMT-5. At least I think so. Thus when it was 4am in
Dearborn, it was 4pm in Jakarta. The SWAT and HRT teams had struck around 4am,
local (EST). By 5am the networks were in full swing with the news of the mysterious
event in Dearborn. Hambali put 2 and 2 together and came up minus one cell. He had
no idea what had gone wrong, but something surely must have. Then, he made an er-
roneous assumption. He assumed that his Dearborn cell was dead. They might as well
have been dead for all the information the FBI was getting out of them. Frustrated, Rick
Santorum did a most unusual thing. He ordered Mueller to turn the 4 terrorists over to
the CIA. Mueller was shocked at Santorum’s order, but he thought about it a minute,
smiled and did as ordered. It wasn’t any skin of his teeth and he suspected that the CIA
probably didn’t have much regard for the law in instances like this.

The Agency has some methods that are only speculated about in movies and TV. And
you know, of course, that they do have some people on staff with medical degrees,
right? Plus waterboarding has proven effective. The 3 terrorists who had been in the US
for a while were a total washout, but do you remember the whiner? He wasn’t able to
tell them how many people had made it in, he didn’t really know, but he certainly knew
how he’d gotten into the US and between the interrogation and the seized, altered
French passports, the task force had their worst fears confirmed. He also mentioned the
name New York. Hambali had at least one additional terrorist cell in the US. Since the
Dearborn bunch had been able to purchase timers and detonators, the task force was
already pretty sure. But the CIA provided them with confirmation. Shortly thereafter, the
4 terrorists were sitting in cells on the southeastern end of Cuba, totally incommunicado.
Gitmo is it?

Palmdale…

Gary got up early, made a pot of coffee and stumbled down to the basement to bring up
TNN , er, CNN. There were all sorts of wild speculations about a combined SWAT &
HRT raid in Dearborn that had occurred overnight. Gary picked up the phone and di-
aled.

“Ron Green,” Ron grumbled.

“Hey partner they got them,” Gary said.

“What time is it and what the hell are you talking about?” Ron managed to croak out.

“It’s time you had your feet on the floor and there was a combined SWAT and HRT raid
in Dearborn a few hours ago,” Gary related, “I told you that the Hambali was clever, I’ll
bet you an even grand that they busted one of his cells last night.”

“You’re just dumb enough and lucky enough that you could be right Gar-Bear,” Ron
said. “How about you call me back when the sun comes up?”

367
“The sun IS up butthead,” Gary retorted, “How about you get off your dead butt and we’ll
catch the 9:30 meeting? I’ll call Clarence.”

I won’t repeat what Ron said to Gary. Gary called Clarence and they agreed to catch
the 9:30 meeting. Gary told Clarence that Ron would go too, but might not be in the best
of moods. Gary hurried up, showered, did his meds, ate a light breakfast and stuck a
Hershey bar in his coat pocket, just in case. Now that he had his driver’s license back
Gary drove a lot to the meetings. He slipped his M16A3/M203 and ALICE gear into the
toolbox on the truck and locked it. The group rather frowned on anyone showing up
armed, even on duty cops. There had been more than one scuffle in the room and the
Board had outlawed even cops being armed. Of course the Deputies and Cops ignored
the Board, but The Three Amigos were inactive Reserve Deputies and they didn’t really
qualify as cops.

Ron must have had a good breakfast and a good cup of coffee because his mood was
greatly improved. Gary had found a couple of minutes to catch CNN on TV and all he
could talk about was the manhunt going on in New York State. He speculated that he’d
been right all along and that Hambali had at least one more terrorist cell in the US. It
would eventually prove that old Gar-Bear had this one right, but not before a whole lot
more heartache was fostered in the country. And the next event would surprise even old
Gar-Bear.

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 53 –
Meltdown

With that new blast door installed, Gary felt a whole lot better. One day, this short-term
memory problem of his was probably going to end up killing him. But if that happened,
the Devil had better get ready for that butt kicking. Anyway Gary pretty much began to
ignore TNN and the other networks. He figured that they must have busted a terrorist
cell and taken the guys alive; otherwise, why all the secrecy? He speculated further that
they probably gotten whatever there was to get out of the terrorists and hustled them off
somewhere to hide them. If he had been running the show, he’d have taken them to
Gitmo and locked them up in solitary. But hell, he was just a tired old man, what did he
know?

The feds had moved every single one of their agents to New York so that was probably
where the other terrorist cell or cells were located. At least, that was what FOX was say-
ing the few times he’d turned on TV. What Gary didn’t know and couldn’t have known
was that the terrorist cell on Dearborn had been using a bank bill paying system to pay
for the trailer space rental. And it took the feds a while to stumble onto it to. It all came
down to a scrap of paper. The feds traced the paper to the bank where the terrorist cell
had a savings account. They cross referenced the various paydays of the terrorists
against the bank’s records and eventually identified a savings account where the depos-
its seemed to flow on the Monday after every payday. Man, talk about thin! Anyway, the
account seemed to be used to accumulate money and had started off with a huge de-
posit. That waved a red flag. The account was also used to pay one bill and the feds
started tracking that down. At this point in the investigation the only reason they were
sure that the terrorists owned the account was based on a fingerprint taken off the sig-
nature card which matched one of the terrorists.

It turned out that the payee was a company that rented storage lots and when an FBI
agent showed up at their place of business, they pointed out a trailer that the renter had
parked on the lot. That FBI agent must have held his breath until he turned purple. It
couldn’t be this easy, he thought. When the terrorists had been arrested, they were
found to have a padlock key in their possession. The FBI agent called up his AIC and
told him that the money was paying for a trailer space and that maybe they ought to get
some of those ATF guys and the key they found and see if the trailer held the explo-
sives they were looking for. At first the AIC thought maybe the agent was pulling his leg,
but the agent got fairly insistent and the AIC realized that the guy was serious. He told
the agent that he best get a hold of the local authorities and clear everyone from the ar-
ea. If that was the truckload of explosives, it was capable of one mighty big blast.

The FBI agent got the Ohio Highway Patrol on the line and explained the situation to
them. The Ohio HP dispatched a single car to the scene, probably to find out what the
guy had been drinking. Turned out it the guy really was an FBI agent and he was point-
ing at a trailer that he claimed could be filled with explosives. The OHP officer must
have been rattled or was just having a bad day. He got on his radio and called it in. As
probably most everyone knows, one is not supposed to use radios around explosives. I

369
think it has something to do with the energy from the radio signal causing a detonator to
go off, but I’m no explosives expert. That FBI agent must have been a little rattled, too,
because it wasn’t until the trooper had completed his radio call that the agent realized
what the trooper had done. He quickly pointed out to the trooper that although the con-
tainer wasn’t supposed to contain any detonators, they couldn’t be sure and maybe the
trooper ought to move his patrol car if he had to use the radio again. The trooper real-
ized his mistake and his face turned beet red. No harm, no foul, this time.

It didn’t take the ATF and an FBI agent with that key all that long to show up, and the
key opened the lock. The ATF people were being very cautious, however, and they
made certain that the door wasn’t somehow wired to set off the cargo. It probably wasn’t
or that radio call might have set it off, but they went through the motions anyway. When
finally the container was open, they knew that they were finally one up on the terrorists.
The word of the capture of the container quickly made its way up the line to the White
House. With the capture of one terrorist cell and the container of explosives, Santorum
decided that it was finally time to bring the American public up to speed and he sched-
uled a news conference along with the task force leaders.

At the news conference, Santorum explained about the capture of the 4 terrorists in
Dearborn, the reason for the temporary news blackout and that interrogations had led
them to discover how the terrorists had made it into the US. He didn’t elaborate on this
final point. He then went on to explain how a scrap of paper had led to the discovery of
the container of explosives in Ohio. He was doing his best to put law enforcement in the
best possible light. He concluded his statement with an observation that they were still
looking for additional terrorist cells, but again, didn’t elaborate. He fielded a few ques-
tions and then left. The reporters had about a million questions and the task force mem-
bers finally had to cut them off, citing an ‘ongoing investigation’. The entire news con-
ference was broadcast live on several networks.

Palmdale…

The Three Amigos missed the live news conference, but the networks were giving it a
lot of play and it didn’t take them long to piece the whole thing together. By this time,
construction of the 4 new homes was well underway and the contractor was way ahead
of schedule. Gary mostly contented himself ‘supervising’. That is to say that he was rid-
ing around in that golf cart of his, unarmed, watching the homes come together. By golly
these contractors could really throw a home together in a hurry, he was thinking. The
fact that the contractor only had to make a single pour of concrete might have had
something to do with that, but that never occurred to old Gar-Bear. If you’ve ever seen
them throw these housing tracts together you know what I’m talking about. Once the
forms were off that concrete, framing crews came in and in a single day had framed an
entire home including installing the Kevlar. The foam went in next followed by the wiring
and insulation. Then, while the drywall crews hung the drywall the stucco boys showed
up and worked on the outside of the homes. The contractor had called Pella Roll Screen
the Monday following his conversation with Sharon and even the bulletproof windows
were available when needed. There was only room for 2 more houses in the row and

370
the other two homes ended up in a second row behind the end homes and on either
side of the water tank. If they were going to build any more homes on those 2½-acres,
they were out of luck. Gary was going to need to buy more land. Even the money thing
worked out and a bank loan was avoided.

All of the homes, by the way, were hooked into that network server Gary had in his
basement. Man did that T-1 line hum!

“Did you catch any of that news conference?” Ron asked.

“Sorry partner,” Gary said, “I was too busy supervising construction of the news homes.”

“More like getting underfoot,” Clarence observed.

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Gary insisted. “I left those guys alone, I still have that flippin’
sinking feeling in my gut and I want those homes done and the kids moved in pronto.”

Ron and Clarence took the next 20 minutes or so to bring Gary up to speed on what
they’d gathered from the follow up newscasts.

“So, they’re still looking for one or more terrorist cells,” Gary concluded, “No wonder my
gut hurts.”

“Gary, they’re looking in New York, for crying out loud,” Ron replied.

“Well, who says that the terrorists didn’t catch that news conference and move?” Gary
asked. “By God, if I had half the ATF and FBI looking for me, I’d sure as hell move.
Look, I think that I told you two that I suspected that Hambali had more than one cell in
the US this time. Even I can be right once in a while.”

“But, Gary,” Clarence protested, “The government seized that container full of explo-
sives. What are those terrorists going to do, steal more explosives?”

“Put yourself in their position, Clarence,” Gary retorted, “What would you do?”

“Oh. Steal more explosives I guess,” Clarence agreed. “But the way the ATF has been
coming down on those explosives dealers and distributors, that sure wouldn’t be easy.”

“What’s easy got to do with it Clarence?” Gary asked. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid,
but who ever said a little paranoia wasn’t a good thing.”

“In your case, partner, nobody would ever notice on your multi-axial assessment,” Ron
chuckled.

I knew I forgot to mention something. Ron and Gary had started out that Alcohol and
Drug Counseling class together. Ron had made it through the class where they’d

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learned about multi-axial assessments before dropping out. Ron had a terrible time with
the Pharmacology class and Gary had spent hours helping Ron learn all about drugs.
Maybe that explained why Gary had a pretty good handle on drugs of various kinds.
The best way to learn a subject was to teach it to someone else. (Absolutely true.)

And, while I’m digressing, I ought to point out that 13 days after Gar-Bear had been re-
leased from AV Hospital, his self-medicating had resolved the edema problem he’d
come out of the hospital with. He’d done 5 days of Diazide followed by a week of the
80/12.5 Diovan and his feet were back to normal, the edema gone. And by the end of
those same 2 weeks, our friend’s had his blood sugar back to normal. (86) The only re-
sidual problem he’d had was a little low blood pressure, but every time he went into a
hospital he always had that problem until he started cheating a little on his diet and eat-
ing a little too much salt. What’s ‘a little low’? Try 104/53 on for size. Drove the doctors’
nuts! Made old Gar-Bear happy as hell, he’d suffered from hypertension for years.

Jakarta…

In this instance Gary was maybe right to be a little paranoid. Hambali had caught the
live broadcast of the news conference on TNN. He was livid. Not only had he lost a cell,
captured alive no less, but he’d lost that container of explosives. And, to make matters
worse, the Americans were looking for his other cell in the right place. Maybe he’d un-
derestimated the Americans. Or maybe he was just having a bad run of luck. Either
way, he sent instructions to the cell in New York City to move to San Francisco. He also
instructed that they locate replacement explosives. Something relating to the destruction
of Hoover Dam was nagging at him, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. But, he was
sure that it would come to him and whatever it was; he was positive that it would get the
Americans attention big time. If he could just remember…

The Diablo Canyon plant is on a 750-acre site in San Luis Obispo County, California.
The construction period for the 2 units may qualify as the longest in US history, with
much of the 15 years devoted to studying its ability to withstand seismic activity. The
cooling water for the reactors is obtained from the Pacific Ocean. Pacific Gas & Electric
Company operates the Diablo Canyon plant. The owners include Edison International
(75 percent), and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., Anaheim Public Utilities Department,
and the Riverside Utilities Department.

April 9, 2003…

A refueling and maintenance shutdown of a reactor at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power
plant has been extended by problems that developed during the restart, Pacific Gas &
Electric said.

Unit 2 was being brought back on line after a two-month shutdown when a feed water
pump malfunctioned in the steam generating system last week. Then on Sunday a leak
developed in a seal of an electricity generator, PG&E spokesman Bill Roake said.

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“Everything that has happened has been in the non-nuclear side of the operation,”
Roake said Wednesday.

“The reactor first went into operation in 1985. It has been out of operation since the re-
fueling operation, planned to last about one month, began Feb. 3. Fixing the generating
seal is expected to delay the restart to about April 17. The reactor is to be brought up in
stages to full power by about April 21,” he said.

Earlier in the refueling shutdown an unexpected number of cracks and other defects
were found in the unit’s heat exchangers that added to the time needed for repairs and
testing. During return to full power the feed water pump problem developed as the unit
was at 50 percent power on Friday.

The cause of the leaking generator seal on Sunday was not known, but plant operators’
suspect that rising pressure and temperatures contributed as the unit was being restart-
ed, Roake said.

Diablo Canyon has two reactors capable of producing a total of 2,212 megawatts of
power.

PG&E has said that after refueling each unit is designed to operate continuously for 19
months.

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 54 –
Meltdown 2

Present Day…(2009)…Jakarta…

The thing that Hambali was trying to remember was that when Hoover Dam had been
blown, the grid had failed because Reactor #2 at San Onofre had to be shut down. And,
remember that 6.5 earthquake that had hit Paso Robles on 12/22/2003 and killed 2
people? There had been quite the controversy when the Diablo Canyon reactor had
been built. For one thing, it was awfully close to some earthquake faults. Now, if you
take the original controversy, add in the information from that old newspaper article and
consider some of the problems that were mentioned in that article, all you have to re-
member was the problem that San Onofre had when Hoover Dam went down to get the
idea. And after a few days reflection, Hambali put it all together.

Hambali’s cell had left New York and taken I-80 to San Francisco. Along the way, they’d
detoured into the Denver area and managed to steal a fairly good-sized quantity of high
order explosives. With that theft, the task force assumed rightly that the terrorists were
on the move and shifted a substantial portion of their agents to the Colorado area to
search for the terrorists. The problem was that by the time any sizeable force of agents
arrived, the terrorists had made it to San Francisco. The quantity of explosives they’d
stolen in Denver wasn’t so large as to require that they rent a storage locker, either. A
few days after they’d arrived in San Francisco, they received instructions from Hambali.
He directed them to accomplish what amounted to a suicide mission. He directed that
they attack the reactor at Diablo Canyon and try and cause a reactor meltdown like the
one that had plagued Three-Mile Island years before.

In the interim since the attacks when Hambali’s first cell had taken out the dams and
blown the pipelines, DHS had greatly improved security around the US, but I’ve men-
tioned that before. Part of that improved security included increasing the civilian guard
forces protecting the nuclear power plants around the US. And, under the new guide-
lines when the threat level went to orange, they really increased the security. However,
the US was on a yellow threat level as I recall.

Palmdale…

Given the experience the contractor had constructing first Gary’s home and later Ron
and Clarence’s he managed to complete the 4 new homes in less than 5 weeks. The
kid’s had all moved in and Gary was feeling a whole lot better. His gut was still nagging
him, but at least if something did go down, his family would be safe. Kevin had tracked
Ron and Linda down and when he’d showed up, Ron had headed for the shelter. Linda,
to her credit, had given Kevin $1,000 and his walking papers. She told him that if she
never saw him again, it would be too soon. She probably didn’t mean it, you know how
mothers are, but she’d done it none the less. And, to his credit, Ron knew better than to
bring the subject of Kevin up.

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“Your gut still nagging at you Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

“I’m afraid so, Ron,” Gary replied. “I sure wish I could put my finger on it.”

“I still say that we should have nuked Indonesia,” Ron followed up.

“Ronald, my friend, a nuclear weapon is a permanent solution to a temporary problem,”

Gary replied. “Haven’t you ever watched the History Channel and seen what they did to
Hiroshima and Nagasaki with those puny little atom bombs in 1945?”

“Well, Barbara Boxer did a pretty darned good job on the Middle East,” Ron retorted.

“You know what pal,” Gary said, “I sort of look at that as a fluke. Barbara Boxer happens
to be Jewish, and I half suspect that in a moment of pique she succumbed to her dislike
of the Arabs and went overboard. I don’t really think that our bombing the Middle East
proved anything other than that the US can wipe out one or more nations if it has a de-
sire to do so.”

“What’s this, going soft on me Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

“Yeah, what’s with you?” Clarence added.

“To answer Ron’s question first, no, I am not going soft,” Gary said. “But think about it,
what if we’re wrong and bomb the wrong target? It’s sort of like they taught me in law
school. It’s better to let 100 guilty men go than execute one innocent man. And, while
I’m on that subject, the flippin’ prisons in this country are so overcrowded that one of
these days they’re going to explode. Hell, they can’t seem to build prisons fast enough.
Now that they have those dang 3-strikes laws, the situation isn’t going to get any better
either.”

Jakarta…

The CIA man had finally tracked down Hambali. He was a day late and a dollar short;
Hambali had already sent his instructions to his cell in San Francisco. But, the agent
didn’t know that. His instructions were pretty dang clear too. If he found Hambali, he
was to terminate him with extreme prejudice, just like they said in the movies. This guy
was efficient and he did just exactly what he’d been instructed to do, without a qualm.
He’d put 2 rounds in Hambali’s head and then just for added insurance had emptied his
clip into Hambali’s heart. Those little .22 rounds did just exactly what they were intended
to do, too. He figured that the world was now a better place but maybe he should bury
the body so that the US would have a leg up on the remainder of the world with the
knowledge that Hambali was dead. Then, the man thought better of it. Indonesia’s wild-
life includes several meat eating species, including Tigers, Crocodiles and the Komodo
Dragons. Why bother with burying Hambali? He should have buried the body. Anyway,
the last the agent saw of Hambali, a rather large croc was dragging the body under wa-
ter.

375
Pleased with his accomplishment, the agent returned to the Embassy, prepared a
communiqué outlining the entire affair and forwarded it to his immediate supervisor, the
DO. When the DO received the communiqué, he immediately brought it to the attention
of Director Goss who, in turn, brought it to the attention of President Rick Santorum.
Santorum was ecstatic that Hambali had been eliminated, but he found himself in a
quandary. The agent had disposed of the body and there was no way to prove that
Hambali was, in fact, dead. After much consideration, Santorum decided that the Secre-
tary of DHS, Prescott, should make a brief announcement that the Department had it on
good authority that Hambali was dead and then stonewall.

Palmdale…

Ron, Gary and Clarence were still engaged in the conversation where we last left them.

“You know, Ron, your bringing up the subject of nukes makes me realize that I probably
made my friend Fleataxi angry with me,” Gary said.

“How’s that partner?” Ron asked.

“Well, he had a typo in a story, I told you about that where he used died instead of
dyed,” Gary began. “Naturally the spell checked didn’t pick it up and I pointed it out.
Then, he apparently got in a hurry or something and made one of those mistakes that
we all make from time to time and put 500 people in a C-130. Another Squirrel and I nit
picked a little and the next thing you know, he’s all over me making fun of my stories.
You know how I am about stuff like that.”

“He’ll get over it,” Ron said.

“I sure hope so,” Gary replied, “Else I’ll probably end up making a fool out of myself.”

Remember Builders Emporium? They used to have an ad that said something like, “Got
the message?”

Prescott made the announcement that Santorum wanted. Then, he stonewalled the hell
out of the media with, “I don’t have that information,” and a half dozen other lies. One
media representative, a fella by the name of Geraldo decided that this was his big
chance to recover some of the glory that he’d lost over the years. He decided that he
was going to do a big deal about Hambali’s alleged demise and even travel to Indonesia
and prove that Hambali was still alive.

The San Francisco cell hadn’t signed on for a suicide mission. Thus they had been reti-
cent to follow Hambali’s instructions. But when Prescott made the announcement that
DHS had it on good authority that Hambali was dead, they immediately sent a commu-
nication to Indonesia to contact Hambali. After two weeks they still hadn’t heard back
and they believed that in this case the Americans were telling the truth. The 4 men con-

376
cluded that they might as well proceed with the mission that Hambali had assigned as a
tribute to his memory.

Prior to sending the 6 men to the US, Hambali had managed to get them some rudi-
mentary training in nuclear reactors from a Pakistani nuclear engineer. They weren’t
overly knowledgeable, but they had enough training that they could expose a reactor’s
core and cause a meltdown, the so-called China syndrome that had almost occurred at
Three-Mile Island and had at Chernobyl. Reactors are designed just to prevent such oc-
currences, but, they do happen and if one sets out intentionally to make it happen and
has the skills, it really is possible. Frankly, I don’t care how good the security is at any
given place, either. Given the training, motivation and the element of surprise, anyone
can penetrate a reactor or any other guarded facility, ask Richard Marcinco.

The target was the nuclear reactors at Diablo Canyon. The mission was to expose the
cores of both reactors, forcing them into a meltdown. The probability of survival was ze-
ro and the probability of success was marginal, at best. It was late summer in 2009 and
the terrorists were truly determined. By this time, the ATF and FBI, ergo the task force
had run up against a brick wall. The US was making far better progress on the dam re-
construction projects than had ever been anticipated too. One has to remember when
the dams were originally built and consider modern construction techniques to explain
how the contractors had managed to be ahead of schedule. For example, when con-
crete cools, it produces heat that can lead to cracks in the concrete. Back when they
build Hoover Dam, they’d run water lines to cool the concrete and prevent the cracks.
But, that had been in the 1930’s. Concrete still gave off heat, but the heat removal sys-
tems were greatly enhanced. The dams, which had been brought down on 9/17/07 were
more than ½ way reconstructed. Not bad for only 2 years.

The Diablo Canyon Power Plant has extensive precautionary measures in place in the
unlikely event of an emergency. If warranted, coordinated emergency plans for the
plant, San Luis Obispo County, and state of California and the federal government
would be activated immediately.

The federal government developed a classification system to help officials respond ap-
propriately in emergency situations. PG&E and other officials use this system to re-
spond as required by their emergency plans.

There are four classifications, beginning with an Unusual Event (UE). A UE is declared
for any abnormal condition, including abnormal site conditions not directly related to
safe operation of the plant. Plant operators would document the incident and notify se-
lected PG&E managers, as well as local, state, and federal agencies. Personnel would
also correct the abnormal condition, or continue to monitor the situation until it is cor-
rected. If there were potential safety problems at the plant, an Alert, the next highest
level of emergency, would be declared. At this level, emergency response personnel
would assemble at emergency facilities to manage the emergency.

Should the situation escalate, it would be classified as a Site-Area-Emergency, or Gen-

377
eral Emergency, the most severe of the four emergency classifications.

Local residents and visitors would be notified of any emergency that required public re-
sponse by Emergency Alert System bulletins and/or Early Warning System Sirens.

Diablo Canyon employs 1,200 full-time workers with an annual payroll of about $100
million, making it one of the largest private employers on the Central Coast.

In case you’re not already familiar with Diablo Canyon, let me just start by saying that
the plant is built around two nuclear reactors which each produce 1,100 megawatts of
electricity. All told, DCPP cranks out enough power for over two million homes! The
plant sits on a gorgeous stretch of the Pacific coast just west of San Luis Obispo, Cali-
fornia. Because the entire area is off limits to the public, it’s a section of California’s
coast that most people will never see.

Quite an assignment, huh? Four Indonesians were up against a security force that was
just part of a force of 1,200 employees. Guess that explains the probability of survival
being zero and the probability of success being marginal, at best. By the way, where is
Palmdale in relation to Diablo Canyon? 155 miles ESE as the crow flies, I’d guess. Say,
what way does the wind blow in Palmdale? About 3:30 every afternoon, the wind seems
to come up, blowing in 95% of the time from the west. But hells, bells, The Three Ami-
gos live 8 miles ESE of Palmdale, and even if the reactor at Diablo Canyon were to
meltdown and spread a bunch of radiation, they’d never get hit, right? But what are the
odds of Florida getting hit by 4 back-to-back hurricanes named Charley, Frances, Ivan
and Jeanne? Never say never!

The 4 terrorists were faced with nearly insurmountable challenges. That pair of reactors
employed a lot of people. That section of the California coast was inaccessible because
of the nuclear power plant. There were people everywhere because of nearby state
parks and beaches. And, they had set a deadline for themselves. The first cell, on
9/17/07, had taken down Hoover Dam and if they were able, they intended to bring
down those reactors on the 2nd anniversary of the event. The Americans would proba-
bly end up making September 17th a holiday if they were successful. Hell, they might
even end up making September the month of remembrance. The WTC had been
brought down just 8 years and 4 days earlier. These were not stupid men, either. They
had been educated in American Universities. A Pakistani nuclear engineer had
schooled them and they’d received excellent training from their compatriots in Pakistan
before the American President had destroyed the Middle East with her nuclear bombs.
Oh, yes, the Americans would remember September 17th for a long time and it was a
fitting tribute to their fallen leader Hambali.

The 4 men loaded their explosives into the trunk of the used car they’d purchased and
drove down route 1 to San Luis Obispo. There, they checked into a Best Western Motel
and began to study maps of the area. The reactor wasn’t on any of the maps they’d
purchased, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find, after all the area was off limits, wasn’t it?
The Americans were so open, that they decided that they just ask around. It wouldn’t

378
take long before some big mouth told them exactly what they needed to know. It really
was just that simple. Oh, their questions wouldn’t be direct, they just ask around about
things like beaches and such. Sooner or later someone would warn them that a certain
area of beach was off limits and they would have the reactor pinpointed.

Palmdale…

“So are we going to have a Labor Day picnic this year?” Clarence asked.

“That might be fun,” Gary said, “What do you think partner?”

“Hey, I’m up for it,” Ron agreed, “What are we going to have?”

“We’re going to have to have chicken for sure,” Gary replied, “You know Clarence, I
thought that maybe we do burger and hot dogs, too.”

“What, no steaks?” Ron asked.

“Well of course we’ll have to do steaks, Ron,” Gary agreed, “Sharon and you wouldn’t
be happy unless you had a steak. But I think I’ll try to keep on my diet and just have a
burger and if I’m still hungry, a dog. I gotta tell you, I haven’t felt this good in years.”

“Your gut still nagging you?” Ron asked.

“Yes. But, maybe I was wrong,” Gary admitted. “Maybe there isn’t a second or a third
terrorist cell. Sure wouldn’t be the first time that I was wrong about something and it
probably won’t be the last.” (In case you don’t have your 2009 calendar handy, Labor
Day 2009 is 9/7/09.)

Gary was in a rather expansive mood. He’d seen a rerun on National Geographic
Channel about super volcanoes and it brought to mind a story one of the Squirrel fiction
writers had written. You had to keep your eyes open for material all of the time. The
show had talked about Yellowstone erupting. Gary would have loved to use the idea,
but it had ready been done and probably better than anything he could have come up
with. And like Gary had said, maybe he was wrong. Or, was Gary wrong about his being
wrong?

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 55 –
The Hot Wind

When you think about it, Gary was wrong, either way. Hopefully he had managed to
bury the hatchet with his friend Fleataxi too. Anyway everyone started to plan for the big
Labor Day Picnic. There were only the 7 families on the 2½ acres, but, by the time you
counted the kids and the grand kids, you had a nice crowd. John, Linda’s son, was liv-
ing in a nice bedroom that Ron and Linda had put up in their basement. Probably forgot
to mention that, too. Memory problems, you know. Each of The Three Amigos had a dif-
ferent setup in his basement. Already told you about Gary’s. Clarence had himself a
pool table and a TV plus a desk for the computer he had hooked into the network. Even
had a bar, but the only thing it dispensed was those premixed fountain sodas. Man, you
could go to Clarence’s, play a game or two of pool, naturally Clarence was quite the
hustler, have just about any one of a dozen favors of soda, pop or whatever you call it
and hell, Clarence even let you smoke in his basement.

Ron and Linda had put in two bedrooms. John had one and Gary suspected that the
other was for Kevin. Ron and Linda really had used the rest of the basement as a family
room and Ron had his collection of 600+ VCR cassettes and 300+ DVD’s plus that big
screen TV. Ronald had even bought a popcorn popper from Smart and Final Iris and if
you caught him in a good mood, you might get to watch a movie and have a tub of pop-
corn. Sure was a shame that Ron hadn’t put in a soda bar like Clarence’s, but he had a
refrigerator full of sodas and that was the next best thing. Ron just loved his iced tea
and he had himself one of those glass barrel things that he kept full of pre-sweetened
ice tea. That would have been ok with Gary, but old Gar-Bear just hated Sweet and
Low. Of course, there’d been that period there where Hollywood had shut down and no
movies had been made, but Ron bought just about every DVD that hit the market. Gary
was surprised that his amigo didn’t have a thousand of the things.

San Luis Obispo…

It had been easy enough for the terrorists to get the information they needed to locate
Diablo Canyon. It might have taken them as long as an hour. But, PG&E was doing a
pretty good job maintaining security on the location and they had one devil of a time get-
ting in. They’d finally found a spot where the fence didn’t quite reach to the ground and
had slithered under barely ahead of a PG&E patrol. Once inside, they located the two
reactor domes and started to accumulate the information they’d need to successfully
assault the control room. It took them about 3 days to find a weak spot in PG&E’s secu-
rity and it wouldn’t have been evident to someone who wasn’t already inside.

PG&E’s internal auditor’s had spotted the security problem themselves, but so far a so-
lution had eluded them. It didn’t seem to present much of a problem, though, and the
security was so darned tight that no one would be able to get into the place and exploit
the problem, or, so they assumed. Aren’t that how most problems start? Someone
makes an assumption and pretty soon he’s made an ass out of u and me? (ass/u/me)
After 4 days of scouting the terrorists were pretty much ready. All they needed to do

380
was get those 100 kilos of explosives in and they were good to go. 100 kilos of explo-
sives was more than they needed according to that Pakistani engineer, but why take a
chance? It was only 25 kilos apiece and the timers and detonators didn’t really weigh
much at all. They worked their way out the same way they came in and returned to the
Best Western. The date was September 6, 2009. The Indonesians really didn’t under-
stand the Labor Day holiday at all. Even though all four of the men had attended college
in the US, they didn’t get it.

“Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any
country,” said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Fed-
eration of Labor. “All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with con-
flicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power,
of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living
or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.”

“Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is
dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes
a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, pros-
perity, and well-being of our country.” (Now, maybe you see what I mean and you
should have a pretty good idea how handy I am with a search engine. You don’t actually
believe that I know all of this stuff do you?)

The terrorists figured what the heck and participated in the holiday festivities in San Luis
Obispo anyway. It was a good way to get some free food. They happened upon a
PG&E company picnic and went around shaking hands and getting acquainted. They
sort of figured that it might give them a slight edge if some of the employees recognized
them when they hit the place. Might assume that they were employees or something
and a terrorist needed every edge he could get. Besides, there were only 4 of them and
from the size of the crowd at that picnic; it seemed that the mission was impossible.

Palmdale…

The Three Amigos had rolled out early that day so they could get the beer (for the oth-
ers), sodas, watermelon and such iced down and ready for the picnic. They had every-
one’s gas grills and lined them up ready to cook. The chicken, steaks and hamburgers
were thawing and the hot dogs were ready to go. The women had made a bunch of sal-
ads and they were looking forward to a leisurely afternoon. Then, up popped the Devil in
the form of one John Jones, Lieutenant, LA County Sheriff’s Department. Johnny had
them going for a minute, too, but it turned out that he’d only stopped by to visit and have
a cool one. They ended up talking about the government’s search for the second terror-
ist cell. It turned out that there was one hell of a lot more going on than they had sus-
pected. It seems, according to Johnny, that the FBI had managed to track the terrorists
to San Francisco but had hit a brick wall when they’d done so.

“So, there was a terrorist cell after all,” Gary was thinking as Johnny filled them in.
Somehow Gary didn’t find any comfort in that, his gut was really nagging him. Gary sort

381
of lost interest in the conversation as Johnny went on talking to Ron and Clarence and
he began to wonder what that bunch of terrorists was up to. The first thought to enter
his mind was that they were going to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge, but he dismissed
that when he remembered that they’d only stolen about 200 kilos of explosives, accord-
ing to TNN. He worked his way up the coast and down the coast, but couldn’t think of a
single worthwhile target. Well, there was that reactor over at Diablo Canyon, he thought,
but he quickly dismissed that because PG&E ran a pretty tight ship. He had gone over
to a state beach at one time and had strayed pretty close to those reactors and had got-
ten run off by some guards in a pickup. He kept working his way down the coast and
simply couldn’t find a likely target.

“Gary, where are you, partner?” Ron hollered at him.

“Huh? Oh sorry fellas, I was just trying to figure out where those terrorists might strike
next,” Gary admitted. “Where’s Johnny?”

“Johnny left about 30 minutes ago, Gary,” Clarence replied. “What did you come up with
targets?”

“I ran all the way up and down the California coast,” Gary explained. “The only thing that
occurred to me was the reactors at Diablo Canyon, but I was over that way one time
with Kathy to go to the beach and we ended up getting run off by some PG&E guards in
a pickup. If their security was that tight in ‘97, imagine what it must be like now. Besides,
if I remember right from some research I did for one of my stories, the Diablo Canyon
facility employs over 1,000 people. If I was worried about Diablo Canyon, it would be
from an earthquake, not a bunch of terrorists.”

“Did you ever read Rogue Warrior?” Ron asked.

“Yeah, that’s that Dick Marcinco, Ron,” Gary said. “That man is as full of crap as a
Christmas goose. Couldn’t stand his stuff. He must have to carry his arm in a sling from
patting himself on the back.”

“All of that stuff was true,” Ron insisted.

“Yeah right,” Gary said, “Anyway I take it that you are trying to point out that a small
team of highly skilled operators could break into a place like Diablo Canyon. Who
knows, maybe Marcinco and his people could have; I seem to recall him claiming that
no one could keep them out. But hell man, we’re talking about a bunch of Indonesian
terrorists here, not a highly trained US SEAL Team.”

“Gary, it was a bunch of Indonesian terrorists that took out Hoover Dam,” Clarence
pointed out, “And the same bunch took out those pipelines.”

“That was different, Clarence,” Gary insisted, “They had lots of time to plan and none of
those targets was guarded like Diablo Canyon. Besides, they’re dead.”

382
“But you do agree that there is another terrorist team in the US, right?” Ron asked.

“Seems like Johnny made that abundantly clear,” Gary responded. “Yeah, there’s an-
other terrorist team in the US. My gut tells me that even without Johnny’s info.”

“Gary, supposing, just supposing,” Clarence said, “That those terrorists did somehow
manage to get into Diablo Canyon. What would happen?”

“Well, since we’re just supposing,” Gary said, “They probably would try to damage one
of the reactors cooling systems and expose the core. It would be like that movie with
Michael Douglas, Jack Lemon and old Hanoi Jane. You remember, The China Syn-
drome. We’ve had two pretty close calls with a meltdown, Three-Mile Island and Cher-
nobyl.”

“And what mister know it all,” Ron asked, “Were those two accidents all about?”

“I think that Three-Mile Island was caused by a stuck valve and the control room opera-
tors made an error or two in judgment,” Gary said. “I know that Chernobyl was caused
by an experiment the Russians were conducting where they shut the safety systems
down.”

The problems did not start with the feed water pumps, trouble began in the condensate
polisher system. The NRC reported this in 1979 but states that they don’t need to know
the exact cause of the condensate polisher valves failure. No one knows why the acci-
dent began to this day.

Because TMI had been falsifying reactor leak rates to the NRC in the weeks leading to
the accident, operators had learned to ignore the most obvious sign that the PORV had
stuck open and that coolant was being lost through this pathway. The high temperature
reading at the PORV drain line was a clear indication that coolant was escaping. But,
operators had become accustomed to this anomaly because of the criminal falsification
which allowed this condition to exist for several weeks.

It is also noteworthy that NRC inspectors at TMI during the weeks before the accident
failed to find or note the reactor coolant leak. Later, the company pleaded ‘no contest’ to
federal charges of criminal falsifications.

On May 22 1979, former control room operator Harold W. Hartman, Jr. tells the NRC
investigators that Metropolitan Edison-General Public Utilities had been falsifying prima-
ry-coolant, leak rate data for months prior to the accident. At least two members of
management were aware of the practice. NRC investigators do not follow-up or report
the allegations to the commission.

“On February 29, 1984, a plea bargain between the Department of Justice and Met Ed
settled the Unit 2 leak rate falsification case. Met Ed pleaded guilty to one count, and no

383
contest to six counts of an 11 count indictment.

It was only by luck that the reactor walls were not breached. The industry conjectured
that voids in the coolant prevented molten fuel from burning through the reactor walls. It
is not known if these voids will form to prevent a total meltdown in future accidents. Fif-
teen million curies of radiation is a ‘massive quantity’.

Reactor core measurements taken during the first morning showed that fuel might have
melted. This data was cast aside because operators believed it was not possible and
therefore erroneous. During the first day, the NRC in fact distanced itself from the com-
pany by stating it did not tell them how to run their plant and that they were overseers of
regulatory matters. Initially, the NRC was more interested in hiding from responsibility
than offering advice to the company.

By mid-morning, citizens (many who had not heard about the accident) were reporting a
metallic taste in their mouths. Because the reactor had been leaking for several weeks,
the reactor drain tank was full and a pathway to the environs had already been created
by valves aligned to handle the leaking coolant and facilitate the falsification of the leak
rates. Additionally, at the time of the accident, GPU reported that radiation monitors
went off-scale, filters were clogged and other monitoring devices ‘disappeared.’ There-
fore, we do not know how much radiation escaped undetected into the atmosphere.

“Before you ask, I was doing some research for a new story,” Gary explained. “That’s
the only reason I know that stuff. I also researched the Chernobyl accident.”

The accident in reactor no. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station took place in the
night of 25 to 26 April 1986, during a test. The operating crew planned to test whether
the turbines could produce sufficient energy to keep the coolant pumps running in the
event of a loss of power until the emergency diesel generator was activated.

In order to prevent the test run of the reactor being interrupted, the safety systems were
deliberately switched off. For the test, the reactor had to be powered down to 25 per
cent of its capacity. This procedure did not go according to plan: for unknown reasons,
the reactor power level fell to less than 1 per cent. The power therefore had to be slowly
increased. But 30 seconds after the start of the test, there was a sudden and unex-
pected power surge. The reactor’s emergency shutdown (which should have halted the
chain reaction) failed.

Within fractions of a second, the power level and temperature rose many times over.
The reactor went out of control. There was a violent explosion. The 1000-ton sealing
cap on the reactor building was blown off. At temperatures of over 2000°C, the fuel rods
melted. The graphite covering of the reactor then ignited. In the ensuing inferno, the ra-
dioactive fission products released during the core meltdown were sucked up into the
atmosphere.

“Did you know that Sweden was the first country to detect the problem at Chernobyl?”

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Gary asked.

“All right,” Ron said, “So you’ve done some research. Did that research happen to in-
clude what would happen if Diablo Canyon had an accident or was hit by terrorists?”

“Nope,” Gary replied.

“Don’t you think you should?” Ron continued.

“Alright already. I’m working on something right now,” Gary replied, “I’ll have time
around the first of next month to check it out for you.” (Famous last words? How about
never do today what you can put off until tomorrow?)

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 56 –
The Hot Wind 2

Just sitting around killing time was driving the terrorist nuts. It was also attracting some
attention after a few days because whenever the maid went to make up the room, the 4
guys were there. She complained to her supervisor and the supervisor complained to
the Motel Manager. The Motel Manager said that he’d keep an eye on the situation and
if this kept up, he’d consider bringing the police into the matter. But, the Manager got
busy and it slipped his mind. The maid was about to complain again, but on September
16th, the 4 guys checked out. When the 4 men presented themselves at the front desk
to settle their account, the Manager suddenly remember about the earlier complaint.
However, since the 4 guys were leaving, he considered the matter closed and it ended
right then and there.

Later that evening, the 4 men slipped under the fence again and positioned themselves
for their assault. The security problem mentioned earlier had to do with how the facility
handled security shift changes. For a brief period, about 15 minutes, there was no secu-
rity while the new guards were brought up to speed by the departing guards. It was at
this moment that the 4 Indonesians struck. Two of the men gained access to the control
room using the universal key, an AK-47. The other two men each entered one of the re-
actors the same way. The terrorists in the reactors quickly placed their charges of 50
kilos of Semtex while the other men killed the Control room staff. The time was 11pm.
The reactors were already operating at full capacity so the only thing the two men in the
control room had to do was keep people out of the control room. The men in the reac-
tors left to join the men in the control room and await the explosions signaling the dis-
ruption of coolant flow to the reactors.

The guards hadn’t heard anything because the AK-47’s were suppressed. A few
minutes before the new guards were to begin their tours, the explosives detonated. All
hell broke loose. Guards called a UE and scrambled to the reactors and control room.
They assessed the damage to the cooling system and determined that the backup sys-
tem should be able to handle the problem. They also raised the status to an alert. When
they tried to gain access to the control room and were rebuffed by gunfire, they skipped
the Site-Area-Emergency and went directly to General Emergency.

Immediately, local residents and visitors were notified of the emergency that required
public response by Emergency Alert System bulletins. The DOE was also notified as
required by law and another call went out to the CHP. The final call went to Sacramen-
to, to the Governor. This was the same Governor who had messed up on the LA Riots.
He had learned quite a bit from that experience and HE called the DHS to ask for guid-
ance. The call might have been a surprise, but DHS was already aware of the problem
due to PG&E’s notification to the DOE. The time was now shortly after midnight and the
date was 9/17/09. Not only that, but every siren within 20 miles of Diablo Canyon was
going off.

The reactors were slowly losing their coolant. The problem I have describing the event

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is that I’m not exactly sure where the terrorists placed those bombs. Probably right
where that Pakistani engineer told them to, wherever that was. Sorry. Anyway, unlike
the movie The China Syndrome the PG&E engineers didn’t have some quick Hollywood
alternative. They had determined that at the rate the two reactors were losing coolant,
they would be unable to bypass the necessary wiring. All they really needed to do was
to access the control room and activate the emergency cooling system, but that was out
of the question because the control room was under the control of what they now took
to be terrorists.

In most of Gary stories, he had some catchy name for his settlements like The Ark or
the Res. After Ron and Clarence had moved into their new homes, The Three Amigos
visited about that very thing. It got to be quite a discussion. And The Three Amigos
couldn’t agree on what to call the place. Finally Clarence had settled the matter when
he said, “I don’t know about you fellas, but I’m just going to call it home.” From that time
on, that’s exactly what they did, they just talked about home.

Gary was up late for a change watching a rerun on TV. He got bored, it turned out he’d
seen the movie before, and started to channel check. He hit channel 2, KCBS, just in
the middle of the EBS signal. He assumed it was a test and moved to channel 4, KNBC
and still got the EBS signal. He wondered what in the hell could be so important that
they were running the EBS signal at 12:45am. So, he left the TV on channel 4 and de-
cided to find out. Paul Moyer came on after moment or two, still adjusting his tie. Gary
didn’t particularly like Paul Moyer, the man was positively anti-gun, but curiosity was
getting the better of him so he hung in for a minute. Moyer was saying something about
an incident at Diablo Canyon. Gary changed to channel 2 to find out what was really go-
ing on.

…at Diablo Canyon Nuclear reactors around midnight. PG&E officials have stated that
as the cores of the reactors are exposed, the cores will begin to melt down. At this time,
KCBS has very little other information. To repeat, at 11:55pm, explosions in reactors 1
and 2 at Diablo Canyon Nuclear power plant disabled the cooling systems causing the
reactors to begin losing coolant. PG&E officials have stated that as the cores…

Man talking about being wrong. Gary picked up the phone and dialed Ron. When Linda
answered, he said, “We have a problem, put on channel 2.” Gary repeated the calls until
Clarence plus Gary’s four kids had the word. He then went back in the bedroom and
woke up Sharon and told her that some terrorists had blown up the reactors at Diablo
Canyon and that they’d better think about getting to the shelter. She asked if she had to
do it right away and he asked her to make a pot of coffee first, please, and come back
and watch TV with him. Gary rarely did anything in moderation. He’d really blown it this
time, but he did what he had to do. You have to give Gary credit, in a way.

Gar-Bear did a quick 2-4-7 channel check, CBS-NBC-ABC. Moyer was ranting about
the terrorists having guns and ABC was about the same as CBS so he went back to
channel 2. They had picked a live news conference with a PG&E official and the way
those reporters were screaming at the guy, you’d have thought he had personally blown

387
up the reactors and started the meltdown.

“Thanks for the coffee, honey,” Gary said. “I suppose that we’d better grab those bags
of clothes and get to the shelter. We can monitor the situation from there.”

Apparently, Sharon had a migraine or something and if looks could have killed… They
rounded up the pets, got the coffee and headed for the shelter. By the time they got
there, it was starting to fill. Gary remembered his weapons and ALICE gear and went
back upstairs and got them. The shelter, though much larger than the first, was set up
for The Three Amigos. There was, however, ample space and cots in the storeroom.
Ron had even gotten the coffee maker going. They already pulled some cots out, set
them up and had the little kids settled down and back to sleep.

“Man,” Gary said, “I sure blew it this time.”

“We tried to tell you,” Ron said and dropped the subject.

They started following the news on FOX, which by this time was taking feeds from its
own affiliates and a couple of other channels. A SWAT team had finally managed to
blow the control room door, PG&E had secured that room pretty good, and the 4 terror-
ists were dead. But, before they’d been killed, the terrorists had pretty much destroyed
the control room. And the cores were now almost exposed and about ready to begin
melting down. About all that could be done was to remove the reactors from the grid
and try something, anything, to slow/stop down that meltdown. About that time, the last
charges planted by the terrorists blew, cracking open the containment buildings and al-
lowing the radiation into the atmosphere.

At Chernobyl, the Russians had resorted to burying reactor #4 under tons of concrete
and killed a bunch of very brave people in the process. American reactors were con-
structed far differently than their Russian counterparts and the terrorists hadn’t blown
the dome off the containment buildings, they’d just cracked them. That Pakistani engi-
neer must have been one smart dude. Then, FOX put up a graphic and showed the
probable dispersion pattern of the leaking radiation. The wind was out of the WNW and
Lancaster and Palmdale were right in the path. Ron got on one line and gave the Cita-
del a heads up while Gary got on the other line to the Sheriff’s Department. Next, they
called over to Moon Shadows and gave Randy a heads up.

Out of the blue, Clarence observed, “Well at least that Hambali is dead, so maybe this is
the last of it.”

Damon and Derek went out and started to lock up the blast doors to keep the radiation
out when it arrived. The winds weren’t particularly high, so The Three Amigos figured
that they had plenty of time. As they continued to watch the coverage on TV, PG&E had
allowed the media into Diablo Canyon and they were now getting live feeds from the re-
actors. The feeds, of course, were from cameras on tripods, and they didn’t have to lis-
ten to any stupid reporters speculating about this, that or the other thing. Gary was

388
wondering if maybe Geraldo was available to do a live commentary. Pity, even Geraldo
wasn’t quite that dumb.

As they watched, two trucks came into the picture, driven by men all dressed up in
those radiation suits. The drivers and passengers got out and began to run large hoses
into the two containment buildings. What the hell? It didn’t take long to get an answer to
that question; truckload after truckload of Ready-mixed concrete appeared on the sce-
ne. Of course, those trucks had brought in concrete pumps and it looked like they were
going to try to pump those reactor vessels full of concrete, just like the Russians had
done at Chernobyl. It was strange sitting there watching a disaster unfold right before
their eyes.

Gary had done several things differently when he’d built his home and shelter. For one
thing, he’d picked up several recalibrated CD radiation detectors. He’d mounted the
sensor probes to a high range and a low range counter on the outside of the house and
had run lines down to the shelter, giving them access to the outside radiation levels. He
also had some of the portable units. He also mounted all of his radio antennas on a sin-
gle mast and had preset a scanner for the local Sheriff’s Department frequencies. For
years, Gary had driven down Balboa Street on the way to the doctors’ offices.

Some of you may actually remember Balboa Street and not know it. Remember the
Northridge Earthquake back in 1994? Remember the street that had caved in breaking
a bunch of gas lines that had ended up burning down 5 homes when the gas lines
caught on fire? It was all over TV for a while. That was Balboa Street. About a mile
north of that cave in was a fire station. The fire station had a radio antenna mast that
was a long, slender tapered pole that reached halfway to the moon, or so it seemed to
Gary. Anyway, he’d tracked down the company who manufactured that antenna mast
and had one just like it put in when he’d built the home, or shortly thereafter. (US Tow-
ers Monopole)

With solar panels on the 7 homes and garage feeding an even larger battery bank they
could go quite a while before the generator kicked in, if it did at all. And, being the pre-
paredness freak that he was, Gary had put wheels on that relay rack that held all of his
computer equipment in the basement. Essentially the only connections to/from the rack
were that T-1 line, a set of network cables and a power cord. The rack had a true UPS,
some fairly powerful cooling fans, the router/firewall, the 24 port switch and his old com-
puter (the server) remounted in a 3U server case. His Dell desktop computer was on his
desk. When Damon and Derek had started to shut the shelter up, they’d gotten an ap-
pliance cart, shut down the server and computer and carefully lowered that portable re-
lay rack to the shelter. Gary had connected the power, hooked in the T-1 in his COMM
shack and rebooted first the server and then the computer. Although there was also a
set of connections to the computers on the network in the COMM shack, Gary didn’t
bother to reconnect those. Everyone was in the shelter anyway.

Gary was monitoring the Sheriff’s radio band. The Governor, to his credit, had immedi-
ately ordered a massive evacuation in path of the expected radiation from the Diablo

389
Canyon Reactors. Even in the best of times evacuations are complicated affairs that
take a while and they didn’t really have a whole lot of time. San Luis Obispo had an
evacuation plan and they put it into play. They started sending their residents north on
the 101 since the wind was out of the WNW. The city of Los Angeles sent its entire fleet
of busses up the 101 to help with the evacuations. The stretch of coast from San Luis
Obispo to LA is heavily populated and is primarily served by the 101 freeway. Again,
even in the best of times, that particular freeway is a difficult drive. There were more
people than there were cars, busses and military trucks and some of the people ended
up taking shelter in community buildings. To the credit of the CHP, wreckers were sta-
tioned along the 101 clearing wrecks as fast as they happened. The traffic was moving
at a dismal 25mph, but at least it was moving. All of the wrecks were of the fender
bender variety; none of the vehicles could go fast enough to cause a serious crash.

By the time that the bombs cracked open the containment buildings the evacuation was
well under way. Old Gar-Bear had an old 17” b & w TV in the COMM shack and was
busy as can be, monitoring the radio, watching TV and trying to follow the events. He
was feeling pretty guilty about that time for his error in judgment and was doing his best
to make up for it. That little COMM shack was the heart of the shelter. Everything was
computerized and Gary could control just about everything with that computer of his.
Ain’t technology grand? But what with the adrenalin surge, the lack of sleep and so
forth, Gary’s blood sugar started to run on empty. Gary noticed his left hand trembling,
immediately recognized it as a warning sign that his blood sugar level was hovering
around 50 (LOW) and called Derek to take over the COMM shack. The ladies had
thrown together a nice little breakfast and he had some orange juice as a quick fix and
added some protein. Now all he needed was 30 minutes for everything to get into his
system and he was good to go.

Of course Gary was tired and he was starting to do things backwards. He should have
taken time to check his BP/BS, taken his insulin and meds and then had breakfast, but
what can I say? Anyway, by the time he did his morning medical routines, his BS was a
healthy 75 (the orange juice) and he was feeling a whole lot better. He checked on
Derek and Derek was doing just fine so he went out and flopped down in an easy chair
in front of the TV. Five minutes later, he was sound asleep.

390
 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 57 –
Buzz, Buzz, Buzz

Another thing Gar-Bear had done was to install some remote controlled locks on the
blast doors. They were activated by flipping a switch in the COMM shack and prevented
the blast doors from being opened until the switch was switched off. Hooked into the
circuit was a 15 second timer and it, in turn, was connected to one of those old fash-
ioned buzzers he’d picked up at Radio Shack. The buzzer only ran for the 15 seconds
and its purpose was to notify everyone in the shelter that the blast doors had been se-
cured. The protocol that Gary had developed was that at the first sign of radiation,
among other things, the doors were to be secured. The low-level radiation counter had
started to tick and Derek had flipped the switch.

Buzz-buzz-buzz. The buzzer startled Gary awake. He had been in a deep sleep, proba-
bly dreaming about Stacy/Barbara, and that buzzer was pretty danged loud. He awak-
ened totally disoriented and it took him a minute or two to realize what was happening.
He looked around, realized that he was sitting in an easy chair in front of the TV and
then remembered sitting down after he’d eaten breakfast. It took him a few moments
longer to realize what had awakened him. He bolted out of the chair and headed for the
COMM shack. Derek was sitting there monitoring everything and Gary took a peek at
the radiation meters.

The high level (500R) meter’s needle wasn’t moving, but the 50 mR unit was ticking
away. Gary looked at the wall clock and realized that he’d been sleeping for a pretty
long time. It appeared that the radiation levels were still pretty low so Gary slipped out of
the COMM shack and went to do his meds. When he’d finished, he’d gotten a bite to eat
and then returned to the COMM shack to relieve Derek. In that short, 30-minute interval,
the low level meter had maxed out and Derek had turned it off. Now, the needle was
starting to register on the high level, 500 R, unit. The needle on a third unit, another of
the 50 mR devices that measured the radiation inside the shelter wasn’t moving.

Gary relived Derek and resumed the watch. Per protocol, Derek had been maintaining
extensive notes and Gary scanned them to get up to speed. They’d managed, some-
how to clear out Lancaster and Rosamond and took those people north to the San
Joaquin Valley. About ¾ of the Palmdale residents had also been evacuated and the
remainder were at the Citadel. Along 101, things hadn’t gone nearly as well and the ra-
diation had caught up with the evacuees before everyone had gotten clear. Derek
hadn’t noted anything about possible deaths, so Gary had no idea what the situation
was. Derek had the TV on FOX and according to FOX, the radiation had reached all the
way to Victorville, as of this time. Apparently while he’d been sleeping, they’d managed
to pump those reactor vessels full of concrete and the reactors were no longer leaking
radiation. There was no radio traffic on the scanner, and Gary assumed that meant that
the Sheriff’s Department was safely tucked away in the Citadel. By this time, the outside
radiation level was running about 250 R/hr.

“Have a nice nap?” Ron asked sticking his head into the comm. shack.

391
“Hey, Ron,” Gary said. “Must have been more tired than I thought.”

“Did you do your meds and eat?” Ron asked.

“Right after I woke up, thanks,” Gary replied.

“Still feeling guilty?” Ron asked.

“No. A little silly maybe, but I guess I’m over the guilt,” Gary admitted. “How did you
know?”

“I’m your sponsor lunkhead,” Ron replied, “I know you better than you know yourself.”

“If you’re so flippin’ smart, what was I dreaming about?” Gary chuckled.

“Probably about that redhead that Sharon and I hired to wake you up,” Ron laughed.

“Oh,” Gary said. “So what’s the situation?”

“They got those two reactors pumped full of concrete finally,” Ron said, “But those two
guys that took the hoses in got a fatal dose. They managed to get about ⅔ of the people
evacuated before the radiation caught up to them, too.”

“Any word on the number of deaths?” Gary asked.

“No, but it has to be pretty substantial, the radiation level hit 1,000R/hr for a while,” Ron
replied.

“Anything else that I should know about?” Gary asked.

“Well…” Ron began. “The prison up in Tehachapi was right in the path so they attempt-
ed to move those inmates to another prison. Anyway, something went wrong and the
prisoners managed to bust loose. Word got out somehow and another couple of prisons
started to riot. Before anyone could react, they managed to break out too.”

“How could something like that happen, partner?” Gary asked.

“Hell, I don’t know,” Ron said, “Don’t I remember you saying something about prison
overcrowding and the like?”

“Maybe, I can’t remember,” Gary admitted. “How many people are we talking about
here?”

“Several thousand,” Ron replied. “Santorum activated the Guards in a few states and
they’re flooding into California as fast as possible. But with the radiation and everything,

392
it’s going to be a while before they get those cons rounded up. Before the radiation had
a chance to go up, we managed to get all of the shutters closed, so the houses are se-
cure.”

“I have this CCTV monitor, so I can keep a watch on the outside,” Gary remarked.

“Is that the gizmo you mounted on the antenna mast?” Ron asked.

“Yeah, it has a 360 degree view of the entire 2½ acres and a zoom lens so I can see a
ways beyond,” Gary said, “I guess I forgot to mention that.”

“Say partner, you keep using the term EBS when you refer to the radio and TV,” Ron
said. “You really ought to pay more attention. They haven’t called it the EBS in maybe 5
years. Seems to me they renamed it the Emergency Alert System or EAS.”

“Really? I must have missed TV that day,” Gary laughed. “Ok from now on, I’ll use the
term EAS. You know how much I hate being wrong about things.” (thanks partner)

The garage was more or less secure too. Gary had a touch of the obsessive-compulsive
in him and had special doors manufactured for the garage. They were only ½ inch steel
plate and it took a 2hp motor to raise and lower them, but the average guy would play
hell even getting into the garage. Unless he had a Stanley garage door opener set to
the right frequency, that is. And those 6 doors were the only way into the garage.

Slowly, the Survey meter crept up to 350R/hr and then leveled off. It remained there for
about a day and then slowly started to fall. Apparently, the wind was blowing the radia-
tion away and that was falling on the ground and was beginning to decay. Gary had it in
mind that they weren’t going anywhere until the R level was 0.1R/hr or lower. Here’s
why:

30 to 70 R From 6-12 hours: none to slight incidence of transient headache and nausea;
vomiting in up to 5 percent of personnel in upper part of dose range. Mild lymphocyte
depression within 24 hours. Full recovery expected. (Fetus damage possible from 50R
and above.)

70 to 150 R From 2-20 hours: transient mild nausea and vomiting in 5 to 30 percent of
personnel. Potential for delayed traumatic and surgical wound healing, minimal clinical
effect. Moderate drop in lymphocycte, platelet, and granulocyte counts. Increased sus-
ceptibility to opportunistic pathogens. Full recovery expected.

150 to 300 R From 2 hours to three days: transient to moderate nausea and vomiting in
20 to 70 percent; mild to moderate fatigability and weakness in 25 to 60 percent of per-
sonnel. At 3 to 5 weeks: medical care required for 10 to 50%. At high end of range,
death may occur to maximum 10%. Anticipated medical problems include infection,
bleeding, and fever. Wounding or burns will geometrically increase morbidity and mor-
tality.

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300 to 530 R From 2 hours to three days: transient to moderate nausea and vomiting in
50 to 90 percent; mild to moderate fatigability in 50 to 90 percent of personnel. At 2 to 5
weeks: medical care required for 10 to 80%. At low end of range, less than 10% deaths;
at high end, death may occur for more than 50%. Anticipated medical problems include
frequent diarrheal stools, anorexia, increased fluid loss, ulceration. Increased infection
susceptibility during immunocompromised time-frame. Moderate to severe loss of lym-
phocytes. Hair loss after 14 days.

530 to 830 R From 2 hours to two days: moderate to severe nausea and vomiting in 80
to 100 percent of personnel; From 2 hours to six weeks: moderate to severe fatigability
and weakness in 90 to 100 percent of personnel. At 10 days to 5 weeks: medical care
required for 50 to 100%. At low end of range, death may occur for more than 50% at six
weeks. At high end, death may occur for 99% of personnel. Anticipated medical prob-
lems include developing pathogenic and opportunistic infections, bleeding, fever, loss of
appetite, GI ulcerations, bloody diarrhea, severe fluid and electrolyte shifts, capillary
leak, hypotension. Combined with any significant physical trauma, survival rates will ap-
proach zero.

830 R Plus From 30 minutes to 2 days: severe nausea, vomiting, fatigability, weakness,
dizziness, and disorientation; moderate to severe fluid imbalance and headache. Bone
marrow total depletion within days. CNS symptoms are predominant at higher radiation
levels. Few, if any, survivors even with aggressive and immediate medical attention.

They might be safe enough at 30 R, by why take the chance? It would probably only re-
quire them to stay in the shelter for an extra day and once they did go out; they
shouldn’t have to worry about much. It should also give you an idea what those folks
who were stuck on the 101 freeway were up against. Back when the Arab terrorists had
detonated all of those dirty bombs and suitcase nuke, Gary’s system wasn’t nearly as
sophisticated as it was now, explaining why he had insisted that everyone follow the
rule of 7’s.

The death toll from this latest terrorist attack wouldn’t begin to rise to the level of
11/12/05, but it would make the WTC pale by comparison. Of course we all know that
things like this can’t happen in the good old US of A, so why bother getting prepared;
just in case? On the other hand, what would have happened if they hadn’t gotten a han-
dle on the reactor at Three-Mile Island? Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it? And po-
tassium iodide? Buy some of it or the stuff frugal has available. That will sure keep you
safe. Not hardly, but on the other hand, it’s still a darned good idea to have some on
hand. Everything you can do to protect yourself and your family is a good idea. It is real-
ly amazing that the ostrich isn’t extinct.

Editorial Comment: I don’t happen to be anti-nuclear power. I really think it’s a good
idea because it beats the heck out of using fossil fuels. But as with all things, nuclear
power has it dangers. Say, what if they got it wrong and those reactors at Diablo Can-
yon got hit by an earthquake? Would all of those automatic safety systems really work

394
and shut the reactors down? Oh, that’s right, the state of California studied the situation
and says it can’t happen. The equipment worked pretty well at Three-Mile Island but the
operators ignored those instruments, didn’t they? And one guy even showed some initi-
ative and only made it worse. I happen to believe, albeit wrongly, that the thing that
saved Three-Mile Island was President Carter, a Nuclear Engineer by training, showing
up and setting them straight. In my book, that took a set of big ones. I may not have
cared for Carter as President, but in my book, he’s one hell of a man.

When finally, a few days later, the outside radiation level reached 0.1R/hr, Gary flipped
the switch and unlocked the shelter doors. Everyone gathered up their things and head-
ed home via the tunnel system. As a measure of added insurance, Gary sent along
some survey meters and told everyone to check for hot spots. There weren’t any. The
Citadel had opened their doors when the radiation level had reached 0.2R/hr. By this
time, the Guard troops from California and the other states were busy trying to deal with
those poor folks on the 101 freeway and looking for the escaped cons. As in the case
with reactor no. 4 at Chernobyl, Diablo Canyon was a total loss.

The way their luck seemed to run, The Three Amigos figured that they would probably
end up being attacked by a bunch of cons and they kept their weapons close at hand.
Fortunately, that didn’t happen in this case, was their luck beginning to change? Not re-
ally, no. Those 11 gang bangers that they’d had to deal with hadn’t particularly been
headed their way until they’d had that blowout. And then they just became what a lot of
bad people became in similar circumstances, opportunists, looking for the easy way out.
And then, just when they began to relax their guard a little three rather scruffy fellas
showed up wearing jeans and blue work shirts. Ron was off getting a ‘haircut’ at the
stylists but Gary recognized the clothes. Gar-Bear had been to Tehachapi prison on a
couple of panels and the inmates wore blue jeans and blue work shirts. He peeked at
their shoes. The prison issued the inmates a set of leather brogans that always remind-
ed Gary of the shoes he wore in the Air Force.

“Oh dang,” he thought, “They got me outnumbered 3 to 1 and all I have is that danged
.32 cal Sauer in my back pocket.”

The Sauer, I may have mentioned, was a war souvenir from the Big One. His Dad’s
friend LeRoy had taken if off a dead Nazi and years later had agreed to sell it to his Dad
for $100. Then when his Dad was starting to settle up his affairs, he’d brought up his
gun collection and had asked Gary what he wanted. Gary had mentioned the Sauer and
his Dad gave it to him. It was a dang nice little gun with virtually no wear and had been
well taken care of. Gary had always wanted a PPK and he took the Sauer figuring it was
as close as he’d ever get. The Sauer was nice, but that 7.65 Browning (.32) ammo sure
didn’t pack much of a wallop. The guys said that they had gotten lost on a camping trip
and sure were hungry.

“Well sure, I’m always glad to help someone out with a little food,” Gary said and ges-
tured towards the house. The guys, apparently thinking that they’d put one over on old
Gary walked past him headed for the house. He waited for them to pass and out came

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the Sauer. Gary kept it ‘cocked and locked’ and he thumbed off the safety and said,
“Freeze buttheads, I used to do panels up at the prison. You boys must think I just fell
off the turnip truck.”

One of the guys started to turn round and Gary flat ass shot him in the back. The other
two froze solid. Clarence heard the shot and came running carrying one of those dang
MP5’s. The guy on the ground was wiggling around in a whole lot of pain from that .32’s
bee sting and the other two guys saw the H&K and their hands shot up before they got
one in the back from Gary or one in the front from Clarence. It must have been a hilari-
ous scene. Sharon looked out the window and called 911. A patrol car was dispatched
code 3 from Littlerock. A few minutes later, the car slid to a stop and the Deputy came
boiling out M-92 in hand. Gary handed the Sauer to Clarence and said he’d be right
back. It only took Gary about 5 minutes to clean up and change his drawers and he
went back out to where the two cons were sitting on the ground, cuffed, and that other
was wiggling around on the ground.

“You shoot that guy?” the Deputy asked.

“You flippin’ right I did,” Gary said, “I told them to freeze and he started to turn around. I
figure he might have a gun and I plugged him with my Sauer. He can’t be hurt too bad,
that’s only a .32.”

“What made you think they were cons?” the Deputy asked.

“Well, my partner and I have done a few AA panels at the prison and I sort half recog-
nized the shirt and jeans,” Gary explained. “Thing about it was, I got a look at those
shoes the prison issues and then I was positive. So, I played dumb and invited them in-
to the house. As soon as they got past me, I pulled the Sauer, thumbed the safety and
told them to freeze. That guy on the ground there…well you know what happened after
that.”

“What’s with that H&K?” the Deputy asked, “Automatic weapons are LEO only in Cali-
fornia.”

“Hell, I know that,” Gary said pulling out his wallet. “Here’s my Reserve Deputy ID card.”

“You got one too mister?” the Deputy asked Clarence.

“Sure do,” Clarence said handing Gary the MP-5 and reaching for his wallet. “Here,” he
said handing the Deputy his Reserve Deputy ID card.

“How about you fellas let me hang onto the guns until we get this all sorted out,” the
Deputy ‘suggested’.

Gary handed the weapons over o the Deputy who put them in the trunk of his patrol car.
About that time the ambulance the Deputy called arrived and they checked the guy on

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the ground over. He wasn’t hurt all that badly so they loaded him on a gurney and put
him in the ambulance. About that time, Johnny showed up. He got the Deputy to fill him
in and then made Gary and Clarence tell the whole story all over again.

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The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 58 – Buzz,
Buzz, Buzz 2

“It’s ok, give them back their guns,” Johnny said. By this time a third patrol car had ar-
rived and it followed the ambulance to the hospital. The first Deputy returned the guns
and put the two cons in that back of his patrol car. He took off to transport them to the
Palmdale Sheriff’s station.

“You must have been born under a lucky star, Gary,” Johnny said.

“Why do you say that Johnny?” Gary asked, “I followed procedure pretty good.”

“You did, yes,” Johnny said, “But that guy who was turning around was armed. He could
have blown your head off.

“Hell Johnny, that little gun holds 8 shots,” Gary replied, “I’d have used all 8 if I had to.”

“And then what?” Johnny asked.

“Then, I’d have put in this mag,” Gary said pulling his extra magazine from his left rear
pocket, “in the gun and shot the other two.”

“Clarence,” Johnny said, “I’d be careful about flashing the MP-5 if I were you.”

“Ok,” Clarence replied and headed for home.

“Gary, one of these days you’re going to get yourself killed,” Johnny said.

“Oh probably,” Gary agreed. “We thought that the Guard had pretty much gotten the
cons rounded up.”

“Everyone is working on it,” Johnny said, “But there are still a few like those 3 running
around. With the arsenal the 3 of you have, why would you walk around with a popgun
like that Sauer?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” Gary admitted, “Guess we thought the problem was over and I
stuck it in my pocket just in case we were wrong.”

“The problem is far from over so act according,” Johnny said and got in his patrol car
and left.

About that time Ron pulled in from his trip to the stylist.

“Was that Johnny?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Gary said, “We had a little trouble but Clarence and I handled it. No big deal.

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Johnny says that the problems aren’t over and that we should keep ourselves armed for
a while yet.”

With that, Gary returned to his home leaving Ronald sitting in his car wondering what
the hell was going on. Well, if Gary wouldn’t tell him, Clarence would, so he went over to
Clarence’s and got the real story. Gary cleaned the Sauer, swapped out the magazines
and put it back in his sock drawer where he usually kept the thing. The mailman had
brought a box from Kirkpatrick and he opened it, got the new holster and swapped
those out. That Tequila Rig wasn’t nearly as heavy with the single 4⅝” Vaquero, Clar-
ence had been right about that. But, he decided that he probably needed a little more
firepower than a 6 shot revolver so he got the Kimber, serviced it and strapped on a pis-
tol belt with the Kimber and 4 extra mags. Then, he turned on the TV and plopped down
in a chair to get caught up on the news.

This Diablo Canyon thing was turning out to be quite the disaster. For one thing, there
was a stretch of the coast that had a fair amount of residual radiation and they were
talking billions for cleanup. But that was the good news. A whole lot of people had been
trapped on the 101 (Ventura) freeway and some had gotten lethal doses. To make mat-
ters worse, thousands more had received a less than lethal dose and those hospitals
were swamped. Every time you turned around, it seemed like LA was losing another
hospital. Gary got on the phone to the Citadel and asked if they were getting any of the
patients from the 101. Were they ever! They’d even resorted to pulling the few cots they
had out to provide beds for the patients. Gary asked how the supplies were holding out
and learned that it had been a good thing that they’d had that large inventory. Even so,
they were starting to run low on some things.

Gar-Bear tracked down Ron; he was still at Clarence’s. He told Ron and Clarence to get
armed up, they had to get to the Citadel and get some supplies arranged. The Three
Amigos piled into the pickup and headed to the hospital. They spent the next several
hours on the phone, ordering, pleading, cajoling and flat near threatening their medical
suppliers. However, given their persistence and the size of the orders, they managed to
fill in most of the voids. In this case, it wasn’t so much a shortage of medical supplies
out there as it was that they simply weren’t where they needed to be. Some things just
weren’t going to be easy to come by. They needed a whole lot more blood than the Red
Cross could provide, for example. There was a message from the Foundation so Gary
returned the call. The Foundation was concerned about their supplies too and had been
busy organizing additional supplies; mostly the ones that The Three Amigos had trouble
getting. Gary treated Ron and Clarence to a steak at Outback and decided that was the
last time for that. Maybe that explained Ron’s problem with cholesterol, too. He’d eaten
the biggest steak Outback had. Clarence had done the 12oz sirloin and Gary the 9oz.

It was probably a good thing that the AV was loaded with hospitals. All four of them
were filled to capacity and beyond. They’d even ended up taking a few people to the Air
Force hospital at Edwards. With ample warning, the folks over in Apple Valley and Vic-
torville had managed to head north on I-15 and the Army had put them up at Ft. Irwin.
Most of the people in Barstow must have had the same idea because they left too, even

399
though it hadn’t proven to be necessary. Surprisingly, parts of the Ventura freeway had
been spared, especially to the west. It must have been the wind.

Sacramento…

In 2001, the California Energy Commission had done a 12-page study. This study had
developed solutions to the technical problems associated with so-called reactor core-
meltdown accidents. A principal conclusion of the report was that it was feasible to de-
sign passive systems to reduce potential consequences from core-melt accidents to
very low levels. Underground siting was only one of several alternatives. The two un-
derground siting concepts developed, each augmented to prevent buildup of excessive
pressures, could effectively eliminate public health consequences from hypothetical,
highly unlikely, yet physically possible reactor accidents. In addition, alternatives to un-
derground siting, such as remote siting and controlled release of excessive pressure
through simple, engineered filter systems, appear feasible. While not as fully effective,
these alternatives capture some of the benefits of underground siting at less cost. Gar-
Bear had run across a citation to the report when he’d been checking out Three-Mile
Island and Chernobyl. He hadn’t been able to find the report, but he knew it existed.

So did the Governor and the California Assembly. In a classic case of closing the barn
door after the horse was gone, the Assembly passed legislation mandating that future
reactors be build underground in accordance with the study’s recommendations and the
Governor quickly signed the measure into law. What was the point? Hoover and Parker
would be back online in 2 more years, resolving the electrical and water problems. The
point was, as it later turned out, that Edison wanted to build a new reactor out in the de-
sert in eastern California. The federal government had given the necessary approvals
but Sacramento was dragging its heels. Apparently realizing that California was facing
an ongoing energy crunch and that the Diablo Canyon incident only added to the prob-
lem, an Assemblyman had introduced the bill. In the wake of the Diablo Canyon inci-
dent, California managed to approve a new reactor, but it had to be built underground.

Washington…

Santorum had called Goss, Mueller, Prescott and Truscott to a meeting at the White
House. With the Diablo Canyon incident, the task force had been disbanded, but Santo-
rum had something in mind. Santorum had done a stint as the Secretary of DHS and he
had a pretty good handle on the problems the US faced dealing with terrorists. He’d had
a fleeting thought about what to do about it when Diablo Canyon went down and since
that thought went against just about everything he believed in had dismissed it. But, as
sometimes happens, that nagging thought just wouldn’t go away. He decided to run it by
the 4 men from the task force.

“Director Goss,” Santorum began, “Back when Bush appointed you Director, you said
that it would take you 5-years to get the CIA turned around and the problems resolved.
How are you doing on that?”

400
Goss was a bit taken aback by the question. This was the type of question best dealt
with in a private meeting. But, he was on the spot and decided what the hell.

“Mr. President,” Goss began, “I was pretty much on track with my estimate. The agency
has greatly increased its HumInt resources around the world and we’ve made neces-
sary adjustments internally to alleviate the problems that led up to 9/11.” Goss went on
for some time detailing the various changes.

“Good, you’ve done a great job” Santorum acknowledged and turned his attention to
Mueller.

“How are the communications between the FBI and the CIA these days?” Santorum
asked Mueller.

“Couldn’t be better,” Mueller replied. “Mr. President, any lingering problems we had
were pretty much ironed out because of the two task forces.”

The other two men, Prescott and Truscott were only there because Santorum decided
that he wanted their feedback on this idea of his.

“Gentlemen,” Santorum began, “I’d had an idea. It pretty much goes against my grain,
but to tell you the truth, it’s nagged me to the point that I called this meeting. Everything
that gets said in this room from this point on is to be considered classified at the highest
possible level. If word of what I’m about to suggest leaks out we’re all going to go
down.”

The 4 Directors agreed to the condition and Santorum continued. We’ve all heard about
Watergate and the Iran-Contra Affair, but what about the ones we didn’t hear about that
were successful? Kind of makes you wonder…

Santorum continued, “I won’t say that our problems with terrorists necessarily began in
‘93 when they blew up the WTC, but let’s use that as a starting point. 8 years later, ter-
rorists managed to bring down the WTC and did a pretty good job on the Pentagon.
Then there was that nuclear attack on 11/12/05 that all but brought the country to its
knees. Add the 9/17/07 Hoover Dam incident and those pipelines and the problem is
starting to get out of proportion. The Diablo Canyon incident was the last straw. Look, I
did my bit at DHS, so I know what you’ve all been up against here. If the American pub-
lic had any idea how many incidents you folks had managed to prevent, they’d probably
never believe it. Anyway, my thinking is that maybe we’ve been doing this all wrong.
How would the 4 of you react to a suggestion that we take the terrorism to the terror-
ists?”

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 59 –
The Project

You could have heard a pin drop. Santorum’s suggestion was outrageous. Was ‘Mr.
Clean’, as they affectionately referred to him behind his back, actually suggesting what
they thought they’d just heard? Goss was the first to regain his composure.

“Mr. President,” Goss said, “I like it. It goes so much against everything that America
stands for that we would have total deniability. The thing is… we don’t actually have too
many assets to handle the ‘wet work’.”

The other 3 men had yet to regain their voices.

“You know,” Santorum continued, “Maybe Barbara Boxer did us a favor.”

“She killed off a lot of those terrorists,” Goss said, “That’s for sure.”

“That wasn’t what I was getting at,” Santorum continued. “What I had in mind was the
deal she worked out with Putin. As you all know, Putin raised hell with her over those
bombings and she gave him the entire Middle East except for Israel. (The KGB as a
point of reference had been renamed the Federal Security Service. Putin had headed
the agency before he’d become President of the Russian Federation.) I think that Putin
owes the US a big one. How true is it that the KGB had a lot of those ‘wet work’ as-
sets?”

“That was then, Mr. President,” Goss replied, “And this is now. But, I expect that they
still have a few. To be totally honest, since we’ve been getting along with Russia so
well, we’ve been concentrating on the terrorists. But, it won’t take me long to get you an
accurate assessment.”

“Do that please, Director Goss,” Santorum instructed.

By this time, the other 3 men had finally regained their voices.

“I don’t know whether I agree or disagree,” Mueller said, “But Goss has a point. We’d
have total deniability. Hell, if push came to shove, we could even blame it on the Israe-
lis.”

The meeting lasted for some time as the 5 men worked through the details of what they
were now calling ‘The Project’. Goss would get Santorum the information he needed
and Santorum would contact Putin. If necessary, Santorum would try and schedule a
mini-summit meeting with Putin as a cover. The best place to hide, after all, was in plain
view. That’s what had gotten so many previous Presidents’, Nixon for example, in trou-
ble. They’d gone sneaking around trying to cover everything up.

Moscow…

402
Putin had taken Boxer up on her offer and had given her a pass. She’d resigned almost
immediately thereafter and very few people actually knew about the deal they’d worked
out, or so he’d thought. The Middle East had been a real mess after Boxer had dropped
those nukes and frankly, Russia lacked the resources to step in and clean the mess up.
The ultimatum that had been given the UN had actually worked in Russia’s favor. Most
of the UN troops were transferred directly from the US to the Middle East and they
worked to clean up after Boxer. A whole lot of people had been killed in the attacks, but
as with anything, there’d been a lot of survivors. When the UN about had the mess
cleaned up, it had taken months, Russia moved in. The UN was powerless to resist and
France and Germany, especially, had blocked resolutions in the Security Council to
censure Russia.

The Israelis had been the first to object, but when Russia gave them a wide berth, they
eventually settled down. Israel was having its share of problems with the Palestinians
and they concentrated on trying to resolve that problem. Russia had actually bitten off
all that it could chew. They’d had their own problems with the Chechen rebels and mov-
ing into the Middle East had only exacerbated their problems. Thus when Santorum ap-
proached Putin with his rather off-the-wall proposal, Putin was immediately interested.
And, while Putin denied having any of those ‘wet workers’ in the Federal Security Ser-
vice, Santorum had rather pointedly addressed the subject based on Goss’s infor-
mation. The 2 men agreed to a hastily called mini-summit, purportedly to discuss an oil
deal, and the stage was set.

Palmdale…

It had been over a week since that shooting incident involving the 3 cons. Gary couldn’t
seem to make up his mind about what to do about walking around armed either. One
day he’d be wearing the Kimber and another, he’d be walking around carrying his Win-
chester and wearing the Vaquero. It reminded Ronald of the movie Heartbreak Ridge. In
the movie, Clint Eastwood, Gunny Highway in case you’re wondering, had this T-shirt
thing and Gary’s constant flip-flopping brought the movie to mind. Heartbreak Ridge
was the source of one of Gary’s favorite quotes, Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. As silly
as it might seem, that quote had served Gary pretty well, too.

The hospitals in southern California were having one hell of a time dealing with the vic-
tims of the Diablo Canyon Incident. Radiation exposure wasn’t one of those things that
one got over overnight like the common cold. The people who had experienced the
lighter doses of radiation were being treated and released to make room in the hospitals
for the others who had received larger doses of radiation. The system was over-
whelmed, but starting to catch up. The medical supply companies had filled those or-
ders that The Three Amigos had placed, in fact, supplies were still coming in. And, in
the last week, the Guard units were really beginning to get a handle on rounding up
those cons. At the moment, there were less than 300 men unaccounted for.

“I see that the President is having a mini-summit with Putin,” Ron announced. “I wonder

403
what that is all about?”

“TNN said it was an oil summit,” Gary replied. “It’s about time that the US and Russia
buried the hatchet and started to work together. Maybe an oil deal will break the ice and
they can start to work together to solve the terrorist problem. Russia has had its share
of problems with those Chechen rebels for a pretty long time now. You know, I half fig-
ured that Putin’s change of policy after that school thing back in ‘04 would have re-
solved the matter. But, apparently, there just isn’t any good way to deal with the terror-
ists. Hell, Israel is still fighting with the Palestinians. And from time to time word leaks
out that the Russians are having their problems dealing with the Middle East.”

“I thought you said Benjamin Netanyahu in would solve that problem,” Clarence com-
mented.

“What can I say fellas?” Gary responded, “I was wrong again. Just add it to my long list
of screw-ups.”

“When are you going to decide what you’re going to carry for a gun?” Ron asked.

“Why?” Gary retorted, “Is there some rule that says that I have to wear a certain gun on
a certain day?”

“No, Gary,” Clarence replied, “There isn’t. But you’re confusing the hell out of Ron and
me. We’re The Three Amigos and we sort of like to wear whatever you’re wearing. It
just looks better.”

“Well, excuse me,” Gary laughed. “Ok, from now on, I’ll wear the Vaquero on the odd
days and the Kimber on the even days, does that help?”

“Why don’t you just pick one and wear it all of the time, partner?” Ron asked.

“Ron, if I did that,” Gary continued to laugh, “You two fells wouldn’t be confused and I’m
having a hell of a good time trying to keep the two of you off guard.”

“Then what’s this even-day, odd-day, bit?” Ron snapped.

“Oh that. I was lying,” Gary admitted.

Hamas was on something like its 336th leader, give or take. Even Netanyahu had given
in and resorted to killing Hamas members. Hadn’t solved the problem, either. And the
wall that Israel had built had slowed the terrorists down, but hadn’t stopped them. Africa,
with its Muslim population, was producing a whole new generation of terrorists. But, I
suppose you folks sort of expected that, didn’t you? It was kind of a shame that no one
else did, though. Those Africans blended right in with the American population too un-
less they opened their mouths and spoke.

404
Geneva…

Santorum and Putin quickly reached an agreement. Santorum needed Putin’s assets
and Putin needed America’s help. As it happened, neither nation any longer had a large
cadre of people doing wet work, but together, they could field a reasonably sized force.
The two men didn’t agree on everything, but that was to be expected. What they did
agree on was the key points of the proposal Santorum had put forth. The basic idea was
to take out terrorist units, not just single people. To do this, they needed more than just
that cadre of specialists. In the end, they concluded that they needed to employ their
Special Forces in addition to their spies. Why the SEALS and not the Army’s Special
Forces or any of the US’s other operator’s? Santorum had something entirely different
in mind for the Army Special Forces. In the back of his mind, Santorum felt that he was
perhaps missing something and he needed the Special Forces to cover his 6. And
Force Recon was going to be detailed inside the country to deal with any more terrorists
that decided to take on the US. It sure looked great on paper. And by the way, the lead-
ers’ announced after the meeting an agreement for Russia to sell Middle Eastern oil to
the US for $24 per barrel. It made a good cover.

Jakarta…

The mini-summit had taken place during the first week of November 2009. It had been a
hurried up affair, from all outward appearances, and the media had scrambled to cover
the event. All, except for Geraldo. Geraldo was having one hell of a time making any-
thing out of the Hambali story. He had come to Indonesia just knowing that he could
track the guy down. After all, who wouldn’t want to be interviewed by Geraldo? I hate to
tell you this dude, but just about everyone, that’s who. 600-yards…

Palmdale…

“Do you know why I hate lawyers and reporters and politicians so much?” Gary asked
Ron out of the blue.

“Because they’re smarter than you?” Ron volleyed back.

“Ha-ha, Ronald,” Gary replied. “And since you asked, I’ll tell you. The reason that I don’t
like those folks is that they’re all professional liars.”

“Sort of like people who write patriot fiction, huh?” Clarence observed.

“One of these days, Clarence, one of these days…” Gary replied.

“Right, Gary,” Clarence retorted, “What’s that you always say about brown cows?”

“Brown cows gi..” Gary started to say, “Crap, one of these days you’d think I learn not to
fall into one of your traps.”

405
“That’s a hell of a price Santorum got from the Russians for that oil,” Ron changed the
subject.

“You mean the $24?” Gary said, “Well why the hell not, Barbara Boxer gave them the oil
in the first place, they ought to sell it to us cheap.”

“What’s the deal with the SEALS?” Ron asked.

“TNN said it was a training exercise,” Gary reported.

“With the Spetsnaz?” Ron asked. “That hardly seems likely.”

“Well why not, Ron?” Gary countered, “The US and Russia are trading partners now.
We have common interests to look out for.”

“I sure would like to have me one of those knives,” Clarence said.

“Are you talking about those Spetsnaz knives that shot the blade, Clarence?” Gary
asked.

“Yeah, one of them,” Clarence acknowledged.

“My friend. Let me set you straight,” Gary laughed. “In the first place, that wasn’t a
Spetsnaz knife. While the Spetsnaz are some of the best knife fighters in the world, that
knife you’re talking about wasn’t one of theirs. In the second place, Spetsnaz preferred
to use a shovel for fighting. And man, let me tell you, they were experts with one of
those little shovels.”

“I’d ask,” Ron said, “But what’s the use?” (Research again, Ron?)

“You might figure it out yet, Ronald,” Gary laughed, “I was beginning to lose hope.”

“What’s your crystal ball and the net tell you about that mini-summit meeting?” Ron
asked.

“Nothing much really, Ron, but, my gut tells me that there’s more to it than meets the
eye,” Gary replied.

“Did you ever think about getting a patent on your gut?” Ron asked, “You’d be rich.”

“Ron, it is probably just indigestion Gary gets from eating all of those Snickers almond
bars,” Clarence suggested.

“I haven’t had an almond bar in days, Clarence,” Gary announced. “And as far as mak-
ing money, some folks say I should sell my fiction. I checked into it. It ain’t gonna hap-
pen. Anyway, you’re just jealous that you didn’t educate your gut. My fiction includes a

406
whole lot of cut and paste. Most of the time, I put in a web link so people know where I
stole the information. But, you can’t publish a plagiarized story. You fellas keep forget-
ting that the original purpose of my stories was entertainment and education. Well, it’s
been pretty entertaining writing them and like I said one time, if one guy in Florida
bought a package of batteries because of one of my stories, I’d be satisfied. And do you
know what? I’ve gotten quite an education myself writing that stuff.”

“Let’s get back to your gut,” Ron suggested. “What is your gut telling you?”

“Now I’m a professional gut reader?” Gary snorted. “Well, that training exercise story
they had on TNN stinks to high heaven. I don’t believe it for a minute. But, I don’t really
have an explanation other than I just don’t believe it. That Geraldo is over in Indonesia
looking for Hambali, by the way. I hope he finds him, but I think that government report
that Hambali is dead is probably true. Besides if Geraldo is looking for him, that just
makes me all the more certain.”

“Gary,” Ron asked, “Did you ever notice how you change subjects just about every sen-
tence?”

“That’s the way my mind works Ronald,” Gary smirked, “Sometimes my mind is going
so fast that I forget what I was going to say halfway through a sentence.”

“I thought that was your short-term memory loss,” Ron suggested.

“Yeah, that too, Ron,” Gary agreed. “But do you know what I really think?”

“That the redhead was a hot number?” Ron asked.

“That, too,” Gary replied. “What I was going to say was that until the Israelis and Hamas
quit fighting each other there will always be terrorists in the world. If I were President, I’d
go kill me some terrorists and give them a dose of their own medicine.”

Funny you should say that, Gary, even as the words passed from your lips, agents of
the CIA and FSS had slipped into Israel and were scouting targets. And, in Indonesia,
Geraldo had finally gotten a break. Someone was going to show him where Hambali
was. Remember the guy with the .22? He didn’t much care for Geraldo. 600-yards hell,
more like 6”. Pop, pop, here you go croc. (If Geraldo is a journalist, I’m probably the
Queen of England.)

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 60 –
The Project 2

The problem with infiltrating Israel was that they had the Mossad. These guys weren’t
superman, but they were pretty darned efficient. Besides, they spied on the US and
Russia on a regular basis and had pictures of everyone’s agents. Does the name Jona-
than Pollard, the spy who spent 18 months collecting and selling classified American
intelligence to Israel from his position in US Naval Intelligence ring a bell? Say it isn’t so.
Tell me that Israel, our ally, doesn’t spy on us. No? Oh, well.

Israel…

The Mossad picked up on the foreign agents about a minute after they’d stepped off the
aircraft. They decided to keep an eye on them and find out what they were up to. By the
way, did you know that the Mossad denies knowing anything about ‘wet work’? There
have been several books published on the subject. The Russians and Americans
seemed to be interested in locating and shadowing Hamas members. This made the
Israelis take note in a big hurry. In fact, it led the Israelis to leave a note in the hotel
mailbox of one of the Russian agents, telling him where he could find more Hamas peo-
ple. The FSS and CIA hadn’t fallen off the turnip truck and they sort of figured that the
Mossad would pick up on them. In fact, they were counting on it. They’d heard of Jona-
than Pollard, too.

It turned out that the Israeli tip was pretty good. In a matter of days, the FSS and CIA
had identified a cell on the West Bank that they wanted to hit. The Spetsnaz and SEAL
Teams were just finishing up training and the time to strike was while the iron was hot.
The whole flippin’ thing would have been impossible, but the Israelis had built that flip-
pin’ fence and the cell wasn’t on the Israeli side of the wall. It was a small terrorist cell of
only about 2-dozen individuals. It was overkill, but they sent in 3 Spetsnaz and 3
SEALS. Fifteen minutes after they’d landed, the Special Forces people were aboard a
VH-53D Pave-Low III headed for the Med. Soon thereafter, Al-Jazeera was broadcast-
ing news of another Israeli atrocity. Putin was happy, Santorum was happy and the Is-
raelis were used to being blamed for everything. FOX News announced that it had lost
touch with Geraldo.

The terrorists didn’t quite know what to make of the entire situation. They hadn’t seen
any evidence of any activity by any of the Israeli forces. Meanwhile the FSS and CIA
guys moved to Gaza as a result of another Israeli tip. They had good information once
again except that this cell was bigger, almost 50 people. They watched and eventually
figured out that periodically the entire cell got together, although they didn’t know why.
The next time that cell did get together, a couple of Zodiacs landed on the Gaza coast
and the cell was toast. The Team this time was composed of 6 SEALS and 6 Spetsnaz.
Man that’s overkill if I’ve ever heard of it. And one more time, Putin was happy, Santo-
rum was happy, the Israelis got blamed and the terrorists were even more confused.

Palmdale…

408
“Well,” Gary said, “Things are looking up.”

“Huh?” Clarence replied.

“You two guys don’t think it was really the Israelis that did in those terrorist cells do
you?” Gary asked. “That’s not their style. They go in with helicopters and guns blazing.
Then they shoot the terrorists up with a bunch of rockets. That’s that bunch of SEALS
and Spetsnaz.”

“Come on Gary,” Ron said, “How could you possibly know something like that?”

“I don’t, Ron, I’m guessing to tell the truth,” Gary admitted, “On the other hand, I’d put
money on it.”

“Gary, that isn’t how we Americans do things,” Clarence insisted. “Besides the President
would never stand for the CIA or anyone doing something like that.”

“I agree with Clarence,” Ron announced. “You’re really off base on this one partner.”

“Maybe so,” Gary said, “Or maybe that’s what they’re counting on.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Ron snapped.

“Hey, it’s just a theory,” Gary said, “How do I know who ‘they’ are? What the hell, let’s
say Santorum and the task force that was disbanded?”

“You’ve seen one too many movies,” Ron said.

“You asked,” Gary snapped. “I didn’t like him anyway.”

“Didn’t like who?” Ron was becoming exasperated.

“Geraldo,” Gary replied, “FOX News reported him missing.”

“When was that?” Clarence asked.

“A couple of weeks ago,” Gary replied.

“Tell me something Gar-Bear,” Ron said. “Have you ever thought about seeing a Psy-
chiatrist?”

“Nope. They’re nothing but a bunch of pill pushers,” Gary answered. “Saw a few Psy-
chologists in my time, though.”

“Really? What did they say?” Clarence asked.

409
“Just that I was crazy,” Gary laughed. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” Clarence said.

After Gary left, Clarence said to Ron, “That Gary is quite the kidder.”

“What do you mean Clarence?” Ron asked.

“That business about the Psychologists,” Clarence replied, “Telling him he was crazy.”

“Clarence, for once in his life, old Gar-Bear was telling you the truth,” Ron said. “That’s
what they told him.”

“So Gary is crazy?” Clarence asked.

“I didn’t say that partner, I just said that that’s what the Psychologists told him,” Ron ex-
plained. “And it’s true. Man did he have fun with them. First he saw Dr. Good and
sucked him in. Later, he ended up seeing some guy in Lancaster and had him con-
vinced that he was schizophrenic.”

“Why would Gary do something like that?” Clarence asked.

“Gary did really well in the Drug and Alcohol school until he got into the class on the
DSM IV,” Ron explained. “About that time he was chasing after Kathy and he didn’t
have his mind on business like he should have. Anyway to make a long story short,
Gary blew the final in that class and ended up with a B. You know what a perfectionist
he is. That B blew his average and upset him pretty badly. After he’d gotten his act to-
gether, he ended up seeing the shrinks. Anyway, he decided to see if he really had
learned the DSM IV and he picked an illness and shined them on.”

“Huh. What did Gary end up with in that course?” Clarence asked.

“9 A’s and 1 B,” Ron said. “He was 3rd in the class. Had a 3.9GPA. He was beaten out
by Brenda, she had a 4.0 and Janice who had a 3.96.” (9 A’s and 1 A-)

“Well I’ll be darned,” Clarence said.

“Probably, Clarence,” Ron replied, “Especially if you can’t tell when Gary is shining you
on and telling the truth.”

The problem with guys like Gary, and Gary especially, was there was such a thing as
being too smart for your own good. Not that Gary was any genius, but he did have a
pretty quick mind. Back when Gary was still figuring out how to get sober, one of the
gals in AA had walked up to him one day and said, “Gary, you’re a pretty smart fella.
That’s what your problem is trying to get sober. You know what, Gary, you’d better get

410
stupid or one of these days you’re going to die.” Shortly after that, Gary had gotten so-
ber. A while later, he’d dumped bimbo #2 and had gone back to his wife.

Washington…

“Gentlemen, this is working out better that I’d thought it would,” Santorum announced.

“Well, we hadn’t been sure if the Israelis would help us or not, Mr. President,” Goss
said.

“Your assessment was right on the mark,” Santorum replied. “We’ll continue the opera-
tion for now. Does anyone else have anything that I should know about?”

“Has anyone noticed that we’re having an increase in African students?” Prescott
asked.

“As a matter of fact,” Mueller said, “We noticed that too. Does the CIA have anything we
should know about?”

“I don’t know if it means anything,” Goss replied, “But there has been some increased
activity in the Sudan and in Somalia. I’ll have my people look into it immediately.”

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Santorum added. “There are quite a few Muslims
in Africa and we wouldn’t want to get caught with our pants down, again. I have Force
Recon on standby, just in case. And, if I’ve missed something, we can send the Green
Berets to Africa to nip whatever is going on in the bud.”

411
 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 61 –
Blackhawk Down

After the meeting broke, Mueller made a beeline back to FBI Headquarters. It wasn’t
going to be him caught with his pants down. He called in an Assistant Director and di-
rected that several agents begin looking into the entry records for Africans, especially
men claiming to be college students. Truscott headed back to the ATF and put out the
word to contact the explosives distributors and dealers and give their security another
pass, he must have been thinking about his pants, too. Goss called his DI on the spot
and told him that he needed to know everything about what was going on in Africa, yes-
terday. Prescott went back to DHS and raised the threat level back to yellow. And, Pres-
ident Santorum gave Force Recon and the Special Forces a heads up. In case you’re
wondering, the same croc ate Geraldo that ate Hambali. Remember, “pop, pop, here
you go croc?”

The switch to yellow and the sudden activities of the FBI and ATF didn’t escape the at-
tention of the media. They began to speculate wildly, but everyone was stone walling
them, except for Prescott and he was pretty vague. Some mumble-jumble about a per-
ceived threat. FOX News was also speculating that Geraldo might actually be dead and
put together an hour-long special to highlight his career. Lowest ratings they ever had.

This thing with the Mossad and the FSS and CIA was working out pretty good. It was
pretty apparent that the Israelis were using the other two to clean house. They’d planted
an observer in Gaza and found out how Russia and the US were pulling it off. In places
like Iraq and Iran, Syria and Jordan, the Russians were really taking it in the chops.
Every time another Hamas cell was hit, some bunch of insurgents would plant another
IED and blow up another Russian vehicle. It was suddenly Afghanistan all over again.
Putin called Santorum and complained that they were losing as many troops as they
were killing terrorists. Santorum promised to rush a $10 billion aid package through
Congress to help Russia out. Yeah, like the US could really afford to spend another $10
billion.

It probably hadn’t been entirely Ronald Reagan’s 600-ship Navy that had brought the
wall down. It was more like a combination of things. That war in Afghanistan had done a
number on the Soviet economy and when they tried to keep up with the US, their house
of cards came tumbling down. Then Gorbachev had gotten booted; Yeltsin had selected
Putin as his successor.

But one wall comes down and another goes up. Human beings had to be the dumbest
things that God had ever thought up. It wasn’t any better in the US. A bunch of immi-
grants had moved to the new country on the other side of the Atlantic and had stolen
the land from its ‘rightful owners’, the Native Americans, killing a bunch of them in the
process and dumping the remainder on Reservations. But, the Indians had finally gotten
even by selling Cigarettes and then by opening Casinos. Guess who was having the
last laugh?

412
California…

The local economy in San Luis Obispo was in the toilet having lost those 1,200 jobs at
Diablo Canyon. Edison offered most of them jobs when their new reactor came on line
in a few years. Meanwhile, they were assisting with the cleanup along the Ventura
Freeway. Talk about a commute! It sure was a good thing that Russia was selling the
US oil at bargain basement prices. It might have been just a cover story, but Russia had
to go through with it for appearances. It was only costing them production costs anyway
and between the sale of oil to the US and that $10 billion aid package that Santorum
had pushed through Congress, their economy was really looking up.

Palmdale…

“Clarence, I was thinking,” Ron said.

“Uh oh,” Clarence thought.

“About what Ron?” Clarence asked.

“You know that trick Sharon and I played on Gary with the redhead?” Ron asked.

“Yeah, what about it?” Clarence asked.

“Well, it occurred to me that old Gar-Bear must have opened his eyes and thought he’d
died and gone to Heaven,” Ron explained.

“Wasn’t nothing like that Ron,” Clarence assured him. “Didn’t you catch that tune Gary
began to hum under his breath?”

“I did, but I can’t say that I recognized it, partner,” Ron admitted.

“Ron, that was an old Cole Porter song,” Clarence announced. “I think that the name
was, You’d be so nice to come home to. I wouldn’t worry about your little prank at all.”

“Hi fellas, what’s up?” Gary asked entering Ron’s kitchen.

“We was just talking about you,” Clarence announced.

“Oh? Tell me about it, I knew my ears were burning for some reason,” Gary chuckled.

“Wasn’t nothing, partner,” Ron replied, “We were just discussing your taste in music.”

“The name of the song was, You’d be so nice to come home to, Ron,” Gary said.

“How do you do that Gar-Bear?” Ron asked.

413
“Do what?”

“How do you always seem to know what people are thinking about or that it’s your pal
Fleataxi on the phone when it rings?” Ron asked. “You don’t even have Caller ID.”

“How should I know?” Gary asked back. “On the other hand, maybe I had the Contrac-
tor wire your homes when they were built.”

Ron fell for that one big time. He flat near pulled his house apart looking for hidden
mikes after Gary and Clarence left. It was actually just Gary’s trick memory. He might
not remember what he’d had for breakfast, but when something made an impression on
him, he’d file it away for future use. Gary and Fleataxi had visited about it at one time
and Gary had demonstrated. He was trying to think of the name of a movie and couldn’t.
But, he’d remembered the name of the actor. Since he didn’t know how to spell the ac-
tor’s name, he put in ‘Hunter’ in the IMDb search engine and up popped the TV series.
He clicked on Fred Dryer’s name and brought up a list of his credits. Right above the TV
series Hunter, was the name of the movie, Death Before Dishonor. Gary was trying to
make a point about Force Recon and had remembered the beginning of the movie be-
cause they stuck those insignia right into the guys’ chests. They call that Associative
Memory, according to Fleataxi. Apparently Stacy/Barbara had left quite an impression.

The next day…

“Find those mikes yet Ron?” Gary asked.

“Butthead,” Ron muttered.

“You mean that you fell for that one Ron?” Clarence asked. “Shame on you. By the way,
I didn’t find no mikes, either.”

“The Citadel is starting to thin out its patient population, finally,” Ron announced.

“Guess we’d better make a run in to the Hospital and reorder supplies,” Gary said. “That
way, we’ll be ready the next time the terrorists strike.”

“What terrorists?” Clarence asked.

“Well it can’t be the people from the Middle East,” Gary said, “The SEALS and Spetsnaz
are giving them hell. And I figure that Hambali is dead, so it must be your people, Clar-
ence, the Africans.”

“Ain’t my people,” Clarence huffed up. “Least ways not for 150 years or more. It’s those
young folks call themselves African Americans or Black. I’m older, so I’m a Negro.”

“Well, you learn something new every day,” Gary responded, embarrassed. “Anyway,
who is left to terrorize the US except the Africans?”

414
“Do you think that’s why DHS raised the threat level?” Ron asked.

“Don’t rightly know, Ron, my cape is at the cleaners,” Gary replied, lifting a line from
Fleataxi.

Israel…

The Israelis had quite a shopping list. And since the American and Russians seemed
hell bent on killing off terrorists, they were taking advantage of it. The media was raising
hell, but there was nothing new about that. The UN was now talking about sanctions,
but they did that a lot these days; talk that is. Seemed like that was all the UN ever did
anymore was talk. Probably still licking their wounds from the shellacking they’d gotten
first from the US and later from the Russians. The CIA and FSS had gotten comfortable
allowing the Mossad to pick their targets, too. They were making a mistake, but didn’t
know it, yet.

The warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid died on August 1, 1996 possibly as a result of gun-
shot wounds sustained a week earlier in a fight with competing factions. His son, Hus-
sein Mohamed Farrah, migrated to the US when he was 14 years old. He stayed 16
years in the nation and became a naturalized citizen, and later a US Marine. Two days
later after his father’s death, the Habr Gidr clan selected him to become the new Presi-
dent of Aidid’s self-proclaimed republic. Hussein Mohammed Farrah was seen by the
West as a chance of improvement for the relationships between them and Somalia.
When asked about his Marine days, he replied: “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”
Yeah, right and brown cows…

Farrah was the ideal person to put together the next terrorist plot; he was after all a
Naturalized American and a former Marine. He wasn’t totally stupid, either. The college
students were just a cover for what he was really doing. He figured that if he got the US
to concentrate on an increase in college students from Somalia, they wouldn’t notice the
group of terrorists he sent to the US early in the first decade of the new century under
the guise of immigrants to the US. Worked, too. He didn’t have any nukes or explosives
for that matter, but he had a plan. The people he selected were all explosives experts
and when they immigrated to the US, they took their families as a cover. They eventual-
ly found jobs working in the mining industry. The plan had been a long time in the mak-
ing and they even endured some of the terrorist attacks Hambali had arranged. But,
now it was their turn. While the mining industry is big on ANFO, it has occasion to use
other explosives. The easiest way in the world to get your hands on some of those ex-
plosives is to misrepresent how much you used in a blasting job. You couldn’t get much
at a time, but they had plenty of time and now had plenty of explosives and everything
else that they needed. The men kept in loose touch with each other via the Internet.

Israel…

The Israelis had a suspected terrorist cell, but weren’t quite sure of their information.

415
They figured that they could pass it off to the US and Russians to check out. If they
were wrong, it would be no big deal; the FSS and CIA would figure it out and not strike
the cell. Unfortunately, the FSS and the CIA had come to depend upon the information
supplied by the Israelis and hadn’t been quite as thorough as they usually were. They
sort of glossed over a detail or two and had gotten it wrong. It was the largest cell to
date and they brought in a pretty good contingent to Gaza to wipe out the cell. The
SEALS and Spetsnaz were up to their usual standards and they’d taken out the entire
cell, quietly and efficiently, just as they had been trained to do. Al-Jazeera reported the
event with its usual diatribe accusing the Israelis of yet another atrocity. And, as usual,
the US media reported the event widely.

Back in the US of A…

The thing about it was, Al-Jazeera had it right for a change. It took a while to come out;
and suddenly everyone was scrambling to cover his or her behind. The Israelis denied
any knowledge of the attack and for once, Hamas backed Israel. Hamas claimed that
they had been keeping an eye on the Israelis and they were certain that someone other
than the Israelis were behind the attack. The Israelis more or less said, We told you so,
but kept mum about who was really behind the whole thing. They had an appropriation
sitting in the US Congress and weren’t about to do anything to mess that up. It might
have worked had not some investigative journalist remembered those joint
SEAL/Spetsnaz training exercises. It sure as hell wasn’t Geraldo. Anyway, the guy put 2
and 2 together, did a whole lot of research and slowly began to figure it out. When he
took the completed story to his editor, the editor blew a gasket. Something like this, the
editor claimed, simply wasn’t possible. The journalist said screw it and started to shop
the story.

Eventually, someone bought it and the story came out. It sort started as an item of in-
terest, receiving some sarcastic remarks on TNN and FOX and the other networks, but
the more the media looked at the story, the more they began to realize that it might just
be true. Santorum and his group fielded the medias questions and freely admitted that
the US and Russia had held joint training exercises. They didn’t know how that journal-
ist had put 2 and 2 together and come up with 5, but he sure had. Santorum even point-
ed to the fact that he had Force Recon and the Green Berets on standby against the
possibility of a terrorist attack. Mueller wanted to deflect everyone by pointing a finger at
those African students, but he couldn’t, they come up clean as a whistle.

And Truscott was behind the 8-ball because the explosives distributors and dealers
were doing a really good job with their security and there hadn’t been any thefts of ex-
plosives. Prescott had dropped the threat level back to blue explaining that the infor-
mation that DHS had originally relied on had proven not to be true.

416
 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 62 –
Blackhawk Down 2

The White House…

“This whole thing really went to hell in a hurry,” Santorum said. “I guess our plausible
deniability wasn’t as good as we thought it was.”

“Mr. President we really haven’t denied anything,” Goss pointed out. “You’ve seen that
Intel on Africa that we came up with. That Farrah definitely has something in the works.”

“I agree,” Santorum said, “That was some good Intel by the way. The problem is that
Bob’s people over at the Bureau came up empty on those African students. What did
you find, again, Bob?”

“They were mostly Somalis,” Mr. President, “But as I reported, our investigations were
exhaustive and those students are clean.”

“My people did a thorough job with the explosives distributors and dealers, Mr. Presi-
dent,” Truscott added. “Every ounce of explosives has been accounted for and their se-
curity is as good as or better than need be.”

“The problem that the 5 of you have here,” the President’s Chief of Staff said, “Is that
anything you do or say to direct the medias’ attention to the real problem will be seen as
an attempt to deflect their attention from The Project.”

“Dang, dang, dang,” Santorum replied. “You’re right, of course, do you see any way out
of this?”

“For what it’s worth Mr. President,” the Chief of Staff continued, “Why deny it? Mistakes
happen. My advice is to not repeat the mistakes that Nixon made. You know, if he’d just
come out and said, Sure, we did it, so what? The other side does it too, but a little more
skillfully, the whole thing would have probably blown over. It may be a cliché, but in
cases like this, honesty is the best policy.”

“It’s not that I don’t agree with what you say,” Santorum responded, “But that was in
1973. The media is a whole different animal these days.”

“That’s true, Mr. President,” the Chief of Staff replied, “But the American public is still
the American public. I believe that given all the terrorism this country has experienced,
they’ll see it as a gutsy move.”

“Well…” Santorum acknowledged, “It was my lame brained idea that got us into this
mess, so I’ll bite the bullet. Go ahead and schedule the news conference and I’ll tell
them what I did.”

417
“Mr. President,” the Chief of Staff said, “May I suggest that instead of a news confer-
ence, you address the nation?”

“Why not?” Santorum said. “At least that way, I won’t have to deal with the media rewrit-
ing my speech.”

Santorum got on the phone to Moscow and told Putin that the entire scheme was com-
ing apart. Since it was his idea, Santorum said, he’d take the fall and keep Putin out of
it, as much as humanly possible. Putin was startled at first but then realized that if he
got involved, Russia stood to gain in a big way. He told Santorum that it was nonsense
that Santorum should have to take all the blame. He’d been a willing participant and
he’d join the President in an unheard of live joint broadcast and openly admit his part in
the affair. Santorum flat out near dropped the phone. He agreed, however and said that
he’d have his Chief of Staff work with his Russian counterpart and they somehow get it
put together.

Palmdale, just before 6pm PST…

“What do you mean a joint news conference with Putin?” Gary asked. “Hey, you don’t
suppose that I actually got it right for a change?”

“Partner, I’ve heard tell that if you give a monkey a typewriter and enough paper and
time, eventually that monkey will reproduce the works of William Shakespeare,” Ron
said, “So, anything is possible, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

Tonight I am addressing the people of the United States, the citizens of the Russia Fed-
eration and the world in general, Santorum began. I will be joined later by Vladimir
Putin, President of the Russian Federation who will address his own remarks to you.

A leader must make difficult choices. I made such a choice a few months ago when I
decided that the US had to do something new in the ongoing War on Terrorism. The en-
tire world has witnessed a series of terrorists acts aimed against countries throughout
the world. My idea was to take terrorism to the terrorists. I discussed that matter with
some trusted advisors and decided to go ahead with the idea. Since our nation lacked
sufficient assets to conduct the operation, I contracted President Putin and asked for his
assistance. We held the mini-summit to iron out the details of the plan and subsequently
SEALS from the US Navy together with Russian Federation Spetsnaz conducted a joint
training operation.

Agents of the CIA and the Russian Federation’s Federal Security Service joined togeth-
er in Israel to locate and identify possible terrorist cells and to destroy them. Once our
agents had identified a terrorist cell, the Specials Forces people were brought in and the
cell was simply wiped out. We had 2 very successful operations. The US and Russian
agents were being aided by a third party. The information supplied by this 3rd party had
been very reliable and on the 3rd operation, we had no reason to believe otherwise.
Nevertheless, we didn’t do our usual thorough job of checking the facts. As a conse-

418
quence, the 3rd operation was, as you have heard, a tragic mistake. I accept full re-
sponsibility for the errors and freely admit them.

How many more millions have to die before the terrorists get the message that there are
better means to resolve problems between peoples? I wish I had the answer, but I don’t.
I was faced today by an irresolvable conflict. The CIA has developed information con-
cerning another terrorist plot. The FBI, ATF and CIA have worked diligently to uncover
the details of this plot but frankly, have been unsuccessful. The conflict I faced was in
my credibility. If I simply announced the new plot, most would have seen it as an at-
tempt on my part to simply deflect the criticism in the media. I was left with no choice
except to bring out the truth.

I do not regret my decision, except in that it caused the loss of innocent lives. President
Putin and I will have discussions in the coming days to determine if we should continue
with this plan or abandon it altogether. I will now turn the address over to President Vla-
dimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation.

Comrades, I stand before you tonight in an historic joint address. It was as President
Santorum told you. Many of you may recall the events when Chechnyan rebels killed
our children in 2004. I reacted strongly in that matter, yet it made little difference. As you
may recall, a former American President called upon the UN to help restore order in the
United States after the terrorist attack with the stolen Russian nuclear weapons. The
Russian Federation participated in that exercise and eventually withdrew.

When President Santorum first proposed this plan to me, I agreed to meet with him as
he outlined. President Santorum has taken full responsibility for these actions, but in
truth, I bear my part of the responsibility. I, too, do not regret my decision and it remains
to be seen whether our two countries will continue to attack the terrorists on their own
terms. No doubt the terrorists are listening to this very broadcast at this very moment.
Mark my words, those of you who would bring terrorism to the nations of the world. We
shall hunt you down. We shall destroy you. This is no idle boast, because together the
United States of America and the Russian Federation have now shown that we are as
capable of returning that very terrorism to you.

Thank you President Putin, Santorum said when Putin had finished. I will end on this
note. Judge me, us, as you will. However, as long as I remain President of the United
States, this nation will no longer stand idly by while terrorists kill our citizens. God Bless
America and God Bless the Russian Federation.

And thus ended what was perhaps the most historic telecast in the history of the mod-
ern world. Two leaders, from nations with differing ideals had joined together to take ter-
rorism to the terrorists. Then, when their efforts had been found out, through an error,
the same two men had openly admitted their mistakes. There simply was no precedent
for such an event. An American politician telling the truth? A Russian politician confirm-
ing that truth and admitting his own part in the matter? Unbelievable! Absolutely, totally
unbelievable. The media was totally dumbfounded. In fact, the entire world was dumb-

419
founded. I do believe that this was the first time that I ever saw Wolf Blitzer at a loss for
words.

The President’s Chief of Staff had been correct in his assessment. Where on earth had
Santorum found this guy? There was that TV show that Gary had come to hate called
The West Wing. Gary hated the show because of the position that Martin Sheen had
taken on the Iraq war. And, not even on that show did they ever once imagine such a
situation, at least not up to the point that Gary had stopped watching it. Gary had thrown
away every movie in his collection with Sheen, Sarandon and that bunch he called
some nasty names.

“Son-of-a bitch,” Ron exclaimed. “That guy should stay as President until he dies.”

“Ron you have to know that the Democrats in Congress are going to try and impeach
the guy,” Gary said. “I guess that I was right after all, not that it matters. This will proba-
bly spell the end of Santorum’s political career.”

“You know what, Gary,” Clarence said, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Anyway, that
speech proves that you were wrong. Apparently not every politician is a professional li-
ar.”

“Do you believe this Putin guy?” Gary asked. “Hell, his are bigger than Gorbachev’s.
What was that crap about another terrorist plot? They didn’t seem to elaborate on that
too much. Guess that explains why my gut is going off.”

“Why did they need to elaborate, Gary?” Clarence laughed, “You’ve already figured out
it’s the Africans.”

“I remember what I said and how I embarrassed myself Clarence,” Gary replied, “You
don’t have to rub it in.”

“Did you get your cape back from the cleaners yet Gary?” Ron asked, “It might come in
handy.”

“What cape?” Gary asked. “Anyway, the Citadel is all stocked up, but if there are terror-
ists about, I expect we’d better order more supplies.”

“We can’t,” Ron remarked.

“Why not?”

“There isn’t any more space to put any more supplies. We overstocked last time, don’t
you remember?” Ron asked.

“Remember what?” Gary asked.

420
Somalia…

Farrah was livid. The Americans and Russians had betrayed Muslims everywhere. Not
only were they killing Holy Warriors, but also they had resorted to the killing of the inno-
cent. They had to be made to pay, but how? Perhaps these discussions that the Presi-
dents had talked about would occur in America and he could use his cell. How long had
they been there now, 6-7 years? They had reported that they had good jobs, a large
quantity of explosives and if called upon to do so, could steal whatever their employers
had on hand to supplement what they had on hand. These men were his best explo-
sives experts, too. The US Marines didn’t have anything on his 5 men. It had taken
nearly a full year to move them to the US and integrate them in the society. They were
all naturalized citizens, just as he had once been. They weren’t hiding in some apart-
ment waiting to be caught. It was the perfect plan. And if that Putin did go to the US,
they would be waiting for him.

“Remember that we over ordered supplies the last time,” Ron said.

“That’s right,” Gary said, “I remember now. But what about the supplies for the Citadel?”

“I’ll take care of it partner,” Ron said, “You’d better get some rest.”

“I didn’t, you know,” Gary said.

“Didn’t what?”

“I didn’t remember to take my pills last night at supper and there I was lying in bed at
2am wide awake,” Gary explained. “So I didn’t get any rest.”

“So what did you do?” Ron quickly asked before Gary forgot what the subject was.

“I got up and took my pills and was asleep in 15 minutes,” Gary replied. “Did I tell you
that I got my cape back from the cleaners?”

“What cape?” Ron asked.

“Do you have a cape Gary?” Clarence asked.

Ain’t payback a bear? Like I said, with old Gar-Bear, you never knew when he was shin-
ing you on. Even Ron had trouble at times and he had warned Clarence about that very
thing. But then again, 2 solar panels were better than a package of batteries, weren’t
they? And that was another thing that you had to watch about old Gar-Bear. He was a
sneaky son of a gun. His favorite word was payback.

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 The Three Amigos Part III – The Three Amigos Ride Again – Chapter 63 –
The Twelfth of Never

Until the Twelfth of Never

and that’s a long, long time

John Royce Mathis was born on September 30, 1935. In early 1956, Johnny was asked
to attend the trials for the 1956 Olympic teams that would travel to Melbourne, Australia
that summer. (High jumper and hurdler.) Johnny gave up his chance to become a
member of the USA Olympic Team. He went to New York to record his first album in
March of 1956. As the expression goes, the rest is history.

It wasn’t the twelfth of never; it was the 12th of April, 2010. If you could remember when
Ronald Reagan died you can remember how all of a sudden he was one of the greatest
Presidents in the history of the US. The Three Amigos had lived through the Reagan
years and while they didn’t disagree, the stories sure were being reported a lot different-
ly than they’d remember things happening. The point was that President Rick Santorum
had become an overnight hero and was being compared to the likes of Reagan, Lincoln
and JFK. Maybe that Chief of Staff of his ought to run for President, he was one smart
fella. Then, of course, almost no one knew that.

Santorum and Putin had talked many times and had finally agreed that Putin would
make a trip to Russia’s new best friend, the United States. They’d already decided not
to reveal what they were going to do, just to keep the terrorists guessing. They would
give a lot of hints and make some implications, but no one would be quite sure. The
mini-summit was scheduled for 10May10 through 14May10. And the whole world knew
about the mini-summit, including Farrah. The itinerary of the visit that was given out was
very sketchy. Farrah alerted his 5 men and told them that this wasn’t a suicide mission.
They were to put together all of the explosives they could muster and get themselves to
Washington, figure out where to plant a bomb that would do the most damage and set it
up on a timer. He told them that even if the bomb were discovered, it would send a clear
message.

President Santorum, a conservative Republican had been very controversial as a Rep-

resentative and Senator. That, of course, depended upon your viewpoint. The liberals
certainly didn’t like him even though he had at one time co-sponsored a bill with none
other than John Kerry. Santorum was pro-family, to the point some thought, that he’d
lost his perspective. He was outspoken, but is that a bad thing? After becoming Presi-
dent, he’d established his ‘western White House’ in the Lehigh Valley of eastern Penn-
sylvania.

In 1976, as an auditor for the Iowa Department of Revenue, old Gar-Bear had been to
the Lehigh Valley. It was the bi-centennial and Gary and another fella had been fortu-
nate enough to get sent to Philadelphia that fall to audit some companies based in
Pennsylvania. He got to see the Liberty Bell, couldn’t find Davey Crockett’s patch how-
ever, and had spent a day on Liberty Mall, learning about the heritage of the country.

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He’d been to Allentown and Bethlehem and had shopped in the dozens of then prolific
‘seconds stores’ peddling leftover suits and the like. Hadn’t been back since and had no
idea how much the Lehigh Valley had changed.

During those many conversations setting up the mini-summit, Putin and Santorum con-
cluded that if ever there were an opportunity for terrorists to strike, it would be the mini-
summit. Consequently, they decided to use the event as a trap to root out any remain-
ing terrorists cells in the US. The agenda was sketchy because it was as phony as a $3
bill. It included 2 days at the White House followed by 2 days at Camp David. On Friday
morning, there was to be a joint news conference in the Rose Garden. Then, supposed-
ly, Putin would board his jet, a 777 paid for with some of that $10 billion, and return to
Moscow. That was the published agenda.

The real agenda had the two men at the ‘western White House’ enjoying golf at the
many courses that now littered the Lehigh Valley. What was to say that they couldn’t
work out the whole thing over a round or two of golf? Say, does Putin even play golf?
Didn’t really matter, and as I’ve said the whole thing was a sham from the get-go.
They’d already worked out the whole thing on the phone. They were going to continue
those hits against the terrorists, but were going to move much more cautiously and were
going to be flat sure of their information before they struck again. And, they’d also de-
cided that they should expand their efforts. Why should Israel get all the benefits of their
efforts?

That Intel that Goss and Santorum had talked about in that meeting? Goss’s operatives
had picked up the faintest hint of a rumor that Farrah had a sleeper cell in the US. But
they could not verify the rumor. Still, it was a hot item that figured prominently in Santo-
rum and Putin’s plans. The FSS sent two planeloads of people to the US; one openly
and one in the dead of night. The first group joined with the Secret Service and other
agencies to ‘lock down Washington’ in preparation for the mini-summit. The second
group hooked up with the Secret Service and were working in the Lehigh Valley, almost
as a just in case.

The sleeper who lived in Wyoming was the western-most sleeper. He blasted coal. He’d
given notice to his employer well in advance, had rented a moving van and had loaded
his explosives on the van. He told Ryder that he was moving to Washington DC but that
his family and he were going to see the country and that he’d probably have the truck
for about a month. He used the truck to move their possessions to a storage locker in
Denver, loaded the explosives and added a layer of boxes to disguise the whole thing.
Then he loaded his wife and son into the truck and headed east. When they got to DC,
the plan was to put the wife and kid on a plane to LA. And he saw the country, just like
he said he was going to. He had to make 4 more stops to pick up those other explo-
sives. The guy had tried to think of everything and even threw in a couple of bags of fer-
tilizer with that fake layer of boxes.

Palmdale…

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“Here you go,” Gary said handing Ron the cape he’d asked Sharon to run off on her
machine. “I got my cape back from the cleaners.”

“I didn’t doubt you for a minute, Gar-Bear,” Ron smiled. Sharon had mentioned the cape
to Linda who told Ron all about it. And Ronald had brought Clarence up to date. Gary
realized that his ploy had bombed and tossed the cape on a chair.

“So, what do you make of this mini-summit?” Ron asked.

“Dumbest thing I ever heard of,” Gary said, “They could have worked the whole thing
out over the phone. But no, millions of more taxpayers’ dollars wasted on some damned
show. Say, I heard that Putin has a Boeing 777, where did he get that?”

“Yeah,” Clarence added. “Probably end up there’s a terrorist cell somewhere in the US
just waiting for something like this. They end up blowing Washington all to hell.”

“Putin bought the 777 from Boeing,” Ron said, “McDonald Douglas was fresh out of
777’s that day.”

“That wasn’t what I meant and you know it Ron,” Gary groused. “Where did he get the
money?”

“Who knows?” Ron replied, “Probably from those oil sales or from the $10 billion we
gave them.”

“Why did we give them $10 billion?” Clarence asked.

“Who knows?” Ron repeated, “Maybe it was hush money like our giving them the Middle
East.”

“I sure wish the bimbo hadn’t done that,” Gary said.

“Done what?” Ron asked.

“Given the Russians the Middle East,” Gary said. “Hell we could have stolen it ourselves
and wouldn’t have to pay those Russians for the oil.”

“We couldn’t do that,” Ron said, “The LA Times had an editorial explaining that. They
claimed that it would have shown our true colors as an Imperialist Nation. They also had
an article saying that the US Constitution was out of date. Claimed that all of the coun-
tries in Europe had rewritten their Constitutions and had gone liberal, while the US clung
to an out-dated Federalist Constitution that was against poor people.” Ron was right in a
way; half of the US had been convinced that the war with Iraq had really just been over
the oil in the first place. Kerry voters?

The Somali terrorist had made his way across the country picking up the explosives

424
from his compatriots. They pulled into Washington about 1May10. There was nothing
particular unusual about a black family moving to Washington, but the government se-
curity types gave the truck the once over with an explosives detector and man did it
sing. They opened the back of the truck up, saw the fertilizer and because traffic was
backed up, made an erroneous assumption. Stuff happens, even in the best of times.
Normally, they would have torn that truck apart. Say did I mention that those govern-
ment people had no idea that the Washington business was a sham concocted by Putin
and Santorum? It lent an air of credence to the whole thing.

The terrorist took the wife and kid to the airport in the car he’d unloaded from the hauler
behind the truck. He also picked up the other Somali explosives experts. They picked
up the agenda, but were befuddled by its vagueness. There was no way they could get
anywhere near the White House or Camp David. The Secret Service had been com-
partmentalized; in this instance the left hand didn’t know what the right had was doing.
Those people working in Washington didn’t know that they were being used and they
took the matter extremely seriously. Never mind the screw up with the truckload of ex-
plosives, like I said, stuff happens.

After Gary’s second crack Clarence realized that despite having 2 half black grandchil-
dren, Gary had no idea what it was like to be a black man in America. So, he’d tried to
explain, but Gary was really dense. On the other hand, those 5 Somali men had figured
out pretty quickly what it meant to be a black man in America. And never mind their in-
structions from Farrah; they were going to set off that truckload of explosives, even if
they had to blow up a golf course or a public building. They figured that would send a
bigger message, if I were to hazard a guess.

10May10…

Putin’s 777 arrived at Andrews Air Force Base around 8pm and he was met by Santo-
rum with Marine One. Marine One has a rather distinctive paint job and no one noticed
the lookalike chopper with 2 lookalike actors proceeding from the chopper to the White
House. Exactly one person knew of the switch, the Chief of the White House Security
detail who was there to greet them. The real Marine One landed at an out of the way,
little used airport and the 2 men switched to one of those Special Ops VH-53D Pave-
Low III choppers. They’re pretty close to the same bird, depending on which Marine
One was being used. The 2 men and the security detail then proceeded to the Presi-
dential Retreat in the Lehigh Valley. Security in Pennsylvania was tight, but not quite as
tight as in Washington to avoid attracting attention. The FBI even had an FBI Rapid De-
ployment Team standing by as a precaution.

The two men were having a great time relaxing and enjoying the benefit of a week off at
government expense. Every once in a while, some golfer would stare at the 2 men, per-
haps in recognition, a SS agent dressed up like a caddy would come along and say
something like, “Yeah I know. It’s amazing. Those two guys have been friends for years
and lately they’re always being mistaken as that Putin guy or the President.” Worked
every time. Or maybe the golfer saw the bulge under the guy’s arm, who knows? On the

425
11th, Putin got to visiting about a new semi-tractor the Russians were trying to build.
Santorum suggested that they run up to Allentown to Mack Trucks and get whatever in-
formation Mack had to offer. He told his Chief of Staff to make it happen.

Meanwhile, the terrorists had given up in frustration in Washington and after an argu-
ment that lasted a while had decided to go to, guess where? The Mack Truck World
Headquarters in Allentown, PA! What was the name of that movie? When Worlds Col-
lide? Sorry, but it didn’t happen that way. The Security folks got extremely nervous in a
big hurry over the change in plans and they did 2 things: 1) send a detachment of FSS
and SS agents to Allentown; and, 2) as added insurance deployed that Rapid Deploy-
ment Team. With the Pave-Low less than 11 minutes out, the terrorists arrived in Allen-
town. It took them 10 more minutes to locate and arrive at the Mack Worldwide HQ. It
took the RDT about 25 seconds to surround that rental truck and another 5 seconds for
the Somalis to set off the explosives. The Pave-Low III was just beginning to flare for
landing when the truckload of explosives went off. (Wouldn’t this be a great place to end
a chapter?)

The rental truck was out front and the chopper was landing a ways off. Santorum was
always flown by pilots from HMX-1; the few, the proud, the brave, and right good pilots
besides. The blast wave rolled over the Pave-Low III but the Marine pilot kept control
and pulled the bird back into the air headed the direction he’d come from. Ever try to tell
the President of any country what to do? You can tell them, but hell, they’re the Presi-
dent and they pretty much do what they want. Like take off the seatbelts before they are
supposed to. They were tossed about the cabin when the blast wave hit, but noting was
broken. A few cuts and scrapes, but they’d heal. Santorum was po’d at the security
lapse and probably a whole lot embarrassed. Personally, I say the FBI RDT did a bang
up job under the circumstances. The terrorists and the RDT were the only people killed.
Mack could always repair the building. The attack, though not aimed at the two leaders,
had very nearly taken them out forcing an immediate change of plans. The Pave-Low
headed straight for Camp David where those two actors had moved to earlier that morn-
ing.

There wasn’t much left of the Somalis, but the print off a fingertip recovered at the sce-
ne led to the identification of one of the men as a Somali immigrant. And that unofficial
task group of Santorum’s jumped to all of the right conclusions. Well, not exactly, but
the results were the same. They had Farrah pinpointed, just in case, and the next thing
you knew a C-17 was headed for Somalia carrying one of those GBU43 MOAB things. It
wasn’t up close and personal, either, but like before, the results were the same. And, of
course, by 2010 everyone had seen that MOAB test tape from the test at Eglin AFB on
21Nov03. As a matter of fact, the FBI was operating outside of the envelope and that
MOAB exploded just as Putin’s 777 cleared the ground at Andrews. The news confer-
ence at the Rose Garden had been rather subdued with Santorum and Putin saying that
the world would have their conclusion very, very soon. Kind of mysterious, if you ask
me, but you didn’t, did you.

Palmdale…

426
“That news conference was pretty disappointing,” Gary said, “I had the impression that
Santorum and Putin were going to say something worthwhile. We still don’t know what
they decided.”

“They said very, very soon, Gary,” Clarence repeated. “Hush up, here’s some breaking
news. It might just be confirmation that those guys were Somalis.”

“FOX News has just learned that a MOAB was dropped on the headquarters of Somali
strongman Hussein Mohamed Farrah, son of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid who died
on August 1, 1996. Aidid was the warlord indirectly involved in that incident in Moga-
dishu where 18 Marines were killed. You may also recall that the last 2 Congressional
Medals of Honor awarded went posthumously to 2 American soldiers who died in that
incident. Shortly after the bombing incident was initially reported, the White House
Press Secretary told a hastily called news conference that the bombing was President
Santorum and President Putin of the Russian Federation’s answer to the world about
the plans to deal with terrorists.”

“Guess you got that confirmation you wanted Clarence,” Gary chuckled.

“In a backhanded way, I suppose that I did fellas,” Clarence agreed.

“Getting out there on the net and reading stuff about places like Somalia, Latin America
and other places is quite the experience,” Gary pointed. “Try it some time. Put Somalia
in a search engine and then read the reports. It’s quite an education. If only 25% of what
I read was true, our hands weren’t totally clean on that deal.”

“There you go again, sounding like a liberal,” Ron pointed out.

“Ronald,” Gary replied, “I’d prefer to think of it as having a balanced point of view.
Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire. Besides, I can make my point in one word.”

“I’ll take that challenge,” Ron dared Gary, “Give me the one word.”

“Watergate,” Gary said, frowning.

Iran-Contra was 2 words and the media hadn’t hung a label on Boxer’s deal with Putin
because maybe they didn’t know about it. And, for some strange reason they weren’t
exactly sure how to handle this business with Santorum and Putin. Then again, they
didn’t have all of the facts. I think I recall opening the subject with a question, like what
about the one’s we didn’t know about? Guess you know about this one now, huh?
What? No more terrorists sneaking around in the US? Never happen.

Washington…

“He can’t play golf worth a crap,” Santorum laughed. “What’s the word on that bombing

427
in Allentown?”

“Mr. President,” Mueller replied, “All we’re able to verify was that it was 5 Somalis, and it
took DNA to do that.”

“Mr. President,” Goss quickly followed, “We’re getting more information in now that the
MOAB was dropped on Somalia and Farrah was taken out. It seems that people are just
a tiny bit more willing to talk. To make a long story short, it appears that we got it right
and wrong.”

“What do you mean right and wrong?” Santorum asked mystified by the cryptic remark.

“Farrah was behind it; that’s been confirmed,” Goss explained. “However, the mission,
or so we’ve been told was to take the 2 of you out in Washington. Speculation in Soma-
lia suggests that for some unknown reason, those 5 Somalis disregarded their instruc-
tions and decided to forego hitting Putin and yourself. Apparently the new target was
that Mack Truck World Headquarters. Again, that’s the speculation we’re picking up
from Somalia.”

“Then Putin and I just...” Santorum started to say.

“Showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Prescott finished the President’s
sentence.

“This is so complicated,” Santorum observed, “That no one would believe it or could be

made to understand. What say we keep this particular bit of information among the 6 of
us?”

“Are you going to inform Putin?” the Chief of Staff asked.

“What would you advise?” Santorum asked back.

“I don’t think I would,” the Chief of Staff suggested, “The basic facts are correct. There
were 5 Somalis terrorists who exploded a bomb in Allentown just as Putin and you show
up. We retaliated against the actual perpetrator of the original plot. I’d say let it lie.”

Truscott, the Director of the ATF who rarely spoke at these meetings said, “It won’t
wash.”

“What do you mean by that?” Santorum asked.

“The trip to Allentown was a last minute affair, as I understand it,” Truscott said. “There
was no way the terrorists could have known that the 2 of you would be there. It won’t
take a rocket scientist to figure that much out. We tracked the signatures of some of the
explosives. From what we’ve been able to gather, they appear to have come from vari-
ous lots sold to five different mining operations over a period of years. But, there are so

428
many different explosives signatures to match we may never know. Anyway, each of
those 5 companies employed a naturalized Somali, so this thing was years in the mak-
ing.”

“Ok, you have my attention,” Santorum announced. “Tell me more.”

“Bottom line here is that we ended up doing all of the right things for all of the wrong
reasons,” Truscott summarized.

“So, we need to play it off that angle,” the Chief of Staff interrupted.

“And just what do you mean?” Santorum asked, reaching for the bottle of Tylenol he
kept in his desk.

“We should play on the credibility you’ve build up with the public, Putin and the world as
a whole,” the Chief of Staff said. “Never lie, I’ve told you that, before. On the other hand,
nothing says you have to tell everyone the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth so help you God. It’s not like you’re under oath here. Give everyone the facts, and
omit the bit about right target for wrong reasons. The media will have a feeding frenzy
trying to pick your statement apart, but if you stick with the truth, they’ll lose interest.
Give Putin a heads up so he can avoid putting his foot in his mouth. As for the rest of it,
that’s up to you.”

“Well why not,” Santorum grinned, “It worked the last time.”

Worked this time, too. Santorum called Moscow and gave Putin the entire story and ex-
plained how he was going to handle it. He suggested that Putin might want to check for
immigrants that were planning the same thing in his country. Then, Santorum held a
press conference and laid the ‘whole’ thing out. He said that while Putin and he were
the original targets, it had only been a fluke that the terrorists had ended up in Allentown
at the same moment Putin and he had shown up.

When a reporter asked him about the MOAB dropped on Somalia, Santorum fell back
on the Intel Goss had developed and the fingerprint the FBI had gotten in Allentown.
Then he said that he thought the reaction was proportionate in the circumstances. Nei-
ther the US or Russian Federation had nuked Somalia, he was quick to point out. And
Farrah might have been a naturalized US citizen and a member of the Marine Corp at
one time, but people obviously change. Without going into too much detail, Rick Santo-
rum had given the press just enough of the truth and omitted any lies. As his Chief of
Staff had predicted, the media tried to run with the story, but it got them nowhere. The
media was so predictable, at times. Of course, Geraldo wasn’t around anymore to stir
the pot.

Palmdale…

“Watch the news conference?” Ron asked.

429
“What news conference?” Gary inquired.

“The President was explaining what really went down with the bombing in Allentown that
almost took him and Putin out,” Ron explained. “Turned out to be a fluke thing. Sort of a
lucky accident for the Somali terrorists; but they dropped that MOAB on Farrah and took
him out. He was behind the whole thing.”

“Really?” Clarence asked.

“Yes, really, Clarence,” Ron affirmed. “I got the distinct impression that there was more
to it than Santorum wasn’t telling, but if he lied, the media will rake him over the coals.”

“I told you politicians were professional liars, Clarence,” Gary chuckled, “I’m going to
end up being right, for a change.”

“You have been having a run of bad luck with that gut of yours partner,” Ron observed.
“Maybe it’s good that you didn’t get that patent.”

“Hell Ron that all started a long time ago,” Gary said. “On 10/4/04 when Space Ship
One was making its second flight, I’d have bet a grand it wouldn’t succeed.”

“How do you remember stuff like that Gary?” Clarence asked.

“I don’t know,” Gary admitted, “Seems like it was only yesterday. Some of the patriot
writers took a hit back then, too. A fella said that our cops weren’t believable.”

“What do you mean?” Ron asked.

“Well, take Johnny for an example,” Gary said. “I’ve used him in some of my stories.
Johnny is a good cop, but he’s also a human being. Even though Darlene and him are
divorced, they have a couple of kids. I played up the angle that Johnny would take care
of his kids. Probably didn’t make that clear; but I treated him as sort of a rogue cop.”

“Well when TSHTF or it’s TEOTWAWKI,” Ron observed, “Anything can happen and
who really knows how a Deputy Sergeant, excuse me Lieutenant, for the LA County
Sheriff’s Department will really act?”

“My point exactly,” Gary agreed. “And in my fiction I played Sandy a lot different than
she really is. Had her running a side business in class III firearms. And people really
don’t know with a guy like me when I fabricating or telling the truth.”

“Keep it that way, partner,” Ron suggested, “No one needs to know how it really is.”

“How is it really?” Clarence asked.

430
“Hey, I have to do what Ronald tells me Clarence,” Gary replied, “Don’t ask me, I’d
probably lie unless I was lying.”

© 2011, Gary D. Ott

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