An Apocalypse Family (Book 1): Family Reunion (32 page)

Forty-five minutes later, the radio came to life.

“Harry, you got a copy?” It was Maddie, and I’d never seen someone look as relieved as Harry looked right then.

“Hey sweetie, I copy!” he replied.

“Sorry for the long wait. Everyone is fine, we are back on Josh’s boat and headed for the ferry now. The mission was a success.” The news was good, and Harry could finally relax.

“Okay baby, we’ll see you back at the cove, over.”

The sun was setting by the time the ferry returned, and we hurriedly shuttled everyone back onboard. Thomas oversaw the loading of the IED onto Josh’s boat, and with that, everything was set for the big day.

It was a clear night, and we all gathered on the open car deck. Conner and Carla, with the help of Trish and her mom, had procured three picnic tables from the Clinton ferry terminal and had set them up on one end of the ferry. Everyone else had brought various beach and camping chairs from shore. Henry had found a nice size fire pit that he’d somehow gotten back to the ferry. We sat around the fire, Derek playing the guitar and the rest of us singing every song that we knew and some that we obviously didn’t. I sang out of tune but loved the sound of my own voice. Parker got most of the lyrics to “Bad Moon Rising” right, but got the verses mixed up. Maddie sang “Evangelina,” an old Hoyt Axton tune; and by the time she finished, I’d tears welling up in my eyes, thinking of J.

We heard the rumbling of thunder in the distance, so we broke up the party and all headed for bed. As I walked by Clay, he waved me over.

“You know, there isn’t a thunderstorm within a hundred miles of us tonight,” he said.

“Huh,” I said, not sure what to make of the comment. Max overheard and stopped next to us.

“I didn’t want to say anything, but that wasn’t thunder—that was artillery, or something like it. At Fort Lewis, we used to sit around listening to it when we were out in the field on maneuvers.”

“So, you think there are still some army grunts out there shooting off artillery?” I asked.

“Either that or someone is trying to eliminate some of the freaks,” Max said.

“Could be the group Harry heard over the radio, or the ones that attacked Maddie’s group,” I said. It worried me, but there wasn’t a lot we could do about it. Probably just a storm Clay hadn’t seen on the radar. We broke it up and headed for our racks.

I was the first one up the next morning. I made the coffee, and when it finished brewing, I took a cup up to the sundeck. I looked across Penn Cove and marveled at its beauty. It seemed so peaceful that for a few minutes I forgot about what the world had become. A couple of otters floated nearby, busy having breakfast. They would set a shellfish on their stomach and bash it with a rock, eat it, then disappear below the water for another. The sun peeked out over the mountains to the east, the smoke from the fires there creating a picture worthy of Galen Rowell.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a rooster crowing somewhere onshore. The rest of the world didn’t care about the drastic turn our human lives had taken—it just kept going. The sun rose, the rooster crowed.

Hmmm, chicken and biscuits… I miss chicken and biscuits.
I laughed to myself and went to find out who else was up.

After a breakfast of two hotdogs and a couple more cups of coffee, I was ready to go. We spent the better part of an hour saying our goodbyes, but high tide was approaching and we had to cut it short. Max, Lisa, Harry, Maddie, Thomas, and Parker went ashore with me in Parker’s Zodiac. Josh and Conner set out for the pass in the Duckworth carrying the IED. Parker had rigged climbing ropes and harnesses for him and Thomas. It was decided that they would climb out and tie off under the bridge’s catwalk, then lower the block and tackle to Conner and Josh in the boat.

The IED itself would be detonated using a walkie-talkie. It was risky, because any signal on the designated channel would set the bomb off once it was armed. Thomas had designed the IED with the walkie-talkie in place, and left it turned off and without a battery. He used the cheapest set of radios he could find with a range of one mile. I asked him why he wasn’t using the higher quality radios for the bomb. He said the limited range was the main reason. If a stray signal from some other radio on that channel was floating around out there, he didn’t want our bomb’s radio to hear it. It made sense to me. He also pointed out, with a smile, that the radio wouldn’t survive the operation.

Before setting off on their part of the mission, Josh and Conner had been fully briefed on their role. They would deliver the IED, and once that was accomplished, they were to go radio silent and return to the ferry.

Thomas had inventoried all the walkie-talkies, and spent the morning collecting them from everyone on the ferry. He systematically removed the batteries from each of them and put them in a locker with orders that they were not to be touched until he returned. Our group took our radios and did the same with all but one, which we would use up until the time that the IED was to be activated.

Harry stopped the coach about halfway across the southern span of the bridge and let us out. He then kept driving until the coach was back on the mainland and far enough away to be safe from the blast. Max and Lisa pulled the Humvee past us and stopped. Parker and Thomas drove the F250 with all the equipment in the bed.

Thomas went over to the railing separating the road from the sidewalk, nimbly climbed over it, and leaned over the outside rail. Josh and Conner waited in the Duckworth, tied off to the stanchions directly below us.

“Okay guys, give us a few minutes to get organized and we’ll send down the line,” Thomas said over the radio.

“10-4,” Josh replied.

Parker laid out the block and tackle and simulated how it would hang below the bridge. He used zip ties to bundle the ropes at the block so they wouldn’t move while he was getting it in place. The deck of the bridge sat 180 feet above the water. The area Thomas had chosen to attach the IED was a little less than that. Having arranged the ropes they would use to raise the bomb, Parker began to work on the rigging that would secure him and Thomas. He tied an additional line to the top of the block and tackle rig and secured the other end to his harness. Then he attached another line at the same place and handed the other end to me.

“When we get down there, you guys will lower the block and its rigging over the side. When it gets down to me, I will pull it over with my line. Once we have the IED in place, we’ll signal you to pull all the rigging back up here.” I nodded my understanding.

“You ready to do this, Thomas?” he said.

Thomas did not look overly excited about the whole prospect, but put on a brave front.

“Hell yes, let’s get this done. Remember, once I tell you to disable the radio, we will have no comms, so if you have any questions, ask them before that. Under no circumstances are you to use the radio after I tell you to disable it. Turn it off, take out the battery, and set it in the vehicle. Are we clear?” he said, looking directly at me.

“Yes,” I replied.

Parker double-checked his rigging, then his harness, and did the same on Thomas.

“Well, nothing left but to do it.”

With that, he climbed over the rail and stood waiting for Thomas to do the same. Thomas climbed over, and it was obvious that he was nowhere near as confident as Parker. His hands shook just enough to be noticeable.

Max and Lisa each held the belay lines for them, and Parker was the first to lean back.

“On belay?” he said.

“On belay,” Lisa answered.

He stepped down the side of the bridge. Thomas had rappelled before, but never at such height.

“I’m having a moment here,” he said with a nervous smile.

“Take your time,” Parker said from below him.

Thomas took a couple of deep breaths and then leaned out away from the bridge.

“On belay?” he said in a bit of a squeaky voice.

“On belay,” Max answered confidently.

The worst thing you can do when rappelling is lean into the structure or rock you are going down. It puts your entire weight on the line and you lose your footing. And that’s exactly what Thomas did.

“Oh shit!” he said, not out of fear this time, but out of embarrassment for his mistake.

He struggled for a minute, then, with Parker’s assistance, he got his feet secured and regained control. I watched as they inched down the side of the bridge to the latticework of steel girders that made up the support. Now that they were at that level, they would be climbing across, not down.

“Okay, give us some slack,” Parker called over the radio.

“Roger,” I said as Max and Lisa played out a few feet of line.

I could no longer see them, and the only way to determine their progress was the line playing out as they crossed to the predetermined spot under the bridge.

“Okay, have Max and Lisa play out another six feet of line and tie them off. Double-check each other’s knots; it’s our lifeline,” Parker said over the radio.

It was not time for messing around, so we did exactly what he said without giving him any of our normal brotherly chitchat.

“Done. You’re secured with about six feet of play,” I radioed.

“Send down the block and tackle,” was the next thing we heard.

We all pitched in and successfully lowered the rig over the side. It was pretty damn heavy, but with all of us on the line that Parker had given to me, we were able to let it down slowly.

“That’s good,” Parker said, and we could feel the tug as he pulled it back under the bridge.

We listened to the progress over the radio as we hung over the rail to watch as much as possible. Josh and Conner had the IED hooked up about an hour into the whole project, and were now hoisting it up a foot at a time.

They had to pull down on one line while still holding the tether attached to the bomb so the wind wouldn’t swing it too much. It took them another twenty minutes to get the IED up to where Thomas and Parker waited patiently.

“Looks like we got the easy part,” I said to Maddie.

*****

Parker and Thomas had debated the best way to secure the IED to the spot they had chosen. Thomas designed the device so the blast would be directed at the supporting structure, but he admitted it was just a mathematical equation and we would have to wait to see if it was going to act as we hoped. The final decision was simple: duct tape, lots of duct tape. They wedged the IED in between a vertical and horizontal support, and spent thirty minutes wrapping it with duct tape.

“That’s not going anywhere,” Thomas told Parker.

While they wrapped the IED in duct tape, we hauled the block and tackle rig back up and onto the deck of the bridge. We got it all loaded into the back of the F250 about the same time we heard the radio squelch.

“We are almost done. Anybody got anything to say before we shut down comms?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah.” It was Josh in the Duckworth. “We are going to stick around down here until you get back on top of the bridge safely, just in case.”

“Okay, but if this thing goes off prematurely, there won’t be anything to retrieve,” Parker answered.

“Roger,” Josh said somberly.

“Anybody else?” Thomas asked. “No? Okay, disable the radios now.”

*****

I turned off the walkie and removed the battery, which I put in my pocket. I laid the radio in the Humvee, as Thomas had requested.

The next thirty minutes dragged by for those of us on the bridge. Knowing that we were sitting right above a 300-pound bomb that was now being armed was nerve-racking. We retreated to Pass Island, which was a couple hundred yards away. I sat on the side of the road and watched through the binoculars. I couldn’t see much, just glimpses of them as they worked.

*****

“Hey Parker, why don’t you go ahead and climb on up while I arm this thing?” Thomas said.

“We’re in this together. Just don’t fuck up… no pressure,” Parker answered.

“Okay, here goes nothing.”

Thomas dried his hands on his pants and took the battery out of his shirt pocket. With his left leg wrapped around the girder that held the bomb and his right foot on the horizontal support, he leaned over the IED and looked at the radio. He reached out to put the battery in and his foot slipped off the support. He swung out wildly and his left foot caught in between the girder and the bomb. Parker reached out and grabbed him and stopped him from breaking his ankle. The battery landed a second later in the water, about twenty feet from where Josh looked up at them in angst.

“I got you!” Parker said as he pulled him back to the support. “Now aren’t you glad I stuck around?”

“I’m going to need to change my underwear when we’re done here,” Thomas replied.

Parker gave Josh a thumbs up and added, “I think we all will; please tell me you have another battery.”

“Yeah, I have a backup here somewhere.” He searched his pants and produced a second battery.

Thomas repositioned himself over the IED and slid the battery into the radio.

“Here is where we find out if I did this part correctly.” He reached over to the radio controls and paused just an instant before turning the switch to the “on” position.