Hell Released (Hell Happened Book 3) (15 page)

Jennie, a 28-year-old English teacher grew up on a farm and knew a lot about animal husbandry, planting and harvesting. She’d be invaluable to the long-term survivability of the community. One of the privates and another of the civilians said they had some experience either in a bakery or from working on a farm so Russ assigned them to Jennie’s team.

The other private was a truck driver so was assigned to Captain Eldred.

Sgt. Bare had been a squad leader with a communications unit. Her primary responsibility was as a Microwave Systems Installer / Maintainer. She was responsible for installing, operating and maintaining microwave communications systems and working with associated antennas, multiplexing and communications security equipment.

After she told Russ what she did, the colonel had the grace to narrow his eyes to a squint and dart his eyes left and right. “Excuse me, you what?”

“I can make a radio work, sir” she told him simply, which got chuckle from nearly every one.

“Great!” He told her and one of the civilians said he’d could repair vending machines, so knew a little something about electronics and volunteered to assist her.

The two remaining people in the group, a 28-year-old insurance salesman and a 23-year-old file clerk had no skills the group needed right now so Russ assigned the file clerk as his assistant and the insurance salesman to Eldred as his driver.

Everyone now had a position within the community and Eldred could see how the experience he had paled in comparison to the 30-years of experience Russ had.

“For a while, I think we should all make a point of meeting in the morning so everyone knows what’s going on in the group. We will all be working on different projects and some of us might need help from those in other groups.

“I propose we all meet here at 8 a.m. Monday through Friday for as long as it takes us to update everyone on what we’ve got done and what we have planned,” Russ proposed.

“What kind of work hours are you suggesting, colonel?” Lisa asked him.

“I don’t think we need to have work hours,” Russ said, raising the eyebrows of most everybody at the table. “None of us are getting paid and no one is writing reports quantifying anyone’s value to the community as a whole.

“We know what has to be done and we should work the hours we feel comfortable working. If you want to work six hours a day, you’ll get six hours worth of work done. If you work 10 hours, you’ll get 10 hours worth of work done. We’re in no rat race anymore. We’re in a fight for survival, but I don’t plan on working myself into an early heart attack.

“I said 8 a.m. for a meeting only because I’ve been getting up early for 30 years and 8 a.m. works for me. I’ll probably work eight to ten hours a day, relax in the evening with a beer or two and probably play golf on the weekend.” That got smiles from every one.

Russ looked at his watch. It was getting near three in the afternoon so he suggested taking a break for ten minutes before breaking into smaller groups so they could talk about specific projects to start on the next day.

Everyone got up from the table and went to find a snack, outside to smoke or mill around with their new groups.

Capt. Eldred knocked on Russ’ door as the older man leaned down to get another bottle of water from the refrigerator. “Colonel?”

“Come on in, Myles, and you don’t have to call me colonel all the time. You can call me Russ. I don’t know if there is any United States Army any more and I doubt our ranks mean anything except to us.”

“If it’s alright sir, I think you have a good idea and we’ll get more people in our community soon enough. We might need the Army again,” Eldred said.

Russ could tell the man had been in advertising. He prefaced his comments with good news.

“I just wanted to tell you I was sorry for my comment to Fred.”

“No need to apologize to me, Myles. You’re always welcome to state your opinion. We just have to remember, not everyone will think like we do. We have to allow for different beliefs or we’ll end up with wars inside our little community here.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll try to remember.”

Eldred left Russ’ office and Lisa came in. She had her laptop with her and she looked ready to go back into the meeting.

“You’re a natural at this, Russ,” she told him with a smile. “I can’t understand how you didn’t make general after 30 years of service.”

Russ looked at the woman with whom he shared a house and would now be working closely with on a daily basis. He guessed it couldn’t hurt to let her know so he gestured with his head for her to come into his office and close the door.

With the door closed, he told her why he could never have made general. “Do you remember in the news about two years ago about the division commander who was relieved of duty for having assaulted one of the women who worked for him?”

“Vaguely,” she told him, “something about him trying to have a sexual relation with a woman who worked on his command staff.”

“Yea, that was the one. One of the women who accused him was a major and she used to work for me. She was an excellent officer with drive and motivation. When she turned down the general’s advances he made sure she got a poor officer efficiency report, something she’d never gotten before. She called and told me about it because I was in the theater and I was her mentor for seven years.

“I was able to get a meeting with the general and it didn’t go well. Both she and I ended up being transferred back to the Pentagon. The general was eventually busted for assaulting a different woman on his staff, but by then, my career and the major’s were over. We had no proof and one of the biggest faults of the Army was it didn’t fix its mistakes. By the time the general was relieved of duty and court martialed, the major left the service and I had put in for retirement.”

“So you were retired?”

“Yes, and I hope you will keep that between us.”

“Scout’s honor,” she said holding up three fingers. “My lips are sealed.”

“Thanks, Lisa. Every organization needs to keep its secrets from the masses,” he said, opening the door and indicating she should lead the way to the conference table.

“Now let’s go rebuild the United States of America.”

“I like the way you talk, sir,” she said as she led the way to the conference room.

The others in the group were coming back in as well. Russ saw they were already jelling into their groups, discussing what had to get done first, what could wait, what they’d like to be able to do, and what they could reasonably get done.

Russ was going to need every one of them if he was going to make this work.

Russ noticed three others had found laptops and were opening them up. Todd went around and was able to quickly guess the passwords on two of them, but the third defied a quick guess and Todd told Myles that later that evening he’d get it set up for him.

“This afternoon, I’d like to take Capt. Eldred and his team to find fuel for the generators so we keep power going to this building and the houses,” Russ said when everyone was quiet again. Fred looked pleased to be doing something as did the Pvt. Lucien, who’d been assigned to be Eldred’s driver. “I think Deputy Doug should find us all weapons, both personal side arms and some rifles and automatic weapons if he can find them.”

This seemed a good first step for everyone. They had been living in the dark until Russ had taken the initiative to get power to the houses and they didn’t want to go back to living in the dark.

“Jennie and her crew get to raid the commissary. All the frozen food that’s still good should be moved into the freezers and refrigerators of our houses while we can still use it. We’ll be eating high on the hog for a few weeks or months, but it’s better than letting it go to waste.

“It might be a day or two before we get power to the commissary, so find the food that’s good, but make sure it’s safe to eat. We don’t have anyone who knows much about medicine, so even a small injury can be life threatening.

Lisa spoke up and said she and the file clerk would help Jennie’s team. The more food they could save now, the more they would have later in the year.

“I also want Jennie to look for seeds. I know it’s still too early for planting, but we need to think about gardening and a renewable food supply.”

Jennie nodded to him, adding “Actually sir, we can already be starting tomatoes and beans inside one of the houses and increase our yield later in the year. We have houses coming out our ears so I plan on turning one into a greenhouse so we have fresh vegetables year around.”

“Sgt. Bare, if you will, I’d like you to get us all some communications equipment. I think because we’ll all be working in different areas, we’ll need to stay in touch with each other in case of trouble.” The young sergeant nodded.

“In the long run, I’d like to get a radio station working. We need to let people know we’re here. By the end of the week, we’ll have made our base here secure enough to start broadcasting that we’re a safe haven for refugees and other survivors.”

“Todd, why don’t you grab someone and start your computer work,” Russ said to the young man more as a statement than a question. “Whatever information you can find on survival and roughing it, should be put on your computers. We want to get as much knowledge as we can store up before it gets lost forever.”

Todd pointed to the man who had been an insurance salesman. “Troy said he’d give me hand and also sold me a whole life insurance policy with a double indemnity rider.” That brought a chuckle from the group.

“So everyone has a job, I say we get started while we still have the afternoon ahead of us,” Russ said looking at each one of them, making sure each person at the table knew he had included them.

“Russ will host a beer and barbecue,” Lisa told everyone as they all started standing up, “in the street in front of our house, about 7 p.m. tonight. He’s providing the beer.”

Everyone cheered and broke into their groups, leaving the building in threes and fours.

Captain Eldred, Pvt. Lucien and Fred headed out to the motor pool while Russ grabbed four bottles of water and turned the heat down to 60 degrees. By the time he got outside, the captain had Lucien in the cab of an Army 2,500 gallon fuel truck and pulling out of the fenced in area.

Fred was in a HUMVEE with a 500-gallon fuel trailer hitched to the rear.

“Ready when you are, colonel,” the captain said when he came out of the armory.

“What’s your plan, captain?” Russ asked him as their two drivers played with instruments on their dashboards, checked lights and windshield wipers.

“I thought we’d drive around looking for fuel trucks and transfer their loads onto our trailers and bring it back here and fuel up our generators.”

Russ nodded and though for a moment. “I don’t know how to transfer fuel from one truck to another, captain. How is it done?”

Russ really did know how it was done, having done it himself dozens of times, but he didn’t want the captain to know that.  “It’s fairly simple sir. We find the trailer with fuel in it, use the hoses on the trailer and pump the fuel into our trucks. We really don’t have to worry about the EPA anymore, but we’ll have to be careful of fumes and spillage.”

“Sounds like a good plan, captain, but how are we going to get the fuel from one truck to the other?

“That’s what these hoses are for,” he said pointing to the 4-inch diameter hoses on the fuel truck Fred was walking around. “We’ll have to find a way to connect with fuel truck’s output port and then start our pumps.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just drive the trucks we find here instead of transferring the fuel?” The captain thought about it, removed his hat and scratched his balding head. “You know, colonel. I never thought of that. I’m so used to doing things one way, I never gave it a thought.”

“You didn’t have a wrong idea. We might find a 30,000 gallon tank from which to get fuel in which your tanker will be handy. I say we drop the trailer on the HUMVEE and park the tanker truck and go find some fuel trucks. I bet we can find a dozen within five miles of here.”

“I guess I have to start thinking differently all over again,” the captain said, putting his cover back on. “Go ahead and park your tanker Fred, we’re going to go find something else for you to drive. Private Lucien, go drop the trailer because the colonel has a better plan.” Russ liked that the captain didn’t try to protect his ego. The man really understood being a team player.

Both of the drivers started their trucks and Eldred told the private to drop the trailer over by the generator that was hooked up to the armory. “The generator has a 20-gallon fuel tank which is good for about two days with the draw we have on it. Imagine how long we can keep it running if we plumb it to a 500-gallon trailer?” Russ approved of the idea.

While Fred was parking his tanker and Pvt. Lucien and the captain were dropping the 500-gallon trailer, Russ took a quick walk through the motor pool’s shop. It had more than enough parts and supplies for what he had planned.

He picked up a small tool kit and caught up with the others as they were getting back into the HUMVEE.  “Where do you want to go first?” the driver asked the colonel as he climbed into the back seat.

“I say we start around the gas stations,” Russ said. I know where there’s one not far from here. Out his window he saw Lisa’s GMC and another car headed to the commissary. He knew Todd and his helper were already getting computers set up in the offices of the Armory.