Post Grid: An Arizona EMP Adventure (4 page)

“I'm sorry, miss, but I need to search your person as well before I can let you in. Spread your legs and put your arms straight up.”

She did it just like she had seen in police dramas. The officer frisked her.

Not waiting for the backpack to be searched, she bolted forward, leaving it at the officer's feet, and practically ran toward a long table near the reception counter. There were tables set up all along the room's perimeter, but the dry erase board behind her target table said
Incident Commander
, whereas the others were labeled
Operations, Logistics
, or
Planning
. Several men sat at the table with yellow legal pads in front of them; one had a name tag that read
Fire Chief Lane
. The “white shirt brigade” stood as Kelly approached. She stood at mock attention out of habit. “I'm here from the hospital. It's burning down.”

All of the men behind the table and all those within earshot listened intently, brows furrowed, as the nurse started to recount her tale.

“Stop, stop,” Chief Lane said after just a few words from Kelly. “Everyone over here,” he said, waving his arm in a sweeping motion, beckoning everyone in the lobby. “You've got to hear this.” Thirty people stood mute, glued to her account, until she finished.

Chief Lane let his large frame fall backward into his chair. He put his elbows on the table and ran his hands through his silver hair, his face pale and blank. “We sent two bike officers to investigate the plane crash, but they haven't returned,” he said hesitantly, as if carefully composing the words that were to come from his mouth. “I really don't know what we can do at this point. The city doesn't seem to have a single running vehicle. We've seen a few old clunkers running around, but they weren't stopping for us. A few police officers and firefighters have reported to our makeshift EOC (Emergency Operations Center), but others have left to check on their families. We don't have any real personnel count. Our radios and phones aren't working. We'll try to round up some resources, but at this point, we have very little to offer.” Chief Lane stood, bent forward, hands still on the table so he was eye-to-eye with Kelly. “This is not a routine plane crash or power outage.” A grave look came over the chief's face and he looked down as he spoke. “It's much more.”

“That's it?” Kelly shouted, slamming her hands on the table.

“Yes, ma'am.” He said, looking up slowly, meeting her gaze again. “What would you have me do?”

There was an audible gasp from all present, including Kelly.

She stared blankly. She wanted to yell, jump up and down, something. Her shoulders fell. She didn't know what she had expected to find when she got to the fire department, but this wasn't it.

“Oh, my...” The words escaped her thin lips in a mere whisper.

Chapter 2

CAP (Civil Air Patrol) - Day 0

It was a beautiful morning. Jess, a strapping lad of sixteen, looked up from the Arizona Gazetteer, the all-in-one topographic map book for the state of Arizona, to identify the large mountain he saw on the map and try to get his bearings.

“Hey, Dad, is that Mount Ord?” Jess asked, pointing out the car window to a rounded, towering peak to the southeast with a cluster of radio antennas and cell towers on it.

“Yes, Mijo,” Jose called Jess by his Spanish nickname.

Jess was a Civil Air Patrol cadet. The United States Air Force Auxiliary, the Civil Air Patrol, was a step in Jess's plan to get an ROTC scholarship and then fly F-35s for the Air Force. He had flown with his dad for as long as he could remember. Soon, he would solo.

Jess had interrupted his father and Major Rabbinowitz chatting in the front seats about some article in
Scientific American
magazine. Captain Jose Herrero looked down from watching the road and glanced at the GPS suctioned to the windshield. “What's our next turn, Mijo?”

“You've got the GPS right there on the dash, Dad, and I saw you program the coordinates at Mission Base. Can I stop this now?”

“No, you are supposed to be navigating by the map all day today, for practice.”

“I got checked off a year ago on map and compass when I got my Ground Team qualification, and I'm getting a little queasy back here,” Jess said, puffing out his cheeks to emphasize his discomfort.

Jose cleared his throat in a manner only fathers can do.

“Yes, sir,” Jess said in the sing-song voice of compliance. “Looks like about a half mile to our turn-off. We're going to turn left, west.”

“Good job, you're right—I mean correct,” said Jose.

Jess smiled to himself. He glanced over at Cadet Sergeant Rabbinowitz, who was sitting in the back seat with him. The guys in her Civil Air Patrol squadron called her Lynn. The younger Rabbinowitz' long, jet-black hair was rolled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, military fashion. High school volleyball had toned and tanned her entire body. Jess hoped he hadn't had a stupid look on his face when he glanced over at her.

“Let me see that map,” Lynn said. She reached for it, but Jess moved it just out of her reach.

“I'm the map reader. You can be the survival expert, first aid person or anything else you want today,” Jess said.

“Oh, come on,” said Lynn. “It's not like we're looking for a real crash site or anything.”

“No, but on these SAREXs (Search and Rescue Exercises) you have to pretend—prepare for the real thing.”

“We don't get that many here, do we, Dad?” Lynn looked to her father for reinforcement.

“Don't get me in on this, Lynn,” said Major Dennis Rabbinowitz. “But they do say we have too much good weather here in Arizona for many plane searches—the land of the never-ending sun.”

“I got to go on a
real
search,” said Jess. “It was in the White Mountains. A helicopter crashed in a deep canyon. We drove almost all night to get there, then went into the canyon at dawn.

“You did not,” chided Lynn. “You couldn't have been qualified yet. I didn't get my SAR qual 'til six months after that search.”

“Did too, you can ask my Dad. He was there.”

“Yep, Lynn,” said Jose. “He'd passed his SAR practicals not two weeks before.”

“It was cool, there were two dead bodies,” Jess said, then wished he hadn't said it with so much enthusiasm. Lynn wrinkled up her nose and turned her head away. “I mean, they didn't let us see them up close or anything, because we weren't supposed to mess up the evidence. Just Major LaGuardia got to go in, he's a paramedic.”

Captain Jose Herrero slowed and steered the lifted, fire-engine red Ford Expedition onto the dirt road from the Beeline Highway. The phone in Lynn's BDU (battle dress uniform) pants pocket fired off three loud beeps.

“Dad, it's time for Ops Normal,” Lynn looked at Dennis and held out her hand.

“Mic please, Major Rabbi Daddy.”

“There you are, Sergeant Daughter,” Dennis said as he handed the radio microphone over the seat to Lynn.

Lynn cleared her throat and got ready to transmit. “Mission Base, Red Rock Three Seven, over.”

“Red Rock Three Seven, Mission Base, over.” A young teen voice replied from the VHF radio speaker. Jess thought it sounded like a cadet in his squadron.

“Ops Normal, Red Rock Three Seven, out.” Handing the mic back to her dad she said,” Now the Incident Commander knows that we are safe and secure, I feel much better.”

“That must have been John on the radio,” said Jess. “I mean, Cadet Curry. I thought he was supposed to be marshalling aircraft on the flight line today, not working the radios.”

“They could have him doing both. They were short on cadets today for Mission Base; most were out in the field,” said Dennis.

“This is a very big SAREX (search and rescue exercise) this weekend,” Jose said, “And it's especially important that Mission Base keeps track of us. Since we are the
special surprise
. We are not on the regular mission plan, but are supposed to be off doing
something else
. We don't have a tactical call sign for this mission either. As far as anyone listening knows, the good chaplain and his helpers are out ministering to the troops. Dennis, why don't you have a more distinctive call sign—say, Gawd One?” Jose asked, changing God into a two syllable word.

“That is a bit much for a
humble
Torah student like me,” retorted Rabbi Rabbinowitz.

Jess and Lynn both suppressed a laugh on hearing their fathers' banter. The SUV turned off the pavement toward the mountains, dust obscuring brown brush and small desert trees in their wake.

“We are crossing over the old, single-lane, Beeline Highway now and will take this dirt road an hour or so into the mountains and then drop into that valley over there,” Jose gestured toward the mountains in front of the truck.

“So what exactly are we doing, again?” asked Jess.

Lynn rolled her eyes. “Weren't you listening? Our assignment is to place a practice ELT (emergency locator transmitter) and have it transmitting by noon. One of the mission aircraft has orders to return to Deer Valley Airport and stop answering the CAP radio, simulating a missing search plane. Our ELT is supposed to
be
that plane. That should shake up the mundane weekend training.”

“Mission Base radio will know that something is wrong when the aircraft doesn't report Ops Normal on schedule,” said Dennis, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. “The radio operators will let the command staff know right away.”

“How long will it take to send the planes from the practice search to look for what they think could be a real missing CAP aircraft?”

“That is what the SAREX evaluators want to know,” Jose answered. “The Incident Commander has to be flexible and adapt to problems, sometimes very serious problems, during a mission. The 'real' missing aircraft has priority, of course. We will hear on the radio when our practice ELT is heard by search teams. We are supposed to be sitting here waiting for the ground team to locate
u
s.”

The SUV lumbered along the dirt road, skirting the hills following a dry wash. The truck left the wash and worked its way up the side of a mountain on a road that wasn't much more than a bighorn sheep trail.

“What's that?” asked Jess, pointing to a collection of dilapidated buildings in the distance.

“Well, what does the map tell you, Jess?” asked Dennis.

“There's a mine symbol,” said Jess.

“Yes, that's the old Sunflower Mercury Mine and processing buildings, or what's left of them after the brush fire a few years ago,” Dennis answered.

The Expedition crested the hill and began descending into one of the countless valleys.

“This is the area where we're supposed to set up,” said Jose. “Jess, check the GPS coordinates, but this valley looks like the one on our mission map.”

“Yep, it's a match. Pull over under those trees, and we'll pitch the sun shade,” said Jess.

They found a spot with patches of shade among some low, scruffy junipers and parked. It was September; temperatures were still in the nineties. Lynn reported to Mission Base that Red Rock Three Seven had arrived at their assigned coordinates. The group quickly erected a shade fly next to the SUV, and placed a folding table and chairs under the fly. They positioned the practice ELT in the middle of a small clearing nearby.

“Ahhh, this is the life,” said Dennis, stretching out his arms as he sat in the low-slung folding chair. “Some of the other ground team leaders are leading their cadets over rough terrain for a hot, all-day hike and we're
sitting
here, in the
shade
. We start the ELT transmitting in about a half hour. Then, I think lunch is in order.”

“Dad, can I start a campfire?” Jess asked.

“That would be awesome,” Lynn exclaimed.

“Let's see, it's ninety-five degrees and we don't need to cook lunch,” said Jose. “City kids and campfires—they just have to have them. Normally I would say yes, but I don't want to give any extra help to the searchers by sending up smoke signals.” Jose paused, then asked, “Anyone up for a game of cards?”

As the group settled into the card game, Dennis said to Jose, “That is quite the SUV you've got.”

“Thanks. Jess and I spent hours and hours working on it. We lifted it, beefed up the suspension, fabricated the brush guard, added undercarriage armor, installed the CAP radio, mounted the winch and even added a snorkel. It may be overkill for our needs, but I'm a project kind of a guy and it is good for Jess to learn to work with his hands.”

“I think it's a very
pretty
truck, too,” said Lynn, poking a little fun. “You do good work,” she said, looking at Jess.

He looked at her incredulously.

“
Really
,” she said sincerely.

“I had a lot of fun welding, bending metal, and wrench turning,” Jess said. “Dad had me draw the plans for the brush guard and armor on his drafting program. He thinks I should be an engineer like him. But I don't wanna sit at a computer. Aeronautical engineering would be okay while I'm in ROTC.”