“Least we know the battery’s good,” Dad said wryly.

“Is it supposed to do that?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Try the other battery. And just hold them there a minute so I can see if the radio works.”

The black lead sparked again, but once I had it firmly against the terminal, it quit.

“Here goes nothing,” Dad said, pushing the power button. Nothing happened.

“Bum radio?”

“Don’t know.” Dad pushed down the button again, holding it a couple of seconds this time. The radio crackled to life, and a staticky hiss filled our little tent. He dialed through the channels quickly but picked up nothing.

He pulled the mic off the side of the radio and depressed the lever. “Any idea how to check if this thing works?”

“Not a clue,” I said. “Ben might know. It looks like some kind of military radio. He’s gaga over anything military.”

“That meltdown the other day didn’t inspire my confidence.”

“You got a better idea?”

Dad spoke into the mic, “Hello, hello, anyone there?” When he let up on the lever, the staticky hiss resumed. He shrugged. “Let’s get some sleep. I’ll take you off the patrol rotation tomorrow. You and Ben can try to raise someone on this thing. Might be more likely to reach someone during the day, anyway.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Jones!” Dad yelled. “Round up all the DWBs we’ve got and march them to the front gate. Let ’em go, and then keep a sharp watch to make sure nobody else comes in.”

“Yes, sir!” Jones yelled from outside the tent.

Dad started pulling off his boots. “G’night, son.”

“’Night, Dad.”

• • •

The next morning, I searched out Ben and told him about the radio. He practically ran back to the tent Dad and I shared. Alyssa and I trailed along behind him.

When we caught up to him, Ben had folded his arms and was giving the radio a dubious stare. “That’s not a military radio.”

“It says Yaesu FT-897,” I said, reading the label at the top of the transceiver.

“That is not a military designation.”

“Okay, Ben, but can we contact someone on it?”

“Maybe. It looks a little bit like an AN/PRC-70.”

“Can you run it?”

“Run it?”

“Operate it?” Alyssa said.

“Maybe. I read the operator’s manual for the AN/PRC-70 once. But this doesn’t look exactly the same.”

“Can you try?” I asked.

“I do not think I should,” Ben said.

“Why not?”

“An AN/PRC-70 will be damaged if the operator attempts to transmit without an antenna.”

“We ran it briefly last night. Is it wrecked?”

“I do not know. But an AN/PRC-70 will not operate without an antenna. This radio probably will not operate without an antenna, either. Where is the antenna?”

Chapter 68

I had to ask three different prefects for directions, and even then wound up running halfway around the camp to find Dad.

“What’s wrong?” he said as I huffed up.

“The DWBs,” I replied. “They ripped us off. That transceiver is no good without an antenna.”

Dad sighed heavily. “That’s as much fun as a failed backflow preventer. Nothing to be done for it, I guess.”

“Couldn’t we make an antenna?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. What does Ben say about it?”

“He doesn’t know how. But I was thinking, there are what, twenty thousand people in this camp?”

“Almost thirty thousand.”

“Someone’s got to know something about radios.”

“Yeah. A ham radio operator. Or electrical engineer. I’ll organize the prefects to ask everyone.”

I spent the rest of the morning going from tent to tent, asking everyone I could find if they knew anything about radios. All over camp, other prefects were doing the same thing. When we were asked why we wanted a radio expert, we told folks we were trying to turn some old cell phones into radios. We had two cell phones we could surrender to Black Lake if they got wind of the project. They were worthless—none of the cell transmission towers had worked since the first day of the eruption more than ten months ago.

Early in the afternoon, a prefect found me. “The Dean wants you. We found a ham radio guy.”

When I got back to the tent, Dad was standing outside with Jones, talking to an older guy with a salt-and-pepper beard peeking from under his scarves. He stood out because his beard was neatly trimmed—most guys let them run wild since personal grooming was a lot more challenging without safety razors, hot water, or electricity. Not that I had to worry about it. I grew just enough wispy facial hair to look stupid, but not enough to bother shaving.

“Oh hey, Alex,” Dad said. “This is Ken Bandy.”

We shook hands as Dad continued, “Alex doesn’t have a formal role in the prefects yet, so I’ll assign him to help you.” That “yet” was interesting. Not that I wanted a role. I wanted to get out of here already.

“Help me what?” Ken asked.

“I’ll show you. But first I want it understood that you can’t reveal what’s inside this tent to anyone, not even your wife.”

“Got it. But how long are you going to need me for?”

“I don’t know. A few days.”

“I can’t leave Carol alone that long.”

“Jones,” Dad said. “Organize a three-person, twenty-four-hour guard detail for Mr. Bandy’s wife until he’s done here.”

“Roger,” she replied and left.

Dad ushered Ken and me into the tent.

“Is that? It is!” Ken knelt by the transceiver. “A Yaesu. Nice model, too. Probably would have set you back $800 before the eruption. I can’t imagine what it’d cost now. What kind of antenna do you have?”

“We don’t,” I replied.

“Nice boat anchor you’ve got, then.”

“Couldn’t we build an antenna?”

“You have an antenna tuner?”

“Um, no.”

“You don’t want much, do you?”

“Can you do it?”

Ken rubbed his fingers together. “Maybe. What frequency do you want to transmit on?”

I shrugged. “You tell me.”

“Well, how far do you want to transmit?”

“Can we reach Washington?”

“With a good antenna, sure, no problem. Twenty meters would probably work best. I might be able to make a dipole antenna, but without a tuner . . . I don’t know.”

“What do you need?”

Ken was silent for a moment. “Forty or fifty feet of copper wire, any gauge will do. Co-ax cable. Fifty feet should do. Two six-foot copper grounding rods. Enough posts to suspend the whole antenna thirty feet off the ground.”

I looked at Dad. “Where are we going to get all that stuff? And how are we going to put an antenna that high up without the guards noticing?”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”

Chapter 69

Getting the supplies turned out to be much easier than I’d anticipated. A lot of the refugees had been rounded up on the road while they tried to flee the disaster zone. They’d fashioned crude tents with whatever came to hand, and FEMA had allowed them to keep their improvised tents when they’d entered the camp. For some of them, the best raw materials available had been items ripped out of their homes. Wire torn out of walls—both electrical and co-ax—served as crude cordage for guy lines. Copper pipes substituted for tent poles. The prefects fanned out across the camp again, looking for the materials we needed and arranging replacements or tent upgrades for refugees who allowed us to take parts from their shelters.

While I searched for materials, I also kept an eye out for unused canvas. Unfortunately, tent materials were at a premium—all the canvas in camp appeared to be in use. I wasn’t sure how I could manage to steal an occupied tent. Maybe Ben would have an idea.

We didn’t find a forty-foot length of wire, of course. We had to splice it together from dozens of scraps, joining each chunk with its neighbor with the tightest twist we could manage. One of the prefects found a family using chunks of a tailor’s cloth measuring tape as improvised belts—an invaluable find since Ken wanted the wire measured precisely. He did a bunch of calculations in the snow outside, muttering something about 468 megahertz to himself. When he finished, he told us to make each of the two legs of the antenna sixteen feet, ten inches long. With all the splices, Ken said he’d be shocked if it worked. The co-ax cable was even harder to splice than the copper without connectors or tape.