“Tom” the C-130 returned a couple of hours after Carlos left that morning. It was 10:00 am on the second day when Preston heard Jennifer call in over the radio in the lounge. He had just set up the powerful speakers from the new “kaput” stereo system to work outside on the roof of the house to broadcast to anybody working that somebody was coming in for a landing. There was much that had already been completed outside. The barbed wire had been installed along the front fence area and around the only gate at the entrance to the property.
The barbed wire was weird stuff, and dangerous, as Preston found out when he was helping to stretch it out. Thick protective gloves were needed. The rolls were extremely thick and weighed a couple of hundred pounds. The forklift had been needed to transport them to the gate, which was pretty tough for the little guy on an uneven road surface with its small wheels. It had taken most of the morning to string out the first six rolls. Each roll was placed on the ground and the wire end tied to Preston’s truck. He pulled it away from the roll and the round wire formation just elongated out 100 feet and became a twisted length of dangerous wire, three feet high and three feet in diameter. The next one was pulled out next to the first one, and then the third was placed on top of the first two, creating a triangular effect and becoming a six foot high wall.
The same was done on the other side of the gate, and then the gate was dressed in cut sections of the wire. It still moved, but was virtually impenetrable when shut. Preston left the men and his truck to complete the next 100 feet and returned to inspect the runway.
“Hi Jennifer, Preston here,” he responded to her call. It was pretty quiet in the house with several members gone and the new arrivals still sleeping.
“Hi Preston, I’m about 20 minutes out coming in a little heavier this time. I have some Christmas gifts for you from the Rockies,” she replied.
“Wind from the north, five to ten miles an hour, temperature 38 degrees, runway lights are removed, you have the whole field. Over.”
“Roger,” she replied. “Will be coming in from the south, unpacking, and then refueling at your neighbors to the south. They are now up and running and selling gas.”
“Good to hear that. We are heading out anyway to get some extra, just in case, but I’ll wait for you,” he replied.
She came in, her rear tires hitting hard on the ground several feet before the beginning of the asphalt and using the whole runway this time, her propellers on full feathering, breaking down her speed. This time, he did see plumes of blue smoke spew out from the tires as she came to a heavy stop.
He was surprised to see a small, camouflaged bulldozer and a second forklift back out of the rear of the C-130. That was not all. There were another two dozen troops, tents, two porta-potties, boxes of rations, gas cylinders, and another dozen rolls of barbed wire. Then three large mortars, nearly five feet tall, and dozens of cases of mortar bombs on pallets were lifted out. Lastly, bags of what looked like sandbag cases, on plastic wrapped pallets were forklifted out.
“We are digging in here,” stated Jennifer, standing next to Preston and wiping her face with a cloth. “We are planning to increase your perimeter around the airfield, take down the brush and the trees with our old Vietnam museum-piece mini-dozer here, stolen from Hill’s museum, and set up a perimeter of sandbagged mortar and machine gun placements—especially around the entrance, which should have the barbed wire up and ready to repel any unwanted people.”
“Yes, we installed the first 200 feet of it this morning. Horrible stuff, that barbed wire,” Preston replied. “We are going to need at least 600 yards of the stuff just for the front area and I worked out another 700-800 yards to cover the sides. The rest of the perimeter should be OK with the natural water boundary. We can’t do the whole lot?”
“I agree,” acknowledged Jennifer. “Just enough to stop anybody coming in from the farm’s frontal boundary. Once we clear the brush around the sides, we can protect it with night goggles and infrared warning devices. I know that the wildlife will cause some issues, but that can’t be helped. The troops will have what’s left of the wire out front by tonight and the general wants to place tripwires outside the fence to warn us of any human creepy-crawlies crawling around out there. The general thinks that an attack could happen here as soon as tomorrow night and we need to be ready for them. Tomorrow we have a platoon of Marine snipers coming in and they will be placed up and down the highway to let us know if we are going to get company. They will make sure that nobody leaves the party. I suggest that you have one of your aircraft ready. You might be the air backup, Preston, and actually get to use your machine guns. I know Martie is not dying to use them on humans, and I’m not sure, but that could happen.”
Joe radioed in that they were on their way over, and Jennifer was impressed at the loud speakers blaring out the message. The guards at the gate heard it on their radios and replied that they would look out for them. It was time to go and get the other two fuel trailers.
“I saw a couple of little Cessna 172s at the airport and thought of getting someone up there to patrol tomorrow,” said Preston, nodding up at the sky. “When some of our fly-in pilots actually return, and we are almost out of flyers right now, it could be an early warning system to get something up there to serve as a spotter plane. A Cessna 172 could stay up there for four hours at a time, and as long as the heater works, it could give some of our fancy Air Force or civilian pilots some very boring flying time.”
“Nobody thinks that anything will happen today,” replied Jennifer. “It’s only been 36 hours since New Year’s Eve, and they couldn’t have seen our transponders until we used them eight hours later. If they have troops in the United States, the general thinks that they will have to travel in from around Washington or even further north. It will take them time to decipher their information, contact their troops who will need to find transportation, and then drive down here. The highways are pretty lousy up around Washington, and must be worse further north. If they start moving today, probably later today, they would still only be here by dawn tomorrow at the earliest, and then they will still have to case the joint. That is when our troops will let us know, and of course your ‘eye in the sky’ if you get one up during daylight hours. Anyway, I’m headed off to Seymour Johnson to refuel, grab some more men, and the wire they are putting together right now, and return here. Then I think I’m going north.”
“How much fuel can the Air Force get their hands on right now?” asked Preston.
“They have set up a system hotwiring one tank of jet fuel at Seymour Johnson. It’s the smallest one of three tanks, but still holds about a million gallons. The other two are bigger. Andrews AFB has your generator up and running and has access to a fuel tank similar to one at Seymour Johnson. Hill AFB should have one selling gas soon, as well as Edwards AFB, so we have enough jet fuel to start a war, just not enough airplanes to use it all.” Jennifer paused to look at her watch and check the weather pattern above her.
“Also, before I forget, there are one or two more C-130s in service as of later today, so expect some new traffic in here. I hear we might have three old F-4s serviceable today or tomorrow as well. They were General Allen’s retirement project for the Air Force museums. He told me that he had Tom and Jerry completed, two F-4s at Hill, and a third one at Edwards, I heard. Mother Goose is a surprise—one he wouldn’t even tell me or Sally. Mother Goose should be here sometime today and his ‘surprise’ to you will hopefully be here by morning. Mother Goose is yours, on loan from the Air Force for awhile. I was told not to tell you about her, or the surprise—the even bigger surprise.”