The food was served and they ate quickly. Carlos couldn’t leave until Buck arrived.
“I heard something about F-4s?” Carlos asked.
“General Allen has his semi-secret pet aircraft project stationed here. Mine, too. We have two F-4s rebuilt to flyable conditions, as original as Tom, Jerry, and Mother Goose are. Mother Goose is supposed to fly into your buddy’s airfield in North Carolina. She is an HC-130 tanker from the Vietnam era, and the only one flying at the moment. Two more tankers will be operational within the week. Again, she is totally original and was to be stationed here in our museum. She is currently ready to fly and looking good. Mother Goose is one of the old in-flight refueling Hercules, and was especially fitted to service F-4 Phantoms in Vietnam. Her engines were increased in power to get up to 330 knots and be able to refuel the jets, and she was the general’s project for the next Oshkosh fly-in. Mother Goose is the only aircraft we have at the moment that can fly coast-to-coast non-stop and can either refuel helicopters, AC-130 gunships, or F-4s. All our aircraft here are heading out tonight for Andrews and will be stationed there going forward. We have the second and third HC-130 and a third rebuilt F-4 on display at Edwards. All three are fully functional and they will be flying within the week. We have tons of munitions for the F-4s and they will be our primary fighter wing. I hear the DC-3 coming in,” added the Colonel. “We have a minute or two before you head out of here. There will be two more Hueys and a couple of other bits and pieces. We are getting ourselves together, and I’m interested to know what the Navy has functional, as well as the Coast Guard. They should have a couple of old C-130s on each coast, and they could be our early warning system if there’s an attack.” He got up, and so did Carlos and Lee Wang.
“I’m coming with you to the observatory,” said Lee, and Carlos nodded, looking at the janitor in surprise for a second.
Lady Dandy taxied up and stopped where Carlos’ Mustang had stood an hour earlier. The P-51 had been pushed back into a warm hangar and was being checked out by several mechanics that had little to do. A tired Buck and crew got out of the plane, and Carlos did the introductions before stating that he and Lee were leaving. The hungry pilots headed off to lunch.
Buck had installed two RV porta-potties in the back of Lady Dandy—one called Lady Dandy and the other called Lord Dandy. Both had a curtain on a rail that could be pulled around for privacy and the usage of the stalls made for more comfortable flying. Therefore, the crew of this plane was not so desperate to relieve themselves. Lady Dandy was attacked by several personnel who went about refueling and checking her out for her return flight. Several men unloaded the small generator and lifted it manually into a troop carrier standing by.
Carlos smiled at the small snowplow on the trailer behind a truck. It was about half the size of the usual snow plows found on ski slopes, had an open cab, and the plow feature had been removed and a newly installed machine gun installed in its place above the small windshield. There was room for four—it was about the size of a small car and had a flat rear bed for luggage. He jumped into the cab with the driver, Lee got in with him, and they drove into Salt Lake City, one soldier sitting on top of the cab with an M16.
Much like the rest of the country, there were dead cars everywhere, and twice they saw old vehicles driving on smaller side roads but not on the highway. People seemed friendly and waved. The weather was rather warm for January. The temperature had risen above freezing and the highway was wet and slippery but just passable traveling at 20 miles an hour. They covered the distance to the mountain pass within an hour, and the truck began its steep climb up. The idea was that the troop carrier would go as far as it could and then they would travel with the snowplow.
Parley’s Canyon was always a pretty dangerous piece of road at the best of times, with a steep 6% gradient for several miles. The old troop carrier was pretty old, but a powerful piece of machinery. It could be shifted into six-wheel drive if needed, and had been built for tough conditions. It ground its way up the canyon, winding around several crashed vehicles, many of which had dead and frozen bodies in them or twisted and broken lying around them. It would have been disastrous for anybody traveling on this piece of road going downhill and losing control in the middle of the night. A couple of trucks had skidded on the steep slopes and were burnt-out frames draped up against the sides of the canyon walls.
It took half an hour, but the military vehicle slowly made it up Parley’s Canyon and all the way to the turnoff to the road that would take them another four miles to the observatory. Here, the road had a steep downhill slope and the entrance to the road had several feet of snow piled up by the wind, creating a barrier for any road vehicle. It was time to test the snowplow.
The men got out of the troop carrier and set about getting the plow off the trailer. Carlos had no idea how to drive it but he was told he didn’t need to. Within minutes, the driver was ready, the snowplow was started up, and a second man got in behind the machine gun. Carlos and Lee were offered the rear seat, and a set of goggles and warm gloves were given to each of them as they took off over the mound of snow at a quick pace. As Carlos gave directions the snow, now about a foot thick underneath them, crackled as they moved forward at 15 miles an hour.
The four miles were covered in less than 20 minutes, and they had to shoot the lock off the main gate and drive over it where it stood— frozen in a couple of feet of snow. Inside the observatory compound, the drifts were more than two feet deep and the snowplow had to move slowly to stop from covering them all with the fine powder.
The parking lock was empty except for Lee’s old car still sitting where he had left it and just barely visible from under a pile of snow. The whole place was closed down for the holidays. They drove up to the observatory building and the door was locked. Lee brought out keys and within seconds the door squeaked open, still frozen from the icy wind. It was cold inside, very cold. There was no electricity and immediately Carlos went around to the rear of the building and tried to start the big generator—the observatory’s main backup system. The modern generator was also dead to the world. He then helped the men lift the lawn tractor generator they had brought. It was light enough for four men to lift and place the green four-wheeler by the outer door. One man started it and let it warm up.
Carlos then picked up the long, thick extension cord he had brought with them, and within ten minutes had it mated into the building’s main circuitry. He first made sure to turn off all the unnecessary switches that he knew they wouldn’t be using and shouted for the men to connect the power and engage the generator on-switch that Preston had built. He flicked the main electrical switch to “On” and several of the lights blinked on. He heard the growl of the generator deepen outside as it accepted the added feed.
Once the generator was warmed up and fully operational, Carlos walked over and checked the telescope, hitting the switch to power it up and move it. The large telescope creaked and then hummed as it activated itself very slowly. It worked! He tried to start his computer, but it was as dead as he knew it would be. He opened the side of the PC and took out several parts—parts he knew were useless. He had modified his own computer over time and it was very different from the average computers sold in stores since it was tweaked to his needs. He had replaced most of the parts, and he knew that without all the modern parts “Made in China” it should work.