Chapter 32

“Okay, listen up!” Sheila knocked her knuckles on the conference table and brought the final briefing to order. “We’ve got an outstanding weather report, vehicles and crews are ready. We are good to go at daybreak...” she smiled as she waved at the enormous flat-screen display we had installed several days ago and checked her watch for the time, “ ... which means we’re in luck. We have thirty-minutes for one last run-through.”

“Time for a quick cup of coffee before we start?” I made it halfway across the room to the beverage cart before she could respond.

To cover my transgression, I returned with two steaming cups of Colombian nectar. Sheila’s serving was fixed precisely as she liked it, black with a splash of cream and a dash of sugar. Sometimes it’s easier to obtain forgiveness than it is to gain permission.

“Careful. Payback’s a bitch,” the commander murmured with a half-smile and a roguish wink as she accepted my South American peace offering.

I attributed her spirited behavior to pre-mission jitters. She was entirely in tune with the antsy and excited mood in the room; I felt the same way, an urge to be moving.

Obsessive attention to detail was one of my boss’s annoying pain in the ass leadership qualities. The devil lives in the fine print, and she had me chasing demons and termites in the woodwork for two weeks as we worked the kinks out of the operational specs for the Sisterhood’s supply excursion.

“I assume you’ve all had an opportunity to memorize your team’s itinerary and route.”

The chief held her thumb up and scanned the faces of the assembled teams for confirmation. A sea of nodding heads and a forest of rising thumbs replied in the affirmative.

“Excellent class! Practice makes perfect; let’s do one more review. We don’t want another Colfax cluster-fuck.” Sheila changed her voice from slightly alto to a nasal falsetto as she mimicked a grade-school teacher from Hell.

The Colfax Avenue Debacle, as I found out later, was a legendary fuck-up of epic proportions. Several years after the founding of the colony, a “secret” resupply mission landed on the front pages of the Denver Post.

Divine intervention from the Airbag Gods prevented any serious injury when a wrong turn down a one-way street put the convoy on a collision course with the Denver Fire Department. The hook-and-ladder truck’s steel and chrome bumper sustained minor damage while the Sisterhood’s SUV sat crumpled in the middle of the street like a wad of discarded aluminum foil. Thank God for seatbelts.

“Seriously, we gotta be careful out there today. The current circus over the fucking budget is now officially the longest government shutdown on record,” Sheila paused and checked her notes.

“Consequently, background checks are problematic. We’ll have to play it by ear and do the best we can. Bureaucracies are mindless creatures with a life of their own. Like any living thing, they require constant care and feeding. Otherwise, they get cranky,” the commander said to collective laughter as she twisted her face and assumed the hunched over posture of Eyegore, from Mel Brook’s, Young Frankenstein.

“They’ve stopped feeding the rule keepers because the rule-makers can’t agree on a new rule for their budget. Ironic, you think?” Sheila chuckled and shook her head as she continued.

“Maybe they’ll sort stuff out in today’s Air Force One Airborne summit, but I doubt it. It’s nothing but a grandstand photo-op. More for cameras than citizens. Do you honestly believe the President and a flock of Congressional leaders and senior Senators will stay aloft until they agree? I don’t.”

“Like three blind mice?” I suggested.

“Huh? That’s pretty random, Sky,” Darlene laughed as she burst into song, vaudeville-style, “Three blind mice, Three blind mice. See how they run, See how they run!” my partner pranced in-place like a terrified mouse.

“They all ran after the farmer’s wife. She cut off their tails with a carving knife. Did you ever see such a sight as three blind mice?” Childhood rhyme or not, her voice was beautiful to hear.

“No.” I shrugged, “I was thinking about the three branches of government. You know, legislative, executive, and judicial,” I blushed. I hate it when one of my wise-ass remarks gets lost in the weeds.

“stranded in a maze of their own making, they are now drowning in their own bullshit. We need a new day and a new toilet. We don’t need more of the same old crap. Although that’s all, we’ll likely get,” I licked my lips and made a face.

“Needs salt,” I stuck out my tongue.

“They better watch out for the carver’s knife,” I pantomimed the guy from Psycho and stabbed the air with an imaginary knife as I stifled a groan and pulled out my notepad and prepared to take notes.

Not so much as a record of events but as reminders of anything added to my to-do list. I preferred a pencil and paper over my laptop. The battery on my writing stick never ran out. I, on the other hand, needed a caffeine charge. Five o’clock is too bloody early; I would rather my mornings to start closer to noon.

The schedule called for each of our four groups to hit one pick-up point after another until we completed our assigned shopping lists. In addition to explosives and other survival items, each four-person team would buy as many .223 rounds as they could purchase along with at least eight AR-15s.

Sheila adjusted her paperwork and called the roll. “Belinda, you are the head of the Alpha Contingent, and you’ll be hauling a half-ton of gear and three thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate.”

The chief clicked the remote control at the giant television mounted on the sidewall of the meeting room. Instantly, the view of shadowy mountains outlined against the star-studded sky transformed into a MapQuest travel route resembling an exploding chrysanthemum blossom.

A Dodge dealer on the outskirts of Golden, Colorado, would be the next to last stop for Belinda’s squad where three of her team would purchase a trio of heavy-duty four-by-four pickups. The newly acquired transports would be loaded with as much fuel as they could carry before returning independently to home base.

The lace curtains framing the ninety by fifty-one-inch ultra-high-definition image enhanced the illusion of an outward-looking window with a stunningly vivid panorama of the valley and the western Rockies. Virtual windows were one of the original ideas the Sisterhood dreamed up during a brainstorming session on security. Strategically placed on barren surfaces in common areas within the cabin, the video feeds did double duty by providing both scenery and a glimpse of the world beyond our shelter’s walls.

“Darlene, you’ll be heading up Bravo Company, and your initial load will be a thousand pounds of black powder and a ton of Tannerite. Drive carefully,” Sheila noted as she switched to Bravo’s route.

Like Belinda’s group, Darlene’s vehicle ended its run with a hat-trick at the last stop, a Toyota dealership located a few miles to the northeast of Denver.

Instead of a rabbit, they would be pulling three electric hybrid trucks out of their hat. The new purchases would be cram-packed with cargos of high-efficiency solar cells, which could be mixed and matched to construct a wide array of sun-powered devices to provide electricity and recharge our squadron of drones while working in the field.

Ruthlessly efficient, the leader’s policy required hazardous cargoes of bomb material to return home under the command of one driver. Losses would be limited in the event something went wrong, as in a smoking crater and the thundering echo of cargo gone bad.

Charlie Team had the most straightforward run with only a single stop to load three-thousand pounds of sheet metal, tools, and supplies for our blacksmiths and metallurgy workers.

“Wonderful! One last thing before we head out. At the suggestion of my assistant,” Sheila pointed toward me, “I’m going to amend our objectives to make this a tactical training exercise. Think of it as a scavenger hunt. The first to complete their goals and check-in at the rally point wins.”