Chapter 49

Brenda called me on the intercom from the command center at seven-ten AM and told me Al and Jan had just called and said they were heading our way with their whole group. They were coming in two Hueys and one Cobra and they would arrive at about eight forty-five. I said it was fine, but suggested we postpone the Hawkeye's flight until after their arrival and it seemed to suit all concerned.

I didn't want to seem untrusting, but I didn't want to take unnecessary chances either. Debbie said she would go ahead and get airborne in about thirty minutes and Aimee said she would get up about fifteen minutes before their expected arrival. Henny and her crew came out and curled my toes during their inspection. They ate and were anxious to try out their new tow loader so they left and headed out to try and straighten out our parking problems.

Brenda called again at eight-twenty am and told us our guests would arrive right on time at eight forty-five. Debbie was already flying and Aimee went to the hangar and got up in a Cobra. Al, Jan, and their whole group set down without incident at eight forty-seven. There were fourteen of them, two men and twelve women. Aimee was back on the ground five minutes later with Debbie landing right behind her.

I greeted the new arrivals and invited them to breakfast. Most everyone else had eaten by now and there was room for us at the breakfast nook's table. Susan started them all out like visiting dignitaries with steaks and eggs. After they got the first few bites down I could tell they were already glad they'd come. I let them eat in peace and then we all went into my study to talk.

All of them were X military. Al had been a captain in the Seabees and was not really a pilot. He'd learned to handle a helicopter via the back-channel stick time method. Pilots taught him how without permission on a catch as catch can basis.

Jan was a trained Cobra pilot. The other man didn't fly anything. He had been a major in the army and his specialty was artillery. Ten of the women had been pilots, four helicopter, five fighter, and three transport. The other two women had been Naval officers.

I was surprised all of them had military backgrounds. It would be a wonderful addition to our group if they stayed and helped out. I told them they would not be required to do anything to stay here and said I would appreciate any help and advice they could or would give, but it wasn't a requirement. It floored them.

"You mean you are willing to take us in and support us if we do nothing?" Al asked.

"It's exactly what I mean. We have plenty of resources to feed everyone for quite a while. There are already plenty of people interested in producing food and we can still gather tons of food produced before the sickness. I will be happy if you feel you want to contribute to the effort. Your training and experience would be very valuable to us, but we require nothing from you," I said.

"Do you intend to always offer the same accommodation to everyone who comes knocking?" Darrell, the X major, asked.

"I do as long as I think I can support us all. I'm pretty sure at least some of you will decide you don't want to just laze around all day and will want to contribute. If you don't we'll still get by easily, but if you do then so much the better. All the men from the gang we have here now were anxious to do something they felt was constructive.

"Some of the women from the gang are starting to find ways to help also. I can't really blame the rest of the X gang women for hesitating to invest their energy in this new place. They were not treated well by the gang."

All of the new members spoke up at once vowing they wanted to contribute. Most said they would die of boredom just sitting around.

"Would you like to participate in the areas of your military experience?" I asked.

They all said it was exactly what they had in mind. I was wondering if I could trust them and I just decided to give it a whirl. The abject fear of pilots had been greatly diffused with the absolute loyalty of just a few of them and also with the current state of affairs with the missiles. I decided to roll the dice and keep my eyes open.

"Before you arrived we were about to put up a Hawkeye for the first time and see what we could find with it. Do any of you have any experience with them?" I asked.

"I do. I've flown in them in a crew capacity to familiarize myself with there capabilities," Darrell said.

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about linking information between the Hawkeyes and Patriot missile batteries' computers would you?" I asked.

"As a matter of fact I do. Artillery shares the same type of information with the Hawkeyes and the Patriot batteries," he said.

"Would you be interested in going up in our first flight, and others?"

"Certainly, I'm ready any time."

I told him we would probably send the Hawkeye up as soon as we finished our meeting here. Next I started in on the no forcing the women issue. They all said they understood and seemed to want to get past this part. I wouldn't let it go that easily though.

"I'm sure Al and Darrell are honorable men, and I don't really think it's necessary to make this point as firmly as I'm going to. I'm doing it because we killed one of the former gang men yesterday for breaking this rule.

"We explained it to him carefully more than once, but he hadn't been loose from custody two hours before he had cornered the youngest girl in our community and was fully intent on raping her. It is one thing I just will not tolerate," I said.

I could see my admission we'd killed a man yesterday shocked them a little. They wanted to know the details. I had just happened to start a recording of the video yesterday before I noticed what Jimbo was up to, and I hadn't turned it off until a couple of hours later.

I had Jimbo's transgression and punishment on tape so I told them so and showed it to them after going over our reasons for concern in the first place. Jimbo's intent was clear in the tape and so was the execution of my sentence on him. It even showed me picking his body up in the tractor's bucket. It was chilling.

"Who decided he was to receive the death penalty?" Al asked.

"I did. We may be back near survival of the fittest, but around here it doesn't mean abuse of the weakest by the strongest. I'm sure I'm not the deadliest person in this group, but I think I'm one of the deadliest.

"I also know I have the absolute loyalty of the person I know is the deadliest. You will find I'm a very reasonable person about listening to advice and suggestions and I think I know my limitations well, but I doubt anyone will ever be able to convince me it is all right for a man to use force or coercion to gain sexual subservience from women."

"I think we can all agree there. An immediate death penalty would have been ridiculous before the sickness, but I believe you were perfectly justified in what you did in our new situation," Jan said, and all the others offered their agreement.

"Frankly I hope that type scenario never comes up again. I blame myself partially for allowing Jimbo to come here with us. I did it to keep from killing him at Barksdale. I might as well tell you now I am also reluctant to leave live enemies behind me," I said.

I received affirmation of that opinion also. I had expected it from militarily trained people. I expected my idea on the matter was even more important on the battlefield than it was for us. Our first chat seemed to be running out of topics so I suggested we disperse and see about getting the Hawkeye into the air.

I took them all to the airstrip and introduced them to everyone there. Darrell went into the Hawkeye with the others who were going up. Darlene, one of the transport pilots, asked me if the refueling tanker was already up. I told her we didn't have the capability yet.

She pointed out we had plenty of refueling aircraft and I told her none of the pilots here had ever flown one. She said there were now three who had so I asked her if they would mind checking out the aircraft we had available and deciding which they thought were the best for our situation. Darlene, Sheryl, and Nadia walked off toward the nearest.

Al came over to talk to me about the parking and tie down situation. I told him what had been suggested for the tie downs and he said it should work perfectly, then he asked if we'd considered adding more hard surface for the planes.

I explained what had been suggested about the concrete and even about extending the runway and he agreed it sounded good and wondered if we shouldn't think about building a larger hangar for maintenance and some storage. I told him it sounded good to me and asked if he thought we could do it.

He said he knew we could do it and suggested in a worst case we could just disassemble a large hangar from DFW or somewhere, bring it here, and put it back up. He thought it would take much longer than just starting from scratch if we could find some prebuilt metal building pieces which were big enough.

It sounded like a good idea to me and I told him I'd introduce him to the others who were experienced in building and let them work out the details and schedules. I agreed I thought the hangar would be our most immediate need, but thought we should ask everyone's opinion on the matter.

The other pilots and the two former Naval officers were with us now. Rachel, one of them, asked where the command and control for the Patriots was located.

"I'm not even going to try to tell you, because you'd never believe me. I'm just going to show you," I said.

I led them into the small tower, we went inside, took the elevator down, and I opened the tunnel door when I found it. I had never been in this tunnel before and I told them so. They were surprised it was so long and doubly surprised when we entered the guests quarters and I told them we were now in the basement of the main house. They were even more surprised when we went out the other side and I told them we were now walking under the swimming pool.