Low Profile – Chapter 1

Bobby Jones called to his next door neighbor. “Hey! John! Come take a look see.”

John Havingsworth controlled his frown. Bobby was always wanting to show him something. Usually to do with either his guns or his Jeep.

“Look at these tires! Had to raise the lift another two inches!” Bobby said with pride. “Won’t be no stopping me this time. You’ll go, won’t you? I need a cheering section.”

If he didn’t take a close look at the Jeep’s new tires, Bobby would pester him until he did. John feigned interest as he took a long, careful look at the huge, aggressive tread tires. “Big. Some lug pattern,” John finally said.

“Yeah! I won’t have no trouble on Crunch Hill with these! Come on. You going or not?”

John didn’t really want to, but dealing with Bobby in a foul mood was beginning to get a little scary. “Sure, Bobby. What time?”

“Six sharp, Saturday morning. Uh… You probably should bring a pair of leather gloves. I might need you to help me with the winch.”

With a nod, John said, “Okay, Bobby. Just like last time.”

“Nah! Be a bunch better now, with the better tires and higher lift. You shouldn’t have to get down in the mud, this time.”

Though he was careful not to say it out loud, John thought. “Yeah. Right.” He did say, “Okay, Bobby. I’ll be ready. Six AM Saturday morning.”

To John, it looked like Bobby was about to bring something else up, so John hurriedly said, “Gotta go. Boss wants me to come in early for a project.”

“Hey, man! When you going to grow a spine. Tell that jerk you work regular hours. You got lots of things you could be doing, besides spending all that time at work. Not like you get overtime the way I do. You should look into getting into my line of work. All the commercial carriers are looking for delivery people.”

“My job is not that bad,” John replied carefully. In actuality, John had a good job that he liked. He was on salary, and didn’t get overtime, but the company was generous with a bonus program. John regularly got bonuses. In fact, the bonuses were what funded his emergency preparations. The preps were simple, but extensive.

“Well,” Bobby said, “I guess it suits you. I’d find it booorrrriiiinnnggg.”

“I’ll see you Saturday morning.” John walked over to his driveway and started to get into his Subaru Outback wagon. It was no rock climber, but it did what John wanted it to do. Get him back and forth in all but the most extreme weather. John began to smile when he thought of the vehicle he had parked in a self-storage facility in the small town near Adam’s farm.

If he hadn’t known Adam Markum since grade school, and shared a few interests with him, John would never have been able to afford the rent on the twelve by thirty storage room housing the highly customized 1993 Chevy one-ton pickup truck, and a portion of John’s preps. Bobby would flip if he knew about it. The truck, like the Subaru, was no rock climber, but it did boast some pretty good get-around features. One of these days John might just have to show it to Bobby, for meanness.


Saturday rolled around and John went over to Bobby’s house to go with him to the Mud and Rock challenge meet. He wound up waiting a full fifteen minutes before Bobby came out the front door of his house. There was no apology, or recognition of the fact that it was Bobby’s fault they were running late. Just Bobby’s, “Hurry up! Don’t want to be late.”

At least the Jeep was already loaded on the transport trailer. John guided Bobby as Bobby backed his Dodge Ram pickup toward the trailer. It took several tries, as Bobby over-steered the truck on one attempt after another. But finally the trailer was attached. John threw his leather teardrop shoulder back into the back of the Ram and climbed into the passenger seat.

“Wait till you see what I do to this baby, after I’m finished with Sally Sue back there,” Bobby boasted, patting the dash of the Ram.

Bobby had told John recently how much he was paying for the Dodge. It was taking half of what Bobby made every month to make the payments. John had to admit that Bobby had a pretty low mortgage payment, but with what Bobby was spending on the Jeep, John didn’t see how Bobby was keeping his head above the water, financially.

John put it out of his mind and enjoyed the weather on the trip to the site of the competition. At least enjoyed it as much as he could, considering Bobby’s very aggressive driving style. They were honked at several times. John lost track of how many times they got the bird. Of course, Bobby shot the bird right back, and was none too easy on the horn when someone was ahead of him in the passing lane and wouldn’t speed up or slow down to let Bobby go around.

But they made it in one piece. Bobby went to register, leaving John behind to un-strap the Sally Sue and lower the ramps on the trailer. John waited for Bobby to come back to unload the Jeep. Bobby wouldn’t let anyone else drive it.

It went about the way John expected it to do. Bobby got further in each event than he had in the past, but he still came in well out of the money. And John was wet, muddy, and bloody. He’d had to handle the winch line in the mud crawl, and on the rock climb. John new that if he wasn’t getting some valuable experience, he’d never go with Bobby. It sure wouldn’t be worth it, otherwise. Bobby had even forgotten to bring a lunch and had to share John’s.


The following weekend went about the same. Only it was gun shooting time rather than off-roading time. Bobby was late on his insurance payment for the Ram, so they took John’s Subaru to the range. Johnny helped Bobby carry his bags of goodies to the firing line, and then went back to the Subaru for his own shooting bag and gun case. They had the small range to themselves.

Each of Bobby’s long arms was in an individual ballistic nylon carrying case. He already had his Romanian SKS out and was loading it when John made it back. “Don’t forget your shooting glasses and ear protection,” John called over to Bobby.

“Oh. Yeah.” Bobby fished in his pistol bag, brought out the safety items, and put them on.

John barely had his own Peltor Pro-Tac II ear protection on when Bobby cut loose with the SKS. He fired the entire ten rounds as fast as he could. Bobby fired a hundred rounds of the 7.62mm x 39mm and set the SKS aside. He’d been firing at the one-hundred yard gong. It sounded more often than not, but the hits were erratic.

John was just getting ready to fire his old lever action Savage 99A .308 Winchester. He loaded six rounds in the magazine and closed the action, chambering the first round. He sighted through the Bushnell 2.5-10x40 scope, set at 2.5 magnification, aiming at the one hundred yard gong. When he was settled, he fired all six rounds, slowly, resighting for a second between each round. The gong sounded six times.

He dialed up the magnification and fired at the six hundred yard gong. Of the six shots he fired, four sounded the gong. The scope was mounted with an old Pachymar Lo-Swing scope mount John had found on e-bay. He flipped the release and let the scope lay along side the receiver. He fired another six rounds at one hundred yards using the ghost ring rear receiver sight, again hitting the gong each time.

When he tried the six-hundred yard gong with iron sights he made only two hits out of the six shots he fired. John swung the scope back into place and put the Savage back in its place in the two gun hard case he carried his long arms in.

“That’s it?” Bobby asked, now holding a Bushmaster Carbon AR clone in M-4 configuration. He slid a thirty-round magazine into place and turned back to the firing line.

“Yeah,” John said. “Just want to keep my eye in.”

Bobby shook his head and began to dump the thirty rounds of 5.56mm x 45mm NATO ammunition down range. John heard the occasional clang, but couldn’t tell which gong Bobby was actually aiming at.

John had his Stoeger 12-gauge coach gun out, ready to load, when Bobby had emptied four more thirty-round magazines. Again, there were plenty of gong hits, but they were very erratic. Bobby put the Bushmaster aside and took out his Remington 870 pump 12-gauge.

“You on safe, there Bobby?” John asked after Bobby had loaded the 870 and set it down.

“Uh…” pushed the cross bolt safety button on, and then worked the action to unload each of the shells he’d just loaded into it, and said, “Yeah.” Bobby had at least learned to follow John’s safety rules. John had said he wouldn’t shoot with him any more if he didn’t.

They went to put up paper targets on the fifty yard target supports.

When they were back behind the firing line, Bobby picked up the 870. He had added a collapsible stock with pistol grip and an extended magazine. John waited with the Stoeger broken open, two shells in the chamber, with two more held between the fingers of his left hand while Bobby reloaded the 870.

John let Bobby fire all seven rounds down range before he closed the action of the coach gun, fired first one barrel and then the other. With a quick motion he opened the action, the two empty shells flying over his right shoulder. He slipped the other two shells into the chambers, closed the action and fired twice more.

They walked down to the fifty yard line, pinning up pistol targets at seven, twenty-five, and fifty yards.

Before changing the fifty yard targets, John had to admit Bobby’s target was peppered with about the same number of pellet holes as John’s, when Bobby gleefully pointed it out. John didn’t point out that Bobby had fired seven buckshot rounds to John’s two. There were also two large holes in the paper of John’s target. The two slugs John had fired were about three inches apart, one inside the six ring, and the second inside the five ring.

Next they both opened up pistol bags. John took out his father’s old Colt 1911A1 that had been combat modified and fine tuned back in the eighties. His father had never shot it much after he’d bought it.

Bobby took out three handguns from his pistol bag and put them on the shooting bench. He took a long, 33-round 9mm magazine and slid it into the butt of the Glock Model 17. As usual, Bobby emptied the magazine as quickly as he could. He slipped in another and did the same thing.

John, on the other hand, inserted a ten-round magazine into the 1911A1 and proceeded to fire rapid aimed fire at his target. He did a magazine change and continued to fire. Bobby was loading a Smith & Wesson 629 .44 Magnum with an 8 3/8” barrel.

Bobby fired the first six rounds, much more slowly than he had with the Glock. He loaded six more rounds and fired them, and then put the gun aside. John had noticed in their few times at the range together that Bobby always shot the .44 Magnum, but only a couple of cylinders worth.

Next, Bobby picked up the third gun he’d set out. It was a little Raven .25 ACP semi-automatic. “Don’t know why I shoot this,” Bobby said. “It’s just my throw down gun. You know. Just in case.” He grinned and then fired the Raven.

It went off, but didn’t cycle completely. Bobby racked the slide and fired again. That time it worked and Bobby pulled the trigger four more times, the Raven firing each time. Bobby picked up the live round that he’d ejected, opened and held the slide back to put the round into the chamber. He released the slide and fired the pistol. “Good enough,” he said, dropping the empty weapon back in the pistol case.

The two walked out to check the pistol targets. Bobby admired the many holes he had put into the seven yard target while John checked his target. John was a little disappointed that only two of the four rounds he’d fired at the seven-yard target were in the X-ring. The other two were in the nine-ring. Still, it wasn’t his best shooting.

The rounds in the twenty-five yard target could be covered by the palm of his hand, with one flyer near the edge of the target paper. Bobby didn’t say much about his twenty-five, or the fifty-yard targets. John was pleased with his fifty yard results. All eight rounds were in the chest area of the target. Not extremely tight, but acceptable for John’s wants.

They gathered up the paper targets and went back to the shooting bench. After they’d re-cased the weapons, the two went back to the Subaru to stow them.

“I gotta get a carry permit!” Bobby said suddenly as John drove them back home. “I don’t know why they won’t give me one. That little scuffle was nothing. Think I’ll get a lawyer and see what he can do.” Bobby lapsed into a brooding silence.

It didn’t bother John. Bobby’s silence, brooding or otherwise, was a welcome relief. If Bobby hadn’t talked about moving recently, John thought he just might have been making plans to move himself. And he hoped Bobby didn’t get that carry permit. It was a scary thought.

John managed to avoid Bobby for the next two weeks. But all good things come to an end, decided John, when Bobby showed up on John’s doorstep one Monday evening. “Hey man! You got to help me out! I’m almost out of gas and I got to get to work. Christmas is the busy season and I can rack up a lot of overtime. If I can get there. Boss said he’d fire me the next time I missed, if I wasn’t dying. You got to loan me a few bucks for gas. I get paid Friday. I’ll pay you back then.”

Avoiding sighing openly, John pulled out his wallet and gave Bobby a twenty.

“Uh… John Boy… I’m kinda short on food at the moment, too. How about another twenty for some eats?”

Reluctantly, John handed Bobby another twenty-dollar bill.

“Thanks man! I’ll pay you back when I can.” With that he was off the stoop and running toward the idleing Ram.

“But you said…” John’s slight protestation faded away. “I’ll never see that forty again,” he mumbled to himself.

They pulled into their driveways at the same time that evening. John almost said something when he saw Bobby take out a small bag of groceries from the truck. And a twenty-four pack of beer. Instead he shook his head and drove into the two car garage.

“I can’t believe I’m going to move, just because of him,” John muttered, opening the yellow pages to find a real estate agent as soon as he entered the house. Suddenly he slammed closed the yellow pages book. “No, doggone it! I am not going to move because of him.”

In a sour mood, John went downstairs to the basement. One section was finished; another, smaller section, contained the utilities. The third section, the largest of the three, John used for storage. Of course, it was also a PF 1000 fallout shelter. The ceiling was pretty low, to accommodate the shielding above it, but John could stand upright. He took out a #10 can of Mountain House freeze-dried seafood chowder. He marked it off the inventory. He scanned the inventory sheets. Time to reorder a few things. He’d do that this weekend.

Working with his preps always cheered John up. He made a serving of the seafood chowder, and a small dish of fresh coleslaw, for his supper.

John woke up the next morning to three inches of snow on the ground. He had a hot breakfast of oatmeal, and then went out to clear the driveway. He saw Bobby get into the Ram. Bobby had cleared a small section of windshield, but that was all. John was opening the garage door when Bobby backed out onto the snow covered street.

Bobby finally saw John just as John was about to enter the garage. “Hey! John! You want a lift? That little car of yours will never make it in this!”

“That’s okay,” John said with a wave. “I’ll chance it. It does pretty good in snow.”

“Your life, partner. Don’t say I didn’t offer.” Bobby goosed the Ram and the rear of the truck slid over two feet.

John heard Bobby curse. Bobby must have put the truck in four-wheel-drive mode, for when he goosed it again, the truck stayed straight and Bobby roared off.

John took his time and cleared the driveway with his snow shovel, and then his section of sidewalk. He started to put the shovel away, but sighed and walked over to Bobby’s driveway and cleaned it, and then his sidewalk.

After putting the snow shovel away, John got in the Subaru and headed for work. He took it slow and easy and made it fine.

John couldn’t believe it when Bobby came over two days later. “Hey, man! Need to talk to you! I need to pick up some food. That blizzard is supposed to hit tonight.”

“Don’t you have something put away? A three day supply, at least? Geez!”

“Aw! You know me! I just get what I need when I need it.”

John, getting more fed up by the day, let his annoyance show, even as he was taking out his wallet again. “What would you do if it was the end of the world? Nothing in the shops?” He regretted it as soon as he said it.

“You think about stuff like that?” Bobby asked, taking the twenty John handed to him.

John suddenly saw a glint in Bobby’s eyes that he didn’t like.

“Hey man!” Bobby said, “If it’s the end of the world… I got guns and ammunition. I’ll get what I need. Don’t worry.”

“Okay, Bobby,” John said, feeling sick. He tried to lighten up the conversation and get it away from being prepared. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

“Probably have to. It’s only a twenty.” Bobby looked at John expectantly.

John handed over another twenty silently.

“Thanks man! I knew you’d come through. And don’t worry. It’s going to be a few days, but I’ll get this back to you.” Bobby went off at a trot to his truck.

John silently cursed himself for letting Bobby get to him like that. He’d always made it a point to keep his preparations a secret. He used the ‘gray man’ approach, keeping a very low profile. Bobby might not think anything about it right now, but if anything ever happened…

Low Profile – Chapter 2

John carried a box of #10 cans of freeze-dried food into the house, and then went back to the Subaru for the three sacks of regular groceries he’d bought on the way from picking up the LTS (Long Term Storage) food from the storage room. He was always careful to only bring one preparedness item to house at a time. The box brought him back up to where he wanted to be in terms of LTS food at the house.

Although he never really thought of himself of having enough preparations, he did have things set up at the house according to his long range plans. He pretty much had the hardware he wanted, over all, except for a real retreat.

He had space reserved in the shelter at Adam’s farm, with his own supplies stored. It was a reciprocal deal. Adam had some supplies stored in John’s shelter in the basement, and he and his family were welcome in a disaster. Both had additional supplies and equipment in the storage room Adam rented to John at a discount.

Adam had relatives in Kansas to which they could go, if the situation was such that staying local was not an option. Adam had told John he would be welcome to come along, but John wasn’t so sure. From what Adam had said about his brother, a stranger showing up on his doorstep might not be welcome, despite Adam.

As an alternative, John did have a small piece of land in Missouri. There was a small cave on it that John considered a last ditch refuge. Besides some hardware, John kept several years of basic food stored in the cave. There was a year round spring a quarter mile away from the entrance to the cave, where John could get water to replace what he had stored as it was used.

John hoped never to have to use any of the preparations, except to rotate them. But Mother Nature being the way she is, and Father Time the relentless soul he is, and human beings being what they are, it was pretty much inevitable that he would have to use them.

The first real test of his preparations was due to Tulsa being a major transportation hub, with several railroads, major highways, and the Tulsa Port of Catoosa, on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. Transportation hubs invariably had hazardous materials going through them. Tulsa was no exception.

Among the hazardous material were chlorine, propane, diesel, and gasoline. Sometimes all on one train. Combine that situation with domestic terrorists and you have the makings of a disaster.

John heard the crash, and the first explosion a few minutes after he got home. He was only a few blocks from the point on the tracks the terrorists had sabotaged. Not knowing specifically what the trouble might be, but knowing what passed over the tracks five blocks away, John decided his best course of action would be evacuation.

But first some protection. He opened the hall closet and pulled out the respirator bag hanging next to a white Tychem SL hazmat hooded and footed protective coverall. After pulling the Millennium CBRN respirator out of the bag, he put it on and snugged it into place. He reached up and got a CBRN canister and screwed it into place on the mask. He took a deep breath. He could breathe.

John both felt and heard the next explosion. It prompted him to hurry with the protective coverall. He put it on over his suit and snugged the hood down around the rim of the respirator and tied it in place. Still working with haste, but holding the panic down, John slipped on a pair of BATA overboots. He did a good turn and a half of duct tape around the top of each boot, sealing it to the coverall. Next he put on Nitrile gloves and taped them.

He was hearing sirens now, getting closer and closer. And another explosion, this one louder than the two before. After grabbing his personal BOB from the floor of the closet, John ran into the garage and hit the garage door opener on the run. He was in the Subaru and had it started in moments. As he backed out of the garage, he saw people running down the street. He also saw Bobby standing in his yard, beside the Ram.

Bobby waved at John and ran over to the Subaru. John was rolling down the passenger window and called to Bobby, the ESP II voicemitter of the respirator amplifying his voice slightly. “Hey man! You got to get out of here!”

“What’s going on? Why are you wearing that? Where is it?”

John didn’t want to take any more time. And when a wisp of faint green mist drifted toward Bobby, Bobby quickly opened the door of the Subaru and dived in, closing the window and door at the same time. “Go! Go! Go! Go!”

Being careful not to hit any of the running people, John got the Subaru onto the street. They could see the green mist thickening. The wind was directly toward them, from behind. As soon as he could take a street perpendicular to the wind direction, he took it.

“Are you crazy, man!” Bobby screamed, as others continued to run from the mist. “Hey! You got another mask?” He coughed a little when John drove through a tendril of the mist and some of it came in the car.

“Come on, man! Give me a mask!” Bobby was reaching for John’s respirator when John had to slam on the brakes to avoid a car pulling out onto the street. Bobby’s right side hit the dash, and he slumped back in the seat, the impact having knocked the air out of his lungs. He struggled to breathe, and John was sure Bobby was trying to get up enough wind to try and take John’s respirator.

About the time Bobby, a crazed look in his eyes, began to struggle up and try for the respirator again, they came to a police line and John slowed. The police officer motioned for John to roll down his window. Bobby was protesting, but John did it anyway.

The officer took a moment to look at John. “You a First Responder?”

John shook his head. “Private citizen. And this is my… friend. How far should we go?”

“You should be okay in this direction now, but I’d say to keep going for a while. People on foot are going to be congregating no further than they have to go.”

John nodded and pulled past the police cruiser. Bobby had heard everything and seemed to be loosing his panic. When John found a spot where he could pull over, he did so and unfastened the hood of the protective coverall, and then removed the respirator. John could tell Bobby wanted to reach for it when John tossed it onto the rear seat of the Subaru.

“It’s a relief to get out of that thing,” John quickly said. “Guess I didn’t need it, but I don’t like to take chances.” He looked over at Bobby then. “How you feeling? You got a whiff of whatever it was. Chlorine gas, I think.”

“Poison gas?” Bobby began to cough.

“I’d better take you to the hospital,” John said.

That seemed to satisfy Bobby. He quit coughing.

A nurse took a quick look at Bobby when John and Bobby walked into the lobby. “Over there. We’ll look at you in a bit.” She looked at John then. “Hadn’t you better go after someone else?”

“I’m not Emergency Services. Just a citizen.”

“Oh.” She frowned and added, “Well, stay out of the way.”

After fifteen minutes or so, Bobby began to get annoyed that the doctors and nurses were working on other people as they came in. They were obviously in much worse condition than Bobby, but that didn’t seem to matter to him.

“I’m going to sue the city!” Bobby said, coming to sit down beside John after he’d gone to try to get one of the nurses to look at him. John noticed Bobby was only coughing when he was trying to get the attention of one of the medical personnel. John felt shame, for Bobby, and for himself, for aiding and abetting the situation.

They were watching the coverage of the disaster on one of the Tulsa stations. From the reports they learned that a mixed freight train composed mostly of tank cars had derailed on a slight up grade. A gasoline tanker had exploded, possibly with help from a bomb of some kind. The burning liquid fuel was running down the grade and it caught several more cars on fire, or caused them to overheat. At least one of the propane tankers had BLEVE’d and that had ruptured two chlorine tanks. (BLEVE – boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion)

John decided, when one of the interns looked at Bobby and told him to get plenty of fresh air, and if symptoms got worse, to come back in, that the intern just wanted Bobby out of the area. John could understand why.

Apparently upset because the intern couldn’t find anything wrong with him, Bobby was still muttering about suing the city and the hospital as they walked out to the Subaru. “Where you want me to drop you, Bobby. We aren’t going to get home for a few days.”

“Geez! I don’t know!” Bobby fell silent, and John was hoping he was thinking of some place he could stay. After a long silence, Bobby finally asked, “What are you going to do?”

It was a question John didn’t want to hear, much less answer. But it was there, voiced, and he had to respond. “Get a motel room, I guess. I’ve got enough stuff to tide me over until I can get back home.”

“Hotel? Man, I don’t have enough for a hotel! I got… like twenty bucks!”

“What about a credit card? Don’t you have one you can put a room and some food on?”

“All of them are maxed! I don’t get paid till Friday and this is only Tuesday!”

“They’ll probably be a shelter set up. Let’s…”

Angrily, Bobby cut John off. “I ain’t staying in no stinking shelter! I’m a man, not some little wimp that’s got to go crawling to some shelter run by more wimps!”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” John said cautiously.

“Well, what about I stay with you? We’re buddies, aren’t we?”

John was disappointed in himself when he gave in. “Yeah. Sure. Okay. Come on, let’s go.” All the way to the motel John berated himself. He should have just said he was going to the shelter, and then left at his leisure.

He wasn’t about to share a room with Bobby, so he booked two rooms. He got a few strange looks, undoubtedly due to the protective gear he was wearing. He stripped it off when he got to the room. Flipping on the television, he watched the coverage of the train wreck.

John decided he was lucky he got the hotel rooms when he did. The evacuation of the area was on going, with a larger area now being evacuated. There were several more tank cars not yet involved, but could be if the fire was not contained.

It wasn’t long before Bobby knocked on John’s door. “You ready to get something to eat?” Bobby asked when John opened the door.

“I’m not really hungry. You go ahead. I’ll get something later.”

Bobby frowned. “Aw! Come on man! You know I don’t have the money to eat on! You were going to stake me until I got paid.”

“Sure,” John said, carefully keeping his voice neutral. He definitely needed to do something about his ‘friendship’ with Bobby.

“You know,” Bobby said as they entered a nearby restaurant, “I’m going to have to get me one of those suits and masks.” He looked over at John and asked, “You have an extra you can loan me until I get one of my own?”

“Sorry, Bobby,” John said evenly as they were taken to a table. “I don’t have one I can loan you. I got mine at Approved Gas Masks dot com.”

“Oh. Okay. It’s just going to be awhile.”

John was quiet during the meal. Fortunately Bobby got off the topic of getting anything else from John, and went to expounding on what he was going to do to Sally Sue next. John followed along with half an ear, nodding or commenting when necessary. Finally the meal was ended and John paid with one of his credit cards.

“Let’s go see what is going on,” Bobby said as they left the restaurant.

“We’d just be in the way. I just want to go back to the motel and rest up. I’ll watch the coverage on TV and go to bed early. I have to be in to work early again tomorrow.”

“Okay, lazybones. Let me have the keys to your windup toy, and I’ll go get you a personal report.”

“Bobby, I can’t do that. You’ll have to get a taxi or something.”

“Why not? You know I’m a good driver.”

“I just can’t Bobby. If you go down there they could very easily run you in for interference and impound my car.”

“Some friend you are!” Bobby went to his room in a huff.

John didn’t care. He was getting really tired of Bobby taking advantage of him. Of course, John let it happen, and knew it. “My own cotton picking fault,” he muttered as he turned on the TV again to watch the news.

He didn’t watch long. The authorities had things under control. John went out to the Subaru and brought in his BOB, and the Subaru BOB. He’d planned to eat out of them, since he had three days of food in the personal BOB, and a week in the Subaru BOB, but Bobby had changed that.

After undressing, John took a shower. He got the toiletries ditty out of the Subaru BOB and brushed his teeth. He crawled into the bed naked. He called the front desk and asked for a 5:00 AM wake up call.

John groaned and rolled out of bed the next morning when the automated wakeup call came. Using the items in the toiletries ditty, he shaved and combed his hair. He had a change of clothes in the Subaru BOB, but they weren’t really suitable for work. The underwear was, and he put on a fresh pair of boxers.

He shook out and brushed the suit he’d worn the day before and put it on as he watched the morning news. The story had made the national news. The worst disaster Tulsa had ever experienced. And it was confirmed that the derailment and first explosion had been an act of domestic terrorism. A group calling itself ‘Americans For Safer Society’ had claimed responsibility.

He felt a bit bad about leaving Bobby stranded at the motel, but didn’t think about it for long. He decided to keep the food in the BOB’s in reserve and stopped for a fast food breakfast before he went in to work.

The derailment was all the talk at work. John wasn’t the only one at work affected. Two more employees called in saying they wouldn’t be in due to it. He’d come in early just to avoid Bobby, but it was well he did. With the other two employees out, he had almost a triple load of work to do. Besides coming early, he wound up working late. He stopped and ate on the way to the motel, not really caring at the moment how it would affect Bobby’s plans.

Bobby was upset when John pulled into the parking lot of the motel. “Man! Where you been? You left me stranded this morning!”

“We had two people out today. I had to go in early and stay late. I’m beat. I’m going to my room and get ready for bed.”

“What about me? I’m starving! All I had today was that crummy Continental Breakfast the motel does.”

“Didn’t you get some lunch while you were working?”

“Working? How was I supposed to get to work? You ran off and I didn’t have any way to get there.”

“A cab would only have been a couple of dollars,” John replied. He was tired and getting angry. “You said you had, what, twenty bucks?”

“Well, I had a few beers last night after you went to bed. No harm in that. I sure wasn’t driving anywhere. Had to walk down the street. It’s a lousy bar.”

John sighed and took out his wallet. “Here’s a twenty.” He waved vaguely at the street. “There’s fast food places close. If you walked to the bar, you can walk to one of them. I’ll take you in to work in the morning. Hopefully they’ll let us go back to our houses tomorrow evening.”

He turned away, and went into his room, not waiting for Bobby’s outraged response. John closed and locked the door in Bobby’s face. He heard Bobby cursing, but couldn’t make out the actual words.

John waited until Bobby had left and went out to bring in the BOB’s again. From that point the evening was the same as the last. John turned in early.

He got up early again, shaved and combed his hair, and got dressed in the clothing from the BOB. It was a Friday and they had Casual Friday at work. John almost always wore a suit anyway, but decided this was as good a Friday as any to go in casual. He put the BOB’s back in the Subaru and waited for Bobby.

John was fidgeting by the time Bobby put in an appearance. John called him over and when Bobby saw him, he laughed and asked, “Who are you supposed to be? Great White Hunter?” John was wearing a pair of khaki work pants and a khaki work shirt.

“Funny,” John said as Bobby entered the Subaru. John headed for an IHOP for their breakfast. Bobby took his own sweet time over breakfast, and John called his office on his cellular telephone to let them know he was running late.

Bobby finally finished and they went back out to the Subaru. Both were silent, and John was thankful that Bobby was engrossed in the sports section of the paper that he’d asked John to get at IHOP.

Without a word of thanks, Bobby got out of the Subaru at the carrier’s offices. He leaned down and said through the open door, “Be here at 5:00.” Bobby closed the door without waiting for John to answer. Fuming, John headed for work.


He was waiting, as Bobby had asked, at 5:00 PM that evening. It was a little after 5:30 PM when Bobby walked over to the Subaru. “I thought you said 5:00,” John said when Bobby settled himself in the passenger seat.

“I did. Don’t get off until 5:30, but I didn’t want to have to wait.”

John was amazed, but Bobby didn’t seem to give what he’d done a second thought. On top of that, Bobby wanted to eat at Red Lobster. And wanted a lobster for dinner. “Just got a craving, you know,” he told John after he’d put in the order.

John had just sat there, his mouth hanging open. He didn’t say much during the meal. Bobby was flirting with the waitress, anyway.

“Where do you bank, Bobby?” John asked when they were once again in the Subaru. “I’ll take you by so you can deposit your check.”

“Wells Fargo. But I deposited it while I was on my run.”

When they got back to the motel, John headed for the motel office.

“Bobby,” he said, “Don’t forget to pay for the room in the morning. I’m checking out then, too. If I can’t get back into the house tomorrow, I’m going to stay with some friends.”

“They shouldn’t mind another one, should they?” Bobby quickly said.

“They don’t have room. I’ll be a real imposition. I couldn’t ask them to put up two.”

“Oh. Too bad,” Bobby replied. “This has worked out okay, me and you, working together. Even if you did stiff me yesterday.”


Fortunately the residents that had been evacuated were able to return to their homes beginning at noon the next day. There was still clean up to do, but the hazardous materials had all been pumped into tank trucks and removed.

John had gone into the office, just for something to do and heard the news on the TV in the break room. He finished off what he was doing and headed for home. Bobby was already at his, working on Sally Sue as if nothing had happened.

After going inside and opening all the windows and doors to let the house air out, John went over to Bobby’s. “Hey, Bobby,” he said. Bobby had his head under the hood of the Jeep.

“Hey, John. What’s up? Good to be home, huh?”

“I’ll say. About that money you owe me…”

Before John could continue, Bobby’s head appeared from under the hood of the Jeep. “Yeah. That. Hey, man. It’s going to be a bit before I can give that back to you. I missed a day’s work and things are going to be tight for a while.”

“I see,” John said. And he did see. The parts boxes of a snorkel engine air intake kit. Brand new. Afraid to say anything else, John said, “See you later,” and walked calmly back to his house.

He considered it a defeat, but John checked the phone book and called the real estate agent he’d found previously. He was putting the house on the market. He’d start looking the next day for another place.

There were several open houses going on in the city. The market was down and there were some bargains to be had. But that also meant that John’s current place probably wouldn’t bring what it would have two years before. John looked at several places around Tulsa. He found one new subdivision going in that he liked. It was a new walled and gated community going in on the edge of the city.

It only had the two display homes built at the moment. He didn’t particularly like either of them. But there was a large corner lot at the rear of the complex that had caught his eye. The market being down was to John’s advantage when he started negotiating for the lot. He made it clear that the purchase of the lot was dependant on being allowed to put in a two story quadraplex, with a basement. He would live in the basement and rent out the four above ground units.

The owners didn’t like it, but after three hours of consultation with all the partners, behind closed doors, the representative came back out to the waiting room of the offices and told John the other partners had agreed. A stipulation was that the owners had the right to approve or bar any potential renters. The second stipulation was that the design had to blend with the tone of the complex. John would have to have the plans approved by the complex owners.

John wasn’t fussy about the exterior design. As long as they let him build the basement the way he wanted.

John took that next Monday off, to meet with his real estate agent. He came out to John’s house to take pictures and put up the agency’s ‘For Sale’ sign. “With the railroad situation the other day fresh in peoples’ minds, this could be a hard sale,” Hubert Garcia told John.

“I’m not much of a negotiator,” John told Hubert. “Price it high, and let potential buyers know there is a full fledged fall… er… tornado shelter in the basement.”

“Well,” Hubert replied, “That will certainly make a difference to some buyers. I’m not so sure starting really high and then lowering price will work. It might back fire on you. Sometimes when a seller shows a willingness to drop the price, a buyer will take advantage of it and get the price even lower than what a good price would have been.”

“I’ll chance it.” John shook Hubert’s hand and said, “I’ll be in tomorrow after work to sign the papers.”

As soon as Hubert left, John went into the house and began working on the plans. Using the Quadraplex in the old HUD publication HUD-180-S as a starting point, John drew up a set of basic plans. Feeling a bit guilty about having the whole basement area as his residence and shelter, he kept the design features in the drawings in HUD-180-S that made the kitchen and utility room in each dwelling unit an emergency shelter with access to a bathroom.

With the basic dimensions for the foot print of the quadraplex, John drew out the floor plan of the basement. He was smiling when he went out to the Subaru with the drawings. The owners of the development had been adamant about using one of their approved builders. John had looked over some of their example books while waiting for the decision. The designs of one specific builder had caught his eye. That’s where he was taking the drawings to be reviewed and a set of working drawings made.

John was back at work on Tuesday, felling better than he had in a long time. Even when he got home and Bobby walked over, John couldn’t stop smiling.

“You’re selling? Why?”

John had his story ready. “Thinking about retirement. I’m building a quadraplex for rental. I’ll live in one unit and rent out the rest. It’s part of my retirement plan. With just four units, I don’t fall under the same rules a large apartment complex does. Though it takes a big lot, it’s not nearly as much property as four individual lots. The design takes full advantage of the lot, leaving large amounts of shared open property for all the residents. The over all cost of the quad is significantly less than the same square footage in four separate houses. I think it is one of the best investments there is, as long as it is being built with rental in mind. Durability and ease of maintenance. And that’s how I’m having them built.”

“Oh.” Bobby looked a bit shell shocked at John’s enthusiastic explanation. “Well… Good for you, I guess…”

“I need to get inside,” John said. “I’m expecting a call.”

“Sure… I’ll see you later.” Bobby walked off, looking dejected.

John almost felt sorry for him, but suddenly remembered how much money Bobby owed him, and the circumstances under which it was owed.


It was a month before John got the first interested buyer for his house. It was a very low-ball offer, and John turned it down. It was about the same time the architect called and said the plans were ready. John picked them up after work and studied them that night. He had to admit, the elevation drawings matched the style of architecture of the display homes very, very well.

There were several notations on the basement drawings. John smiled. The architect hadn’t questioned the why of the room layout of the basement, but commented it wasn’t very effective use of the space.

That was fine with John. He planned on making a few on-site changes when it came to pouring the basement footings, floor, and walls.

John submitted the plans to the developers the following day, and got the approval for building a week later. Another week and the contractor broke ground. John spent every spare minute at the building site. Staying out of the way, mostly, but letting his presence be known, so, when the time came, he could effect the changes he wanted.

It wasn’t as difficult as he thought it might be. There were already many uncommon elements in the original building plans. The few changes that John instituted on site weren’t questioned. He did have another, separate, contractor do a few things on the lot on two different weekends, in addition to the work the primary contractor was doing.

When the twelve inch ceiling slab was poured, it was covered over with five feet of earth, which brought the monolithic pour for the floor of the quad two feet above grade. John didn’t hang around as much during the construction of the quad itself. There were only a couple of details pertaining to the basement that were involved in the construction of the quad, and once added to the drawings, John was sure that they would be incorporated without any problems.

Knowing it wouldn’t be too much longer that he would need to put up with Bobby on a regular basis, John didn’t mind so much going with him to his Jeep events. Bobby even seemed a bit more mellow. For Bobby, at least.

John continued to check on the progress of the construction of the quad. He also began to equip the basement, but only during weekends, when no one was around, and he could get a load from the old house to the basement under the quad.

He bought a few items specifically for the basement, however, and paid extra for weekend delivery to minimize witnesses. By the time the quad was finished and ready for occupancy, John had already moved in, lock, stock, barrel, and preps. Bobby didn’t even give him a house warming present.

John began to breathe easy. He was even better prepared for disasters, human made or natural, than he had been before the move. And all four units of the quad were rented within a month. Unfortunately, his old house hadn’t sold. He decided to rent it out, too, until it did sell.

The rents from the quad were paying for the entire structure, including the basement. The rent from the house was gravy. It went directly into preps.

Though he was pleased with the new preps, he was beginning to worry about the fact that he might very well need them. Things were really beginning to heat up politically in several spots around the globe, all at the same time. And the effects of global warming were becoming more obvious with the wild weather extremes being experienced around the world.

Kim Jong-il was threatening nuclear war with South Korea and the US.

Hugo Chávez, was rumored to have obtained nuclear weapons from North Korea or Iran, or both. He offered aid and assistance to Mexico to take the Aztlan territory from the US.

Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei announced that Iran was a nuclear power and gave the UN three years to disenfranchise Israel, or else.

Rumors were rife that there was soon to be a political change in Saudi Arabia. A change not favorable to the US and her allies.

Brazil also joined the nuclear club, announcing a small nuclear arsenal, to be used in the case of threats of invasion.

The general population of Russia was showing great unrest with the current leadership of Russia. Crackdowns on dissent activities were beginning to take place by the government. The several crime syndicates that had developed after capitalism had come to Russia were campaigning to keep democracy. There were reports that pitched battles between the gangsters and Communist sympathizers were taking place in several major cities.

The former Soviet republics had suddenly fallen silent.

China was conducting military training exercises along most of its borders and had announced she would be test firing several missiles over the course of the exercises.

Africa was in turmoil. More and more internecine, small scale wars were taking place.

Precious metals prices were climbing daily, as were all types of fuel prices.

One of the hottest summers on record in Europe hadn’t helped things. People in the corn belt in the US had been losing crops due to drought conditions. Now they were suffering an overabundance of rain. There was flooding all across the Mid-West. As November rolled around, a series of storms developing in the North-West Pacific, all headed for South-West Canada and the Western US.

The Pacific Rim was experiencing unprecedented volcanic and earthquake activity.

The inflation rate suddenly began rising, as the Fed poured money into the system to try to reduce and control the foreign debt problem, particularly that with China.

The UN was pressing the United States to take the lead in disarmament, not only of strategic and tactical weapons, but also civilian ownership of small arms, claiming that if the world’s strongest power did so, other countries would follow suit.

The current administration in the United States was showing strong support of the UN call for disarmament. No less than six bills were on the floors of the Senate and the House to restrict civilian ownership of firearms, from a revived Assault Weapons Ban to a complete ban of all weapons, except for military and police.

Prices for all weapons, hi-cap magazines, and ammunition jumped sky-high. John was comfortable with his collection of weapons and accessories, and supply of ammunition. He’d been on a buying program for a long time for arms, ammunition, and accessories, just like he had the buying program for gold.

John stopped those programs and began accumulating cash. He used three banks, all independent of one another, to handle his banking needs. At each bank he had a checking account and a savings account.

He kept his balances in each under the FDIC insurance maximum. If any one of the banks had trouble, he still had funds in the others. But there had once been a Federally mandated ‘Bank Holiday’. There could be again. John began to draw down the balances of each account slowly. Just as he had with the banks, he stashed the cash in several different locations, for safety.

Adam Markum had large fuel tanks on the farm and John paid to have them filled so they would have a sure supply if fuel became hard to get. Adam would keep them topped off, as long as fuel remained available.

John also went in with Adam to purchase both biodiesel production equipment and supplies, and a set of alcohol production stills. The alcohol would stretch their gasoline supply by mixing it with the gasoline to produce E85 fuel.

John didn’t know what else he could do to increase his level of preparedness. What he did do was put a television in his office, tuned to Fox News Channel to monitor the world situation. He also picked up a couple more Ohio Scientific NOAA NWS SAME alert radios. One for his office and one for the Subaru. If anything major happened he would know it as early as it was possible.

It seemed, however, that the old adage was true. If you are prepared for something, that something seldom happens. That was the way it was with John’s preps. All the situations seemed to be calming down. Except the inflation rate. It continued to rise, a bit more slowly, but it was still going up.

John got another big bonus for his work and with gold and silver down somewhat from their highs, began the purchasing program again. He let one his checking accounts grow slightly to cover the increased costs of everything, particularly food. Weather losses, fuel prices, and inflation were bringing the cost of food up slowly, but steadily.

There was nothing more to do, except wait for the other shoe to drop.

Low Profile – Chapter 3

Drop it did. And it wasn’t one of the things that had been bothering John. It was a problem that had fallen off the front pages. Avian Influenza. It was never clear where it got a foothold. It was clear that it spread from the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport after a blizzard had closed the airport for two days, just before Christmas.

Two weeks into the New Year cases of human transmitted Avian Flu began to show up in ever increasing numbers all around the US, and in several cities around the world. Adam’s wife June was a nurse, and both her parents were doctors and preppers. On June’s advice, John began taking a series of Cipro as a precautionary measure. It was one of many medications that he had stockpiled, thanks to Melissa and Jack McCullen, June’s parents.

The US essentially shut down. It wasn’t martial law, but it was close. Everyone not in a critical industry was instructed to stay home, isolated, until the disease ran out of new bodies to infect. There were heavy losses in the medical profession, despite extreme sanitation measures.

John had no problem sitting out the first wave of the illness. The company shut down for three weeks, but advanced the employees a month’s wages to carry them through. John cashed the check and added it to his cash reserves.

He spent the three weeks in the basement shelter, watching the news for local and national information, and listening to shortwave broadcasts for international news of the event. He also monitored the HF shortwave bands for information not semi-controlled by the government the way commercial broadcast news was.

Once, he thought of Bobby, whom he hadn’t seen in months. John quickly put the thought out of his head. Bobby was a big boy. He could fend for himself.

John worried a bit that the natural disaster of the flu might encourage adventurism by some aggressive countries, but nothing happened, other than the loss of life all around the world.

Despite the early outbreak in the US, the country lost fewer people to the disease than many other countries, due to relatively good medical care. There were sixty-million deaths with another sixty-million hospitalized patients, recovering slowly.

Worldwide, the losses were higher in many places, upward of thirty-five percent dead and an additional twenty-percent hospitalized. Some nations with little medical infrastructure suffered much higher losses. Countries like Sweden and Switzerland had lower losses, due to their medical care. Australia had heavy losses in the cities, but many of the isolated small towns and independent ranches had very low loss rates.

John lost two of the four renters in his quadraplex. Disinfecting living and working spaces was a new booming business. He had the two units disinfected and was able to rent them again. With the inflation, rental rates had gone up, but with more availability and less demand, the rates dropped. John broke out about even, the rates on his quad units going back to what they were when he first rented them out.

Adam’s extended family came through with flying colors. None had come down with the disease.

The pandemic created a mixed bag of effects. Due to the great loss of human life, many items were in surplus, and prices for those items fell. Other items, because of labor intensive production, were scarce, with attendant higher prices. There did seem to be a trend. Necessities went up, luxuries went down.

Food was one of the necessities that went up. Adam was able to finance, at good rates, additional land for farming, and add two greenhouses to the four that he already operated.

Fuel continued to go up, as well. Adam hired two additional hands and set up the biodiesel and alcohol production units to start making fuel. Half of the additional land he had acquired would go to producing fuel crops. He put in two additional irrigation wells and pumps.

Two of the things that dropped in cost, despite the still pending legislation to ban them, were firearms and ammunition. Of the sixty-million dead in America, a significant number had been gun owners. All types of firearms came onto the market, at very low prices.

John hit a small bonanza in finding the families of three different preparedness oriented men that had died during the pandemic. The families were looking to sell the preps, except for food, that the men had accumulated over the years.

John offered above the going rate to buy the entire lot of items in each case and took home several good acquisitions for his armory. He doubled his ammunition stocks. The firearms and ammunition he didn’t want he held, expecting prices to jump again. Many other items that the men had he sold and used the proceeds to buy more gold and silver coins.

After asking some leading questions, John also got maps from two of the families. They were maps of the men’s caches. One of them had accompanying lists of the cache contents. The third man either didn’t have caches, or had not put down their location on hard copy form.

John took a couple of days off and went looking for the caches. Both men had good descriptions with map coordinates and landmarks. Both also had global positioning satellite coordinates. The caches were easy to find. John left them as they were.

It bothered him a bit to acquire the items the way he was. Those men had labored for years to build up their preps. He was getting them for dimes on the dollar. But the families would have sold them in any case.

Much to John’s surprise, gold and silver were coming down sharply in price. It seemed much of the second and third world peoples that had put away gold for emergencies, had turned it loose to get them through the tough days of the pandemic.

Taking advantage of that situation didn’t bother John at all. He began buying all he could, as the rates continued to drop. But the situation didn’t last long. People were still people and nature was still nature. Neither were stable for very long.

The pandemic was the trigger for the return of Communism to Russia and the former Soviet Republics. The new Communist government began to solicit many of the former countries that had been in the USSR sphere of influence to rejoin them voluntarily. What would happen if they didn’t was left hanging.

China began to close its borders again.

Suddenly the number of illegal border crossings along the US/Mexico fell dramatically. Some said it was because of the fence now going up, but that project had barely started. There were even a discernable number of illegals returning to Mexico and the Central American countries from the US.

The I-10 War broke out on a Sunday, with Mexico and Venezuela declaring war on the United States, with the announced intention of Mexico reclaiming the historical Aztlan territories of the Southwest US. Mexico submitted an appeal for the United Nations to support them in their endeavor. To declare the historic Aztlan territories a part of Mexico.

Los Angeles was taken without an official shot being fired, by a small army that had entered the US as illegal aliens over several years. That is not to say there wasn’t fighting. Despite the gun laws of California, many gun owners began an immediate guerrilla action against the attacking force. Racial and religious prejudices on both sides resulted in numerous atrocities.

As Los Angeles was being taken over, Houston met a similar fate, with an in-place army augmented with Mexican troops off loaded from Chinese controlled ships. Houston was cut off, but there was no real attempt to enter the city in force.

Additional Mexican troops closed all border crossings and poured combatants northward, supported by troops from Venezuela. The largest group headed up I-25. US forces were slow to respond, though locals, as they had in Los Angeles, began fighting on their own, with heavy losses. There was much more air cover for the attack than had ever been expected. Reports began to come in that many of the planes were flown by Chinese looking pilots.

Congress was called to immediate session and the President, with approval of the Congress, declared war on Mexico and Venezuela. The President also warned China to get out of the conflict, if they were in it.

The Mexican and Venezuela armies hit the I-10 at several points and began to spread out on a front from Los Angeles to Houston. By Monday noon, the US military was retaliating. But Hugo Chavez announced that if the US didn’t step back and allow the take over, the battle would go nuclear.

The President reined in the Armed Forces, insisting on a holding action along the I-10. They were not to cross the interstate under any circumstances. The situation would be evaluated and a decision would be forthcoming.

John watched the news coverage with amazement. It was inconceivable to him that the President was hesitating. John wasn’t alone in his amazement. By Wednesday millions of Americans were protesting the lack of response of the US government. State after state had groups of armed citizens preparing to head for the border, blood in their eyes.

When that became obvious, the President declared martial law, instituted curfews, and restricted travel to Federal Government approved reasons. There weren’t many reasons for travel listed.

All the while Mexico was consolidating its positions south of I-10. It was allowing refugees to move north, out of the invasion area. But they were allowed to leave only with the clothes on their backs. All other possessions were being confiscated.

All states’ National Guard units were Federalized. Those states that had internal State Militias began to fortify their borders. Even northern states not likely to come under attack.

The President never said what she would have done to break the stalemate, if Chavez, apparently acting on impulse, without consultation with President Fox of Mexico, launched three missiles from Venezuela northward.

Though the Air Force tried, they were unable to counter the missiles. Chavez proved he had not been kidding when he had announced the possession of nuclear weapons. Seattle, Omaha, and Chicago were hit with one-megaton nuclear weapons. Massive evacuations were begun around and down-wind of the three cities.

The President didn’t waver any more. Nuclear tipped cruise missiles were launched at Caracas, Venezuela and Mexico City, Mexico. US Forces were allowed to push the invading armies back into Mexico, though the ground forces were ordered to stop at the border. To the surprise of the members of the Joint Chief of Staff, they were ordered to eliminate the Mexican and Venezuelan Air Forces and to seize the Venezuelan oil fields.

Another big surprise were the orders to escort all known Chinese shipping out of US territorial waters. An embargo was imposed on Chinese shipping to the US. All products from China would have to be on non-Chinese ships. Many, convinced of China’s duplicity in the I-10 War, wanted much more aggressive measures.


Hugo Chavez and Vicenti Fox were both killed by sniper fire a few days after the attacks within the borders of their countries. Venezuela and Mexico both surrendered unconditionally two days later.

It took several weeks to ferret out the leaders of the Aztlan Movement in and around Los Angeles and their army. Many small battles continued to occur during the process.

Though it was illegal, Hispanic Heritage people all over the US were being driven from their homes and sent back to Mexico by locals. Only those that looked or sounded Hispanic that could show long term American citizenship were allowed to stay in many places.

The camps that weren’t there opened up and took in the refugees from the targeted cities that had no other place to go. But many people relocated themselves.

Three weeks after the nuclear attack on the American cities, people were allowed to begin to return to their homes in the fallout affected areas. It was a staged return, as the radiation levels fell closer and closer to the targets. There were multitudes of occurrences of looting in the affected areas, despite martial law and travel restrictions having been emplaced early in the war. There were also many cases of radiation sickness of the looters that had stayed to loot and hadn’t evacuated.

Quite a few people had refused to evacuate for reasons other than looting and received fatal doses of radiation. The number of cases of radiation sickness that didn’t turn out to be immediately fatal numbered in the millions. The US health care system, already decimated by the Avian Flu, was overwhelmed again by the cases of radiation sickness.

The UN condemned the US for its use of nuclear weapons, even though it was in retaliation to those used against it. More calls for unilateral disarmament were voiced. Though those calls for strategic and tactical weapons were ignored, the US administration again called for total civilian disarmament.

Both sides cited the use of personal weapons during the war and its aftermath, for and against private ownership of firearms. It was a controversy that wasn’t going to go away this time.

Despite the recent war and the efforts of gun owners across the country, another gun ban went into effect. It wasn’t nearly the law that anti-gunners wanted, but then again, it did restrict availability of some arms, and as importantly, ammunition.

Full auto weapons were still covered by the old law. Bolt action, lever action, and break-open action shoulder arms need were taxed yearly at $25.00 if they had magazine capacities of ten rounds or less. If more than ten round magazine capacity, a $50.00 yearly tax applied.

Break open action handguns, and single action, and double action revolvers, again with a limit of ten round capacity, were taxed yearly at $100.00 each. If over ten round capacity the tax was $200.00 each, per year.

Shoulder arms and handguns of .50 caliber or larger, no matter what type of action, were restricted to special license holders, at $1,000.00 per year for the license and $1,000.00 per year per weapon.

Semi-auto firearms with fixed magazines of more than ten rounds were taxed at $200.00 per year. Semi-auto firearms with removable magazines were taxed at $500.00 per year. Magazines over ten rounds had a purchase tax of $100.00, but were not taxed on a yearly basis.

All weapons did have to be re-registered each year and the tax paid.

A special purchase tax was also placed on the purchase of ammunition. No more than fifty rounds of any caliber ammunition could be purchased at one time, and there was a purchase tax of $25.00 dollars per transaction, no matter what quantity was purchased. Multiple calibers could be purchased at one time, but no more than three.

Rim-fire ammunition was in a separate class. It could only be purchased one 500 round ‘brick’, or the equivalent, at a time, and there was a $50.00 tax on the sale.

Firearm sales were limited to no more than one per month, six per year. Ammunition was limited to 1,000 rounds per caliber per year center fire, 5,000 rounds rim-fire.

Amazingly, private sales were not banned or taxed, though the new owner was supposed to register the firearm within ten days of the purchase and pay that year’s tax on the firearm. Pre-1900 cartridge firearms lost their exemptions. All cartridge arms fell under the new laws. Non-cartridge firearms were still exempt.

With the high taxes on the arms, magazines, and ammunition; and the tough penalties for non-compliance; hundreds of thousands of firearms came onto the market. The actual price of most weapons dropped like rocks, even as the cost of owning them skyrocketed. The BATFE was quadrupled in size and tasked with actively enforcing the new laws. Existing registration records were used by one division to begin collecting taxes on weapons already registered. Another division went after current sales to ensure registration and tax collection.

The war didn’t affect John much. He was able to continue to work, and when food deliveries were delayed due to the war and the travel restrictions that also applied to commercial trucks, John simply used a bit more of his LTS (Long Term Storage) food in a regular rotation.

He put in order to replace what extra he was using, but was put on a long back order list. There were thousands of new preppers now, due to the recent events. All the prep companies were receiving record numbers of orders. That included shelter manufacturers. The various internet prep and survival forums too were getting enormous numbers of hits every day as people looked to lock the barn door after the horse was gone.

John, like many others, took advantage of the reduced prices of firearms and greatly added to his collection. He was very careful to screen any and all offers, to make sure he wouldn’t get caught in a sting. He passed up quite a few offers due to that fact. But he picked up quite a few firearms, and ammunition with most of them.

His Savage 99, Stoeger Coach Gun, and Colt 1911A1 were registered and he paid the taxes up front as soon as the law took affect. He bought two additional guns, from individuals, for his Cowboy Collection, and registered and paid the yearly tax on them. A Marlin 1895 Cowboy lever action .45/70 and a Ruger New Blackhawk .45 ACP/.45 Colt convertible. They, like the Savage, Stoeger, and Colt, were somewhat Politically Correct.

John also sold a couple of unregistered weapons, to get bills of sale. Of the weapons he’d bought over the last couple of years were two high tax weapons that he didn’t particularly care for. He didn’t mind loosing them to get on the record as getting rid of that type of weapon. Both were AR-15 clones that had been somewhat abused. He let six magazines go with the weapons. They too, were in less than perfect condition.

All his other weapons were unregistered, un-papered, and well hidden. When the BATFE showed up, twice, his paper work on the five guns he kept at his house satisfied the officers and they left, convinced he was on the up and up. One visit was for the original three firearms, and the second visit for the two new purchases. Both times the officers ran all the weapons through their check system.

John wasn’t really sure why he was accumulating so many weapons, but he couldn’t pass up the deals. He had picked up quite a few items to add to his armory. He considered it good and quit while he was ahead.

There was a lot of unrest in the country, with food availability still marginal and prices high. Another factor for the unrest was the increasing cost of fuel, despite the US holding the Venezuelan oil fields. And inflation was growing faster and faster as money was being printed to cover the costs of cleanup and recovery from the war.

The lack of the illegal, and much of the legal, immigration work force was driving prices up and contributing to the inflation. A few businesses, including the one John worked for, began giving quarterly cost-of-living raises to their employees, due to the inflation.

The new Soviet Union, was doing no better under the communist rule than they had under capitalist rule. The Soviet Union began dumping gold to buy wheat again, while still increasing its military capability.

The Chinese, having been buying gold for several years for its strategic reserves suddenly quit buying, despite the sudden drop in price. It caught most financial analysts by surprise. John understood how inflation worked, and began turning his slowly depreciating cash holding into gold as soon as the falling price trend became apparent. He knew the downward trend couldn’t last long, and it didn’t.

In the three weeks of declining prices, John converted seventy-percent of his cash on hand to gold coins, with another ten percent going to silver coins, all through paperless transactions.

When the trend stopped and reversed, it happened overnight, the price going from the previous day’s low of $425.00 per ounce, to $1,200.00 an ounce the next morning at the London Price Fixing, after the Asian markets had gone wild after they opened.

A week later and the US Congress had passed legislation to restrict the ownership of gold and silver, and recall almost all bullion forms of both, including bullion coins, at a set price of $300.00 per ounce gold, and $3.00 per ounce silver. The first five ounces of gold, and the first one-hundred ounces of silver, per person, was exempted.

The free market price of gold jumped to $2,275.00 per ounce. The price of platinum and palladium skyrocketed as they were not controlled. Sales records of precious metals retailers were seized across the nation to track down the hundreds of thousands of ounces now in private hands in the United States. Large rewards were offered to those that would turn in those that had undocumented metals.

Only those that had bought the precious metals privately, or through dealers that kept no records, were able to hang on to anything but a token amount. As he had done with firearms, John had a small amount of gold and silver with a paper trail. Ten ounces of gold, and two-hundred-fifty ounces of silver. He turned in his required five ounces of gold and one-hundred-fifty ounces of silver and collected the nominal payment from the government early in the process.

Shortly thereafter a hoarding law was passed. No person or family could have on hand more than a thirteen month supply of food. Anyone caught with more would have all but a three month’s subsistence supply confiscated for redistribution by the government. That included home preserved food. ‘Meat on the hoof’ was exempt.

Purchase records of LTS food retailers and buying clubs were used to target ‘survivalists’. As with precious metals, large rewards were offered to those that would turn in anyone that they thought had more than ‘their fair share’ of food.

Though always careful, John became even more low profile than he had been in the past. He made sure his working pantry held under a six month supply of a combination of LTS and grocery store foods. Some of the LTS food he purchased was on the record, but it was a small enough amount that the rotational use would explain it away.

He was glad he’d been careful. His name did come up in the record search and he was visited by the ‘food cops’ as they were known. There was some doubt about his use of the food over the period of time he had purchased it, but the several open and partially used cans in his pantry convinced them that he was just a lazy spendthrift and preferred the freeze-dried and dehydrated foods as they were easy to prepare, and cheaper in bulk. After all, he did live in a very cold basement, didn’t he?

The draconian gun laws had been for the safety of the children. The precious metals recall was to finance the reconstruction of the country after the war and for the damage the global warming generated storms was causing. The hoarding laws were to ensure everyone got their fair share of the slowly diminishing food supply caused by global warming. Citing the need for stability during trying times, the President, with the backing of two-thirds of Congress, postponed Federal Elections for the duration of the crisis.

Slowly more restrictions on travel were enacted, ‘because of the shortages of fuel’. Travel documents were required for any trip more than a hundred miles from one’s registered home. The implanted ID chip became mandatory. A Federal monitoring force was set up to enforce the new laws.

When the President announced that the internet would soon be censored by the Federal Government, again to protect the children, the American people were on the verge of revolt.

Too many had been looking internally for month after month as liberties were taken away. Only some, those like John, had been keeping their eyes on the world situation, primarily by shortwave broadcasts, as the news organizations had almost stopped any coverage outside the United States.

All the old problems around the world were still there and beginning to heat up again, one after the other. Most of the world powers began to think of the US as a second rate power. Many of them seemed to decide to take advantage of that at the same time. But all still feared the ferocity that could suddenly emerge when the nation was threatened.

The Chinese and the USSR had been on again off again ‘friends’. They were on again, and both wanted to rise once again to their former glory days. On July Forth, with two hurricanes bearing down on the Southeast coasts of America, and deadly storms dropping tornados all over Tornado Alley, China and the USSR launched a nuclear missile attack on the United States.

Unfortunately for both countries, several high ranking members of the US military had planned a coup for the Fourth of July. It will never be known if the President would have commanded the nuclear forces available to her to counter launch. Those in the coup did not hesitate. Orders went out to launch a retaliatory strike.

It wasn’t a couple of nukes here, a couple there. Every nation on earth that had a grudge with another attacked them. Those with nuclear weapons used them without mercy. It was worldwide nuclear war.