Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2) (7 page)

“DON’T CALL THEM THAT!” Jenning snapped.

Luke colored and nodded. “You’re right, Doctor, I apologize. But as I was saying, I don’t think we should allow the REFugees uncontrolled access to the swimming club facilities. We set up our container wall around the swimming club so we could clean the pool and cover it to use it as drinking water storage, and that whole facility is now our forward base and defensive strong point. We have absolutely no way to vet the refugees, and if we allow them free access in and out of our fortified area, we don’t really know who might come in.” He paused. “From a security standpoint, it’s a very bad idea.”

“Agreed,” the colonel said, turning to Jennings. “You’ll get your sewage system, Doctor, but the swim club facility remains off-limits to all but authorized personnel.”

“But there are ten toilets there! Maybe we could reposition the wall between the clubhouse and the pool—”

“Jesus Christ,” Butler muttered, unable to contain his irritation, and Jennings whirled on him, obviously intent on dressing him down.

“ENOUGH!” Hunnicutt said. “The issue is settled. Flushing water will be restored to all country club facilities, but the swimming club is off-limits to all but authorized personnel. We’ll look at the possibility of finding portable toilets that can be tied into the fixed system. Now, next issue.” He looked down at his notepad. “Mr. Van Horn, how are we coming with getting food to the refugees?”

A slender man with wire-rim glasses looked over at Hunnicutt and shrugged. “We’re starting to provide some calories, Colonel, but I can’t call it more than that.”

Terry Van Horn, ex-chief steward on the
Maersk Tangier
, had been appointed ‘food czar’ by acclamation and over his own strong objections. When Hunnicutt scoured the skills inventory of his small but growing group within the confines of Fort Box, he hadn’t neglected either the American or foreign merchant ships. Between the ‘culinary specialists’ (aka cooks) of his own National Guard unit and the steward’s departments of the various ships, he had no shortage of people who could cook for large groups, with a ‘large group’ defined as twenty to a hundred or so. Feeding thousands of refugees was a different matter entirely, and when it came out that Van Horn had regularly volunteered for various Third World famine relief efforts, putting him in charge was a no-brainer.

Van Horn continued. “That many folks, all I can hope to do is get some calories down ’em. I pulled one cook and a couple of stewards from each of the ships to work with me, along with most of your culinary people. We stripped the ships of every big stew pot we could find, and we been using your field kitchen to boil corn from one of the grain ships into a gruel and throwing in some of the canned seafood and meat from the containers for protein. I got no seasonings to speak of, especially not for the volume of food we have to put out. Even at that and workin’ almost round the clock, we can only manage to get out one meal a day. As more people come in, I’m not even sure we’ll be able to maintain that.” He shook his head. “It’ll keep ’em alive, but quite frankly, it looks like crap and tastes the same. I’d be ashamed to serve it if it wasn’t the best we could produce in bulk.”

“We know it’s tough and we appreciate the job you and your people are doing,” Hunnicutt said, to nods around the table.

Van Horn shook his head. “Thank you, Colonel, but the truth is, this isn’t gonna work much longer. We got plenty of grain, but as the population grows, we don’t have the manpower, equipment, or time to cook it fast enough. Yesterday we started running low, but one of my guys spotted it in time, so they started cutting down on the portion size and just made it to the end of the line. The day the food runs out before the line runs out is the day we’re likely to have a food riot. I’ve seen it before and it ain’t pretty.” He paused and said softly, “Never thought I’d see it here though.”

The room grew quiet a long moment as the others considered the possibility.

Wright broke the silence. “This sucks! We have so much grain in the ships and grain terminal it’s likely to rot before we can get it distributed, and we’ll be starving people we likely won’t be able to feed for lack of resources.”

“We need more manpower,” Hunnicutt agreed. “How’s recruitment coming?”

“No shortage of people who want to join us,” Butler said, “but vetting them to make sure they have the skills they claim is a full-time job. I mean, they’re desperate, boss. Ask for crane operators and everyone raises their hand. Same with mechanics or forklift drivers. I doubt it would be any different if we asked for nuclear physicists.”

Jennings sighed. “That’s true, I’m afraid. Of the five ‘nurses’ we took in yesterday, I doubt half of them had so much as ever emptied a bedpan. They’re all willing workers, but not knowing who I can trust makes it hard. Fortunately, we got two more docs yesterday, but—”

“Then there’s your answer,” Hunnicutt said. “If you didn’t have the docs before, they’re a bonus and won’t be missed, so re-task one. Put him or her in charge of vetting all the incoming medical personnel. Either that or spread vetting duty over your qualified medical staff as it grows. Butler, you do the same in the other areas. If you need crane operators, put a crane operator in charge of finding them. The people doing the job are the most qualified to decide if the new recruits are blowing smoke, AND they’ll be the most motivated to resist bringing in screwups, since they’ll be working closely with the new folks.”

Everyone nodded and Hunnicutt looked over at Van Horn. “And perhaps you could find some cooks to help you from among the refugees, Mr. Van Horn.”

“What we’re doing isn’t exactly cooking, Colonel, so warm bodies to help shouldn’t be a problem. But manpower isn’t my real problem. What I need is big-ass pots and burners to put ’em on,” Van Horn said.

Hunnicutt turned toward Butler, but the man was already scribbling on his notepad. “I’ll have someone search the bills of lading to see if there’s anything of use in the containers, and ask the engineers if they can figure out some way to expand your kitchen facilities,” Butler said to Van Horn, who nodded his thanks.

Hunnicutt glanced at his watch and down at his notepad. “Anything else?”

When everyone shook their heads, he nodded. “Okay, folks, let’s get back to work.”

People started filing from the room, but Hunnicutt motioned for Luke, Wright, and Butler to keep their seats. Jennings was halfway to the door when she noticed the men still sitting and turned to Hunnicutt, her eyebrows raised.

“A private meeting, Colonel?” she asked.

“Security issues, Doctor. I’m sure they’d be a waste of your valuable time and bore you to tears besides. Would you please close the door on your way out?”

Her look communicated her disapproval more eloquently than any words, and when she left, the closing of the door was just short of a slam.

“I think you pissed the good doctor off,” Butler said.

“So it appears, and I truly regret that. She’s good people, and she’ll make a big difference. She IS making a difference,” Hunnicutt corrected himself, then shook his head. “The problem is she thinks we can save everyone, and we all know that’s impossible.”

The others nodded as Hunnicutt turned to Luke. “Was that a chopper I heard, Major?”

“Yes, sir. It’s what held me up. That’s the third overflight in as many days, so it appears the FEMA folks are taking an increasing interest. I had Lieutenant Washington set a round-the-clock sky watch,” Luke said.

“Good,” Hunnicutt said. “Given your recent ‘association’ with our FEMA friends, do you have any insights into how much of a threat they might be?”

Luke shook his head. “Just very generally. We were only with the Special Reaction Force a couple of weeks, but my gut feeling is they won’t have the stomach for a stand-up fight. Intimidation and bullying the defenseless seems to be more their MO. They may make a lot of noise, but as long as we show our teeth, I think we can hold them at bay.”

“Let’s hope you’re right, Major. We sure as hell don’t need to add a combat mission to everything else we’ve got on our plates.” Hunnicutt turned to Wright. “But if that comes to pass, how do we stand on readiness, Lieutenant?”

“Just over eighty combat effectives, sir, counting the Coasties and the men that came in with Major Kinsey here. I can up that a bit as we place civilian recruits in some of the support roles, like cooks, mechanics and so forth. They aren’t line troops, but they’ve all had at least basic weapons training and we can put them on the wall with a rifle if we have to. But we’ll max out at a hundred shooters.” Wright paused. “That’s as many as we can arm anyway, and ammo is a concern, especially for the crew-served weapons. They’re key to our defense, and if we have to hold off a sustained attack, those machine guns will burn through ammo like a house afire.”

“We might be able to get some ammo from the Military Ocean Terminal downriver,” Butler said. “The Coast Guard used to help them enforce an ‘exclusion zone’ around their wharfs, and I’m familiar with their facility, the part of it closest to the river, anyway. I was also pretty tight with a couple of NCOs that helped run the place.”

Hunnicutt looked skeptical. “That’s an Army facility, and I have no clue how the regular military is leaning. However, I doubt they’re just going to hand out ammunition because we ask nicely.”

“Maybe, maybe not, sir,” Butler said. “It was actually kind of a hybrid operation and mostly civilian. The place is huge, much bigger than most people realize, and they used a lot of technology-based security to guard the place—CCTV, motion-detector-based alarms, stuff like that. None of that will be working now, and given how everything has gone to hell, we might just be able to slip in and grab some ammo at a five-fingered discount. With your permission, I’d like to do some recon and check it out.”

Hunnicutt hesitated, then nodded. “Okay, go have a look, and JUST a look. We’ll decide what to do based on what you find. And be careful, making an enemy of the Army is the last thing we need at this point. Put together a small team and go when you’re ready.”

“Yes, sir,” Butler said and shot Luke a ‘let’s talk later’ look.

“Now,” Hunnicutt said, looking back and forth between Wright and Butler, “and before you two get your noses out of joint, you should know that I asked Major Kinsey here to have a look at our defenses. Given his much more recent deployment in the Sandbox, he’s the only one with recent experience in setting up forward bases in hostile areas, and I figured we can benefit from a fresh set of eyes.”

Wright grunted. “No problem here. I’d much prefer to be alive than admired for my work.”

“Same here,” Butler said, “I was a life saver, not a fort builder.”

“Good,” Hunnicutt said, nodding toward Luke. “You have the floor, Major.”

“Okay,” Luke said, “first let me say I’m blown away by what you guys have accomplished in such a short time. No one could have done a better job of establishing a defensive position with the materials at hand. I wouldn’t have done a single thing differently as far as the defensive walls go. Establishing clear fields of fire between the walls and the original terminal fence was an especially good move. I only have one suggestion.”

“Which is?” Hunnicutt asked.

“I think we have to take preemptive measures to keep the refugee population further away from the walls. You’ve set the relief station at the country club some distance away, which is a good thing, but it’s still relatively close to us here. Despite your best efforts, the population will expand in this direction. They’re desperate people, and they’ll quickly figure out we’re the source of the food and water, and they’ll all want in. If we allow a lot of them to concentrate here, it could get ugly.”

“So how exactly can we prevent that?” Wright asked.

“We need to set a perimeter much further out, as far out as we can without running into the gangbangers. We barricade all the roads in but Shipyard Boulevard with a container across the road, and put No Entry signage all around the perimeter to create an exclusion zone. We then enforce it with roving vehicle patrols on a random schedule so the bangers can’t figure out a routine and try to ambush us.”

Wright was shaking his head. “We can’t possibly hope to stop people. That barrier will be porous as hell. They’ll just walk around it.”

“You’re not expected to stop everyone,” Luke said, “just discourage them from getting too near the fort. The signs and barriers will deter most of them, and a certain percentage of those who do slip through will be rounded up and politely but firmly returned to the camp. If we have repeat offenders, we can figure out some way to deal with them at the time.”

“Extra patrols is extra manpower we don’t have,” Butler pointed out.

“Not extra,” Luke said, “just task every third or fourth regular patrol headed out to patrol the route between here and the refugee camp with swinging through a portion of the exclusion zone. When we turn back a few people and return them to the camp, word will get out.”

The room grew quiet as they considered Luke’s plan.

“Worth a try,” Wright said.

“Agreed,” Butler added.

“That makes it unanimous. Set it up, gentlemen,” Hunnicutt said, glancing down at his notepad again. “Which brings me to the last item on my agenda, the census; where do we stand, Lieutenant Butler.”

Butler nodded. “As of this morning, counting military and dependents, the other civilians we brought in with us, all the merchant ship crews and the terminal personnel, and other folks we’ve recruited so far”—he glanced down at his pad—”eleven hundred and sixty-three, sir.”

“And what’s our capacity within the walls, best guess?” Hunnicutt asked.

“If we max out the living quarters we have now and start converting some of the empty containers to housing, we can probably shelter another two thousand people, maybe twenty-five hundred,” Butler said. “We can push out the walls and accommodate more, but space isn’t really the problem at that point, it’s water. The engineers tell me they can probably make enough water to support three thousand total, at least until the diesel in their fuel tanks and the terminal starts to go off-spec in a year to two years. They’re working on some solar-powered options for the longer term, but no way those will produce near enough water for that many folks. They’re thinking maybe a stable long-term permanent population of fifteen hundred, with a bit of reserve for short-term increases.”