Jerry complied, and Deon wrapped the C-4 plastic explosive material around the arrows, then, using a knife to cut off the arrow heads, replaced them with blasting caps. He did four arrows that way.
“Now,” he said. “When we go in, we are going to go in heavy.”
“Clear!” Bob shouted as he pulled the starter trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Is that a helicopter I hear?” John asked.
“It is, yes,” Jake said. “I hear it, but I don’t see it.”
“It’s close,” John said. “Look, they hear it too.” John pointed to the men who were standing by the barricade. They could be seen searching the sky and talking to each other, obviously looking for the helicopter.
Suddenly a Huey popped up just over the roof of the houses along the beach. “Damn! That’s our Huey!” John said. “Who the hell is flying it?”
Jake laughed. “It has to be Bob,” he said.
The helicopter did a quick pass by the barricade, and Jake saw an arrow streaming down.
“What the hell? He’s shooting arrows at them?”
There was a loud explosion where the arrow hit, the blast big enough to throw several of the refrigerators around.
Jake laughed out loud. “C-4!” he said. “They’ve put C-4 on the arrows!”
The helicopter made another pass. This time Jake and John could see tracer bullets coming from the cargo door. There was also a second arrow fired, and another explosion.
Some of the men at the refrigerator barricade started shooting back at the helicopter, but the M-240 in the cargo door of the Huey was too much for them and those who weren’t killed began running. The Huey chased down the runners and fired again, until the area was completely cleared of any would-be bandits.
“That old man can handle it, can’t he?” John said.
“Phoenix One, this is Goodnature, do you copy?”
“Goodnature?” Jake replied.
“It was my call sign in Vietnam. I figured I may as well use it again,” Bob said.
“Roger, Goodnature,” Jake answered.
“If you can negotiate the barricade, I’ll fly cover for you back to base,” Bob said.
“We’re on our way,” Jake said.
“If you can’t get through, get out and move one or two aside,” Bob said. “Do not get off the road—if you do you’ll get stuck axle deep in the sand.”
Starting the truck, John drove up to the barricades, then stopped. “We’re going to have to go around,” he said.
“No,” Jake replied. “Bob lives down here, so I’m sure he knows what he is talking about. We’re going to have to push a couple of the refrigerators out of the way.”
John put the truck in neutral, and he and Jake got out and started pushing refrigerators aside until they had opened a path big enough for the truck to get through.
“I think we can do it now,” Jake said.
“Yeah, we’ve got it made in the shade,” John said with a happy laugh.
Jake heard the solid thunk of the bullet hitting John. Blood and brain detritus erupted from the wound on the side of John’s head and he fell toward Jake.
Jake caught him, and held him up.
“John! John!” he called.
John didn’t reply, and as Jake made a closer examination of him, he realized that he was dead.
Another bullet whistled by Jake’s head, coming so close that he could hear the pop of as it snapped by his ear. The only weapon Jake had with him was the pistol he was wearing on his belt. He jumped behind the refrigerator then tried to look for the shooter. The only thing he knew was that the shot had come from the row of houses nearest the beach.
Jake could hear the radio in his truck, but he couldn’t get to it.
“Phoenix, this is Goodnature. Keep your head down.”
A moment later the Huey passed low overhead with the machine gun firing from one cargo door and an M-16 from the other. It zoomed up over the beach houses, then made a circle back. This time there was no fire coming from the helicopter.
“Phoenix, target neutralized. You are clear to proceed,” Bob’s voice said.
Jake waved at the helicopter; then he picked John’s body up and put it in the cab of the truck. Starting the truck, he managed to pick through the rubble and residue until he was on the other side of the barricade. Now, with an empty highway, and the truck running on gasoline so that the engine was at full efficiency, he opened up. Running at eighty miles an hour, it was all the Huey could do to stay with him, until he pulled in to the fort.
The Huey landed shortly after Jake arrived.
“Jake!” Karin said, running to him as he stepped down from the truck. She threw her arms around him in gratitude over his survival, but her joy over seeing Jake was mollified when she realized that John was dead.
Ellen greeted Bob and Gaye greeted Jerry with equal enthusiasm as they stepped out of the helicopter.
“I was so worried about you,” Ellen said.
“Why were you worried? Not one bullet came close.”
“I wasn’t worried about you getting shot. I was worried that you might not be as good a pilot as you think you are.”
“Trust me, Ellen,” Jake said. “I’ve never seen a helicopter handled better. For an old man, he did damn well.”
“Poor John,” Karin said.
“That’s two that we’ve lost,” Jake said. “Clay and John. I don’t plan on us losing anyone else.”
In the next three months after John was killed, the men and women who called themselves Phoenix turned the fort into a comfortable and sustainable community. The garden was productive and Jake, harking back to his Amish background, led the others in canning food. They had acquired the jars necessary by raiding the many empty houses up and down the beach.
The motel was complete and comfortable, each unit equipped with a fireplace for warmth in the coming winter. They also had electricity, James having installed solar panels complete with batteries, a charge controller, and inverters. That gave them heat and electricity, and with the desalination device, they had an unlimited supply of water. Bob had even brought his TV down and hooked it up to the same satellite dish he had used back at his house. The others had teased him about it, but he said it comforted him to see it, because it gave the illusion of normalcy.
Jerry and James kept the little community well stocked with fish, fowl, and game, and on this Thanksgiving Day, they were preparing a feast equal to any they had ever enjoyed before.
“Before this, Thanksgiving only really meant two things to me,” Bob said. “Food and football.”
“You got that right,” Deon said.
“But this year I believe it is more meaningful to me than it has ever been in the past. I mean, when you think about it, our Thanksgiving here is not all that different from the first Thanksgiving. We can truly be thankful that we have survived this long and now are at the point where we are not only surviving, we are thriving.”
“Yeah, well, there is the food too,” Willie said. “Those geese smell so good my stomach is really growling.”
“We have a lot to be thankful for,” Jake said. “So if nobody minds, I’m going to say a blessing before we eat.”
“I think that would be a very good idea,” Bob said.
“Jake,” Becky said, “maybe you could add an extra blessing.”
“Sure, I’d be glad to,” he said. “What is it for?”
Becky looked over at Karin. “You can tell them,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and praying about it,
