MacArthur's Freehold

Chapter 62

Chapter 62 -- OKPFCRLFNYCXYBCXZAVGJZSR

The final touches in place, the first use of the new 'command post', as Carter called it, began. Grant Meredith, who lived downstate near the I-70 corridor connecting Kansas City and St. Louis, had come up to help. He, along with some family and friends, made up one of the smallest freeholds, with a handful of families living on contiguous properties of several acres each.

"OK, folks" Grant said. "Let's see what we have." He flipped switches of a control panel on a small table which was flanked by two larger ones, each holding a number of computers. In front of the tables, several large television screens were mounted on the wall. Their signal inputs could be switched between the satellite receivers and the computers.

With all the equipment powered on, they began checking the functionality. They had been working since early in the morning, and it was well past noon.

"Anyone not ready to eat" Jessica asked.

"I thought you'd never ask" Grant grinned. "What's on the menu?"

"Since we're running late, it looks like pizza, whatever else we can find to go with it. Let's take a look."

Grant followed her and Carter into the kitchen and helped unbox some pizzas and get them in the oven, opening chips and dip.

"You weren't planning on driving back tonight, were you?" Jessica asked.

"I can stay over if you have a place" Grant said. "Probably shouldn't be on the road after it gets dark. Let me give Lisa a call." Lisa was his wife, and he gave the impression that they were a close-knit family, as most freeholder families were.

"In that case, you want a beer?" she said.

"Stop twisting my arm." Grant laughed.

She was in a pretty good mood, Carter thought. The events of last few days had put a cloud over things, one that wasn't likely to go away any time soon, but she was holding up well.

The food ready, the began setting the table in the dining room and spent a relaxing hour before returning to the command post.

They set the televisions to the major news channels, and Tommy and James used their computers to monitor a couple of the most useful of the web sites that they now called 'resistance channels', watching the chatter as the television provided the official version of the news.

They watched the coverage of the collapsed transmission tower in Arizona, briefly turning up the volume to see if there were any developments. It seemed a reason for the separation of the tower from its foundation had not yet been found.

"Was that one of ours?" Carter asked.

"Yes, it was" Donald said. "Our operatives used thermite to melt the bolts holding the tower legs to the base. It was a big job, on such a big tower, but it worked. Over the past couple of years we've built a substantial stockpile of thermite, along with various explosives, incendiaries, and other things. The thermite we have here will probably be used at some point. As well as the dynamite. With the runway we can allow pickups from here to be delivered to anywhere we need them."

"It looks the word is out anyway" said Tommy. "Whether or not the news people know it. There's chatter about it being either explosives or thermite. The consensus seems to be sabotage, though."

"That suggests a leak, someone among the investigators, once they figured out what it was." Donald said. "If it takes the news a while to pick it up, they're probably withholding for some reason. Anything about railroads in there?"