Luckily, the crew that installed the tanks didn’t ask a lot of questions. The norm in the region was for aboveground tanks between three hundred and five-hundred gallon capacity. Todd mentioned to the work crew that the extra capacity would enable him to wait for fuel prices to drop to reasonable levels rather than having to buy fuel once a year at whatever the price happened to be. He also noted that he wanted underground tanks because he was “scared to death” of forest fires.
Todd and Mary hoped that their fuel tanks would not create suspicion. They felt that if they had bought tanks of any greater capacity, they would indeed set Bovill’s “rumor control” network into motion.
Because the tanks were positioned on the far side of the garage/shop building, they were out of the line of sight from the house. This bothered Todd. He decided that the best way to confront this problem was to mount the ends of the filler pipes and the hand pumps for the tanks inside the garage.
This meant that Todd had to cut a three-foot-long trench through the concrete floor of the garage. Kevin helped him do the work. It took an entire afternoon and damaged one of Todd’s picks, but the job was finally done.
Again with Kevin’s help, Todd built a set of false wall cabinets out of plywood over the hand pumps. It too was fitted with a hasp and padlock. Because the pumps were hidden, there was no outward sign that the Grays even had fuel storage tanks. Kevin really liked the idea of the false cabinet. When Todd first mentioned it, Kevin grinned and said, “Neat trick, Todd.”
The preparations for the trip continued for several days. Lon gave the Bronco a tune-up and idled the engine for an hour. He then did a complete inspection of the seals, belts, and hoses. Next, the Bronco’s roof was unbolted and removed. Then the windshield was latched down to the hard point on the hood, and it was recovered with burlap secured by duct tape. Kennedy considered removing the doors, but decided that the ballistic protection that they provided, however slight, outweighed the advantage of being able to get out of the rig quickly.
Doug pointed out the fact that folding down the windshield to give them the ability to shoot on the move would also put them at risk. “All it would take is some joker with a roll of thin steel wire, and you might all end up looking like proverbial headless horsemen. I think we ought to install a cable cutter like I’ve seen on some Army jeeps.”
Using Todd’s welding rig, Lon and Dan soon fabricated a cable cutter on the front of the Bronco. It consisted of a vertical piece of steel bolted to the center of the front bumper that extended above the height of the roll cage. It had a notch cut at the spot where the vertical member angled outward near the top. The vertical piece was held by two cross braces that angled up from near the ends of the bumper. Todd didn’t have enough steel stock of the correct dimension available with which to build the cable cutter, so they used steel fence T-posts, as they were about the right weight and length.
Over the next two days, the three men packed and repacked their gear, loaded extra magazines, and pored over road maps, considering every possible route, bivouac point, and rally point. All three were equipped with bulletproof vests to wear under their fatigues. Since there were only five such vests at the retreat (they belonged to the Grays, the Nelsons, and T.K.), they seemed like badges of honor. They also wore three of the six Kevlar “Fritz” helmets at the retreat. Next they test fired and confirmed the zero of their weapons. T.K. planned to carry his heavy barrel AR-15. Kevin opted to bring both his HK91 and his Remington 870. Dan decided to do likewise. All three also carried .45 automatics in Bianchi UM-series hip holsters.
They decided to also bring along Dan’s monstrous McMillan sniper rifle and a hundred rounds of .50 Browning ammunition— a mixture of ball, tracer, incendiary and hand-loaded match-grade rounds. Fong also dug out his precious twenty rounds of special sabot ammunition. The sabot ammo, an exotic type of ammunition that had cost him twenty dollars per cartridge, fired the Winchester Saboted Light Armor Projectile (SLAP). The SLAP cartridges had a .30 caliber bullet encased in a sleeve of plastic. They were designed so that after the bullet exited the rifle’s bore, the plastic sabot would peel back, sending the smaller bullet whizzing ahead with tremendous velocity. With such high velocity, the SLAP bullets were reportedly able to penetrate an inch-and-a-half of plate steel, or two-and-a-half inches of aluminum armor. When asked about the need for the rifle by Mike Nelson, Dan said in a singsong, “It’s just in case we have to ‘reach out, reach out and touch someone.’”
With a laugh, T.K. added, “‘Long Distance, it’s the next best thing to being there.’”
The Bronco was packed with twelve five-gallon gas cans, all freshly filled from the storage tank. Four of them went on the tire and gas can rack that T.K. had mail-ordered from K-Bar-S in Las Vegas before the Crunch. It originally held just two cans, but using some loops of heavy gauge wire they doubled up the cans so the rack would hold four. They also stowed an ax, a shovel, two two-thousand-pound capacity “come along” ratchet cable hoists, two forty-eight-inch Hi-Lift “sheepherder’s” jacks, a set of chains for all four wheels, Todd’s pair of Woodings-Verona thirty-six-inch bolt cutters, a general mechanical and electrical tool kit, a can of ether-based starting fluid, spare hoses and belts, a spare fuel pump, a spare water pump and gasket, a spare thermostat, a spare starter, and a spare alternator. When packing these spares, Todd silently thanked Ken Layton for insisting on everyone buying vehicles with common parts.
The load also included four five-gallon plastic buckets containing wheat, rice, dried beans, and powdered milk, as a gift for the Prine family. On top of the roll cage, they strapped a rolled up Army “hex” camouflage net. Lon and Dan also welded on a mounting bracket for an extra tire on the side of the roll cage, giving them two spares. The extra spare was “liberated” from the spare carried on the Nelsons’ Bronco. When the three mens’ backpacks were added, it made an impressive load. T.K. asked, “Now where are Ken and Terry going to sit on the return trip?”
Dan replied, “Oh maaan. I hadn’t thought about that. It looks like a Mister Prine of Morgan City, Utah, is going to get the gift of some five-gallon gas cans as well as the food we were planning to give them.”
Tom, Kevin, and Dan spent the next day practicing three-man patrolling techniques, immediate action drills, and the like. Time after time, there were shouts of, “action left!” or “action front!” and the Bronco would either be violently maneuvered into turns, or back up suddenly, or come to a stop with the three men spilling out, guns at the ready. The three also shot up twenty-three rounds of .50 Browning. T.K. proved that the McMillan was an accurate long-range rifle. He scored regular hits on a man-sized target that was paced off at twelve hundred yards.
When T.K., Kevin, and Dan were ready to go, there were many prayers and a sad farewell, as everyone realized that the chances of their safe return were completely unknown. T.K. read the 54th Psalm. Mary and Lisa cried. As they roared out the front gate though, the three men were laughing and joking. To them it seemed a grand adventure. Dan, who was at the wheel, started singing his favorite song, “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. With his now longish hair blowing in the slipstream, he sang at the top of his lungs,
“Hope you got your things together, Hope you are quite prepared to die, Looks like we’re in for nasty weather, One eye is taken for an eye….”