The next couple of days held a great deal of work for the four at the Training Building. Garen scribbled out some quick gear lists for some survival and weapon caches. These were then put together by Allyson and Angelique. They used some more of the old second hand poly drums that were on hand. For weapons, they used some of the battlefield pickups they now had, these were mostly AK variants but would work well for the purpose. They had enough to equip eight people so the made four kits. These had food, water, weapons, and shelter for two people in each. They were also packaged in a way that if the two had to split up, each was carrying one set.
While this was going on, Bekka and Garen were working on the vehicles. Bekka was working on the communication gear for each vehicle. The most extensive was the system of radios she built into the cab area of the 8-wheeled truck. With the amount of radio power and capability she was setting up, she could talk to someone in Bulgaria, without bouncing it off the moon. She had the ability to monitor the frequencies they thought the bad guys were using with what she figured out from the radios they had captured.
Garen meanwhile was working at building the interior of the trailer on the bed of the 8 wheeled truck out into the living quarters and operation cell they may need if they had to evacuate from the house. The trailer body was well over 20 feet long and the truck had an enormous payload capacity. It was a matter of jigsawing as much as he could into the small space. In the spot designed for two twin beds, one on each side of the passageway, he put a triple bunk system using some old surplus military bunk bed frames. They were narrower than real twin beds but they were better than the ground. The space for these was also made about two feet longer so each bed had a spot for the person to put some gear at ready access. He also made a frame for supporting a table and booth towards the front that was elevated enough to hold eight large bins. Six of these were dedicated for each of the bed spaces for clothes and personal gear. Overhead cabinets lined the walls to hold as much supplies as possible. A small wood stove was in one corner across from the kitchen area. In the very back, past the sleeping area is where the bathroom was. Toilet, shower and storage for those sort of supplies were here. There were already huge tanks mounted to the bed of the truck under the trailer body for fresh water, black and grey water and a very large battery bank. Solar panels were already on the roof. Garen counted himself lucky that all the main support stuff like plumbing, electric and such were already in place and all that John was waiting for was figuring the nuts and bolts interior. He knew it would have taken weeks to try and fabricate all the complex systems. He was more of a rough out type builder. Will all the effort he was putting into this, he was still hoping like hell they never had an occasion to really need it.
Bekka went with Allyson and Angelique to show them how to emplace and hide one of the cache drums. She then told them that they needed to hide one of them and not tell her where, then come get her and she and Allyson would hide one, then Garen and Angelique would go hide one. That way no one person knew where they all were. She knew Garen had a couple more he had hid. He tried to do one a year so as he updated gear, the oldest sets each year would get hid. He would dig one up every now and then with one of the classes that were out here, then get them to rebury it in another place as part of their training. He usually used the same one or two. These two Kara knew where they were. There should be, not counting the ones with Terry and the four they were putting in, at least four more. At least two she knew where they were at. She also had a small one of her own she had told no one but Kara where it was. All of these were really simple affairs, small 20 gallon buckets with some extra stuff in them; food water, fire, shelter tools, weapons. The weapons were usually pistols and rifles from the police seized auctions or the police turn ins. Most of the drums had a couple boxes of 9mm and some heavily carried but seldom shot Berettas from when the local PD converted to 40 S&W Glocks. Simple, robust, functional, and most importantly, cheap enough to buy and basically forget. Bekka, Kara and Garen could still work them in their sleep having lived and slept with them as constant companions throughout their military careers. All of this in a second hand schoolbook sized backpack in a bucket and squirreled away.
Once Bekka got them started, she returned to configuring the other vehicles for a bug out. Terry’s Suburban and trailer were set up as the other main vehicle down at the Training Building. One of the smaller motocross motorcycles was also gassed and prepped for down here. The large trailer behind the 8-wheeled truck was loaded with supplies and a space was made for three motorcycles at the back edge.
The next vehicles on Bekka’s list were her Subaru, John’s truck and Garen’s truck. These would be up at the house in case the bad guys came from the direction of the training building and they had to go from the house to somewhere else. Garen’s truck would have the trailer still, and the back of the trailer would also have the mounts for three motorcycles. If they had any good amount of warning to evacuate, they would take the two vehicles from the training building, the two trucks from the house, the six motorcycles, and tow the sand rail behind John’s truck with the tow bar. That was never going to happen. They knew they wouldn’t have that kind of time. They ended up putting Bekka’s adventure bike on the trailer behind the six wheel, along with one of the off-road motorcycles. Kara’s adventure bike went onto the one behind Garen’s truck, along with one of the off road bikes. That left Garen’s adventure bike and the third off road bike not committed to ones yet. Bekka was wracking her brain for hours trying to remember everything the senior team sgt had taught them, warned them, and schooled them those many years ago about preps and ops. The big one was to work from capabilities not assets.
By the end of day three, with all four of them working at it, they felt they started to get some semblance of a grip on their preparations.