Chapter 30
Over the summer, Jack and his people had stayed either at the complex or the airport in Boise. For some time, Jack had been wanting to back off the multitude of projects that had been consuming his time, and spent more of it with his wife and daughter. With flight operations moved to Gowen field and radio contact with outlying groups being handled by the growing town, he now had the time he wanted. Spending about half his time with his family, he and the other pilot instructors used the remainder to teach flying skills to anyone who wanted to learn. They’d also found time to repair the runway at the complex and re-sod the field, but had held off bringing in any more large aircraft until the grass had grown in.
One of the things Jack had noticed that was funny was that it seemed mostly young people had an interest in becoming pilots. The security and farming interests also seemed to have more than their fair share of teenagers, which made it appear that only the young community members were willing to do any actual work. He knew this couldn’t be true, but it sure was odd. What were all the older people doing, he’d often wondered, there wasn’t really that much necessary work in other areas.
Still, he loved teaching and associating with those young people. For the most part they were honest and hard working, and they wanted to learn. They hadn’t developed the cynicism that comes with age, and were a true joy to be around. They were also willing to just jump in and help when they saw someone doing something, which few of the adults seemed willing to do. For the most part, except for seeing new people occasionally as they arrived, Jack didn’t associate with the others from town at all. His job was pilot training, and he was happy to leave the greeting and settling of newcomers to them.
He’d seen Sylvia around the airport on several occasions, and she appeared to be different from most of the older citizens in that she was willing to help get new people settled. Each time there was a flight due in she’d be there to greet them, and in fact had taken one of the crude apartments in the terminal itself just so she’d be available if others needed her. Seeing this, he’d wished more of the older residents were like her.
By the end of summer all of the new pilots were trained. They had even checked out on the huge C-17 Globemaster. With training completed, there wasn’t much need for Jack and his people to remain in Boise, and they returned to the complex. The new flight crews would be living at the terminal permanently, but already the number of people coming in was starting to decline. Some of them, with fewer flights to crew, had decided to see if they could figure out how to fly the A-10 warthogs based at the field. They’d soon found the training manuals and before long were taking the planes up, learning just what they were capable of. It wasn’t all that unusual to see them practicing bombing and strafing runs that fall, honing their newly learned skills.
The announcement of the elections to be held had come as a relief to Jack. He’d been aware that the council considered him the town leader, and he had absolutely no interest in political office. He was more than willing to help out when he could, but had no desire to be held above others as something special. As far as he was concerned, politicians were for the most part useless feeders off other people. When Sylvia announced her intention to run for mayor, he’d silently wished her well and stayed away from the whole sordid affair. He was confident the people had enough sense not to elect someone who would harm them, and figured the town could take care of themselves. Besides, he had a project he’d been wanting to work on, and it would mean that he’d be absent for long stretches of time, something he couldn’t do if he had to play at being in charge.
As soon as the election was over and he knew he didn’t have to worry about running things anymore, he gathered up his salvage team plus anyone else from the complex who wanted to go, and headed out to several of the larger cities around the state to see what was there and what could be used by the town. Taking both Black Hawks as well as the Huey, they were able to carry twenty two people, plus enough supplies for a week. The first place he wanted to check out was Twin Falls, and after that the towns of Pocatello and Idaho Falls. If they still had time afterwards, he planned on going to Salt Lake City as well.
The flight to Twin Falls was short, it wasn’t much farther than Boise, and they arrived a couple of hours later. Flying over the town, they scouted for a good place to set up a base of operations. Finding only a few office type buildings, they selected one that had a heli-pad on the roof, and set down there. The building was several stories tall, and with access to the ground floors blocked off, it was secure enough. Next they flew one of the Black Hawks over to a nearby motel and began ferrying mattresses and bedding back to the office building. They were finished about an hour before nightfall and, having a quick meal, the group turned in early.
Over the next week they searched the town. Always aware of the possibility of running into people who were hostile, they assigned one of the helicopters to orbit an area in support of ground teams, and scouted any place they wanted to search as if it were already confirmed to be hostile. After determining the area to be safe, they then began exploring to see what was left that the town could possibly salvage.
Twin Falls was a small town, not much bigger than Mountain Home. As such, there wasn’t too much of interest to the group. They did find several food warehouses with dry goods that were still in good shape, and they marked these on their map in case the food was needed. They also found a good deal of construction material, and decided they should be able to build a good number of houses from what was available.
Cruising over the town one day, Jack spotted a mobile home dealer’s yard that contained a variety of single and doublewide trailers that appeared to be new. In the back of his mind he’d been aware that so many wanted to live at his complex that it was beginning to get cramped. He’d been trying to come up with a solution that didn’t involve kicking anybody out, and the idea of bringing in trailers seemed to be a good one. Already they had put in two used trailers from the Mountain Home area for use by the animal handlers, now they’d be able to move several others outside as well.
Back at their base of operations that night, he laid out his plans to the others. They saw the benefits to the idea right off, and began making plans to move a number of trailers back to the complex. The next day was spent selecting trailers and getting the trucks that pulled them running. The yard had two trucks, which would allow them to move one double or two single trailers a day, without pushing themselves. Deciding to call off further exploration until the trailers were in, the group hooked up to two single trailers and headed back, with the helicopters flying above them in case of trouble.
Arriving back at the complex, Jack was aware of many more people than normally lived there. After they got the trailers set up he went below to find Mel and see what was going on. Mel had elected to stay behind this trip and take care of the children so their mothers could go on the salvage operation. Besides Pam and Robin, several other women had given birth by this time. Among them was Don’s wife, Wendy. She’d delivered a healthy boy near the beginning of summer, to the delight of all. Already, Pam and Wendy were conspiring to get their two hapless children together, figuring it would be the perfect arranged marriage. Jack knew they weren’t serious, but kept an eye on them in any case. If the kids grew up and decided to marry, great, but he wasn’t about to let HIS daughter be forced into a marriage no matter how well intending her mother was.
Finding Mel, he asked what was going on and why so many people were at the complex.
“You’ll have to get the details from them Jack, but the gist of it is, apparently they weren’t allowed to vote in the election, and were told it was your idea that they couldn’t.”
“What!? When was this decided? And by who? I never suggested they couldn’t vote, why would I, it was MY idea for them to be treated as adults in the first place.”
“I know that Jack, but that’s what they said. Why don’t you call them all together and discuss it, they are also talking about some kind of rumors floating around about you.”
Deciding that was a good idea, he went to the intercom and pushed the button, saying “can I have your attention please, this is Jack. I would like to have all the people not currently residing here to meet with me in the dining room in fifteen minutes, thank you.”
Determined to get to the bottom of this, he headed for the dining room, with Mel at his side.
Calling the meeting to order, Jack saw that not only the non residents, but most of the residents were there also. In fact, the only ones not there were those who were getting the mobile homes set up. Looking around the room at all the people, he said “Mel informs me that some of you weren’t allowed to vote. Can anyone fill me in on the reasons why not?”
A young man in the middle of the group stood and spoke “they told us on the day of the election that we were too young, that no one under the age of twenty-one was allowed to vote.”
Someone else shouted from the crowd, “yeah! And they said it was YOUR idea too!”
“You didn’t really do that, did you Jack? You said we were all adults, did you say that just so we’d work like adults, but not intend for us to be real adults, like the council said?” a young lady asked, coming close to tears.
Several more spoke up, saying about the same thing. Finally Jack got control of the meeting, and said “no, I never said anything like that! It was my intention that EVERYONE who worked would also exercise authority as well, including voting. Whoever told you that I was in favor of this was lying to you…I never said anything even close to that, and the council knows it!”
“I told you he’d never do that to us.” One person said to his friends. “Jack has always been for us, it was that new Mayor’s doing, she’s been behind all the bad things happening.”
Hearing Jack’s profession of innocence in the matter, the crowd settled down. They were sure he’d never lie to them, he never had in the past, even when the truth had hurt. Finally getting quiet, they allowed him to speak again.
“Ok, I’m going to look into this, but I also want to hear about these rumors…what are people in town saying about me?”
Suddenly everyone seemed to get embarrassed. No one wanted to say what was being said, and there was a hush over the gathering. Finally a teenage girl spoke up quietly from one corner of the room, “they call you ‘the pervert’. They said you and Pam aren’t really married.”
Someone else said, “yeah, they said you were just living with her, and that you were the father of Robin’s kids as well.” At this, Robin looked up.
“They say she was never married either, that you just said that to hide what you did” Still another said. “They say you have a bunch of young girls living here and that you’re sleeping with all of them.”
Everyone in the room was nodding as more rumors were revealed. “That you brought everyone to town to have sex with.”
“That you were messing around with the little children also.”
“That you even were having sex with little boys.”
“Everyday there’s a new one, and people are accepting everything being said as if it were the truth, they don’t even bother to question them anymore. And if any of us does question, they all look at us as if we’re crazy and ask if we’re defending you because we are doing the same thing. It’s getting so bad there’s no way to live around them anymore, so we all decided to come here instead.”
Shocked and disgusted at what he’d been told, Jack shook his head for a moment. “I can’t believe this, why would anyone say these things about me? I haven’t done any of those things, you all know that! Who’s saying this?”
Someone from the middle of the room spoke up, “everybody. At least, all the older ones. At first it was just the new people, the ones who never met you, but now a lot of the ones who know you are saying it too. The young people, the ones who weren’t allowed to vote don’t believe any of it, and a lot of them have started to leave, but not even a lot of them know you real well, so they aren’t coming here, they’re just leaving.”
Stunned at these revelations, Jack ended the meeting by telling them they were all welcome to stay as long as they liked. He said he had to think about this and decide what to do about it.
Before they left, one of the people from town said, “I don’t think you should go to town Jack, I’m not sure what would happen, but most people there don’t like you anymore. I don’t want you to get hurt, if something happened to you, what would the rest of us do?”
Looking at her, he paused before answering. “I’ll consider it, I really don’t want to have anything to do with them anyway. This whole idea of bringing people together was a bad one…I never should have gone ahead with it without God’s approval.”
With that, he made his way to his apartment, he had some praying and thinking to do.
Realizing he needed to be left alone, Pam got their daughter, Sarah, and went over to Mel’s apartment. Neither woman could believe what was being said in town about Jack, and they were sure that the trouble over all this was just beginning.
After several hours, Jack knocked on Mel’s door. Entering, he announced “I realized that I have gone against God by building this town and community without His blessing.” Turning to Pam he said “remember when I told you that I didn’t see what it could hurt to bring people together, even if I didn’t feel it was what God wanted?” she just nodded. “Well, now we know. I have been on my knees repenting of my sin of rebellion towards His lead, and seeking His forgiveness. I’ve also asked Him to lead me now, to let me know what if anything He wants me to do to try and fix this mess. As of right now, He hasn’t led me to do anything, therefore I’m not going to try and change things in town. Instead, we are going to focus on getting enough homes set up above us so anyone who wants to can live here. As for any other action, we’re just going to wait and see what God has in mind before doing anything.”
Seeing the turmoil on his face and knowing how remorseful he felt, Pam stood and went to her husband, holding him in her arms and comforting him. “It’s ok Jack, we all get off the path occasionally, even the people we think should be above such things, like pastors. We all fall down, but the important thing is that we get up again. Everyone thought it was a good idea to gather people together, and now we all see that the mistake was in trying to do something without God. We’ll get better as we go on, just don’t feel as if you’re the only one who made a mistake.”
Holding his wife, Jack was amazed at her words. She truly was a gift from God, and he silently said a prayer of thanks for her.
Over the following weeks the group brought in many new homes. They had needed escort vehicles to stay with the trailer trucks, and at first used the Mog and Eric’s Toyota. They mounted one of the M-249’s on the Toyota, but Jack wanted more firepower than that. Going up to Boise was now out of the question, as the people there worked for the town and he didn’t want them aware of how many people were now living at the complex. Getting hummers from them might lead to questions he really didn’t want to answer.
Instead, they went to Mountain Home AFB and found plenty of vehicles. The problem was, none of them were equipped with weapons. Finding a couple that had mounts installed, but no guns, they brought them back to the shelter and mounted Brownings from spares they had on hand. Now they were able to send two escort vehicles with each truck, giving them adequate protection in case there was anyone around who wanted to stop them.
By the end of the month they had cleaned out the yard and had more than forty homes set up above the complex. Between them and the shelter itself, they now had more than a hundred and twenty people living there. They’d also heard more rumors from town, including some about Jean, Sylvia’s new security chief. News was brought to them by people on their way to find somewhere else to live, and said that the council members had been replaced in a way some citizens said was suspicious. Also, the Mayor had recently announced that all people under twenty-one had no rights, and were virtually slaves of the town. One person bringing news said they’d even split up married couples, taking their children and giving them to people who were ‘older’. Another report was about the new security chief and a dorm for young boys that he ran. According to the rumor this man was doing bizarre things with the boys, sexual things.
Upon hearing this, many at the complex were enraged and wanted to go over there right then and attack them, especially they wanted to kill the security chief. But before they were able, Jack spoke to them. “Hold on everyone, you can’t just go attacking anyone on the basis of rumors, those are the same rumors as are being spread about me. Without evidence, we have no more right to go attacking them than they do attacking us. As much as I hate saying this, until we have something more concrete, we simply have to wait and see what happens. If these stories are true, then action will be taken, but we all have to trust God and leave this in His hands for now.”
They knew he was right, and even though they still wanted to do something, everyone settled down. Jack could commiserate with them, he too wanted to do something, but he held off until he had clear evidence to act on.
More stories kept coming in, including something about Christianity no longer being allowed to be preached. Jack was amazed that everything had happened so fast, but at the same time he knew many of those in town had been from Europe, and weren’t used to having Christianity preached so openly. Still, he was alarmed to learn that other religions, including pagans were starting to practice their beliefs openly, and hoped it wouldn’t be long before God acted.
One day, as they were sitting down to lunch, Allison called him into the control room. When he got there she told him there were people at the gate from town, and they said they were there to arrest him! Pushing the button for the gate intercom, Jack said “what is this, what do you people want?”
On the camera he could see one of the men step forward and reach out to the intercom. “This is town security, we have a warrant for the arrest of one Jack Mitchell, issued by the Mayor. Please don’t make things hard on yourself and come out peacefully, we don’t want to have to use force unless we have to.”
Amazed at the audacity of this idiot, Jack looked at Allison and chuckled. Finally he pushed the button again and said “that’s nice, but I’m afraid the mayor has no authority here, and you have no jurisdiction. Now, if you’ll kindly turn around and go on back to town, we’d appreciate it. We don’t want you’re kind anywhere around here. Thank you.”
Unsure what to do, the sergeant turned from the intercom and looked at his men. This wasn’t going as he’d expected. He’d been sure that Jack would simply submit to their demands, as the people in town did. It had never occurred to him that he’d act any different. Feeling he needed advice on this matter, he got back in the hummer and they went back to the town.
When Sylvia heard that her security force had turned back just because that criminal TOLD them to, she was incensed. Calling for punishment for the entire detail, she was practically frothing at the mouth. How dare anyone oppose her!? After all, she was the Mayor! Finally, Jean was able to get her calm again. He said that he’d personally take charge of this, and there was no way Jack wouldn’t be in their custody by evening. This seemed to calm the woman, and she concentrated on planning his execution, after she had found him guilty in court.
Gathering every security person he had, Jean went to the armory and outfitted them all with rifles and plenty of ammo. They then got aboard trucks and made their way to the complex, Jean riding in the lead vehicle. When they arrived he told his driver not to stop, but to knock the gate open and keep going. The driver complied and hit the gas, but the effort wasn’t entirely successful. As the truck hit the gate, one side popped free, but the other held. Wrapped around the front of the truck, the fence held it tight as it pivoted on a fencepost that hadn’t given way, pulling the truck off the road. They hit the ditch, stopping abruptly. The force of the impact drove the driver into the steering wheel, and his face into the windshield. Jean fared better, only hitting the dash and crushing his nose. After sitting there a moment trying to recover, blood gushing from his shattered nose, Jean climbed out of the vehicle. Not bothering to see if his driver was even alive, he made his way to the second vehicle in line and climbed in, ordering them to proceed with the assault.
Hitting the gate set off the sensors, which sounded an alarm. Mike was on duty in the control room and, seeing what was happening on the monitor, ordered general quarters. This got everyone inside the shelter and all the doors closed and locked. By the time the trucks were approaching the main entrance everyone was inside and ready, and Jack had appeared at the control room. They watched on the monitor as the first vehicle pulled up to the entrance. A security guard got out and went over to the doors, but couldn’t figure out how to get them open. After a few minutes, Jean ordered one of the vehicles with a Browning on top to open fire and try to shoot their way through. At this, Jack realized these people could be a real danger, and went over to the defensive controls. Raising the closest flamethrower, he aimed off to their left a few feet and fired a two second blast.
When Jean saw the stream of flame shoot from a previously hidden turret and land a few feet to the side of his group, he suddenly believed they were all dead. Without even being aware of it, his bladder let go, drenching his pants and running down his legs. After a second the flame stopped, and a loud speaker somewhere spoke in booming tones “THE NEXT SHOT WON’T MISS. GET OUT OF HERE AND DON’T EVER COME BACK. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING!” realizing there was no way they could compete against such firepower, and scared out of his mind at the thought of burning alive, he screamed “RETREAT”, then climbed into the nearest vehicle and drove off at high speed, leaving the other passengers of the truck behind.
Finally all of the assault force managed to get away, even the driver they’d left at the gate, although many of them had no intentions of returning to the three ring circus the town had become. Deciding that staying would only get them killed, they headed in different directions, hoping they could manage to get by on their own. Returning to Sylvia, Jean convinced her that Jack was as good as in prison where he was, and all they had to do was keep him there. She wasn’t convinced and still wanted to kill him, but she also realized they’d need more people and better equipment to do it, and decided to do as Jean said, at least for the moment.