Response Team

Chapter 32. Operation Omaha Beach.

Please remember everything in this story is fictional, none of it happened, none of it is real.

We received word from the Feds (multiple offices) of an international plot to attack a large coal mine in Wright, Wyoming, North America's largest surface strip coal mine. At this mine the coal sits just below the top soil; nobody there is working underground.

We agreed to take the case before getting all the facts because disrupting terror was our #1 priority, and David really hates terrorists. According to the latest intel the threat was not for a specific date, and an attack was not anticipated this week. An attack was definitely in the planning phase by military planners from Iran and Pakistan. The USA had multiple agents reporting in from the Middle East and Africa, and this was a real plan with significant damage potential to many states in our region. They heard the planned attack was against nine western states. It was a simple plan, even smaller than the original February 1993 attack on the World Trade Center but this one could inflict much greater and widespread effects. Their goal is to shut off the electricity in nine western states for a year or two. This was retaliation for on-going CIA operations in Iran.

We had a priority video conference with the Joint Chiefs office in the Pentagon because of the complexity of the case; the plot might tie us up for weeks, possibly months. That day, Captain Johnson scheduled a meeting for all ELP staff and summoned our back-up team from Omaha down to ELP ASAP. David was given the responsibility of reviewing all the top-secret intel reports and designing a military style response and then making his presentation for how we'd foil their attack plans. David was 100% committed to the mission and eagerly stayed up all night designing and refining his plan and presentation. This was the first time in the history of the Rapid Response Service that one of the team leaders was asked to design a military attack against an attack. David was highly respected in the Pentagon and this was a tremendous vote of confidence from the highest office in the U.S. military. He laughed it off but I knew this was a big deal and his plan had to sound reasonable, be cheap to implement, and above all, work. The only other military person I knew of in his thirties that was given this responsibility was Curtis Lemay in the 1940s.

Our team from Omaha arrived by commercial airline at 10am the next day; David's presentation was scheduled for 1pm in our conference room. He had maps and photographs of the area ready on his laptop but he never wrote a script, just a list of points to make. The next morning David spent two hours in the Captain's office reviewing his plan to mess-up the terror attack. He whispered to me during their closed-door session that the Captain had never created military strategy before but he helped David polish his presentation. I reminded David the Skipper was more of a numbers geek who well understood percentages and costing but probably never played with little green plastic soldiers as a child.

We sat down with the Omaha team for lunch at the airport on the main level at a sandwich shop then used the first stairway to bypass the TSA pat-down show. We had our Whispernet jammers running otherwise it would have been really dreadful trying to eat and talk around a small dining table.

After lunch the actual meeting started a couple minutes late because nobody knew where the remote control for the projector was kept, but we found it in a desk drawer nearby the OD.

At 12:55pm the OD shouted loudly, "Will everyone please take a seat in the conference room now." I glanced across the room at my husband to see how he looked. He was up all day yesterday, all night last night, and half the day today. He was loaded up on sugar and caffeine but he looked okay, I was watching closely for signs like he was about to faint, or if he started mis-speaking. I was poised to act to protect him in case something went wrong.

It was one of our rare `all hands' meetings, I counted 13 people, and three were in civvies. There were also an untold number of people in Washington watching his presentation over the DOD intranet.

Our team from Omaha came dressed in business attire, I think it was the first time I saw Duke in nice clothes. Duke sort of looked like a 1980s Wrestler wearing a cheap two-piece suit. Luke looked like a wannabe Duke, or Duke Jr. The captain paid for two large veggie trays and two boxes of coffee with different creams and flavorings. That stuff disappeared fast. I was glad to see nobody brought donuts.

For his presentation, David wore his full dress white Navy officer's uniform. But he looked very handsome and very young for an O6 (called Captain in the Navy, or Colonel in the Army. Captain Johnson was an Army officer which is O3). David switched on his Whispernet jammer and cleared this throat loud enough for everyone to stop talking and listen, but he also wore a wireless microphone so his voice echoed around the conference room. People were quietly still hitting the coffee and mountain of veggies before his presentation started. I grabbed a plate full of cauliflower before he started. As I turned to walk back to my seat in the back row of seats I looked up and saw him standing at the podium watching me. I smiled at him and held up my plate of cauliflower and he smiled back then looked around the room and up at the projector. There was a video camera on a tripod to send his presentation to Washington too. I'm sure that made him a bit anxious.

I noticed how his white dress jacket and shirt made the skin on his face look brown and it looked like he wasn't old enough to shave yet, but his voice gave away his age. Regardless, he was gorgeous and I was very proud of him. He avoided making eye contact with me during his entire presentation. Whenever he does presentations I usually sit alone in the back of the room, and he always suspects I'll make faces at him to try to make him laugh so he never looks at me. That tells me he is also probably super nervous and trying to hide his anxiety.

On the projection screen behind him David began with satellite photos of the mine, and where they had marked the outlines of a full scale model of the mine in the desert in Libya to rehearse the attack; and then he explained his plan called 'Operation Omaha Beach.'

"Good afternoon. As you may have heard, an international plot to attack the energy sector of the USA is in the works. Luckily, we were tipped off and have time to get ready, maybe a week, or two at most. There is a small military attack planned against the largest coal mining operation in the USA, called the Black Thunder Mine, which is located in rural northeast Wyoming about 100 miles south of Devil's Tower. They export coal by rail to base load power plants in nine western states. A base-load power plant is one that operates 24/7 to keep the lights on in those states all day and night but may need additional smaller plants to handle peak electricity demand in the early morning and late afternoon. Peak demand power plants usually run on natural gas."

"Down here in El Paso our primary fuel source is natural gas from the old oil fields of west Texas, but some of our peak energy could come off the grid from out of state coal plants. So we are still vulnerable but not as much as Minnesota."

"We received top-secret Keyhole intelligence that a small military squad is currently being trained to use mortar launchers to attack key machinery at the coal mine to shut it down and keep it offline for at least a year, possibly much longer. Imagine what would happen to the US if nine western states were suddenly back in the late 1800s with regard to technology; hundreds of people would die during the first few days, and thousands more when the populations of nine states fled to areas that still had power."

"Based on our brief evaluation of the mine it has many single points of failure, damaging the single points shuts down the entire operation. They designed the mine to operate with minimal staff to keep costs down, but lean companies are usually more vulnerable when things break because they don't have staff to deal with multiple major system outages, much less trained staff. A company like this tries to outsource specialists rather than employ them, and again that's fine until two single point systems break down at the same time."

"Since it is an engineering term I'll explain that a single point failure means one thing breaks and the entire system fails. The classic example is the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. In December 1967 a single eye-bar link cracked, rusted, and failed. The bridge collapsed sending 46 people into the icy Ohio River. One piece broke and it destroyed the entire bridge, that is a single point of failure."

"They operate two enormous drag line cranes that scoop coal and drop it in trucks that transport it to conveyors that transport the coal to a processing plant on-site. The coal is cleaned and ground to a small size commonly accepted by electricity plants. They load rail cars, as many as 150 in one train and run non-stop to power plants where they are unloaded and sent back to the coal mine to be filled once again. The entire process is highly mechanized and automated."

"Of course when something breaks then the first thing they wish is they had more staff, but that's their choice. That business plan is probably part of the reason why this mine became a target. This is not the only large coal mine in our part of the States, but it might be the most vulnerable. This is also not the only surface coal mine west of the Mississippi, but it is the largest in North America."

"Their two drag line cranes are electrically powered, meaning they run high voltage power lines on the ground connected to their own electricity plant. Their electricity generating station is powered by methane gas, which comes from the mine, since coal and methane always go hand in hand."

One of the ODs stood up and asked for clarification about the drag lines, "How do they power the cranes?"

David stopped and answered his question: "The drag lines which look like the biggest cranes in the world are powered by electricity. They run thick cables about the size of fire truck hoses across the ground like a giant extension cord so when the crane moves someone has to help move the power cables, which just lay on the ground; three thick wires are run inside a bright orange plastic conduit."

"Is that dangerous to run high voltage on the ground and have trucks drive over them? Anyone ever get electrocuted?"

"They run three-phase power to the cranes, which means its three high voltage wires and a neutral wire. Depending on the type of three phase power the electrical potential is phase to phase, not phase to ground. So if someone got shocked it would be safer than household current because the electricity only has potential to another of the three phases, not to ground. If you touched certain types of three phase lines to ground nothing happens, maybe a tiny spark like static electricity." The OD sat back down and David continued his presentation.

"The drag line cranes each use buckets the size of a two car garage and can load the enormous dump trucks with two scoops of coal. They deliver the coal to the nearest loading point on the conveyors, then the coal is moved to the processing plant where debris is removed and the coal is dried and ground to the size needed by power plants. After processing, the coal is poured into rail cars and off they go across the USA to different power plants west of the Mississippi River. That is a brief summary of the mine operation, other than to say the prime targets at the mine are the drag line cranes, the power plant, the coal cleaning, grinding, and the loading facility, which is mostly one large building. Raw coal goes in one door on a conveyor belt and 'finished coal' pours into rail cars at the other end."

"Now we switch to the subject of destroying a coal operation with minimal people and cost. You've probably seen video of World War 2 and have seen artillery and infantry using portable mortar launchers. Two soldiers kneeling on the ground drop a hand-held mortar into a launching tube that shoots the round into the sky. They have aiming controls on the launcher that gives them accurate and repeatable performance. This attack being planned uses a common mortar system. The Libyans will park along the highway, and aim, while their spotter calls firing adjustments with a small walkie talkie."

"A well rehearsed team could destroy the drag line cranes, the coal cleaning and loading system, and the power plant in less than 17 minutes, possibly much less time. All this damage could be done by three soldiers who drove to the site in a small car. It could take over eighteen months to repair the damage if the mine company could even afford to do so. And after the coal stops flowing and coal reserves are depleted the power plants will shut down and at least nine western states will no longer have electricity. This would be the most destructive military attack on the USA since we opened for business in the 1700s. Colonel Malone and I have designed an equally simple plan to spoil their attack. Hopefully before then Washington might find a diplomatic solution but it seems for now Iran and Pakistan are preparing to anonymously attack us."

Now David changed the image on the screen to aerial shots of the primary targets and also their likely firing position along the highway.

"These are the two drag line cranes; they are enormous and custom built at the mine so there are very few off-the-shelf repair parts. This is the power plant and the methane pumping station, and these buildings are where coal is cleaned and ground to size needed by their customers and loaded onto rail cars. This is where they are planning on parking their car and launching the attack using common WW2-style mortar rounds, which are readily available worldwide, by the case. They're sold at gun shows by the case for about $20 each shell, and it's perfectly legal too. Each mortar has a range of over a mile and contains its own propellant motor to launch it into the sky." Next, David switched to photos of Omaha Beach in France.

Just then the same male OD, a new Army Lieutenant stood and asked why the mine didn't switch to wind power generation on the lands they already mined and just halt the operation and make their profits selling electricity instead.

David paused and sighed then asked the young man to introduce himself, since he was the latest hire to our office. Then he went on to explain his answer. "Wind power isn't reliable enough as a base load power source because in every windy place in the country there are hours and days where the wind stops dead. Another problem is those wind mills have serious design problems. You ever drive past a wind mill farm Lieutenant?" The young man stood again and said he saw two of them along I-40 in New Mexico and near Amarillo. David continued his answer.

"Did you notice on all those farms there's always one or more that are not spinning? It's probably because they are broken or haven't been activated yet. You see those big blades don't start to spin on their own, they have large electric motors up inside the top that have to get the blades spinning, then if the wind is high enough they'll continue to spin but they don't generate enough force to start to spin on their own. This is why each windmill needs to be connected to commercial power to get the windmill turning before the wind can keep it turning. The current draw to get such a large thing turning is large, so there must be enough excess power being made locally or they cannot activate others. Due to the stresses and design problems the windmills also have the habit of catching on fire, but they're too high above the ground for local fire departments to reach so they let them burn, which runs the risk of starting grass fires or huge crop fires. And you certainly do not want to live within one mile of one. The truth is they would not exist without taxpayer subsidy because they never generate enough income to pay for themselves; it's a similar problem with photovoltaic solar panels. They are a poor design and prone to needing constant and very expensive repairs. The summary is without lots of free taxpayer money wind power would not exist and it can never be used as base load power, which coal is ideally suited for."

The young Army officer sat down and David continued his presentation.

"Considering the terrain and existing mine security we came up with a plan compatible with our mission. We'll call this Operation Omaha Beach since the setting is similar to the D-Day invasion of France. This highway is our Normandy Beach, but in our situation the good guys hold the high ground." He pointed to the 2-lane rural road (Highway 450) that ran along the north entrance to the mine property. "Out here is the English Channel, and this strip of land between the coal loading facility and the highway are the bluffs overlooking the beach. We want to construct two small underground gun placements, underground concrete bunkers that will be built like miniature residential basements. They need to be designed and built to provide unobstructed views of the entire beach area. It is from this area their attack will begin. They do not need to set foot on mine property but using a simple portable war surplus launcher they can quickly and cheaply devastate the mine operation and put them out of business for up to two years. From this location they can destroy all their targets with the aid of a spotter."

He paused briefly then reiterated that with a mortar system like the M2 60mm high energy mortars the most vital parts of the mine operation could easily be destroyed in less than fifteen minutes by three men, and for less than five hundred dollars. The CIA reports the group working on the attack has a team practicing with the M2 today in southeastern Libya near the city of Al Jawf. He said, "As of today we only have circumstantial data on the funding for the operation but their target is the economy of the western and Midwest USA, parts of the country that use coal as a base-load fuel source. Coal is still the single biggest energy source in North America."

Captain Johnson stood and interrupted David and asked where their weapons came from.

"The M2 60mm launcher and high energy mortars are commonly used today, they are manufactured in sixteen countries and in every continent on the planet. They sell on the black market by the case; twelve rounds come in a metal box. There are two companies in the US and one in Canada that crank them out six days a week, two cases an hour, all year long. The mortar system is more refined and accurate than in the 1940s and even better than during the first Gulf War when the allies used them to drive the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait. If the launcher is installed and aimed properly two people can drop four M49HE 60mm mortars within a fifteen foot circle, five thousand feet away, in ten seconds." The entire room broke out into muffled conversation and David stood there watching his audience. I was extremely proud of him and tried not to picture him standing at the podium with no shirt on. I was truly mesmerized by his speech and appearance; I bet I even had a dumb expression on my face to match my thoughts.

"Captain, to answer your question, the launchers and the M2 mortars are readily available everywhere on the planet if you have cash and know the right people to ask." That comment raised the mumbling volume even higher briefly. Then he said that they are almost as easy to buy as a bag of pot in the 1990s.

"The CIA infiltrated their training camp in southeast Libya near the desert city of Al Jawf. Based on Google Maps images they measured and marked targets on the ground, full scale. Then with the aid of a spotter who will sneak onto mine property to call aiming adjustments they've been practicing in the Sahara Desert in Libya for two months now. We're told they're ready to launch the actual attack and will depart at Benghazi soon, for Mexico, aboard a fuel tanker that sails from Benghazi to Tampico, Mexico, then they will drive north and cross into Brownsville, Texas. Once safely inside the US they will be given a car, two cases of mortars, the launch tube, and cash for food, gas, and hotel rooms. They'll drive to Wyoming and execute their attack during the day and they anticipate the mine will be undefended. They expect to drive up, park, shoot their rounds, then get back in the car and drive back to Brownsville, escape into Mexico, and catch the next tanker back to Libya where they will be received and rewarded as heroes."

Next, he showed close-up photos of the launcher and how they're set-up. "For installation the crew sometimes uses spikes that get hammered in the ground. The launcher has adjustable bipod legs on the front and a square metal plate on the base of the launch tube. On some soils it's necessary to anchor the base plate if they need to put multiple mortars on the exact same target, because the launcher moves a little each time a mortar is launched."

"The aiming adjustments are all done by hand-turned knobs marked with numbers on a scale. We heard they were practicing with an artillery spotter who told them how to adjust the launcher settings to put the bombs precisely on target. The spotter was used when the mortar crew couldn't see their target. All the spotter needed was binoculars and a walkie-talkie." David concluded that he anticipated them arriving with three people in one vehicle. "They'll arrive an hour before sunrise and drop-off the spotter. It would take him thirty to forty five minutes to get into position where he can see all the targets from one location. They'll return after sunrise and begin the attack after the spotter radios that he's in position."

David said some artillery squads use something resembling a small shotgun to shoot anchor spikes into the ground; they could shoot two long steel nails into the pavement in less than seven seconds. "After the spikes are placed they should be ready to assemble the launcher and then fire the first mortar in less than fifteen seconds. After firing one mortar they'll wait for feedback from the spotter, `one degrees north, half degree west.' The lead artilleryman adjusts the settings and another round is dropped into the tube, then they adjust again if needed. If they are well practiced it may only take one adjustment to put the next mortar precisely on-target. Of course wind changes everything which is why they'll attack at dawn when the winds are usually calm.

Their first targets would likely be the drag line cranes. They are not designed to withstand artillery and would be easily destroyed with two or three direct hits each. Since they are custom built they could easily take over a year to repair. In the coal mine business very little machinery is made from off the shelf parts. If you've never seen one I suggest you look at photos online of the cranes they use; they're enormous, which makes them better targets, harder to miss." He continued his speech showing the power plant and the coal processing buildings that could easily be attacked and destroyed from the turnaround beside the highway and that the mine has no defense for any type of attack. "But the three-man military squad also has no defenses and would be easily defeated if we're ready for them before they arrive."

He finished his presentation by showing our planned capability using two 50cal machine guns in two small underground bunkers. That would out-gun them and they would have no place to hide that the 50cal cannot destroy. The predicted outcome would be three dead Iranians and Pakistanis and no damage to the mine. In fact the story of the attack never needs to hit the media, the three men arrived in America and disappeared. He concluded by reminding everyone the contents of the meeting were top-secret.

The JCS office in the Pentagon was also watching David's presentation as well as the President of the U.S. from their situation room in the White House. Sixty two minutes later Captain Johnson received notice of an operating budget and authorization to immediately proceed as planned. They ordered Captain Johnson to fly (on the HSCT jet) immediately to Gillette, Wyoming, (then go by helicopter to the mine) to discuss our plan with mine ownership. At the same time they will have Senator Barrasso call the mine to advise them the Captain was on the way.

After our meeting ended we invited everyone over to continue the discussion in our back yard, around the pool over some beers.

Yes, you heard that right! David Larsen actually invited Duke and Luke to our house for beers. We transported our newest two ODs in our truck but everyone else found rides. We stopped at a small C-store on Railroad Drive and got five cases of cold beer (and pounds of munchies, other snacks, and thirty pounds of ice) and got home moments before the first car arrived. We grabbed Corona, Coors, Miller, M-Lite, and Old Style cases. I fully expected David would do his beer trivia quiz since everyone we invited over was a first-time visitor. I made two tubs of salsa and opened a tub of sour cream too. We had tortilla chips and potato chips. We had a case of hot dogs in the freezer but David asked me to stop making snacks. One of the ODs came in the kitchen and we made two sheet pans of loaded cheesy tortilla chips with salsa, sour cream, olive slices, onion chunks, and melted cheddar cheese. While I made salsa David put the beers in our two ice chests and poured in the bags of ice.

My salsa was popular, I make it whenever we buy tortillas. I use a can of Rotel canned tomatoes, half an onion, salt, garlic powder, 1 whole jalapeno, and maybe a little cayenne with crushed red pepper flakes. Put that in the blender until its smooth and serve. If time permits you can add my salsa to melted Velveeta to use as a dip or pour over a bowl of tortilla chips.

Our driveway is big enough to park four cars if we put our truck in the garage. I checked and made sure we had two rolls of T-paper sitting out on the bathroom counter and set out a stack of paper towels too. David intercepted Jeremy at the gate and told him it was a work party, he could swim tomorrow or after midnight tonight. David enabled the silent alarm on the combination lock to the Tac-room door. That would be really sad if someone from work tried to enter that room, which is across the hallway from the bathroom door. Some people see the combination lock and get tempted to turn the handle just because it attracts eyeballs. It's sort of like a 'wet paint - do not touch' sign.

They filled the picnic table benches and all our outdoor chairs. I got two folding chairs from the basement so everyone had a seat. The only person that didn't come over was the Captain, he had to pack and leave immediately for Wyoming; this was only his fifth time in the little jet. While the captain was packing the OD was working out his emergency meeting with mine company officers at 8pm tonight. The captain brought with him David's presentation outline and photos.

Our poolside brainstorm session/beer-bash started and almost everyone liked the bunker idea and the 50cal machine guns on mounts. The one problem we discovered was that the spotter might be able to escape on foot. David asked them, "Escape to where?" But there was no response. Everyone took turns telling the group about any flaw they saw in our plan. The worst part we found was one of us needed to be awake 24/7 to watch a lonesome stretch of rural two-lane pavement for an unknown car. I think they all pictured us both being asleep when the attackers arrived. Someone else suggested it might get very smoky inside the bunkers if we got into a firefight.

None of our party guests got in the pool. I think if he successfully pulls off this Op he's looking at a possible presidential citation and possible promotion to O7 (Brigadier General). If he made it, he'd be only the second person that young to achieve that rank at age 30. The next youngest was Curtis "Bombs Away" Lemay at age 37. And David never attended West Point, but neither did Lemay. An O7 earned about $10k a month before taxes. That's a comfortable living but not wealthy.

As if on cue David asked his hardest beer trivia question that nobody knew the answer to, except me so I was disqualified. "You've all heard during prohibition most cities had black market beer and booze available. For the South Side Gang in Chicago, run by Al Capone, they made a bootleg beer. What was the brand name of the Al Capone beer?" In an instant the crowd became silent, everyone looked at each other but nobody knew. "Want a hint?" he asked. And someone said yes. "Where was Al Capone born?" David asked.

After moments of silence someone said New York. And after almost a minute of quiet grumbling he said, "The Al Capone beer was called Old Manhattan. The company finally went out of business in the 1960s after being sold a couple times due to falling sales." Then I said, "The end of Prohibition was an interesting time; there's a 1930s comedy movie on the subject of breweries switching from bootleg back to legal; the movie is titled A Slight Case of Murder, and it's a comedy about a group of gangsters struggling to become businessmen and the culture shock that followed repeal. It also features my favorite young actor, Bobby Jordan."

After twenty five beer trivia questions he abruptly switched the subject back to our plans at Normandy Beach and asked for more comments and suggestions. He commented that the mine was in a large wilderness area with practically no trees all the way to the horizon, and it was rolling land with nothing but rocks and weeds where the vast herds of wild Buffalo once grazed. David said one police spotter helicopter with IR cameras could locate the spotter easily and radio his location to deputies on 4-wheel ATVs. One of the ODs said he was born in Wyoming and if the spotter took off running he wouldn't get very far with everyone in town chasing him. Then he said, "When was the last time anyone saw a news headline that said: `escaped prisoner in Wyoming?'" We all chuckled.

One of our younger ODs was a young man named D'mar, he was an O-1 and a recent college grad from rural Alabama, he just finished officer school and was assigned to us temporarily because of his college degree. He was seated with the ladies at the picnic table and said he'd been hunting in Wyoming before. He said he has friends not too far from that mine and if the wind, when they attacked, was out of the southeast they'll hear the blasts up in Wright and a bunch of locals will run outside with rifles in hand and take off in their trucks for the mine and those terrorists would never escape unless they hightailed it over 100mph or figured out a way to become invisible because there ain't no place to hide.

D'mar said, "It's true. They don't mess around up there. The last time someone robbed the gas station they didn't get out of town alive. That town wouldn't exist without the mine. The locals will protect it with all they got. There's a bank in town with one teller window. On the floor at the window are two steel plates you gotta stand on. If you pull a gun on the teller she bumps a button with her knee, the plates drop open and you disappear down the pit, then the plates close and your ass is gone." I don't think anyone believed D'mar' story but it was funny and very visual. I had no idea if it was true but it was funny. Every bank should have a trap door in front of the teller window, and any other business prone to being robbed. D'mar was the one who had asked about wind power at the mine.

So David pulled the new Lieutenant aside and tried to school him on renewable energy, this time his lecture was on photovoltaic electricity.

"Do you know how solar panels work? Did you ever take college chemistry?" The young man said no.

They work because of chemistry and I'm going to make a few comparisons between photovoltaic panels and uranium. As you might know uranium was discovered to spontaneously fission. The nucleus of the atom of uranium is really big and unstable. So all of a sudden, without warning, one day they break in half. When it breaks in half it gives off electrons and energy in the form of heat. The electrons become known as radiation and the heat we use to generate electricity. Good so far?" The young man nodded yes.

"When uranium splits it becomes two new atoms but neither of them is uranium. Those new atoms are called the daughters of uranium. They are also radioactive, which mean they too are unstable and split eventually. Uranium has 14 daughters, the last one is lead and it is not radioactive and it is stable, meaning it does not split and will remain lead forever."

"With the chemicals in photovoltaic panels when photon particles from the sun strike a PV molecule on the panel an electron is knocked lose, which generates electromotive force, or electrical power. Over time that same molecule is hit a few times and all the free electrons are gone and it becomes a new atom, it is no longer the substance it was originally made from, that's the same change as uranium. Once it changes it no longer gives off electricity and it is an electrically dead molecule on that panel, which is why over time the panels all die. What the molecules turn into is a toxic substance, so it will someday be illegal to throw away because like many solvents, they pollute the ground water and make people and animals sick enough to die. Buying solar panels is also subsidized by the tax payers but their disposal once they are worn out is not, so people have to dump them along highways or in rivers just to get rid of them since they are worn out; they have become new chemicals and those chemicals are considered dangerous."

"Even when they are new photovoltaics (PV) barely produce any electricity and you never recover the cost to install them without a subsidy. If you happen to own them at the wrong time you might find your home declared a toxic waste site when they wear out and you want to get rid of them but now it costs thousands of dollars just to have them ground up into a powder and disposed of in a toxic chemical waste pit. PV panels are a throwaway solution from the throwaway generation, the same people that let McDonalds use plastic and styrofoam cups that will sit for decades in landfills not decaying, instead of rapid decaying paper cups. If you care about the environment then do not buy more throw away toxic crap. That is what PV panels are, just more throw away toxic crap." The young man said nobody ever told him the truth about PV panels or wind power before and he felt betrayed by people he used to trust. So David had to get in the last word as they walked together to the ice chest to get more beers; he told him to stop watching TV since that's where most of the lies came from.

While the boys were discussing renewable energy we had a grown-up discussion about Operation Omaha Beach; someone asked what happened if they parked in the wrong spot and set-up their launcher. I told them that one turn-around was the only one in that area, it was sort of in the middle of all the targets. If they parked in the wrong place their targets would be too far away to hit with mortars. The spotter would see it right away.

Then someone else asked how we knew that was the exact spot and I reminded them that this was top secret. I lowered my voice seated at the picnic table and said we saw the Keyhole satellite photos, they had parts of the mine scratched out in the sand in the desert, it included the highway and the turnaround, and all the targets. They had the mine scratched into the sand to 100% scale and it exactly matched the google maps photos of the mine. They drew the mine on the sand then practiced on it for two weeks with dummy mortar rounds. The training rounds went the same distance but didn't explode. Over time they were hitting all six targets in under ten minutes, even while unable to see their targets. The CIA was taking photos of them every 90 minutes 24 hours a day for the past six weeks. They practiced six days a week with one day for prayer and fasting. I said they're like Japanese kamikaze pilots eager to die for their religion that teaches violent revenge.

Our dozen visitors drank a lot of beer; I had to get an empty trash can from the garage for people to toss their empty cans. In two hours we consumed nearly three cases of beer and three bags of chips and salsa. Slowly the party broke up and we were left with a much better feeling. The OD called at 10:05pm and said the skipper was in his emergency meeting in Wyoming but they were waiting for one more board member to arrive to make it official. At that time all he was seeking was verbal permission for the immediate construction of two small underground concrete bunkers on their property overlooking the highway. After the threat was ended they could do whatever they wanted with the bunkers.

At 11:25 she called back and said everything in Wyoming was done, we got verbal permission and one of the mine owners handed the captain a business card and recommended a concrete contractor that could start within 48 hours. They said cell coverage was very spotty near the mine, but she eventually got a taxi and was going to the only motel in town. She said it was 16 miles from the mine offices to the center of Wright, Wyoming, but the nearest airport was 64 miles north in Gillette, Wyoming. They were trying to hire a pilot and business jet to fly back to El Paso or even to Denver or Vegas; the HSCT jet was busy.

Duke and Luke were last to leave; they were actually valuable assets for the mission since they'd cover for us at ELP while we were running the Op. Duke said he'd fly up to Wyoming to get things started on construction and David immediately agreed to send him, but he had to fly to Gillette and rent a car and drive to the mine. There were no airports anywhere near the mine. While he was enroute we'd contact the builder and get him started, probably after a survey and placement of the first ground stakes. The captain generally felt okay with sending Duke because he was a decorated combat veteran and trusted his judgment, and at age 43 he was older than all of us working in El Paso.

That night we got them hotel rooms near ELP, within walking distance of the terminal. The OD would call him once transport was arranged.

We went to bed and left all the food and beer outside in the back yard because we had a lot to get done in very little time. I had a hard time falling asleep with so much on my mind.

That night, while we were in bed but still wide awake, I asked him what would have happened if the mine owners said no. David paused for a moment then said we would have somehow staked out the highway from a different location and killed them without reaching full legal authority. Maybe we could have built a hunting blind near the highway and used a few spiders instead.

I asked him if spiders could have been made to work out there and he said yes, it might have taken three or four of them but even with a 4 mph breeze they could have hid under their car and gassed them while we watched from a couple hundred feet away. We came up with a spider-based plan originally but the 50cal worked better due to the distances involved. Then as a joke David said if the mine said no we might have let them bomb one of the drag line cranes before we released the gas. That would put the mine in a lot of trouble as a business. In court they'd have to explain how they prevented a defense against the attack that damaged one of their cranes and ran two power plants out of coal.

I asked David how Duke would do directing construction of the two bunkers and David half joking said, "Heaven help us all." I mumbled `A-men' over Whispernet and he reached over and smacked my arm and we both giggled. But the more I talked to him about it the less scared I felt.

The next morning the OD called at 5:59am and said things changed and Captain Johnson was on his way back to ELP on a private business jet he hired in Gillette, and Duke was going by HSCT to Gillette because there were no landing strips in Wright, Wyoming.

We had the OD on speaker phone, she laughed and said she heard in the Pentagon some people called it Celebrity Airlines instead of (HSCT) High Speed Civilian Transport. We all chuckled but it didn't surprise me that some officers in the Pentagon got their panties in a bunch because they weren't allowed to fly on HSCT, ever. Everyone thinks it would be cool to fly that fast until they experience it. It's a dreadfully cramped and uncomfortable ride that often got me close to puking. Holy cow, it's a combat jet, not a passenger plane! David said, "It's like climbing into an Indy Car that runs 1700mph and there ain't no bathrooms, and the pilot hates your guts."

After he got off the phone he told me over Whispernet "The Skipper Returns to Gilligan's Island." We softly chuckled. David did not like Captain Johnson; he said he's seen evidence that he is violating federal laws regarding investing in military equipment manufacturers. The truth is he could someday end up in Leavenworth if the Pentagon was ever audited. That was how he got started calling him The Skipper (as in the Gilligan's Island TV show) instead of Captain Johnson.

By the end of day #2 the captain was back at ELP and Duke was in Wright meeting with a local contractor that did basements for new construction. Duke got the green light from the contractor in Wright after they met and drove to the mine and marked two spots with a best view of Omaha Beach (Highway 450, north of the mine office driveway). The builder seemed to understand the requirements and called a friend with a backhoe and agreed to dig both holes tomorrow, ten by ten by ten. They were going to be made with concrete walls, floor, and roof, with reinforcing steel and one 4" floor drain in the middle. They agreed how the firing porthole should be shaped, they sketched it on a notepad while seated on the rocks where one of the bunkers would go. Duke told him they were for volunteer employee hunters to keep bison and elk from wandering onto mine property and endangering employees.

They had to build a plywood form the shape the firing porthole so the guy on the 50cal had a wide view of the highway. They slipped the box into the concrete forms to keep that spot open. They made a ring out of a steel drum for the hatch opening in the roof. During the pour of the walls they'd drill holes and place steel reinforcing rod (bent into wide U-shapes) into one wall to serve as a ladder to climb down inside the bunker.

After they were built, a gunsmith from McGregor Range in New Mexico would install two 50cal machine gun mounts attached to the walls and the floor. We had the mounts and machine guns flown from McGregor Range to Gillette and had the city cops pick them up and stash them for us. Duke would run up to Gillette to pick them up and deliver them to the bunkers. He'd be making several high speed runs up and down Highway 59. Soon after that the guy from the Range would drive up on his motorcycle with his wife and install the mounts and weapons. After Operation Omaha Beach was over it was our job to return both `fifties' and the belt-feed ammo to McGregor Range.

After the bunkers were done a landscaper that designed golf courses was going to go there and hide the bunkers and ensure they were invisible from the highway. Once the hatches were mounted they were going to dump a small load of soil on top and carefully hand dig an opening for the hatch to swing fully open but be barely visible from the highway. Lastly, the port would be closed-off by a small piece of plywood (10"x24") that was wedged into place to keep critters out of the bunker. The 50cal machine guns were actual WW2 antiques from the war in Europe, they were very valuable too. Those 75 year old weapons were fine for training use but too old to be used in combat. We weren't expecting to actually get into a fire fight with the three men who had been training in Libya.

At home we started packing for what could be a long underground camping trip in Wyoming. The ODs had to make sure everything was done on-time and in the right order and that the two 50cal machine guns didn't get stolen. Those two machine guns actually flew in B-17 bombers over Germany, Poland, and France many times in 1944-5. The chief of police in Gillette was going to sign for the weapons at the airport and take them to his home to wait for Duke to show up with photo ID to collect them.

Our OD also had to open an account on Amazon in case we needed to order camping supplies and have them delivered to the mine office. The account was addressed: `ATTN: bison Abatement' at the mine. At the outset we had no idea how long we were going to be in Wyoming; we prepared for ordering more food/water and toilet supplies.

We'd need all sorts of camping gear, neither of us wanted to bring our own stuff because it could get destroyed or stolen. We needed basic camping gear for heating food, chemical toilets for inside both bunkers. We also worked on our own lists for cooking, cleaning, hygiene, water, communications, and sleep. I was not looking forward to two to six weeks underground. I wished I could bring Milo with us for some entertainment and security. And let's not forget that dogs are great at washing dishes!

We were facing life without running hot water or a sink, not even a garden hose. We'd be cleaning ourselves with baby wipes until the mission was over.

We went nine days without any updates from the CIA on the attack plot, and then one day they faxed a note: The latest intel report from Libya said the squad practicing in Libya just left Africa and was on a fuel tanker sailing to the port in Tampico, Mexico. We calculated it normally took the tanker about 8-11 days to cross and arrive in Mexico, after that they'd be in North America and we could assume the attack was less than five days away. The fax said the tanker was presently near the island of Malta heading northwest at 14 knots. Our countdown had finally begun.

The worst part was not knowing how long it would take them to get to the mine. Would they decide to take time off and drive to Disneyland? We had no intel; neither did the CIA or FBI. We didn't know their names or have any info on their car. David said it was likely we'd never learn their names or histories. The good part was we got the bunkers completely finished and ready to go, all we needed to hear was they were about to land in Mexico. That would be our signal to head north. The CIA was closely watching the tanker during their voyage across the Atlantic and promised to notify us during their final approach to Tampico, Mexico.

Even though we owned lots of great camping gear Uncle Sam was paying for all new stuff, gear more suited for use underground. We had to be cautious about carbon monoxide levels created with cooking gear. Even though they're slow we opted for Sterno cook stoves and basic cooking gear. We'd eat mostly canned food that only had to be heated. We'd hang out in cheap sweat shirts and pants since the bunkers should be cool inside all year, all our clothes had to be long sleeve and made for warmth. Our bodies were acclimated to a hot desert climate; neither of us tolerated the cold well after almost ten years in the armpit of Texas.

We ordered sets of cammo sweat pants and jackets with cammo t-shirts and black leather boots. Plus let's not forget that Wright, Wyoming is pretty far north, and higher in elevation. It's going to be a lot cooler than in El Paso, especially at night.

We made one mega shopping trip to Sportsman's Warehouse in Las Cruces for most of our gear. I got a new camp cot, sleeping bag, and a wind-up AM-FM-SW radio. Our plan at the mine was to stay underground during the day and during times when mine employees might be nearby (during shift change).

I had already devised a scheme for how to keep one eye on the highway while we did adult stuff with each other. I'm sure David did some planning too.

Four days after the holes were dug the first bunker concrete-work was done. The two round steel ship-hatches were on a truck heading to Wyoming from a west coast shipyard and they would start pouring concrete on the second bunker tomorrow. The guys building the bunkers were a normal group of men that made basements and foundations for new construction in the area. They told Duke the project was unusual because of the small size but they appreciated the business.

The procedure used for the bunkers was to first form and pour the footer, which was a concrete frame to support the walls and roof. Next, they set the forms for the walls but poured the floor. On day #3 they poured the walls and removed the forms late on the next day. On day #5 they set the forms for the roof and poured it. Once the forms were removed along with a steel ring they removed the inside plywood forms for the roof and handed them up through the round hole. One of the crew took some of the scrap wood home to make a porthole cover with a handle to keep the critters out. The estimated cost for the bunkers that did not include the hatches was $3900 each. The hatches cost more than the bunkers but we learned they were not submarine quality, just marine quality, cast steel with a single rubber seal.

The day after the second bunker was done the hatches were delivered; both bunkers had adhesive spread around the round hole and the very heavy steel hatches were carefully set in place over the holes. Nobody could touch them for 48 hours to allow the adhesive to harden like rock. That afternoon they sprayed the outside of both bunkers with a tar sealant but no other drainage was installed because the soil was just gravel, no water would ever accumulate outside the bunker walls. An hour after the sealant they had a backhoe fill in around both bunkers and over their tops.

That weekend the landscaper brought three men with rakes and shovels to erase tire tracks and scars on the land and hide both bunkers and transplant weeds to block any view of both firing portholes. The mine hauled away the fill from digging the holes after they got both bunkers suitably buried and hidden.

The actual porthole openings were ten inches tall and 24 inches wide but offered a 161 degree wide view (for shooting) toward Omaha Beach. That weekend the guy from the Range arrived and installed the mounts. I've fired a 50cal many times in the past but never saw what a steel mount looked like, David said it was just a vertical steel pin on some kind of rigid base that gave the shooter room to move around. He placed the weapons, covered them with plastic tarps, and closed-up the bunkers. We were relying on the fact that nobody knew anything about them so the machine guns should be safe even with the hatches unlocked. There was no way to lock these round steel marine hatches anyway. Duke described them as thin steel, maybe one inch thick like hatches for accessing liquid storage tanks on a tanker ship.

The only things we didn't install were eye-bolts in the roof of the bunkers to chain the hatches shut to keep uninvited visitors out; we planned on advising the mine to bury them after Operation Omaha Beach was over. Once the Op was over those bunkers were theirs to do with as they pleased. We assumed the mine would bury and forget about 'em.

Several local people (employees) asked about the bunkers and Duke later told us the story he devised: "They're for hunting elk and bison. As the locals well knew over the decades the bison herds were slowly recovering and regularly became a nuisance. The mine needs to be able to operate without employees being trampled by Bison. Most of the bison on mine land come in from the wide-open north side. The bunkers are there for hunters to stop them before they enter mine property. At their size the wire fence along the highway doesn't stop bison, they gallop right through `em. And when mine security people try to chase them off their jeeps often get charged and heavily damaged by angry bison, especially during (bison) mating season."

But anyone that knows American bison also knows they do not like human contact, especially if young bison are nearby. You cannot walk up and pet the pretty buffalo. Remember that if you ever go to Yellowstone Park because stupid tourists die every year trying to take selfies near the bison. At first they act like they don't see the stupid tourists then suddenly lower their horns, turn and charge without warning.

The latest update from the CIA said the fuel tanker was nearly to Key Largo Florida so we still had days to go. David and I left three days after that report, with our truck loaded with new camping gear and supplies. Since we got married we've not spent too many nights apart; this mission will be difficult for us in that way.

The internet said it was 1015 miles from ELP to Wright, Wyoming, so the drive would be about the same as running up to Omaha. We left before the sun came up and pushed it hard up I-25; I think we did a steady 90mph all the way to Denver and never saw any cops, but we got flipped off several times and honked at by several truckers.

I think we had a New Mexico state cop behind us near Santa Fe; he followed us in a Camaro for ten minutes then flashed his lights and dropped back and turned around in the center median. Sometimes the stickers on the bumper worked well. It's usually small town cops that give us trouble.

We were still trying to come up with a way to use spiders but the distances in this Op were simply too great for their weak wireless signals. It appeared the 50cal would be our weapon of choice. The wide open spaces around the highway were just too large to use spiders with their limited battery power. Probably the #1 limitation of the spiders was distance. We're hoping a future model might utilize a more efficient muscle thread so they might be able to achieve greater range. As their muscle fibers warm up with use their efficiency drops; they were more suited for indoor work.

It would have been nice if we could have made some kind of a remote release spider hole to hide near the highway and release them with gas pellets to be vented nearby when they started loading to fire at the mine. But using spider gas outdoors is always problematic because of the wind. And if a Good Samaritan drove up and tried to rescue them while the gas was present they could be exposed too. We picked 50cal because of the distances involved and it wins most fights because they penetrate anything we'd ever find parked along a highway in Wyoming (including car engines)!

To keep ourselves awake on the long-fast drive to Wyoming we discussed our favorite moral arguments (like capital punishment, freedom of speech, and euthanasia) we enjoyed arguing but by the time we got north of Denver we both had a serious case of the yawns so we stopped at a motel and took showers then went to bed.

In the shower I swallowed his milk. David stood with his back against the shower wall, his fingers inserted into my hair, his eyes closed and a look of relaxed contentment on his face. I think I made him come in less than three minutes. I fell asleep with his flavor still in my mouth. David was very salty and had almost no actual flavor. No hint of bitterness. He tasted like melted butter.

In the back of the truck we had enough gear for two campsites for 15 days without modern conveniences like running water. We had two camping toilets but we'd have to dump them on the ground late at night, and no toilet paper could go in the tank, it had to go in the trash. I was not looking forward to this part of the mission. After we arrived someone from the Army was coming (from an arsenal in Colorado) to set-up the 50cal machine guns and bring two cases of belted-ammo each, so on the first night we'd be unarmed except for the pelican case and our two 9mm automatics.

David said the 50cal weapons were overkill, but the idea was there should be no place for them to hide. In a motor vehicle, the engine, transmission, and parts of the drive train offer some protection from bullets, but with the 50cal those rounds would go right through any gasoline engine, so they'd have no place to hide once we started shooting. And with rounds coming from two directions they'd be in the bull's-eye of the kill zone. David expected lots of stuff would go wrong for us, which was why our bunkers had such a wide field of view and our weapons could easily reach a target over a mile away.

We left the motel near Denver after breakfast at Waffle House on I-25 north of the city. When you leave the Denver metro area you're only about one hour from the state line and then it's another three hours to the mine, but most of the drive was on 2-lane paved roads. Supposedly, mine security was aware we were coming and what was going on. And tomorrow morning the ammo would be delivered and we'd get a quick review lesson. I imagine he might fire one round each just to make sure they were functional, but he didn't want to attract too much attention.

At 1:45pm we turned off Highway 450 at the mine's sign and drove uphill toward their office building and then turned left and followed the signs to their power plant. I was surprised considering how much coal this place produced daily how many people didn't work there. Their entire office building was half the size of an average grocery store. And the employee parking lot was rather small too. Employees parked near the office to clock-in then took a mine bus to their work sites.

After a few turns on a well packed dirt road a black jeep drove up close behind us, it had red flags on the front bumper (like a general's car) and a blue revolving light on the roof so we stopped and David hopped out and walked back to greet them. I turned in my seat and watched them shake hands and after a brief chat David came back to the truck and the Jeep drove around us and stopped. He got back inside and cranked the motor, now we followed them to the spot where they thought we should park to not get run over by their 40 foot tall dump trucks.

We backed up to one of the bunkers and unloaded my stuff. I went inside and lit a lantern then David dropped boxes down to me. He dropped all the water jugs one at a time, some were two gallons and I thought they might rupture but they did fine. It took fifteen minutes to get my stuff unloaded then we moved the truck and unloaded his gear, then I parked the truck about 400 feet away where security said we'd be out of the way.

The mine used enormous Caterpillar dump trucks that were about 40 feet tall. Security said they had limited visibility and they always had the right-of-way on mine property. Near our bunkers was a place where the mine dumped raw coal if the processing plant was off-line, and that was near where we hid our truck. You can see that area on google maps too.

The bunkers sat about three hundred feet apart. They had short piles of rock and weeds around them so they couldn't be seen unless you got very close. It was amazing how well disguised they were. Despite four cement trucks and a dozen workers, one backhoe for four days of work it looked like the ground hadn't been disturbed in the last 150 years over the bunkers. The landscaper did an amazing job hiding them!

I went back to my bunker after parking the truck. I wanted to set up my underground campsite. With the hatch standing upright I walked around inside the bunker and looked at the firing porthole, which was plugged by a small sheet of plywood with two plain steel handles glued to it. When I pulled it inward I saw someone cut and mounted a sheet of glass in the opening too, which was unexpected. The sheet of glass had one small handle glued to the center and black foam rubber tape around the edges for a bit of a seal. Neither of them would keep ants out, but they might keep snakes and mice out.

First, I set up my little camp table and chair and un-wrapped and set-up the cot and then the new sleeping bag and pillow. I set-up the Sterno stove and unwrapped the small cooking gear. We had no way to wash dishes; all we'd be doing was heating canned food. We'd be heating and eating from stainless steel mess pans. Back home I filled both camp toilets and added fluids so they were ready. With all the new stuff I was building a trash pile already. When I had everything ready to go I wondered what David was up to so I carefully climbed up the steel wall ladder and poked my head out above the ground so I could see his hatch.

When they installed the hatches they raised-up toward the north. Standing on the ladder I couldn't see the highway, but I could see the mine. I think they planned it that with the soil dumped on the bunkers if the hatch was wide open all you could see was a tiny sliver of the very edge of the hatch from the highway, but they were fully visible from the mine side. I think they were counting on that most mine employees were totally disinterested in what was built on the outskirts of the mine, especially if it created no additional work or lowered their paychecks.

I looked all around to learn the surroundings. Near us to the south was an area they dumped coal if the processing plant was backlogged or offline. All the buildings near us were for coal cleaning and processing. They had big conveyors running all over the area because they had to be prepared for if any of the steps in coal handling went down so they could still process and load trains. This mine had vast mountains of coal sitting all over the place, it looked like the production choke point here was coal processing. It was obvious they could dig it out of the ground lots faster than it could be processed and loaded on trains. It looked like they kept nearly one week of coal on hand in case the cranes went down or they had bad flooding.

The coal was first cleaned; that means rock was removed in a wash tank. Coal floats but rock sinks so water is used to remove rocks and sand. Next, the coal is dried and ground to the size of a golf ball, which is still much larger than power plants used but it was closer to what was needed and made it easier to handle. After sizing it's loaded into something like a grain elevator for semi-automated loading into coal train cars, hundreds of them every day. The trains slowly drive beneath the elevator and each car is loaded exactly the same, with almost no humans involved (until something breaks).

So their big coal processing plant was behind our bunkers, the train tracks made a big loop as trains came in, loaded, and left for distant states. From the highway the coal processing was all you could see of the mine, the actual pits were nearly half a mile away. Today it's hard to picture this area with vast herds of bison and horse riding Indians, as recently as 100 years ago. David said if he was a mine executive he'd erect some kind of viewing platform and allow school kids to come watch the mine to learn about where their electricity originates.

Something else we learned during this mission is coal power plants today ground coal to about the size of grains of sand to burn. I had a mental image of them using machines to feed large chunks into boilers, but it's actually sprayed into special ovens like a gas and burnt instantly. And with the new carbon and metal scrubbers coal really isn't the polluter it used to be.

As I looked around at the mine buildings I saw the top of David's head pop up, but we were too far apart for Whispernet so we used the walkie-talkies and left our hatches open for fresh air and sunlight. I checked for cell signal but my cell said `no signal.' David had the pelican case in his bunker. I asked him if he had signal and he said yes, so I got out my glasses to see if they would connect to the pelican case while both were eight feet underground and they worked fine so we could talk over those (if needed), and he enabled comms with ELP and Washington. I had no idea how we were going to charge the pelican case and assumed he'd turn it off after testing coverage.

Next, I examined the machine gun and mount, but it was nothing more than a square steel tube with plates at three ends bolted into the concrete floor with two arms into the concrete walls. I think the gun spoecialist shot the bolts into the concrete, and then he injected a thick white adhesive then threaded in the bolts and tightened them to the specific torque. A hard white substance in each hole had started to dribble down the wall then hardened like rock. The mount didn't shake or move at all, but it could be unbolted with a 25mm socket and ratchet. The inside of the bunker smelled like curing concrete. It looked like the builders even swept the floor clean too, although they hand't polished it to a totally smooth finish. I neglected to bring some incense this trip.

I turned on my radio and played music soft ally on battery power, but our walkie talkies were the primary means of comms. The Pentagon and ELP couldn't hear the walkie talkies since they were civilian toy-grade radios. Even without any comms all I have to do is think about something for a while and then those thoughts will pop-up in David's brain too since he's a mind reader. I noticed it here already, when I got the urge to look outside he usually felt it too. But for some reason at home I still have to ask him to take his shirt off.

Around 3pm we checked-in again with the OD and got the latest info on the military squad headed our way. I told ELP we should be ready to act anytime after lunch tomorrow; she said the freighter hadn't landed in Mexico yet but it was close. We estimated it would take them three to five days after leaving the ship to arrive in Wyoming. Everything takes longer when you're on the run and trying not to be noticed.

They would be driven from Tampico to Matamoros where they would sneak across the border and meet someone to give them a car and the weapons. Many people cross the border into the States about five miles in-land from where the Rio Grande flows into the Gulf of Mexico. There is a sharp turn in the river called Tarpon Bend. The bend often causes the formation of sand bars and most of the year the water flows over the sand bar about knee deep. They meet a driver on the US side on Quicksilver Avenue and they are driven to a safe house in Brownsville. This is the usual route used by governments around the world to sneak intelligence agents into the USA. In Brownsville the Border Patrol simply does not have enough people to stop the flow of people across the border and in some circumstances they're paid to look the other way at pre-arranged times. The feds heard this was the arrangement made for the three men coming from Libya.

The banks of the river there were shallow, they walk up to the river at night and hold their hands on top of their heads to avoid the thorns on some of the weeds that grow thick along the banks. Then you step down onto the soft sand and walk toward the center of the river with your hands up. It's about 300 feet across. Sometimes their guides use night-vision binoculars to shout steering instructions to people walking across when the water is low. Slowly, your feet start to get wet as you wade into the warm river water and it's very dark, but no flashlights are allowed in case the feds are watching from a drone. The water might reach halfway up your thighs but they keep following commands shouted from the Mexican side by strangers they had to trust. They might see the same people again on way back.

When they get to the far side, if they are lucky they'll be near one of the boat ramps and they simply walk up the ramp to dry land and as easy as walking they're suddenly in the States. They are then told what direction to walk to meet their ride. It might be a quarter mile hike to meet the driver. In the dark they get in the back of a truck and lie down flat and watch the sky as they are driven into town to the safe-house where they are welcomed with a cold beer and a few tacos. But they won't be in Brownsville very long; departure time is early the very next morning unless they're very sick from their trip.

In this particular instance their welcome at the safe house in Brownsville started in the front yard as their ally welcomed them in the dark front yard lit only by the stars, as he shouted 'Orale Vatos!' before he remembered the visitors were Middle Eastern and didn't speak Spanish. Using hand gestures he welcomed them inside and offered food and water, showed them a small bedroom with bunk beds and where the bathroom was located. Their car was already in the driveway with the license plates blocked from view from the street.

That night they got a few hours of sleep; they were trained to leave early in the morning. The maps, mortars, and launcher were already in the car. The Libyan squad was given one cell phone and $500 in US cash. They were expected to drive to Wyoming in two days, perform the attack, and drive back to the safe house and return to Matamoros three to five days after the attack, to wait for a return tanker ride to Libya. According to the CIA that was their entire plan.

I spent the rest of the first day making myself comfortable in the little bunker. After sun-down and it got dark outside I went over to David's and climbed down inside and saw his p,lace was very different from mine; he even had magazine photos taped to the walls, I think they were from National Geographic. We decided I should bring my Sterno stove over so we could cook and eat in his bunker, so I got my stuff and heated a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and a can of peas, all of that in a metal camp dish over the Sterno cooker. After dinner I walked to the truck to get four cans of beer out of the cooler for us. While we sipped beers we summarized the mission so far:

According to intel the perps were not anticipating any meaningful defense at the mine. They would drive up and park, and then set-up the launcher and use pre-tested settings and begin firing mortars after they received confirmation from the spotter. The entire attack, two cases of mortars, would take them less than fifteen minutes to complete and get back in the car. They'd have to park and wait nearby for the spotter to call them using the walkie talkies. After the spotter called to say he was ready they'd drive back by the mine, park and prepare to launch mortars. They'd rehearsed this simple attack over and over in Libya until they could do it blindfolded.

The advantage of using the turnaround as a location to launch the attack was the firm roadway would improve the accuracy of the M2 mortar launcher, which would shorten the amount of time the squad would be on site, thereby increasing their get-away success. They were expected to arrive with two metal containers with 12 mortars in each.

It appeared the plan of attack did not include protection for the mortar crew, so it was possibly a suicide mission. If they were able to run their mission and drive off they were still in a very large barren part of the US with almost no trees or other forms of cover for long distances in every direction. Being so far from towns meant there would likely be no local police response and mine security people were not equipped or trained to repel an artillery attack. Since we knew they were coming we had the Wyoming State Police pre-position a helicopter and pilot with IR sighting gear in town to catch the spotter after he fled the mine on foot. Their plan was to drive back to the spot where they dropped him off and wait for his return. It was also possible one or more of them obtained pistols along the way.

As far as their getaway route: it was 16 miles away from the mine to the town of Wright, to the northwest. To the east on Highway 450 the next town was 70 miles away, the town of Newcastle was almost on the state line with South Dakota. Between the mine and either town was nothing but rocks and weeds. And when they drove away from the mine they'd likely be the only car on the highway no matter which direction they went. That made them easier to spot from a helicopter. It would be very difficult for them to hide in any town. Three men from Libya in small town Wyoming would be easy to spot. Their best bet would be to make it back to I-25 as quickly as possible. Our best bet would be to make sure they died near the mine before launching a single mortar.

That evening we sat in David's bunker and talked about non-work stuff for hours. I offered to service him but he said we shouldn't since these bunkers were federal property. So I told him we could go sit in his truck like we used to back in college. David got a big smile on his face and stood up and started climbing up the steel rungs on the wall and out the hatch; I followed. We casually walked to his truck (in the dark) and got in the front seats and slid them back as far as they'd go. I turned to face him and we hugged for a while. I pressed my face into his shoulder/neck and inhaled and held him while I tried not to get emotional. I do get emotional easily; one thing I hate about my brain.

While we were holding each other a diesel engine on a coal train revved up and started pulling a long coal train through the loading process, it was an unmistakable sound as the coal poured rapidly into the empty steel coal cars. He opened his window and we listened; we could barely see the actual train because there were all kinds of buildings blocking our view.

While he was looking at the tall buildings with their red aircraft lights on top I reached over and rubbed his stomach, inserted a finger in his belly button then moved up across his chest. I pushed up his shirt and slid my tongue across his velvety wide nips while he leaned back into the reclined seat and got totally relaxed and enjoyed my efforts. While I worked his tits he reached down his pants and started to work his rod. It didn't take long for me to get his shorts to his knees and took him in my mouth and made him come while he listened to the sound of the train cars loading and a million crickets in the distance.

I think I spent almost half an hour with his rod in my mouth, but he soon closed the window because it got really cold out here at night. We kissed and went to our bunkers and went to sleep. We had visitors coming in the morning for the 50cals.

David checked-in with the OD before he went to sleep. The latest update was the ship had not arrived yet in Mexico but should tomorrow. She said the Coast Guard was on patrol in the Gulf to make sure our guys didn't head on a smaller boat for Yucatan; they didn't want to lose track of them. For us it was like a night off while on duty.

Underground it was super quiet and the temps dropped to the low 60s, I'm sure that made David happy. I shut my hatch but didn't latch it down but I set an empty can under the hatch to hold it open slightly, so it was open about an inch on one side. My alarm was set for 5am.

Trying to fall asleep on the strange new bed I had time to think. I considered the risk these people took coming across the ocean to attack the mine. I wondered if they might decide not to show-up as planned and simply become North American citizens and look for jobs and a place to work instead. David said back at home they had probably had relatives taken hostage to prevent any chance of them abandoning the mission after wading across the Rio Grande.

The third day the guy from a military arsenal arrived and unwrapped and loaded the 50cal and checked that it moved side to side freely and never hit the edges of the porthole. He showed me how to release the mount and aim it up and down too. He showed me how it was possible to shoot the wall inside the bunker so I had to be super careful that it was aimed downrange before I squeezed the trigger.

He loaded the end of the 50cal ammo belt into the weapon and reviewed it with me, but we've done that annually at McGregor Range for quals every year. He fired one round off into the distance. It was very loud inside the bunker and smoke filled the air. I saw the smoke slowly start to escape out of the wide-open hatch in the ceiling.

The 50cal weapons on the range sat on tripods, we've never seen them on a rigid steel mount before, and they were similar to the mount on the deck of a battleship. I've never used a mount like that before, but now I know how they work. It turned one way fully to the side to side but you had to turn a handle to move up and down. Or, you could leave both loose and let it move in all directions. With both unlocked when you let go of the 50cal it dropped down with the barrel aiming straight up.

He set the first can of belt feed ammo on a small shelf welded to the side of the mount so it was ready to fire the entire box if I held the trigger in. I assumed if I did that I'd probably choke to death from all the smoke inside the bunker. This situation would be ideal for shooting a few rounds, maybe ten at most then letting the air clear. I'll tell David we should alternate firing for that reason and never do more than five rounds at a time. That thing fired about five rounds per second. It spits the belt metal and the casings out the right side and those were usually super hot when first ejected. They could bounce off the wall and stick to your skin too, which is a guaranteed burn.

After my weapon was finished he did the same thing in David's bunker and fired one shot in the distance at the vast rocky wasteland that covered this part of Wyoming. Looking out the porthole into the distance I noticed the ground here was a grayish-brown, nearly the same color as the fur on the bison and elk.

While they were busy next door I made myself breakfast on the Sterno stove. I had re-hydrated scrambled eggs with bits of ham and bacon. It tasted like crap so I dumped half of it in the trash bag and opened a can of bacon flavored Spam, sliced it and cooked it over the stove but it took a while because the Sterno isn't a big flame. I also made some instant coffee and David came over and had half the Spam and coffee with me. We agreed the camping meal dehydrated eggs sucked and we'd never buy them again, but their spaghetti was fine. I think canned was easier and faster. Boiling a pot of water on the Sterno stove was time consuming, you sit there and watch it slowly get warmer. Staring at it seemed to slow it down even more.

David checked in with the office at 11:45am; they were advised the tanker arrived in Mexico and a couple dozen people got off the ship... we had to assume our targets had landed in the Americas and would be headed this way tomorrow after crossing the Rio Grande.

We estimated they'd spend one night in Brownsville and leave early the next morning for a 30 hour drive to Wyoming, probably like us they'd stop between Santa Fe and Denver. These three guys were Arabic and might not speak English but could read our highway signs since many foreigh countries have English on their road signs for tourists.

According to the mole at the training camp in Libya they were trained to get to the mine and back to Matamoros as quickly as possible; they could catch up on sleep on the long voyage back to Benghazi. They were probably driving a car with fake or stolen license plates so they couldn't push the speed limit like us. It could take them one more day to get here than it took us.

We discussed things and decided to be on alert now since they were likely already in the USA. We'd go on full alert tomorrow morning and keep the portholes open but covered by glass all the time. It also meant light discipline all night so we didn't reveal our presence after sundown. We knew they practiced during the day so we fully expected the attack to come in the morning, probably before 9am but they'd have to drop off the spotter about one hour before the mortar attack. This time of year here, sunrise was 6:45am. We expected they would drop off the spotter one hour before sunrise so he had the cover of darkness to sneak into the mine without being seen and reported.

All around the mine were long man-made mountains of top soil piled up over 100 feet high. We assumed the spotter would climb the highest peak near the train tracks and lie down and hold his binoculars and walkie talkie close to update the mortar crew how to adjust their launcher settings.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid. The night before they left Brownsville I moved my sleeping gear into David's bunker and we slept together but never did anything. I wanted to be against his body to feel less freaked out. When I'm with him I feel safer and able to sleep just before missions.

The next morning we were officially in a combat situation, like we were on guard duty on the front lines of an actual war. We ate breakfast in his bunker then I went to mine and, using walkie talkies, we alternated turns watching the highway. Only one of us needed to stand and watch the highway at one time. So far this morning we had received no intel from our office; nobody knew where they were or who they were. We had no license plates, no cell numbers, no photographs, no nothing. All we could do was sit and watch and wait for a small car to stop and park along the highway at that turnaround place. We didn't expect them to arrive here today, but it was still slightly possible. David felt they'll arrive early tomorrow morning in the dark.

We took turns, six hours at a time, standing beside the 50cal mount watching vehicles go by on the highway. We never saw any animals grazing on the weeds, just an occasional large bird, and trucks drive past. Hour after hour we watched but nobody stopped.

I gotta explain this so you know how bad this was. The inside of the bunker is nothing more than a large concrete box. At one end there was a small horizontal opening. Inches in from the wall was a large steel machinegun mount. It was made of unpainted tubular steel with large square plates on each end, so it was shaped like a plus sign. The bottom and sides had the steel plates bolted into the concrete floor and walls. On the top, the tube was welded shut and it had a three quarter inch round steel pin sticking up; that is what the 50cal sat on so it would swing side to side and up and down. The 50cal was not balanced so if you loosened the hand bolts on the hinge plate the gun simply dropped so the barrel was pointing up, the stock aimed at the floor.

But the mount was directly in front of the hole so it was difficult to lean against the wall and watch out the porthole. We should have had them weld some kind of steel seat to the mount, but without one it meant we had to stand and lean against the wall to watch the highway. It was impossible to get comfortable. Six hours on watch duty was miserable and you had to keep the glass over the hole or these tiny biting flies got in and attacked your face. David called them buffalo flies. I should have packed a can of bug spray.

It was a long fucking day staring at the highway; I think I made a gallon of coffee and finished off an entire Sterno can and opened #2. I used the toilet but peed in an empty 2L bottle. I leaned against the wall below the window and sideways into the steel mount but it was awful and I hated every minute of it.

I think we spent an hour making up knock-knock jokes and passing them back and forth over the walkie talkies. After lunch time we felt the risk of an attack dropped off but there was a chance if they got up here early they might drive by to look at the place first. And when the sun went down we mostly stopped watching. I had to dump my camp toilet so I carried it downhill near the fence and unscrewed the big cap and let the stuff slide out. After dumping it a car actually slowed and used the turn around to turn around but he kept going and nobody got out, but it sure made my heart pound because I wasn't in my bunker when they pulled over. Luckily, I had rocks to hide behind so they didn't see me.

I barely slept that night and felt full of anxiety; I had that sense of dread and impending disaster all the time now. Even my mouth hurt from clenching and grinding my teeth all the time. I forgot to pack some Xanax. I kept waking up and raced to the window to see if anyone was parked along the highway, but every time I looked nobody was there.

My alarm went off at 5am while it was still dark outside. I started a pot of water for coffee and through the glass I saw a small car pull over and turn around but they didn't really stop. They drove back west near the mine driveway and stopped along the highway and a door opened and closed. It was too far away (and dark) to see if someone ran across the pavement but I think I saw something pass behind the car because the back lights blinked one at a time. David watched it too and got the same impression. That must have been them dropping off the spotter; they'd be back when the mine was visible enough to begin their Op. I slid my hands all over the 50cal but I never fired it after the arsenal guy fired one shot.

We spoke briefly over the walkie talkies and then he turned on the pelican case and we started using the glasses. My heart was pounding all the time and sweat was running down my sides, I felt nauseated and I had a headache but I stayed near the porthole watching the highway continously now. Slowly, the sky to the east got brighter and finally the sun peaked over the horizon and shone all over the mine. I left my walkie talkie on just in case the Libyans were using the same walkie talkies we had; wouldn't that be funny, we could call in fake fire adjustment commands!

Forty minutes later an older Nissan 4-door car drove to the turnaround, slowed and pulled off near the widest part and stopped. It looked like they shut off the engine and just sat there. Normal traffic roared past like it wasn't there and wasn't suspicious. I silently reached up and removed the glass plate from the porthole. When locals made the plates they glued a small metal handle to the glass, and ran foam tape around the edges to keep it from splintering when pulled over the rough concrete wall.

I checked the 50cal; it had no safety lever. It was always ready to party if it had ammo loaded, and one round was chambered. I stood behind the machine gun roughly aimed at what looked like an older dark blue Nissan four door sedan. After it had been parked there for a while the sun got higher and now the ground was fully lit by direct sunlight. I saw the driver get out and open the trunk, and then the passenger got out with something in his hands that sort of looked like some kind of tool. From where they parked it was about 500 feet from their car to my porthole. I never saw them look around at the terrain. The driver handed the passenger some kind of metal plate with something that stuck out of the center on one side. The passenger looked around and stepped back and picked a spot near the car and set it on the pavement then pressed one end of the tool against it. I heard it pop, even at this distance, and then he moved it to another corner and did that again. I guess he anchored it to the pavement, just like we anticipated. Mortar launchers were designed to operate on soft dirt, not asphalt pavement.

Next he set the tool on the floor of the Nissan and kicked the plate with his shoe and it didn't move. The other guy walked over with this weird looking mechanical thing and pressed one end against the metal plate, like he was pressing a ball into a socket, then he unfolded two legs. Now it looked exactly like a mortar launcher. I was truly scared and wished I was over in David's bunker. I spoke softly and asked him if he was seeing everything and he told me to hold my fire until they met our criteria for lethal force. I was so scared I couldn't even talk, my mouth was as dry as the ground outside the bunker. I understood that David meant he would fire when they met our criteria, so I could fire after him.

The driver leaned over the trunk and lifted out a metal can and carried it over by the launcher. It was about the size of a large toaster oven and painted olive green. He set down the box near the launcher and removed the lid and set it on the ground. They stood there and talked briefly, then the passenger reached in and got out a small walkie talkie. He pressed it against his mouth and turned around to face the mine buildings while he spoke, then held it to his ear to hear the reply. Once he got a reply they both got down on their knees and turned knobs on the launcher and looked closely at the adjustments. David softly said it was seconds away, watch closely for the appearance of a mortar coming out of the box. Drops of sweat ran down my ribs and I needed to piss really bad.

They fiddled with the adjustments to fine-tune the aim, which took them another minute. They'd been there about three minutes now, maybe five. I felt nauseated and ran to the camp toilet, bent over and dry heaved. Then I raced back to my machine gun while I slid my hand across my mouth and chin several times: raised the back end of the 50cal and pointed it at the car. When I saw the driver reach into the can and carefully lift out a mortar, I heard one gunshot, then two more but nothing was being hit. The guys by the car froze trying to see where the noise came from, but judging how they looked all around they could not place the source. I guessed that the gunshot sound echoed off all the nearby hills and confused the source. I think they weren't sure someone was actually shooting at them, it could be a hunter nearby. Who knows what they were told about Wyoming during training in Libya.

Then I heard another few shots and finally one shattered the back window of their car and both guys ducked but kept looking around, they clearly did not expect to have shots fired at them during their mission. When the first 50cal round hit the back window of their car they turned to talk, suddenly another shot hit the passenger side rear door window and shattered it too which sprayed them with chunks of glass, the driver quickly set the mortar back in the can and both of them got down flat on their stomachs on the pavement to lie perfectly still. I had a great shot of the passenger seat guy so I carefully aimed and fired but hit nothing. I thought I saw a puff of dust on the ground on the far side of the highway.

I aimed lower and fired again but hit nothing. So I carefully aimed at a spot about 20 feet in front of and below the car and hit the windshield and shattered part of it. So I aimed lower and to the right more and fired, it made a huge oval gash in the hood, but the guys stayed flat on the pavement. Now I had some idea of roughly how to aim and the sights on my 50cal were way off!

Since David had started shooting it meant they met the criteria for lethal force so I aimed for the passenger seat guy, then moved it to the right and much lower trying to hit his upper body. I tried to relax and pulled the trigger and fired one round. I saw their ammo can moved a couple inches but the guys remained perfectly still. I knew just a small adjustment to the right and up and I'd hit the passenger in the chest. Believe me, a 50cal round in the chest would be instantly lethal.

Looking through the sights on the 50cal aiming carefully at the passenger I noticed faint white smoke rise out of the ammo can and as I watched for a few seconds it suddenly exploded in a huge bright white flash and ball of yellow fire. I barely saw the passenger side of the car rise way up like it was going to roll over. The entire scene looked like it was in slow motion. Less than one second later another explosion came from the trunk as their second can of mortars exploded and the two combined made a huge bright white flash and a ball of fire and black smoke like a mushroom cloud leapt toward the sky.

By then my bunker was full of gun powder smoke and it was hard to get any air. In slow motion I saw a blast wave from the explosion race up the slope, I had a fraction of a second to duck as the blast flew in the porthole and I was instantly covered by dust, sand, and hundreds of tiny rocks and debris. I choked but kept my eyes closed. I felt grit and sand in my mouth and dust in my eyes.

When I raised my head and looked around and saw a black mushroom cloud rising in the air, car parts and body parts were flying in the air. I grabbed my water bottle off the floor, took off the cap, faced toward the ceiling and slowly poured water across my face to clear the crud from my eyes. When I looked down I saw my body was coated with dust and sand like I'd been sweeping out a crematorium oven.

I glanced again at the highway and saw everything was gone! The wildest thing I saw was two legs with jeans and shoes arc across the sky, the guy I aimed at must have been blown in half and just his legs flew over the highway and landed in the weeds on the other side, still smoldering. I've seen a lot of explosions but never saw one that powerful (except our nukes) before, I was stunned by the force of the blast and that the spot where the two guys had parked was completely empty.

Sounding distant I heard a voice screaming with joy, he sounded like a drunk Hillbilly at a sports bar when his favorite NASCAR driver got the checkered flag. He was whooping and hollering in the distance.

I turned around and saw all the gun powder smoke in the bunker was gone but replaced by a cloud of dust. I ran to the ladder and climbed up and looked all around very carefully. I remembered shutting the hatch and realized the blast had blown open my hatch. I looked carefully in all directions even though I honestly believed the spotter was far away, near the middle of the mine property and not anywhere near us. I climbed out and stood up and looked again and saw the only thing on the highway was that square metal base plate for the launcher they nailed to the pavement. I turned to look at the other bunker and saw David's head peak out his hatch and he also looked all around then started to climb out. He stood up like he was struggling a little from the shockwave too.

It was a tremendously strong blast that blew in our portholes; I'm sure he got it exactly like me. He also looked like someone dumped a 50 pound sack of baking flour on top of him. He ran his hands down his arms and fluffed his hair as white powder went everywhere; I did the same thing. We both kept glancing at each other and down at the roadside turnaround as if expecting to see two men suddenly stand up.

I ran my fingers through my hair and made another cloud of powder and sand and saw David had a huge smile on his face so I started walking toward him, about 400 feet away.

We both locked eyes on each other and the magnitude of what just happened hit me and I felt an overwhelming rush of emotions. David was laughing hysterically and shouting with joy like he was totally drunk. He slapped his thighs and jumped up and thrust his fist in the air and applauded loudly.

I put my hands over my mouth and nose as tears came from my eyes and I started to weep and walked quickly towards him, he started walking toward me too. I'd just witnessed two men blown to dust and it really upset me; I needed some comfort and time to adjust to what just happened. Both of us just survived a tremendous explosion and it took several seconds for it to affect our emotions.

The closer we got the harder I cried and gasped for air. It was the longest short-walk I ever took; I just needed David to hold me. In the last 100 feet I started to run and he stopped and held open his arms and I ran into him and wept into his shoulder, he held me tightly and lifted me so my feet came off the ground and swung my body side to side then set me down but never let go. I wept and trembled and felt like I needed to puke again.

Finally I put both hands on his chest and pushed myself back, turned, ran several feet, bent over and barfed drops of saliva on the ground, then I dry heaved a couple more times. David walked over and stood by me until I stood upright again. He grabbed me from behind and hugged me tightly while I wiped my mouth and chin. He coughed a few times, just like me.

I finally calmed down a little and turned around and looked at him; I saw he'd been crying too, as his cheeks were wet and his nose was running like mine. He turned his head and honked his snot out on the ground, then turned his head and blew the other nose.

Soon we both calmed down. He asked me what happened with my shots. "I aimed at the passenger but my sights were so far off I barely hit their car! I aimed low and almost twenty feet in front of their car before I hit the fuckin windshield!"

"Yeah same with mine. I fired six shots before the first one hit, then I got the door. Boy, that got their attention!"

"Yeah, so I tried aiming about 20 feet below and to the right of the guy and I guess it hit the box of mortars instead. I saw a little smoke then it exploded. I never expected that would happen. It was an accident! I was aiming at the guy, not the ammo can. But I guess it turned out okay, didn't it?"

David stepped back, reached for my face and lifted my jaw so I looked in his eyes, "Did you see that explosion? Then the other can went off. THAT WAS THE BIGGEST FUCKING EXPLOSION I'VE EVER SEEN. IT WAS AWESOME!" He put his hands on my shoulders and shook me as he shouted at my face.

I laughed at first then said, "Yeah, aside from our nukes it's the biggest one I ever saw, then the blast wave hit the bunker and luckily I ducked and only a little got my face."

"So that was an accident but we still won the war, right? But HOE-LEE FUCK WAS THAT LOUD OR WHAT?' he shouted. I chuckled again and nodded yes in agreement, but I told him, "Look David, I was aiming at the guy's chest, not the ammo can. It was an accident and I'm sorry for fuckin it up!"

David leaned in and kissed my mouth and stepped toward the highway a little and stared in disbelief at the turnaround. Then he gestured at the highway but looked at me and shouted, "NO! THAT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME! ONE FUCKING BULLET AND YOU DESTROYED THEIR SHIT!" He gestured with his arm down the hill at the highway. "LOOK AT IT! THERE AIN'T NOTHING LEFT BUT A BLACK SPOT. YOU BLASTED 'EM TO DUST, FUCK! EVEN THEIR GOD DAMN CAR'S GONE! He moved closer and patted my shoulder and told me, "Look over there," so I turned my head and stared at the site; sure enough all I saw down there was a small black steel plate and a charred spot on the pavement. The rest of it was totally gone. Some of the weeds along the highway were smoldering but there was nothing left. I saw some black smoke on the far side of the highway about 200-400 feet away but the turnaround was blasted clean. He squeezed my shoulder and said, "Hell, you even cut the weeds for the highway department!" and then he broke out laughing hysterically and covered his mouth with his hand.

David stood there looking at the highway and said, "Ry, look at it this way. You killed both terrorists, demolished their car, destroyed their weapons and the launcher, all the evidence was destroyed and you even cleaned-up the crime scene, all with one lucky god damn shot, that's amazing! It's like God himself struck them down to Hell." He stepped back and held out his hand to shake mine with congratulations! I tried not to smile and shook his hand but I really wanted to barf again. He was obviously trying to cheer me up. I knew this entire thing was his plan, he deserved the credit, not me. My shot was totally an accident. I never even considered shooting the ammo can, or that it might explode and do all that other crap!

While we stared at the scene I heard the mine security jeep in the distance. He set his hand on my shoulder and we started walking down the slope toward the highway. I noticed there was a small dark spot on the pavement where the first box of mortars detonated. I told him again while we walked down to the fence along the highway, "It was an accident. I know you were all ready for a shootin match with the fifties. Hell, I wanted to see rounds go right through a car engine."

Across the highway we saw several small smoky fires about 300 feet away, I saw two car tires on fire and smoldering chunks of car wreckage. I saw the engine and transmission smoldering and I saw a car seat smoking thick black smoke. I saw a car door all by itself with the glass and paint still intact. It looked like that one door must have flown hundreds of feet. I never saw any body parts but the coyotes surely would.

Way down the highway we saw a police car approaching and barely heard a siren. Then the mine security jeep parked near our truck and an older guy in uniform got out and walked downhill toward us, he had a big smile too.

He shouted, "What the fuck was that?"

David turned toward him and laughed and yelled back, "It was an accident. We didn't want to shoot the cans with the bombs but the 50cals sights were way off and we accidentally shot their ammo can and set `em all off at once.

"Where are the terrorists?"

I loudly answered, "They're around here somewhere. They were only a foot from the ammo can when it went off. I saw the one guy's legs fly over the highway, but his shoe laces got untied, his ass is somewhere over there now!" I said pointing across the highway.

"HOE-LEE COW THAT WAS LOUD! They heard it all over the mine and everyone thought their equipment exploded!" We all laughed. When the security guy saw the cop stop at the turnaround he got back in his Jeep and drove down there; we finished walking down to the fence and climbed over; we walked together across the highway and watched the burning tires and the smoldering wreckage. The cop grabbed his extinguisher and walked down across the ditch and over to the burning tires and put out the flames.

The cop walked back up to his car and made some police radio calls. I heard him tell his dispatcher everything on the highway was 10-4. He told her, "The terrorists' bombs malfunctioned and exploded early, the dumb shits killed themselves." We couldn't hear who he was talking to but then he laughed and said, "Yes, Laurel and Hardy School of Terror! I'm back in service and on my way to lunch, I'll be back in town in twenty minutes, unit three out."

We stood there talking briefly then I faintly heard the distant thumping of a helicopter approaching. About twenty seconds later a classic Huey flew toward us and directly overhead, maybe 700 feet up, he banked sharply to the right to fly over the mine property. The guard said they were searching for the third man and activated the sheriff's posse; there were five guys out on 4-wheel ATVs already searching for him right now. The security guy raised his walkie talkie to his ear and listened closely to the voices, then smiled and said "Sounds like they just found him and now he's tied to a fence post." He turned around and pointed at the horizon toward the northwest. "He made it almost half a mile from the mine; they caught him over there, hiding by the old cattle watering hole."

David whispered to me that it looked like our work here was done. When we walked back up by the bunkers and were connected to the pelican case he told the OD our status was: mission accomplished, the attack was thwarted, two of the three were dead, and police were hunting the third man.

A couple minutes later we heard three distant shotgun blasts then silence. I heard David tell the OD, "Check, make that three out of three dead, we just heard the local firing squad." We went into our bunkers and started packing our valuables. But we were leaving most of our new camping gear behind. I decided to bring my camp toilet home. I was leaving 12 gallons of water, the Sterno stove with a case of Sterno cans, the sleeping gear, radio, and the lantern behind.

David told the OD to call the range and tell them we were bringing home the 50cals and the ammo but leaving the mounts so they needed to send someone to remove them, the mounts were nearly as valuable as the weapons and the ammo. We did not have tools to remove the mounts even though I think all they needed was a 25mm wrench and some Allen head wrenches.

After thirty minutes of packing and cleaning up his bunker David moved his truck over. I went to help him lift stuff out of his bunker. I got flat on the ground and reached down inside, he handed me stuff and in fifteen minutes we loaded his stuff into the truck bed; the last things to come up the hatch were the 50cal and his two ammo cans. By 11:30am we were done. The security Jeep returned, and we told him there would be an army officer here to remove the big steel mounts; then the best thing to do was to use one of the mine backhoes and dump a load of larger rocks on top of both bunkers, the hatches don't lock but the best thing is to make them invisible with piles of rock. He said he understood and would get that done.

The guard asked about the status of the bunkers and we told them they now belonged to the mine, they could do whatever they wanted with them, including removing anything we left behind, but the piles of rock were our suggestions. The old security guard said he thought the land where the bunkers were built was actually state property since it was along a state highway, both of us were speechless since the mine company officers never mentioned it might not be their property. Either way it wasn't our issue any more. The contractors all got paid, end of story. He shook our hands and thanked us for stopping the attack and saving lives. We stretched the leather truck bed cover over our stuff and latched it tight, and then we got in and left for town.

Forty five minutes later we opened the door to a clean room at the same hotel as before and took showers and went to bed at 12:10pm. He plugged-in the pelican case and made sure our glasses were charging then he got in bed and never moved again. It felt very nice to press my face into that large pillow. I grabbed the second pillow and hugged it against my chest and fell asleep in minutes; I think David was already Gonesville. I usually slept against something to keep my body on my side so I didn't snore. The pillow I hugged usually pressed against my chin and held my mouth shut and prevented snoring.

The next morning we showered and drove to a diner in town for an early breakfast before the sun came up. The sky was starting to turn deep blue to the east when we left Wright for El Paso. I think we had no intention of pushing it home, maybe driving the same speed as the truckers down to Albuquerque and stopping for the day so we could hit Sparky's in Hatch tomorrow just before they unlocked the doors. We got that routine well rehearsed. Remember, for the longest time El Paso was not known as a tourist destination or a foodie destination but that is slowly improving. If you want a famous burger you still gotta leave El Paso.

We drove down to Albuquerque and stopped at a hotel that was actually west of town on I-40 and had an indoor pool. The lady at the check-in desk recognized us, this was our fifth visit.

This town had several tourist attractions, like the tramway ride up into the mountains, but we've done that before. We hung out by the pool until a large family with four kids arrived and the screaming started so we left and went to our room and drank two bottles of Merlot and watched two movies on TCM. We fell asleep watching TV, as I rested my head on his lower tummy with his limp dick inches from my face.

The next morning we left at 8:55am after a nice relaxed breakfast so we'd arrive at Sparky's at 10:55am. We saw another New Mexico state cop in an unmarked car but we were going 69mph, slightly slower than the truckers. He must have seen our sticker because he got beside us in the other lane, honked and waved; we returned the gestures and smiled back too.

After two fantastic burgers we stopped at the McGregor Range arsenal on the way home and surrendered the two 50cals then drove home. We made it home at 4:55pm but had already submitted our report, which I recorded on the drive home for both of us. The OD knew we dropped off the 50s and were going home and the office didn't need us for anything special. At home I uncovered and unpacked the truck bed but some of the camping gear could go in the trash. We hadn't wanted to leave the bunkers looking like teenagers broke-in and had a party.

I had to pour the trash can with all the empty aluminum beer cans into a trash bag, neither of us had the time or desire to sell them for scrap to earn a few bucks. David suggested we offer them to the next polite homeless person we met outside the grocery store. I told him we should flatten them and take them ten at a time to the parking lot and leave them, homeless people would scavenge them.

His truck was filthy from all the mine dust and dirt. The entire truck needed a bath inside and out. The floor mats were full of dried mud, and the windows all had coal mine dust crud. He said he'd do that this weekend if he could find someone with the time to clean it inside and out. I looked at my spotless little sports car under its protective blanket beside his truck in the garage. Because my car was so short we parked the motorcycle (and ATV) in front of my car but we had to move one of them to drive them outside. It really bugged David when his truck got dirty.

After a couple hours I had all the Wyoming mission stuff removed, so it was empty inside. Our pelican case was in the Tac-room and plugged in, and briefly it felt like we were actually caught up. I stood in the doorway between the garage and the living room looking at the motorcycle and heard bare feet run across the dining room floor, across the deck, and then a splash outside as he dove into the pool and started doing his laps, so I stripped naked and joined him. Jeremy never came over that evening. Soon after we hit the pool the sun went behind the mountains and our speed slowed but it felt great to be swimming laps in our own pool and it felt nice to be able to do it naked too. It felt great to be home again with my husband, especially as he was super happy and horny.

After we stopped he got out and went just inside the back door and turned the knob to half-close the blinds so we couldn't be photographed from the sky. To go from fully open to halfway shut it takes the motor about ten seconds to slowly move all those blinds above our entire back yard.

I asked him, "What you want for dinner, hon?"

"Honestly, I got no appetite. Maybe I caught something? But I feel funny like I'm coming down with something."

It always worries me when he says something's wrong because it usually happens soon after he feels weird in his guts.

After an hour sitting on the pool steps talking about Wyoming we went inside and showered together but it was non-sexual, then we shut everything down, locked the Tac-room door and went to bed. I double checked that the alert box was on the right status. We often took time off after a big mission; we both needed time to sleep and gather our thoughts. Often after a mission we learned stuff about it that we didn't know at the time.

David was starting to say the bunkers were a waste, we could have done that entire mission for a fraction of the price using spiders instead of borrowed 1940s machine guns. I usually supported our actual plan, which was actually his design. David usually had some regrets after missions as he pondered what we could have done better, faster, cheaper. He was too mentally distracted to get a boner that evening, which surprised me. When Mister Sperm Shooter says he's not in the mood he really means it. I was in the mood but that didn't matter to him. If he was in the mood and I wasn't I'd still make him come with my mouth and swallow his load but that's been a one-way street since college. It always made me wonder when he said "not tonight" if I was hearing his mother's voice.

The next day we drove to work to discuss the mission but that seemed to be a waste of time. The captain was pleased and wanted to make sure David was recognized as a hero to the country for what he did. David seemed ready to move on (mentally) to our next adventure.

It surprised me the things he said to Captain Johnson about how the bunkers really weren't necessary after all. He said we could have build something like a duck hunting blind out of dead weeds near the highway and used spiders instead. We showed the captain a group of boulders near the ditch along the highway and said we could have hidden behind them in regular hunting gear and the spiders would have been within range and gassed them for a fraction of the cost. Of course the captain told him to keep those comments to himself because he was looking at a possible promotion.

We left work at 3:45am and drove home; I worked on a grocery list and told him we needed to get there soon because the refrigerator was bare. We needed a couple hundred bucks worth of stuff so we both looked in cabinets and made a list on a post-it note on the counter.

While we were working on the list the OD called David and mentioned she heard rumors he might get a promotion because of Wyoming, which really made David happy. The OD said in Washington he was being called the One Shot Wonder. With one bullet he took out two bad guys, all their shit, and their car! They said his plan was brilliant and he was a military genius!

Currently, both of us are O-6 pay grade as Army officers. If David got a promotion it would be to the Army pay grade of O-7 which is a one-star general, also known as a Brigadier General. At age 30 (almost 31) he'd be the youngest General in US Army history (not counting the Civil War). The next closest young general after 1938 was when Army Colonel Curtis Lemay was promoted to O7 because of his work designing and leading the bombing attacks on Japan in 1944-45. And like David, Lemay also never attended West Point but like David he was a natural born military designer. Lemay was known as nearly psychopathic about the human cost of his attack plans, with total disregard for human deaths on both sides of the war. But Lemay was damn good at what he did and we won the war probably because of his work. He's also part of the reason why the entire Tokyo metro area has very few old buildings standing today.

If David was promoted he'd surely be summoned to Washington for a couple days of ceremonies. I might have to stay in El Paso while he partied in Washington because one of us still had to work!

"Ry you look like your mind has checked out." David said after watching me sitting on a bar stool with the daydream expression on my face. I snapped out of it and asked if the list was done and he peeled it off the counter and handed it to me. The post-it note was nearly full, I knew we'd miss stuff because it was nearly impossible to read. He got dressed in shopping clothes and carried the Pelican case to the truck (we're required by law to bring it along, but it can wait in the truck since we're only a couple hundred feet away and there are lots of people walking around) and backed it out on the driveway and shut the garage door, he was ready to go and came back inside to get me in gear.

We got in his truck, I moved the pelican case to the floor behind my seat like always. Most of the time lately we left it under a back seat when we went in the store, the back windows were tinted dark so it's impossible to see from the outside. He'd already turned on the comms gear, which was the rule. Leaving it in the truck while we went inside a store was authorized by the Pentagon.

We drove down to Dyer and turned left and drove south to Food King and parked straight out from the front door and went inside. I grabbed a cart and he grabbed items on the list.

About twenty five minutes later we were standing in the check-out line then went out the doors and headed into the parking lot but our truck was gone! Our parking spot was empty. He immediately turned on his cell and called the OD and shouted, "OUR TRUCK IS GONE, the pelican case is active in the back seat, call Nevada and the Pentagon immediately and activate tracking!"

His truck was a Toyota Tundra, a V-6; I think it was a 2014 model and just got new tires. Then he shouted in his cell to "Call 911 and get a city cop here ASAP and give them a heads-up too. This is probably a Broken Arrow alert!" He shouted in the cell.

David lowered the phone and looked at me and mumbled "Holy shit this is bad!" I mumbled, "At least it was filthy." He chuckled like that was a totally stupid thing for me to say. We stood there by the empty parking spot looking around for anyone in the parking lot to shout at; then I spotted a homeless person by the front of the store so I ran over and asked him if he saw what happened to our truck and the guy said in Spanish that it was pulled onto a roll-back tow truck, chained, and they drove south. Then he asked me for five bucks.

Moments later a cop car drove in the lot, we showed our ID cards and asked him to drive us south, we said we'd cover any trouble he might get in so he agreed. We got in the caged back seat and he drove south on Dyer to the highway and raced toward the border. David smacked the cage and told the cop he needed to drive a lot faster, but I don't think he sped up much. Most people in El Paso knew that stolen vehicles ended up as car parts in various chop shops in the city, once they get stolen they're never seen again and were reincarnated as car parts in dealerships across Mexico and the Southwest.

We really couldn't tell the cop about the nukes but we had to say something to increase his energy, so David told him our truck had two secret military weapons in the back seat, it's like a rolling bomb, and we really needed to stop it from crossing the border, like lives depended on it. The cop drove a little faster as we headed toward the border on Patriot Freeway, US-54.

The cop said he'd heard during precinct role call that the latest big chop shop was around 7200 Alameda Avenue, that's where we should go. Since we left the store we had no visual contact with the truck and we hadn't received any tracking from our office yet but it was due any second.

Then the OD called David's cell and activated a tracking map app and we saw a dot on his screen. I told the cop what we were watching and he was probably right, head toward 7200 Alameda. She said our truck was currently on I-10 eastbound and soon to exit at Paisano Drive then eastbound on Alameda. So he hit his lights and sped up to 80mph as we closed the distance. Luckily where our truck was located was heavy with traffic and stoplights so it wouldn't get anywhere quickly now. I updated the cop while he was weaving in traffic. I asked the officer his name and badge number and told the OD to make sure he was cleared by his Chief's office right away. What we were doing with him was sort of like a legal hijacking. I kept reminding the cop to focus on driving; we were in touch with his dispatcher. He was up to 85mph on the final mile of US 54 and merged onto I-10. Now we were only two miles behind our truck and closing fast.

He exited the highway at East Paisano Drive and headed south to Alameda and headed east but in traffic he had to use his siren. David reminded him this was public safety since our truck carried secret military weapons. We could see sweat on the cop's forehead as he managed to drive 50mph on surface streets without wrecking.

Alameda was where all the car lots that took in wrecks and fixed them up and sold them as buy-here pay-here cars to immigrants with no credit history and no US citizenship were, its one used car lot after another and behind each one was a yard full of half wrecked cars and trucks, that's where our truck was heading. Up ahead I caught a glimpse of our truck on top of a roll-back wrecker. We were in the black and white El Paso city cop car going 55 in a 40mph zone with no lights or siren on trying to catch up. It didn't take very far and on the long straight stretch of street he got behind it and the tow truck driver panicked and swerved.

We watched as the back end of our truck slid sideways on the flatbed truck and two of the chains that held it down to the flatbed snapped and one rear tire slid sideways off the bed of the tow truck. He hit his turn signal at Rio Monte Street but turned too sharply and a rear wheel of the flatbed truck lifted off the pavement, the last chains snapped and our truck rolled off the tow truck and tumbled onto the street and rolled over and over, I counted four times until it came to a stop in the middle of Alameda Avenue (upside down) and the tow truck driver raced down a side street. The cop jammed the brakes and we got out of his car, then he sped off after the tow truck we stayed with our truck which was on its roof with clouds of black smoke coming out of the engine compartment. David ran up to it and tried to open the doors but all of them were stuck shut with a partially collapsed roof, smoke was coming from the rear end too.

He talked to the OD and he told them to notify Nevada and the Pentagon that our truck was upside down in a heavily populated area in southeast El Paso, about 7211 Alameda Avenue and possibly going to catch fire with the pelican case inside, and we are unable to open the doors.

I watched David reach down for his back-up revolver but for some reason it was missing, he glanced at me like this was a really bad situation if the truck caught fire with two nukes and a surface to air missile inside, they were coupled with explosives but wouldn't detonate, but they might explode and spread Daltonium around the area, so I told the OD to activate a nuclear hazmat alarm, no drill. She was super busy and she was alone since everyone else already left since it was after office hours.

The smoke from the truck got worse but now we saw small flames in the engine compartment and somewhere in back too. I asked David if he saw the pelican case, was there any chance the driver already removed the valuables, so he got on his knees and looked inside but the windows were too dark to see anything in back, we were forced to prepare for the worst and activated the MP squads at Ft Bliss for a Broken Arrow alert, a lost nuclear weapon. All we could do was stand and wait and wish the truck never caught fire. My heart was pounding and I wanted to barf but there were now people were standing around looking at the truck blocking traffic. Luckily some were able to drive around it and we started directing traffic to get as many people as far away as possible. When people from the area stood nearby and watched I shouted in Spanish the truck might explode better stand back but nobody moved back.

After several long minutes we heard sirens approaching, one of them sounded like a fire truck. Moments later the engine compartment burst into flames on our truck but there was nothing we could do so we stayed nearby watching the cab inside the truck for signs of fire. Once the interior caught fire we were all at risk from explosions and the release of nuclear materials onto the street. One of the three weapons in the pelican case carried lots of explosives, but like I said the big risk was the release of Daltonium.

When the fire truck arrived I ran up to it and identified the captain and told him we were military and we had nuclear materials with explosives in the truck, if they exploded it was a worst-case contamination situation; so he used his walkie talkie to notify fire dispatch, while the rest of the crew pulled out hoses and got ready to put out the fires. I was nearly ready to freak out by how slowly they were moving because none of them knew what was at stake and we couldn't shout it out loud.

I repeated to the captain this was a very dangerous situation but they still seemed to take chill pills and gradually drag hoses to the truck. I saw flames inside the cab and David stepped further away from it fearing the gas tank might explode, and then flames appeared from the back end of the truck too. One of them pulled a hose closer and opened-up at the truck and put out the engine fire in four seconds then aimed it at the back end and in two seconds those flames were gone too. Someone else walked up with an axe and started smashing all the windows and they put out the flames inside the cab. His truck used to be black, now it was bare steel!

David asked the OD about the status of the police car and she said he stopped the tow truck but the driver had run inside a car repair shop. The car repair shop was actually a chop shop where our truck was headed. He was only two blocks away so I ran that way and saw he was in a stand-off situation with several armed men inside a large garage chop shop, so I alerted Ft Bliss. Since they stole nuclear weapons (even without knowing it) they all qualified for immediate execution.

David stayed with our truck and had them pry open the door and hose down the cab again and he crawled part way inside and backed out with the pelican case in hand, luckily it was somewhat melted but not open, but it came close. He opened the case and saw the weapons inside were blackened and partially melted but intact, so he notified the OD to call Nevada, our pelican case and everything inside was destroyed in the fire but it appeared that no nuclear materials leaked out.

I stayed with the cop as we took cover on one side of his car and occasionally exchanged gun fire with people inside the garage. I tried to explain that the Army would be here soon, but he must have thought I was kidding.

While we were sitting on the ground behind his squad car David had our charred pelican case open on the street with light from the fire truck he used his zombie knife to sever the battery wires to deaden the two nukes and also the helicopter missile. He also cut the wires to the comms gear and the combat tactics computer. He tried to remove the battery but it was glued inside the case.

Soon the sound of large military helicopters in the distance became audible, and moments later the first one landed in the vacant lot across from the chop shop and out came ten MPS in combat gear with automatic weapons, immediately they launched three flash-bang rounds inside the garage. The second helicopter hovered briefly above us watching for people trying to escape out the back windows, but soon after the MPs ran inside the second one flew over by the truck fire on Alameda and landed.

I saw flashes of light when they opened fire inside; there were too many shots to count but it was over in a few seconds. Within a few seconds they quickly returned to their helicopter, its blades were still rotating and aircraft lights still blinking. They obviously planned on not being on the ground here more than 60 seconds. During the invasion at the chop shop the 2nd helicopter left from the truck scene with David on board. I assumed he was being flown immediately to WSMR to surrender the pelican case so they could make the warheads safe.

When they safely lifted off the street the broken-arrow alert was cancelled by the OD but I had no idea who she called to activate it or cancel it. The second Huey flew to WSMR and landed on the only helipad near the weapons lab, there were military vehicles waiting for him, but the chopper took off right away for Ft Bliss as David got in the Jeep and rode to the weapons lab and surrendered the case, which also put us off-duty with a special circumstance.

After David was done at WSMR they told him to call a taxi for a ride home; I had no idea how long I was going to be tied up with the cops at the chop shop. Again, they got all pissy when I refused to write a report but said I would submit one to our office, and they could request a copy. When I reached in my shirt pocket I realized my business cards must have fallen out in all the excitement so I had to call the OD and get the phone number for the cops to call.

Fifty five minutes later the charred remains of our truck was rolled back over onto its burnt tires and dragged up on the back of another flatbed tow truck and headed for the impound lot as evidence, but it was effectively destroyed. I was released before they had the six dead bodies in the chop shop tagged and bagged for the coroner's office. I heard someone say all six died of bullet wounds to the center chest. While I waited for the taxi on Alameda Avenue I called our insurance agent and reported the truck stolen and burned and gave then the police file number. I called David twice but his cell said it was out of service (still in the desert and out of range of the cell network).

It turned out that part of town was one where taxis seldom picked up fares so I started walking toward the highway; we were about 2-3 miles from Paisano Blvd, an hour later I arrived in a nicer area and called another cab company and was told 30 minutes, so I told him to forget it. I kept walking north toward Cielo Vista Mall, another hour and I could see the lights from their parking lot and I walked up on a McDonald's with a taxi in the lot and asked if he was available, he gestured to get in back and he drove me home.

I got home fifty five minutes before David; he said he waited 95 minutes for a taxi to arrive on the Range. So he was cranky and seemed like he was full of pent-up anger. I tried to comfort him by talking softly and smiling but he was clearly still pissed about the loss of his truck and our pelican case, not to mention not getting a ride home.

I tried getting him in the shower and pressed him against the wall and massaged his entire back side but he couldn't get hard so I got into my secret stash of .25mg Xanax pills and gave him two with a glass of wine. He fell asleep before me and I heard him grinding his teeth all night, so I was sure he was dreaming about the truck fire all night. At least he got some sleep. After taking two pills he usually had a Xanax hangover the next day which made him sort of mentally slower but less aggressive.

The next day also sucked! We were on the phone and had several things going on, the least of which was the truck theft and our insurance. At first they said there was no coverage for the fire because of the weapons so David called our lawyer, then we were called by the captain, he said Duke and Luke were re-activated and coming back down from Omaha on commercial flight, we were on paid vacation TFN. Paid leave meant he already decided our incident was 'in the line of duty' and would be fully covered by Uncle Sam.

Then the captain called back and said we were just summoned to report to the Pentagon on Friday at 8am for mandatory meetings with the JCS in full dress uniforms. So we couldn't refuse; it was our boss's boss calling.

Our back-up team doesn't have nukes but they do have a pelican case with two 9mm submachine guns like ours, and ammo and comms gear. They also do not have spiders or gas pellets. But like us, they also have immunity from prosecution in the line of duty.

David was still obviously pissed and not thinking clearly. Then we were called by the OD that the coal mine issued two reward checks to us for stopping the destruction of their mine; they were being overnighted to Washington for us to pick up at the Pentagon.

That afternoon our insurance called and told him to go to a car rental place to get a car for him to drive, and David responded with "A two-door Kia Forte? I barely fit in one of those pieces of shit!" It was obvious they'd had a not-nice conversation with our lawyer and our truck theft and fire was covered.

I thought he'd look funny in a tiny Korean car driving down Dyer Street! Beep-Beep! He told me 'Indians do not drive Korean cars! We drive trucks with empty beer cans and fishing poles in back!'

We spent the rest of the day on the phone with police, Ft Bliss MPs, our office, our insurance agent, our lawyer, WSMR, and while he was busy on the phone I secretly called every Toyota dealer within 150 miles looking for a new Tundra with a V6 and all the options he demanded. I also notified our mechanic that we'd have a vehicle for him to modify soon. Working for the Pentagon we were not allowed to drive a vehicle with tracking like all of them had now; when we got a new truck the first stop would be the shop to have all the slave-tracking electronics destroyed.

That evening we ordered delivery pizza and beer and hung out in the pool but his mind was elsewhere. I knew the little rental car in the driveway really upset him. The Toyota Tundra was a large truck with a big powerful engine, and that was what he grew up wanting and now he won't compromise on owning what he wanted, especially knowing we had millions in cash in our house and could afford any vehicle we wanted.

Like last night, again today, he was incapable of getting a boner, so I left him alone to simmer in his anger. Everything I tried to help him failed; he was going to be pissed off until things got back to normal.

Two days later, wearing rented black suits with our dress Navy whites in the Batsuit case, we flew to Washington. I was caught off guard by what happened. We reported first to the Rapid Response Team office on the fourth floor, E-wing. We sat in the lobby for fifteen minutes, then were called into the office of one of the Joint Chiefs, the five generals that manage the military. I was expecting to be scolded for losing the pelican case, but David was advised he was being promoted to O-7 because of his actions defending the United States during the attempted attack on Thunder Basin Coal Mine. I could see residual anger on his face but he was elated and very excited that he was being promoted to a one-star general. Actually, I knew it meant little to him, except maybe another $600 a month before taxes on his pay check. We didn't need the raise but it would be nice to have. I told him we should use the pay hike to rent a small apartment in Hatch, New Mexico, within staggering distance of Sparky's!

It was a big ceremony and the most surprising thing was the Secretary of Defense arrived to shake his hand and give him the papers that officially authorized his raise. We all stood and applauded, photos were taken of him with the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President of the USA then it was over and we were released. In the JCS office both of us were handed envelopes with checks from the mine company, our rewards for saving their company from destruction. I never opened mine there because David opened his; he showed me the amount.

In our dress whites we walked downstairs and outside to wait for a taxi, then rode to Reagan Airport to fly back home. We made it as far as DFW that night and stayed at a hotel at the airport. We ordered room service of pizza and beer in our hotel room but David was still way to distracted to get hard. I saw he still had an angry expression on his eyebrows so I remained somewhat distant to avoid conflict.

When he got this mad he sometimes said hurtful stuff to anyone who crossed his path.

We made it back home on Saturday morning at 11:20am on an early flight from DFW, still wearing the same dress Navy uniforms. We stopped in the office and visited briefly with Duke and Luke then drove home in my little car. He did nothing but bitch about the lack of leg room and how the inside of my car was no bigger than a Cessna 150. On the highway around the old part of Fort Bliss I punched the gas pedal and in a few hundred feet went from 45mph to 119mph and that shut him up briefly, but our exit was next so I was on the brakes trying to keep from flying off the side of exit ramp down onto Railroad Avenue; moments later we got home and I parked in the garage and covered my car with her blanket and hugged the roof.

David went to change and I got my cell out in the back yard and talked to the one Toyota dealer in El Paso

who said he had a new Tundra with a V6, the towing package, and the luxury interior package, which included the better speakers and DVD player in the dash.

The dealer was on Montana Avenue near Yarbrough Drive; we drove past it on the way to Snake Bite State Park, and I got the dealer to negotiate over the phone and explained I needed it today if possible. When David came out to swim I went inside to the Tac-room and continued the negotiation with the dealer and finally got all my answers; the out-the-door price was $60,999 with tax, plates, and dealer prep, no trade-in, cash discount. They said they had two on the lot one was black and the other was navy blue so I took the black one and said I'd be over soon; get it ready to go. I told them I was serious, if it wasn't ready I'd get back in the taxi and leave.

I left home with David in the back yard quietly reading a book by the pool while munching on tortilla chips and my home made salsa. When he asked where I was going I told him I was going to the sex shop to buy a rubber boner since his dick was out of service. He quietly told me to fuck-off and I left on foot and called a taxi and met him down the block. We drove to the bank and I deposited my reward check then withdrew $61,000 in cash. Next he drove me to the Toyota dealer where I paid and half an hour later I left in the truck and drove it home and quietly parked on the far side of our driveway.

I walked around the side of the house, through the back gate, and David was still on his favorite chair reading, with a beer nearby on the picnic table. He asked me if I found a new boy friend and I laughed, told him no but I bought him something. He never looked up from his book and ignored me so I went inside.

I got a beer out of the cooler near the back door and went to my room and stripped to take a shower. Dealing with bankers and car dealers always left me with a dirty feeling and I wanted to brush my teeth and take a long soaking hot shower.

An hour later he was done reading and I was on the sofa reading through our endless pile of junk mail. He asked again if I brought a sex toy and I told him no; I bought him something better than a rubber boner. He laughed thinking I was kidding.

So I asked him how his rental car was, a 2017 Kia Forte with 35,000 miles, he said it was a compact piece of shit and he'd never buy that brand. It sounded like it could die any second and he missed his truck. I asked if he heard how long it would take to replace our pelican case; David said Thursday we had to go to WSMR to pick up the new one. Actually, the shortage was in plastic cases not nuclear weapons or helicopter missiles. We laughed at that.

I told him again (third time) I bought him something but like the others he ignored my statement but I knew he heard me. We were sitting side by side on the sofa with the TV on TCM with the sound muted. I reached over and grabbed his hand and held it gently, and then I reached for the remote and shut off the TV and slowly told him, I bought you something.

He sighed loudly like he was being forced to have a conversation he didn't want. So in a highly sarcastic voice he said, "Gee Ry, that was sweet of you."

Knowing he was deliberately being an ass I asked if he wanted to see it, so he laughed and said, 'Sure, why not.' I was certain he thought I was about to present him with a foot long silicone dick. By then it was dark outside. He stood up and I offered my hand and walked him to the front door and opened it.

I walked him outside and the first thing he saw was the stupid little Korean made rental car, on the nearest side of the driveway. In the darkness it wasn't easy to see but there was clearly a second vehicle in the driveway on the far side of the rental car.

We walked down the sidewalk past the living room windows and around the small car and he put his hands on his hips and declared, "Who the hell parked in our driveway?"

"You did."

"My truck is gone, it's someone else's, probably one of Jeremy's mutant friends."

We slowly walked closer and in the dark he said, "Oh, it's like mine, a Tundra, but it's new." He saw the new vehicle sticker in the back window.

I raised my hand beside his arm and he looked down and saw I was holding a dealer key ring, he moved his arm, opened his palm and I dropped the keys in his hand but remained silent.

He took the keys and unlocked the door. "What year is it?

"I think it's this year's Tundra, with a V6 and the luxury package. You know how much these are now, out the door?"

He said 'No.'

I said, "it was 99 cents less than my reward check from the coal mine.'

Suddenly David froze and shut the door, we were standing facing each other beside the driver's side front door.

"Did you buy this?"

"Yes, but its registered to my husband."

He swallowed and I saw his mouth and chin get all wonky then he had tears in his eyes, very softly he asked,"You spent you entire reward check on this truck today?"

I nodded yes and then I saw tears into both his eyes as he stood about three feet from me staring in my eyes, then he reached over and slid his palm across the hood and looked across the front of the truck and said "They got great lines, I love this model." Then I told him he still needed to program the radio presets and the seat heater this winter.

David raised his hands to his mouth and then he turned and looked in the window and walked all the way around it and kicked the tires and remained silent and returned to me. He put one hand on my shoulder and very softly said "Thank you, Ryan."

I nodded yes and told him I loved him. David was visibly fighting back tears and told me "I love you too Ryan, sorry I don't have the words to say what I feel right now, and it makes me feel dumb. It's actually rather humiliating."

He stepped in close and kissed me briefly on the mouth then stepped back and got in the truck and asked me to open the garage door. I ran in the front door, across the living room and into the garage and pushed the button and watched him drive it inside. He got out of the truck and told me it had 26 miles on it. I told him it only had about six on it when I signed papers at the dealer, the rest was the drive home.

I hit the garage door button and he stepped closer to me and pulled off his shirt and tossed it on the motorcycle and hugged me tightly and pressed his face into the side of my head and sniffled. I held him tightly and we stood in our garage beside the motorcycle while he got quietly emotional.

"You really spent all but 99 cents of your reward check on a new truck for me?" but I just nodded yes. That made him even more emotional. He raised his hands to cover his mouth and nose and his upper body twitched as he began to silently cry, and then he turned and went down the hallway toward our bedroom, probably to cry into his pillow. He really didn't like for anyone to see him cry.

We eventually got undressed and ready for bed. Something he never did before, he stripped and got on his knees on the floor on my side of the bed and held me and rubbed his face side to side across my chest and stomach, then he got in bed and moved the sheets down and blew me and swallowed and kept my shrinking dick in his mouth for about another 15 minutes. It felt wonderful.

But David was still incapable of getting hard so we went to bed spooning; one of the first times he slept in front.

The next day was Sunday and we drove it to the car wash and paid some kid to wax it while we hung out on a picnic table and drank cokes. Then we drove home and took pictures and video of his new truck. He also called the OD and reminded them to get new bumper stickers for his truck. During the day on Sunday he read the new vehicle break-in rules in the owner's manual and called a few tire shops about new wide knobby tires and found one place on Dyer with a set in stock so we drove over and spent $1100 on four new tires to replace his brand new tires. But he got a trade-in allowance for the original tires that had less than 100 miles.

Jeremy spent all afternoon in our pool too and we spent the day doing stuff on his truck in the driveway! To Jeremy it looked nearly identical to the old one, he never knew our old truck was stolen a couple days ago and caught fire upside down on its roof in the middle of Alameda Avenue with two nuclear weapons inside.

Sunday evening we watched gay porn on TV and he finally got a hard-on and came for me; then I nursed on his tits. My gift really altered his behavior but I wasn't sure how long the new David would last but this one was much nicer to me and much more sensitive to my feelings than the old David. Just before bed on Sunday he actually handed me my toothbrush and the tube of paste! Sunday night in bed he blew me again exactly how I taught him to work my dick. His effort was so perfect I actually had to moan loudly just before I came, which was rare. I spunked so hard it went all over the bed.

On Tuesday the police repellant bumper stickers arrived and we drove the truck to the mechanic to have the Pentagon Mod done. The guy went in and cut the wire that ran to the satellite antenna on the roof, and then he found the large chip on the instrument cluster and zapped it with electricity to destroy the GPS capability, and modified the one for the built-in cellular so it couldn't estimate its location based on what WI-FI and cell towers were nearby. He put an antenna switch in the dashboard, switch-up if we wanted to use the built-in cellular or switch down to disconnect the antenna rendering it deaf. Back at home that evening I carefully cleaned spots on the license plate and near it, same as the old truck and carefully applied one federal agent sticker. They sort of resembled the old brand logo for a type of airline luggage.

David also ordered used CDs to replace the ones he lost when the truck burned, he found them used online and saved a lot of money buying them from Goodwill. He said he didn't need the album art, just the CD. We weren't supposed to use our cell phones for music since they were government property. That weekend we loaded the ATV in the back and drove to near the Ghost Town and rode around but there were too many others out there for us to fuck and we didn't bring our camping gear but we still had a good time. We neglected to bring water so we made two trips into Oro Grande for water and something to munch on. David said two guys riding around for hours on an ATV together was kind of obvious. The good part was nobody out there cared, which is how it should be for gays everywhere.

On Thursday we got the call from WSMR to come get our new pelican case, it was tested and ready, so we drove up early and were there for two hours looking at and testing equipment. It was nearly identical to the old one. While we were up there one of the head guys in the weapons lab mentioned he heard David was newly promoted and he admitted it was true, then immediately changed the subject. Everyone congratulated him on the work he's done to earn the promotion. We never really expected we'd ever be promoted; we already outranked our boss and his boss in the Pentagon. The step from O-6 to O-7 was huge and worthy of mention. David always played it down.

When we left WSMR we saw someone had made a small gold star sticker out of a gold post-it note and stuck it on his rear bumper. David smiled and we turned around to look in the 2nd story windows of the weapons lab, several of them were laughing and waving. His promotion was a big deal to them but not to us. David has done nothing to advance awareness of his promotion and his uniforms still had eagles on the collars, not a single star. He never once mentioned it to me after we got back from Washington.

That weekend his new license plates arrived in the mail. I was surprised that he actually paid extra for vanity plates. We sat in one of the booths with alcohol preps cleaning the plate to apply the agent sticker and I saw his new truck plate said: SPIDERZ.

As a joke I asked him why not STAR or GENERAL and he snorted and smiled and shook no. That was one of the first signs I saw from him that he was slowly returning to his old self. I asked him if the vanity plate General was already taken. He looked at me, smiled and flipped me off, and then we both laughed loudly! He really thought that was funny and slapped his hands on the table and got tears he laughed so hard. But he never really answered my question.

On Friday we had a small party for Duke and Luke in the office. We got pizza and made an actual punch bowl with sliced fruit and lots of ice. They actually used canned Hawaiian Punch but someone accidentally added shots of some kind of booze. The boss left early that day and we kept up the festivities until their flight. They walked out the tarmac door and followed the luggage cart pathways and walked up the outside steps to the jet-way and boarded their flight the illegal way without even checking in at the gate counter. But it only delayed their departure a couple minutes by creating a mismatch between tickets collected at the gate and people on board. The airline counted two no-shows yet there they were already on the plane in the correct seats in coach. Their pelican case (with two loaded 9mm machine guns) was safely stowed in the overhead compartment.

After work we tried to estimate the cost of the new case and the stuff inside. David estimated it was worth about 7-8 million bucks. We used a new razor blade to make little cuts in the foam rubber inside so we could add a tiny bottle of gas pellets and three extra spider boxes.

At home (and at work) things slowly got back to normal. David eventually got over the death of his old truck and slowly fell in love with the new one. I think he went out in the garage a few times when he was home alone and slid the seat back and wanked in it to complete the bonding process between a boy and his truck. Good grief!

Five weeks after his promotion David still didn't have stars on his uniforms, he said the eagles looked nicer. I know eventually he'll get called back to Washington and they'll force him to wear his legal rank insignia.

The weekend Duke and Luke left for Omaha we drove out to Cattleman's for steak dinner. We both got 24 ounce medium rare ribeyes and had lots leftover to take home. Our meal was traditional: salad bar, rolls, baked potato and the steak, wine, and ice cream afterward. We splurged on the wine, he picked a sixty buck a bottle French Merlot that was dated 1999. Our dinner bill came to $275 with tip and tax. Our waiter sounded like a hissy gay guy. Every time he tried to engage David in small talk we shut it down. We didn't drive all the way out to Cattleman's to make friends with the waiter, sorry dude! The guy looked like he was in his fifties and he was obviously flirting with David, right in front of me. Guys like that don't stay there long. They usually have middle aged women waiting tables and working the bar. It seemed like any reasonably good waitress with big tits always made great money waiting tables there.

That evening with lots of steak in the truck in doggie bags we stopped at one of the few tourist attractions in El Paso; it's a mountain road (winding 2-lanes) called Scenic Drive. There is a similar looking road near Hollywood called Mulholland Drive.

There's a small parking area near the top that sort of overlooks downtown El Paso and further south all of Juarez. We got a spot and sat there making out like we did in college, except we didn't hide. It reminded me how much I like kissing and how good David was at it. When he really loves you and he's in the mood he really shows his love by kissing super passionately. It surprised me, but at dinner I noticed he seemed to be in a good mood.

I remembered in the restaurant when we walked over to the salad bar his butt cheeks caught my eye and I bumped into someone else because I wasn't watching where I was going. That was embarrassing, as I made him spill some of his drink on the carpet! I offered to replace it but he said it was just a few drops across his hand, no harm done. You meet the nicest people in Texas.

Contact the author by email: Borischenaz mailfence or on twitter: @borischenaz.