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  Kevin Lendel held two specialties. The first was communications. The second was food storage and preparation. He chose the latter specialty because he had always loved cooking. Ken Layton was transportation coordinator, while his wife Terry volunteered to coordinate purchasing. During his brief membership, the already overtrained Jeff Trasel declared himself “tactical coordinator” and group librarian. After he quit the group, Mike Nelson replaced Trasel as tactical coordinator, while Kevin took over Jeff’s responsibilities as librarian.

  To supplement the tactical training given by Jeff and Mike during their respective tenures, Todd, Mary, and T.K. took pistol and rifle training courses. They attended the Front Sight firearms training school, near Las Vegas, Nevada.

  They each took the “Four Day Defensive Handgun” and “Four Day Practical Rifle” courses. These intensive courses greatly increased their confidence with firearms. On their return, the Grays and T.K. cross-trained the other group members in much of what they had learned at Front Sight. At $1,600 each, the courses were relatively expensive, but as Todd repeatedly told the other group members, “They’re worth every penny.”

  Aside from guns and storage food, the group’s other major investment was in vehicles. Before the Grays and Kevin Lendel moved to the Palouse Hills, all of the group’s members lived either in Chicago or the outlying suburbs. As most of their survival scenarios envisioned the need to “Get Out of Dodge” in a hurry, there was correspondingly strong emphasis placed on transportation.

  On this issue, the group members deferred their judgment to Ken Layton.

  Layton convinced the group members to buy older American-made cars and trucks and then fully restore and modify them. To Ken’s way of thinking, new model cars and trucks were far too complex, broke down too easily, required specialized tools to work on, and were just too expensive. He also pointed out that late-model cars are a conspicuous sign of wealth, and might serve as a target during periods of social unrest. He convinced the group members to buy either late 1960s or early 1970s Ford cars and trucks or Dodge Power Wagon pickups. His only stipulation was that they had “straight” bodies (never involved in a collision) and were free of rust. That meant that most of the members bought their cars and trucks from “rust-free states” like California, Arizona, and New Mexico. They found them through the Internet or Hemming’s Auto News.

  Eventually, most of the group members complied with Ken’s suggestion.

  The Grays bought a 1969 Power Wagon, but never got around to replacing Mary’s 1979 VW Super Beetle. The Nelsons bought a 1968 Ford Bronco and a 1968 Ford Mustang, both of which used the same type of 289 engine. T.K. bought a 1969 Bronco, but kept his Plymouth Horizon for commuting. Kevin Lendel bought a 1971 Ford F 250 four-wheel-drive pickup. While a member, Trasel bought a Power Wagon; his was a 1970. Dan Fong, ever the noncon-formist, replaced his 1989 Camaro with a 2003 Toyota four-by-four pickup. Ken and Terry Layton followed suit with the Nelsons’ approach and bought a 1968 Bronco and a 1967 Mustang, both with 302-cubic-inch engines.

  One advantage of having Ken as a member of the group was the fact that he had access to a fully equipped automotive garage after normal working hours. Although he volunteered to do most of the restoration work himself, he insisted that each group member be there and assist him during the most important phases of the work. This way, Ken reasoned, every group member would know how their vehicles were put together, how they worked, and hopefully, how to handle most minor repairs.

  The vehicle restoration process that Ken insisted on turned out to be relatively expensive and time consuming. He started by pulling the engine and transmission from each vehicle, and then farming them out to other shops to be completely rebuilt. Next he would make minor body repairs, sand out the bodies, and put on a flat paint finish, usually in an earth tone. They used standard glossy car paint with a special flattener added. This gave much better rust protection than regular flat paint. At roughly the same time, he would either rebuild or replace the carburetor. Next, when the engine and transmission came back, he would reinstall them, at the same time replacing all of their auxiliary equipment, aside from carburetors, with brand new components.

  This included radiators, starters, alternators, fuel pumps, water pumps, batteries, voltage regulators, starter solenoids, hoses, and belts.

  Next, Ken would rework the vehicle’s suspension, usually modifying it for tougher off-road use, and do an alignment and brake job, sometimes involving replacing the master cylinder. In most cases, the vehicle’s existing wiring harnesses did not need to be replaced. By the time he was done, Ken had in effect built a whole new vehicle that would be good for at least ten years of strenuous use.

  After getting their vehicles back from Ken and recovering financially, most of the group members went on to further modify their vehicles to their own liking. Most of the four-wheel drives were equipped with extra fuel tanks, beefier bumpers, and roll cages. Typically, most of the group members also added Bearcat police/weather scanners and Cobra 148GTL single-sideband forty-channel citizens’ band radios. It was Kevin that convinced the group to standardize with a more expensive single sideband (SSB) model. With the SSB feature, their CBs could be set to the full band, the upper sideband, or the lower sideband. This effectively made them eighty-channel radios. SSB transmission was also more efficient, so it provided longer-range transmissions. Since SSB broadcasts are unintelligible when heard on the much more common standard AM CBs, it added a modest level of security.

  All of the group’s communications equipment was standardized soon after the debate on standardizing weapons was settled. The primary communications system was in the form of the TRC-500 headset type 500-milliwatt walkie-talkie. The “Trick Five Hundreds,” as they were soon dubbed by the group members, turned out to be an ideal choice. They were inexpensive, reliable, and because they had a hands-free, voice activated (VOX) switch mode, they proved to be ideal for use on patrols.

  The only drawbacks to the TRC-500s were their limited range and that they were only available in one of two frequencies. Both of these frequencies were well known and subject to interception. This problem was solved by the electronic wizardry of Kevin Lendel. Through ads in the back of a ham radio magazine, Kevin was able to find a supplier who cut custom crystals. Kevin selected a frequency just below the 49.830-megahertz frequency of the group’s TRC-500s. Realizing that what he was doing was not exactly legal, Kevin placed an order using an assumed name. He had them delivered to a commercial post office box company in downtown Chicago that didn’t ask a lot of questions when one rented a box.

  When soldering in the custom crystals into all of the group members’ TRC-500s, Kevin also took the time to seal all of the seams in the radio cases with RTV silicone sealant. This made them much more waterproof, and hence even more suitable to rough field use.

  On the advice of Jeff Trasel, the group also decided to buy several military field telephones. As Trasel so pointedly put it, “If you haven’t got comm, you haven’t got jaaack.” The field telephones, connected by WD-1 two-conductor wire, would reduce the group’s reliance on their radios in the immediate area of the retreat. The two models considered were the TA-312 and TA-1. Both were available as military surplus. The audio quality of the TA-312 was better than that of the TA-1, but it was more expensive. The TA-1 was wholly sound-powered, and thus did not require batteries. The TA-312 could also be used in a sound-powered mode, but it was normally operated with a pair of D-cell batteries installed to give it better range. Because the group only anticipated needing short-range field telephone communications, they settled on the TA-1 model.

  Eventually, four TA-1 field phones and over a mile of surplus WD-1 were bought as a “group purchase.” Unlike most preparedness purchasing, which was done individually, a few items such as the field phones were bought for the benefit of the entire group. The cost of most of these group purchases was shared equally, while some were “gifts to the group” on the part of individual members, and a few we
re paid for with unequal shares, based on the varying financial resources of the individual members.

  One optional but encouraged item of equipment for group members was body armor. Mike Nelson recommended that each group member buy an extra heavy-duty bullet resistant vest of the variety worn by police SWAT teams. Mike recommended the Second Chance brand Hardcorps 3 model with extra ballistic inserts. Unlike the relatively thin vest that Mike wore on a day-to-day basis while on police duty, these extra heavy vests would stop virtually every type of pistol or shotgun projectile. With luck, they could even stop some rifle bullets. The vests were not a panacea. They could only stop a high-power rifle bullet only if it stuck directly in the small trauma plate over the chest area. And they could do nothing, of course, to stop a head shot, groin shot, or disabling shot to a limb. However, the vests were better than nothing.

  Eventually five of these relatively expensive vests were bought by the Grays, the Nelsons, and Tom Kennedy. Most of the other group members promised to buy vests, but never got around to it.

  Another piece of ballistic protection that was recommended was a helmet.

  In the mid-1980s, the U.S. Army started issuing a helmet for its ground troops that was molded out of woven Kevlar, the same material used in modern bulletproof vests. The new helmets were immediately nicknamed “Fritz helmets” by soldiers, because they had a lip that extended below the wearer’s ears, reminiscent of the steel helmets worn by German soldiers in both of the world wars in the twentieth century. Like the vests, Kevlar helmets were expensive, so not all of the group members bought them. When they first came on the surplus market in the late eighties, they cost three-hundred-and-fifty dollars apiece. By 2002, the supply of surplus Kevlar helmets had increased to the point where their price on the civilian market dropped to roughly a hundred. Occasionally, they were found at gun shows or flea markets for even less.

  Very early on in the development of the Group, the issue of exactly what scenario they were preparing for was raised. Most members were thinking in terms of banks runs and an economic collapse, followed by a general breakdown in law and order. Others leaned more toward nuclear, biological, or chemical warfare.

  Dan Fong insisted that the main emphasis should be on preparedness for resistance following a takeover of the government by socialists, fascists, or communists. In the end it was decided that the group had best prepare for all conceivable scenarios, rather than just one. As Todd put it, “It would be kind of embarrassing to get ourselves all prepared for some big socioeconomic collapse, and then get nuked.”

  • • •

  The only preparation that Todd’s group made that they decided to keep an absolute secret was their purchase of blasting supplies and equipment. When Mike was doing research for his graduate work, it brought him into contact with a broad spectrum of loggers, farmers, and ranchers. One rancher that Mike met was Spence Loughran. Spence and his wife had a 640-acre spread twenty-five miles north of Moscow. Spence’s ranch was used to both run cattle and harvest timber. When he first met him, Mike discovered that Spence was in the middle of a project blasting some stumps on his ranch, clearing a logged-over area for hay cutting.

  Mike mentioned to Spence that he had an interest in explosives, and offered to help out. They had a great time, as they both liked to “see things blow up.” By the end of the day, they were great friends. When Mike bemoaned the fact that there was an “ocean of paperwork to wade through” in getting set up with an explosives permit in Illinois, Spence offered to add Mike to his blaster’s permit, listing him as an “employee.” Five weeks later Mike got a copy of the updated permit in the mail, along with a copy of The Blaster’s Handbook, which was crammed with safety information and useful tables.

  Loughran had inscribed its flyleaf, “Big City Boy: Move slow and use your noggin. God Bless, Spence.”

  During subsequent visits to northern Idaho before the Crunch, first on hunting trips with Lisa, and later to help out Todd and Mary with upgrading the retreat, Mike stopped by and visited with Spence and his wife. He also regularly went to do business with an explosives distributor in Spokane,Washington. With the permit supplied by Loughran, he was able to get everything that he needed. The first time at the distributor’s shop, the owner was skeptical of Mike, as he had never met him before.

  Just to be sure, the owner called Loughran to check on his identity.

  Loughran told him, “Heck yeah, Bob, I sent him over there! Now just give him everything that I had him put on the list of what to buy.”

  After hanging up the phone, the distributor cocked his head and said, “Well, you check out all right. What can I get you?” Mike breathed a silent sigh of relief.

  On his first trip back to Idaho, Mike picked up a case of 75 percent dynamite and a reel of PETN detonating cord, often called primacord or simply “det. cord,” and a pair of cap crimping pliers. On subsequent trips, Mike purchased electric and fuse type blasting caps, a small hand crank “blasting machine” generator for setting off electric blasting caps, thirty pounds of Composition 4 (C-4) plastic explosive, two additional cases of dynamite, and a twenty-pound roll of Dupont Detasheet C sheet explosive.

  Eventually, all of these supplies were carefully transported from Mike and Lisa’s to the retreat in Idaho. Mike gave the Grays specific instructions on storing the materials. The most important thing, he told them, was to store the caps and the bulk explosives at opposite ends of the basement. As long as the basement stayed cool and dry, and the dynamite was up off the floor, there would be no problem with deterioration.

  One task that had to be done regularly was rotating the boxes of dynamite. Because Mike’s dynamite was of the variety that had nitroglycerin suspended in diatomaceous earth, it was much more stable than the older variety that had nitroglycerin suspended in sawdust. However, there was still a slight risk that the nitroglycerin could settle and seep out of the casings of the individual sticks. To prevent this, it was simple enough to inspect a few of the sticks, and turn the cases upside down once every three months. So that they wouldn’t lose track of this responsibility, Mary marked a circled red “R” for rotation day in her desk calendar at quarterly intervals.

  CHAPTER 5

  Squared Away

  “Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival.”

  —Ayn Rand

  Dan and Mike helped Mary set up a bed for Rose next to the C.Q. desk. It seemed to be the logical location, since someone would be there to watch her condition around the clock. The only detractor was that everyone had to be especially quiet when they were in the front end of the house. Rose slept almost continuously for two days. Every four hours, whomever was on C.Q. duty woke her to give her dose of ampicillin and offer her something to eat or drink. She refused anything but water for the first eighteen hours, then she started drinking some juice. At four a.m. on the third morning, Rose sat up in bed and asked for some pancakes. T.K., who had C.Q. duty at the time, stepped over to the kitchen and filled her request. She was working on her fourth pancake and gulping down her second glass of orange juice when she asked, “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Kennedy, Tom Kennedy. Everybody calls me ‘T.K.’ I’m the personnel honcho around here.”

  “Oh, so you’re T.K. I’ve heard Jeff talk about you. He said that you study ancient languages and that you’re a Catholic minister.”

  He gave a half smile, and retorted, “That’s not quite right, I’m only a lay minister. I helped give communion at mass. I’ll be leading the daily Bible studies here.”

  “He also said that you’re an awesome shot with a rifle.”

  “Well, gosh, ‘awesome’ is a superlative term I don’t deserve, at least not among the serious shooting fraternity. By most people’s standards, I guess I am an excellent shooter. I practice with an Anshutz .22 match rifle, my AR-15, and my M1 Garand at the range quite a bit. I also like to shoot in the quarterly competitive High Power matches.”

  Rose frowned. “You should start using the past tense
when you’re talking about things like that. From what we saw getting out of Illinois, there’s total anarchy everywhere. Houses on fire or burned down. We went through some neighborhoods where there had been frame houses, and all that was left standing were the chimneys. Lots of bodies just littering the street. People looting stores. It looked like footage from Iraq.”

  After a pause she asked, “Are you going to let Jeff and me stay here? I mean, from what he told me, Jeff hasn’t been a member of your group for a couple of years, and you’ve just met me.”

  T.K. stroked his chin. “I don’t know. With an issue this big, it’ll be up to a vote of the entire group.”

  As soon as Rose had eaten her fill of scrambled eggs and pancakes, T.K. went to wake up Jeff, who was asleep on the hide-a-bed sofa. “Hey, Trasel,” he said, “There’s a cute-looking gal with a tremendous appetite in the next room that I think would like to see you.”

  Later the same morning, the power went off. Everyone in the house immediately met in the dim gloom of the shuttered living room. None of them held out much hope of it being a temporary power failure. With an air of finality, Todd pronounced, “Well, that’s it. I suppose that our clocks will be reading 10:17 for who knows how long. Months?Years? Maybe decades. From now on, we’ll have to conserve power considerably. We do have a lot of power sources to charge the batteries though. We’ve got the solar panels, the Winco when it’s windy, and our hand crank generator. Starting now, no one will use any more power than is absolutely necessary.”