Jeff examined the panel again closely. Teddy had bonded several layers of fiberglass, making a thick back plate. Then, he had glued a bunch of glass marbles to the face and slathered black truck liner paint over it, sticking the marbles to the fiberglass. Rifle rounds had hit the test plate and marbles were blown away in two-inch circles. True to Teddy’s claim, the rifle rounds hadn’t penetrated the fiberglass. Jeff looked at the back and couldn’t find any exit holes.
“Where’d you get this idea?” Jeff asked, astonished. How could this young longhair invent effective armor out of marbles and truck liner when multi-million-dollar defense contractors had failed to accomplish the same thing?
“I dunno,” Teddy shrugged. “I thought it might be cool if we had some bullet-proofing for the OHVs. Maybe save some lives. Your QRF dudes could get to battle a lot faster with armored OHVs. The marble thing… I started thinking about what we had around the Homestead in big quantities. The marbles came from Jason’s daughter’s wedding two years ago. He bought a zillion marbles to fill up glass lanterns and never threw them away. We probably have three hundred pounds of marbles. And we have at least three gallons of bed liner. I had the fiberglass fabric set aside for a pond liner we were going to make, but then decided to buy a rubberized liner instead. Bro, I think I can armor all the OHVs in the next couple of days: it would just be the doors and a little front shielding, but it’d be something.”
Jeff handed the panel back to Teddy. “Very cool. Do it.” Teddy took the panel back and smiled. “Right on.”
Jeff walked toward the ham shack by the bunkhouse. He wanted to check on his buddy Evan again. Since the day Evan left for the National Guard Armory, he had only checked in twice. The last time was four days ago. Jeff knew Evan’s team had made it to the Army Depot in Tooele, but he had no idea what had happened since. Ham radio could be finicky, and it was possible that the ham repeater up on Oquirrh Mountain had run out of battery and died. The repeater stood between the Army Depot and the Homestead. If the battery backup on the repeater had crapped out, Evan’s comm link would be dead, too.
Before he reached the ham shack, Alena cornered him. Jeff’s blood turned to ice, anticipating bad news about his son.
“Jeff, can you hold on a second?”
“Sure, Alena. Is everything okay?” Jeff asked, frigidity in his voice.
“Leif is the same. He’s resting and he’s got a fever. Can I please talk to you about something else?” Jeff nodded, his neck muscles going slack. “Robert is hell-bent on serving in your army.”
It required a moment for Jeff to understand what she was saying. His body had steeled itself to get news that his son was dead. He took a big breath and regathered himself like a spilled bag of leaves.
Jeff did his best to answer her. “Robert wants to do his part to protect his family. Any man would do the same.” He was beginning to see where she was going, and part of him wanted to scream at her. Why aren’t you in the infirmary taking care of my son! Stop being such a controlling bitch and do your fucking job!
Alena went on, oblivious to Jeff’s internal struggle. “Robert knows nothing about guns and he’s going to get himself killed.”
Jeff’s eyes narrowed. “Robert’s a grown man and he’s an Army specialist. He knows what he’s getting into. We’ll train him as quickly as we can. That’s all I can promise you.” Jeff went to walk way, but Alena pressed the issue.
“That won’t be good enough. I know my husband, and he’s not cut out for this kind of thing. Can you give him clerical duty or messenger duty or something like that?”
“I could do that, Alena, and he’d know you interfered. If he asks me, I won’t lie to him. I realize you think I’m some kind of mindless soldier, but men who serve… we have an agreement to treat one another like men. I’d never insult him by treating him differently than any other man, unless he can’t physically do the job. Does that make sense?”
Alena didn’t want it to make sense. “No. It doesn’t make sense.” She started to tear up. “I can’t raise a family without Robert and, by putting him out there to fight, you’re putting our children at risk. Please don’t do this to us.”
Jeff softened and actually felt a little sympathy for the woman. He could see her for what she was: a strong woman fighting to survive in a strange and dangerous world. The strategies she had used to navigate her past life—hard charging and strong words—they weren’t getting her what they once had. This wasn’t a world she could control with her practiced tongue and iron will. The dangers in this world would have to be met with a more physical response.
“Here’s what I’ll promise you,” Jeff held up his hands, conceding as much as he could. “I’ll train him myself, and I’ll do my best to give him duty that’s suited to his ability. That’s all I can promise.”
Jeff didn’t wait for a reply, assuming she would keep mounting new arguments until she got her way, and Jeff knew that wasn’t going to happen. Today, he didn’t have that kind of patience. If he kept arguing with her, he knew he would get angry―really angry. Given his state of mind, he wasn’t sure he could control that kind of anger. He turned, heading toward the ham shack, before she could speak again.
Warm Springs Park
Salt Lake City, Utah
There was something ludicrous about two tattooed criminals sitting together on a picnic bench. Watching from a distance, Gabriel thought it was an honest illustration of thug life. For all their violence and posturing, the two gangster captains sitting on the bench were just two confused little boys at a park—his brother Francisco and Aleki Tapu’o, the captain of the Tongan Crips.
The two gang leaders did their best to look tough, each man straddling his picnic seat with one arm on the table, sitting on opposite sides, glaring at one another.
“Why should I trust a Mexican?” Aleki challenged Francisco, raising his chin. The Tongan was a massive man, his arms easily the size of Gabriel’s legs, with tribal tattoos covering his biceps, back and legs.
Francisco refused to answer. “This is just business. Either you want to make some money or you don’t.”
The Tongan smirked. “That’s the problem with you greasers. You don’t understand family.”
With that chilling comment, Gabriel knew they had misjudged the meeting. Gabriel had called the meeting as a way to save his own skin, but the Pacific Islanders had used it to set a trap.
Gabriel looked around, his anxiety spiking. In the distance, as he had feared, men filtered into the park from every direction; all Pacific Islanders. Many of them didn’t look like gangbangers; some of the men were in their fifties.
Aleki continued to talk, not glancing at the men he knew were moving in to surround the meeting. “When your man Digger here ass-raped my wife’s cousin in Oxbow Jail last year, MY family didn’t get a chance to have a funeral. Our little cousin hung himself in his cell from shame. We thought maybe we could have the funeral right here, today, hermano. Maybe we’d have a little potluck dinner, Island-style. Maybe we’d roast a pig in a pit. Problem is, with all the shit going down, we couldn’t find a pig. We figured maybe it’d be just as good to roast a Mexican. I’ve never eaten a burned-alive Mexican before.”
With over a hundred Tongans converging on the park, Gabriel saw no way out of the trap. Francisco ignored the threat and the hundred hulking men slowly surrounding him. “You’re saying Digger here raped a Poly boy in jail?… Come here, Digger.”