Free Final Dawn: Escape From Armageddon by Darrell Maloney Page B

work in the area: Mark and Bryan. And before they entered, they would don special coveralls and booties that would minimize static electricity discharge.
         Diesel wasn’t like gasoline. It was considerably harder to start a fire with it. Its fumes didn’t ignite, like gasoline fumes. That’s why a decision was made early on to outlaw gasoline and gasoline engines. Every vehicle, every pump, every generator, that came into the mine would run on diesel power. Period.
         But even though diesel was considerably safer, it was still dangerous. So the Snyder brothers went overboard on caution. Better to be too cautious than to be dead, they reasoned.
         The other 140 tanks would be plac ed a few bays down, in Bay 15. This would be the main water supply. The first tanks, already in place, were already being filled.
         When Mark entered the mine this day, he checked on the progress of water tank number two.
         The previous tank, tank one, had taken two full days to fill, with a continuously running water hose from a water tap in front of the mine. They’d had to string eight garden hoses together to stretch to the back of the mine. It was city water, coming out of the water plant in nearby Kerrville. They expected to get clobbered on the mine’s water bills the next few months as they filled up all 140 tanks. But that’s okay. They had the money to pay for it.
         Mark would check the water level in the tanks once each day when coming to work, and again before he went home. When a tank was close to getting full, he’d check it more often. At the rate they were going, they’d have plenty of time to fill all 140 before impact. And those 140 water tanks represented seven years of life for the forty.
     
         While Mark was puttering around the mine, waiting for the air horns that would signal the arrival of today’s tank deliveries, Bryan was at the warehouse down the highway, unloading a truck from Symco Foods. The 53-foot trailer had backed up just over an hour before, with 24 pallets of food and paper goods. Each pallet measured 48 inches long and 40 inches wide, and stood about six feet high.
         This load, like the one that came in the day prior, would be lined up in the receiving bay. Once all the pallets were off the truck, the driver would provide Bryan an invoice, and Bryan would call off each item.
         “Rice, 25 pound bag.” Bryan said. “Twenty.”
         The driver would find the rice bags on the pallets, show them to Bryan, and Bryan would mark them off the list.
         “Toilet Paper, 48 count case. Bryan said. “Twelve.”
         “Check.”
         “Ramen Noodles, Beef, 96 count case. Twelve.”
         “Check.”
         The pallets were wrapped with clear plastic shrink wrap, which allowed the markings on all boxes to be read easily. The workers at the Symco Foods distribution center were experts at stacking the pallets so that everything was visible from the outside. Only occasionally did Bryan and the driver have to break into the pallets to look for a missing box packed on the inside.
         Once the invoice was signed and the driver departed, Bryan would pull his own rig out of the west parking area and back it up to the truck pit.
         Then he’d jump on a 4,000 lb Hyster forklift and load the new pallets into the back of his trailer.
         Once loaded, he would call Mark to make sure there weren’t any truck drivers at the mine who might ask too many questions.
         Given the all clear from Mark, Bryan would drive to the mine, into the entryway, and would park in the main corridor.
         I n the main corridor, Bryan would climb aboard another Hyster forklift, the identical twin of the one he’d been on half an hour earlier. He would take the first two pallets from the end of the truck and place them in the food storage area at the back of Bay 9.
         After the first two pallets were off-loaded,