On the next shelf down, he found a collection of what resembled wax-covered bricks. But under closer inspection, they proved to be ammo boxes, the cellophane wrapping under the layer of wax still intact. Triple sealed, he marveled, the ammo would be in perfect condition! There was a good assortment of the standard calibers, but no .44 rounds for the derringers. Damn.
“Jak, .357 ammo!” J.B. called, and tossed the teenager a box.
The albino teen made the catch, shoved the box into the hip pocket of his fatigue pants and went straight back to his search for explosives.
“Any 9 mil?” Ryan asked, looking up from a stack of crates covered with shrink wrap. The military markings on the crates identified the contents as light antitank weapons, a 75 mm, single-shot, disposable bazooka called a LAW. The deadliest handheld weapon in existence during its day, and even more so in the present.
“Nine millimeters?” J.B. rummaged among the boxes. “Yep, regular and Parabellum.”
“I’ll take those,” Ryan said, and he filled his pockets with spare ammo. “Any clips?”
“Lots, but just for Colt autos,” J.B. replied, tossing another box to Dean. “Nothing for a nine.”
“Any .38s?” Krysty asked, walking around a .50-caliber machine gun on a tripod.
“Not yet, but I’m still digging.” Lifting an empty grenade tray off a stack, he found only more empties underneath. “Crap, they took all of the implosion grenades!”
“Wouldn’t you?” Ryan asked, dusting off his hands.
The Armorer gave a half smile. “Yeah, still annoying, though.”
“What about food packs?” Mildred asked, shoving away a big box stuffed full of a coiled ammo belt for a .50-caliber machine gun. If they still had the Leviathan, this would have been a major find, but now it was deadweight.
“No MRE packs, not even a box of K-rations,” J.B. answered sourly. “Just ammo. Hey, .38 bullets!” He threw a box to Krysty.
“I have located a stack of MRE crates over here,” Doc announced in jubilation, ripping off the tops barehanded. The man stared for a moment, then sighed. “Empty, as expected.”
“Damnation!”
“Agreed, madam. Agreed. We cannot eat blasters.”
“Or a Hafla,” Jak announced, tossing aside the canvas tarp from a stack of canvas backpacks. Each pack was stuffed with six elongated tubes strongly resembling a LAW, except for a fluted nose and different markings on the pipe.
“What’s that?” Dean asked, coming closer.
“A sort of LAW rocket,” Ryan said. “Only loaded with napalm instead of high explosives.”
Jak dropped the tarp. “Trade a month eating for one these.”
Shifting through the empty boxes hoping to find a few packs missed, Doc paused to smile at the outpouring. For the Cajun, that was a long speech.
“Leave them till later,” Ryan directed. “We don’t know if there is a ville within walking distance outside.”
“Be just the thing to convince a stubborn baron we mean business,” the Armorer suggested.
“True, but for the moment, we have no need of them.”
As the others ripped through the military stash, Doc gave up his search among the MRE crates and started to check the back areas of the room. According to the Trader, the U.S. government had stocked the redoubts with the idea in mind that there was no telling how low civilization might fall after the nuke war. When the, troops emerged, they might find savage cannibals wearing wolf-skin breechclouts and armed with wood clubs roaming the streets of New York and Chicago. So aside from clothes, medicine, wags, fuel, weapons and the like, the Trader claimed there were also very basic supplies, plows and seed, swords, crossbows and black-powder weapons, to help rebuild America from the ashes.
In a corner, Doc found a large unmarked trunk and smashed off the padlock with the butt of his pistol, then was forced to rip away a plastic tape running along the edges of the trunk doubly insuring it was airtight. Lifting the lid, Doc dodged the exhalation of inert gas and then gazed inside with unabashed glee. The top tray was full of luxury items for trading—packs of chewing gum, cigars, butane lighters, hairbrushes and boxes of condoms. Lifting that aside, he found strings of cheap beads, fake jewelry and plastic mirrors. Pure tosh, a nice antiquarian word from his grandfather’s time meaning utter and complete crap. So the predark government had also included trinkets to bribe the simple natives, eh? It was embarrassing to think that whole nations had been stolen with such trash.
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