He led them over to the entrance door after speaking with one of the guards.
“I got friends who have motorcycles gassed up and ready at all times. They got their guns, ammo, some canned food, and bottled water that they’ll carry in a little trailer as they head out of the nightmare. They got gold coins, too, and prearranged places where they’ll meet up. Or maybe Bitcoins or cryptocurrency. Now, higher up on the scale are well-heeled executives who keep their choppers ready to go at all times and have a place somewhere remote with everything they need to stay alive, including air filtration. See, they figure if society collapses the worst stuff will happen in metro and suburban areas. You know, low-hanging fruit. Who wants to trek up a mountain to get to a rich person if they just have to turn the corner in Manhattan and throw a brick through a window and follow that with a gun or knife?”
“So people coming here will be escaping from big cities?” asked Robie.
“More than likely, yeah. I mean, that’s where they make all their money, right? Hell, we’re flyover country here.”
“But I’m assuming there are rich people around here, too,” said Reel.
“Sure, but most are still concentrated along the coasts and down in Texas with all the oil money. Stats on that are clear. And that’s where most of my clients are from. And they know they can’t go it alone. Not against a mob mentality. Not even with all their money. Money works only when you have laws and people to enforce those laws. So they need help. And we’re that help.”
Malloy said, “And where will the police be in all this?”
“No offense, Sheriff, but they’re going to be part of the mob,” replied Lambert promptly. “Cops don’t make a lot of money. You know that firsthand. They’re going to be out rioting along with everyone else unless they already cut a deal to act as security for the rich folks.”
“Damn,” said Malloy, shaking her head.
Reel looked at her. “Hey, maybe you hedge your bets and get your butt in here. I’m sure Lambert is always looking for an experienced gun for hire to show off to his rich clients.”
Lambert smiled. “Sorry, Sheriff, I’d like to oblige, but we got sufficient security and we frankly don’t have the room. Every square inch is spoken for.”
“No problem. I’d prefer to take my chances on the outside with the riffraff.”
Lambert approached the door and pressed his thumb into a biometric reader. A control panel was revealed as a thick piece of metal slid upward. He keyed in a code and the hydraulic-powered door swung silently open surprisingly fast.
Lambert said, “The shield over the control panel will withstand pretty much anything you can throw at it. But even if it is disabled we have redundant controls inside. And that blast door can take a direct nuke hit, so forget about trying to get through it with conventional explosives. Isn’t going to happen.”
Robie looked over the width and depth of the gigantic door. “I can see that.”
“Now, what you’re about to see is the pinnacle response to prepping short of owning an island and employing your own army. I also refer to it as the extreme end of the survivalist’s spectrum. On doomsday this is where you want to be.”
He led them inside.
CHAPTER
40
Lambert walked them over to a bank of elevators. “In the silo we’ve got a dozen floors and private apartments on each. Some are half-floor units that go for about two mill, but most of the owners have taken the whole floor for around four million.”
“How many people total can you support in here?” asked Malloy.
“Around a hundred, but we’re looking at ways to stretch that number a bit to allow some flexibility with staff and such.”
“You mean pilots, guards, and their families,” said Reel curtly.
“Well, yeah. Immediate families. I mean, we can’t take cousins and nephews and in-laws. We just don’t have the room. Now, we have enough food and fuel for five years, but we also have renewable energy capabilities that we keep improving upon, along with raising our own food, so we could possibly stay in here indefinitely.”
“Who pays for all the guns and food, upkeep, security guards, the improvements you’re talking about, and all that?”
“Monthly fee tacked onto the purchase price, like a condo fee. It’s paid into an escrow starting from day one. So we have a nice buffer already built in. If doomsday happens and the monetary system goes down, well, we’ll all be in survivalist mode. I don’t think anyone will be worrying about a paycheck. They’ll just want to stay in here and get by until it’s okay to leave. But with that said, private security ain’t cheap. Hell, none of this is cheap. That’s sort of the point. Separating the wheat from the chaff.”
“Or the clamshells from the pearls,” amended Reel.
Lambert pointed at her and chuckled. “I might use that analogy in my future marketing materials.”
“Was Walton interested in anything in particular here?” asked Robie.
“He asked questions about the silo’s configuration, entry points, square footage, defensive mechanisms, even where I got the workers to do the job. Told him as much as I could.”
“And where did you get the workers?” Reel wanted to know.
“Some local, some not. And no, I didn’t use any illegals. This is specialized work. I needed trained folks who knew what they were doing.”
“Illegal status doesn’t mean they’re untrained,” pointed out Robie.
“Yeah, but you can get into a lot of legal hassles if you do use them, and I couldn’t afford the headache.”
They rode the elevator down to the bottom of the silo.
Getting off, Lambert said, “We’ll work our way back up. In addition to the apartments we built out in the silo, we converted the launch operations area and part of the missile launch section into the public use areas. As you’ll see, they’re pretty extensive.”
They climbed on a golf cart parked near a raised overhead door and Lambert drove them down a long tunnel that was well lighted and had a concrete floor. “This was the connecting tunnel I told you about.” They arrived at the other end of the tunnel and climbed off the golf cart. Lambert led them into a space filled with raised wooden boxes with plants growing in them. Special lighting illuminated the room.
“Our hydroponic gardens. We grow vegetables with special lamps. We also will be raising fish for proteins. And we’re thinking about having a chicken coop for eggs and the occasional white meat. No room for cattle down here,” he added, grinning. “Behind those doors are our food storage areas. No perishables but nutritionally balanced provisions. We hired an expert to help us put the mix together. We also have state-of-the-art water, and NBC, or nuclear, biological, and chemical, air filtration systems. If the outside gets radiated, we’ll be fine in here.”
He led them through various other rooms containing a bowling alley, spa, gym, swimming pool, theater, and medical wing with a dentist chair and an operating room.
“Two of our owners are health-care execs and also doctors, so we lucked out there. They can perform any necessary medical procedures for the rest of the population.”
He led them next to a wine cellar. “Some of our owners are collectors and they’ve brought some of their stock here. One of the perks of owning here. Some of the bottles in there are worth tens of thousands of dollars. Me, I’m a beer man, but I could be tempted.”
“I’m sure you could,” noted Reel.
He unlocked one room and they passed through.
“This is our armory.”
On the walls and secured by chains and padlocks was an impressive arsenal of pistols, rifles, and submachine guns as well as grenades, RPG launchers, and boxes of ammo.
“Even though we have professional guards, you never know, so this is just in case we’re breached or our guards go down during an assault. Each owner has been trained with these weapons. Next to the armory is a shooting range. One requirement of purchasing a property was that every adult had to be certified in weaponry.”