An Undeclared War (Countdown to Armageddon Book 4) (12 page)

     Rhett looked puzzled.

     “How so?”

     “The city has been looking for employees. For all kinds of jobs, from police officers to firefighters to people at the water plant and such. What did you two do before the blackout happened?”

     Rhett said, “I drove heavy equipment for a construction company. Scarlett was a kindergarten teacher.”

     John looked at Scarlett.

     “I understand they’re going to start reopening the schools in a couple of months. But because nearly all the residents are gone now, and the ones left are on foot, they’re going to make some changes. Every neighborhood has an elementary school that’s close enough to walk to. They’re trying to hire thirteen teachers and a principal for each school. One teacher for each grade level, kindergarten through twelfth grade. The teachers will build their own curriculum, and I suspect will teach just the basics. The closest school to you is the old Sanders Elementary School, two blocks west of here. If you’re interested, I can put you in touch with someone who can interview you for the kindergarten position.”

     Then he turned to Rhett.

     “They’ve got four huge all-terrain forklifts working now. They’re capable of picking up abandoned cars and then carrying them into the closest wooded area. They’re planning to just leave them there, drain the gasoline and oil, and let the weeks and plants grow over them. In fifty years, they say, there will be few traces of them. They’re working to clear all the roads, but it’s a big job because they estimate there are well over a million abandoned vehicles clogging the roads and streets. Think about it, and if you’re interested I can take you over to the city employment office to apply.”

     But Rhett had a better idea.

     “I don’t know. That sounds like fun and all, but tell me this: what does it take to qualify to become a police officer?”

     John smiled.

     “Well, obviously not much. They hired me, after all. There’s no academy to complete any more. And they’re not looking for experienced officers because there’s just not a lot of former cops out there. Chief Martinez will want to meet with you to interview you and make sure your head’s on straight. He says he only has three requirements. First, you can’t have a criminal background. Second, you have to be in shape, and it looks like you are. Third, you have to be willing to work twelve hour shifts and do some pretty disgusting things.”

     “Like what?”

     “Essentially, body removal. There are a lot of bodies still out there, in varying stages of decay. We search for them and move them into the street. Then the fire department comes out and burns them.”

     “What about the marauders and bad guys? We still hear gunshots almost every night.”

     “The marauders and bad guys are mostly gone now. Killed by homeowners or each other. And many of them have given up their evil ways and blended back into society. It finally dawned on them that we’re all in the same boat now. The good guys simply have nothing left worth stealing. So the bad guys have rejoined society and are just trying to survive like everybody else. There is very little police work involved in what we’re doing. The jail isn’t manned anymore and the courthouse is abandoned.”

     “So what about the gunshots?”

     “Those are people giving up. It’s slowed down a lot, and I pray the day will come when they stop altogether. But even though they’ve been through the worst of it already, some people are still seeing that as a better way.”

     “Okay, this is all well and good, but you said something about being able to buy our house. How can we do that if the banks are gone?”

     “The bank doesn’t own it anymore. The city has seized all properties whose homeowners have died, by eminent domain. Your house belongs to the city now.

     “And since the city can’t pay its workers in cash anymore, since cash is worthless now, it came up with a new idea.

     “If you go to work for the city, they’ll ask you to sign a contract. It will say, in effect, that you’re working as a private contractor for the benefit of the city. You expect no weekly paycheck or other compensation from the city, and any work you provide for the first 364 days on the job will be considered volunteer work.

     “
However,
the contract also states that once you complete day number 365, and have completed a full year of service, it will reward you by giving you one of its seized homes, free and clear. It even lets you pick it out ahead of time, and lay claim to it, so that there’s no dispute if two people want the same house.

     “And here’s the deal. If each of you complete a year, then each of you will get a house. Bill tells me the
house next door to yours, and several others on the block, have also been seized. So if you chose to do that, you’d have a second house you could eventually turn into a rental whenever the world finally gets back to normal again. Or, you could pass it on to your children someday.”

     “Is that what you’re doing, John?”

     “Yes. You see, I was already a cop when this whole thing started. My wife Hannah was a midwife.

     “Before the blackout, a cop’s salary wasn’t that great. But we got by because Hannah was also doing her midwifery thing, and because I had disability checks coming in from the VA every month.

     “But the VA no longer exists. Hannah may or may not go back to work someday. So when I heard about this program, I figured it would be a great way to get the deed for our house, and maybe a couple of others, so we never have to worry about mortgage payments again. We figured that someday, the world will return to normal, and the bank will want people to start catching up on their mortgages.

     “But not us. Our plan is to tell the banks to take a hike. By that time we’ll own our homes outright.”

     Scarlett took the bait immediately, and was accepted for a position at the nearby elementary school, to start ten weeks later.

     Rhett took a little longer. He and Scarlett debated the pros and cons of him becoming a cop. And whether or not they really needed two houses instead of one.

     But he really liked the idea and wanted to try it.

     So a week later, when John came around again making his rounds, Rhett asked him to set up a meeting for him with the police chief.

     John smiled, shook Rhett’s hand, and said, “Welcome aboard, my friend.”

     “Hey, I haven’t got the job yet.”

     “Not yet, but you will.”

     “How do you know?”

     “Because you’re a good man. I can tell. I’m a better judge of character than anyone else I know. And Chief Martinez, he’s almost as good as I am. He’ll see the same qualities that I see.

     “You’ll make a fine officer.”

     “I’m a little bit nervous, to be honest.”

     “Don’t be. Once you’re accepted, since there’s no academy anymore, you’ll be hooked up with a veteran officer. He’ll train you on everything you need to know. And I’ll be sure you’re assigned to someone who will have mercy on you.”

     Rhett laughed a nervous laugh.

     “Meaning what?”

     “Meaning veteran officers ride rookies and give them a hard time. It’s a tradition that goes back at least as far as the blue uniform and the nightstick.

     “But some veteran officers are worse than others. I’ll make sure you get one that’s gentle, and lets you keep just a little bit of your dignity.”

-22-

     John and Randy hadn’t been just cooling their heels during the two weeks they left Scott and Robbie behind at the compound.

     They went back to work immediately, working twelve hour days. John was right about Chief Martinez. He had a soft spot for John and considered him a real hero. So it was relative
ly easy for John to explain why his missing co-workers were long overdue for a two week vacation. Especially when the chief heard of the circumstances at the compound.

     “And guess what else we did,” John said on their way back to
San Antonio. “We found another working ham radio.”

     He was grinning like a possum eating poop.

     “Really? Where?”

     “Randy remembered a couple of months ago
when we were sweeping through houses on Windy Plain Drive. We went into one house and found a guy dead on his couch. Self inflicted gunshot. A woman was nearby on the floor. She also was self-inflicted. Pretty obvious too. They both still had the guns in their hands, and they left a note saying they couldn’t take it anymore.”

     “Okay, so…”

     John had a way of turning a five cent story into a fifty dollar monologue.

     “So, turns out the guy and his wife were preppers. We saw a couple of boxes
of freeze-dried food and some books on trapping and killing wild dogs and cats.

     “The note said they weren’t having any trouble surviving, but that they missed all of their friends and loved ones who didn’t survive.

     “I guess that despite all their preparations, they decided that when their loved ones were all dead there was no reason to go on after all.”

     “Okay, okay. So what’s the point?”

     John enjoyed egging Scott on.

     “You’re an impatient little
twerp, aren’t you?”

     “Only because I want to find out the point of the story sometime before next winter sets in.”

     “Okay, whatever. Anyway I never saw a ham radio sitting in the corner but Randy did. He never said anything, though.

     “Then
two weeks ago when he and I were driving back to San Antonio, we were trying to figure out how we could monitor the situation on the mountain twenty four seven. And Randy suddenly remembered that ham radio he’d seen. We figured that since the couple were preppers, they might have known about Faraday cages prior to the blackout.

     “And if they knew about Faraday cages, they might have protected the radio from the EMP.”

     Scott was finally on the same sheet of music.

     “So, what did you do with it?”

     “That’s the sweet part of it. I took it to the police station, to the dispatcher’s office. They were able to wire it into their antenna array on top of the building. And I pulled some strings with the dispatch supervisor.

     “Anyway, long story short, they will leave the extra radio on the compound’s frequency, and their dispat
chers will monitor any traffic that comes over it. If the compound calls and we’re on duty, they’ll call us on the police radio and tell us about it. And they can relay messages to us if they need to until we can get to the station to see what’s going on.

     “So we’ll run the generator at the house and monitor my radio whenever we’re off duty. Whenever we’re on duty, they’ll call us on the tactical radio if anything ever happens.”

     “John, I have to say, you’re nowhere as dumb as you look.”

     Robbie mumbled, “Of course not. Nobody could possibly be that dumb.”

     “Hey, I never said I wasn’t dumb. I just said I could get things done. And now someone will be monitoring that radio every minute while we’re on duty. Now all we have to do is come up with some kind of schedule for when we’re off. We need someone monitoring it while we’re sleeping. Maybe we can break into shifts or something.”

     Robbie said, “Hell, there’s no need for that. You guys are always bitching and moaning about having to tiptoe around and whisper when I’m asleep because I’m such a light sleeper.”

     “Yeah, so?”

     “So, nobody else uses
that frequency so there’s no other traffic. If anything comes across it on that frequency, it’ll be them. So I’ll just move my bed into the den close to the radio. When I go to bed every night I’ll turn up the volume to the max, and if anything comes over it, it’ll wake me up immediately. All you three have to do is split the time between when we get home from work and when I go to bed. I’ll pull the sleep shift.”

     It was a plan that worked surprisingly well. Of course, Robbie came out ahead because he knew the compound would call them at night only under the most dire of circumstance. So he essentially talked himself out of the radio monitoring duty.

     But his friends and roommates either didn’t figure out what he’d just pulled, or didn’t care.

     And it really didn’t matter. They were ninety minutes away from the compound now if they were ever needed again, twenty four seven. And that’s what really mattered.

     Scott said, “Hey, John, I’m curious. I’ve met Sergeant Sloan, the dispatch supervisor. She’s a real ball buster. How in the world did you talk her into doing this for us?”

     John looked offended.