Bug Out! Part 10: RV Race to Battle (9 page)

“That would kill all of them,” Kurt said.

“Yep, but you think that bothers them?” George said. “Suicide bombers.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s a good point,” Kurt said.

“General Hogan has already seen that danger,” Private Jennings said. “I’ll be branching off from the main group with one of the laser target designators to take it out. It’ll be the first explosion that happens.”

“Good,” Heidi said.

“Okay, let’s get going,” Private Brown said.

The group got back in their vehicles and continued to snake along the dusty red trail.

***

Frank was at the PC, with Jasmine and Jane sitting to his right at their laptops. General Hogan came into the clubhouse, looking concerned.

“Uh oh, what happened?” Frank asked.

“Some of your folks at the Pentagon jumped the gun. There was a gun battle there.”

“Get all the bad guys?” Jane asked.

“Yes, we did, but we don’t know if any of them were able to make a phone call. We’re trying to figure out if we should hit Capitol Hill and the White House right away, or wait and hope they didn’t get warned.”

“What will happen if they got warned?” Jasmine asked.

“Worst case, Saladin finds out, and removes his chip, along with the rest of the leadership team.”

“We’ll know if they do that,” Frank said. “I still see Saladin, walking around in the same place he’s been.”

“Hell,” Charlie said. “He could take that out and stick it on a dog. We can’t be sure because of that.”

“True enough,” General Hogan said, chuckling. “Hate to use a five hundred thousand dollar missile to take out a hound.”

“One thing you guys should keep in mind,” Mary said. “Cutting those out of dead flesh isn’t too hard. Cutting them out of a live person, unless you can put them under, is a different story. Sometimes you have to chase them.”

“Chase them?” Jane asked.

“Yeah, they’re in muscle tissue, but they can move out when you try to grab them. You have to fish around for them. Imagine how that feels if you aren’t under.”

“Oh,” Jane said, shuddering. “Nasty.”

“I’d still say that the leadership team might be able to get it done,” Charlie said. “Are a couple hundred thousand of them going to be able to do that right away? Unlikely.”

Dobie walked in.

“Dogs on patrol?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, and we’re ready to test the Wi-Fi and the cameras. Should we feed it to the TV?”

“Got enough wire for that?” Frank asked.

“We’re talking Jake here, remember?” Dobie said, laughing.

“Well, go for it,” Charlie said. “You gonna have to take down our internet?”

“No, we can use that hub that’s out in the barn to connect it.”

“Good,” Frank said. “Don’t want to be in the dark right now.”

There was a drilling sound coming from the stage area, where the TV was. Everybody turned around, just in time to see a drill come through the floor.

“Ah, he ran it through the basement, eh?” Charlie asked. “Good idea.”

“He put a monitor down there too,” Dobie said. “Just in case we need to hunker down.”

“Hey, Dobie, plug in the HDMI cable, will ya?” Jake yelled from below.

“On it,” he shouted, rushing over. He plugged the cable into the back of the TV, then turned it on. He navigated to HDMI 2. The screen displayed six separate cameras.

“Wow, excellent,” General Hogan said, looking at it as he walked over.

Jake came through the trap door in the kitchen and walked over, grinning.

“Teamwork,” he said. “User name for the Wi-Fi is
kansas
, and password is
cretins.
”

“How’d you get those cameras strung so fast?” Charlie asked. “We did that at Hilda’s place, and it was a big job.”

“I’ll say,” Hilda added.

“These are wireless cameras,” Jake said. “That’s why I had to set up the Wi-Fi at the same time.”

“It’s secure, I hope,” General Hogan said.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Frank set the network up correctly, and I just piggy-backed on that, and added wireless security. It won’t be easy to crack.”

“How come picture black and white?” Rosie asked, staring at the screen.

“Those are night vision capable,” Jake said. “Have to give something up, I guess.”

A call came in on the General’s phone. He went off into the corner and talked for a few seconds, then walked back over.

“They took out the bad guys in the White House and Capitol Hill, also some state capitols,” he said. “They shut down the enemy’s satellite access too. Hope our guys are ready to attack tonight. If not, we’ve probably lost our element of surprise.”

Jerry’s phone rang. He looked
over at Jeb and answered it.

“Jerry here.”

“Jerry, it’s Frank. Somebody started the attacks on the enemy agents in Washington DC early.”

“They get them all?”

“Yeah, but we don’t know if they called anybody. The enemy’s satellite access has already been turned off.”

“So if we don’t strike fast, no surprise?”

“Yep, that’s the message I wanted to get to you. I’ve got to call the other cars, too. General Hogan is calling the Humvee.”

“Okay, thanks for the info.”

“Take care of yourselves.”

“Will do, Frank.”

Jerry put his phone back in his pocket.

“That didn’t sound good,” the Sheriff said.

“It’s not all bad news. The good guys took out all the enemy agents in DC and shut off the enemy satellite access.”

“Already?” Jeb asked.

“Yeah, that’s the problem. We might not have the element of surprise anymore.”

“If we ever did have it,” the Sheriff said.

“So what now?” Terry asked.

“I think we’d better consider risking a drive to the site tonight, without lights. We’d better whack them fast.”

“I assume the other vehicles are being told the same thing,” Jeb said.

“Yeah,” Jerry said.

“How much further until we get to the
lights out
zone?” the Sheriff asked.

“It’s coming up pretty fast,” Jeb said. “Another four miles or so.”

“We have some moonlight, at least,” Jerry said. “Maybe enough.”

Jeb turned off the lights. “Yeah, I could drive in this,” he said, turning the lights back on.

Jerry looked at his phone app, getting a terrified look on his face. “Icons are gone.”

“How many?” Terry asked.

“All of them, from what I can see,” he said.

“That means they tried their reset again,” the Sheriff said. “That’s better news than just having a few of them in Capitol Reef turn off.”

“True,” Jerry said. “We should be back on line in about fifteen minutes.”

“And they might think they’re safe for longer than that,” Terry said, smiling.

“Assuming they haven’t outsmarted Frank,” Jeb said.

Jerry laughed. “They’re already back.”

His phone rang again.

“Jerry here.”

“See the outage?”

“Yeah, Frank. Already back.”

“My program learns. Looks like it’s working well.”

“Damn straight.”

“Good luck.”

“Bye, Frank.”

“Well, there you go,” Jerry said, chuckling as he went back to the long range app.

“What?” Terry asked.

“He put some learning capability into the program,” Jerry said. “That’s why it came back so fast.”

“This might help us out, like Terry was saying,” Jeb said, looking back, grinning.

***

The paramedics worked on the biker as soon as they got him on the gurney.

“How does he look?” Deputy Lawrence asked.

“Oh, I think he’ll survive,” one paramedic said, looking around. “What the hell happened here?”

“We don’t know for sure,” the deputy said. “It might just be a
wrong place at the wrong time
event.”

“Drug deal?” the other paramedic asked.

“Nah, we don’t think so,” the deputy said, looking around.

“Well, we’d better get him in. Thanks.”

“No problem,” the deputy said. He looked towards the house, where the Sheriff was taking pictures. “Should I shoot photos out here?”

“Nah, let’s get them all on the same camera,” Sheriff Branson said. He was done in the front of the house, and worked the driveway. The deputy walked over and watched.

“You call the feds?”

“Yeah,” he said. “They were very interested, too. Should be here shortly.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Sheriff Branson said. “Don’t say anything to them unless I’m with you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t trust feds. They grandstand, and if they screw up, they try to blame the local PDs. Been there, done that. If they touch anything, I’m taking pictures and noting it.”

“Speak of the devil,” Deputy Lawrence said, nodding towards the front driveway. Sheriff Branson stopped taking pictures and looked up, seeing two black SUVs heading towards them.

“Dammit,” Sheriff Branson said. “I wanted to get pictures of everything before they got here. Go take photos of the guy out in the field, and then shoot the mess up front. I’ll talk to them.” He handed the camera over, and the deputy walked away. “Remember what I said about talking to them.”

The deputy turned and gave him a thumbs up sign, just as the first SUV pulled up next to Sheriff Branson.

The passenger door opened, and an agent came out, hurrying over.

“Hello, Sheriff Branson. Thanks for calling us. I’m Special Agent Simon Keith. I’ll be running the investigation here.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, extending his hand. They shook.

“What do you think happened here?” Agent Keith asked.

“Ambush, but with some very interesting details,” he said.

“Such as?”

“Well, they tried to stage the bodies up in the front to make it look like one of our deputies and a biker shot it out.”

“I see,” Agent Keith said. “What else?”

“These bikers aren’t the organized crime types. They’re weekend warriors from Michigan, who probably had no idea what was about to happen to them.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at them, Agent Keith. See any of them with guns?”

“Now that you mention it, no,” he said, looking at the carnage on the driveway. He glimpsed the woman hanging on the wall. “What the hell?”

“Yeah, another staging, by the way. They tried to make it look like a biker slit that woman’s throat. Doubtful.”

“There’s something else too, isn’t there?”

“Yeah,” he said. “There’s a torture room in the basement, and it’s been used recently. I’ll bet if you check the blood type of that woman, you’ll find that it matches the blood on the floor down there.”

Deputy Lawrence trotted over.

“Got the pictures?”

Sure did, Sheriff.” He handed the camera back to him.

“Could you send me files, Sheriff?” asked Agent Keith.

“Of course, just let me know where,” he said. “Oh, this is Deputy Lawrence. Deputy, this is Agent Keith.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” he said.

“Who’s that?” the Sheriff asked, squinting, looking down the driveway.

“It’s an ambulance,” Agent Keith said. “There wounded here?”

“There was one man, but they already picked him up.”

“Why didn’t you mention that?” the Agent asked.

“I was getting to it,” Sheriff Branson said. He walked forward towards the approaching vehicle. It stopped, and an EMT got out, looking around.

“Somebody call you?” Sheriff Branson asked.

“No,” he said. “What happened here?” His head was jerking around in all directions, as if he was looking for somebody.

“Then why are you here?” Sheriff Branson asked.

“This is my cousin’s place,” he said. “I was just here yesterday.”

“That isn’t your cousin hanging on the wall over there, is it?” Deputy Lawrence asked.

“Oh, shit,” he said, looking scared. “Yeah, looks like it.”

“I’m sorry,” Sheriff Branson said. “What’s your name, son?”

“Johnny Beckler.”

“Beckler?” Agent Keith asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Who are you?”

“Special Agent Simon Keith, FBI.”

“Oh,” he said, looking more nervous.

“Are you any relation to Jason Beckler?” the Agent asked.

“Yes, he was my uncle, but I’m not like him,” Johnny said.

“Jason Beckler?” Sheriff Branson said. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“We think so, but nobody ever found a body,” the Agent said.

“He’s dead, alright,” Johnny said. “Thank God.”

“How do you know?” Sheriff Branson asked.

“They found his van,” Johnny said. “Out in the sticks. He never would have left that behind. It had a bunch of expensive computer gear built in.”

“Okay, you’re right,” Agent Keith said. “I remember now. That was a long time ago. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Did you see any teenage twins around?”

“There’s a teenage boy out in the barn,” Deputy Lawrence said. “He’s dead, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, no,” Johnny said, tearing up. “Can I go check?”

“Of course,” the deputy said. “I’ll take you over there.”

“Thanks,” he said. They walked to the barn together.

“Jason Beckler,” Sheriff Branson said. “He caused some problems over here.”

“Yes, we believe he was using this area as his home base, early in his career. You say you found a torture room?” asked the agent.

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“In the basement,” Sheriff Branson said. “C’mon, I’ll take you over there.”

“Great,” the agent said. “Just let me get my men started first. I want them to get fingerprints on everybody here.”

“Okay, whenever you’re ready,” Sheriff Branson said. The agent walked to the first SUV and said something to the driver. The doors in the back opened, and three men got out. One of them went to the second SUV, and four men came out of there. They dispersed, carrying leather bags with them.

“That scared the crap out of my boys,” General Hogan said, walking up to Frank. Charlie was sitting with him, watching the PC screen.

“Sorry,” Frank said. “Came back fast though. Last time it took 15-20 minutes.”

“This might help us, then,” General Hogan said.

“Maybe, but there’s something scary, too,” Charlie said. “We know that they’re paying attention.”