Bug Out! Part 9: RV Ambush (23 page)

“Yeah, we were able to view footage of the attack on Hilda’s park that took out General Walker,” Jeb said.

“Jeb’s right,” Frank said. “That’s where we saw Saladin, Daan Mertens, and Phillip all together. It doesn’t really come into play now, though. Suffice it to say that they may have a string of video cameras placed around the perimeter.”

“They could have something as simple as trip wires or mines, too,” Kurt said.

“True,” General Hogan said. “What else?”

“How likely is it that they might have access to either satellite imagery or high-flying drones?” asked Jerry.

“I’d say there’s zero chance that they have access to any of our military drones,” General Hogan said. “It takes too many people to operate those. Satellites are another matter. They’re always up there. The number of people they’d have to turn to get what they need from those would be less. A lot less. Maybe just one or two people with the right access.”

“Could General Kincaid have given access to anybody?” George asked. “We all know what Schriever Air Force Base is for, after all.”

“That is one of my greatest fears, actually,” General Hogan said.

“We have the tools to do something about that,” Frank said.

“How so?” George asked.

“I can get into most of the Satellite infrastructure systems. I can do things like scan who has requested access to any of our military satellites.”

“How the hell can you do that?” General Hogan asked.

“No comment,” Frank said, chuckling.

“What good is that going to do, though?” George asked. “I was looking at that file. There’s hundreds of thousands of names on there.”

“No problem,” Frank said. “I’ll just write a quick program to compare the list of requestors to the list of enemy operatives. It’s a ten minute job. We’ll get back a listing of hits.”

“If you can do that, I can go through the proper channels to stop their access,” General Hogan said, smiling. “I assume you can access the satellites, if you can get to the infrastructure stuff.”

“Yes, I can,” Frank said. “I’m doing it in a rather clandestine manner, though. You could probably provide better cover.”

“Let’s not go down that road,” the General said. “We don’t know who we can trust in my chain of command.”

“Okay, so let’s say that we can neutralize any satellite access the cretins have,” Charlie said. “How are we going to get close enough to take out this Saladin character? We can’t just drive in. Last I checked there were over a thousand icons in that area.”

“We got three jeeps between us,” Jeb said. “So we can sneak in the back way.”

“There’s a Humvee in the Chinook too,” General Hogan said.

“Okay, so we get into the park,” Charlie said. “That still doesn’t get us in a position to hit him. How do we get
up close and personal
with this guy?”

Private Brown stood up. “We won’t have too. We’ll only have to get within view of his location.”

George laughed. “You’ve got some laser target designators with you,” he said.

“Yes sir,” Private Brown said. “And we have some people we can trust to deliver the missiles.”

“These guys are hiding in the rock formations at Capitol Reef,” Kurt said. “The Feds aren’t going to let you blow that area up.”

“We don’t need to blow it up,” the General said. “We can use anti-personnel weapons that won’t do much damage.”

“You’re not talking about chemical weapons, I hope?” Jane said.

“No way,” General Hogan said. “Couldn’t get any of those if I wanted to. I’m talking about Napalm and White Phosphorus. Fuel Air bombs.”

“Alright, we have enough ideas to start making plans,” Frank said.

Jerry looked at him and smiled. “I’ll take a shot. Step one – find out if any enemy operatives are using our satellites to protect their site,” Jerry said.

“Yes, I’ll start working that now,” Frank said, typing onto the PC as he was listening.

“Step two – start our own monitoring of the area, with a combination of real time satellite imagery and our applications.”

“Yes,” George said. “We’ll need people here on those PCs, using the long range detail app to help us locate the exact spot. That was a godsend when we did that ambush.”

“We should be able to see where their sentries are with the satellite imagery, right?” Jerry asked.

“Yes,” General Hogan said.

“Step three – take the info we get from the satellite imagery to plan our assault,” Jerry said. “I have a feeling we’ll be needing our archers again.”

“I’m ready,” Jeb said. Kurt nodded in agreement.

“Count me in too,” Malcolm said. “Mine’s a crossbow, so I’ll have a little more range.”

“Step four – turn off the enemy’s satellite access, if they have it,” Jerry said, “and step five – get our team into place on the perimeter of the park,” Jerry said.

“We bringing the same stuff again?” Earl asked. “The M107 and OICW, and the mortars?”

“I would,” General Hogan said. “But we’ll have to be careful with the mortars. We don’t want to do too much damage.”

“We still have quite a few rounds of Willie Pete,” Jackson said.

“Good,” the General said. “That would help.”

“I think we can start doing the detail planning for the assault team,” Jerry said.

Howard wasn’t sure if he should run back to his rig and drive away, or go to the house. The twins saw him from the porch, and ran back inside the house. After a couple of minutes, they came back outside and started slowly walking in his direction, looking scared.

“I might as well go face the music now,” he said to himself, as he started towards the boys, meeting them in a few minutes.

“You Cousin Scotty’s friend?” Blake asked. Kerry was next to him, looking ready to run.

“Yes, I am,” Howard said. “Is Scotty okay?”

“He’s much better than he was last night,” Kerry said. “He wants us to bring you down. He’s in the basement.”

“He’s really your cousin?” Howard asked.

“Yes, sir,” Blake said.

“My name is Howard. Lead the way.”

The three started towards the house. Howard could feel the rubbing of his pistol. It was in the waistband of his pants, in the back, under his shirt.
Just in case.

“You two live here by yourselves?” Howard asked.

“We ran away from the center,” Blake said. “We’re hiding. You won’t tell our mom, will you?”

“No, of course not,” Howard said. Blake smiled at him. Kerry still looked pretty scared. They went into the door, and down the stairs to the basement.

“How was Amanda?” Scott asked, looking up at Howard from the bed, grinning.

“You saw my text,” Howard said, forcing a smile.

“Why don’t you boys go upstairs,” Scott said. “Let us know if anybody comes.”

“Okay, Scotty,” said Kerry, looking relieved. The two shuffled up the stairs.

“I’m sorry, Scotty,” Howard said. “I got spooked.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Scott said. “Let’s consider ourselves even.”

“Even?”

“Yeah, I kinda forced you back into this. You didn’t want it at first, but you came around enough to come back for me. We’re square.”

“You sure, Scotty?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Now, how was she?”

“She was a lot better than I expected,” Howard said. “She knew pretty quickly that I wasn’t really going to let her go, so she fought like a wildcat.”

“Then you got better from her than I did,” Scott said.

“We need to move the little one in the barn somewhere else,” Howard said. “Before she gets too gross to handle.”

“I was already thinking about that,” Scott said. “It doesn’t have to be far. We’ll blow this joint as soon as I can get around a little better.”

“How bad are you hurt?”

“The boys knew a paramedic, and he came over and patched me up. He thinks I’ll be fine,” Scott said.

“Is he coming back?” Howard asked. “Should I be worried?”

“He’s supposed to be back here by about noon, to check on me,” Scott said. “And get this. His last name is Beckler.”

“No way,” Howard said. “Related?”

“Yeah,” Scott said. “He didn’t look too happy when he found out I was Chet’s kid, that’s for sure.”

“You think he’ll call somebody?” Howard asked.

“I doubt it,” Scott said.

“What’s the story on the twins?”

“They’re my cousins. Remember that bitch I was talking about that owns this place?”

“Yeah.”

“Those are her retard twins. They escaped the institution they were in. I’d love to know how they got here. This place is off the beaten path a ways. We need to keep an eye out. Somebody else might join the party.”

“What are the boys doing for food?” Howard asked. “Do they have a car?”

“Not that I’ve seen so far,” Scott said. “Maybe Johnny is helping them.”

“Johnny?”

“That paramedic I was talking about,” Scott said. “The Beckler kid.”

“Oh,” Howard said. “Okay, I’m going to get that girl moved out of the barn before any uninvited guests show up. Be back in a few minutes.”

“Okay, Howie,” he said. “Just take her down the highway about a mile south. There’s a dirt road you can turn down there. Good place to dump.”

Howard nodded as he walked up the stairs.

“Hey, boys, I need to go run an errand for Scotty. I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Bye, Howard,” Blake said. “See you later.”

Howard walked back to his coach, looking around warily. He checked his watch. 10:30. He’d have the girl out of here long before the paramedic showed up. The barn door gaped ahead of him, foreboding even in the daylight. He opened the door to his coach, and then looked around. There were some pieces of cardboard laying against the back wall. He picked one of them up and watched a huge silverfish scurry away.
These will do.
He picked them up, shook them off as best he could, and carried them to the coach, putting them on the floor just inside the door. Then he dragged the body over and struggled to hoist it up the stairs. He got her on the cardboard, and then sat down on his couch to catch his breath.
She was heavier than she looked.

“Time to go,” he said to himself, getting into the driver’s seat. He started the engine and drove away. He felt a twinge that maybe he should run, but he knew he wouldn’t.

General Hogan walked up to George and Malcolm, who were talking, sitting at a table by the windows. “How did you guys end up here, anyway?” he asked. “I didn’t expect to see you. Did you decide to join the resistance?”

George laughed. “You know, if I’d have known about these guys, I would have been tempted. That’s not what happened, though. We’re here because of Malcolm’s tracking program.”

“Tracking program?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Malcolm said. “I’ve got a program that looks for unusually high numbers of searches on specific series of murders. It saw Jane doing searches on the Nighthawk Road killings.”

“Serial killers,” the General said, chuckling. “I guess I should have known. I can’t see you making a dangerous trip just because somebody did a bunch of internet searches, though.”

“It wasn’t just the searches. That killer was active in this area, for many years, starting as early as the late 1940s. When somebody does so many searches from the area that the crimes happened, it’s likely they found something.”

“Oh,” General Hogan said. “When’s the last time this killer was active?”

“Around here? About six or seven years ago, but he moved east, and has been active right up to a few days ago.”

“Wait a minute,” the General said. “Late 1940s, all the way to a few days ago. You know how old that would make this guy?”

“This is multi-generational,” Malcolm said. “The father has been dead for years. We have very good evidence that the son followed in his footsteps, being helped by several other people in the area.”

“Really,” the General said. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Malcolm and George looked at each other.

“You won’t believe what we found,” George said. “There’s a dungeon here, under the barn. We found all kinds of evidence, including Super 8 movies, VHS tapes, and lots of personal effects and pictures.”

“Wow,” the General said. “You’ll have to show it to me.”

“We will,” Malcolm said. “There is a danger that you need to be aware of.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a pretty good chance that the killer is on his way here. He might try to create some havoc in order to take his property back.”

“Oh, he owned the park, huh,” the General said. “Have you spoken to the local authorities about this?”

“We can’t,” George said. “Not yet.”

“Why…oh, never mind, I get it,” the General said. “The enemy would love to find our friends. A media circus would be very dangerous to the group, and to our mission.”

“Exactly,” Malcolm said. “So we decided to sit tight on this for now, while we do what the country needs us to do.”

“Got sucked into the struggle, eh?” the General said. “Good.”

“I’ve got a personal stake in this,” George said.

“Saladin?”

“Yes, Saladin, but also Daan Mertens.”

“We don’t think Daan Mertens is in the USA right now,” General Hogan said. “We think he’s back in Belgium.”

“I’m thinking the same thing,” George said, “and so is Frank. He knows Daan, you know.”

“From his earlier life as a Chief Information Officer, I suspect,” General Hogan said. “We’ve heard that Mertens used to sell security consulting to the major firms.”

“Yeah, that’s how Frank knew him.”

“They weren’t friends, were they?” the General asked.

“No, just acquaintances,” George said. “Frank recommended against his company hiring this guy.”

“Interesting.”

“Oh, and by the way, the chips that Daan developed are based on research that Frank did. That’s why he was able to crack them so easily.”

The General laughed. “This is classic, just like I always talk about.”

“What?” Malcolm asked.

“In all of the major conflicts of mankind, going back to the dawn of time, there’s always a handful of people in the exact right place, at the exact right time, with the exact right talents.
Frank.
He’s that person here.”

“For our side, yes,” George said. “But that works both ways.”