“Three years ago he reminded me of that favor and said he needed something from me. Of course I was glad to do him any favor, him being a congressman and all. I had no idea what he was going to ask for but he said it was very important. In fact, it was so important that he didn’t want to talk about it there in the Capitol. He took me out on his boat with him one day. Just the two of us. While we were out there, he said he needed me to join a survival group. There was a cost to buy-in but he would cover that. I would just have to come down here and do the regular trainings that you required from members. For doing that, I got a thousand bucks a month in cash. I had a wife and a kid so I needed the money. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong at the time. He just said he wanted me to keep an eye on you guys.”
Arthur looked at him with surprise. “You have a wife and kid?”
Carlos nodded. “I know. I lied. I told you I didn’t have any family. The congressman told me to say that.”
“Where are they now?”
“Northern Virginia,” Carlos said. “Waiting on me to come for them.”
Arthur shrugged. “I hate to tell you this, buddy, but that’s probably not happening. While I feel bad for your family you know how this works. You know what you’ve done and what the consequences are.”
Carlos nodded, his irritated face growing even redder as he started to sob. “I filed reports with the congressman every time I got back home from visiting your compound. Sometimes after he got those reports he would call back with questions. Eventually, he told me that if the time ever came that the grid went down, I would be expected to show up here and operate as a mole from the inside. I was supposed to feed them intel that would help them take the compound without losing the supplies.”
“So you’ve been feeding them information the whole time?” Kevin asked, a look of disgust on his face.
Carlos nodded.
Kevin cursed and paced, shaking his head.
“Is your family not en route here with the other families?” Arthur asked. “Are they not part of the entourage making their way here now?”
“No. He told me I could bring them down later, once we took the compound. That was my only motivation for sticking to the promise I made them. It was hard to leave my family with all this scary stuff going on in the world. I told Honaker that but he assured me everything would be okay if I kept my end of the bargain.”
“What is the congressman up to now?” Arthur asked. “All this work and he just gives up?”
“They’re pulling out and heading somewhere else is all I know. He wouldn’t tell me much. He said I’d failed and they had no need for me anymore.”
Arthur winced. “That has to suck after all the effort you’ve put into this. You put your life and your family’s lives at risk for this plan of his.”
Carlos nodded but choked up and couldn’t speak.
“Did the congressman say anything to you leading up to the decision to leave? Anything that might give you a clue of what’s going on in his head?”
“I told him what had really happened to his son, the whole diversion and all that. He asked who was with his son. When I told him, he asked some details about the writer guy, Robert.”
“Why?” Kevin asked. “Why would he give a damn about Robert?”
“No idea. He just asked who he was. I read him the guy’s bio off the back of one of his books. He seemed real interested in it and made me read it to him a couple of times. It sounded like he was writing it down.”
Arthur looked at Kevin, then back at Carlos. “Why would Robert’s bio be so interesting to the congressman?”
Carlos shrugged. He didn’t have an answer for that.
“Where is that book now?” Kevin asked. “The one with the bio you read to the congressman?”
“It’s in the commo shack, I guess. That’s the last place I saw it. Sitting on the desk with the radios.”
Kevin made a mental note that they would need to find the book and read the bio. Maybe there was a clue in there as to what the congressman was thinking.
“I’ve got one more question for you, Carlos. It’s very important that you’re truthful with me,” Arthur said. “Does he have anyone else in here? Are there any more men on the inside?”
Carlos did not hesitate. “Not as far as I know.”
“As far as you know?” Kevin interjected, not satisfied with that answer.
“I have no knowledge of him having anyone else on the inside. I was never told that he did. I thought I was it, though I can’t guarantee that he didn’t pull the same crap on someone else that he pulled on me. He has a long reach. He could have got to one of your other guys.”
Arthur nodded, fully familiar with both the congressman’s reach and overreach. Coming to some conclusion, he looked at Kevin and got confirmation in a cold, detached nod. “You’ve left us no choice here, Carlos. You’ve betrayed all of us. I need to send a message that this is unacceptable. Perhaps it will also serve as a warning to anyone else that the congressman may have reached out to.”
“What…what does that mean?” Carlos asked, desperation in his cracking voice.
“You’ll be executed, son,” Arthur said, rising from his bucket and stretching.
Carlos started crying. “How? How will you do it?”
“You’ll be hung.”
“Can I ask a favor?” Carlos choked out.
Kevin frowned. “You’ve got a lot of damn nerve.”
“Let him ask,” Arthur said. “But if you’re going to beg for your life, there’s no point. My decision is final.”
Carlos cleared his throat. “I’m not going to beg but can I write a letter to my family?”
“Sure. We can let you do that,” Arthur replied. “I’m not sure when the mail will be running again, though.”
“I understand that,” Carlos said. “But when it does, all I ask is that you stick it in the mail for me. I just don’t want my family thinking…that I ran out on them. That I forgot about them.”
“Brandon, can you fetch some paper and a pen for this young man? I believe there’s a clipboard hanging on the wall near the stalls in the back.”
Brandon jogged off and returned shortly with the clipboard and an ink pen. He set them down on the bucket and stepped away while Arthur drew a folding knife from his pocket. He slipped it inside one cuff and tugged the blade through the plastic. Carlos pulled his hands in front of him and extended them while Arthur cut off the second cuff. Arthur pocketed his knife, then leaned to the left to retrieve the clipboard and pen from the upturned bucket.
Arthur’s moment of inattention was all Carlos needed. His hand flew out to Arthur’s holster. There was no retention system so the handgun yanked free. Carlos leaned back, shoving Arthur with his foot, knocking him off-balance and out of the way. From his back, Carlos raised the gun.
The second he saw Carlos go for Arthur’s pistol, Brandon yelled a warning and drew his own pistol. Kevin saw it too, and was already drawing at the same time. He and Brandon fired simultaneously, putting four rounds in Carlos’s chest. He slumped back, arched, and then died, dropping the gun to his side. Arthur staggered to his feet, stunned at the turn of events.
“Why the hell did he kick me?” Arthur asked between rapid breaths. “He could have just shot me or taken me as a hostage?”
Kevin looked at Brandon. “Was he aiming at you?”
Brandon shook his head, his gun still aimed, like Kevin’s, at the inert body in front of them. “No, I thought he was aiming at you.”
“I think he was aiming between us,” Kevin said.
Arthur shook his head bitterly. “He wanted us to kill him.”
“Do you think he really had a family?” Brandon asked. “He made us kill him before he even wrote them a letter.”
Arthur stared at the body. “We’ll never know, son. We’ll never know.”
27
The hiking trail switchbacked down the mountain for another half-mile before Robert found what he thought was the optimal spot to st
op. It was close enough to the singing that they could monitor them with a monocular but far enough away that any small noises made by their movements might not be detected by the camp.
“Sit down at the base of this tree,” Robert whispered in Jeff’s ear, easing him back against the rough bark. “I’m chaining you here with very little slack. If you move, the sound will carry and you know the consequences of that. So sit here, be quiet, and don’t move.”
Jeff didn’t reply but cooperated with Robert. What other choice did he have?
Sonyea removed her pack and laid it on the ground. Her upper body was propped up on the pack, staring through a monocular at the camp. When he was done with Jeff, Robert joined her.
“What do you see?”
“Oddly enough, it just looks like a bunch of folks camping and having a good time. There’s some people singing and drinking out of cups. There are kids roasting hot dogs over a fire. They have a propane lantern going. I’m not sure if these people even know the world fell apart or not.”
“Maybe they’ve been insulated from it,” Robert said. “If they’ve had an armed escort this whole time they may not have had to deal with the same crap most travelers have faced.”
“Speaking of which, I don’t see any sign of armed folks yet. No weapons. Nobody that looks like a cop or soldier. We’ve also been listening to the radio we took from Jeff and there’s been no radio traffic at all. Something seems off.”
“I don’t have any answers yet,” Robert said. “Hopefully I can get close enough to find a few.”
“I don’t know about this,” Sonyea said. “They’re a little carefree for me. It’s hard to imagine anyone being this happy with all the stuff going on in the world.”
“Maybe it’s for the kids,” Robert said. “They have a way of pushing the troubles of the world aside. They might just be trying to keep things normal for the kids.”
“Perhaps. So what now?”
“I’m going to leave my AR pistol with you. It’s got more range than the shotgun, even with the red dot. If things get weird, lay down some cover fire so I can get away.”
“Got it.”
“Don’t wait on me if things go bad. Just plan on meeting back at the Razer. If I don’t show up within a reasonable amount of time, go on back to the compound without me.”
Sonyea didn’t respond.
“You heard that, right?” Robert asked.
“Yeah, but I’ll make my own call on when it’s the right time to do that,” Sonyea said. “If I leave you out here it’s only because I don’t feel like I have a choice.”
“Fair enough.” Robert got to his feet. “Back in a few.”
“Be careful,” Sonyea whispered.
In the green glow of her PVS-14, she saw him nod, looking like some agreeable space marine in his helmet, protruding optic, and web gear. Then he eased off down the trail and was gone.
Robert moved slowly and cautiously, fully aware of the fear that could be generated by a stick cracking in the dark. One errant step, one bump in the night, and this peaceful party of campfire crooners might go on alert. The hiking trail ended at a grassy meadow and Robert was glad to get out of the woods. Grass was perfect for concealing his footsteps. There was a gravel road bisecting the meadow but he would avoid that. Crunching gravel carried a good distance.
The campground was extensive and spread out, possessing a lot of the same features that all campgrounds had. There were large directional signs and maps telling campers how to find the various features around the property. There were bear-proof garbage cans to keep spoiled bears from looting the trash, and shower houses for folks not staying in campers. There were also lots and lots of trees, all of which provided excellent cover for a man hoping to make his way through the dark undetected and do a little spying.
Robert slouched against one of the bear-proof cans. He killed his night vision, folded it up out of the way, and withdrew a pair of low-powered binoculars from a pouch on his plate carrier. From the point where he and Sonyea observed this encampment a few minutes ago it was difficult to determine the size of it. From here, with a better view of the folks gathered around the single fire, it wasn’t nearly as large as what he expected to find—as it should have been.
If it were later at night, he could pass it off to people having gone to bed early. Surely that wasn’t the case now, though. It was still fairly early and they were making a lot of noise. The group he was looking for was supposed to contain multiple families. He was expecting dozens of people, a fleet of RVs, and several support vehicles with armed guards. This looked nothing like his expectation.
He scanned the area beyond the campfire and could only make out the dimmest outline of three campers. If there were other folks here, it didn’t make sense that they would split up into different areas of the campground. Even if they wanted privacy, wouldn’t they stick together for security? This didn’t seem right. Maybe Jeff, despite his assurances to the contrary, was lying to them. Robert could imagine that Jeff, clearly understanding the consequences of failure, would take such a chance.
He needed to see more of the campground and confirm there weren’t other enclaves containing the rest of the families. Might it be as simple as that? Perhaps they just wanted privacy and were controlling the entrance, limiting access to the campground, so they felt comfortable spreading out. There were too many unknowns for Robert’s taste.
He turned away from the fire and stowed the binoculars in the pouch. He would make a pass through the entire campground before concluding that the worst case scenario was true. If they had indeed been misled, Jeff would pay. He might leave him chained to a tree in the woods somewhere to die a slow miserable death, or perhaps put a bullet in his head and end things quickly. He would come up with something.
Robert flipped his night vision back into position and turned the switch. He immediately caught movement in the distance before him. A man. No, more than one. Four men closing on his position with rifles raised. They were still nearly sixty yards away but appeared to have helmets with similar night vision setups. With his one advantage neutralized—the ability to see in the dark—they were on an equal playing field, except he was outnumbered. He was screwed if he didn’t come up with a plan fast.
Desperate, Robert pulled the one-thousand lumen Fenix flashlight from his belt, covered the tube of his night vision, and swept the bright light across the approaching men. The singing stopped when his beam cut the night, catching the attention of the campers. Screams erupted as the families gathered around the campfire took in the terrifying sight of the armed men closing in. Those screams told Robert that these armed men were not expected. These were not men familiar to them.
The approaching men cursed as the intensifier tubes of their devices overloaded and blinked out as result of being hit with the bright light. It was only a momentary effect and Robert knew he didn’t have long. He fired a hasty shot in the general direction of the men and went right, running as fast as he could. With the night vision, it was like trying to run while looking through binoculars. You couldn’t see your feet. He paid the price for his haste, stumbling over a root and banging his knee hard as he tumbled to the ground.
Dirt sprayed him when one round, then another, thumped the ground near him. He scrambled on all fours, taking cover behind a tree. He fired off two rounds of buckshot at the men and heard a scream. With the short shotgun, he didn’t have to be as accurate as they did. The buckshot cut a swath of destruction and death.
Knowing they had a man hit would cause his attackers to pause, even if only for a moment. Robert took that opportunity to sweep the men with his flashlight again, praying that their devices weren’t so new that they would be immune to bursts of light. Crossing his fingers that he’d bought himself another second of safety, he bolted again, trying to put the cinderblock shower house between him and the shooters. He knew exactly when their devices reset because the bullets started flying again. Shots pinged around him, ricocheting off the cinderblo
ck structure as he cut behind it.
His instinctive reaction was to angle away into the darkness, keeping the cinderblock building between him and his pursuers. As soon as he passed the building he saw that this plan wasn’t going to work. There were more men coming, flashlight beams cutting the night as they charged toward the gunfire. Robert cut his night vision off and backed into the blind spot between the two groups of men, a pocket of darkness alongside the shower house. His back hit the edge of something and he turned to find he was at the fish cleaning station. He couldn’t see it but the smell and feel of the place gave it away.
An idea hit him and he scooted up onto the counter top. It was rickety from being exposed to the weather all the time and got to his feet, standing on it. He was a big man, probably pushing two hundred and fifty pounds with all his gear and full plates. When the counter quit swaying beneath him, Robert pushed off onto the flat roof of the shower house. The surface was covered in rolled asphalt roofing and scratched his fingertips as he clawed his way up. It reminded him of why an old instructor said to always wear gloves in combat situations.
Once on the roof, he pulled off his pack and rolled toward the center of the structure, flattening himself out. He felt trapped and his breathing was rushed. He fought to contain his panic. He’d never been pinned down like this and it was frustrating. He had no idea what would happen if they caught him. Would they kill him? Interrogate him? Torture him?
He shook those thoughts from his head. He couldn’t think like that. Submitting to that loop of fear was a downward spiral that didn’t end anywhere good. The shootout with the RV folks was over and there were men shouting orders now. Vehicles were rolling in with more men, more loud voices, and more lights.
As he replayed things in his head, wishing he’d been able to make it to the woods, he began to wonder where his cover fire was? There was no guarantee it would have helped him escape but he’d still expected it. Sonya had been watching when he left. She must have seen what was happening.
Unless she’d been captured.
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