“Me too,” Benjamin answered. “I’ll be there in a sec. I gotta use the latrine.”
“Okay, I’ll see you in there then,” came the nonchalant response as the pair separated.
“I can’t catch a friggin’ break tonight,” Katherine observed.
“Easy,” Brent quietly instructed.
The first of the two male Governors stepped onto the wooden decking of the porch and used someone’s idea of a homemade boot scrapper and shoe horn to clean and remove his boots before entering the cabin. Once down to thin socks, the man opened the door and entered as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
In a series of movements he’d made a thousand times before, he walked through the darkness to the fireplace mantle. His hand immediately found the small battery operated lantern that resided there. He quickly turned it on. Next to him, only a few feet away, stood James and Dallas.
“Oh my –,” he proclaimed as he jumped.
“Easy, Jerod,” the big man said slowly and deliberately. “We just need to talk.”
“You guys scared me half to death,” he answered as he clutched his hand to his chest. “Damn near gave me a heart attack!”
Once he finally took the two men in visually, he noticed both had slung large caliber weapons across their body armor.
“Uh, don’t shoot,” Jerod said disarmingly.
“Have a seat please. We’ll be outta here in a minute,” Dallas offered as he motioned toward the kitchen table.
“What’s going on?” he asked confused as he sat.
“We’ve got a problem and need you and Ben to help us sort it all out,” James replied reassuringly. “Where did your roommate go?”
“He said he was headed to the, well… the head actually.”
“When you two were on OP duty, which post did you get assigned most often?” Dallas inquired.
“Charlie Whiskey Three, why?”
“And Benjamin?”
“He was usually in Two. We’d ride out there together. What’s this all about? You guys are kinda freakin’ me out.”
“Oh, it’s probably nothing. Just following up on some news we received this evening.”
As if on cue, the second man came strolling through the door.
“Hello, Ben, we need to talk,” James stated.
The man turned three shades of pale, ducked out the way he came, and started running. The pair could hear his boots on the porch as he attempted his escape. They had barely begun to give chase themselves when they heard a thud.
By the time the men exited the cabin, Benjamin was lying flat on his back. Katherine stood menacingly over him. Both watched as he slowly rolled on to his side to make it up on to all fours. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the deck boards then reached into his mouth and removed a tooth.
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” he moaned. “You’ve killed her!”
“Get him up,” Katherine ordered. “Drag ‘em in the cabin.”
* * *
“Are you sure no one is out here?” Sam asked disbelieving what she was about to do.
From the water some feet below, her husband called back.
“Yes, besides, Brent and Dallas are staying elsewhere for the next forty-eight hours and the girls have their own house. So come on already. Just grab on, swing on out, and let go. Gravity will do the rest… that is, unless you’re chicken.”
“I’m not afraid of a little rope swing, darling. I’m more concerned about passers-by seeing me swing butt naked into the creek! This is not what I had mind when I said I wanted to take a shower.”
“It’s refreshing, now stop being such a baby,” he answered and antagonized her further. “What do you care? You’re a married woman skinny dipping with her husband.”
Samantha groaned and replied, “Fine! Move out of the way.”
She then proceeded to back up to get a running start.
“This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy,” she muttered to herself as she worked up the nerve.
“Any time, sweetheart!” he declared in his best drill instructor voice, further goading her into action.
With courage mustered, she took off and started running toward the bank with the rope in her hands. As she neared the edge she leapt like a child full of reckless abandon. Josh watched as she squealed her way out over the water and let go, plunging into the brisk water below.
When she re-emerged, she proclaimed, “Holy crap, why didn’t you tell me it was so cold!”
Her husband just started laughing and reached out to grab her. “Come here, honey. I’ll warm you up,” he said compassionately as he pulled her toward him.
Josh bent slightly to pick Samantha up and place her in his embrace. With their flesh pressed together, she gently wrapped her legs around him.
As they were about to kiss, Sam drew her head back, “You are never to mention that I swung butt naked from that contraption, got it?”
“Mum’s the word, Mrs. Simmons.”
* * *
“Now, if I take that tape off of your mouth, you think you can speak in a normal tone of voice?” Katherine asked as she stood in front of the visibly shaken Benjamin.
The man resumed his thrashing and struggling.
“Not ready yet then. Brent, can you do me a favor and go get Susan please?”
“I suppose. What do you want her for?”
“Because, I’m trying to prove to him that he isn’t going to be hurt or abused. Send Jerod and Dallas back in on your way out.”
The General smirked.
“What?” she asked.
“Oh, I was remembering something,” he answered nonchalantly.
“What’s that?”
“Just that I haven’t taken this many orders from a woman in a long time. I’ve kind of forgotten how unpredictable it can be,” he remarked as he exited the cabin.
James let out a snicker, but quickly straightened up when his adoptive niece glared at him. “Ma’am,” he corrected.
Through the darkness in the doorway, she heard, “Dallas, Jerod, front and center.”
Several minutes later, Brent returned with a somewhat comatose Susan in tow. She was yawning as she entered.
“Why can’t this wait ‘til morning. I’d just fallen asleep.”
“Because I need all of you here to prove to Benny here that no harm is going to come to him, regardless of what answers he might provide.”
When her eyes finally focused on the man in front of her she was shocked. “Why is he restrained in a chair? Did Gregg put you up to this ‘cause this isn’t funny!”
“I can assure you that he most certainly did not,” Dallas replied without hesitation.
“Gregg doesn’t know we are here, Susan,” Katherine offered. “But I promise you this, you’ll be glad that I am here instead because the next thing they’d be fitting him for is a pine box.” Then she plastered a demure smile on her face and requested, “Please join us. Have a seat.”
As she took the last seat at the table, she asked, “So this isn’t a test?”
“Oh, it is, but not the kind you’re thinking of. No, it seems that Benjamin has been planted here by the same lunatics that tried to rape my sister and almost killed Hoplite.”
Incredulously, Susan replied forcefully, “He’s nothing of the sort! He’s been helpful since the day we arrived! Benjamin’s organized everything from the shower schedule to the firewood detail.”
“All true, but let me ask you this. Before my dad showed up in Bryan’s driveway, how long had Benjamin been living on the street?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A few weeks maybe. It was winter with Christmas and New Year’s parties… the weather kept most people inside. You remember that from your childhood. There isn’t much socializing with neighbors when it’s zero degrees outside.”
“Did you ever see his wife?” Katherine asked continuing to lead her down her carefully thought out path.
“Once or twice. She was getting out of her car or taking the recycli
ng to the curb or something. A very attractive brunette I believe, why?”
“How did she die?”
“I was told that after your father scared the hell out of everyone in Bryan’s driveway, they went home and she became hysterical. He finally got her calmed down and into bed. When he woke up the next morning, she had taken her own life. I was very saddened to hear that news, Benjamin,” she concluded as she comfortingly patted his restrained arm.
“Jerod, have you ever seen this?” the youngest Simmons daughter asked as James handed her a military style radio. Katherine placed it on the table with a thud for effect.
“Well I be damned,” Brent said astonished. “That’s a Vietnam era AN/PRC-77 field radio… No wonder we never picked up any transmissions with the channel scanner!”
Jerod had a look of complete confusion on his face.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then. So,” she proclaimed. “That answers the question of ‘how’. I believe the answer of ‘when’ will reside with the OP duty logs back at the comm center. That leaves only the ‘what’ and ‘why’, doesn’t it, Benjamin.”
The man looked utterly demoralized. The only thing he could do is give a little nod.
“Brent believes that the why doesn’t matter. I disagree. Ya see, in my experience, while not as vast as others, is that the world isn’t entirely black and white, but the General, not so much. In my estimation, there’s quite a bit of grey, and again, for the General, not so much. Here’s what I’ll tell you though, the breadth of your answers to these questions will determine just how much latitude you are afforded at your sentencing.”
Benjamin’s eyes grew large and he began shaking his head vigorously.
“Oh, there’s no way around this, Benjamin. Your actions just cost Lt. Stokes his life. The monsters we’ve been protecting you from just killed him!”
Susan gasped and placed her hand over her mouth. Katherine was undeterred.
In a more subdued tone, she continued. “That’s right, Benjamin. Lieutenant Eustace Stokes was the commanding officer of the combat engineering platoon we embedded at the camp. Two of his subordinates just watched TK execute him not an hour ago. Now, the only way he could have possibly been identified by that lunatic was through your direct action. Oh, and as a side note, you’re little confabs almost cost us two more lives in Heather and Carlos. In my opinion, these clandestine conversations with that gang are nothing short of treason.”
Katherine paused to let the word sink in.
“At the very least you’re an accessory to murder, two counts of attempted murder, and one count of attempted rape. Now, I’m going to take that tape off and you will provide me with the answers I require so nobody else gets hurt, is that understood?”
The man sighed as he nodded, signaling his cooperation.
“Good,” she declared as she quickly yanked the tape from across his mouth and face.
Benjamin groaned at the pain that was inflicted and then proceeded to flex his jaw.
“Okay, let’s start with what information you have provided the enemy. What does he know?”
“Everything I knew up until my last rotation in Charlie Whiskey Two,” he offered immediately.
“Such as,” Brent interjected.
The prisoner stammered in the beginning, but then quickly picked up speed. By the time he was finished he was going a hundred miles an hour, but managed to provide a full accounting of his treachery.
When he was done, Dallas stated, “So basically, you told him what you had seen or heard while in your capacity as a Board member. The stuff around the Lake… anything else?”
He shook his head in reply.
“On me,” Katherine declared as she headed toward the back of the cabin.
Once the four were assembled, she asked the men, “So what’ve we got?” without taking her eyes off of Benjamin and the others.
“TK doesn’t know much other than the number of residents in the camp and the equipment Josh provided,” Dallas offered. “I mean, yeah, he told ‘em about the crops and the greenhouses and some goings on in McArthur.”
“He knows about the men being trained by me and Gregg, but not how many. He didn’t know a thing about the combat engineers or their gear until today. He’d never been to the farm until this morning,” James added.
“He thought Eustace was trading on a former military career, but that was enough to get him killed,” Brent concluded with a tinge of anger in his voice. “What would you like to do now?”
“I told you,” Katherine explained. “I want to know why. I think it matters, whether you do or not. As for the original plan, with some minor adjustments, we are still a go. I’ll get back to you and Dad on that in the morning,” she concluded.
As she approached the bound man, the young commander proclaimed, “Okay, Benjamin, time for the million dollar question… why do all of this?”
The rest of the group hadn’t even reassembled before he blurted out, “He kidnapped my wife and threw her into his damn brothel!”
“Whoa!” Katherine declared. “Slow down. Start from the beginning.”
“When Josh finished giving us the information in Bryan’s driveway, we went home and started packing. We were new to the neighborhood; we weren’t going to defend it. We couldn’t.”
“Okay, go on,” Brent said in a non-threatening manner.
“We had all of our stuff packed, our mountain bikes loaded, the cold weather ski gear… all of it. Then went to bed. Traci and I actually commented to one another that there was no need to try and set the alarm since there wasn’t any power.”
Katherine sighed, “And Tim knew that too I’m guessing.”
Benjamin nodded.
“Had he made any passes at her before this? Come on to her in any way?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Traci did say that he seemed kind of creepy. We were asleep and the next thing we know there’s four guys hauling us out of bed! He told me that she wouldn’t be harmed if I went to the state park with the group. I was to supply him with information, so I did. I’ve been trying to get her back ever since.”
“Why not tell us this? We could have helped,” James said compassionately.
“I was the outsider. Nobody from the neighborhood knew me. No one was going to believe me here.”
“But they elected you to the Board of Governors,” Susan interjected.
“No they didn’t,” Ben replied somewhat forcefully. “I rigged the balloting. Some guy named Ashe was the actual selection, but he died when his insulin ran out so I figured it was no big deal.”
“How’d you get the radio?” Dallas asked as he tinkered with it on the table.
“I was late one night, out collecting something or another, and needed to clean off. When I walked in to the shower hut, Tim was just standing there… with Traci. He had it with him,” Benjamin replied solemnly.
“I’m sorry, what?” Katherine said shocked.
“When I told him about the Coast Watcher program he changed our communication method. I hardly recognized my wife. She was skin and bones.” Demoralized, he concluded, “Traci was barely clothed and she looked strung out, like they’d been drugging her.”
“Tyler had needle marks. He’s got to be getting drugs from somewhere. Now I really want this guy dead,” Katherine proclaimed.
Benjamin just kept talking, continuing to lift the weight that had been drowning him since the lights went out.
“He was touching her, groping her, sticking his hand in her shorts, right in front of me. Said he was a ‘mergers and acquisitions man’ now that he had united the gangs. He actually bragged that she was doing a fair amount of business in his little whore house up in Columbus. Pushin’ ass, as he called it.”
With everything out in the open, Ben began weeping and crying uncontrollably.
Through the emotion, Benjamin meekly added, “He had these old polaroid style pictures of her.” Then he paused as the anger set in. “She was doing unspeakable things with wh
ole groups of men!” he hollered. “I’m sorry!” he protested. “I didn’t know what else to do! What would you have done?!”
Stunned silence permeated the room. Katherine’s only thought was that the man in front of her was feeling what her own father must have felt all those years ago. Except, her father did something about it.
Redirecting him, Katherine asked, “So now you’ve got the radio. What then?”
He sniff heavily and sucked all of the snot and drool back into his head before he answered. “I just started volunteering for Coast Watcher duty… specifically asking for Charlie Whiskey Two every Wednesday.”
His interrogator looked over at Brent and Dallas. They nodded their collective confirmation.
“Thank you, Benjamin. You’ve been incredibly helpful,” she stated. “Dallas, go outside and see if the keys are in that deuce. We’re going to deposit him with Sheriff Watson.”
“What? But I told you everything?” the man stammered.
“You did, and I’m grateful, but that doesn’t excuse your behavior. You will stand trial for your actions and a jury of your peers must decide your fate. If you’re lucky, we’ll bring Traci back.”
Chapter 23
Out of breathe from their latest endeavor; Josh laid his head on Samantha’s bare, sweat laden chest.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he replied, breathing heavily. “Who’s idea was it to christen every room?”
“I read about it somewhere,” she paused and added, “I think it was meant for twenty-something’s though,” she lamented.
“I woulda never guessed,” he answered sarcastically.
“Awe, is my poor wittle baby tired?”
Josh picked his head up and gently kissed her flesh. “You could say that.” Through his labored breathing, he quoted a movie he’d seen decades ago, “This mortal form has grown weak. I need sustenance!” Then he abruptly stood and backed away.
As Samantha sat up, she looked around the cabin and surveyed the damage. Clothing was strewn about, cushions were askew or missing from the couch, and picture frames which hadn’t moved in years were haphazardly shoved out of the way. She giggled when she saw a piece of art hanging crooked on the wall.
By the Dawn's Early Light Page 28