by Joe Nobody
Terri glanced around the room, realizing everyone was hanging on her next statement. “I told the president that he was a bigger human being than I was. I said if someone tried to kill me, I wouldn’t be so forgiving. He smiled at me and told me the Independents hadn’t tried to kill him, but he knew who was behind the attempt. He said he would bring them to justice in due course. Those were his exact words.”
“Holy shit,” grunted Powell, and turned away.
Terri looked at Bishop with pleading eyes. “I don’t understand. Bishop, did I do something wrong?”
Bishop patted Terri’s hand. “No, baby. No, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s okay.”
Westfield’s voice became gentle, “Terri, now this next part is critical. Did the president say who had tried to kill him?”
Thinking for a moment, Terri responded shyly. “No, no he didn’t. That man popped up right then and began shooting.”
“I wish we had known this before now,” grumbled Powell. “Why didn’t you testify to this in your deposition, Terri?”
Bishop coiled at Powell’s tone, his weight shifting to the edge of the bed. The two MPs moved half a step forward, ready to intervene. Westfield raised his hands and his voice, “At EASE, gentlemen. You two had better execute a major testosterone dump right-fucking-now, or we’ll continue this little powwow down at the brig with both of your combative asses in separate cells.”
Bishop relaxed and returned to his original posture, never taking his eyes off Powell.
Terri broke the uneasy silence, “Agent Powell, no one asked me that question in the deposition. I was exhausted, worried about Bishop, and ravenous. How was I supposed to know about the politics of the times? It isn’t exactly like we get cable news updates out at the ranch. I didn’t think it was important.”
“You didn’t think it was important,” exploded Powell. “The president of the United States was killed, and you didn’t think it was important?”
Bishop half stood, clearly his intent to reengage with Powell. Terri hooked his arm and pulled back while Westfield moved between the two men. The general decided to defuse the situation. “Agent Powell, could I have a word with you in the hallway, please?”
Powell, Westfield and the two MPs left the room, closing the door behind them. “Would you cool your jets, Agent Powell?” Westfield began. “That’s a pregnant civilian in that room, not a terrorist suspect. I know you need answers and so do I, but we’re not going to get anywhere if you keep up with this attitude.”
Powell sighed, rubbing his red and swollen jaw. “You’re right, General. I’m just so pissed because I knew there had to be someone who knew something more, and Bishop has been uncooperative. I let my friendship with him get in the way of my investigation and my primary duty to protect the president.”
The base commander nodded his understanding and responded, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, young man. Now, let’s go back in there and see if we can calmly get to the bottom of this.”
Westfield nodded to the MP, who then opened the door. Westfield barreled in, only to find the room was empty. Bishop, Terri, and their gear had disappeared. A slight disturbance in the air made the curtains move. Westfield rushed to the open window.
Quickly joined by Powell, the two men stood looking at the cluster of vehicles in the otherwise empty parking lot. There was no sign of the escapees.
Powell turned to the general saying, “General, I’ll alert my men to help with the search.”
Westfield grunted and looked at Powell, “Do you really think we’re going to find them? Think about that for a moment, Agent Powell.”
Powell started to protest, but the general waved him off. “He’ll be in the desert in 15 minutes. That’s his turf, if you’ll recall. Even if we did find them, what then? Do you really want to risk a firefight with your prime new witness in the middle of the night? Hasn’t the Secret Service already taken one black eye today?”
“We can’t just let them go, sir.”
“Oh yes we can, Agent Powell. We most certainly can. I’ve used enough body bags this week already, and chasing that man through the desert would only produce the need for more. Let things cool off for a bit. We will find them later.”
Terri glanced out the rear glass of the MP pickup truck. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Bishop?”
Keeping his eyes focused on the road ahead, Bishop shifted gears and responded. “Terri, we had to get out of there. This entire situation is a boiling cauldron of bullshit, and I can’t keep the players straight. Someone wants to kill us, and he’s still on the loose. I want to believe Powell’s innocent in all this, but now I doubt everything and everybody.”
Convinced they weren’t being pursued, Terri turned to face the front. “I gotta hand it to ya, Bishop; a girl sure doesn’t get bored around you. An attempted homicide, assault of a federal officer, and grand theft auto, all in one night. Do you have any more surprises in store for this old, pregnant lady this evening? I’m about at capacity for one day.”
Bishop grunted and retorted, “Oh, damn. I forgot our theatre tickets back at the room. My bad, honey.”
Terri giggled and then looked around, “Where might we be going?”
“I’m going to drive to the edge of the base, and then we’ll be in open desert. I’ll leave the truck there.”
“Oh, now wait just a minute . . . I’m not walking home through the desert, Bishop. I’m four months pregnant, and my ankles swell really, really easy.”
“No worries. I’ve got a plan . . . I think.”
“You think you’ve got a plan? That’s not incredibly reassuring right at this moment.”
“When I came to the base the first time to deliver the colonel’s message to the president, I left some transportation nearby. I’m hoping it’s still there.”
“And where might you have gotten this transportation?”
Bishop glanced over, a sheepish expression on his face. “I borrowed it from a police officer.”
“Borrowed?” Terri shook her head in pretend disgust. “Bishop, I had no idea you were a car thief when we met. What else are you hiding from me?”
“Well,” Bishop hesitated, “there were those chocolate bars . . . but . . . but that wasn’t any big deal.”
“Chocolate! You had chocolate, and I didn’t get any? Come on young man . . . fess up . . . out with it.”
Before Bishop could answer, the pavement ended, and the truck’s headlights showed a sandy path leading off into the darkness of the desert. Stopping, Bishop stared at the compass built into his watch and thought about the direction for a moment.
“We’re still headed the right way. I’ll keep driving until this lane ends. Hopefully this path will get us close to where I hid our ride home.”
The small truck wasn’t designed for off-road travel and became stuck less than a mile later. After rocking the pickup back and forth in the loose sand, Bishop determined they were just digging themselves in deeper. “End of the road,” he announced.
Switching off the ignition, Bishop looked at Terri and said, “Stay here with your rifle. If you see anyone approaching, head off into the desert that direction and hide. I’m going to go find our transportation and bring it back here. I’ll need to transfer gas to our new ride.”
“How long will you be gone?”
Bishop took the night vision from his vest and climbed to the top of the cab. Using the mountaintops and the base’s lights behind them, it took a few moments to get his bearings. He lowered the device and said, “I think we’re about a mile away from where I hid the ATV. It has a single headlight, so if you see one light coming across the desert from that direction, it’s me.”
“Okay, Bishop. Please hurry. I don’t like scorpions.”
“Terri, compared to the predators back at the base, I will take my chances with the scorpions.”
Bishop put on his pack and double-checked his gear. Leaning to give Terri a kiss, he said, “Be right back,” and trott
ed off into the desert night.
Terri took her rifle and climbed into the bed of the truck, taking a seat on the roof of the cab. The desert night was silent, the star field intense. The environment was peaceful, and she realized that despite being alone, she was more at ease here than back at the base. The M4 rifle across her lap helped, but there was something about the tranquility of the night that made her feel warm inside. She wished it would last, but knew that wasn’t their lot in life. “Here we go again,” she sighed.
Bishop found the overlook where he’d spied on the new subdivision on his way to Fort Bliss. The odor drifting off the piles of trash helped to guide him. While the scenery looked remarkably different at night, it took only 15 minutes to find the ATV. Judging from the layer of dust on the seat, the machine hadn’t been disturbed.
He had hidden the keys on a nearby rock ledge, and they too were right where he’d left them. The machine started immediately, and he began the short trip back to Terri and the truck.
Feeling relief over his luck holding so far, Bishop was back with his wife after only a brief, 40-minute absence. Terri circled the ATV, skepticism creeping into her voice. “We’re both going to ride on that with both of our packs, two rifles and a baby?”
“It’s going to be comfy close, that’s for sure.”
“Did you shower today?”
“Funny—I was getting ready to ask you the same thing.”
Bishop encountered his first problem with the escape when it became clear that he didn’t have a gas can, hose or any other method to transfer gasoline from the truck to the ATV. The issue was made worse by the fact that the truck was stuck in the sand, and he couldn’t reach the gas tank. Spiking the tank was out of the question without a few hours of digging.
“Shit. Pop the hood, would you please?”
Terri opened the driver’s door and found the handle. Bishop lifted and propped the small truck’s hood with the support rod, and then used a flashlight from his vest to look around. Terri joined him, curious as to what he was up to.
Finding a siphoning hose was easy. Bishop chose the one that fed the windshield wiper fluid to the pump because of its small diameter and length. Most newer cars and trucks had anti-siphoning devices in their tanks, and it took a small hose to snake around them. Unhooking the hose gave him another idea, and he used his multi-tool to remove the tank holding the cleaner. He judged it to be about 1.5 gallons—small, but it would have to do.
It took a few tries, and just a bit of gas in his mouth, but the ATV began receiving a transfer of fuel a short time later. After dumping the wiper fluid from the container and plugging the exit port with a stripe of plastic from the front seat, Bishop filled the extra tank to the brim.
It took three attempts at arranging Terri, their gear, and himself onto the ATV. The small storage compartment on the 4-wheeler contained a few bungee cords, and Bishop used these to secure his pack and the extra gas tank.
“Here we go,” he turned and said to his wife. “I can’t wait to show you my new favorite swimming hole.”
“We get to go swimming on this vacation, daddy?”
“Sure we do.”
As the ATV slowly rolled away from the pickup, Terri tapped Bishop on the shoulder. “Are we there, yet?”
Bishop laughed at the classic query.
A minute later, Terri tapped him again. “Are we there, yet?”
“Bishop, I’m freezing.”
“You’re right, it’s getting cold. Let’s find a place to hole up for the night.”
By Bishop’s estimate, they had traveled over 30 miles toward home and were making good progress along I-10 heading east. Without the warming rays of the sun, the late-year desert air became cold at night. Traveling via an open vehicle felt like they were riding through a deep freeze. They were cold, hungry, and tired.
Scanning with his night vision, Bishop checked the horizon for some sort of shelter. This stretch of the great interstate was barren of population and exits, the last sign indicating it was 11 miles to the next off-ramp.
That was actually good news, as Bishop was giving any interchange a wide birth to avoid the potential of encountering people. Circumventing these intersections took time, but he felt the extra miles worth the effort, given their experience.
Flat desert appeared in the green and black image of the monocle, featureless earth for as far as the device could ascertain shape and form. Off at a great distance were mountain ranges in practically every direction, but not here.
Bishop had been raised in West Texas, and he knew there was a strong chance that the picture in the scope was misleading. Wind and water erosion were powerful forces of nature, and rarely did any large section of land escape their influence. What appeared to be flat earth most likely hid gullies, streambeds, and other good hiding places. The problem was finding such geography.
“What I wouldn’t give for a good outcropping of solid rock,” he noted.
Terri glanced up at the clear sky and said, “Are you worried about rain?”
Bishop grunted, “No. I’m worried about helicopters looking for car thieves and people who assault federal officers. Even their most sophisticated equipment can’t see through solid rock.”
Continuing along I-10, they ate up another mile when Bishop slowed, handing Terri the scope and pointing toward a slight undulation in the desert floor. “That low area you see is drainage for the elevated land to our south. That might be what we’re looking for.”
“Do you mean a creek?”
“Not really. It does rain here now and then. The soil is packed so hard, the water isn’t absorbed like you’d think. A lot of it runs off. If my guess is right, the engineers who built the interstate had to compensate for that. We’ll know if I’m right in the next half mile.”
“Bishop, I can’t see any difference or feature. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
Bishop kept scanning the area, and after telling Terri to “hang on,” he steered the ATV off the smooth pavement and out into the open terrain. After a few minutes, he pointed back toward the interstate. “There,” he stated, and pointed the ATV back toward the big road.
The gaping mouth of a square concrete drainage pipe came into view as they rolled closer to the highway. The opening appeared to be about four feet wide on each side and was partially obscured by small piles of brush and dried wood that had been deposited by the run-off of the last rain.
Bishop stopped the ATV a short distance from the opening and chanced turning on the headlights. The bright beams illuminated the tunnel running all the way under both the east and west bound lanes of I-10. The concrete floor was remarkably clean and smooth.
“Your luxury suite awaits, my lady.”
“Do they leave chocolates on the pillow here?”
Dismounting their gasoline-powered steed, the couple stretched their stiff legs and sore butts. Bishop turned and commented, “We’ll have to do this just right. I think we build the fire deeper in the tunnel. Then we set up someplace to sleep, and finally pull the ATV to close off the entrance.
“So we have a fireplace, bedroom and garage all in one? Sounds like a master planned community.”
Bishop used his flashlight to gather scraps of dried wood and other burnable debris from the entrance. There wasn’t enough fuel for a big fire, but Bishop didn’t want a roaring blaze inside the small area anyway because there wasn’t a chimney, and the smoke might be an issue.
The shelter was a little difficult to navigate because of its height. Bending at the waist and carrying bundles of wood worked well, but twice he stood without thinking, and cracked his head on the roof.
Before long, a small fire was burning, its warm glow coloring the walls of the structure a calming yellow and red hue. The extremely dry wood didn’t make much smoke but also burned quickly. Bishop estimated they had perhaps an hour’s worth of fuel.
Terri was spreading the survival nets on the floor to provide some insulation from the cold cement benea
th when she noticed Bishop carrying in a handful of rocks and creating a border around the fire. Puzzled, she asked, “Are you worried the flames are going to spread?”
“No. I want to heat these rocks. It’s going to get cold in here tonight, and the fire won’t last long. The rocks will retain heat and we can move them closer to our bed.”
Terri unpacked some of the food, and began to think about what she wanted to eat while Bishop filled the ATV’s tank from their makeshift fuel can. He appeared with his rifle at her side and announced, “I’m going to go walk around a little bit and make sure we aren’t overly visible. I’ll sleep better tonight knowing we’re not broadcasting our whereabouts.”
“Okay. I’ll have something for us to eat by the time you get back.”
Bishop propped Terri’s rifle against the side of the tunnel and made sure she had her pistol—just in case. He moved off into the desert using the night vision and began to scout the area. His primary concern wasn’t other humans in close proximity, but rather how visible their campsite was to anyone who may pass by in the night. Moving off at right angles to the opening of the artificial cavern, he found the glow of the fire almost undetectable after a few hundred meters.
Satisfied with the light discipline and the lack of inhabitants nearby, Bishop’s only real security concern was the smell of smoke drifting over the area. Anyone walking or driving down I-10 in the night would probably detect their fire immediately. There really wasn’t much he could do about that and decided it was an acceptable risk for Terri to have a good night’s rest.
While Bishop walked through the desert, Terri set about preparing their meal. The army surplus pan and aluminum utensils were perfect to sit over the fire supported by two rocks. Before long, the aroma of MRE meatloaf and gravy replaced the smell of moist concrete that dominated the tunnel.