by R. Chauncey
He stopped and turned to face her, and asked, “And your family?”
Marajo closed her eyes and breathed heavily for a few seconds before she opened her eyes, looked at his face, and spoke. “I don’t want to think about my family. I’ve avoided thinking about them for twenty years. It’s too late for me to worry about them anyway.”
“I told you about the chip from the second drive I put into my com-cell,” he said as he put the mugs in the back of the Highlander, dismissing his depressed feeling.
“Yes, I know.”
“Then it’s time you knew what’s on that chip,” he said.
“Why?” she asked him.
“We both need to know what’s on my com-cell,” he said as he reached up and closed the back gate of the Highlander.
“In case one of us doesn’t make it,” she added.
“Right. The other one can use what’s on my com-cell to get into that information center to expose the Society,” he said then added, “If one of us survives and gets into the Society’s information center.”
“Alright, if the surviving one has the com-cell with the information on it,” she added
“You can read what’s on my com-cell while I drive,” he told her as he walked around to the driver’s side of the Highlander.
As soon as they both into the Highlander he reached into his pocket and gave her his com-cell.
Ten minutes later they were on the road. Larson was doing twenty-five miles per hour.
“I think its best we arrive after sunset,” he said.
She nodded as she brought up the list of files on his com-cell. She immediately saw the file Hidden Society. “You didn’t encode this?” she asked in a shocked voice.
“Why should I?”
“What if we’d been caught?” she asked in an angry voice.
“Encoding that file would have saved us?”
“No, it wouldn’t have.” Her voice was softer.
“Considering what we’ve been through and are going up against, encoding that file wouldn’t have meant anything. The Society people waiting for us know the codes to get into the information center. I would have probably forgotten any code I put in my com-cell to hide the information anyway. I’m not into remembering codes,” he said.
She shrugged and said, “You’re right. The soldiers would have turned your com-cell over to a member. Probably a leader and he would have destroyed it after breaking any code you’d put on it.”
“There’s nothing in my com-cell, Marajo they haven’t already got except who I really am, if they don’t already know that, and where my family lives.”
“I guess you’re right,” she agreed with him. “Can the information be transferred to my com-cell?”
“No, you’d have to remove the chip inside it with the information on it and place it in your com-cell,” he answered.
“Then we must make sure you survive to get inside the information center,” she said.
“Read it,” he said as he drove.
Ten minutes later she asked him, “Why did Julian write remember Paul Duffy’s name?”
“Probably because of that all-purpose chip he created.”
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd the Society didn’t kill Duffy after they got his all-purpose chip and program?”
“Duffy had told the company he worked for about that chip and program. Kill him, and somebody in that company would have gone to the police with questions.”
“The Hidden Society could handle the police easily.”
“Right, but why create trouble when you don’t have to. The Society saw the potential of Duffy’s chip and program. Bought it from him, and changed it to suit their needs. Duffy probably didn’t think twice about the chip once he was paid. He probably wouldn’t have been able to recognize his invention after the Society’s people got through changing it anyway. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn the Society may have helped his company become successful.”
“No. They had nothing to do with that. Duffy was a smart guy and law biting and honest. If he’d suspected he was getting help from someone associated with an illegal organization he would have gone to the state district attorney’s office.”
Larson drove a few more minutes before he spoke.
“They’re going to have infrared heat detectors waiting for us, you know?”
“You think so?”
“They don’t know what direction we’re coming from, and by now they probably know we got pass that ambush they set up for us,” he said as he thought. “To avoid another mistake they’ll make sure they spot us long before we even get close to the mountains the information center is in.”
“They’ve got to get close to detect us with those,” Marajo said.
“Not necessarily. The Society’s probably got weapons and equipment even the military doesn’t have. Like you said. No they’ll be able to detect us miles away,” he said.
“Then we’re in big trouble.”
He thought for a few minutes.
“I wonder how those soldiers at the ambush knew we’d be coming along that road?” he asked.
“They know what the Highlander looks like, Larson,” Marajo told him.
“Yes, I agree with that, but how would they have known we’d be taking that route?”
Marajo looked out the window and thought for a few seconds before she said, “They somehow accessed weather satellites passing overhead and saw us.”
“Mmm, huh,” he agreed.
“They knew there wouldn’t be that many cars and trucks on the road in such bad weather,” she said as she turned her head and looked at him. “I hadn’t seen any in hours. They saw us coming because they knew we’d be the only people out driving in such weather because of where we were going.”
“Yes, that’s what I think, too,” he said.
“If those two soldiers back there knew we were in this Highlander those who are waiting for us know about it, too.”
“You’re right,” he said. He was thinking.
“We’re in a lot of trouble,” she mumbled fearfully.
“Maybe not.”
“What do you mean?”
“To detect us an infrared unit has to be able to catch us in its electric scan.”
“Catch us?”
“Yeah. In other words we’ve got to be out in the open where our body heat can be picked up by the unit when it scans over us.”
“So we stay hidden behind something.”
“That file should have a map of the area.”
“I’ll look,” she said, opening the file and looking for a map. “There’s one.”
“What’s the terrain like?”
“Hilly. It’s next to those Simpson Park Mountains.”
He pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. He leaned over to look at the map on the com-cell.
“Bring up the location of the depository, computer,” he said.
“I didn’t know your com-cell was verbally operated,” she said.
“I decided to splurge when I bought this com-cell since I didn’t intend buying another one for ten years,” he told her.
A red dot appeared on the map.
“It’s located at the southern base of one of those mountains,” Larson said. “At a flat face part of the mountain.”
“They don’t appear to be high,” she said.
“No,” he agreed. “Maybe there’s a way over the mountains.”
“If we start walking over mountains they’re going to de
tect our body heat,” Marajo said.
“Not if we stay within the mountains.”
“Stay within the mountains? I don’t understand. How do we stay within the mountains?”
“Heat detectors scan for body heat. Mountains are cold. We can mask the heat of our bodies by staying low between those hills just at the north base of the mountains, and we can use the boulders on the mountain we’ve got to get into to hide our body heat.”
“We can?” she asked.
“Show elevation lines around the depository, computer,” Larson said.
Elevation lines around the mountain the depository was hidden in immediately appeared on the com-cell’s small screen.
“So what do you see?” she asked him.
“A way around the mountains to the depository,” he said. “See those two elevation lines opposite each other?” He pointed to them.
“Yeah,” she said, looking closely. “What about those lines above them?”
“They’re elevation lines, too,” he told her. “Just like the others.”
Marajo looked at the numbers on the lines above the ones he’d pointed to.
“Those lines have larger numbers than the ones below them,” she said.
“See how close they all are together?” He ignored her statement.
“Yes,” she said. “What does that mean?”
“Steep sides on both mountains. There’s a narrow valley between those mountains. It’s probably just a natural gap”
“We can use that to get to the depository?”
“Yes. Assuming, of course, that narrow valley isn’t clogged with a lot of vegetation.”
“You mean cacti?”
“Yes, exactly,” he answered. “This is the desert, you know.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “That might be to our advantage,” she said.
“How so?”
“If you were these soldiers the Society’s sent to kill us, would you expect us to go through a narrow gap filled with cacti?”
“No,” he agreed, looking at her and realizing what she meant.
The Society’s soldiers were trained to kill in all sorts of environments. But would they suspect two soft inexperienced civilians would chose to approach the depository from a direction even a wild animal might not chose?
“Also plants give off heat,” she said.
“Yes they do, Marajo, but not enough to hide our body heat. We’re a bit warmer than plants.”
“But,” she began looking closely at the map on the com-cell’s small screen. “We’ll have to leave that gap to get to the depository.”
“That’s why the night would be the best time for us to reach this area where the depository’s at even though it’ll be colder and our body heat will make us stand out if we’re caught in a heat detector’s scan. But at least we’d be harder to see.” Larson straightened up and drove the Highlander back onto the road.
“Is there any way to avoid the heat detector?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “Sooner or later, Marajo, we’re going to have to come out in the open to reach the door of that information center.”
She didn’t say anything, because he was right.
“We should stop about twenty miles or less away. And go the rest of the way on foot.”
“That may take us another day,” she protested. She looked at the map and said,
“And I don’t see too many mountains we can use to hide our body heat while we walk those twenty miles.”
“But there are a few hills we can use to move around to hide our body heat.”
“Until we get to the base of that mountain we’ve got to get into,” she told him.
“Then we’ll be in flat country out in the open.”
“Right,” he agreed. “And I figure they’ve been sitting and waiting for us for a few days. That ambush is proof of that.”
Marajo looked at him while she thought. “Yes, you’re right. Kill us before we reach these Simpson Park Mountains, get the information Julian gave you, and go home.”
“But the ambush failed and those waiting for us know it by now, and they have no choice but to wait for us to arrive. And I’ll bet they’re as bored as hell.”
“Bored people aren’t as alert as someone who’s been there only a few hours.”
“Hopefully these will be,” he said as he drove at twenty-five miles an hour. He didn’t want to tell her soldiers like the ones he assumed worked for the Society were not the kind who let their guard down even if they got bored waiting.
* * *
Chapter 43
January 11, 12 p.m.
Dodge had slept over fourteen hours. Far longer than he had expected, but his body and mind needed the rest. And now he was wide awake, alert, and very hungry. He hadn’t eaten in almost three days. He could have helped himself to the field rations in the back of the Land Rover, but he didn’t trust the food. It wouldn’t be above Karl, or some leader, to put a small, microscopic tracking device in one of the cans of food. One he wouldn’t detect no matter how long he chewed.
So far so good, Dodge thought as he drove the Land Rover into the town of Groves Point, thirty miles west from where he’d killed Betty. He dropped his speed to less than twenty miles an hour and looked around the main street he was on for a car dealership. A small dealership where not too many questions would be asked if a person presented a credit card with unlimited credit, and the person was willing to pay a few hundred more than the listed price of the car.
He spotted what looked like the type of dealership he wanted off to his left and drove pass it remembering its location in the small town.
Now to find a safe place to dump this Rover, he thought as he drove out of town looking around to see if anyone was looking at him. The last thing he needed was some nosy citizen with a strong sense of civic responsibility looking at him and wondering why someone was driving a Land Rover through a Chevy and Ford town.
The few people that were on the street appeared not to be paying him the least bit of attention as if he was someone they saw every day or strangers driving through town wasn’t all that unusual.
Dodge drove three miles out of town – making sure to obey the speed limits, looking in his rearview mirror and side mirrors to see if anyone, especially a cop’s car, was following him.
He was all alone. Apparently the citizens of Groves Point minded their own business, stayed indoors during the winter, and or were just too busy with their own lives to care about some stranger driving through their town and down their roads.
He saw a dirt road surrounded by trees off to the left that went into a forest. He looked into the right and left side mirrors and in the rearview mirror to make sure he wasn’t being watched. He couldn’t see any houses anywhere close by then quickly and smoothly turned onto the dirt road.
Dodge drove a mile before he saw a place among some trees and heavy brush to park the Land Rover. He eased it among the trees and thick brush as carefully as he could to avoid leaving any obvious signs of driving between them and turned off the engine. He sat looking at his glove covered hands and wondered if he had touched anything in the Land Rover without his gloves on. He couldn’t remember, but nevertheless, he got out of the vehicle and opened the rear hatch where he found a rag, and carefully wiped down the inside of the Land Rover. Then he closed the doors and walked away.
He walked twenty feet from the Land Rover when he realized he had his weapon stuck into the waist band of his pants. He couldn’t walk into a car dealership with a gun in his waist band, especially an electric gun. The damn things were illegal, and the pe
ople in the dealership would think he’d come to rob them. He started to go back and put the weapon in the Land Rover, but decided against that. He wasn’t out of danger yet, and he knew he’d need it in the near future.
I’ll hide it along the way somewhere, he thought. Then go back and get it and the night vision goggles, binoculars, and get one of those two backpacks I saw in the Rover when Betty and I were putting on those warm clothes. That caused him to look at himself to see if he was dressed right. His artic parka looked like a regular parka and he was wearing leather gloves that looked like regular gloves. Even his boots had the look of boots a person could buy in thousands of stores selling winter clothing. He decided he didn’t look like some Society soldier who had just killed another one. He started walking.
He was over four miles outside of Grove Point, but in his physical condition – excellent, it took him a little over an hour of casual walking to reach the town. He avoided the road he had taken out of town. There was always a chance someone had seen the Land Rover and would wonder why he came out of the same area the Land Rover had disappeared into. He walked across country looking around constantly to make sure he wasn’t being watched. There wasn’t a house or soul around that he could see. He relaxed but kept his guard up.
Just before Dodge reached the town he found a safe place underneath a large rock in a wooded area a quarter of a mile outside the town to hide his weapon then continued to the town.
When he reached the town he walked down the main street in the direction of the auto dealership he’d seen trying his best to appear like a curious tourist. On his way he nodded politely and smiled at three people he met on the street. To ignore them would have aroused their suspicions and made them remember him. And that he didn’t want. Though he knew they’d remember passing a tall, black man dressed in a gray parka and nice looking boots on the main street. Groves Point didn’t appear to be a town with a lot of black people living in it.
It appeared to be just what it was a small country town of five hundred and three people according to the sign just outside the town he’d seen when he first entered the town.
When he reached the dealership Dodge assumed the expression of an angry man. As he walked through the lot of cheap looking at used cars and hatch backs, he looked around to see if there was anything that looked like it was worth buying. He spotted a Chrysler 200 that looked like it could go a thousand miles or more before it broke down. He walked up the four steps into the small office and slammed the door after he’d entered.