by R. Chauncey
He had made it point to act casual as he bought the map. Like a city boy driving around in the back country taking in the beauty of the desert. The woman who sold him the map had talked to him like he was one of many outsiders she saw who came to the desert for the desert scenery, and he was sure she wouldn’t remember him. If she did, the only thing he knew she’d remember was that he was a tall, nice looking black man who drove a dusty Chrysler. And a description like that could fit over a million black men in the southwestern part of America alone.
He got out of the car, looked around to see if he was being watched. He knew he wasn’t, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. The sun had set a few minutes ago and the darkness had hidden him from anyone who might be in the desert. It had been hours since he’d seen any cars or trucks since he left the road side store on Route 50. There was nothing around him but desert plants and animals, and they weren’t about to bother him. He walked around to the hood of the car and opened the map and put it on the hood of the car. Then pulled the night vision goggles down over his eyes and turned them on so he could see and took a small notebook out of his inside parka pocket and turned to the page where he’d written the coordinates he and Betty had gotten from Karl. He smiled when he thought he should have thanked her for transferring those coordinates from her com-cell his com-cell. But it was too late now. He oriented the map to his position, and looked carefully at the map.
“I’m about twelve miles from where Karl and Willow are waiting,” he said to himself. “A three or four hour walk for me even in this rough country.”
He folded the map, put it in his pocket along with the notebook, checked his weapon, and started walking. He stopped and looked back at the Chrysler and wondered if he should take the backpack. Naw, he decided. It would be too much weight. Then he changed his mind and went back to the Chrysler for the backpack and took the large bottle of water he had bought at the store he’d bought the map at. I don’t need the extra weight but what’s in this backpack just might come in handy, and the water is necessary. He took three large swallows of water, recapped the bottle, put it in the backpack, put the backpack on his back, and started walking as he looked around at the hills. All I got to do is stay behind a hill. Karl and Willow will certainly have a heat detecting unit with them, and scanning in a circle. Once I get within a few miles of them I’ve got to find some way of sneaking up on them without being detected by a heat detecting unit. He felt comfortable, but told himself not to get too comfortable. Karl was no fool. He knew Karl wouldn’t really believe he was dead unless it was confirmed by his body. And Willow was a loyal and experienced soldier who’d do as he was ordered without question. And taking him and Karl out wouldn’t be as easy as killing Betty.
Betty hadn’t suspected he was going to kill her. She wasn’t prepared for him. If Karl suspected he wasn’t dead and had turned against the Society, and he’d know that once he started shooting – if he didn’t detect his body heat first, he’d be waiting for him. He just hoped Karl assumed he was dead once his tracking chip stopped transmitting his location and wouldn’t realize he wasn’t until it was too late.
With Karl I’ll get one shot and the same for Willow. Miss and I’m dead and my family, too. The thought depressed Dodge. He was caught in a plan he couldn’t get out of, a plan that had to succeed if his family and he were to survive. He dismissed everything from his mind that didn’t concern the mission he was on.
As he walked he tried to think if he had anything on him other than his com-cell, which he’d turned off, that would give away his presence. He knew his com-cell could be tracked even if it wasn’t on. All Society com-cells gave off a signal when off that only the Society could detect, but anyone with an electric detector could pick up the current even if they couldn’t unscramble the signal. And Karl, not matter where he was, could track him through his com-cell, but he wouldn’t do that if he believed he was dead. And Dodge hoped Karl believed exactly that.
Maybe I should get rid of it.
He walked another half a mile and decided it was best to get rid of his com-cell. Even if Karl was convinced he was dead, Karl was just the sort of soldier who’d be thorough enough to keep his com-cell attuned to pick up any com-cell’s electric current within ten miles of him. He took the com-cell out of his pocket, took it apart, and threw the parts away. If things go the way I hope they’ll go, I won’t need it anyway.
The Society’s credit card popped into his mind. He stopped, took out his wallet, and removed the credit card and looked at it.
It looked like the typical credit card. It was less than an eighth of an inch in thickness with the typical credit card chip for use at ATM’s and it allowed the issuing bank to cancel it should it be lost or stolen. And knowing the Society as he did, the chip could be located from anywhere in the world using a satellite the Society could access any time it wanted to.
He walked over to a large rock, knelt down, and slipped the credit card underneath it.
If those assholes can still track me now, then my family and I deserve to die, he thought as he stood up and walked away.
Dodge looked at his watch after a few minutes of walking. It was four fifteen. He figured he should make the less than twelve miles by midnight if not earlier. Under normal walking conditions he could have covered the twelve miles in two or three hours. But this was wild country and he didn’t expect to find any well-trod-trails. And now that the sun was down walking in the dark was bit more difficult even with the night vision goggles on, and jogging out of the question unless he had to move faster. The last thing he wanted to do was jog into some ten or twelve foot depression and break a leg or twist an ankle. He’d be finished. But the Society wouldn’t suspect he’d turned against them, which would be good for his family. Until one or both of his two children were selected to replace him and Betty. She had been too busy enjoying the life of a well-paid soldier to get married and have children, or just get knocked up.
And if there was one thing Dodge didn’t want it was having his children follow in his footsteps. He had spent his entire life as a father keeping his job as a soldier from his children. He was afraid they would think he was a monster if they found out. His wife had also kept his position as a soldier secret from them.
Also he suspected Karl and Willow would have a small but powerful infrared heat detecting device. He hadn’t seen anything on the list of supplies Karl left for him and Betty to indicate Karl had taken a heat detector. But Karl would have one in this wild country. It was the best way to detect humans approaching out of the darkness. And darkness was the best time for Marlene and her accomplice to approach this place Karl and Willow were at, unless they were stupid. And so far Marlene and her accomplice hadn’t been stupid. That move to the right up close to the hill they had made in that Highlander at the ambush spot he and Betty had selected proved that. The move had forced Betty to rise up higher, making herself an excellent target for him. Marlene and her accomplice had no idea how helpful they had been to him.
Hopefully Karl and Willow would have the inferred heat detector scanning north and east the directions he was sure Marlene and her accomplice would be coming from, and not southwest the direction he was coming from. If he could make it to within a mile of the coordinates Karl had given him and Betty by midnight, he’d still have time to figure out a way around the heat detecting device he was sure Karl and Willow had. Even though he knew his body heat would stand out in the cold night air.
*
3:50 p.m.
“How far do you think we’ve come, Larson?” Marajo asked him as she walked beside him.
He stopped in front of a small hill and turned and looked west. “The sun’s just about gone,” he said, looking at the narrow slit of sunlight just above the horizon. He turned and started up the gentle slopping north side of the hill. “And we’ve been keeping a good pa
ce for the pass four hours. I figure we’ve come at least two maybe three miles. Another three miles and we should be on the north side of the Simpson Park Mountains.” He looked to the south. “There they are directly in front of us.”
“Yes, they are,” Marajo said. “And the Society’s killers are waiting in them for us.”
“Come on,” he said to Marajo.
“Isn’t this dangerous?” she asked, following him. “If they’ve got some heat detecting device, they may be able to detect our body heat.”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Why not,” she asked him.
“Because we haven’t been attacked yet,” he answered.
“Maybe they’ve got another ambush set for us,” Marajo said.
“Possibly, but I don’t think so,” Larson replied as he walked.
“And why don’t you think so?” she asked him in an annoyed voice.
“These soldiers for the Society, if they’re as good as Julian implied they were, they don’t strike me as the sort of people who’d want to make the same mistake twice,” he explained.
“Yes, you’re right,” she said, nodding her head. “That second shooter on the hill to our left would have certainly notified whoever is here that we got pass that ambush they set up.”
“That’s what I think,” he said in agreement.
“Is there any way for us to detect when we’re being scanned by a heat detecting device?” she asked him.
“I suppose there is, Marajo, but I certainly don’t how to do it,” he told her.
“So we just walk and hope they’re not picking up our body heat.”
“They can’t do that if we’re on the north side of this hill,” he said. “Which we are. They can’t pick up our body heat through this hill.”
Marajo looked to her right at the setting sun. “Sun’s almost gone, Larson.”
“Yeah,” he agreed not bothering to look west. “Let’s get up on the top of this hill before it disappears. But stay low. If they got a heat detector they may not be able to get a good heat signature from us.”
They started up the hill side by side walking in a crouched position to stay as low to the ground as they could. Near the top of the hill they got down on their hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way to the top.
“That rock over there looks like a good place to look from,” Marajo said, pointing to her right.
“No,” he said, looking in the direction she’d pointed. “We should look for a place between two rocks, or stick to the edge of the top. Don’t want to show too much of ourselves.” He looked around and saw two large barrel cacti growing side by side a few feet apart. “Right there,” he said and moved toward them on his hands and knees. “Careful now. Barrel cacti have long nasty thorns.” When he reached the barrel cacti, he lay just a few feet down from them on
the north side of the hill.
“Light’s almost gone,” she said as she as she lay next to him.
Just a dim sliver of sunlight made its way over the western horizon.
“Then let’s make good use of it,” he said as he pulled his binoculars up to his eyes and carefully scanned the small mountains in front of him. “See those small, boulder covered mountains directly in front of us?” he asked her.
“Yes. Those two with the big boulders on top of them?” she asked, looking through her binoculars in the direction he looked. “They’re the Simpson Park Mountains?”
“Yes. Now look just to your right. See that small gap between the two mountains?”
“That one that looks like it’s choked with trees and plants of all sorts?” she asked, looking in the direction he told her.
“Yes. That’s our next destination.” He waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he lowered his binoculars and looked at her. “Afraid?” he asked.
“Yes,” her response was dry with just a touch of fear in it.
“You’re not alone, Marajo,” he said. “I’m with you.”
“Well, let’s go,” she said with a bit of reluctance.
“Yeah,” he agreed with just as much reluctance in his voice.
They crawled over the edge of the hill and started down. When they reached the bottom of the hill, Lee suggested they take their semi-automatics out of their backpacks and check them.
Marajo removed her weapon from her backpack, checked it to make sure it was ready and the safety was on, and opened her parka and stuck the weapon in her belt muzzle down.
“Don’t carry it like that,” Larson told her. “You could shoot yourself pulling it out of
your belt. Carry it in your parka pocket like this.” He put the semi-automatic in the large right pocket of his parka. “Keep the barrel pointed forward. That way if the safety should click off when you’re pulling it out of your coat pocket, and it fires all you’ll have is a hole in your coat pocket.”
“What if they see us and start shooting?” she asked as she did as he suggested.
“Then we won’t need our weapons,” he said, hoping if the soldiers did have a heat detecting device it hadn’t detected them when they crawled over the top of the hill. “Let’s go and stay as close to this hill as possible.”
*
4:00 p.m.
“Karl,” Willow said, looking closely at the monitor of the infrared unit.
“What?” Karl asked. He was leaning against a rock drinking a cup of coffee.
“I saw a flash of heat on the top of a hill less than three and a half miles north of here,” he said.
“An animal?” Karl asked, without looking in his direction.
“Could be,” he said. “But I don’t think so.”
Karl looked over at him and asked, “Why not?”
“Because there were two large heat flashes at the top, and then something cold appeared between the two flashes. Then there was a larger heat signature between the two cold spots. Like two people moving separately then coming together to make one large heat signature between the two cold spots,” he said, turning to Karl. “Like two people lying on their bellies looking through binoculars.”
Karl got up and walked over to him and knelt beside him. “Push playback,” he said.
Willow pushed play back as he said, “Then the large heat signature became two again and moved over the top of the hill. But both were low to the ground.”
“Like they were crawling?” Karl asked him.
“Yeah,” he answered.
Karl watched the play back it till the heat signatures disappeared. “That’s Marlene Done and her accomplice,” he said with a vicious smile crossing his face. He finished his coffee, dropped the plastic mug to the ground, and said, “Be right back in about half an hour. Get ready and stay alert.”
“Right,” Willow replied as Karl left.
Karl moved fast even though it was dark. It took him less than fifteen minutes to get off the hill and reach Derrick’s camper. He knocked on the door and waited for Derrick to open it.
Derrick opened the door and looked at Karl but said nothing.
“They’re less than three miles away by now. And they’re on foot coming from the north.”
“Are you sure?” Derrick asked him.
“Positive,” he replied.
Derrick looked at Karl and thought for a few seconds. “It’ll take them some time to walk more than two miles in the dark. Maybe two or three hours,” he said. “So I should have time to finish my dinner and relax over a glass of this very poor wine I was furnished with. If I should have to go out on a mission again I’ll chose my own wine.”
> “You want me and Willow to remain in place?” Karl asked him, thinking, what a damn fool this man is complaining about wine at a time like this.
“No. There’s a narrow gap in the mountain you’re on and the one next to it,” he said.
“I’ve seen it on the map of this area I have. They’ll probably use that gap to mask their movements. You and Willow get on each side of that gap and wait. Lester, Charlie, and I will back you up. We’ll be about a hundred feet behind you and Willow. Be sure to wear your night vision goggles. We don’t want to end up shooting each other.”
“Will do,” Karl turned and started to leave.
Derrick noticed the cold. “Wait,” he said. “It’s cold outside. Come inside.” He stepped back from the door.
Karl entered the camper and waited at the open door.
Derrick walked to a cabinet in the kitchen above the sink and opened it. “Bourbon or scotch?” he asked Karl as he looked at the four bottles of whisky in the cabinet.
“Bourbon’s got a bit more heat in it than scotch,” he said. “One hundred proof if you have it.”
Derrick removed a fifth of bourbon from the cabinet and walked over to Karl and handed it to him. “Thirty years old one hundred proof single barrel Tennessee bourbon.”
“Thanks,” Karl said, looking at the seal and seeing it wasn’t broken.
“You do have cups or glasses, don’t you?” Derrick asked him.
“Yes sir, plastic cups,” Karl replied.
“I’ll be in position at seven,” Derrick said, looking at his watch.
“Right, Leader,” he said as he turned and left.
On the way back Karl decided to open the bottle and pour the bourbon on the ground.
Knowing Derrick an unbroken seal didn’t mean it hadn’t been opened, poisoned, and then resealed.
A slow acting tasteless poison that takes over twenty-four hours to suddenly kill without the person drinking it knowing it was poisoned. Karl thought. Killing me ain’t gonna be that easy, Derrick. He tossed the empty bottle behind a bush.