by Robert Boren
“Don’t worry,” George said. “There were a couple extra bulbs in the case. I’ll change it. Could one of you guys hit the light over that workbench? It’s too bright over by the cabinet.”
Jerry nodded and pulled the chain on the light, then came back over by George. It took a few seconds to change the lightbulb.
“Ready?” George asked.
Everybody gathered around silently. George hit the projector switch again, and it whirred into motion, the picture hitting the cabinet. He turned the front lens until the image on the cabinet was sharp.
The picture showed the wall next to the cells. It was brightly lit, and the light beam moved as the camera panned.
“Sun Gun,” Charlie said. “Used to have one of those.”
“Look at that girl,” Jasmine said. “She looks only about sixteen.”
An old man was bringing the shivering naked girl over to the wall. He turned her front to the wall, and fastened her arms to the cuffs hanging there. The camera moved around for a second, and then stabilized.
“I can’t see his face well enough,” Charlie said.
“Somebody just put that camera on a tripod,” Kurt said.
“Wonder what year this is?” Jasmine asked.
“Good question,” the Sheriff said. “Look, he’s turning around.”
“Hell, that’s Chet,” Kurt said. “I remember that shirt, too. This is late 1960s or early 1970s. I can’t believe it. Don’t you recognize him, Charlie?”
“Not really,” he said. “But I only saw him once or twice. He was really Ger’s friend. I just went with him to hunt a time or two.”
“There’s the other guy,” Charlie said. “Is that a paddle he’s got in his hands?”
“Looks like it,” Malcolm said.
“It’s got bolts sticking out of it,” Jasmine said. “Geez. I don’t think I can watch this.”
“Why don’t you go back up top, honey,” Jerry said. She nodded and left.
“You guys sure you want to hang around?” George asked. “This kind of thing can stick with you for too long.”
“Maybe Kurt should stay around until this second guy turns around,” Malcolm said. “He might know who it is.”
“Oh, that has to hurt,” Jerry said, hiding his eyes as the grainy figure on the screen hit the girl in the rear.
“Sick,” Charlie said.
“It’s going to get worse than this,” the Sheriff said. “You sure you want to stick around for this?”
“No,” Charlie said. “But I think I should.”
“How long is he going to keep hitting her with that?” Jerry asked, tears forming around his eyes, shining in the reflected light from the image.
“There’s no reason for you to hang around,” George said to him.
“I can take it,” he said. “Wait till you see that footage from Hilda’s park. It’s worse.”
“Finally,” Kurt said. The man left the screen. The girl was passed out. She was no longer standing. She was hanging by her wrists, motionless.
“Shoot, here he comes again,” Charlie said. “Clothes off now.”
“Yeah, same with the other guy,” Kurt said. “This is gonna get rough.”
“C’mon, man, turn around,” Malcolm said.
“Watch, he’s turning now,” the Sheriff said.
“No!” Kurt said, squinting, trying to make out the features. “Don’t you guys recognize him?”
“No,” Jerry said. “Who is it?”
“Howard.”
Chapter 12 – Family Plot
“Howard?” Charlie said. “That doesn’t make sense. He knew we’d find this.”
Kurt had a shocked look on his face, and leaned against the wall, thinking. George shut off the projector.
“I’ll bet Howard didn’t know about the movies still being here,” Jerry said. “If you take those out of the equation, it might make sense that he sent us here.”
“Yeah, if he’s out of the life, it’s like the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head,” Malcolm said. “How hard did he push you guys coming here?”
“Let’s back up a little and think about this,” Kurt said. “He had no idea he’d ever see me again. It’d been years. I haven’t been here since Hilda’s husband died; in fact it’d been several years before that, because Ger was sick for a while.”
“You remembered the place, though, right?” George said.
“Both Kurt and I remembered it,” Charlie said. “On the drive here from Colorado. We thought we would just be overnighting here, and then continuing on to the east a little further.”
“So you guys went to Howard’s truck stop and asked him if it was still open?” Malcolm asked.
“Yes,” Kurt replied. “He said the place was deserted, Scotty was dead, and there were no heirs left to take it over or sell it. He helped grease the skids for us to set up here.”
“How?” Malcolm asked.
“He said that the local government would gladly allow us to take it over,” Kurt said, “as long as we started paying taxes on the place. We sent a team out here and found that it was salvageable, so we made a deal with the locals. It’s actually deeded to us now.”
“Interesting,” Malcolm said. “Been back to the truck stop lately?”
“Dobie went into town to get a fifth wheel hitch for his truck,” Jerry said. “He got the referral from Howard for the place. Don’t know if he stopped by to say hello to Howard or not.”
“Maybe we ought to go pay Howard a visit,” George said.
“Ten to one he’s gone,” Malcolm said.
“Why do you say that?” Kurt asked.
“That job in Kansas City,” Malcolm said. “It’s pretty tough to pull a daylight grab in a busy area by yourself. The girl got snatched a block from the University. You need somebody driving for you while you subdue the victim.”
“You don’t think Howard’s involved? Isn’t he a little old for that?” Kurt asked.
“How old is he?” George asked.
“Oh, about mid-sixties, I’d say,” Kurt said. “About my age.”
“That’s not too old,” Malcolm said. “Need I remind you of your recent battle participation?”
Kurt smiled. “Okay, you’re right. You can’t count us old codgers out.”
“I hope this whole thing isn’t a set up,” Jerry said, a thoughtful look on his face.
“Seems like us showing up was pretty random to me,” Charlie said.
“Oh, it was,” Jerry said. “But remember why Frank had me put those firewalls on everybody’s PCs?”
“Wait, you guys have had a cyber-incursion?” George asked.
“Yeah, and the more I think about it, there’s no way it wasn’t Scott,” Jerry said.
“Why?” Malcolm asked.
“The damn satellite provider put the old IP address back in place when they re-started the internet service for us,” Jerry said. “We didn’t change any settings on the router, either. The service got turned on, and it just worked. The door was wide open for somebody who knew what the address was.”
“And the former owner would know,” Malcolm said, scratching his chin, thinking. “So the question is was it Scott, or was it Howard. Did they get anything?”
“Frank didn’t think so. They were looking around on the clubhouse PC, but we didn’t have anything about this park on there,” Jerry said. “Frank also had encryption on the hard drive.”
“I assume you guys beefed up security since then,” George said.
“Yeah, we got the IP address changed by the satellite provider, put security on the router, and put firewalls on all of the PCs we have, although only a few have even been on the internet connect here. We don’t have Wi-Fi set up yet. Just an Ethernet connection in the clubhouse, and a small hub in the barn that the girls have been using.”
“So only a few people have been on?” George asked. “Who exactly?”
“The PC Frank’s been using, which belongs to Kurt. Jane and Jasmine’s laptops,
Frank’s laptop, and my laptop.”
“The person who broke in got the most important info they needed,” Malcolm said.
“What’s that?” Charlie asked.
“They know somebody is here, and is settled in enough to turn the internet service back on.”
Suddenly George’s phone rang. He answered it.
“George?”
“Yeah. Sam?”
“Yup. Check your drop box.”
“Okay, will do.”
George put his phone back in his pocket. “Sam Hinton. There’s something in my drop box. I’m going to go up top for a few minutes and check it out.”
“What part of St Louis do you want to head for?” Howard asked.
“Get off at South Florissant Rd,” Scotty said, looking at his phone. “Go south to Arnold B Grobman Drive. That’ll put us in the thick of the campus area.”
“Where do we go after we make the grab?”
“East, past old muddy. We’ll have this one for a little while. You ought to like it.”
“You thinking of taking her back to Ohio?”
“No, she won’t last that long, and I want the trail to be there. We’ll do her before we get to Indiana, and take another one when we get to Indianapolis. The last one will be in Columbus, and then you’ll need to high tail it back home.”
“So how is this one going to last longer?”
“We’ll do an overnighter with her. I know a place,” Scotty said.
“Where?”
“Southeast of Troy,” Scotty said. “Abandoned farm that used to belong to my uncle. There’s an old barn on the property. We can pull this rig right in.”
“Old barns have a way of falling down. You see it lately?”
“Yeah, on the way out here,” Scotty said. “Stayed there for a night. Nobody around. It’s in decent shape. If I could get title, I’d grab it and set it up similar to the RV Park in Kansas. I know the house has a basement.”
“Who owns it?”
“My stupid cousin,” he said. “She sold off most of the farm land, but the house and the barn are on land she still owns.”
“Why didn’t she sell that?”
“There’s a family burial plot between the house and the barn. Generations of my family are there going back to the early 1800s. I tried to get her to sell it to me. Even promised to take care of the graves. She wouldn’t do it. It’s not like she ever goes there.”
“Where does she live?” Howard asked.
“Michigan. Runs an old folks home. Probably a racket. She’s a little sketchy.”
“We going to leave the body there?”
“No, Howie, it’ll take a long time for anybody to find it there. I’m thinking the outskirts of Troy.”
“Why don’t you take out the cousin and grab the property?”
“She’s got kids, Howie. It’ll just go to them.”
“Oh. Figures.”
“Actually, if I could get them all in one place, might be worth it,” Scotty said, chuckling. “Always hated her, and the feeling was mutual. I think her mom knew what my dad was up to. Since her mother passed, she’s avoided the family like the plague.”
“Well, you guys are a little dysfunctional,” Howard said, laughing.
“Yeah, I guess,” Scotty said sheepishly.
“What’ve you been doing the past few years, Scotty? I never heard anything.”
“Making money, mostly,” Scotty said. “That job I had in the city. Made a mint. Been socking it away. I won’t have to work again. Ever.”
“Stocks or something, right?”
“Real Estate investing,” he replied. “I suffered through the family life as best I could, but I was playing around with some of my co-workers. Lots of action after hours in the city. Cindy was getting wise. That nuke attack was a gift.”
“So you haven’t killed anybody for a while?”
“Oh, I snuck out every so often,” Scotty said. “I was in Ohio setting up the new place when the war started.”
“You didn’t use the markers, though,” Howard said. “I would’ve seen it.”
“I didn’t use the main markers,” Scotty said, looking over at him and grinning. “Don’t forget, those are clan markers. Not my personal markers.”
“Oh, please,” Howard said.
“Hey, solo is different than the group,” Scotty said. “You know, like there’s the Beatles and then there’s the solo stuff. The solo stuff still has part of the feel of the Beatles, but it’s not the same. There are things missing.”
Both men laughed.
“Yeah, you’re a true artist,” Howard said sarcastically.
“If you know what to look for, there was some connection there. It was subtle, but I made sure that an expert would know. I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on them. Maybe even a little disappointed.”
“Yeah, well, whatever. The news media might not have included any of it, and maybe the cops didn’t want to spell it out to them, either. What were you going to do with Cindy? Just take off?” asked Howard.
“No, I was going to have to off her,” Scotty said. “Think about it. I had all my money in joint accounts. If I disappeared, she would’ve gotten all of it. Hell, she would’ve gotten half of it in a divorce. Neither was acceptable.”
“If she was so suspicious, why didn’t she just leave you?”
“I think the poor dumb bitch actually loved me,” Scotty said. “We were good together in the sack. She could be a real wildcat. That’s worth something, but not half of everything I’ve earned.”
“You are a prince among men,” Howard said, laughing.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much longer till we get to the Troy area?”
“Another couple of hours. It’ll be dark, though.”
“Not a problem.”
George stood outside the barn, listening to the phone messages in his drop box. He had a grim look on his face. He slipped his phone into his pocket and went back down to the dungeon.
“What’s up?” asked Malcolm, when he saw George coming back down.
“General Hogan had a traitor in his ranks,” George said. “That’s what led to his capture.”
“He’s really being held at the base we were thinking?” Jerry asked.
“Sam thinks so,” George said. “The enemy knows about the apps - that much is certain. The only good news is that they don’t appear to have a copy. The General was able to dump his phone before he was taken prisoner. His son recovered it.”
“Ah, so they know it exists, but they might not know that it will search out the new frequency and codes as soon as they change them,” Jerry said, chuckling.
“Yes,” George said. “That’s really the strongest edge we have at this point. Well, that, and the possibility of getting that names file.”
“Are they acting on that info we gave them about the Canadian routes?” asked Charlie.
“No,” George said. “They don’t want the enemy to know that the app still works. At least not yet.”
“You look pretty worried,” Malcolm said. “Why?”
“Sam is almost certain that the enemy knows where the apps came from, and we know now that not everybody working with the enemy has a chip implanted. General Hogan didn’t see this coming. He should have.”
“Shit. So somebody could sneak in here, and we wouldn’t know they were on the enemy’s side,” Charlie said. “That’s been in the back of my mind all along. These folks aren’t stupid. Sounds like we still have a big target on our backs.”
“It’s not that big of a problem,” Jerry said. “We just go back to the way we handled things before. We don’t allow strangers in. We assume they’re bad guys.”
“Sam asked if there was any way we could postpone the wide release of the apps,” George said. “Is there?”
“Nope,” Jerry said. “Frank assumed it was likely that we’d be killed or captured trying to take out the leadership, so he set it up in such a way that he can’t undo it.”
�
�How?” George asked.
“Well, I know the distribution points are many - far and wide - so I suspect he’s got them under user IDs which now have passwords he can’t figure out. It’s probably just as well, anyway.”
“Why do you say that?” George asked.
“He didn’t trust anybody in the government, and neither do I,” Jerry said. “Even if we don’t get all of the leadership, the wide release of these apps will nail them good. It will take their main advantage away.”
“He’s right,” Malcolm said. “I’m glad we can’t stop it. The government isn’t doing the job. They’ve been corrupted. Time for the people to go around them.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what Frank was thinking,” Jerry said.
“Alright, then I’ll put that message into the drop box,” George said, heading for the steps. “We’d better be pretty careful around here. I don’t think the enemy knows where we are yet, but it’s only a matter of time. A squad of five or six guys without chips could cause real problems here.”
George went back outside and sent the reply to his drop box. Then he went over to the workbench in the barn, where Jane, Heidi, and Jasmine were talking.
“How’s it going?” Heidi asked.
“Howard was in the movie,” George said.
“No!” Jane said. She looked at Jasmine, horrified.
“What else?” Heidi asked. “You got something from Sam, didn’t you? I saw with your phone over there. You looked pretty worried.”
“Yeah,” George said. “They think that a traitor in General Hogan’s staff without a chip was responsible for his abduction.”
“Uh oh,” Jasmine said.
“There was some good news,” George said. “Sam doesn’t think they’ve captured the app, so they can’t reverse engineer it. They might think that we can’t see them anymore.”
“After they changed the codes this morning,” Jane said, looking thoughtful. “Good.”
“So what now?” Jasmine asked. “We can’t count on the apps for early warning anymore.”
“Well, it’s not as air-tight as we thought before, so we need to keep our eyes open,” George said. “I wouldn’t worry too much yet, though. Most of the bad guys still have chips. We can still see them. Just the same, I’m glad those Dobermans are wandering around.”