“Don’t sugar coat it, Haskins. Tell me what you really think,” she said with the same level of attitude he’d just given her.
Thompson cracked a smile in the chair next to Haskins, covering his mouth with a hand.
Haskins stood up, sending a sneer at Thompson, who was still trying to hide his amusement. The kid rose from his seat as well.
Wiggins remained in her chair, no longer feeling the need for decorum. Haskins didn’t deserve respect, or any level of civility from her. And she really didn’t care what he thought of her or what he said later behind her back.
“If that will be all, Director?” Haskins asked with a tinge of sarcasm in his words.
“You know where the door is,” she answered, extending her hand in its direction.
The two men promptly disappeared from her office, leaving her with only a single sheet of paper for her trouble. Well that, and a skyrocketing blood pressure problem.
Before she could bat an eye, her desk phone rang. She answered it with a swift hand, taking the receiver from the cradle.
“Wiggins—”
“Director, I have a priority one call for you on the secure line,” her female executive assistant reported.
“Patch it through,” Wiggins told her, figuring it was President Cooper calling for an update.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She waited for the receiver to click, then play a three-note chime to indicate the line was connected and secure. It did.
“Director Wiggins speaking.”
“Hey ya Nancy. It’s your old pal. Miss me?”
She recognized the voice, but the caller wasn’t the President. “Vito? What are doing calling me here? Directly?”
“You said it was urgent and you know I aim to please.”
“But this is a secure line to the White House. How did you get access?”
“I have my ways,” he said in a friendly voice, then chuckled. “You should know by now, there’s no such thing as a completely secure line.”
She didn’t buy his claim. “Nice try, Vito. But I think the answer is much simpler than that. You’re with President Cooper right now, calling from his office.”
“So that’s what you think of my skills?”
“Is that a yes or no?” she asked, wanting to move the conversation along.
“Nah. I’m onboard my private jet, cruising the Atlantic. The view is absolutely amazing from up here. You should really come take a flight with me sometime. I can show you sights your eyes will never believe.”
She didn’t have time for chitchat, nor did she want to indulge the flamboyant recluse. “Do you have something for me or not?”
“Hmm, a bit testy. Sounds like the walls are closing in a bit. Am I right?”
“Sure, you could say that. We’ve got our hands full at the moment, especially me.”
“Then you’ll be happy to hear that I’ve tracked down Hansen for you.”
She smiled, feeling her heartbeat pick up steam. “Where is he?”
“My sources tell me he’s hiding in his Deepwater Research Facility.”
“Where’s it located?”
“Not far from the Bahamas, near the southern line of the Bermuda Triangle.”
“I need you to send me the coordinates, and any available information you may have on this facility.”
“Already on it . . . Streaming now to your cell phone.”
She’d never given him her private cell number, but didn’t want to extend the call any longer than necessary by probing him about it. It was obvious the man had a talented team of computer engineers who could penetrate just about anything. She made a mental note to see if she might be able to hire some of them away from Indigo Technologies at a future date—once the current crisis was over.
Indigo continued, though his voice no longer had its usual exuberance. “But I’m afraid I’ve come up empty with respect to Simon Redfall.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ve managed to locate him on our own.”
“Oh yeah, where’d he turn up? A psych ward somewhere?”
“Lancaster County.”
“Amish country?”
“Yes, on a farm along Bell Tower Lane.”
“Then I take it he’s converting to their way of life?”
“One can only guess.”
“If I could ask, how did you locate him?”
She didn’t want to expose the fact that Haskins’ team had penetrated Indigo’s TravelNet system. She might need to take advantage of the open security hole at a later date. Turnabout was fair play, she thought.
“How is not important, just that we did. Look, I need to run. Thank you for your help, Vito. I definitely owe you one. Just add it to my tab.”
“Any time, Nancy. I’m always available if you need me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
After a haircut and shave from the sixteen-year-old model-wanna-be Dixie, Simon took a long shower and then followed Wicks across the cold, soggy field on foot, heading toward the top of a hill where she’d indicated they’d have the best view of the compound. They were both wearing dark green, waterproof army surplus ponchos and knee-length mud boots as they slogged to the crest.
Once there, Wicks stopped, turned and pointed with red droplets falling from her hoodie, dripping like a curtain of blood in front of her tiny, pushed-up nose.
“Okay, that’s the main house there, obviously. See the window on the upper right, next to the seventy-meter ham radio antenna? That’s the room you slept in.”
“Ham radio? What? No cell phones?”
“Of course not. That’s how they track you, Simon. Wyatt and I only use the radio. Grandpa took out the landlines years ago.”
“You do realize everyone can hear you when you transmit.”
“Yes, we know the frequency is a party line. That’s why we’re careful what we say,” she answered, pointing her finger at one of the buildings. “Now, there’s the barn, the granary, and the stables . . . I know what you’re thinking. It all seems a little close together, right? Given how much space we have?”
“The thought did cross my mind. Plus, if your grandparents were true survivalists, I’d expect to see solar panels, a well house, and a stockpile of steel and other base materials.”
“Well, there’s a lot more down there than meets the eye, including the boneyard you can’t see from here. It’s behind barn number three, where we keep all the metal and junk. The way my grandfather laid things out, our entire complex is mirrored underground. We have living quarters under the house, a granary under the granary, food and supply storage under the barn, and so on. It’s all lined with reinforced concrete and connected by airtight tunnels. Plus we’ve moved our private well underground to secure it from outsiders.”
“Impressive. How large is your aquifer? Did your grandparents ever have it tested?”
“Actually, I paid to have it done once I became the owner.”
“And?”
“Estimates put it at 1.2 million gallons.”
“How deep is the well?”
“Two hundred feet.”
“And you grow your own food?”
“You bet; most of it is just beyond the hill on the right, where the rest of the property flattens out. That’s also where the underground escape tunnel comes out.”
Simon was impressed with her grandparent’s foresight.
Wicks continued. “Plus we have cattle, pigs, goats, and chickens. They’re all in the barn right now because of the rain. We’re pretty much self-sufficient out here with the help of a nearby stream for irrigation of our crops. We only need to go to town for fuel, electronics, and luxury items, basically.”
“Like jawbreakers and lollipops,” he said with a smile.
She seemed to play along in a playful tone. “Is that what you think we are?”
He laughed. “Well, you know what they say. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like duck, then . . .”
Her face turned serious.
“Trust me, we’re all a lot more than what you see on the surface. You need to have a little faith, Simon. Don’t forget, it was us kids who tracked you down and saved your butt.”
He didn’t mean to upset her. “No, you’re absolutely correct. My mistake. I was just kidding around. Please. Go on.”
She took out a pair of binoculars and handed them to Simon. “Here. Check out the fields to the west. Right now we’re getting ready to plant some of our early spring veggies, assuming spring ever comes with all this rain.”
Simon scanned the rolling hills and saw Jazz and Dre, two of the teenagers he’d met earlier, hard at work in the fields, despite the rain. They were covered from head to toe, keeping skin contact down to a minimum.
He let out a partial grin, admiring the layout. Wicks’ grandparents—who were both five years dead, as he’d found out the night before—had planned well on all levels. They’d put Tally’s name on all their financial assets before they died. After that, she and her brother had simply gone on as they had before, not bothering to tell anyone they’d died. Out in rural Amish country, no one was the wiser. By rule, people kept to themselves and minded their own business. No one had seen Old Man Wickie or his wife for years, anyway, so nobody missed them once they’d passed. Good thing, too, since the Wickie kids were underage at the time and the State of Pennsylvania would have stepped in and taken control of everything.
“It’s a shame you’re missing solar,” Simon said, wondering how they could’ve forgotten such an important element of self-sufficiency.
She tapped him on the shoulder. “It’s there. You just need to know where to look. See the huge stand of evergreens to the left of the main house?”
Simon swung the binoculars in the direction she mentioned. “Yep, got it.”
“The trees completely surround sixty-five solar panels, each on a motorized mount that tracks the sun.”
“That’s what, about a five-hundred-foot-run back to the main house?
“Four seventy-five, give or take.”
“What about DC voltage drop?”
She laughed. “It’s all AC voltage, silly. We’re using micro-inverters to convert the DC on each panel to AC. As Mr. Tesla taught Mr. Edison during the Current Wars, alternating current is much more efficient over distance than direct current. At least, that’s what G told me and he’s usually right.”
“Yeah, he seems like a sharp kid.”
“Glad you agree. And the really cool thing, each solar panel is its own independent string. If one of them fails, it doesn’t take all of them down like a traditional solar array. Plus using a bunch of micro-inverters instead of one big central inverter means we don’t have a single point of failure.”
“Except for G,” he quipped.
She laughed, then continued. “Plus we can add more panels anytime we need without having to upgrade a central inverter to handle the additional power.”
“Damn clever, Wicks.”
“I thought you might think so. It’s G’s design.”
“G built this?”
“Yeah. Like I said, the residents of Pandora are more than what they appear to be. G designed everything to be network aware so he can pull up the entire array from his computer and check the power levels and efficiency of each piece of equipment. He can even make firmware adjustments as well as fine tune the sun tracking if need be. I should take you down to the basement next. He could run a small country with what he’s built in his computer lab.”
Simon noticed a string of above-ground power lines cutting across the property. “Are you still connected to the grid?”
“For now, but with the flip of a switch, we can disconnect and be one hundred percent off-grid. We have a huge propane generator, and the solar keeps a ton of deep cycle marine batteries charged for reserve power on the rainy days. Like now.”
“Impressive. I take it the two satellite dishes on top of the house are for TV?”
“Oh yeah, otherwise I’d have a mutiny on my hands. But G also uses them for the Internet. He figured out how to hack into DirecTV’s digital streams for both. Didn’t take him long, either. Couple days and it was up. Now you know what he means when he says his voodoo can’t be stopped.”
“No doubt.”
She lowered her head, and started playing in the mud with the bottom of her foot. “Simon, there’s something I need to ask you.”
“Okay,” he told her, wondering what was about to fly off her lips.
“So far, you haven’t asked us to show you what we found out about Tessa. I know you said earlier that you wanted to move on, but don’t you want to know what it is?”
“Of course I do. I loved her with all my heart. She was my soulmate. But there’s also a part of me that doesn’t want to know.”
“Why?”
“Because I just stood there and let her die. I did nothing to stop what they were about to do. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Not after what she’d done.”
“Okay, I get that, sort of.”
“Now, if it turns out you have evidence that she wasn’t responsible for killing all those people, how could I live with myself for not trying to save her when I had a chance?”
“But how could you have known? Everyone saw the videos and knows what she did. Nobody is going to blame you for not rescuing her.”
“That’s not the point. The point is, when you love someone, you stand by their side no matter what they did or didn’t do. That’s what the for better or for worse means when you take the marriage vows. I got the until death do us part right, but I failed the rest miserably. I failed as a man and as a husband, and honestly, it’s eating me up inside.”
Wicks spoke in a slow, emotional voice. “I understand now; thank you for explaining. It’s sort of like me and Wyatt. We love each other and even though we don’t agree with the other’s actions or decisions, we’re still family, and family is supposed to stick together no matter what.”
“Yes, exactly. Someday when you’re married, you’ll understand the deep bond I shared with my wife. Even though she broke my heart into a million pieces, I never should’ve abandoned her when she needed me most.”
Simon fought back the tears waiting to pour from his eyes. “When Tessa called out for me right before she was killed, I thought my heart was going to explode.”
“I can’t even imagine . . .”
“I’ll never forget that moment for as long as I live. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Every inch of my body hurt and I wanted to die. Truth is, if I’d had a gun on me, I would have stuck it in my mouth and pulled the trigger without a second thought.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Wicks said, rubbing his shoulder gently with her fingers.
Simon was about to give her a hug, but stopped when he saw movement coming from the back of the house. Someone was on a dirt bike, fishtailing and slinging mud everywhere.
“Here comes Diesel,” Tally said, changing the tone and inflection of her words. She must have wanted to change the subject as much as he did.
“Damn, that kid can ride,” Simon told her, watching the youngster power through the countryside like a world-class motocross racer.
“That’s an understatement, plus he can fix just about anything mechanical, too.”
Diesel turned and flew straight up the hill and stopped with a power slide in front of Tally and Simon. He took his helmet off, panting in short breaths.
“What’s up?” Wicks asked him.
“Stretch is on the radio. He says he needs to speak to you immediately.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know for sure, but your brother sounds worried. Or maybe he’s pissed. I can never tell which.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
General Rawlings waited for the runny-nosed cashier with countless piercings covering her ears, face, and neck to hand him the correct change for the twenty dollar bill he’d just given her. His nose drew in a long rush of air. The delicious aroma of the food sitting in front
of him on the counter came drifting in: steaming hot cup of finely brewed coffee, stuffed blueberry scone with a lemon glaze, and a freshly baked raisin bagel, topped with a generous scoop of homemade cinnamon butter.
Twenty minutes ago, he’d decided to take a break from work and slip away from the insanity swirling about his office. His crack team was on top of things and he needed a few minutes to decompress. His favorite spot for a morning break was Belle Mae’s Bread Emporium along the waterfront in DC, not far from the charming boat houses of Barney Circle.
The combination of killer java and freshly baked treats kept him coming back day after day, even in bad weather, like today. And yesterday for that matter. His stomach decided to join the conversation, letting out an extended gurgle, catching the ear of the cashier.
“Sounds like someone is extra hungry today,” young Brittney said with a cute smile, handing him a combination of bills and coins.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said, stuffing the change into his front pocket, never bothering to count it.
“See ya tomorrow, General,” Brittney said, sniffing twice and rubbing her watery eyes and nose. “Hopefully, the rain will stop before then. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
He gave her a friendly nod, grabbed the plastic serving tray, and took his food to a table near the front window, wondering why he hadn’t decided to forgo his usual order after noticing the cashier was sick. Brittney was here because she needed to be—two little mouths to feed at home, if he remembered correctly from past conversations.
That was her excuse, but what was his?
He’d only seen a handful of people on his way to the bakery, meaning he was one of the crazy few—those dumb enough to be out in a dreadful, never-ending storm. Plus, now he was taking a chance on catching the flu from the beautiful high school dropout, something he couldn’t afford. Not with the American people suffocating under a blanket of red, and a lame-duck president demanding answers.
Redfall: Fight for Survival (American Prepper Series Book 1) Page 15