by Mark Goodwin
“Doyle told the Harrisburg paper that the stench of death made it nearly impossible to breath in his building by the end of the second week, despite keeping his windows open and letting in the frigid winds off the East River. According to his report, the city ran out of food in the second day. Doyle had begun keeping a healthy stockpile of food stashed under his bed after Hurricane Sandy swept through the area several years ago. He kept to himself and was able to survive by limiting his daily caloric intake and avoiding the violence in the streets below. Alex Doyle estimated the surviving population of Lower Manhattan to be less than twenty-five percent of its original number. Many of the survivors, he said, were still around because they had adopted a predatory mindset and were willing to do whatever it took to stay alive.
“Doyle watched from his fifth-floor window to pick the perfect time to escape the city. When a skirmish broke out between two rival bands of marauders, he grabbed his backpack and bike, and rushed down the stairs. He headed straight for the Carey Tunnel. With only the small battery-powered light affixed to the front of his bike, he made his way through the mile-long tunnel, which crosses under the East River into Brooklyn. Alex Doyle said he sped past many pitiful souls on the way out of the metropolitan areas. He voiced his pain about not being able to help, but with few resources of his own, there was nothing he could do.
“Many of the small towns between Manhattan and Harrisburg had heavily armed roadblocks. Towns that assisted the first waves of refugees fleeing the cities quickly found themselves short on supplies. Subsequent waves of displaced persons were turned away by town after town.
“When Alex Doyle finally arrived at his destination, he, too, was refused entry into Harrisburg. A deputy working the checkpoint noticed the mannerisms of a fellow Marine in the way Doyle stood and talked. Although they had never met, both men had served at the same base in Kandahar, two years apart. The deputy agreed to escort Doyle to his aunt’s house. Like the rest of the country, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is going through some tough times, but nothing like the post-apocalyptic landscape that Alex Doyle left behind in New York City.”
Ken yelled from downstairs. “Everett, I have to go to town.”
Everett crawled over to the entrance in the floor of the loft and looked down at Ken. “For what?”
“I just made contact with Spindle. He sent me a file that he needs help getting out to the resistance. I have to get into our encrypted email account. I think you’ll want to listen to the file; why don’t you come with me?”
“Can I tag along? I need to check to see if I have any texts from work.” Courtney stood to put a sweater on.
“You’re welcome to come, but you can’t turn your phone on this close to the cabin. We’re only going down to Woodstock.”
“I forward my texts to email. We have to leave our phones in the car at H and M for security purposes. That allowed me to get texts from my work computer.”
Everett grabbed his jacket and stuck the Sig Sauer in the back of his jeans. “Smart. I wish I’d done that. Wonder why we were allowed to bring our phones into the IT facility?”
Courtney winked. “They were using your phones as monitoring devices.”
Everett lowered his brows at the thought of being duped and started down the ladder. “Sounds about right.”
Once down the ladder, Courtney asked, “Is Lisa coming?”
Ken shook his head. “No, but I need to wake her up so she’ll hear if anyone approaches the cabin. I’ll be right back.”
Courtney grabbed the tablet computer and waited by the door. “We haven’t seen anyone up here in three weeks. Don’t you think we can take it easy on the security protocols?”
Everett scowled. “You heard the report on the radio. People are just now starting to get really desperate around the country. Desperate people do desperate things. With every passing day, our odds of an encounter with marauders are going up, not down. If anything, we should think about increasing our level of security.”
Courtney was silent for a moment. “You’re right. I suppose that was just a little wishful thinking.”
Everett hugged her. “It’s okay to do a little wishful thinking, as long as you stay rooted in reality and the threats on the other side of the cabin door.”
Ken returned from waking Lisa. “Let’s go.”
The light drizzle continued outside. Ken ran to the car and unlocked the doors of the Camaro first. Courtney and Everett sprinted close behind.
Once in the car, Ken started the engine. “I’m going to put it in neutral and coast down the mountain to save gas. I have to keep the engine running for the power steering and breaks, but it should help.”
“Good thinking,” Everett commented.
Ken drove to the main road and started the descent into town. “Spindle is hoping we’ll be able to get the audio file out to some resistance leaders.”
Everett crossed his arms and glanced at Ken. “I’m new at this whole thing of conspiring against the government. I might be somewhat less connected with resistance leadership than he might think. Besides, it was my understanding from the Tallmadge Letter that the resistance is decentralized. It sounded like that was part of the strategy. That way, if any one cell was taken down, others wouldn’t be compromised.”
Ken smiled. “You might have more access to the resistance than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who was on your watchlist at the company?”
The suggestion took a minute to register to Everett. “Oh!”
“And who do you think is involved in the resistance?”
The idea was still sinking into Everett’s head. He nodded slowly as he repeated the list of usual suspects. “A hodgepodge of ex-military, patriots, preppers, Christians, Tea party groups, Libertarians, and Constitutionalists!”
Ken kept his eyes on the winding mountain road as the car coasted down the incline. “And we have all of their emails, social media contact info, and groups they’ve donated to.”
Everett processed Ken’s idea. “Yeah, but they aren’t going to be stupid enough to open a file in an email from someone they don’t know.”
Ken tilted his head from side to side as if he were thinking of a solution. “What if . . . we set up a webpage with the recording and just send the URL, so they can navigate directly to it? No chance of an infection by opening a malicious file.”
Everett shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe. We could give it a shot.”
Courtney sat forward from the back seat and stuck her head through the space between the two guys. “Then, only people from you two’s watchlist will get the message. You don’t think someone at the top will figure that out and nail you both to the wall?”
Ken glanced back at her. “Good point!”
Everett thought for a while as he watched the passing scenery of leafless trees. “We could pull some watchlists from the fusion centers using a fake user account. If we pulled the list from the Missouri Information Analysis Center, we wouldn’t even have to think about it. Everyone on their list is exactly the people we want to connect with.”
Courtney snickered. “Oh yeah, when I read the MIAC report, I thought all those groups were a bunch of wackos. It made them sound like people we should be keeping an eye on. Now, we’re sympathizers.”
As they coasted closer to town, Everett placed the battery back in the tablet. “Funny how things change.”
Soon, Ken pulled into the parking lot of one of the hotels they used for Wi-Fi access. He took the tablet as Everett passed it to him and logged into the encrypted email account they’d given to Spindle. He downloaded the file and played it for everyone to listen to.
Everett commented, “So Spindle is connected to the Tallmadge Letter. I knew it!”
Ken logged into his own email using the Tor browser to keep their location from being tracked. “Listen to this. I got an email from work. We’re being called back in.”
“What? How is that going to work?” Everett asked.
“Aegis, aren’t they British?” Courtney asked.
Everett nodded. “I guess it helps to have contractors that speak the same language but won’t have patriotic opinions about a government that has no regard for its constitution. A lot of the American contractors are falling in with the resistance.”
Courtney chuckled. “I can see where that would present a problem.”
Ken continued to give the synopsis of the email. “Aegis will also provide secure transportation to and from the compound. Unfortunately, resources are not available to house and provide for employees’ family members at the current time. This issue will be corrected as soon as possible. Ha! Get this. Family members can be housed at one of the nearby FEMA relief centers until the IT housing facility can be upgraded to provide for their needs.”
“The IT facility sounds like little more than a glorified FEMA camp to me,” Everett said.
Courtney twisted her mouth to one side. “Sounds more like a military base. I’m sure it will be run like one as well. Transportation to and from? I bet getting transportation back out is harder than it sounds.”
Ken looked at Everett. “So?”
“So what?” Everett didn’t get the implied question.
“So what do you think? Are you going back to work?”
“No way! After everything we’ve found out about what the Company is involved in? They completely set these people up. And we’ve been doing their dirty work. We’ve been watching people who had legitimate concerns about the government, and all the while, this corrupt system and the people running it were the real domestic terrorists. I’m not going back.”
Ken put the tablet down. “But we could infiltrate the system from the inside! And, we’d have a paycheck. What are you going to do for work when everything gets put back together?”
Everett looked at Ken like he was growing another head. “A paycheck? What, pray tell, do you think they’ll pay you with? In case you haven’t noticed all the turmoil, we don’t have a functioning currency. And infiltrate the system? Do you remember how closely we were monitored before? It will be ten times stricter than that. And what about Lisa? Are you going to leave her at the cabin or stick her in the FEMA camp? What do you think she’d say about you going back to work for the evil empire? Doesn’t she think this whole thing is part of the anti-Christ, mark of the beast, 666 and all of that?”
Ken crossed his arms and looked out the driver’s side window. “And what’s your plan? Are you going to do the Little-House-on-the-Prairie thing and live out the rest of your days up in that cabin? Whatever happens, however bad it will be working for these guys, they’ll be the ones in charge when the smoke clears. A new currency will be put together. According to Agent Jones, it’s ready to be rolled out as soon as they decide the time is right. I admire your commitment, but be sure you know what you’re signing up for.” Ken paused for a moment and took a breath. “I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I can’t really decide what the right thing to do is.”
Everett lowered his voice. “Sorry I snapped. You’re right; it’s complicated. And I haven’t really thought out a long-term plan, but I know I can’t go back.”
“Do I have any say in this?” Courtney sounded a little annoyed at not being included in the conversation.
Everett turned to look toward the back seat. “Of course you do. What are your thoughts?”
She tucked her chin low and peered up at Everett. “I agree with you; I just wanted to make sure I was still free to have an opinion.”
Everett reached back over the seat and put his hand on her knee. “You’re free to have an opinion.
“First things first. Let’s get a website set up and get that recording out to as many people connected with the resistance as possible. We’ll figure out the future when and if it gets here.”
“Good plan!” Ken picked up the tablet and went to work.
Everett knew everyone had a slightly different idea about how things should go, but he was sure that they were on the same page on the larger issues. Even Lisa agreed with their basic course of action. For now, they were doing what needed to be done, and they’d handle tomorrow when it arrived.
CHAPTER 5
Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
Ron Paul
Noah fought to stay awake. He stood up slowly on the makeshift platform in the loft of David’s barn, which was being used as an observation post. Noah had been manning this position for six hours a day for the past two and a half weeks with no action except the sighting of a few deer, a fox, and three turkeys. Noah practiced keeping his shooting skills sharp on all of them. The deer had been processed into jerky, two of the turkeys had been canned, and the other, along with the fox, had escaped Noah’s sites. The turkey was never seen again, but the fox was likely responsible for the disappearance of David’s best laying hen.
Noah’s shift ran from six in the morning until noon. It was the best shift of all, in his opinion. He could get a good night’s sleep, then get up at five to get ready for his watch. Unless there was game to clean after the shift, Noah had little else to do for the rest of the day. Noah was always very alert in the early morning hours. That was the most likely time to see game. As the morning ebbed on, the chance of any excitement wore thin.
Noah checked his watch. Eleven-thirty, another half hour before Elliot comes up here. Noah surveyed the gray skies and the sparse snowflakes that were falling to the frozen ground. There was very little accumulation. The snow appeared as a dusting of powdered sugar across the ground. Noah was well-dressed for his shift, but the wind coming out of the north was coming through the boards of the barn and piercing the layers of warm clothing. He moved around and did some toe touches, both to generate a little body heat and to ward off the stiffness from having been in the same position for several hours.
Noah sighed deeply. From this vantage point, he could see the small wooden cross that marked Isaiah’s grave. “You were a good friend. I sure wish you were still here.”
Noah had always been an avid Bible reader, but these days he was becoming more of a student. Noah had prepared a short Bible study for the group on the last two Sundays. Everyone appreciated the effort. Even Kevin and Sarah seemed to receive a boost in their morale from the lessons he put together. Noah considered what he would talk about next Sunday. “Hebrews ten would be a good lesson,” he whispered softly to himself. Noah pulled out the small New Testament from his back pocket and turned to the chapter. The short studies he put together were as much for himself as anyone. Somehow, God used the verses Noah needed for his own personal strength to speak to the others in the group as well.
Noah read aloud. “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, ‘He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.’ But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.”
Noah hoped the group wouldn’t get tired of hearing about perseverance and courage, but it was what was on his heart and what he needed to hear for his own edification. He stuck the small Bible back in his pocket and considered the verses he’d just read. He took another peek
at his watch. Ten more minutes. Noah did all he could to keep his mind from going into bad territory, but the long solitary hours on watch did nothing to aid in that endeavor. Christmas is just over a week away. I should be at home with Cassie and Lacy. We should be watching classic Christmas cartoons, wrapping presents, sipping egg nog and enjoying the season. Instead, we’re hiding out like criminals, and we can’t even lay low together. What a miserable situation.
Noah knew better than to indulge this grumbling spirit. He had to change the channel fast or he’d be caught in a vortex of despondency. At least Cassie and Lacy are alive and safe. I’m grateful for that. God, if you keep us safe this Christmas, it’ll be the best gift I could ask for.
He was trusting that Lacy and Cassie were, indeed, alright. There was no way to know for sure. Cellular service was shut down shortly after The Tallmadge Report had been released. The clampdown was intended to quell the insurrections. Likewise, no one could access the Internet unless they worked for DHS, FEMA, or some other agency that was considered vital to national interest.
Noah heard the door close at the house. He glanced at his watch. Elliot is always right on time. I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to be with in this trial. Fighting a revolution is never good, but it sure helps to have a good team.
Elliot appeared at the top of the ladder. “You ready to go get warm?”