The Forgiven The Fallen The Forsaken

by S. M. Armstrong

  Julio yelled, “All clear.”

  Julie and Helen looked at each other and jumped up and ran back into the fifth wheel. When they came out again five minutes later, they had regained their composure. If anyone had noticed, they didn’t say anything.

  One of the shooters was still alive. Julio had his knife out and was cutting on him. “Why are you here? Tell me now!”

  The young man screamed and said, “You killed my brother and my dad. They just wanted food and you killed them.”

  Julie had never seen Julio so angry. He said, “And when I find out who you are I’m going to kill the rest of your family, too.”

  Julie looked around and saw the reason for his rage. Frank and Rita were both down and not moving. She ran over to find them both dead, as she expected.

  She said to Julio. “Let’s get him in a truck and take him into the woods.” She looked over to Helen and said, “Bring me two tampons and a pad.”

  Dave drove a pickup over and they loaded the young man into the bed of the truck. Julie opened the tampons and savagely shoved them into the bullet wounds, saying, "Don't worry, you're not going to bleed to death anytime soon."

  Helen took Julie’s arm and said, “They’ll take care of him.”

  “I want to be there.”

  “But I need you to be with me.”

  Julie hesitated, and then said, “I know, you’re right.”

  Dave, Ann, and Julio slowly drove the shooter out to the woods to help with the slow death he deserved. The screams went on for a couple of hours.

  Rob, Stewart, and Manny took the wrapped the bodies of Frank and Rita in sheets and placed them in the bed of another pickup. Denise took fingerprints of the four men and scanned them to Jim. She soon had copies of most recent driver’s licenses complete with addresses. She printed out maps and had everything prepared by the time the men finished burying the shooters bodies in a pit.

  That night, Rob and his crew went out in four separate teams and, in a period of minutes, destroyed all four houses with incendiary grenades. There were screams from all but one of the houses.

  Once the teams returned, they used the backhoe to dig two graves on the far side of the property, in a place with a beautiful view.

  They buried Frank and Rita the next morning. Frank Jr. was twelve years old and his sister, Amy, was ten. The two were in shock. Stewart's family insisted on taking them in, so the kids soon found themselves living with Uncle Stewart, Aunt Kathy, and their two daughters.

  AUGUST 19th

  The village was silent. Luke and Jamie had spent most of the day in the Airstream. Nothing seemed to help the gloomy feeling. They had even made love a couple of times, but it only helped briefly.

  Finally, they came out of the trailer and joined up with the rest of the group in the commons room. Many of the adults were pouring drinks from a bottle of scotch. They were offered a drink but turned it down. I don’t see how getting falling down drunk would help things, thought Luke.

  He finally did accept a shot to toast to absent companions. Luke choked it down, but wasn’t crazy about the experience. The storytelling started with a story about Frank’s misadventure in a whorehouse in Thailand, long before he met Rita. The story had him and a whole platoon of drunken Marines fighting Thai police the entire way back to the ship. Several of them were laughing so hard tears were coming down.

  Overhead he heard choppers coming in. He ran out to see it landing on the pad. Once the rotors stopped, Uncle Jim, Aunt Susan and their security team stepped out. They walked over and hugged him. He escorted them into the wake, which by now was in full swing. It was if it had been waiting for their arrival to start.

  Late in the evening Jim took Rob aside and said, "I'm worried, Rob."

  "We took care of them. All of them."

  "You burned their families alive. It's a loss of control and you don't lose control."

  Rob was fairly intoxicated. "Nobody kills my people like that. Nobody. This is the way the game is played."

  "And I understand that. I'll talk to Jake and make this go away, but I need you functional. Alright? Can you do that for me?"

  "I'm sorry Jim. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

  Jim put his arm around Rob and helped Denise get him back to their RV and into bed on his abdomen. Afterward, he talked to Denise. "Is he going to be ok?"

  "He's heartbroken over Frank and Rita," said Denise. "I've never seen him like this."

  "I need him functional. Let me know whatever you need."

  She hugged him and said, "Thank you, Jim. I will."

  Jim gathered Susan and his security detail and went back to the helicopter, anxious to get back to Las Vegas.

  CATALINA ISLAND, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

  AUGUST 20th

  For the five girls, it had been months of living hell. When Lisa told a male police officer, Officer Chapman, about the murder of their friend and how they were being held as sex slaves, he told them that people were starving and they should be grateful to be alive. Within a couple of days he was stopping by the house and taking his turn forcing truly sadistic sex on each of the women. Greg thought it was funny.

  Before long, it seemed like half the men in town were stopping in, paying for sex with canned food or whatever they had on hand. Sonya swore she would kill Greg and his friends the first chance they had, but she would have to come up with something special for the police officer who was making it all possible.

  If we could just escape, thought Sonya. The problem was that the women were locked into the master bedroom and bathroom when they weren't under direct watch of the men, and the windows were now covered with bolted 2x4's. There was no chance of removing the barriers without tools.

  They endured, but had no illusions about making it out of the situation alive if they couldn't escape. The problem was that escaping the house wouldn't be enough. The Island was just too small. They had to get back to the mainland. Sonya knew their opportunity would come, if they could just survive long enough.

  FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA

  AUGUST 21st

  Helen and Julie bought the house that they had once used as a lookout for the village. The state and county offices were slowly starting to be filled so it was possible to arrange for property transfers. The funny thing was that the owner of the house actually had survived and was among the forgiven in Phoenix. They flew down to meet him. When they offered him double the cash value of the land, he was thrilled to accept.

  After they bought the house they told him of how they used the house as a lookout point and how it served to let them give enough warning to save everyone on the day of the tank incident. He looked thoughtful and said, “It saved the president’s life. How about that!”

  Jake had been voted in as the mayor of Flagstaff and was doing a superb job, according to all of the residents they talked to. He helped them with the paperwork on the house even though it was outside of city limits. “I’m kind of doubling up and taking care of the county as well,” he said, sheepishly.

  Helen said, “Be careful or they’ll make you governor.”

  He didn’t look like he thought it was funny.

  After discussing it with Rob, they decided to buy the final property that Simmons had mentioned in Washington state. After Frank and Rita, Rob had no interest in the property, nor did the rest of his team. Julio said something about greed getting you killed and having enough already. Matt, Luke, Jamie, and Ricky were bored enough to be interested, though they had more than enough money. Dave agreed to come along to handle the explosives and, "So you youngsters don't go and get yourselves dead."

  WASHINGTON STATE

  AUGUST 23rd

  They first reviewed satellite pictures to make sure there was an airstrip. Helen flew the group up in the Navajo Chieftain to check out the property.

  They followed Rob’s example and flew over the site with infrared gear about an hour before daylight and saw no evidence of any presence there. After circling around the area till daylight, the
y landed on the airstrip.

  Exploring the site, they quickly came to the conclusion that the guards had helped themselves to the warehouses and had mostly cleaned them out before leaving. The hangars weren’t big enough for missiles, so they weren’t worried about that part of it.

  Helen looked around and said, “By now the guards are three states away and they aren’t ever coming back.”

  Julie kissed her and said, “Let’s buy it!” Having a good idea of the pattern, it took them less than half an hour to find the vault’s location.

  They left it buried and flew into the regional airport. An hour later they met with a representative from the county who had been assigned to them by the governor. In only a short period of time it was determined that the registered owner never existed therefore could not be located. By the end of the day, they had the deed to the property.

  The group was ecstatic. Julie and Helen bought two tractor trailers and a tractor bulldozer/backhoe. People were so happy to get the cash that they sold them for a song. Matt said, “That will change soon.”

  The difficult part was finding a rough terrain bull dozer, but they finally did after a full day of looking. Helen said, “Thank God!” Julie just laughed.

  AUGUST 24th

  The next morning, the trucks left well before dark and Helen and Julie flew over the site again with infrared just before daylight. The only life they saw was a large deer.

  They called in the all clear and soon the trucks were driving up to the runway. It took less than an hour to unearth the door and another twenty minutes to carefully set the charges. Dave blew the door off hoping to find gold. Instead, they found a 40 foot deep vault filled with palates of cash.

  All of them just stared at the cash. It was insane. A week before it would have been useless. Now it was more than they could imagine. They counted twenty palates, all filled with $100 bills.

  "There must be a couple of billion dollars there," said Helen. That's completely insane."

  They loaded the cash into the front half of the trailers and covered it with tarps. Behind that they loaded the forklift into the rear of the first trailer.

  Jamie quickly covered the vault back up with dirt then loaded drove the tractor backhoe up into the back of the second trailer. Matt placed a sign over the site of the vault that said "Kilroy was here," and drew the famous picture of the eyes and nose poking over a line. Julie rolled her eyes, but Helen thought it was funny.

  Jamie and Luke took one semi and Matt and Ricky jumped into the other. Helen and Julie got into the plane, carefully stepping around the bags of money they had thrown in there. After less than four hours on property, they were now on their way again, heading back to flagstaff.

  The plane would skip ahead to the next location where they knew they could get fuel, and get airborne again after refueling and a quick break. They kept this up until just before dark, which put them well out of Washington.

  Julie and Helen spent the night at a small airport after refueling. The rest of the group decided to push on through the night, with one driver sleeping and the other driving. About 4AM they decided to stop for a few hours of solid sleep.

  AUGUST 25th, ON THE WAY BACK TO FLAGSTAFF

  Julie and Helen woke up with the daylight and were airborne not much later. It took a couple of hours to catch up to the trucks. Julie was surprised at how far they had gotten but she could tell that something was wrong. She called on the sat phone.

  Luke answered. “We sure are glad to see you! We lost the transmission on the lead truck. We need to combine the load into one truck but we need a pair of eyes on lookout.”

  Julie thought for a moment and scanned the road ahead. “Can the damaged truck run at all?”

  Luke said, “Yes, but it’s ugly.”

  “Good. If you can make it one half mile ahead, there’s a large open space. Park there and sit tight. We'll find another truck for you.

  “Thanks, sis! That’s perfect!”

  “We have to go in for fuel, but we’ll be back soon.”

  “Be safe.”

  They flew on to the next airport and paid far too much for the aviation fuel. The clerk there apologized, saying, “We don’t get a lot of it up this way, unfortunately.”

  Julie tipped him and asked, “Do you know where I can get a working semi around here?”

  He snorted and said, “You don’t ask for much, do you?”

  She said, “I’m serious. I’d like to buy one for cash.” She could see the wheels turning in his head turning.

  He got on a CB radio and said, “Hey Ron. It’s Skeeter. You out there?”

  After a moment a voice came through. “Yeah. Skeeter. Go ahead.”

  Helen asked, “Skeeter?”

  He shrugged. “Pops always called me that for some reason. Just stuck, I guess.”

  “Hey Ron, can you come out to the airport with Big Red? I got some folks interested in buying it.”

  “Not for sale, bro.”

  “Come on out anyway. Beer’s on my guests.” He raised his eyebrows at them and Helen gave him a thumbs up.”

  “Now why didn’t you say so?! I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “That’ll be twenty dollars for the beer.”

  She handed him a hundred and said, “Then you two should get good and shit faced tonight. That should get you warmed up.”

  Ron was everything they would expect from a friend of Skeeter. He walked in and said, “Hello, pretty things.”

  Helen shook his hand and said, “We’d like buy your truck.”

  “Ain’t for sale.” Skeeter handed him a beer. “Besides, money’s no good now anywho.”

  Skeeter jumped in and said, “That’s not exactly true, Ron. Radio says they’re using cash again and President Jim is backing it so it’s real.”

  Julie asked him, “What do you know about Uncle Jim?”

  “Uncle?” Skeeter asked.

  “That’s what they call him in Arizona,” said Helen.

  “Oh, well he’s a good guy and one tough son of a bitch. The guy took out a tank that was coming for him just by digging a ditch. They had to trick him into being president. How bad-ass is that?”

  Julie dialed her phone while he talked. When Jim picked up she said, “Hi Uncle Jim! Oh, we’re half way back to Flagstaff and one of the trucks died so I’m trying to buy another one. Relax, we’re safe. She’s here. I will. Anyway, could you talk to my friends here, Skeeter and Ron?”

  She handed the phone over to Skeeter, who took it and said, “Hello?” He listened for a moment and said, “Oh my God. It is you! I was just tellin’ Julie about that tank thing. What?! She was there?! Of course we’ll help them out! I was just tellin’ Ron that money is good again. Okay!”

  Skeeter handed the phone to Ron. “Uh, hi Uncle Jim? Yes sir. It’s just that I love that truck. Oh. Okay. Thank you President Uncle Jim! Okay, sir, here she is.”

  Julie took the phone and said, “So? Ha! Me too! Okay, we’ll make that happen. Give Aunt Susan a hug for me! Oh, here she is.”

  Julie handed the phone to Helen. She picked up the phone, “Hi Uncle President! No we haven’t discussed it. Of course you’re right. Come on! I know you’re the big cheese and all, but I don’t think now is the time to be discussing it. It’s just too soon. Alright, I’ll take care of it. I promise. But this is going to cost you; I don’t care if you are POTUS. Yes, we’ll be there for Thanksgiving already! Love you too, Uncle Jim!”

  “Holy crap! I didn’t think he’d ever let me off the phone,” said Helen. “And by the way, we’re going to the Rio for Thanksgiving, Julie.”

  Skeeter said, “Hey, that really is your real uncle, isn’t it!” Julie nodded. “Far out!”

  Helen said, “Okay, guys. Here’s the deal. We buy the truck from you and the rest of our group picks it up on the way through here. Then you fly with us back to Flagstaff and we give you back the truck for free, ‘cause that’s what Uncle Jim said to do and we already have extra trucks there. Does that so
und good? And if anything happens to yours we’ll get you one just as good or better.”

  Ron looked at her and said, “Wow! Yes! We could drive it for you.”

  “More people than seats.”

  Her phone rang. “Excuse me, folks.”

  She saw it was Luke and answered it. “What’s up?”

  “We're leaving Dave to guard the broken truck and the rest of us are heading your way."

  I’ve bought a rig here for you, too, but I have no idea how reliable it will be. Hopefully it will get us home.”

  Luke said, “That sounds good. Is the airport off the main road?”

  “Left side just after you pass through town.”

  “See you soon.”

  About a half hour later, the rig pulled up in front of the airport office. Helen had gone out to the plane to stow the bags of money in storage and to get out the payment for Ron. She decided she liked the two so she pulled out $200,000 for Ron and a $50,000 finder’s fee for Skeeter.

  She walked back in and paid them. Both of them looked like they were ready to fall over. She said, “Uncle Jim likes you and this really is a tight spot that we’re in, so he said to pay extra. I would ask that you don’t tell anyone how much we paid you. That much cash in your pocket can get you killed if you tell the wrong person about it. Understand?” They both nodded.

  Julie said, “We’re going to be flying lookout for the trucks so you guys will get bored. You need anything?” They shook their heads no. Okay, we’re two days into Flagstaff, so grab whatever munchies you need. Remember, there’s no bathroom on the plane, so beer can be a bad thing. We’ll have plenty in Flagstaff.”

  The whole group was waiting for them outside. Ron handed over the keys and pulled his things out of the truck while everyone cycled through the bathrooms.

  "We're going back for Dave and the other trailer," Matt said and he and Ricky jumped in the truck. "See you in about an hour."

  Skeeter looked at Jamie and Luke and said, “Wait. You’re Luke and Jamie. I can’t believe it.”

  Luke laughed, and said, “And right now I gotta’ piss like a race horse, so give me a minute.”