by Robert Boren
Trish and Terry were in their trailer, laying on their backs, next to each other, still breathing hard, coming down.
“Oh, my God,” Trish said, sounding short of breath. She looked over at Terry and giggled. “I think I picked the right guy.”
Terry just looked over at her and smiled, then reached for her, turning on his side. He kissed her cheek lightly. He pushed her hair out of her eyes, and looked at her, feeling the comfort of her love flow over him.
“You aren’t going to say anything?” Trish asked him.
“Do I need to?” he asked softly. “I’ve never felt like this with a woman, ever. Not even close.”
“Really?” she asked, focused on his eyes. “I’ve never been like that before.”
“Like what,” he asked, teasing her. She got an embarrassed look on her face.
“Don’t make me talk about it.”
“Why not?” Terry asked, pulling her closer to himself, kissing the side of her face more. He caressed her, and she sighed.
“I was out of control,” she whispered. “There was only you and me.”
He moved against her closer, caressing her softly, kissing his way to her mouth. Her brow furrowed, and her breath quickened.
“You’re not done yet, are you?” she asked.
He didn’t answer her.
Back in the dungeon, Jane, Jasmine, and Dobie continued to carefully look around by the work bench. They found the drawer full of teeth, which nearly caused Jasmine to vomit. The drawer below that was empty, but they already knew that the driver’s licenses were in there. The next drawer had a collection of small plastic bags with locks of hair. There were more than twenty two of them. The real prize was in the bottom drawer. There was an illustrated diary, starting all the way back in the early 1960s. There were descriptions of each victim, how the abduction was done, what torture was used, and how the victim died. Most of the entries had crude drawings. Some of them also had names and addresses of other family members. They were printed on small strips of paper and taped in the margins, or under the entries. Jane looked closely at these.
“See these,” Jane said to Jasmine and Dobie, pointing at one of the slips. “That looks like an ink jet printer. Somebody was doing this recently, even for the early killings.”
“Ink jet printers didn’t get popular until the late 90s,” Dobie said. “Was this person planning on going after the relatives of the victims, or are these just another kind of trophy?”
“Good question,” Jane said. “I didn’t see anything in my research that said other family members became victims.”
“Any mention of Scott or Earl in that book?” Jasmine asked.
“Nope, everything is either ‘I’ or ‘we’,” Jane said, “at least so far. It’ll take hours to go through this book completely, though.”
“There’s more drawers over on this end,” Dobie said, pointing. He pulled the top one open. “Oh, crap.”
“What?” Jasmine asked, walking over. She looked into the drawer, then put her hand over her mouth, ran over to the side of the room with open dirt, and threw up.
“What’s in there?” Jane asked.
“Pictures of victims,” Dobie said. “They’re pretty bad. Polaroid shots…real early ones, in black and white, and a bunch of faded color snapshots from the later front-eject Polaroid cameras.” He looked closer. “Oh, and some SD cards, too.”
Jasmine walked back over to where Jane was. “Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have looked at those.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jane said. “Could have been caused by your current condition somewhat too, you know.”
“Yeah, maybe. I wouldn’t look at those if I were you, though.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Jane said. “Let’s go look in those cells. Maybe there’s some graffiti.”
“Good idea,” Jasmine said. They walked over to the first cell and opened the door. It creaked.
Dobie opened another drawer. “VHS tapes,” he said. “Wonder if anybody has a VCR?”
Jane and Jasmine looked at each other, and almost in unison, said “Hope not.” Dobie shrugged his shoulders, and opened the next drawer.
“Oh, gross,” he said. He shut the drawer quickly.
“What was in there?” Jane asked.
“Don’t ask,” he said
“C’mon, how worse can it be than this other stuff,” Jane said.
“Used condoms, labeled,” Dobie said.
“Ewwww,” Jasmine said. “What kind of a freak would save stuff like that?”
“What kind of a freak would torture women and kill them? Let’s keep this in perspective.” Dobie said.
“He’s got a point,” Jane said. She pulled out her cellphone and turned on the flashlight app. She very slowly went over the wall, inch by inch. It was made of red brick, un-painted.
“Maybe I should go do the other cell,” Jasmin said. “This is going to take a while.” Jane nodded, and Jasmine went to the other cell and pulled the door open. She started doing the same thing as Jane.
Dobie walked over to the embalmer’s table and started looking closely. There were cabinets under it. He opened the first one. There was a black bag in there. He pulled it out carefully and looked inside. It was a video camera. “Here’s the VHS camera,” he said, “and more tapes. Also some Super 8 film reels.
“Well, if we can get it working, we could watch the VHS tapes,” Jane said.
“Not we,” Jasmine said. “No way am I looking at those.”
“Here’s something,” Dobie said, after he opened the next cabinet door. He brought up a plastic bin.
“What’s in there?” Jasmine asked.
“Jewelry, hair clips, and several cell phones,” he said, “and other assorted details. There’s a few employee badges, too. One for a hospital, and a couple for the grocery store. One from a coffee shop…oh, gross.”
“Uh oh, what now?” Jasmine asked.
“Fingernails. Bloody. Pulled out.” He had a grim look on his face. “I think I need to get out of here now. This is getting to me.” He put the bin back in the cabinet and climbed the ladder.
“You seeing anything?” Jasmine asked.
“Not yet…almost done. I need to get out of here pretty soon, too. The vibe in here is really bad, and the smell is starting to get to me.”
“I know, me too,” Jasmine replied. “Maybe we can come back to this later.”
“Wonder if these beds move?” Jane asked. She pulled, and the metal legs of the bed scraped across the floor. She shined her light on the wall where the bed was. “Bingo!”
“What? What did you find?” Jasmine asked, next to Jane now, looking over her shoulder.
“Message scratched in, see,” Jane said, pointing. Jasmine got close.
“Scotty did it,” Jasmine read. “There it is.”
Chapter 13 – App Upgrades
Jasmine and Jane climbed out of the trap door, and walked over to the bar.
“Well?” Kurt asked.
“There’s a treasure trove of evidence down there,” Jane said.
“Yeah, Dobie told us what he found,” Kurt said. “Find the connections you were looking for?”
“Well, we got a start,” Jasmine said. “Somebody scratched a message in the brick wall behind the bed in the first cell.”
“What’d it say?” Kurt asked.
“Scotty did it,” Jane said.
Dobie was sitting at the couch, with Princess sitting next to him. He didn’t look good. Jane noticed.
“You okay over there, Dobie?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be alright, but I’m worried. What if the son is still alive?”
“Didn’t Howard say he was killed in the New York Harbor attack?” Gabe asked.
“Yeah,” Kurt said. “The question is-was he just assuming that because of where he may have been living?”
“Wonder if it’s possible to find out?” Charlie asked. “I mean, was his whole neighborhood incinerated, or were there
bodies?”
“Not sure how we can find that out,” Kurt said.
“I’ll give it a try,” Jasmine said. “There might be confirmed death rolls published by now.”
“Probably going to be a lot of ‘presumed dead’ entries,” Dobie said.
“We’ll see,” Jane said.
Jerry came down the steps and walked over to Jasmine. “Are you doing okay?” he asked.
“Why?” she asked, seeing the concern on his face.
“You’ve been down in the dungeon,” he said.
“Oh, that,” she said. “I finally had to get out of there. I ended up barfing after I saw some pictures in one of the drawers. It was a little embarrassing.”
“You don’t look upset,” he said.
“I think I’m okay, but I wouldn’t want to go through the pictures or the VHS tapes we found down there.”
“There were tapes too?” Jerry asked. He shook his head in disgust. “Did you find out what you needed to?”
“Yeah, the son was in on it,” she replied. “There was graffiti in one of the cells with his name. It was well hidden, but Jane found it.”
“Oh,” Jerry said. “And we don’t know for sure if he’s dead or alive, is that it?”
“Yep. I’ll see if I can find some info on the net that lists out the confirmed dead from the New York Harbor attack. That’s my next step.”
“How about you, Jane?” he asked.
“I’m going to start scouring the net for similar crimes in the New York/New Jersey area,” Jane said.
“No, I meant how are you doing?” Jerry said.
“Oh,” Jane said, smiling at him. “I’m alright. Thanks for asking.”
He nodded.
“How’s Frank doing?” Jane asked. “I assume you’ve been up there with him.”
“He’s debugging app updates now, which will show label data. Rank and country number.”
“No names yet?” she asked.
“Not yet. The enemy system has layers of protection. He’s still working on that, but he’s thinking that rank might actually be enough.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s something. I hope he gets done pretty quickly. We’re going run out of time.”
“I know, and he’s worried about it,” Jerry said. “He’s going to call me when the debugging is done, and then I’ll go help with testing and loading devices.”
Terry and Trish sat at the dinette table in their trailer, looking at each other, smiling.
“How about kids?” Terry asked.
“You want kids, right?” she asked. “I hope so.”
“Yes,” Terry said. “Why?”
“Because I’m not on birth control, silly,” she said.
“Oh,” he said, grinning at her. “So you want to let nature take its course, then? You aren’t worried about being pregnant in this crazy world?”
“It’s not going to be crazy forever,” she said. “It just feels right. I can’t really explain it – but we should still spend some time thinking about it, and talking about it. I won’t be in my most fertile time for a while yet.”
“Jasmine’s pregnant, you know,” Terry said.
“I heard,” Trish said. “She’s up against the biological clock.”
“Yeah, but you’re not,” Terry said, smiling.
“Nope. I should be able to pop them out one after another for quite a few years,” she said.
Terry laughed. “Sounds like we’re going to be busy.”
“I just hope we survive this,” she said. “If so, growing old with our children gathered around us is a nice thought.”
“Yes, it is,” he said. “I’d probably better get busy.”
“The trailer’s pretty much done. What else do you have to do?”
“We’re going to have to get these trailers road-worthy,” Terry said. “You know we’ll have to move after we let the authorities know about the dungeon.”
“Oh, that,” she said. “You’re right. How much is it going to need?”
“New tires, maybe new bearings, and probably some other maintenance. I don’t think this thing has been moved in a mighty long time.”
“Same with the other trailers,” she said.
“Yeah,” Terry said. “Gabe asked me to come up with tire sizes and some other stuff.”
“Okay, husband, you’d better go do that, then.”
Terry nodded, kissed her forehead, and went outside to record the info.
Back in the clubhouse, Frank was finishing up with the debugging. He picked up his phone and called Jerry, asking him to come over, then put it down, and got ready to load the updates onto it.
Jerry walked in a couple of minutes later, with Jane and Jasmine.
“Hi, honey,” Jane said, walking up. “You doing alright?” Hungry?”
“No, I’m good,” Frank said. “We’re about ready test the new PC app. Then the phone apps. I’m loading my phone now.”
“I heard you don’t have names yet,” she said.
“Nope, not yet, but we do have rank and country code. That might be enough. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any level 1 or 2 folks around.”
“You ready, Frank?” Jerry asked.
“In a sec, my phone is almost done loading. Then I’ll disconnect it and try the PC app. Gather round.”
Jerry and Jasmine got next to Jane, and they all looked over Frank’s shoulder at the monitor. The app load finished, so Frank unplugged the phones USB cord, and slid his phone over a little ways. Then he clicked on the PC app, and waited for it to load.
“Okay, let’s take a look at Denver,” Frank said. He navigated the map to Denver. Many icons showed up on the western side of town. He zoomed in far enough to see individual icons. They were on top of each other in the areas of heavy population, but you could click through them.
“Looks like mostly level 15,” Jerry said. “Garden variety Islamist jerk weeds.”
“Watch this,” Frank said. He made an adjustment to the settings near the top of the screen. He filtered to rank 10. The number of icons went way down, but there were still a lot of them on the screen. There were a few with country code 1, but most were 11s and 14s.
“Country code 1 is the USA, correct?” Jane asked.
“Yeah,” Frank said.
“Filter to a higher rank,” Jerry said. Frank changed the filter to 5. Now there were only about 10 icons left on the screen. Most of them were country code 1.
“Damn traitors,” Jerry said vindictively. Jasmine put her hand on his shoulder.
“How about rank 1?” Jane asked.
Frank adjusted the filter. All of the icons disappeared.
“Interesting,” Frank said. “None of the top guys are there.”
“Go up rank by rank, and let’s see who’s running things,” Jane said. Frank nodded.
“Here’s rank 2,” Frank said. He made the change. Still no icons.
“No dice,” Jerry said.
“Alright, then rank 3, same as Simon Orr,” Frank said. He made the change. One icon popped up on the screen, to the extreme west end of the Denver area.
“Figures. He’s way back there,” Jerry said, laughing.
“Let’s see how many have rank 4, while we’re here,” Frank said. He changed the filter, and only four icons showed up, spaced in roughly the four corners of where the large group of icons had been.
“They’re using the chips for placement, that’s for sure,” Jerry said. “Look at that. Classic.”
“Just as we figured,” Frank said.
“Why don’t you zoom way back with level 3…let’s see where the Simon Orr level folks are,” Jane said. “Can we do that?”
“Of course,” Frank said. He zoomed out far enough to see the entire southwest portion of the USA. There were clusters of level three icons in several places…the major cities of Arizona, around the Grand Canyon, western New Mexico, and southern Utah. The biggest clump was in Capitol Reef.
“Look, we were right about
where headquarters is,” Jerry said, chuckling. “Still Capitol Reef.”
“Yeah, looks like the militia is still hanging out by the Grand Canyon, too,” Frank said. “Most of those icons have country code 1.”
“Dial it back to 2,” Jane said.
“Just what I was thinking,” Frank said. He made the adjustment, and most of the icons dropped off. There were two around the Grand Canyon, one in Flagstaff, and four in the Capitol Reef area.
“Might as well go down to rank 1 and see where those guys are,” Jerry said. Frank nodded and made the adjustment. All but one icon dropped off, and it was at Capitol Reef.
“Only one?” I expected at least three,” Frank said. “At least we know there’s a high level person at the hideout we know about.”
“Yeah, and look at the country code,” Jerry said. “It’s the same one that most of the Islamists have. That’s probably Saladin.”
“Probably,” Frank said.
“Where are the others?” Jane asked.
“Oh, I think there are several possibilities,” Frank said.
“What are they?” Jasmine asked.
“Well, they could be in an area with no cell coverage. Remember that we can’t see those with the long range app, because it depends on cell coverage.”
“Okay,” Jane said.
“We also might not understand their structure well enough,” Frank continued. “Maybe Saladin is the only level 1, and the other people we think are leaders could be rank 2.”
“Good point, but I’d be surprised if there are as many as we saw,” Jerry said.
“There’s also another possibility,” Jane said. “You’re only on the southwest. You need to move it around. They might be in western Colorado, for example, or further south in that state. They also might be in DC, or in Mexico, or along the Canadian Border.”
“Or they might have removed their chips,” Frank said.
“Hope not,” Jerry said.
“I’ll check the parts of Colorado we can’t see here, and then get started at upgrading everybody’s apps,” Frank said. He moved the map over.
“Crap,” Jerry said. “Look. There’s a 1 and a 2 at that air force base we’ve been watching for a while.”