“Hey,” Bru countered. “Why don’t you check out the stockyard.”
“What’s that?”
“Down in the basement of the tower,” Bru continued. “Some of the guys have set up a trading area. I think they sell stuff they found while they were cleaning out the buildings. Some of it is crap they brought with them and don’t need anymore. Some of it looks like it was lifted from liberated buildings.”
“Looting?” John shot back. “I don’t think so.”
“Aw, come on. No one’s coming back for any of it.”
“Says who?” John angrily replied. “That’s someone’s property.”
“Hey,” Bru countered. “I’m uncomfortable with it too. But the brass doesn’t mind, and all the DHS guys are involved. From what I hear, any residence in the downtown area is now the property of the federal government. At least until the crisis is over.”
“Jesus,” John said to no one in particular.
He turned to speak to Bru and looked over his partner’s shoulder. There, on the pillar, was a white chalkmark “J”.
Crap, John thought. What happened now? Can’t those clowns just live quietly for a day and not get into trouble? I mean I promised to get there by 8:00 tonight.
He continued to stare at the marking, wondering what he had gotten himself into. The four of them had been on his mind all day. John kept reviewing what they had told him and tried to punch holes in their story. Quite frankly, if it hadn’t been for Beth, he would have turned them all over to DHS for refugee processing. Who would have believed their story about the gang members and their flight from the roadblock? John had heard plenty of tall tales during his stint with OPD, but knowing Beth, and listening to big Mike, he knew they were telling the truth. Beth’s tale of Mike’s heroics was both awe inspiring and a bit over the top. John had to wonder if the situation wasn’t quite as bad as they had made it out to be. After all, John’s only contact with Beth had been during suspect processing at the jail. What did he really know about the two of them? He realized that he needed to be very careful with whom he trusted and what he did. Seeing the mark, John began to regret getting involved.
I need to verify some of these facts! John thought. If half of what they say is true, then this country has more problems on its hands than the EMP. The wrong people are rebuilding the country and that can’t be good.
“HEY!” Bru said as he poked John in the vest. “Wake up. I want to check in, get out of this gear and get back to the tower.”
“Sure thing,” John replied.
The end of the shift at DHS headquarters felt a lot like the end of the day at the old-time factories found in the Midwest during the height of America’s economic dominance. During the 1970’s, huge numbers of employees were entering and leaving the factories as the day shift left and the next shift took over. Homeland Security didn’t have the manpower to cover the second and third shift with any level of competence. Most importantly however, their mission didn’t seem to require any evening work. However, every agent could be seen coming back “to the barn” between four and six o’clock.
As far as the agency’s mission was concerned, DHS wasn’t concerned with the safety of the citizens. It was tasked with rounding them all up and putting them into a controlled environment where their safety could be best monitored and enforced. At least, that’s what his shift supervisor had proclaimed that morning. Thus, second and third shift work was considered unnecessary. It was far easier to find and relocate people during the day. Safer as well.
“Find ‘em and bring ‘em in!” The tall, lanky supervisor said in his Alabama drawl.
John and Bru were given pamphlets that morning which explained the facilities and services DHS offered at one of their “premier citizen camps.” The brochure described an idealistic tent city with hot running water, three meals a day and activities to keep the people informed and entertained. It promised medical and dental care as well, all in exchange for a citizen’s participation in the recovery.
John was amazed that such a polished piece of propaganda was produced so quickly, but most of the rapid response to the crisis belied his prior experiences with the federal government. The Marines had been considered unusual in that they did things with an efficiency that rivaled most of the largest private corporations. The rest of his experience with the federal government had always left him wondering how the country survived the incompetence and waste.
“We may be bad, but the rest of the world is worse!” He used to hear when he made such observations.
John’s first thought when hearing that rationale was that the U.S. government was simply a rubber life raft floating on top of the water in the commode. Whether floating or swimming in the cesspool, you were still in the toilet as far as John was concerned.
John quickly filed his end-of-shift report, including encounters with dozens of families or groups who were trying to make a go of it in the west Orlando neighborhoods. Handing out the pamphlets had been a God-send. Once the refugees saw the potential of the citizen camps, they were all in. A regular bus route had been created with pick-up points at various landmarks and businesses. Instructions on what was and was not permissible to bring were included with the information John and Bru had passed along. A single “carry-on” sized bag was recommended as a good size to bring. The instructions also warned the refugee that their suitcase/baggage would be disposed of if it exceeded the 10 x 14 x 24-inch limit. Although that caused some issues, John simply referred them to the camp director when they arrived.
“I’m just a cop,” he would say. “Not my department.”
“You heading back to the tower?” Bru asked.
“Yeah,” John said. “But I want to run some additional brochures out to the M-ATV before I head over. Why don’t you go ahead and I’ll see you there!”
“Sounds good. I’ll be in my apartment. Stop by if you want some company for dinner.”
“Copy that!” John said back.
John grabbed another box of the pamphlets and headed to the vehicle. After depositing the material in the back seat, he re-locked the door and casually strolled east to the apartment building where he had directed Charlie and her friends.
As he approached the apartment complex, he studied the cluster of buildings where Charlie had taken refuge. The muted pastel concrete rectangular boxes were reminiscent of some of the more mundane government buildings he had seen on one of his trips into Washington. The apartments reeked of efficiency and uniformity, their façade broken up with off-white triangles arranged in patterns that he could only describe as a geometric, post-modern mess. They were placed with no discernable meaning or structure. Had you told John that the large triangular tiles had been put there by a child, he would not have been surprised. As far as John was concerned, the “City Beautiful,” as Orlando had called itself, deserved a better looking addition to its growing skyline than these glorified boxes.
Drosky approached the front door, suddenly realizing that he had no way of entering the structure and thus, no method to contact the group. He began to circumnavigate the apartment, heading south to see if he could be noticed from whichever apartment the four of them had decided to hold up in.
“John!” A woman’s voice whispered from a stairwell that dropped down to a service door.
Charlie’s head popped up from the recessed steps. She waved him over and disappeared into the sub-level entrance.
John entered the dark room, struggling to see as the door closed behind him. Within a moment, a flashlight illuminated the floor at his feet, and Charlie appeared along with another man John didn’t recognize.
“Hello,” John said to the new man.
“Hello to you,” he replied.
“Well,” John continued to the pair. “What’s the emergency?”
“Just follow me,” Charlie said. “We�
��ll explain everything upstairs.”
John followed them up the stairwell and to the third floor. They made their way down the hallway until they approached an apartment where there was muted conversation coming from within. Charlie nodded to the man and he went ahead into the occupied room. Charlie put her hand on John’s chest, preventing him from entering the room.
“I need to let you know what happened last night,” she started.
“Will it explain why you had me come now instead of in a few more hours? I’m starving and could use a shower.”
“Yeah,” Charlie replied. “You’ll get it when I’m done.”
John sat in disbelief after Charlie had related their plight the past night and day. He could see that Janice was suffering from some level of P.T.S.D., but seemed to be functioning. Whatever she was experiencing, John knew from his training in the Marines that it could resurface at a later date. Discussion of Brie’s body in front of Janice was off limits, so he directed his attention to their most immediate problem, the security of the building.
“I’m so sorry about the agents you had to hide from today,” John started. “I had no idea they did that.”
John went on to explain that the downtown buildings, especially residential structures, were being searched and cleaned for eventual repopulation. John had seen a list of apartments that had been deemed clear and complete, so he helped himself to one of the dozens of front door keys that was stored in a box labelled with the building’s address.
“With a long list of apartments still needing to be processed, I didn’t think they would be putting people into this building for a while. In fact, we were told that the people being processed at the Orange County Fairground wouldn’t be returning downtown for many months.”
“Then who are they prepping these buildings for?” Jorge asked.
“I have no idea,” John replied. “I’ve been so busy patrolling and getting my feet wet with the organization, I haven’t even thought about it.”
“The Fairgrounds,” Jorge said as he leaned forward towards Agent Drosky. “My girlfriend used to be in this building. I need to find her and take her back with me.”
“And you are?” John queried.
“Jorge. Jorge Vasquez.”
“Well,” John said. “I’m glad you showed up, Jorge. Sounds like you saved three lives last night.”
Jorge smiled humbly and stayed quiet.
“Can you help him?” Charlie asked. “I told him to wait until you showed up and maybe had a chance to look into where she is.”
“Can you do that?” Jorge asked, his eyes pleading with John to help him locate the young girl.
John sat back, thinking of how he could find out where Maria was located.
“You know,” John finally said. “I don’t know where that list might be.” But then he thought of Natasha and smiled, realizing that the administrator would have a pretty good inclination on where to find Jorge’s girlfriend.
“What’s the smirk for?” Charlie asked.
“Just had an idea on how to help,” he said. “I’ll work on it tomorrow.”
It was pushing past 5:30 and the sun was dropping quickly over the horizon.
“It’s going to be dark soon,” John said. “I would suggest you stay here for the night. I can tell you that if they are going to do another sweep of the building, it won’t be until after breakfast tomorrow. So you should be fine until then. We just don’t have the personnel to do much patrolling other than during the day; so wake up at dawn and have your things ready to move.”
“We can hide in the storage room below,” Jorge added. “There are plenty of spots to stay concealed.”
“Good,” John replied. “I’m going back to the tower and wash up and get some chow. Sorry you guys are stuck without running water for now. I know they’re working on restoring water service to the area. But before they do anything like that, they will be sending utility crews around to prep buildings for renewed service. They want to make sure nothing is already broken or will break when the power or water is suddenly restored. That’ll be your cue to hide or move on. You won’t be able to miss that.”
“John,” Charlie said. “I just want to thank you, but don’t take this wrong. We don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to. If you could just find out about Maria and let Jorge know where she is, then we will all be on our way. We’re staying with him until then. I know we all want to get out of downtown as quickly as we can.”
“I understand,” he replied. “Just give me until tomorrow, or at the latest, the next day. I’ll get the information and be back as soon as I can. But I have to run patrols on the west side of town, so I can’t promise anything before late afternoon tomorrow.”
“The west side?” Janice asked. It was the first thing she had said since John arrived. “How far west?”
“Well, right now we are finishing Pine Hills and should be moving further west. Eventually, we’ll be going into my partner’s old stomping grounds, Ocoee and Winter Garden.”
“You remember the doctor we told you about yesterday?” Janice continued.
“Sure. Dr. Kramer, the cardiologist.” John quickly replied.
“He lives in Montverde. Could you look in on him?”
“Well, I suppose so,” John tentatively responded. “Do you have an address?”
“I do,” Janice said as she reached into her backpack and retrieved a small address book. John got his waterproof pencil from his own kit and wrote the address down on the back of one of the DHS memos he had stashed in the backpack.
“And here’s Maria’s name.” Jorge wrote her full name on the back of the same piece of paper. John looked at it.
“Maria De La Hoya. Did I pronounce that correctly?”
“Por supuesto!” Jorge smiled.
“Where is she from? I mean originally?”
“Right here,” Jorge answered. “Her parents are from Mexico.”
“Any relation to Oscar?” John slyly replied.
“If it helps to find her, yes!” he joked back.
John cracked a smile, then turned slightly and addressed the group.
“Do you guys need anything else? Food or water?”
“Maps,” Jorge replied. “We need detailed maps of the area.”
John looked at Jorge, re-evaluating the man. With that request, Jorge had shown John that he had a good head on his shoulders. Very few people would have thought to ask for maps.
“Very good,” John replied. He then stood up to leave, but stopped himself before he could turn away.
“Look,” John started. “Let me give you all some advice.”
He sat back down and took a slow, purging breath.
“You are in a survival situation. Every decision, every move you make could mean the difference between living and dying. So let me give you some basic directions to keep yourselves on the living side of the ledger.”
“First, you need to take care of four basic needs. Number one is shelter. You need to stay safe and under roof. The number one killer in a survival situation is hypothermia. That means you need to be sheltered at night, and stay dry. Keep a spare set of clothes in a zip lock bag or some other waterproof sack so you can get out of any wet clothing before the sun goes down. If your core temperature gets too low, you’ll be in trouble. It will only get worse as we hit December and January.”
“Another great reason to have a roof over your head is to hide from the criminals out there.” He continued. “Don’t get caught in the open. Move with a purpose and a plan to shelter if the need arises.”
“Second,” he continued without pausing. “You need clean water. You cannot rely on tap water anytime soon. Restoring service to the areas outside of downtown may take months or even years. Getting clean water will be a huge challe
nge. You need to find a source of chlorine or heat to make your water consumable. If you are lucky, you may run across a Berkey filter system or some other means of purifying water. Check a hiking or adventure store on your trip for a filtration system. Heating the water will work as well, but heat requires time and energy as well as marking your position to any undesirables. A fire is a beacon for trouble in the city right now. It brings evil down on you. Don’t make yourselves noticed and stay hidden as best as you can. Find other ways to generate heat. “Be creative” is the best advice I can give you.”
“Third, you need food. As the months go by, scavenging will become more and more difficult. If you are leaving the area, carry as much as you can, and hope you find a secure place that can feed you. If you don’t have a guaranteed safe haven, make one. Find a defensible position, one that is not readily or easily found and provides you with the shelter and water. Get food wherever you can find it and stash as much as you can. At some point, this will all be over. You just need to hold out until then.”
“Finally, you need security. You have some handguns. Great. But handguns are a secondary weapon. We were taught that a handgun should only be used to fight your way to your battle rifle. It’s the battle rifle that will provide you with security. Find some AR-15s or AK-47s and learn quickly how to shoot them. They make noise, but learning how to shoot them is best done now before the government becomes more organized. Random gunfire will not draw a crowd of survivors or refugees to you. It will, however, earn the attention of the government. So, before the DHS or any other military group gets to wherever you are going, practice so that you are prepared.”
“Now, I am going.” John stood up and turned to Charlie. “Could you join me in the hallway?”
Charlie got up and the two of them left the room.
“I’m going to take Brie’s body with me now,” John said. “I’ll leave her in the parking lot near my vehicle. If no one finds her before my partner and I leave in the morning, I’ll ‘discover’ her body myself and make sure she is treated properly.”
Charlie's Requiem: Democide Page 11