by Liscom, Sean
“Why no, my child. I have a photographic memory that even conversations cannot escape. If it helps to put your mind at ease, I also keep written records in the church vault.”
“Okay…..”
“Jill, Anthony and Thomas are many things but they always keep their word. Just as you will. I know that the four of you will hold to that tenant, to a fault sometimes,” she put her hand on Jill’s shoulder. Within a second or two, she started smiling and held her other hand out to me. I hesitantly took it and her smile got even bigger.
“What?” Jill asked her.
“You’ll make wonderful parents and sooner than you might think,” before Jill or I could even comprehend what she had said, she turned and walked away.
“But….. I’m not…..” Jill stammered. Thomas let out a hearty laugh.
“She’s a reader, she sees things that haven’t
happened yet. Congratulations!” he chuckled.
“But, I’m not…..” she stammered again. I was just sitting there with my heart and mind racing. Passing out was definitely an option.
“Come on. We need to get you ready to go to Vegas,” he said as he stood from the table. “Can’t go looking like that!” Thomas and Anthony stood and began to leave. Jill and I were still sitting there.
“I’M NOT….. PREGNANT!” Jill blurted out and I’m pretty sure that the few patrons in the dining hall had heard her loud and clear.
CHAPTER 36
Monday August 28th, 2017
Caliente (Blisshaven), Nevada.
It was another five minutes before Jill and I removed ourselves from the table. Jill kept insisting that she wasn't pregnant and I kept insisting that it was okay if she was. All of this got some good laughs from both Thomas and Anthony.
We left the visitor center after retrieving our things from our room. Thomas led the way and we walked down into the small town. Anthony seemed to be the one who was always on alert. I watched him and he would study every person that we passed. He was constantly checking out everything around us.
There were several small storefronts on our side of the street, everything from a butcher to a blacksmith. Thomas finally stopped in front of a store whose sign announced it as a candle shop. We went inside and were quickly greeted by the sweet aromas of freshly crafted candles.
“Morning, Jules,” Thomas said to the elderly woman who was sitting behind the counter.
“Boy's,” she greeted in return.
“Just gonna get some things from the back room for my friends. We won't be here long,” he
explained as he continued toward the back of the shop. She didn't even bother to look up or acknowledge him. Once the four of us were in the storeroom, Anthony took over. He started pulling boxes from the shelves that were marked with things like “Wicks” and “Beeswax”.
He set them on a small table and looked at me, seemingly sizing me up. He opened the first box and dug through several pairs of tiger stripped pants before he pulled one out. He thrust it toward me and spoke.
“Get out of that uniform and put these pants on. Your boots are fine so you can put those back on,” he instructed. He repeated the process with Jill. She embarrassed both of them when she began to strip down right in front of them. Anthony made himself busy digging through another box of black t-shirts. Thomas tried not to look, I had to give him a little credit.
Once we had dressed in the appropriate pants and shirts, Anthony replaced the boxes on the shelves and pulled out two more. These were obviously heavier than the first set. He picked up my Glock and quickly set it back down and then he opened the first box. Inside of it were several pistols and magazines. He reached over and took Jill’s Sig Sauer, replacing it with a Glock 19 and two spare magazines. She eyed him as he did this.
“For whatever reason, Ray's men LOVE
Glocks. Never been able to figure it out but if you walk in there packing that Sig, they will question it,” he stated as he put her Sig in the box and put the lid back on. “You'll leave your rifles and body armor here.”
“But.....” I started.
“The people that work inside Ray's little safe zone only carry side arms. The ones that carry rifles and wear body armor are his personal security, which you are not. That would raise too many questions,” Anthony stated.
“Okay,” I replied.
“Here's how this is going to work, so pay attention. If you blow it, that's on you,” Anthony started. “We will pass a checkpoint after we get into the city. Your story is that you are pretty new, you've been assigned to us as asset protection. Once we are inside the wire, you will help unload the truck and then you will report to Oscar in the warehouse. Tell him that Billy and Steve are getting the band back together. Got it?”
“Yeah, so far,” I replied.
“After you tell him that, he will give you instructions on what to do next. Follow those instructions to the letter. Do not screw this up!”
“You get us in the door, we'll do our part,” Jill replied.
“Alright, let's get you in the truck. We need to get going,” Thomas said starting past us for the
back door. We followed and found a four door
pickup truck parked out back of the candle shop. It had the bed covered with a heavy green tarp. Thomas slid in behind the wheel. Anthony took the front passenger seat, Jill and I slid into the back.
Thomas started the diesel truck and put it in gear. As we were easing out of the narrow alley, I saw Mother Angelica on the opposite side of the street. She eagerly waived at us and we returned the gesture.
“What's her story?” I asked Thomas.
“Mother Angelica?” he looked back at both of us and there was that huge grin again. “She's..... Complicated.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Well, back before the burst, she ran a con down on the Vegas strip.”
“A con?”
“She did this whole fortune telling thing. Made a decent living off of it too,” again with the grin.
“What's so funny?” Jill asked.
“She was screwing with you, Jill. She does it to everybody, its part of the charm of this place,” Thomas laughed. I could see relief flood across Jill's face.
“I told you I wasn't pregnant!” she looked at me and stuck out her tongue. That got a laugh out of everyone.
“Thomas, what exactly IS this place?” I
asked.
“It all kinda fell together shortly after the pulse. The town of Caliente had been almost totally abandoned except for about a half dozen people. This was just before Adolpha seized power in Vegas so there was still a lot of violence. Angelica beat feet out of the city. At first she headed west and ended up in Pahrump. There was this brothel there that was a resort of sorts.”
“There were a couple of dozen women that worked there but the guy that owned the place was nowhere to be found and he hadn't shown up so Angelica took charge. After about a month, she decided that they needed to move. There was a lack of water and fertile ground so it would have just been a matter of time before they starved to death. She had heard from people passing through that Caliente was abandoned and it sounded like exactly what they needed.”
“So, she and the women of the brothel worked out a deal with us to help them move. We supplied the vehicles and fuel, they packed everything up and we moved em. What sprang up in Caliente, Blisshaven, is nothing short of spectacular. Its part church, part whorehouse, part trading post and part resort.”
“What's even crazier is that women of all ages have begun to flock to this place. It's a safe haven not just for the patrons but the staff too.
Everything is run by women. All of the farming
and ranching, all of the trading and even the security, they handle it all and they do a fantastic job of it.”
“I was curious about the security. I didn't see any guards,” Jill said.
“They were all around you, Jill. All of the sisters may be wearing robes or stoles but they had w
eapons hidden in the folds under their clothes. One of the things that Angelica insists on is that they be able to defend themselves with weapons and their bare hands..... Have you ever heard the myths about the Amazon Women?”
“Sure.”
“Think of them like that. Those chicks may look all sweet and innocent but while they were smiling to your face, they already knew how they were going to kill you if you got hostile. I've seen it happen. More than once.”
“Why hasn’t Judge come in here and taken this place over?” I asked.
“He won’t simply because a lot of the cartel people use Blisshaven as a place to come and relax. He doesn’t really want to piss them off, so he leaves Blisshaven alone.”
Monday August 28th, 2017
South of Wells, Nevada.
“Wayne's got a little over a hundred people
leaving from Winnemucca. He's going to stop in
every town along the way and see if he can pick up more,” Dan said as he pulled the radio headset from his ears.
“We got about the same,” Braden reported. “I hope it's enough and I hope we can get there in time.”
“With Major Jackson headed due south from the ranch, he will probably beat us there by a little bit.”
“That's alright, he's got the only armor so if there's going to be any resistance, he'll meet it first.”
“Yeah, school buses, pickup trucks and a snowplow won't stand a chance against anything,” Dan said as he looked in the side mirror of the bus they were traveling in. It was the same faded school bus that was used to deliver recruits to the ranch. They were right behind the snowplow and had another bus right behind them. Behind that bus were four pickup trucks, one of which was Jason's old Power Wagon. The last vehicle in the convoy was a fuel tanker.
“What's the next town?” Braden asked.
“McGill. We should be there about dark.”
“Alright. Let’s plan on fueling everything there.”
“We need to fuel at every stop, Braden. While you're out trying to rustle up fighters, we
can handle the fueling. I don't want anyone
running out of gas if we should get separated.”
“Okay, I'll let you handle that.”
“What are you going to do if we run across any enforcers?”
“I really don't know.”
“You better be ready to deal with them, harshly if need be.”
“Don't worry, Dan. I'll do what I have to do,” Braden replied.
“I don't need to remind you but there are a lot of moving parts to this plan of yours, Braden. If even one little thing goes wrong, this whole train comes off the track. You're going to have to act and react swiftly. That was our last radio communication and there is a whole lot hinging on luck right now.”
“I know.”
“Alright. I just want you to know that I'm behind you one hundred percent, I'll follow you but these people need you to lead, from the front.”
“I'll try not to let anybody down.”
“That's all I ask.”
Monday August 28th, 2017
Las Vegas, Nevada.
We followed Interstate 15 all the way into Las Vegas and got off on Sahara Avenue.
Underneath the freeway overpass was the
checkpoint Thomas had told us about. The road was bottle necked down to one lane by stalled cars piled up under the bridge to form an impenetrable wall. I counted eight guards on the outside as we approached.
There were two sandbag emplacements and both of them had M240 machine guns sitting in them. Thomas slowed to a stop and we were sitting right between the two emplacements. Thomas held up a plastic laminated ID. The guard that approached the door took it from him and compared it to a list on his clipboard. He handed it back and looked in the truck. He briefly eyed me and Jill but stepped back and waived the truck through.
We made the next right and that street led to an industrial area. There were several warehouses that were surrounded by an eight foot tall chain-link fence that was topped by four strands of barbed wire. When we reached the gate, we were stopped again and Thomas had his ID checked again. Again, we were waived through and Thomas drove to the first warehouse in the row. He backed the truck up to the loading dock and shut it off.
“Showtime, kids,” he said as he opened the door and got out. The rest of us followed his lead. He and Anthony stood off to the side as several men came out of the open loading dock
door and began to unload the crates from the
back of the truck. Once the last crate was on its way inside, Thomas nodded to Jill and I and then he and Anthony climbed back into the truck and left.
We followed the men inside and I asked the man ahead of me where I could find Oscar. Without saying a word, he pointed toward the back of the warehouse. Jill and I walked that way and I took everything in. The crates that had just been unloaded from the truck were being opened and smaller boxes were being removed. They were marked “Levaquin”, an antibiotic.
There were also pallets of everything from coffee to bandages.
Just about everything you could imagine was being stored in this warehouse by the pallet load. The only thing I didn't see were weapons and ammunition. I surmised that those were probably being kept in one of the other buildings. As we neared the rear of the building, we saw a small office with the door standing open.
Inside there was a short, stout man wearing Bermuda shorts, flip flops and a white tank top t-shirt. Hanging out of his mouth was a stub of an unlit cigar and he was dabbing at the sweat on his bald head with a bandanna. He slammed the file cabinet drawer and looked at the two of us when we walked in.
“What the hell do you want?” he growled, making his way back to his desk.
“We're looking for Oscar, you him?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he pulled the cigar from his mouth and held it between his fingers. “What the hell do you want?”
“Billy and Steve told me to tell you that they're getting the band back together,” this caused a smile to form on his face. He leaned back in his chair and stuffed the cigar between his lips again.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, that's what they said,” he stared at the two of us for a moment then opened the top desk drawer. He pulled out two blank ID cards and then he looked at Jill. “Why don't you go close the door, sweetie.”
Jill bristled a little but did as she was told. Once the door was closed, a laptop type of device and a small digital camera came from the other desk drawer. He inserted the first blank card into the slot on the side, plugged the USB cable into the camera and the laptop. He held the camera up and took my picture. After fiddling with the laptop for a moment, there was a slight whirring sound and the card was ejected from its slot. It had my picture and the name “Rico” on it. He handed it to me and repeated the process
with Jill. Her card had the name “Baby Doll” on it. When she read it, there was no amusement to be found on her face. After he returned the equipment to the drawer, he lit his cigar and
looked at us.
“I hope you two were paying attention when you drove in here. You're going to leave here and go back out to Sahara Avenue and take a right. Go past the workers camp and take another right on Las Vegas Boulevard. There is a big dirt lot on the left side of the road, that's where the Colosseum is. Can't miss it. Just to the south of that is the Kings Casino. Can't miss that 68 story monstrosity either,” he took a long puff and blew out the blue smoke slowly.
“Go to the service entrance on Riviera Boulevard after 8pm tomorrow night. Ask for Sonny and when you find him, tell him about the band. He'll take you from there.”
“That's it?” I asked.
“No. You tell Billy and Steve that my obligation to them is complete. I'm done with them!”
“Okay,”
“What is this place?” Jill asked.
“It's a warehouse, honey.”
“No shit,” she sneered. “What the fuck do you store here?”
“Oh, a feisty one!” he chuckled. “This warehouse has everything from car parts to glass windows,” he said with a little pride.
“Where do you get all this stuff?”
“I have work crews out all over the city, 24 hours a day, bringing stuff in,” he looked at his
watch. “It is 2pm, you guys need to make yourselves scarce until you go to the Kings. You can hang out here until shift change at six or you can head on over. The old Big Top Casino towers are where most of the supply guys hang out. There are plenty of open rooms, just pick one if you want.”
“Where can we go with these badges?” I asked, holding mine up.
“You can go just about anywhere. Those are supply ID's. If you start to see a bunch of the red ones, you need to find somewhere else to be. The red indicates enforcers. Blue is medical and the black cards are strictly for Ray's personal security. If you see those, leave. It means that Ray is probably somewhere close by.”
“I saw some green ID's, what are those?” I asked.
“The green is for support workers.”
“Support workers?”
“Yeah. They live in the tent city and they use them for the hard labor.”
“Tent city?” Jill asked.
“You'll see it on your way to the Kings. I wouldn't go in there either. Poor bastards will either beg or steal everything you have.”
“What?”
“It's..... Ever since Judge took over, they don't get much of anything anymore. Adolpha used to take decent care of them because she
relied on them to build her empire. This sounds bad but, well, if you starve your slaves half to death, they don't work too well anymore. Adolpha understood that she HAD to take care of them. Ray, he just don't give a fuck.”
“That's horrible!” Jill said with disgust.
“You don't know the half of it, lady. Just do yourselves a favor and stay the hell away from there.”
“Where's Adolpha?” I asked.
“I'm not sure. Lots of rumors floating around.”
“If you had to guess? Is she dead?”
“She ain't dead. At least as of last week she wasn't. I think Judge keeps her in the Kings. She doesn't get out much anymore and when she does it's under very heavy guard and it’s usually with Judge next to her.”