“Did they leave a number for you?” he asked her, starting to catch on that she was nervous.
“I have it on my caller ID. They tried to get a hold of you a couple of times as well.”
“I saw an unlisted number try to call a couple of times. Figured it was a scammer… uh… 6272 last four digits of their phone number?” he asked.
“Yup, that’s the one. Give them a shout, would you? Then call me back?”
“I sure will,” he said, and hung up.
“Now I’m worried,” Kerry said to herself, then fished her keys out of the purse so she could leave.
“Did you get the information you needed?” Kendricks asked.
“No, the laser mic picked up only the high parts of her call. The rest was drowned out by a radio that’d been left on.”
“Get our techies to remove the music and see if there’s enough to recreate what was said. Sammy, how are you doing on the trace?”
“First call came in. It’s a burner phone. Fort Smith. They weren’t on the line long enough for us to get a good trace.”
“And the second one?”
“She called her boyfriend with the state police. Again, we couldn’t pick up what all was said, but we know he’s on the highway doing a roadblock going east and west.”
“Ok, so did he turn around and call anybody?”
“Let me check that… Yeah, and you’re not going to believe this.”
“What is it?” Kendricks asked, annoyed.
“The first number called was the market manager.”
“Ok, so there we have it. See if we can ask a favor from our NSA contact, see what he can dig up on that phone. See what the conversation was, etc. I think we may have just found a way to dig out our mole.”
“You think it’s one of ours?” Sammy asked him.
“No, but seeing it happen here firsthand and then hearing about it upstate in almost the exact same way… It makes me think somebody has been talking.”
“We’ve been monitoring the farmers for the past week. It doesn’t appear that any of them have been contacted about our movements.”
“Because they are growing complacent. They know that we’re not allowed to go to the Langtry farm, for now,” Kendricks said with a grin.
“All things change,” the agent agreed with him. “Are we going with the same team as with the sheriff?”
“Yes, I really wouldn’t trust this next op to somebody who hasn’t become fully invested in the outcome.”
“As long as they know the larger plan,” the agent agreed with Jake.
“If they don’t, they suspect,” Jake told him. “Senator Phillimore has invested his trust in us. We can’t let him down, or this whole thing is going to fail.”
“We won’t fail, we’ll just make sure we don’t walk up on a mad cow in the middle of the night.”
“Bull, not cow, and I want to go during the market on Saturday. I want to not only seize the food but arrest any who… resist. I’ve pulled the county rules on the easements and where we can legally go without permission. If they refuse or resist us, we can come back with a larger force. I don’t think we’ll need the cloak and dagger shit like what Sullivan tried to pull…”
“And you’re hoping for a lot of resistance, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, especially from that Mallory bitch,” Jake told him.
“What was it with you and Winters? I heard it was personal with you and honestly, I don’t care if that’s true, I just want to know so I can make sure you’re not marching our team into a wood chipper.”
“We had been talking about getting married,” Jake told him.
“Oh,” Agent Schilling said. “That makes sense. Ok, I am satisfied. Saturday then?”
“Saturday. Make sure we have drones up, thermal in place. I want eyes in the sky giving us constant feedback.”
“What’s the boss saying about this?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“If I fuck it up, it all hangs on me. I’ve been directly ordered not to do this, but when I sort of talked about the sheriff… I don’t know. He had a change of heart.”
“Don’t say I can blame him, Doc can be a scary guy. Is he coming with us?”
“Not this time.” Jake smiled. “We won’t need him for this. Consider it… a milk run.”
Thirty-Four
The market on Thursday had been bigger than anything the group was comfortable with. There were just so many people, it boggled their minds. With the election heating up, and the grocery stores having less and less on hand, coupled with now national rationing of food supplies, people were feeling desperate. Luis’s aquaponic veggies were a hit, especially his spinach and loose-leaf lettuce. He’d been playing with planting and replanting the buckets, so he’d have a continuous supply, and found out that only a tenth of the first greenhouse was needed to keep the group in all the greens they needed.
The rest that he had planted was soon washed, spun dry and had started going up for sale, alongside the eggs. Spinach had been a huge hit, and Luis hoped he would be able to get his cucumbers and tomatoes to fruit in the greenhouse. Without additional lighting and the shorter daylight hours, he worried they would grow, but never fruit. He was going to find out though and spent an hour every other day out there replanting. Now that his greens and salad mixes were coming in, he spent three hours the day before the market picking, washing, and packing the greens.
“Somebody’s at the gate,” he heard Anna’s voice over the radio.
“Is it a car you recognize?” Curt asked.
Luis stopped what he was doing and headed out of the greenhouse, glad for a break. It might have been in the 70s outside, but inside the greenhouse it was nearly ninety degrees with the vents and doors open. Literally a humid hothouse.
“No,” Anna said. “It almost looks like Kerry in the passenger seat, but I don’t recognize the driver.”
“I’m headed up on foot,” Rob told them. “Anybody want to hop on a UTV and go do a face to face so they don’t see me coming?”
“Sure thing,” Anna said. “Do you have a duress phrase for your aunt?”
“No,” Rob said, “but I think we all need to come up with one. That’s a good idea.”
Luis double timed it to the house after that. He found Harry and Goldie watching the camera feeds. A camera placed up high on a power pole captured Rob making his way slowly through the tall grass. At the fence, a tan Toyota Camry was parked. The driver had hit the intercom button but had not said anything, and Goldie had told him that they had not spoken.
Steven was driving with Anna standing up in the back of the side by side. Both had donned their vests and had grabbed their rifles. Almost all of the group kept at least a pistol on them, but the rifles were often staged by the doors and windows of wherever they had been sitting. Now, they were strapped up and ready for action.
“It’s my aunt and some guy,” Rob said over the radio. “I have range.”
“What’s he talking about?” Steven asked her loudly, having heard him in the earwig he’d donned.
“He’s got the scope on the man’s head. The man makes any hinky moves, red mist,” Anna explained.
“Your throat mic is on,” Rob told her, “but basically, yeah.”
“Sorry, I thought we all had our throat mics on,” Anna said.
“Angel here, I recognize the man. It’s the state police deputy.” She’d stayed behind and had joined Luis and Goldie at the monitors.
“Does she appear to be hurt?” Rob asked. “I’ve got a glare on her side of the windshield.”
“Having the same problem, but they’re talking with their hands,” Angelica said. “She’s probably trying to get him to talk on the intercom.”
“There’s some reason he won’t, and I want to know why,” Rob said.
“We’re opening the gate,” Steven said, having turned on his throat mic.
“Be careful,” Angel said.
“You see Anna up high with her big toys?�
� Rob said. “I’m pretty sure she’s got her .338 Lapua.”
“I see her,” Angelica said. “You all be safe, you got their attention with the automatic gate opener.”
As Steven and Anna drove through the first gate, and Kerry and her new boyfriend from the state police got out of the car and leaned their forearms over the gate. Anna could almost hear them arguing.
“Hey Kerry,” Anna called, getting their attention as Steven stopped twenty feet from the gate to give them room to maneuver.
“Hey, this is Sgt. Daniels of the state police, he’s with me,” she said, looking side to side.
Rob stood up abruptly, on the other side of the fence they had put up to keep the market folks between the gates, startling her.
“Jesus Robbie,” she said. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“You didn’t call first. You didn’t use the intercom. You waited there, arguing with him, knowing we’d come out to investigate. Something is hinky here.”
“Nice to meet you again, Mr. Daniels,” Steven said, turning off the Kawasaki. “What can we do for the Arkansas State Police?”
“Two things,” he said. “The governor has put in place an acting sheriff until we have an election. We’ve been working with him to get him up to speed, but he’s not from this area and isn’t running in the election. So, make sure you guys go out and vote. Second thing, we’ve gotten a credible threat against the market, and the entire farm itself.”
Kerry nodded at this.
“Well, shit. Is that why you’re not using electronics?”
“That’s why I’m here in my plainclothes, with my cell phone in a mylar bag in the trunk, talking out in the middle of the road.”
“I put mine in there too,” Kerry said.
“You’re implying that it’s the government that’s coming after us, aren’t you?” Rob asked.
“I’d rather talk somewhere with all of you, and less… electronics,” he said pointing at the radio.
“Oh, um. You don’t have to worry about our radios,” Anna said, “but we’ll take precautions with our cell phones and other things. Come on in.”
The gate started rumbling open. Rob climbed through a strand of barbed wire and got on the back of the UTV next to Anna. She gave his arm a playful punch and a shove as Steven fired back up the side by side and turned back to the main houses. As Kerry and Sgt. Daniels followed, Angel watched on the screens with Harry, Luis, and Goldie, closing the gates behind them.
“Where can we talk without worrying about electronics?” Luis asked.
“Hey guys.” The front door of the main house opened, and Andrea and Curt came out. “Let’s go to the workshop. The inner room is… insulated. I helped Steven and Luis with it.”
“This is a good idea,’ Luis agreed. “It’s a metal box inside of a box with insulation all around it. Steven said he did that so he could disguise the sound of the lift in operation, but it would make a good place to… have a delicate conversation.”
“Ok, I’m going to run and get Dante and Leah—”
“We’re behind you, dumbass,” Leah snarked. “Hurry up slowpoke, or do you want me to carry you?”
“You talking to me?” Andrea said, turning. “Because as soon as you have that baby and I’m off this cane, I’ll tackle your ass to the ground and make you eat dirt.”
“You wouldn’t,” Leah said, backing up.
“You ladies have been spending too much time with Angel,” Dante said, grinning. “Come on.”
“Maybe a little, but she’s so cute when she’s pissed and cussing,” Andrea said.
“It makes me laugh, especially the monkey stomping,” Leah agreed.
“I heard that,” Angel called from the house, filling half the doorway as everyone joked. “Don’t think I can’t take all of you down!”
“Come on,” Luis said from behind her, “let’s not make this a wrestling match. It sounds like the trooper has some bad news.”
They all stood in a semi circle as Kerry and Sgt. Daniels outlined the phone call they had gotten the day before. The group sat in stunned silence as Sgt. Daniels explained that the head of the strike team that would be coming, had infiltrated the market already. He had mentioned helping somebody set up and Angelica gasped, realizing she knew exactly who Daniels was talking about.
“If I see him again, I’d know him by sight. He was helping Ella May set up her veggies and tables,” Angel told the group.
“Oh hey,” Anna said, “I remember seeing him too. When we all walked up, he looked shocked to see me. I was going to ask him why he was staring.”
“People stare at you already,” Steven told her. “For hours and hours and hours and…”
“Shut up, you perv,” she said pushing him.
“So, when are they coming here?” Rob asked.
“They were unofficially going to wait until you got all the corn and soybean harvests finished, but with the market moving to your property, they just can’t.”
“I don’t understand,” Curt said. “Why the market? They’re coming to steal our cabbages and lettuce?”
“And everything else there. And if they are successful enough, they’ll roll across this farm and Lyle’s farm, taking not just the harvests, but your food stores, but your livestock, and eggs too. Hell, the guy that was helping Ella May… if that’s the agent my source says it is, he was engaged to ADA Winters. He asked to be assigned to this area so he could take a shot at you folks. Andrea specifically.”
Kerry’s face was almost ashen and noted that Andrea looked pale and sick. She wobbled for a second and then Curt and Dante steadied her.
“That was his fiancé?” she asked, her words as wobbly as her legs looked.
“Yes. Apparently, the agent, one Jake Kendricks, is on loan from Homeland to the USDA to work as a liaison. Apparently, he’s, well, he’s supposed to be a bad dude. The problem is, when I started digging for info on him specifically, all of a sudden, I’m hearing clicks on my phones, and my computer randomly reboots. Then I get a phone call asking me if me running the name was initiated through a criminal investigation. It wasn’t anybody I knew of, and outside of proper channels. Hell, they asked me on my personal cell phone. I went to my commander and when I started to fill him in, he shut me down and told me I needed some time off since I’ve been working so much lately.”
“That smells worse than sardines on limburger,” Harry said.
The grownups waited a second, then started chuckling.
“Where’d you hear that?” Rob asked him.
“On TV. One of my cartoons, I think. Dad, is limburger really stinky?”
“The stinkiest of all stenches,” Rob affirmed, “and I think you were right on with your assessment.”
“So, what are we going to do?” Andrea asked, having gotten over nearly fainting.
“Obviously, we can’t let them come in here and rob us blind,” Curt said.
“They tried it last time; it didn’t go so well for them,” Angel said.
“I don’t want to start shooting cops, because that’s essentially what they are,” Anna told the group, making them go silent for a moment.
“I put a round through the empty head of one,” Rob said, “and all they did was take my rifle for the investigation.”
“But there’s a new sheriff now,” Daniels reminded him, “and just because the old one didn’t charge you, that doesn’t necessarily mean the new one won’t. He might bring charges. We don’t know this guy. Nothing about this situation is normal. And get this: they’re targeting you at the farm specifically. If they can, they’re going to arrest you and take you away somewhere.”
“Where?” Kerry asked them.
“I’ve been hearing rumors of detainment camps,” Daniels told her. “Places that they’re taking people who won’t go along. With the protestors they’re sweeping off the streets. I mean, I know how full our jails are, especially when they let some out because of the Wuhan Flu… and they don’t have the capacity to
hold onto that many people, let alone feed them.”
“You’re talking about massive concentration camps. Here, in Arkansas?” Rob asked.
“Rumors of detainment camps,” Daniels said, holding up a hand, “and yes, me and other officers have tried digging for more info, especially after the failed raid here. We were shut down. Hard. The state police answer to the governor, and apparently my bosses have been given their marching orders.”
“They took the same oaths as you,” Rob shot back.
“Once you get higher up, it’s more about politics and less about law enforcement,” Daniels said. “That’s why I never tried to go higher. I’m happy being a Sargent, and in a few years I can retire.”
“If the whole economy ever recovers,” Dante told him.
“Yeah, but if it doesn’t, I have my pension,” he said.
“Not if the dollar collapses, which it seems to be doing right now,” Leah shot back.
Daniels looked slightly deflated. “Listen, we’re getting off topic. I can’t call and verify the info the informant gave me. I can’t even ask around, since I’ve very softly been given time off. If I push too much, they’re going to probably put me on administrative leave, like they had to the other officers who were forced to defend themselves here.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Anna said softly. “So about tomorrow, what do we do? Call the new sheriff?”
“I honestly don’t know. The governor put him in place… you know, the same one that got my bosses to shut down any hard inquiries, let alone the information I tried to pass on to him.”
“So, trust nobody,” Angel said. “We’re good at that. We may not have all been born by the same parents, but this here,” she said pointing at everyone, even the two fur faces at their feet, “we’re all family. We live, work, and fight together. We’re not just going to let some thugs roll us because they want more food.”
“They’re getting desperate. I’ve been working a ton of extra shifts, a couple of times in Fort Smith at the riots. Things are almost dystopian. It’s like the apocalypse already happened. People are getting robbed for food, assaulted in the streets, cars pulled over, occupants pulled out and beaten.”
Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 2 | The Farm Page 22