"Yeah, but—"
Darien looked at Spanner. "But what?" he demanded. "But someone ratted us out and word got out that there was a bunch of supplies there? Our supplies?" Darien waved away the question with a chopping motion of his hand. "It doesn't matter. The people that got in there after we left haven’t been able to take all that. I checked it out last night myself while you were on the other side of the neighborhood. There's plenty of stuff still there. We need to go get it all before they decide to empty it. If there's really an epidemic in the neighborhood, it won't last long."
Spanner nodded. "You want to go tonight?"
Darien glanced out the kitchen window and checked his watch. "I know you just got back, but we still got a couple hours before dawn. We need to do it now and get as much as possible."
Spanner sighed heavily. "Man, I walked all over this neighborhood in the past couple hours..."
Darien nodded. "I know that, brother. And I know you're tired. We all are— but this is probably the most important raid we've been on. I wouldn’t ask you to go out alone, twice in one night. That's why I'm going with you. And we’re taking Jon Boy with us." Darien thought for a moment. “And Harriet, too."
"You really think she's gonna be good for anything?" asked Spanner. "She can't walk quietly to save her life."
Darien grinned. "Yeah, she does tend to make a lot of noise, doesn't she?" he said with a lecherous grin.
Spanner rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, a lot of noise while we’re out walking around the neighborhood could get us killed...in case you haven't noticed, since we attacked Lavelle, everybody seems to be walking around with guns."
The smile faded from Darien's face. "Simmer down, Spanner—I gotcha. We bring Harriet and keep her quiet. Hey," Darien said as he spread his arms. "She's an extra pair of hands."
"I guess," Spanner reluctantly agreed.
Darien grinned and stood from the table. "Good. Gear up and go wake up Jon Boy. I'll get Harriet and meet you in the garage. We’re going to need all our backpacks and rolling luggage for this one."
“Too bad we don't have a shopping cart," Spanner said with a grin.
Darien laughed. "Attention shoppers, please go to aisle five—the store is now open for your five-finger discount," Darien said. "Come on, let's go shopping."
Chapter 14
Braaten Forest Preserve
Northwest of Bee’s Landing Subdivision
Cami took a knee next to the big oak tree and paused. She strained her hearing and listened for anything out of the ordinary. All around them, cicadas buzzed and hummed in the trees, squirrels chattered to each other up in the leafy canopy, and chipmunks rustled in the dead leaves on the forest floor.
Cami moved nothing but her eyes as she scanned the area around the beaver pond just beyond her tree. On her right, a massive beaver lodge made of pine branches and saplings dominated the water. On their left, the creek that ran through the forest preserve had widened as a result of the stoppage and rerouted itself to flow in another channel toward the Ashley River, still some six or seven miles away.
"Okay, I think we’re clear,” she whispered. “I'll keep watch, you get the water. Remember how I showed you?"
Mitch rustled through the leaves next to her, his pack already on the ground in front of him. "Got it.”
"Be sure to use the rope—we don't want to get that green sludge along the shoreline."
"Don't we have filters to take care of this?" Mitch asked as he looked dubiously at the pond scum.
"We do, but it's just going to put extra wear and tear on the filters—and take longer to clarify. If we can avoid it, it just makes things easier." Cami shifted position and put her back against the scratchy treetrunk, with the pond behind her. The only way someone could ambush them now was to approach directly at them and face the stainless-steel marine shotgun she carried in her hands. Reese's shotgun. She gripped the gun tight, as if it were her husband, and closed her eyes for a moment.
Behind her, Mitch grunted and tossed a weighted water container tied to a rope as far as he could out into the pond. The splash of the container hitting the water was louder than Cami would have liked, and it startled her back to the present.
"Next time try not to throw it so high—we don't need to announce our presence to everybody in the county."
"Well, if you want, I can take off my shoes and just wade out there. That’d be a lot quieter..."
"Normally I'd agree," Cami whispered. "But remember about 20 minutes back? When we hiked through that open meadow, everything got quiet. We've done this before. And the animals didn't seem to care—the background noise didn't seem to change. I think there’s somebody else out here with us."
Mitch stepped closer to her and leaned in. "You think they’re watching us?"
Cami shook her head. "Hard to tell. Judging by the noise the animals are making, I'd say no, but..." She shrugged one shoulder and kept a wary eye on the surrounding forest. "Just hurry up. The quicker we can get this water, the quicker we can get back to the house and start purifying it."
"We’re gonna have to come up with a better solution than this," Mitch said as he capped the first container, stowed it in his bag, and drew out the second of five containers. "I mean, we can come out here and fill these two-liter bottles all day..." he said as he swung the bottle over his head and launched it on the rope out into the pond. "But there's seven of us in the house. I think we might need to think about drilling a well."
"We don't have any equipment to drill a well—let alone the pipes to line it."
"Well...don't you have pipes inside the house? I mean, it's not like you’re using running water, right?"
Cami frowned. The idea of of tearing apart the plumbing inside her house did not sit well. "I don't know if I want to do that...we’re not sure exactly what the nationwide situation is." She shifted against the oak tree and kept the shotgun in a ready, but relaxed position. "But I'll talk to Marty. Maybe he's got some ideas."
Mitch retrieved the second container, capped it and stowed it. As he fumbled with the rope to attach it to the third container, he continued. "Hey that's an idea, maybe Marty will let us use some piping from his house?"
"Even if we did get the piping," Cami argued in a whisper, "none of us have any idea how to drill a well...or the tools and equipment used to get the pipe into the ground."
"Man, I saw it on some of those surviving in Alaska shows," Mitch said as he swung the third bottle over his shoulder and launched it over the pond. "Couple guys just took some pipes and pounded ‘em into the ground with sledgehammers, you know? You get down far enough, and eventually you hit the water table."
Cami looked at him askance. "I'm not sure it works like that," she said dubiously.
Cami glanced behind her. The rope Mitch pulled as he hauled the jug back to the shore hung motionless in his hands. Cami’s gaze flitted to Mitch. He was frozen in place. The background noise of the forest dropped off precipitously. She brought the shotgun to her shoulder. "What is it?" she breathed.
"I just saw a guy..." Mitch said as he slowly lowered himself behind a bush. "I don't think he saw me, but I saw him. He’s straight across the pond from us, moving southeast," he said in a voice barely above a whisper.
"You still have eyes on him?" Cami asked as her own eyes frantically swept the green forest in front of her. "I don't see anything on this side..."
"No, he's gone. I saw the bushes move a second ago where he disappeared back into the trees...but he's not there anymore."
"Did he see the water bottle?"
"I don't think so...I'm gonna bring it in..."
"Just go really, really slow. The less movement you make on the water, the less likely he'll notice if he’s still over there looking around—or he's got a partner."
Mitch grunted in response and slowly coiled the rope at his feet as he pulled the bottle through the water toward the shore. A moment later, he announced in a whisper, "Okay, that's three full bottles. What do we do now
? We got two more empties..."
Cami frowned again. "That's going to have to do. If that guy’s heading southeast, that's back toward home. Let's pack up and get back. Between the water we've collected in the rain barrels this summer for the garden and this, we should be fine for the next couple days.”
"We’re only about a mile from the house, is there any way we can make some kind of aqueduct?"
Cami looked at Mitch over her shoulder. "What are you, some kind of Roman engineer? Just get your pack loaded and let's get out of here."
A few minutes later, Cami and Mitch were deep within the cover of the forest and headed home. Cami took point again, and worked her way efficiently through the undergrowth, twisting and turning to get around bushes without crashing through them.
She didn't necessarily watch where she placed every single foot, but subconsciously knew where to avoid the leaves and twigs. Behind her, Mitch walked through the forest and every foot found the loudest twigs to snap and leaves to rustle. He was light years beyond that first day Cami and Amber and him all went to go practice weaponry, but he had a long way to go to be proficient as an outdoorsman and tracker.
At least he didn't walk upright like he was off on a day's hike. His pistol was in his hand, pointed in a low safe position while Cami blazed a trail in front of him.
She followed the path they’d made on the way to the pond but stayed about 20 yards north of their original path. Anyone tracking them might be following the original path and Cami didn't want to meet them face-to-face. If she stayed in the thick undergrowth, she hoped they’d be able to remain hidden all the way back to the house.
Over the course of the 45 minutes it took to get home on the circuitous route through the woods, Cami was almost optimistic that the person Mitch had spotted was simply a hunter from one of the nearby neighborhoods out looking for food. When they came upon the tree line at the edge of her property, however, she discovered that was not the case.
Cami froze at the sight of the stranger in front of them. He was still perhaps thirty yards away, with his back to them, and keeping a close eye on her house and Marty’s. A chill went down the back of her arms, and her hands tightened on the shotgun.
“That’s the guy...” whispered Mitch.
“Keep watch out for more of them,” replied Cami, her eyes locked on the man. “He’s not a resident. I’d remember someone with dreadlocks like that…”
“Is that a jumpsuit he’s wearing?” asked Mitch. “Like a prison jumpsuit?”
Cami frowned. “Don’t know…”
They waited in silence for a few moments while the man continued to study her house. Unlike when she’d first encountered Gary, the stranger seemed to have no inclination to find a way into her house or even approach it. He just stood inside the treelike and watched.
Cami saw movement through the trees on the other side of the stranger—one of the people in her house was over there. The man crouched, as if surprised, and froze. He was armed—when he knelt, he twisted and revealed a pistol in his hand. Cami tensed—she and Mitch were still too far away to be of any good to anyone at the house.
She waited another long moment, unsure what to do, and felt her heart thud in her chest with every breath. Her daughter could be just on the other side of the trees. Next to her, Mitch moved, just barely enough to make a leaf crunch beneath his foot. She could feel the energy radiating from him—he was coiled like a spring, ready to explode.
The man continued to watch whoever it was that made him drop to his knee, then slowly stood again and moved south, toward Marty’s house. He always kept watch over the houses and stayed in the trees and moved as silent as a cat through the undergrowth.
“He knows his way around the woods…just not these woods,” Cami observed in a whisper.
“What’s he doing? It’s like he’s spying on us…”
“Exactly,” Cami agreed. “I think Marty would call it ‘recon.’ Come on, we need to shadow him.”
They paralleled the movement of the stranger, as he worked his way along the rear of the properties adjacent to Cami and Marty. Over the next hour, they stayed deeper into the woods and shadowed the stranger. He paused at Marty’s house and watched the old man as he checked on his quail, then moved further down the strip of houses, stopping at each one to watch and listen.
At most houses, people were inside or close to the property. The stranger observed everything and at one point pulled out a small notebook and a twig of a pencil to jot down something. When he reached the Westin house at the entrance to the neighborhood, the man spent even longer than before just watching and waiting. He took more notes and wiped sweat from his face and swatted at the occasional insect that divebombed him.
Cami pulled Mitch further back into the woods along the main road that crossed in front of Bee’s Landing and waited. “What are you doing?” hissed Mitch. “We’re going to lose him…”
“He’s getting ready to turn back.”
“You don’t know that,” Mitch argued in a whisper as they settled into a new hiding spot, surround by tall, thick stalks of milkweed. Mitch moved one of the huge leaves out of his face.
“There’s nowhere else for him to go—unless he’s going to cross the street here and cut across the neighborhood out in the open, his only choice is to turn back. He’ll either go back the way he came or go deeper into the woods. Watch.”
In a matter of minutes, the man was on the move again. He turned and silently went back the way he’d come. As Cami and Mitch followed, she grinned. The man didn’t bother to stop at his obersrvation points behind the properties he passed.
“He’s not stopping…” Mitch observed.
“Because he’s already seen these houses. Two-to-one, he’s going to keep moving along the neighboorhood boundary and loop around to the other side now. Watch.” They paused, crouched by Marty’s treeline, and waited. The man slipped right past Cami’s house without even a glance at whoever was in her yard. He just slowly pushed the bushes apart and kept moving.
“Okay, let’s go—“ Mitch said.
Cami stood. “Don’t bother. We lost him.” She shook her head. “He was there, and then he just vanished. Listen….”
Mitch cocked his head and frowned. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly. He’s gone.” Cami let the barrel of the shotgun point toward the ground. “You stay here in case he circles back. I’m going to go over there and see if I can find any tracks.”
Cami slipped through the bushes and undergrowth just as quietly as she would on any stalk in the Alaskan tundra, and made no more sound than the man she’d been tracking. But when she got to the spot where he’d moved between two mulberry bushes, she found nothing. No broken branches, no footprints, no loose string—not even a hair from those nasty dreadlocks on the back of the guy’s head. He’d vanished without a trace, like a ghost. Cami cursed under her breath.
She looked in every direction, crouched and touched the earth as if she might feel a vibration of movement, then sniffed the air. When the sound of cicadas returned to her ears, and the sweat stung her eyes, she sighed heavily and stood. The man was gone.
“We lost him,” she said as she exhaled. She returned to Mitch and reported the bad news.
“Why are you glum? If that guy’s as good as you say, I’m glad we lost him—he didn’t spot us. It means we can get out of the woods...freakin’ mosquitos are eating me alive!”
Cami grinned. “Well, I guess there is that.”
“Can we go home yet?” asked Mitch.
Cami inclined her head at the younger man. He’d called her house his ‘home.’ “Sure,” she said, with a gentle slap on his shoulder. “I think we need to have a meeting with Marty about this, anyway.”
She followed Mitch through the last ten yards or so toward the house but kept a wary watch over her shoulder at the dense, green forest.
Chapter 15
Camp Echo
Port Jefferson, New York
Re
ese pulled Byron and Tony into the darkest corner of their barracks tent. A handful of other men were already bedded down for the night and he needed privacy for the plan he was about to hatch. After the excitement at the eastern gate earlier in the day, most people were still outside and full of gossip and speculation. The soldiers had done an admirable job of maintaining order in the post-fight chaos, but people still needed to work off nervous energy and only a few had retreated to the bunk tents as the sun went down.
It was about as empty as Reese could hope, but it wouldn’t last long. The darker it got outside, the more people would likely come ‘home’ and seek the comfort of a cot to the chaos of the base.
“Someone want tell me what this is all about?” demanded Byron. He looked like a honey badger that had been rudely woken from an afternoon nap—and had the disposition to match.
“What, the secret meeting, or the fight this morning at the east gate…or maybe whatever they’re doing to the boats?” Reese snapped.
Byron folded his arms across his chest and said nothing.
“Yes, please,” Tony quipped after a long moment of uncomfortable silence.
“We need to get out of here,” Reese said.
“Clearly,” Tony replied.
“I’m not going anywhere without Libby—we’ve got to get her out of the hospital.”
“How’s she doing?” asked Reese.
“Better than anyone expected,” Byron admitted. “She’s sitting up and talking with anyone who stops by her cot.” His face split into a proud smile. “She’s a trouper, my Libby.”
“Why haven’t they let her go, then?” asked Tony.
Byron’s smile transformed into a frown. “I haven’t the foggiest.”
“Because they’re using her as leverage—they know you’ll lose your mind when you see the boats. The fight at the gate this morning distracted them, and they don’t realize you’ve already seen the boats. I bet they’re using her to keep you here.”
“They’ve already done so much to the boats—and they have all the guns—what makes you think we could leave even if we wanted to?” Byron argued. “They don’t have to keep Libby prisoner!”
Broken Tide | Book 3 | Maelstrom Page 14
