by K. J. Dahlen
“I never pictured a dream wedding anyway, so a simple wedding will be all I’ll ever want. Do you think you’d like to work with them?” she asked. “Dad talked about what these guys are doing and I know he brought us down here because he believed in their cause. Do you think you might want to as well?”
“I’m not sure I know what they are doing but if I can help, sure.”
Someone knocked on the door and Bastian got up to see who it was.
It was Calico. “Can you come with me for a moment?”
Bastian nodded. Turning to Sawyer he said, “They need my help for a moment. You stay and get some rest. Take a nap and I’ll see you later.”
“Ok, baby.” She closed her eyes.
Bastian slipped through the door, pulling it closed behind him. As they walked down the hall into the main room he asked, “What’s going on?”
Calico led him over to the main group. “We got some more info and we need to ask you something.”
Pappy glanced up. “We might know where this guy is. The thing is there’s no one in the area we want to check out, so whoever did go, it might take them too long to get there. Jim told us you have a plane and if you allowed it, he could pilot us over the area. Can you lend us the plane and Jim?”
Bastian gazed at the men standing there, then he looked over at Calico. “You all might as well hear this from me. I’ve asked Sawyer to be my wife. She said yes. I don’t know what kind of operation you’re running here but for her sake, I’m willing to listen. She wants to stay here with her family and I’ve agreed. Jim and I are looking for something to do other than the Priest bit. I know that my past is bothersome to a lot of people. I don’t deny that but a man can change if the reward is great enough and my reward would be Sawyer and the baby. You all have a history together and if you think I can help, I’m willing to stay. If I have something you can use, then by all means you can use it. Jim and I want to help with this matter. From the sounds of everything we’ve been able to uncover, this guy won’t be easy to take out.” He paused then looked at the group. “Where do you need to go? Have you figured that out yet?”
Pappy nodded. “We think so. With the copies of the bills of lading this guy has ordered wind turbines and solar panels, along with generators and everything he needs to become self-sufficient. One of the boats is in Paden City and another is in Huntington. We plan to go to both places and check out the area. If we find what we’re looking for, we’ll know more than we do now. This is just a hunting expedition at the moment. We don’t have the manpower at the moment to go after him but we do to find him.”
Bastian nodded. “Ok, go for it.” He turned to Jim. “Use what you need to use. If you need to stay anywhere along the way you have the keys to my houses and my vehicles. You know where my weapons are too.”
Jim nodded. “Ok.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d mind them using anything but they felt they needed to ask.”
Bastian turned to Pappy. “The plane I have here will hold fifteen people. I have houses, vehicles and weapons at your deposal. Use what you need.”
“Just like that?” Pappy stared at him for a moment.
Bastian shrugged. “Just like that. I know enough about this guy to wonder what he’s really up to and do whatever I can to try and stop him. I don’t like men like him. Never have, never will. When this is over, I’d like to talk to you more about what you do here, if that would be okay.”
“We’re leaving Trudy here to keep searching for anything we can use to find him. But if you can help her out, feel free to do so. We’ll keep in touch every step of the way.” Pappy nodded. “Welcome aboard. We can always use a good man or two.”
“God speed you on your journey then,” Bastian told him.
“You aren’t going along?” Calico asked when everyone started packing up to leave.
Bastian shook his head. “No I’m not. These men look like they know what they’re doing. I’m not running this program and I don’t need to be in their way.”
“So you and Sawyer are getting married?” Calico stared steadily at him.
Bastian saw a father looking out for a daughter he didn’t know that well. “Yes, we are. I know I should ask for your permission but whether you said yes or no, I would still marry her.”
“Do you love her?” Calico asked.
“Yes, I love her and the baby.”
“Can you give her a good life?”
“Yes, I can and I will give her a great life,” Bastian promised him. “She and the baby will want for nothing…ever.”
Calico turned his head and watched as some of the men left the room. “These men have a mission. They are all ex-military that have taken a vow to protect this country from both foreign and domestic threats. They served their country overseas and now they are protecting this nation from those who would do it harm. That’s their mission now. I brought my family down here because I believe in what this group stands for.” He turned to face Bastian. “Can you get behind that or not?”
“Without a doubt I can and will, if I’m given the opportunity. I didn’t serve in the military but I’m not without skills. I may not agree with most of the politics we live with but I do believe in justice and I believe this could be a great country again.”
“Are you and Sawyer really going to stay here?” Calico asked.
Bastian nodded.
“Good, her mother worried that you would take Sawyer away and we’d never see her again.”
“Sawyer doesn’t want to leave her family. I can live anywhere but I want her to be happy.” Bastian shrugged. “With the baby coming she’s going to need both her mother and father around her.”
“I missed so many years with her growing up, I feel I don’t know her very well anymore. I missed most of her growing up. I don’t want to miss another day of her life. I know that’s my fault but I just got them all back. I don’t want to lose any of them.”
“She wants to use your name when we get married,” Bastian told him. “Would that be ok with you?”
Calico started to say something but couldn’t talk for a moment. He cleared his throat and said, “Jolene and Sawyer both carried my name before she asked me to leave. She took her maiden name when Max began to harass her but we were never divorced. Moon was never Sawyer’s last name, so yeah, she can use my name when she gets married.”
“So what can you tell me about this trip? What do they hope to find?”
“They are looking for his home base,” Trudy spoke. “We figured out where his boats are based. Tracking their route was easy enough to do when we knew what to look for.”
“The boat Tomas and Enrique were supposed to meet will be met by a small squad of Dewey’s men. They will drop off more men in Huntington for another boat, then move toward Paden City where they hope to find Leroy’s home base.”
“And what are you looking for?” Bastian nodded at her computer.
“Anything that could help them once they get there,” Trudy answered him. “Right now, we only have a vague idea what this guy is after. Everyone is hoping we can find out more before they actually have to face him.”
“Then let’s get busy and find what they need to know.” Bastian sat down in front of his computer.
The room grew quiet as the two hackers did their thing.
Calico followed Jolene into the kitchen and they talked quietly while Bastian and Trudy worked.
It was over an hour later when Trudy gasped and pushed her chair away from the table. She stared at her computer screen frozen in horror. She slowly raised her eyes to Bastian. “Holy fucking hell,” she whispered.
“What did you find?” Bastian almost hated to ask.
“I found his manifesto.”
“What?” Bastian called out as he pushed his chair back and moved over to her station. As he read the file over her shoulder, he couldn’t believe what he was reading. He was wrong before when he thought Leroy was nuts. If the pages in his manifesto were the ideals he lived by, the man
was totally insane. He was willing to bring chaos and anarchy to the nation just to prove that only the strongest and the best prepared would survive. He had several years to prepare for the calamity he had in mind but not everyone would be so fortunate.
My name is Leroy Arthur Simon Parker Nash. Remember that name for when they rewrite the history of this great nation, it will be the final chapter and this will become my manifesto.
I’ve watched so many people struggling just to get by in my lifetime. Good, hard working people trying to provide for their families while the rich people use and abuse the lesser fortunate. It has become my mission in life to turn the tables on the wealthy. I grew up without a place to call home and people taunted me for something that wasn’t my fault. I didn’t ask to be born and I didn’t turn my back on an innocent child. I was just one of the many children who fell through the cracks of the government. The people in charge who should have been there not only for me but for all the other children, the ones who told me I would never amount to anything because I came from nothing. These are the same people who thought money outweighed the acts of kindness that everyone needs.
So now, I’m taking my mission to the very people who used and abused my station in life. You who could have made not only my life easier but everyone’s life easier. Now it’s my time to teach you how to be humble. You were asked to watch over some children who had nothing to call their own. You treated us like the dirt on the bottom of your shoe. You may not have raised your hand against us, though some of you did, but you showed us no comfort or love either. A child doesn’t ask to be born but you showed us that to you we had no value or worth unless we worked our fingers to the bone for your comfort.
Through my struggles, I have seen the good in so few people and then only when something catastrophic comes to pass. What happens next will test the very nature of the American people. Many of you will die as life as we all know it becomes a struggle for the fittest to survive. For a while, chaos and mayhem will rule as everyone scrambles to find the basics like shelter, food and water. Nature unleashed can be a real bitch. Mankind will be tested, as all hell breaks loose from the confines we have trapped our resources into.
The needs we depend on more and more everyday will be gone and we will once more have to depend on our own wits to live through another day. We will begin in the dark and have to find our own light. We will face starvation until we relearn how to grow our own food again. There will be floods and fire, so that when it all calms down again, we will have been cleansed almost by the hand of god once more. But it won’t be the hand of God that tests you, it will be by my hand.
We will all have our own place in the remaking of this nation. When the chaos settles, there will be no more wealthy vs poor classes, just people. If we can pull together as one unity the recovery time will be only a few years at best. For those of us who have prepared for this day to come the time will be shorter yet. For those who put off for another day getting their shit together, they will be the ones who struggle the most. They will be lost when the chaos comes and they will be the ones who fight back the most.
There will be riots in the streets as people fight just to stay alive. Betrayal will run rampant as most turn their backs on one another but that’s simply human nature. But from the ashes of what our nation will become will be a brand new world.
Where there was once fire eventually there will be new growth, where there will be flooding there will be dry ground again. Where there were secrets, the truth will be heard. We will be able to reform our government to serve the people again, something that hasn’t happened in a very long time. People will learn to talk to one another again, instead of texting.
We will learn to relive with nature again, instead of holding back this nation’s resources. It only takes one man with a dream to remake this world we live in. The time will come when I can step forward and be recognized as the nation’s savior and when that time comes, I will step forward and take my rightful place as a leader of mankind.
But before that time comes, I will have to allow the chaos to happen. The chaos will bring death and destruction to many, but that can’t be helped. The Bible talks of fire and flood by God’s hand to cleanse the earth. I will take that as my way to cleanse this nation.
I will bring the nation fire and flood of epic proportions. Those who survive will assist the lesser fortunate or I will bring more destruction down on their heads. Like God, I have seen what he saw in the cities of Sodom and Gomora. First comes the fire though. Using nature, I will unleash natural fire and destruction. If you haven’t learned your lessons, I will release great floods to wash away your sins.
So beware America, chaos is just around the corner and you aren’t prepared for it, not yet but one day, you will be. When God created this world of ours, he brought us light from the darkness around us, so my first lesson will be to take away the light. Only in darkness can we find our way back to the light.
We celebrate the fourth of July as our Independence day- the day we won our freedom from our oppressors so on July Fourth, I will bring on the darkness. Call it a wakeup call for the nation. Then I will unleash the fire using Mother Nature in a way that will cleanse the nation. Then if America hasn’t woken up yet, flooding will be next.
Beware America, chaos and mayhem are coming….
His plan was to hit several places to do the most damage. He spoke of turning out the lights leaving everyone in the dark. Bastian’s first thought was the power grid everyone used for communications. It would be a cascading failure that would sweep the nation shutting down communications from coast to coast. That alone would be catastrophic. Bastian backed up and looked at Trudy. “This guy is insane.”
“Oh there’s no doubt about that.” She shook her head. “He’s willing to kill thousands of people for an insane dream to become ruler? The cascade failure alone to cut all communications, making it impossible to get anyone’s help. He’ll set us back hundreds of years in technology alone.”
Bastian nodded in agreement. “But I have a feeling he’ll be able to reach out.”
“You think he’ll have his own way to communicate?”
Bastian nodded. “He’ll have his own towers set up.”
“But if our central infrastructures go down, then everything goes down.”
“He’ll have thought about that and devised his own main infrastructures. They might be hidden from most but there will be someone who knows where they are. The best way to keep a secret is not to tell anyone but my bet is Leroy didn’t worry about who he told. No one would believe him anyway. He wouldn’t worry so much about anybody talking about what he was doing, they would never believe it would work anyway. ”
Trudy glanced over at the calendar on the wall. The date was May 23. They had 42 days to find him and stop the chaos from coming. She looked over at Bastian. “We have to warn the guys. Pappy will want to know what we found.”
Bastian nodded. “You might want to suggest that they look but make no attempts today. Once we know more about who and what we’re dealing with, the better chance we have to stop him.”
Bastian turned to walk back to the bedroom where his future waited. Then Calico motioned him over to the table he was sitting at. When Bastian joined him, Calico looked as if he had something to say but just didn’t know how to say it.
On the table between them was a cell phone. Calico motioned to the phone. “I took this from Enrique before we left the boat last night.”
“And?”
“I checked the call log.”
“And?” Bastian was growing impatient with the other man. “If there’s something I need to know, just say it.”
“Enrique placed a call to his family in Mexico shortly after they took Sawyer,” he finally told him. Sweat beaded on Calico’s forehead. “They have another brother and a father who runs a cartel somewhere in the mountains of Mexico. I’m not exactly sure where but I do know when Enrique got shot in the trouble where Tomas was arrested he mad
e his way home. Last night when I showed up, he told me his father and brother were on their way to get their own revenge. The youngest brother Jose was killed the night Tomas was arrested. Knowing Enrique, he played up my role in the shootout, making me responsible for Jose’s death, his wounds and the fact that Tomas went to jail. There is a strong possibility that Barrone Senoir and their older brother Paco are on their way here. For all I know they could be here already.” Calico nodded.
Bastian felt his stomach clench. “Are they coming here for you or Sawyer?”
“From what I know about those two it isn’t going to matter. They will come looking for Enrique and Tomas and when they can’t find them, they’ll look around for me or someone they know looks like me.”
Bastian looked around the compound. The gate was closed and there was a high fence around the perimeter. “So just stay behind the fence. With the men on guard no one can’t get in here.”
“Do you bet your life on that, or my daughter’s? You got in here, remember?” Calico scoffed. “And many a night, I heard stories from all three brothers about the hell they came from, how vengeful their own father was. They had a tough time growing up but they all agreed that no one messed with the old man. And no one messed with his sons if they wished to survive. If Enrique told his old man about where I was living nothing would stop him from breaking down the doors to get to me and mine.”
“Okay,” Bastian drawled out. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Take my family and get them somewhere safe.”
Bastian shook his head. “That won’t stop the old man. No doubt, Enrique told him they had Sawyer in custody and were waiting for you to show up. If they know about Sawyer, they won’t stop until they get their hands on her.”
“I can’t put them in danger,” Calico insisted. “I’ll stay here to head off Barrone but you have to get Jolene, Jordan and Sawyer somewhere they are going to be safe.”
Bastian shook his head. “I’m not leaving you behind. Your wife and daughter would never go without you.”
