The Ranch

by Sean Liscom

  “At this point? Yes. Listen, I know it sounds harsh but if they’re out of commission, there is really no point in wasting time to go up there.”

  “You said so yourself, after Vegas, you were ready to hightail it up there. Now you’re not?”

  “That was before I saw the opportunity to go after the ARK,” he defended his position. “We haven’t heard from them in almost a year and a half. A couple more weeks won’t make a difference.”

  “Okay, I can buy that. Let me ask you this; if you had known that the ARK was vulnerable right after Vegas, would you have headed that way? I mean, Vegas is a hell of a lot closer to L.A. than we are.”

  “If I’d have known then, yeah. We would have headed west instead of north,” he continued to wipe his hands on the shop rag.

  “Instead you made a gamble on us being in a position to repair your equipment, right?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I get the feeling that you came here looking for more than that though. You came here in the hopes that we’d join your cause. Right?”

  “Of course, I hoped you would join me. I’ve seen how well your people are trained and I can really use that at the ARK. The offer to move there is still on the table too.” I could see that he was sensing the trap I was laying. I could also see him switch gears in his mind. “You said last night that your people are tired, that you’re tired. Jason, my people are tired too.”

  “We’ve been on the road for four months without a break. What should have taken a couple of weeks has dragged on into months. We are low on food, fuel and ammo. Our rigs are worn out from the constant beating they’ve taken since we left home and my people needed a break. That’s why we’re here. Give us a few days to get rested, repaired and restocked and we’ll be on our way.”

  “You could stay here,” I offered.

  “No. We can’t. The ARK and the Western States Coalition is my responsibility. You said you won’t join us, I’ll respect that, but this is a mission I must finish. I have to bury that axe once and for all,” he replied without hesitation.

  “Tell me how all of that ties together. I’m still foggy on the connection.”

  “Alright, it’s like this; The ARK in L.A. was the biggest because it was the headquarters for their global operations. The other 11 ARK’s are smaller, more like outposts, if you will. Ray Judge was employed as their guy in charge of physical security for all 12 sites.”

  “The WSC was the product of Ray Judge and Paul Wesson being locked out of the ARK the night of the EMP. After fending for themselves for a couple of weeks, those two started recruiting so that they could have themselves a little army and they could lay claim to some turf and resources. Initially they wanted to secure the area around the ARK, but it didn’t take long for that to change.”

  “It was Ray’s bright idea to start breaking prisoners out of jails and prisons. If they swore allegiance to him, they could live. Once free, he did very little to keep them in check. He allowed them to exert control through force. Apparently, Paul took issue with this and tried to kill Ray. His attempted assassination failed, and Paul barely got out alive. Ray was winning that blood feud until he got distracted by Vegas. Adolpha had one hell of an operation and he wanted it for himself. He quickly realized that the more he could pull under his authority, the better his chances of controlling the ARK became. That is, if they ever got the doors open.”

  “And you think they’ve gotten the doors open?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. I know how to open them if they’re still locked,” he looked up and smiled.

  “What’s left of the WSC? Are they still guarding the entrance of the ARK?”

  “Ray left behind a token force, but I’m not worried about them. What bothers me is what will happen to this ranch if you continue to stay here. The Coalition forces may be scattered but they are hardly broken. The operation in Vegas only made them become smarter in the way they fight. Make no mistake, they will continue to fight.”

  “I also told you last night, we’ll deal with them as we come across them.”

  “Jason, it’s only a matter of time before they have the strength to destroy this place. By giving them a beat down in Vegas, all you did was strengthen their resolve to come here and get some revenge.”

  “The answer seems pretty simple to me; stay here and fight alongside my people. With the addition of your teams....”

  “We’re not staying,” he interrupted. “As soon as these rigs are ready to go, we’ll be out of your hair.”

  “Can you be successful going after the ARK?”

  “Like I said; I’m not worried about the people outside the ARK. The real fighting will begin once those doors are opened. Once I gain access to their computer system, I can defeat all their countermeasures except one. Their human security measures are what’s going to give us problems.”

  “You mean the guards on the inside?”

  “Yeah. It’s a good bet they’ll fight to the death.”

  “That’s why you wanted us to join you. You wanted the additional manpower, or should I say human shields,” I could feel the anger boiling up inside me.

  “It’s not like that, Jason. Your people are very well trained. Might I say, possibly even better than mine when it comes to close quarters combat. Losses are to be expected no matter what.”

  “Careful, Jack! You’re talking about MY people. No loss is acceptable.”

  “It’s not like you’re going with us anyway....” he shrugged off my rebuke.

  “Not the point and you know it!” I growled. After taking a moment to let my anger subside, I continued my questioning. “Tell me about the ARK itself. I know what I’ve read in the journals and I know what Braden has told me from the coded message, but I want to hear it from you.”

  “Straight from the horse’s mouth?” he chuckled a little.

  “Or the horse’s ass,” I fired back. There was a flash of surprise in his eyes. Before, when the world was normal, I’d have never dared to make such a comment. Braden, probably, but not me.

  “The ARK’s were originally conceived and funded by governments around the world. They were supposed to be places dignitaries could go if things ever fell apart. This all started right after World War Two, that’s how long they’ve been around.”

  “Fast forward to the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The governments that maintained the ARK’s decided that they were nothing more than a waste of time and money. The bully on the block was gone and they didn’t see the need for them anymore. So, they were sold off to the interests in private industry.”

  “Banks bought into them for somewhere safe to store their data. The pharmaceutical companies used them for safe places to store their R&D stuff, they even used them as research labs. About half of them fell into disrepair due to lack of use.”

  “It was in the early 90’s, when all 12 sites were purchased by an R&D company out of Austria. Instead of kicking out what few tenants they had, they actually encouraged more to move in....”

  “Did the drug makers really need that much space?” Braden broke his self-imposed silence.

  “Yes, they did. We’re not just talking about human based drugs here. They were working on everything from human and animal medications to pesticides. They were even doing a lot of research into nasty stuff. Things like Ebola and the deadly flu strains, just to name a couple.”

  “In the late 90’s, the operation came under new management. The new CEO was a billionaire that literally nobody ever heard of by the name of Ashton Blake. It’s my understanding that very few people ever actually met the guy in person but there were numerous accounts of speaking with him on the phone or through email. I guess he was quite the introvert.”

  “Anyway, he took a big interest in what the drug companies were doing, and he funneled a load of money their way. Of course, it was all money that he received a return on. The man was already rich beyond imagination, so he put the money he made right back into the R&D
side of the drug companies.”

  “Something else happened in that six-year time span. Every single company that was working for him went through management changes of their own. All the executive officers retired, and he replaced them with his own people. People that wouldn’t question his motives or directions.”

  “In the latter part of the 2000’s, much of the work done was now being done in the ARK’s, away from prying eyes. The only work that was still being conducted above ground was the stuff they wanted us to see.”

  “It was around this time that I had my first involvement with them. Gary Wesson and I were tasked with investigating multiple disappearances in the southern California area. Now, normally we didn’t work such cases, but an exception was made because of how many people were missing.”

  “How many?” Braden questioned.

  “Near as we could tell? About 1200 people in a four-month period. Most of those were homeless transients. It became suspicious to local authorities when there were several corroborating reports of a white van pulling up and snatching them off the street in the middle of the night.”

  “It became even stranger because they were disappearing in certain demographic groups. By that I mean, 12 men and 12 women who were 16 to 24 years old, all white. Then a group of 12 men and 12 women 25 to 35 years of age, again, all white. This went on and on and on until, at least it appeared, they had collected groups from different age brackets and ethnic backgrounds. For them, SoCal was a target rich environment.”

  “You mean the ARK was collecting people?” I asked.

  “At the time, we didn’t know it was them but, yes. They were the ones behind the disappearances. We’d been on the case for about eight months when we got our first break. One night they grabbed an undercover cop instead of a transient. Black and whites swarmed the van and there was a brief chase that ended in a shoot-out between the kidnappers and the cops.”

  “Of the three bad guys in the van, only one survived and he surrendered. He’d been shot, so they rushed him to the hospital. Gary and I were notified, and we rushed down there to question the guy. Problem was, he was dead by the time we got there. It wasn’t from his wound either.”

  “There was a sea of uniformed cops outside of his operating room. There were eight witnesses inside the OR along with the doctor. It was reported that the doc “slipped” when he was digging the bullet out of the man’s chest and severed his aorta with a scalpel.”

  “Thing was, we found the real doctor dead in the scrub room and no signs of the doctor that killed our suspect. Remember when I said that hospitals were easy? A good ID, scrubs and a surgical mask was all it took. We were left with two dead cops, a dead suspect, a dead doctor and a van that caught fire and burned to the ground in the police impound yard.”

  “The very next day, we were pulled from the case and on the next plane back to Virginia. I was livid, absolutely livid when I stomped into Bill’s office. I was ready to light him up and rip him a new asshole for pulling us from the case. Turns out, his orders came directly from the top. Bill protested but was told to recall us or be removed from the agency.”

  “He told us to let it go. Any protests up the chain of command would result in immediate termination. So, we let it go. Officially anyway. Unofficially, I started snooping into our director. There wasn’t much to find but I had a hard time figuring out how he could afford a 12-million-dollar home, send his three kids to the most expensive schools in the country and afford a hooker habit.”

  “I knew he was dirty as hell; I just couldn’t prove it. Again, I had to let it go. After about a week of deliberation, I decided to retire. I was done with the dirty politicians, the crooked directors, and the ulcers it was giving me. Gary was in the same boat, so both of us retired.”

  “At that point in time, this ranch was complete, and Fortuna was nearly done but I wasn’t totally ready to throw in the towel yet. I decided to start up my own cyber security company. That’s one thing I was good at and I made a decent living from it. It also made it easier to keep stealing from the bad guys.”

  “Hadn’t you stolen enough?” Braden asked.

  “In a word? No. I guess you could say that I had become addicted to it. Some of them made it almost too easy; like stealing candy from a baby!”

  “Weren’t you afraid of being caught?”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “But you had this ranch and another one in the works, why keep doing it?” I asked.

  “Simple really. Jason, last night you said that something changed during the construction of this ranch, you said it went from a retreat to a fortress, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “After years of dealing with the worst elements of the human population, I decided early on to build this ranch. I knew that corruption and greed would eventually destroy not only this country but every outpost of freedom around the globe. It was only a matter of time before those people destroyed the human spirit, before they enslaved everyone, or they destroyed those who opposed them. They were that powerful.”

  “When you combine the hunger for power with a lust for control and a saint-like patience, it’s only a matter of time before it happens. I also realized early on that they were in the ending phase of their strategy. The time was getting closer for them to make their move.”

  “That’s why I bought this property in 1989. That’s why I put together the team that I did. They were all very smart men and women. I told Allan what I wanted, and he led the team that built this place. I used my connections, including my boss at the agency, Bill, to bring in what I needed to turn it into that fortress you spoke of. Over the years, it evolved and grew into what it is today. You guys have seized the reins and far exceeded my expectations....”

  “Jack, you started building this place over a decade before you retired. I know the history behind the ranch. Allan told me all about that. Let’s get back to your involvement with the ARK,” I redirected his rambling. Judging by the deepening wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, he knew I had picked up his attempt to divert the conversation. He rolled with it, like a pro.

  “Oh, yeah. I’d been doing my own thing for about a year, made a pretty good name for myself too, I might add. One day I was contacted by a company calling themselves Advanced Research Kollective. They wanted me to put their security systems to the test.”

  “After giving me their information and agreeing on a price for my services, I did just that. Within a week I’d managed to break into their test server. A day or two after later, they offered me the job of revamping their system. Let’s just say that they weren’t afraid of throwing money at the problem.”

  “So, I spent the next couple of months building them a system that couldn’t be hacked from the outside. They spent several weeks trying to break into it. To their dismay, their best hackers couldn’t pull it off. They paid me a very nice sum of money, took their product and I assumed that would be the last I’d ever heard from them.”

  “I was wrong. A while after that I get another phone call. They are having a bitch of a time transferring all their data to the new, protected servers. After explaining to them that there was no way to do what they wanted to do, they offered me another paycheck if I could make it happen for them.”

  “I obliged, of course. After explaining to them that the old servers and new servers would have to be linked, side by side, they gave me the task of doing just that. The next morning, they picked me up at home, blindfolded me and put me on a plane. I wasn’t allowed to remove the blindfold or speak to anyone until I had been delivered to their server room.”

  “I was a little shocked to find three dozen old servers standing right next to three dozen new servers. There were also four armed men in the room that were watching me like a hawk. Once the data transfers had been made, I was blindfolded and put back on a plane and sent home....”

  “You’re doing it again, Jack. We already know all of this,” I scolded him. He sighed and wiped his hands on the rag again. />
  “What, exactly, is it you want to hear from me, Jason? I’ve told you what I know about the WSC and I’m trying to fill in all the little details for you. What do you want?” he asked.

  “I wanna know why. Why the sudden push to go after the ARK? If they are still locked down, why?” Jack shifted on his feet and looked between me and Braden. After a moment, he looked back at the rag in his hands and then tossed it on the hood of the Hummer.

  “It’s only a matter of time before they manage to break themselves out of the ARK. When, not if, but when they defeat the locks I put in place, they will begin phase two of their operation.”

  “Phase two?” Braden asked.

  “Their original plan went something like this; first they wanted to release a biological agent that would wipe out the better part of the human race. Before you ask if something like that even exists, the answer is yes. They created it in their labs, and they were testing it on the subjects they kidnapped in southern California. It had a lethality rate of over 90%. The remaining 10% had a natural immunity so they were used to create a vaccine.”

  “Once they had destroyed most of the population, they were going to launch a worldwide EMP attack from specially outfitted container ships that they had stationed at strategic locations around the seven seas. The idea being they wanted to wipe out any technology the survivors might be able to use. Radios, vehicles and so on.”

  “When that was complete, they would then leave the ARK’s. Anybody that survived all of that would either be eradicated or enslaved. A world that had been turned back over to Mother Nature would be their crown jewel. They could live as gods in the new world they created.”

  “You threw a wrench in their plans by destroying their lab and scientist’s, right? Braden asked.

  “Yes, I did. All that did was buy us some time though. It took them a while, but they decided to reverse the steps of the original plan. Bring the world to its knees and then deliver the biological agent as the deathblow.”

  “If you destroyed the virus, or whatever it was, how could that still be a part of their plan?”