by Sean Liscom
“You think I should ease up on him and cut him a little slack?” I asked, still looking at my boots.
“What’s that old saying? Trust but verify,” he grinned again. “Get to know the guy and get to know your sisters, too! I think you will find Kari and Isabella to be quite pleasant once you do.”
“Your daughter said I should get to know them too.”
“She’s a pretty smart girl. I’m pretty sure she got that from her mother. Lord knows she didn’t get it from me!” he laughed.
“Alright, you win. I just need a favor if you can pull it off.”
“Name it,” he said as he pulled his feet from the desk and scooted his chair back in.
“In the spirit of trust but verify, I need some satellite photos. Braden told me that you got some pretty good pictures of Las Vegas.”
“What is it you want to see?” he cocked his eyebrow.
“I would like to get recon on the ranches at Fortuna and Ambrose. I’d also like to get a look at the entrance to the ARK in Los Angeles. Can you do that?” I asked. He looked thoughtfully at his closed laptop for a moment.
“If I had the exact coordinates of all three locations, I might be able to give you something. Without them, I’d just be looking for a needle in a field of haystacks,” he finally replied.
“How am I supposed to get you coordinates?”
“You could try asking.... But, if you don’t want to do that, you could finish decoding the journals. I know he put them there.”
“I’ll have Braden get his ass to work!” I chuckled.
“Fair enough. Anything else I can do to be of service?”
“For now, no. I’m sure something will come up though. It always does,” I said as I stood from my chair.
“One more thing, before you go.”
“Yes?”
“No matter what happens with your father, always remember to put this ranch first and you’ll continue to be a good leader. You’ve held this place together because you don’t let emotion rule your decisions. Keep it that way and you’ll do fine.”
“It’s hard, Bill,” I confessed.
“If it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth it!”
“I know. I’ll admit, some days I just want to grab Jill and ride off into the sunset. Somedays I just can’t deal with all the day-to-day crap around here.”
“You’re doing fine, Jason. Keep doing what you’re doing, and you’ll continue to do fine. Maybe, just maybe, someday you and Jill can ride off into the sunset.”
“Just not today?” I asked with a grin.
“Not today,” he smiled back.
I worked my way out of the underground, going back the way I had come in. As I was climbing the stairs from the basement, I heard Jill telling Major Jackson about our arrival home last night. I paused and listened to her tell the story. It was as if I was listening to someone tell a campfire tale.
It had been half a day since I had learned that my father was still alive, and it still sounded like one of them big fish stories. You know, the kind of tale you tell when your half in the bag, sitting at the bar with your buddies. Except there was no punchline to be had. I shook my head and continued up the stairs.
"There he is!" Major Jackson proclaimed as I stepped into the dining room. He arose from his chair and greeted me with a handshake. "It sounds like you had quite the homecoming last night!"
"It was definitely something," I said, releasing his hand. "Everything in order in Elko?"
"Yep, things are going well. With the help of the conscripts that stayed on, they’ve managed to round up most of the supplies that were taken from the ranch and they are going to start bringing them out today," Major Jackson replied on his way back to his seat. "It's not everything but it's a lot."
“That’s great news, considering we have a whole lot more mouths to feed now,” I replied half-heartedly as I sat next to Jill.
“Yeah, Jill was filling me in on your visitors.”
“I was referring to having all the Teams back but, yeah, them too.”
“You don’t sound too excited about having them here,” the Major remarked.
“It’s not that....” my voice trailed off. There was a flash of concern across Jill’s face. If I hadn’t been looking directly at her, I might have missed it.
“Everything alright?” she asked.
“No, not really.”
“What’s the matter?” she persisted. I looked from her to Braden and then to Major Jackson. In that time, I made the decision to tell him about the ARK in Los Angeles. That’s what my gut told me to do and I followed that advice.
“Can I ask you a question, Major?” I began.
“Only if you quit calling me Major!”
“Fine. Dennis, have you ever heard anything about a secret bunker in the Los Angeles basin that’s referred to as the ARK?”
“I can’t say that I have. It’s not ringing any bells, why?”
“What do you know about the Western States Coalition?” I ignored his question.
“I know that we handed them their asses down in Vegas. Outside of that, I don’t know much.”
“Well, why don’t you pour yourself a cup of coffee and get comfy. I got a little tale to tell you,” I began.
It took me 20 minutes to tell him what I knew, with Braden filling in the details that he knew. For once, my brother and I were on the same page with no verbal pre-communication. When the two of us finally shut our mouths, the look on Major Dennis Jackson's face was one of skepticism.
“Let me get this straight,” he sat up in his chair. “You’re trying to tell me that there is a super-secret, underground base in Los Angeles AND you’re trying to tell me they are the ones responsible for the EMP attack. Am I getting this right?”
“Yes. That pretty much sums it up,” I said. The look of skepticism slowly changed to curiosity.
“Jason, I really, really respect you as a man, a husband and a warrior, but this sounds like some cockamamie movie right out of Hollywood,” he paused as if trying to choose his next words carefully. “We, the United States government, knew that North Korea conspired with Iran and possibly the Chinese or Russians to set off the EMP. They used various terrorist organizations as their boots on the ground to pull it off.”
“Three days after the EMP attack, Iran and North Korea ceased to exist. We turned them into glow-in-the-dark parking lots....”
“Why not the Chinese or Russians? Why weren’t they attacked in retaliation?” I interrupted.
“Because we couldn’t prove their involvement. That and the fact that they were hit just as hard as we were. Maybe even harder, but we knew, without a doubt, that Korea and Iran were the key players. If the Russians or Chinese were involved, they covered their tracks like pros. Now, you want me to believe that this was pulled off by a bunch of tree huggers hiding in a bunker, under Los Angeles…… You sure you didn’t take another blow to that thick melon sitting on your shoulders?” he smiled attempting to lighten the mood a little.
“It’s a little more complicated than that but, yes.”
“I don’t mean to be rude. So please, forgive me if I come off that way. The thing is, if I bought into every conspiracy theory I have ever heard, I’d be sitting in the corner somewhere with my nifty tinfoil hat on! Honestly, there’s no way a civilian organization could pull off something like what you’re saying.”
“With basically unlimited funds, decades of preparation and lots of help, they could,” I fired back. I was beginning to get irritated.
“Okay. For the sake of argument, let’s say they’re the ones behind the attack. Let’s say that everything you have told me is the truth.... What in Sam Hill am I supposed to do about it? I mean, c’mon, seriously?” his question made me stop and think for a moment while he stared at me.
“I don’t know, Dennis. Ya want an honest answer, there ya go,” I finally said.
“C’mon, Jason. Don’t spend 20 minutes yanking my chain and then tell me you don’t know.
Something’s going on in your head otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I suddenly felt as if the room were closing in on me. He was looking at me like I’d lost my mind. I got up and began to pace back and forth.
“Apparently this whole conspiracy went way up the government totem pole. Not just here but around the world,” I began to think out-loud. “First, how do you keep something like this quiet for so long without someone catching on? Really? How do you plot the destruction of mankind without anyone raising an eyebrow?” I asked.
“You compartmentalize everything. Very, very few people would have known everything,” Braden said from the end of the table.
“Yes! Exactly!” I continued to pace. “A handful of people, five or six at the most would have known about the whole plot. My guess is that of those five or six, there was one, maybe two masterminds and the rest were their puppeteers. Those would have been the people who gave the marching orders and a fake narrative to their underlings.”
“They would have also been the people holding the purse strings. Let’s face it. With enough money, anyone can be bought. Jack said that he tried to take the information up his chain of command, but he always got shut down before he made it to the top. In this case, the top would have been the President, right?” I asked no one in particular.
“He also said that after the EMP, he tried to inform the current government in Texas about what was going on in L.A., but he encountered the same resistance. They called him a crazy old man.”
“One problem, Jason,” Dennis interjected. “The current government in Texas has absolutely NO leftovers from the previous government out of DC. Hell, there aren’t even any of the original legislators from Texas in the current government. It’s all new people.”
“There’s nobody that has ties to the previous government?” I asked.
“Not that I’m aware of. It’s all ranchers and farmers now. You know, real people with real jobs.”
“What about military people? Any high-ranking officials that worked directly with the last administration?”
“Now that’s possible....” he looked thoughtfully at the ceiling for a moment. “Well, yeah. General Ayers was next up for a seat on the Joint Chiefs but if you are insinuating that he might have been involved.... That’s ludicrous!”
“I’m not insinuating anything, Dennis. I’m just trying to come up with a reason Jack might have had no luck with the new President or her staff. A connection, anything! Even if General Ayers was in on it, he probably had no idea what was happening!”
“The General is a smart guy, Jason. He didn’t get to where he is by being an idiot!”
“No doubt he’s a smart guy, Dennis! I’m not trying to say he’s not. Hear me out for a second though. As you said, for the sake of the argument. What if General Ayers was involved but the narrative that he had been given was that Jack really was some crazy dude. As far as he would know, he was just doing his job. Right?”
“You’re grasping at straws, Jason! You’re trying to make a case for something that may or may not have happened,” Dennis shifted in his chair slightly. “I’m still not sold on the ARK being behind the EMP and I’m certainly not buying into what you are saying about General Ayers.”
“Dennis,” Braden began from his end of the table. “I know all of this sounds like a bunch of conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo; I get that. I also get that we are giving you information from, at the very least, a second or third hand point of view. Hell, we haven’t even figured it all out yet! I think what Jason is trying to convey is that something might be happening that is way bigger than all of us and he wants you to keep your nose and ears perked up.”
“I’m always watching my six,” he said, slightly defensive.
“I’m not talking about watching your six, Dennis. I’m talking about looking for what might be right in front of you. If something sounds hinky, maybe look into it. That’s all I’m asking,” Braden replied.
“Dennis, remember right after the attack on Austin? When Judge was still working his way toward us?”
“Yeah.”
“When you came here to tell us about it, you also told us that a Colonel from the command center in Salt Lake ordered you to go to Austin. Right?”
“That’s right....” I could see the wheels begin to turn behind his eyes.
“You said that there was no way he could have known about the attack that soon. Hear me out here; what if the Colonel knew about it and was in bed with the WSC. Wouldn’t that explain how he knew about the attack and wouldn’t that also explain why he wanted to send your Team straight into an ambush?”
“He wanted us out of the way. He was trying to soften up Elko’s defenses before Ray and his men got here. They weren’t expecting us to surrender the city or the ranch....” his voice trailed off.
“What if this Colonel is the one who was stonewalling my father’s efforts to get information to the President?” I asked. Dennis took a second before he replied.
“I still think you’re grasping at straws, Jason. That said, I’ll look into it. If we got a dirty officer, you can bet your ass I’m going to go shake some trees to see what falls out. As far as this ARK thing is concerned; get me some evidence. Get me something I can take to my superiors. It’s gotta be something more than a conspiracy theory. I need something solid.”
“I’m working on that.”
“Okay. Until you get me something, let’s just keep this between us. I don’t need word of this getting out and panicking people....”
“You haven’t heard the worst part, yet.”
“Really? You’re like a bad infomercial! But wait! There’s more!” he waved his hands in the air for effect.
“That was Phase One. Let me tell you about Phase Two of their plan....”
CHAPTER 5
Friday, September 1st, 2017
Major Jackson spent another hour at my dining room table. Before taking his leave, he promised me that if I could get some evidence, he would take it as far as it needed to go to make something happen. His word was all I needed.
After he left, I had another long conversation with my brother about the journals. By the time we were done, Braden also promised to spend every waking hour working on the code buried in them. All of his other responsibilities had been put on hold.
That left me and Jill sitting at the table, alone. She had been unusually quiet throughout both meetings. The look of concern masked by her poker face was very evident to me. I had developed a way of seeing right through her facade.
“Talk to me, babe. You look like you just ate a whole lemon,” I said. She let out a long, measured sigh.
“We really can’t get a break, can we? God, why?” she asked looking up toward the ceiling. I reached across the table and took her hand in mine.
“We’ll get through this. We’ve held our own so far and we’ll continue to do so,” I tried to reassure her, but the words sounded hollow, even to me.
“Since we’ve been together, the world we knew vanished. We’ve faced two, count ‘em, TWO major combat engagements and you died on me during the first one! Then you got blown up and I feared the worst. Then Ray took you from me and I’d feared, yet again, that you had been killed! I thought I had lost you, again!” her voice started to crack, and she squeezed my hand. Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes.
“We’re sitting out of this fight. There’s no way in hell that I or anyone from this ranch is going to Los Angeles,” I told her.
“If they come here? If they release those missiles and the biological weapons they hold? Then what?”
“We have the underground....”
“There’s not enough room for everyone!” she interrupted. “This ranch has, what, a hundred people we’re responsible for? The underground was designed for a quarter of that, MAX!” she emphasized.
“We’ll figure it out. We’ll come up with a plan and we’ll figure it out,” after a very long pause, she was about to say something when the front doo
r was thrown open and Dan Hawkins burst in. Jill quickly withdrew her hand and wiped the tears from her face and eyes.
“JASON!” Dan shouted from the doorway.
“In here!” I shouted back. Dan took three or four steps into the entryway and looked into the dining room.
“We got a problem!”
“What?” I started to stand but looked back to Jill one more time.
“A woman, Sheriff Wagner, says her convoy is pinned down under heavy fire about 30 miles south of here. She’s requesting assistance!” he blurted out.
“Kaitlyn?” Jill asked.
“Did she say how many in the attacking force?” I asked.
“Her best guess is 20 to 30.”
“Take all three, no, belay that, take two teams and get moving. Tell the team leader that’s left to report to me ASAP,” I ordered.
“You got it, boss!” Dan was already running out the door when he replied. I looked at Jill again and her game face was properly in place again.
“Promise me we can finish this conversation soon,” she said.
“We can finish it now,” I offered.
“No. You’re distracted, and you’ve got work to do.”
“Dan’s the one doing the work. We can finish this conversation....”
“No, I said. You have things you have to do right now, things that can’t wait. Besides, I need you to be 100% in the moment when we finish this,” a coy smile started to play at the corners of her mouth and eyes. “It’s not every day your wife tells you to go oversee the operation to rescue your girlfriend!” she laughed. I’d told her about everything that had happened with the beautiful Sheriff from Lund, Nevada the week prior. Everything. Jill proved, once again, she could still make me blush and stutter for words.
