Not a solitary soul was in sight as they were placed into the back of a black SUV.
An SUV which had no window controls or door handles in the back seat. Its windows were so heavily tinted they couldn’t see through them at all.
No doubt anyone looking in wouldn’t be able to see them either.
Bud tried his best to keep his composure. He was starting to think he’d gone too far. That they were now in real trouble. But he was determined not to convey that to his adversaries.
As for Tony, he was close to freaking out.
He was thoroughly convinced he’d seen his last sunrise.
Chapter 18
As they were driven through the bustling streets of the nation’s capitol Tony leaned over to his friend and whispered.
“By the way, Bud, you’re wrong.”
“Me? Wrong? Bite your tongue, young man. What do you think I’m wrong about?”
“Poker. You said the only difference between a good poker player and a bad one was the cards they held in their hands. But that’s not true.”
“Of course it’s true. I’m always right. About everything.”
“You’re wrong about this. A poker player can blunder and misplay a hand, even if he has the best cards in the world. And a player with the worst possible cards can win a hand if he can bluff his way out of it.
“It’s not always the cards, Bud.”
Oddly enough, Bud smiled at his young friend. It certainly wasn’t the way Tony expected him to react.
“Let’s just wait until this whole thing is over, Tony. We’ll see how the poker hand works out. You’ll see that I’m right.”
Tony sighed heavily.
“Bud, I don’t even expect to be alive when this whole thing is over.”
A darkened glass partition between the front and rear seats prevented the pair from seeing who was driving or where they were going.
Still, they got the sense they were in heavy traffic. The vehicle kept starting and stopping, and they heard several other drivers sounding their horns and yelling obscenities at one another.
The sounds were muted, though, as though the vehicle was heavily soundproofed.
Still, it could have been worse. They were handcuffed in the front of their bodies. They could still run if they had to.
Tony wondered whether that was an oversight.
Bud saw it for what it really was. They were so heavily outmatched they’d have absolutely no chance for escape. Running would be futile.
A more pessimistic man would have thought there might be another reason: that they were cuffed that way because their captors were hoping they’d try to escape.
So they could shoot them down in cold blood.
Bud was a “glass-is-half-full” kind of guy.
He preferred not to entertain that possibility.
Tony, on the other hand, didn’t want to go quietly into that dark night.
“Do you think if you leaned back I could lie across the seat and kick out your window?”
Bud gave the idea due thought before answering.
“You wouldn’t have a chance. It’s bullet proof. Way too thick. All that would happen is that the partition would come down and you’d get shot.”
“Then what do we do, Bud? Surely there’s something. There’s got to be.”
“Our plan is already in motion, Tony. The bull has left the chute. We’ve got no choice now but to hang on for dear life and enjoy the ride.”
“Bull? Chute? What on earth are you talking about?”
“Never mind. Just try your best to relax and we’ll see where this thing goes.”
The thing went to a towering office building on L Street South. It tickled the afternoon clouds and was so high it actually swayed a bit in high winds.
And it was quite an architectural masterpiece, covered with mirrored glass and marble features.
Not that Tony and Bud saw any of that. They were driven into a parking garage and down to the lowest level.
A level which had been cleared of all prying eyes.
When their door opened again they were ordered out at gunpoint.
Tony never noticed, but Bud did.
The guns were now sporting silencers.
“I thought silencers were illegal,” Bud commented in an attempt to start a semi-friendly banter.
“Shut up. Follow him.”
Obviously they were in no mood to be friendly.
So they shut up and followed “him.”
Out of the garage they went, herded once again into a private elevator.
This one had what appeared to be blood smeared on the wall.
Bud wondered whether it was left there on purpose as an intimidation technique.
If it was, it worked on Tony, whose eyes grew as big as saucers.
Bud caught his eye and smiled, trying to reassure him just a bit.
It didn’t work.
When the elevator door opened they were escorted down a corridor which looked like the last place it belonged was a downtown office building.
On each side of the corridor were a series of windowless doors made of heavy metal. Each was painted a dull beige color and each was adorned with a one-digit number, painted upon the door in black block.
About waist high on each door was another small rectangular door held in place by a slide bolt.
And each door was equipped with a heavy duty hasp welded into place, both on the door itself and on its metal door frame.
They were obviously cell doors. The men had seen enough prison shows on the cable TV networks to easily identify them as such.
It was easy to tell which of the cells held prisoners, for those cells were locked with the largest padlocks Tony had ever seen. Each one was easily bigger than his fist.
He counted seven such padlocks as they were escorted down the corridor and into cell number nine.
Nine used to be Tony’s lucky number.
Obviously not anymore.
Without a word the men were deposited in the cell, the door slammed shut behind them.
They weren’t issued any instructions. They hadn’t asked any questions.
They accepted their fate, and understood the time for talking was over.
At least for now.
Chapter 19
Gwen was sleeping in rather cramped conditions, but was making the most of it.
Melvyn, lying next to her, was dead to the world and snoring softly.
They’d been through quite an ordeal, and while they survived it unscathed, they were mentally and physically exhausted.
Their friend Joe, bless his heart, had tried his best to accommodate them. He’d gone into the buried shipping container he used to store his food and tried his best to redistribute it.
Before he started the food was sorted and stacked by expiration date. It was neat and organized, and the container left enough aisle space to allow him to move around freely. It was cramped, sure, but workable.
Now everything was crammed on the far end, floor to ceiling, without regard to food type or shelf life.
Joe told himself it was only a temporary measure. That he’d taken enough food to his galley to last the three of them for at least a month.
He told himself there’d be plenty of time to re-sort it after his friends’ crisis was past and he was back on his own again.
The truth was, though, that he’d welcomed his friends with open arms, not knowing who was chasing them or why.
And not knowing how long they’d be there.
Oh, it wouldn’t have mattered if they said they were there for the duration.
It wouldn’t have mattered if the provisions Joe had stockpiled would run out several years before they were intended to.
It just wouldn’t have mattered.
For Joe didn’t have many friends in the world. He’d run most of them off because they were unwilling or unable to cope with his PTSD flare-ups.
But Joe knew what many of his fair-weather friends had forgotten.
He still remembered the true meaning of friendship.
He knew that one of the best things true friends did for one another was to come to their aid when they needed help.
Not to merely offer lip service, but to provide meaningful help.
To provide them shelter in a storm.
The truth was, to Joe it didn’t matter whether they planned to stay ten days or ten years.
His door was open either way.
There was another factor, too.
Joe and Melvyn had traversed the jungles of Laos together.
They’d been shot at by snipers in the trees. Avoided punji sticks dipped in human feces. Booby traps. Trip wires.
They’d talked several times until dawn when one or the other was convinced that particular night was their night to die.
They’d shared family photos from home and read letters from loved ones, in loud voices to overcome the deafening sound of nearby artillery fire.
They’d smelled the stench of napalm and of burning bodies. They’d seen their buddies blown to pieces before their very eyes. Been covered with blood which had been flowing through their friends’ veins just moments before.
Men cannot go through those things together without being bonded for life.
Joe Morgan would do anything for Melvyn Lupson, and Melvyn for him.
Putting his friends up for as long as they wanted to stay was a minor inconvenience for Joe, and nothing more.
Truth was, he enjoyed the company and hoped they stayed for awhile.
His bunker had been awfully lonely of late, and he’d caught himself talking a number of times lately to himself.
Joe had said goodnight that night and walked to his own tiny bed on the other side of the bunker.
The last thing he’d expected was to hear the distant cries of Gwen a couple of hours later.
He knew it was Melvyn’s place to calm and comfort her and not his. But he couldn’t help but run through the dimly-lit tunnel to the food container. She was Melvyn’s wife, sure. But she was Joe’s friend as well.
And while Joe didn’t have many friends left, the ones who were gone left him. Not the other way around. For he was loyal to a fault.
It was Melvyn’s place to comfort her. But if there was anything at all Joe could do to help he was there for her.
By the time he made it to the container he could hear Gwen sobbing softly. Melvyn held her in his arms, rocking her gently back and forth.
“Anything I can do?” Joe asked.
Gwen pulled away from her husband for just a moment and addressed Joe directly.
“What kind of friend am I? I was so concerned about my own well being I completely forgot about her. She was in danger too. I shared the data with her. They’ve probably gone after her too. And I never even warned her.
“What kind of friend am I?”
Joe, of course, didn’t have a clue who she was talking about. He looked to Melvyn for explanation.
“Her friend Hannah. A co-worker who lives in Little Rock. Gwen met with her and shared her data with her so she could offer a second opinion.”
He turned back to his wife.
“You’re wrong, honey. Dead wrong. You told me yourself after Hannah flew to Phoenix. You said when you met with her that you told her to be careful. To watch her back.
“You told her they might be coming after her and to trust no one she didn’t already know.
“If she followed your advice then she’s fine. You did your duty. You told her to be careful and I’m sure she took your advice.”
It turned out there was something Joe could do to help after all.
“Would you like for me to try to contact her, just to put your mind at ease?”
Chapter 20
Gwen stopped sobbing and pushed her face away from Melvyn’s shoulder. She looked at Joe and said, “You can do that? But how?”
“I have prepper contacts all over the country. All over the world, really. I even know people in England. In Bentwaters and in Liverpool. Others in Germany and in Australia too.
“And I just happen to know a couple just outside of Little Rock, Arkansas.”
Melvyn stepped in.
“Joe, no. Right now we’ve disappeared completely. We’re off the government’s radar. If you call your friends and the government is monitoring the airwaves, can’t they track your location?”
“Only by using the old triangulation method. And they’d have to be pretty good at it. And they’d have to be pretty darn quick, too. You know I only transmit in short bursts.”
“But if the Department of Homeland Security hears you mention Hannah Carson by name it’ll alert them. They’ll have teams scanning your frequency twenty four hours a day. When you do come on they’ll be ready.”
“Melvyn, trust me on this. You and I always spoke in code and you made it here safely. You don’t think I use the same techniques when I talk to my other prepper friends? Let me handle this. I can have my friends check on Hannah, and if she’s okay I can even get a message to her if you want.”
He turned back to Gwen.
“Is there something you’d like to tell her?”
Gwen thought, then shook her head. In a soft voice she said, “No. I think that would be too dangerous. For her, for your friends, for all of us.
“I think I’d be satisfied just knowing she and her husband are okay.”
“Okay,” Joe said. “It’s too late tonight to call Little Rock. I’ll work up a coded message and call them tomorrow evening.”
“And you’re sure it’s safe?”
“Sure it’s safe. We outsmarted the government once. We can do it again.”
“What was this triangulation thing you were talking about?”
“It’s an old trick the allies used during World War Two to find enemy ships on the ocean. It can be used to find people on land too, just by listening to their broadcasts.”
“Seriously? How in the world does it work?”
“Simple. Say you can hear somebody broadcasting but you don’t know exactly where it’s coming from. One of your tracking stations picks up the signal, and it’s coming from southwest of their location.
“They can’t tell how far away it is, or exactly where it’s coming from, but when they turn their homing antenna in that direction they get the strongest signal.
“Their first step is to draw a line from their location to the southwest, in the direction the signal was strongest. The line goes onto infinity, since they don’t know how far away the transmitter was.
“The next time they hear the broadcast it’s picked up by a different tracking station. One that’s farther to the south and the east.
“They use the same method. They can hear the signal but don’t know where it’s coming from. So they turn their homing antenna in a full circle, three hundred and sixty degrees. They constantly measure the strength of the incoming signal, and when it’s at its strongest they make note of it.
“Let’s say from the strength of the signal the transmission is coming from northwest of the second tracking station.
“So they do as they did before. They draw an imaginary line northwest, in the exact direction the signal was strongest.
“At some point, the two lines will cross. And that will give the general location where the broadcast came from.
“But they typically didn’t stop there. Because of fluctuations in radio strength and distortion of overland radio waves, that gives them a general place to search. But their search area could still be hundreds of square miles.
“That’s where the third station comes in. If the signal was picked up by a third tracking station, this one north and east of the other two, it could mark a third line which would cross the other two. And it would come a lot closer to pinpointing the exact location of the broadcast.
“The Navy used the method during the Second World War to locate enemy ships and submarines. That was why ships and subs practiced strict radio silence, except when reporti
ng in or getting instructions. Even then, alert radio trackers could get a directional fix on them if they were quick enough and proficient enough.
“Of course, it’s a lot easier finding a ship in an ocean if you’re searching an area of a few hundred square miles than it is to find a ham radio operator in a few hundred square miles of wooded country.
“But they make additional equipment these days that ping on steel structures up to several hundred yards away.
“The feds can drive up and down rural roads and ping both sides of their vehicle. The pingers work much like metal detectors. They’re looking for something made of steel and a certain shape. It will ignore anything that doesn’t meet their search criteria. But if it detected, for example, a narrow steel structure hidden in the trees two hundred yards away… something roughly the height and shape of a ham radio antenna, it’ll ping on it. Then the investigators merely have to sneak through the woods to find the antenna.
“Once they find the antenna they just follow the cable to see where it leads.
“Of course, these days antennas are lower profile than they once were. And some of them are wireless. So even if the feds found the antenna that wouldn’t automatically give up the location of the radio. And I’ve heard that some preppers are getting smarter and attaching the top of their antennas to existing power poles and to the tops of water towers and the like.
“I’ve also heard some preppers have developed the ability to catch and send radio signals by modifying the satellite dishes people have on their houses. I haven’t personally seen one, but I’ve heard that’s the way of the future. Especially in a suburban situation, it would work exceedingly well because those kinds of antennas are everywhere.”
“What about your setup, Joe? Do you have your antenna mounted on a power pole nearby?”
“No. Sadly, I’m one of the poor shmucks who still uses a thirty foot steel antenna, hidden in the woods within a hundred yards of a county roadway.”
Chapter 21
Joe was convinced, though, that by talking in code with his prepper buddy in Arkansas he could set Gwen’s mind at ease without arousing the interest or suspicions of the U.S. government.
The Yellowstone Event (Book 2): A National Disgrace Page 7
