In his view it was worth a try.
Gwen and Melvyn weren’t so sure, until Joe pointed out another reason for trying.
“If she’s still at home and still safe, she needs to know that they’ve gone after you and blown up your house.
“That wasn’t just to send you a message or to make you back off. That was an assassination attempt.”
“So?”
“So… I know you mainly want to check on your friend Hannah to make sure she’s safe. And hopefully she is. But let’s say she is. Let’s say she’s at home baking cookies or knitting or whatever women do these days…”
Gwen smiled.
“She’s in her twenties. I’m afraid most women that age wouldn’t know a knitting needle from a pitch fork. She likely spends her time watching movies with her husband and doing things on her computer.”
“Hey, don’t make fun of me. I’ve been antisocial for a very long time. I don’t even own a computer. I never have.”
“Oh, I’m not making fun of you, Joe. I never would. I’m just pointing out that times have changed, and most young people have no interest in the things we grew up doing.”
“That’s their loss. Life was better when it was simpler. In the days before cell phones and video games and computers.”
“I totally agree. Young people don’t know the simple joy of going for a walk or going on a picnic. Of climbing a tree or watching birds and insects.
“Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry, Joe, I’ve gotten you sidetracked. Please finish what you were saying.”
“I was pretty much finished. Except that in addition to making sure your friend Hannah is okay, we need to warn her. I know you told her to be careful, but she needs to know these guys mean business. She needs to know they’ve gone after you and missed, and that she might well be on their list of targets as well.”
“I don’t know what to say, Joe. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For everything. I mean, it would have been so easy for you to turn us away. To tell us to go elsewhere. But you’ve not only opened up your shelter to us, you’re also going out of your way to help someone you’ve never even met. Thank you so much.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I turned you away. Melvyn and I had each others’ backs in ‘Nam. I’d like to think it’s a habit that’ll last all our lives.”
Melvyn said nothing, but nodded in agreement.
“Besides,” Joe went on. “You’ve heard the old saying, any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Obviously you’re concerned for Hannah’s safety and well being. So even though I’ll likely never meet her and her husband, I’ll still consider her a friend by proxy. I’ll still do what I can to help her, if for no other reason to give you some peace of mind.
“And there’s one other thing…”
“What’s that, Joe?”
“There’s another saying. Not as well known, but it still applies here. The enemy of my brother is my enemy as well.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ve been angry with the United States government for a very long time. The way they sent so many of our brothers to their deaths in Vietnam. The way they don’t fight wars for noble reasons anymore. The wars they fight now are for personal vendettas, or to gain access to oil or other resources. The way congressmen protect their own children from having to serve, so that the children of other, less well-connected people have to go and die in their place.
“Most of all I’m angry with the government for no longer representing the people. Instead they represent themselves and their cronies and their own self interests.
“Have you ever heard of Eddie Simms?”
“No. Who is Eddie Simms?”
“He was another of my friends. A vet, like me, but from the Korean War.
“He was so fed up with the government he started a movement against the feds.
“He called it the ‘No Taxation without Representation’ movement. And it was a simple concept. He went on the internet and got people to commit to not pay their taxes until Washington made some big changes. He wanted term limits for all congressmen and senators. He wanted a flat tax so that Washington politicians and rich fat-cats had to pay the same tax rate as the little guy.
“His movement was really going places. Thousands of people signed up. They each signed pledges saying they wouldn’t file income tax returns until Washington started making changes.
“They were mostly vets, but they were dragging in a lot of their non-veteran friends as well.
“Anyway, like I said, his group started to swell into the thousands. Last I heard over thirty thousand people.
“Apparently enough people to finally get the government’s attention.
“And that would have been good if it made them make the changes Eddie wanted them to make.
“Instead, the government saw him as a thorn in their side. They decided that instead of doing the right thing, and making the changes he was advocating, they would silence him.
“I was with him the day he died. He was on top of the world. He had an interview scheduled for later in the week with a national television network. He was going ‘big time’, he said. The word of his movement would reach millions, and the government wouldn’t have any choice but to make changes.
“I left, and drove past a no-frills sedan parked down the block. A black one. It looked like an unmarked police car, the kind the narcotics detectives use for undercover work and stake-outs. I’d forgotten the federal government uses them too.
“Anyway, I figured it was just the local cops getting ready to do a search warrant on a drug dealer. I didn’t worry about Eddie because I knew Eddie never did drugs. Never. He despised the whole concept of drugs because his little sister had been murdered by a couple of meth users who’d broken into her place looking for jewelry.
“Eddie was found dead the next day, a needle sticking out of his arm. The coroner said the hot shot they gave him was strong enough to kill ten men.
“That was the day I left the United States for good. I hate the government more than I’ve ever hated anything. If they’re your enemy, they’re my enemy too. Let’s take ‘em down.”
Chapter 22
Gwen didn’t necessarily want to take down the government of the United States.
And for that matter, she didn’t really consider the U.S. government her enemy, despite their despicable behavior of late.
She did, though, want them to lay off her and her friends, and to tell the American people their secrets about the Yellowstone Caldera so they could make their own decisions about whether to evacuate or to prepare for its wrath.
Joe’s talk of taking the government down scared her a bit, but she knew it was mostly talk. If he could do anything to find out about Hannah she was willing to accept his help.
Not far from Little Rock, in a heavily wooded area, a man named Rick Spencer sat in a log cabin.
A retired veteran, like Joe, he’d gone off the grid years before.
Unlike Joe, though, he didn’t stockpile mountains of food and fuel. He was just as convinced as Joe that something of cataclysmic proportions was coming. He wasn’t sure what it would be, but was certain it would be man-made. In fact, he suspected it would be something of the government’s doing.
Perhaps a nuclear war.
Or maybe an economic collapse, brought on by the government’s very bad habit of not being able to live within its means.
He was a minimalist prepper. He lived off the land. His cabin was well hidden and not accessible by any roadway. He hid his pickup truck in heavy shrubbery half a mile from the cabin. It was the source of transportation he used to go into town once a month to collect his mail, cash his disability check and buy a few meager supplies.
But if the town vanished from the face of the earth without notice; if someone stole his pickup truck or if the check never showed up, he’d survive.
He’d honed his hunting, fishing and trapping skills a
nd now considered himself an expert.
An expert in that he could easily catch or kill enough food to feed himself.
And since he was all alone in the world, he didn’t have to worry about feeding anyone else.
Small game in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains was varied and plentiful. He’d never run out of food, even if he lived to be two hundred.
His water came from a dozen springs on his five acre homestead. It was pure enough to drink straight from the ground. Pure enough to be bottled and sold around the world, in fact.
The few things he bought each month in town weren’t required for his survival, but rather his pleasure. Fifty gallons of diesel fuel to power his tiny generator. A bag of Hershey’s chocolate to satisfy his sweet tooth.
A couple of good books to read by candlelight.
Rick Spencer was a man of limited means, but also a man with few needs.
He cooked his meals over an open campfire twice a day. Firewood was something else that would never run out in his headily wooded hideaway.
He ate his meals over a classic novel, or while chatting on his ham radio to friends near and far.
The radio was really his only vice, other than the chocolate.
He’d just cooked a pan of catfish, using no breading and the fat from a deer he’d killed earlier in the week. It was cooked to perfection, and as he sat down to eat and read The Grapes of Wrath for the twentieth time his radio sprang to life.
Rick used a frequency few others ever frequented, so whenever his radio began to sputter it was usually for him.
The signal was weak, because his battery was down to twenty percent or so.
He primed his generator and pulled the cord. The generator would give the radio more power and recharge the battery at the same time.
Both the generator and the radio were as old as the hills around him.
Well, maybe not that old. But they were ancient by modern standards.
That was okay, though, because he was too.
It was his friend and frequent radio partner, “Joe from Idaho.”
Joe, despite his handle, wasn’t anywhere near Idaho. Rick accepted that, just as Joe accepted that Rick wasn’t in Southern Cal as he claimed to be.
It was common practice for preppers to keep their locations and true identities secret, except to their closest of friends and allies.
Actually, the only reason Joe knew Rick really lived outside Little Rock is because Rick mentioned his favorite bar one day and described it to a T. Joe once frequented the same bar when he spent a week in Little Rock attending to a dying friend, and a second week making funeral arrangements.
A victim of agent orange, though the government never accepted responsibility for it. The government always maintained his friend, a cook who mostly served behind the lines, was too far away to be damaged by agent orange.
The friend knew it was BS but accepted his fate.
Joe mentioned he once frequented the same bar and Rick knew his secret was out.
He wasn’t worried, though. By that time he felt he could trust his radio friend. And Joe would never betray that trust.
On this particular day, that knowledge would come in very handy.
“I saw a mockingbird yesterday,” Joe said in the midst of their conversation.
“I didn’t know they had mockingbirds in Idaho.”
“Oh, yeah, but only this time of season. Any time now they’ll be gone again until next year.”
“What was that reference you promised me last time we were on?”
“First Samuel, Chapter Two, Verse One.”
“Thank you. I knew I’d read it before but couldn’t remember which book I’d seen it in.”
“What have you been doing lately?”
“Reading a new book. Well, actually an old book. But new for me. Kit Carson. Have you read it?”
“Yes, but not lately. Can you send it to me when you’re done?”
“Sure. I’ll finish it the next couple of days. I can’t mail it for another week or so though. The Post Office on Wilshire Road is closed for repairs. A little old lady accidentally drove into the lobby.”
“Little old lady my ass. I’ll bet it was you, drinking again.”
“Not this time. I haven’t driven into a post office in at least a month. But those streets are pretty dangerous out there.”
To a casual observer it sounded like just banter between two friends.
It was actually anything but.
Chapter 23
The code represented just a small portion of the conversation over the radio waves. The pair chatted for a full twenty minutes, but unless one knew what to listen for, the essential part of the conversation would have been lost in the shuffle.
Gwen and Melvyn were standing behind Joe, listening to the entire thing. When he signed off Gwen asked him, “Why didn’t you mention Hannah? I thought that was the whole reason you called him.”
“I did. He’ll check on her and get back with me.”
She was confused.
“Okay. I give up. What did I miss?”
“It’s the same code system I use when I talk to Melvyn. I didn’t develop it myself. It was developed by another prepper, but I’ve used it for awhile and it seems to work reasonably well.
“There are certain phrases or catch words we watch out for. For example, if I said it rained like the dickens that would mean one of my group is sick and needs medical attention. If I said something about cherry pie it would mean I’m out of ammunition and in need of more.
“All in all there are about forty coded messages. I had them taped up on the wall behind my radio for a long time, then thought if my place was ever overrun it wouldn’t be good for the attackers to have the code. So I finally memorized the list and destroyed it.
“When I said something about a mockingbird that was code for, ‘I need for you to do a welfare check on someone who lives near you.’”
“A welfare check?”
“Just a courtesy visit to make sure someone is okay. Cops do them all the time.”
“Oh, okay.”
“When he asked me for a Biblical or literary reference he was telling me he understood my message and was fishing for the name of my friend.
“I mentioned the scripture from the Bible. The only name mentioned in that particular verse is Hannah.
“Since he’ll need her last name too I also mentioned Kit Carson. That’ll give him her first and last name.
“Lastly, any reference to a Post Office indicates a key street name. I mentioned a Post Office on Wilshire Road. You said that was the road she lived on.
“When I mentioned danger that was the message I wanted to get to Hannah. That she’s in danger. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more specific than that.
“He’ll do a bit of research and find a Hannah Carson who lives on Wilshire Road nearby. Then he’ll go and knock on her door. He’ll probably pose as a salesman or a landscaper wanting to mow her lawn or something.
“If he is able to talk to her he’ll tell her he has a message from a friend. He’ll say she’s in danger. He’ll leave it up to her to decide what kind of danger. But by that time she’ll know of your disappearance and put two and two together.
Once he talks to her he’ll call me back and describe her to me and hopefully will tell me she appears to be fine. If he has any concerns about her well being he’ll tell me that too.”
“You guys really put a lot of work into this whole coding system, didn’t you?”
“Well, like I said, I didn’t make the code. I can’t take credit for it. But I use it on a regular basis and a lot of other preppers do too.”
“How long will it take him?”
“I don’t know. It’s the first time I’ve ever asked him to do a welfare check for me. Let’s give him a couple of days. If he hasn’t come up with anything by then, I’ll start bugging him about it.”
Gwen hugged him and said, “Thank you, Joe. I really appreciate your help. And I hope
she’s okay.”
“Me too, honey. Me too.”
Joe Morgan was good at many things. He was a prepper extraordinaire, an excellent hunter and a great friend.
One thing he wasn’t good at, though, was in judging his own limitations and talent. He thought he was a whiz and speaking in code.
He was anything but.
Oh, it was true he and his friends had been using the code system for several years and nothing bad had happened.
But that wasn’t because it was a good system, or because they were lucky.
It was because, despite the paranoia many preppers are known for, there was simply no one after them.
No one was listening.
The sad fact was any professional code breaker would have been able to break the code almost immediately.
But they wouldn’t this time. Because Joe Morgan wasn’t on the government’s radar.
As far as the government was concerned, Joe was just another guy who got fed up with the world and went off the grid. He’d committed no crimes, caused no trouble, wasn’t on any terrorist watch list, and as far as they were concerned wasn’t a problem.
The same was true of Rick Spencer in Little Rock.
The government just didn’t care about him, so they put no effort into keeping track of him.
Not yet.
But that was about to change.
It so happened Rick was planning a trip into town the next day. His disability check was in the mailbox and he was down to his last jerry can of fuel for his generator.
He left at oh dark thirty because he wanted to be well away from his property before anyone saw his pickup out and about.
After stopping at the post office to pick up his check and then at the bank to cash it, he made a third stop at the local library.
He was in search of a woman named Hannah Carson.
Chapter 24
Rick walked right past the library’s “Information Desk,” with its bright yellow sign and emoticon-inspired smiley face.
The face was actually kind of cute. It had hands and was holding a book titled:
The Yellowstone Event (Book 2): A National Disgrace Page 8
