Patriots Betrayed

by John Grit

  He glanced at her and returned his eyes to the road. “It’s the quickest way to find out what the hell is going on.”

  “Bull! All I’ll get is another layer of lies on top of a hundred layers of lies.” She released a heavy load from her chest. “Damn, Raylan, you still believe in this country and the company.”

  “If we don’t care about them,” he waved his right arm in a wide arc at the traffic around them, “what are we doing here? On this earth I mean.”

  She tilted her head and looked at him like he was nuts and gave him a wintry smile. “You Boy Scout.”

  “Pardon me if I like believing all I’ve done and all the scars I’ve collected on the inside and out was not for nothing.” Their eyes locked for a second and unspoken words passed between them. He redirected the conversation. “Besides, even a lie can be a clue. It’ll be more than we have now.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but the moment I call, your home free comment turns to shit.”

  “Like you said, there is no home free.”

  She sighed and looked out her side window. “Well, if we’re located by the call, it’ll prove the company’s behind the death squad.” She dug in her pack again. “That’ll be a nice bit of info, just before they kill us with a drone strike.”

  He slowed to turn off the highway. “Let’s find a Wally World. They usually have payphones out front by the main entrance.”

  They found one. He parked in front of the entrance to the garden section, as far from the main entrance as possible. “Buy a big hat or something to hide from satellites before you come out the front to use the phone.”

  She unhooked the sling from her H&K submachine gun and hid it under her pack on the seat. “You really think we’re that important? It’s expensive as hell to re-task an eye in the sky.”

  “Something’s important enough to send a small army after me.”

  She got out without a word.

  Twenty minutes later, most of that time spent waiting in line to pay for the hat, she was on her way out through the garden center. She hooked her newly purchased hat on a concrete garden gnome and exited the store.

  Raylan cranked the engine in preparation to get out of the area fast.

  She got in. “Punch it. I got only bullshit.”

  He waited until they were back on the highway. “Doesn’t mean they’re in on it.”

  She checked for a tail. “It damn sure means they don’t trust me. I guess they hold me in no higher esteem than you.”

  Not wanting to stay on a major traffic artery where they would look first with satellite and drone surveillance, he turned off the next exit. “Did they just hang up on you or what?”

  “Much worse than that,” she said. “I called the handler I had when I retired, and she strung me along with delays. When that ran out by me telling her to stop delaying so they could trace the call, she strung me along a minute longer with lies about how they knew nothing about the events at your shop, the barge explosion, or the tail on me.” She shrugged. “So I hung up and headed back.”

  “Well, they certainly got a trace, but I doubt we’ve burned the car.”

  “Might be smart to dump it anyway,” she said. “Satellite surveillance might get us, even with the hat trick.”

  “That’ll take a little time. The papers on this car haven’t gone through DMV yet, and a satellite photo won’t get the tag number. Getting the color of the car will take a lot of analysis. Dark blue looks like black from space. The only thing they’ll have at this moment is the make and model. Chances are you’re not the only woman who got out and back in a dark Crown Vic during the same time period. That parking lot probably had at least five hundred cars in it.”

  “All true, but they’ll check the security camera recordings inside the store and see me buying a hat. Roof cameras will also connect me to this car. Then of course there’s the ubiquitous traffic camera at every major intersection.”

  “That’ll take time. Best wait a while to get another ride. Let’s not go crazy overstating their capabilities.”

  “Better than the opposite,” she quipped.

  A Crown Vic came up behind them fast, swerved to the left lane, and passed. Raylan noticed the star on its yellow tag. He sped up a little, just enough to keep the car in sight.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What’re you doing?”

  “Obfuscating a little. A satellite will see two cars that look exactly the same.” He kept it under sixty, as the limit was fifty-five, but also kept the unmarked sheriff car in sight. The deputy pulled into a fast-food restaurant, parking under a wide oak tree. “Hungry?” Raylan asked, as he pulled up beside the deputy’s car and under the same tree.

  She smiled. “Yeah, I can eat. But we better do take-out, because I need to stay in the car and out of sight. The company’s eye in the sky is watching.”

  Raylan put on his Stetson hat and walked into the restaurant. He came back with two bags of greasy stuff some call food and two large teas.

  He dumped the bags on the floor in the back and handed her one of the ice teas. “No time to eat. “I’ve got an idea.”

  She looked at him, her face a question mark.

  “I’ll keep watch while you break into his car and use the computer.” He reached for the rear seat to his pack and dug a small instrument out of a side pocket. “Here’s a universal key.”

  She took it. “Are you prepared to kill him if he catches me in his car?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “If it comes to that. But of course I’m betting on your abilities to get in and out before that becomes necessary.” He opened his door. “You know what to look for. I’ll be inside getting more ketchup. Cops usually get thirty minutes to eat, so you’ve got ten minutes at the outside.”

  She opened her door and moved to the driver side of the patrol car. By the time Raylan was in the restaurant, she was inside the car and punching keys.

  After getting more packages of ketchup, he bought another tea to kill time. When the deputy appeared to be about to get up to leave, Raylan moved in and struck up a conversation with him, glancing out the window occasionally to check on Carla. She slipped out of the patrol car and back into theirs. Raylan thanked the deputy for his service and let him go back to work.

  A minute later, Raylan sat behind the wheel and sipped one of his two teas. It tasted terrible, but not as bad as fast food soft drinks. “Well?”

  “The cops have been told it’s terrorism, the explosion, the dead men around your scuba shop, all of it.” Her eyes met his. “You’re the prime suspect. It seems you’ve become an anti-government radical extremist, and about every other adjective they could think of. It was nice of them to leave out white supremacist, though.”

  He didn’t flinch. “What about you?”

  “My old name isn’t on any BOLO, and there’s no wants or warrants on my new name.”

  “So why did the company feed you bullshit when you called?”

  She shook her head. “The terrorism angle has been squashed as far as the public is concerned. It looks like Justice, Homeland Security, and the company are keeping the locals out of it and telling them to keep their mouths shut. Of course the other fed agencies like DHS, NSA, DIA, etc are probably pulling strings and utilizing their resources too. After all, the company can ask them for help anytime they want.”

  “All the usual suspects.” Raylan cranked the car. “It just keeps getting worse.”

  Chapter 3

  Carla yawned. “I’ve been up twenty hours. Can we pull over somewhere and find a shower and bed?”

  Raylan turned off onto a two-lane road, heading for the countryside. “No hotels or motels. More people on the run have been caught that way than can be counted.”

  “What then?” Carla prepared to relax in the seat, pulling a lever to lower the back.

  “Go ahead and sleep,” Raylan said. “It’s going to be business hours before we can rent a place.”

  She didn’t bother to ask what he had in mind. “Wake me up if a
nother war starts. I might even lend a hand.”

  She woke from the discomfort of heat and humidity. Opening her eyes and looking around told her it was morning and they were parked under some trees on vacant land. It looked like the sticks of backwoods Florida. The driver-side window was down, allowing mosquitoes in. The engine was off, and therefore the air conditioning. Rayland was nowhere to be seen.

  Pulling out a bottle of water she had in her bug-out pack, she washed the morning taste from her mouth. After exiting the car, she looked around for Raylan. There he was, fast asleep in a hammock, complete with bug net and waterproof tarp overhead. The hammock was slung between two shading oaks. She walked up and seemed to be about to plant her shoe in his ass, but contained herself. “Wake up, damn it.”

  His right hand brought the Glock up and leveled it at her. It took him all of a tenth of a second to clear his mind and recognize her, but that short time span meant the difference between life and death. There was only a fraction of an ounce of trigger pull left on the sear.

  “Raylan,” she said calmly, “you’re getting to be a nervous old fart. It’s a good thing you left the company.”

  He lowered the pistol. “Well, my retirement was great while it lasted.” In less than five minutes, he had all of his gear stowed in his backpack. He carried it to the car and threw it in the trunk.

  She stood there watching. “I’m still waiting for that shower and bed.”

  He leaned against the car and folded his arms on his chest. “This is paradise compared to twenty places you’ve been. Admit it: You’re getting too old and weak for this shit.”

  She put her hands on her hips and squinted in the low morning sun that was in her face. “I’m mostly interested in how you’re going to get us a place without using our credit cards or showing ID.”

  “Get in.” He had the car back on the hard road in less than a minute.

  Ten miles down the road, they passed a sign that offered trailers for rent cheap. He slowed and turned onto a poorly maintained dirt drive. He explained as he drove. “Out in the sticks like this, there is what’s called trailer slums. People buy ten acres cheap, put in power poles, septic tanks, and water wells, then drag in ragged-out old trailers and rent them to poor people. They seldom pay income tax on their profits and never follow building codes or keep the trailers up.”

  She broke in. “And they take cash with no questions asked, no ID required.”

  He nodded. “You got it. It’s about the last place left a person on the lam can get a shower, toilet, and bed without a credit card and other ID. You can’t even rent space for a tent in a campground without them taking your tag number and recording your driver license number. In the modern age, the only way you can live in complete privacy with no name is to live as a hermit in the woods, buy little, and pay cash for everything.”

  “Well, one night of sleeping in the woods was enough for me,” she quipped.

  He turned off the trail at a sign that said rental office. “You’ll get your shit, shower, and bed, but don’t expect much more.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed the condition of the trailers already.”

  The twenty-year-old rental office was the best trailer on the property, but still not fit for human beings to live in. Rayland knocked on the door. A wrinkled woman in her eighties emerged and stood on the little five-by-six-foot porch.

  Raylan showed his teeth. “My wife and I would like to rent one of your fine trailers.”

  “No little uns?”

  “No ma’am, it’s just the two of us.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but we ain’t got no single bedroom units available. You’ll have to settle for a two-bedroom unit, and that’ll cost you more.”

  “That’ll be fine. How much?”

  “Well, it’ll be a hundred extra. I hate to charge more but it’s a two-bedroom unit.”

  “That’s fine. How much is it?”

  The woman opened her eyes fully in surprise. “I just told you. A hundred extra.” She nodded and lifted her shaking right hand, holding it out.

  An old man got up from an easy chair and stood beside her. “Is he giving you shit about the price, Emma?”

  “No, Charley,” the woman said. “I think he’s just a little dumb and can’t understand what I’m sayin’.”

  The skinny old man put on a sour face. “Mr., you can see my wife’s got Parkinson’s. Look at her shake. We ain’t got nothin’ but our Social Security and two hundred a month I git from the VA for a bad arm from Korea, so we need that rent money. I don’t appreciate you givin’ her shit about what little we charge. If you don’t want to pay the hundred extra for a two-bedroom unit, git lost.”

  Raylan chuckled. “I tell you what; I’ll keep laying hundred-dollar bills in her hand until she says it’s enough.”

  The old man’s face grew more sour. “You some kinda smartass?”

  “Uh, no sir.” He placed five bills in her open hand as it shook, thinking that would be enough for the trailer shacks they had. Neither of the two said a word. He placed two more bills in her hand. They stood there silently. He placed two more bills in her hand. “Is that enough for a week? I mean considering that’s it’s a two-bedroom unit.”

  The old man’s eyes widened as he looked at the cash in his wife’s hand. He coughed. “Uh, yeah, if you’re out by Friday.”

  The old woman hadn’t moved her shaking hand an inch. “Have you already forgot?”

  Raylan’s eyes narrowed. “Oh! Excuse me,” He placed another bill in her hand. “I forgot about the hundred extra on account of it being a two-bedroom unit.” He added, “And cheap at half that price.”

  “Uh, you bet,” the old man said. “Hold on while I git the keys. You’re in luck,” he said as he walked away, “the unit you’re gettin’ has a little cookware and stuff left in it by the last renter.” He reappeared and handed Raylan two keys. “It’s the last trailer on the left, next to the woods.”

  Raylan stepped off the flimsy metal steps and got in the car. “We just rented a fine trailer right on the property line in the back. It cost me a grand, on account of it being a two-bedroom unit.” He looked at her solemnly. “That’s a hundred extra.”

  She stared at him. “So they robbed you.”

  “They took advantage of the fact I’m dumb and tricked me.” He gave her a glance while turning his head to back out of the rental office drive. “Nice and cozy for two love birds. Being next to the woods line means we can run for it if your husband shows up with a shotgun.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh hell. Is that your cover story?”

  “Of course not. I told him you’re my wife.” He gave her a faux look of concern. “I’m worried about you. Losing your sense of humor is the first sign of battle fatigue. Good thing you retired. You’re too old for this. Can’t take the pressure.”

  She looked out the window at a group of dirty children playing in front of a trailer shack. “Yeah, yeah.”

  Raylan gave her first shot at the bathroom, then got his three Ss. When he emerged, complaining that she had used up all the hot water, he found her fast asleep on the bed, wearing nothing but a sheet draped over her lower body. The operation that saved her life after she took two rounds to the abdomen left a nasty scar, much uglier than the nine-millimeter bullet holes on her shoulder and arm. She’s still beautiful. Back when he was younger…He pushed the thought aside, turned the air up and went into the living room to pass out on the worn-out easy chair.

  He woke two hours before daylight and found her still asleep. After scribbling a note about going to an all-night grocer to buy supplies, he got in the car and took off. Halfway to town, he suppressed thoughts of hitting the road and leaving her behind. It would be the safest thing for her. He was the danger magnet, not her. As long as she was with him, she was facing death.

  Every time he kicked that thought in the balls and left it rolling on the ground, it would get back up in his face. I can’t do that to her. He pulled into a station to fill the
tank. It was then he decided to go back, but he would explain over breakfast how it was best for them both if they went their separate ways. He owed her that. Just driving away was too heartless, even for him.

  Raylan saw lights on in the trailer when he pulled up. Seconds later, they went out and the porch light went on. He got out of the car and stood there looking around the yard.

  The porch light went out, and the trailer door swung open. Carla emerged, still topless but wearing jeans. She held her H&K behind her. “Surprised to see you back. I expected you to be in Georgia by now.”

  He grabbed two bags out of the car seat and headed for the door. “How could I leave when you keep walking around half naked?”

  She huffed. “Yeah. They don’t have tits in Georgia.”

  He handed her a bag. “Not yours.”

  She suppressed a smile. “You’re too old to get excited over tits. It’s just so damn hot in here, even with that old window unit wide open.”

  Before going back for more bags, he said, “You’re not helping any.”

  “Oh, poor thing,” she said. “Next, you’ll be begging for a sympathy lay, like some schoolboy.”

  He set the last bag on the dining table and closed the door. “I never begged for anything in my life.”

  She gave him a serious look. “That may be the first time you’ve ever lied to me.”

  “No lie.” He set a carton of eggs near the stove. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to beg a woman for sex.”

  “Oh? Not even when you were sixteen and in the back seat with Sally Sue after a football game?”

  “Not even when.” He found an old frying pan in a cabinet. “We’ve got more important things to talk over.”

  She sipped coffee she had made while he was gone. “Georgia, that’s what’s on your mind, not my tits or Sally Sue in high school.”

  “What’s on my mind is a lot farther north than that.”

  She froze for a second. “Langley? Washington? Are you nuts?”

  He cracked an egg on the edge of the frying pan. “I still have friends in high places, even a couple senators.”