by David Nees
“Or Indians,” Anne said.
“And what do you know about talking to colonial frontiersmen?” Catherine asked with a mischievous look in her eyes as she joined the family.
“Just guessing. But these families go way back. They have a long history here in the mountains. It seems like they just shifted gears a couple of hundred years and carried on.”
“What did they want?” Catherine asked. Jason filled her in although there wasn’t much to say.
“What was that he said about Johnson City? Did he say whoever was in charge was crazy?” Anne asked.
“Yeah, that’s what he said. It doesn’t surprise me. I’ll bet there’s a lot of communities out there with crazy people running them. They probably run the gamut from religious zealots to paranoid schizophrenics.”
“What does gamut mean?” Sarah asked.
Jason looked at the sixteen-year-old. “Young lady, we have got to get you back to school. I don’t want you to grow up ignorant.”
Sarah smiled her most beguiling smile. “You mean I can’t get by on my looks?”
Catherine gave a derisive snort.
Anne shook her head and looked at Jason, her face serious. “So you better get around to the neighbors to let them know about our visitors.”
“You’re right. I’ll take the pickup. Don’t want to use the fuel, but this is important. I suggest staying out of the woods today.”
Chapter 5
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C harlie had been troubled all through the day. The possibility that Jim, the engineer who had wired up the station, could be the man that Joe had kidnapped was eating at him. He couldn’t make himself believe that it was a coincidence.
He brought it up again at dinner. Charlie and Mary didn’t have to go to the food centers. They enjoyed the perks of Charlie’s position and had their own rations, even if they had to do the cooking on a wood stove.
“Did you talk with Donna today?” he asked.
“No, I was going to mention it to you. She didn’t show up for her shift for the last two days. I asked around and no one had seen her. I know where she lives, so I took the liberty of walking over there to see if she or her son were sick and might need some help. No one was at the apartment. There was a padlock bolted to the door from the outside, like the apartment was vacant.” Charlie felt his stomach tighten again and put down his fork.
“I knocked on some doors up and down the hall and finally found someone home. I asked her if she knew what had happened to Donna. It was weird, Charlie. She seemed scared. Asked me who I was and why I wanted to know. She kept looking up and down the corridor. I told her I knew Donna from working with her in the kitchens. I didn’t mention you since she seemed so nervous. She said she didn’t know anything and I shouldn’t ask around if I knew what was good for me. Then she closed her door in my face. Can you believe it? Why was she so scared?”
Charlie didn’t answer.
“Charlie, what’s happening? Why would Jim not come home and where did Donna and her son go? People don’t just move away nowadays. There’s no place to go and no support outside of town.”
She was looking right at him, and he knew his face had given him away. “Did something bad happen to them?” She kept staring at him. “Charlie, I know you. Something’s not right, I can see it.”
“It just pains me when I hear of anything going wrong, that’s all.”
“But they just disappeared. How could that happen?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll try to find out, like I said two days ago. But you have to leave these things to me. Don’t start becoming an amateur detective. You’ve never done that before and now’s not the time to start.”
She threw her napkin down on the table and got up to take the plates away, “I wasn’t trying to play detective, I just wanted to find out if Donna was all right when she didn’t show up. Now you’ve got me even more worried.”
“There is nothing to worry about,” Charlie said. He shoved his chair back from the table. “I told you I’ll check into this. Just don’t go around asking questions. Leave things to me.”
His wife of twenty-five years just looked at him but didn’t say anything.
Lieutenant Cameron snorted and handed a bulletin to Sergeant Rodney Gibbs sitting at a desk across from him. “Get a load of this crap.”
It was a mimeographed sheet that passed for a newspaper. In it Frank Mason, as Director of Safety and Civil Order, was extolling the virtues of Joe Stansky and announcing him as Director of Resources for Hillsboro.
He reached for his cup of coffee, leaned back in his chair and took a few sips while waiting. A sour smile grew slowly on Gibbs’s deep brown face.
“What do you think of it?” Cameron asked.
“Sounds like Stansky’s coming out of the shadows. We pretty much have known he controls the resources in town.”
“Yeah, but Director of Resources? What the hell is that?
“It’s what he is. If he controls the resources, he gets to be the director.” Gibbs handed the bulletin back.
“That kind of concentration of power isn’t healthy,” Cameron said, scowling.
“We should just concentrate on this upcoming farmer’s market. If Stansky wants to award himself titles he can do it. Frank Mason doesn’t seem to mind, after all.”
Charlie paced back and forth in Frank’s office. “Joe’s getting too powerful. You know it. Now that we’ve made him Director of Resources, how are we going to control him?”
“How did we ever control him?” Frank’s tone was dry, without emotion, but Charlie noticed that he appeared to slump a little behind his desk. “From the start he had a jump on me…on both of us. He started commandeering resources faster than we did. If we didn’t want to have ourselves a little civil war, with everything smashed and no order established and the refugees overwhelming us, we had to work with him. Charlie, all we’ve been able to do is keep Joe from doing stupid things, things that would upset everyone. It hasn’t been so bad. We keep a smooth face on things for the public, and we all get along. Things go well for Hillsboro.”
“So we just go along with whatever he does?”
“I didn’t say that. We’ve done a pretty good job of civilizing him. Things could have been a lot worse for Hillsboro…and for us. You can’t really complain, can you?”
“No. But now he’s kidnapped this engineer and who knows what he’s done to him. You heard him when I asked about it. He told me not to ask questions like that. But that’s what I’m supposed to do—ask those kinds of questions. I’m a cop.”
Frank leaned back in his chair, watching Charlie pace back and forth.
“How many others have disappeared?” Charlie continued. “We have no idea. And to make things worse, Mary knows the guy’s wife. Now she’s disappeared along with their son. Mary went to their apartment when the woman didn’t show up at the kitchens—she helps out there—and the door was padlocked…from the outside, like it was vacant. Something’s happened to the man’s family, I can feel it.”
“Jesus, Charlie, don’t go off the deep end here. There’s got to be a good explanation for this—”
“I wish there were, but I can’t figure one out. You know people just don’t move away. It isn’t like that anymore.”
Frank went on as if Charlie had not spoken. “And tell Mary to leave this alone. She shouldn’t be playing detective.”
Frank rubbed his eyes and looked up at Charlie. “For Christ’s sake, stop pacing and sit down.” Charlie settled himself in one of the chairs in front of Frank’s desk. “You got to realize who’s holding the cards here…and it isn’t us. You have to work with what we’ve been dealt, which means we can’t oppose Joe directly. You know that. And sometimes we may not want to know everything that’s going on. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Deniability?”
“Something like that. Think about it.”
Chapter 6
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T he shop where the wires and cables were made had been an old, empty warehouse. Now cast iron wood stoves filled the center of the shop, heating rows of iron pots. The stove’s chimneys had been hastily improvised; the smoke hung heavy in the air, even with the windows open. In one corner of the building people were taking generators apart on long tables, while others were joining lengths of existing wiring.
The EMP had damaged many wires and cables—the longer the cable, the worse the effect had been. Copper windings had been fused making them useless. One end of the cavernous building was mostly taken up by a growing collection of bins filled with scavenged copper. The main project of the center was to make entirely new wires by drawing heated copper through dies. It was a project that had been put together with little specific expertise. Lots of mistakes occurred—the wire still often broke during the drawing process—but progress was being made.
A growing quantity of spools of fresh-made wire joined the spools of patchwork, and nearer the main door were spools of crude cables that had been made by winding the new wire together. These wires and cables were waiting on a mill to harness waterpower in order to run the repaired generators. When this source of power came on line, they would be the key to distributing the resultant electricity throughout Hillsboro.
When Charlie arrived, he found the foreman wrestling with a dislodged chimney, trying to get it reconnected so the stove could be lit. He was sweating and cursing as Charlie approached. “Does a Jim Bishop work down here?” he asked.
The foreman, an older man, looked over at Charlie with an irritated expression on his face. “Who wants to know?”
“Me, I’m the Chief of Police and I’ve got some work for him to finish, down at police headquarters.”
“I haven’t seen Jim for a couple of days,” the foreman said.
“But he works here?”
“Yeah. He helped set this up. Don’t know where he is, but we carry on. Maybe he was put on some other project.” He paused for a moment. “But he liked working here. Said this was the project that would make the biggest difference to the city.”
“Anyone here know him…personally? Not just from working here.”
The foreman gave Charlie a serious look. “Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“No, but I need to find him.”
“If it’s about something at your headquarters, I can send someone out to help.”
“No, I need to talk with Jim. Who around here knows him?”
The foreman pointed to a man across the shop floor who was directing several workers as they took apart a large generator, the kind used for emergency backup power.“You can try Stan. He and Jim often talked. Don’t know how close they were, though.”
“Thanks.” Charlie walked over to Stan and introduced himself. “What were you before the attack?” he asked.
“I was a mechanical engineer. Now I’m a jack of all trades. See this baby? We got it from the First National Bank. If we can strip out the fused copper windings, wind in new ones and re-wire it to by-pass the semi-conductors, we might have industrial level generating power. Of course it won’t start by itself and won’t be self-regulating. Those circuits won’t be recovered. But we can get it to make raw electrical power…a lot of it.”
“What kind of voltage will it put out?” Charlie asked.
“Damned if I know with no regulating circuits. Jim covered that end of it. He said he could create some chokes that could get us usable power.”
“Speaking of Jim, you know where he is? He hasn’t been home or at work for a couple of days.”
Stan paused, “Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“Everyone keeps asking that. No, he’s not.”
“Well, you’re a cop, so why else would you be looking for him?”
Charlie ignored the question. “Help me out. Who did he hang out with? Who did he know? I’m trying to find him and no, he’s not in any kind of trouble.”
“He had some friends over at the water mill project. I think he knew people working on many of the restart projects. Jim was interested in all aspects of getting the city back on its feet.”
“You got any names?” Charlie asked.
Stan’s face went blank. “No, I don’t have any names to give you. I didn’t know those people. I only know about them because Jim mentioned he met some guys over there. He didn’t elaborate.” He paused. “Sorry. I can’t help you.” The man turned back to the generator and the other two men who were staring nervously at him.
The water project was near the edge of town, close to the river where it cut through the southwest part of the town. A crumbling water mill was being rebuilt. In its day it had been powered by water drawn from the river. A channel had been cut to divert the river water to a millpond from where it could be fed in a controlled manner to the water wheel.
The remains of the old channel had been staked it out but it would need to be cleared in order to bring a flow of water from the river to the pond. Workers had begun to take out trees that had grown in the hundred-year-old ditch. It was slow, backbreaking work with only hand tools available.
The mill’s workings were either missing or rotted beyond repair. The search was on for another mill, which could be taken apart and relocated to the site. When the structure was rebuilt, and when water flowed in the newly-dug canal, Hillsboro would have a working, steady source of power operating securely within the town itself.
“I don’t know anything about him,” said Bob Jackson, the head of the project. Charlie grimaced. His legs were starting to complain from all the hiking around.
“Some people at the electrical project said he knew people over here…met with them at times.”
“Never met with me, and none of the others as far as I know,” Bob replied.
“That’s not what I was told.”
The man shrugged. “You were told wrong.”
“I’m going to ask around…since you don’t seem to know anything,” Charlie said.
“Suit yourself. You’re the chief of police. Guess you can do what you want.” The man’s reply held a hint of sarcasm, or anger, Charlie couldn’t tell for sure.
He was just as unsuccessful with the other men. It was another long walk back to headquarters. He knew in his gut that some of the people he had spoken to were hiding things from him. Maybe the reason was just simple paranoia, but maybe it was something more. Charlie couldn’t tell.
Chapter 7
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L eo Stupek’s full name was Leonard, but no one had used that name for years. He had severely beaten the last person who had.
He was looking through a one-way glass window that had been taken from the police headquarters. He was watching Donna Bishop. The woman had a black hood over her head and was tied to a chair in the middle of the basement room. A Coleman gas lamp in the corner provided illumination. Her clothes were torn. Her shoes had been taken, leaving her feet bare against the cold floor.
On impulse, Leo raised his forefinger and tapped twice on the glass. She turned her head blindly towards the sound. Leo let her wait, knowing it was increasing her anxiety. This was a critical moment, when he would confront her and begin the process of breaking her down.
He had two purposes. First, he wanted any information she held, though he did not expect much. Second, he wanted her for himself. She was a good-looking, thirtyish woman who now had no future. Leo would give her a future, one of his choosing. She might object, but she had a five-year-old son, and Leo would use him to control her.
He opened the door. The hooded woman turned her head at the sound and stiffened. Visibly summoning her courage, she asked, “Who’s there?”
Leo didn’t answer. He just looked at her, taking in the moment, this moment of control. Finally he stepped up to her and pulled the hood up, revealing her face. Startled, she cried out and stared up at him.
He watched her take him in. He knew his thick, six-foot body was intimidating.
He knew his deep-set dark eyes looked like they could see right into her. And he knew the gaslight falling across his face was making the effect more dramatic.
“Who are you? Why am I here?” she asked.
Leo let the silence stretch for a moment before he said, “You’re here because I want you here.”
“What’s happened to my son? You didn’t hurt him, did you?” Panic began to rise in her voice.
“Your son is fine. I may show him to you later, if you behave.”
“Please let me see him,” the woman begged.
“Later, like I said…if you behave.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Your cooperation, to start with.”
She looked at him, a mixture of confusion and anger showing in her eyes.
“Your husband was involved in some bad things,” he said. “They were bad for Hillsboro…and for you and your son. We had to stop that. Now your life has changed. Things will never be the same, but if you convince me you’ll cooperate, I can help you and protect your son. The choice is yours.”
“What’s happened to Jim? What have you done with him?” Donna Bishop yelled, glaring at Leo.
“All will be explained in due time. For now, you have to cooperate with me. You have your son to think about now…only your son.” And with that he pulled the hood back down over her face and turned and walked to the door.
“No, wait!” she shouted. “Tell me what’s going on!”
Leo didn’t answer but left the room, closing the door behind him. He watched through the glass as the hooded woman began to jerk against her bonds, sobbing.
Six hours later Leo went back into the room, carrying a gray metal folding chair and a folded woolen blanket. Her head jerked up at the sound of the door opening. Leo set the chair up facing her and sat down, the folded blanket on his lap.
“Who’s there?” she asked again.
He pulled the hood up. She was now shivering violently. She had been tied to the chair in the cold basement for a total of ten hours. Fatigue and cold had overtaken her.
