Prepper Jack

by Diane Capri

  Gavin frowned. “How did you get all the way out there?”

  Mason shook his head and lied. “Dunno. Wish I did.”

  “Do you think you walked?”

  Mason pretended to think about it a second or so before he shook his head again. “My clothes weren’t too dusty or wrinkled. My feet didn’t hurt. I’m pretty sure they would have if I’d walked all that way in those shoes. They sure did hurt when I walked back. I’ve still got blisters.”

  Gavin thought about that for a bit and then nodded. “What’s the last thing you do remember?”

  Mason cocked his head, as if he was considering the question.

  This was where things could get tricky. Because Mason wasn’t ready to tell anyone about his kidnapping. Partly because of the threat. No cops. We know where you live.

  Partly because he’d persuaded himself that Lawton was the kidnappers’ target. He wasn’t at any further risk if he just kept quiet.

  He must have been caught up in something that had nothing to do with him. He felt lucky to be alive. But he didn’t want to involve all of Glen Haven in whatever was going on with Lawton. The good people here deserved to live in peace.

  Nor did he want to tell Gavin why he’d gone to lunch at the Last Chance Saloon in the first place.

  In the days since he’d returned, Mason had slowly spliced together a few more bits of memory, like working a jigsaw puzzle with a thousand black pieces.

  Starting from an arbitrary point two weeks ago, he remembered his phone call to the whistleblower’s hot line. He recalled the actions that followed, right up until he was tossed into the back of that van the second time, wearing the canvas hood. His memories picked up again from the point where he woke up in the desert alone.

  He’d found Lawton’s business card in his suit coat pocket and researched public records. He’d confirmed that Lawton was a Treasury agent based in New York.

  Which made sense. Lawton was a Treasury agent. Income tax evasion was the exclusive purview of IRS enforcement. The IRS was part of the Treasury Department, so Lawton was IRS. Mason had contacted IRS in the first place. And he should have remembered that, too.

  When he’d mustered the courage, Mason had called the number on Lawton’s card. It was a cell phone. After several rings, Lawton’s voice had invited him to leave a message.

  He’d hung up quickly, but now he was worried that the call could be traced. The last thing he wanted to do was to bring trouble to Glen Haven, to Cheryl and Micah. The very last thing on earth. His call to the whistleblower tip line was meant to get rid of those renters. That’s all.

  Mason didn’t want to explain any of that to Gavin, either. Not yet. Not until he had a chance to fix everything himself.

  “You know all about how we founded Glen Haven, don’t you, Mason?” Gavin said in his soothing voice.

  “I, uh, think so. Yeah,” Mason replied, wondering where he was going with this.

  Gavin kept talking as if Mason had said nothing. “My brother, Bruce, and I grew up in Montana. We lived in a small community with our parents, very much like Glen Haven. We were peaceful people. We lived off the grid and we were happy.”

  “Sounds great,” Mason said sincerely, because it did. Sounded exactly like the life Mason desperately wanted.

  “It was great,” Gavin replied. “Everything was fine until another guy came along with a militia group who wanted to join up with us.”

  Mason had heard these stories before. As long as Gavin was talking about the past, he wouldn’t be asking questions that Mason didn’t want to answer. So he nodded and sipped the chocolate, encouraging Gavin to continue.

  “The guy’s militia group planned to start a whole new country on US soil. How crazy is that? Before they knew it, our parents were forced to live deeply embedded in that paramilitary group with nowhere else to go.” Gavin paused for a sip of hot chocolate.

  “Sounds like a terrible situation for all of you,” Mason said, truthfully. He hated conflict of all kinds. He liked accounting. He liked putting the right numbers in the right boxes and adding them up to make sense of the world. None of what had happened to him made any sense at all.

  “It was terrible. Eventually, the government swooped in and destroyed our home. The people who had been like family to us were scattered.” Gavin nodded, a faraway look on his face, as if he were reliving the bad times again. He shivered, almost involuntarily. “Anyway, it took a while to extricate ourselves from everything. Our parents died and left us with some life insurance money. Eventually, Bruce and I came here with a small group of the survivors. This place was a vacant farm. We were able to buy it and start Glen Haven.”

  “We’re all grateful for that, too, Gavin. Glen Haven is special. We feel lucky to live here,” Mason replied, because it was true. He was lucky and he knew it. Which was why he wanted to protect Glen Haven as much as Gavin did.

  “We did things right this time. No fighting. No weapons. No bosses or titles or unnecessary rules. We’re law abiding citizens,” Gavin continued. “We want to live in peace. We want a place of safety for our families. To be self-reliant and happy and not be bothered by anyone or anything. That’s all. That’s not too much to ask.”

  “I know,” Mason said, nodding, eyes downcast lest he give himself away. He might have brought disaster to them all when he made that whistleblower call. He knew that now. All he wanted was a chance to fix it before things got out of hand.

  But while Gavin was talking, Mason’s thoughts had returned to the reason he’d made the call in the first place. He’d had a simple plan. Somehow, the simple plan had gone horribly wrong.

  An overwhelming sense of dread consumed him. He lowered his gaze. He could no longer look Gavin in the eye.

  “You’re one of us, Mason. We’re your family now. We’ll take care of you. No matter what. Never forget that. When you feel like talking about what happened to you, you know where I am,” Gavin said kindly. He rested a reassuring hand on Mason’s shoulder as he finished the chocolate and left.

  His footsteps echoed on the floors down the hallway until the sound faded to nothing, leaving Mason more miserable than before. He knew what he had to do. He only regretted bringing all of this misery home.

  First, he’d collect hard evidence. Then, he’d tell Gavin everything. Gavin would know what to do.

  Mason waited more than an hour, to be sure Gavin had retired for the night along with everyone else. Then he quickly changed into black jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. He slipped his hands into black leather gloves and pulled a black ski mask over his head.

  He rummaged through his closet until he found the night vision headset he’d ordered online. He turned off the lights in his room, quietly slid the patio door open, and carried the headset into the cool night wind.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Thursday, April 14

  1:45 a.m.

  Glen Haven, New Mexico

  Mason stood on the darkened patio outside his room for a few moments to allow his eyes to adjust to the near total darkness. His goal was to be as invisible as possible. He had no idea whether he achieved it.

  His experience with clandestine operations was acquired by watching movies with Micah. He had no desire to be a spy or a SEAL or whatever. He simply wanted to observe without being seen. And take a few photos for evidence.

  It was long past bedtime for Glen Haven residents. The buildings were shrouded in darkness, with only a few weak night lights visible through the windows and security lights outside. Even the moon was dark.

  He slipped on his night vision, which amplified the available light and gave things an eerie green glow. Once he’d tried the night vision and realized its limitations, his online research had led him to the conclusion that thermal imaging would have served his needs better. He’d ordered a camera, but it hadn’t arrived yet. For now, the night vision and his phone camera was all he had.

  He scanned the area to be sure no one else was wandering the grounds. Everyone sho
uld have been in bed long ago. But he didn’t want to explain himself or run into something worse than a curious insomniac.

  Glen Haven compound consisted of eight buildings arranged in a horse-shoe shape around a common lawn. The buildings abutted the herb farm. From the street, the illusion was open spaces beyond individual homes.

  Most of the Glen Haven residents lived together in the main house which was at the bottom of the horse-shoe, directly opposite the farmland. Two smaller houses flanked either side of the main house.

  Mason glanced back. As he’d expected, the three homes were quiet this time of night.

  The remaining buildings were used for the herbal products business. Five structures, all pole barns of various sizes.

  The largest one held the Glen Haven Herbs manufacturing operation where the herbs were compounded and packaged. Supplies like gardening equipment, fertilizers and such were received and stored in another large building. Shipping the finished product was handled from the third large pole barn.

  The last two, smaller pole barns were Mason’s focus tonight. Both were barracks used to house migrant workers who helped with the harvest and processing the fresh herbs. Inside each were bunks, a small eat-in kitchen, and two bathrooms on the ground floor. Both had full basements with more bunks and bathrooms below.

  Both barracks buildings were usually vacant until harvest time. Glen Haven residents could handle the planting and the tending. It was harvest work that overwhelmed the farm’s small staff and required additional help.

  Three months ago, Bruce Ray, Gavin’s brother, had leased the two residential buildings to generate a bit of additional income before the harvest season. The tenants were another intentional community, fewer than a dozen people, looking for a temporary home. Two of them had lived in the Rays’ Montana community back in the day and Bruce wanted to help them out, he’d said at the time.

  The renters had moved in and kept to themselves. They had jobs and they came and went at irregular intervals, he’d noticed. They’d chosen not to mingle with the Glen Haven community and everything seemed to be okay at first.

  Until Mason had seen one of the renters in the parking area climbing out of his truck while carrying a gun, which caused all kinds of alarm bells to go off in his head.

  Guns were forbidden at Glen Haven. Gavin and Bruce had had enough of guns when their Montana home was destroyed years ago. They were adamant. No firearms of any kind were allowed on the premises, period. Not for any reason.

  He’d reported the guy to Bruce immediately.

  Bruce’s response was not what Mason had expected. He’d told Mason not to worry. He’d said the tenants were only temporary. They planned to go soon. Bruce said he’d take care of it, tell them they couldn’t carry guns here. Mason had wanted to believe him.

  And then he and Lawton were abducted.

  Mason had persuaded himself that John Lawton had been the target. But was that true?

  He worried that reporting the guy with the gun had put a target on his own back and put Glen Haven at risk, too. He didn’t get a good look at the kidnappers. He couldn’t say for sure whether they were part of the group living in the bunkhouses. But he worried about it.

  He had a bad feeling about them. They were not the kind of people who belonged at Glen Haven. Cheryl and Micah weren’t safe here with strangers carrying guns around the premises.

  Mason wanted those renters gone. He didn’t think Gavin could do the job.

  Which was why he’d made the call. He wanted the feds to get rid of those people. He wasn’t sure how they could do it. But he believed it was possible.

  Problem was, owning guns was not a crime. Nor was carrying them around the grounds or even in their vehicles, necessarily. He needed more.

  Which was why he’d started watching them as surreptitiously as possible a couple of weeks ago. And he’d finally found something he could blow the whistle on them for. Something that had worked to get the IRS involved.

  Which could have been what got him snatched up with Lawton.

  As stealthily as possible, Mason made his way from the main house to the outbuildings. The two barracks shared a parking area off to the side. He counted eight vehicles parked there, two more than the last time he’d looked. Six trucks and two SUVs.

  He crept along the back of the vehicles. He pulled off his night vision and used his cell phone to take quick snapshots of the dusty license plates, while shielding the flashes as well as possible with his body.

  The vehicles were registered in Arizona and Texas. He figured they could have been stolen.

  Quickly, he emailed the images to himself just in case something happened to his phone, and then he dropped the phone into his pocket.

  He repositioned his night vision and crept toward the back of the farthest barracks building. A thin stream of smoke wafted from the chimney on the north end. Dim lighting from the appliances in the small kitchen emitted through the window and was amplified by his headset.

  He flattened his back against the exterior siding and leaned forward to peer into the building’s open floor plan. A small fire was burning in the fireplace. A man sat in a rocking chair with a shotgun across his lap, chin on his chest, as if he’d been staring into the fire and fell asleep.

  The shotgun started Mason’s pulse hammering hard in his ears. Why would they need a night watchman with a gun?

  With his night vision in place, the fire’s glow illuminated the whole room. It was a mess. The dining table was strewn with unwashed plates and flatware. A few empty beer bottles clustered at one end. Dirty pots and pans were stacked on the stove.

  Mason quickly counted the plates. Twelve. Which probably meant at least a dozen people were sleeping in the bunks down below or in the second barracks building. He might have been able to confirm his suspicions if he’d had the infrared camera. He could have counted the heat signatures from their bodies.

  He fumbled to retrieve his phone and snapped a few photos through the window without the flash. The snaps probably wouldn’t reveal very much, but he had to try to document what he’d seen. As he had with the license plates, he quickly sent the photos to himself.

  A door opened on the opposite end of the room. A man approached the coffee maker and poured a cup of coffee that had probably been made with the evening meal hours ago.

  He carried the cup over to the sleeping sentry and touched him on the shoulder. The first man startled awake, handed the shotgun to the new guy, and headed off to bed. Mason snapped a couple more photos, attempting to capture their faces in the dim firelight.

  If either man said anything, Mason didn’t hear the exchange. Nor could he see the two men clearly enough to identify them. They could have been part of the team that attacked him. But he couldn’t say for sure.

  Mason ducked and sent the photos into cyberspace. And then he crept toward the second barracks building. The interior lighting was somewhat stronger in the second building. When he looked through the window, he saw a similar scene. Messy kitchen, dinnerware strewn about, and a man sitting in front of the fireplace with a shotgun across his lap.

  But he was not alone.

  Two men were sitting at the long kitchen table. Handguns rested beside them. A clear plastic bag filled with flat, white pills was in the center of the table.

  The men watched as two scrawny young women counted the pills and dropped them into small plastic bags. They closed each bag carefully and dropped it into another box.

  Mason flipped his phone to record video of the scene and let the video run for a couple of minutes. Then he took a few still photos. The images were likely to be dark and out of focus, but they’d be better than nothing.

  Again, he sent the photos and the video to himself. Just in case.

  He backed away from the barracks and carefully made his way home. His heart was heavy with the knowledge that his worst fears had been confirmed.

  Not only were the tenants carrying guns, they were drug dealers. And those scrawny women co
uldn’t have been more than teenagers. No way were they old enough to make their own decisions, even if they’d joined the others voluntarily, which Mason doubted.

  He hadn’t seen Lawton in either barracks. Had these men taken him? Or was the kidnapping a separate incident all together?

  Mason shook his head. Not likely to have been separate, was it?

  When he’d first called in the anonymous tip, he’d only been worried about the guns. Now, he had hard evidence of worse criminal activities. Mason thought the feds would be more inclined to do something about these people now. If they had kidnapped Lawton, then both the FBI and the IRS would come down on them like a ton of bricks, surely.

  The problem now was how to stay anonymous and how to keep Glen Haven from being destroyed in the process. Would anyone believe that Glen Haven wasn’t neck deep in the crimes? Not likely. He needed a better plan.

  Mason made it safely back, pulled off his night vision, slid inside, and locked the door behind him. He glanced at the digital clock beside his bed. It was after three in the morning. He couldn’t call anyone at this hour and it was too dangerous to make the call from Glen Haven, anyway.

  He peeled his ski mask off and closed the heavy drapes before he flipped the light on.

  “You’re one stupid gringo, O’Hare,” the big man said from the chair across the room, shaking his head sorrowfully. “We gave you a second chance. All you had to do was keep your nose out of our business.”

  Mason remembered the voice. The leader of the kidnappers. The one they called Hector. No doubt at all.

  Mason’s mouth dried up as he stared at the shotgun pointed directly at him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN