“You got him in control?” Eric asked.
“Yeah don’t worry about him. Get up there and back up Carmen! She’s got them covered but we need to make sure they’re all disarmed.
“Why are you doing this?” Ortiz asked. “Your friend came looking for us so that he could return the girl to her father. We work for Don Carlos, and that is why we came with him, to get her and take her back. If you think you are going to collect that ransom, you are mistaken. You will never get anywhere near Don Carlos without my help.”
“Then you will help us!” Luke said. “Carmen said that anyone my friend found in that town that worked for Don Carlos would come here immediately upon hearing her name, because she knew her father must have offered a handsome reward that would be very tempting. But we did not come here looking for a reward, Señor Ortiz. We are here to return his daughter, and when we do so, we would like to meet with Don Carlos in person only to ask him a small favor. And that is how you are going to help! You will take us there, but your men will have to stay here. You can explain that to them yourself.”
The four cartel men were walking back down the hill now, their hands clasped on top of their heads and Eric and Carmen following behind with their rifles on them. Luke saw that Eric had collected the AK and he figured he and Carmen had their pistols too. The situation was under control with no shots fired, and Luke was grateful for that, because as Carmen said, these men were her father’s employees, even if they’d come here motivated by the ransom more than any good will towards her. At any rate, Carmen had said before Eric left that it would look better to Don Carlos if they could accomplish what they needed to do without killing his employees. Señor Ortiz was practically trembling with rage upon realization that his scheme had been thwarted, and seeing that Carmen was in on this, and indeed pointing a rifle at him and his men, he launched into a bitter stream of accusations, telling her that she was a disgrace to her father and that she would see how displeased he was if she allowed these gringo friends of hers to humiliate someone as loyal as himself by taking him hostage. Carmen wasn’t intimidated. Instead, she turned it back on him with equal fury, telling him she knew that he and his men would have readily killed Luke and Eric on the spot once they had her if she had not foreseen this and warned them that they would have to take the preemptive action they did.
“Do not speak of this again, Juan Ortiz, or I will tell my father exactly what you were planning. I do not have to tell you what he would do to you in that case, do I?”
Señor Ortiz shut up after that, and Luke and Eric marched him and the rest of his men down to where the two SUVs were parked. When they got there, Eric took the keys out of the Escalade with the barricade in the rear and then shot out the two front tires and the radiator with a burst from his M4. Then, he forced the four disarmed gunmen to crowd into the rear seat, where he locked them all in. He knew they would break the windows with their feet and get out, but it wouldn’t matter; they were still stranded in the middle of nowhere. Eric got into the rear seat of the other Escalade after forcing Ortiz into the driver’s seat at gun point. Then, he directed Carmen to ride up front with Ortiz while Luke took the other side of the rear where he could help Eric cover any wrong move the man might foolishly make. All of the glass in the black Cadillac with the exception of the windshield was tinted so dark it would be impossible for anyone to identify the occupants of the vehicle at night, especially in the rear, and Carmen said they wouldn’t have a problem as long as they were moving. The cartel used lots of similar vehicles, and this one wouldn’t arouse suspicion on the road into Monterrey, a route no rivals would dare to travel in a lone SUV at that hour. She said that just having one of the Los Nuevos vehicles would be enough to get them into the city, and that they didn’t really need Señor Ortiz. But Eric and Luke insisted that taking him along under threat of death was simply good insurance. And if anyone did pull them over to question the driver, he was known there and would arouse no suspicion.
An hour later they had reached the city proper and were approaching the upscale neighborhood of the kingpin’s mansion. Carmen said the best way to do this was to have Ortiz drive straight up to the guardhouse at the main entrance gate. She had Ortiz’s own pistol pointed at him herself, and she said she knew all the guards her father entrusted with protecting his property. There was no danger that any of them would attempt to pull the same stunt Ortiz had tried regarding the ransom, and she made it clear to him again that if he didn’t keep his mouth shut and let her do the talking, she would shoot him herself.
“You and Eric will have to surrender your weapons and go along with whatever they say,” she told Luke, “but don’t worry. They will take you to one of the servant houses and hold you there until I can explain everything to my father. As soon as I do that, you will both be his welcome guests, I promise you that.”
“What about him?” Eric asked Luke, referring to Ortiz. “It’ll be her word against his, won’t it?”
“She says the guards here will trust her before they will him. They will hold him just like they’re going to hold us until Don Carlos hears her story. And Carmen insists that her father will believe whatever she tells him.”
“Well, let’s just hope he’s home tonight, and not away on one of his international business meetings,” Eric said. “I’m ready to get this sorted out and get going.”
Ten
BART BRANSON WAS UP well before the first hint of daylight, just as he’d been every morning since Eric had left. He made coffee in the schooner’s galley and took his cup up on deck to sit outside in the dark, where he stared out over the still waters of the bayou, listening to the sounds of the swamp. Bart needed that time alone when he could get lost in his thoughts, as that was impossible to do once Andrew was up. The boy followed him everywhere, asking endless questions and pestering him to take him out in the skiff to explore and fish. Most days they did exactly that, and Bart didn’t really mind the company, because he knew the experience was doing the boy a lot of good, teaching him useful skills he was enthusiastic to learn. And most of the teaching Bart was passing along to him pertained to things the boy’s father knew nothing of. They were the things Bart taught his own sons, Eric and Keith, but that Daniel Hartfield hadn’t been exposed to, growing up the way he had. But now such things were suddenly of vital importance in the situation in which they now found themselves immersed. Since Daniel couldn’t do it and still didn’t see the need, and Keith had his hands full with his duties, Bart didn’t mind taking on the role of Andrew’s mentor to the extent that he could. The boy was like his own grandson as far as Bart was concerned, even if in reality he was the stepson of Eric’s ex-wife.
Eric and Shauna were of course on Bart’s mind that morning, as they always were while he sipped his coffee and mulled over the unanswerable questions of how they were making out in their quest and where they might be at the moment. A considerable amount of time had passed—plenty enough for them to make it to Colorado—but Bart knew anything could happen out there along the way and any number of setbacks could delay them. He hoped they had reached Boulder, found Megan, and were on their way back though, because Bart knew winter had come to the Rockies by now. Even there in south Louisiana the weather was changing, especially when the cold fronts pushed through from the west, sweeping away the humidity and bringing chilly mornings with smoky mist that hung low over the bayou until the sun rose high enough to burn it off. The seasons were indeed changing, and though that change was far from dramatic this far south, it was a welcome reprieve from the sweltering norm in those parts.
While winter storms could mean life or death out there in the high country, especially in the present conditions, Bart and everyone else in Louisiana were facing other changes that were far more pressing than the weather. Keith had first gotten word of it on one of his trips to Lafayette, where his fellow deputy, Greg Hebert, was still recovering from the gunshot wound that nearly killed him. Things were getting organized in some parts of Texas, accordi
ng to the rumors reaching Lafayette, and refugee centers were being established for survivors of the terror attacks and the hurricane that devastated so much of the region east of there.
“I have no way of knowing how much of this is true,” Keith had told them, when he returned to Vic’s place that day, where he and Bart and Daniel and Andrew had all been staying. “But even if it is, I’m not sure whether it’s going to make things better or worse for the people that live out here.”
“How could anything be worse?” Daniel had asked. “There’s no power, no communications, nowhere to buy anything and no law and order!”
“It could be a lot worse!” Bart said. “We’ve got shelter and we ain’t hurting for food. And we’ve got the law living right here with us,” Bart nodded at Keith, “not to mention, we’ve got all the guns and ammunition we need.”
“For now. But you don’t know what’s going to happen next, or who’s going to show up wanting to kill us and take it all. We should go straight to Texas and find out where the nearest of those refugee centers is located.”
“We have at least two good reasons why we can’t do that,” Keith said. “In case you’ve forgotten, one of them is waiting here for your wife and my brother to get back, hopefully with your stepdaughter, Megan. The other is my duty to the people of this parish. I’m about all they have left unless someone sends legitimate help from outside the region.”
Later, after that conversation with Daniel that went about the way both of them expected, Keith had told Bart that the kind of ‘help’ that might be coming could be worse than none at all.
“What I’m hearing is that this is a combination of federal troops and private military contractors. They’re replacing any remaining local law enforcement agencies or merging them in under their command. I wouldn’t mind some help out here, but I don’t like the idea of putting the citizens that elected me into the hands of outsiders who don’t have a vested interest here. Eric warned me that this would probably happen though. He’s seen it time and time again and was involved in operations like that in Europe right before he came home. I know he avoided the shady ones for the most part, but some of those contracting companies may be as bad as whoever they’re supposed to be protecting us from. I think we need to be extra vigilant and that we probably ought to move the boats down to the bayou behind my property. It’s a lot farther off the road, so maybe they’ll leave us alone down there.”
Bart agreed and within two weeks of getting the news, they had cleared the downed trees and other hurricane debris from the bayou out back of the charred rubble of Keith’s house and rebuilt and expanded the dock. Within a few days later, they had relocated the schooner Dreamtime and Vic’s shrimp boat, the Miss Anita to the narrow channel there. The two boats provided shelter and everything else they needed to live in relative comfort, and Keith still had gasoline in his underground storage tank in the yard to fuel his truck and patrol boat. It was a better set-up than Vic’s place all around, situated as it was down a gravel road some distance from the interstate to the north.
Keith went back to Lafayette to pick up Greg shortly after that, when the hospital there had done all they could for him and needed the space for other patients. On that last trip to the city, Keith had learned that the new security forces had established an outpost and were building a refugee center just across the state line north of Lumberton, Texas for the purpose of relocating Louisiana residents from as far away as Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Whether or not the residents of his jurisdiction chose to go there or not was up to them, as far as Keith was concerned. He couldn’t blame them if they did, because after all, the center would surely provide shelter, food and protection, but he knew that many of the independent-minded folks out in the backwaters of the Atchafalaya Basin would likely have little interest in such an arrangement. Many of them were quite self-sufficient, and as long as outsiders didn’t bother them, they could get along just fine on what the land and the waters of the parish provided. The bigger question, however, was whether or not the security forces would attempt to insist on mandatory relocation. If it came to that, there would be trouble for sure, but it didn’t seem likely that such an initiative would take place right away.
Keith had passed the word around during his forays up and down the rivers and bayous in his boat, making sure residents were aware of their options and the possibilities of what may be coming. In the meantime, he dealt with the occasional violent incident alone or with Bart’s help. Most involved armed robbery or looting, but such incidents weren’t happening as frequently now that fewer people were passing through from outside the region. Keith and Bart attributed it to the ever-increasing difficulty of getting fuel or even food supplies with which to travel. As time went on, most survivors had gotten where they were trying to go or had given up and decided to stay put. These issues would surely complicate things for Eric, Shauna and Jonathan too, but they knew Eric would find a way to get back if they were successful in finding Megan. But they also knew that until they did find her, getting back wasn’t even a consideration.
They didn’t expect to get any news of their progress until they were back, but Bart had hoped to reestablish contact with anyone he could reach outside of the region using the ham radio station he’d set up aboard Dreamtime before they left Florida. So far, his efforts had been in vain. The hurricane had taken out the repeater towers within range and there was no way of knowing if anyone was working on rebuilding any of them, or if so, whether they had been vandalized or sabotaged by the same people that were wreaking havoc everywhere. While he was sure that the security forces in Texas had radio comms, Bart agreed with Keith that it was preferable to lay low and avoid going out of the way to make contact with them. The last thing they wanted was to be forced to move out of the river basin before Eric and Shauna had a chance to return. And besides, if that happened, Bart and Keith both knew that the two seagoing vessels might be restricted from leaving or even subject to confiscation—an event that would completely derail Eric’s ultimate plan. Bart hoped it didn’t come to it, but he was determined to make his last stand then and there before submitting to being herded like cattle into a refugee center. If Daniel wanted to go, Bart couldn’t stop him, but he sure hated to see the boy subjected to it. That dark thought had just crossed his mind that morning at the very moment Andrew slid open the hatch and stepped up on deck.
“Morning, Bart! It sure looks like a great day to go fishing!”
“Every day’s a great day to go fishing, Andrew. “You know that.”
“Then where are we going? Can we go back up in that dead lake with all the giant cypress trees? That place is so cool!”
“Maybe. But I didn’t say we were going fishing anywhere. I just said every day’s a great day to go fishing. There’s other stuff that has to be done too; you know. And, you’ve got to clear it with your father.”
“He’ll probably say no, like he always does. All he talks about any more is going to Texas; or back to Florida. I keep telling him we can’t leave until my stepmom and Megan are back, but he says not to count on them coming back. He says every day that they don’t show up, the more likely it is that they never will. What do you think, Bart? How much longer do you think it’s going to be?”
Andrew asked him that every day, and every day, Bart had to tell him the same thing; that it wouldn’t be long now, and that surely Eric, Shauna and Jonathan were on the way back with Megan already and could show up most any day.
“I’m worried about them. What if they never even made it all the way out there to Colorado? What if they ran into some really bad people like the ones that killed so many people here on that bridge?”
“I doubt they did, but even if they ran into trouble, it’s not going to stop Megan’s father from finding his girl. He can take care of trouble. No need to worry about that, Andrew.”
“I know he’s a Navy SEAL and all, but he doesn’t have his team with him for backup.”
“No, but he’s got Jonathan
and your stepmom. Both of them can do a good job of it. You’ve seen how they shoot.”
“Yeah, I guess. I could do it too if I had to, you know. I like shooting guns! I didn't think I would ever get to try it until all this happened. But I'm sure glad I did.”
“Shooting straight is one thing, and you’re doing good at that, but being shot at is a whole different matter, as you already know by now, son. You’ll be better off if you never have to face that again, but we’re gonna keep working on your skills so that you’re ready, because the way things are now, there’s a good chance you’ll need them again someday.”
“I know, but I’m not scared to do it if I have to; not now that I know how.”
“Know how to do what?” A sleepy voice called up from the open hatch, just before Daniel stuck his head out.
“Shoot somebody!” Andrew said.
“You’re not shooting anyone, Andrew! In fact, your days of shooting anything are about to come to an end. We’re getting out of this nightmare and we’re never going to need guns again.”
“How do you figure that?” Bart laughed. “I don’t know what kind of dream you just woke up from son, but you’re back in the real world now, and in this world, I’d advise you not to get too far from your firearms.”
“We won’t need them, because we’re going to Texas. I know you’re too stubborn to consider that it’s the best option, but you’re being foolish, staying here, Bart. So is your son, Keith. He’s done a good job here in difficult circumstances, but he needs to understand that it’s time to step aside and let those soldiers take over. You know they’re going to anyway, it’s just a matter of time. They’re evacuating as many people as they can so that when they move in here to secure the area, their job will be easier. We should do our part by getting out of the way.”
Feral Nation Series (Book 7): Feral Nation [Sabotage] Page 10
