Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 1 | The Farm

by Craven III, Boyd

  “A Gibbs slap? Like NCIS?”

  “Oh, they like that show.” Harry nodded.

  Officer Parks started chuckling to herself and, with barely concealed fake reluctance, she started filling her plate. They were eating some type of meatloaf that smelled heavenly. She got a helping of that and one of potatoes and sweet corn. She took a fork to the meatloaf and dug in. Her eyes crossed in pleasure almost immediately. The ground beef had been mixed with what tasted like smoked bacon. She was sure there were also breadcrumbs and some seasoning in it, but she was focused on the mouth-watering taste overall.

  “Oh my gosh,” she said, trying not to drool while shoveling more into her, “this is so good. From the farm?”

  “All but the potatoes,” Goldie said. “We dropped some critters off with the butcher Angelica met and brought back some things he’d done for us that week.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  “Thank you dear,” Goldie said. “Now, I understand you talked to the miscreant who rear ended my son’s truck?”

  “Yes ma’am. He said he was trying to find a motel… on Yellow Creek Road of all places! I pressed him on the story after I ran his ID. He’s an investigator for a DA back east. Works with ADA Winters.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Andrea spat.

  “Missy, you get one pass, because your shit’s all busted up,” Grandma Goldie said, waving the spoon.

  “You’re on a tear tonight,” Dante commented. “You’re more foul-mouthed than the rest of us put together.”

  “Well, that’s called comic relief. You folks are scared and wound so tight that I figured if I could make you laugh…”

  “They found us?” Curt asked.

  “They found your real estate office. You put that in your name, and those transactions are public record. Rich, the guy who hit Rob’s truck, was trying to follow Curt back to the compound. He said they wanted to find the farm or compound you guys had talked about at work before the accident.”

  “How hard would it be for them to find out?” Andrea asked.

  “How did you buy the farm?” Sherry Parker asked.

  “We formed a corporation, then the corporation bought a small company that bought the farm. We listed Dewey on the board of directors instead of us.”

  “Little sleight of hand,” Dante said.

  “So, they can figure it out, but it’s going to take them time. Why would an investigator for ADA Winters be trying to look you up?”

  “If you have to ask, you haven’t been following the news much,” Curt said wryly.

  “I have been, but I’m not sure what kind of piece to the puzzle she is,” the officer admitted, taking another bite.

  “She was the DA’s hatchet girl. She’s the one who pushed the cops to lose the video evidence, and it was her and her associates who leaked the badly edited cell phone videos from the protestors to the press. They made it look like Andrea was just shooting people. Not the context leading up to it.”

  “Wait, so… hold on…” Sherry said, shaking her head, “you mean the police, the DA’s office… there was a whole conspiracy to frame you for capital murder?”

  “Like I said, you must have missed some of the news,” Andrea said. “They’re going to be lucky if they don’t end up in jail themselves. It doesn’t surprise me that they’re trying to find us. Then they could watch us and throw some trumped-up charges at us in retaliation before they all go down themselves.”

  “Well, the ones who didn’t kill themselves,” Curt added.

  “Huh?” Officer Parker asked.

  “We got one of the officers on a camera talking about how they were going to frame me,” Andrea said. “So, I’m not too worried about what Winters can do.”

  “They, and I mean the DA and Winters could always leak your address to the press,” Officer Parker said, “then they wouldn’t be seen as hands on.”

  “Oh shit,” Rob said quietly.

  “Oh shit,” Grandma Goldie agreed.

  “This isn’t good,” Angelica said. “What happens if…”

  “I assume that’s what the big fence is for I saw y'all building as I drove up?” Sherry asked.

  “It is,” Rob said. “I have to go get some electronic measures too…”

  “I have a buddy I used to date in the academy. He ended up washing out and opened an electronics store near Fort Smith.” She pulled out one of her business cards and wrote out an address on the back. “Cameras, motion sensors, things like that.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate it,” Rob said pocketing the card.

  “I ended up giving Rich a warning instead of a ticket. When he told me the story, I figured nobody wanted their addresses disclosed…”

  “Can you do that? Keep us out of the accident report?” Rob asked.

  “Well, I might not be able to keep you out of it, but what if I sorta filled out the address where you used to be staying, on accident?”

  “I like this girl,” Grandma Goldie exclaimed. “Harry, go give her some sugar.”

  Harry pushed back from the table, shy and smiling. He walked up and wrapped the officer in a hug, feeling the vest underneath her work shirt.

  “I uh… I don’t think this is totally good news,” Sherry said. “Even if I can keep you guys out of it. The guy was at fault, so the best we can hope for is he goes home after his car is towed. I’d advise you guys to stay under the radar, possibly stay home if you don’t want to be found. At least for a while.”

  Steven, Anna, and Curt hated the sound of that, but they all agreed. They followed Sherry to her cruiser after supper was done and exchanged phone numbers all around. The officer had grasped the fact that the group was here and was going to stay out of trouble and keep their heads down right away. She did not want an incoherent mob, full of rage and self-righteousness, to descend on their tiny hamlet nestled in a peaceful area. She had been running on instinct before and was glad it had paid off.

  It took a week to get all the materials and supplies, then another week to put it all up, but everybody worked at a feverish pace. Curt and Steven were not taking phone calls on their personal phones. In fact, the group had turned off all of their personal phones and had them in an ammo can in the basement beneath the cabins. Instead, they had all broken out their burner phones and only used the land line for farm business, which was bare to none.

  Rob had contacted Sherry’s old boyfriend and had used the corporation's debit/credit card to order supplies, cameras, sensors, the works. To Rob it had seemed like a fortune, but Dante and Leah had assured him it was ok. Those two had worried that the accounts they had gotten their payoffs from the hospital paid into would be traced to the deposits from the corporate accounts, they all worried about that, but financials couldn’t be demanded from the banks without a warrant and a good reason.

  The group had reckoned that after the fiasco, and the fallout of the corruption case, that they would not have an easy time getting any warrants for them. Plus, the group, on Dante’s advice, started converting their cash reserves into precious metals. Curt had already been doing this for years, with a few ammo cans full of coins, but it was Anna who surprised them. She had a few cans as well, along with a few more and…

  “I’ve always tried to pay cash when I buy these,” Anna said. “The last time the government tried grabbing the people’s gold during the Great Depression, they used sale records to track it down.”

  Dante and Curt looked at her, a smile tugging their lips. “That’s pretty smart. We’ve done both the online sales and the cash sales, but I think if we’re going to be serious about holding onto things, we need to get more, without leaving ourselves too short, cash wise.”

  “Don’t worry about running out of money,” Dante told him. “Just don’t.”

  “I… ok,” Curt said, and sighed.

  They all knew what had gone on. Dante and Leah had always been the power/money couple with both being doctors, but Dante had specialized in the cardiac field and had been the head of the unit
at the hospital. To make things more impressive, he was a savvy investor, as the hospital board had just learned, and now had his own money manager, who worked just for him. The fallout and buyout from the hospital had put so many zeros on his cash account that his lawyer and money manager had reams of forms and paperwork, taxes etc. to send to the government agencies. Still, it left him a multimillionaire, many times over and over and over.

  And he was telling them to not worry about money running out. The stock market was tumbling, and the Wuhan Flu was getting worse and worse. Governors were keeping most small businesses shuttered, except those deemed essential. It was not unusual to see folks starting to wear masks while out in public or taking a walk.

  Nobody believed the Wuhan Flu would be as bad as the other pandemic viruses they had worried about, but it had almost everybody in a panic. That, coupled with the riots, meant it had not been safe for any of the group to really go anywhere off site. So, they had been ordering online.

  “You know, if our Amazon driver ever talked, we’d be in a world of shit,” Leah mused. “But I guess he doesn't know what’s in the boxes we’ve been getting shipped.”

  “I think the regular delivery guy has an idea of what I’ve been stocking up on,” Anna said darkly. “They don’t ship in generic boxes when I’m ordering brass. That, plus having a few trucks come LTL to deliver tubs of bullets.”

  “Do we need to worry about your powder storage?” Steven asked suddenly.

  “It’s stored the way the Feds would want us to store it, but honestly, with what we’ve done to the basement, if they can find it, they can check it out.”

  They all smirked at that. The final touches Steven had been working on, after the fencing was connected to the unfenced portions to the farm, was ‘finishing’ off the cabin basements. If you went into a cabin’s basement, it looked like any other. Making a secret door to access the rest of the basement had been Rob’s idea, but if their cabin were searched, finding the rest of the underground structure would be difficult to do.

  “True, but I mean, what if we have a fire or something?” Steven asked.

  “Down there? I have got it in a fireproof box. OSHA approved and everything,” Anna said. “Also, I want to start seeing everybody at the range once a day. It does not have to be a ton of rounds, but I want to make sure we all are proficient still. Shooting is a skill that can get rusty.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Rob told her.

  “Better watch yourself, big guy,” Angelica said slapping his arm.

  “Damn, I can’t do nothing right,” Rob complained, rubbing his arm like she’d hurt him.

  “We need to work on backup plans for power before we put in our cold storage,” Steven said suddenly as they were all sitting in the shade, the picnic table loaded down with food and pitchers of lemonade.

  “You thought you had a lead on some solar panels, right?” Dante asked.

  “Yeah, but with all the heat that’s been going on around here, do you think if we put up a huge solar array that folks wouldn’t notice or get curious?”

  “We have a lot of rooftops,” Leah said, “wouldn’t that be enough?”

  “Not really,” Steven said. “Plus, it’s all spread out. I’d like to do a battery house or a place in the workshop to enclose and fortify a large battery bank… but to get enough juice to run everything, I figure we’re going to need to put in something like those fields of panels you see going down the highways sometimes.”

  “Well, I don’t know who would see that,” Curt said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere and if we use the areas between the chicken barn and the east field, we should be able to get a lot up without anybody seeing them unless they came down our driveway, past two locked gates.”

  “I know,” Steven said, “But what if somebody flies a helicopter over the top? Say, the news people?”

  “You’ve got something in mind,” Andrea said. “Spit it out.”

  “Have you guys ever thought about what it’d take to get a steam turbine running?” he asked.

  “A fuck-ton of room, running water and heat,” Curt said.

  “What if we already had the running water? We could tap into the spring in the basement and run it to the turbine. Spin the turbine to generate power to use directly or charge batteries.”

  “What’s a turbine cost, and what would we heat it with?” Rob asked.

  “I don’t know on the cost, but I was watching a video from greenpowerscience on YouTube, and they used a parabolic mirror for some things, and a Fresnel lens for another. Having a tank of water filled and heated by natural sources, spinning the generator, producing our own power and extra hot water to boot…”

  “What about a Stirling engine?” Anna asked.

  “I don’t know of any for the size we need,” Steven admitted.

  “What you guys aren’t understanding,” Dante said, “is the virus has almost got the government closing down interstate shipping. He was talking a month or two off. It’s an insane idea, but he’s got congressional support from both sides. I know it sounds crazy, but if we need to get stuff ordered in, we gotta do it now.”

  “What kind of lead did you have about solar?” Curt asked

  “A solar panel supply warehouse that was going out of business. They used to buy all Unisolar, but when they went down, they switched to a new brand. They have a half a warehouse full of stuff, and a ton of batteries. I for sure want to vote to get all the batteries and charge controllers as we need, but do we want to do solar panels, or a steam engine?”

  “Which one can you get installed next week?” Leah asked.

  Steven sighed. “But a steam turbine would be so cool. Nobody in any of the post apocalypse books ever uses steam engines.”

  “It’s ok honey,” Anna reassured him, “someday someone will, or you’ll get your chance later on.”

  “Dang. Well, what do you think, solar it is?” he asked.

  It was a five and a half to a half vote going to solar, with Steven only throwing half a vote in. He was pouting about the steam turbine idea.

  “Contact the company when you can, and we’ll go pick it up,” Dante told him, “or we’ll have Anna’s trucker friend get it all for us.”

  “What if it takes more than one or two loads?” Steven asked.

  “We can all take our vehicles and trailers, and then have the truck driver go too. Let’s get as much as we can in one trip and minimize our need to be in public.”

  “Ok, we fill our trucks up from the fuel farm here. Rob, can you call and have the fuel company make sure we are topped off? Also, propane; I know we got two big pigs full of it, but I don’t know if we’re using it up or not. Any chance you or Angelica can figure that out?”

  “Sure, but… we haven’t even called the company yet,” Steven complained.

  “Ok, ok. Sorry, all of a sudden, I’m worried we’re going to run out of time. I thought we’d have years to plan at leisure, but it seems like we’re always behind the curve,” Curt said.

  Twenty-Four

  The company happened to be in Arkansas, near Texarkana, so when the Governor and President shut down interstate travel, they were still in decent shape. The company had been hit hard by the economic shutdown and the business had been struggling before that. They wanted to eliminate all back stock before filing bankruptcy, but the owner of the company was asking for cash, gold only.

  The group barely had enough gold to do the deal and the cash price was highly over-inflated, much like other products on the market. Inflation was hitting the country harder than anybody had expected. They were shopping local, the small farm store had been open, but with the large orders the farm had put in over the last couple of weeks, they sure had not wanted to close!

  They had picked a Thursday to be the day the farm, and their new trucker friend Jayson, headed to the warehouse. They were going to ask for a handwritten receipt in case they were stopped, and the owner had no issue. They were bringing gold coins for payment. Everything was fuel
ed ahead of time. Routes and alternate routes were decided on, and radios matched and set in case the phones did not want to be used or they wanted to talk as a group. What could go wrong?

  “You did good,” Winters told Rich. “I never would have figured them smart enough to hide behind a corporation.”

  The DA coughed, not wanting to mention just how good the Mallorys had been. They were all on the chopping block and had been sued. To make matters worse, the judge had refused to throw out the lawsuit. The only reason the DA had not been asked to step down yet was he had been able to push the blame downstream, but ultimately take responsibility. He had not told Winters that she was looking at some serious jail time, but he was setting her up to take the fall for everyone. Unless her plan worked.

  “Thanks. If you could just cut me a check for the final payment, I will be out of here,” Rich told them.

  The DA nodded. “Sure, make sure you see my secretary on your way out.”

  Rich shook hands all around. All of them were wearing gloves and masks now. The Wuhan Flu was raging rampant throughout the Memphis area, as the violent protests were done without PPE, without social distancing. Of course, they were able to blame right wing agitators for the spread of the deadly virus, even blaming them for the disproportionate numbers of deaths in the African American community. Once Rich was out, Winters went to the DA’s door and turned the lock.

  “This will work,” Winters told him.

  “If it doesn’t…” the DA said, leaving the words to dangle for a moment, “it’s on you.”

  Winters looked at him in shock. “I’m hardly the only one involved here.”

  “No, you’re just the one caught on tape, and the ADA who spoke to the brass at the police office. You're the one who gave the marching orders.”

  “But you knew,” she hissed. “I did this with your approval.”

  “Nothing on paper, tape or video,” the DA said, shrugging. “So, it would be in your best interests to make sure your plan works.”