Bonner Incident (32 page)

Gene stood up nodding. “I will and as you can see, the others have taken jobs and are staying away in more crowded places.”

“Understandable, but I know that it hurt them to do it.”

“It did, and it hurt me to ask, but makes it easier for me. The others have families I don’t want near us if it goes downhill.”

Nodding, Buck walked down the stairs, “I’m praying we are at the bottom of the hill.”

“Then I hope the hill doesn’t bury us.”

Buck looked over his shoulder and headed to the SUV and jumped in. “What did he give you?” Ben asked, walking around the corner of the house.

“Grown up stuff that you wouldn’t understand,” Gene said spitting.

Ben walked over and tapped his arm. “Give me a dip.”

Reaching in his pocket, Gene handed over his can. “You don’t listen in on grown up conversations. Didn’t your momma teach you better?”

“Well, yeah, but I found out if I listened to her and dad talk, I knew when a spanking was coming and could run for it.”

Turning around and heading for the door, “Your mom and dad should’ve beat you daily,” Gene said.

“Where are you going?”

“To find William and get him to tell me what’s on this little plastic thing,” Gene sighed, grabbing the door.

Stepping over, Ben grabbed his arm. “Buck told you not to do that, it could be bad for us.”

“That’s what I mean, you don’t understand grown up conversations Ben,” Gene said opening the door. “You know, seeing Joshua grow up made me want a boy,” Gene sighed. “Then I would see you beside him and that would squash that thought.”

Sticking a huge dip in, Ben closed the can. “Damn it Gene!”

Gene turned around and looked at Ben. In all truth, Gene loved Ben and would be proud to have a son like him. He would be insane, but Gene would be proud of him. Ben was strong, intelligent when he wanted to be. But Ben’s outstanding feature, he was a buddy to his friends. He lived up to his promises to friends, others not so much. But Ben’s worst feature was he would act without thinking and that’s what drove Gene crazy. It was Gene who’d pushed Joshua to make Ben foreman.

In his heart, Gene hoped the responsibility would make Ben stop and think before he acted. In some ways it helped, in others it hadn’t. Gene was coming to understand that Ben was going to be Ben, no matter what. The one change he could tell was Barbara. If Gene would’ve known a woman would’ve changed Ben like that, he would’ve found one for the short, muscle bound, red goatee boy long ago. Hell, he knew he would’ve ordered Ben a mail-order bride.

“Ben, Buck gave us this as protection. A piece of leverage, if we needed it,” Gene said in a low voice.

“Shit,” Ben scoffed. “Buck would never step over the line of the law.”

“He hasn’t Ben,” Gene said letting the door close. “And to be honest, I don’t think he ever will. At least not as sheriff.”

“He gave you that,” Ben said pointing at Gene’s shirt pocket.

Gene sighed, “That’s what I mean. This is grown up stuff and you don’t understand.”

“Old man, I think I’m about to hit you.”

“You may be a young sprout compared to me, but I would really hate to have Barbara sew you up after I stomp a mud hole in your ass and walk it dry,” Gene said crossing his arms.

“God Damn it!” Ben grunted.

“Ben, he gave us this in case the feds go after him and he can’t protect us. That’s what he was saying. That’s why he gave it to me. I proved to him that I don’t want a war, but will fight and die here protecting Joshua’s family. I offered him an olive branch with the information about groups wanting to attack the feds,” Gene said.

“I didn’t hear that,” Ben said spitting off the porch.

Shaking his head, “That’s what I mean Ben, it was a grown up conversation. Grownups do that, hide their real meaning of what they’re saying so kids don’t understand.”

Reaching past Gene, Ben opened the door. “Just to warn you, when you’re using a walker, I’m going to kick it out from under you,” he said walking in.

“You’re going to feel funny about that when I get up and shove that walker up your ass,” Gene smirked.

Chapter Nineteen

It was 1630 when Joshua drove around downtown Spokane. He’d ridden the horse and mule hard to cover the twenty-four miles to the parked car Ben left for him. Near the parked car was an old farmstead that still had an old fence around ten acres. It had a small stream that ran under the fence and Joshua hid his gear in the woods.

He had little fear that anyone would take King and he had left King for a day out in the mountains when he’d trailed an elk before. King had just stood there and waited till he came back. The mule, Joshua wasn’t worried about anyone taking, his only concern was that the mule would get out and head home. But with King there, he should stay.

Seeing the building he was looking for, he drove past and saw the parking garage. Parking the BMW, Joshua got out and ran his hands down his khaki pants. “I hate urban camouflage,” he mumbled.

Walking around like a tourist, he walked past the parking garage and saw that it wasn’t manned by a guard, but he could see several cameras and an automatic gate to let cars in and out with a badge swipe. Looking away from the federal building, he took pictures of the building across the street then walked over.

Seeing a person walk out of the building across the street, he moved quickly but obviously to catch the door. Walking in, he saw it was an office building. Moving over to a directory on the wall and finding the name of a business in the building, he acted like he was still looking at it before heading to some chairs beside the window and sitting down.

Pulling out his camera, he turned it on, acting like he was flipping through pictures as he zoomed in to the parking garage across the street. On the right hand side, he saw the labeled parking spots for the big wigs and smiled, seeing the parking spot of who he was after, Larry Durrell, senior IRS agent.

“You have to love the internet,” he said getting up and leaving. He was sure William could find out where Larry Durrell lived and what he charged on his credit cards. Joshua had just pulled up the federal building’s website to find the most senior IRS agent and did, complete with picture.

Leaving the building, he walked on looking around, mainly up high and spotted a building half a mile away with a clear line of sight. “Okay, scouting is done for the day,” he said and headed back to the BMW.

He had the cash he’d taken from the safe, along with a stack of gold one ounce double eagles. With his wad of cash, he found a decent hotel and checked into his room, pulling out the computer William had given him. Pulling out a notebook, he made notes of where and what he needed to do and then left.

First, he stopped by a big box electronics store. Feeling out of place without William beside him, Joshua made a beeline right to the phones. Pulling out the phone William had given him, Joshua looked for one just like it. “Can I help you sir?” Joshua heard behind him and turned to see a boy not much older than William.

“Um, yeah,” Josh said looking around and coming up with a story fast. “My son made this phone so you couldn’t tell what websites I go to and I want spares.”

The boy grinned looking at the phone, “Galaxy,” the boy said, nodding. “May I?” he asked holding out his hand. Hesitantly, Joshua handed it over after putting in his passcode and watched the boy’s fingers fly over the screen, tapping it in a blur.

“Sir, your son is good,” he said tapping away and Joshua leaned over, gasping at seeing computer code on his screen. He didn’t know his phone had computer code that you could look at. “Okay, he used an android bot program with a roaming algorithm,” the boy said tapping faster and suddenly, the screen went back to the touch icons.

The boy handed it back and Joshua just stared at his phone in shock, wondering if this was some innate knowledge born into kids these days. “Um, it isn’t going to go back to that screen you were looking at without being told to, is it?” Joshua asked expecting his phone to blow up as fast as the boy had typed on it with his thumbs.

“No sir, I just opened up the program menu,” he laughed. “I don’t have the big screens in the prepaid, but I have the regular Galaxy.”

“Can it do what this one does?”

“Sure,” the boy said handing him a box. “If you want, I can show you how to tell your phone to tell the one that you buy to do it.”

“I’ll take three,” Joshua said still holding his phone out.

The boy grabbed two more and looked at Joshua. “There is a one-month card in the box, you need more?”

“Five,” Joshua said confidently. He had learned how to add minutes with the card. William had shown him after Joshua had cussed a non-English speaking person out because his phone wouldn’t take the numbers he’d been putting in.

The boy grabbed them and grinned at Joshua. “Tell your son that is a great program, but don’t let others know he hacked it. You could get him in trouble. Need anything else?”

“I found a website that shows women with huge boobs,” Joshua winked. “I don’t want the other half to know. But yeah, a printer that I can take with me on the road that doesn’t weigh five hundred pounds.”

“You want to see big hooters? Do a search for ‘Milk Mommas’, you will see some hooters,” the boy grinned. He grabbed a tiny printer that wasn’t much wider than a piece of paper with some ink cartridges and led Joshua to the register. After checking out, the boy stepped over to a counter taking Joshua’s phone. Connecting to one of the new ones with a cable, he showed Joshua how to load the program to the other one. But didn’t actually hit the command to transfer the program, the boy said he would get in trouble with the store if he did. Looking at the kid, Joshua knew the kid had done it before and much more he could get in trouble for.

Copying what the boy had shown him, Joshua did it but still didn’t know what he’d done. “So, it’s like the one he made me?” Joshua said looking at the phone he’d just hooked up.

“Yes, when you cruise the net, it grabs a random IP with ghost backup interface and uses it and shuffles from multiple servers to erase any digital footprints. From the program, I’m surprised your son was able to maintain unity because the program finds multiple VPNs and uses them simultaneously,” the boy said and Joshua looked over at him like he’d spoken Martian. “It will hide you, so nobody knows you are looking at hooters,” the boy said grinning.

Smiling with relief, Joshua pulled a hundred out of his pocket, palming it in his hand. “I know you can’t take this but I want you to have it. I’m going to look up ‘Milk Mommas’ tonight.”

“If you need anything else, just ask for Hank,” he said stuffing the money in his pocket. “Thanks for buying so many. It broke my quota for the next month.”

“No, thank you Hank,” Joshua said gathering his stuff up and leaving. The next stop was an office store and then he went to a big chain home improvement store. Coming out with several bags, he headed back to the hotel. He wrote two letters, then went to several websites and found out about the explosion. The government was calling it a terrible accident and said it could’ve been avoided with more cooperation from the local law enforcement and population. That even the governor of the state wasn’t cooperating with the wishes and demands of the federal government to apprehend a federal fugitive that had killed two agents and a state trooper in cold blood.

“Their blood wasn’t cold till it hit the snow,” Joshua mumbled and then went to his favorite alternative news site. He didn’t understand why they hadn’t posted the video and wondered if they weren’t really separated from the mainstream media.

What Joshua didn’t understand, unlike the mega media stations, small news sites only had a few full time employees and received thousands of e-mails a day with hundreds of videos. It usually fell to two or three people to sort through the mass of messages. If Joshua had read the fine print at the bottom of the message screen, he would’ve known this.

“We’ll wait and see,” he said grabbing an envelope and putting a small SD card in that he had loaded with both videos, along with a letter to an email account he’d just set up. No matter what William said, Joshua didn’t think he should email a site with an account he’d just set up to talk to them in the future.

Again, if William were with him, he would probably do it, but knowing that he only knew enough about computers to get in trouble, Joshua played it safe and would send it by real mail. He looked at the second letter, smiled and folded it up, placing it in an envelope. Grabbing the small printer, Joshua read the directions, then hooked it to the laptop.

Going to a satellite service site, he pulled out a disposable credit card and bought a thirty-day account. He printed out several images of Spokane and the area he was working from. He knew the area and had the cool map, but he had devious ideas and plans ahead.