Bug Out! Part 3: Motorhome Madness (10 page)

“Yes, definitely,” Frank said.

“He wanted to buy monitors too, but I put a stop to it, I’m afraid,” Hilda said.

“No problem,” Frank said. “I’ll rig this thing up so we can display any camera on any PC or iPAD in the park.”

“How long will it take?” asked Hilda.

“A good couple of days,” Frank said.

“I’ll bet those spools of wire go with this,” Jerry said, pointing to them on the shelf.

“Probably,” Frank said. “This is where the old school hardware hurts us a little bit. The newer systems are wireless. This is more secure, though.”

“Can you guys put this up yourself, or will we need to recruit some folks?” asked Hilda.

“Jasmine knows this stuff like the back of her hand, from work,” Jerry said, “so that makes three of us.”

“Jane has some background too,” Frank said. “Some of the most time-consuming tasks don’t take knowledge, though. Like stringing wire, for instance, and installing cameras.”

“Alright, let’s get back to the clubhouse and see if we can get this organized,” Hilda said. She waited for Frank and Jerry to walk out of the maintenance building, and then she locked it back up. “Since there may be more moles around, I think we’d better mind the security on this stuff.”

“Yeah, damn straight,” Jerry said. Frank nodded, and they went back into the clubhouse.

“What’s up?” asked Charlie.

“I just showed them all of that security camera stuff that Jer bought a few years ago.”

“You still have that? Jer told me you were pushing him to sell it.”

“I was, but then he started to get sick, so it just got stored in the maintenance building.”

“Security cameras?” asked the Major. “That would be a good thing to set up.”

“Yep, we’ll get started on it in a few minutes,” Frank said.

Suddenly there was a rifle shot, coming from the front of the park.

“Jeb,” Charlie said. “We’ve got company.”

The men all rushed outside and cautiously looked at the gate. Cynthia was there, silently looking inside. Something didn’t look right about her. She was in a daze.

“She’s got something on under that dress,” the Private said. “It looks too bulky.”

“Help me!” cried Cynthia. “Let me in, please.”

Cynthia stood outside the gate,
in a daze, crying out to be let in.

“Look at that dress. It’s not hanging right,” Jane said, as she walked over to Frank.

“Major, that woman has a suicide bomber’s vest on under that dress,” shouted Private Jones.

“Let me in, please!” cried Cynthia. She started to lift her hands, but one of them stopped at about waist level.

“There’s the detonator,” Jerry said, pointing. Then there was a loud shot, and Cynthia’s hand exploded, flesh and blood and black plastic and metal flying everywhere. She fell to her knees, wailing.

“Who shot?” asked Major Hobbs.

“Jeb,” Frank said. “What do we do now?”

“Sometimes those vests are booby trapped….you try to take them off, and kaboom,” Jerry said.

“Yes, I’m well aware of that,” the Major said. He was thinking, trying to shut everything else out.

“What if we just shot her in the torso?” asked Earl. “Wouldn’t that set off the explosives?”

“Probably not,” the Major said. “Besides, that’s murder.”

“No, that’s self-protection,” said Jerry. “You know that she’s probably responsible for the loss of your three privates, right? That red CRV was hers.”

“I’m aware of that too, Jerry,” Major Hobbs said, “but we are still a civilized country. We can beat these guys without being like them.”

“Alright, let’s problem solve, here, folks,” Frank said. “Who knows anything about disarming one of those vests?”

“I had some training a few years ago, but it’s not up to date,” the Major said. “Private?”

“No sir, sorry,” he said. “Why don’t you get on the horn to the CO and ask him to send somebody with that Platoon?”

“You are continuing to impress me, Private,” Major Hobbs said.

“If they don’t get here fairly quickly, she’s going to be in bad shape, out in the hot sun with no water,” Hilda said.

“Well, I’d throw her my bottle of water, but that takes two hands to open,” Jackson said. “I’m certainly not going to walk up to her. In fact, we probably aren’t far enough back. They usually put ball bearings and washers on top of the explosives, and we could get hit.”

“Jackson is right about that,” Jerry said. “We should move over behind the building.”

“On the water, I’ve got some of those pull top bottles in my rig,” Frank said. “Those take one hand and your teeth to open. I’ll go get one and toss it to her.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jane said. “We need to feed Lucy and Mr. Wonderful anyway.” They walked off together, with Lucy bouncing along in front of them.

“So what do you think?” Jane asked.

“About?”

“Staying here,” Jane said. “Are we going to live through all of this?”

“I don’t think we have a choice about staying here, but I don’t like being this close to the front lines. Setting up a security system will help, but all it does is give us early warning. If a force of 40 or 50 shows up here with military equipment, we are going to be in trouble.”

“I’m thinking the same thing,” Jane said. “I don’t want you back in that blind again. I want you to work the security system instead.”

“I might not have a choice, but remember the new rule…..two people at a time.”

“If you go up there, I’m going too,” Jane said. Her voice was starting to break up.

“It’s alright,” Frank said, pulling her close.

“I’m sorry I used to disrespect you. And minimize you,” Jane said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know,” Jane said. “I didn’t have enough confidence in you, and I picked at you.”

“We act like an old married couple always does, sweetie,” Frank said. “I could always tell that you loved me. Getting a push from you has been helpful more times than I can count. But why all of this now?”

“I’m afraid that this is going to be over soon, and one or both of us are going to be dead,” Jane said.

They stopped in front of their rig. Frank looked down at Jane, and then hugged her tightly. He could feel her sobbing. The dog sat down and looked up at them. She turned her head to the side and started crying.

“It’s OK, girl,” Jane said, trying to compose herself. “It’s just your mom being worried.”

Frank pulled away from Jane and unlocked the door of their coach. Then all three went in.

“I’ll feed the girl and Mr. Wonderful,” Frank said, and he got to work on that.

“Alright, I’ll get the water bottle.”

Frank opened the two cans of food. Mr. Wonderful sauntered over, and started to meow. He rubbed against Frank’s calves.

“Sorry, sir,” Frank said. “We haven’t spent much time together for the past couple of days.” The cat was purring loudly now.

“OK, here we go,” Frank said, and he put the dishes on the floor. The two animals attacked their food quickly. Frank sat down sideways on the dinette bench and watched them.

“Well, I guess they were hungry,” Jane said, walking away from the pantry with a bottle of water. She peeled the plastic seal off and pulled up on the lid to loosen it up.

“Should we let Lucy rest for a while here?” asked Frank.

“She slept for a while in the clubhouse. I think we ought to bring her. She’s got better eyes and ears than we do.”

“Alright, she should be done in a few minutes.”

“Frank?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t make plans tonight,” she said. “I’ve got a special task for you.”

Frank smiled at her.

“That sounds very interesting.”

“Yes, you’ll enjoy it,” Jane said, her face flushing.

Lucy finished, and Frank and Jane got out of the coach with her. Frank locked up. He could hear a gentle protest from Mr. Wonderful.

“Mr. Wonderful is needing some attention too, you know,” Frank said, chuckling.

“Me first.”

The two held hands as they walked back over to the clubhouse.

“Here’s that water bottle,” Frank said. “How close can I safely get to her?”

“I’ll take it, sir,” the Private said. “I’ve got body armor on, so I have some protection.” He took the bottle from Frank, and approached Cynthia.

“Cynthia!” the Private yelled. “Here’s some water. I’m going to toss it to you.”

She looked up at him. She was still crying, and there was a look of hatred in her eyes.

“I don’t want your water, pig,” she spat out between sobs. The private threw the bottle to her anyway, and it landed well within reach. He turned and quickly walked back to the group.

“Wow, nice personality,” the Private said with a smirk.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Jackson said.

The Major walked over from the Humvee.

“There was already somebody qualified to deal with the vest in the platoon, and they are on their way here. They should be here in about twenty minutes.”

“Excellent,” Frank said.

“So what are we going to do with her once we have her disarmed?” asked Charlie. “We don’t have a good place to lock her up.”

“Private Jones and I will take her with us,” the Major said.

“You’re leaving?” asked Hilda.

“Yes, for a little while,” he said. “The CO wants to interview both of us. We’ll probably be back here after that. We need to collect the Lieutenant, for one thing.”

“She’s too defiant for the Militia now,” Jerry said, looking over at Cynthia. “I’ll bet she’s gotten close to somebody on the Islamist side. She might even have been the facilitator in getting them together.”

“I doubt that,” the Major said. “They don’t put valuable people in suicide vests.”

“Well, I guess that’s a good point,” Jerry said. “I’ll grant you that.”

“Hey, Jerry, want to help me start planning the security system?” asked Frank.

“Sure, might as well get started,” Jerry said. They walked into the clubhouse, followed by Jane and Lucy, Hilda, and Earl. The rest of the folks stayed outside and kept an eye on Cynthia.

“Hilda, do you have any big sheets of paper?”

“I do, and some easels too,” she said. “Jer bought some of that stuff when he was trying to get us into the Corporate Retreat market. Never worked. Jer was full of ideas like that.”

“Wish I would have met him,” Frank said.

“He would have liked you,” Hilda said. She turned and went into the back room of the clubhouse, and returned with the easel and two pads of large paper. “This do?”

“Perfect,” Frank said.

“Oh, yeah, and these,” she said. She pulled several felt tip markers out of her pocket.

Jerry grabbed the easel and set it up. Frank picked up one of the pads of paper and hung it on with the two bolts at the top, and then picked up one of the markers.

“Hilda, could you give me one of the maps of the park? Mine is back in my rig.”

“Sure thing, just a sec,” she said. She walked back into the storage room again, and came out with a map. Frank looked at it, and then drew a rough version of it on the large paper. He put in landmarks, and the approximate position of trees along the back.

“OK, we have 36 cameras. We need to decide where to place them.”

“We have a few sensitive parts of the park that should be covered,” Jerry said. “The rest ought to be pointing outward.”

“Yes,” Frank said. “Important places within the park. Generator room. Well and Pump area. Incoming electrical and city water supplies. Maintenance area. Anything else that you two can think of?” He looked at Hilda and Jerry.

“Internet cable hookup,” Hilda said. She pointed to where it was on the map.

“Anything else?” Frank asked.

“Not that I can think of,” Jerry said. Hilda nodded in agreement.

“Alright, so that is 6, and we have 30 left.

“I’d say we should put one in a tree pointing at the parking area in the back, and one pointing to the blind in such a way that you can see the blind itself and the area in front of the blind,” Jerry said.

“Hopefully we have enough wire to get that far,” Frank said. “I’m sure we can get to the blind, but the parking area is a ways back there.”

“Maybe we can find a vantage point that can cover the parking area but isn’t all the way over there.”

Frank nodded.

“Wonder how far back the Wi-Fi reaches?” asked Jerry.

“I know it will reach the blind, because I was able to connect my phone to Wi-Fi when I was up there.”

“Excellent,” Jerry said. “That way whoever is manning the blind can pull that view up on their phone or their tablet.”

“Yeah, that would make a big difference. That leaves us with 28 to place around the perimeter. Any reason not to just put them up every so many feet?”

“Not that I can think of,” Hilda said.

Charlie walked in and took a look at the map on the pad of paper.

“Looks good, gentlemen,” he said. “How can I help?”

“How’d you like to lead the team that strings the cable and installs the cameras?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Charlie said.

“Excellent,” Frank said. “Let’s get this map blocked out, then we can take a picture of it on a couple of tablets and go walk the areas to take a look.”

“Alright,” Jerry said. “Good plan.”

As they got to work on that, Earl walked back outside. He went up to Jackson.

“Anything happening?” he asked.

“Nope,” Jackson said. “How are things going in there?”

“Pretty good. I think Frank really knows his stuff with networks and surveillance systems. Charlie just got put in charge of stringing cable and putting up cameras. We’re liable to be asked to join that team.”

“I’d be fine with that,” Jackson said. “Do you think these folks trust us yet?”

“Some of ‘em do. Should we have been more open with them? I think Jerry is pretty suspicious about us because we didn’t say anything about Cynthia.”

“No doubt. But what are we going to do? They’d never believe our story now, even though it’s true. You know Cynthia will say some things about us under interrogation.”

“Yes, it might be in our interest to make sure she gets a little bit dead,” Earl said.

“What if we make a preemptive strike and come clean to Frank, Charlie, and Jerry?”