Bug Out! Part 7: Mile High Motorhomes (4 page)

“Yeah, those are grizzly cubs,” Gabe said “and here comes mama. We’d better get out there and scare them away from that moat!”

Jeb was out the door first, running towards the moat with his rifle.

“Don’t shoot them, Jeb!” Gabe yelled, running after him.

“I won’t,” he replied. “I’m just going to fire a shot into the air to scare them away.”

Frank and Jane ran out with Jerry and Jasmine.

Charlie and the Sheriff followed. Dobie ran out after them. The crack of the shot rang out, and the cubs ran to their mother. She took off with them across the road and into the brush beyond.

“This is a problem,” Jeb said, as he walked over to the group.

“I should have thought about it,” Gabe said. “I don’t want to kill no grizzly cubs…or mom either, for that matter.”

“Can they get into the park any other way?” Jerry asked.

“Not anymore,” Gabe said. “At least not easily. I blocked up the creek with that razor wire.”

“We need to do something,” Jeb said. “I’m not against hunting bears, but I don’t want to have them falling down onto those spikes.”

“We’re going to the electronics store tomorrow, right?” Jerry asked.

“Yeah, if nothing crazy happens,” Gabe said.

“Think loud sound will keep them away?”

“Maybe,” Gabe replied. “Why?”

“We could pick up an electronic eye system there, and rig it to some loudspeakers. They break the beam, and it goes off.”

“Actually, that would be a good idea for other intruders as well,” the Sheriff said.

“Wait a minute, guys,” Dobie said. “You’re forgetting about my dogs. They’ll bark if anything or anyone approaches the borders of the park. They sound vicious enough…I think that would probably scare the bears away.”

“What if the dogs fall into the moat?” Jane asked.

“They won’t,” Dobie said. “I’ll train them what the boundaries are. Works for electrified fences. It’ll work here too.”

“Those cubs were cute,” Jasmine said.

“Yeah, well don’t try to get a selfie,” Jerry said, laughing. “More than one Darwin Award has been handed out for that one.”

The group laughed, and started to walk back towards the clubhouse, except for Jeb, who stood his ground, looking out into the inky blackness beyond the moat, rifle in his hand. Frank noticed and walked back over to him.

“Still see something?” he asked.

“No, just thinking,” Jeb said.

“About what?”

“The enemy knows where we are. You know that, right?”

“I suspect that’s true, yes,” Frank said.

“You think the others know?”

“Most do, but everybody’s avoiding the issue.”

“You heard what Dobie was saying about the cretins using I-70 as a conduit to the east?”

“Yeah, I heard him, Jeb.”

“Sooner or later they’re going to send a good sized force over here. If they’ve got mortars or worse, we’ll take a pretty bad beating, and we can’t escape out the back here.”

“Yeah, Jeb, that thought’s crossed my mind. This could be a very tidy little death trap.”

“Why do you want to stay here?”

“I want to have a crack at figuring out those chips,” Frank said.

“What do you think that’s going to buy us?”

“Precise location of the enemy,” Frank said. “Including the leadership, because we should be able to tell who’s who from the label data.”

“We going to go take the leaders out when you find them?”

“I’d much rather leave that to the armed forces, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to trust them. Once I crack these things, I’m only going to tell a few people in camp. Just the inner circle.”

“Good,” Jeb said. “Once the enemy figures out that we’re onto their system, how quickly could they change it?”

“Well, that’s the beauty of this. I don’t think they can get themselves out of danger without removing the chips.”

“You don’t think they can re-program them remotely?”

“I’ll be able to tell that when I get into them. Even if they can re-program them, they’ll still have to access them the same way they do now, and I think I’ll be able to see it and react accordingly.”

“Is this a pipe dream, Frank, or can you really do this?” Jeb asked. “Be honest.”

“Oh, yeah, I can do it, but I’ll need some un-interrupted time…hence the desire to stay here for now.”

“Why not just leave, and get to these chips when you can?”

“This is urgent, for my kids, and my country. It won’t be easy to get set up this well somewhere else. Staying here is worth the risk.”

“Noble,” Jeb said. “I don’t have any kids. I don’t have much invested in this society anymore. Just friends like you and Jerry and Charlie.”

“How serious are you about Rosie?”

“More serious than I’d like to be now.” He coughed, not wanting Frank to see his emotion.

“You’re in love with her.”

Jeb just looked at him. “I know, stupid, right?”

“No, not even a little bit. Do you see yourself getting hitched?”

“She wants that. I do too, but not until we get past this crap. If we get past this crap.”

“Well, something to consider,” Frank said, looking Jeb in the eye. “You may have grandkids in your future.”

“Jerry and Jasmine?”

“Don’t say anything.”

“They aren’t pregnant yet, are they?”

“No, but they’re trying.”

“Rosie said something about that, but I thought she was just kidding around.”

“She wasn’t. She’s encouraging it.”

“Why?” Jeb asked.

“She loves this country, and wants to see the people continue to build the society.”

“Well, that’s the truth. She wants us to fight.” He looked over at Frank, and then out into the dark again. “She’s right.”

“I think so. If we don’t retake the country, there won’t be anywhere we can hide. Not these days. The world is too small. Everything is exposed, even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

“Yeah. If you need any help from me on these chips, you just let me know.”

“We’ll need your help in a couple of days. Jerry and I are going to take his rig out in the boonies, out of range of the cell towers, so we can experiment with the chips without giving ourselves away. We’ll need some sharp shooters to go along in a toad.”

“I thought you knew these guys were aware of our location? Why worry about doing it here?”

“I don’t want the enemy to figure out that I’m working on cracking them,” Frank said.

“Oh. I get it.”

“I’d better get back in to Jane. You going back in?”

“In a few minutes. I need some quiet time to think.”

“Okay, Jeb, see you later.”

Frank walked back inside and found Jane over by the kitchen door, talking to Mary.

“You and Jeb have a nice chat?” Jane asked.

“Yeah.”

“Everything okay?” Mary asked.

“Yes, everything’s good. What’s going on in here?”

“Nothing much,” Jane said. “We actually went through all of the venison they cooked up. It was a hit.”

“Yeah, it was great. I’m not a huge fan of game, but this was cooked so well.”

“Thanks,” Mary said. “We had fun doing it. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find Kurt. I want to get to bed early tonight. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Jane said as she walked away.

“Well?” Jane asked.

“Nothing you don’t know about, sweetie,” Frank said. “Jeb just needed a little quiet time. He’s still out there.”

“No he’s not. He just came in the door and joined Rosie.”

Frank looked over and saw them. Jeb made eye contact and nodded, then put his arm around Rosie and pulled her close.

“Let’s go tell people goodnight. I want to go home and hit the sack,” Frank said. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

Jane nodded. They walked around, saying their goodbyes, and then walked out into the cool night air.

“Okay, now that we’re out of there, what did you and Jeb really talk about?”

“I think he was having a hard time running through our situation in his mind, and seeing a good end to it.”

“I have the same problem.”

“I understand. It’ll be alright.”

“You’re not worried, Frank?”

“If I thought we were just going to hang out in this RV Park and hope for the best, I’d be worried.”

“You don’t think we’re going to stay here long term?”

“Remains to be seen, sweetie…but moats and dogs and razor wire aren’t going to be enough to keep us safe if a few of those trucks full of Islamists decide to make a detour here.”

“You still think they know where we are?”

“No way to tell for sure, but given the facts as we know them, I don’t see how they couldn’t know. I’m hoping that we aren’t high enough on their priority list to bother with, until after I’ve got those chips figured out.”

“There’s something I wanted to quiz you on,” Jane said as they approached the coach. Frank unlocked the door and opened it, and Lucy ran down the steps, got up on Jane’s shins. “Let’s take her for a quick walk before we settle in.”

“You read my mind, sweetie,” Frank said, reaching in for her leash. He got her hooked up, and they kept walking. “What do you want to quiz me about?”

“You aren’t going to trust the army to go get the enemy leadership. You can’t.”

“True.”

“So what are you planning on doing?”

“I have a two-step plan, after the chips are cracked.”

They walked along silently for a moment.

“Frank, do I have to coax every bit of this out of you?”

“No, but there are still a lot of people around here that we don’t know very well. I’ll tell you everything, but you have to promise not to tell anybody else. Not Jasmine. Not Hilda. Nobody.”

“Have you told Jerry?”

“Only part of it. Same with Jeb, and those are the two people here that I trust the most.”

“You really think these people are going to blab?”

“To each other, yes, and once it gets beyond the person I tell, I’m out of the loop and can’t control where it goes. You know, Jerry tells Jasmine, and she tells Rosie, and she tells Mary…you get it.”

“You’re thinking several steps ahead, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You already know how to crack these things, don’t you?”

“I have a pretty good idea, yes. They probably used concepts I developed to pull it off.”

“You’ve been making it sound like it’s going to be more difficult that it is.”

“Yes.”

“You’re buying time for a later step.”

“This is why I adore you,” Frank said, smiling. “You’re smart as a whip.”

“What are the two steps?”

“Step one is to locate the enemy leadership and take them out. Step two is to flood the internet with Android and iPhone applications that will let anybody and everybody know where the bad guys are, be they in the next state, the next town, or two feet away. These two steps will be launched almost simultaneously. Step one will be started just hours before step two, and step two will be on auto-pilot, just in case something happens to us.”

“You’re going around the government completely.”

“Oh, the army will use this, but everybody else will know about it too. That will completely neutralize the enemy’s strategy, and no bad guys in our military or our government are going to be able to do anything to stop it.”

“How’re you going to take out the two leaders?”

“There’s three. Philip, Saladin, and that IT Security guru I was talking about a couple days ago.”

“What was his name?”

“Daan Mertens.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“Belgian,” Frank said.

“Interesting. He’s an American, though?”

“He was born here, but his parent’s weren’t. He’s related to several EU ruling class types.”

“Interesting. If he’s just their technical guy, why do you want to hit him?”

“I believe he’s more than just the technical guy.”

“Lucy’s done, let’s go inside,” Jane said. Frank nodded, and they headed back to the coach.

“Look, Jeb’s taking Rosie to his place,” Frank said, as they walked up the steps into their coach.

“Saw that coming,” Jane said, smiling. “He’s in love with her, you know.”

“I know. That’s part of what we talked about.”

“You want to watch some TV?” Jane asked.

“In the bedroom, maybe,” he said. “I’m beat.”

“Okay,” she said.

They both went into the bedroom and settled down for the night. Frank fell asleep right away. Jane didn’t. Her mind was busy working things out, thinking about all of the things that could go wrong. She didn’t fall asleep for another couple of hours.

The next morning was sunny and bright. Frank woke up first, and looked at his phone. It was a little before 8:00am. Jane was sound asleep. He snuck out of bed, threw on some clothes, and went quietly out into the salon, closing the door behind him. Lucy and Mr. Wonderful were all over him. He hooked the leash on Lucy and took her outside. The morning air was crisp and, and there were several clouds in the air. It felt like the weather was going to change. Maybe they had rain coming in. Suddenly Lucy growled. Frank saw where she was looking. It was Dobie, with one of his Dobermans. He saw Frank and started towards him. He was wearing his pistol in a combat holster.

“Morning, Frank,” he said. “This is Princess.”

The dog slowly walked towards Frank, with Dobie holding her leash tightly. She sniffed Frank’s hand, looked up at him, and then licked his hand. Lucy sat down next to Frank’s leg, and growled softly.

“Lucy, it’s okay,” Frank said. She looked up at him, then approached Princess. They got nose to nose, and then both their tails wagged as they checked each other out. Then Princess laid down and rolled on her back, and Lucy nuzzled her.

“Princess is a really sweet dog,” Dobie said. “Unless she gets next to somebody who has bad intentions.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. She always this friendly with other dogs?”

“Usually.”

“The others like this too?”

“They’re more like work dogs. I’ve had Princess longer than the others, and I got her really young, so she’s imprinted to me. Much more affectionate. Princess’s the lead dog. She manages the other three.”

“Impressive,” Frank said. They both chuckled as Lucy tried to climb on top of Princess. “You’re going to have to go through this with the other three, aren’t you?”