Charges (40 page)

“And where are you thinking of taking them, Mr. Good Samaritan?” Terrell asked.

“Missouri. Charity Point, Missouri.”

Terrell took a step back and cocked his head. He turned and looked at the woman, and at that point, Vincenzo knew she was the ringleader. Vincenzo looked her as well, and she regarded him with cool, speculative eyes. He noticed for the first time that, aside from having spent some time in the woods, she was clean. And beautiful, with smoky dark looks and tanned, unlined skin.

“We need to bring them in,” she said.

“Wait a minute, Missy. Forrest won’t like that. You know the SOP. We don’t bring
anyone
in,” Terrell said. He jerked a thumb at Vincenzo. “Even if they know about Charity Point.”

“You guys know about Charity Point?” Vincenzo asked.
And if you do, can you please fill me in?

“You let me worry about Forrest, Terry,” the woman said. “We should bring them in. Rich, you and Winger stay out here, all right? Terrell and I will take them to the compound, then we’ll send the next team out to relieve you.”

“Sure thing, Miss,” the man standing behind her said, his rifle still trained on Vincenzo.

The guy to Vincenzo’s left nodded, but his rifle also stayed on its target.

Terrell spoke with an exasperated tone in his voice. “Missy, Forrest is going to shit a thousand bricks over this.”

The woman peered at Terrell, an odd undercurrent of emotion emanating from her. “I said I’ll handle it, Terry. Go get the Scout. I’ll ride with...”

When she glanced at Vincenzo, he said, “Tony Vincenzo.”

She gave him a curt nod. “I’ll ride with Tony, and we’ll follow you. Then you’ll drive the relief crew back. Understood?”

Terrell let out a long sigh and threw up his hands. “Sure. Why not,” he said, as if what she’d suggested was the most ridiculous thing in the world. “I mean, the world’s just one big happy place, right? Any moment now, we’re all going to gather up, hold hands, sing ‘Kumbaya,’ and drink a Coke.”

The woman favored him with a razor-thin smile then looked at Vincenzo. “You can take him now,” she said, touching Daniel lightly on his head.

“My weapons?” Vincenzo asked.

She shook her head. “One step at a time, Mr. Vincenzo. One step at a time.”

###

The woman sat in the passenger seat, holding a Glock in her lap. The barrel was pointed more or less in Vincenzo’s direction. As the Blazer climbed the slight slope, a camouflage-mottled International Harvester Scout pulled out from behind a clump of trees. The woman instructed Vincenzo to follow the Scout, but not too closely. Its tail lights had been disabled, and if there was a need to stop suddenly, no one wanted a collision.

They turned down another back-country road then stopped at the entrance to a long driveway. Two men in paramilitary gear slid open the gate, which was topped with concertina wire, then pulled aside several traffic spikes, metal strips that had jagged metal blades sticking out that would puncture vehicle tires. Vincenzo frowned as he followed the Scout through the opening. “You expecting a lot of vehicle traffic?”

“We’re just prepared for a wide range of eventualities,” the woman told him.

“You have a name?”

“Melissa. Missy. You heard them call me that back at the hide site.” She glanced back at the kids. Daniel cooed to himself and played with his hanger, while Gabby sat quietly, a vague expression of unease on her young face.

“Who are you guys?” Vincenzo asked. “Why are you hiding out in the woods, watching people?”

“For security. The world’s gone to hell. We have observation posts across the area. There’s going to be a mass migration soon, and we’ll need to make sure we know who’s coming and going.”

A squat, two story building came into view. It was made mostly of concrete, and the windows were narrow vertical slits of tinted glass. A fence surrounded the building, and men were positioned on the roof. All trees had been cleared for hundreds of yards, and the brush had been cut down to the ground. Even the grass was extra short. Armed men patrolling the perimeter. The gate was opened, and the Scout paused before passing through, most likely so Terrell inform the guard they had guests.

But hopefully not for long
. “Listen, Missy. I’m really eager to get back on the road.”

“I know. I don’t think we’ll hold you for very long, but I want you and Forrest to talk a bit. You might have some useful information for us, and he might want you to pass on some messages to the folks at Charity Point.” Missy’s voice was direct but essentially conversational. At the same time, she kept the pistol pointed at him. The duality of the situation left Vincenzo feeling nervous and distressed, but he was powerless to change it.

The guard waved the Blazer in after the Scout, and Vincenzo followed the vehicle until it stopped then parked beside it. Two men with rifles strode toward them.

Vincenzo looked at Missy. “Okay. What now?”

She opened her door. “You get out. I’ll help you with the kids.”

“Where are we?” Gabby asked, staring at the men outside the Blazer.

Missy flipped the passenger seat forward and smiled as she slipped her pistol into the Kydex holster at her hip. She had a nice smile, and it seemed genuine enough. The woman had some poise to her, despite the austerity of the current setting. “You’re with friends, sweetie,” she said. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine. No need to be scared. All right?”

“All right,” Gabby said uncertainly.

Missy leaned in and unlocked the girl’s lap belt then helped her climb out of the truck.
 

Vincenzo slid the driver’s seat forward and unfastened Daniel’s seat belt. The boy looked at him with eyes that were both vacant and intelligent, the hanger forgotten for the moment.

“How are you doing, sidekick?” Vincenzo asked him. “Want to get out and stretch your legs for a little bit?”

Daniel seemed to consider that for a long moment, then he whispered, “Yeth.” Daniel stood up and backed toward him.

 
Vincenzo grabbed the boy around the waist and set him on the ground. “Do you want to leave the hanger?”

“No. No,” Daniel said instantly.

“Let him keep it,” Missy said, leading Gabby around the front of the Blazer. “He needs it to stim on, and it’ll keep him occupied for a while.”

“What? Stim?”

Missy regarded him with frank eyes. “Autistic kids get stimulation from a variety of inputs. Touch, taste, motion. Daniel seems to get most of his input from repetitive motion. It helps calm him down. It’s also a bit of a rabbit hole, though, in that too much of it isn’t healthy for him. But it’s not like he’s going to be getting a lot of behavioral therapy anytime soon, so stimming is probably the best thing for him right now.”

“Wow. Sounds like you know a bit about this.”

“My son was autistic,” Missy said.

Vincenzo held out his hand to Daniel, and the boy slipped the fingers of his free hand into Vincenzo’s. “Was?” Vincenzo asked, looking back at her.

“My son and husband were killed in a traffic accident seven months ago, coming back from visiting my in-laws in Columbus.” Her voice was so even that she could have been discussing the weather, but the hardness in her eyes cautioned him against inquiring further.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You can leave the vehicle unlocked,” Terrell said, coming around the front of the old Scout. He no longer wore the hat and veil get-up. His face was thin and angular with a chin dotted with white razor stubble. His skin looked a bit on the ruddy side, and Vincenzo figured the old man was a bit of a hard drinker, or he had been before the lights went out.

“Going to help yourself to my stuff?” Vincenzo asked.

“Nope, but I’m going to check out what you have. You can count on that. But if we want to help ourselves, we’ll certainly do that. At the end of the day, you don’t really have much of a say in how we do our business. Right, Mr. Vincenzo?”

“I guess not.”

“Follow me,” Missy said, gently tugging Gabby toward the building.

“Bagel,” Daniel said. “I want bagel, please.”

Vincenzo looked from Missy to Terrell. “He hasn’t eaten breakfast yet. She hasn’t, either,” he said, nodding toward Gabby. “There’s a bag of mini-bagels in the back.”

Terrell smiled down at Daniel. “I’ll bring them to you directly, young sir.” His teeth were exceedingly white, either caps or dentures. Vincenzo figured it was the latter, as Terrell didn’t seem to be the kind to spend a lot of money on cosmetics.

“Bagel, please,” Daniel repeated.

“Gotta say, the boy’s polite,” Terrell said, walking to the back of the Blazer. “Is this unlocked?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Terrell opened up the top half of the tail gate and rooted around in the back. He pulled out the bag of bagels and tossed them to Vincenzo. Vincenzo tried to catch it one handed but missed.

Terrell barked a laugh. “It’s a bag of bagels, not a hand grenade.”

Vincenzo bent over and picked up the bag. Daniel reached for it immediately, but Vincenzo held it away from him and pulled the boy toward the building after Missy and Gabby.

“Bagel, please,” Daniel said a little louder.

“In a second, pal. In a second.”

Missy led them up three steps to a gray metal door. She pulled it open, and they stepped into a small room with another metal door. She rapped on the second door and stepped back. After a moment, that door opened.

A big man with dark features and a black beard practically filled the doorway. He wore a camouflage baseball cap, which he pushed back on his head as he looked at Vincenzo and the kids. He then gave Missy a hard look. “Melissa, what the hell is going on here?”

“This man is taking these kids to Charity Point, Forrest.”

Forrest rubbed his chin then nodded. “Okay. Come on in.”

32

Forrest took them on a short tour. He explained that the concrete building was a prepper compound that he and his family had built for the small town they came from, which was located a mile away. After the event, people had slowly been moving in. The bottom floor was pretty much all warehouse: supplies, vehicles, weapons, and a bank of generators inside a soundproofed room. The setup upstairs was elaborate. There was enough room for fifty people, with schoolrooms—“There are kids here!” Gabby said happily—dining rooms, and food-preparation areas. The place also had lights and air conditioning. Vincenzo was impressed.

“Bagel, please,” Daniel reminded him.

Forrest turned when he heard the boy’s light voice. “Better give that young man his daily bread.” He led them into a small conference room. “He can eat in here. Missy, maybe you can get the kids a couple of bottles of water.”

“Sure,” she said, and if she was at all put out at being demoted to secretary, she didn’t allow it to show. She turned and disappeared down a hallway.

Forrest crooked his finger at Vincenzo. “Come in and have a seat.”

Vincenzo ushered the kids into the room, which was surprisingly corporate looking with a long conference table flanked by rolling chairs. Topographical maps of Ohio and the surrounding states hung on the walls. Vincenzo got Daniel into a chair and opened the bag of bagels. He handed one to Daniel, and the boy immediately handed it back and looked up at Vincenzo expectantly.

“What, you don’t want this?” Vincenzo asked.

“Silly, he needs you to pull it apart,” Gabby said as she climbed into a chair beside her brother. “Mine too, please!”

Vincenzo smiled. “Okay.” He pulled two bagels apart and handed the first two halves to Daniel and the second pair to Gabby.

Forrest watched the kids eat for a moment, a half smile on his face. He looked up at Vincenzo, and the smile disappeared. “You have ID?” he asked.

Vincenzo reached into his back pocket and brought out his wallet. He started to pull out his driver’s license, but Forrest held out one big hand.

“I’ll take the entire wallet.”

Vincenzo handed it over.

Forrest laid the wallet on the table then nodded to a chair. “Have a seat.”

Vincenzo sat down next to Daniel, a little nervous but not as much as when people had been pointing guns at him. Forrest flipped through the wallet, frowning at the license, then slowing to peer at the small selection of photographs in the plastic liners.

“Your family?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Forrest nodded. He pulled out the credit cards and examined them. He snorted and shook his head. “Platinum Amex, Visa, Mastercard, Chase Premier Platinum. You’re just loaded up with the plastic, aren’t you? All pretty useless now, right?”

“I guess.”

Forrest slipped some business cards out of the side pocket. He scowled. “Your license says your home address is Devlin Drive, Los Angeles. Business cards say New York City. Which is it?”

“Both. I’m from Los Angeles, but I work—well, maybe it’s just
worked
, now—in New York City.”

“Tony Vincenzo.” Forrest looked thoughtful. “Tony Vincenzo... how is it that name’s familiar to me?”

“You watch TV?”

Forrest snapped his fingers. “Oh, hell yes.
Starfield
and
Badge of Honor
. That’s where I know you from, right?”

Vincenzo nodded. “You probably saw my name in the credits.”

“
Starfield
was good, man, but
Badge of Honor
was the best. I’m a former Ohio state cop, and take it from me, it was the best cop show on the air.”

Vincenzo inclined his head. “Glad you liked it, but it got cancelled two years ago. Had a decent eight-season run, though.”

“Yeah, I was bummed about that. Such a shame.” Forrest began putting all the cards back inside. “So, listen. My name’s Forrest Marko. You met my sister, Melissa. Together with our church, we put this place together. This used to be a depot for construction equipment. Our father owned it, and he did a lot of roadwork for the state as an independent contractor. After I retired from the state police, I took out a loan and added a floor, reinforced the walls, and basically started hardening this place to serve as a fallback point in case things went to shit.”

“You said a bad word,” Gabby told him around a mouthful of bagel.

“Yes, I did,” Forrest said, “and I apologize very much for that, young lady. Please forgive me, all right?”

“Okay,” Gabby said.

Forrest looked back at Vincenzo uneasily. “I’ve always had a bad mouth. Always gets me in trouble with the church. My dad used to swear up a storm, and I guess it rubbed off on me. Had a devil of a time breaking the habit, and being on the police force didn’t exactly help.”

“It’s fine by me, man.”

The door opened, and Missy came in with three bottles of water. They looked cold. She put one in front of Vincenzo then opened the other two and handed them to the kids. “Here, guys,” she said brightly. She favored Daniel with a fair amount of attention, stroking his head as he wolfed down his bagel. “Such lovely hair.”

The door opened again, and Terrell entered. He carried two wallets and what looked like the registration for the Blazer. Without so much as a glance at Vincenzo, he went directly to Forrest and handed the stuff over to him. “Some conversation starters,” Terrell said.

Forrest took the items and flipped through them. He regarded the wallet that belonged to the kids’ father with some confusion, but the wallet and registration that said “Walter Scott” caught his attention. He showed them to Missy, who reviewed the materials with expressionless eyes.

“What else is in his truck?” Forrest asked.

“A little bit of everything. This guy, or maybe
that
guy”—Terrell pointed at Scott’s wallet—“was ready for things to happen.”

“Who are these people, Mr. Vincenzo?” Missy asked.

“I’ll be happy to tell you everything, but it might be better to excuse the kids,” Vincenzo said. “You know how I wound up with them, but I don’t think they need to hear the details.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Missy said. “Terry, do me a favor and ask Mrs. Koontz to come in and mind them for a while. They could probably use a bath and a decent hot breakfast.”

“Daniel and me like bafs,” Gabby said, “but not showers.”

“Daniel still wears a diaper,” Vincenzo said. “He seems to be only partially potty trained.”

“Party, please,” Daniel said as if on cue.

“He means potty,” Gabby translated.

“Okay, I’m on that,” Terrell said, turning toward the door.

“Terry, you done with the truck?” Forrest asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Come back for the meeting. Send the relief team down to the southern OP. Have Mel drive them down in the Scout and bring back the other guys. Send a radio down with them, too. I think it’s safe to take a couple out of the safe. But leave the rest of them in there, just in case.”

“You got it.”

Terrell left the room. Forrest passed Vincenzo’s wallet to Missy. She reviewed its contents quickly then handed it back to him.

“He produced a couple of TV shows I watched,” Forrest said. “You remember
Starfield
, right?”

“Yeah.” She looked up at Vincenzo. “That was yours?”

“It was.”

“Nice. So you’re one of the one percent, I guess?”

At first, Vincenzo didn’t know how to respond to that. “I... I guess.”

“Must be, with addresses on both coasts,” Forrest said. “You have your own jet? I saw a card for Netjets in your wallet.”

“I didn’t own a jet,” Vincenzo said. “That’s just a club membership for private business aircraft.”

“You have a mega-yacht?” Forrest asked, a little contempt creeping into his voice. “Maybe hang out at Cannes, and fu—” He cast a glance at the kids. “Uh, pal around with European fashion models?”

“I had a boat once, but it wasn’t a mega-yacht,” Vincenzo said, neglecting to add that it had been a forty-three-foot vessel that had cost in excess of a million dollars. “I got rid of it when my wife was pregnant.”

Forrest smirked. “Oh, made a sacrifice, did you?”

Vincenzo was saved from responding by the door opening again. Terrell led a matronly woman in, and she ushered the children out, promising to tend to them. On the way out, Daniel turned and looked at Vincenzo with a vague anxiety on his face.

Vincenzo tried to give the boy a reassuring smiled. “See you in a little while, sidekick.”

After closing the door again, Terrell pulled out a chair and slumped into it. “Okay, let’s get to it.”

“So, Tony,” Forrest said, “it seems a guy named Walter Scott owns that Blazer. You know him?”

“Nope.”

“Huh. Did it have all that gear in it when you, uh,
acquired
it?”

“It did.”

“Hmm. So Mr. Walter Scott was apparently a bit of a brother prepper. We’re all familiar with that kind of mentality, and I think we can all agree that a prepper who’s gone through all the trouble to prepare himself for the big one doesn’t just hand off his stuff to some television producer, even one as, uh,
accomplished
as you might be.”

“He’s a TV producer?” Terrell looked impressed. “Neat. I guess that explains all the money in his backpack.”

“Was,” Forrest corrected. “I’m pretty sure he’s out of work.”

“The cash is mine,” Vincenzo said. “And no, Scott didn’t give me his Blazer.”

“Did you kill him?” Missy asked.

Vincenzo snorted. “I found the guy dead out in the woods in Pennsylvania. Heart attack or something. Don’t know exactly what killed him, but he’d been dead for more than a few hours before I found him.”

“Seems kind of, what? Providential, I guess,” Forrest said. “That’s a word that Pastor Bart uses a lot in his sermons when he’s talking about how good fortune and luck are the workings of God. Providence. You religious, Mr. Vincenzo?”

“I’m Catholic,” Vincenzo said.

“Heh, he worships Mary,” Terrell said with a sneer.

“Mary isn’t God,” Vincenzo said. “She’s just considered to be in the company of saints. She’s respected, not worshipped.”

“Yeah, we’re New Testament folks here,” Forrest said. “Sorry, not a lot of love for the old version. So you found Walter Scott dead as a doornail and helped yourself to his vehicle and provisions, huh?”

“I kept his papers and identification so that I could return the goods to his family,” Vincenzo said. “My family’s in California. I need to get to them. Mr. Scott’s passing helped make that a little easier, and when I can identify his people, I’ll do more than make them whole again.”

Missy picked up the wallet belonging to the slain Michael Tolson. “And this man?”

“That’s Daniel and Gabby’s father. They were walking toward my campsite, but they didn’t know I was there. They were attacked by three men, one on a Harley and two on ATVs. The one on the Harley shot the father, and the other two were about to rape the kids when I got involved.”