Going Home (33 page)

Knowing he had to do something, or he would leave, Thad decided to set up the radio. Pulling the antenna out, he tossed it up over the tallest oak he could find and connected it to the radio. Pulling out the notebook, he flipped through the pages until he came to today’s codes. Sitting there, going through the book, he remembered the last transmission and what Morgan had said, no transmissions for twenty-four hours. Thad had tossed his watch shortly after the event since it didn’t work. He should have been on the radio around three. Looking up, he knew it was more like six thirty or seven; he missed it.

Since the radio was set up, he started to flip through the frequencies. His antenna set was less than ideal. Running at a long slope, it was better for catching local talk. Being more horizontal, it would pick up transmissions that bounced straight down. Turning the knob, he found someone transmitting. It sounded like he was in Beirut; there was constant gunfire in the background. The operator was shouting into the radio to what Thad guessed was others in his party. They were trying to maneuver on some people that were attacking their location; he didn’t know if these were the good guys or the bad guys.

Listening to the radio chatter, he finally realized the transmissions were coming from Ybor City, in Tampa. Just as he figured things would be in that old city, it sounded like hell. Any town that has an intersection called Malfunction Junction has to be on the edge of crazy, and it finally got the nudge it needed to fall off that edge. Thad sat there listening to the radio; his heart was heavy. Thad’s wife, son, and mother were nowhere near the chaos he heard on the radio, but it was too close for him; he couldn’t take any more. Shutting off the radio, he disconnected the antenna and pulled it down. After tossing it back onto the floorboard, he went to the bed and pulled the two five-gallon gas cans out and started pouring them into the tank of the truck.

Sarge was laying all the documents they found on the three goons on one of the tables in the shack. Mike and Ted were going over them, piecing what they could together. Sarge walked out of the room toward the garage. Inside he found them still hanging there. The two young guys were just standing there, chins on their chest. Mr. Confidence was working on the rope. Just as Linus came through the door, Mr. Confidence landed on the deck; he had jumped up in an attempt to loosen the rope. It didn’t work. All three of them looked up as he came through the door.

“You still full of piss ’n’ vinegar?” Sarge said as he closed the door. “Let’s see if we can take some of that out of you boys.” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them, blowing into his cupped hands. “Getting cold in here. From the looks of you boys, you’re a little chilly.” Sarge went out the side door of the garage and returned with a hose.

“What the hell are you doing?” the young black kid asked. “You haven’t asked us anything. What do you want?” The only sound they heard was Sarge’s boots and the hose sliding across the concrete slab of the garage.

“We’ll get to that soon enough. I just want to make sure you boys are motivated to answer them when I ask ’em,” Sarge replied. He pointed the hose at them and started to spray them down with cold water. All of them tried to turn to avoid getting hit in the face with the water. This only presented Sarge with a dry spot to hose down. All three of them shouted and shrieked when the cold water hit. When he was satisfied they were soaked, he released the lever on the nozzle and stood there looking at them. “Y’all look like a bunch of damn drowned rats.”

From the level of bitching, Sarge was pretty sure the prisoners were miserable. Going back into the house, he found the guys in the cave going over the captured intel. The men they caught were DHS goons sent to find them. Shortly after they ceased radio contact, these three were sent to look for them. The documents contained maps of the area, clearly showing their infiltration and exfiltration routes along with alternatives. Sarge’s house was prominently marked on the map, so that meant that others knew the location.

A quick discussion resulted in the unanimous decision to bug out. Staying there was a guaranteed way to get caught. Not knowing when the crew they had was scheduled to call in, caution dictated that they leave as soon as possible. Sarge instructed the guys in what to start packing; the radio gear was the highest priority, then weapons, food, and additional survival gear. As they started moving gear out to the living room, Sarge headed for the garage. “Let me go see what they have to say. Two of them seem eager to talk.”

The temp outside was in the upper fifties, comfortable. But inside the block walls of the garage, it was much colder. The concrete floor and poured block walls held the cold inside, acting like a meat locker. All three were still hanging there, shivering violently; hypothermia was starting its course. Linus walked in and stood in front of them. “Now, I’m going to ask you boys some questions. If you answer them, I’ll take you down and get you warmed up, and no harm will come to you. If you want to be dumb asses and try to be tough guys, you will suffer.” He reached down and picked up the hose. This caused the two younger members of the team to start to whine and mutter through chattering teeth. Starting with the young Spanish kid on the end, pulling the sack off, he started his questions.

“What was the intention of your surveillance here?” The kid lifted his eyes; his jaw was clenched tight.

“Dd … d-don’t …ss … say anything,” Mr. Confidence on the end managed to get out. Without looking up, Linus sprayed him in the face with the hose, never letting his eyes drift from the young man trussed up before him. The freshly wetted victim let out a howl and struggled weakly against his bonds. The young kid stared back at Sarge who raised the hose up to his chest.

Before he could squeeze the lever on the nozzle, the kid started to stutter. “W … we were t … to watch an ss … s-see what they w … w-were doin’ an’ w … who they were w-with.”

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? And I’m a man of my word.” Linus laid the hose down and walked over to a set of shelves on the side of the garage. He picked up a wool army blanket and a clothespin. Returning to the young man, he draped the blanket over his shoulders and pinned the top together under his chin. The kid rolled his shoulders against the coarse wool.

“Go on, what was the intention?” Sarge asked.

“If i-it was det … termined they were colluding w-with hostiles, a … a strike tt … team would be inserted to e-eliminate them. If a strike team couldn’t get in, th-th … then a UAV strike would be used.” The kid lowered his eyes.

“Which UAV?” Sarge asked.

“Reaper,” the young black kid answered.

Sarge looked over at him. “Well, I’m glad you smartened up.” He wrapped him in a blanket and pulled the sack off his head, and then he looked over at the third man. “Well, Mr. C, would you like to warm up?” Linus asked as he snatched the sack off his head.

Mr. C attempted to glare back at him; however, he was shivering so hard he had little muscle control. “F … ff-fuck you,” he managed.

“Well, you are one tough bastard. I’ll give you that.”

Looking back to his cooperative captives, he asked, “Is the Reaper on station now?”

“I-it wasn … n …. nt when w-we last called. I … it’s a con … t … tingency,” the young black kid said.

“Where did you guys deploy from?” Sarge asked.

“Eglin. We moved t … to Camp Rudder,” the Spanish kid replied.

That made sense; it wasn’t far and was in a very uninhabited area. Aircraft could launch from there and head out over the gulf and not be detected by civilians.

“All right boys, I’m going to ask one more very important question.” He made eye contact with both of them. “And you better answer this question very carefully. If you lie to me, I’ll have to hurt you, and I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.” To emphasize his point Sarge went over to the workbench and picked up a can of barbecue lighter fluid. Walking back over to them, he pulled his 101st Zippo out of his pocket. The two that had been answering his questions were struck with terror; their eyes got huge, and their mouths hung open.

“Anything, I’ll tell you anything!!” the young black kid screamed with surprising clarity.

“When are you to call in next? I want your call sign and the frequency to be used.” Sarge lifted the top on the lighter fluid and flipped the Zippo open. Before the Zippo even clinked open, the kid was spitting the words out.

“Dogtown, call sign is Dogtown. We are supposed to call in at oh two hundred!”

“Codes,” Sarge said flatly.

“In the binder, it’s all in the binder,” the Spanish kid replied.

Sarge flipped the Zippo closed and put the fluid back on the workbench. “Very good. I’ll be back to get you guys down in a minute.” He looked over at Mr. C. He was not doing well, only semiconscious. Sarge headed back to the cave to get the guys.

After topping off the tank with the ten gallons and tossing the cans back into the bed, Thad was ready to go. He just couldn’t wait any longer. Climbing into the truck, he started it up and headed for the interstate. It was dark, but the new moon provided enough light to see the road, so he drove blacked out. The group of men standing around a burn barrel at the top of the overpass didn’t hear the old truck until Thad was already heading down the exit ramp on 27. They jumped and began to shout and run to the edge of the overpass, looking down as the truck sped down the ramp. Others came running out from under the overpass as the truck careened through the intersection, heading west. Thad heard a couple of pops and one thunk as he pressed the old truck harder.

He had changed his mind at the last moment, taking the ramp on a whim. The thought of going down the long straight interstate scared him. It was a gamble either way, really. Trying to get over to 200 and then to 41 would put him in a fairly populated area; more people meant more chances of trouble. He would have to go through or around several small towns but decided his old bypass to get home would be the best choice in the current situation.

Speeding down 27, Thad passed a few people out on the side of the road. All of them jumped off the road and looked on in a kind of awe as the truck raced by them. Only a couple of minutes after turning off the interstate, he came to the intersection of W CO 225. This would take him to 200. Thad had many little sneak-arounds like this for times when I-75 was backed up, as it was all too often. Anything on the side of the road would cause people to slow down and gawk. God forbid there be an accident in the travel lanes; you would be stuck for hours.

Turning onto the county road, Thad gunned the engine again. The road soon turned into a four-lane divided highway, with a large grassy median. It was bordered on the left by cookie cutter residential neighborhoods. Passing them, he noticed many fires, and folks cooking in the backyards; he assumed they were cooking over grills. The glimpses of the streets he caught between the houses showed there were many people out; that struck him as odd, figuring most people would be inside after dark. His luck ran out at the intersection with Highway 40. Approaching the intersection that had convenience stores on two corners, he found it had a crude barricade in the form of disabled cars and trucks that had been pushed or pulled out into the road. All four sides of the intersection were thusly blocked, forming a box of cars.

Slowing a bit to find a way around all of it, he saw what he needed. On the northwest corner was a vacant lot with a lime rock drive running through it, and it wasn’t blocked. Thad gunned the engine as people started to come out from the gas station across the street from the lot. Just as he entered the lot, kicking up a cloud of white dust, a four-wheel ATV came screaming out of the station’s parking lot. Looking over his left shoulder, he saw it had two figures on it. Suddenly memories of what happened the last time a four-wheeler gave chase came flooding into his mind. The sight of that poor kid lying there on the road and his life slipping away from him filled his head.

More people came out from the station on the other side of 40. They were running out into the road, and then another ATV appeared, heading for him. Thad hit the asphalt on the other side of the lot and dropped the hammer on the old truck. The ATVs were gaining on him, and he rocked back and forth in his seat, willing the truck to go faster. “Damn, they fast,” he muttered, watching the rearview mirror as the two narrow sets of headlights gained on him. Realizing they would catch up to him before he could outpace them, he decided to take the offensive. He hadn’t done anything to them and took heart in that fact.