The Emerald Virus (44 page)

    
He said, “Okay, you have a deal, we’ll talk through any problems we have. As
long as we do that you can tell Jane and Charlotte anything you want.” Heather
smiled knowingly and Jack did his best to ignore that look as he continued,
“Bring your weapons of course. Have you been going to the range each day?”

    
“I have. I’m not a sharpshooter of course, but after our problem that first day
I’ve done everything I can to prepare for the next time. The shotgun is easy,
and the pistol isn’t bad up to about twenty yards. I’m halfway decent with the
rifle if I’m shooting from the prone position, or if I can brace the barrel.
I’m not too good free standing, but I’m getting better as I get stronger. I’m
lifting weights each afternoon to gain strength in my arms, just for shooting.
I’m going to take some small free weights with us so I can continue to get
stronger. I’d like to stop along the way and restock our ammunition so I can
continue to practice in the evenings.

    
“Harold, the range guy, has been really helpful, but I think I’m ready to just
shoot now. Harold usually stands behind me and is liable to clap or shout, or
tap me with his stick at any time. It drove me crazy for the first couple of
days, but my focus is much better now. He told me if I wanted to return fire,
I’d have to get through the distraction of someone shooting at me and he
thought that would help,”

    
Jack had checked almost daily with Harold so he knew Heather was doing well at
the range, and her self-assessment matched Harold’s perfectly. Jack was
impressed with the weightlifting though, he didn’t know Heather had been
working on her strength. He was really pleased that she had taken this so
seriously. He didn’t believe she would need to do any shooting while on this trip,
but in this crazy world you never knew what was going to happen next.

    
He said, “Heather, make sure you bring a couple of pair of jeans, some warm
shirts and some thick socks. Its winter and we may be doing some hiking. If you
don’t have a good down winter coat we’ll stop and pick one up, along with
gloves and a hat. If your coat isn’t an earth color like dark green or brown
leave it here. We don’t want to stand out when we walk.

    
“Okay Jack. I’ll bring my laptop of course, but other than that I’ll bring what
you just listed and my personal stuff. What will we do about food? Can we carry
enough in your RV or will we have to pull a trailer?”

    
“I think we’ll have enough space. Actually the RV has a lot of storage space,
except for frozen food. If we run out we should be able to restock at a grocery
store, there has to be some food left out there. Worse case is we’ll use the
list of RVs waiting to be claimed and use those freezers, if they are still
operating.

    
“Have you ever hunted or helped clean up game?”

    
Heather frowned but said, “No I haven’t, my family didn’t hunt. But I’ve
thought about it and I know that by spring or summer I’ll have to learn how. I
don’t expect you or anyone else to baby sit me. I’m not excited about hunting,
but after seeing Jane do what she had to do to that Schumann guy, I’ve decided
that I need to learn new skills, and I’m not going to be squeamish about it. I
had a nice life as a teenage girl, but I’m ready to toughen up now.”

     
Jack didn’t say anything, but he was both sad about Heather growing up so fast,
and pleased that she understood why she needed to move on. Jack said good night
to Heather and told her they would leave right after breakfast in the morning.

    
By eight o’clock Jack and Heather were on the road. They drove south to I-40
and then east to I-95 and headed up the coast. While they drove Jack told
Heather that he had been monitoring the web each day and had found some brief
messages posted from people he thought might be in trouble. On the other hand
it could just be someone playing around for no real reason.

    
The messages had been posted and erased almost immediately. Jack had access to
the code since he had helped set up the website, and he could look at all
messages, old and new. He had concentrated only on erased messages since
everyone could see all other messages. The thing that made him suspicious was
that no one had a reason to erase a message once it had been posted. He had
planned on doing that over time, but not yet. Most of the messages that had
been replaced, and there were only a couple of them, were from people
correcting major mistakes. You had to be more than adept to know how to get a
message off a web page once you posted it.

    
So he thought he might be following false leads, but they had bothered him
enough to make him want to go in search of the authors.

    
He finished his explanation to Heather by saying, “So I was really worried
about bringing anyone along in case this turned out to be more than a wild
goose chase”.

    
She said, “Now I’m a little nervous. But I can’t tell you how much it means to
me that you trust me to come along even though there might be trouble.”

    
“You know I have no intention of putting you in harm’s way. And I trust you
enough to know that you will do everything I tell you to do, without question.
After the fact you can ask me anything you want, but if something is happening,
or about to happen, I have to be able to trust you to do exactly what I ask.”

    
“You can count on me. I don’t know enough not to do what you ask to tell you
the truth.”

    
“I’m counting on you. I would have rather brought Jane simply because I’ve seen
her react the right way under pressure, but you and Charlotte convinced me she
needed to stay with the kids. But your arguments about me needing help were
persuasive, so here we are.”

    
“Where do you want to start? What can I do while you’re driving?”

    
“First open that satchel between us and take out the maps I’ve printed. We’ll
pretty much follow the routes I’ve marked, and you’re the navigator. I want to
start in Delaware, and I haven’t yet decided if we can use the Chesapeake Bay
Bridge and Tunnel, which runs from Norfolk, Virginia to the Peninsula across
the bay and north into Delaware, or if we need to go past Washington DC and
then east to Annapolis, Maryland and cross the bridge there. It that bridge is
blocked we could end up going as far north as Wilmington and back south from
there.”

    
Heather looked at the map and then asked, “Why wouldn’t we take the bridge and
tunnel on the south end?”

    
“I’d hate to get stuck in the middle of the tunnel for any reason, especially
if it’s been breached. I know the suction fans won’t be working, but we’ll be
the only vehicle driving so we should be okay, as long as we don’t have to
spend any time sitting in the lowest part of the tunnel.

    
Jack laughed and then said, “For the sake of honesty I have to admit that while
mountain tunnels don’t bother me at all, tunnels under big stretches of water
seem creepy to me, not so creepy that I don’t use them, but creepy
nonetheless.”

    
Now Heather laughed and said, “I didn’t think anything bothered you. Didn’t you
use to do dangerous field work in foreign countries?”

    
“I see Jane has been talking when she shouldn’t be.

    
“Yes, I used to do field work for our government. I tried to track down
terrorists wherever we could find them. You need to realize that while people
do dangerous things, it’s almost always really scary. That’s not something you
let yourself think about, or talk about to anyone except maybe a spouse, and
for some that’s too much.

    
“Well if it always scares you why do you do it? Isn’t being scared a means for
you to tell yourself that this is too dangerous and you shouldn’t do it?”

    
“No, I don’t subscribe to that theory at all. I think fear is made up of a
couple of different components. One is real fear that lets you know that you
are on the edge, but if you can control yourself and your circumstances you
won’t fall off. That’s a good kind of fear. The other kind of fear feels just
as real but it’s in part a figment of your imagination. If we let ourselves go,
this fear becomes debilitating. In the beginning both kinds of fear feel
exactly the same.

    
“With a little experience though you learn the difference between the two and
you learn to make judgments based on the circumstances, which is not always
what the voice in the back of your mind would have you do.”

    
“What you’re telling me is that you can’t train for something like that, you
have to go through it to understand it, and to learn to react the right way?”

    
“You can train in ways that help you prepare, but the real thing is always more
intense than whatever training you go through. At least it was for me.”

    
“That makes sense. I don’t think I want to learn too much more about that
though. When I was driving to get the RV and Karl Schumann ran into me from
behind it scared me to death. But it happened so fast it was over before I even
knew what really happened. I sat on the side of the road and cried and shook
and was really scared, but that was after it all happened.

    
“And then when Karl had his gun on you I was scared, but I knew from what he
said he wasn’t planning on killing me. That helped me stay a little calm.
Before I really thought of what would happen to me later, Jane shot him and it
was over. Those were probably the two worst things I’ve been through, and they’re
enough for me.”

    
“That’s more than any sixteen year old should ever have to go through. But you
did really well getting through both of them. You haven’t let either incident keep
you from living your life and I’m proud of you for that.

    
“I’m not planning on endangering your life on our trip so I don’t think you
need to worry about that, but I do need to say one thing. We won’t discuss it,
but you need to know it.

    
“If I’m wrong about what we’re getting into, and it turns out to be dangerous,
I’m going to send you home without me. I don’t want any arguments about this.
If I have to worry about you and about me I’m more likely to make mistakes that
may get both of us killed. Just remember that I can take care of myself, and
there are millions of vehicles and more RVs out there. I’ll be able to get out
of anywhere on my own.

    
“If that happens, I’ll call you when I’m okay and we can meet up again. If I
have to spend a couple of days planning something you’ll be home before me. If
you don’t hear from me just go back to Charlotte and Jane and wait for me.

    
“As we discussed, I’ve got a lot of experience with this kind of thing, and
I’ve learned the virtue of patience when I’m planning, so I won’t be in any
hurry unless someone’s life depends on me moving quickly.”

    
“I’ll do what you ask Jack, I’ve already committed to that. But I would hate it
if we had to separate.”

    
Jack smiled and said, “I know, I feel the same way, so I’ll do everything I can
to keep us together.”

    
Heather smiled inwardly and went back to reading the maps.

    
Later she asked where in Delaware they were going.

    
Jack answered, “We’re going to explore an area in the very southern part of the
state called Sawmill Pond. When you look on the map you’ll see a large bay on
the Atlantic Ocean just south of the Delaware state line. It’s called Assawoman
Bay. Just north of Assawoman Bay, but connected to it by a canal, is Little
Assawoman Bay, it’s in Delaware.”

    
At this point Heather couldn’t control herself any longer and busted out
laughing. She said, “Jack, you’re making up those names aren’t you?”

    
“No, really I’m not. Just look at the maps and you’ll find the names. Now I may
not be pronouncing the name the right way, but that’s what it looks like to
me.”

    
“When you find them on the map you’ll see that on the northern edge of Little
Assawoman Bay is the Assawoman Wildlife Area, and in the wildlife area is a
number of ponds, one of them is called Sawmill Pond.”

    
After a minute Heather said, “Okay, you’re right, everything is here. But I
still think the names are weird, don’t you?”

    
“I do, but I think they’re probably Native American names that mean something
quite different in the native language.”

    
“What Indian tribes are from there?”

    
“Surprisingly enough, the Delaware Indians were from that area, they’re also
known as the Lenapi.”

    
Heather laughed and said, “I knew that. Or at least I learned it once. I read ‘The
Last of the Mohicans’ last summer and James Fenimore Cooper talks about the
Delaware Indians a lot in the book.”

    
“He does at that, have you read any of his other books?”

    
“No, just the one I mentioned. What else did he write?”

    
“I think he wrote four or five in total. I remember one is titled ‘The
Pathfinder’, one is called ‘Deerslayer’ and I think one is called ‘The Prairie’.
I think Hawkeye is in all of them, but it’s been years since I read them so I
could be wrong.”

    
“Were they worth reading?”

    
“They were to me. I read them as a teenager. My father and mother were great
readers and they made sure I was exposed to all kinds of writers as I grew up.
I had a second home in the library. My dad had read Cooper as a young man, and
I found I liked him as much as my father did. It’s a different kind of writing,
but reading about that period, in period writing, is interesting.”