Cascadia Fallen: The Complete Trilogy, page 34
Phil had no idea what that meant and regretted asking. “Sounds good,” he lied. “Did you get confirmation?”
“Yep. They figure to be here around 5, 5:30.” Jerry stared at Phil, then decided to come down off the ladder. “If you have time, I have some comms stuff that is very relevant to the meeting.”
“Yeah, I agree. What exactly are you thinking?” Phil asked, hoping it wouldn’t be a technical diatribe.
“They call it an ‘SOI’, which means a Signals Operating Instruction. The short version is that it is a plan and protocol for linked groups for both routine and unplanned emergency communications. I feel so strongly that all the like-minded groups need to align on this that I’ve been hand-writing several copies.”
“You got it, Jerry. One of your trainees can cover the CP?” Phil was keenly aware that a lack of knowledgeable people running their command post was a major issue.
“Yeah. No sweat.” One of Don Kwiatkowsky’s grandkids was Jerry’s primary trainee, and he was only thirteen years old. “James is really picking it up, and I’ll have Tanya there, too.”
“Good.” Phil was already getting into the gator and putting his crutches in the bed behind him.
“Hey, Phil,” Jerry went on before the boss could escape. “Any more thought to the latrine situation up here?”
“I think Craig said something about how they made septic systems in the old days. Once they turn one of the cedars into boards, they’ll bury a big, floorless cedar box, fill it with rocks or gravel, somethin’, somethin’. Not really sure, but it’s gonna happen. Gotta go, Jerry,” Phil said shortly.
He hit the gas and headed back down the hill to the lower part of the club. He stopped off at some of the back conex boxes near the pond where he planned on having the meeting that evening. He stared at the spot near the picnic table that was back there and recalled the day Crane had taken his training wheels off his bike. His eyes filled with tears in the solace that came with being alone for a few minutes. Soon a sob escaped as the water began to flow. Son, I love you so much, he thought.
“It’s called ‘tangle-foot’,” Josh explained. He was instructing club member John Horn and John’s kids—Zach, sixteen, and Levi, twelve—in the art of building a perimeter.
“But I don’t get why we have to clear all this brush,” Levi complained.
“Shut it, Levi,” his older brother scolded. He didn’t like the manual labor any better than his sibling, but he hated the whining noise even worse.
“Guys…” John started in.
“No, it’s okay,” Josh said. Maybe a little class-time will help, he thought. “You boys want to know what being in the Army was all about? This is it.” Josh decided a little break while painting the big picture would sooth them a bit. The end of the world was a lot more laborious than people were ready for. “Everyone, drop your tools and follow me.”
They were on the far side of the field, and he started walking the small contingent to the north-east corner of the club’s property. After four hundred feet, they arrived at the spot where Craig Wageman and Tyler Wilson were using the Kubota to dig a large hole and line it with some decent sized timber. There was an abundance of trees that had fallen in the hammer, and they weren’t going to let them go to waste. There was a team of people choking the fallen logs with chains and using the horses that Pam Jorgenson had brought to drag them into the field. They were using handsaws and chainsaws to take the branches off, leaving a large bare log exposed.
“This position here will be turned into a post for keeping an eye on the woods in this direction,” Josh started. “This entire eastern side is a big security concern. We may have plenty of room for everyone here at the range, but there’s a point where it becomes too difficult to guard the whole perimeter. With me so far?”
All three members of the Horn clan nodded, saving questions for the end.
“This position will be fortified with logs to provide cover and a roof. We’ll wind up building three or four of these on the 500-ish meter length of this side of the property. There’s two major issues, though.” He paused because Levi was starting to throw rocks at a stump.
“Levi!” John commanded. The pre-teen huffed and turned to face Josh. “Sorry,” he said to their instructor.
Josh gave John a quick look to say it’s fine and turned directly to address the young man. “I know this is boring, pal, but let me ask you something.” Josh knew the family had just walked to the range from their home in the north end of the county. They had probably endured their fair share of hardship by this point. “What’s the scariest thing you’ve encountered since the earthquakes?”
Levi shot a look at his dad, who nodded for him to answer. “I guess it’s the burnt-up bodies in the cars on the highway,” the young man answered after pondering a few seconds.
“Yeah,” Josh said. “I get that. I saw those quite a bit in Iraq, and it freaked me out every time. Now you should hear what everyone here has been scared by.” He stopped to make sure he had the tween’s full attention. “Several days ago, a girl was kidnapped off this property.”
Levi looked like he couldn’t figure out if his leg was getting pulled. Josh ignored the skepticism and kept talking. “Several of us went and rescued her, and three days ago some people came back to retaliate. See that grave over there?” He pointed to the lumber-cross planted at Fred’s grave. The scumbags buried nearby had only a large stone as a marker. “That is one of our friends, killed here that night.” He scanned the kid’s face, which had seemed to grow a level of concern. “So, if you can’t hack it out here with the grown-ups, I can make sure you go spend time in the school with the little kids.”
Josh looked at John to make sure he hadn’t drawn the father’s ire, but John was studying his son’s reaction, fully supporting the scare tactic. After several seconds, Levi looked at the ground. “Sorry,” he mumbled. His older brother rubbed his head in the way that big brothers do.
“Water under the bridge, pal,” Josh said. He continued the lesson. “In between these foxholes we need to install some wire. We have barbed wire rolls for some areas, but we also have regular fencing wire. We’ll zigzag it back and forth between trees about waist high, but we need to do it where the bushes and grass can grow back up through it. It will be there for several years, but intruders will never see it. They can try to sneak through, but they’ll get caught up and make a large ruckus trying to escape.”
Zach’s curiosity was piqued. “Why the tower, then?” Josh was having a guard tower—more of a large “Jenga-stack” of logs that would be about twelve feet high—constructed on the far side of the field where the main road from the lower range broke through the forest. It would get capped with a deck, roof, and some logs for cover on the front.
Good question, he thought, noting Zach was keenly listening to everything. “Very observant. You ever hear the expression…well, any expression, I guess, about the high ground?” Zach nodded. “The high ground is a tactical advantage. Someone up there with night-vision will be able to see almost the entire eastern side and provide covering fire to any of these positions.”
He continued the lecture as he slowly led them back to their tools. About the time the group got to the tools, Josh’s older brother and nephew, Eli and Jeff, came strolling out of the woods on the east side. Eli was carrying a bow, Jeff had a Remington hunting rifle, and they were each wearing a game pack with meat in it on their backs.
“Bagged one, huh?” Josh asked. “Doe, I take it,” he guessed, based on the meat—or lack of it—in the packs the men were wearing.
“Yeah.” Eli’s face wore a frown. “Not sure how much longer this’ll last. I think these woods will be over-hunted soon.”
Josh had left the Horn men at their workstation and started following his brother and nephew across the field to take the road down. Dadgummit, he frowned to himself. I guess hunting seasons only matter when the state can be out there, ticketing people…
The three men were quiet for the ten-minute walk back to the main area near the kitchen. Eli finally broke the ice. “I sure wish we had a huntin’ dog. I’d like to go look for a bear west of here, near the Mount Verde forest. Pretty sure I saw scat at least twice when we were on the rescue mission, and I wasn’t even really lookin’ for it.”
That got Josh thinking. “Several members out here have brought their dogs with them. I’ve been thinking about how to put them to work. What breeds should I be asking about as I talk to people?” he asked his brother.
“Anything with hound, beagle, or ridgeback. If it’s young enough, we can probably still train it.”
“Roger that,” Josh said, peeling off from his family to check the northwest watch since he’d wandered to this side of the range’s property. He saw Payton in the kitchen door, glancing casually in his direction. He found her presence soothing, but his thoughts quickly dissolved into the unpleasant memories of two divorces and a post-war struggle with drinking. This is home, now. Nothin’ good can come from hurting her…
2
Awe.
Most people don’t have a clue how prison really works. Bad guys get guarded by good guys, right? Not exactly. Smart bad guys figure out a couple of important things. For one, they have time to concentrate on their personal goals—like learning dead languages and teaching them to others. Whether Latin or the Language of the Birds, they now have a medium to communicate that nobody else knows. The term “jailhouse lawyer” comes from the fact that the brightest of them learn the law, oftentimes better than their public defenders. They also study the sciences, such as chemistry—for making better products and explosives—and physics. They figure out that not all leverage applies literally.
Prison staff, especially the guards, have to go to great lengths to hide their personal information. In the modern age, though, it isn’t enough. Connected gang leaders behind bars feed the names to their unconfined networks, and in turn, those names wind up on a list. This applies to the lower-risk lock-up facilities and county jails, too. The guards are smart, too—they know the game. They go to work, scouting for that suspicious car that may just be waiting to take their family hostage. This is the harsh truth that the government at all levels hides from the public—our respect for life—especially our loved ones—is our vulnerability.
The day the hammer fell, a clock started ticking. For some guards it was immediate—I’m never going back there again. They knew that once they did, they would most likely never see home again. Some, like the divorcees and older ones whose kids had grown up, made that final trip. Some counties had planned for this by preparing shelter and food to house the guards. Others did not. Prisons need electricity to operate. The electronic gates and cameras serve as force multipliers, which reduced the number of guards needed. With the absence of electricity and half the guards not coming to work…well, it didn’t take long for the foxes to rule the henhouse after that.
Tahoma’s Hammer, Minus 2 Hours.
Guess it’s a good thing I took the new schedule, Earl Garren thought. He felt a small victory over karma knowing he wouldn’t have to deal with the I-5 traffic that evening. The retired Army Ranger, starting his third year as a civilian, worked at the Bass Pro Shop down in Tacoma. Back on active duty, he and his family had always lived near post. But the traffic in Western Washington was so horrendous, they moved up to Des Moines so his wife would have a short commute to her job. He hated Des Moines, but the smaller, cheaper home supported his true passion—their hunting and fishing cabin near North Bend, about forty-five miles northeast.
About twice per year, Bass Pro Shop would scramble the employee’s schedules so that nobody got too used to having true weekends off. He didn’t mind. The twenty percent employee discount was worth it, and trout had to eat on Monday’s and Tuesday, too. This was the first Monday-Tuesday weekend he had on the new schedule, and he decided to forego the cabin while they figured out how he would support things like picking up kids from school. The earthquake that morning had reminded everyone how fragile things were. At least it wasn’t the big one.
[Brrrt—Household 6: “Be home in 20. JL decided to close up and go home.”]
[Earl: “K”]
Earl was a man of few words. The forty-two-year-old, 6’ 2” former Sergeant First-Class loved his family and friends, but he detested using phones unless absolutely necessary. Victoria, known to everyone else as Tori, had fallen in love with that strength and had learned to tolerate the quiet. She was sometimes perplexed at how some of her friend’s husbands could carry on active, hour-long phone calls with their wives. “It’s all part of having a vagina,” Earl would say, knowing his wife would pound him in the arm—hard—when he made sexist jokes like that.
Tori was truly the one person he would allow to boss him. She didn’t know it, but he had entered her name as “Household 6” into his phone, a common GI Joe euphemism for a soldier’s spouse. It indicated she was the unit commander. He may’ve been the SFC, but she was the CO. Tori was an Admin Assistant at a nearby financial planner’s office, and it was relatively easy to shut up the store, when needed.
He remembered he’d forgotten to tell Tori about the kids. [Earl: “Got an auto-message. School’s out. Kids should be home soon.”] The 7.1 earthquake had rocked them, but Earl figured it was the plane crash that had solidified Des Moines decision to cancel school. All the local fire and police resources were assisting the airport, he guessed.
He was sitting at his garage work bench and decided that he needed to get back to tying fishing flies. All this texting was wearing him out.
[Brrrt.] He ignored it and kept tying. [Brrrt.] Earl huffed and figured if he didn’t check it, this would be the time one of his kids was hurt.
[Brrrt—Con-Man: “Dude. Answer your phone.”]
[Earl: “What? Didn’t ring”] Con-Man was Conner Moore, the yang to Earl’s yin. They’d served together in the 75th Ranger Battalion at Joint Base Lewis McChord, but Conner got out after twelve years to tend to a divorce. He lived in Tacoma and was a heavy-equipment operator who worked wherever the union sent him, which for a few months had been to West Seattle.
[Brrrt—Con-Man: “All work suspended for state inspections. Should be off work in an hour or so. Beer?”]
Earl hit the “blue-thumb” of approval. [Earl: “Pick me up. Waiting for kids.”]
As if on cue, he heard the familiar sound of the front door opening and a backpack hitting the floor. Owen, he thought. Owen Henry and Piper Elizabeth, thirteen and fifteen, were the entire world to Earl. He figured he’d give it until Tori got home before he sent out the search party for his daughter. Maybe they’ll say there’s a cracked overpass so I don’t have to go to Tacoma tomorrow, he thought.
Tahoma’s Hammer
The slamming of the 80” TV on the floor made no noise. That is to say, not any noticeable noise, as compared to the noise made by the range hood that had shaken off the ceiling and the three industrial refrigerators slamming into each other. Or the other noises, like the couches and recliners hitting the ceiling, or the windows shattering, or the alarm klaxons that screamed for about ten seconds before shutting off when the lights did.
The loudest noise, though, came several minutes into the event. It sounded like a freight train had decided to jump tracks and tip over, but it emanated from the ground and floor below. It didn’t matter where someone on McNeil Island in Southwest Puget Sound stood—they heard it. They felt it. They were the noise, and it was them. As Tahoma sent her wrath towards space, the earth sent her sounds out towards the north and west. Nobody near Tacoma had to see the black and gray clouds billowing skyward to know Tahoma had erupted—she told them.
Forty-year-old Christopher “Sticky” Wood started laughing. By the time the shaking stopped, he was hysterical. If it wasn’t for the sharp pain in his left elbow from landing on it when he first hit the tile floor in the dwelling unit’s dayroom, he would’ve been having the time of his life. He enjoyed the looks of terror and concern on everyone’s face, not just the guards and counselors, but the other residents. Damn perverts are scared. Look at ‘em! He was beside himself.
He had no delusions that he was not one of the perverts, but that didn’t stop him from calling the other rapists and pedophiles that every chance he got. Especially when he figured out which counselors it pissed off. He was one of the forty percent of the island’s 197 ‘residents’ that refused to participate in counseling. He couldn’t stand the thought of some granola-eating, feel-good psychologist trying to dive into his head. There was no room for himself in there—he sure as hell wasn’t going to let someone else in.
Sticky had no love for the pedophiles, as even he had a code he’d never break. His hate was born out of being a child-victim himself, but his crimes were crimes of rage. The rapes and eventual murders—they’ve never tied those to me, he reminded himself—were just the shadow escaping. His victims of preference were women in their twenties who looked like his mother, followed closely by killing anyone who conflicted with the Risen Dead MC’s interests. He didn’t know what to call the shadow inside him, but he knew whatever it was, it needed to eat.
Sticky and his older brother were the sons of a professional meth-cook biker who’d spent most of his life in prison. Their addict mother turned tricks for cash and disappeared into her room for days at a time. There was that one regular, though, whose thirst was never quite quenched by the time she passed out stoned. That particular gremlin eventually went away for good, but the damage was done. Sticky earned his nickname when he was eleven, winning a dare and a bet by having sex with a sheep. His fourteen-year-old brother wasn’t thrilled when he heard about the dare or the nickname, understanding it was a play on their last name. The kid all the other kids called Legion beat the living hell out of the one that put up the money for the bet, earning a seven-month trip to a juvenile detention camp in the process.
