Cascadia Fallen: The Complete Trilogy, page 80
Earl just nodded, already knowing. He looked out at the roaring river, running hard with rain and snowfall. He pulled his rain hood down as he’d just gotten very warm. “How?” he asked, looking back at her.
Natalie broke down, and her big brother came over and held her. She started bawling in the big man’s chest. She finally composed herself a little. “Mom died on the day. A big pile up out on the highway. She—she—”
“It’s alright,” Earl said. “Whatever it is…it’s alright, Nat.” The hardened man had tears welling up despite finally confirming his suspicion that his mother was dead. “When the boys showed up, they couldn’t talk about it. I guess…I guess I knew already.” He let the river’s noise take over for a couple of short minutes. “And Dad?”
“He wasn’t doing good, Bubby.” Natalie started crying again, though with a little less sorrow. “He wanted to stay. I tried to…”
Earl pulled on her shoulders softly so they were looking at each other again. “Let me guess—he was being hard-headed…”
Natalie busted up laughing at the inside joke, as it was the known, family blemish that Earl and their father both shared the same stubborn determination. He pulled his sister back in for a hug. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help,” he said, staring at the rushing, mountain river once more.
“Hey, Earl,” John Cronin said from Earl’s front door. “Glad to see you guys made it back. How’s Conner doing?”
“Let me grab my coat,” Earl said. “I need to go move a bit anyhow.” Within a couple of minutes, the two men were strolling west along Earl’s side of the North Fork. “Conner will heal, but he’s gonna be laid up awhile. He took an AK round through the shoulder. Lucky, really…Stupid lucky.”
“Man,” John said slowly. “I heard you got your sister back. I hope she finds some healing...”
“We’ll see,” Earl admitted. “I went to go find her daughter, but…” He clammed up, not really wanting to get angry again.
“I was a cop, Earl,” John said. “You don’t have to tell me what kind of sick people roam the world.” There’s only one reason someone would’ve taken your niece. I wish you could’ve found ‘em, John thought. Even cops knew there was a time justice just needed to be served.
Earl scanned the low mountain to his south, thinking once again about security. “Yeah, I sure coulda used some snowshoes. But, hey!” he suddenly remembered. “If you hadn’t given me those firecrackers, Larry and I wouldn’t have made it back.”
“No kiddin’?” John said.
“Serious as a heart attack,” Earl said flatly. “Word to the wise. If any of you need to head east, be ready for warlords. I took out a couple, but…well…nature hates a vacuum, as they say.”
“Uh, yeah—that’s kind of what I needed to talk to you about.” John was trying to play it cool. “And we could really use Conner, too, dad gummit…”
Earl stopped, forcing John to stop and face him. “What’s going on, John?”
“Something you’re much better trained to handle than I am. One of the other highly organized groups is trying to gather anyone with training for a big meeting tomorrow. It’s about this cartel thing.”
Earl nodded and started walking again. He was trying to make it back to John’s side of the bridge—he knew there’d be coffee in that little guard shack. “Kinda what I figured it was about.”
“We heard on the radio that they had a fancy drone attack. Pretty much wiped out what was left of law and order in Seattle. Place is turning into a real zoo.”
“More than it already was?” Earl quipped. “Didn’t think that was possible.”
The two leaders passed the south side gate and made their way north along the bridge. John stopped so as to not make Earl walk even farther back to his own cabin.
“Don’t stop now!” Earl ordered. “We’re almost to the coffee!”
John busted up laughing. A few minutes later they were in the north side guards’ break shack, staring at some papers. “Here’s the nitty-gritty. Phalanx is but one part of a network. We’ve been building ourselves for years. There are groups like ours all over the tri-county area. My only regret is that we never networked with the militias in West Sound or the Southwest corner of the state.”
Neither man brought up that the coastal region had been completely wiped out by the tsunami.
“How are you all laying out the battle plans without the cartel learning about it?” Earl asked.
“Digital HF,” John said. “Or more specifically, a completely random set of digital HF frequencies that we picked years ago using a random number generator app.” Earl made a snoring sound effect, which caused John to chuckle. “To put it simply,” John continued, “we plugged in several types of digital equipment and multiple bands to use them on, along with a number of times per day. Four years ago, someone built a program to pick primary through tertiary modes and frequencies for every day, at randomly assigned times, four times per day, for the next twenty years.”
“To put it simply,” Earl mocked. “What’s wrong with plain old encryption?” he wondered aloud.
John chuckled. “Ha! You career Army guys have the funniest senses of humor! As if we can get that!”
“Oh. Alright. So—years ago, you guys made a brainy commo plan. Now what?”
“There’s a big meet tomorrow. I want you to be over here at 0745. We and a few others will be listening in at our HAM shack. If there’s a plan to go fight these guys, my feeling is that we’ll be linking up with the south end units somewhere near Renton.”
Earl let out a big exasperated sigh. “Man, am I getting sick and tired of war! I just wish this ordeal was over!” It was a lot to process after the week he’d just had. He stood up, feeling his pockets for a can of chew he hadn’t had in weeks. “Dang it!”
“So…that’s a yes, then?” John said with a twinge of humor.
21
Plans.
Tahoma’s Hammer Plus 37 Days.
“I think I can muster about twenty,” Earl said the next morning. It went without saying that most of the volunteers weren’t the spring chickens of any modern army. “We’ll put the guards down to just the front gate and a roving patrol. Everyone on the road knows to be armed and extra-vigilant while we’re away. This includes a few older teens, like my own daughter,” Earl told John seriously.
“Same as us, Sarge,” John replied. “We all got skin in this game.”
John couldn’t believe he was also looking at Conner. He’d insisted on coming, feeling a bit better. It took Earl impressing upon Natalie that all they were doing was going for a simple walk before she’d let him go.
“Shouldn’t you still be in the sack?” John asked him. “You look like the one-armed man that killed Dr. Kimble’s wife!” He was referring to the empty sleeve that resulted from Conner keeping his wounded, left arm slung to his body under his coat.
The joke went over both Conner and Earl’s head. Larry gave it a quick chuckle. “You must be an ol’ turd like me, John. I don’t think those boys remember that show!”
Earl had also brought Larry with him, knowing the man’s experience as a long-range game hunter might translate into a good sniping role.
The four men strolled east on the northside road to a point where it split into a Y. They took the left fork and walked about four homes and properties up, stopping at a small chicken and goat farm that had been built on a small flat on the hillside. Earl could see three different antennas mounted to the house and outbuildings. Some were just a pole, and some had little rods sticking out at the bottom.
John caught him staring as they headed up the short, gravel driveway. “Look up,” he suggested.
Several wire antennas crisscrossed the property in different locations, running different cardinal directions. Earl even caught a big satellite dish in the back, pointed southerly toward the sky. He could hear the deep whine of a generator running behind the home.
“When does this guy have time for goats and chickens?” Earl sniped with a chuckle.
“His wife does all that!” John laughed. They made it to the front door, and John gave two quick knocks as he opened it to let himself in. “Barb?” he called out.
As he pushed himself through the door, Barbara Oakley was walking up. “They’re all already in there,” she said.
Small introductions and greetings were exchanged in the entry as John slowly led his guests up the hall and into what used to be the home’s master bedroom. “Your guys’ radio shack is in this dude’s master bedroom?”
“Uh-huh,” John replied. “It seems a bit weird, but they’re older, kids live elsewhere and all that. They just use a smaller room for themselves.”
As they entered, Earl just about crapped himself. A large oak dining table with two leaves extending its length was surrounded by a dozen, tightly packed chairs, some wood and some folding. The far wall had a workbench that ran the entire length of it. The bench and the shelving above it were covered in radios, meters, oscilloscopes, wires, and power supplies—electronic gizmos of all types. Not one, but two computers were powered up, each with two screens showing spreadsheets and technical data.
“Is that a map?” Earl asked jealously. He was looking at a map of east King County with their little river fork on the right and the Renton area on the left. He could see small electronic dots placed on the map by a computer program.
“Yep,” John whispered. “Those are patriot unit locations. They’re using APRS to transmit where they’re at to us in real time.”
Three or four small conversations were going on simultaneously, creating a small buzz. Maps and photos were on every available piece of wall. Conner leaned in and mumbled, “I always figured Darth Vader’s sex dungeon looked somethin’ like this.”
Larry chuckled and Earl shot his buddy a stern look. I guess you’re feeling better, huh? he transmitted to Conner without words.
“Gents,” Marshall said aloud, breaking into everyone’s talking. “Why don’t you all get seated.”
Everyone scooted toward the table. People were shedding coats, as that many heaters in a room warmed it quickly. Earl figured the gear was probably cranking out heat, too. There was a general buzz coming from that side, as several pieces had their small, internal fans working. A different radio operator with a headset on was turning knobs and clacking on a keyboard, trying to pick up the signal for the chat.
As everyone settled in, Marshall said, “While Tina gets us into the meeting, why don’t you introduce the guests,” he suggested to John.
John took a few minutes to introduce the men and what they’d just learned on their trip, not wanting to waste a chance to once again remind everyone of the reality of what the world beyond their valley had become.
They were interrupted when the woman at the bench leaned over to Marshall and said, “We’re ready.” She flipped a switch and suddenly radio chatter could be heard coming out of four speakers around the room in crystal-clear digital. Surround sound, Earl thought, laughing to himself. We’re using cheap Baofengs that China could probably kill with the flip of a switch, and they have surround sound…
Earl heard several electronic voices calling in. “…Issaquah East, checking in.” Then a new voice, “Issaquah West, checking in.” The process repeated itself. Maple Valley, Mirrormont, on and on.… Obviously alphabetized, Earl thought. The speakers went dead as Tina keyed into a microphone, “North Bend, checking in.”
John leaned close to Earl and whispered, “And this is just around here—our sector. The section leaders met earlier and are now disseminating information down. Later today we’ll be relaying our statuses back up—committed numbers, whether or not we’re low on ammo and food, known obstacles we have to travel around or avoid, stuff like that.”
Earl, Conner, and Larry sat quietly for thirty minutes, listening to the initial battle plans being presented. Sounds like they have retired infantry coordinating this. Maybe we won’t all die in Seattle, after all. Hope, which was a tree that could either grow or wither in the pit of one’s stomach, had planted itself in Earl’s gut that morning—though still just a sliver.
After the radio had grown silent again, Marshall passed the floor to John. “Thoughts, security lead?”
“Well, the special project we’ve been working on is ready to go. But you need to make sure they know—” he emphasized, stabbing a pointer finger at the radio beyond Tina— “that it won’t work if there’s any rain.” He turned to his guest. “Earl and Conner are Army combat vets. I think they’d be able to provide some thoughts on what we heard.”
Though not prepared to speak, the experienced NCO in Earl had been cast into this role many times. He stood up. “It’s not rocket science. Lake Washington is a giant topographical obstacle that we all have to get around. In conventional warfare, you don’t attack an entrenched enemy with anything less than three times their estimated strength. Your leaders estimated the cartel is at ten thousand. Which sounds like a SWAG to me.”
A few murmurs broke out amongst the others. “A what?” one of them asked.
“A scientific wild-ass guess,” Marshall explained, cutting Earl off.
“Exactly,” Earl said. “That’s supposed to be the invaders and the local gangs they absorbed.”
“And broke out of the Monroe prison,” John added, looking up for a moment before staring at the table again.
“That, too…” Earl said. “The bottom line is that we all have to link up with the South Sounders and move north. Everyone else needs to link-up up there and move south,” he said, pointing at the north end of the map. “While it’s good to hit them from two sides, it’s also going to make commanding and controlling our operations more difficult. How will we resupply? How will we treat our wounded? Have our planners been working on all that?” He looked at John next to him.
“They have, though…admittedly without actual hospital care. We know we’re going to have some Civil War type casualty rates.” More murmurs. “We can always use more volunteers with medical training.”
Natalie, Earl thought sadly. Hasn’t my poor sister been through enough? “My honest assessment, folks, is that this cartel just may win. Maybe we can scrounge up the numbers to beat them. But they’re much more battle hardened than we are. They have artillery, armed drones, even a helicopter. We have snowplows mounted to pickup trucks. We have no wildcard factors, unless we can get a break in this rain and use our aerial attack.” He thought he was done and started to sit, but then suddenly shot back up. “And…they know exactly what two routes we’ll be coming up and down to get to them.”
“Two routes…” Marshall mumbled a little too loudly, deep in thought.
“Huh?” a couple of the others asked.
“What if we could attack them from a third direction?” he asked, looking at Earl and Conner.
Jeff was riding on the front of Nick’s boat, calling for obstacles that may still be clogging what used to be the pristine waters of Hood Canal. Stu was digging through an under-seat storage compartment looking for a spotlight.
A thought had occurred to Josh. “We’re going to be coming up on the submarine base very quickly.”
“So?” Nick asked.
“So, an entire regiment of Marines showed up there by ship and helicopter like two or three weeks back. You know, to start extracting important things—as in national security.”
Nick figured out what Josh was hinting at. “You think they’d stop us?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Josh countered.
“Good point,” Nick admitted. “What do you propose? Find somewhere here to land?”
“That depends,” Josh replied. “Have you made up your mind what you want to do?”
Several days earlier, the four men put an end to Sticky Wood and then put Doctor Stuart Schwartz’s parents to rest. They gave Stu a day to grieve and recover before making their way to Nick’s boat, where they abandoned the vehicles. That was the first time Josh asked Nick if he was heading to his nearby bootie call’s ranch. Nick gave the trio a ride back to the house that they’d holed up in. He’d been tempted to just give them the boat and start hoofing south, but he knew he’d have to pass by the checkpoint he abandoned. Deep inside, he knew that wasn’t an issue. The real issue was purpose. For the first time in his life—he had none.
The men made a fire to sit around while they answered some of Nick’s questions about the gun range. What’s this posse thing? How many of you are there? You guys actually fought the law and won? And you get to kill meth dealers? The more he learned, the more he felt like it was a calling.
Nick was an atheist, not prone to serendipitous feelings of fate and kismet. Still…there’s just something tugging me to stay with these guys… Knowing he had enough gas to boat them around to Slaughter Peninsula, he bought himself a little more time. The men knocked back a few drinks with booze they found in the house—careful not to get too tipsy to defend themselves, but also enjoying watching Jeff get his first buzz—almost like things were normal, again, for an evening.
They’d finally made the slow journey around. Despite a medium rain while being out on the boat, the fact that they weren’t walking was like winning the lottery to Stu and his swollen ankle. He was still wearing the boots he’d bartered for almost a month earlier, having failed to find adequate replacements in either house.
“Well?” Josh said, shaking Nick out of his reflective thought.
“I’m thinking if I go with you guys, I’ll never see this boat again.”
“Most likely,” Josh agreed.
“But…I need to trade off ammo or gear for gas…an idea I don’t like. So…maybe I’ll come check this gig out with you. You say there’s a place I can hang the hammock?”
All three men were trying to hide their smiles that Nick was joining them. “Big wood Common we just built, complete with rock fireplaces. You’ll be fine with those high-dollar hammock quilts of yours!”
