Bug Out! Part 9: RV Ambush (17 page)

“Shall I go get the others?” she asked.

“Sure,” Frank said. “I’m ready. This won’t take long.”

“Okay, see you in a few minutes,” she said, walking to the door. It was almost dark now, the air cooling off quickly. She walked over to Jerry and Jasmine’s rig first.

“Hey, guys, Frank’s got the new app set up,” she said through the open door.

Jerry rushed out. “He got that names file, eh?”

“Yep,” Jane said proudly. “Want to help me round everybody up?”

“Sure,” Jerry said. Jasmine came down the steps and joined them, a wide grin on her face. They walked back towards the other spaces.

Frank took a look at the long range detail app while he was waiting for people to start coming in. He didn’t recognize any of the names in and around the Pentagon, In fact, there weren’t many there. He started to get nervous about that, and then remembered that it was about 8:00 pm in DC. He chuckled to himself.

Charlie and Hilda were the first in the door.

“I’m going to go get the oven heating up,” Hilda said, handing her phone to Charlie and taking off for the kitchen. Charlie walked over to Frank and put the devices in front of him on the table.

“Pulled it off, did you?” Charlie asked. “Knew you’d do it. Think the cretins have any idea?”

“Nope, not a chance,” Frank said. “I could’ve muscled the file out a little faster, but I wanted to make sure they didn’t know. We’re good.”

The Sheriff walked in with Kurt and Mary. Then came Jeb, helping Rosie along. Earl and Jackson followed.

“Hi, everybody,” Rosie said. “Happy hour?”

“Well, I guess we have cause to celebrate,” Jeb said, laughing. “Frank, I’m amazed and impressed as usual.”

Frank got an embarrassed smile on his face.

Trish and Terry came in, with Gabe, Jake and Dobie following, all of them chatting happily. Jerry, Jasmine, and Jane followed.

“George, Heidi, and Malcolm will be over in a few minutes,” Jane said to Frank as she walked up. “They’re just finishing their hookups.”

“Oh, yeah,” Frank said. “Their coaches were sitting in the staging area all day. They must have found some interesting stuff in the dungeon.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Jane said. “Howard was in one of the old home movies.”

Frank got a worried look on his face. “Participant or bystander?”

“Participant,” Jane said. “Oh, and Kurt recognized Chet too.”

“So two serial killers know where we are,” Frank said. “Great.”

The group was milling around
in the clubhouse, waiting for George, Heidi, and Malcolm to show up. Hilda came out of the kitchen and motioned to Jane and Jasmine. They went over. Trish saw and joined them.

“I was going to crank up the oven, but then I thought what the heck am I going to cook in there? There’s some big cans of chili down in the pantry. What do you think?”

“I’m good with it,” Jane said. “No need to be fancy.”

“Turn the oven on anyway,” Jasmine said. “I saw some cornbread mix down there.”

“Oh, yum. Good idea,” Hilda said. “We picked up some onions on the way out of town. I put them down there. Might as well bring up the bag.”

“I’ll bring the chili cans up,” Trish said.

“Thanks, sweetie,” Hilda said. “How do you like being a newlywed?”

Trish smiled at her. “I can’t believe how happy I am,” she said. “He’s such a good man.”

“Well, we all love him,” Jane said. “He’s saved people too, by the way.”

“He saved my dad and me, when we were coming to Gabe’s park,” she said, a proud look on her face.

“I’m glad you’re with us, and your father too,” Hilda said.

Charlie walked into the kitchen. “The meeting’s going to start in about ten minutes, girls.”

“Oh, you can start without us,” Hilda said.

“No we can’t,” Charlie said. “Not ever. If you need a little extra time, you just let me know.”

Hilda walked over and kissed him on the cheek. “Okay, honey. We were just going to start heating some chili and put some cornbread in the oven, but it won’t take long, so we’ll focus on mixing the cornbread and cutting onions, and hold off on the cooking until after the meeting.”

“Good,” Charlie said. He walked back out.

“You’ve got a good man too,” Trish said.

“Yes, I do, sweetie,” Hilda said, blushing. “Thought it was over for me.”

The evening traffic in St Louis was light. It was a little past rush hour.

“There’s South Florissant Rd, Howie,” Scott said, looking out into the darkness.

“I see it, numb nuts,” Howard said. “What was that second street again?”

“Arnold B Grobman Drive,” Scott said. “C’mon, sharpen up your mind.”

“My memory isn’t as good as it used to be, Scotty. Not a lot I can do about that.”

“My dad was sharp as a tack right to the end, and he was a good fifteen years older than you by that time.”

“So go dig him up and have at it,” Howard said. “Geez.”

Scott shook his head, a sarcastic grin on his face. “Alright, don’t get offended. Just give it a little more effort, okay?

“Whatever. You dragged me back into this.”

They made the turn onto the first street, then turned right on the second street. It looked a lot like the place they grabbed the first girl. Rows of dorm buildings on either side of the street, tucked tightly next to each other. Both sides of the street were jammed with parked cars.

“Going to be hard to find a place to park, Scotty,” Howard said. “Especially with this damn motorhome. We stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Double park, and wait,” Scott said. “It’s Friday night. You don’t think a lot of these kids are going out to the clubs? We just need to find a solo girl.”

“Okay,” Howard said. He pulled close enough to the parked cars on the right side of the street so another car could squeeze through, and put on his flashers.

“Hey, look,” Scott said. “Two young lovelies coming this way, looking at your rig.”

Howard squinted as he looked out through the windshield glare. “Yeah, I see them, but we want one, not two.”

“We could handle two,” Scott said. “Trust me. My dad used to handle two all the time when he was hunting with Dagger.”

“Red Dagger,” Howard said, chuckling. “Now there was a crazy son of a bitch.”

“Shut up about him,” Scott said. “Here they come.”

There was a knock on the door. Scott smiled over at Howard, and then went to the door and opened it.

“Hey, mister, nice rig,” one of the girls said, craning her neck to see inside. “I grew up in one of these. Can we come in and check it out?”

“Why sure,” Scott said, holding the door open for them. “C’mon in.”

The first girl walked up, smiling, looking around. She was a small girl, with dark brown hair, olive skin, and a bouncy personality. She had a beak-like nose, giving her the look of a bird, but she still had a cuteness about her.

“C’mon, Amanda,” the first girl said to her friend. “It’s okay.”

The second girl came in cautiously, looking around.

“Want a beer?” Scott asked. “My name is Scott, but you can call me Scotty.”

“I’m Kayla,” said the first girl, grinning. “Sure, a beer would be good, but we can only stay for a little while.”

Scott pulled to beers out of the fridge and opened them, handing one to each of the girls.

“Thanks,” Kayla said.

“Can we drop you girls somewhere?” Scott asked.

Kayla looked at Amanda. Amanda looked back at her, nervous, not saying a word. She finally shook her head yes.

“Sure, could you take us into the city?” Kayla asked. “The Blue Room. We’re meeting some people there.”

“Why sure,” Scott said. “Head downtown, Howie.”

Howard drove off, heading for the road out of town.

“What were you guys doing here?” Amanda asked, her dark eyes shining out under black bangs. She was larger than Kayla, with a beautiful face.

“We were hired out to a few guys. You know - party wagon,” Scott said. “They didn’t show, so we were hoping to find somebody else that wanted to party.”

“We have to pay you?” Amanda asked.

“No, no,” Scott said. “A bunch of rowdy boys do, and we were providing booze and food for them. We’ll drop you two off free of charge. No problem. We don’t have anything better to do.”

Amanda shot a worried glance over at Kayla.

“I forgot something,” Kayla said. “Can we turn around?”

“Too late, honey,” Scotty said. “We’re already rolling.”

“What do you mean,
too late
?” Amanda said. “Stop this thing right now, and let us out.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Smith won’t let me do that,” Scott said, grinning.

“What? Screw this,” Amanda said. She headed for the door. Scott pulled his revolver out of his pocket and pointed it at her head.

“Sit down, honey,” Scott said, still grinning. “Mr. Smith says you’re not going anywhere.”

Kayla screeched, and leapt towards Scotty, trying to surprise him. He pulled the trigger, hitting her square in the chest. She crumpled onto the floor, as Amada screamed, frozen in terror.

“Dammit, Scotty, I said no blood in my rig,” Howard shouted.

“Shut up and drive,” Scotty scowled. He grabbed Amanda and pulled her close, pushing the revolver up under her chin and pulling back the hammer. “Do I need to worry about you?”

Amanda was trembling, mouth open, unable to scream. She shook her head no.

“Head for the farm,” Scotty said. Then he dragged Amanda into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. Howard tried to concentrate on driving while listening to them. It wasn’t easy.

George, Heidi, and Malcolm came into the clubhouse, and walked over to Charlie.

“You guys all set up?” Charlie asked.

“Yes,” Heidi said. “Sorry it took so long.”

“Nonsense,” Charlie said. “We’ll get the meeting going in a few minutes, and then we’ll have dinner. Chili and cornbread alright?”

“That sounds great,” Malcolm said, smiling.

George nodded, and walked over to Frank. “So, I hear you figured it out?” he asked.

“Yep,” Frank said. “Part of the reason for the meeting is to update everybody’s apps.”

“The bad guys have any idea?”

“I don’t think so,” Frank said. “I also wanted to focus in on the DC area and see if you recognize any of the names, but I think we’ll have to wait until morning to do a good job there.”

“Why?”

“It’s late. Not many people hanging around the offices now.”

“Oh,” George said, laughing. “You’re right.”

“By the way, you wanted to see our video of Saladin and the other leadership. I’ll pull it up.”

“Great,” George said. He caught Malcolm’s eye and motioned him over.

“What’s up, guys?” Malcolm asked.

“Frank’s going to pull up that video of the enemy leadership,” George said.

Frank opened the video file and started to fast forward through it. There were flashes and people running.

“Wow, looks like a lot of action. We’ll have to watch the whole thing when we have some time,” Malcolm said. “What happened?”

“The enemy sent a wave of several hundred troops in, from both sides of the RV Park,” Frank said. “Plus some of the troops who were there turned.”

“You could see that?” George asked.

“Yeah, especially in the area behind the park, where they’d brought in some new recruits towards the end.”

Jerry walked over and looked at the screen. “Ah, going to show the footage of the enemy?”

“Yep,” Frank said. “It’s about here.” He let the video play. Philip came into the frame, with Simon Orr.

“Who are those guys?” Malcolm asked.

“Militia leadership. Philip, and Simon Orr,” Frank said.

“And don’t call him Phil,” Jerry said, chuckling. “What a blow hard.”

“One of our test chips came out of Simon Orr,” Frank said. “He was a level three. Pretty high up.”

“How’d you get that?” Malcolm asked.

“He tried to get the jump on us over at Gabe’s park. Lucky for us, Jeb saw what was happening and shot him with his bow and arrow.”

“Really?” Malcolm said. “That kill him?”

“Almost,” Jerry said. “General Hogan finished the job with a grenade.”

“There he is,” George said, a grim look on his face, pointing to the screen as Saladin came in from the right. “I’d know that son of a bitch anywhere. I’ve got a score to settle with him.”

“Get in line,” Frank said. “Jeb’s told us how he wants to gut him.”

“Nothing wrong with a team effort,” Malcolm said.

“Oh, shit,” George said. “Daan’s with them?”

“Afraid so,” Frank said. “You know him?”

“Yeah, I was supposed to kill him,” George said. “He managed to escape. We’re pretty sure he ended up in Belgium, under the protection of his family.”

“Yeah, big EU muckity-mucks, apparently,” Jerry said.

“He’s brilliant, you know,” George said. “I take it you’ve met him.”

“Yeah, before he got himself into trouble, he was making the rounds of the big corporations, trying to sell his data security consulting service,” Frank said. “And by the way, he stole a lot of the ideas for chip security from yours truly. That’s why I was able to figure things out so easily.”

“You find him with your apps?” George asked.

“No, we’ve found Phil and Saladin, but haven’t seen him yet.”

“He’s probably smart enough not to put a chip into himself,” Malcolm said.

“Either that, or he’s in a location where there’s no cell coverage,” Frank said. “I suspect no chip, though.”

“How much does he know about you, Frank?” George asked.

“We were just acquaintances, but he knows my work, and he’s read my books. We discussed a lot of technical issues over the several years that I was in contact with him. My company wanted to hire him, but I objected. I was CIO at the time, so I got my way.”

“What were your objections?” George asked.

“I thought he was unstable.”

“Good call,” Jerry said, laughing.

“Seriously,” Malcolm said. “How worried do we need to be about this guy?”

“We’ll probably never get close to him,” George said. “Unless he happens to be with the other targets when we hit them. I’d be surprised if he’s in North America very much of the time.”

“Why was he at that RV Park, then?” Malcolm asked. “That was a tactical attack.”