Bug Out! Part 5: RV Flight from Terror (12 page)

“That’s one of the reasons why I’m bringing it up,” Frank said.

“How does it work?” Jeb asked.

“Select six cameras with the check boxes by each. Then just hit play, and make sure that the time bar at the bottom is pulled all the way to the left. That’s the beginning of the recording. Then you use those buttons at the bottom for play, pause, stop, fast forward, and reverse. Watch me.”

Frank selected the first six cameras with the check boxes, then hit play. The screen display broke into six windows. He clicked on fast forward, and the picture moved forward quickly. There was a flash on the camera pointed at the front gate….camera number one.

“There, see that?” He asked. He hit pause, and then hit the reverse button. “After you hit pause and you hit the reverse button, it will go back slowly. Click it twice and it will go back quickly. It’s a little crude, but it should get us what we need.”

“You came up with all of this stuff yourself?” Jeb asked.

“Naw, there are toolkits that have a lot of this functionality included. I just selected what I needed.”

“A nice piece of work putting it together though,” Jerry said. “Let’s get to work.”

Jeb, Jerry, and Earl gathered around and started going through video. Frank got onto the PC.

“Kurt set up a user ID for you,” Mary said. “Name and password are Frank.”

“Excellent, thanks,” Frank said. He changed user to that name and logged on. Then he started hacking his way into anything he could about Southwestern Utah.

“Hey, Frank, can we get the time on this video?” Jerry asked.

“Oh, yeah, forgot about that. Time and date are available. I’ve got them hidden, but you can bring them up. It will take a little bit of screen real estate, though. Just go to the View menu and toggle date/time back on.”

Jerry did that, and the time and date came up at the bottom of each camera display.

“Holy crap, that explosion at the front gate happened less than half an hour after we left,” Jerry said. “No wonder the General couldn’t get his folks out of there.”

“Seriously?” Hilda asked.

Frank stopped what he was doing and rolled his computer chair over to take a look.

“What caused the explosion?” Frank asked.

“Good question,” Jerry said. “I didn’t see any people around. It looks like somebody fired an RPG or something like that from a ways away.”

“Wish we had sound,” Jeb said.

“Wow, look at all those fighters,” Earl said. The front camera showed several hundred jihadists running through the open gate. They filled the front part of the park.

“They took over the barn before our guys even saw them coming. Look. They captured the General and the Major and the Doc right away.”

“See the way everybody jerked around towards the back of the park?” Jeb said. “They just heard something big.”

“Yeah, look at that large group running back there,” Jerry said. “Can you imagine what this would have been like if we had been caught there?”

“Pause that,” Jeb said. “Look at camera number four. There’s the Lieutenant. He’s going over the fence with about ten privates.”

“Hope the enemy hadn’t gotten to the security monitors yet. They would have had a hard time missing that. Frank, isn’t that the camera behind the store?”

“I think so,” Frank said. “I have the diagrams in the coach that showed which cameras went where. Should have brought them. I’ll go get them in later.”

“I’ll put some notes in my phone on what we saw on which camera.” Jerry said. He pulled out his phone and focused on it.

“Looks to me like they got away clean,” Jeb said. I’ve been watching, and nobody has followed them. But look at all of those jerkweeds flowing in from the front of the park. Has to be 500 men.”

“Who’s that guy?” Jerry asked, pointing to the camera at the barn. “The guy talking to the General and the Major?”

“Looks like a miniature Bin Laden, don’t he?” Jeb said. “He’s wearing pajamas to a battle. Hey spinach chin, I’m going to shove a shiv up your ass.”

Jerry and Earl cracked up. Frank just shook his head.

“Wow, look at that big flash out front!” Jeb said. “A bunch of the cretins are running out there.”

“I bet the Lieutenant and his men blew something up,” Jerry said.

“I’ll bet so,” Earl said. “Look at that guy there that just ran up to spinach chin. He’s telling him something, and he’s excited. Now they’re leaving.”

“Probably heading out to the front to look at what got blown up,” Jeb said.

“Get a good picture of that jerk’s face yet?” Frank asked.

“We’re about to,” Jerry said. “He’s on his way past the camera that we put on the well house. THERE!”

“Hit pause, and then change the view to that camera only,” Frank said. Jerry paused it, and Frank rolled up close to the laptop. He clicked forward and backwards in the video until he got the best shot possible. “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera, asshole.”

“You can capture at that quality?” Jeb asked.

“Sure,” Frank said. He went into the Tools menu and clicked capture. He was prompted for a location. He selected a folder, gave the file a name, and then clicked OK. The image saved, and he closed that part of the program. “If you see any more good shots of this guy or anybody else that looks important, pause it and capture. Think you can remember how I did that, Jerry?”

“Hell, yes,” Jerry said. “Piece of cake. You need a USB drive to move it?”

“No, I’ll use the network to get to that folder from the PC. No brainer.”

Frank pulled out his phone, and punched in numbers.

“Who you calling?” Jerry asked. Frank put up his hand to stop the question.

“Rami?” He asked.

“Frank, is that you? How are you? How’s retirement?”

“Long story. I’m in Utah fighting the Islamists.”

“No way,” he said. “What’s up? Why are you calling me?”

“You still at work?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Things haven’t changed there, I guess,” Frank said, laughing. “Don’t you ever see your family?”

“Oh, you know,” he said.

“I need a big favor, Rami.”

“What?”

“I’m going to be accessing the company system to run some facial ID software, and to launch into some of the Government servers. I still have access, but I need you to look the other way. Will you do that?”

“That’s illegal, Frank,” he said, sounding concerned. Then he laughed. “Just kidding. You going to use it to get these asshats?”

“That’s the plan. They’ve overrun the army in this area. I want to provide some help.”

“Go for it, dude,” Rami said. “I’ll block for you…and I’ll make sure the evidence gets cleaned up, too.”

“Thanks, Rami, I really appreciate this.”

“After all you’ve done for me? Don’t mention it. Take care of yourself, Frank.”

“Yes, you too. I’m hearing bad things about California.”

“Yeah, you don’t want to come back here. Trust me.”

“Alright, talk to you later.”

Frank hung up the phone.

“Who was that?” Jerry asked.

“That was the man who took over my job after I retired. I was his mentor.”

“So he’s going to let you onto the company networks?” Jerry asked.

“Oh, I already have access, but activity like I’m about to do coming from the outside would get flagged right away. He can disable that for my user ID.”

“Ah, nice to have friends,” Jerry said.

“Hey, here’s another guy we might be interested in,” Jeb said. “Talking to Spinach Chin there.”

“Well, that answers one question I had,” Earl said. “The militia is still with these creeps. I recognize this guy.”

“Really?” Jeb asked. “From the Williams Militia?”

“Yes. He wasn’t a member, but he was good friends with Lewis and Ken. He would be in town every once in a while, and come to BBQs and such. He’s a scary guy. Always sizing everybody up. He made me nervous.”

“He have a name?” Frank asked.

“Philip something,” he said. Then he stood up and turned back towards Jackson. “Hey, Jackson, remember that character named Philip that used to show up to the Militia events with Lewis and Ken?”

“Oh yeah, that guy,” Jackson said.

“Remember his last name?”

“Yeah, it was Carlson,” Jackson said, “and don’t call him Phil!” He laughed.

“Forgot about that,” Earl said. “This guy didn’t want to be called Phil. He would always correct you and say Philip. What a pompous ass this guy was.”

“Well, he just made the kill list,” Jeb said. He looked at the screen as Jerry did the capture. “It’ll be a pleasure smearing your ass all over the road, you dickwad.”

Frank rolled his chair back in front of the PC and connected to the laptop over the network. He copied both of the capture jpg files over to his ‘My Pictures’ folder there, and then logged onto the company network. He spent a few minutes moving around. Charlie came up behind him and was watching. An FBI warning came up on the screen.

“Whoa,” Charlie said. “You supposed to be in there?”

“No, but the security department of my company has access, and I can still get in through that if I’m careful,” Frank said. He went to the facial recognition program and uploaded the picture of Spinach Chin. Then he clicked the process button. A wait icon displayed on the screen as it did the search.

“No more action in the front six cameras for a while,” Jerry said. “I’ll start fast forwarding again.” The video sped up. People showed up walking around every once in a while. After a while a couple of the enemy soldiers pulled up in front of the barn in the maintenance cart. Three more came out of the barn, carrying things.

“Oh no,” Hilda said. She put her arm in front of her eyes. “Those are heads.”

“You don’t need to see that, honey,” Charlie said.

“I’ll go into the kitchen,” she said. “Maybe I can help Jasmine with the food.” She walked away.

“I figured she wouldn’t want to see much of that,” Charlie said. “I hope it doesn’t stick with her much.”

“Bingo,” Frank said. “There he is. This guy is wanted in a lot of countries. They think he was one of the core team behind that subway bombing in London back in the mid-2000s.”

“What’s his name?” Jeb asked.

“Some middle east name I’m not going to try to pronounce. He’s from Saudi Arabia originally, but he’s wanted there, of course. Goes by a shorter nick name.”

“What’s that?”

“Saladin,” Frank said. “That kind of rings a bell.”

“It should,” Jerry said. “Remember the Crusades?”

“That’s right,” Earl said. “He was some kind of general or something like that.”

“Sultan,” Jerry said. “He was the one who took Jerusalem back from the Europeans, and then got into the big fight with King Richard the first.”

“Oh, Richard the Lion Hearted?” Frank asked.

“Yep, that’s the one,” Earl said.

“We’re done with the front cameras. Let’s go to the ones back by the blind,” Jerry said. He went to the selection page and clicked the check boxes. The six displays showed on the screen.

“When did all of those new soldiers show up?” Jeb said as he watched the screen.

“Good question,” Jerry said.

“We saw them back there when we were putting up cameras,” Earl said. “Remember, Charlie?”

“Yes, I do,” Charlie said.

“Us too,” Frank said. “I don’t remember seeing them come in from the front. I remember talking about that with Jerry.”

“Son of a bitch, look at this!” Jerry said.

“What?” Frank said.

“Some of the soldiers are shooting at other soldiers. That guy there just shot the Sergeant.”

“No way,” Jeb said. “Get a capture on that guy.”

Frank looked over Jerry’s shoulder
as he went through the video sequence, trying to get a good frame to capture on the shooter. The private on the screen had a wicked grin on his face, his gun beaded on the Sergeant.

“You know,” Jerry said. “This guy looks awful old for a private,” Jerry said. “and that’s no regulation haircut, either.”

“Was just thinking that,” Jeb said. “Dollars to donuts he’s going to end up being a militia traitor.”

“There, that’s about the best frame we have,” Jerry said. He did the capture. Frank went back to the PC and pulled it over. Then submitted it to the facial recognition program. He rolled his chair back over next to Jerry and Jeb.

“How many of the privates do you see turning on the good guys?” Frank asked.

“Looks like more than half of them to me,” Jeb said. “This really pisses me off.”

“Wow, look at that,” Jerry said, pointing to a flash on the screen. It was the tank exploding.

“What the hell did they hit that with?” Earl asked.

“Don’t know,” Jerry said. “Couldn’t see it. Let me go through the video again more slowly.”

He backed up, and then went forward frame by frame.

“Look, there it is,” Jeb said. “That looks like a cannon shot or an RPG or something.”

“I don’t think an RPG can make an M-1 blow like that,” Jerry said.

“Let it run forward a ways,” Charlie said.

“Look, there’s another M-1 Tank,” Jerry said.

“Look at all of those trucks rolling in behind it,” Charlie said. “How did they get all of that stuff down the road without the drone picking it up?”

“This looks like regular army equipment to me,” Jerry said. “We need to see if a base got overrun.”

“Seriously,” Jeb said. “If that happened, they’re going to have a lot of heavy weaponry and supplies. Ammo too.”

“Well well well,” Frank said. “Guess who this phony private is with?”

“Who?” asked Charlie.

“The militia that took out the Yuma base…and one of his known associates is my old buddy Sean.”

“The guy who was picked up in DC after the Capitol bombing?” Earl asked.

“Yep, that’s the guy.”

“What’s his name?”

“Simon Orr,” Frank said.

“Are you boys at a good stopping point?” Mary said as she walked over. “The food is ready.”

All the men looked over at her and nodded. They got up and walked over to the long table that had trays of lasagna and salad lined up. Other people in the group were coming into the clubhouse to get food. Most of them looked shell shocked and tired.

Jane walked over and got next to Frank in line. “Making progress?”