Going Home (19 page)

“Go hit the rack, Morgan. We have a lot to do tomorrow. You and Thad have a lot to learn and only a little time. You guys need to get on the road headed home as soon as you can.” He gave me a dismissive smile and turned back to the big radio.

I walked out of the room and found Thad in the living room. He was sitting in a chair, reading the Bible. I took a seat across from him and sat there for a minute, thinking about what Sarge said.
What
the
hell
is
that
grumpy
ole
bastard
planning?
I thought. I started thinking about getting home. Old Town was due west of Gainesville. With the truck, we could get Jess home in a couple of hours with no problems. But then Thad needed to get to Tampa. We were going in entirely different directions; we were going to have to part ways soon enough. That thought really saddened me. I had come to really like him, but I really wanted to get home, bad.

“What’s that ole coot up to?” I asked.

“We been working on a plan. You know we are going to have to split up soon, right?” He closed the Bible.

“Of course; you’re headed west, and I’m heading south. We got to figure out what we’re gonna do,” I replied.

“The way we figure it, if you agree, we’ll use the truck to get Jess home, and then split up. Since I have so far to go, I want to take the truck.” He was looking a little concerned.

I thought about that for a minute. He was right. He did have a whole hell of a lot farther to go than I did. Plus, from Jess’s house to mine was mostly through the forest. There shouldn’t be that many people out there. I know the area real well and can get through there without too much trouble. “That’s cool. My trip from her place to mine shouldn’t be too bad—shouldn’t take more than a couple of days.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. I was worried. I know you want to get home too.” He looked a little relieved.

“When do you think we’ll head out? I’m ready to—” I was cut off by a beeping noise that sounded from the kitchen. Thad and I looked at each other with a WTF look. Sarge busted out of the comm shack with an AR in his hands.

“That’s my gate alarm. Someone is coming up the driveway. Come in here and get a weapon.” He ducked back into the cave. Thad and I followed him inside. He had open a gun safe that I hadn’t noticed before. He pulled out an M1 carbine and handed it to me. “You know how to use that?” He quickly handed me two thirty-round magazines. “Yeah, I used to have one, great little rifle—” He cut me off, rushing past me out of the door. We met Thad back in the living room. He had left to get his shotty.

“I ain’t expecting any visitors, and you’d have to either cut the chain or climb over the fence to get in here. Someone is sneaking around.” He was amped up. You could see the anticipation on his face. He had slung on a tac vest with AR mags and his 1911 in a cross-draw holster. “You good with that?” He pointed to Thad’s shotgun. Thad nodded affirmative.

Sarge handed us each a GRMS radio with a headset. “Put these on. The channel is already set. This is the PTT button.” He held a little switch on the cable about chest height. “You guys go out the back. To your right is a trail. It parallels the driveway. You’ll be able to see it through the brush. I’m going to ease up the driveway. Let’s just keep in mind where each other are so we don’t shoot one another.” It was dark out, and the risk of friendly fire was a real possibility. Then I remembered the NVGs.

“Sarge, I have a set of NVGs. Let me get them,” I said.

“You mean like these?” He pulled a set of third gen goggles from a pouch on the vest he was wearing. They were nice.

“No, not like that, but they work,” I said, heading to my room to get them.

Jess came into the room. Sarge looked at her. “No offense, but I want you to stay in here. Get your pistol. Keep your finger off the damn trigger. We will call you by Annie Oakley when we come back. If it isn’t us, shoot whoever is there.” She left and came back with her pistol, checked the action, and turned the safety on. The three of us headed out the door to the deck and went down the stairs where Sarge pointed out the trail; he continued around to the front of the house, while Thad and I headed down the trail with him in the lead. Sarge’s driveway was long as hell and switched back and forth. Thad was in the lead. “How long is this freakin’ driveway?” I whispered.

“It’s long. You see anything?” he asked.

“Let’s hold up and listen for a minute.” I whispered again. From where we stopped, I had a view of about twenty yards of the driveway that went straight away from us and started to curve back to the left at the far end. There was no sound, no noise whatsoever. I was watching the far end of the driveway when I caught a glimpse of movement. Watching the spot for a minute, there was no other movement. I was reaching for Thad’s shoulder to tap him and move on when I saw movement again. A lone figure came into view; he was close to the brush on the left side of the trail and was using as much stealth as he could. He took about five steps and stopped again. I clearly saw him now; he was in a uniform of some kind, carrying an M4 or a clone thereof and a large pack. That’s when I realized he was wearing NVGs as well. I put my hand on Thad’s shoulder and pressed down. He looked at me, and I nodded to get down. “Very slowly,” I whispered so low that it was almost inaudible.

After about a minute, he took another few steps and stopped again. This time, he slowly went down on one knee. He knelt there for a minute, surveying the road ahead of him, and then he raised his left hand and gave a wave forward with just his fingers.

I keyed the mic. “We have multiple armed individuals in uniform, with NVGs, coming up the driveway,” I whispered into the boom on my jaw.

“How many?” came the whispered reply.

“Two, no, three.” Two more men came into view. They were all three in a low crouch, and one was covering their rear. These were not your average looters.

In my earpiece came the low, breathy voice of Sarge. “I’m coming down the drive. You guys hold tight. If they do anything hinky, open fire.”

“10-4,” I replied.

The men on the trail had just risen and were about to start forward again when I heard Sarge call out, “POTUS!” The three instantly froze; they were scanning 360 around them. Again, Sarge’s voice rang out, “POTUS!”

The men paused a moment longer, and then one of them called out, “SNAFU!”

Sarge’s voice came into my ear again. “I think I know these guys. I wasn’t expecting them, but if they’re here, then something must be bad wrong. You guys hold your position; if anything happens, open up on ’em.” Looking down the trail, I saw Sarge come into view. He stepped out into the center of the trail, weapon at the ready, and called out, “Patriots,” this time in a lower voice.

“Sucks,” came the quick reply.

“Mike, is that you?” Linus lowered his weapon.

“Yeah, you scared the shit outta us. I didn’t think you’d see us coming.” The three men were walking toward him.

“Shit, you know you can’t sneak up on me. Hell, I trained your ass.” Mike walked up, and the two men shook hands.

“Yeah, well, three to one, you wouldn’t have stood a chance,” Mike replied with a smile.

“You sure about that?” Linus stood there for a minute. “Come on out, guys.” Thad and I walked out of the brush not ten yards from where the four men stood.

“I guess you had the drop on us, huh?” One of the other men replied.

“Damn right, Teddy,” Linus snapped back. “Who’s this?” Sarge pointed to the third man.

“This is Ronnie. He’s with us. You can trust him. Ronnie, this is First Sergeant Linus Mitchell.” Ted performed the introduction. “Who you got here, Sarge?”

“Fellas, this is Thad and Morgan. They have been staying here for a bit. Let’s go up to the house.” With that, we all headed up to the house. Stepping up on the porch, Linus called out, “We’re coming in, Annie.” The deadbolt clicked open. Stepping inside, Jess was introduced to the new crew.

The guys stowed all their gear in the comm cave; they were carrying one hell of a load. These guys all looked like active-duty operators. They were all in their late twenties or early thirties, and the gear they were carrying didn’t come from any surplus store, either. We were all sitting around in the living room when Linus came in carrying a case of Bass Ale. This old shit had everything! To a chorus of cheers, he passed out the bottles. Mike looked over at me and asked about my head.

“Oh, just a little friendly-fire incident,” I replied. Jess looked down at the floor.

“Doc, take a look at it, will ya? Ronnie’s a medic. We all call him Doc.” Mike took a sip of his beer.

Doc went over my head and concluded that I was one lucky SOB and that it was healing nicely and shouldn’t have any complications. We sat around drinking and talking; these guys were all active duty but wouldn’t say what they were up to or why they were here. The secrecy was a little unnerving. I wasn’t sure what was going on. The talk was pretty light. The woodstove in the living room was warm; the brew made me feel even warmer.

“Hey, Sarge, what’s with the challenges you guys used? I mean, I understand the POTUS/SNAFU—that makes sense. But the Patriots one confuses me. What’s that about?” I drained my bottle.

Mike spoke up real quick. “Oh, he’s a huge Patriots fan.” He finished with a laugh.

“Fuck you, Mike. You know I hate New England. And then there’s that stupid-ass book,” Sarge fired back.

“So, Mike, you guys don’t look like you were out deer hunting. What were y’all up to?” I was going to see what kind of info I could get out of them. The three MultiCam-clad soldiers looked at one another, and then Ted answered.

“We were inserted by a helicopter down southwest of here,” he started, but Thad cut him off quick.

“You were what!” he barked out quick, sitting up in his seat.

“Just what I said; not everything is down, guys. The military, at least from what we know of, is fully operational.” Ted looked around the room at all of us.

“Then why aren’t they out here helping us?” Jess took the chance to get into the conversation.

Mike answered that one, “We don’t know. But the secretary of DHS is now in charge.”

“What was your objective, and why did it bring you here?” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees.

Once again, the three looked at one another. This time it was Mike who spoke up. “Our mission didn’t bring us here, an’ I’m not going to tell you what our mission was. It doesn’t matter now anyway. We’re off the reservation.” He looked up at Sarge. Linus’s expression didn’t change.

“I know, son. When you showed up here, I knew it must be bad,” he replied to Mike’s glance. “How bad is it?”

Mike looked over at Thad, Jess, and me. “You guys need to get to wherever you’re going in a hurry. That’s all I’m gonna say right now. There is probably another week before the hammer falls.”

We all sat there for a minute; each of us was lost in our thoughts. What in the hell did that mean? These guys obviously knew something they weren’t sharing. We sat around for a while longer, finishing the case of Bass. Apparently Jess was a lightweight. After about three brews, she was half in the bag and making a fool of herself. She was coming on to everyone in the room. To their credit, though, none of the guys came on to her. She was helped to her room and put into her bed, fully clothed. It was also politely recommended that Thad and I turn in as well. Because I was tired and feeling the effects of a few brews, I agreed.

I don’t know how late the rest of them stayed up, but they were all up before we were. I woke to the smell of frying bacon—mmm, bacon. I dressed quickly and headed out for the kitchen. Doc was there frying bacon and eggs. The others were all in the cave. I grabbed a cup from the cabinet and poured myself a cup of coffee from the percolator on the stove.

“Mornin’, Doc,” I said, taking a drink of the black elixir, savoring the smell of the coffee. I’m not a big coffee drinker, but I love it on a cold morning.

“Howdy, Morgan, how’s the head?” he replied while cracking an egg into a skillet of bacon grease. He looked funny standing there at the stove with a dish towel over his camo’d shoulder and a pistol in a drop leg holster.

“Not bad, just a little tender around the extra holes,” I replied. Doc gave that a little chuckle.

“Extra holes.” He looked over his shoulder. “You’re one lucky bastard. I’ll give you that. How do you take your eggs?”

“I prefer them at home, but since that’s out of the question, over medium is fine, thanks.” I gave him a slap on the back and headed for the cave, leaving him to cook.

I found everyone but Jess in the cave. All of our gear was laid out on the floor. “What’re y’all up to?” I asked, coming through the door. I didn’t really like people sniffing around my stuff. I was greeted with a chorus of “Morning, Morgan.”

Sarge had an armload of canned food from my pack. “We’re tuning your gear up for you. I’m taking all this canned stuff and replacing it with stripped down MREs. They’ll lighten your load a little. The rest of your stuff is pretty good. I like that little grill.” I had forgotten all about that thing. The last time I saw it, Thad was carrying it as we ran from the camp in the dark of night.

“That thing is neat. Wish I had one,” Thad spoke up. He reached over and picked up Lonnie’s knife. It had been in the bottom of my pack, and I had completely forgotten about it.

“Where’d you get this thing?” he asked, pulling the big blade out of the sheath. “It’s big.”

“Ah, long story. You can have it if you want it.” I nodded toward him.

He looked up at me with raised eyebrows. “You sure?”

“Hell, yeah, it’s the least I could do for you, and don’t let it ever be said I didn’t do the least I could.” I got a laugh out of Mike and Ted.

“You look pretty well set up to get home, no farther than you have to go. We’re going to add a few things to your load, though.” Mike was taking some boxes out of Sarge’s safe.

“Morgan, I want you to take that carbine with you. There’s four thirty-round mags. They’re fully loaded, and there is another two hundred rounds here for it. If you need more than that you really fucked up somewhere.” Sarge laid the carbine against my pack. “Now get down here and pack your shit up.” He stood up, and I knelt down and went to work organizing my gear.