Going Home (20 page)

“Dump your shit, Thad.” Ted handed the big man his pack.

“This ain’t gonna be pretty, boys.” Thad took the pack and, opening the top, upended it onto the floor.

“Is that all that you got?” Ted was eyeing the contents.

“Yep, the only reason I have this is ’cause of Sarge. He stayed on my ass about keeping some stuff with me.” Thad was looking down at the little pile of gear on the floor.

“We gotta fix that,” Sarge said and then quickly left the room. Mike started going through the stuff. He threw all the ramen noodles out to the side and then pawed around at the rest of it. A few minutes later, Sarge was back with a duffel bag full of stuff and promptly dumped it on the floor. There was a GI cold-weather sleeping bag and carrying straps, a first-aid kit, a canteen cup, and a spoon. There was also a magnesium fire steel, a GI compass, and a couple of pairs of socks. He went over to his gun safe and took out a couple boxes of 00 buck, a box of slugs, and two boxes of 9 mm ball and threw it onto the pile. Lastly, he dropped a poncho and a hank of 550 cord.

“There, that ought ta help.” He stood over the pile, examining his work. Mike walked over and set nine MREs down. “Strip all the boxes and extra crap outta these and pack them too.”

Next, they went through Jess’s pack, doing the same thing. They changed all her canned food for MREs and added a first-aid kit, canteen cup, and fire steel. She had clothes, a tarp, and a sleeping bag, and, hopefully, she was going to be home tonight.

Ronnie poked his head through the door. “Breakfast’s ready, and I’ll wait on you like one hungry dog does another.” He flipped his dish towel back on his shoulder and headed back to the kitchen with all of us in tow. It is amazing how you come across people in life that you blend with so well. These guys, all of us, got along like we had known each other our entire lives. Sarge and the trio had known each other for years, apparently. Thad, Jess, and I had only known each other a few days, and the others only one. But as we were heading to the kitchen to sit together and eat, it was like a high-school football team coming out of the locker room.

Mike and Ted were pushing and shoving each other to try to be first in. Sarge grabbed Mike by the scruff of his neck and kicked his left leg out from under, throwing him off balance. As Mike fell, he reached out and grabbed Ted. Sarge kicked the back of Ted’s heel as he took a step, throwing his leg way out, and, with Mike hanging on him, they both went to the floor. Sarge stepped over their sprawled bodies. “Age and deceit will overcome youth and vigor every time!” he shouted as he landed in a chair in the kitchen.

Jess was already there as everyone took a seat. “I feel like shit,” she said with her hands over her face.

“Funny, it really shows,” Ted responded, with Mike shoving him on the shoulder. Thad and I just sat there looking at these clowns. These are the kind of people that will walk into a firefight with a smile on their face, but here they are, acting like a bunch of damn kids, maybe worse.

“Gee, thanks,” she replied, the embarrassment obvious in her voice. We sat and ate; the cutting up continued throughout. I gotta hand it to Ronnie, though. That guy could cook. There was a plate of eggs and sausage patties and bacon, a bowl of grits, and a plate full of cathead biscuits. Man, I was going to miss eating like that. When breakfast was done, everyone pitched in to clean up, which, with so many people, made it take twice as long. Somehow we got through it without breaking anything.

With breakfast done, Sarge announced that there was work to do. He laid out the day he and his crew had planned out to get us ready for our trip home. They had established waypoints for the trip and a schedule for us to call and check in. The two radios shown to us earlier were going with us. Ted was going to mount one in the truck; the other was going into my pack. With that, we started the preparations to get on the road.

We were each given a call sign. These guys had a little fun with that. I was to be Walker because I was walking. Thad was Driver, as he was driving, and poor Jess was stuck with Annie. We were each shown how to operate the radios and given a quick course in how to string the wire antennas and their various configurations. I was surprised at how simple it was. I always thought this was far more complicated. They also provided us maps of our route, clearly marked out. While we were going over the radios, I had an idea.

“Hey, Sarge, one of my neighbors is a ham. We never really talked much about it. I just know he is. You think we could try and call him?” I asked.

“You know his call sign?” He was already headed to his big radio.

“No, just his name. What if we try using the name of the road I live on and his name?” I didn’t have any other idea how to try to contact him, or if his radio was even working.

“We can try, but this will probably take awhile, since I don’t know what frequency he would be on, if his radio even works, and if he’ll answer to it. But I’ll give it a try. What’s his name?” He was tuning his radio and putting on his headset.

“His name is Don,” I replied.

“Okay, so Don on John Long Road in Altoona, right?”

“Yeah, let’s try, I guess.” It was worth a try.

“I’ll work on this. You go out with the boys. They’re going to show you guys a few things.” With that, Linus went to work on the radio.

Thad, Jess, and I were led outside by the guys, where they put us through an intense crash course on vehicle security. They had us performing ambush drills, driving through them, backing out of them, firing from the vehicle, providing security during stops, dealing with a disabled vehicle, and, finally, a course on combat first aid. These guys were intense, to say the least. This training took the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon. It was during instruction on applying tourniquets that Sarge came out of the house.

“Morgan! Get in here, on the double!” he shouted from the porch.

I rushed into the cave, where Sarge was at the radio. He was talking into the mic as I came in. “Here he is. Hold one.” He stood up so that I could sit down at the radio. “I think this is your guy; just be careful and make sure.” I put the headset on and picked up the mic.

Keying the mic, I asked, “Don, is that you?”

The reply came back clear. “Roger that.”

“Don, this is Morgan. How many dogs do I have?” This had been a running joke between the two of us for years.

“Two and half. It’s good to hear from you. Your wife and girls are worried sick about you,” he came back.

“I’m sure worried about them too. How are things over there?”

“As good as can be. No real trouble,” he replied.

“Is there any way you could get Mel over to your place so I could talk to her?” I was hoping he could.

“It’ll take a while, but I’ll get her. It’s fourteen hundred local now. Come back at sixteen hundred, and I’ll have her here.”

“Will do. Thanks a lot, Don,” I said.

“No problem. She’s been helping out around here. I charge my batteries at your place and get water.” Don came back.

“My power is up?” That was some damn good news.

“Yeah, the whole system works. It’s made a huge difference around here. Let me go find her.” With that, he signed off. I’d have to wait another couple of hours to talk to her.

“Sounds like you have a pretty good setup, and your family is all right,” Sarge said over my shoulder.

“Yeah, I hope so. Thanks a lot, man. I really appreciate it. You have no idea what this does for me, not to mention everything else you have already done. I don’t know how to repay you.” I swiveled around in the chair; he sat down in one across from me.

“I don’t expect anything from you. If I thought you weren’t worth the trouble, I wouldn’t have helped you. But there is something you can do; me and the guys have been talking, and we may need your help.” He crossed his arms and sat back in the chair.

“You name it,” I replied.

“You better hear me out before you sign up.” He went on to tell me some of what the guys talked about last night. It boiled down to what had occurred was not an act of nature or an outside event. While they didn’t know the full extent of what happened, it was clear that this was some sort of false flag event, the object of which was yet unknown. What they wanted from me was to keep my eyes and ears open in my area and provide situational intelligence on what was going on in my area. If the need arose, they also wanted me to provide material support for anyone coming into my area that may need it. From the sound of it, he acted as though we were going to war with the government.

“You really think this is what it’s coming to? You really think we can take on the military?” I thought he was out of his mind. This wasn’t some fantasy survival fiction where the good guys had a fairy godmother following them around and always came out on top.

Very calmly, he replied, “Yes, I do think this is what it’s coming to. Can we take on the military alone? No, but we aren’t going to be alone. The rank and file are not all going to fall in line with this. Don’t get me wrong, the upper ranks have been filled with bootlickers that will do what they’re told, but there are many who won’t. The NCOs, who really run the military, are not going to go for this, especially since the armed forces are now under the control of the DHS—and martial law has been declared. The average Joe just don’t know it yet, and when they do let y’all know, it’s going to be too late to do anything about it.”

We spent the next couple of hours stowing our gear in the truck and getting ready to leave. Mike, Ted, and Doc traveled here by only moving at night, so we decided to follow their lead. They never encountered anyone, and we hoped to repeat their success, but then those guys were pros. We were all a little anxious. I know I was on edge, not to mention I was waiting to talk to Mel. About fifteen minutes before it was time to make the call, I went to the cave. Sarge was already there; he had the radio tuned up and ready to go. At sixteen hundred, Don’s voice came over the radio. “Morgan, you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here, Don.” I had a pit in my stomach.

“Hang on a sec; got some folks here that want to talk to you.” There was a pause on the other end.

“Morgan?” It was Mel.

“Hey, babe, how are you guys doing?” I was starting to get a little choked up.

“We’re okay. Where are you? Are you all right? Are you going to be able to get home?”

She sounded like she was about to cry. She had stopped talking but still had the mic keyed until I heard Don in the background tell her to let off the PTT button. When the station cleared, I responded, “One at a time. I’m a little over a hundred miles from home. I’m okay, and yes, I will be home, promise. It’s gonna take a week or so, but I’ll be there. How are the girls?” I heard them in the background when she was speaking.

“They are good. They want to talk to you.” I spent a few minutes talking to them, each one getting a turn. They were all upset but happy to talk to me. Not nearly as happy as I was to hear their voices, though. I was starting to tear up thinking about them. I talked to Mel a little more. I told her we shouldn’t talk too much over the radio, but I told her that I would be able to call every day and that Don and I would work out a schedule for when we would talk.

“Hey, Danny’s here. He wants to talk to you too.” That kind of surprised me. In a minute, I heard his voice come over the headset.

“Hey, man, how’s it goin’?”

“As good as it can. How are you guys?” I replied.

“We’re good. Hey, Mel can’t remember the combo to your safe. Can you give it to her?”

There was no way I was going to call that over the air, but I had a plan for this very thing. “Go into my shop. There is a piece of paper stapled to the backside of the front two-by-four of the workbench that has it. Use it and then burn it for me.”

“Will do. I’m gonna pull some ammo. We have had a couple of little problems, nothing major, but I want more at my house,” Danny replied.

“No problem, but do not hand any of it out to anyone else around there, not till I get home.” I needed to see how things were around there before I went passing out ammo, not that I had that much to pass out.

“Oh, hell no. I’m not giving any of that away. You gonna be able to call in tomorrow?” he asked.

“I’m gonna try. I have a radio, and if things work out, I should be able to call. I’ll work it out with Don. You guys take care and be safe. I should be home in a little over a week, maybe sooner,” I said.

“Be careful, man; things are getting nasty out there. People are getting desperate. We’re starting to see some people trying to walk into the forest.” That kind of concerned me. I often read on the forums of people thinking they were going to head for the Ocala National Forest when the shit hit the fan, and we were right at the front door.

“Tell me about it; you have no idea. Really,” I replied. Danny left, and Don and I worked out a schedule for him to be monitoring the radio and what frequencies. He told me to use the call sign of Long Don, mixing the road name and his. He didn’t have a tactical call sign. I gave him my call sign of Walker. I signed off and told him I would call tomorrow.

After talking to my family and friends back home, I was ready to get home—more than ready. After getting off the radio, we started making final preps to leave around dark. Sarge took the time to talk to Jess and Thad while I was on the radio, bringing them up to speed on what he and I talked about. With that news, Thad was just as eager as I was to get home. Jess was just plain old ready. Life on the road, living out of a backpack was getting old to her. She was “done with the camping thing,” as she put it.

“There are enough heaters for those MREs that you guys shouldn’t need to make any fires. You all have a sleeping bag rated for the weather now so you should be okay. Move only at night if you can, and be careful.” We found Mike back in the cave. “Here are the maps and some more batteries for the NVGs. They’re not rechargeable like your others, so save them for last. We also put two five-gallon gas cans that Sarge provided from his supply in the bed of the truck.”

Ronnie walked in with a small bag. “Here are some goodies for your aid kit. Keep your head clean and dry, and you should be all right.” He handed me a small pouch of stuff.