Trains had to move quite slowly inside the city limits, or they would never have hopped it so easily. Night fell before they got across the huge metropolis. Initially, they huddled close to the harvester strapped down on the flat car. Waiting until the city lights faded behind them, they scrambling along the blind side of the next long curve. They chose the third flat car back. There was a huge piece of unidentified machinery there with a large open space facing the rear. This time they managed to stay relatively dry. Over the creaking, singing rails and wind, Burk asked, “So the stuff I read about the CIA running drugs must be true.”
Michael stared out into the darkness. “Schizophrenia. With one hand the federal government spends millions of tax dollars on anti-drug education and interdiction. It has nothing to do with actually stopping the drug trade, but simply keeps the private prisons filled with slave labor. With the other hand, they run drugs to fund activities they can’t hide in the black budgets before Congress.”
The two managed to get some sleep this time before arriving back at where they left the truck.
Chapter 12
“So we target the principle, by going after its chief promoters, or primary users,” Michael said as the pickup rumbled down the rutted track.
“Well, we can’t really go after any politicians,” Burk offered.
“Except for targets of opportunity,” Michael added.
Burk’s answer was cut off by the jolt from a crater in the forest road. To Michael’s questioning look, he repeated, “Of course.” As they turned onto a better road, he continued, “The main problem is the increasing gulf between the people and the first line of government presence they deal with: the police. Aside from a few corrupt sheriffs, the county-based law enforcement is the only one fully legitimate under the Constitution. We should try to leave them alone.”
Michael carried it further, “We also leave alone most street officers, because we can’t turn the clock back. Good cops are good cops, and it appears they dominate for now. Despite all the noise about abusive incidents, an awful lot of time passes in a awful lot of jurisdiction with hundreds of thousands of officers behaving decently. Since we can seldom tell them from the bad ones at a distance, we operate under the assumption most patrolmen aren’t the real problem.”
“That leaves SWAT teams and the like. We’ve seen how their whole purpose in life is to destroy, and make no provision at all for innocent by-standers.” Burk’s voice had a hint of anger. Softening a bit, he added, “So how do we go after them?”
“We don’t,” Michael shot back. “We get their attention and let them come to us. As we move aast, let’s spend some time reading articles which reveal standard tactics, determine the earmarks of what gets cities to call a SWAT raid. I’ll dig through policy papers and find out what the federal bureaucrats favor when they agree to fund the equipment and training. In the process, I’m sure I’ll identify places where we can find a likely first target.”
Having already encountered snow showers on one high ridge coming out of the forest, they decided to take a southerly course across the Continental Divide down in New Mexico. Gas prices had come down a bit, and they found themselves often in the company of snowbirds, many with Canadian plates. They enjoyed the scenery, taking back roads where possible. Michael was surprised by some of the odd places where the laptop wireless found a signal. At one point, they stopped at an old military rifle range in the desert. It was still in use, clearly, but equally obvious was the civilian nature of the use. There were shards of clay skeet, some empty black powder canisters, and other odds and ends. It was vacant that afternoon, so they practiced unhindered.
Both were better than they had hoped with the handguns, so saved the ammunition. Since it was easy to download a manual on the rifle, they spent more time with the rifle, first taking turns assembling and disassembling it as quickly as possible. Then they practiced a few rounds each, with and without the scope. True to his word, Burk was deadly without the scope, and flawless altogether with it. When they realized they were down to one unopened box, they decided they’d have to stop and save the remaining ammo for the real thing. Michael discovered cleaning weapons was a time-consuming task.
Frequent reading on the subject of SWAT raids indicated a perfect first target. There was a college town, almost a suburb of a big Midwestern city. The university there had on the faculty a PhD little known outside his campus for much of anything, but well connected inside the Beltway. This man was by far the most influential writer encouraging federal policy for grants, special training of police SWAT teams, and tons of surplus obsolete armored vehicles. The underlying theme of this professor’s work was to disregard by-stander safety, lest there be an even greater risk to the rest of the population from failure to act quickly and decisively. No surprise then, the small city nearby had one of the largest SWAT teams as a percentage of officers on the force. They had just added two new officers to make fourteen.
Two birds with one stone.
Chapter 13
Wiping his face with a wet cloth, Burk came out of the motel bathroom. “Hey, look at this.” Burk came to look over Michael’s shoulder at the laptop screen. “See this? The foundation which endowed our boy’s chair, I happen to know, is a front for the Shadow Government.”
Mumbled Burk, “That explains why he encourages casual disregard for human life. To the Shadow Folk, the bulk of humanity is just an economic resource, completely expendable.”
The room heater started knocking again, but they ignored the noise. For all the racket it made, it barely worked. The gaps around the door and the one window on one side of the room let in the highway noise and the gusty cold wind. It hadn’t snowed this far south, but Michael was reminded why he had moved to the West Coast. Did that wind never stop? No, not in the Midwest, not until the hottest part of the summer when you wanted it most did the wind ever stop.
They had been lurking on various forums and chatboards sponsored by the university. Aside from the self-important Student Government Association, and a few specialty groups, most of it was the same airhead chatter. They found a small group of Linux users in the Computer Science Department. Two of the servers were Linux, and one was NetBSD. Still, it looked like the university was owned by Gates and Company. Aside from those three machines, the campus servers they could identify ranged from XP to Server 2010. One department was behind some kind of automatic firewall-switch. They could tell there were multiple machines behind it, but nothing more.
From their room in an ancient motel near the truck stop 20 miles out, they had begun searching also for real estate companies in the surrounding three counties bunched together. The list was compared against the BBB, to identify the worst one. Michael explained, “This is the one most likely to take a bribe to break all the rules in our favor.”
To their surprise, it was some old woman in the college town. After viewing her listings, they chose a first, second and third best guess listing and made plans to view them. First, Michael wanted to stop at the city library and scan microfilms of old city papers. How long had it been since he visited a library which still used microfilm? With a good sample of stories about her past shenanigans, he felt even better about dealing with her. The first house was too far out, and it was no surprise her ad lied about “convenience.” The second house was perfect: ancient, high fences on both sides and an alleyway in back.
The next day, they were traversing some country roads, hoping to find a place to hide the pickup. As they slowed in sight of a large, dilapidated barn, Burk put up his hand, “Wait!”
Michael stepped on the brakes, and the tires came to a crunching stop in the gravel road. Leaving the door open, Burk stepped across a weed-packed ditch, and examined something hanging from the lone strand of rusty barbed wire where a stock fence had been. He got back in quickly and said, “I think we’re in luck. Hobos frequent this area. Check the barn first.”
Set back a ways from the road, there was a gate over the twin wheel tracks where wee
ds had been crushed often enough by tires to leave only patchy grass, leading almost straight to the barn. That grass was yellow and brown, both from a dry fall and from temperatures just above freezing during the middle of the day. There were prints left by worn shoes in the sandy places, running both ways. Burk got out and examined the gate where a chain secured it to a pitted iron post. He found the back side was just wired together where the chain had been cut, leaving the lock in front. He stepped around the gate to a place where the fence wire was gone altogether, pushed the tall, dried weeds apart, and found his way back to the twin tracks. Approaching the barn, he said something unintelligible to Michael, in a loud voice. Directly, someone stepped out to meet Burk. Michael couldn’t see more than a fuzzy, matted gray head past Burk’s wide shoulders.
In a few moments, Burk came back the same way, and got in the truck. “Drive down to the end, look for another gate like this one. Follow the track over the crest and down into the trees. Should be a safe camp there.”
This turned out to be precisely accurate. However, they didn’t expect to find a huge, patchwork tree-house attached to a trio of large oaks. Michael steered the truck into what looked to him a likely parking place under this makeshift home. Burk made a sort of yodel, and then stepped out of the truck. He quickly climbed a rope ladder, making a few more yodels inside the maze of boards and tarps. A moment later, he was back down. “Nobody here right now. We can leave everything we don’t need. It’ll be waiting when we get back.”
Michael had learned to trust such declarations from Burk. In the low place among the trees, the wind was less cutting. Still, Michael found it tough to change clothes in the cold air. Burk acted as if it were still summer, taking his time. Michael took out some large bills and hid his wallet deep up inside the bottom of the driver’s seat. He shivered in the light jacket. His coat was attached to the outside of his pack. They still had a good five miles to hike back into town, and the coat would make him sweaty. They needed to avoid that if they were going to pass for college kids.
Chapter 14
Indeed, they needed to look like conservative and prosperous college boys. Haircuts were the easy part. For Michael, shaving off more than a month’s growth of beard was a welcome relief. Convincing Burk to shed his boy fuzz was not so easy. “Look, Burk. You step out of the shower, towel off your face and immediately slap on some baby oil. Rub it in, all over the area where the whiskers grow. Then take a fresh disposable razor, and carefully shave downward, nice and slow. Short, light strokes, repeated until the skin is smooth. Do that on both sides, all the way down to the collar bones. Shave under your nose last.” When it was finally done, he didn’t look any older, but he did look preppy. That was good enough.
Looking at his watch, Michael announced, “We’ve got just about enough time to catch the 4 PM if we leave now.” Burk hurried to grab his backpack. These were matching new packs, which looked more like luggage than real camping equipment. It was five miles of brisk walking into the wind. They stopped in a patch of trees just back from the highway. Across and down to the right was a large gas station and convenience store, which also served as the bus line depot.
They had checked the schedules to see when buses were supposed to stop. The 4 PM was early, Michael noted, by some ten minutes. As soon as it passed, they jogged across the road, coming up behind on the driver’s side where it nosed in against the front of the building. By the time the driver made it around to open the luggage compartments, they were coming around the backside, passing through the passengers who got off to smoke, or headed into the store. Only the driver and passengers who had been riding would know the boys hadn’t just gotten off, too. They entered the store, milled around with the customers, moved into the fast food section on the far end, then eventually out the other front door.
Outside they stood next to the building where they found a city bus marker and schedule. There was also a taxi stand marker. This put them on the northern side of the building, and they waited until they were thoroughly chilled, then switched into their heavier coats, stuffing the light jackets under the top flap on their matching packs. When Michael was about to go back inside to find a pay phone and call the cab company, they saw one turning into the driveway near them. Waving to make sure the driver knew they were waiting, they even held the doors for the Goth girls who got out. They were still chuckling over it when they had settled in, and told the driver the Realtor’s address.
Chapter 15
She must have thought she was cute. Most people wouldn’t agree with her, but that didn’t seem to matter. Nor was it that the makeup was poorly applied; it simply didn’t help. Had she concentrated more on character and personality, she might not have to work for her grandmother. Instead, she had chosen to emulate the woman who was often in court, and sometimes not far from arrest. Her grandmother was fairly well off, and paid her well. However, money could not buy enough cosmetic applications to justify her efforts to play off her looks.
It was not far from closing time, and the mail had come late, as usual. Sorting through the varied envelopes, she pulled out the one with a municipal seal on the cover. It could be very bad news. Upon opening and scanning the cover letter, she smiled with relief.
“Here you go, grandma. The city has granted your demolition permit for that old house you haven’t been able to sell. Of course, they also note they would have ordered it demolished, anyway.”
“Let me see,” the old woman said. “They give me 60 days. Good, I can shop it around and get the lowest bid.”
She looked up at the sound of car doors out front. It was a taxi, and two young college students, she thought. Nice looking boys, conservative types who probably had lots of daddy’s money. She was altogether willing to take some of it. As they came in the door, she smiled sweetly, projecting that cookie-making-granny image that had beguiled so many prospective customers. She rested one hand on the four-foot high counter running across the office, separating visitors from the two desks behind. “Good afternoon, boys. I’m glad you made it before we closed up today. How can I help you?”
The shorter, handsome one spoke with a pleasant sounding voice. “Well, ma’am, I was hoping we could find a nice rental. Perhaps over on the south side, in that quiet old neighborhood. I believe we saw a couple of your ads for that area?”
They would have to be rather bright and industrious, too, wouldn’t they? She tried to steer them to a couple of expensive places, but they seemed uninterested. Then the larger one spoke with a soft voice, proving his bumpkin facial features were deceptive. “Madame, I seem to recall a small house in that area. We really don’t need much.”
This wasn’t working as she had hoped. “Well, I do have a place for sale, but I am not prepared to rent it. I’m getting too old to try and maintain older properties like that. And I could hardly afford to pay someone to manage it for me. We’re just getting by, here.”
As if totally innocent, Michael countered, “Really? According to the papers you’ve grossed not less than several hundred thousand annually for quite some time. Besides, we know the place is slated for demolition. Surely you’ll let us rent it for a month or so? If you don’t offer us a written agreement by which you could be held liable in court, we’ll deny knowing it’s been declared unfit for habitation. I believe I have sufficient cash to make you comfortable with that. Even if we annoy the neighbors, you won’t hear about it for at least that long. Oh, and don’t forget to have the utilities turned on.”
Rowdy rich boys wanting a short-term party house, she thought. Without the slightest change in her demeanor, she stated bluntly a figure. As Michael was counting out large bills on the counter, she reached under the counter, fishing among keys hanging on several hinged panels. She pulled up two matched pairs of shiny new keys, murmuring the locks were fairly new, as were the doors.
The granddaughter was a little miffed she never managed to catch the big fellow’s eye before they left.
Chapter 16
There
was no furniture, nor would there be. A few battered dishes and some cooking utensils, an ancient hot plate, and an ice chest were in the kitchen, all found in one or the other of two thrift stores just a block off downtown. There were two small unshaded lamps, kept on the floor. They added a used drop-light when they decided the smell emanating from below the house was too much. Burk had done some plumbing, and even managed to produce a pair of coveralls from his odd collection of clothing.
“I need to pull this up anyway, because for a gas floor heater, it’s not putting out much at all,” Burk explained. They had picked up a selection of used tools with the drop-light, and Burk had turned off the gas at the meter outside. Then he removed the fitting connecting a metal line with various shades of green powdery coating which was coming up under the stove, then the stove itself. Michael was surprised how light the stove was, and they set it aside. Burk tied a rag over his mouth, turned on the drop-light, checked what was below him and stepped off into the hole. His fall was arrested by a concrete floor, leaving him about chest level with the ragged carpet on the lip of the opening. Ducking down, he disappeared. The metal line wriggled a bit, and Burk announced in a muffled voice he had removed a kink.
Aside from the noise of moving about, he made little sound as he explored the entire basement. Suddenly he popped up, covered with dust and cobwebs, and asked for the section of stiff, tightly coiled wire he called a “snake.” Disappearing again, there soon followed an odd sound of metal sliding on metal. He reappeared once more, and asked for the largest kitchen pot filled with water. When Michael returned, Burk ignored his puzzled look and disappeared more slowly, carefully holding the pot to avoid spilling the water. Michael heard him pour it out, then some more shuffling. Finally Burk returned and promptly climbed out.
As they were sliding the heater back down into the floor, Burk explained there was a drain almost in the center of the basement. “Apparently it drops straight into a sewer line. I could hear lots of water flowing. There was a drain trap, so I filled it with the water. What had been in there before must have evaporated. That should close off the smell from the sewer line.” Sure enough, over the next two days, their normal movements allowed the fresh air from outside to dissipate the smell. Also, the heater worked much better.