Chapter 9 -- YEZFDZTGTIUIPDDT
A couple of hours into the drive Jessica stopped and topped off the fuel in the
TrailBlazer, and they bought some snacks and drinks. They were provided with
pre-paid debit cards to use for their various expenses, and it provided a
certain amount of anonymity, like the burner phones they carried. They were
not doing anything illegal, except conspiring to commit insurrection, Carter
thought wryly. But it was prudent to be careful well before it became
necessary. So he was listed as an employee of the farm, and money was
deposited in a bank account in his name and he spent money from it regularly
for appearances.
"We're about halfway there," Jessica told him as they continued on their way.
"We won't need to stop again until we arrive, so we can drive through
Springfield before we go off the beaten path. We'll be going into some
undeveloped areas, you might say wild if you haven't been out of the city much."
"I haven't," Carter replied. "I'd say I missed quite a lot, from the looks of it."
"You've still got a lot of time left, and you've signed up for a very
interesting life. What are you, not quite fifty?"
"Close enough. I used to think fifty was old. I thought forty was old when
it came. Having most of my last good decade taken away, not to mention
everything else I had, or could have had. There's no word to describe the
kind of evil that gets done to people by those who can do it, for their own
greed and narcissism. There's not punishment enough for people like that, no
matter how long you try."
Jessica remained silent, looking straight ahead.
"Sorry about that," he said. "Didn't mean to rant. But I know now, it wasn't
just what was done to me. It's happening to people all over. Cops being sent
to prison for political expediency, because they had to shoot a criminal of
the wrong color. I wasn't paying much attention before, but I know things
have been getting worse. People in prison for the words they say - how did we
get here?"
"Who can say? There are a lot of reasons. People have had it too easy for
too long, they don't pay attention to the important things any more. People
want more money, bigger houses, new cars. So I suppose greed has something to
do with it, even though most people don't think of themselves that way. Still,
they allow their materialistic proclivities to rule their lives. We haven't
really had any hard times since the Depression and the last world war - people
just can't envision how bad it can be.
"And of course the people who are working and paying the taxes don't have time
to be out in the streets burning things down. The massive size of pool for
rent-a-mobs is staggering - of the fifty to sixty million people on welfare,
how many of them are stuffed into the cesspools of the inner cities? More
than enough to destroy this society and make it into something - well, I don't
want to think about it."
She looked over at him, he waited.
"Sorry, now I'm the one ranting. But if you knew only a little of what I know,
and you will learn it as we go along, you'd understand. The position my
family is in, is deep inside the organization. My grandfather was one of the
founders, though he has delegated is position to my dad due to his age. But
as I said, you'll learn before long why, if in the end we lose, the only thing
I'll care about is how many of the enemy I can take with me. But it's the
ones at the top we want most. The mobs, the misguided agitators who often
think they are doing good - they're a low priority. The ones at the top, are
really and truly unspeakably evil."
"Seems I'm going to be learning a lot about a lot of things," Carter said.
Jessica smiled, he suddenly realized, for the first time since they had begun
their trip.
"It's hard not to be serious all the time," she said. "As you will learn.
Our suspicions about where this is going are fairly firm, but there is always
a chance we can avoid the worst case. That's another reason for what we're
doing, with these preparations."
They travelled in silence for a while, shortly after passing through
Springfield they left the freeway and followed two-lane roads deeper into a
region of forested hills. Eventually they entered a private road, identified
as such by a pair of discreet but impossible to miss signs. A short distance,
perhaps fifty yards or so was a closed gate. Alongside the road was a
surfaced spot wide enough for a vehicle to turn around, presumably to make it
easy for unintentional intruders to leave. Immediately past the gate the road
was lined with forest on both sides, large old trees that limited visibility
to the road.
Jessica drove up to the gate and stopped, and within seconds a pair of men
came out of the trees and opened the gate. As soon as they were through the
gate it was closed behind them. About a quarter of a mile down the road they
emerged into a large cleared area. Carter wasn't good at estimating areas in
terms of acres, the way it seemed to be done in the country, but it was quite
large. A large fenced area at the center contained several larger buildings,
most of them of the sheet metal construction Carter had observed on farms and
other rural areas. Around it was a large circular road with what looked like
small guest cabins. Vehicles were parked here and there, one or two at some
of the smaller buildings, none at some, and perhaps two dozen inside the
fenced area. A gate in the fence was open and Jessica drove through it, as if
she knew her way around. She parked in front of one buildings.
"We've arrived," she said.
The got out and he followed her to a pair of doors like those found on most
office buildings. She opened a door and they went in. It had an
institutional look, but nothing to indicate its purpose. It could housed any
of a number of small businesses, there were a couple of desks and not much
else in the area they were standing in, but there were several doors and a
long hallway going further back into the interior.
He had just had time to survey his surroundings when a door opened and a young
woman came out. She was dressed much as he and Jessica were. She came over
and greeted them, embracing Jessica like a friend or family member.
"Glad you got here safely," she said. "You didn't forget where we were, did
you?
"It would be easy enough to get lost," Jessica said. "But I've been here
enough it's not hard to find."
Carter had noticed that she wasn't using her phone to navigate. In fact she
and Tommy used their burner phones for almost all of their communications, and
he did the same. They might be carrying security to the point of paranoia,
but considering what they were doing it made sense. In any case, being able
to navigate from memory or using a road map was useful as well. The less they
interacted with the world of data the better off they were. They were
probably as close to invisible as possible without going completely off the grid.
"And this is Darrell," Jessica said to the woman. "Darrell, this is Tracy. She'll
be showing you around, get us settled in. We've got a busy week ahead."
"Welcome to Cripple Creek," Tracy said, holding out her hand. She was a very
attractive woman, about Jessica's age or a little younger - it was hard to tell.
He noticed, however, that both women's hands looked the same - no fingernail
polish, in fact their nails were trimmed relatively short, or perhaps they got
broken a lot. Calluses revealed that they worked with them more
than most women did. Both wore little makeup, not that either of them needed
much. And like Jessica, Tracy had her shoulder-length hair in a ponytail.
"Cripple Creek is the name of the club," Jessica said. "The freehold code
name is Charlie Niner. Tracy and her brother run the place, along with some
other family members of the Nine." You'll meet them as we go
along, the ones that are here. Where is Chris, by the way?"
"He's on patrol," Tracy replied. "Perimeter inspection, they've only been gone
an hour or so, so he'll be gone for a while."
"It's about six miles around," Jessica said. "So it takes a while, since it's
wooded and uneven terrain most of the way. We'll be doing some patrols while
we're here."
"We try to keep it low-key, be as inconspicuous as we can," Tracy said. "To all appearances
this is just a private hunting camp, so the only visible security on the perimeter is
signs and paint marking the property lines. People can wander in, we make
sure they don't get in very far before we turn them around and send them on
their way. Normally we don't have any problems, but we like to know what's
going on around us.
"Let's get you unloaded and into your quarters, and we'll see about lunch. I'm
guessing you're ready. It's the usual cabin, Jess."
It had been about a five hour drive, and Carter was ready when lunch was, but
he wasn't normally bothered by a late meal. They got back in their vehicle,
joined by Tracy, and drove out of the enclosure, along the road to one of the
cabins. They got out and began removing their luggage. Tracy helped them
carry their luggage up to the the covered porch and she opened the door and
they went in.
The place contained two small suites, each with a bedroom and a bathroom, with
a large open area extending the width of the cabin. It had a couch and a
couple of chairs, with a small table and chairs that looked to be intended for
dining. A television and a few other items completed the furnishings. It
looked like something to be found in an upscale hunting club.
"All right," Tracy said when they had their gear inside. "Let's get some lunch."
They went back to the central area, which Carter guessed was the
administrative center of the facility. Tracy led them to another building, as
nondescript as the others. It was a somewhat smaller, and proved to be a
dining facility. There were a few small tables, each with four chairs, and
and a modest buffet table. A couple doors in the wall behind them suggested
the location of the food preparation area.
"It's self-service," Tracy said. "There aren't many here yet, but our guests
will be coming in over the next couple of days. We'll have a briefing on
Friday, so we have a couple of days for you to get acquainted with the place."
This for Carter's benefit - he knew Jessica had been here several times.
"You're one of only two who are completely new here, Darrell. Everyone else
has been here at least once or twice."
Serving themselves at the buffet, Carter found the fare somewhat more than he
had expected at a hunting camp miles from even a small town. He followed
Jessica's lead and ended up with a good-looking salad, some baked beans, what
looked like chopped and haphazardly fried potatoes, and a very large pork chop,
with the bone. There were canned soft drinks but he took a glass of the tea
as Jessica did.
As they began he took a drink of the tea. "This has character," he said.
"Do you like tea?" Tracy asked.
"Yes, but the stuff you get in restaurants is usually pretty bland."
"That's true," she said, "but in the south most like it fairly strong and sweet."
"It certainly is that," Carter said. "What else do we have? I recognize the
beans and salad."
Jessica smiled. "That's the way we fry potatoes down here. And the way we
do pork chops."
"It's the biggest one I've ever seen," he said.
"You can do that when you raise your own livestock and have custom processing."
"From a freehold farm?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said. "Some of the freeholders have large farms, like us. Some
others have ranches - some large and others smaller - and we keep the best for
ourselves and sell the surplus.
"Several of the freeholds in the south and southwest have large farm and ranch
operations. Several big farmers over in Arkansas, just a few miles away," Tracy
said. "There are a couple of places like this on the Arkansas side. Some of
them will sending people here."
"So are these affairs always for training?" Carter asked.
"That, and meeting others from around the country. The idea is to learn to work well
together, sometimes on short notice, with people we may not know well, or at
all. So we develop standard ways of doing things, equipment,
and other stuff. For those of us who meet here and other places, we develop
informal relationships as well. There will be people here that I've worked
with before, and we take some time to socialize."
"Is the food always this good?"
"We try. Glad you like it. Most of it is produced by the various groups and
traded around. Some of them have small ranches or farms, that's where our
meat comes from. The salad is local - they have some sizeable gardens here in
various places."
"So in the event of things getting really bad you're not so dependent on
the usual food supply. Good idea." Carter said."How big is this place?"
"Pretty big, bigger than our place. Almost two square miles. So they can
spread things out. Their people live out in the wilderness, a house or two
here and there, but they're connected by roads or in some cases trails that
regular vehicles can't use, but motorcycles or ATVs can, or even horses in
some cases. Having the population spread around is also advantageous for
security purposes.
"How many people are here, as part of the outfit?" Carter asked.
"About eighty to ninety of us are here all the time." Tracy replied. "Of course,
with each of the Nine having about three or four family members, that's close
to fifty. I'd guess there about another thirty to forty employees. They
provide maintenance and security, and some of them will be involved in
training sessions.
"There are quite a few who are sort of associates of the Nine, who live outside.
They do various things, like helping us remain under the radar, using their
connections in the outside world. They can do things like getting real
drivers licenses in some states, and other things useful for establishing
working alternate identities. Others have access to various sorts of
information about things happening in government. They have to be used
discreetly, though. Obviously we don't want our agents compromised. But the
time will come when..."
She didn't finish the sentence. There was no need to. Carter was beginning
to think that some enormous secret had been very well kept. As a police
officer in a large city, he had of course been exposed to various briefings
about domestic terrorism, alleging that various dissident organizations
usually labeled as 'white supremacists' or just 'anti-government'. He had
never seen anything like it, even the news reports which purported to show
them in action, they appeared to be little more than small groups of people
angry and not smart enough to maintain a low profile, assuming they were
capable of causing any kind of problems. Often their behavior was so
theatrical as to make him wonder if they were being paid to perform for the
benefit of a news story or a political agenda.
"I am guessing that any of your activities don't make the news," Carter said.
"Never" said Tracy. "You see things in the news occasionally about some sort
of anti-government riots or something. I suppose some of those really are
amateurs, no organization and no threat, if they are even real. We know some
of them are put up to it by various liberal activist organizations, probably
with the support of government actors. But we're doing nothing at this point,
except preparing. And remaining invisible."
"I wondered about that, how you avoid getting tagged as one of them. I
suppose if they don't know you exist they can't. But I remember hearing, it's
been a while back, about some of them being in this part of the country, with
training camps like this. You ever run into any of them?"
"Not often," said Tracy. "A few years back there were some, mostly motivated
by religion. Kind of like those people they killed at Waco. There was one
over in Arkansas, the feds came in and arrested some people and dispersed the
others. Apparently some of them had been engaged in criminal activity and
associating with some racist organizations. People like that are usually
unstable and not able to stick with anything when they don't succeed
immediately in whatever it is they want to and are easily manipulated. But
more than anything, acting on the impetus of religion or politics is never a
good idea."
"Are we political?" Carter asked.
Tracy smiled.
"Not at all," she replied. "We want nothing other than to restore
constitutional rule, as established by the founders. We don't care about
anyone's religion, race or other proclivities. That's why we'll wait until
there is no longer any hope of reform before we act."
"We start talking about things, it's hard to stop," she said. They had
finished eating and took their dishes over to a collection station where they
would presumably be collected for washing. "Let's get out of here and show
Darrell around a little before it gets dark."