Chapter 49 -- FBEKXREGWHJEBUBNZ
Grant paid for his purchases at the Wal-Mart store and carried the bags out to
his truck. Before leaving town he topped off the fuel tanks in his truck and
went over to the cashier's window of the gas station and bought several packs
of the little cigars he occasionally smoked. Bill was the only other one of the
committee who smoked, but a handful of the other residents did. The only
cigarette smokers among them were several who bought bulk tobacco and made
their own. The cost was less and put less money into the government due to
the abusive taxes
He had thought for the past couple of days that he was being tailed, but as
far as he could tell he had shaken them, if they were following him, before
heading home. He had warned his fellows about it so they would be on the alert.
As he left the gas station he kept his eye on the vehicle he suspected, having
seen it lurking before.
A blue Dodge Charger was parked at the end of a row across the lane from the
gas station, no other cars within several spaces. He was fairly sure he had
seen it several times in the past two days, the first time in a while he had
been in town so frequently. The car was a common type, and blue was a common
color, but Grant had always been good at observing things most people did not
pay attention to. And this car had a particular combination of
characteristics that caught his eye.
He left the station, heading for the parking lot exit, and the car followed.
It was time to test his theory. For the next hour or so he drove around town,
making several stops, keeping an eye on the vehicle. After the third time he
parked, went inside a business, and returned to his truck the car was there.
The tail was being discreet, leaving cars between them when in traffic, but
always ending up at the same place. He called Bill.
"What's up?" Bill asked.
"Looks like I got a tail."
"What's your twenty?"
"Just a sec." Grant consulted the truck's nav system. "OK, ready?"
"Go ahead."
Grant read the coordinates.
"I'm in the parking lot of the Greenway shopping center. I'll go inside one
of stores. He's waiting out at the edge of the parking lot, near the highway. Once I get to
the front of the building he can't see me - I'll go down one of the alleys and
meet you out back."
"Gotcha. See you in about fifteen."
Grant sat in his truck pretending to be
occupied with his phone. When he saw Bill's car, one that was rarely driven
to town, enter the parking lot he got out and walked towards the stores. Once
invisible to the tail he walked into one of the alleys. Coming out the back
he got into Bill's waiting car. Going around to the
parking lot they could see the tail car, and it did not move as they passed.
"I guess he'll figure out at some point I'm not coming back," said Grant. "We
can come back and pick up my truck later."
"What are you thinking?" Bill asked as they drove away.
"I'm guessing we're under surveillance," Grant replied. "I had the impression
he was trying to find out where home was for me. Which would mean that I, or
the vehicle, is under suspicion but they don't know where I'm based. I guess
none of the others have noticed anything."
"Not as far as I know," Bill replied. "The vehicles are registered to our
addresses outside. I wonder if we were compromised when we picked up Luther's
associates."
"That might explain them being after the vehicle but not knowing where to find
it," said Grant. "We do know there's a manhunt on for them and whoever else
escaped from their community."
"We need to warn Luther," Bill said. "They're not as prepared for dealing with
this sort of thing as we are. The cameras we put up for them are transmitting
to our facility. They haven't reported any suspicious activity there or here."
"That would suggest they haven't connected them with either location," said
Grant. "We need to keep a close eye on activity around our gates and theirs."
"We'll see what happens when we pick up your truck."
"Yeah. I don't know if we should leave it there overnight. It's
probably not uncommon, so it would probably be all right. But maybe we should
come over and get it, say about two or three in the morning. They'll have
given up for the day, probably come back early to resume surveillance."
"We could do that," Bill said. "At that time it'll be easy to spot a tail, we'd
be the only ones on the road most of the way."
"Let's do that. And meanwhile get back and advise the others."
They returned home, located the other members of the committee and discussed
the matter. Grant and Bill drove over to visit Luther and inform him, and
gave him some tips on dealing with tails. They didn't go out much, except for
some like Ted who worked outside the community, and it wasn't readily
identifiable as any sort of organization as was theirs was.
When they returned to their base, they found Douglas, Arthur and Gerald
meeting with a young man, the one who had mysteriously appeared at the gate
earlier in the month. Apparently he had been dropped off by a vehicle which
continued on its way afterward. After the meeting he had walked back to the
gate a quarter of a mile away, presumably to be picked up. This time the
arrival and departure would be recorded on the newly installed cameras, but
was unlikely to tell them anything useful - he seemed to be part of an
organization that was both very professional and competent.
"Grant, Bill - you remember Brad," Arthur said. "He has news."
"We're looking at next Friday," Brad said, "for a major event. You'll know what
it is when it happens - there'll be no mistake. I can't tell you more,
obviously, but there's no need. The main thing is we want everyone who might
have plans to hold them until after Friday. We're working for maximum quiet
all over, to avoid anything from alerting the enemy."
"We don't have any plans," Arthur said, "but we can't predict possible events."
He told them about the two escapees from Mount Carmel and the suspicion that
they were under surveillance.
"Let's hope they don't come up with anything on you before next Friday," Brad
said. "If they haven't done anything by then they lose interest. If they do
move against you, it can't be helped."
"No," Arthur said, "we'll have to defend ourselves. And if they go after the
neighbors, we'll have to help."
"Tell me about your neighbors," Brad said. "We noticed their place, and thought
it might be some sort of resistance community, but we haven't been able to find
out much. Actually we haven't been able to investigate much out here - it's a
big country and all kinds of places to hide things."
"They're a religiously based outfit, a church in fact, and all the members
live there. They're not one of the off-the-wall cults you sometimes hear about,
just people who want to be left alone. They know that won't be possible for
much longer, and we talk from time to time. The two guys we picked up, one of
them anyway, was related to one of them. That's how they got involved."
"I see." So you're tied up with them, and how you handle that is
up to you. At this point we can't do much now beyond giving you information
about what is happening. So if something comes up before next week - well,
the way things are going now a lot can happen in the next eleven days. Other
than that, it's about all for now. Good luck."
"Same to you," Arthur said. "Can we drive you to the gate?"
"Better if you don't," Brad replied. "I'll hang out in the trees along the road,
wait for my ride. With any luck we won't be seen when I'm picked up."
He went out and began walking up the road. They watched for a while and went
back inside.
"Time will tell, I suppose," Arthur said. "He sounds confident. I wonder, if
he's that certain, what must be behind this." He fingered the small shield,
one of the ones Brad had given them.
"There must be some organization at work," said Grant, "with the ability to do
things. Significant things. They found us, and we're out here a good ways, doing nothing to draw
attention to ourselves."
"It would seem to be a fairly large operation," Gerald said. "Mike Charlie."
"What's that?" asked Bill.
Gerald held up the shield.
"The letters. Mike Charlie in the military phonetic alphabet," he said. "We
were picking up references in the underground chat. Mike Charlie was one of
the more consistent things we were seeing and couldn't find out anything
about it."
"That and Samson," Douglas said. "I wonder if Samson is related, or something
else entirely."
"Good question," said Bill. "Since we know nothing useful either one except
that Mike Charlie might be related to our visitor."
"We might want to see what our tech team has," Grant said. He pressed a button
on a desk phone.
"Engineering." It was Jeff, Gerald's son. The phone was
connected to a private local network consisting of buried wires accessible
only from inside the buildings.
"Hey Jeff," Gerald said. "We're all here in a committee meeting. What have
you observed on Samson and Mike Charlie lately?"
"I was just wondering if I ought to call you," Jeff replied. "The past week there
has been a slight but steady increase in references to Mike Charlie. It seems to have leveled
off, but it's definitely up."
"Any ideas?" asked Grant.
"The major change has been its appearance in a number of new channels. Those
are sources we've been monitoring for a while and we're seeing it there for
the first time. Like it's spreading, slowly but steadily."
"Is that for both or only one?" asked Arthur.
"Almost all the growth has been Mike Charlie. Samson is in the usual places,
but not much, any really, in the new ones."
They looked at each other. An increase in traffic, if their man was
associated with Mike Charlie, could be important.
"How much geo analysis can you do?" asked Gerald.
"In terms of where the traffic is," Jeff said, "it's all over the map. However,
unless we can associate a location with the participants, and in most cases we
can't, the geo data doesn't help much. Almost all the IPs are associated with
VPN providers."
That made sense. Any sensible person involved in what was now or soon would
be treated as treasonous by the government would conceal his identity and location.
"Do you have an idea of how many new actors have come on stage recently?"
Gerald asked.
"That we can do," Jeff replied. "At least in terms of new channels. We had been
seeing it on about, probably, twenty-five to thirty percent of the channels we
we're monitoring. That's up to over fifty percent, and of new channels we've
added recently, it's about half there as well."
"Still no link to any entity we can identify?" asked Bill.
"No. Nothing but rumors and questions and cryptic comments."
"Anything about some expected event, next Friday?" asked Grant. "That's eleven
days from now."
"That I have seen. Let me see, so far just three references.
One is about eleven days and the other two are for next Friday. Want me to
keep an eye on that?"
"Please do," Gerald said. "It could be important."
"Will do. Anything else?"
"Nothing we can think of just now," Gerald replied. "Talk to you later."