Chapter 60 -- QFZXMBRZAHUANY
Grant Page looked at the phone as it rang. Luther. He swiped the
answer button.
"Grant here, how's it going?"
"We should probably talk," Luther replied. "We've had some visitors you should
know about. Can you come over or should I come over there?"
"It depends," Grant replied. "How long ago?"
"A couple of hours."
Grant thought about it for a moment. Anyone leaving the compound could be
followed, if the visitors had them under surveillance. And they were close
enough that their own place could also be under surveillance. and probably
was.
"I'll be over there in a few minutes, or as soon as I can on the back trail.
You know what I mean?"
"I understand," Luther replied. "We'll be waiting."
"You probably shouldn't have anyone leaving for a while, unless it's just an
ordinary errand to town, something like that."
"OK," Luther said. "Thank you."
Grant quickly contacted each of the other committee members. Bill was home,
Douglas didn't answer, and Arthur was in town. Gerald was also home. He
quickly explained the situation, and Bill and Gerald said they would be right
over.
"You think one of us should stay here?" asked Grant.
"Probably. In case someone shows up over here. You go on, I'll
hold it down here."
The trail had been sufficiently developed to allow travel by one of the small
utility vehicles. Although they had left the trail concealed at the
other end, it was a short walk into Luther's compound. They covered the mile
or so in a few minutes and walked into the back of the compound, the forest
already dark. Luther greeted them, and they accompanied him and two of the
elders into his home.
"A couple of hours ago," he began, "two cars arrived. Two people in each. There
was one man and one woman in each car. They showed their IDs - the two women
were from the Department of Education, one of the men was from the Department
of Homeland Security and the other was with the FBI.
The two women did most of the talking at first, telling that there was no
record of our children being registered for school. I told her there were no
children of school age here, and she showed me a list. It looked like all of
them, names and ages. They said they expected to see them enrolled in the
nearest available public school before start of classes two weeks from now.
"I asked her what they would do if they weren't, and she said they would come
and take the children to a facility for education. I decided to stall, told
her I would talk to our lawyer. That at least got rid of them - she rather
smugly assured me that there was nothing I could to, but by all means talk to him.
"Then the FBI agent asked me if anyone had come to visit or live here recently.
I asked him how recently and he said in the last three or four weeks. I said
no and he showed me two pictures - Jack and Wesley."
"So they're looking to kill two birds," Grant said. "They were going to come see you about
the kids anyway, and I would guess they're conducting a sweep of the area,
looking for them. So we have two problems, one is easy enough. Hide Jack and
Wesley over at our place. And we can do the same with the children, if they
want to search the place. The question is, what will they do when they don't
find them?"
"Have you been contacted yet?" Luther asked.
"No," Grant replied. "But at the registration last year we were living different
places. Most of us still have our addresses at various places - homes we own
of those of friends and family.
"So, do you want to hide the kids over at our place, and of course Jack and
Wesley, and see what happens?"
"I believe that is the best thing to do, for now," Luther said. "We'll have to
see what happens next."
"Yeah, you'll no doubt be served with a court order to produce the children.
How much time that will buy I don't know. Probably none beyond the compliance
date on the order, since they've already said lawyers won't make any difference.
But we'll try that, and see what happens."
"Thank you," Luther said. "We'll keep an eye out. We'll take the children
down to the path, acquaint them with it. And of course Wesley and Jack will
be ready to move as soon as it is necessary."
Grant and Bill went back to the trail and returned to their compound. Arthur
and Douglas had returned, and they gathered to discuss the situation. They
all agreed they would have to improvise, meanwhile increasing their own
vigilance and preparation. The talk turned to the recent news.
"After last Friday," Douglas said, "soon to be Friday before last, it seems,
our visitor told us to expect something. I'm guessing it happened. The
question is, what does that portend for us?"
"This may help," Arthur said. "Picked it up in town - someone had left a stack
of them on a counter back by the drink fountain in the Stop'n'Go in town. I
grabbed some, read one when I got back to the truck." He handed them around,
and waited as they read them.
"This looks like the one a couple of weeks ago," Bill said. "Apparently it
showed up all over the country in just a matter of days, all identical. Must
have been millions. Who has the ability to do that?
"Someone with a lot of money, and quite a few personnel," said Arthur. "If it's
out here it's everywhere by now. Just like the other one."
"The 'do something' letter," said Grant. "Nationwide coverage, almost instantly.
Bypassing television, the Internet. An identical message to everyone who gets
it, with no filtering or suppression possible."
"If this is the same people," Arthur said looking at the paper, "the People's
Liberation Army - sounds like one of those outfits from the 60s, 70s, out to
overthrow the corrupt U.S. Government. Only now it's real. The government is
corrupt, it's everything the hippies back then thought the government was."
"The irony," Grant said. "Fifty years later, what they thought they had is
what we now have, and we're the old men fighting it."
"So, Brad asked us to hold off until last Friday, and we did," Bill said.
"Not that we had anything planned, or do now. But I wouldn't be surprised if
trouble finds us, soon enough."
"It may," Grant said, "if the feds come back for our neighbors. We should get
over there, see how they're armed. Lend them some weapons and ammunition if
they need them. We've seen them go crazy and wipe out settlements like that,
for no apparent reason."
"You're right," said Douglas. "Tomorrow's Friday. I'd be surprised if they
came back tomorrow. So we have the weekend. Let's call Luther and see what
he wants to do. Meanwhile, we should probably check with our tech guys and
see what they're seeing. You want call Jeff and see what's up?"
Gerald used the desk phone that was connected to their internal network.
"Hey kid, what's up?" he asked as Jeff answered. He pushed the speaker button.
"Just the usual," Jeff replied. "What are you all up to?"
"Wondering about the chatter," Gerald said. "What do the patterns look like,
relative to last Friday?"
"That's interesting," Jeff said. "Last Friday, early in the day, there was a
burst of traffic centered on Mike Charlie. It tapered off fairly quickly, by
early afternoon. Then it picked up some, around 1900 to 2300. Certainly some
coded messages, from the look of it. Nonsense phrases, like they were there
for certain people to see. Then it settled down for a few days, and mostly what
we've seen since then is just people talking about it, speculating on what it is."
"Certainly seems to be related somehow to our mysterious PLA," Grant said. "I
guess me might as well use their initials if we're going to be talking about
them a lot. What does it look like for the past say, three days?"
"You get that, Jeff?" Gerald asked.
"Yeah, let me see. OK, yeah, it's been going up for a couple of days,
leveling off today."
"Well, that's about the best we're going to do on that mystery," Grant said.
"What sort of chatter is there on the events? Friday, and the latest letter?
Wait. Jeff, there was another letter in the last two days, like the one week
before last, I guess."
"You mean the 'do something' letter?" Jeff asked.
"Yeah," said Grant, "the new one apparently is only a couple of days old."
"Yeah, that one probably caused the spike about twenty-four hours ago. Is
that one about the People's Liberation Army?"
"Yeah, that one."
"So it's being discussed," said Grant. "And passed around to anyone who
already seen it. It will no doubt give ideas to some of the discontented who
may only be thinking about doing something, and encourage them. I wouldn't be
surprised if a hornet's nest has been kicked."
"Or two or three," Arthur said.
"Well, we need to get with Luther's people," Douglas said. "See what can be
done and get ready."
"All right, Jeff. Thanks," said Gerald. "Give us a yell if you see anything
new or unusual."
"We need to be ready for anything," Douglas said, "when the feds show up again.
And it's fairly certain they will."
"Yeah," Grant said. "With the dual mission of confiscating the kids, they're
going to be real interested in the fugitives. Whether they have tracked them
this far or not, they want a look inside."