A Man Overboard (18 page)

The man laughed and pulled a revolver from beneath the counter. “The FDA comes in here, and they’ll be in for a surprise.”

Yup, terrorist.
Raw milk was the new plutonium.

“That senator,” the guy began, “the son of the guy who’s running for president again…”

“I know him,” Jack said. And indeed he did. As someone who relied on independent news sources, he was very familiar with both father and son and the bill that the cashier was about to reference.

“Yeah, well, he’s taking it to the FDA. Finally, someone is. I’ll tell you, I don’t know what the heck is happening to this country, but if I get some gun-toting FDA bureaucrat showing up here without reasonable cause, a warrant or nothin’, I’m gonna exercise my constitutional right and tell him to get the heck off my property.”

“Amen,” Jack said, though he knew that pulling a gun on a federal officer these days would only get the guy an early special on pine pajamas.

“Yeah, he tried passing a bill that would take away the FDA’s ability to carry firearms. I mean, just what in the heck are they doing carrying guns, anyway? This country has lost its freakin’ mind! The FDA says it’s illegal to advertise the health benefits of vitamins and supplements, but it’s okay for pharmaceuticals to make whatever claim they want, even though prune juice ain’t ever killed anyone! Did you know that FDA-approved drugs have killed over a million people since 1998?”

Jack did know.

“Well, he’s trying to stop the FDA from blocking scientific publications that tell how nutrients protect against disease and all. Four court orders have declared it a violation of the First Amendment, but they just keep doing it, and the government does nothing to stop ‘em!” He leaned forward. “You know what my theory is?”

“What’s that?”

“Big Pharma’s in bed with the government, and they want us all sick and dying. They don’t care about healing nothing. They want profits. The sicker we are, the richer they get. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Either that or Washington’s just gone bonkers. I mean, there’s a reason that we’re the fattest and unhealthiest country, you know? And it probably ain’t proper of me to say, but look at the countries with socialized medicine—and I ain’t sayin’ we should have that here—but those countries focus on
prevention
. The governments of those countries don’t wanna pay for your clogged arteries! That’s why they ban all the crap we have over here! Over there sickness bankrupts, but here, sickness makes a bunch of people rich! Why else would they make alternative medicine—medicine proven to be more effective than the drugs they wanna pump into you for a thousand bucks a pop—
illegal
? Yeah, that’s right, let’s use aborted baby DNA and GMOs in our food, let’s dump chlorine and fluoride into our water, let’s inject ourselves with mercury and formaldehyde, but hey…don’t you freakin’ dare sell raw milk or tell anyone that prune juice can cure constipation!”

“I hear ya,” Jack replied, and it could have been Stacey talking to him.

The man laughed. “You got me all worked up.”

“Most people aren’t even aware of this stuff.”

“And ain’t that the most frustrating part? You know they want to make it illegal for kids to work on the farm? You know what that’ll do to the few farmers left in this country? Between Monsanto suing for theft of property whenever their Franken-corn finds itself destroying an organic farm, and the FBI shooting farmers’ pigs, there ain’t gonna be a farm left in this country. And ya know what? I think that’s exactly what they want.”

Jack nodded. “Well, hopefully those bills will pass, and we’ll be saved from this Nazi tyranny.”

He nodded vigorously. “You said it, man.”

“Well, keep your chin up, and your gun loaded, I guess.”

“Yeah, same to you, mister. Thanks for your business, too.”

Jack slapped the counter. “See you later.”
Terrorist.
He opened the door, stepping back into the parking lot. He took his full belly over to the gas station and wasn’t surprised to find that it was the type you’d expect to see in a horror movie, the last outpost where the old, decrepit guy in overalls was chewing a long piece of grain and warning you away from “here.” But the guy at this gas station wasn’t that old and, like the people from next door, wasn’t in overalls either. When he saw Jack strolling up to the two pumps, he came out of the supply shop to meet him, no trident strapped to his back.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Jack looked around. “I need to get to Connecticut.”

The man chuckled as he ran a calloused hand through his unruly hair. “On foot? That’ll take you a while.”

“Thinking of hitchhiking,” he said. “But I’d like to get on the right road.”

The man considered him. “The sun’s gonna be goin’ down soon. I wouldn’t recommend walking the roads at night. No streetlights. You’d likely get run over.”

“Or shot by a bear.”
Had he really just said that?

The gas station attendant looked at him funny.

Yup.

The guy pressed ahead, uncertain. “I don’t think you have to worry about that out here. Maybe in Montana they have bears packin’ heat…”

Jack smiled, thinking that he was truly losing his mind. “That’s good to know. So which way you think I should be heading?” He squinted up and down the road.

“Well, I guess you’d want to find your way to 84.” He sighed, thinking. “Wish I could give you a lift, but…” He waved at the station and shop behind him.

Business was booming. “I appreciate it, but I’m okay walking.” Though he wasn’t. In fact, he was eyeing the pickup parked behind the supply store. Its windows were down.

“Well, then keep walking down this road until you get to the next. Go right, and just keep walking.” He spit on the ground. “I really hope someone picks you up.”

“Me, too. Thanks.” He turned away, heading for the road again.

Once the gas station was out of sight, he left the road and double-backed through the woods, coming up behind the supply store.

Exiting the woods, he crept up to the pickup and stuck his head through its open window. No key in the ignition, and he was more certain than ever that people only did that in the movies. But he checked beneath the floor matt and above the visor just in case. The gods weren’t making this easy.

He snuck away from the only vehicle in the back lot and went to the back door of the shop. It was standing wide open, and he could hear music playing from within, the guy he’d met whistling along to the country tune from an unseen position in the front of the store. Zeus in a cowboy hat and flannel? This was definitely not Asgard. Jack stepped into the store, trying to think of any reason he could give the guy if he were to catch him. Unable to come up with one, he thought it best not to get caught. The back was just a small storage room with an open doorway leading to the rest of the store, and right there, beside the doorway, was a row of hooks—one of which had a set of keys dangling from it.

Jack quietly pulled on a pair of latex gloves from the backpack and crawled to the keys. He slowly wrapped his hands around them and lifted them off their perch without so much as a jingle. Once he was back to the open door, he sorted through the keys until finding one that declared FORD. He slid it off the ring, placed the remainder of the keys on the ground, and headed for the truck. He opened its faded door and slid the key into the ignition. He placed his backpack on the bench seat and then pulled the gearshift into neutral. He couldn’t alert the man to his
borrowing
of the truck right from the get-go or some backwoods sheriff would be pulling him over in minutes, all hopes of getting to Connecticut erased just as fast. After a quick look around, he leaned all his weight against the doorframe and used his aching legs to push the truck forward. Thankfully, it was already facing the road. He just needed the guy’s face to stay buried in a fishing magazine and his music loud enough to drown out the rolling tires.

The truck moved, and his legs screamed louder. But twenty yards later, he had the truck turning out onto the road. He braced himself for the blast of a gunshot that would rip through his back and stop all this, but none came. He jumped behind the wheel, knocking the backpack to the floor, and pulled the door closed. As the truck rolled downhill in neutral, it began picking up speed, and soon the supply shop was behind him. Looking in the rearview mirror, there was no indication that anyone had seen him. He started to breathe again.

At the bottom of the hill, he brought the engine to life.

25

Rather than taking 84 all the way to Connecticut, Jack followed signs to Allentown instead. Five minutes into the city, he pulled into a gas station. He paid cash for ten gallons of gas and a Connecticut map after using the bathroom to flush the phone down the toilet. He got directions to the nearest Greyhound from the cashier, relieved that it wasn’t far. And by eight o’clock, he was walking into the station, leaving the pickup behind and trying to soothe his conscience by reassuring himself that the relocation was justified. But by the time he had a ticket to Hartford in his hand, the truck was as good as forgotten, expunged from his thinking by the high tide of his own concerns. Like the wrapped present he was carrying under his arm.

It wasn’t worth trying to smuggle the shotgun onto the bus, so he’d put on the coat Johnson packed for him and left the backpack beneath the seat of the truck. Even if Johnson was wrong about this whole thing being over with, he wasn’t about to get in a shootout with agents while squeezed onto a bus full of innocent civilians. The pistol, however, was a different story. He couldn’t leave that in the truck because it was registered under his name. It wouldn’t take any great sleuth to pin the truck’s theft on him, which probably wasn’t a huge offense, but one that would beg questions he was sure the CIA would much rather remain unanswered. If the CIA, or whoever was behind all this, was willing to forget the whole operation, then Jack didn’t want to give them any reason to reconsider. He would go to his grave with his lips sealed if his silence would ensure the safety of his family (though if something
had
happened to Joseph, or if Stacey ended up being an innocent victim in all this, he would dedicate the rest of his life to shouting his story from the mountaintops). But first, he had to find them, and that meant concealing the pistol in a way that wouldn’t raise suspicion. He hadn’t been to a bus station in years and wasn’t sure whether or not there were now metal detectors and dogs or radiation-emitting cameras showcasing all your most personal business, so on his way to Allentown, he’d stopped at a Staples and got all he needed to secure the Smith & Wesson in a cardboard box beneath the wrappings of birthday cakes and balloons. Had the post office been open at that hour, he would’ve just sent the gun back to his neighbor along with a note. But as it was, he would be glad to have a weapon with him in Avon. He wasn’t sure what to expect, and if confronting an SVR-CIA double agent, he would certainly prefer to be armed.

The bus ride to Hartford was just over two hundred miles and would take eight hours. According to the map, he would be dropped off ten miles east of Avon, and he could walk that if he needed to. One of the few trips made from Allentown to Hartford during the day was scheduled to leave at 8:55, so he had only to wait half an hour before departing.

By the time he was seated on the bus with the “present” riding on the empty seat beside him, he was looking forward to the eight-hour trip and the sleep it might allow. He was more exhausted now than he could ever remember being, and he figured that, whatever was going to happen tomorrow, he should probably be awake for it. He wrapped his finger around the bow, ensuring that no one could steal the package without waking him up, and closed his eyes. He was already asleep when the bus rolled out onto the street, the sun slipping below the earth and plunging everything into darkness.

* * * *

This time he dreamt of his own father and mother and the night he’d received the news of their death, and there was a tear running down his cheek when he awoke. He missed his mom and dad, at least what he could remember of them, and their memory made him miss Joseph that much more, his goofy smile, the fierceness of his embrace, and the love and trust burning in his eyes.
Soon…

The interior lights of the bus were turned low, and Jack saw that most people were either sleeping or reading. He turned his attention out the window and could make out city lights in the distance. He was stepping off the bus and stretching fifteen minutes later.

He stood before the map that was hanging on the terminal wall. It offered a more detailed street plan than the one folded up in his pocket, and he realized that a rental car would be the right choice if not for it requiring a credit card. If “they” were still looking for him, then tipping them off to his being in Connecticut might give them an idea of what he was up to. And “they” would probably want to prevent him from opening that can of worms. So it would be a long walk down Asylum Ave.

Asylum Avenue
, he mused. What were the chances of that?
The House of Thunder—
a Soviet plot involving a false reality—came suggesting unpleasant theories again. Bears, books, conspirators, and now street names. Was his subconscious pulling familiar material from his life and twisting it with clues meant to wake him up from such a coma?

He left the terminal, found Asylum Avenue, and began walking down the sidewalk that followed alongside it. Ten miles. He should make it just in time for brunch. He wondered if he should stop and pick up some coffee and donuts.
Surprise, honey! It’s me! Your other husband! I brought coffee!

The cool morning breeze whipped at his open coat and felt good on his face. The sky was partly cloudy, shielding Asylum Avenue from the sun’s fullness as it climbed the sky.

And even though Jack escaped the heart of the city without a run-in with government assassins, he found his heart beating faster and faster, his hands shaking with fear.