Officer Of The Watch: Blackout Volume 1 (27 page)

They hadn't gotten fully into the rolling hills of the piedmont yet, and the road behind them was flat for the most part.  A few low hills and shallow valleys were all that broke their line of sight for several miles.  As the men all stared behind them, in the distance, a line of small, twinkling lights appeared for an instant over the crest of a low hill, and then sank into one of the shallow low points and out of sight.

For a brief moment, no one moved or spoke, they just stared in shock at the spot where the lights had disappeared.  Then they all began moving at once.  Gilbert slammed the trunk down, at the same time Henderson and Tom climbed quickly into the front seat.  Joe grabbed the two empty water bottles that they'd dropped and did a quick visual sweep of the area as best he could in the dim moonlight.  He dropped into the driver's seat, already turning the key to crank the engine.  The '58 roared to life, and Joe drove off as quickly as he could.

The sleeping boys never stirred, but both women opened their eyes briefly in confusion.  Gilbert soothed them both and reassured them that everything was fine, and they were quickly asleep again, Maimey snoring softly with her head resting on Gilbert's shoulder for a pillow.

"Who do you think it is?" Henderson asked softly, turning as far as he could and straining to see behind them.

"I don't know," Joe said, checking his mirror for the headlights and finding it clear for the moment, "but I'm sure not going to sit around and wait to find out."

The others nodded, and silence returned to the inside of the car.  Joe drove with the headlights off to keep them from being seen.  The moon was a good ways from full, but it was bright enough to see by with the help of the stars in the crystal clear sky.  Joe hoped it would stay that way long enough to keep them ahead of headlights and guide them safely home.

CH. 55

Watching The Road

Eric sat on the wrought iron and wood framed bench that was tucked under the wide eaves on the front porch.  The moon was directly overhead, and the shadows under the edge of the roof were deep.  Three small metal bucket candles flickered in the corners of the porch, filling the air with thick oily smoke that smelled sharply of citronella.  The candles didn't keep all of the annoying mosquitoes at bay, but they helped. 

The house behind him was dark, for the most part, and silent.  After the fried fish dinner, the conversation had been slow at first and quickly trickled to satisfied silence.  Everyone was exhausted from the day's work.  While the women were gathering scraps for the dogs and leftovers for the refrigerator, Eric had slipped out the front door.  He'd been sitting on the bench ever since, watching the white dirt road as it shone in the moonlight before cutting into the trees where it disappeared. 

The front door opened, and Christina stepped out into the night with a steaming cup in one hand.  She tiptoed over to Eric and dropped onto the bench beside him. 

"Coffee?" she asked, extending the cup.  Eric took, and she grimaced slightly.  "It's instant, but it's all I could make without waking half the house up."

Eric took a sip and smiled.  "Thanks, babe," he said.  "It'll do fine.  Why aren't you in bed?"

"Cause you aren't," Christina answered, snuggling closer to Eric's arm.

"We're not sharing the same bed here," Eric said, confused.

"I know," Christina said, "but you're still not in bed.  I figured you could use some company."

Eric smiled and put his left arm around Christina's shoulders.  Part of him wanted to be alone on his vigil.  Another part of him desperately needed her warmth and the feel of her breathing against him.  And, in the end, Eric already knew which part would win.  The coffee was strong, and slightly bitter, but respectable for what it was.  Eric took another sip that was still a little too hot for comfort and then set the cup by the bench to cool.  The night was warm already, and the coffee gave his forehead a slick sheen of sweat.  Birds, frogs, and bugs called to each other in the distance, but other than that the nigh was quiet. 

After a while, Christina shifted against him and slid slowly down until her head was resting in Eric's lap.  Eric bent and whispered softly in her ear, "You should go to bed, babe.  That can't be comfortable."

Christina mumbled something that sounded like, "In a minute," and then rolled onto her side, a half smile on her face.

She was already asleep.

Eric shifted his weight slightly but not enough to disturb her.  He ran his fingers lightly through Christina's thick hair as she rested in his lap.  The sweet scent of honeysuckle and lavender floated up to him, and he smiled.  He had never taken the time to check and see what perfume she used, but Eric could always tell which pillowcase was hers, even when it was fresh from the laundry. 

Eric took another sip from his coffee which had cooled some but was still warm enough to be called hot.  One of Granddaddy's labs was laying at the front edge of the porch.  Eric had thought it was asleep, but suddenly the dog sprang to its feet.  It let out a long, low growl and the hair all down its back stood bristling on end.  The dog was staring intensely into the night towards the long open field, its entire body rigid.

His hand when instinctively to the M-4 standing by the bench, but Eric didn't stand.  He sat absolutely motionless and watched the dog intensely.  The dog didn't move, but he had definitely either seen something or caught a scent that he didn't like one bit.  After a long, tense moment with the dog trained on the dark night, growling deep in his throat, a coyote called in a raucous, coughing bark that was shrill and echoed off the trees.  The Labrador let out a loud, baritone growling bark to let the interloper know who was boss, and Christina jumped in Eric's lap.

"It's okay," Eric whispered softly, kissing her just behind the left ear. "It was just the dog.  Go back to sleep."

Christina mumbled something incoherent, already on her way back to slumber.  The lab let out a last, muffled grunt of a bark and then lay back down on the porch and rolled lazily on his side.  Eric sipped his cooling coffee as his two companions quickly worked their way back to sleep.

Eric sighed softly to himself and settled in for another long night's watch.

Ch. 56

Shaking Out The Bugs

Terry Price sat behind his desk, kneading his forehead with the fingers of his left hand.  His head was throbbing and his eyes were grainy from a lack of sleep.  Slowly, a noise began to intrude itself into Terry's awareness.  It took him a moment to realize that the sound was his watch beeping an alert at him.  Terry stared at his wrist for a moment, unable to make sense of the display of zero's across the tiny screen. 

The timer had run down.

Terry knew it was significant, but he couldn't quite place why.  He closed his eyes tight and forced his mind to work past the exhaustion, and he remembered what he'd been timing.  He opened the screen of his laptop and keyed in several pass codes to access the machine.  The large fractal factoring program had run its course, finally, and all of the systems' operations and functions had been thoroughly checked and diagnosed in the process.  Terry could be one hundred percent certain his machine was clean of all malicious software, tracking programs, and trojans.  Any programming not personally signed and authenticated with Terry's own pass code would have been immediately flagged and isolated by his systems check.

Terry logged into the main system and keyed in a pre-set one hundred and twenty eight character pass code.  Four layers of encoding took Terry's pass code and expanded it into a mind-numbingly large string of apparently random characters that would take even the most advanced super computers in the world decades to crack.  The encryption and decryption process took a few moments, and Terry waited as patiently as he could manage.

Finally, the system opened, and Terry gained access to the massive information databases and processing banks secured within the bowels of his facility.  Immediately, Terry ran a search deep within his own personal database files and brought up a hidden and secure file named simply "Transit." 

Terry opened the file, keyed in the necessary password, and the command and control interface for the antiquated NAVSAT network loaded a line at the time onto his screen.  A brief status check established a working connection, and Terry sat for a moment staring at his command cursor.  He hesitated for a moment, weighing his options.  It didn't take him long to realize that there just weren't any.

Terry keyed in the transponder number written on a small slip of paper in front of him.  The NAVSAT program spun for a few minutes as it did computations and brought up records of received signals.  After a minute or two, the screen shifted to a split view.  On the left hand side was a table of Latitude and Longitude coordinates.  The right side of the screen displayed a featureless map of the United States, with a dotted track line that ran from Utah east, all the way to the extreme western border of Tennessee. 

The blinking dot on the screen marked the farthest recorded point the transponder had reached, and Terry sat staring at it.  For a long moment, the dot didn't move at all.  Then, finally, it shifted ever so slightly to the right, and a new set of numbers appeared in the column to the left. 

Terry sat back slightly with a deep, relieved sigh.  Mr. Attledge and his companions wouldn't reach their destination for at least another eight to ten hours with re-fueling time factored in, and at most it would be another day and a half if there were no unforeseen problems or delays.  Terry quickly signed out of his programs and closed the connection to the mainframe databases. 

Once disconnected, Terry reclined fully in his comfortably padded executive's chair.  He smiled to himself and let his eyes slip closed, pleased with the fact that no matter what else might have gone wrong, Mr.  Attledge was still on the move.  With any luck, a key part of Terry's plans that had nearly slipped through his fingers would once again be within his grasp.

In no time at all Terry was snoring softly as the exhaustion he'd been fighting  finally overcame him.

Ch. 57

If The Worst Should Happen

Joe climbed the brick steps to the front porch slowly and quietly.  The old lab sleeping in one corner of the porch raised his head briefly, his tail thumping the concrete floor twice before he flopped back over on his side and drifted off to sleep again.  Joe walked over to the bench and gently squeezed Eric's knee.  Eric immediately jerked awake, his right hand reaching instinctively for the rifle leaning against the brick wall next to him, but Joe caught his arm.

"It's okay, son," Joe said softly.  "It's just me."

Eric blinked a few times, and his eyes finally focused on Joe's face.  Joe smiled back at him and then gently gripped Christina's shoulder.  The young woman's eyes fluttered open sleepily, and she smiled up at him.

"Mr. Tillman," she said groggily.  "you're back!"

"Come on, hun," Joe said softly.  "Why don't you go inside and lay down.  You'll be a lot more comfortable in your bed.  Eric and I are going to take a walk."

Christina mumbled something that might have been agreement, and she climbed slowly and somewhat shakily to her feet.  Eric helped her to the door, and she kissed him on the cheek as she stepped into the still dark house.  He caught the heavy screen door as it swung closed to keep it from banging loudly in the metal frame.

Joe jerked his head towards the field when Eric turned back to him.

"Come on son," Joe said.  "There's something you need to see.  Bring your rifle."

Eric frowned slightly and rubbed his eyes as he picked up the M-4 and slipped his head and arm through the single point sling.  Joe turned and led the way down the steps and across the broad front yard.  Even though the eastern sky was just beginning to show hints of sunrise, it was still dark enough to make walking somewhat of a challenge, but both men knew the ground and the land well enough to make do without a light. 

When they reached the edge of the field, Joe turned to the left and Eric followed him around to the old tobacco curing barns that sat at the edge of the woods.  The barns were made of thick steel and aluminum sheeting with massive double doors that swung outward on simple post and barrel hinges.  They were constructed so each barn was divided down the middle, with independent doors for each side to create four separate curing chambers.  When the farm was running at its peak, both of the barns would have been packed from back to front, floor to ceiling with several thousand pounds of bright-leaf tobacco slowly drying for sale.

Now, though, most of the fields were rented to other farmers who grew soybeans, corn, and cotton.  The barns hadn't been used to cure tobacco in more than a decade.  Still, when Joe unlocked the massive padlocks on one of the doors and swung it open, the inside smelled faintly of the thick, sweet-sharp tang of good tobacco.  Joe stepped up, and clicked on a small LED flashlight.  Eric followed him, and they made their way to the back of the barn where plastic crates were stacked in neat rows, most of them halfway up to the ten foot ceiling.  Joe pulled one of the gray crates down and popped the lid off.  Inside were neatly packed Mylar packages with nutrition labels pasted on the outside. 

"Each of these crates," Joe said, pulling one of the packages out, "has enough freeze-dried food for one adult for one month, eating three meals a day.  You could stretch one of these packs another week or two if you limited yourself to two meals a day, but that's about the limit if you want to keep yourself healthy.  There's enough stocked up to last the whole family for a little more than a year."

Eric looked around at the stacks of crates, his eyes wide.  Joe tossed him the shiny package he was holding, and Eric caught it.  It was surprisingly light considering the label said it contained seven full dinners complete with a main entrée, three sides, and a desert.  Eric handed the pouch carefully back to his father, who dropped it into the plastic crate and snapped the lid closed.