Seeking Safe Harbor: Suddenly Everything Changed (The Seeking Series) (25 page)

“As we agreed to do, we will once again become inconspicuous.”

A
FTER making the first left turn following their quick departure from his house, Zach’s father turned several more times. Zach understood they were simple evasion tactics and kept pace. Those on the motorcycles were too far back to see any of the moves, so they wouldn’t be able to follow easily.

Fifteen minutes and twelve turns later, the elder Arthur pulled over to the side of a quiet street. There were several burned out houses nearby, but it appeared that the damaged happened weeks before, and there was no evidence of any people in the area. They surveyed the houses and the street for several minutes to be sure they were alone, and then they got out of their cars.

“We need a plan,” the elder Arthur said when they met on the street.

“Yes, we do,” agreed Zach. “But first, we all need to know one another. These are my friends, George and Ron. George and Ron, meet Glen and Mae Arthur.”

“So, that’s where young Glen got his name,” George observed. “I suspect he’s proud.”

“I can’t say if he is,” said the older Glen, “but it’s for sure that I’m proud he’s my grandson.”

“I don’t recall your mentioning a George or a Ron in the past,” said Mae. “Are these new friends?”

“You’re as sharp as ever, Mom. Yes, they are, and let me tell you how we happened to get together.” He gave his parents a quick rundown regarding what had taken place in the last month, ending with their trip to Santa Maria. “I’m afraid I recognized one of the motorcycle gang members as one of those that Denise shot the motorcycle out from under,” he admitted. “We probably led them to you.”

“Don’t fret yourself over that,” his father told him, “because it isn’t true. If they had been following you, they would have come in from the front. That gang has been checking us out from the back of the house for the last couple of days. I think they picked that field because they could spread out and hit us with large numbers. The two of us with our single shot guns couldn’t have done what you three did with your automatic weapons. But, even with those weapons, there’s just too many to fight off. We knew it was coming, and that’s why we were packed and ready to go.”

Zach looked over at the SUV. “That looks like a gas powered car,” he said. “How’d you get gas? On that note, how are they getting gas for their motorcycles?”

“I don’t know about them, but I anticipated there would be a gas shortage, so I filled up the tank and twelve five-gallon cans while there was still a gas station or two intact. I hear that their tanks ran dry the next day, and there are no other ready sources. I haven’t driven the car since. I figured I would have enough to get to that survivalist camp in the mountains, and that was about it.”

“Exactly where is that place.”

“To be honest, I only have a general idea.”

“Well, I think you two should come with us.”

“I agree,” Glen Arthur said. “We should stick together. We’re family.”

“Which brings us to the plan. The Coast Guard cutter I told you about is scheduled to pick us up tonight at midnight at Gaviota State Park.” He looked at his watch. It was almost noon. “We have twelve hours to get there.”

“More than enough time,” his father said, “if not for that motorcycle gang. Did you come in on the 101?”

“Yes. That’s where the two motorcycles tried to ambush us.”

“They’ll be watching for us there. We can try Highway 135. Hopefully they won’t have it under surveillance, too.”

“They’re doing all this for a little food and some supplies?”

“That’s like gold these days. Besides, they’ve been watching us, so they know we have solar panels, batteries, and even some walkie-talkies. And, now that you’re here, they have a chance at getting some slaves.”

“Slaves?”

“That’s what I’ve heard they’ve started doing. People like that don’t like working, so they’re taking men to do the work for them. They want women around to do their bidding.” He looked at Denise, and then turned back to his son. “You need to be darn sure you don’t let our little girl here get taken by those thugs.”

“Let ‘em try,” Denise exclaimed, sticking her AK-47 out at arm’s length so her grandfather could see that she was ready for them.

Zach grinned. “There’d be a lot of dead ones.”

“But,” his father opined sadly, “that’d still leave a lot of live ones. What say we not get in that situation? Follow me. I’ll take streets alongside Highway 135 and we can stop and check every now and then to see if they have the highway staked out.”

They drove through a burned-out business district and on to a stretch of road that fronted the highway. They stopped at the end of the first block on that street, and Zach and his father got out and walked over to the corner of a building to look at the highway. The elder Arthurs took a set of binoculars he had in the SUV, so both men were able to survey the highway.

They saw no activity, so they moved two blocks and repeated the procedure. The fourth time, Zach was first to the corner of a building and, immediately after focusing on the highway, he motioned for his father to use caution. The motorcycle gang was there.

“Any thoughts?” Zach asked after his father had studied the area for a minute or two. Although the bikers were well over a mile away, the ex-army ranger whispered.

“It’s them all right,” said the elder Arthur. A combat veteran himself, he, too, whispered. “There’s not many of them, though.”

“Yeah, I saw that… and that’s exactly what worries me.”

“W
HY?” the elder Arthur asked. “The fewer the bett… ahhh, I get your drift.” He pointed to their cars. “Okay then, let’s go take a look.”

They went back to the cars and trained their binoculars on the street ahead of them. The street angled slightly down, but they could see a couple of helmeted heads in the distance.

“They must have every southbound street covered,” said the older man. “What we’ll have to do is go back seven or eight blocks and head west to Guadalupe. There are some country roads west of the town that eventually lead to Highway 1. The intersections are far enough south that we should be able to avoid these guys. How are you fixed for fuel?”

“The tank is about empty, but we have another five gallons in the trunk.”

“That should be enough,” his father said. “I doubt they have binoculars and probably can’t see us. But to be on the safe side, let’s back up slowly and in a straight line for a few blocks. By that time, the distance and the earth’s curvature will definitely have us out of their sight. We can put the fuel in, then head for Guadalupe.”

They backed away carefully. If anyone was watching from a distance, they couldn’t see the cars move. Fifteen minutes later, the last five gallons of diesel was in the Mercedes, and the two cars were speeding as fast as they could around stalled autos, toward Guadalupe, a small town west of Santa Maria. Again, they saw few people, and most of them were just sitting forlornly along either side of the road.

“Grandpa” Glen took several side streets after they passed through Guadalupe proper, and they ended up on a single lane road that passed through an area of small hills. It took more than three hours for them to get to the outskirts of Orcutt, a town south of Guadalupe. They skirted around the town and finally arrived at Highway 1.

They were several miles south of Santa Maria and were confident they had escaped the motorcycle gang that was after them. The sun was rolling down toward the ocean, its light shining on the highway in front of them. It reflected off the windshields of several vehicles that were blocking the road. After a quick discussion, they agreed that Zach and Ron would drive to the blockade in the Mercedes to find out what was happening. The others remained in the SUV a hundred yards back.

When they arrived, Zach and Ron saw there were six or seven armed men behind the cars. Taking their weapons with them, they got out of the car and walked over to the first car. “Why are you blocking the road?” Zach asked.

“We are the appointed leaders for this area,” a gruff looking, overweight man of about fifty said from behind the car. “Where is it you’re going?”

“To Gaviota.”

“You may pass, but you have to leave your vehicles here.”

“We can’t go on foot,” Zach protested. “We don’t have the time, and we have things with us, plus some elderly people.”

“You are not allowed to take anything out of the area.”

“By whose order?”

“I told you, we’ve been appointed.”

“By whom?”

You ask too many questions! Now, go get the other vehicle and bring it here.”

He eyed the AK-47s Zach and Ron were carrying. All the weapons the men behind the cars had appeared to be single shot or, at best, semi-automatic. “Leave your weapons. No one except us can have weapons.”

“By order of…?”

“Just do as I say.”

Zach and Ron exchanged glances. They backed slowly toward the Mercedes.

“Where are you going?” the overweight “leader” demanded.

“You ordered us to go get the other car.”

“Leave those automatic weapons here.”

“No can do!” said Zach as he and Ron eased into the Mercedes.

Several of the men got up, went to the front of the cars, and watched suspiciously as Zach backed the Mercedes away. Unlike the forlorn people they saw off to the sides of the roads, none of these people appeared to be undernourished.

“What was that all about?” Zach’s father asked when the Mercedes was alongside the Ford SUV.

“It’s not good,” Zach told him. “They claim to have some kind of authority, and they want everything we’ve got.”

“All our food?” asked Mae, who’d come over to the car.

“Food, cars, guns, everything.”

“Why, that’s robbery,” she said.

“They look to me to be the same as the guys who stole my boat,” said Ron, “except these guys are scamming people instead of outright robbing them.”

“I’d have shared food with them if they were in need,” Glen Arthur said, “but if that’s the kind of people they are, they’re not getting a blasted thing from me.”

“Well, Dad, that’s the kind of people they are,” Zach advised him. “So is there another route we can take down to Gaviota?”

“It’s the long way, but we can go west into Vandenberg. There are some back roads that will take us near the coast and then south. I’m not all that familiar with the roads, though, and if we run into trouble, we’ll have a tough time making your midnight rendezvous.”

Zach glanced back at the men at the roadblock. Several had taken a few steps toward them and were watching them intently. Several others got in the cars and started them. “Expect trouble,” he said.

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll start my SUV and turn it around quick. You stay right behind me. If they come after us, they’ll have to stop to pick up their buddies, so we’ll have a good head start. The sun is going down, but I’m not going to turn on my lights. I’m going to be making a lot of turns, so keep alert.”

“I’m with you, Dad.”

“One thing first,” Glen said as he walked to the back of the Mercedes. He smashed the brake lights and then did the same to the SUV. “No point in our brakes giving us away on the turns.”

“Great thinking, Dad,” the younger man beamed.

They walked to their cars slowly so as not to give the men at the roadblock a warning that they were planning a quick getaway. As soon as everyone was in their cars, all their movement sped up. Glen started the SUV and in almost the same motion, he shot backwards across the highway, turned and was on his way north in seconds, Zach was right behind him.

It took a few seconds for the startled road-blockers to react, but the cars moved forward to pick up the men who were standing, and then there were four cars in pursuit.