True fiction, p.11
True Fiction, page 11
“Uh-huh,” Margo said. “And what’s the point of all these devious machinations?”
“The world has limited natural resources—food, water, land, fossil fuels—all of which are already seriously endangered by population growth and it’s only getting worse. And that’s not even factoring in the pollution and global warming created by an ever-increasing global population.” Ian put on his seat belt, started the car, and drove out of the parking lot, all with only his left hand, which made the simple tasks difficult. “The global elites want to keep it all for themselves so they’ve not only got to stop the population growth but also reduce the current demand for those resources.”
“That’s where the global pandemic comes in,” Margo said. “Some superbug that kills everybody who hasn’t been secretly vaccinated.”
“Yes, but to set the stage, over the last decade or so a startling number of top microbiologists worldwide have been dying in accidents and by natural causes at a rate that Ronnie believes is far above normal, according to actuarial tables. That was done to get rid of anybody with the ability to stop the global pandemic that only the elites, and their chosen followers, will survive.”
“Why was the government spying on your friend?”
“They’re spying on all of us but giving him extra scrutiny because he knew what they were doing and was warning others on secret message boards on the dark web. They started following him, reading his e-mails, listening to his calls, drugging his food, and messing with his head. So, to save himself and his sanity, he fled Los Angeles and got completely off the grid. He couldn’t stop them from pulling off their global pandemic or whatever apocalyptic event they created but he was determined to survive it. That would be his rebellion.”
Ian drove onto the highway heading southeast and waited for Margo’s reaction. She was silent for a few moments before she spoke.
“The bottom line is that we’re driving hundreds of miles to seek the advice of a crazy survivalist preparing for the zombie apocalypse.”
“I didn’t say anything about zombies.”
“But you aren’t disputing that he’s crazy.”
Ian chose his words carefully. “He has an unusual worldview but he also has the vital skills we need to learn if we want to survive.”
“The zombie apocalypse,” she said.
“The rest of the week,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Bethesda, Maryland. July 20. 11:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Cross was in a conference room, briefing the three owners and founders of Blackthorn Global Security about the status of his “outside efforts,” as he quaintly characterized them, to exert pressure on the government to accept their proposal to privatize most of the CIA’s covert operations business. Not that it was a business yet, but it would be soon, and an extraordinarily lucrative one, if everything worked out as he’d planned. And so far, with the exception of a minor hitch with Ian Ludlow, it was. He left that hitch out of his briefing to the three owners—an oil company magnate, the leader of a major bank, and a former US vice president who had a significant stake in a major defense contractor.
“The bodies of Ayoub Darwish and Habib Ebrahimi and their computers will be arriving here in the morning,” Cross said, concluding the substance of his briefing. “We’ll be taking the lead on the autopsies and analysis of the devices recovered from the farmhouse.”
“Excellent work, Wilton,” the oilman said. “Where does the success of this operation leave us on the outsourcing proposal?”
“Senator Holbrook went straight to the Oval Office to convey to the president the committee’s unanimous recommendation. I’m confident the president will sign a classified executive order within forty-eight hours outsourcing the majority of the agency’s covert operations to us . . . under the guise of a standard ‘administrative and management support’ contract. The president was a businessman himself. He’s always believed the private sector can do a better job than government.”
“What does Mike Healy think?” asked the former vice president.
“He thinks his balls have been cut off and served to us on a silver platter.”
Everyone smiled. It was a good day. Cross looked out the glass partition and saw Victoria coming his way from the situation room.
“How much do you think we can expect to earn annually from this contract?” The banker could always be counted on to ask about the money.
“Conservatively? One billion dollars,” Cross said.
Victoria paused outside the door and met his eye. He nodded, giving her consent to enter. She came in, gave an airline hostess smile to each of the men, and stepped up close to Cross, speaking quietly into his ear. “Sir, could I have a word? It’s urgent.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Cross said. “I have a small operational matter to deal with. It will just be a moment.”
He stepped out of the conference room with her and then down the hall, where the three billionaires couldn’t see them and read their facial expressions or body language. The men weren’t fools.
She spoke as soon as they were out of sight. “We got a hit on Ian Ludlow and Margo French from a Walmart in Klamath Falls, Oregon.”
That didn’t make sense. Ludlow and French were dead. “What kind of hit?”
“The radio-frequency ID chips in their driver’s licenses pinged the ‘known shoplifter’ profiles that we planted for Ludlow and French in all of the national chain-store security databases after they first eluded us in Seattle.”
Several explanations came to his mind. One was that the hit was a false positive from a software glitch or it was a mechanical error. Another possibility was that someone stole the wallets from Ludlow and French before they got to the house, or after they were killed, which meant there was another loose end with a heartbeat that had to be tracked down. The third was that Ludlow and French were in Klamath Falls, which would be hard for them to do, unless their ghosts went shopping.
“Do you think it’s a software glitch or a mechanical one?” he asked.
“Both are conceivable explanations but also highly unlikely. I could see one false positive at a location, but not two at the same time.”
“Do we have photos from the store?”
“No,” she said. “The purchases were made right when the store opened. The camera system was being rebooted and backed up at the time.”
“Have you followed up with the asset? Did Ludlow and French have their IDs on them before they were killed?”
Victoria shifted her weight, telegraphing her discomfort. “I haven’t been able to reach her.”
Cross didn’t like this. “You’ve had no contact with the asset since she confirmed the kill last night?”
Victoria nodded.
This was unsettling news. The asset’s behavior was highly irregular. Assets were always reachable unless they were on a flight or were in the middle of executing a kill—or were dead.
“Where is the asset supposed to be right now?” he asked.
“Awaiting instructions in Seattle. I kept her there in case we learned that French shared whatever information she got from Ludlow with a third party.”
The implication being that more killings might be necessary. Cross thought it was a wise precaution on Victoria’s part to keep the asset in Seattle after the kill but it made the subsequent silence even more disturbing.
“Trigger the intruder alarm at the house in Seattle. Let’s see what the police discover.” He thought for a moment. The driver’s licenses weren’t the only things that had RFID chips in them. These days almost everything did, from breakfast cereal boxes to key chains. “Do you have the RFIDs from the products that Ludlow and French bought at Walmart?”
“It’s all junk food.”
“I don’t care what it is as long as there are RFID chips in the packaging that we can home in on,” he said. “Get our combat drone at Nellis Air Force Base airborne and searching for any combination of those RFIDs around Klamath Falls.”
She nodded and headed back to the situation room. It was a large search area and the odds of the drone happening upon those RFIDs were slim. They needed to find a way to narrow the possible location of their targets, whoever they were.
Cross took a deep breath. He couldn’t let any sign of problems creep into his expression, his gait, or his tone of voice. It conveyed vulnerability and weakness, something his bosses were instinctively attracted to, like blood in the water to sharks. He waited until he was sure he was in complete control of himself, then returned to the conference room to tell his masters what they wanted to hear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
At the Nevada state line, the two-lane strip of highway through the vacant grasslands abruptly became an unpaved dirt-and-gravel road that stretched out over a low rise and then down into a long valley. A twisted and peeling roadside sign riddled with bullet holes announced that Ian and Margo were entering Washoe County, Nevada, that the road was not maintained, and that they were traveling at their own risk. As if that weren’t enough to dissuade them from venturing on, ahead were uninhabited places like Massacre Lake and Hell Creek, all named to underscore that this was a landscape more hospitable to death than a long, healthy life.
The old Mustang wasn’t built for rutted dirt roads so their journey wasn’t a pleasant one, the car bumping and rocking along as they delved deeper into the desolate expanse of rocks and sagebrush. Far across the dry valley, they could see the serrated edge of a long, barren mountain range that had doomed many settlers heading for Oregon.
Ian and Margo passed through Vya, a ghost town of three decrepit wooden buildings, but after that, they didn’t see any more structures. They also didn’t see any other vehicles or human beings. They were seemingly alone in the middle of a vast nowhere. Ian felt conflicting emotions: relief, because he was far away from civilization and all the spying technology that went along with it, and vulnerability, because he was completely out in the open, easy to spot and kill if anyone knew where to look. But he was fairly certain that nobody did.
Ian recognized some landmarks along the way from his last trip out here—a rock formation that resembled a skull, a dry lake bed with some bones scattered across it, and the rotting hulk of an old truck—that helped him know when to turn off one dirt road and down another. Eventually, he drove through a cleft between two rocky hills, what Ronnie called “Mother Nature’s Glorious Cleavage,” into a hidden clearing where a ramshackle compound had been built.
A cinder-block house with barred windows and an array of solar panels on the roof was at the center of the compound. Radiating out from the house were a greenhouse, a utility shed, a corral with goats, chickens, cows, and a surprisingly lush vegetable garden. A bulldozer, a tractor, and a pickup truck were scattered around like a child’s forgotten toys. There was a gasoline pump and tanks for water and propane. So while it was clear that somebody was living there, nobody was in sight. The air was still and it was eerily quiet.
Ian parked in front of the house and turned to Margo. “I’m sure that he saw us coming for miles and he doesn’t know who we are. Get out slowly with your hands in the air. We don’t want to get shot.”
“This is starting out well,” she said.
Ian got out of the car, his arms raised, which wasn’t easy with one arm in a cast. Margo got out with her arms up, too, looking around for signs of life besides the listless livestock.
“Ronnie,” Ian shouted. “It’s Ian Ludlow and a friend. We’ve come with Doritos.”
“Doritos!” Ronnie shouted back excitedly from one of the hills. “Hot damn. What else have you got?”
Ian lowered his hands and popped the trunk so he could survey the bounty of goods. “Cheetos. Cap’n Crunch. Oreos. Funyuns. Pop-Tarts. Pork rinds.”
“All the essential food groups,” Ronnie said, much closer this time.
Margo turned toward the rocks. She saw a man but was momentarily blinded by the sunshine reflecting off his aluminum foil–wrapped soldier’s helmet. When her vision cleared, she saw the aluminum helmet was atop a deeply tanned, heavily bearded, potbellied man in his forties wearing Ray-Ban Wayfarers and a sweat-stained camouflage tank top and pants, and carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
She stared at him, her head cocked. Ian could read her expression. Something was familiar to her about this strange man but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Ronnie dropped the grenade launcher on the hood of the Mustang and embraced Ian in a bear hug. Ian wasn’t an affectionate man by nature but it felt good, after everything they’d been through, to be in the strong embrace of someone who cared about him.
“Long time, man,” Ronnie said. “Way too long.”
They stepped apart, all smiles, and appraised each other.
“You’re looking good,” Ian said.
“Masturbation. Three to six times daily. That’s the key,” Ronnie said. “But you know that. You’re a writer.”
“I did not know that,” Ian said.
“That explains why you look like you’ve been constipated for a month.”
“That’s not why but we’ll get to that in a minute.” Ian looked past his friend to Margo. “Ronnie, this is Margo French. Margo, this is—”
She interrupted him, because now she knew the answer and it pissed her off.
“The Vine. Ronnie Mancuso,” she said. “The fucking Vine.”
The last three words were hissed like an accusation and pointed at Ian.
“Half-man, half-plant, all cop. That’s me.” Ronnie puffed out his chest with pride. “Not only did it pay for all this”—he swept his arm in front of him, gesturing to his kingdom—“but I’ve been able to communicate with plants ever since. Nothing would have grown here otherwise.”
“No, no, no.” Margo shook her head and fell back against the car. “This isn’t happening.”
Ronnie smiled at Ian. “Wow. My star power hasn’t dimmed. It’s blinding, man. Another reason I had to go where I couldn’t be seen.” He turned to Margo. “Yes, it’s me. I know it’s thrilling but get over it, darling. I crap just like you do. Maybe more.”
But she wasn’t looking at him. Her furious gaze was fixed on Ian. “I can’t believe you dragged me out here. This guy is your Yoda? The fucking Vine? If I have to become him to survive, the CIA can kill me now.”
Ronnie jerked as if electrocuted. “The C-I-A?”
Margo had spoken the three letters that were certain to get Ronnie’s full attention. Maybe it was Ian’s imagination but it looked like Ronnie’s ears had perked up like a dog’s.
“Have you heard about the plane crash in Honolulu?” Ian asked.
“Of course,” Ronnie said. “I have a radio. I need to stay on top of current events to know when the End of Days is coming.”
Ronnie’s mention of the End of Days drew a derisive groan from Margo. Ian ignored it and pressed on.
“The crash was a terrorism scenario I came up with for the CIA to help the government prepare for the worst,” Ian said. “But the CIA went out and did it. They crashed the plane. I don’t know why they did it. But now they want me dead and Margo dead, too.”
Ronnie walked past Ian and regarded the Walmart bags in the trunk as if they were rattlesnakes. “How long ago were you at Walmart?”
“About four hours,” Ian said but he quickly reassured his friend. “It’s okay, we paid cash. We know not to use our credit cards ever again.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re toast.” Ronnie slammed the trunk closed and marched to the corral, a man on a mission.
“What are you talking about?” Ian asked.
“Every product Walmart sells is embedded with a radio-frequency ID chip, either in the item itself or in the packaging so they can track their inventory globally. If you don’t think the government is watching that, too, you’re delusional.”
“That’s funny coming from you, especially after what you just said.” Margo turned to Ian. “Can we go now?”
“No.” Ian headed to the corral, where Ronnie was putting ropes around the necks of three goats. He needed to understand how he’d screwed up and the full scope and consequences of his mistake. “Okay, so they know when a box of Oreos leaves the store. How does that point anybody to us?”
Ronnie replied as he led the three goats out of the corral. “You think groceries, books, and other products are the only things with RFID tags? Your driver’s license and credit cards all have them, too. We’re all just inventory being tracked by the New World Order, man. Do you know why I wear a helmet wrapped with aluminum foil?”
Margo spoke up. “Because you’re a lunatic.”
“To block the signal from the RFID chip in my body, honey.” Ronnie led the goats to his house, opened the front door, then let the animals loose inside.
“Of course,” Margo said, then turned to Ian. “I just want to point out that we’re talking to a man who wraps his head in aluminum foil and lives in a house with his goats.”
Ronnie closed the door to the house, marched up to Margo, and held out his hand to her. “Give me your credit cards.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked.
“Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? They have RFID chips in them that can identify and pinpoint you.”
She glanced at Ian. He shrugged and said, “We can’t use them again anyway.”
“Fine.” Margo opened the car door and dug around in her purse. “You can decorate your hat with them and make a real fashion statement.”
Ian reached into his pocket, pulled his credit cards out of his wallet, and handed them to Ronnie. “Here you go. How do you think RFID chips got into your body?”
“I don’t know when they put one in but I know it’s there.”
“Because you hear voices.” Margo gave Ronnie her credit cards and slung her purse strap over her shoulder.
“Of course not,” Ronnie said. “That would be crazy.”
“Look who’s talking,” Margo said.
“RFID chips don’t transmit audio or video. They share data,” Ronnie said. “I know I’ve got one because the government followed me everywhere until I blocked their signal. Now they don’t know where I am. You’re the first people to come out here in years. The odds are fifty-fifty that you’ve got chips in you, too. They’re putting the chips in everybody.”
