A Day of Reckoning Read online

  Further, only a couple of dozen people knew Jason’s band width and handle.

  And this was obviously one of them, for although he didn’t immediately recognize the voice, they apparently knew how to get ahold of him.

  “Looking for Jason the Brewmeister in Buffalo. Come in if you’re listening.”

  -13-

  Now, Jason was a brewmeister only in his own mind.

  And he’d never even been to Buffalo.

  But he was indeed the man the caller was looking for.

  Preppers typically keep their true locations secret to everyone other than their closest friends.

  The reason they do that is simple: they have things that few others have and that everyone wants.

  If everyone knew where they were many would come looking for them with ill intentions.

  Keeping their location secret was therefore a matter of self-preservation.

  Only a handful of people knew that Jason had an underground bunker somewhere south and east of Ft. Davis.

  Even fewer now since most of them had died.

  Only a handful of the people he communicated with on the radio knew that Jason the Brewmeister’s last name was Tomlin.

  Hopefully no one in the two groups ever met, for they could work together to get Jason’s general location.

  And once they knew his general location a search of the area would reveal a working wind turbine, a working array of solar panels and a working water well pumping system.

  And all of them would lead to a patch of ground near an old-fashioned storm cellar door.

  Busted.

  Of course, if anyone ever came calling it wouldn’t be a cakewalk.

  He’d fight like a tiger to keep what was rightfully his.

  But given, as his mother used to say, his “druthers,” he’d rather not have to fight if he could avoid it.

  Since he didn’t recognize the voice on the radio he proceeded with caution.

  “Jason hasn’t been on the radio in several days. You wanna leave a message for him if I come across him?”

  Long-distance radio waves sometimes get distorted in bad weather.

  This is especially true in mountainous or hilly terrains, like the Big Bend area of Texas.

  Oftentimes voices are distorted. They don’t sound the way one would expect.

  It doesn’t always work both ways.

  Jason didn’t recognize David Wright’s voice as he called from a ham radio just outside of San Antonio.

  However, Jason’s voice sounded perfectly clear to David Wright.

  Still, he wasn’t about to call Jason on his ruse.

  “Yes. Would you tell him to call his friend Dave in San Antonio? It’s kind of important.”

  “Do you regularly monitor this frequency, Dave?”

  “No. I’m only here for a short time.”

  “Well, I’ll give him the message if I happen to see him.”

  “Thank you.”

  David Wright was neither a prepper nor a ham radio enthusiast.

  He was using the radio of another friend who was both.

  He got off the radio and told his friend, “That was the man I was looking for. I wonder why he pretended not to know me.”

  “He’s just being over cautious,” his friend replied.

  “Hang tight. I’ll bet he calls you right back.”

  Sure enough, fewer than five minutes elapsed before Jason’s now-familiar voice came through the speaker.

  “This is Jason the Brewmeister, calling from Buffalo. I’m looking for my old friend Dave in San Antonio. Are you out there, Dave?”

  Dave’s friend said, “Told you,” and handed Dave the microphone.

  “Jason, how’ve you been?”

  “Not bad, Dave, but it’s colder than shit here in Buffalo.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. I’m glad to hear you’re still alive.”

  “Might as well live. Got nothing better to do.”

  “Jason, I have a big favor to ask.”

  “I’ll help if I can. Whatcha need?”

  “You told me once you knew the woman who blew the whistle on Saris 7.”

  “Yes. Hannah Jelinovic. Hot chick. I didn’t know her well. I’d have liked to know her much better, if you know what I mean.”

  “Jason, I’m working a case and need her help. It’s a matter of life or death. She may be the only one who can save my client from a death penalty. I need to find her.”

  Were it not for an occasional burst of random static the radio would have been completely silent.

  It was that way for a full ninety seconds while Jason weighed the possible damage it might do him to try to aid Dave in his effort.

  He finally reasoned the risk was minimal. And he was all about helping a friend and saving a man’s life if he could.

  Still, though, he wasn’t sure he’d be much help.

  And he couldn’t mislead his old friend Dave. Jason was nothing if not honest.

  “I’ll help if I can, Dave. But I don’t know what I have to give you. I heard she got married to some guy from Baylor, but if I was told her new last name I don’t remember it.

  “Also, I never worked with her. We were in the same type of business, but I only saw her a couple of times after college, at industry conventions and such.”

  “Her married name is Snyder, Jason. S-N-Y-D-E-R.”

  “Nice to know, Dave. But I still don’t have a clue whether she’s still alive or where she might be. The company she worked for had offices all over the country. After the whole Saris thing, I heard their reputation was ruined and they lost their NASA contract not long after Hannah went public.

  “If she did survive, she could have taken a job with any one of a number of other contractors. She could be anywhere.”

  “The word I got is that she is alive. She’s a prepper and she lives somewhere in central Texas. Probably in the Junction or Kerrville area.”

  Suddenly Dave’s request made sense. He didn’t want Jason’s help thinking he and Hannah ran in the same professional crowd.

  He wanted Jason’s help because he and Hannah were both preppers.

  And because the prepping community was a small one.

  Preppers tended to run in some of the same circles and have many of the same habits.

  -14-

  “I’ll be honest with you, Frank. I never really trusted you from the beginning. From the first time I saw you, that morning you picked us up, you smelled of cop.”

  John Dykes made a sour face when he said the word “cop.”

  Frank said nothing.

  He knew that some people could spot a police officer a mile away. They had an uncanny sense; an intuition.

  They were usually very bad people who’d run afoul of the law several times.

  Frank hadn’t told anyone he was a former cop for fear it wouldn’t bode well for him if the word got out. It was a secret he’d even kept from Josie.

  “I’m not a cop.”

  It was true. He could make the declaration with ease of mind, for he wasn’t lying.

  He was a retired cop of many years. But he no longer carried a badge. So technically he was telling the truth.

  “I know that now,” John said. “When Josie told us you used to be a Marine it made sense.”

  “How so?”

  “A Marine carries himself a lot like a policeman does, Frank. He walks with his head high, like nobody better mess with him because he’ll kick your ass and eat your lunch.

  “I guess that’s why I sensed you were a cop. I was wrong. I apologize.”

  It was true.

  Once a man, or woman for that matter, serves in the Corps he or she is a Marine for life. It’s not something they put behind them. The Corps is like a shadow which is by their side, following them everywhere for the rest of their lives.

  With that shadow comes a certain swagger.

  Not an air of superiority, necessary. It’s more a feeling of confidence, for every Marine knows they’ve accomplished something few people would attempt and fewer still have achieved.

  Becoming a Marine isn’t easy. It’s damned tough. And those who do it feel a sense of pride until the last of their days.

  That’s it. It’s not cockiness. It’s confident pride.

  Police officers feel the same way, and walk with the same slight swagger.

  “Apology accepted.”

  Now Frank had always been as proud of being a police officer as he had in being a Marine.

  Under most circumstances he’d have proudly proclaimed he’d been a San Antonio police officer for many years, then a deputy with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Department.

  But every policeman knows there are certain times when he has to keep that knowledge to himself.

  Say, for example, when he’s working undercover.

  Or when he’s been kidnapped and taken four hundred miles from home, then is forced to live in a nest of criminals.

  John’s apology and Frank’s acceptance of same seemed to break the tension in the group.

  For John was the oldest of the brothers and the patriarch of the group.

  As the alpha male he was making peace with the only other man in the group strong enough to challenge him.

  Frank, in turn, was playing nice and sending a definite signal he accepted things the way they were. In essence, he was saying he accepted John’s role as leader of the pack and wouldn’t challenge him on it.

  Under other circumstances Frank would have made it his personal mission to capture each and every one of them and take them to jail for trial.

  But things had changed so drastically.

  They’d driven past the Hale County jail on their way into town on the day John and Jason forced Frank to drive them at gunpoint.

  There w
ere absolutely no vehicles in the parking lot, and the snow had drifted high against the jailhouse doors.

  Frank could make out a sign pasted on the door on bright yellow paper but couldn’t make out the words.

  No doubt it announced the jail was closed until the thaw came.

  Also not in doubt was that the county courthouse was shuttered in a similar manner.

  Exactly what would Frank do if he were to capture these men? He couldn’t take them to jail and they couldn’t be tried.

  And what would he charge them with? Breaking and entering? Taking over a building which didn’t belong to them?

  They hadn’t done anything most other survivors hadn’t done. Pretty much everybody, including Frank himself, had gone into abandoned stores since Saris 7 hit the earth in search of food or water or medication.

  Most, save the old or infirm, had crawled up in the back of abandoned trailers to loot them of their food.

  No, as far as he could see, the Dykes did what everybody else did, only on a grander scale.

  For it was the Dykes who had the forethought of capturing Plainview’s ultimate prize:

  The Food World Distribution Center, with enough food and water to keep them all alive for many years.

  Yes, they’d killed, but it was only when they themselves were under attack from others who wanted their prize.

  In normal times they would have a pretty good claim they were only acting in self-defense.

  Frank was sure they used some force to take the building just before Saris 7 struck the earth.

  They may well have killed to get it.

  But that was ten years before.

  If they left any bodies in their wake they were gone now. Buried, burned or dragged out into the snow to freeze and the n later to thaw out and turn into bones.

  There was no evidence of any carnage that long ago. Not anymore. And like it or not, a lack of evidence of crimes committed so long ago meant they’d never be punished.

  Whatever they did was ancient history as far as the justice system was concerned.

  Whatever crimes they committed, they were given a pass.

  It was like a big cosmic “do-over,” where everything from the past was magically wiped out and everyone’s slate was clean again.

  In that regard, Frank knew he’d have to stop regarding the Dykes family as criminals.

  From now on he’d have to view them as family.

  He hoped he could bring himself to do that.

  -15-

  For several days a relative calm came over the distribution center, and indeed over the Dykes clan itself.

  Most of the family went out of their way to make Frank feel he was one of them, part of the family.

  One by one they went to him and, usually in whispers, told him they’d always liked him. And how it was never their idea to chain him and to make him their slave.

  It was someone else’s idea, they’d claim, and they only went along with it so they wouldn’t incur the mysterious “someone’s” wrath.

  It was all BS and Frank knew it. He’d never call them on it, but he knew very well that everyone enjoyed having him do the work they found disgusting, or work they’d grown tired of doing themselves.

  The day after John came to him to make peace, John called a second family meeting.

  This time he personally invited Frank to attend.

  Frank sat next to Josie, holding her hand, both of them nervous and unsure what was about to transpire.

  It was at this, the second meeting, that John suggested they remove the heavy chains from Frank’s ankles.

  “If Frank is going to be a part of our family, we need to treat him as one of us. We need to go back to doing the things we used to do, on a rotating basis.”

  Frank looked around the room and saw a couple of people wince. He thought he could read disappointment on the faces of a couple of the cousins, although they tried to hide it.

  The only one to openly defy John’s suggestion was Josie’s Aunt Stacy.

  “I don’t believe him,” she said. “I think he’s only pretending to love Josie so he can get out of his chores.”

  If anyone else in the group agreed with her they gave no indication.

  John looked to Frank as though giving him a chance to rebut Stacy’s contention.

  Frank cleared his throat and said, “I didn’t come here under the best of circumstances. Initially I was angry. Initially I hated every one of you.

  “But the care Josie gave to me when she didn’t have to softened my heart. I looked at her first as a savior, then as a healer, and finally as she really is. A wonderful woman and someone I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

  He turned and faced Stacy directly.

  “You can question my sincerity as well as my love for Josie. That’s certainly your right.

  “As for my own right, I can fall in love with whoever I choose. I don’t have a requirement to prove it to you or to anyone else.

  “In time you’ll see it for yourself, but that’s on you, not me.”

  His words were relatively harsh for someone trying his best to ingratiate himself with his captors.

  He knew “captors” was such a harsh term, and he was trying hard to view the Dykes family more as hosts.

  It wasn’t easy.

  Especially with Aunt Stacy doubting his sincerity.

  Josie warned Frank ahead of the meeting Stacy would likely be a problem.

  “She’s had designs on you from the beginning,” she told him. “She even went so far as telling her sister Susan to stay away from you. That she was going to make you her man.”

  Frank could only think of one word to express his feelings for the idea.

  “Ewww.”

  After the meeting broke up Frank went to Stacy and asked her point blank, “What can I do to convince you that what I feel for Josie is the real deal?”

  Her response was just as blunt.

  “Shoot yourself in the head and fall dead at my feet. Then I’ll believe you.”

  As she stormed away he retorted, more to himself than anyone else, “Oh, is that all? Why didn’t you say so?”

  It wasn’t the response he was hoping for, and told him what Josie already knew.

  That Stacy would be a problem every day she and Frank shared the same living space.

  She told Frank later, after they got back to their tent, “You have to remember that Aunt Stacy has always terrorized this family.

  “Nobody wanted her to bring her dogs in here with her. Everybody knew she’d let them run loose all over the building and would make no effort to clean up after them. She’d make everybody else do it.”

  “Why doesn’t someone stand up to her? Why do you take her abuse?”

  “Well, mostly because we’re scared to death of her. She had her husband killed because he stopped catering to her needs and threatened to divorce her.

  “She used his own money against him to hire a hit man. Then she went on a cruise with her girlfriends so she was out of the country when he was killed and she wouldn’t be a suspect.

  “That’s how she got away with it. She had an airtight alibi. When her husband was shot she was on the beach in Bermuda, surrounded by cabana boys standing in line to rub sun screen on her shoulders and bring her fruity drinks with little umbrellas in them.

  “She got away with the murder and the mutilation because the police didn’t have enough evidence to tie her to it. The hit man never came forward and the case is still unsolved to this day.

  “She collected on a million dollar life insurance policy and lived high on the hog until Saris 7 came along and spoiled her little nirvana.”

  “Did you say ‘mutilation?’”

  “She had the hitman cut off her husband’s testicles and shove them in his mouth. Why, nobody knows. John thought it was because he was unable to perform for her. Or maybe she just wanted to have the last word regarding some argument they had.

  “Or maybe she was trying to throw them off her path. The police said that made them think it may have been a mob hit, since the mob sometimes did stuff like that.

  “All I’m telling you is this, honey… if there’s one person on this earth you don’t want to have as your enemy, it’s Aunt Stacy. We’ve got to be very very careful.”

  -16-

  Ace turned up a seven of hearts and played it on the eight of clubs.