Grace Under Fire Read online

  “If we’re earning our names, then you’d be Barb,” she replied. “You’ve always been the prick of the family.”

  Resigning himself to the fact that he was losing this battle, he rose from his seat and headed for the screen door. He brushed by his daughter, pausing long enough for her to give him a kiss on the cheek, then headed off toward his office. This was not the office that handled the business of the machine shop, where he invoiced local mining and gas companies for the small jobs he did for them. This was the office from which The Mick ran his real life.

  He picked up the satellite phone and studied the caller ID with interest, understanding that what was displayed may be totally unrelated to who was actually on the phone. When it rang again in his hand, he clicked a button and spoke. “The Machine Shop, can I help you?”

  “You’re still open?” replied the voice. “Can’t keep a crazy Irishman down, can you?”

  “Well, a suit-wearing, pencil-pushing bastard like you wouldn’t know anything about real work,” The Mick replied. “The working man can’t take a day off just because the world goes to shit. Those kinds of holidays are only for you white collar folks.”

  “I’m glad to hear that your work ethic hasn’t suffered,” Kevin replied.

  “So what’s up? You trapped in Washington and needing me to come rescue you?” The Mick teased Kevin relentlessly about living and working inside the Beltway.

  “I’m safe,” Kevin said. He did not go into detail. His bug out plan was not something he talked about. “I do need to ask a favor, but you’re certainly free to say no. This is not work, it’s personal.”

  “Ask,” The Mick said.

  “Damascus, Virginia,” Kevin said. “How far away are you from there?”

  The Mick consulted a map on the wall. A red pushpin indicated his facility. He traced a road with a fingertip. “Maybe seventy miles or so. Maybe a little more.”

  “Do you have a way to travel there other than walking? If you have to walk, I’m not asking. That would take so long as to make my request pointless.”

  “I have multiple options for travel,” The Mick replied, not going into detail.

  “I choppered in to the place I’m staying. When the chopper left, he took a friend’s daughter and a veteran friend of hers, dropped them off near her home in Damascus. Her dad is going to try to make it there by road but we’re not sure how long that’s going to take with things being what they are. The pilot called back just a little bit ago and he was concerned. He said the town appeared to be occupied by armed folks and the group took fire during their flyover.”

  “He wants me to make sure his baby got home safely?”

  “Basically.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “You’re free to say no or take more time to think about it,” Kevin said. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  “I’m a dad. I’d be glad to check in on her.”

  “Are you sure it’s okay? I hate to put you to any trouble.”

  “Nah, you don’t give a shit about my trouble. You’ve put me to trouble more times than I can count. Besides, there are some things worth a man’s trouble and this is one of them.”

  “I owe you.”

  “Indeed you do. I can tell you where the repayment starts.”

  “With what?”

  “I’m only The Mick for business. If it’s personal, call me Conor. That’s me real name.”

  There was a pause for a moment. “Understood, Conor. Be safe, my friend.”

  The Mick clicked the phone off, picked up his coffee, and went back to the porch. Barb was sitting on the glider now doing the same as he had been doing earlier, watching the chickens and goats forage the crumbling parking lot. She looked at her father with a question on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to ask what he had gotten himself into. It was clearly something because she saw it written all over his face.

  “What is it this time?” she asked. “For some reason, I mistakenly assumed that with the world falling apart you might have a few days off.”

  “Someone asked me to check in on somebody. It’s a favor. A personal favor.”

  “I thought the whole point of having this secure bug out location was so we could hole up here and wait out the problems of the world.” Barb sighed. “What’s the point if you’re just going go running around out in the chaos and get yourself killed?”

  Conor shrugged. Guilty as charged.

  “So you have anything to say for yourself?” she asked.

  “I’ve been wanting to try out the electric motor that I just installed on one of my bikes. A mountain bike with motorized assist. This would be a perfect opportunity.”

  Barb threw a hand up in exasperation. “You’ve got acres of parking lot here to try it out on. Instead you’re going to take a chance on getting yourself killed.”

  “I’m not going to get myself killed. I’m just checking in on someone. A friend of a friend. Actually, a friend of a friend’s daughter.”

  “Well, just go ahead. You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do anyway. Trying to talk sense into you is like trying to talk to one of the goats. Actually it’s worse. The goat halfway listens because he thinks you might feed him. Talking to you is more like talking to a rock.”

  “It’s been said before.”

  She paused a second and let her frustration pass. “I reckon I can keep an eye on things. We know who really runs things around here anyway.”

  He knew she could. The girl was tough as nails. She was a generation removed from Ireland but still had the grit, the determination, and the backbone of an Irish woman. She could do anything she set her mind to.

  As their Irish heritage made her determined and strong, it also made him loyal. Despite his loose connection with a girl named Grace, for which there was no connection at all, he could not sit there in comfort and peace if there were something he could do to help the child. He had to make an effort. If it were his daughter on the other end, he would hope someone would go to this same trouble.

  “So when you leaving?”

  “Reckon I’ll pack today and leave tonight,” he said.

  “How far is it?”

  “I suspect about seventy or eighty miles.”

  “How long a trip on that contraption of yours?” she asked.

  “It should make 25 to 30 mph if I’m on relatively flat road,” he replied. “I don’t know yet what it will do on hills or off-road.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help you get ready?” she asked.

  “You might throw together a couple of days’ worth of food while I get my gear ready.”

  Not one to put off work, Barb rose to get to it. As she went by, she stopped and asked, “This girl…what’s her name?”

  “Grace.”

  She nodded, considering the name. “Grace.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Damascus, VA

  Grace moved a short distance off trail. She didn’t want to take any chance on someone coming along and wondering what she was doing. She found a spot where she was reasonably concealed by dense vegetation but could still see through the bushes to the park.

  She dug out her monocular. It was a cheap Chinese thing her dad bought for about fifteen dollars but it did the trick. It wasn’t the kind of optic you would take on a Montana elk hunt but it would do for looking across a parking lot or a short distance through the woods. She trained the monocular on the crowd.

  Having grown up in a town that saw hikers year-round, she could tell that’s exactly who these people were. There was no other explanation for them being here other than that they had come for the hiker festival and gotten trapped by circumstance. What didn’t make sense was that most of hikers she had known over the course of her life were friendly and generally easygoing folks. In fact, she and her parents had often extended hospitality, known as “trail magic”, to hikers. They opened their home to some on occasion such as when unseasonably bad weather stranded an unprepared hiker in town or when someone just ne
eded a break from the rigors of the trail to get their head back in the game.

  Most of the hikers Grace could see were unarmed and appeared to be occupying themselves in conversation, playing hacky sack, or even playing musical instruments. Those were the kind of hikers she was used to seeing. Others had guns and were stationed at the perimeter of the crowd. Those concerned her.

  There were open fires with food cooking in large pots. These were not the kind of pots that hikers would carry around. These were more like commercial pots from restaurant kitchens and she wondered where they had got them. She also wondered where they got the food they were cooking. The small police force in the town would probably not allow these hikers to be running around with guns. Something had to have happened. It was yet another concerning thing that she didn’t have answers for.

  Up until this point she had maintained some fantasy that she would reach town and break Tom free, then the two of them would continue on happily down the road to her parents’ house. Seeing this crowd, their guns, there was no way she was walking in there and taking him. While his track chair gave him mobility, it did not give him speed. She would have to wait. She would have to go on to her parents’ house first. As much as she hated the idea, she may even have a wait for her dad and Sonyea to show up and help her recover Tom. The thought crushed her but she had to be practical.

  She put the monocular in the pocket of her cargo pants. After some deliberation she decided to stash her AR pistol in her pack, also. One of the reasons she carried this particular pack and this particular gun was that it afforded her optimal accuracy in a weapon that would just fit inside her pack. She hated to put the weapon in a place it would be harder to reach but if she ran into people the weapon would draw attention. The pack by itself wouldn’t among this crowd. This was a town used to seeing people with packs. She still had the pistol within reach, she just hoped she didn’t need it. A gunshot in proximity of this crowd would certainly bring people running.

  She slung her pack on her back and started moving again. This was where she was closest to town, where she was more likely to encounter other people. People in this town used the trail as a back road and informal route through town. Many people would bicycle into town in the evening to eat dinner, have a few drinks, and ride back home unconcerned about being pulled over for drunk driving.

  Grace continued on at a walking pace, afraid that running might draw attention. She wanted to get closer to the mob but not pass through it. In a group this size, she might blend in, but it was also possible she would be called out as someone who didn’t belong. One side of the park was bordered by a street lined with small houses. Her best bet would be to try to get behind that neighborhood and weave her way in to a decent vantage point.

  She left the trail to cross the main street through town. She saw no one close enough to worry about, so she went straight across the road and through the yard of the nearest house. When she was behind it, she took to an overgrown gravel alley and followed it for several blocks, trying to maintain an awkward balance between vigilant and nonchalant.

  As she got close to the park, she began looking for a place where she might observe it, and hopefully Tom, from concealment. One of the houses situated right alongside the park had an enormous RV in the driveway covered with a stretchy tan cover that fell all the way to the bottom of the tires. She worked her way to the house, concerned with the increase in the noise level she could hear from the park. She was getting too close for comfort.

  Working her way in behind the hedges to the side of the house, she crawled along in the gap between them and the house. It was a prickly crawl, the ground covered in sharp needles from whatever kind of bushes these were. The needles poked through her clothing and gouged her skin as she crawled. She kept her eyes open for snakes. The area was home to copperheads and timber rattlers, as well as all the non-venomous snakes native to the region. None were pleasant to crawl up on in tight quarters.

  When she reached the front steps, she was within twelve feet of the back of the RV. She studied it for a moment, noting the shape of a ladder beneath the cover. That ladder would lead her to the top of the RV, and perhaps the best vantage point she would find. When she was certain no one would see her, she shot across the gap between the hedges and the RV, ducking beneath the cover. She wasted no time crawling up the ladder as quickly and quietly as she could.

  Fortunately, when she reached the top, she found that the cover was lifted above the RV’s top by the air conditioning unit and several other things she didn’t recognize, creating a kind of tent about eighteen inches tall so the cover was not lying flat on her. She also discovered that it was incredibly hot and stuffy under the cover.

  To the rear of the RV, and hopefully more hidden from the park, she slid her pack off. On her belly, she then crawled as far forward as the tented section of the cover allowed. She removed her Esee knife from her belt and slipped it through the fabric of the cover, making a slit in it. With her fingers, she pried the slit open enough that she could see through it. It also allowed the entry of air that was just slightly cooler and more breathable than the air trapped inside with her.

  It didn’t take her long to spot Tom moving through the crowd for several reasons. For one, the track chair made him stand about a foot taller than everyone else, also propelling him at a smoother pace than that of people walking. Then there was the fact that the sight of the tall man in the track chair brought activity to a halt and caused the crowd to part for him.

  Taking her eyes from him for a moment, Grace looked around to make sure that she had not drawn any attention while getting on top of the RV. She saw no one even close to her position. As long as she didn’t move too much she thought she would be safe there.

  Tom was still being escorted by the two armed men. She wondered if they’d even searched him. While he’d given her his two primary weapons, the AK pistols, he carried backup weapons in the form of a .38 revolver and a discreet knife. Both would likely be useless to him in this situation. The odds were against him.

  In the center of the park there were a couple of picnic shelters and a stage for outdoor concerts. The picnic shelters had been walled off with blue tarps and black plastic, turning them into more weatherproof structures. Grace noted that there were more men with guns clustered around these shelters.

  From her vantage point on the RV roof, Grace watched Tom being led into one of the picnic shelters. The tarps prevented her from seeing inside. Her heart raced, wondering if he was in danger. Part of her could just not reconcile the fact that these hikers and backpackers, a group of people she’d seen her entire life, were carrying guns and pointing them at people. It was simply not characteristic behavior.

  She kept her monocular trained on the entrance to the picnic shelter, trying to see through the gap at the entrance. She could see nothing. After several futile moments of trying to make out what might be happening in there, she gave up and began moving the monocular around the area, trying to pick up any intelligence on the group.

  She examined the cluster of shelters and the stage area, paying the most attention to the men with guns. Without fail, all appeared to be hikers and not local men. Their clothes gave them away. While some carried tactical weapons, others held hunting rifles, an assortment of bolt-action rifles and lever-action rifles.

  Grace noted an odd thing about the weapons. Many of them had the same square emblem on the butt stock. At first she took this as a sign that the men were part of a group, that there was some type of logo or symbol unifying them. Then it hit her that she’d seen that sticker before. It took a moment to remember where, until she recognized it as the familiar price sticker of the local gun store. These guns were stolen.

  Whatever had happened here had led this group of hikers to break into the gun store and clear out the inventory. She didn’t know how she felt about that. Somehow it was comforting that this was not an occupying force, a gang who showed up with weapons to take over her town. On a tactical level,
it also made her aware that the majority of these people would not be trained shooters and may not even be familiar with the operation of firearms. Were there to be some type of engagement or firefight that could be an advantage. Just from this preliminary intelligence gathering, if she had to take on a pair of guards, she would single out a pair with slower cycling weapons.

  Having garnered that piece of information Grace scanned the crowd. She wanted to determine why the unarmed people remained there. Was it that they had no place to go? Were they being held prisoner? Were they being protected from some other force?

  She could pick up little bits from what she saw. Since many backpackers carried them now, there was an array of solar chargers laid out charging phones. She could even see people attempting to text or call with them, the futility and frustration evident on their faces as their attempts were not successful.

  Her experience of the last week told her that the communication infrastructure was spotty and intermittent. Sometimes you could get signal and get a text out but calls were very difficult. The center of town here only had limited service in the best of times, but if the generator providing power to the local cell tower had run out of fuel then they probably wouldn’t be getting any signal at all.

  She could see small clusters of intense discussion. Sometimes there would be one or more people in the cluster crying. They looked frustrated, desperate, and depressed. They looked like people who wanted to go home and were just trying to find a way to do so. Grace couldn’t help but think if she were that desperate she would get up and do something about it. She wouldn’t just lay there and cry about it.

  Everything she saw made her think that perhaps these people were not prisoners but being guarded against an outside force. She wondered if that outside force may be the townspeople themselves. The relationship between the town and the hikers was complicated. There were times that the town could be clannish, redneck, and backwoodsy. Tourism was increasingly becoming their bread and butter. Although being welcoming to the tourists was smart business, it was easy to imagine that the welcoming attitude might wear thin when resources dwindled.