

One hard case

By Mark Gross

rev. 2.17.11

Published by Mark Gross at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Mark Gross

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Prologue

My part in this story came about by accident as the result of a brief bar brawl in which I landed one good kick. Since then the kicks, dealt and felt, have just kept on coming for almost 40 years. As a result, my first and only case as a private detective has been a hard one. It has lasted a long time and paid well, in its way. But I'm sure you all just want the story, not me waxing philosophically about it. So I'll start at the beginning . . .

I was a few days past my twenty-ninth birthday. I had been honorably discharged from the Army a few weeks before. Three combat tours, two in Iraq and the third in Afghanistan, had effectively exhausted any previous inclinations I may have had towards violence. Besides being tired of killing people, I had come through it unscathed, mostly by a combination of good training, better officers and absolutely excellent luck. I had seen a bunch of my buddies badly wounded and several had gone home in bags. I lost count how many of the various flavors of enemies I had seen go down in my sights. Somehow, they always seemed to miss me, but sometimes they hit the guy beside me.

The roadside bombs and the set piece ambushes were the worst that they could do against us; they weren't organized and disciplined enough to be able to take us on directly with any success. Anyway, I lost my taste for it; at the end of the third tour I just couldn't see the point anymore. I mustered out, collected my pay and went home.

Although I was carrying a considerable fatigue load, when I got home I was in the best shape of my life. An infantryman gets a lot of strenuous exercise and hard physical work and they tend to feed guys in combat well. I doubt that I was more than 3% body fat, I weighed about 195 in my skivvies, I was about an inch taller than I am now, so that would be 5'10". I could run the hundred in just over ten seconds and the mile in about 4 minutes, 30 seconds, give or take.

My hands, elbows, knees, feet and head had all become effective weapons. I was skilled and experienced with a variety of small arms, medium armaments and explosives. In the weeks since I had gotten home, I was catching up on my sleep, but I was having a little trouble adapting to life as a peaceable civilian. Survival in a combat theater is a hard habit to break.

One aspect of the tours in the Middle East was the shortage of women. There were some women soldiers and nurses among us, but not that many and a lot of them were married. The camel jockeys keep their women wrapped up and on a short leash and I guess I don't blame them. The best neighborhoods over there that I patrolled in full combat gear were much, much tougher than any mean streets I had ever seen, either in the USA or while on leave in Europe. To my mind, none of them were a proper environment for women, or children. So I can see why the girls and women were kept off the streets as much as possible, or when it was unavoidable, they usually traveled in small groups wearing burkhas.

Anyway, while overseas for Uncle Sam, most of the opportunities that I got to spend time with available women were during infrequent and all too brief leaves, which I usually spent in Europe. A lot of the free time that we had between combat patrols I spent reading private detective fiction, early James Crumley being my favorite. Lots of women were described there for my imagination to dwell upon, but that only goes so far. I had a lot of catching up to do in terms of making time with the ladies. Towards that end and also to try to relax and adjust, the past few weeks were mostly spent in strip clubs, drinking beer.

After checking several local area clubs out, I found one that seemed more like a neighborhood tavern with naked ladies hanging out in it. It had late afternoon happy hour with reasonably priced draft beer. The gals spent more time sitting and gabbing with each other and with customers than they spent hustling lap dances. In fact, I had seen a couple of them spend their entire shift at the bar talking and never once get up on stage to dance and strip. In comparison to the usual ripoff oriented strip joint, this place was perfect for me.

So I was becoming a fixture there, as far as I was concerned I had sufficient bank and time to look for work at some later date; soon they would have to engrave my name on my bar stool. My favorite bartender was the gal who worked most weekday afternoons; she went by her stage name, Aimee. She still danced occasionally and her daughter, Cindy danced there as well. Aimee had at least 10, more like 15 years on me, but still looked like a soldier's wet dream. She was short, only about 5'5", with jet black hair, small breasts and a great butt.

Aimee was kind of a hard woman too - I think she thought she had seen it all, and she may have. She looked a lot like Betty Page, but with numerous tattoos and piercings and a pony tail. When bartending, she dressed in either a tank top, tight jeans and spike heels or if she felt stylish, black tights, black leather spike boots and a black blouse. Either way, it was fun to watch her work. She ran her bar like a drill sergeant, didn't take any guff from anybody and you had to act like a gentleman with the dancers while she was tending bar or dancing, or you were out on the street for good as far as her shift went.

Day One - Tuesday

So, now you have enough background that I can get to the first day of the case. About 12:30 one Tuesday afternoon I was alone in the bar with Aimee. She had cooked my breakfast and poured my coffee. She was a damn good short order cook too. When I finished up she cleared my place while I went into the john to let the coffee do its job. Spending eight years in the military, I had my share of unnecessary early risings and so I had only gotten out of bed a couple of hours before, after yet another long night in the club.

Just after 10 am that morning I had had enough sack time, so I got up and put on some sweats. I had a V8, and headed outside to jog a bit to warm up. Then I took some time to stretch it all out. For mid December in the Pacific Northwest, it was a pretty good day. Temp was in the low '50s, light overcast, it seemed possible the sun might even break through later in the afternoon. I ran a couple miles and did some wind sprints until the sweat had carried the previous night's toxins out. Getting back to my rented room, I did a hundred pushups and sit-ups, had a couple of tall glasses of water, a shower and a shave. Then, for shits and giggles, I went to a nearby barber shop to get my first civilian haircut in quite some time. Just from force of habit, I got the usual, a military style buzzcut.

After that I headed over to the club to get breakfast from Aimee. It took me about 5 minutes to do my thing in the restroom afterwards. As I stepped out of the john and walked out past the pool tables, I heard a grunt and a naughty word. Then I heard Aimee screech and I saw a guy around the bar to my right, holding her by one arm and her pony tail, fling her hard into the couch next to the stage, where she bounced and rolled onto the floor. A big guy came into my view from my left, striding towards her as she tried to scramble to her feet. He looked to be planting his foot to kick her while she was down, so I didn't hesitate.

I launched myself forward onto my left foot and pivoted, dropping my weight onto my left thigh, straightening out my right leg as I brought it around fast, kicking him with full extension, just under the rib cage on his right side. I kicked him so hard, the front half of my running shoe disappeared into his gut; I could have wiggled my toes in his liver. He grunted and went down in a ball like a pole axed steer.

Aimee was back up on her feet just as I straightened up. I grabbed her arm and pulled her behind me as I faced the guy who had thrown her. There was another guy past him, standing behind the bar next to the cash register, which told me the story of what had been happening while I was taking a crap. I muttered to Aimee, have you seen any guns or blades yet? She said no, but if you have one, go ahead and use it, I'll never tell. She was seriously pissed off about these three bastards ganging up and manhandling her, understandably.

The guy behind the bar came around to stand behind his partner in crime; the big one that I had kicked was laying in a fetal position groaning. Aimee headed around the other end of the bar. She grabbed a Louisville slugger from behind the bar and tossed it to me. As I said, I was tired of violence, so I asked her if she was hurt or if she wanted the police. She said she was OK, it was not necessary yet, it was up to me what happened next.

The two guys still standing were eyeing me, they were pretty well cornered and they knew it. They were muttering to each other, thinking about rushing me, no doubt. I grabbed the bat by each end, broke it over my knee and threw it back by the pool tables. I pointed to the guy on the floor and told them they could pick him up and walk out, or they could scuffle with me and Aimee and if they were lucky, all three of them would wake up in the hospital in a day or two. They did the first sensible thing they had done since walking in, they picked up their big cohort with the sore liver and they helped him out. Aimee and I followed them out the door to the sidewalk out front. She noted the license number of the vehicle they got into, an old beater K car, lime green.

After they drove off she looked at me, shook her head and gave me a big hug. She said she was sure glad I had come out of the john when I did, 'cause otherwise she would have had to hurt those three lowlifes. Then she told me to come back in, there was a free beer and a bartenders special lap dance waiting for me inside. On the way back into the bar she also said that, if there was a next time, please don't break any more bats.

I replied that if she wanted to avoid broken bats, to buy aluminum. I also said that I would replace the bat if she wanted me to, after three combat tours it was worth the cost of a bat not to have to bust any heads, at least to me. She stopped and looked me up and down for a long moment. Then she asked me how long I have been home from the combat zone - I told her about three weeks. She shook her head again and then went back to the front door and set the deadbolt, having apparently decided that she wanted some privacy.

About ninety minutes later she unlocked the door and re-opened the bar for business. It was another half hour before the first customer made his way into the bar, a one legged older guy that was a regular afternoon customer. Working his crutches, he was slow moving, but he was quick on the uptake. He came into the bar about 15 feet and stopped. He looked around at Aimee and me sitting together at the bar, communicating. He nodded at me and without a word he turned around and went back out. It was another hour later that the first dancer graced us with her arrival and business woke up a while after that, as the construction workers started to show up after their day spent on their job sites.

In the interim Aimee and I got to know each other a lot better, not talking much at first. I am a gentleman, so I will only say that she was very enthusiastic and experienced. She did a fantastic job welcoming me back to the homeland of emancipated women, free to think and act as they pleased. After a while things settled down and we were once again decent and sufficiently presentable for commerce, so that's when she opened up the bar again. We sat together at the bar and she brought me my free beer. As I said, we spent some time communicating, which was also fun because she was a very intelligent woman with a great sense of humor. Before business picked up she reached some sort of decision and started telling me about her problem. She very easily talked me into helping her with it.

Her problem was her daughter, Cindy, also a dancer. Cindy was also supposed to be present and dancing at the club during that afternoon shift. Apparently she had been missing for two days and had left her two small children in her mother's care. Aimee wanted me to help her track down Cindy and deal with any trouble she may have gotten herself into. When things got busy for her, I hung out and waited, drinking a few beers and watching the dancers move around, as usual. At the end of her shift at 7pm, Aimee and I left together in her car, stopped at her bank where she withdrew $500 to get me started and then we went to her home to feed her grandkids.

It only occurred to me later that she was my first grandmother, a genuine all-American GMILF. Apparently both Aimee and her daughter hadn't wasted much time after puberty before they started getting urped and had each pumped out a couple of kids. In their family, as in much of the world, it seems that the duration of one generation is only about 15 years. Anyway, after the children were fed and another babysitter had been secured, Aimee and I got on the road again, looking for Cindy.

While we were driving around checking possible locations that Cindy might be found, Aimee continued to tell me what she knew about her daughter's most recent activities and habits. It all seemed pretty innocuous and I was beginning to wonder why she thought she needed me along. Eventually she decided to tell me about Cindy's new boyfriend, supposedly involved with something called an environmental anarchist movement. This group apparently included secret cells, guns, homemade explosives training and some sort of upcoming planned plot in the works. Aimee said that she thought Cindy may have been drawn into this plot by this new boyfriend, but she didn't know what the plan entailed. She was very worried about Cindy and where her role might lead.

When I heard about this, I told her we needed to stop somewhere I could buy a weapon. I ended up with a security shotgun, purchased in the sporting goods section of a discount pharmacy, of all places. Got some double ought buckshot and slug shells, too. I unboxed it and loaded it up in the parking lot of the pharmacy, with three buckshot shells on top of three slug shells. Then I wrapped it in a blanket and put it in the trunk of her car. We picked up some fast food and spent the rest of the evening driving around, searching for Cindy. Sometime after 1 am, we gave it up and went back to her place. She did not have to ask me twice to spend the night.

Day Two - Wednesday morning

Having something for my mind to work on woke my nervous system and metabolism right up. I opened my eyes at about 4:30 am and immediately knew my night was over. I quietly got up, got dressed, left Aimee a note with my cell number and locked her house door on my way out. I jogged back to my rented room, got into my sweats and threw some clean clothes into a daypack. Back out on the street, I jogged, stretched and then ran for a bit.

After getting a good sweat going, I headed to a local gym, getting there as it opened at about 5:30. I started with three high rep count, low load circuits in their weight room. Then I spent a half hour pounding and kicking the bejeesus out of the heavy bag. While I was doing that, a couple of other guys seemed to be watching me as they worked out. When I was done pounding the bag, they came over and introduced themselves. They were local beat cops, exercising after their night shift spent patrolling the streets had ended. They could see by my buzzcut that I was just out of the military, so they were curious about me.

I told them that I was glad that they had introduced themselves and that I had something to talk with them about, so I offered to buy them breakfast. They accepted, so we headed to the locker room, showered and then went over to a nearby coffee shop. After chowing down, I got right to business. I told them that I did not have any details, but that I had heard about some sort of upcoming planned action by an environmental anarchist group that supposedly included guns and homemade bombs. They were very interested in my story and asked me to come over to the station with them to talk with detectives. I was willing, so that was what we did.

I told my new friends and the detectives that it was all hearsay and speculation at this point, but that I was helping a friend try to find her daughter and had heard about the group the previous evening. They checked out my ID and my service record, etc. and seemed very respectful of my combat duty. I loaned them the picture of Cindy that Aimee had given me so they could scan and reprint it for circulation. When he returned the picture, one of the detectives gave me his card and asked me to call him whenever.

I provided my cell number and told them they would be the first to hear additional details when and if I acquired any. I asked them to call me if anyone saw Cindy. I did my best to answer all their questions; I was completely open and honest with them. They recognized that and appreciated it. They gave me a small digital camera to use to take pictures of any characters that looked interesting to me. They asked me if I was armed and I told them about the new shotgun, also telling them that I had killed enough people in combat to last several lifetimes. I made it clear to them that there would not be any gunplay unless I had no other options. We concluded our meeting on that note, I shook hands all around and then left to go back to Aimee.

Exotic dancers and bartenders are usually not morning people and Aimee was no exception. It was just after 8 am when I knocked on her front door and it took her a while to answer. My knock had woken her up; she was surprised to see me outside her door instead of inside. I told her it was time to rise and shine, we were going to hit the streets again as soon as she was ready. We were back in her car at 9:30, along with her grandkids. We took them to a local daycare after feeding them at Mickey D's and getting her some coffee. I decided this was fair turn around time considering how well she had put herself back together. After dropping off the young 'uns, while she was drinking her coffee, I drove us to the library and told her about my morning while doing so.

She was immediately and completely pissed off at me about telling the cops about Cindy, but I told her that she had hired me to find her daughter and that was what I was going to do. I said that I had not spent three combat tours risking my life taking it to foreign terrorists to subsequently keep news about domestic terrorists under my hat. I said that my military service carried a lot of weight with the cops and that she might as well enjoy the benefits of that. Their help and support would be a plus if she wanted to find Cindy quickly. The sooner we found her, the more limited the chances that she might get hurt, or that she might get too deeply involved with troublemakers.

I talked to her seriously and directly and didn't try to be diplomatic about it; I just gave her the facts as I saw them. She was quiet for a while and then she asked me to pull over. After I had done so, she grabbed me and gave me a long wet kiss. She thanked me and told me she had never been much of a morning person, so please accept her apologies for giving me a hard time. She agreed that bringing the cops into it would greatly increase our chances of finding Cindy quickly.

She asked me what we were going to the library for - and I told her I wanted to get on the internet and see what the search engines could come up with regarding environmental anarchists. I had been out of the country for several years and did not have the slightest idea what that was all about. She said shit, we don't have to go to the library for that, and told me to head back to her place.

In a separate room in her house she had a laptop computer and a wireless router connected to a cable internet connection, so she directed me there to do my search. While I was doing that, she started calling all Cindy's friends, other dancers, anybody she could think of that might have seen Cindy or who might know her new boyfriend, a guy named Jack Argus. This is the first time I had heard Aimee use his name, I did not realize that she knew it. I called the detective who had given me his card and passed that detail along. He asked me if I had a description, so I asked him to hold on a second and passed the phone over to Aimee, asking her to tell him everything she knew about Jack Argus. While she did so, I listened and took notes.

When she was done, he asked her to pass the phone back to me. He told me that his initial computer search did not yield any quick info on a Jack or John Argus. He said that they had circulated Cindy's scanned photo to the day shift of patrol officers. I thanked him and told him again that if we learned anything else, he would be the first to know. He asked me what we were doing now and I told him that Aimee was calling everybody she could think of and that I was searching the internet about environmental anarchists.

He told me that I would not find much detail there; but that he would have somebody put together a file for me about recent local activities and include some mug shots, if I would promise to keep it secure. I told him that it would be safe with me and he told me to come by the station about 2 pm to pick up the file, it should be ready by then.

After a couple of hours of calling around, Aimee was pretty frustrated with the lack of results, so I told her we should get some lunch and brainstorm about what we might do next. While we were eating lunch, Aimee got a call on her cell from Cindy, so her morning of work on the phone had borne some fruit after all. Unfortunately, the call did not go well, nor did it last long. A mother and daughter increasingly exasperated with each other would be the best way I would sum up what I heard of Aimee's end of the conversation. Aimee was speechless for a minute or two after Cindy hung up on her and then she started to cry. I took the phone out of her hands and wrote down the phone number that Cindy had called from. Then I called the number back with my own cell.

It rang for about five minutes and then a guy answered and said Hello? I asked him who he was and he said George. I asked him if Cindy was around and he said who's Cindy? I described her and he said, no, I don't see anyone like that here. I asked him where he was and he said just inside the entrance of Wal-mart, at a pay phone. I asked him which Wal-mart and he told me. I thanked George for answering the phone and hung up. I paid for lunch and hustled Aimee out of there. We jumped in the car and headed for Wal-mart.

On the way I told Aimee she should drop me off at the entrance of the Wal-mart parking lot. I asked her to find a spot where she could see into vehicles as they left, watching for Cindy. I would go into the store and look around for Cindy or anyone matching Jack's description. We would stay on the line with each other via our cells. I told her if she saw a car leaving with Cindy in it, she should write down the vehicle license number and description and watch for which way it turned. Then she should stay parked until I had a chance to hotfoot it out of the store and get back to the car with her. Then we would try to follow.

Day Two - Wednesday afternoon

It all went according to plan, except neither of us saw Cindy. I also did not see anyone that fit the description I had for Jack Argus. We hung out there for almost 2 hours. Oddly however, it wasn't a complete waste of time. As I walked through the parking lot on my way in, I saw the lime green K car that Aimee's three would-be strong arm robbers had driven off in the previous day. It was parked in a handicapped space, so they were definitely bad dudes, trying to kick women while they were down, taking parking spots from the handicapped; who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men.

Inside the store I kept a low profile and was able to take a few digital pix of the two smaller guys as they were leaving, without them seeing me. There was no sign of the big guy that I had kicked. He was probably still laid up, nursing his sore liver. Cindy must have used the pay phone to call Aimee as she was leaving Wal-mart, not on her way in, as we had hoped.

We finally left after Aimee told me that she had to get back to fetch her grandkids from daycare. She picked me up in front of the store and I got on the cell with the detective to let him know I was on my way there with some digital pix for him and also to get the file he had offered. Aimee dropped me off at the police station. Before she drove off to pick up her grandkids I told her I'd be back at her place as soon as I was done talking with the cops. I offered to take her and the kids out for a real meal, no more fast food today. We had a nice friendly kiss and she left.

Sitting down at the detective's desk, I handed him the digital camera they had loaned me and he handed me the file about local environmental extremists and anarchists. He downloaded my pictures onto his computer and gave me back the camera. I looked through the file briefly while we talked. We spent most of the meeting discussing the brief scuffle in the bar that had brought me into this. I hadn't told them about it because I hadn't realized it might be related to the disappearance of Cindy. Also, in my mind it was part of the unspoken deal that I had made with the three, if they left the bar without further violence, then I would not bring the cops into it. That deal went out the window when I saw their car at Wal-mart; it was just too much of a coincidence and it seemed possible that there was some other connection.

We found it soon enough. Flipping through the mug shots in the file, I found one that looked like the big guy that I had kicked just as he had been about to kick Aimee. I told the detective that I had not seen him at Wal-mart with the other two, but that I suspected he might still be recovering from my kick. I mentioned that I did not recall, in my scuffling experience, having ever made a cleaner more solid contact than that one kick. He grinned at that, saying that it seemed like instant karma to him, getting ready to kick a woman while she was down and having his own liver tickled instead. People in the Pacific Northwest are a little different, apparently including police detectives, as evidenced by his instant karma remark.

So the cops had a little more concrete info to work with. They had my hit on the mug shot of the big guy and they had the film I provided of the other two. It seemed possible that there might be more than a tenuous connection between the three robbing the bar that Aimee worked in and the disappearance of Cindy, but it was early yet. I put the file in my daypack and promised to keep it secure. The detective wanted to know what my next steps were. I told him we were going out to dinner and then I was thinking about going back to Wal-mart to hang out for a while. I promised to call him if anything came up or if my plans changed. He promised to call me if anyone spotted Cindy. We shook hands and I left.

I headed back to my rented room, changed into casual dinner date type duds and hopped on a bus for the short ride over to Aimee's neighborhood. I started thinking about buying a car, maybe it was time to make that decision. I hated to do it though; one of the things I had decided to try after leaving the military was to keep the baggage and associated expenses to a minimum. The less you have, the less you want, the smaller your monthly nut will be was the working philosophy I had in mind. I decided to put the vehicle decision off for as long as I could and also decided to suggest Mexican food for dinner, float that out there and see what Aimee and her grandkids thought.

It turned out that Aimee wanted the kids to get their vegetables, so we decided on Chinese instead. We went out to her car and I put my daypack, including the police file, into her trunk on top of the blanket wrapped shotgun.

While we were eating I filled Aimee in about my meeting with the detective. She also thought it was strange that there might be a connection between the three guys trying to rob the club and the disappearance of her daughter. I asked about her efforts to locate Cindy prior to the robbery attempt; I pressed her to confirm that Cindy had only been missing for two days at that time. Aimee said that she had started calling around almost immediately after Cindy didn't show up the first night to pick up her kids from Aimee's care. She said that Cindy had always been responsible about her kids and that night she had a very difficult time sleeping, worrying about her.

Aimee told me that she was not a worrier, when she had a problem she did something about it. She had started doing everything she could to find Cindy right away. As I listened, it occurred to me that the bar robbery might have been secondary, just an excuse to beat up Aimee and give her something to do other than look for Cindy. I started laughing, it seemed plausible and was comical as well.

The plotters may have been trying to push Aimee off the track, but instead had brought me into it. Then my attempts to work off some resultant anger on the heavy bag at the gym and my buzzcut brought the cops into it the next morning. Instant karma indeed! I decided to save the numbers on the back of our fortune cookies and buy some lottery tickets with those numbers. It just seemed like we were on our chosen path, at the moment.

After dinner, I asked Aimee to drive me over to the Wal-mart and promised that I would call her if anything came up. I told her she should take the evening and spend some quality time with her grandkids. I said that it seemed to me that we were making progress and that Cindy would turn up soon and that everything would be alright. She was really happy to hear it; Cindy's toddlers picked up on it too, strapped into their car seats in the back. When she dropped me off at Wal-mart, it was a car full of smiles and giggles that drove away. I was in a really good mood as I strolled into Wal-mart, picking Kung Pao beef out of my teeth.

Things went south soon after though. The police detective called me and told me that several people had just been shot during an organized gang attack on a local gun shop in which a large quantity of guns and ammo had been stolen. Early descriptions of the robbers included the three guys we had talked about earlier that afternoon. He told me to stay sharp, things were coming to a head, he could feel it and so could I. I wandered the Wal-mart carefully, trying to get a good look at everyone in the store and memorizing the layout. They, whoever they were, seemed likely to be heading my way.

Day Two - Wednesday night

Cindy walked into the store just before 8 pm, with a guy who seemed likely to be Jack Argus following behind her about fifteen seconds later. I kept back among the rows of shelves, keeping an eye on them and watching the front of the store as best as I could. Cindy stayed close to the entrance, obviously waiting for something, perhaps some signal from Jack, who stayed within fifty feet of her.

I called the detective to let him know what was up, that the target of the plot might indeed be the Wal-mart. He said he would get some patrol units into the area, awaiting developments. Then I called Aimee and let her know that Cindy was in sight and appeared to be fine, at the moment. I told her that it seemed likely to me that something was about to happen here and that it might be a while before I called again. She thanked me and told me she was glad I was there looking out for her daughter.

Things were fairly busy in the store; folks were doing some late holiday shopping after work, etc. After a bit I noticed that there were several individual men wandering the aisles, like me, not pushing carts and seemingly only going through the motions of shopping. As I began to try to make a rough count, I heard a disturbance up by the cash registers. At the same time, I saw several of the wandering men heading towards one back corner of the store. The double doors to the stock and employee-only areas of the store were back in that corner, so I figured that they must have something going back there. I let them go, wanting to get a look at what was happening up front, where Cindy was.

Near the checkout stations, I noticed a bunch of panicked looking shoppers milling around, as well as some heading further back into the store, away from the action, trying to avoid whatever was going on. Moving around, I was able to get an angle to see the cause of the panic. Jack was holding a pistol to Cindy's head and demanding that the store manager open the safe and bring him all the money. There were several more guys with pistols out standing by the store entrance; two were looking out towards the parking lot, a couple others preventing customers from leaving. Cindy was doing her best to look scared, but it seemed to me that her role was staged and probably had been practiced. Whatever the plotters had planned, it was starting.

Not letting people leave indicated to me that they wanted to keep as many customers as hostages as they could. I wanted to stay in the store, but I did not want to be herded in among the hostages, so I had to stay out of sight. Thinking about that, it occurred to me that there were security cameras throughout the store, which the plotters might think to use to hunt everyone down. They might also watch the security video tapes to figure out who I was, if I started messing with them. I figured the security offices were likely in the back, somewhere behind the double doors.

I called the detective back and told him what was happening. He said that the patrol officers had seen a large bobtail truck pull up to the back loading bay area. Several men had gotten out and unloaded shotguns, assault rifles and a bunch of five gallon steel jerry cans and small propane tanks. Their cohorts inside the store had opened up the loading bay door and helped them unload. The patrol cops, unprepared to do battle with a group of heavily armed men, had just watched this happen from a distance. They had counted nine men, all of whom had gone into the store, shutting the bay doors behind them. The truck was left sitting out back, at one of the loading bay doors.

I suggested to the detective that I wanted to stay in the store surreptitiously and try to mess with these jokers plans. I would also try to provide him with as much info as I could about what was happening inside the store. I asked him if he could talk with the District Attorneys office and get me some sort of a deal for Cindy, quid pro quo. He said he would get on it ASAP.

I also told him that I needed a diversion fast, so that I could get into the security office of the store. At first he didn't get it, but I explained that unless I could disable the cameras and destroy the tapes, the plotters could fairly easily locate me and hunt me down. For a diversion, I suggested that they get a bunch of pizzas from local shops and have several cops come up to the front door to deliver them, ostensibly to open up communications and start hostage negotiations on a positive note. The idea was to draw as many of the plotters away from the back of the store as possible, so I could slip in there and do my thing. He said he liked the thought and would make it happen.

I also suggested that he work on getting help from the power company; that it would be handy if he could get a quick response from them whenever he asked them to shut down the power to the store. I figured I could use the darkness to my advantage. He told me that was a great idea; he would get on that immediately. I spent 20 minutes dodging around avoiding getting swept up by the plotters as they wandered the store in pairs, herding customers towards the other back corner of the store. The store being as large as it was, I did not have too much trouble staying out of sight.

Finally, I heard one of the plotters yelling from the front of the store, saying that there were 3 cops coming towards the front doors carrying stacks of pizza boxes. After a number of the plotters had headed up front, I went the other way. I peeked in through the double doors a quickly as I could, then went in keeping low and getting to the side, against a wall. I went up the stairs and through the door marked security. Inside, there was a startled guy sitting at the control panel, he had been looking at the feeds from the cameras at the front of the store, trying to see what was going on. I didn't hesitate; I kicked him in the side of the head, knocking him out cold.

I looked around and grabbed an extension cord from a nearby cart loaded with tools. Pulling him down off the chair and rolling him over onto his stomach, I trussed him up with the cord. Then I balled up a rag and forced it into his mouth. For the moment, he was neutralized. I decided not to be cute about it; I just busted up the security monitors and cut every cable I could see. Then I called the detective back and asked him if he had any luck with the power company. He said that they were on the ball and had promised to respond within 5 minutes of any request to cut the power. I told him that it was time to test that, that I had one plotter ready for delivery and that I would try to get at least one more during the time the power was down. He said that was great, he was on it.

The lights went out about 3 minutes later, just as a couple of the plotters came back through the double doors, each carrying a pizza box and a shotgun. It was a break for me that they had their hands full, so they weren't ready to bring the shotguns to bear. I also had the element of surprise so I didn't waste any time invading their personal space. During our brief confrontation, neither of the shotguns discharged. The pizzas ended up on the floor, it was kind of a messy scuffle in that sense.

One of them had had some MMA training and experience at some point. The other guy went down first, he tried to club me with his shotgun, a blow which I deflected and countered with a stiff claw strike to his throat. With that, he was down and out of the action. After I kicked him in the upper arm and he dropped the shotgun, the cage fighter went for broke, launching a flying knee at my head. I stepped back and knelt down under his knee strike, then rose up to catch and lift him. I pivoted, using his momentum to spin us both around and then I slammed him down on his back. He was out just like that, napping. No need to watch for a tap or to listen for a snap.

Taking stock, I didn't have any pizza, but I had two shotguns. I quickly unloaded one and hid it, putting the spare double ought buckshot shells in my pocket. I racked the other, making sure it was safe and fully loaded. I found some loose cords in the loading bay and tied up my second and third captive plotters. Then I got on the phone with the detective and told him I had three for him, asking him to send some cops to the loading bay doors to pick them up. I went up into the security office and carried my first victim down the stairs, plunking him on the receiving floor next to the other two. They were all still kind of out of it, just laying there trussed up, by the loading bay door.

I unlatched the door and slowly slid it up, revealing four cops standing on the concrete loading area apron pointing their handguns at me. Three more were standing off a bit, aiming shotguns. Raising my hands I said, I give up, you got me and you got these three turkeys as well. They chuckled.

I helped them load the captives into their cruisers. I told them that I thought there were between ten and fifteen bad guys still inside. I suggested that the next time I had bad guys to deliver it might be a good opportunity to introduce a SWAT team into the store. They said they were already working on it.

I told them that I had a shotgun, but could use more shells, plus a pistol and a sap, if they had any to spare. One of them handed me his backup gun, a lightweight hammerless 5 chamber .38 cal revolver in a leather belt clip pancake holster, which was perfect. One of the officers carrying a shotgun took the elastic clip band, holding eight spare rounds, off the stock of his shotgun and handed it to me. After hesitating for a moment, the one in the fancy hat, indicating that he was ranking - sergeant maybe, handed me a nice black leather sap. The others looked at him sideways and he grinned, somewhat embarrassed to have been busted by his troops in possession of a law enforcement no no. I thanked them and promised to return their goods when the party was over.

They got into their cruisers and left. I took a look into the bobtail truck the plotters had used to bring their heavier weapons and I noticed that the keys were still in it. Thinking the vehicle might come in handy; I opened the door and pocketed the keys. I hopped back up into the receiving bay and lowered the big door, leaving it open about a foot. I figured that the plotters might see that and assume that the missing guys had chosen to bail out the back door while they had the chance.

I decided that it had been a long day and that it was time to make myself hard to find. Things were not yet settled down for the plotters and if one saw me with the shotgun, there would be gunplay, which I wanted to avoid. Back in the darkened public area of the store, I shoplifted a liter of spring water, a bag of peanuts and some beef jerky. Then I found a low shelf that I could crawl into and pull merchandise around me to conceal my presence. I had improved the odds and had acquired a shotgun and eighteen shells, a revolver, a sap and a hiding place. Looking back, I decided that, while not a typical Hump Day, it had gone all right.

From my new hidey hole, I called the detective and told him he could get the lights turned back on. The plotters might want to see whether they still had a fight plan, now that they had been smacked in the mouth, Mike Tyson style. I let him know that I would soon be turning off the cell phone; I wanted to get some rest and save the battery life. He told me to sleep with one eye open and not to snore. I probably wouldn't sleep, but just zone out, a survival skill I acquired the hard way in the army.

He informed me he would be heading over to the command post that was being set up nearby and to call him anytime. He also said that the DA's office had told him that as long as Cindy did not hurt anyone, she had a get out of jail free card. He suggested that she was lucky I was on the case and that he was interested to see what kind of hell I would raise tomorrow. He told me to stay safe and signed off.

Then I called Aimee and let her know what was up. I let her know that I had arranged a limited immunity from prosecution for Cindy. I suggested that it would be good if she could get a motel room, along with her grandkids, in the motel that was less than a half mile down the road from the Wal-mart. I said that I would try to get Cindy out of the store as soon as I could. I thought that it would help if Aimee was around and available to collect her daughter, to keep any overzealous cops from giving Cindy a hard time. She replied that she would head over soon and thanked me again. She told me to stay safe and get some rest.

While we were talking, the lights in the store came back on. As I laid there I could hear the plotters wandering the store, gathering up stray customers and herding them into the other back corner of the store. They collected cell phones, wallets and purses and beat up a few of the male customers; apparently to convince everyone that resistance was futile and would be harshly met. It took almost three hours for things to settle down, some of the children among the hostages were crying for a while.

Day Three - Thursday morning

At 3 am I called the detective back, he picked up fairly quickly considering the pre-dawn hour. I said that I wanted to try to find a position in the store from which I could view and count the hostages; so it would be good to kill the lights again for a while, allowing me to sneak around. He told me he would make it happen in a few minutes and asked me to try to get a count and descriptions on the plotters. I waited for the lights to go out with my eyes closed, so they would adapt quickly to the darkness.

When the lights went out, the hostages were startled and made some noise. This helped to cover my exit from my hiding spot and my explorations in their direction. I found a fairly high shelf without too much merchandise on top; it looked like a good spot to spy on things for a while. I climbed up on the far end and very slowly crawled forward to a vantage point, then arranged some merchandise for concealment which allowed me to raise my head to look around.

I called the detective back and told him I was in position; they could turn the lights on again. He said that he needed to let me know about some outside news. He informed me that some kind of fast moving flu bug had popped up three days prior, in Mexico City. On the second day it had been carried by air travelers to LA and San Francisco and other cities before anybody realized that it was trouble. News reports of irrational public behavior, happening yesterday in Mexico and California, indicated that the panic was more contagious and possibly more dangerous than the disease. He said that it was uncertain whether any disease carriers had reached the Pacific Northwest yet.

He told me that the CDC, the Federal Center for Disease Control, was reporting that the symptoms included the rapid onset of high fever, severe vomiting and diarrhea. Early indications showed that it was spread both by contact and through the air. Initial, unconfirmed reports from Mexico City included a fairly high mortality rate within the first days, perhaps as high as 20%. Overnight, police forces in the state had been scrambling to respond to various CDC recommended preparations, such as to provide security for newly established disease screening and quarantine stations for incoming travelers at local airports and at the southern entry points for drivers coming north from California.

He said that the reason he was letting me know about all this was that the police cordon around the store was slightly under-staffed at the moment. He was working on getting more support on the scene, probably National Guardsmen to be mobilized today as part of an anticipated declaration of a state of emergency by the Governor. He said that disease contagion was unlikely to be a problem for anyone in the store, as we had effectively been quarantined by events. He promised that he would let me know about developments when he could and that the lights would be coming back on momentarily.

He wondered if I had the digital camera with me - I told him it was in my pocket. He asked me to try to get pictures of the plotters and of the area of the store around the hostages and the building entry points, if I could do so safely. I responded that I would do the best I could and we signed off. As I lay there waiting for the lights, it occurred to me that the flu had broken out in Mexico City on Monday, the day before the bar fight, the day that the case began, for me.

After the lights came back on, I spent the next few hours watching from my vantage point. I counted 87 hostages, 26 men, 35 women and 26 children. I took pictures of eleven plotters. The plotters brought the hostages food and water from the store shelves. They were corralled in the corner of the store that had the public restrooms, so they were able to take care of that problem themselves. With 87 hostages, it would have been a huge chore to shepherd them to the restrooms as they needed it.

The plotters also seemed to be preparing for a long occupation. One of the things they worked on that morning was distributing their propane tanks and 5 gallon gasoline jerry-cans around the store. Once I saw what they were up to, I realized that it was a deterrent measure against a SWAT assault. If negotiations broke down and it looked like SWAT teams were moving in, they merely had to run to the propane canisters and open the valves and also take the lids off the gas cans. The propane, which is heavier than air, would flood the store. Anyone could ignite it, either deliberately with a match or a lighter, or accidentally, such as by discharging a firearm.

Once ignited, there would be a massive fireball and explosion as the propane combined with all the air in the store. It would probably blow the roof off, as well as knocking over the gasoline canisters. The spreading pools of burning gasoline would finish the job. It seemed highly unlikely that anyone in the store could survive the initial explosion and the widespread gasoline fueled fire that followed. I called the detective and informed him as soon as I realized their plan. He agreed that the plotters most likely had eliminated a SWAT team assault as an option. I gave him the head count info and asked him what he wanted me to do next. He said that he did not have a clue and neither did I. On that note we signed off. Not having anything better to do, I zoned out on the top of the shelf for a while, laying quiet and listening.

Day Three - Thursday afternoon

For me, it was a dull day. I'm used to moving around and getting my daily workout, so it was a constant effort to stay put. It also was kind of tough to stay awake. If I fell asleep and started snoring, it was all over. Around 2 pm, it started to rain outside; I could hear it on the roof, adding to the inclination to nod off. However, the bright lights of the store directly above me helped me to stay awake. About 4:30, they unexpectedly went out. While I had not called to ask for a blackout, I did not hesitate to take advantage of the opportunity to leave my vantage point. I quickly liberated some more water and munchies from the shelves and went back to my low hidey hole.

I called the detective, asking him about the power - he said the power seemed to have gone out for most of the region, he did not know why. I asked him for an update about the flu epidemic. He said that it had made it into the Pacific Northwest in a big way, many area hospitals had been filling up with sick folks and their worried families over the course of the day. He told me that the Governor had declared a state of emergency and mobilized the Guard, as he had mentioned earlier. He said that about 50 Guardsmen had arrived about a half hour before the power went out, so the cordon around the store was fully staffed, at least for now.

I didn't like the sound of that last qualifier and asked him what he meant. He hesitated and then told me that he was concerned about the panic associated with the fast spreading epidemic. He said that looting, street brawls and even gun battles had broken out in Mexico City and that it seemed likely that LA might soon follow. He said that it had been confirmed that about 20% of those who got the disease were goners. The percentage was quite a bit higher for those over 50 or suffering from other medical conditions and somewhat lower for healthy folks between the ages of 10 and 35. The key seemed to be combating the high fever and dehydration. Working against the health workers was the highly contagious and fast acting nature of the bug. A significant number of doctors and nurses had become ill within 12 hours of first contact with diseased patients.

I thanked him for the update and asked him to get the main power for the store switched off again, so that the lights in the store would stay off when the power in the area was restored. I told him I thought it was time to try to improve the odds some more; that I would call him again when I could deliver more captive plotters. He said they would stay ready for my call and we signed off. I ate some of my stolen snacks and drank the bottled water. I used the empty bottle to relieve myself, my back teeth were floating. I was also looking forward to taking a crap, sometime soon.

I called Aimee to find out where she was and what she knew. She told me that she was in the motel with her grandkids and that she was also worried about the epidemic. I got the room number from her and then asked her to keep an eye on CNN and the local news channels. I made her promise that she would call me with any developments that concerned her and we signed off. I wanted to stay on top of things going on outside the store. I had the impression from my last conversation with the detective that he might be inclined to hold back details from me based upon his own reasoning. I didn't like that, but I understood it.

In the military, you get used to that kind of thinking from command. They keep you in the dark as a matter of course, because their viewpoint is that if you are fully informed, then the inclination is to start thinking and acting for yourself. Once that happens, then the command structure may break down, which any military commander considers a fate worse than death. The end result is that, in the midst of the legendary fog of war, the grunts in any branch of service are sometimes left to make their own decisions based solely upon rumor and scuttlebutt.

It becomes a self fulfilling prophesy and all around paradoxical mindfuck. Commanders don't want us to make our own decisions because they don't respect our ability to make good ones, so they don't give us the facts. So when we are faced with situations in which we have to make our own decisions, we often make poor decisions which we would likely not have made had we been well informed.

I was well aware of the detective's inclination to include me in his command structure in this situation, but I was not willing to allow him to assume that my agenda was the same as his. I was not in the military anymore, but I was willing to help him with his problem in exchange for his help with mine. However, I considered myself a free agent, truly a private detective. My agenda was to keep Cindy healthy and out of trouble and then to do what I could to help the hostages in the Wal-mart.

Day Three - Thursday night

The hostages were being provided their evening meal, cold fried chicken and tater salad, apparently courtesy of the taxpayers and delivered by the police. It occurred to me to wonder how much you were supposed to tip a cop who delivers food to your hostage situation. I had to stifle a laugh at the thought. It was a strange environment inside the store, the hostages eating by the candlelight, the candles undoubtedly lifted off the shelves. The plotters moved around the store occasionally, carrying flashlights or lanterns, powered by Wal-mart batteries, all undoubtedly made in China. The lights flickered and the shadows danced on the walls. It seemed to be a good setting in which I could go hunting for environmental anarchists.

I carefully and quietly made my way back to the double doors leading to the loading docks and warehouse storage area. Peeking through, I could see that there were two plotters on post in there, eating from a bucket of chicken by lantern light, next to a wide open bay door! The hills of the city outside were still dark, so the power in the area was still out. I had trouble understanding why the plotters would leave the shipping bay door open. I guess they felt secure from any assault from the assembled cops and Guardsmen due to the large number of hostages in their control.

Suddenly it became clear why the door was open. I could hear gunfire from the dark hills a ways behind the store. Both plotters stood up and were peering out, trying to see what they could. Sliding through the double doors, I took advantage of the opportunity and rushed them, my momentum carrying all three of us over the edge of the loading dock and onto the concrete 3 feet below.

I rolled to my feet and sapped the first; he was on his knees and he fell on his face, out cold. The second swore at me as he stood up. He was desperately trying to pull a big revolver out of his belt, but the hammer snagged on his sweatshirt. I kicked him in the nuts and grabbed the pistol as he doubled over. Then I put some weight on the back of his neck and kneed him in the face. He fell over on his back, his nuts in one hand and his busted nose in the other.

I heard a low whistle behind me and a guy quietly said - friendlies coming in. Turning around, I saw three guys in black SWAT gear carrying high tech silenced carbines, covering the open bay doorway. Behind them, a police riot van was approaching as well. We tossed the two plotters in the back of the van and it pulled away, slowly and quietly. The SWAT guys asked me if there was room for them at my party. I replied that they could hang out in the back if they wanted; there was lots of beer, but that all the ladies were already spoken for. They chuckled and we jumped up into the store on the loading dock.

I told them that, by my count, there were still nine plotters remaining in the store. They took up positions on either side of the loading door, waiting there for any plotters who might come through to relieve the two we had just removed from their posts. I went into the employee men's room and took a long anticipated crap. As I sat there I realized that the tide had turned. The plotters no longer controlled the entire Wal-mart store; we had established a beach-head in the employees-only receiving area.

After I got the job done, I headed back to the loading bay door. Leaning against the wall near where the two plotters had been sitting was yet another shotgun! I was beginning to regret having spent Aimee's good money buying a shotgun; so far I had acquired three for free! There was also a scoped stainless Ruger mini-14 ranch rifle in .223 cal a.k.a. NATO 5.56 mm, loaded with a two 69ed thirty round mags, with four more mags in a canvas sack next to it. The revolver I had taken during the brief scuffle was a new stainless 357 magnum with a 6 inch barrel. He had all six chambers loaded! The dumbshit was lucky he had not shot his own nuts off as he tried to clear the pistol from inside his pants!

I decided it was time to start stockpiling the plotters weapons in the back of the bobtail truck as I acquired them. I shifted my new arsenal, latched the cargo door of the truck and then lowered and latched the bay door. As I was doing that, I could hear occasional sporadic gunfire from around us in the city. Looking out the open bay door, I noticed that one of the large McMansions in the hills behind the store was now on fire. Huge flames were consuming it and I could not see any fire trucks anywhere near it. It occurred to me that I hadn't heard any sirens either. I called the detective and asked him about that. He said that screwy and irrational things were happening all over town and in the surrounding hills; people were starting to get wacky as the epidemic moved into the area.

He said that fire trucks had been dispatched to the house fire but they had come under sniper fire! The firemen were short handed because of the flu epidemic and there were no police available to escort them. Firemen are not equipped to battle their way to fires, so the trucks turned around and went back to their stations. It occurred to me that it was a good thing this was happening during the winter when the forested hills surrounding the city were waterlogged by the seasonal rains.

He also told me that the power was out in the entire region because a religious extremist working for the Bonneville Power Administration had barricaded himself, along with a small arsenal, in a major control room for one of the big hydro dams on the Columbia. The fanatic had shut down the power supply for several hundred thousand people, claiming that the Apocalypse was upon us and that all should repent our sins and prepare for the rapture.

I was getting worried about Aimee and her grandkids in the motel. She had hired me to protect Cindy, but the situation he described indicated that I needed to do something for them as well. I suggested that I wanted to bring them in to the Wal-mart and set them up in the security office, where they would not be breathing possibly disease laden air from the motels ventilation system. They would also be close by if things got too wacky out there on the streets.

At first, he resisted the idea, but I reminded him that we had a beachhead and that we were now down to nine plotters. I was emphatic that I wanted to have Aimee and her grandkids inside the cordon where it now seemed to be safer than outside of it. He gave in, so I called Aimee and told her about my idea and she was immediately strongly in favor. I told her to bring blankets and pillows from the motel, not to bother to check out, just come - the cops would escort her in the back way. A half hour later she was there; after a kiss and hug, I got her and the kids moved into the security office.

By the time that was all done, another plotter with another bucket of fried chicken had come through the double doors and been subdued and captured by the SWAT guys. Now we were down to eight little anarchists still running around loose. I brought the bucket of chicken up to share with Aimee and the kids. After a quick meal and another hug and kiss, Aimee told me to be careful and not to have too much fun and I left them in the security office.

After arranging a quiet knock pattern with the SWAT guys to allow me to safely come back through the double doors, I went back out into the public area of the store. I headed to my hidey hole, to wait for another opportunity to develop. It wasn't long, but it got hard and it had humorous aspects, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

About a half-hour after I got back into position inside the store, three of the plotters, including Jack, got the itch. I suspect the same itch was spreading through the city too; it was that kind of a night. Anyway, they culled two cuties from among the female hostages and Jack grabbed Cindy. They went into the dark aisles with their girls and did what their itches led them to do. The women made some token protests, but they knew which way the wind blew and went with it.

Cindy, of course, was still only playing the part of an unwilling hostage about to be raped. She and her boyfriend Jack were just starting to get into it, a couple of aisles over from my hidey hole, when I sapped him and clapped my hand over her mouth. I told her who I was and that the unconscious bastard on top of her had sent three guys to beat up her mother three days ago. She shook my hand away and rolled him off of her; she stood up and was about to stomp her heel down on his rapidly deflating package when I stopped her.

I told her to get dressed and chill out. I gagged and hogtied Jack, just the way he was, in his birthday suit. Of course, he still had his socks on. Then I took a closer look at his weapons of choice, piled up next to his clothes. The trickle up theory of small arms acquisition was definitely working in my favor bigtime now. He had a short bullpup semi-auto assault rifle in .308 cal a.k.a NATO 7.62 mm, with a 20 inch barrel, low light scope, pistol grip, folding stock and a combat sling allowing controlled shoot-from-the-hip action. It was loaded with two 69ed thirty round mags full of boat-tail high shock expanding hunting rounds and he had four more mags in a tactical vest.

He also had a 9mm semi-auto pistol in a leather shoulder holster with a couple of spare mags for it as well. Although Jack apparently had some screwy ideas and lousy ethical standards, he definitely had good taste in both small arms and stripper girlfriends, I'll give him that much. Without a doubt it was an infantryman's Christmas morning, although a couple days early, so I quietly gave thanks.

I stashed Jacks clothing behind some merchandise on a low shelf. Then I put on and adjusted the shoulder holster for the 9 mm and slung my brand spanking new assault rifle over my shoulder. I put the vest on Cindy and gave her my shotgun. I showed her the safety and asked her if she had fired a pump shotgun before and she said yes. I stood Jack up and slung him over my shoulder.

Cindy followed me as we worked our way back to the double doors. I stopped to quietly knock shave-and-a-haircut before we went through. I dumped Jack on the floor next to the loading door, leaving him for the SWAT team to deal with. I told them that this one was probably the ring-leader and they should treat him accordingly. One got on his shoulder radio and passed the word up.

I took the vest back from Cindy and told her to keep the shotgun. I got the second shotgun that I had acquired the day before out of its hiding spot and reloaded it with the buckshot shells in my pocket. I gave that to Cindy as well, telling her to give it to her mom, who was in the security office upstairs, along with her kids. She broke into an uncontrollable grin at that news and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. I told her to go on up there and wait for me, but to try to keep things quiet. Squeals of delight were soon to be heard from up there, quickly shushed. A big portion of the load came off my shoulders, hearing that 22nd century matriarchal nuclear family re-united.

A police cruiser pulled up to the open loading bay door to collect Jack. I walked over to greet the cops, one of whom had loaned me his .38 cal hammerless revolver only about 24 hours before, although it seemed much longer than that. I returned it to him, thanking him for the loan of his backup gun. I told him that I wanted to keep his sergeant's sap for a little longer; it might still come in handy. He wished me good hunting and drove off with Jack, still unconscious, naked and trussed up, in the back seat. Poor guy just wanted a nookie break. I suspected that, when he came to, he was going to be very unhappy with the sudden sideways shift that his plot to take over the Wal-mart had taken, for him. C'est la guerre, motherfucker, that's war.

Then I went back into the store, into my hidey hole, waiting for whatever was going to happen next. Surprisingly, not much was going on, inside the store. The other two lover boys made a night of it, the rest of the plotters didn't move around much that I could hear and the hostages stayed quiet also. I zoned out for a few hours, looking forward to a chance to get some real sleep, sometime soon.

Day Four - Friday early AM

A little after midnight, while I was still zoned out in my hidey hole, it suddenly occurred to me that I should call my great-uncle. He and my great-aunt live in a house on a small acreage in the Coast Range, about 40 miles northwest of town. I'm not sure what made me think of him, perhaps my subconscious was working on the next problem, what to do after this Wal-mart problem was resolved.

I decided that the current problem would likely end today, it had run its course. The eight remaining plotters were missing their leader; they just didn't know it yet. I and the SWAT cops could take advantage of that to finish this soon, before they had a chance to regroup. But I was still concerned about what to do after that. Over the last couple of days, the world outside the cordon had changed dramatically to the point that it seemed safer to be inside the cordon in a hostage crisis than outside, trying to survive an epidemic and chaos in the streets. I wondered which direction the police and guardsmen manning the cordon were facing, in towards the store, or out towards the rest of the world.

With that thought, I just dialed my great-uncles number into my phone and pressed talk, not even thinking that it was around 1 am. He answered on the second ring and it sounded like he was wide awake. He said he was glad to hear from me and asked how I was doing, where I was calling from. I told him I was doing fine, but that I was in the Wal-mart hostage situation, so I had to whisper into the phone. He asked me if he should whisper too, an example of his off-beat sense of humor. I told him no, I had the earpiece volume on my cell phone set pretty low.

I asked him how my great-aunt was; he said she was fine, but that she was worried about family and friends living in town and in other towns in the Northwest. I asked him about the epidemic in the rural area where he lived - he said there had not been any signs of it yet, but the crazy stuff being reported in town had started out there too. He said that somebody had cut a bunch of trees and dynamited the mountainside above the highway pass leading into the narrow river valley where he lived. He told me that the highway was now impassable for all vehicles; that the most direct way to or from town right now was the logging road along the ridge above the lake.

I told him that I thought the hostage crisis in the Wal-mart would end today and asked him if he wanted some company. He said sure thing, it would be great to see me. I told him I may have a couple of gals and a couple of kids coming with me. He chuckled and then asked me, since I happened to be in the Wal-mart anyway, if I could bring some stuff out with me. I asked him what he needed, and he asked me what I was driving. Without hesitating, I told him I had a bobtail truck with a thirty foot box. There was a long pause. My great-uncle was an unusual character, tended to think about things a lot, maybe too much, and also tended to wait until he thought things through before he spoke. It made for some unusual conversations and took some getting used to, but I had spent a lot of time talking with him the summer that we framed up his house.

Finally, he asked when I would be coming out. I replied that it would probably be mid-afternoon before I could get started, but that I would want to make it to his place before dark. He said that he and my great-aunt would come in to meet me and try to make it to the Wal-mart by noon; that he would be driving their pickup and towing their cargo trailer. He told me that my call was a godsend; that he had been worrying about how bad things might get, and said that he would work on his own shopping list. He told me to take care and that he would see me later, and he hung up.

That was another load off my mind; I had a plan for today and now also for tomorrow, which was about as far ahead as I was planning, these days. I was going boondocking. I was laying there thinking about things that would be worthwhile to load into the truck when I started hearing what sounded like a pitched battle going on somewhere outside, not too far away, either. Previously, I had been hearing sporadic gunfire occasionally, but now I heard automatic weapons and explosions, the whole shooting match.

I got out of my hidey hole and went back to the double doors, knocked the code and went through. Only one of the three SWAT guys was there, listening to his shoulder radio. I walked over to the open bay door and could hear that a fair sized firefight was going on, less than a mile away, around the front and down the road at least a click from the Wal-mart. There were now three more houses burning, up in the hills, the McMansion that had been burning earlier seemed to have burned itself out.

The automatic weapons fire and explosions that sounded like grenades continued to reverberate off the hills. I went back to the SWAT guy and asked him what the heck was going on. He told me that the mall just down the road was being looted by several organized groups. Apparently there was not enough to go around and they had started shooting at each other instead of trying to share.

For reasons of his own, the captain of the National Guard troops in the cordon had decided that his duty was to use his troops to arrest the looters and restore order. The detectives and other police on the scene had tried to dissuade him from this, suggesting that there were too many looters and that they seemed to be too well armed to try to arrest. The Guard commander, like many thousands before him going back to the dawn of time, had troops in place and a battle he wanted to fight, so he had gone off to do that, damn the torpedoes.

The other two SWAT guys had retreated to the cordon, which was now understaffed again, since the National Guard was now heavily engaged in a pitched battle over by the mall. He had stayed on post because they didn't want me thinking there was a SWAT team at my back when there wasn't. He apologized, but he said that he had to leave; the cops in the cordon were being called upon to back up the guardsmen, who seemed to have bitten off more than they could chew.

As I watched him jump down from the loading dock I realized that we no longer had much of a beachhead in the receiving area of the Wal-mart, instead it was just me and two strippers with shotguns. I called out, asking him to come back and to wait a sec. I asked him if I could interest him in a trade, I needed his silenced selectable full auto carbine, would he be interested in a semi-auto mini-14 Ranch rifle? He thought about it for a moment, and then said sure, why not. The Ruger .223 cal rifle had a considerably longer range than the 9mm rounds in his carbine, and if he was going to be involved in a running gun battle, he might as well have a real rifle with which he could reach out and touch someone. It's the next best thing to being there, don't you know.

I asked him to cover the double doors for another couple of minutes. I went up to the security office, knocked on the door and went in. Aimee and the kids were sleeping together on the floor; Cindy was awake and pointed her shotgun away from me at the door as I entered. I told her that things had changed and it was time to wake up her mom, I needed to talk to them both downstairs. I went back down and opened the bay door where the truck was parked, then opened up the back of the truck and pulled out the mini-14 and the sack with the spare .223 mags. The SWAT guy and I did our swap.

I thanked him and did a quick checkout with him of my newly acquired high tech silenced carbine. It had a low light/low magnification scope with a lighted reticule, a high intensity directed beam flashlight mounted under the barrel and a forty round magazine full of jacketed 9mm rounds. He also gave me a nylon belt pouch with three more mags.

I said OK now I'm ready, thanks for waiting; please let whoever is in command of what's left of the cordon know that I am going hunting. There will likely be some action and a resolution to this thing in the next half hour. I told him that the ladies would be covering the double doors with shotguns and pistols, the kids would be in the back of the truck. We shook hands and he left, on the double.

Aimee and Cindy had come down and stood with me as we watched him leave. I quickly told them what was happening and why he had to go. I told them that I needed them to cover both the double doors and the one open bay door, using the shotguns and the pistols. If any plotters came through the double doors, don't hesitate, just shoot them. If any hostages came through, tell them to leave via the open bay door.

I suggested that the kids should be moved into the box of the truck, the cargo door and the bay door closed and latched down to keep them out of trouble. I asked them to stay on post for no more than ten minutes. If I was not back by then, they should get into the truck and drive it around to the front of the store; see if they could see me up front or could find any cops there.

I handed Aimee the truck keys. I told them that I wanted to get rid of the rest of the plotters, one way or the other. I told them to fetch the kids; it was time to get serious. I got the 357 magnum revolver and the 9mm semi-auto and its shoulder holster ready for them and hid the third shotgun again, so there wouldn't be anything left in the truck box for the kids to mess with. The kids were still asleep when we bundled them together in their blankets and quietly rolled the cargo door shut, shutting them in.

The ladies started looking very serious when we did this and I knew that they suddenly and fully appreciated the stakes in what we were about to do. I got them set up in a good position behind a pallet full of merchandise. I went over the shotguns and the two pistols with them. I told them not to shoot each other and not to shoot any hostages if they could avoid it.

I told them my plan was to sweep the store, keeping myself between the plotters and the double doors they were watching. I went over what I was asking of them once more. At some point the hostages would not be covered by plotters and they might try to leave, heading out the double doors. If that happened I told the ladies to assertively direct the hostages out the bay door; it would not be good for them to loiter around in the receiving area if any plotters tried to come out after them. The ladies said that they understood and that they wanted to see me again, real soon.

I slung the bullpup rifle over my shoulder and neck, adjusting the sling strap so it hung tight diagonally across my back. I got the silenced carbine into the ready position, racked a round through it and switched it to full auto and from safe to hot. Just before I went through the double doors I started to hear .50 cal rounds being expended in the firefight outside. I never thought I would hear grenades and heavy machine guns at work in my home town. What was next - tanks, helicopters and strafing fighter-bombers? I took a deep breath and went through the double doors, slow and low.

Things were still fairly quiet in the store, but the itch scratching sessions were over, undoubtedly due to the increasing noise of the firefight outside. I could hear a couple plotters wandering the store together, looking for Jack. I shot those two first, short full auto torso bursts starting low then climbing high. Then, I triple timed it over to the hostage area to shoot a third plotter as he was racking his shotgun, preparing to respond to the only somewhat silenced 9mm bursts that anyone could hear in the dark and quiet store. Some of the hostages started to scream and shout. By my count, there were five plotters left. I quickly switched mags on the carbine before I double timed towards the front of the store.

I shot two more plotters on the way, mowing them down as they were running to open the valves on the propane tanks. Three were left now. Scanning around the front half of the store, I could not find them. Finally I looked out the front doors. They were standing together, about fifteen yards into the parking lot, looking out at the city. Apparently they had not heard anything going on inside the store. Instead, they were listening to the firefight over by the mall; they were probably wondering where the cops that had been hanging out in the parking lot for the past couple of days had gone. They were also probably worried about who was going to bring them their dinner later on.

Much of the sky above the city was glowing orange, there seemed to be a lot of it on fire. Keeping an eye on them I ducked behind a shelf and pulled the bullpup assault rifle off my back. I adjusted the straps on both weapons so that they were hanging, one on each side, at hip level. I could fire and keep control of both of them from there.

While I was preparing I was thanking my lucky stars once again. It seemed to be sheer dumb luck that the last three were out in front of the store, listening to the gun battle and unable to hear my somewhat silenced bursts or screaming hostages inside the store. It was also lucky for me that none of the plotters that I had just shot had been able to discharge a weapon, which would likely have alerted the three outside. It was by this luck alone that I still had the element of surprise.

I had the carbines pistol grip in my left hand and the bullpup grip in my right when I stepped out of the front door and waited for one of them to turn. Suddenly I realized that it was the three guys that had been sent to beat up Aimee and rob the bar three long days ago! The big guy was in the middle, holding an assault rifle identical to the one I had in my right hand. The one on my right had a shotgun. Amazingly, the third one on the left had a hogleg sixgun revolver hanging in a leather holster strapped low on his right hip, Wild West style. He had his right hand resting on the butt, standing hipshot, like a gunfighter in a western movie. He looked so fucking funny I couldn't restrain myself, I had to laugh, I wanted to ask him where his black hat was.

Unfortunately for him, he heard me laugh and turned and actually tried to get western. The idiot thought he could draw faster than I could pull the trigger! I stitched him from crotch to neck with a burst from the carbine and just like that, we were down to the last two. As they turned, they realized that they were well and truly fucked.

I had them stone cold, each were directly in front and looking down into one of my barrels at just over 10 yards. They did not have anything close to the half second that they would need to try to point their long weapons at me. They also were unlikely to want to join their quick draw cohort, who was going through the throes of his violent and bloody death right next to them. I gave them a silent three count to get used to the idea that they were done and then told them to very slowly put the guns on the pavement. They complied.

I told them to take their jackets off and drop them on top of the guns. They did. I told them to very slowly turn around in place. They complied. Neither of them had any concealed weapons. When they were facing me again, I asked them if they knew what today was. They looked baffled, looked at each other and shrugged. I said that today was Christmas Eve and that if they did exactly what I told them and were very good, I would give them a gift. They nodded. I told them to strip down to their birthday suits and to be done by my count of 10. They were both naked when I said eight. The big one still had a good sized purple and red bruise high on his belly, where I had kicked him.

I told them that they had an opportunity to have an anarchists Christmas, that all they had to do was to make it across the parking lot and the road before I made it to twenty, starting from one again. They nodded, and I said one. They took off, but the big guy gave me a nasty look for a moment before he turned. I got the distinct impression that he did not have the Christmas spirit.

I walked over to a pillar on my right and opened up the folding stock on the bullpup assault rifle, lifting it to my shoulder as I leaned against the pillar, using it as a shooting rest. I acquired the big guys back in the scope just as I got to 12. He was only a couple yards behind the smaller guy, both of them beating feet like barefoot and bareassed Greek Olympic sprinters of yore. He reached the road and was starting across it when I hit 18. As I suspected he would, the big guy stopped and turned on the far corner as I reached 20.

He flipped me both birds and was yelling something when I put a .308 round into his liver at about 160 yards. The force of the bullet blasting through his short rib and tearing into his guts knocked him back on his butt. He was left sitting against a traffic light pole, both arms slack at his sides, head down. If he wasn't already dead from hydrostatic shock, he would be soon. He hadn't appreciated my Christmas gift, so I had exchanged it for him.

I watched the last anarchist through the scope as he stopped to look for his cohort. Somehow, it seems that some people are able to sense the crosshairs on them. He suddenly did and quickly ran off around a corner. It seemed ironically appropriate that there would be one anarchist left to wander naked through a city in flames and in the grip of an epidemic. I hoped that he would have an opportunity to appreciate the irony of his situation as well.

As I started laughing about that, Aimee and Cindy drove around the corner of the building in the truck. Both looked relieved when I waved and gave them two thumbs up. As she pulled up in front of me, Aimee rolled down the window and I could see that there were tears in her eyes. I opened up her door and she jumped into my arms, nearly knocking me over. Cindy went around the back of the truck and fetched her frightened and bawling children. I saw a few of the hostages running around the corner of the building. The Wal-mart hostage crisis was over.

Day Four - Friday morning

I asked Aimee and Cindy to watch the front door with their shotguns, looking out for looters who might notice the absence of the police cordon. I grabbed a shopping cart and quickly worked my way back through the store, verifying the demise of the five plotters that I had shot inside the store. All were dead. I gathered their weapons and ammo, placing it all in the cart. I worked my way around to all of the propane tanks and gas cans, verifying that all valves were closed and lids on tight.

I went out the double doors and scanned the back parking lot for looters as well - none were to be seen, so I closed and latched the bay door, which fairly well secured the back of the building. I checked in the security office and found no-one in there either. I fetched the shotgun I had hidden and put that in the cart as well. I went back into the store and went over to the corner where the hostages had been corralled, there were still about 40 people waiting there. I asked if anyone was hurt or ill, no one spoke up. I asked if anyone was in the restrooms. No one spoke up so I went back and checked for myself, knocking on the ladies room door first. A young woman and her two small children were hiding in one of the stalls, looking very scared.

I told her that the bad guys were gone or dead and that she could come out, things were under control. She began to sob and her children started wailing. I left her in there, figuring that Cindy might have more luck calming her down than I would. There was no one in the men's room. I told the assembled hostages that there was a pile of keys, cell phones, purses and wallets on one of the checkout stations up front, anyone who wanted to could look through that stuff for their own possessions. Most of them headed over that way to sort through the piles.

Many of those that had remained were fairly obviously suffering from Stockholm syndrome - hostages that had unconsciously assumed the role of compliant sheep in order to survive. They were having trouble shedding that role now that the threat of violence and death had been removed. I didn't know what to do for them except give them some time and space. There were three men among the group who looked like they were alert and wanted to be helpful. All three had facial bruises and scabs from the initial beatings that the plotters had administered to establish dominance and control.

I suggested to them that they go over to the pharmacy section of the store and get cleaned and bandaged up, helping each other. I asked them to come and see me after they had accomplished that; I could use their help with some other things that needed doing. Having a task, they got to work on it.

I went back to the front of the store and asked Cindy to visit the hysterical woman in the ladies room, and to bring her kids along; the woman and her kids needed some help calming down. I asked Aimee to keep an eye on the hostages as they sorted through their belongings, in case some problem arose.

Back out front, I moved the bobtail truck around so that it could be easily loaded and kept the keys in my pocket. I sat on the hood with my bullpup assault rifle and kind of zoned out for a while, watching the city burn, looking out for looters, listening to the gun battle which had moved a bit further down the road, waiting for dawn. It had been a difficult thing, finding myself forced to kill again. I wanted to take a little time to get it right in my head, convince myself that it had been necessary, that I had exhausted all the other options to the best of my ability.

I decided to give myself a pass, that the steadily worsening situation of the looters, the burning city and the epidemic was about to trump the hostage situation. The plotters would soon likely have been killed either by organized looters or in their own, or someone else's violence anyway. That just seemed to be the way they rolled, and how things in general seemed to be rolling.

A couple of minutes after I reached that conclusion, the three guys came out, faces bandaged and wondering what they could do. I asked them to gather all the remaining hostages together near the front doors; I needed to fill everyone in on the situation out there - waving my arm at the burning city. For a moment the three guys just stared around at the strange urban landscape and then looking very serious, then they went back into the store to do as I asked.

Once everyone had gathered, I took a moment to look them all in the eye, making sure that everyone was alert and paying attention. Then I identified myself by name and my former Army unit and let them know that I had just mustered out a month ago, after three combat tours in the Middle East. I told them that Aimee had hired me to find her daughter - pointing out Aimee and Cindy standing near the front doors.

As I did so I had to stop and just look, both were looking very sexy and tough, standing there each holding a shotgun on one hip; Cindy's kids were standing between them, a hell of a picture actually. Momentarily speechless, I found myself wishing that I had a camera. Then I remembered that I did, so I pulled it out of my pocket and snapped a couple of shots of them.

Getting back on track, I told the hostages about the flu epidemic starting in Mexico City and about the fast moving and downward spiraling events that had transpired in the outside world since then. I told them that in some ways, they were lucky that they had been taken hostage, that some of them might not be alive, or might be deathly ill, if they had not been in quarantine for the last few days.

I told them that they were all free to leave at any time starting now, but that they should carefully consider the situation before they head out to their cars in the parking lot. I also suggested that any of them that had come to the store on a bus or taxi, or had been dropped off, would not be able to take a bus home and rides home would likely be difficult to find and might not work out well.

I informed them that the police and the National Guard had been keeping a cordon around the building until several hours earlier, but they had left to fight the battle that everyone had heard going on outside. I told them that the shooting had gotten started between organized groups of looters in the mall just down the road, and it sounded like it was continuing although somewhat abated, even further down the road. I let them know that I expected that some police and guardsmen would return here sometime soon, but that I was not sure how many or when.

I also told them that there would probably be looters coming here eventually if not sooner. Staying in the store was probably not a viable long term option. I suggested that before they do anything, they should get something to eat from the shelves and then try making any cell phone calls they could to try to figure out their next step. I suggested that they should try to draw strength from each other; it had always worked for me and my compatriots in the Army when faced with difficult situations in combat. Then I promised them that any of them that were not able to come up with their own plan; I would do what I could to help. For those that decided to leave immediately, I wished them the best of luck.

I thanked them for listening and walked over to stand next to Aimee. Nobody seemed to be ready to head out the door on their own yet. Aimee looked at me and said - pretty good speech soldier, you walk the walk and talk the talk, but can you dance? Then she bumped me with her hip. I couldn't think of anything to say to that, so I just winked at her. Some of the kids in the group were watching us and started to giggle, which was contagious and soon everybody was laughing. It was a good moment.

The three guys came up to me again and asked what was next. I asked them if they were all familiar with pump shotguns, they said yes. I asked two of them to take Aimee's and Cindy's shotguns and keep an eye on the front parking lot for looters coming in. I told Aimee to keep the 9mm semi-auto pistol. The third guy and the two ladies walked with me over to the Wal-mart gun counter where I had left the cart full of some of the plotters ordnance.

I gave the third guy a shotgun from the cart and we stole some buckshot from Wal-mart for it. I asked him to bring the rest of that buckshot box, another full box and his shotgun out front; to distribute extra ammo among his two buddies out there. I told him it was their job to hold the front door against all comers except the police or National Guard; if I heard they were doing a lot of shooting I would come out to back them up.

Now that I had the front covered I decided to use the receiving dock to load up the bobtail truck, instead of loading it out front as I had previously planned. I asked the ladies to fill shopping carts with all the weapons and ammo from Wal-mart's stock on hand and bring it to the shipping area; I was going to bring the truck back around to the back so we could start loading.

As I was going out front to do that, I could see that the police and the national guardsmen were coming back down the road, what there was left of them. Most were on foot in a double file between two humvees carrying the wounded. Both hummers had .50 cal machine guns mounted on top. By my count there were 9 cops and 22 national guardsmen in the group that returned. Two of the cops and six of the guardsmen were wounded. They all looked like they had had a very tough night. There was no sign of any Guard officers; the ones who had led them out apparently had not survived the fight.

As they arrived in front of the store, I welcomed them back and told them that the situation here was now under control, the plotters were all gone or dead. I told them that about 40 hostages had stayed in the store and were hoping for help from them. I suggested that they could take some time to rest and see to the wounded, that I would man one of the .50 cals and my three civilian friends would watch the back doors with their shotguns. The guardsmen all trooped into the store without a word, a few nodded at me as they went by; two of the cops stayed out front with me.

I asked the three guys with shotguns to go back into and through the store and through the double doors and just hang out there, leaving the bay doors closed. If anyone made a serious effort to get in through those doors, use the shotguns to convince them to go elsewhere. I suggested they might want to raid the shelves for something to eat and drink on their way to the back. I asked them to ask Aimee and Cindy to come back to see me, that I would not be driving the truck around back just yet. They headed back into the store to do that.

The two cops who stayed with me were the young SWAT officer who traded me his carbine and a tough and grizzled looking state police sergeant in his late forties that I had not seen before. We shook hands and I asked the SWAT guy if he wanted his carbine back. He said OK, I guess that would probably be good if you are done with it. I told him that the silencer and the full auto capability had saved my bacon, but that I didn't see a need for it anymore. I gave him back his carbine and mag pouch and I put the mini-14 in the bobtail truck, locking it into the cab.

I looked at the state cop and told him that I had to kill six of the plotters to retake control of the store. He looked at me for a long moment and then said thanks for doing that job, it probably wasn't easy but it seemed to be necessary. He said that it had been a miserable and murderous fucking morning and it was good to hear about something that had turned out OK. I asked him about the weapon he was carrying; I said that it looked like a Viet Nam era BAR to me - he nodded and said yeah, it's a BAR, but my father carried it around for 18 months in Korea. He added that it weighs a ton but it shoots straight and hits hard, a long way out too.

Then he said that he had a message for me from the city police detective I had been working with during the hostage crisis. He told me that the detective had decided to go home to see to his family after the firefight started to cool down. The detective wanted me to know that he was proud to have met me and that he would have enjoyed having a chance to sit down together and buy me a beer, if the circumstances were different. I thanked him for relaying the message and then repeated my suggestion that they go into the store for some rest and chow and they took me up on it.

I hopped into the first hummer and backed it into place, facing out from the store, close in to the doors. I shifted over to the second hummer and parked it about 5 yards from the first. I moved the bobtail truck up against the side of the store, backed up to the entrance pillar on the right side, so it blocked anyone coming around behind the two hummers from that side..

I racked both .50 cals, checked their ammo belts and swung them through their field of fire. Aimee came out with Cindy, bringing me some granola bars and a bottle of water. I asked the ladies to see if they and some of the other hostages might be able to help care for the wounded men that had just come in, using anything that was needed from the Wal-mart pharmacy department.

Aimee told me that she had just recently completed nursing school, so she would be qualified to care for the wounded and to supervise their care. I asked her what the heck she was doing stripping and bartending if she was a trained and qualified nurse. She shrugged, saying that she had been having trouble finding nursing work since she got her degree and license, but that it now seemed that she had been waiting for me. When she put it that way, I couldn't see any fault in her logic. She went in to the store to apply her training to some men who needed it.

A while after I had munched through my breakfast, Aimee came back out and sat with me in one of the humvees, holding my arm, resting her head on my shoulder. Neither of us said anything, we just looked out at the parking lot and watched the city burn. Things had quieted down quite a bit, the firefight was over. After about a half hour the sky began to slowly lighten with the dawn.

Finally she asked me what was next. I replied that today was Christmas Eve and that I heard they were having a lot of unadvertised specials at the Wal-mart for last minute shoppers. I pointed to the bobtail truck and said I believe that we should fill the cargo box with food, bottled water, medicine, guns and ammo, whatever.

I told her that my great uncle and aunt would be coming in this morning, towing an empty cargo trailer that we could fill with more of the same. I said that I was planning to go back to stay with them out in the country for a while and that she and Cindy and the kids were welcome to come along if they wanted. She kissed me and said she would talk with Cindy, but that it sounded like a good idea.

She thanked me for doing a good job of looking out for her, her daughter and her grandkids. She said that if she had known that I was going to try to turn the job into a career, she probably would have tried to get me to sign a long term contract, or at least paid me more. I replied that the cash she had given me a few days back was probably worthless at this point. Although we were up to our asses in weapons, the shotgun and shells that I had purchased with her money in the pharmacy the first evening we spent together was worth more than a wheelbarrow full of cash, today.

I said that I would be willing to consider a long term contract, depending on what she had in mind and I winked at her again. She was a world weary jaded bartender and stripper in her early forties and had been married and divorced, but the girl actually blushed. I'll never forget it. In the three plus decades we have been together since that morning, I never saw her do it again.

After a while, a few of the Guardsmen came out to relieve me, taking up post in their hummers. After checking with their new field commander, the state police sergeant, I asked them to split them up; to bring one humvee around the back and keep one in front. I drove the bobtail truck around and backed it up to the loading bay just as Aimee opened the bay door. I curled up on the bench seat of the truck and took a long awaited nap for about four hours while Aimee and Cindy went Christmas shopping from the basic list of suggestions I gave them, filling carts up in the store and packing everything in tight in the truck box. Afterward, they told me that they tried to do things quietly in the truck, wanting me to have a chance to get some sleep. It worked, I never heard a thing.

Day Four - Friday afternoon

When I woke up, the truck was about two thirds full and the gals were looking kind of tuckered out. I suspect that they would never admit it, but they looked to me like they were tired of shopping. I suggested that they take a break and went to see what was happening with the cops, the troops and the hostages.

More than half of the hostages had left on their own, supposedly having contacted friends or relatives and found a safe destination. While I had been asleep they loaded their cars up with Wal-mart stuff and headed out. The city cops were arranging a convoy for another group of hostages, planning to attempt to deliver them to various destinations around town that they could not get to on their own.

The state police sergeant now commanding the remaining Guard troops had assumed that command due to his position as a representative of the Governor's office. He seemed tough, experienced and very competent. I talked to him a bit about my own plans, along with my great uncle, to loot the store. He told me he had seen the gals systematically raiding the shelves and thought it was a good idea. He said that in normal times Wal-mart would probably have paid me a big reward for my role in averting loss of life to the hostages and major property damage to the store. He said that as far as he was concerned, it was not looting, it was compensation for the risks to life and limb that I had taken.

The young SWAT cop seemed to have attached himself to Cindy, who apparently and understandably had dry spells between boyfriends that could be measured in minutes. After a while Cindy approached me and asked if he might come along with us to my great uncle's place. I told her that he would be more than welcome; he had a skill set that would be much in demand in the near future, I was positive of that. She laughed, thinking I was making a sexual reference. I laughed also and let her think that was what I meant, in a way her interpretation of my comment made sense in the present circumstances as well.

I went over to talk with him, giving him a direct invite and advising him that Cindy seemed to be fairly high maintenance, that he would probably have his hands full. He said that he was looking forward to it. I told him about my great uncle and his property in the hills; that we would be heading there this afternoon sometime, he was due to arrive anytime now. While we waited, I asked him to tell me about the firefight around the mall. He shook his head, saying that it had been a total SNAFU.

The shooting started when a survivalist militia group moved into the mall, chasing out individuals and small groups of looters. Shortly thereafter, a biker gang had rolled in on their bikes and with several pickups, trying to lay claim to their share of the loot. The militia group leader and his 40 so-called troops, being well armed and believing themselves well trained, contested the bikers claim and the shooting started in earnest. The bikers killed several of the militia, who had had lots of training but had never had anyone shooting back at them. The biker gang, probably about 25 strong, pushed the militia group out of the mall.

Then an extended family of construction workers and loggers rolled in; probably about 30 of them. Most were former military and experienced hunters and they were also in much better shape and tougher than either the bikers or the wannabe soldiers in the militia. The clan drove the bikers out fairly easily.

Then the National Guard swarmed into the fray, surrounding the family group, trying to arrest them! As the family fought their way out, the clan patriarch was killed by a Guardsman. So the mall was then in the hands of the National Guard.

The militia group moved in again, this time having distributed their ace in the hole to their troopers, a supply of grenades, which they had procured on the black market somehow. This time they were prepared to come under fire and their commander seemed to have a knack for tactics. The well equipped militia did better this time, driving the Guard out of the mall, killing and wounding a few of the Guardsmen with grenades.

Hampering the Guardsmen were two major limitations. First, their captain was an idiot who should not have led them into the battle in the first place; and second, he was under orders not to use the .50 cal machine guns. The humvee mounted .50 cals were deployed merely for show, supposedly to deter rioting, similar to that which had already broken out in California.

So the Guard troops regrouped. That is when the cops were called in for backup, drawn from the cordon around the Wal-mart. They were just preparing to counter-attack into the mall when the family of loggers and construction workers launched their own counter-attack on the Guard troops. They didn't care anymore about the mall. They were now out to hunt down Guardsmen, seeking retribution for the death of their grandfather, father, uncle, father-in-law, whatever their individual relationship to the family patriarch, they were all pissed big time and wanted payback. Apparently, they got it.

Some of the clan had long range magnum elk rifles, marksmanship and hunting skills. They kept sniping away at the Guard for the rest of the mobile firefight which also continued to involve both the militia group and the biker gang. Their opposition's sharpshooters and use of grenades forced the captain to start using the .50 cals just to defend themselves. Ultimately, 15 of the Guardsmen went down to long range sniper fire, eventually including both of the officers. When the Guard captain was killed the state police sergeant finally had an opportunity to insert some sanity into the command; he took charge and directed the surviving Guard troopers to return to the Wal-mart, their participation in the costly see-saw battle having accomplished virtually nothing.

I told the SWAT cop that at least they had kept the looters away from the Wal-mart, for the night. He nodded, saying that could also have been accomplished by maintaining their defensive cordon around the store and without suffering 50 percent casualties. I had to agree with him on that point. He added that they had acquired a canvas sack containing 15 grenades during one of the close engagements with the militia group. He himself had 4 of the grenades secured in his waist pack. He noticed my interest and handed me 2 of them. The trickle up theory of small arms acquisition was working in my favor again.

After the city police hostage escort convoy left, there were very few former hostages remaining. First there was the young mother who had been in hysterics in the restroom, with her two small children. Also there was one of the three guys who had been helping me out before the troops returned. Apparently these two had also hooked up while I was sleeping; she was a single mom and she had learned that her apartment building with all her possessions had burned to the ground last night. He was also single, passing through town on his way to a job offer in Alaska. He seemed to think sticking around with the gal and her kids could be a better deal for him and I thought so too. I suggested to him that they could come out into the country with us for a few days, until they figured out what their next step would be. He said that he would talk with her and get back to me.

I also suggested to him that they should go shopping for clothes for themselves and the kids while they had the chance. I was planning to do the same; I had no real motivation to go back to my rented room to look for the few possessions that I had left there. He went to talk with her; I wandered off to grab a few pairs of jeans, some underwear, socks, a jacket and a ball cap off the shelves. Aimee caught up with me while I was doing that and suggested that I should triple up on everything, saying who knows when our next clothes shopping trip will happen. She started picking out clothes for me until I looked at her sideways.

A little before 1 pm, my great uncle and aunt rolled up to the front door of the Wal-mart. He asked the Guardsmen on post there for me, they directed him around to the back of the store. The Guardsmen on post in the back asked him to wait and yelled for me from the double doors. Pushing a shopping cart full of new clothes, I went into the receiving area and saw them out back in the parking lot. I jumped down from the loading dock and went out to greet them. They were happy to see me and said so.

I told my great uncle to back his trailer up to the loading bay door next to the bobtail truck; he did so as I rolled up the bay door. He had a good sized double axle cargo trailer which he said would easily handle a two ton load. I told him we wouldn't need to load it down, we had loaded the bobtail truck box with food and we just needed to load his trailer with toilet paper sufficient to deal with that amount of food. He looked at me funny for a sec and then started laughing. I helped him and my great aunt up onto the loading bay and we looked into the bobtail cargo box, now about 80% full, with some space left on top of the carefully packed cargo.

He looked at me and said, you know, throwing a bunch of toilet paper on top of all that stuff would probably be a good idea. Then he asked me to give him a rough idea of what we had already loaded. I told him that my lady friends, Aimee and Cindy, had started by gathering a bunch of first aid and medical supplies, both pharmaceuticals and over the counter stuff. Then they had loaded about 100 gallon containers of bottled water, 40 cases worth of various kinds of canned food and 50 shopping bags filled with rice, beans, spaghetti, noodles, etc.

Next were the propane tanks and 5 gallon jerry cans of gasoline that the plotters had provided for us, 15 of each. At the open end of the cargo box on the bottom were eight large canvas duffels loaded with small arms and ten cardboard boxes full of various ammunition, most of which were provided by the plotters and the rest courtesy of the Wal-mart sporting goods department.

There were also about 100 cartons of cigarettes and 50 cases of domestic beer. We still had clothing to load and I guess toilet paper too. Aimee and Cindy had come up to us as I was finishing the list. Aimee added that they had a bunch of diapers, feminine napkins and tampons still to load as well. My great aunt looked at her and asked - who needs the diapers? Aimee smiled and replied that they were just planning ahead. I introduced everybody all around and hugs and handshakes were exchanged.

I told my great uncle about the additions to our caravan; the SWAT cop and also the newly formed family. He responded with a question about vehicles. I told him that so far we had the bobtail truck, his pickup and trailer, Aimee's car and that I believed that the SWAT cop drove a four by four pickup. He suggested that I think about adding at least one more pickup; he thought that we might need it for an additional mobile firing platform. He told me that the trip in had been interesting, there had been three checkpoints where armed locals were stopping traffic, looking for goods that might be hijacked, or traded for safe passage. He had been able to get through because, after the first such encounter, he had left the double cargo doors on the trailer open so folks could see that it was empty.

He figured that, with several large, loaded vehicles, the return trip might be more difficult, unless the caravan displayed so much firepower that it looked too tough to stop. I had been concerned about this possibility and knew that we would be exposed to all sorts of potential threats during this critical trip out of town.

The problem drew me back to all the combat patrols in which I had taken part, riding in humvees and armored personnel carriers through the streets of Iraq or Afghanistan, waiting for someone to try to blow us up or to encounter a RPG crossfire ambush. While I was walking down that lane of memories, I was looking at the .50 cal mounted on the humvee parked just outside the back loading area.

I wondered how much trouble I would have convincing the state police sergeant to escort our caravan into the Coast Range, perhaps ostensibly to clear state roads or some such similar excuse. I knew that the most direct route, the state highway that ran past my great uncles place, had been blocked by felled trees and a charge of dynamite used to bring down part of the hillside onto the road. Although it would be ideal to have .50 cal firepower escorting us, it seemed too much to ask.

It looked like we might have to fight to keep the goods we wanted to haul back to my great uncles home. We would be bound to take casualties and lose vehicles on the way, perhaps to the extent that we might arrive at our destination with little to show for our losses. I asked my great uncle to show me the route he had taken and the locations of the checkpoints. Looking at the map I could see that we might be able to avoid the threats if we took a more circuitous route, staying off the main coast road and using forest service and side roads instead.

This might be our best bet, but would also take considerably longer, perhaps three times as long as the usual one hour trip. If we wanted to arrive before dark we needed to be on the road now. I gathered the group together and let them know about the problem and the time constraint. I asked them to load up the cargo trailer at the double, we needed to have a quick shopping spree and then get on the move. As they started grabbing shopping carts and running around, I called the SWAT cop over and asked him to help me work out an order to this caravan and a plan of response to threats that we might encounter along the way.

While we were talking about that the state police sergeant came by, asking me why everybody was racing around with shopping carts. I explained the situation to him, showing him our destination on the map and the locations where we might be waylaid. When my great uncle and aunt came past with their merchandise filled shopping carts, the sergeant asked him about his trip in to town. Once he had the details, he volunteered to send an escort party out with us, framing our convoy with the two humvees, helping us get more than halfway to our destination.

He showed me on the map the point at which the humvee escort could leave us to our own devices and we could pick up forest service logging roads that would take us to within a couple of miles of my great uncle's place. He apparently was very familiar with the back roads in that area. I asked him about that and he told me that he and some buddies had done some elk and black bear hunting in that part of the Coast Range in years past.

I very happily accepted his offer, knowing that the .50 cals on the humvees would effectively deter anybody who might think about trying to attack our convoy. I felt reasonably certain that the logging road portion of the trip would be safe from any serious threat of attack. It would be slow and occasionally rough going, since most logging roads are not paved. They are prone to washboarding and can get muddy in places, during the rainy winters. I felt relieved, realizing that I would not have to see people in our group get hurt or killed, nor would I likely have to kill anybody else today. When I left the army I was looking forward to some peace and quiet.

Several hours later, after an uneventful trip, we made it to my great uncle's place and I was able to relax a bit. Of course, we had a lot of work to do, unloading and getting everybody situated. It was to become a real challenge, learning how to survive in the new circumstances that we found ourselves in. It was also a lot of honest physical labor, perhaps akin to traveling in time back to about 1900.

The next five years

Most people who lived through the first few years after the epidemic began don't talk about it and many have blocked those memories entirely. There is no way to know with any degree of accuracy, but somewhere between 2 and 3 billion people died around the world. The Mexican flu pandemic itself killed approximately a quarter of those, maybe as many as 750 million. The violence of the panic and craziness that came with the disease may have claimed another 750 million. The famine and the slew of other, older diseases that spread as the fabric of societies around the world disintegrated may have taken a billion more.

Most of those who survived did used similar methods. They teamed up with a small group, got out of the towns and cities early on, and found a defensible out of the way place that had water and food available. Once there they hunkered down, they stayed put and away from travelers. It was very difficult to survive and to see so many suffer and die. Many just gave up to the circumstances.

We had the advantages of the preparations that my great uncle had made, the food, guns and supplies we had brought with us and the bounty of nature in the land, streams and mountains around us. Still, it was terrible and exhausting and seemed to go on forever, but the worst was over within five years, as I said.

Surviving the new state of the world since then has mostly been a matter of adapting, re-learning how to live in a simpler, slower, more physically demanding and larger world. It's a warmer world too. During those five years, nearly everything that could burn, did. The relatively sudden release of all that stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere steeply accelerated the global warming curve. We are still experiencing the changes and adapting almost 4 decades later, but I'm getting ahead of myself. That's all I'm going to say about the five years that we call the die-off, if we talk about it at all.

Epilogue

So I want to sum up the story of my one hard case as a private detective. It started out as a missing person case, then changed into a body guarding and hostage situation and then morphed into an apocalyptic survival struggle. Aimee has been the client, the boss, whatever you want to call her, the entire time. That is one element of the case that has remained constant throughout.

Some might say that my compensation has changed, although I disagree with that. Aimee did not really have to pay me anything to hire me. I didn't have anything better to do and I liked her from the moment I met her, so I would have gotten into it anyway. Shortly after getting involved, I realized that I was doing it all for Aimee's love, which she has freely given to me since then. She's always been the boss; it has always been private between us. At times she can be a hard case. That is one clue that I have detected; a relevant fact I have uncovered in the course of my ongoing investigation.

Although you may want details about our continuing story, what happened after we arrived at my great uncle's place in the Coast Range, I will leave that for another day. I'm getting old, all this remembering tires me out and I could use a beer. George brews some pretty good home made beer. That is the last detail of the case that I'll share with you now.

George is the SWAT cop who came with us, who married Cindy and who has happily been a father to all of her children. Most good cops are family oriented; they're good at holding things together and George is no exception to that stereotype. He's been the long arm of the law in this valley since he arrived with us that day; I have backed him up occasionally when he has needed it. You could say that the story has become a 22nd century western, as well.

Anyway, the last detail is that he is also the same George who answered my call to the payphone in the entranceway of the Wal-mart on the second day of the case! He was off-duty; he happened to be going in to do some Christmas shopping and picked up the ringing pay phone on impulse. It took a couple of months for us to figure that one out; it boggled our minds then and still does to this day. As I said, when George married her he took over the task of keeping an eye on Cindy; it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

It also leaves me with more time to take on other jobs from Aimee's to-do list. When she realized that I had spent years in the Army and had not advanced in rank, she decided that I needed close supervision. I've tried to explain to her that I am a self-starter and also capable of self-actualization, I am just not ambitious. When I was a kid in the boy scouts, I never advanced above tenderfoot, either. In the Army, I was not willing to take responsibility for expending other soldier's lives.

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Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed or took value from this e-book. Of late, the urge to write is very strong. I find that I have the time, as well as a quiet environment in which I can string ideas together undisturbed. Please visit my web site below to find links to and information about my other work, either already published, or in progress.

Gratefully yours,

Mark Gross

http://www.rentnerd.com

