Frank and Jane stay one step ahead of the enemy, escaping with their friends into Kansas. They take over an abandoned RV Park on the old highway, where Frank races to finish the technical work that they need to win the war. Terry and Trish’s relationship blossoms. Tragedy strikes, as General Hogan is captured by the enemy. Can our friends rescue him? There is a dark secret at the RV Park, and our friends discover it in an underground torture chamber. Other people are very interested in their discovery – Malcolm Davis and George Franklin. Dangerous men. Will they help our friends, or will they lead them down the path to destruction?

Chapter 1 - Fishing with the Boys

The sun was bright,
and the morning was heating up fast. Dobie, Gabe, Jake, and Terry were lifting the dog kennels off of the truck bed, and setting them down next to Dobie’s fifth wheel.

“These aren’t as heavy as they looked,” Gabe said.

“Thank the Lord for small favors,” Jake said.

“Okay,
Reverend
,” Gabe said, cracking up.

Jake smiled sheepishly. “You doubt my calling?”

That brought more laughs.

“So, who wants to go into town with me?” Dobie asked.

“I’ll go, but I’ll follow you in the Suburban, just in case,” Gabe said. “Might take quite a while to mount a new fifth wheel hitch.”

“Okay, thanks,” Dobie said. “I’ll put Duchess in the cab with me.”

“You guys need me?” Terry asked.

“Maybe it’d be good for you to ride shotgun,” Jake said. “If Trish doesn’t get too upset, that is.”

“I heard you,” Trish said, coming out of their trailer. “If he goes, I go.”

“Okay, honey,” Terry said. “Maybe we should hide a gun in the back for you, just in case.”

“You guys really think there’s going to be problems?” Gabe asked. “It was okay yesterday. The apps should tip us off if anybody bad shows up.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Terry said.

“Well, I’m bringing my side arm,” Dobie said. “Just in case, but I don’t expect problems.”

“Okay, let’s take off now, so we can get back before it gets too late,” Gabe said. “I think our guests are supposed to arrive today. I want to be back here before then.”

Frank and Jerry were standing outside the clubhouse with their coffee when the two vehicles drove out of the park.

“Well, there they go,” Jerry said.

“Gabe’s following,” Frank said. “Good.”

“What’s on the agenda today?”

“Firewall,” Frank said. “Should only take a few minutes. Then I’ll see what happened with the compiler.”

Jerry nodded. “Well, let me know which firewall to install and I’ll get the laptops loaded too.”

“Okay,” Frank said, walking inside to the PC. He pulled a flash drive out of his pocket and plugged it into the USB port. Then he plugged the network cable back in. The machine connected to the internet right away.

“You going back out there?” Jerry asked.

“Yeah, just long enough to pick up this program,” Frank said. He navigated to the site and downloaded the firewall. “There it is.”

“Good,” Jerry said, watching as Frank installed it.

“Alright, we’re done,” Frank said. He pulled out the flash drive and handed it to Jerry. “Self-explanatory. I’d get it on everybody’s laptops.”

“Got it, thanks.” Jerry said. “Any way to tell who was looking?”

“Yeah, probably,” Frank said. “I have all of the important stuff encrypted, so they aren’t going to get anything from whatever they might have downloaded.”

“Could your Belgian friend break it?” Jerry asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Frank said. “What I did is way overkill. I made it a lot tougher than the encryption they used for the chips.”

“Well, that’s something. Can the enemy tell our position, if it was them?”

“Only if they have somebody inside at the Satellite provider,” Frank said. “I’d be more worried if we didn’t have air superiority.”

“What if it wasn’t the enemy?”

“You think it was some random hacker?” Frank asked.

“What if it was the serial killer who owned this park before? Scott, wasn’t it?”

“Oh,” Frank said. Jerry could see his mind start to work. His brow furrowed. Then he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Who you calling?” Jerry asked.

“The satellite provider,” Frank said.

“Hello, this is the Kansas Prairie RV Park. I’ve got a question about our service.”

“Okay, sir, please hold while I look up the account.”

“Thank you,” Frank said, looking at Jerry.

“I have your file, sir. What can I do for you?”

“Are we on the same IP address that the former owner used for this location?”

“Why, yes.”

“Could we change that to something different, please? The former owner broke into our system last night.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry sir. Sure, I’ll do that right now.”

“Thank you.”

“Done. Reboot your modem, and the new IP address will become active.”

“Thanks very much,” Frank said.

“You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“No, thank you. Have a nice day.”

Frank put his phone back into his pocket. “Let’s take a walk over to the barn.”

“They were using the old IP address? Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Frank said as they walked. “Wouldn’t make a stitch of difference in any situation other than the one we’re in.”

They walked into the barn. Frank pulled the power cable out of the modem, and they waited.

“So, I guess we know that Scott is alive, now, don’t we?”

“Well, either Scott or one of his friends,” Frank said. “We’ll have to mention this to Malcolm.”

“Think Scott’s on his way here now?” Jerry asked.

“Possible, I suppose. We don’t know how far away he is, so we might want to keep our eyes open,” Frank said. “One thing to think about, though. He might’ve been planning to come back, before he found out that there’s somebody here. He might flee the other way rather than come back here now. He has to know that we’ve seen his stuff.”

“True,” Jerry said. “I’ll bet he’s scouring the local news, trying to figure out if we’ve notified the authorities yet.”

“Yeah,” Frank said. He plugged the modem back in, and the lights slowly cycled through as the modem made connection.

“We should check the IP address, just to make sure that took,” Jerry said as they walked back to the clubhouse. Frank sat down at the PC and brought up the router configuration screen. He wrote down the IP address, and then put a new user name and password on the system.

“There wasn’t even a password on there?” Jerry asked.

“Nope,” Frank said. “That’s how I was able to get it working so fast. Since we aren’t using the wireless, I didn’t see much of a need. This guy won’t get far enough in to see the firewall now.”

“He probably thinks we’re idiots,” Jerry said.

“Maybe, but maybe not. I recognized somebody was on the system. Most people wouldn’t have.”

“True,” Jerry said. “I’ll go get on the laptop firewall loads.” He left the clubhouse. Frank got back to work.

In Wyoming, George woke up when a beam of sunlight hit his face. He felt panic for a moment, and checked his phone. It was not quite seven. He laid back, relieved. Heidi stirred next to him.

“Hi, honey,” she said, eyes still closed. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah,” George said. “The big rigs woke me up a time or two, but we got to bed so early that it didn’t matter.” He got up and put his clothes on. Heidi got up after he left the bedroom.

“Shall I go get coffee and breakfast?” George asked.

“I’ll go with you,” she replied. They went outside into the bright morning sunshine. Malcolm was already up, checking out his rig.

“Something wrong?” George asked.

“Good morning,” Malcolm said, smiling. “Just taking a quick look. That was a long drive yesterday.”

“We’re going to the store for coffee and breakfast,” Heidi said. “Want something?”

“I’ll go with you guys,” he said. “We need to get onto the road quickly. Today’s going to be a longer drive than yesterday.”

“Yeah, I saw that on my phone last night,” Heidi said. “It should be easier, though, right?”

“Yeah, we’re past the Rockies, at least,” George said. “How many hours we looking at?”

“If we put in a stop for lunch, we’re pushing about eight hours,” Malcolm said.

“That’s a little too long,” Heidi said. “We should stop somewhere along the way.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think it was going to be that long,” George said.

“You have to factor in that we’re going out of the way,” Malcolm said. “We could save a lot of time going through Denver.”

“No thanks,” Heidi said. The men both started laughing. They entered the store. Heidi took a look at her phone while the men were getting coffee. “Hey, how about Sidney, Nebraska? It’s about four and a half hours…probably five with a lunch break, and then it’s only about three and a half hours to Sharon Springs. We could be there tomorrow morning before noon.”

Malcolm and George looked at each other, both of them thinking it through.

“Well, it
would
be better if we arrive at the park in the daylight,” Malcolm said. “I’m fine with that plan.”

“I’m for it too,” George said.

“Okay, let’s do it, then,” Heidi said.

“I’ll send off a quick e-mail letting Jane know,” Malcolm said.

They carried their food back to the rigs. “See you guys later,” Malcolm said, climbing into his coach. He got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. While it was warming up, he sent a quick e-mail to Jane’s address.

Back in Sharon Springs, Dobie drove into the RV store and parked, watching Gabe’s SUV pull in next to him.

“You guys going in?” asked Dobie asked Gabe through his rolled down window.

“Maybe we should stay here and keep an eye out,” Gabe said.

“Okay,” Dobie said. He walked through the front door, and back to the long counter. There was a burly man with a shaved head and a goatee leaning on the counter, reading a newspaper.

“Good morning,” Dobie said as he walked up. The man looked up from his paper, and smiled.

“Good morning to you,” he said. “I’m Gary. You must be Dobie. Howard called me.”

“Yep, I’m Dobie. Looking for a fifth wheel hitch.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Gary said. Then he chuckled. “In fact, you’ve come to the
only
place.”

“Good. You want me to move my truck to the back?”

“Yeah, pull around the right side of the building. There’s a gate over there. Just drive through and pull up in front of the first bay. I’ll get somebody on it.”

“How long will it take?” he asked.

“Oh, a couple hours tops,” Gary said. “Don’t you want to know how much it costs?”

“Yeah, I was getting to that,” Dobie said.

“Well, the hitch is about nine hundred bucks. I’ll charge you about one fifty for labor. That okay?”

“Yeah, I can handle that,” Dobie said, “if you throw in the trailer wiring. I have the harness.”

“Done. If I was you, I’d watch the hitch install,” Gary said. “This is something you can do yourself. Sometimes you’ll want to use your truck to haul stuff, after all.”

“Good advice. I’ll do that,” Dobie said. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said. “Glad to have your business.”

Dobie went outside and talked to Gabe.

“He said it would only take a couple of hours,” he said.

“What’s the damage?” Gabe asked.

“Not too bad,” Dobie said. “Under twelve hundred for everything, by the time you add tax.”

“Okay,” Gabe said.

“He suggested that I watch the installation, so I’ll know how to put it on and take it off myself.”

“Alright,” Gabe said. “Maybe we’ll run over to Walmart for a little while. We need a few things. Some fresh produce, for example.”

“Alright, sounds good,” Dobie said. He got into his truck and drove it around to the service bay, as Gabe backed out of the parking lot.

Back at the RV Park, Jane and Jasmine were walking over to the barn, carrying their laptops. Jerry saw them as he came out of the clubhouse, and trotted over.

“Hey, you two, I need to load a firewall onto your laptops,” Jerry said.

“Because of that person who was on the PC last night?” Jane asked.

BOOK: Bug Out! Part 9: RV Ambush

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