Hell Happened (34 page)

“Just meet Rusty there and we’ll be there in a few minutes,” Jerry said and then put the microphone back on the dash. He turned to Rusty. “Juan and I are going to take this down to the end down there,” he told him, pointing west. “Meet the others. We’re going to take everyone we can.
Hurry.”

Rusty didn’t have to be told twice. He was already headed to the rendezvous location before Jerry got on the boat. Juan hadn’t been screwing around. He was familiarizing himself with the cat, warming the engines and testing the controls.

Immediately he pulled away from the beach where they’d push the boat back into the water and spun the boat in the right direction.

“She feels nimble.
Quick response.
I bet she isn’t a year old,” Juan said as he maneuvered the 48-foot boat to the end of the lagoon. “I wouldn’t usually take this size out to the gulf, but it appears everything, including GPS, works and the water is smooth today. So let’s use this.”

There were so many dials and switches, computer screens and devices in the window that obviously meant something to Juan, which meant zero to Jerry. He just nodded. Jerry’s idea of a nice boat was a 12-foot flat bottom with a six-horse
Evinrude
. By the time they reached the shore Jerry had indicated, the others were there.

“Eddie, grab any ropes you can, Monica grab all the binoculars.” Eddie opened the back of the SWAT truck and pulled out two ropes that were neatly rolled and tossed them on the fore deck. Monica grabbed the binoculars from both trucks. “Great, now you, Monica and Rusty get aboard. We might need you.” Jerry was glad none of the three hesitated. “Let’s go Juan.”

He pulled the walkie-talkie out of his pocket and called Tony in the truck. “Sorry Tony, but we have got to go and we would have had to work around you too much,” he told the radio man.

“No sweat boss. I get sea sick just looking at the ocean,” he radioed back.

Juan expertly moved the boat out of the lagoon and into open water. Jerry could tell this man had experience with watercraft. He used the GPS and the depth finders to keep from running aground. Once clear, he opened up the throttles and the cat climbed up on the water nice and smooth.

It took 20 minutes to reach the area Jerry had suggested. Juan shut the boat’s two motors off and let the cat drift in silence. There was a slight breeze under the now clear skies and the boat barely rocked on the choppy waves.

Jerry pulled out his walkie-talkie after looking at his watch. They’d cut it pretty close. It was 18:43 by his watch. He called Tony. “We’re here. You got anything?”

“No sir. The station is out of range. I have the frequency of the capsule but chances are I won’t hear from them until the chute pops.”

“Roger that, let us know if you hear anything.”

Everyone on the boat began looking skyward through binoculars.

Jerry looked at his watch. It was 18:44.

Tony came on the radio to say something at the exact same time Monica screamed. Everyone swept their binoculars to where she pointed: about two miles out and aft of the boat, they saw a huge red and white parachute high in the sky. “Go Juan!” Jerry almost pushed the man below deck. He then climbed up to the front of the boat, in front of the windscreen and pointed in the direction of the falling capsule. Juan pushed the catamaran for all it was worth. They would reach the space craft minutes after it hit the water. He hoped the people inside were ok.

“Call Tony!” he hollered back to Rusty.

“I already did. He has them on the radio and is talking to them,” Rusty hollered back over the roar of the catamaran and 25-knot wind in their face. They all witnessed the space capsule splash down. Jerry hoped they got to them before the capsule sank.

They arrived and Eddie and Rusty, who had tied life jackets to ropes, threw them to the capsule as the catamaran coasted up to the bobbing Soyuz life boat. “Monica, call Tony and tell them we’re here!”

A moment later the hatch on side of the craft blew off. Fortunately, it blew away from the catamaran and just winged the port pontoon as it blew away. Jerry ran forward with another life jacket as the three astronauts crawled out. They were wearing standard ISS work clothes and smiling and waving and yelling congratulatory things to their rescuers.

There were several tense minutes as the three crawled aboard the little catamaran. They found it easier to go into the water first then be hauled up by the life jacket. The boat’s ladder had been missing. Eventually all three, two American men and one Canadian woman were lying down in the comfort of the cabin.

“Thank you,” the woman, who was the senior specialist of the three, said to Jerry and Juan. “Thank you so much.” Jerry felt there were very few things in life that would make him feel as good as he did with those words.

“You’re welcome, ma’am,” he replied. “We’re now going to get you home.”

~     
~
     
~

Randy spent the day wondering between how his dad’s rescue mission was going and how his date with Cheryl would go later tonight. He finished the chores in the barn then showed Danny where to clear a spot for the motor home.

When he was ready to start on the security system he went back to Cheryl’s room. His dad had told him that if she wanted to be outside the room, she had to wear leg cuffs. When he knocked she told him to come in.

Her smile told him she was glad to see him. He didn’t know how fake it was.

“Ready to go?”

She nodded and put her legs straight out for him to put the leg cuffs on her like she did every morning. Her smile went away. Randy saw her smile go away. Her lower lip pouted and she clasped her hands on her lap. Randy picked the cuffs up from the corner he’d put them in the night before. “I want to spend the day with you, but I hate those damn things,” she whimpered. “They hurt so
bad
.”

“I know,” Randy said, “but my dad said if you don’t wear them, you can’t go outside.”

“But I want to go outside because you’re outside.” She was getting into the act of being petulant. “I won’t tell him if you won’t.”

Randy hesitated but kneeled down in front of her and opened the cuff. “Please,” she begged and placed her feet flat on the floor. “I promise I won’t run away before our date tonight,” she teased, spreading and closing her knees, right in his eye level.

Randy loved the looks of those legs and knew she was teasing him. He was naïve, but he wasn’t stupid. He thought she just didn’t want to wear the cuffs because they hurt her ankles. What he didn’t realize was the real reason she didn’t want to wear them. He knew it was a risk, but he believed she was a good person and he could trust her. He really believed she wouldn’t run.

He also thought if he allowed her this favor, even after what his dad had told him, maybe he’d be allowed a favor during their date.

“Okay, I won’t put them on,” he said, putting the cuffs on her bed. “But I’m going to work your cute little butt off today because I have a lot to get done.”

He stood up, thinking she would give him a hug and maybe
a kiss for not making her wear
the cuffs, but instead she gave him a smile and thanked him. She reached around him for another shirt to put over her tee shirt.

“Let’s get started then,” she said, nearly bouncing out the door.

They spent just part of the day together with Randy doing the work and Cheryl asking questions about his life. Randy thought she was interested in him so he told her freely of his life, what he liked to do and things he’d done. Randy made witty comments and she obligingly laughed every time.

She really was interested in him and the story he told about the death of Jeff. She asked a lot of questions about Eddie and his part and Jerry’s reaction. Randy thought she was just curious so he told all he could remember. He talked about the guns they’d found on their trip to Trussville and how close Monica had come to being killed. He embellished just a little and she seemed awed by his fearlessness.

They worked their way around every area of the farm except the buildings. Randy kept her away from the kids and the other people. He suggested sharing a lunch with her in her room, but she talked him out of it, saying a picnic-like setting would be nicer. He accepted her reasoning, but it was just another lie.

Cheryl listened to Randy ramble on through the day. She thought he was boring and uninteresting. He talked a lot about video games, the internet and playing online. These all bored her, but she feigned interest to keep him talking. When he talked about the layout of the farm and the people on it, that’s when she paid attention.

She made sure he told her all of what had happened since her capture. Her injuries had mostly healed and she was ready to blow this taco stand. She was surprised she hadn’t been executed that day. That’s what she would have done if their situations had been reversed. Law and order were gone. The law of the land was kill or be killed. She learned a lot about the
lay out
of the property and the people who lived here. She couldn’t understand how this untrained bunch of yokels had gotten the better of her and her team.

Cheryl let Randy talk and kept memorizing important facts she would need.

At lunchtime, Randy left her in her room, foul-smelling hole she’d had to live in for the past 11 days. She hated the place, but hadn’t come up with a good plan to escape until Randy began showing interest in her. There were always too many people around or she was wearing those damned leg irons like a prisoner at a military correctional facility.

He came back to her room with sandwiches, fruit and two juice boxes. He wanted to sit in the room, out of the possible sight of everyone, maybe to get intimate, but Cheryl had other plans. First, she wanted to get out of the foul-smelling barn, and second, she wanted Randy teased into doing something very stupid. She wanted him trusting her completely. He was already violating at least one of his dad’s rules which
was
a good start.

During their lunch she found out most of the people who lived here at the shelter were gone. Randy mentioned that Tia and a crew were gone. She also knew from Randy’s ramblings that Jerry was gone with four or five others, including that fat ass Monica, who had put the final bullets into her Army friend’s head.

That left the two older women and some kids on the property and one other man. She guessed the one called Danny who was running the tractor and chainsaw today was one of the newest people on the farm. She’d caught a glimpse of him and he was tall, sandy-haired, well-built and carried two revolvers all the time. He was also someone Cheryl would like to have on her side, and if he was new here, and not part of the two crews out on the road, maybe he was ripe for being recruited.

The afternoon dragged. Cheryl begged off mid afternoon, saying she needed a nap because she wanted to “be fresh” for their date this evening. Her real reason was because she really was tired, both physically because she hadn’t slept well the night before even without the collar, but also she was tired of Randy’s compliments. He seemed to pepper every conversation with something nice to say about her looks or her eyes or her hair.

Cheryl also tired of his attempts at showing how deep he was by using big words and spouting some diatribe about his faith, almost like he was trying to convert her.

What really gnawed at her gut was his constant fawning. He was always smiling at her and her smile was beginning to wear thin. There was only so much she could take before she felt should would lose it and begin punching him in the face.

She went back to her room to sleep for an hour. She was going to be busy this evening. Her plan had a lot of holes and a number of unknowns, but it was her best chance to get free of these
weirdos
. She wasn’t going to let them hand her off to some other encampment where she’d have to work her way back to the top. They weren’t going to let them drop her on some island somewhere where she would have to live alone.

Most of all, she sure as hell wasn’t going to be some love interest for an immature 22-year-old.

She put together a kit she would need of items she’d lifted off the farm the past three days. She’d had to be very careful not to raise suspicions of Randy and took care to hide them in the bathroom of the barn. The bathroom was disgusting and no one but she used it. She had an iron bar about eight-inches long, a blade from a piece of farm machinery she’d made into a knife, and several lengths of wire long enough to tie someone up. The garage, she knew, was still unlocked and it was where the
deJesus
minivan was parked.
Randy’d
had to move the van out of the garage to do repairs and she saw he left the keys in it.

She heard Randy in the barn late in the afternoon, so she pretended to be asleep. She figured he was doing the evening milking which would take him about 45 minutes. Danny brought the tractor back and she watched through her little window as he drove it into the far side of the barn. He was dirty and tired she could tell and didn’t look at all happy being made to do the shit work on the farm. He closed and locked the barn door and then walked around the barn, probably to get a hot shower and a hot meal then back to his tent to sleep before another day of working for Randy and his dad.

Cheryl thought about going after him to try recruiting him, but the timing was bad.