The Rule of Three (14 page)

“Probably everybody, including us.”

It wasn’t long before there was a knock at the sliding door. It was Herb, and my mother waved for him to come in.

“How are you two doing on this fine evening?” he asked. “I brought over a box of canned goods that might come in handy.”

He was all smiles, fresh clothing, clean hair, and a well-rested look. The only hint that things weren’t all sunshine was the bulge under his jacket where I knew he had his pistol.

“Thanks for the pantry donation. We are starting to run low on some things. Do you want tea?” my mother asked.

“Sounds good.” He sat down, and my mother put a cup in front of him. He smiled, then cleared his throat. “I’ve had a chance to go over the first day’s results from the survey.”

“And?”

Herb pulled out a sheaf of papers from the food box and placed them on the table. “There are four hundred and twenty households, and sixteen hundred thirty-seven people in the neighborhood,” he said.

“I would have thought there would be many more than that,” my mother said.

“Normally there are, but there were people away on business or holidays or who for whatever reason haven’t been able to get home. For some people even twenty miles is an impossible distance.”

My father was a thousand miles away.

“We need the people at the checkpoints to become more stringent in checking the identification of all people claiming to live in the neighborhood. We have to restrict entry to people who live here.”

“I know the flow of people past our walls is becoming more pronounced,” my mother said.

“It’s all part of the flight from larger centers to smaller ones. Nobody can live for long in an apartment in the city, because they can’t grow food or get water. They’re fleeing to places where they think they can take refuge, find food and water. Cities that had millions will soon have hundreds of thousands and then become practically deserted.”

“And a lot of those refugees are walking right past our neighborhood,” my mother said.

“And we need them to keep walking. We can’t take them in,” Herb said. “As every place else deteriorates, we’re going to be seen not only as a destination but also as a target.”

“How do the patrols and checkpoints look tonight?” my mother asked.

“Thanks to the survey, it looks like we’ve been able to enlist four firefighters, two former military men, and three retired police officers who I didn’t even know lived around here,” Herb said. “We also have a couple of doctors on standby. Our checkpoints are more solid.”

“The question is, are they solid enough?”

“We have to hope. I picked up a report on the shortwave last night from a ham in the Los Angeles area of a significant increase in violence, including murder, arson, and formal gang or group violence.”

“But that’s in the cities, not here, right?” I said.

“It’s a wave spreading out from the cities. Whatever is happening there will happen here in time. If we know the trends, we can stay ahead of them.”

“What are the next steps you think we need to take?” she asked.

“You’re going to have to put more people out for security purposes.”

“We don’t have more trained people who I can trust in those positions.”

“And having people you can trust is going to become even more essential,” Herb said. “Have you given any more thoughts to arming civilians?”

“So far we’ve been effective with only the officers having weapons.”

“That will change quickly, and when it does there will be loss of life.”

“I hate to think that it’s going to come to us having to kill people,” my mother said.

“Loss of life isn’t just going to be on the other side. We will have people killed. That is a certainty. We have to devise a plan to make sure that many more of those casualties take place on the other side.”

“It sounds like you’re talking about a war,” my mother said. She sounded a bit shocked, and so was I. How bad did Herb think things were going to get?

“I am,” Herb said softly. “Actually it’s more like hundreds and hundreds of little civil wars are going to take place—which is, if nothing else, a contradiction in terms, because no war is civil. In fact, a civil war is even more evil because it involves not soldiers and strangers but civilians and neighbors.”

My mother rubbed her hands through her hair. “I don’t think it will come to that.”

“I fear it will,” Herb said.

“How can you be so certain of all of this?” I asked.

“I’m not certain of anything,” Herb said. “Had I seen everything coming that’s already happened, I would have been much better prepared.”

“You’re the best-prepared person in the neighborhood.”

“Not as well prepared as I should have been. I never dreamed of a scenario this severe. This has the potential to be so much worse than anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“What have you seen?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

“I know you worked in foreign affairs,” my mother said, “but what exactly did you do?”

“I held a variety of posts and did a number of things in a number of countries.”

I’d seen Herb do this trick before—he answered with either a question or an answer that didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Were you with the CIA?”

He laughed. “Why would you think that?” Again he was giving a question rather than an answer.

“It doesn’t matter why I think that. The question is, were you a spy for
some
part of our government?”

“The term used in foreign affairs is ‘operative.’”

“So were you an operative?” I asked.

“Do I look like I was a—”

“Are you going to answer or not?” I demanded. “Listen, you want us to be honest with you, so isn’t it time you were honest with us?”

“I have never told you anything that wasn’t true,” he said. He sounded a little bit hurt, but I wondered if that was a technique to stop me from pushing further.

“That doesn’t mean you
haven’t
told us things that are true. I think that’s what you’ve been doing, only telling little bits, moving us in a direction without telling us what’s farther along in that direction.”

“You are a very wise young man.” He took a deep breath. “Unfortunately, by law, I’m not able to provide more information about my previous assignments.”

“What law?”

“It’s all classified,” my mother said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Herb had the grace to look a little uncomfortable. “I can’t even confirm or deny that. Unfortunately, at this time I—”

“Can you at least tell us if you’ve seen things deteriorate like they have here?” I asked.

He took a deep breath. “Much worse than they are here.” He paused. “At least as they are today.”

“But it’s not today you’re worried about—it’s tomorrow,” my mother said.

“Tomorrow isn’t going to be the problem as much as three weeks from now. The thin veneer of civilization we are still clinging to will soon be peeled all the way back to reveal an ugly reality.”

“You sound so certain, so
pessimistic
,” my mother said.

“From what I’ve seen, I think I’m being realistic,” Herb said. “In fact, what I’m thinking now almost verges on optimistic. I think we can do something despite the odds. Bad things are coming, but we can compensate for them.”

“How?” my mother asked.

“We have to become increasingly more organized as the world becomes more
dis
organized. The situation will
de
volve quickly so we have to
e
volve
more
quickly and continue to evolve, not just reacting to what’s happening but anticipating it before it happens.”

“Like you keep talking about chess, keeping a few steps ahead,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“And you think more people with weapons at the checkpoints is the next step,” Mom said. “What’s the one after that?”

“That’s hard to tell.”

“Hard to tell or you won’t tell?” I asked.

“Everybody has secrets,” he said. One hand gently touched the bulge over his gun as he looked me straight in the eyes. Was he threatening me or … I knew what he was saying. He’d given me a gun and I’d taken it, and my mother didn’t even know. That was our shared secret, but that secret wasn’t going to keep me from pushing further.

“There’s nothing to stop you from telling us what you think is coming,” I said. “What’s the next step in this chess game?”

“You don’t understand. With chess it’s never just the next step, but six or seven steps ahead. And the foundations of those steps are right here,” he said, tapping the papers he’d laid down on the table. “The most valuable resource we have is the people in this survey, knowing what skills they possess.”

“Even if you won’t tell us what skills you possess?” I demanded. “Maybe those skills, plus what you’ve seen, are the things we need the most to get through this. You need to tell us, tell my mother.”

A small smile came to him. “Perhaps it is time for me to—”

He was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of gunfire.

My mother sat up straight. “Where do you think that’s coming from?”

“It’s hard to say with just one shot. It could be up by the plaza or—”

There was a barrage of gunfire, so many shots that I couldn’t tell where one stopped and the next started!

*   *   *

Then silence. It was clear that this had been some kind of full-fledged gun battle, and that it had gone on right here in our neighborhood.

Mom jumped to her feet.

“I’ll go with you,” Herb said.

“So will I.”

My mother gave me a worried look. “Adam, I need you to stay here with the kids.”

“But I should come along, to drive you. Nobody can drive my heap better than me. You might not even be able to get it started.”

“All right,” Mom said. “As long as the door is locked, Danny and Rachel are safe.”

Herb nodded in agreement.

I raced upstairs to grab my shoes and check on the kids. Luckily both of them were sleeping right through the excitement. I left Danny and Rachel each a sticky note in case they woke, and then I caught up with Herb and my mother as they were heading out the door.

Herb carried a big police flashlight. Both of them were armed with their holstered revolvers, and now my mother had our shotgun as well. I was glad to see this. When I had been putting on my shoes I decided to leave my pistol in its hiding place, since I didn’t want to chance Mom finding out about it the wrong way.

She locked the door behind us, and we ran down the driveway just as the night exploded with another burst of gunfire. Whatever was happening wasn’t over yet.

“Over there.” Herb pointed south, toward the elementary school.

I was surprised it wasn’t in the other direction, at the mini-mall.

We jumped into the car and once again she cranked, turned over, and came to life. I squealed out of the driveway, bumping down the ramp.

“Stay calm,” my mother said. “Let’s not run somebody down on the way there.”

I started up the street and hung a turn, careful not to burn any more rubber. The streets and sidewalks were empty. I had thought that the gunfire would have drawn people out of their homes, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect. I rolled around a big curve, my headlights leading the way, but really I already knew by heart where every car was stalled out on the road, so I could almost have done it with my eyes closed. Just as I came up to a stop sign we saw the headlights of another vehicle racing toward us from the school.

“Pull over,” Mom yelled.

I slammed on the brakes so hard we fishtailed.

“Turn it off and kill the lights!” Herb ordered.

My heart was racing and I felt like I’d had a sweat explosion. The other car roared up and then skidded to a stop right beside us. It was the Camaro with Mr. Langston at the wheel. He leaned out of the window.

“It’s Mike Smith!” he yelled. “He’s been shot!”

Herb turned on his flashlight and aimed it through the open window of the car. Mr. Smith was in the passenger seat, his hand clutching his arm, blood trickling through his fingers, his face an eerie white. He was staring straight ahead, as if he hadn’t noticed us or the light shining on him.

“Did the checkpoint hold?” Herb yelled.

“There was gunfire everywhere, and all hell broke loose and—”

“Did the checkpoint hold or not?” Herb demanded.

“The patrols came back in time to chase the intruders away.”

“Good,” Mom said. “Now go straight to Dr. Morgan’s home!”

He squealed off.

“Okay, Adam. Get us to the checkpoint,” Mom ordered.

I started the car again but wished I was headed in the other direction. I’d never before seen anybody who’d been shot. That image was frozen in my head.

“Keep driving, but don’t turn on your lights. If you hear any more gunfire, pull over and stop,” Herb said.

Up ahead there was a cluster of flashlight beams dancing around, right where I thought the checkpoint should be.

“Those have to be from our men,” my mother said.

“That’s what we hope.”

“Who’s in charge here tonight?” my mother questioned.

“John Wilson,” Herb said. “He’s a retired police officer.”

“That’s good,” my mother said.

“I guess we’ll see how good,” Herb said.

My mother ordered me to stop the car. When we halted, both she and Herb stepped out.

“Wilson?” my mother called out.

The flashlight beams fanned out in our direction, searching for us.

“It’s me, the captain, and I have Herb and my son with me!” she yelled.

One of the men waved for us to come.

They climbed back in and we drove forward. In front of the elementary school there were a dozen men standing around. As we got closer I recognized most of them, including Howie and Sergeant Evans. They were standing over a man on the ground—no, there were two men on the ground, and in the thin light I could see that the pavement was stained with blood pooling out from beneath them.

I cut the engine, and Herb and my mother jumped out. I hesitated and then slowly got out, remaining right by the car as my mother and Herb rushed away. I was afraid to follow but more afraid to be alone. I ran after them.