She stared into his eyes, best described as a deep chocolate-espresso—eyes that were so like the dark, intense brews he favored—and sighed.
“Fine. You were here in D.C. at least an hour before you should have been if you’d heard about the attacks on the news. Which means you fibbed to me this morning about your fishing date gone wrong.”
He smirked. “I didn’t fib. My guy didn’t show, and I did go to the café to check things out.”
She knew the café he mentioned was the Mountain City Coffeehouse in Frostburg, Maryland—the closest internet café to Xander’s cabin that had decent food and coffee. She had to admit, it was a quaint, charming place, perfect for him to stay under the radar. He liked the window by the fireplace; he was able to see the rest of the room, the entrance and exits. Once a soldier, always a soldier. The cabin didn’t have internet access, so Xander made it a routine to head to Frostburg a couple of times a month to check his mail, set up his appointments as a fishing guide, and generally check up on the world. She was tempted to buy him an iPad so he could save himself the trip, but she knew it was more than that. He shed his humanity in the woods—like his daily piano practice, the bimonthly sojourns were his way of keeping himself engaged. He didn’t want more than that, and his psyche couldn’t stand less. Without some sort of socialization, he might truly get lost.
Then he dropped his bomb.
“But that was all yesterday.”
All sorts of words rushed to mind, but all she managed was, “What?”
He flipped the laptop around so it was facing her.
“See this?”
She looked at the screen. It was a message board of some kind. “What’s this?”
“One of the groups I sometimes look in on. It’s comprised of people...like me.”
He rose to fill his cup again, leaving her to wonder exactly what that meant. She wasn’t able to focus properly.
“Soldiers?”
“Some. Some want to be. Some could have been, but chose a different path.”
Sam felt the edge begin, the panic, like an annoying little mosquito buzzing around her head. She pulled her hair back into a chignon, stuck a chopstick through the knot to hold it in place. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. In four counts, hold four, out four, wait four. Then, the urge to wash her hands dispatched, she addressed her lover.
“Xander, honey. It’s late. I’ve been up for twenty hours, been in the middle of a terrorist attack, did an autopsy on a congressman, and have my own little anxiety disorder brewing. Would you mind cutting to the chase?”
“Survivalists, Sam. I don’t think this was a terror attack. I think it was one of our own.”
Chapter 11
Sam’s expression moved from confusion to incredulity in a matter of seconds.
“You’ve got to be kidding. Are you talking like...what, a militia?”
“No. Well, sure, some of them. It’s like any group of people, there’re bad seeds mixed in with the good and innocent. There are militias spread all across the country, homegrown groups who like to think they’re the law, parade around in uniforms, ragtag batches of locals who spew nonsense and are basically harmless. But there are groups who are dead serious, people you wouldn’t want to cross. The government keeps a damn close eye on them. And some of them are idiots, people who are just wrong in the head and can’t be fixed. Skinheads, those kinds of yahoos.”
“Ruby Ridge?”
“Right. But the people I’m talking about—no, they’re not militia. Just concerned private citizens who have shared their knowledge of survival to help like-minded individuals prepare in case there’s a catastrophic event. Anything from a nuclear bomb to economic collapse to a tornado.”
She noticed he didn’t say flood, though that would certainly qualify.
“They’re good people, just trying to figure out where we’re headed, and what to do in case something awful happens.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. Sometimes she forgot that they came from very, very different worlds. She was a debutante from Nashville, a good little Southern girl, raised on manners and money and all things genteel, and he was a soldier who’d been raised by hippies, seen too much and had a healthy mistrust of the government.
He must have caught her thought, because he continued. “Okay, this isn’t something that you and I have talked a lot about. It’s hard to understand, but there are people out there who think things are going to hell in a handbasket, and are trying to make preparations in case it does. They’re harmless, and smart. They’re like pioneers, able to grow food and build shelter and live off the land and, most importantly, defend themselves if it’s needed.”
“Like you.”