“Just rumors. Crazy stuff. A lot of reports that troops have been mobilizing. Conspiracy folks are freaking out: It’s the first step to the government enslaving us all. Hope you slept with that pretty little rifle of yours,” he said, “because according to the whack nuts, the president is sending the suits in to take away our God-given right to bear arms.”
Gordo laughed. That was one of the things he liked about Shotgun. He knew there was something a little crazy about preparing for the end of the world, about moving to Desperation, California, and building a shelter, but you could drive a truck through the gap between the real estate of a little crazy that Gordo liked to think he and Shotgun occupied and the lot of crazy real estate that some preppers lived on. Most preppers seemed to inhabit a world where the government was always one step away from turning us all into slaves, one step away from a massive global conspiracy led by the Jews, a plot by the blacks, an invasion by the Chinese, another terrorist attack. Some of it was racist or anti-Semitic or paranoid, but most of it was just downright loony.
“The black helicopter brigade is out in full force,” Gordo said.
Claymore got up from the ground and gave himself a full head-to-tail shake. A small dust cloud poofed off him.
“No kidding,” Shotgun said. “Black helicopters everywhere. Somebody posted that—”
“Hey,” Gordo said, cutting him off. “Do you hear that? It sounds like . . .”
They were both quiet for a second, but then Claymore started barking. His tail dropped down and curled between his legs. He was pointed at Gordo and Shotgun, but looking up, over the roof. Shotgun got to his feet and stood next to Gordo. The two of them glanced at each other and then jogged down the steps of the porch until they were out in the yard near Claymore. There wasn’t anything to see. Gordo reached down, rubbed at Claymore’s ear, and then wrapped his hand around the dog’s muzzle, quieting his barking.
Both he and Shotgun heard it. A soft thwap, thwap, thwap getting louder. The sound bounced off the dirt and desert and rocks.
The helicopter came in low and fast, buzzing the house and leaving a swirl of dust. It was too quick for them to do anything but turn and watch it fly past.
“What the fuck?” Gordo let go of Claymore’s muzzle. The dog sprinted twenty or thirty yards after the helicopter and then planted himself in the dirt, barking again.
“Okay,” Shotgun said. “That wasn’t just me, was it? That was a black helicopter.”
“Yep,” Gordo said.
“Huh.”
“Shotgun,” Gordo said. “How do you feel about taking your plane out for a spin, get a look at what we have around us?”
“Absolutely.”
Shotgun went to get the six-seater ready, and Gordo brought Claymore back downstairs, putting him in the room where Amy was still sleeping. He took a second to kiss her on the forehead before grabbing a pair of binoculars. By the time he was in the garage, Shotgun had the doors open and the plane ready to go. They were up in the air fifteen minutes after the helicopter passed over.
And two minutes after that, Gordo was worried.
Desperation, California
Kim probably wouldn’t have noticed the small airplane above them if Honky Joe hadn’t pointed it out.
“Civilian,” he said. “They better bug the fuck out of here or they’re going to be eating a missile.”
“Come on,” Duran said. “They aren’t going to shoot down some Cessna just for flying over us.”
They’d driven the convoy through Desperation, a pissant town, if you could call a few bars, a gas station, and a pizza place a town, and been ordered to halt about a mile out on an open plain of brush, scrub, and dirt. The only thing within shooting distance was a shitty-looking trailer, and sure enough, they’d barely gotten out of the bus before some redneck on an ATV came barreling toward them. Kim had been close enough to catch bits and pieces, but Honky Joe, as was his way, had the whole thing.
“Guy just about had an aneurysm. All ‘Get off my land this, and the Constitution that,’ and all that shit. I pointed out to him that he was actually on state-owned land and shouldn’t be there in the first place, and he started to argue against that until I also pointed out we had more machine guns than he did. Dude came pretty close to getting himself forcibly removed.” They all laughed, but Honky Joe shook his head. “You guys don’t get it. This isn’t right. Why the fuck are we setting up here? Why not on a base somewhere? This side of the road might technically be government land, but what’s here? Why outside this town? It’s the middle of nowhere. The only thing it’s got going for it is it’s kind of near the highway. I think we’re here because it will be an easy place to redirect traffic. It’s a holding pen.”
“For what?” Kim asked.
“People.”