Double Helix Ch. 16

"That's about a hundred yards-" Andy began, but the sudden crack of the rifle cut him off. A little puff of debris, barely visible, went up from the target.

"It's got a bit of a kick," Nock said aside to Andy. "Good hit though." He sighted down the scope once more. "I don't think I really need this thing at this range."

"About three inches left of center," Tilly said. "And six inches down."

"Yeah," Nock said. He pulled the bolt back, the round ejected to the side, and he rammed it home again.

"If you want to zero in the scope and try it on the bipod-" Andy began.

Crack.

"Almost dead center," Tilly said.

"Can we try five-hundred?" Nock said, unable to contain his grin.

Casey moved the target back again, and Nock took up position prone on the bed of the truck. He repeated the exercise, hitting the center of the target on the third try, and Casey moved the target back again. As the range approached 1000 yards, physics and the limits of the gun began to take their toll, and his first shot missed completely. Adjusting the scope, Nock angled the gun noticeably upward on the bipod, as though he were aiming at the distant mountains. Tilly quickly got the hang of the exercise, and seemed to instinctively grasp how adjustments to the inclination of the scope translated to the trajectory of the bullet. She gave him a suggestion for his next shot, nodded to herself at the results, and made another.

"Nailed it", she said, a fraction of a second after the gun cracked and jumped in Nock's grasp.

"That's a kill shot," Nock answered.

I would have to take their word for it until Casey got back with the target. The frame was barely recognizable in the distance.

"So," Andy said, turning to me, "how could you possibly refuse this? I'll sell it to you for 4000. That's the gun, sound suppressor, scope and bipod, with five boxes of ammo, plus what's left of the two boxes you shot. That's over a hundred rounds."

"You quoted me 4500 before," I said suspiciously.

"Like I said, you need this gun. I won't be making any money off this deal, so I can't go any lower."

I looked at Nock, who slowly got up, leaving the rifle cocked upward on its bipod. "You're the money man," he said with a shrug. "Seems like a good deal to me. Put me up on the roof with this thing and I could hit almost any point on the farm."

His words made me vaguely uncomfortable. Since our violent encounter with the police in Seattle, arming ourselves seemed like a natural response to the danger around us, but this gun could kill someone at astonishing distance, before they even realized that they were in danger. It felt unfair somehow. I couldn't refute the awesome effectiveness of the weapon, though. I looked at Tilly, and she nodded very slightly.

"We'll take it," I said.

Andy clapped me on the back. "I knew you'd see reason."

I fished a folded wad of money out of my pocket and thumbed out hundred dollar bills one by one, paying him both for the weapon and the food he had brought.

"Thank you, sir," he said, tipping the well-worn Mariners cap on his head and pocketing the money. "Say, any idea when you'll be ready to start selling vegetables up my way?"

"Another month, more or less," Tilly responded. "Make sure to bring a big truck. We're going to load you down with potatoes."

Potatoes were our most important crop, taking up four of our sixteen greenhouse sectors. Tilly was estimating that each section would net us close to two tons apiece, with one ton giving us enough calories to feed all of us for more than a month. Then we could replant and have a new crop of potatoes out of that sector in about eight or nine weeks. This would probably be the last time we would need to buy most of our food from Andy.

"I've already got some customers that will pay top dollar for fresh food. Even with the trip down to pick it up, we'll all make a tidy profit. Besides that-"

"Ready to go, dad?" Casey called, leaning against the side of her car.

"In a minute," he yelled back, then continued in a normal tone. "So besides that, did you hear about Mozambique?"

I shook my head. "No. What's going on there?"

"Well, it's not in the regular news cycle, but..." Andy leaned in, as though we might be overheard. "There was a military coup. They've seized all the commercial farms we've got there and say they're going to nationalize them and stop all exports."

That was bad news, given the precarious state of the world's food supplies. Careful quarantining and the barrier to wind-born spores presented by the Sahara desert had kept the Rot from taking hold in Africa. Farmers from the US and European nations had leased land with subsidies and set up huge commercial farming operations for export in Ethiopia, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. The agreements made with the governments of those nations were supposed to ensure that a significant portion of their crops went to feed the local populations, but there were some nasty rumors that the Mozambique and Zimbabwe governments sold most of that on the open market and then lay the blame on the greed of the foreign farmers.

"That's really going to squeeze food supplies in the West," I said. "It won't stay secret very long."

"And prices on the informal market are going to go sky high. Good news for me. Enforcement will back off and I'll be able to charge a higher cut. I can't be too happy about it, though. If they can't find a way to replace that shortage, things are going to get ugly in a month or so."

Food riots had broken out at various times and in various cities throughout the world since the onset of the Rot. Some cynical observers had noted that the casualties of such events served to offset the severity of their root cause, by reducing the number of mouths that had to be fed. Most of those had been precipitated by minor, regional supply disruptions. Worldwide food production had stabilized three years into the Rot, and had supposedly crept slightly upward in the years since, despite the gradual reduction in calories in food rationing over time. This event had the potential to cause widespread starvation and attendant violence.

Andy went on. "Now, I'd really like to know how you're planning to produce that much food while maintaining a Rot-free growing environment. I'm still not convinced you're going to manage it, but if you could replicate it a few dozen times, we could both be rich men while at the same time keeping a lot of people from going hungry."

Tilly spoke up. "Well, we haven't proven the concept just yet, but so far, so good."

"Dad?" Casey called again. "It's time to go!"

Andy tipped his head towards his daughter. "She's right. We've got another client lined up this afternoon and I don't like to be late." He put out his hand and I shook it. "Until next time, partner."

We got back to the house a half hour later. Tilly went to check on the greenhouse while Nock and I headed inside. Everything appeared normal until we stepped from the entry way into the living room, where I stopped dead. "Uh, what's this?" I asked, waving my fingers at the seven-foot tree that had materialized next to the staircase while we were gone.

"That would be a Christmas tree, doofus," Wendy said. She sat cross-legged on the floor, working on a long string of lights that looked impossibly tangled. She glanced over at Nock. "Heya, bat-boy."

"Hiya, munchkin," he said, stepping around me. "Need some help?"

"Yes, I can see that it's a Christmas tree," I said, sidling closer. "But where did it come from?"

"There were some big boxes of Christmas stuff up in the attic," she said. "Stansy got them down. You know it's only six days away. We're way behind."

As though summoned, Stansy appeared to my left in the kitchen doorway. "Here," she said, holding out a large fake wreath with little ribbons and plastic holly berries. "Make yourself useful."

"Right, okay. So, it's Christmas," I mumbled to myself, heading back outside. "I guess we always decorate for Christmas." I found a nail all ready to go on the front door, so I hung the gaudy thing what I thought was right-side-up.

I stood there looking at it, my thoughts going unexpectedly out to my family. My parents always put up a real tree, usually a big, bushy Douglas fir. I could picture it in the living room, though I wondered if they would even bother this year. I hadn't talked to them in a year-and-a-half. The Agency had forbade me from contacting them to tell them what had happened. From their perspective, I had just vanished. Maybe they thought I was dead. Had the authorities questioned them, looking for clues that would lead to me? Had my sister told them anything of her involvement?

I knew I needed to contact them. An email, at the very least. But even as I thought it, I knew that I was lying to myself. I would put it off, just as I had done a dozen times before.

We decorated the house that day and part of the next. Wendy even convinced me to put lights out on the barn, running along the roofline. We didn't have a turkey or a ham for Christmas dinner, of course, but we had just begun harvesting the first of our crops, consisting of potatoes, peas, corn, broccoli, spinach, and green beans. Those, along with some of the fruit that we had canned from the orchard a few months prior, with rice flour to make pie crust, and it was shaping up to be a meal to remember.

We were bringing in that first potato harvest, two days before Christmas, when I received an unexpected phone call. I quickly yanked off one dirt-stained glove to fish the phone out of my pocket. I hesitated over the unfamiliar number before answering. "Yeah?"

"This is Mark, right?"

I couldn't quite place the female voice on the other end, so I answered guardedly. "Who wants to know?"

"It's Alice. You remember? We met last summer."

Now I could place her. She and her husband had held me captive when they caught me trespassing on their property, trying to find Tilly. I had a moment of panic trying to figure out how they knew my number, then realized that they had taken my phone away from me for a time and must have taken it down then. "I remember," I said. The others had begun to notice that I had paused in my work. I made a dismissive gesture at them.

"My family needs your help. We think that law enforcement are closing in on our little operation up here. I remembered that you have that nice, big truck, and we thought you might be able to help us get moved somewhere safer."

That made me immediately suspicious. What could have made them reach out to us, of all people? "Look, Alice, I would like to help, but we've got our own problems to worry about here-"

"We'll pay you well," she broke in. "All we ask is one trip to move our most valuable possessions. We're going about forty miles east. Please, Norm. We don't have anyone else to turn to."

There was no mistaking the plaintive tone in her voice. "Alright, I'll have to talk to the-I'll have to think it over. Call you back within the hour?"

There was a pause that went on long enough that I wondered if the connection had gone dead. "That's fine," she said at last. "Please don't forget. I'll be waiting."

I called a halt to the harvest and gathered everyone over by the door so we could talk. Before I had finished recounting the conversation, I saw that Stan was frowning, so I asked him what was wrong.

He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable at being called upon. "Well, frankly, I'm disturbed that someone outside our circle got access to your phone number. And what made them think they could call us out of the blue and ask for a favor? A couple of drug makers? I don't like it."

"They aren't bad people," Tilly said, "not really. I think we can trust them."

"I take your point, Stan," Stansy said, "but look at it this way. The fact that they called upon people they barely know for help means they must be desperate."

"Or that they have less than noble intentions," Nissi said with a frown. "You know how much we're worth." We had discovered just a few weeks ago that each of us had a one million dollar bounty on our heads, plus the FBI was offering a large reward for information about us. "Each time one of us leaves the farm, we're taking a risk. I just try not to think about it." Her gaze alighted on me for just a moment as she said it, but looked quickly away.

"She's right," Stan said. "We can't take the risk. And not just that we'll be caught out there."

"They have kids with them," Wendy said, her voice barely above a whisper. That made Nissi and Stan go quiet for a moment.

"Kids or not," Nock said, "they aren't us. We have to look after ourselves. No one else is going to."

I could feel their eyes on me, waiting for my decision. I looked at Tilly. "Can you sense over the phone if she's lying?"

Tilly shrugged. "Deception stresses your voice. You take longer pauses before speaking, that kind of thing. It helps if I know the person first, but we did spend a bit of time together. I think I can manage."

As I hovered my finger over the call button to dial Alice back, the thought occurred to me that they could right now be working for the feds, waiting to trace my phone. But then, if they could do that, they would already have found us, just from my phone pinging the nearby cell towers. No, we were probably safe for the moment, but I would destroy this phone in a heartbeat if I began to think otherwise. I pushed the button and waited two rings for the answer.

"Hello, it's Alice," came the voice on the line. I put it on speaker so that the others could hear.

"Alice, it's Mark. I'm considering your request. How much money are we talking about?"

She answered smoothly. "Four thousand, plus your expenses. We're only taking high-value items, so we'll do it in one trip."

I saw Tilly's sharp look. "One moment, Alice. We need to talk this over." I put her on mute. "What is it?" I said to Tilly.

"She's lying, Norm. But her stress is way too high just for that. She's afraid. Terrified."

I wondered at that. I hadn't been able to detect anything odd in her tone. "You think she's in danger?"

She nodded. "Yes. Definitely."

"I knew it," Stan said. "They were caught and they made some kind of deal to bring us in."

"I'm not so sure," Stansy said. "If they were cooperating with the authorities, why the fear? No, if that were the case, she might be nervous, but not in fear for her life."

"The deputies," Tilly said suddenly. "What if they realized that Alice and Jack helped us?"

That was an angle I hadn't considered. The two men who had captured Tilly were still out there, and probably more than a little angry at her for beating them down and stealing their truck. We had never thought to warn the couple about them.

"Yeah, that makes sense," Nock said. "It's been months, but maybe they took the time to spy on those two, get their plan just right."

"Do they know about the rest of us?" Stan asked sharply.

"No," Tilly assured him. "They only know about me."

"We have to make a decision here, guys," I said, waving the phone. "They're going to get suspicious if I don't say something soon."

"Ask Alice if she'll be able to make her next shipment of product to us on time," Nock said.

"Yes!" Tilly and Nissi both said together, and gave each other sheepish looks. It took me a moment longer to get what he was driving at, but I took the phone off mute and relayed the question.

There was a pause of a couple of seconds, and then Alice answered back. "Why, yes. We'll be delayed a few weeks, but we'll have it for you at the usual meeting place."

"Good," I said. I glanced around at each of their faces. Stan still appeared doubtful, but Nissi and Nock now looked resolute. I realized with a start that I hadn't yet made up my mind, but there wasn't much to consider. My question had been a test for Alice, a tell to let her know that we knew something was wrong. Her playing along indicated that she would play along with whatever we decided to do. I couldn't see just leaving them to die after giving her that spark of hope. "We'll help you. Tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow is fine. Morning if you can. We've got a bit of work to do to get packed and loaded."

I got a reluctant nod from Stan. "We'll be there first thing," I said. "See you then."

There was a collective whoosh of exhaled breaths as I hung up the line. "We have most of a day," I said. "I suggest we make use of it."

The sky was moonless and dark but for a few wispy clouds lit by the distant light from Portland. The Earth below had contracted down to two lanes of asphalt lit by the slender cones of my headlights. Tilly sat at my side, staring out into that impenetrable darkness of the evergreen forest that flanked the road. "It's a good plan," I said over the rumble of the Ford's engine. "Everything will work out."

"I know," she said, turning and giving me a thin smile. "We'll do fine, Norm."

I had never quite figured out how I had become the one that the others looked to for leadership, but the position seemed to come with a lot of apprehension and second-guessing. Or maybe that was part of who I was. In either case, Tilly's support did help to lessen the doubt somewhat.

We rolled into Newburg at around two in the morning, the lights of the little town dazzling my eyes after the claustrophobic darkness of the forest. I pulled off into a hardware store parking lot and parked in a dark corner away from the street lamps. I made a quick call on my cell and we waited in silence for close to ten minutes before the headlights of a cargo truck appeared and crawled towards us. Tilly confirmed that it was ours well before it was close enough for me to make out any details.

I got out of the pickup as the larger vehicle drew up alongside. Stan dropped down from the passenger seat. "No problems?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "Smooth sailing the whole way." He went to the back as Stansy got out on the driver side. The door rolled up with a metallic whine, and Nissi and Nock dropped to the ground.

"We should check the comms again before heading up," Nock suggested. I nodded my agreement and went to distributing the transceivers and headsets to each person. The set of six had drained a few hundred dollars from our dwindling cash, but they were a critical component to the plan.

I slipped the earpiece in, looped the cord behind my ear and fished it through my shirt to the transceiver at my waist. I pushed the talk button. "Bates here," I said, trying not to sigh. "Over." I got a thumbs up from the other five, then each transmitted in turn. Wendy, it turned out, had been into amateur radio when she was younger, and had drilled us on radio etiquette. She had also assigned us all radio call signs before anyone else had even thought of the subject.

Stansy went next, grinning, "Shark here, over." I had long held the impression that she was one of those lawyers who embraced the negative stereotypes. Nock was "Bruce", Nissi was "Presley", Stan was "Geek" and Tilly was "Matty".

"Let's do another check when you turn north," I suggested. The advertised effective range for our radios was about one kilometer, but we couldn't be too careful.

Tilly and I got back into the pickup while the other four boarded the cargo truck and pulled away. A minute or so later, my radio gave a burst of static. "Geek here. Do you copy? Over." There was some distortion, but not enough to muddle the words.

"Copy that, Geek," Tilly said. "Over and out."

Nodding to her, I started the truck and drove north. Watching the map closely, I pulled a hard left off the road, gunning the engine so that the truck powered through the trough of the drainage ditch and up the other side. The truck bounced and swayed over the uneven terrain, and I eased up on the gas as we approached a dense copse of trees. I swung around them, putting the trees as a screen between us and the road. I cut the lights and killed the engine at nearly the same time, plunging the cabin into darkness and silence.