All five of them stared a long, quiet moment at the stadium. It was Trader Joe who finally spoke first.
“Are you proposing using it as a trading post?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, I am,” Roscoe said.
The headlights illuminated Trader Joe’s puzzled frown.
“We need a warehouse type of structure; that won’t work,” Little Joe said, pointing at the stadium.
Riley, who had slowly but steadily worked her way over to Johnny G, looked up to him questioningly. He cleared his throat and spoke up.
“Joe, you strike me as an educated man. How versed are you in the ancient Greek city-states?”
Trader Joe stared in confusion at Johnny G and Roscoe. He turned toward the soccer stadium and stared a moment longer before understanding. He smiled slightly.
“Dad, what is he talking about?” Little Joe asked.
“These two men are suggesting we convert the stadium into a modern-day agora,” he said.
“Yes,” Roscoe said in almost a shout.
“What’s an agora?” Hermione asked.
“Isn’t it a type of open-air market?” Riley asked.
“Yes, exactly,” Roscoe replied. “In the Greek city-states, their original purpose was a gathering place to muster the military and for the announcement of public statements from the king to the commoners, but they became much more. Everyone came to congregate and socialize. Entrepreneurs recognized the opportunity and set up their markets. It was extremely successful.”
Trader Joe returned his gaze to the dark stadium and bit on his lower lip in thought. “An agora,” he muttered, mostly to himself. He absently scratched his beard and muttered something else that nobody could make out. Riley leaned her head back. Johnny G bent forward slightly so she could whisper in his ear.
“That’s his way when he’s thinking hard about something.”
Johnny G glanced at Roscoe and suppressed a smile. Roscoe saw and knew he needed to set the hook.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but a few years ago when Zach and his people were living in Tennessee, they put together a rendezvous.”
Irena interrupted him. “What the hell is a rendezvous? You two throw out fancy foreign words and do nothing but confuse everyone.”
Johnny G scowled in the dark but kept his tone pleasant. “It is a planned, organized gathering of people from all around the area for the purpose of performing trade and other associated business.”
“I remember Zach talking about that. He said it was extremely successful,” Riley added.
“Yes, it was,” Roscoe said. “He made a detailed report on everything they did, how they set it up, what worked, what didn’t, and so on.”
“I believe I’d like to read that report,” Trader Joe said.
“Me too,” Riley quickly said.
“I’ll get you two a copy in the morning,” Roscoe replied. “My proposal is this; you remodel the stadium any way you see fit and we will proclaim it to be the official Marcus Hook agora. Johnny and I would like to see it set up and ready no later than April and we’ll kick it off by having a rendezvous.”
“Interesting,” Trader Joe said and scratched his beard again. “Will we have a free hand in what we do?”
“Yes, you will,” Roscoe answered. “You’re only limited by your imagination what you can create here.” He pointed at it again. “There is plenty of room here. We’ll have no problem incorporating a fortified building to use as a storage warehouse.”
Johnny G wondered what Trader Joe meant by that question but kept silent. Trader Joe’s next question surprised him though.
“What do the folks at Mount Weather think about this?”
“They don’t know anything about it,” Johnny G said. “They will eventually, but not now.”
“Why not?” Irena asked.
“We want it to be a happy surprise,” Roscoe said with a smile. In truth, neither he nor Johnny G wanted any meddling by the current Mount Weather administration.
“What if Zach was still at Mount Weather?” Riley asked.
“I wish he were,” Roscoe said. “Zach made our partnership with Mount Weather tenable and positive.”
“So, you don’t like President VanAllen?” Irena asked. There was an edge to her tone.
“Just the opposite,” Johnny G said with a straight face. He heard a slight scoff from Riley. “We are going to continue our alliance with Mount Weather and the commitment to rebuild America. This will be a small yet significant step in the right direction.”
“It should have been done a couple of years ago,” Little Joe griped.
“You’re right,” Johnny G said. “This is late in coming, but we’ve had so many projects with a higher priority this one kept getting put on the back burner. Besides, nobody wanted to undertake this job, until now.”
“Interesting,” Trader Joe said again. “Explain to me again why this is secret?”
“We don’t want too many cooks in the kitchen,” Roscoe said. “If we announced this project, we have a few people here who would decide they needed to be the ones running it and the politicians at Mount Weather would want to form a special planning and oversight committee. Do you know what they’d do then? They’d create all kinds of unnecessary work for you people to do.”
“And rules,” Johnny G added.
“Yep,” Roscoe agreed. “They won’t come here and help out with the manual labor, but they’ll damn sure create more work for you and they’ll create all kinds of rules for you to follow.”
Trader Joe nodded. “I agree with that assessment, but at some point people will start asking questions about what is going on here.”
“Once we get everything in place, we’ll make a local announcement, but we see no reason to tell Mount Weather until we’re ready for the rendezvous. If questions are asked, we’ll tell them it’s business as usual around here,” Roscoe said.
“Mushroom effect,” Little Joe said.
Hermione, who had been standing quietly beside Little Joe, looked up at him. “Mushroom effect? What’s that?”
“Feed them a lot of shit and keep them in the dark,” he said.
Hermione giggled and squeezed his hand. Roscoe gave a good-natured laugh as well.
“Exactly,” he said. “We are going to take active measures
