“All that booty,” Harry said wistfully. “I bet you that’s a pirate treasure map. How many Xs are on it, Aunt Leah?”
“I can see five. There’s a smudge that might be six.”
“So, if this spot right here is that cave over there,” Luis said to himself, “then there’s another spot nearby. What’s the numbers to the left of that x?”
“I don’t know,” Leah said with a sigh.
“I bet you it’s footsteps,” Goldie said, “That’s how all the books and movies did it.”
“So, what direction should we try from?” Harry asked.
Leah took her phone and walked to the depression that had been left when they’d pulled the ammo can out of the ground, and turned to her left.
“That way, towards a big tree. 47 is what’s next to it. Want to walk it off with me?”
They did, and Leah walked off 47 steps. Luis fired up the metal detector and started looking. Then he widened the area and looked some more. Twenty minutes later, sweaty, and sore from holding the machine, he put it down and wiped his brow.
“I have an idea,” Goldie said. “All of us have different sized strides. Let’s all go back and each of us count off 47 steps and we’ll try again.”
“Well, you two might as well. We already know where mine landed up.”
They did, and Leah picked up the metal detector. She’d watched Luis using it and had it down by the time Goldie, Luis and Harry stopped in place.
Luis was still spry, but his gait wasn’t as long as it used to be. That still put him almost as far as Leah. She started checking around where he was. At first, she found nothing. Then she widened the area she was checking out and made a circle around him for twenty feet in every direction. It overlapped some of Goldie’s, so when she was done, she kept going there. She’d only gotten about ten feet away from her, into the picker bushes, when the metal detector buzzed.
Dark was falling. Rob was in position to watch the camp. He had enough dried food and water to last him a couple of days. He could forage or trap if he had to, but it wasn’t like he was in the middle of the woods. If he just walked around in full kit, he’d be noticed. Instead, he’d taken his supplies and broken down his rifle so it’d mostly fit in his big backpack. He couldn’t help that he’d used his old rucksack, but the rest of him was dressed as casually as he could.
He was wearing an old Razorbacks sweater over his t-shirt, a pair of khaki colored cargo pants, and some hiking boots. He had a knit hat to put on in one of his pockets. His backpack would cripple most men, but Rob wasn’t most men. He’d been about nine years old when the doctors had finally gotten curious enough to figure out why he was towering over his peers. A small tumor on his pituitary gland had been found and removed.
Even without the extra growth hormone the acromegaly had given him, he would still have been a large man. That’s why the pack full of illegal goodies, tools, guns, and ammo didn’t break his spine in two. Rob had gotten in position in a small rise that looked down on the camp. It was both big and organized. You could tell that the buildings had been put up in haste, probably even this year. But they were all cookie cutter metal buildings that the government was known for. People milled around, some coming, others going. Right off he could tell the residents of the camp from the guards.
The residents all seemed to be wearing what looked like blue hospital scrubs. The guards looked to be a mixed bag of government agencies and contractors. He could tell by the patches on their vests through his spotting scope. Twelve steel metal buildings with pitched roofs were probably the barracks. They were lined up and spaced out evenly like a road. Further to the north of that was what looked to be a large warehouse.
Semi trucks and trailers were pulling into loading bays, others pulling out and leaving. To the east of that were two squared off ponds or small lakes. They had to be man-made. Rob wasn’t sure what they were, but thought maybe that was the reservoir they used for drinking water, or maybe a water treatment system. He wasn’t sure, because being this close to the Mississippi, having a man-made body of water purposely built didn’t make any other sense to him.
“Now I have to just watch.”
Rob had pulled a ghillie blanket over him. He had spent an hour slowly weaving local grasses and branches on it, so he looked like nothing more than a bit of tall grass somebody had mowed around to avoid a fallen tree limb or branch. Not that much mowing had gone on; the grass on the hill was almost three feet tall.
He was hoping to get sight of his wife. He wanted to call and check on her, but the next time he heard from the man from the other end of the phone, it was supposed to be him turning over his friends. Also, if he turned his phone on, they could in theory track him. He didn’t think they would get that curious for a few more days, and by then he hoped to have a plan, have executed the rescue mission, and be out of the area.
As darkness fell, Rob wished he had brought his dog. Ranger had kept him from going crazy more than once, and he would have welcomed the four-legged warrior’s company. He consoled himself that Ranger was keeping Harry and his mother safe in the big house, or that worry might have driven him crazy as well.
Rob seethed in anger, then went back to watching. He noticed a pattern he hadn’t a moment before. Two guards always
