“Don’t forget,” Angelica told her, gently nudging her big friend towards the front door, “we won’t be able to call for help either, unless we get a cell phone from somewhere, and these prison jammies will give us away.”
“Yeah,” Bailey said quietly. “So, we’re winging this?”
“Not exactly,” Angelica said, then started whispering her plan to her new friend.
A look of concern was slowly being replaced by a big grin. She started nodding along in agreement, especially when the plan got to her part.
“Oh yeah, we can do that. I won’t have any problems with the guards… oh shit, is that the governor? I thought he was dead!” Bailey had been watching the crowd and had seen a familiar face.
“Change of plans,” Angelica said with a grin.
Twenty-Six
Dr. Khamenei had followed the farm's progress with recorded drone footage. At thousands of feet in the air and the best camera technology ever invented, he could tell at a glance how much they’d done. He had a technician watching it during the daylight hours so he could oversee other projects, but this one was the reason why he was called in. They wanted to recruit guys like Rob, bad. Couple that with the fact that he’d be removing a very loud and vocal thorn in the government's side, he hoped he would have enough clout to retire with his mistress somewhere tropical, with half the money the government knew about.
The rest was in numbered Swiss and Cayman accounts that didn’t have any names attached to them. Guys like him usually didn’t get to just retire. He had to earn that, otherwise his only way out of the game was feet first. Even at his age, they still needed him, and it felt good to mix it up once in a while. That young hellion wife of Rob’s had been good. Her training had surprised him.
He’d seen Kenpo before, but it was more flash than bang. In that first fight, she’d mixed that up with Krav Maga and soon he’d had to actually think to stay ahead of the little woman’s fists and feet. Those were skills that’d laid dormant in him for years. She was good, but he was better. She’d almost surprised him, which would have made up for any lack of anything on her part. In the end, he’d surprised her, and now he was using her as bait to solve a few problems at once.
“Did they finish the harvest?” Khamenei asked the technician that was waiting in his half converted fifth wheel trailer.
“It looks like it. We’ve also noted which cars have been coming and going. We’ve seen them loading the help up with food and greens every day.”
“So, we know where to go to collect their ill-gotten gains,” Khamenei said, rubbing his chin.
“Well, if you want to call it that. I mean, it’s looking like 2 bags of grain per person, per day, plus a basket of food. You’d think they’d pay better than that.”
“You know what the cost of corn and soybean would be if the markets were open right now?” Khamenei asked.
“Well, can’t be that much. Horse feed used to cost us eight bucks a bag, but—”
“Inflation has pushed one of those bags of grain into the hundreds of dollars worth. The folks they are paying in food are savvy, they can stretch that for months. Maybe even a year, depending on the size of their family. Remember, each of them have been working there for a week, and get two bags a day, plus other things.”
The man fell silent for a long moment. “So, they’re committing felonies by hoarding all that food they don’t immediately need,” he said softly.
“Exactly, but once we get that farm under wraps and out of the public eye, we can wrap up that assignment, and finish our operations in that area. I’ve gotten word from up high that they want all forms of dissent squashed, which is what we’re doing. So yes, each of those folks who went to work at the farm, went for nothing, knowing they would probably have their supplies confiscated anyway.”
“Those selfish pricks,” the technician mumbled. “Don’t they know it’s for the greater good?”
“If they don’t, they soon will. I need to get a hold of Rob to make sure they’re ready for us to roll in.”
“Sir,” another technician said, “we’ve got the administrator on the horn, he says we need to see what’s going on at the gate.”
“What’s going on at the gate?” Khamenei asked.
“It’s looking like a riot. There’s one semi that made it in, but they had to use rubber bullets and teargas to make enough of a path for the truck to get through. They’re unloading it now, it’s the week's milk run.”
“So, what the fuck does he want me on the horn for? I don’t run this shit show.”
“I think he wants backup…?”
Khamenei sighed and went to the radio, already hating the day. The call to Rob would have to wait.
Curt and Andrea had gotten a phone call that morning that had them scrambling. Lucian, their lawyer from West Memphis, had been made power of attorney in order to sell their house, and he’d called and said there was a cash offer on the table. The problem was, they wanted to close, and fast. In between everything going on right that very moment, they’d said yes, sell it, but they needed two weeks to clean the rest of their stuff out and if the buyer didn’t like it, they could go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Lucian had chuckled, knowing the settlement money from the city had made them wealthy once it was deposited.
“Let’s just go stage out that way in case Rob and Angelica need to get out of there fast,” Curt suggested.
“I still have to do my last day at the hospital,” Andrea told him. “I thought we were going to maintain our alibi?”
Curt sighed. “I guess you’re right. We’ll
