Reagan
“Reagan, you better come with us,” Kelly says at the door to the med shed the next morning.
“What’s going on?”
“The prisoner’s sick,” he relays. “We need to question him, but he looks pretty bad.”
“I’m coming,” she states and hops down from her stool, following him from the building and shutting the door behind her. “When was the last time you guys gave him food?”
“Three days,” Kelly tells her.
“Water?”
“Two days ago.”
“That’s probably what it is,” she says.
He frowns before saying, “I think he’s actually sick.”
“Probably pneumonia,” she says. “It’s not exactly warm in there.”
“And getting waterboarded for the last week straight every day probably isn’t helping.”
“No, there is that,” she says, feeling no sympathy for the scumbag who killed so many thousands of innocent people. She’d feel about the same remorse or guilt for Stalin or Hitler.
“We need him alive if we’re gonna question him,” he states the obvious.
“That usually does help,” she quips. “Let me grab my bag.”
She jogs to the house and collects her medical bag. If all else fails, she’ll give him a dose of vitamins that will boost him up long enough to make him feel slightly better just so that the men can accomplish their end goal, which is questioning him until he cracks and gives them what they need. The vitamins probably won’t be enough to heal him, but that doesn’t exactly matter anyway.
After she has her bag and a cotton mask to keep him from coughing on her, Kelly escorts her to the milk house where she finds Simon and Cory waiting outside with her husband.
“We need him to talk, babe,” John tells her.
“Is he conscious?” she asks.
“Barely,” he answers. “He’s in and out. I think he has some really high fevers burning or something. He seems a little delirious.”
“Hm,” she ponders. “Let me see him.”
John goes first followed by herself and then Kelly and Simon. The man is lying on his side with his back to her near the tiled wall with nothing but the single, wool, surplus Army store blanket he was afforded when they locked him in here.
“Hey, car dealer, wake up,” Cory says and kicks the man’s bare foot. He barely stirs. “You want the water again?”
This causes him to moan and roll onto his back. Kelly flips on the overhead lights, which were temporarily replaced with brilliant floodlights meant to cause sleep deprivation. For the most part, he hasn’t been allowed to sleep for more than a few hours at a time since he was put in here. John explained that it is a valid interrogation tactic. When they first took him prisoner, he weighed probably twenty to twenty-five pounds more. His clothing, what little he was allowed to keep, hang on him.
Beside her, John inclines his head to Cory, who somehow knows what her husband is trying to convey. He grabs the guy by the scruff of his collar and easily hauls him to his feet. Then he drags the metal folding chair over with the other hand and slams the man down onto it. The car dealer begins coughing and has mucus running from his nose, which he does not attempt to wipe away.
“Do what you can,” John says. “We only need him to answer a few more questions. You hear that, car dealer? A few more questions and you’re free to go, so be nice and do whatever my wife says.”
“Do you understand what he just said?” Cory asks in an aggressive manner and steps closer.
He quickly nods and cringes at Cory’s imposing stance. Then he hangs his head as if he is too weak to hold it up. Kelly steps outside, and a moment later Reagan sees the telltale flicker of a match being struck. She’s going to have to lecture him on the dangers of smoking again. It won’t matter. If Hannie is awake when he goes in, he’ll be in enough trouble already.
Reagan pulls on rubber gloves and takes his temperature, which reads a hundred and four degrees. She listens to his chest and hears the unmistakable bubbling that is indicative of pneumonia. It’s pneumonia or really severe bronchitis, either of which he will likely not recover from without the aid of some sort of antibiotic, fever reducers, and decongestant. His heartbeat is slow and weak and not at all holding a steady rhythm. She would guess that he won’t make it through another week, perhaps even sooner. She stands after a cursory examination of the man and shakes her head at her husband to let him know of the gravity of the situation. Then they go to the far corner to discuss it.
“He’s very ill, probably pneumonia,” she says.
“What can you do to get him through the next few hours?”
Reagan frowns and considers this. “I have a vitamin B12 derivative that Grandpa and I have ground from powdered animal organs. It’s something we’ve been experimenting with. If I mix it with some goat’s milk, it should give him the energy he needs to get through a few hours. I don’t think he’s going to give you trouble talking.”
“He’s a lot more stubborn than you know,” John whispers. “If he wasn’t, we wouldn’t be in this position. We would’ve had all the answers we needed already.”
“Right. Let me get the mixture. I’ll be back,” she says and leaves.
Simon goes with her and helps mix the dark brown powder with fresh goat’s milk leftover from yesterday. She also includes a teaspoon of honey to give him a sugar rush of energy, as well. It can’t hurt. After that, he’s on his own. She is not going to treat this man medically. He may live. He may die. Either way, she’s not offering up help with either outcome even if he never gives them the information they need.
“Think he’ll talk?” Simon asks her.
She shrugs. “Not sure. John says he’s not been giving them much yet. I don’t think whatever I’m going to give him will help with that.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Unless someone has a vial of pentothal to give him.”
“What’s that?” he asks, wrinkling his brow.
She smiles, “Truth serum. Supposedly. Not sure how great any of it or other derivatives worked actually.”
He stares off into the distance for a moment as if considering something. “Hm.”
“No, we’re not giving any to Sam, either,” she states.
Simon chuckles. “Too bad.”
Reagan isn’t sure what Simon has in mind with the drawings he had Sam do, but she knows he has been talking privately in her grandfather’s office a lot for the past few weeks.
“What have you got up your sleeve, Dr. Murphy?” she asks, sending him a sidelong glance as they walk back to the barn.
“You’ll see.”
Reagan isn’t sure what he’s doing, but she sure as hell hopes he’s onto something big. They need a break in this.
After the man has been given the supplement and some leftover stew from their dinner yesterday, he perks up just slightly. Reagan orders him to inhale deeply two times on an albuterol steroid inhaler, which she covers first with plastic and sanitizes after he breathes it in. She isn’t wasting an entire inhaler on this dirtbag.
“Time’s up, car dealer,” John says. “You wanna’ die from sickness?”
He coughs and shakes his head. The inhaler will also increase his heart rate temporarily, which will make him feel slightly better. Her loving and kind and patient husband also asks him if he wants to die at their hands in a slow and painful way, to which he answers to the negative, as well. It’s so strange seeing John this way.
“You want us to let you go?” her husband questions next.
They get a nod that carries a bit more enthusiasm.
John looks at her before asking him, “Are you going to cooperate then?”
“Y-y…yes, sir,” he answers with more respect than he’s shown before. John told her that he has spit on them more than once, used foul language, and threatened them.
“Are you going to tell us who Angelica is?” John asks, stepping back.
“I don’t know who she is,” he answers weakly. “She’s the President’s lover.”
“Lovers, you say?” Simon asks and steps forward.
“Yeah, he’s with her. I know he doesn’t love her, though,” he confesses. “He told me that much. He’s in love with someone else.”
Strangely enough, the man’s gaze slides to Cory. Is the President homosexual? Why else would he be looking at Cory like that? Reagan is more confused now than ever.
“And you believe that Angelica loves him and maybe that’s why she does this stuff for him?”
He blinks for too long, closing his eyes, and John yells, “Wake up!”
“Yes, sir,” the man says, cowering and recoiling in his uncomfortable chair. He pauses a moment, then finally says, “Yeah, I think she’s in love with him. Plus, she has her reasons for hating people.”
“She hates people? Who? The innocent people on the roads you assholes have killed?”
“No,” he answers as if he finds the question crazy.
“Who does she hate?” Simon asks.
“You people,” he answers, surprising Reagan.
The three of them regard each other with confusion. That makes no sense. Why would this Angelica woman hate them when they don’t even know anyone named Angelica in the first place?
“What reason does she have for hating us and wanting us dead?” Simon asks.
“You were responsible for the death of her sister,” he answers.
Reagan has to hold her hand over her mouth to conceal her gasp.
“How are we responsible?” Simon questions.
He shrugs. “Not sure. She just said that to me once when I asked why she was working with him, doing his dirty work mostly.”
Simon steps closer and holds up the picture that Sam drew in the woods of the dead woman, “Is this Angelica?”
He squints as if he can’t see well. He probably can’t. One of his eyes is nearly closed from swelling. It isn’t swelled from his sickness, either. There is also a fair amount of bruising that matches the swelling.
“No, no,” he says and repeats it the second time with more certainty. “That’s not her.”
Simon turns and hands the drawing to Reagan. She takes it without question. Then he turns back and holds in front of his face another drawing for him to inspect. The flicker of recognition is undeniable.
“Is this her?”
His eyes jump immediately to Cory, and he visibly flinches, although Cory has stood quietly for the most part in the corner with his leg raised and resting one booted foot against the wall behind him.
“Um…”
“Answer,” John states loudly.
“Uh…,” he stammers and hangs his head.
“Answer, asshole,” Cory says quietly and with deadly intent. “Don’t make me come over there. You know you don’t want that again.”
Reagan can’t help the shiver that courses through her at the word ‘again’ in Cory’s statement.
Without raising his head, the car dealer nods. “Yeah, that’s her.”
Reagan hits John with a quick expression of shock and hope. This is their most significant breakthrough yet. Reagan doesn’t even know who these women are, but the crack in the cement of secrecy is starting to widen.
“Are you sure?” Simon asks next.
He nods again, his chin nearly touching his chest. He obviously knows her well enough that he doesn’t need a second look.
“That other one,” he says and raises his head, lifting his chin toward Reagan still holding the first drawing of the dead woman, “she came to the Gaylord once or twice running messages for the President. I think that’s Angelica’s sister.”
He turns to Reagan and also hands her the drawing of who they now know is Angelica and nods. Then he turns back to the car dealer and holds up yet another illustration.
“Is this the President?” he asks, and Reagan’s breath catches in her chest, where she holds it waiting for him to answer.
The man’s head jerks up, and he looks away as if becoming angry. His teeth clench, and a muscle in his neck works.
“I pretty much already know it is,” Simon confesses. “Just answer so you don’t have to get hurt anymore.”
The man’s head falls to his chest again where it does not rise. Then his body begins shaking. His shoulder bobs up and down. He sniffs hard. He’s crying. She looks at her husband, who gives her three subtle nods. This is his breaking point. Whatever Simon is showing him, this is the end. He knows it’s over.
“Yes,” he says softly. “That’s him.”
Simon turns to her and reveals the sketch of Parker.
“Holy shit,” she whispers under her breath. Her husband catches her gaze, and he slowly shakes his head. A pulse in his throat pumps hard and fast. She knows he wants Parker’s head on a spit. She recognizes the fury and rage inside of him, in that place deep in the darkest places of his heart that he doesn’t like her to see. She’s seen it, though. The first time was in the Home Depot store in Clarksville where she’d hidden up above him in the metal shelving, and he’d killed two men right in front of her in pure, brutal fashion. It doesn’t matter. He did it to protect her. She knows he always will protect her, and that’s part of why she loves John with every fiber of her being.
“Are you sure?” Simon repeats.
The man only nods.
Simon, God knows how, has cracked the case, broken the mystery wide open. She has a lot of questions for him later tonight.
“Where is his camp?” Simon asks, confusing her. Parker’s camp is Fort Knox.
“I don’t know. He was at a big compound up north with the McClane,” he says, to which she can only guess he means her father.
“At Fort Knox?” Simon reiterates.
“Yes, and other places,” he says, stunning her further.
“I’ll need those locations,” Simon tells him.
He looks directly at Simon and answers, “I don’t know. He never tells us where he’s going. Sometimes he goes to the fort, but I know he has camps in other places. He’s building his army.”
“Why? General McClane is in charge.”
“He’s leaving it all to him,” the man states. “The President is in charge. McClane is just his top general and advisor. Once he’s dead, the President will inherit the fort and the army in it.”
Simon doesn’t understand this any more than they do. “What do you mean?”
“The President is taking over. He was recently elected. The general up there is dying and leaving it all to Parker. All of it.”
This makes no sense. Reagan doesn’t think they have the whole story here, but she also doesn’t believe they are going to get any answers from him that make sense. This is all too much to process.
“Can I leave now?” he whispers weakly. “Are you gonna let me go? You said I could go if I cooperated.”
John steps forward and asks Simon, “Are you done?”
“Yes, sir,” he says.
John drags the man back to the spot in the corner and cuffs his hand to the steel pipe.
“Noo…no, you said I could leave now,” he whines and pleads. “None of this was my fault! It wasn’t me! It was them!”
They exit the milk house, totally ignoring his cries of anguish and torment and lies. Kelly sets the lock attached to the chain holding the door closed.
“What the hell was that, Simon?” Cory barks as if angry.
Simon turns to him with genuine surprise on his face, “What do you mean?”
“You knew? You knew all this time that Angelica was actually Sofia from Robert’s camp?”
“No, only recently did I form that opinion,” he explains.
“When?” John asks with less blame.
He sighs and says with his usual logic, “Why don’t we go inside so that we can discuss this with the rest of the family. Herb is waiting for us.”
They walk to the house, and Reagan has to resist the urge to jog ahead. She, too, is anxious to hear what he has to say. Once they have gathered the family in the dining room, Simon tells them.
“I had Samantha draw the dead girl in the woods because I just couldn’t figure out why she’d be on our property,” he says, looking at Sam across the table. “I recognized her from Fort Knox. It took me some thinking, but I remembered seeing her.”
“Wow, good memory,” Cory remarks. “I don’t remember her.”
Simon nods and goes on to explain, “There were hints, things that didn’t add up. Why were Parker’s men being picked off? Why so close to the farm? And now the girl from Fort Knox is dead close to our property. And it bothered me about other stuff. How were they one step ahead of us?”
“Yeah, that was annoying the shit outta’ me,” Kelly confirms, getting a glare of disapproval from Hannie. He squeezes her hand gently on the table.
“Herb and I talked a few weeks ago, before the battle at the mansion,” Simon continues. “I discussed this hunch I had, and he decided that we shouldn’t jump to conclusion but that we should take precautions. That’s when he hid the radio cables.”
“I knew it!” John declares. “I knew you wouldn’t have misplaced them, Herb.”
Her grandfather smiles knowingly and nods. “Well, we couldn’t take any chances. I didn’t want Parker or one of his men leaking information to the highwaymen if they were. When Samantha found him in my office that night, I kind of figured it might be him. It’s true that I did give him permission to use the radio but certainly not at one in the morning. But my son trusts him, so I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. That being said, it seemed wise to err on the side of caution and remove the temptation. I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure if Parker was trustworthy.”
“Yeah, creep,” Sam comments with a wrinkle of her pert nose.
“And just a lot of little things were pointing to him,” Simon says to them. “The prisoner even eluded to the fact that the President was infatuated with Paige.”
That must’ve been why he looked at Cory, Reagan remembers. Cory is now married to her, which takes her off the market for Parker. He must be very upset about that. Cory will need to be careful for a while until they get this all figured out. And it also explains why the car dealer said strange comments to Paige and gave her knowing looks as if she should understand his meaning.
Simon adds, “I think we all know that Parker is in love with her, or whatever would be love for a psychopath. I’ve certainly seen it and wanted to send some friendly fire down range on him.”
“Ditto,” Cory concurs.
“Oh, I wasn’t aware,” Paige admits. “I just thought he was weird. Or lonely. Or weird.”
“That was two ‘weird’s’,” Sam points out jokingly.
“It seemed fitting,” Paige says in a deadpan tone that causes a few of them to chuckle.
“What else, Simon?” Reagan asks.
“He kept disappearing,” Simon tells them. “Every dang time we were either preparing for a battle or in the middle of one, he’d be a no-show.”
“Or he’d try to change our plans,” Derek reminds them.
“Right,” Simon agrees. “He didn’t actually want us defeating the highwaymen. Those were his men. They were a part of his army.”
Paige groans, “This is horrible. He was working against us. The whole time. We trusted him, and he was the mole.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t succeed, sweetheart,” Cory says and tucks a stray cluster of red waves behind her ear.
Simon just continues, “No, he didn’t, but if he could’ve used the radio that night to warn them of our battle plan changes, he would’ve. Then we may have been defeated ourselves.”
“Thank goodness,” Hannie remarks.
“Yes, thank goodness, indeed,” Sue agrees before Simon continues his theories.
“And the way he’s running Knox. The hidden caches of food and ammo and vehicles that Cory found. I think that was all his emergency, get outta’ Dodge stash. I really don’t believe that it was an emergency contingency for anyone but him. He hand-picked those items, the vehicles, and weapons so that if he was ever figured out he’d be able to flee on a moment’s notice.”
“What a rat,” Sam comments, earning a simple grin from Simon, which she returns with a grimace. He doesn’t seem to mind and keeps going.
“I don’t think Robert even fully understands what’s going on up there behind his back. Parker’s communistic approach to the whole place is disturbing. I just kept getting the impression that Parker wanted it run that way and that the general was in the dark about a lot of it. Robert was just so busy trying to secure the people and establish his own advisors and peacekeepers that he wasn’t keeping close enough tabs on the day to day activities of Parker. Robert never seemed like he wanted socialism on the base. As a matter of fact, he even told us multiple times that he left the bunker out west because of that very thing.”
“I agree, Simon. I don’t think my son shares the same viewpoints,” Grandpa says.
Simon keeps going, “And the way that Parker was keeping those files on people.”
“Oh, yeah,” Cory says as if remembering. “He even had the red ones with cabinet appointees and positions in the new government or something.”
“Yes,” Simon says with a nod. “I think it was all by design.”
“What was?” Reagan asks, too curious to wait for him to continue without being prompted.
Simon regards her directly across the table, his blue gaze intense and somber. “He’s the President.”
“I don’t know how this makes sense, though,” Sue comments. “How is Parker the President? The President is out in Colorado. We know that he’s not Parker. His name was Ezra Hofstetter, not Parker whatever. Is that his first or last name? Who even cares? Anyway, the President is supposed to be on his way here.”
“I believe he still is,” Simon relays. “He has everyone thinking the President is coming. And he probably is, too. But I think Parker’s playing both sides. I’d bet anything that he is behind a lot of the feuding between General McClane and the actual President when they were all living at the bunker. He sewed those seeds of hatred before he left Colorado. What better way to get them to kill one another than to turn them against each other? Then all he has to do is get rid of the one who is left standing and step in. He’s established himself as a person of importance and authority at Fort Knox already. Heck, some of the people there seem like they’re scared of him and probably are. General McClane’s people trust him. I mean, just look at the facts. They left security at the bunker out west to come here with just what they could carry.”
“True,” Sue agrees.
“And I figure he started the foundation work communicating with the senator here to get him and the car dealer building the highwaymen. He probably started that before he even left Colorado because he went to school with the senator and already knew him,” Simon tells them. “It would’ve been easy to get that up and running if the two men were like-minded. The car dealer is obviously just like them, too, despite what he says. Nobody would fall in with a group of men like Parker and his senator buddy if he wasn’t agreeing with their sick, twisted plans.”
“What do you mean?” Kelly asks next. “I still don’t understand. Why did you call Parker the President?”
“I showed the car dealer the picture Sam drew of Parker. Thanks to Sam’s amazing artistic skills, of course,” he praises, causing her cheeks to turn pink. Everyone chuckles.
John rubs the top of her head and then says to Simon, “Ok, Romeo. Stick to the facts.”
Simon grins and continues, “Remember the car dealer saying that the President knew the senator way back before this all started? He said that they went to military academy together. Well, the President, or as we know him as our former Vice President, never went to military academy. He went to Harvard. He was never in any branch of the military. I read up on him in one of Herb’s books in his study. It was all there about his past. He was never enlisted in any branch of the military. But, I did ask a military friend of Parker’s up at the base in a casual way so that he wouldn’t think I was snooping if he knew of Parker attending military academy when he was young, and he said that he did and that it was in upstate New York or something. That’s exactly where the senator went, too. I’d bet if we still had the internet available to us we’d be able to pull up photographs of the two of them in the same graduating class. They knew each other before. The real President doesn’t know the senator, not in the same way that Parker did. They weren’t friends for decades. They didn’t go to school together. They didn’t plot and plan together. The President was being plotted against by Parker and probably doesn’t even realize it. General McClane, too.”
“Interesting,” John states, obviously trying like the rest of them to absorb so much information in one sitting. “You could be right, Simon. But why did you call Parker the President? You still haven’t explained that part.”
“Because the car dealer thinks that Parker is the President. I asked him if the picture Sam drew of Parker was the President and he said yes. He thinks Parker is the President. I don’t get it. He has everyone who doesn’t know any better convinced he’s the President. I’d bet that the car dealer and the dead senator don’t even know about the President being alive and well out west. Or here if he’s made it here yet.”
John says, “Yeah, you could be right. Plus, there were deaths that we’ve seen in the last six months. Even before we realized that we had a problem with the highwaymen group, the attacks were something of a regularity on the highways. Remember? We found some people in Clarksville murdered the same way the highwaymen were executing people.”
Derek adds, “And Dave had seen the same thing. It could’ve been them, but we just hadn’t made the connection yet.”
“Then I saw in a red folder,” Simon starts, “that he had a few of his men marked as troublesome or not able to follow orders, notations of that sort. Those were the ones, including Shorty, who were killed. I figure they knew something wasn’t right, either. Maybe they confronted him. Maybe they threatened to tell General McClane or us. Maybe they even pulled a gun on him.”
“Get rid of anyone of dissent,” Derek says quietly.
“Exactly,” Simon agrees. “He’s a dictator all right. If he sensed that one of his closest men wasn’t going to pass muster, he got rid of them when they were out alone and told people that he never saw them or that they ran off or deserted.”
“Right, that makes sense,” Sue says. “There have been quite a few of his men who have gone missing or turned up dead.”
“He’s looking to be the new President of the United States, too. He never had any intention of working on the sidelines for the general or for the President out west.”
“What about Angelica?” Reagan asks.
“That was trickier to piece together,” Simon relays. “Once I began suspecting Parker, I started looking for the person who could’ve been leaking information to him from General McClane’s camp. I knew she had to be someone close to Parker, someone he really trusts. The night I had to hide in the tree I saw him with a woman. I couldn’t see her very clearly. Certainly not well enough to make a positive identification. I asked around, but nobody knew who Angelica was. Then it was a hunch, a calculated guess. When Sofia delivered papers to us, I saw her staring at me. She didn’t look as if she liked me too well. I’m not sure why. I certainly don’t know her. Then I was introduced to her sister, Isabella. They certainly look alike. She was shy, wouldn’t look me in the eye. Sometimes that’s normal now. A lot of people have been through traumatic things. I don’t remember treating her or her sister in town, either. Dr. Avery told me that her sister was rescued from a sex slave camp near Nashville. It has to have been the one we raided.”
John breaks in to ask, “Then why would she hate us? We freed those women.”
Simon shakes his auburn head, causing a lock of hair to fall over his forehead, which makes him look like a kid. “Not sure on that one. I’m still working on it. But when I saw Isabella in the woods and figured out who exactly I was looking at, it just struck a funny note in me. Sofia’s sister was within a stone’s throw from the farm. I remembered Sofia having blonde hair. It triggered a memory I had while hiding in that tree. I remembered a patch of blonde hair swinging from a ponytail as she left Parker’s office that night. I didn’t realize it then. Didn’t even really process that. Honestly, I was a lot more worried about not getting caught. But I know that’s what I saw. And when I saw her sister, it just clicked. The person I saw with Parker that night was Sofia.”
“And the car dealer confirmed that the drawing Samantha drew of Sofia is actually a woman they all know as Angelica,” Reagan tells the rest of them. “She goes by Angelica so that she can keep her other name at our father’s camp. She was smart about covering her tracks.”
Sue sucks in a shocked gasp of air. Paige covers her mouth. Everyone is surprised and just sits there in silence for a moment trying to process.
“But that’s not who’s in the woods,” Paige points out.
“No, it’s her sister, Isabella,” Simon says again. “I’m not sure why she was here. I’d bet the man that took a shot at Wayne was Parker fleeing the scene. Or perhaps someone on his side he sent with her to get rid of her and spy on us at the same time. Or it could’ve just been Parker. He’s capable of anything. With the way his men have come up missing or dead- probably just all actually dead- I’d say he did that. He murdered her. I don’t know for sure, though.”
“If Angelica, I mean Sofia, is Parker’s mate, then why’d he kill her sister?” Sue asks confusedly.
“I don’t know that, either,” he answers. “It seems to me that he kills the people who cause him trouble or stand in his way of becoming the President. Maybe she turned on him. Maybe she was going to turn her sister against him, too.”
“Why were they so close to the farm?” John puts forth the question for anyone.
His brother says, “Most likely he’s spying on us. Remember, he still thinks the car dealer is dead. We told him that much.”
“Yeah, I remember,” John says. “But why continue to spy? It’s over. We took out his entire army.”
“Not necessarily,” Cory interjects. “If he’s still planning on the general and the President fighting this out to the death, then he’s still planning on taking over afterward. The car dealer said earlier that he suspects Parker has more than one base camp.”
“I assumed he meant the highwaymen,” John says.
Simon answers, “But what if he doesn’t? What if he has other armies, just smaller ones?”
“Wait,” Reagan states, a feeling of dread coming over her. “Didn’t Parker just tell you guys a few days ago up at Knox that the President isn’t camped at the racetrack?”
“Yeah,” Cory says with a nod.
“What if it is the President? Or what if it’s his other camp? What if there really are three thousand people there and he’s planning on using them against us again?”
Derek is the first to answer after everyone has thought a moment about it. “I don’t think he’ll move just yet. I’ll run this all by Dave. We’ll need to do a little deeper intel on that racetrack.”
“Agreed,” John states.
Paige adds, “I would bet anything that Isabella was going to tell on him to the general or that she was sick of him and ready to leave with her sister. Sofia may be in love with him, but she probably loved her sister, too.”
“And Dr. Avery told me that they only have each other now,” Simon tells them.
“And the senator and the highwaymen and the man in our milk house all thought Parker was the President already?” Hannah asks.
“Yes, I believe so,” Simon explains patiently. “I think he was the one using the radio at the bunker sending out the messages. He probably got lucky and hit communication with the senator. Remember, he and the car dealer lived south of us in Brentwood? They had it good down there for a while. If Parker made contact with someone he used to be friends with, then he could’ve sold him on the idea of power and wealth and a high position in government again, that life would get easier again.”
Kelly says, “Heck, selling that to anyone now would sound good. Just a hot meal sounds good to some. A bottom feeder like a former senator would eat that line of bull like candy.”
“No doubt,” Cory says and bumps his fist against his brother’s.
Simon continues again, “We think he formed this alliance with the senator for world domination. I believe he had the highwaymen recruiting so many soldiers because when the real President got here, he’d let the President go in and fight the general at Knox and whoever was left he’d kill the leader, blend his new army in with theirs, and take over.
Derek butts in to say, “Just like when we fought with him, I would guess that Parker would be either absent or running the show from somewhere safe and remote.”
“Yeah, real weasel,” Kelly says with disgust.
Simon just keeps going again, “It’s how any conquering general would handle something like this. He went to military school. I’m sure he studied military strategy, political coups, things of a dictatorial nature. If the general and the President fought it out for what would probably be days, then the surviving party would be weak, their lines broken, their soldiers exhausted and not ready for another fight. Then he could sneak in, kill whatever commanders and leader were left and take over. And they’d let him in. The President trusts him, I would assume. For all we know, he still has communications with the President, wherever he is. We know Robert trusts Parker. It’s not like it would be a difficult defeat for him. He probably wouldn’t even lose a single soldier. Then he could take over Fort Knox, force every town, including ours, and Dave’s and Pleasant View to surrender because he’d have the manpower to enforce it. He’d be essentially unstoppable because he’d have the highwaymen army from these suspected satellite branches and also whatever armies were left from the general and the President.”
“Except now he doesn’t have his highwaymen army,” John reminds them.
“True, but what if the highwaymen weren’t the only faction he was running? What if he really does have other branches, bases of operation per se?”
Cory interrupts to ask, “What if the Churchill Downs people are his people, too? He very well could’ve lied about that to throw us off. What other reason did he have for being up there? It was strange, too, because Robert said something in front of us to Parker about him being in Nashville. If he was supposed to be in Nashville, what was he doing in Louisville?”
Simon also puts forth, “What if there are other camps out there that he runs? He disappears a lot. Sometimes for days. He did that while we were at Knox. He did it when he used to stay here on the farm. He could have small armies all over.”
“Wow,” Reagan states, her mind blown by this. “That’s a lot to digest.”
“How the hell’d you come up with all that, Professor?” Cory asks and gets slapped on the hand by Hannah so fast that he doesn’t even have time to pull away. “Sorry.”
“I’ve…I’ve had a lot of free time lately,” he says sheepishly and looks at Sam. She, in turn, looks down at her lap. “Anyway, this car dealer seems to think that Robert is leaving everything to him if he passes away. I don’t think that’s the truth of it, either.”
Grandpa butts in to clarify, “I know for certain that it is not. My son and I had a lot of time to talk while I was up there recently. We have a different plan in mind actually. We’re forming contingencies.”
“What’s the plan., Grandpa?” Hannie asks.
“We’ll talk about it later, love,” he tells her. “We don’t have it all figured out yet. Soon. We’ll tell you all soon.”
“We need to get in touch with Dave and then Robert, sir,” Derek states.
“Yes, I agree,” Grandpa says.
“And what about the man in the milk house?” Reagan asks.
Grandpa addresses this, as well, “I’ve given it some thought. I also spoke with our sheriff in town. He’ll stand trial in front of a jury of his peers and our new judge. He’ll have to make his own defense pleas, but I’ll give him enough medicine to get him better to stand trial. Whatever the jury decides, and the judge sets forth the penalty for, we’ll go along with it.”
“We should just shoot him,” Cory says and then quickly adds, “Sorry. I was thinking out loud. That was inappropriate.”
“No, son,” Grandpa allows. “You’re right to feel that way. I must say that as much as I don’t agree with murder, this man has caused the deaths of many innocent civilians just for his own greedy benefit. My heart was quick to jump to the same conclusion as yours. However, we are a nation of laws. It is lawlessness that has caused all of this. If we are ever to regain our country as a place of laws and due process and hopefully, eventually, peace, then he must be afforded those laws outlined by the amendments of our great Constitution. He is guaranteed a trial by a jury of his peers. What punishment they choose or the judge chooses is what will stand.”
“I agree,” Derek says.
She notices that John is quiet. She knows exactly how her husband would handle this. His idea of a just punishment aligns with Cory’s. She would also agree with that. However, this is why Grandpa is here and why he is in charge of making the final decisions on such matters. His cooler head always prevails. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be like him. As far as she’s concerned, the man who helped cause all of this turmoil and grief and the pain of others should rot away in their milk house until he dies. No punishment they decide should be swift or painless in her opinion. He doesn’t deserve it.