Chapter 51

January 12, 6:35 a.m.

The eastern morning sun shining in their faces woke them up.

“What time is it?” Marajo asked as she sat up. The blanket fell to her waist, and she stretched her back and then her arms.

Larson looked at his watch. “Six thirty-five,” he said. His watch read eight thirty-five. He had forgotten to set it back two hours. He pushed the blanket back toward his legs and set up. “Let’s each eat a fruit bar, drink some water, and get going.”

“I agree,” she said. “How did you sleep?”

“Like a log,” he said, getting on his feet and stretching. “Surprisingly warm, too.”

“That’s because we were sleeping back to back sharing each other’s body heat, and it wasn’t that cold last night.” She looked up at the clear blue sky. “I’ll bet it’s going to be warm today.”

“Whatever,” he said, kneeling down and rolling up his blanket. “I figure we should be able to make eighteen miles today. Hope you packed your binoculars.”

“I did. You?” she asked.

“Yeah, I did,” he said. He removed his from his backpack and hung them around his neck.

“How many miles do you think we’ll make before sunset?” she asked as she rolled up her blanket.

He stood up and looked at the rough country they had to cross. “I’d said eighteen,” he answered. “But I won’t swear to it because I haven’t done any long distance walking in over twenty years.” He knelt back down, removed a fruit bar from his backpack, placed it in the left side pocket of his parka, then closed his backpack and wrapped the blanket around the top of it and tied it down with the backpack’s straps. “If nothing else, I’m going to get a lot of exercise.”

“You really think we’ll be able to walk eighteen miles before sundown?” she asked him as she removed her binoculars and a fruit bar from her backpack. There was a tone of seriousness to her voice.

“Don’t you?”

“Let’s be realistic, Larson,” she began as she closed her backpack and strapped her blanket to the top of it. “We’re not in our thirties anymore, and like you I haven’t done a lot of long distance walking or running in years.”

He nodded in agreement with her. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see if we can come close to making eighteen miles before the sun sets.”

“That sounds more reasonable,” she agreed. “But I doubt seriously if we make it.”

“How many miles we make in a day doesn’t really matter, Marajo,” he said.

“You sound worried,” she said, doing as he did with her backpack and blanket.

“I am,” he said.

“Why?” she asked, standing up next to him.

“We won’t be able to locate the entrance to the Society’s underground information center without me turning on my com-cell,” he told her.

“Once you do that they’ll be able to get a location on us,” she said, slipping her backpack on her back.

“And my com-cell has to be on to open the door to the information center.” Larson grabbed his backpack by the left strap and hooked it over his left shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said as he started to walk south.

“They’ll know where we are the moment you turn your com-cell on,” she said, walking next to him.

“Yeah.”

“And they’ll kill us,” she added.

“Yeah.”

“So what do we do?” Marajo asked.

“I’m hungry, I need a shave and a hot shower, and I don’t know,” he answered as he took the fruit bar out of his pocket.

“I could do with a hot bath myself,” Marajo said.

They ate, drank some water, and walked silently for two hours before they stopped to rest. In spite of the dry looking forbidding hilly terrain the walk was easier than they thought, and they allowed themselves the pleasure of silently enjoying the beauty of the desert. They didn’t push themselves but had walked at a normal leisurely pace avoiding the occasional dips in the ground and walking around cacti.

“This is really lovely country even if it is a desert,” Larson said, breaking the silence.

“It certainly is,” Marajo said, looking at the range of mountains to the south. She looked to her left and saw him staring ahead.

“What are you looking at?” she asked him.

“Our destination. The Simpson Park Mountains,” he said.

She looked in the direction he was looking. “They don’t seem so far away,” she said.

“Probably less than ten miles,” he said as he looked at his watch. “It’s twelve forty-five. For a couple of old farts you and I have made good time.”

“Yeah over nine mils in four hours, if we start walking again at one we should make it to those mountains about nine o’clock.”

“Yeah, after dark.”

They sat silently for another fifteen minutes then got up, took two large swallows of water from the bottles they carried, strapped their backpacks to their backs, and started walking again.

“I’ve been thinking about that ambush, Larson,” Marajo said as they walked side by side.

“What about it?”

“There were only two soldiers at that ambush,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“That was probably their first attempt to stop us,” she said.

“That means there are more waiting for us at the information center, and maybe more inside waiting.”

“Yes,” she said. “And not like those two at the ambush.”

Larson turned and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Those two at the ambush were clumsy. They missed.”

“You ever stop to think, Marajo, that’s what they were supposed to do to give us a feeling of success so we’d keep on going,” he said. “Every military man in the history of the human race has known there is nothing worse when fighting a battle than the illusion of victory.”

“And you think our escape from that ambush was an attempt by the Society’s soldiers to give us an illusion of victory?”

“I don’t know, Marajo, but I do know we’d be damn fools if we let down our guard because we escaped that ambush.”

She looked at the ground as she walked by his side and a feeling of hopelessness overcame her. “They don’t know who we are, and they don’t want to waste time trying to find out who we are. So they set up a situation where we have to come to them.”

“And if we’d decided to just run off and hide, they’d have all the time they needed to find out who we really are and kill us when they find us, and get the drives back that Julian gave me,” he finished for her.

“We’re between a rock and a hard place,” she said.

“Or as I heard a gambler in Las Vegas say one day many years ago,” he said. “We’re facing a stacked deck with no chance of winning.”

“I wish I’d just walked away from Julian when he told me about the Society twenty years ago,” Marajo said with a deep sigh of regret.

“No. That’s the wrong attitude to take,” he told her. He looked over at her and noticed the defeated look on her face.

“Didn’t you tell me a day ago you wished you’d thrown that letter Julian sent you into the trash?”

“Yes, I did, Marajo,” he said. “And now that I know what the Hidden Society is, I was wrong.”

“What changed your mind?” She looked at him with a curious expression on her face.

“I love history, Marajo. Really love it because history teaches lessons the human race needs to learn and never forget. And the most important lesson history teaches is that if no one does anything to stop tyranny, tyranny wins and everybody loses.”

“All it takes for tyranny to win is for a few good men to do nothing,” she said, smiling at him.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked her, looking in her face.

“You’re one of the few good men, Larson.”

“When did you become a man?”

“Alright I’m one of a few good women,” she added.

“There you go, Marajo,” he added, smiling himself. “Keep that positive mental attitude and our chances of winning improve.” He didn’t believe a word he said, but being negative wasn’t about to improve their situation.

“So let’s go oppose tyranny,” she said.

“Tyranny trembles in fear when a good man and a good woman like us oppose it,” he said, laughing as he walked.

They had gotten use to the walking and were making good time as they walked in silence for a few minutes.

“We’re real heroes, Larson,” she said, walking beside him.

“I wonder will that be said about us?” he answered.

“I doubt it,” she said.

They walked silently for another hour before Marajo spoke. “Larson, I’ve been thinking.”

“About what?” he asked. His backpack was beginning to weight a ton.

“How we can get to the information center,” she answered.

“Without being killed first,” he added sarcastically, ignoring the weight of his backpack.

“Why don’t we make a copy of the map on your com-cell,” she began.

“I’ve got a copy of where the Simpson Park Mountains are,” he told her.

“But not a map of how to get into the information center,” she told him.

“You’re right. The map on my com-cell is more detailed than the paper one I got of Northern Nevada. We’d need a map with more detail to use to show us where the information center is,” he finished for her as he stopped walking.

“Right,” she said.

“Damn am I dumb,” he said, removing his backpack from his back, dropping it to the ground, and kneeling down. He opened his backpack, searched around in it for paper, and stopped. “Damn!” he yelled. “No paper.” He looked up at her hoping she had brought some paper.

“No, all I’ve got are moist hand towels. No good from writing or drawing on,” she said, looking helplessly at him. “I didn’t think paper would be something we’d need.”

“Yeah, me too. Those moist hand towels are great for cleaning up after using the washroom out here in the wilderness, but not worth a damn for writing on,” he said.

“So no paper,” she said.

“That’s the problem with our computerized society today,” he complained. “Why write with pen and paper, when you can tell your com-cell what you want and it makes a recording.

The world is going to wake up one morning and discover writing has become a lost art.”

“When that happens, Larson, computers become our new masters,” Marajo said.

He didn’t hear her because he was thinking. After a few seconds he opened his parka and reached for his shirt pocket. “Thank God for old teacher habits, Marajo” he said as he pulled a ballpoint pen out of his shirt pocket. “I always believe in carrying a pen with me. Never can tell when you’ll need one.”

“Like now,” she said.

“Now for something to write upon,” he said, looking up at her.

Marajo had a smile on her face.

“What are you smiling about?”

“We’ve no, paper, Larson. Not even paper towels. But,” she said, removing her backpack from her back and opening it and taking out the medical kit. “But we do have bandages.”

“No,” he said. “We might need our medical kits.” He reached into his inside parka pocket and found the handkerchief he always carried, and removed it. “But I’ve got this.” He unfolded it.

“You always carry a handkerchief?” she asked him.

“Yeah, my parents taught me when I was a little boy to always have a handkerchief. You can never tell when you may need one.”

“Like now,” she added as she returned the medical kit to her backpack.

He nodded.

“How close do you think we are to that center?” she asked him, looking around at the hills surrounding them.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But we are certainly closer than six miles.”

“Real smart of us not to determine how far we’ve come,” she said.

“I figure we’ve probably walked more than twelve miles maybe more since we started yesterday. We’ve walked at a steady leisurely pace which means we’re probably less than six miles away,” he said, looking for a flat rock to place the handkerchief on. “There, that rock over there looks smooth enough to write upon.” He got up and walked over to the large rock, knelt down, and put the handkerchief on it.

“If you turn on your com-cell won’t they detect it?” she asked, following him.

Larson took out his com-cell and stopped and looked at her. “Sure,” he said, hoping she’d have an answer. “But do we have a choice?”

“No, we don’t.”

“They’ll detect it. Even a small heat detecting device can cover a distance of ten or eleven miles and we’re closer to those mountains than that,” he said. “They could send out a helicopter to look for us. But by the time it gets here, we’ll be long gone.”

“If that infrared body heat detecting thing you talked about detects us won’t they be able to determine our location?”

“Yeah, it will and if they send out a chopper that has one of them too, and it’s a gunship, Marajo, we’re finished.”

“We don’t have much choice, do we?”

“It shouldn’t take me more than ten minutes to draw the map,” he said as he turned on his com-cell brought up the map of the Simpson Park Mountains and started drawing a copy of the map. “Don’t give up yet, Marajo. We’re not dead yet. And that gives us a chance.”

“Yes, you’re right,” she agreed as she looked in the clear empty blue sky before she returned the medical kit to her backpack. “A very slim chance.” Which is better than no chance, she thought.

***