Infiltration Page 2

  He stood next to the kayak munching on a handful of almonds as he powered up the phone to study his downloaded images and maps. The device was useless for communications here, but it was still a capable handheld computer with many valuable offline functions. In the kayak he carried a portable battery bank for it as well as a small, flexible solar panel to keep it and his other electronic devices charged. He easily pinpointed his location in the nature park and scrolled the imagery south along the waterway to the canal entrance that led to Shauna’s neighborhood. Once inside, he would have to pass close to nearly a dozen other homes to reach the one he was looking for, but if tomorrow night was rainy like this, he doubted that would be particularly difficult. Satisfied that things on the ground here matched the images he’d stored, Eric powered down the phone and put it back in the dry bag. He was stuffing the bag back into the kayak when he suddenly found himself caught in the beam of a powerful light cutting through the foliage from somewhere above him on the bank. Assuming the light might be attached to the barrel of a weapon, Eric was careful not to make any sudden moves as he slowly turned around, his hands visible and out away from his sides. He had been confident that he was alone here, or he wouldn’t have risked giving himself away with the illuminated screen of the phone. Now he knew he’d been mistaken, and he was about to learn the price of his error. As he slowly turned to show he was unarmed, the person holding the light finally spoke:

  “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night, dude? Don’t you know the ICW is under lockdown, even in the daytime?”

  The blinding beam locked onto his face and Eric turned his eyes off to one side. He felt like a complete idiot for letting someone get the drop on him, but unless this person was already determined to shoot him, it wasn’t over yet, even though he was unarmed at the moment. His M4 carbine, stashed under the front deck of the kayak where he could grab it while padding, was hopelessly out of reach. The Glock 19 he normally wore hidden under his shirt in an appendix holster was in the dry bag with his phone and snacks, as he’d planned on using the rifle if he needed a weapon while on the water. He’d briefly considered keeping it on him before leaving the ship, but decided against it at the last minute, as he didn’t expect to be far from the rifle. But even if he had the Glock, he would still be at a disadvantage trying to reach for it while fixed in that beam of light.

  As soon as he heard the voice behind the light though, Eric knew he wasn’t dealing with a law enforcement officer or soldier. The tone was far too casual for one thing and lacking any semblance of command presence for another. In addition to that, his choice of words told Eric the speaker was probably a lot younger than him. He kept his eyes diverted to avoid ruining his night vision, because the stranger had already taken a couple of steps in his direction. He answered the question in an equally casual tone, as if he had no concern of a possible threat. “No, I wasn’t aware of that. I’m just passing through. I’m not from around here.”

  “Passing through from where? Everyone knows about the curfews and restrictions!”

  “I didn’t. Like I said, I’m not from around here. I’ve been traveling for a while, paddling down the coast from up north. I’m just trying to find a safe place to lay low and stay out of trouble, that’s all. Somewhere down in the Keys, probably.”

  “Up north? How far up north? Why would you come to south Florida now, after the hurricane? Florida’s all messed up. No place in this state is safe, much less this part.”

  “It’s not safe where I was either, and I like warm weather. Living out of a kayak is easier down here.”

  “Not if they see you it won’t be. You won’t be living at all because they’ll shoot you on sight.”

  “I don’t doubt that. That’s why I’m traveling at night. It’s not that hard to keep out of sight on a dark night like tonight, with the rain falling.”

  “Maybe not, but I saw you. If I was one of them, you’d be dead already. But I guess I probably wouldn’t have seen you if you hadn’t stopped here, and if I hadn’t already woke up to chase the raccoons away from my camp.”

  “You’re camping here?”

  “Yep. I’ve been here for a little over three weeks. I had to leave my apartment because it was too dangerous to stay after the lights went out, and besides, there’s nothing to eat in the city. Nobody’s seen me here yet, but it’s just a matter of time before they do. I can hear people talking from the road just through those woods every day. I need to get out of here soon and find a better hideout.”

  Eric could care less about this stranger’s situation, but he was pissed at himself for being so stupid. He thought he’d checked well enough before pulling up to the bank to get out, but this fellow had obviously seen him first and had frozen in place in the dark undergrowth. Even with night vision, Eric had missed him.

  “It looks like that kayak has two seats,” he went on. “How about we team up and I go with you to the Keys? I can paddle a kayak as well as anybody and I know my way around down there. I know the perfect place to go. And I’m good at getting by off of fishing and scavenging, so you don’t have to worry about that. I can show you a trick or two when it comes to fishing. I’ve been fishing these waters all my life.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. My boat’s already too full of gear. There’s no room for you and your stuff.”

  “What kind of gear? Why do you need all that gear for just one person? Let me see what you’ve got in there!”

  Eric saw the stranger’s light sweep his kayak from bow to stern as he took another step closer. Watching with his peripheral vision to avoid being blinded, Eric could now see that he was waving it back and forth in his hand, and that it wasn’t mounted to a gun barrel. He had something in his other hand though that he was keeping out of sight, holding it back behind him in the shadows. Eric had little doubt that it was a weapon, and he intended to maintain his distance.

  “Look! You need to stay back. I can’t take you with me and I can’t help you. I’m in a hurry to move on, so you can go back to your camp now and I’ll just be on my way. I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

  “Yeah right! You could, but you just don’t want to, probably because you’re an asshole. Look, I’ve been stuck here because somebody stole my boat while I was asleep. I offered to help you out, but if that’s not going to work, then you don’t leave me a lot of choice, because I need that kayak. But I’ll give you a chance to just leave it where it is and hit the road. I don’t want to hurt anybody, I really don’t, but everybody’s got to do what they gotta do to survive, man.”

  Three

  AS HE MADE HIS threat, the stranger turned the light slightly so that Eric could see that he was holding a long machete in his other hand, the blade down and behind him, but ready to bring into action. The light also revealed that he was wiry and scruffy-looking from living out in the woods, but quite young, just as Eric had deduced from his voice. His biggest mistake was not taking Eric’s head off before opening his mouth. That told Eric all he needed to know about his would-be opponent’s lack of combat experience and the threat level he presented.

  “Okay, okay! You win! Just put that thing down, I don’t want trouble,” Eric said. “But please, just let me get a couple of my bags out of there. You can have the rest.”

  Eric took a step towards his boat, watching out of the corner of his eye as he turned to the side and moved to reach into the kayak’s cockpit. The kid stepped down the bank to follow him, brandishing the big blade, confident that he had the upper hand. Eric let him get closer as he pretended to focus on getting his stuff. He could have easily grabbed the Glock out of the dry bag and shot him in the face before he took the final step that would put him in machete range. The thieving punk probably deserved it but Eric didn’t want to risk drawing attention to the waterway with unnecessary gunfire. Besides, his double-ended kayak paddle was propped at an angle across the deck in front him, within easy reach. Without hesitation, Eric quickly grabbed it with both hands, pivoting on h
is feet in the soft mud as he put his entire weight into a sudden thrust, driving the tapered end of the carbon fiber blade hard into his opponent’s midsection. The Greenland-style paddle doubled nicely as a fighting staff, and Eric had practiced with it for that purpose many times. With its narrowly tapered blade surfaces that were much thicker and stiffer than those of typical kayak paddles, it was a formidable weapon. Eric heard the satisfying expulsion of breath as his single thrust took the wind and the fight out of the kid, his machete and flashlight falling into the edge of the water as he went down. Eric swept up the machete in one hand and threw it out of reach into the mangroves as he stood over his fallen assailant. Then he drew the Glock from his bag and pressed the barrel hard against the side of the kid’s face.

  “Listen up, punk. I’m letting you live only because I just got home and I’m not ready to start killing people yet, but let this be a lesson for future reference! I don’t know who you are or what you’ve been doing since the shit hit the fan here, but playing pirate is a good way to get dead real fast! I didn’t like doing it, but I’ve put away more Somali thugs younger than you plying that trade than I care to count, and they had AKs and RPGs, not machetes. I would stick to the fishing and scavenging if I were you, kid!”

  “I’m sorry man, I didn’t know….”

  “No, you didn’t know did you? You didn’t know you picked the wrong guy this time did you bud? But it’s your lucky night anyway, because you’re still breathing!”

  “Barely….” He was gasping, trying to get his breath back as he lay there doubled-up in pain.

  This wasn’t the first time a would-be assailant had tested Eric in a dark place and paid for his mistake with a hard life lesson. Eric wasn’t as obviously imposing as some of the guys he’d worked with, but more than one challenger had found out the hard way that it wasn’t always possible to judge a fighter on appearance alone. Standing right at six feet even and weighing a solid 180 pounds, his lean physique didn’t particularly draw attention under normal clothing, but Eric was all muscle and sinew, and knew how to use it.

  “I’m sorry, man. I just messed up. I wish I’d never spoken to you now. You would have never known I was here.”

  “It’s too late for that now, but you can help me out with some local intel since we’re already having this conversation. Let’s just forget about what just happened and start all over, how about that? What’s your name anyway? I’m Eric.”

  “It’s Jonathan. I don’t know what I could tell you that you probably don’t already know.”

  “No, you’re wrong there, Jonathan. Almost anything would be useful, because the truth is, I didn’t really come from up north. I just reached the coast here less than an hour ago. I haven’t been in the U.S. in more than a year, since long before everything fell apart, so I need you to fill me in. I need to know the situation on the ground here, so I’ll know what I’m up against.”

  “Why? What are you planning on doing? What do you mean you just reached the coast? Reached it from where?”

  “From Africa,” Eric said. “Actually the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, but that’s close enough.”

  “Not in that!” Jonathan nodded at the kayak.

  “No, but it’s how I got ashore from a bigger ship. Anyway, none of that matters. I’m here to find my ex-wife and my daughter, if they’re still here. And after that, my father, who lives over near the Gulf Coast, on the other side of the state.”

  “You’ve got your work cut out for you then, dude. I’d hate to be looking for anyone I cared about around here. It’s dangerous as hell out there on the roads.”

  “Which is why I’m not on them. I can reach my ex-wife’s house by water; and my father’s place too, it’ll just take a lot longer. Are you from around here? Have you been down around North Palm Beach since the hurricane?”

  “I used to live not too far south of there, so yeah, I came that way to get here. I was planning on going farther north, but I like this spot and the fishing has been good.”

  “The house I’m looking for is on a network of canals right off the ICW. The community is gated from the road, from what I understand, so I’m hoping it will still be secure.”

  “Gates don’t mean shit. They can’t keep out the mobs that have been going through all those neighborhoods, especially now. Most of the rich people that lived in places like that have left since the hurricane, or at least tried to if they could still get out.”

  “Left to go where?”

  “I don’t know. The ones that still had gas probably tried to drive somewhere north of all the damage.”

  “What about the checkpoints and roadblocks? I heard that the highways all over the country were restricted long before the storm hit.”

  “They were, so I don’t know where they went. Maybe there’s a shelter set up for them somewhere. I’ve heard rumors, but nobody knows the truth.”

  “So who’s in charge of all that here? Is it the National Guard? The Army? Are the local police and sheriff departments still operating?”

  “Dude, that’s a lot of questions I can’t answer. Yeah, I’ve seen soldiers… not as many as before the hurricane… but some. I don’t know who they are, but I know you don’t want them to see you trying to go anywhere. That’s why I’m hiding out. It’s the best way I know to avoid trouble. I’ve heard a lot of shooting since I’ve been here. Most of it in the daytime and most of it kind of far away, but I have no idea what it was about.”

  What Jonathan was telling him was about what Eric expected. Aside from the hurricane situation here, he was sure that there was something like martial law in effect in many places, at least wherever the authorities were trying to maintain control. If some of the rumors were true though, there were many other regions where they had essentially given up for now.

  “What can you tell me about the riots and the fighting going on before the hurricane? Have you been anywhere outside of Florida since all that started?”

  “No, I hardly ever leave Florida. I had to work all the time before, but when the banks shut down, I quit like everybody else. I mean, what was the point if we weren’t going to get paid? I didn’t have much money, but I had a little cash on me, and I had my boat. That’s how I got here.”

  “You really had a boat? I thought you were bullshitting me. Where is it now?’

  “Stolen, like I said! I had it hidden right there where you pulled up in your kayak. Somebody took it the second night I was here. I never heard or saw anything, but luckily, I had most of my fishing gear up there in the bushes where I set up camp, so they didn’t get that.”

  “So you figured you’d just take my kayak then, since someone stole your boat, right?”

  “Look, I’m sorry man. I didn’t know who you were or what you were doing here. As far as I knew, you could have taken it from someone else before you stopped here. I screwed up. What can I say?”

  “Don’t worry about it. That’s history now. So, back to the situation before the hurricane; were there major riots and shootings here in this part of Florida?”

  “Oh yeah, there was all kind of crap going on! It started within days after the soldiers killed all those armed protesters in Los Angeles. That shit broke out in Miami the very next day, and the riots there were probably as bad as any in the country. I heard they burned down half the city and hundreds of people got killed. It was bad in Tampa and Orlando too, and then it started spreading to just about every town, even West Palm Beach, where I used to live. It got to the point where most people weren’t even going to work anymore, and it sure wasn’t safe to be out at night. It was like a freakin’ war zone in a lot of places, especially the big cities, right up until the hurricane hit. For all I know, they’re still fighting wherever there are enough people left.”

  “And this sort of thing was happening all over the United States to some extent, right?”

  “Yeah, it was pretty much everywhere. Up north, out west, you name it. I’m sure it was worse in places like California, but
it wasn’t long before it was hard to even get the news. They started cutting off TV broadcasts and even the Internet and cell phone networks for days at a time, and then eventually for good.”

  “Who, the federal government?”

  “I guess. Whoever was in control, but who knows who that is now? How were we supposed to know anything with no news and no way to communicate?”

  “I’m sure that it was a calculated effort to suppress networking among the insurrectionists. You said the banks and other means of transferring funds shut down shortly after that, right?”

  “Yep, but you couldn’t buy much of anything even if you could get money out. The stores were sold out of everything. Gas stations ran out of gas. That led to more riots and more people getting shot. The only ones not affected as bad were people living out in the country where it wasn’t as crowded and people like me here on the coast that had a boat and the know-how to catch fish, especially after the hurricane. I was pretty lucky in the beginning, at least until I lost my boat. Now, I’m stuck, and it sucks big time.”

  “You’re still better off than most people here from what you’re telling me. Now I’m really worried about my daughter, and my ex. I had hoped things had been quieter here in Palm Beach County before the storm hit, but from what you’re telling me, they were in danger then too. I have no idea if they stayed here through all that or if they decided to get out either before or after the hurricane; if they were able to get out at all.”