Trent Reedy - Divided We Fall

“Yes,” Cal said.

There was a little pause. “No, I said verbal!” said the stranger. “A nod of the head won’t cut it.”

“Yes!” JoBell shouted.

“Yes,” said Sweeney and Becca.

“All right. Pull ahead slowly to the next station so they can search your vehicle for contraband. Thank you, and have a nice day.”

I heard the window going back up.

“Asshole power-tripping Army prick,” JoBell said quietly.

“Well, let’s hope that false bottom works,” Sweeney said. “If they find you, we’re screwed, Danny. They have us totally boxed in with concrete barriers on either side of us. Armed soldiers everywhere. There’s a huge machine gun at the guard shack ahead.”

“Yeah, Danny, I think we might have really messed up here. I didn’t know they would be searching like this going out — I thought they just wouldn’t let us back in. Damn it!” Cal slapped the steering wheel.

“Just chill,” said JoBell. “Be cool. They might not figure out there’s any space under there.”

It sucked being helpless, stuck in this smelly little hatch in the back like this, walking into another Fed trap, this time with all my friends in trouble too. The driver’s-side window went down again.

“How you doing?” said a different voice.

“Fine,” said Cal. “Sick of being stuck in Idaho. There’s no food, barely any gas. We’re tired of it.”

“Tired of putting up with Governor Montaine and the Idaho National Guard’s bullshit!” JoBell said.

The stranger at the window chuckled. “I hear that. I can’t wait until this is all over. Checkpoint duty is about as boring as it gets, you know.” My friends laughed, and I hoped not too much.

“Big tough guy like you?” Becca said. “I would have thought they’d have you flying a jet or manning a really big gun.”

The soldier chuckled again. “No, I’m only a grunt, stuck on gate duty.”

“Bet you wish you could get back to base,” Becca said. “Where you from?”

Becca sounded really interested. She was laying it on thick. If we were super lucky, she could get us out of this search.

“Right now,” said the soldier, “I’m stationed at Fort Lewis, but originally I’m from South Carolina.”

“Sounds like you miss it,” Sweeney said.

“Yeah. Searching people and being on guard against other Americans? That’s not what I signed up for. As soon as my enlistment is up, I’m going home.”

“Well, sorry you have to leave.” Becca giggled. “Thanks for your service.”

“Well, I appreciate that,” said the soldier. “And I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to search your vehicle. Is the back window unlocked?”

“Yeah,” Cal said. “You have to pop the Chevy bow tie on the door and crank the window down. It’s kind of tricky. What are you all searching for anyway?”

“We’re checking for contraband and persons of interest. Plus we have to make sure that nobody under seventeen crosses the border without an adult guardian.”

Then it was quiet for a moment.

My heart pounded as I heard the sound of the back window being rolled down. I squeezed the pistol grip on my nine mil, then changed my mind and hid the gun underneath me. This was it. The false bottom would work or it wouldn’t. I was never going to win a shoot-out here, and provoking these soldiers would probably get my friends hurt. If they had me, they had me.

“Got supplies back here?” the soldier said, his voice sounding louder and so close to me now.

“Yeah, not much stuff though,” Sweeney said. “The blockade’s made life so tough that we had to sell most everything we had.”

“Hey, what’s the trouble back there, Ortega?” someone shouted from near the front of the truck.

I heard the sound of the window being cranked back up. “There’s no trouble. All clear.”

“Welcome back to the United States,” another soldier yelled. “Drive on ahead. Follow the posted speed limits.”

The Beast pulled forward and Cal rolled his window up. “Everybody be cool. Act normal. Wait until we’re away from all these Army guys,” he said.

In my dark hiding place, I took deep breaths to try to calm down.

A short time later, Cal drove us onto some gravel roads and pulled over so that I could get out. JoBell hugged me. I placed my hand on the back of her head, happy to be free to hold her.

“I was so worried he’d catch you,” she said.

“Schmidty did a great job making that little hiding place,” I said. “I just never thought I’d have to use it like that.”

Becca hit me lightly in the arm with one of two screwdrivers she must have pulled from the toolbox in the back of the Beast. She used it to point to a trailer house set back in the pines. The yard was full of broken-down cars and other junk. “There are probably more cars with Idaho plates driving around the Spokane area than usual, but I don’t want to stand out any more than we have to. Eric, help me with this.” She tossed a screwdriver to Sweeney, and the two of them crouched-ran through the yard, dodging old farm equipment until they reached a truck with Washington plates.

JoBell grabbed the AR15 from the back of the Beast and climbed up into the passenger seat, keeping the weapon out of sight of the trailer. “Well, if we’re in it this far, I guess I’ll cover them, in case there’s trouble.”

Soon enough, Becca and Sweeney came running back to the Beast. I took the keys from Cal as everyone scrambled inside, and we took off down the road, finding a place a few miles away to stop and swap out our Idaho plates for the Washington ones.

“Now, drive normally,” Sweeney said. “Don’t speed or do anything else that will get us caught and arrested. If we play it cool and don’t draw attention to ourselves, we should be able to pick up your mom and get back in no time.”

Everything he said was true, but it sounded like he was describing a mission into Iran or North Korea, not a neighboring state and a city I’d been to hundreds of times growing up. Then again, I’d finally accepted that America wasn’t going back to normal any time soon, and that more and more, my home was a war zone.

As we rolled down I-90 toward Spokane, we passed Army five-ton trucks, Stryker armored fighting vehicles, and even M1A3 Abrams tanks. We saw tents set up in the mall parking lots and armored Humvees parked on side streets alongside cars. Soldiers were everywhere. We got stuck in a lot of traffic, since so many roads were closed to store military vehicles.

“All of this can’t be for the blockade,” Becca said.

I checked my mirrors and took care not to speed. “It’s not. This city is a staging ground for an invasion force.”

“If that’s true,” said Cal, “Idaho is in deep shit.”

“Just like we’ll be if we don’t get Mom and get out of here.” I handed JoBell the piece of paper where I’d written the address of the apartment where Mom was staying. “JoBell, can you have Eleanor give us some directions? Otherwise we’ll be stuck driving around Spokane all night until someone catches us.”

JoBell keyed in the address. “Got it,” she said a moment later. “Exit the freeway in one point two miles.”

A little over fifteen minutes later, we were knocking on the door of the apartment. I hoped Mom had listened to me and waited. And even though I knew there was basically no chance that anyone knew I was here, I kept looking up and down the hall nervously, expecting the FBI or Fed soldiers to come running after me any second. I knocked on the door again. “Come on, Mom. Be here,” I whispered.