Chapter 11

I had just turned around when Haskins started into the trees from the campsite. He was carrying a glow stick that he had started.

“Harry! Charlie! Is everything all right?” he asked as he advanced very tentatively into the trees. I waited until he was closer to answer him.

“No, Mark! Things are not all right.”

“Who’s there?” he asked and reached for the pistol that he had in his belt. He dropped it in his haste and nervousness, and it slid away from him on the ground and into the weeds.

“Where are Harry and Charlie?” he asked next.

“They’re just up the trail with the others,” I told him.

“Are they okay?” he asked nervously.

“No, they’re dead like all of the others,” I told him calmly. He gasped in shock at this news and backed up a step.

“Who ... who are you then?” he blustered.

“I’m the guy that you wanted to kill,” I told him.

“But how ... how did you know that we were out here?’ he asked in confusion.

“Oh, I have my ways of finding things out,” I told him. “Just like I found out where you have been living.”

“But no one knew where I had moved to,” he objected.

“Your friends at the club knew. It’s too bad that they didn’t leave there when I warned them to,” I told him, and saw his face go pale in the infrared part of my night vision goggles at what I had implied.

“Yes,” he said more strongly after a few seconds. “You worked for that damn Agency, didn’t you? It was hard to find out about you there, but you were just another drone there,” he finished triumphantly, as if he had won an argument.

“Apparently your people didn’t do much research, or if they did someone forgot to tell you what I did for the Agency,” I told him.

“What could an uneducated fool like you have done?” he demanded, sarcastically.

“I was an assassin for the Agency. A U. S. Government paid assassin, and I was very good at my job,” I told him just before I pumped the remaining five rounds from Harry’s pistol into him. Apparently Harry had only loaded six rounds in the clip, or had fired another round earlier.

Haskins collapsed. He was dead before he hit the ground. I returned the now empty gun to Harry’s hand. Since I always wear gloves when working, I wasn’t worried about finger prints, and just closed Harry’s hand around the grip of the pistol before calling Ed on the radio.

“I’m on the way back, Ed. I’ll call you again when I’m near your position,” I told him.

“Roger, Bill. I’ll be looking for you,” Ed answered.

I moved through the trees on the way back, as I didn’t want to chance leaving footprints along the road. There were enough footprints in the campground that mine wouldn’t be noticed. I was approaching our vehicle from the trees when I called Ed again.

“I’m nearly there,” I told him. I could see that the camouflage netting had been removed and could hear the engine running.

“Everything is ready,” Ed answered, as I moved closer.

“Is the cab light turned off,” I asked when I stood besides the vehicle. Ed jumped at the sound of my voice.

“Don’t do that!” he said in disgust, but in a whisper. “How do you sneak up on people like that?” he asked, regaining his composure somewhat.

“Yes!” he added after that. “The cab light is turned off.”

Opening the rear passenger door, I removed my weapons and bullet proof vest and put them in their container. The radio and ears followed suit in the other container, but I kept the night vision device on. I only kept my pistol and put it next to me on the front seat as I got in to drive.

“What the hell happened back there? It sounded like a war there for a while,” Ed asked after I got in.

“I’ll tell you after we get out of here. You aren’t going to believe it,” I told him, as I put the SUV in gear and eased out of our camp location. Once back on the road, I picked up a little speed, but didn’t go very fast on the twisting steep road that led back out of the Frank Gross Campground and Recreational area.

After reaching Hwy. 60, I still drove using the night vision equipment and hadn’t said anything to Ed as it required a lot of concentration to drive this way. Ed hadn’t pressed me for anything further, as he still had my old night vision equipment on and realized how difficult driving with it was.

It was a bit after 11:00 before I stopped, and we removed the night vision devices. I put them away while Ed changed the license plate back to my regular Georgia tag. I turned on the headlights as we pulled out again, and started telling Ed what had happened back there. Like I had told him, it was hard to believe.

As I was explaining to Ed what had happened, a few minutes later the rain hit. I don’t mean a little rain either. This was a giant gully-washer of a rain storm that literally came out of nowhere, as there hadn’t been any rain projected for the weekend. We continued to drive in it, but slower to avoid an accident. The windshield wipers added a counterpoint to my explanation.

“What a bunch of... !!” Ed stopped there looking for the correct word to fit the description after I had finished. “FOOLS! IDIOTS!” he finally said in exasperation.

“Don’t forget Dumb Shits!” I told him before adding, “I pumped five rounds into Haskins before leaving. Three for me and two for you. That was all there were left in Harry’s pistol,” I finished.

“So you didn’t use any of your ammunition or weapons?” he asked to be sure.

“Not a round!” I told him, as we continued down the road until we hit Georgia highway 9, and then highway 19 past Dahlonega before getting on to Georgia 400. We were well out of the rain storm by then.

The far end of 400, that we were on, has a lot of big clearance stores and factory outlet stores along it with large parking lots. I pulled into one and we took a nap until the sun came up. It had been a long day for both of us.

Sun up on Sunday morning the 11th of July found us sitting in the front seat of the SUV stiff and still tired.

“We need to remove the bugs and other equipment from Haskins house and the park,” I told Ed, as we stretched trying to work some of the kinks out from sleeping on the seats of the SUV.

“Yes,” he agreed. “The cops will definitely show up there after the bodies are found.”

“That will probably be sometime today, so we need to stop there on the way home,” I told him.

“I need coffee first,” Ed told me.

“It’s early Sunday morning! I don’t know if anyone is open yet,” I told him.

“Mickey D is always open. Even if the coffee there isn’t great at least it’s coffee,” Ed told me. We found one open closer to one of the small towns along 400, but had to change clothes before going in. There was a handy church parking lot that was still empty this early in the morning where we changed. We also got something to eat besides the coffee. Their large burgers went down especially well.

The park wasn’t open yet when we got there, but we managed to get past the chain at the entrance, and I drove the SUV back into the trees and we threw the camouflage netting over it. Ed collected the recorder and served as lookout while I went into the house to remove the transmitter and the bugs. We didn’t have any trouble, as the neighbors were all still asleep.

Before leaving, I closed and locked the basement window, and locked the basement door from the inside before closing it. I still had my gloves on so there were no fingerprints. Ed and I carried all of the equipment back to the SUV and carefully removed the camouflage netting after checking that no one was around yet.

We had exited the park and were headed back to the highway when a county employee drove by us on the way to open the park. We had definitely cut that one close. When we were near home, Ed called Ashley on the government phone, as I was still driving.

“Bill!?” I heard as she opened the cell phone.

“No Ashley. This is Ed. Bill is driving. We’ll be home in ten minutes or so,” he told her.

“Is Bill all right?” she asked in desperation.

“Here, talk to your wife,” Ed told me holding the phone up so I could speak to her.

“I’m fine Sweetie. We’ll be home in a bit. Everything is fine,” I told her.

“You’re sure of that?” she asked, and I could tell that she was crying.

“Absolutely sure of it,” I told her before Esther came on the phone.

“Are you all right, Ed?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. I didn’t even get my boots dirty,” he told her with a grin.

“All right. We’ll be waiting for you,” she told him before disconnecting.

Our wives were waiting for us on the front porch as I pulled into the yard. I noticed that they both had pistols in their hands. I had turned off the alarm system before passing the sensors so as not to frighten them. Ashley literally flew into my arms as I got out of the SUV, and didn’t seem worried about how I smelled or how dirty I was. She just seemed very relieved that I was back. I held her for a long time, and she had calmed down when we heard the twins crying for attention.

“They definitely missed their daddy,” she told me, as we separated to walk into the house. The SUV would have to wait to be unloaded.

“Da!” both girls cooed on seeing Ed and me before raising their arms to be picked up. They didn’t care that we were dirty and smelly in addition to needing more sleep.

“I’ll make breakfast,” Esther volunteered and headed for the kitchen. I noticed that Ashley returned to the porch immediately after that. I carried Carry out after her.

“You okay?” I asked moving up behind her.

“Yes, my stomach is just a little queasy,” she told me. We stood on the porch with Carry in my one arm, and the other one around Ashley who leaned in against me. It looked like Sunday would be a good day.

Esther called me to breakfast after a while, but Ashley remained on the porch. After putting Carry in her highchair, I turned to Esther.

“What’s wrong with Ashley?” I asked her.

“She has a queasy stomach. She’ll be all right shortly,” Esther told me.

Ed was already eating so I sat down and joined him while Esther fed the twins. Ed finished first and went up to take a shower. He was nearly finished by the time I got upstairs, as I had stopped to help Esther with the twins.

Ashley was back inside when I came downstairs again, and Ed had loaded the camping gear into his truck. We took the SUV down to the wood shop and put the rest of the equipment in the vault. Following that we both went to take a nap because Esther said that she was staying until later that day.

By 2:30 that afternoon, I was back from dreamland, and went to see about lunch. Ashley seemed her old self again, and Ed and Esther returned home around 4:00 that afternoon. We didn’t do anything for the rest o f the day. We watched a little television, and I played with the girls for a while. They were 11 months old now and growing fast. They would need new shoes soon and would outgrow their present clothes shortly, but we could address those problems next week.

That night in bed, Ashley cuddled up to me, and I held her all night. She seemed better now that Mark Haskins and his group were out of the way. She hadn’t asked what had happened at the campground, but I was sure the subject would come up at some point.

Monday morning was when I got the big shock. We were in the kitchen making breakfast when Ashley suddenly hurried over to the sink and threw up. It was like she was trying to bring back up everything she had eaten in the last week. I left the twins in their highchair and hurried over to her.

“What’s wrong, Sweetie?” I asked, but added, “Don’t try to pass this off as a queasy stomach. It’s more than that.”

“I ... I think I’m pregnant again,” she told me in a very quiet little girl voice.

“No! Really!?” I asked, shocked but pleasantly surprised. “Have you checked,” I asked her.

“No, I was waiting for you to get back before I went to get the test kit,” she told me. “You aren’t upset are you?”

“No Sweetie. I just hope it isn’t twins again. Two sets of twins would be a bit much to handle,” I told her, and could immediately see that I had said the wrong thing.

“We’ll love them, however many there are,” I amended quickly.

After breakfast which I made, and cleaning up the twins, I replaced their safety seats in the SUV for a trip to the pharmacy for a pregnancy test kit. Ashley took it upstairs when we got back while I cared for the twins. She soon returned and showed me the stick. She was definitely pregnant and would need to make an OB/GYN appointment soon.

The remainder of Monday went by pretty quickly. In the vault, I removed the batteries from all of the electronic equipment and stored it. The weapons were all cleaned next and then put away, as well as the ammunition. Following that I listened to the last disk from the recorder in the den. It consisted mostly of a drunk Mark Haskins cursing the majority of the members of his group for being cowards. I called Ed to let him know what was on it.

Ashley didn’t ask me what had happened that Saturday night until several weeks had passed. When I told her what had happened, she was incredulous.

“You mean they actually shot each other!?” she asked.