Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 3 | The Farm Craven Boyd (the reading list book .txt) 📖

cup. She turned and flipped off the barn. Bailey’s voice came out of the radio, chuckling. The group all poured small cups of the doctored lemonade and waited. The agents turned to the rest of the market, getting another look around, and saw that the crowd had stopped what they were doing and there was a semi circle of over a hundred armed patrons. They had left a bubble almost twenty feet beyond the group.

“I get a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore Toto,” Korey whispered to his partner.

“They know we’re not the bad guys, right?” Gorman turned to ask Curt.

“They don’t know yet. They haven’t had a good run with the folks who show up in suits or tactical gear. Many of them had their entire farms or food stores raided to feed the detainment centers,” Rob answered.

“But… listen, if we were here for anything else…” Korey started to say.

“I have a feeling you boys are about to go off the reservation,” Leah said. “You’re seeing now what folks have been calling ‘conspiracy theories’. A shadow government with a plan. Cabinet level appointees that are directing agencies. A controlled media that’s set against our current president and an election happening in what, three weeks?”

“Four,” Gorman answered. “I mailed my early ballot this morning.”

“But yes,” Korey interjected. “Neither of us believed any of it until you whipped out those orders. I don’t know if you know how classified documentation goes, but that was code worded—”

“Compartmentalized and code worded. We got them from one of the bigger sticks in the conspiracy, and he had a bigger picture than others.” This from Rob, who smiled suddenly. He let his rifle drop to his side as Angel ran the distance between the second gate and the egg table, and launched herself. Rob caught her, then held her sideways like a husband carrying his new bride across the threshold. He kissed her quickly on the lips before putting her down.

“Hurry up slowpoke,” Angel called over Rob’s shoulder.

“Big people weren’t meant for sprinting,” Bailey yelled back.

“So, I have to ask, how does everybody know everybody?” Gorman asked. “I’m curious is all.”

“Us three couples purchased the farm. We’ve been lifelong friends and wanted a place to retire to, or bug out if the shit hit the fan,” Andrea explained. “And along the way, we adopted the Littles, Luis and Bailey.”

“Don’t forget me.” Harry’s voice came out of the radio.

Roscoe picked that moment to sit up and bark. An answering bark came from the front of the market and Ranger came bursting out the back of the fence line, making a beeline for the group. He stopped next to Roscoe and then sat down, his tail wagging.

“We didn’t forget you,” Andrea said into his radio, “and we didn’t forget the dogs either.”

“Voice activated throat mikes, and earwigs mostly. Rob doesn’t appear to have his in… so you all can keep in constant contact, all the time?” Gorman asked.

“Yup,” Curt said. “We learned not to trust the government. There’s some good, there’s some bad. Heck, just like the cops. Some were stressed and pushed into positions that gave them no way out. We’ve even had groups of kids try to break in here to steal stuff and… creep.”

Anna laughed at that one. “But they were good for a security test. At least we didn’t have to shoot them.”

Gorman and Korey looked at each other uncomfortably. If they were actually following orders, they would have come with a team, all the state police and sheriffs they could get, with BATF and any others they could gather. Gorman realized that wouldn’t have been enough. The group itself had a technological advantage that most two-bit crooks couldn’t dream of, and apparently, the support of the community. They saw a local cop watching them from the sidelines, and had seen the big state police officer at the front gate. Two state police cars had been parked along the roadside, so they knew there were more there, how many they didn’t know.

Somehow these people, despite bringing craziness to the small region, had garnered the support of the area. The group surrounding them alone was at least a hundred strong. Both agents came to the same conclusion that any large group that came after the residents of the farm would be met with resistance from the moment word got out that they were on the road.

That’s when Gorman looked up and saw the ‘telephone poles’ that didn’t actually have lines strung to them.

He wasn’t surprised to see cameras mounted to them, forty feet in the air. The group had a pretty good field of view up and down their property lines along the roadway. Gorman recognized the radios as a good model that could easily be reprogrammed, and again marveled at their resources.

“These folks bugging you?” Ella May asked, putting her double barrel on the table next to her coolers of milk.

“Actually, we’re pretty sure these guys are the good ones,” Anna told her, “and you’re not wearing your good glasses today.”

Ella May fussed and put her shotgun back under her table.

“I believe you wanted to talk to us?” Angelica asked.

“We do, but… I really wish we could go somewhere more private. The crowd is kind of… intimidating,” Gorman answered.

“I’m good wherever,” Bailey said. “I figure the two of us could handle ourselves if these guys aren’t really on the up and up.”

Gorman looked at the big woman and thought she must be related to Rob somehow. She was tall and solid. She had feminine features, but her thick arms and haircut had him wondering. The scars on her fists were nearly as impressive as Rob’s. Sister? Cousin? Then he remembered she was a friend of Angelica’s. Gorman was a transplant who’d grown up near the PNW’s Canadian border. Maybe it was something in the water in Arkansas that grew some folks so large. Then there was his wife Angelica, who had reportedly beat one of the homeland agents half to death with her