Chapter Two of "The Way of Deception"
Jets thundered overhead. The military kind.
Planes never flew over Brookings, Oregon like this.
A booming sound erupted somewhere to the east.
These things, combined with the fact that a bunch of men in black suits with their weapons drawn were combing through the trees in search of him, had Jarrod confused.
"What in the hell is going on?"
Looking down at his hands, Jarrod realized how much dried blood covered them. Puncture holes from grabbing branches and forcing his way through thorny thickets were a deeper, darker red than the brighter highways of blood trails spanning his fingers and palms. He never, in his life, had experienced this kind of pain without noticing it or caring.
"Amazing what one can endure while the adrenaline is flowing," he muttered.
A car drove up the graveled road. Jarrod froze as he listened. The tires crunched the loose rock, passing by, continuing up the road to one of the other residences hidden deep in the Oregon forest.
He put the cell phone on speaker so that he may hear it if someone began speaking, and dropped it into his pocket. Jarrod walked to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror on the wall over the sink. His eyebrows went up when he saw the gash in his forehead.
"Quite a tumble, that was."
Quite a tumble, indeed. That first hill at the base of the meadow across from the main deck of his parent's cabin was a doozy. He headed straight for it because of the thick growth when the men in black suits showed up with guns blazing. They had caught him by surprise. If the call on his phone had not awakened him, there was no telling what his situation would be right now. He didn't tumble down that hill because he didn't realize what the hill was capable of, however. In his rush to get away, and because he was so busy also dismantling his own cell phone, pulling the battery out, tossing the pieces in different directions, he didn't notice the entangled roots and branches below his feet. He didn't care. The telephone, and the evidence it contained, had to be destroyed. Jarrod could not allow his pursuers to see the strange code text-messaged to him.
Jarrod allowed himself to grin, faintly.
"Yeah, that was one hell of a ride down that hill."
He brought his hand up, placed his fingertips upon the wound along his hairline, feeling it, moving around the drying bumps of red clots. Soft. Pliable. The area did not yet resemble the hard scab of tomorrow just yet.
He turned on the water, hot first until steam rose, then the cold to stabilize the temperature. He washed his hands, carefully, as to not dislodge the clotted blood from the puncture wounds in his hands. The punctures burned under the water, rising in temperature when he applied the soap. After he finished, he dried his hands by patting them with a hand towel, careful not to rub them, not wishing to enable them to bleed again.
He ran his hands through his hair, feeling for any other wounds like the one on his hairline. He found no more injuries on his scalp other than a nasty bump near his crown.
That explained the headache.
The phone in his pocket remained silent.
"Typical. I may be on hold for hours."
Was the call really from the President of the United States? Or had the enemy somehow realized that he had Harburnocker's phone? Perhaps it was being traced?
Unlikely.
Jarrod walked out of the bathroom, gazing to his right at the hole in the wall he caused with the tractor earlier. He half expected men in black suits, with guns drawn, to be standing there. All he saw outside through the large gash where a door used to be was a line of myrtlewoods and a steel refuse bin for burning trash.
His father came to mind. The man was full of wisdom, and Jarrod constantly refused to listen to what the man had to say.
Don't worry about the tracks you find, son, worry about the bear that made them.
Is that what these men were? Bears?
A sudden breeze filled the house from the gaping hole in the wall. It reminded him to be aware, expecting the worse. There were vicious bears out there with guns in their hands, and he had to be ready to flee if they showed up before he could figure out a plan.
The phone remained silent.
He pulled the phone out of his pocket and glanced at its display. Unknown call. Signal steady. Still on hold.
Since when did the President of the most powerful nation on earth begin using non-secure lines for communication?
And who was that old couple driving up the main road in the yellow sedan earlier?
That was why he didn't run to them and ask for them to take him away from this place. Seven families owned homes along this dirt road. Jarrod grew up here, during his teenage years, and he took pride in remaining informed about the happenings of the neighborhood. Jarrod knew everyone that lived there. Those people in the yellow sedan were strangers. They were not even visiting family members from elsewhere, he didn't think. They didn't belong.
Trust no one.
His friends called situations like this karma. Mom labeled it reaping what you sow. Your sins will find you out, and Jarrod had a bunch of them.
He dropped the phone back into his pocket.
Brookings was becoming a less peaceful place with these men in black suits running around, and he didn't know what to do next. He originally desired, while he was running through the woods, to find a phone so that he could call for help, but who do you call when the government has gone haywire and sends bloodthirsty agents after you?
What could the police possibly do against agents employed by Federal National Security?
Did these guys even belong to the federal government?
Perhaps, but something else was amiss. Something huge was on the horizon.
Keeping the hole in the wall in sight, Jarrod flipped on the television. Maybe the news networks would feed him some clues.
The screen came up, and a newscaster with a map behind him and a ticker flowing below him dominated the screen. The sound was muted. He messed with the set, but couldn't get the volume to cooperate. All Jarrod received was silent video footage. The map behind the grim-faced reporter depicted the entire United States, smattered with symbols that normally represented wildfires. The map quickly vanished, replaced by a still shot of Islamic terrorists adorned with turbans wrapped by black bands holding their rifles high in the air, thrusting them upward in a universal sign of victory. In the background smoking rubble darkened the sky, reminding Jarrod of images he had seen when Beirut was bombed recently. Except the image was not of Lebanon, nor any other place in the Middle East. On a hill, beyond the smoking ruins, was a sign that read "Hollywood."
Planes never flew over Brookings, Oregon like this.
A booming sound erupted somewhere to the east.
These things, combined with the fact that a bunch of men in black suits with their weapons drawn were combing through the trees in search of him, had Jarrod confused.
"What in the hell is going on?"
Looking down at his hands, Jarrod realized how much dried blood covered them. Puncture holes from grabbing branches and forcing his way through thorny thickets were a deeper, darker red than the brighter highways of blood trails spanning his fingers and palms. He never, in his life, had experienced this kind of pain without noticing it or caring.
"Amazing what one can endure while the adrenaline is flowing," he muttered.
A car drove up the graveled road. Jarrod froze as he listened. The tires crunched the loose rock, passing by, continuing up the road to one of the other residences hidden deep in the Oregon forest.
He put the cell phone on speaker so that he may hear it if someone began speaking, and dropped it into his pocket. Jarrod walked to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror on the wall over the sink. His eyebrows went up when he saw the gash in his forehead.
"Quite a tumble, that was."
Quite a tumble, indeed. That first hill at the base of the meadow across from the main deck of his parent's cabin was a doozy. He headed straight for it because of the thick growth when the men in black suits showed up with guns blazing. They had caught him by surprise. If the call on his phone had not awakened him, there was no telling what his situation would be right now. He didn't tumble down that hill because he didn't realize what the hill was capable of, however. In his rush to get away, and because he was so busy also dismantling his own cell phone, pulling the battery out, tossing the pieces in different directions, he didn't notice the entangled roots and branches below his feet. He didn't care. The telephone, and the evidence it contained, had to be destroyed. Jarrod could not allow his pursuers to see the strange code text-messaged to him.
Jarrod allowed himself to grin, faintly.
"Yeah, that was one hell of a ride down that hill."
He brought his hand up, placed his fingertips upon the wound along his hairline, feeling it, moving around the drying bumps of red clots. Soft. Pliable. The area did not yet resemble the hard scab of tomorrow just yet.
He turned on the water, hot first until steam rose, then the cold to stabilize the temperature. He washed his hands, carefully, as to not dislodge the clotted blood from the puncture wounds in his hands. The punctures burned under the water, rising in temperature when he applied the soap. After he finished, he dried his hands by patting them with a hand towel, careful not to rub them, not wishing to enable them to bleed again.
He ran his hands through his hair, feeling for any other wounds like the one on his hairline. He found no more injuries on his scalp other than a nasty bump near his crown.
That explained the headache.
The phone in his pocket remained silent.
"Typical. I may be on hold for hours."
Was the call really from the President of the United States? Or had the enemy somehow realized that he had Harburnocker's phone? Perhaps it was being traced?
Unlikely.
Jarrod walked out of the bathroom, gazing to his right at the hole in the wall he caused with the tractor earlier. He half expected men in black suits, with guns drawn, to be standing there. All he saw outside through the large gash where a door used to be was a line of myrtlewoods and a steel refuse bin for burning trash.
His father came to mind. The man was full of wisdom, and Jarrod constantly refused to listen to what the man had to say.
Don't worry about the tracks you find, son, worry about the bear that made them.
Is that what these men were? Bears?
A sudden breeze filled the house from the gaping hole in the wall. It reminded him to be aware, expecting the worse. There were vicious bears out there with guns in their hands, and he had to be ready to flee if they showed up before he could figure out a plan.
The phone remained silent.
He pulled the phone out of his pocket and glanced at its display. Unknown call. Signal steady. Still on hold.
Since when did the President of the most powerful nation on earth begin using non-secure lines for communication?
And who was that old couple driving up the main road in the yellow sedan earlier?
That was why he didn't run to them and ask for them to take him away from this place. Seven families owned homes along this dirt road. Jarrod grew up here, during his teenage years, and he took pride in remaining informed about the happenings of the neighborhood. Jarrod knew everyone that lived there. Those people in the yellow sedan were strangers. They were not even visiting family members from elsewhere, he didn't think. They didn't belong.
Trust no one.
His friends called situations like this karma. Mom labeled it reaping what you sow. Your sins will find you out, and Jarrod had a bunch of them.
He dropped the phone back into his pocket.
Brookings was becoming a less peaceful place with these men in black suits running around, and he didn't know what to do next. He originally desired, while he was running through the woods, to find a phone so that he could call for help, but who do you call when the government has gone haywire and sends bloodthirsty agents after you?
What could the police possibly do against agents employed by Federal National Security?
Did these guys even belong to the federal government?
Perhaps, but something else was amiss. Something huge was on the horizon.
Keeping the hole in the wall in sight, Jarrod flipped on the television. Maybe the news networks would feed him some clues.
The screen came up, and a newscaster with a map behind him and a ticker flowing below him dominated the screen. The sound was muted. He messed with the set, but couldn't get the volume to cooperate. All Jarrod received was silent video footage. The map behind the grim-faced reporter depicted the entire United States, smattered with symbols that normally represented wildfires. The map quickly vanished, replaced by a still shot of Islamic terrorists adorned with turbans wrapped by black bands holding their rifles high in the air, thrusting them upward in a universal sign of victory. In the background smoking rubble darkened the sky, reminding Jarrod of images he had seen when Beirut was bombed recently. Except the image was not of Lebanon, nor any other place in the Middle East. On a hill, beyond the smoking ruins, was a sign that read "Hollywood."
