Gesturing farther down the shelf, he said: “Then there’s 9mm. You name it, and I’ve got it: ball, eight or nine different types of hollowpoints, some special low-lead ammo for indoor ranges, some tracers, and even one box of Arcane armor piercing. I also have two cans of .22 long rifle ammo, mostly hollowpoints.”
After a moment, he added, “Oh, I also have one .50-caliber can there with some odd boxes of ammo that I’ve somehow accumulated over the years, for guns that I don’t currently own. There’s .45 ACP, .40 S&W, and some .22 Magnum, a couple of boxes of .30-30, and a box of .30-40 Krag. That ammo should all be good for bartering.”
“Any .243 Winchester?” Alan asked.
“No.”
“That’s a pity, because we only have thirty-seven rounds of .243 on hand for Claire’s rifle.”
“And your deer rifle?” Phil asked.
“Mine’s a .300 Winchester Magnum. That’ll do for elk, moose, and caribou, as well. Thankfully, I have nearly fourteen boxes of cartridges for that. I once found it on sale at a hardware store in Lytton that was going out of business for just twenty-four dollars a box. So I bought every box that they had.”
After a moment, Alan added, “We have several other guns here at the ranch, all off-registry: an Ithaca Model 37 pump shotgun, a Webley .455 revolver, two .22 bolt actions, a .22 Remington pump, a .300 Savage lever action, a Winchester .45-70 lever action, and even an old Snider .577 single-shot carbine that my grandfather brought over from Scotland. There’s not much ammo on hand for most of those guns, I’m afraid.”
“Perhaps we can do some trading with your neighbors.”
“Possibly. But people have gotten very shy about discussing their guns in recent years. It’s as if the Montreal crowd has muzzled the entire nation. Most people in Canada of course refuse to even consider registering or giving up their ‘restricted’ guns, but they certainly have become circumspect about mentioning any guns—of all categories—that they own in casual conversation.”
Phil nodded in understanding. He turned and flipped the large case closed and then said, “Last, but not least.”
He then reached up under his shirt to the small of his back and pulled out his SIG P228 pistol and pointed it at the ceiling.
Spiraling his wrist slightly, he said, “This shoots 9mm Parabellum—also called 9mm Luger—just like Ray’s Hi-Power.”
“Have you been carrying that all this time for the past three days?”
“Of course. I’d feel naked without it.”
Alan laughed and said, “I didn’t even get a glimpse of it, or have a notion that you were packing.”
Phil smirked and said, “That’s called effective concealed carry. The holster is a Milt Sparks Versa Max 2. This is the same holster that I carried every day as a CI agent. The spare magazine pouch is from a company called MagHolder. It lies horizontal, so it hardly shows.”
Ray nodded, and said, “Nice.”
He lifted his loose-fitting polo shirt to show them both the holster and the spare magazine pouch, and he reholstered the pistol with practiced precision.
Ray tilted his head and said, “All those ravening hordes from Seattle and Vancouver—not that many of them will ever make it this far.”
Phil replied, “No, only the most vicious ones.”
Alan asked, “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. It will only be the really vicious looters who’ll get this far north and west. Now, granted, the statistical chance of any looters making it out this far and then picking this particular ranch’s little side road are pretty slim. However, the consequences if they do would be enormous. So I think from here on out, we keep every gun fully loaded at all times, and we should each carry a rifle with us whenever we’re outdoors. Ray and I both have concealment holsters for our pistols, so we’ll carry those whenever we’re doing heavy chores where we can’t carry a rifle. And that means whenever we hop on a quad or drive a pickup. A rifle in a scabbard has got to be part of our routine every time.”
Keeping guns handy yet out of sight required some creativity. Since they had unregistered handguns and Phil’s M4 at the ranch, those all had to be kept hidden when not in use. Ray’s Hi-Power pistol and magazines were hidden in the top of the antique oak expandable kitchen table. Reaching under the table and pulling the lever that would normally be used to add wooden leaves to the table revealed a compartment atop the table’s central pedestal.
As a heavily armed illegal alien, Phil Adams presented a problem. A hiding place was constructed for both him and his gear by converting his room’s four-and-a-half-foot by seven-foot walk-in garment closet into a hidden room. The shelves in the closet were well-stocked with MREs and dozens of half-gallon canning jars filled with water, as well as all of his guns and ammunition. Several more sturdy shelves of rough-cut lumber had to be added to accommodate all of this.
The hidden room also had a night-light, a foam pad, and a sleeping bag. It was even equipped with a small chemical toilet from the McGregors’ camping trailer and a folding chair, in case he had to be there for an extended period. Phil was also careful to leave his small assortment of books and military manuals in the closet, since many of them were marked with his name. There was just enough room for Phil to lie out full length with his feet beside the chemical toilet.
The twenty-nine-inch doorway to the closet was cleverly concealed by removing the trim molding and placing a tall, lightly stocked thirty-four-inch-wide bookcase in front of it. Once inside, a pair of handles mounted at waist level could be used to precisely position the bookcase. Then, nine steel brackets screwed on the back side of the bookcase could be wedged in, using scrap pieces of tapered wood roofing shingles. Once the shingle scraps were in place, the bookcase had no gap or tilt, so it appeared to be built-in. And with these wedges it would not move at all, even if subjected to very firm shoves. Air circulation was provided by a small retrofitted vent to the attic. They called his closet “The Ten Boom Room.”
If the house were raided by authorities, the cover story would be that they had a dim-witted hired man named Phil Quincy—a Canadian citizen—but that he would be “out in the back acreage, working on fences,” or alternatively, if there was snow on the ground, that he was “visiting a friend down at the lake.”
It came as a logical conclusion that Phil would remain on the ranch at all times and that he should be ready to go into hiding on short notice. For any visiting neighbors, if Phil was spotted, then he was to play the role of a “slow” hired ranch worker with a speech impediment, who would wave and say little more than: “Hi, I’m Phil,” and then wander away.
22
HUNGER
I am not fluent in the language of violence, but I can speak it well enough to get by in the parts of the world where it is spoken.
As their small party of five with two carts merged into the crowd of foot traffic already walking across the bridge, Megan grabbed both boys by the hand and instructed them in French to stay very close to her and not let go of her hands for any reason. As they descended the bridge on the Kentucky side, they saw the Kentucky National Guard HMMWV with a Gore-Tex-clad soldier manning the crew in front of the two commandeered Coca-Cola trucks, just as the cop at the Fort Gay entry checkpoint had described it. The soldier on the Mod Deuce looked as though he was very cold and indifferent as he squinted in the morning light to see the approaching walkers. Joshua noticed—as did Megan—that there wasn’t actually any ammunition belt hanging out of the .50-cal. It was simply a “show of force” measure.