After he left his meeting with Reverend Deb, Mike drove through Marathon, touching base with his acquaintances who owned trucks with winches. He was appreciative of Reverend Deb’s offer to recruit the other churches for him. It took an inordinate amount of time to explain why he needed the men’s help, and once they were convinced, he had to get fuel for their trucks. It was already early afternoon when they’d gathered at the start of Seven Mile Bridge. After a lengthy back-and-forth on the best way to approach the problem, they began.
Unfortunately for Mike’s schedule, it was agreed they had to clear the road in order to clog it up again. The stalled and abandoned vehicles were in the way of the far end of Seven Mile Bridge closest to Big Pine Key. They had to clear one lane to get there. It was determined that the group of six trucks be split into two teams of three. One would focus on clearing a lane for the other. They leapfrogged down the two-lane highway for most of the afternoon. They were midway through the process of doing so when Lacey reached Mike on the radio.
“Okay,” began Mike after he gathered himself. He waved down the men, who shut off their trucks and joined him. He passed out bottled water and allowed them to catch their breath before he explained. “They’re approaching Big Pine Key. It hasn’t been their normal MO to conduct these raids at night, so I wanna believe they’re staging for tomorrow.”
“What if they’re coming now?” asked one of the men. “We just made it really damn easy for ’em.”
Mike didn’t need to be reminded of that fact. He had two options. “Well, we could work under the assumption they’re gonna stop for the afternoon and pick it up again tomorrow morning.”
“That’s possible, Mike,” began one of the men. “But here’s the thing. If they keep on coming, we’re busted. I don’t wanna go head-to-head with Jock’s people after the video you showed me.”
“I’m with him,” said another volunteer. “Maybe we oughta just cut bait and hope for the best?”
“That would be a helluva mistake,” said Mike. “I get that you guys don’t want to gamble taking this all the way to Big Pine Key. I can’t really disagree with that.”
One of the men interrupted Mike. “Big Pine is barely a mile wide. If they’re gonna make camp, or whatever, they’ll be able to see and hear us in the dark. They’ll be all over us, Mike.”
Mike knew they were right. The risk was too great. They were halfway down the bridge. Three miles of gridlock was better than none.
“Let’s do this,” he began. “We’ll start our road blockage right here at the halfway point. We can start towing cars from down the highway, leaving enough room for our trucks to get through. Then, one by one, we’ll pull ’em sideways and flatten the tires. It’ll take them forever to clear the mess.”
“Then what?” asked one of the men who was the most argumentative.
Mike screamed the answer in his head. I don’t know! That’s my brother’s job!
He took a deep breath before he verbally responded, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” He instantly cringed at the corny pun. However, it served to ease the tension between him and his volunteers, who found the use of the expression incredibly funny under the circumstances.
So after a good laugh and a few slaps on the back, morale was high, and the men got to work again.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Thursday, November 14
Big Pine Key
After the caravan had passed and entered Big Pine Key, Lacey was off again. She had to rush to get to the other side of the island, as it was only a mile or so across. She had to travel well south through the aquatic preserve and then back around to the highway where it crossed the Spanish Harbor Channel.
Because the tide was low, they were able to ease the fishing boat through the half-moon bridge supports that held the bridge up between the two keys. This enabled them to get a direct point of view down the highway where the business district was located. Even as the tide rose, blocking their access back across the highway, Lacey was in position to race back to Driftwood Key from there.
“There they are, Mom,” said Tucker, who was using the high-powered binoculars. He had to look down a short stretch of street in a residential area that was lined with vegetation. The gray skies of nuclear winter had taken the lives of the trees, enabling Tucker to have a fairly unobstructed view. “They’re parked sideways across the highway. We’re too far away for me to see what they’re doing exactly.”
Lacey took the binoculars from Tucker and tried to get a better look. From memory, she thought they were a mile away or slightly more. She set the binoculars down and studied the house on pilings in front of them. Its hurricane shutters had all been closed, and there were no vehicles parked underneath. Furthermore, the dock jutting out into Harbor Channel was empty.
“Let’s get a closer look. Whadya think?”
“Will our stuff be okay?” asked Tucker.
Lacey looked at the camping gear she’d brought in case they needed to make their way onto one of the keys for the night. She took the other pair of binoculars and studied the home again. There was a fence together with a locked gate protecting it. The road ended at the water’s edge, and there were no signs of life.
“Yeah, let’s dock the boat.”
Fifteen minutes later, the two of them had tied off to the dock, and they were walking briskly up Avenue A toward US 1. By the time they reached the activity, another raid was in full swing.
An angry crowd of people had gathered at the intersection that led to Winn-Dixie. According to one onlooker Lacey spoke with, they had been informed by a deputy that the food was being confiscated to be sent to Key West.
Lacey considered warning them about the violence that had occurred in Key West but opted to stay out of the way. Her job was to conduct surveillance, not engage an angry mob.
“Mom, here come the trucks. The cops are walking them down the road with their guns.”
“They’re not messing around, Tucker. Let’s get back toward the boat.”
The people started to push toward the row of sheriff’s vehicles and the armed deputies lined up behind them. They began shouting at one another as the crowd became increasingly hostile. Most demanded that the trucks stop to share the food with the people who shopped there regularly.
Suddenly, the tactical vehicles appeared from behind the box trucks and began roaring toward the crowd. This startled the onlookers, who turned and fled in all directions. To force the issue, warning shots were fired by some of the deputies high over the head of the angry mob. They began pushing and shoving one another as they couldn’t get away fast enough.
Lacey and Tucker joined a group racing east on A1A. She turned slightly as she ran and saw the box trucks turning toward Key West. She counted six vehicles leaving along with two of the tactical vehicles. The rest of the convoy she and Tucker had counted earlier remained behind.
She grabbed Tucker by the arm and told him to stop. She pointed toward the canopy of a Tom Thumb convenience market, where the two of them settled in behind the gas pumps to avoid being seen. They waited for several minutes until the bulk of the crowd had dispersed, leaving the sheriff’s department personnel alone.
“Mom, we should go,” urged Tucker.
“In a minute. Let’s see where they go first.”
Lacey thought the confiscation teams would return to Key West and come back the next day. She was wrong.