MacArthur's Freehold

Chapter 20

Chapter 20 -- HDISMSUNROABHBIQ

"OK" said Donald "let's see what you have."

He was sitting in his office, one of the unneeded rooms in Gordon's house. His own quarters were on that wing of the house, and most of his work was done there. Jessica, Tommy and Carter were there, with the poster board drawing on which they had sketched out a plan.

"Here" Jessica said, indicating the location of Little Rock on the map, "is our starting point. Or somewhere around the area. We are at this point working on the assumption that our subject is wearing a monitoring device. If he isn't, that makes it a lot easier, but we have to plan for it."

"What's the effect, if he is" asked Gordon.

Jessica looked at Darrell.

"If he is wearing a monitor, it's likely to be of the type used for people under house arrest, or something similar. It just tracks your movements - or more likely, just reports if you get too far outside a certain area. If he leaves town, they'll know where he is and go get him."

"So he would have to remove it." said Donald. "Is that difficult?"

"No" said Carter. "It can be cut off quickly, most likely like cutting a heavy watch band. But it will send an immediate alarm."

"So, it's removed on the way to the pickup point." said Jessica. "We'll want him to get away from is last reported position quickly, before a cordon can be put in place. So on a freeway headed for the pickup point."

"Being in a car on a freeway, he would be miles from the place where the monitor is discarded before they get after him." Carter said. "Especially if it's a busy night for cops. So a weekend night would be good."

"So we're looking at getting him out of the city, to a pickup point here" Jessica pointed to an area northeast of the city. "We would need to scout the area, see what the best route is. It looks like, Dad, you may know this - we're looking at the area of the Brave Shield freehold. I know it's several big farmers in this area " she indicated the area northeast of Little Rock "and wonder if any of those farms have airstrips for crop dusters, something like that."

Donald looked at the map.

"I know a couple of them fairly well," he said. "Which is to say I've met them a few times at Council meetings. In fact, Howard Taylor was at this last one. He, and about a half dozen big rice farmers out there, with some family and friends, are Brave Shield. I believe most of them have aircraft, housed at an airfield where they operate crop dusters. It has a pretty good runway - a couple of them have fair-sized planes, I know a couple of twin engine jobs."

"That's better than a grass runway" said Tommy. "We were thinking about the Bronze Bull group doing the flight. Do you think it would be better to see if one of the Brave Shield guys could do it?"

"We probably could" said Donald. "Of course the Bulls might not like being left out. Some of them are old Air Force guys who still like to get some hours in. Both groups are close to Little Rock, but if we pull it off there wouldn't be any connection. And, it gives both groups a chance to participate."

"So," said Darrell "we have a plane take off from, where is the Hot Springs point - the local airport?"

"No" said Donald "better than that. About a half dozen or so of the members live on large contiguously situated estates. They have a private runway with hangars, fuel, everything to operate privately. Needless to say, they've recruited some former Air Force types to maintain the aircraft. So there's no problem with timing, or being tracked."