Free The Devil's Highway by Timothy C. Phillips

in jail.”
    She stiffened. “Of course not. Brad—Mr. Caldwell—would have to add your name to his approved guest list himself, before I could allow you access to our facilities. We have strict security rules in place here.”
    “I see. Then, put me on his visitation list.”
    “I told you, only Bradley can do that.”
    “Well, that would be kind of hard for him to do, wouldn’t it? I mean, since we’ve never even met.”
    This brought forth a wan smile. “That is unfortunate.”
    Suddenly Sgt. Palin was back, standing with a perturbed expression at my shoulder. So, the reach under the desk had been to press a button and summon security. Palin was a little cross with me, from his tone. “Mr. Longville, I gave you clear instructions to wait in a designated area. This area is prohibited to unauthorized persons. Will you come with me, please?”
    I turned and left there, since it was obvious this approach wasn’t going to get me any closer to Brad.  
    As Sgt. Palin and I walked back out into the glare of the eternal tanning lamp that passed for the sun in West Texas, Colonel Cushman and another man appeared from across the parking lot. Cushman hailed me in a voice that reminded me of a car salesman’s tones. Or a lawyer running for office. Or a televangelist. I paused next to my car. The man next to him was a thin white man with a deep tan and shark’s eyes. Kiker, the South African, I bet myself.
    I think that I had been expecting Colonel Kurtz in a khaki soldier suit; I couldn’t have been more wrong. In appearance, Colonel Cushman was as far from the neo-fascist stereotype of the radical survivalist as he could get. Unlike Tolbert, this man was clearly no soldier. He had neatly cut, short hair, black with some silver around the edges, and he was wearing an expensive, cobalt-blue suit. He looked more like a politician than the leader of a heavily-armed Doomsday cult.
    If my mental image of Cushman had been wildly off the mark, though, the image fit the man at his elbow completely. He was lean, with watchful black eyes and dark hair buzzed down to the scalp. He wore black BDU pants and a gray “Army” t-shirt. There was also a shiny black Glock pistol in a canvas holster on his hip. He had the air about him that he was itching to use it, too.
    “Nice militant stronghold you have here, Cushman.” I said, in the nicest tone I could muster, which wasn’t very nice.
    “We’re not militants, Mr. Longville. We’re people just like you. There’s only one difference. We’re prepared for the great trial that is coming.”
    “Great trial? What’s that? An asteroid? Aliens? Or is it some other tabloid danger that I haven’t heard about?”
    “Go ahead, scoff, you certainly aren’t the first. But the truth remains, and every day we see the signs of its coming. This country is about to pass through a Great Tribulation, Mr. Longville. It’s going to be a catastrophe. Many lives will be lost. Yet still there is hope. Though many may die, those who are prepared will stand a fighting chance. Though the country has fallen from grace, and will be purged by flames, yet, it still may be redeemed.”
    “Redeemed?”
    “Redemption for this great nation and its founding ideas, Mr. Longville. The Constitution has been perverted or discarded outright; we exist as pawns to a government grown too large, a sprawling, corrupt monstrosity. It is a leadership heedless of the voice of its people. There have been great signs; earthquakes, Tsunami, and hurricanes and tornadoes; manifold disasters sent by the Almighty to warn of the coming Apocalypse.”
    I had to let all that sink in for a second. “I don’t know about all this gloom and doomsday stuff, Cushman. You’ll have to pardon me if I don’t buy into what you’re pushing. Someone like you always shows up when times are tough, talking a load of this End of the World nonsense, and they always seem to attract the scared and the gullible. Just because you’ve been