her pink swing skirt with the musical notes on it in black, and the neat little shirt that went with it. With her high bouncy ponytail, she looked like a high school kid sitting and waiting for the Principal. She swallowed a couple of times.
Scott passed Tammy the wine that he had poured when Georgie answered the door, and gave her shoulder a supportive squeeze.
“Thanks, Scott.” She sat there holding it, staring into the glass, and then seemed to gather herself. Her chin came up, and she took a deep breath. “Let me tell you what I’ve been able to find out. First, nobody at the BugOut Base has seen Jerry since yesterday afternoon at around 3 o’clock. He was out last night at some local government dinner, and I was in bed when he got home. This morning he left at around five—said he had a long round trip to make, but he’d be back late afternoon, dinner time at the latest.” She paused and toyed with the stem of her glass. “I didn’t ask where he was going; he’s always heading off somewhere .”
“And you hadn’t heard anything from him when I saw you this afternoon?”
“No, there was no reason. I was busy setting up the new trailer, and he always calls when he can.” Her voice hitched a little on the ‘when he can’. “So after I saw you, I went straight out to the BugOut Base to talk to the guys. They were all still there, doing overtime to fill the orders. Jerry had checked out Barbie, but left no details of where he was going.” She sighed. “Anybody else would risk being fired if they did that, but because Jerry’s the boss… well, anyway, he didn’t tell them.”
Georgie looked at her blankly. “Barbie?”
“The newest bug-out vehicle. Equipped with everything for the day everything goes ballistic. That thing I was talking about earlier. They called it the BoV Barbarian, Barbie for short.”
“What about satellite tracking?” asked Scott.
“I thought of that right away. I got Danny to check. The last coordinates were in Kentucky.”
“Kentucky?” Layla said. “What’s he doing there?”
“He goes all over to visit preppers.” Tammy nibbled on a fingernail, her forehead creased. “If it’s a long way, he’ll fly, but if he’s demonstrating a bug-out vehicle, he’ll drive it there. The guys all assumed that’s what he did today.”
Georgie had picked up a lot about the preppers scene from Jerry, and had consulted with him on fabrics and design for the interior of the early bug-out vehicles. She’d got to know the layout and fittings well. “He’s got an on-board satellite phone. Can you reach him on that?”
“It’s out of action, just like his phone. And nobody knows who he was meeting today.” Tammy picked up her own phone from the table and tapped a few buttons before pointing at the screen. “I got Danny to email a list of all the people Jerry’s been talking with in the past few weeks, and their contact details—but there’s no guarantee that the person he was meeting is there. It could be somebody from months back.”
“What about the CB radio?”
“The vehicle has a combo MURS/FR. We could probably raise someone down that way to try to contact him on it, but—” Tammy stopped for a fraction of a second, then pushed on, “but Jerry has to be able to get to it to use it.”
“I hate to state the obvious,” Layla said, “but do we want to call in the police?”
“Last resort,” Tammy said. “His prepper business will collapse if the police are allowed access to private information. The customers are all paranoid.” She immediately corrected herself. “No, actually they’re not, I’ve met a lot of nice people who just want to give themselves a chance of survival if things go bad. But there are a lot who are paranoid.”
Georgie’s phone beeped, and they all froze.
She picked it up from the side table, glanced at the screen, and shook her head. “Not him. Hang on.” She swiped at it and put it on speaker. “Hi, Rosa.”
Her