Chapter 32

32

"Shit, the phones!" Colleen suddenly said as we sat at the end of the stalled line of cars on Route 4. "They turned them off or something. Look! No bars!"

I looked at my burner. She was right. Not a single bar.

"Cops can do that? Block cell phones?" Jodi said.

"They sure can," I said. "In the NYPD we had these things called a wave bubble, a wide bandwidth radio frequency jammer about the size of a pack of cigarettes. We used them all the time. Right before no-knock raids."

I made a sudden command decision then. I crossed the double yellow line and made a left into the small empty parking lot of the convenience store. As we parked in front of it, I could see that the lights were off and there was some empty shelving by the window. It appeared to be closed for renovations or something.

Beside the store was a trail for the ridge that ran alongside Route 4. I leaned over and grabbed a pair of binoculars from my glove box.

"Stay here. Be right back," I said, getting out of the truck.

There was a lightly wooded area directly behind the closed store, and I found a deer trail in it and headed up. As I arrived at the top of the ridge, I saw it was higher than it looked from below. I crouched down with the binoculars.

It was definitely a roadblock. There were two blue town police cars parked sideways across the eastbound lane. There were four cops at it and they were getting the driver of a minivan to open up the side door. As I watched this, a fire truck pulled up and a couple of firemen jumped out of it and started laying down orange cones.

I stood then and glassed the other side of the river.

"Gotta be shitting me," I mumbled as I saw there were even more emergency lights on the other side of Route 4 alongside where Colleen had left the car.

"You're right. It's definitely a checkpoint," I said as I arrived back into the truck.

I leaned over and quickly took out the map of the area I had in my glove box. Though Declan gave me hell for it, like many fuddy-duddy men over a certain age, especially former military ones, I hated relying just on my cell phone to know where I was so I always had physical maps as a backup.

Score one for the fuddy-duddies , I thought as I unfolded the paper map of Connecticut.

As I scanned it, I came to the depressing realization that Route 4 was the only way in or out of the town. Rimmed by ridges with a huge reservoir to the northwest of town, we were boxed in.

"Hmm," I said as I looked over the map again.

"Hmm what?" Colleen said.

I looked at the map some more. Then I snapped my finger.

"Wait," I said, pulling the transmission down into Reverse.

"What now?" Colleen said as I backed us around.

I pulled out on Route 4 west away from the checkpoint but as I made the bridge, instead turning right onto it and heading back into the town, I kept going.

"There's another way out?" Colleen said.

"There might be," I said, handing Colleen the map. "See this huge hill all along the left here and how all these roads dead end up at the top of it?"

Colleen nodded.

"At the end of this road, there's a reservoir. Though it's not on the map, there's a water company service road that runs along its shore and spillway bridge. Its other end leads out onto Route 202. Maybe they didn't cover that far. If we can get on the water company service road, maybe we can head out that way."

"So, we're home free?" Jodi said hopefully.

"Not exactly," I said. "There's a gate across the access road, but I think if we go off-road a little, we may be able get around it."

"Don't say maybe, Mike," Colleen said, crossing her fingers. "We have to get away from them now."