Ultraviolent by Horton Franklin

Author:Horton, Franklin [Horton, Franklin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B099X3RKRQ
Goodreads: 58616579
Published: 2021-08-20T07:00:00+00:00

23

The Valley

Russell County, Virginia

For several days, Conor and Barb did nothing but conduct surveillance on the folks in the valley. They became convinced pretty quickly that Jim Powell was alive and well after locating a man matching his description moving around his property. At the highest magnification their spotting scopes allowed, his appearance matched the grainy security camera image taken at the flooded power plant. It wasn't definitive though. Once Conor had a better overall picture of the rhythm of this community, he intended to get closer and get a positive visual confirmation. Only then would he reach out to Browning and take this to the next level.

He and Barb began their data collection with each of them focusing their spotting scope on a particular house and trying to build a census of who lived there. In cases where they knew the name of the family, they assigned them numbers, such as Bird One, Bird Two, and Bird Three, until each resident of the home had a designation.

For homes where they had no information on the surname of the family they assigned them a random code name, such as Brick House, with each resident of the home then assigned a name like Brick House One, Brick House Two, and so on. It was tricky work. Some of the residents of the homes looked alike. If a resident changed clothes midday it might take a little while for Conor or Barb to determine if they were looking at a new person or someone to whom they'd already assigned a number.

Conor insisted on monitoring Jim Powell's house himself since he was their primary target. Barb started with the large extended family in the brick house at the extreme eastern end of the valley since the notes indicated they were positively allied with the Powell family. They were the group designated as Brick House and the number of children they had made this a difficult group to monitor. Barb had a constant profane monologue running as she tried to keep track of who was who.

With fewer occupants in the home he was focused on, Conor had an easier go of it. He figured out there was a core family of three living in the home—Jim Powell, his wife, and a daughter. There was an elderly couple living in the home with them, which he assumed to be the parents of either Jim Powell or his wife. The older couple didn't carry weapons and were more involved in the gardening and food preservation efforts of the family.

The family had frequent visitors, which helped Conor document the relationships between homes. This could be a critical factor if things got ugly. It would help Conor and Barb figure out which groups might come to Jim Powell's aid if he needed help.

The most frequent visitors were two young men who lived together in the house closest to the Wimmers. This was the house marked as originally belonging to someone named Buddy Baisden, now occupied by a man named Lloyd.

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