----------------------------------------
A different, slightly older model of limo arrived at the shuttle before sunset. The leathery, dustier lounge was empty, save for their mysterious benefactor. A different driver, nametag listed him as Emilio despite being blonde and Slavic, staffed the helm. A man in a suit and aviators with no other identifying information was likewise occupying shotgun.
“Bring everything you’ll need for three days,” the woman said.
Again, their benefactor wore slightly more casual business attire. She would not look out of place in a board room, save for her shoes. Instead of heels, she wore hefty hiking boots.
With no dignified way to hitch a trailer to a limousine, the crew wound up stuffing their baggage in the limo itself. The trunk and lounge were full-up. Germaine sat in the back with his knees in his chest.
“Not how I’d prefer to travel long distances.” Germaine peeked into a hollow space in his armrest, where a hidden stash of pretzels was located during their last meeting. “Barren. Of course. Please tell me the target’s at least in state.”
“Sixty miles due west.” Dan said, readjusting their luggage in search of an atlas.
A bridge crossed over to mainland Florida. From there, the driver turned due north in search of a road that would allow them passage further inland.
“Last time I was down here, they’d just built a highway cutting across to Orlando,” Soto said.
That highway had been left to decay almost immediately. Miles of endless swamp was reasserting itself in the interior. A sixty-mile journey inland, once doable in an hour, became an all-day affair.
Progress was steady but slow. A more promising route on elevated highways sat due west of Titusville. Road cones and rusted-over maintenance equipment sat abandoned by the turn-off.
Dan saw fit to bring a paper atlas, which he had turned over eight-fold, hyper-focused on this narrowest sliver of the state.
“There’s a reason this route is avoided,” he said.
Their trip from Alabama had stuck to the interstates. I-10 over to Jacksonville, then I-95 down. Traveling on larger roads minimized the threat of banditry, both by highwaymen and local sheriffs.
“Wasn’t there some kind of militia in town?” Soto asked.
“Worry not,” said the driver with a particularly Russian drawl. “Brought insurance.”
Insurance, oh, good. Good!
“Guys, they have insurance.” Germaine grinned, wide-eyed. “Yippie. Won’t stop us from getting detained in an outhouse for six weeks. At least the limo’s insured.”
Their chauffeurs did not respond.
The limo continued onward as fast as the two-lane highway would allow. Notably, while they had fellow travelers on their end, the route towards the coast was deserted.
----------------------------------------
An hour passed.
Christmas, Florida. Population, 897 according to the sign. The actual population was indeterminate, owing to two decades of shoddy census work.
A wide and flat parking lot along the roadside served a past life a rest area. Now reappropriated as a border checkpoint, a line had formed going westbound.
“Looks like these guys have been here a while.” Germaine nodded towards the closer of three lines. “Green truck passed us on the road.”
The limo parked well ahead of the checkpoint. Their escort in the passenger’s seat exited the vehicle and walked around back.
“Will be no problem. Have emergency insurance plan,” the driver assured them.
Germaine peered up into the driver’s compartment. The dashboard was open, revealing a hefty manual atop an envelope filled with documents. Draped over all this was a folded-over booklet of flypaper holding assorted bumper stickers.
“You guys acclimatizing well?” Germaine asked the driver. “It’s a scorcher out there. Far cry from, I dunno, Moscow.”
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
The driver smiled through the rearview mirror. “Vladivostok, actually. Victor is from Sevastopol. Both nice this time of year. December, not so much.”
The copilot returned, performing a spot-check on their port side before circling around back to the side door.
“We have insurance,” he said again.
“I’m sorry, what is your role in all this?” Dan asked.
“Lawyer,” the man sitting shotgun said.
“They have lawyers in Russia?” Germaine asked, with a skeptical squint.
----------------------------------------
The limo inched forward, a tad faster than idle, until they joined the line.
A gaggle of men armed with hunting rifles and the occasional AK stalked amongst the cars, staring down drivers. They wore garden-variety hunting camo alongside simple farm slacks, overalls, and (rarely) paramilitary vests. A chief of sorts wore a foreign import ghillie draped around his shoulders. Indeed, the presence of actual tactical equipment on any given militiaman’s uniform served as an indicator of rank. Like how Napoleonic-era general’s uniforms made ideal sniper targets.
The driver cranked his window downwards in advance. A younger man, maybe nineteen, approached the limo.
“Mighty fine car you’ve got there. State your business.”
Accent placed the checkpoint chief as Appalachian. Could have come from a holler or two over from Germaine’s hometown. Indeed, roadside shakedowns were quite common off the major interstates.
The driver and his lawyer nodded in unison. To Soto’s surprise and Germaine’s amusement, the pair put on generic, fakey accents that wouldn’t be out of place in Ohio.
“Good day. We are a fine American tour company. Tourists have viewed the Canaveral Cosmodrome. Journey to see famed tourist attraction World of Tomorrow.”
Germaine and Soto guffawed loudly, in the back seats. Even Dan stifled a chuckle.
The sentry leaned into the open window. “Those sound like Yankee accents to me.”
The driver nodded with an even more-exaggerated tilt. “Yes, we are Yankees. Very American. Ohio. Look at back.”
Impatient, Germaine inched his own window down just enough to speak out of. Hopefully the Kentucky-fried accent would help lend their “tour group” some credulity.
“Hey, what’s the hold up?”
“We’re looking for hostile foreign elements.” Their militia handler pointed to the other lines. “Caught us some New Yorkers over yonder.”
“Yeah!” Interrupted another, excitable militia onlooker. “Foreigners caught transporting women across state lines for… immoral deeds.”
The militiaman said this with a tenor that implied they were quite excited imagining what these immoral deeds could be, even as they purged it branch and root.
An unassuming sedan sat parked behind an ammo dump. Squads of militia-types were tearing it apart for scrap. It would make a bad technical, but the engine could serve a more suitable chassis. The accused New Yorkers were nowhere to be found.
Murmurs of confusion ran through the limo.
“Anyone check the news before we left?” Soto asked.
Dan shrugged. “Not since last week. Chances of a secessionist movement popping up in the last few days seems… unlikely.”
“Hope not. Didn’t bring my passport,” Soto said.
“Well, I ain’t got a passport.” Germaine said, then turned to the window again.
“How long are we going to be in this line?”
“Thereabouts five hours. On the lookout for subversive material.” The militiaman scanned the limo front to back. “Boss wants to appropriate troop transports. This here’ll make a hell’uva a war wagon."
“Tell them to look at back,” the driver said.
“Dude, just look at the trunk.” Germaine did an unsubtle nudge towards the back of the car.
A gaggle of three or four militia types walked around back. Hooting and hollering ensued alongside a crackling of gunfire aimed wildly into the air.
“Oh, are they shooting at us?” Soto said with a groan.
“No worries,” said the driver. “Celebratory.”
The self-proclaimed border patrol returned to the driver-side window, still firing their AKs into the air.
“Say no more, brother! Head right on through.”
The limousine bucked under over six hundred pounds of new weight.
“Just let these boys ride along with you.”
Three, four, no, five hangers-on were sitting on the trunk clinging to the roof near the back doors. They had also rigged a trailer hitch to the back, with which they hauled gun racks with yet more militia passengers.
The younger militiaman waved them through, and the limousine continued onward. They advanced at a snail’s pace, careful not to buck off their new cargo.
----------------------------------------
Progress continued at a glacial pace now that they had new and exciting sources of deadweight. The driver got up to about ten miles per hour. A great hooting came from outside.
Dan rolled the window down. “Are we going too fast?”
“No. Hit the gas! Woo!”
The passengers had long since run out of spare ammo to fire into the air. They had celebratory ammo rations, separate from those meant for other, yet-unseen purposes.
Without further debate, the driver accelerated to fifteen, then twenty miles per hour with no complaints.
Their new passengers were not immune to a need for bathroom breaks. Every few hours they had to stop.
“Might as well stretch our legs,” Germaine declared at stop number four.
Soto and Dan followed suit. Their driver took the opportunity to haggle for gas.
For Germaine’s part, he mostly wanted to see what magic hall pass the Russians had slapped on the limo to win the militia nut’s favor so easily.
Germaine did so, maneuvering around the labyrinthine series of ropes and wiring fusing the gun carriage to the back of a car never meant for long-hauls. There, fused to the bumper, was a two inch by four-inch sticker of the stars and bars.
“Huh. Feels like I’m back in the ‘holler.” Germaine muttered to himself, then shuffled back into the limo.
Not long after they got rolling their new passengers wanted another stop. This time, they pulled up to the remnants of a giant wooden alligator. The militia ran up in front of the plywood monstrosity, and even roped the limo’s “lawyer” into taking a group photo.
Germaine rolled his window down.
“Hey, where exactly is it you all are going?” Germaine asked the nearest militia.
The younger militiaman turned around, nostrils flaring. When he opened his mouth, an excited war cry came out.
Ah, we're in good hands. Clearly. Good. Good!
Germaine rolled the window up, faster this time. “Okay, no asking questions.”
----------------------------------------