Chapter 18

 

Mike stood beside the Jeep and gazed down at the city of Dublin before him. Just a few months before, he’d driven here with Sarah and stood at this exact spot when they set out to find their lost lads. At the time, he’d marveled that there was nothing moving on the streets of the once vibrant city. Today, expecting to again see no activity below, he was astonished to see a long line of trucks snaking their way through the heart of the city.

“Where are they all going?” Gavin asked as he leaned out his window. He’d sat in the back with Carey for the three hour drive to Dublin. Jaz had slipped off into the bushes to relieve herself.

“I have no idea,” Mike said. He glanced at Carey and raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Carey said. “They are going in the opposite direction of the work camp.”

“Perhaps they have nothing to do with the work camp,” Mike said. “Maybe they’re something else entirely.”

“I bet they’re heading to the mines,” Carey said. “Either dropping off men or picking up ore.”

Mike glanced up at the sun which had fallen quickly since they’d left the M8. He reckoned they didn’t have much more than a couple of hours of daylight left. That suited him just fine. The real problem was that the Jeep was almost out of gas. Although he was happy to drive it until it stopped, he’d prefer to choose the moment when they had to abandon it.

“How much further to the work camp?” he asked.

Carey cleared his throat. “It’s on the edge of town. About thirty minutes once we’re inside the perimeter.”

Jaz returned from the bushes and sat back in the front passenger seat.

“Anybody else?” Mike asked, but the two in the back shook their heads. “Right.” He slipped back into the driver’s seat. “Let’s get ‘em back.”

The plan was simple. With Carey’s help, they’d find their way to the work camp, then do a circuit of it and meet back up. Once they knew the lay of the land, they’d find a way to go in on foot. It hadn’t taken long to convince Carey he was better off on their side.

Anyone could tell the lad had made some poor choices in the last few years—but then Carey had had little help in deciding the right thing to do. All of them had done things they weren’t proud of in the years since the bomb dropped. The lad’s willingness to help them recover their men went a long way toward redeeming him in Mike’s eyes.

They drove silently into town. Mike was aware that the insignia on the side of the Jeep announced them to any of Dublin’s citizen who saw them. To hear Carey describe it, the New Black and Tan was a rogue militia band of opportunists and sadists. No wonder they didn’t see anybody on the streets as they drove down the main streets.

“What kind of mine is it they force them to work at?” Jaz asked. “Diamonds?”

“You wish!” Carey said with a laugh. “Nah, it’s something to do with batteries or the like. Jimmy said the government sells it to other countries seeing as how we don’t need it.”

“That’s bollocks,” Mike said. “Ireland needs it more than the lot of them. That’s just a crooked government taking advantage of a nightmare situation.”

“What this country needs is a revolution,” Gavin said.

“Steady on, lad,” Mike said. “We’ll just get in, grab our blokes, and get out. Ye can’t change the world. Especially now.”

“What if they come back?” Gavin asked. “Have ye thought of that? I mean, they know where Ameriland is. What’s to stop them from coming back?”

“One thing at a time,” Mike said. That question had ricocheted around in his brain from the moment Carey told them why the compound men were taken. The government knew exactly where they were. And the government had shown itself not to be a friend to Ameriland.

They drove in silence until the Jeep began to lurch for lack of fuel. Mike steered it onto the side of the road and let it die.

“We’re not far now,” Carey said. “Ten minutes on foot.”

“Aye,” Mike said turning to face them. “Jaz will come with me, you two scout the perimeter. Untie him, Gav.”

Gavin cut the rope around Carey’s hands and then hopped out of the car. Before Carey got out, Mike put a hand on his knee.

“Help us get our lads back,” Mike said, “and you’ve a home with us back in Ameriland.”

Carey nodded, his eyes glistening with emotion. “Thank you. That would grand.”

Mike and Jaz got out of the Jeep and joined Carey and Gavin on the sidewalk.

“It’s a long walk home,” Jaz observed. “Especially if some of the men are hurt.”

“They won’t be,” Carey said grimly.

When Mike looked at him questioningly, Carey said, “They don’t keep ‘em if they can’t work. If they’re hurt, they…I don’t know, they just don’t keep ‘em.”

A sickening feeling roiled in Mike’s gut at Carey’s words.

 

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The entrance to the work camp looked very much like what it had once been—a small reservist base for the Irish army. A guardhouse stood to one side by a manual stop bar. The wooden walls around the camp were topped with coils of barbed wire. Mike and Jaz knelt in the bushes thirty yards from the entrance. Mike could see a soldier inside smoking and staring down at something in the booth as though reading a book. Mike knew it might also be a surveillance screen although neither he nor the lads had spotted any cameras. Even so, the army had electricity and at least some working electronics. But that assumed this was an army operation. He couldn’t see the man’s uniform and there were no markings on the gate to identify what kind of facility it was.

“There they are!” Jaz whispered loudly. Mike was frankly surprised that the guard didn’t jerk his head up at her loud attempt at covert communication. Carey and Gavin ran bent over to make themselves less obtrusive until they reached Mike and Jaz.

“Well done, lads,” Mike whispered. “Anything?”

“It’s a big bloody camp, I’ll say that,” Gavin said. “We didn’t even go all the way around.”

“Any breaches?” Mike asked. “Or obvious ways in or out?”

They both shook their heads.

“But it was dark,” Gavin said. “Maybe in the daylight…”

“We can’t wait until daylight!” Jaz said. “Carey will bring us in the front gate like we planned!”

Mike put a restraining hand on her shoulder. All afternoon her energy and impatience had been pinging off her like a hailstorm. After searching for so long she was finally close. It was all Mike could do to keep her from jumping up and running through the main gate.

“Oy!” Carey said, “a truck’s coming.”

They all squeezed further back into the edge of the woods as a large transport truck appeared on the road and rumbled toward them in the direction of the gate. Mike tried to imagine why they would be coming at this time of the night to the work camp. It was well past seven o’clock and had been dark for two full hours.

As the truck passed, Carey patted Mike on the shoulder and pointed past him.

“That’s him,” he said breathlessly. “That’s the guy we bring the men to. Captain McKenna.”

The truck slowed and then stopped outside the work camp. In the light of the streetlamp beside the guardhouse, they watched as a beefy man, a cigarette dangling from his lips, got out from the passenger seat and spoke to the guard, then got back in the truck. The guard stepped out and lifted the cross arm out of the way and the truck rolled slowly into the camp.

As the truck moved forward under the streetlight, Mike could see into the open interior at the back of the truck, where at least two dozen men sat opposite each other on benches. So stunned by what he saw, Mike didn’t even react until Carey was on his feet and running down the drive toward the camp.

“Help me!” he screamed. “I’m Liam Carey from the New Black and Tan and I’ve brought ye more workers!”