Chapter 21

 

The moment Mike heard Carey screaming for help from the work camp guards, he and Gavin both froze in astonishment. It was an instinctive response to the shock of Carey’s betrayal. Fortunately, Jaz wasn’t similarly affected. By the time he and Gavin had gotten to their feet—with bright lights blinding them and loud speakers ordering them to drop their weapons—the gypsy girl had melted away into the verge of the woods behind them.

Thank God for that.

Although impossible to believe, it was as if the camp security had been expecting them. Or perhaps they’d just trained and retrained so long that when the alarm finally came in the form of a suspected assault from the front they were ready. Within moments of standing with their hands in the air and their weapons at their feet, Mike and Gavin were jerked from the bushes and herded down the starkly illuminated road that led into the camp.

“Let me do the talking,” Mike said to Gavin out of the corner of his mouth.

“No talking!” the burly guard behind Mike shouted, raising the butt of his rifle in ready threat.

Ahead, Carey stood outside the guard hut with his hands raised too. A soldier held him at gunpoint while another talked on a phone. Suddenly the man on the phone hung up and barked to the soldier.

“Yer to take ‘em to the Sergeant. This one too,” he said nodding at Carey.

“But I’m with the New Black and Tan!” Carey said. The soldier with the rifle twisted it around and smashed Carey in the jaw with the stock. Carey staggered and flailed with his arms to keep from falling. The soldier grabbed Carey by the arm and pulled him back to his feet before pushing him toward the interior of the camp.

Mike felt the hard nudge of a rifle’s muzzle in the small of his back. Plenty of time inside for talking. Best to talk to the head guy anyway. He heard the gate thump shut behind them as they passed through and a shiver of anxiety trembled across his shoulders.

There was no reason to believe they would be allowed out of this place, no matter who he talked to. The thought lit up a budding panic smoldering in his gut. He glanced at Gavin but the lad’s face gave nothing away. Mike prayed Gav wouldn’t allow himself to be provoked. They were outnumbered and overpowered.

The work camp wasn’t much bigger than Ameriland in size. Instead of arranging the huts and cottages around the center in a circle as they had in Ameriland, the area was cleaved down the middle by a wide dirt roadway and a line of pre-fab huts arranged in the shape of a horseshoe. The open section led to the front gate. The back section was another row of windowless buildings made of corrugated metal. There was a watchtower every thirty feet along the fence which was topped with thick coils of barbed wire. The rifles of the guards in each tower were clearly visible.

The soldiers led them through the front door of the first building behind the guard house on the right side of the street. Inside they found themselves in a large room with a metal desk and a chair in the middle of it. The only thing on the desk was a sign that said Sergeant Major McKenna.

The soldiers ordered the three of them to stand in front of the desk while another secured Mike’s hands with handcuffs. He was tempted to speak then—but something about the air in the room told him the interview would be over before it started if he tried. Gavin stood to his left and Carey to his right. Both were cuffed. Both silent. At least for now.

From the hallway, Mike heard the sound of a toilet flushing—a sound he hadn’t heard in four years. Working toilets had been one of the first things to go after the bomb dropped.

“So what do we have here, eh?” A door opened down the hall and the big man they’d seen in the truck strolled into the room, hiking up his pants. His face was twisted into a sneer.

“Found ‘em trying to sneak in, Sergeant,” one of the soldiers said.

“That’s not true!” Carey said. He flinched in anticipation of being struck. “They are my prisoners,” Carey said to the sergeant.

“Well, that’s just not fecking believable,” McKenna said with seeming good humor. “So yer a fecking liar on top of being a trespasser, eh boyo?”

“No, sir, I—”

One of the soldiers stepped forward and drove a fist into Carey’s stomach, bringing him down hard to his knees. Carey gasped and clawed at the floor in agony as he fought for his breath.

“Ye see, me boyo,” McKenna said, “it’s likely you wouldn’t know but ye don’t call a Sergeant Major ‘sir.’ It makes ‘em feel like you think they’re a fecking officer and that’s an insult not many would endure.”

McKenna looked at Mike. “I’ll be guessing you’re the leader of this merry pack of morons. Not that it matters, but could ye tell me what ye were doing out there?”

Mike shrugged. “Just curious,” he said.

A moment passed between them as McKenna weighed Mike’s response. Finally, he spoke.

“We run a work operation here that’s essential to the security of our country. If you do what I tell ye, ye’ll eat fine and ye’ll get regular visits from the camp hoors. If ye don’t…if ye try to leave or do anything that I would call trouble-making, you’ll be killed. We don’t do things half way and I don’t give second chances, so don’t test me. Put them in F building and mind the guards know—anyone tries to come out, shoot first.”

McKenna sat at his desk and picked up a cell phone to indicate the conversation was over. The soldiers led Mike, Gavin and Carey out the front door. Outside, the night sky was dark blue around a bright full moon. Mike wondered if Jaz was still near. Knowing her, she was probably up a tree watching everything.

The facing rows of metal buildings looked dark and menacing. There were ten buildings all total in the camp. Each had only one door with two guards watching it. Even if by some miracle, a man managed to get one of the doors open and incapacitate the guards standing there, he would be seen by all the other guards along the single camp roadway. Not to mention the guard tower search beams which careened across the camp interior in a constant pattern of intersecting lights.

We’re just going to have to do this job from the inside, Mike thought. That’s all. At least he and Gavin would be able to talk once inside. He heard sniffling from behind him and imagined it was Carey attempting not to open his stupid mouth again.

They stopped at the door of the last building on the left. The soldier nodded to the two guards at the door and they opened it. As soon as he did, a strong wave of putrid odor, redolent of feces and unwashed skin poured out. Mike held up his handcuffed hands to one of the soldiers in query.

“Can we lose these?” he asked.

“Nah, Squire,” the soldier said. “Ye can live with ‘em for a few days ’til yer good and comfortable here.” He nodded at the interior to indicate Mike should go in.

There was nothing for it. Even if he could disarm the guard—and he had no doubt he could—what then? He and Gavin would have to take down the three soldiers and the two guards and do it in front of the eighteen other guards. Mike dropped his hands and walked across the threshold, tightening his gut as the smells assaulted him like a physical attack.

Gavin and Carey followed him in as the door slammed shut. In the pitch darkness, it was impossible to tell how many other men were there—at least a couple dozen.

“Da?” Gavin said quietly.

Mike reached up with his cuffed hands to touch Gavin’s forearm. “It’s all right, lad,” Mike whispered, hoping his voice sounded more confident than he felt. The stench was overwhelming. Something slimy slid under his boot.

“Who’s in here?” he said, keeping his voice firm but nonaggressive.

At first no one answered and then he heard a shuffling movement off to his right.

“Jaysus, Mike,” a familiar voice said in a ragged whisper. “Is it really you?”