Before I knew it, I woke up to Sarge beating on the side of the cabin. It was like some bad déjà vu.
“I’m up, I’m up! Knock it off.”
“Hurry up.”
Taylor sat up rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Is it time?”
“Yeah, get dressed.”
Mel stirred but didn’t wake, so I left her alone as I got dressed and put on all the hardware by the light of a flashlight. Once we were dressed, I handed Taylor a camo shirt. “Put this on.”
I picked up my rifle and handed Taylor hers along with a small shoulder bag of magazines. Kneeling down beside Mel, I kissed her head and said I’d be back.
“You better, and take care of Taylor too.”
“I will. It’ll be all right.”
“Love you, Mom,” Taylor said.
The guys were waiting at the buggies. Sarge looked at Taylor when we walked up, and I braced myself for what I was sure to be some interesting verbal abuse. To my surprise, he didn’t bat an eye.
“I got coffee. Want some?” Sarge asked.
“Sure, why not,” I said.
“Me too, please,” Taylor said.
Sarge looked at her. “You drink coffee?”
Taylor nodded and I said, “Like a bubblehead.”
“What’s a bubblehead?”
Sarge handed her a cup. “They’re crazy people that go under the ocean in big black coffins.”
She didn’t get it.
“Submariners. Sailors on submarines.”
“Oh,” she said as she took a sip of the coffee, then immediately spit it out. “Ugh, what is that?”
“Coffee,” Sarge replied.
“Where’s the sugar and creamer?”
“Sugar and creamer? Where do you think you are? Starbucks?”
“Oh, I can’t drink this,” she said and went to pour it out.
Sarge grabbed the cup. “Hey, little lady. Don’t pour it out; there’s precious little of this stuff.”
“That’s just nasty! I don’t know how you drink it.”
“It’s an acquired taste,” Ted said, taking a sip of his.
“Saddle up, everyone! Morgan, you’ll drive my buggy.” I got in and Sarge handed me a pair of night-vision goggles. “Here, no lights.”
The route we were taking was way out in the forest, in a rather remote area. The roads through the Ocala National Forest consist almost entirely of deep sugar sand, which is very fine and, unfortunately, means it is easy to get stuck. The other kind of roads were mud holes—which are exactly what they sound like. Today, we would take both to ensure the safest route.
We drove in silence, mostly. We did have a moment of levity, though. At one particular muddy crossing, I had to gun the engine a bit, and the tires threw mud all over Taylor. She took it like a champ, though, and didn’t complain, laughing as she wiped some of the splatter from her face. It even got the old man chuckling a bit.
After about thirty minutes of driving through the forest, we approached the lake from the south side. Heading west, I drove slowly—at this point, we were closer to the camp than ever, and I wanted to be aware of our surroundings, since the sun was already coming up. It was coming on five thirty when I caught the first glimpse of the antenna and pointed it out to Sarge.
“Let’s see if we can get close enough to put this mast up and take a look with the camera.”
I started easing closer while Sarge looked for a place where we’d have a shot at seeing the site. He told me to stop and pulled the small camera console up in front of him. The hydraulic pump that raised it sounded loud enough to wake the dead. I leaned in through the driver’s side to check out the camera. It was set to thermal and we could see the antenna and the small building under it. Sarge panned the camera back and forth. The only thing we saw was a lonely armadillo rooting around in the woods beside the building.
“All right, Mike, you and Doc stay here, keep an eye on this and let me know when they show up. They’ll probably be in a Blazer. Ted, you and Morgan come with me.” Sarge handed out the small radios to each of us.
“What about me?” Taylor asked.
“You stay here. Don’t wander off, just stay with the buggies,” I said.
A small road ran in front of the antenna. At a small bend in it, Ted dipped off into the bush, about fifty yards from the site where Sarge told me to find some cover.
“Stay in there. I’ll go out first, and if it’s clear I’ll wave to you.”
“All right,” I said as I walked off into the scrub.
“Keep your eyes open.”
I gave him a thumbs-up and moved as quietly as I could through the tangle of brush, until I found a large log lying on the ground with a palmetto in front of it. I lay down on my stomach and took a camo face mask out of my vest and pulled it over my head.
We had a long time to wait, the sort of thing that takes patience, something I don’t have. As the sky lightened, I was able to see more around me. I soon got bored and started poking ants on the log with a stick. Every minute or two, I would look up. My ears were always listening for the telltale snapping of a twig or brushing sound of someone walking through the palmettos, but in this case, silence was the sound track to this leg of our adventure.
Once the sun was up, I heard Sarge’s voice in the little earpiece. “Everyone good?”
Mike immediately replied that there was no movement by them. I keyed my mic and told him I was 10-4. Then it was silent again. Eventually, I had to roll over on my back and stretch my shoulders and back by doing small crunches. I was not made to lie prone like this for so long. I don’t know how those snipers do it. Noon was a long ways away.
During one of Sarge’s radio checks I asked Mike about Taylor. He said she was sleeping in the backseat of the buggy. I smiled. That kid could sleep anywhere. Not long after that call, Mike came back over the radio.
“We’ve got a truck inbound with two outriders on ATVs.”
“Roger that, let me know what they do,” Sarge replied.
After several minutes he came back on the radio. “They’ve stopped. Looks like the ATVs are going to provide security. They’re moving, you should see them any second now.”
“Roger that.” There was a pause. “I got ’em.”
The old K5 Blazer pulled right up to the building and stopped. Four men got out. One went to the back and opened the rear gate, letting a fifth man out.
“I got eyes on five bodies,” Sarge said.
“Roger, I count five,” Ted replied.
“I’ve got five,” Mike said.
I pulled my binoculars from my pack so I could get a good look at them. One of them looked familiar, but it was really his rifle that jogged my memory. I keyed my radio. “Sarge, the guy with the scoped long gun is the survivor from the helo attack.”
“Roger that. You stay put, I’m coming out.”
I couldn’t see Sarge until he started down the trail. The men didn’t see him right away; he walked a good twenty yards before one of them pointed him out. While they had their weapons in their hands, they didn’t make aggressive movements, which was a relief. I kept the binoculars on them regardless, carefully looking each man over.
The fifth guy, the one that got out of the back, had caught my attention. He was bandaged in several places, with one arm in a sling. He also wasn’t dressed like the rest of them. The other four men were all wearing woodland BDU military uniforms. He was wearing what looked like a uniform, but more like what the Department of Corrections would issue. This, and the fact that he wasn’t armed, really made him stand out from the pack.
One of them, Calvin, waved and started to walk toward Sarge. They met in the road and spoke for a moment, Calvin gesturing back to the bandaged man leaning on the truck. After a minute or two of talking, Sarge keyed his radio. “Come on out, Morgan.”
I was more than happy to oblige and quickly got up, only to find out I was so stiff I could hardly walk. Holy hell, I’m getting too old for this shit. It didn’t help to realize that Sarge’s old ass had lain there just as long as I had, so I sucked it up and made my way out of the scrub as fast as I could.
“Hey, Calvin,” I said with a nod.
“Morgan,” he replied.
“You boys come on up here. I think you’ll want to meet the feller we brought.”
As we walked to the truck, I saw a familiar face.
“Hey, Daniel,” I said, eliciting some strange looks from the others. “Morgan. Remember, we met out on the river. You guys found me sleeping under a tree.”
“Oh yeah, I remember you! Did you ever make it home?”
“Yeah, I made it. How’ve things been for you guys?”
“It was rough, you know. But things are getting a little better.” He paused for a moment. “It’s good you made it. I wondered about you. This here is Omar,” Calvin said. “He escaped from the camp.”
That got Sarge’s attention.
“We found him out in the woods. He was pretty shot up, but we nursed him back to health.”
“How’d you get out?” Sarge asked.
“They were going to transfer us. Me and a couple of others stole the bus and tried to get away.”
“What happened?”
“We didn’t get far, they chased us and shot the bus all to hell. Everyone tried to run. Most were gunned down in the road. I got to the woods and hid, they searched and I was sure they were going to find me but they didn’t. I saw some shit, though. They caught a bunch of people, lined them up and shot them right there in the woods.”
“Just executed them?” I asked.
“Shot them down like dogs.”
“What do you mean they were going to transfer you? Transfer to where?” Sarge asked.
“They have, what’s the word they use, pacified parts of some cities. They’re moving people into them. They assign you a place to live and give you a job. That’s why they are trying to bring people into the camps. Once you’re in you can’t get out until they ‘resettle’ you, as they call it.”
“How long were you in the camp?”
“About a month.”
Sarge rubbed his chin. “You know the layout?”
“Yeah, real good. My job was on the trash detail, so I’ve been in every tent and building there. Well, almost all of them.”
“Almost?” Sarge asked.
“There’s a section where they take people who they deem a threat or who violate the rules. I never went in there.”
“Could you draw me a map of the place?”
Calvin reached into the Blazer and pulled a piece of folded paper off the dash. “Here, I thought you would want one, so we sat down with him and drew it up.”
Sarge unfolded the map, looking at it. “To scale, even.”
“Those distances are pretty accurate. I’m a surveyor; I know distance,” Omar added.
“I appreciate this—it’s really going to help us out,” Sarge said.
“No problem, anything I can do to help. They treat everyone like damn prisoners in there. It’s a bad place.”
“I had a feeling you might be up to something around here. When it kicks off, if you need any help just let us know,” Calvin said.
“I’ll certainly keep that in mind.” Sarge stuck his hand out to Calvin. “Thanks for the info.”
They shook hands, and we started back toward the buggies. Behind us, I heard the Blazer start up and drive off.
“You think it’s legit?” I asked.
Sarge looked at the map. “Sure seems so to me.”