It was midnight. Jake opened the door of his room and peered out. The guard Sidoron had stationed outside the guest quarters was snoring.
Jake tiptoed past him and out the side door. The searchlight from the tower was sweeping the grounds. He flattened himself against the wall until the light moved away.
The instant it was gone he darted across to the main building and slipped inside. Cody had told him that Sidoron would be holding him either in one of the cages or in the interrogation room.
Jake crept down the long corridor and pushed the door open. Cody was still hanging from the ceiling. His back was raw and bloody and he was either unconscious … or dead.
The major grabbed the nearest chair and stood on it to cut the rope. Cody fell into his arms.
“I knew this was a bad idea. Why did I ever listen to you?” He helped Cody sit up. “Wake up, kid. You gotta be okay.”
One eye opened and then the other. Cody’s voice was low, strained. “What makes you think I’m not okay, Major?”
“You’re all right?”
Cody flexed his sore shoulders and rubbed his aching wrists. “It’s a trick I learned from Toni. Let them beat on you a while. Then make them think you’re a lot worse off than you are and they’ll leave you alone. They thought I was so bad off they didn’t even leave a guard.”
“Your back looks pretty rough. Are you going to be able to pull off your part of the mission?”
“I didn’t come this far to quit now.”
Jake handed Cody his laser gun. “Let’s do it.”
Cody led the way down the hall to the back of the building. “The cages are back here,” he whispered. “The moon’s out. We should be able to see fairly well.”
They quietly made their way down the steps to the group of cells buried in the ground. Cody checked the first one. It was empty. A low moan came from the cell on the end.
“Trisha,” Jake called softly. “Are you here?”
Cody took his piece of wire from inside his boot, scooted to the other side and picked the lock on the cage door.
At the bottom of the filthy hole huddled in the corner was a mass of tangled red hair.
“Trisha.” Jake jumped down. “We’ve come to take you out of here.”
The hair moved and Trisha looked up. She was barely recognizable. Her face was swollen and purple and some of her teeth were missing. “Is it … really you or am I dreaming?”
“It’s me. We have to hurry. Give Cody your hand.”
Trisha tried to stand and fell back against the cell wall.
“They’ve beat her up bad, Cody. I’m going to lift her out.”
Jake sat her on the edge of the hole and pulled himself out beside her. “I’ve got some explosives to set. You go with Cody and he’ll get you to safety. Can you do it?”
Trisha nodded, her voice hardly audible. “I guess I have to.”
Jake disappeared into the darkness and Cody helped Trisha to her feet. They hobbled to the bushes near the next building and waited for the searchlight to sweep across.
“We’re going to have to move fast now, Trisha. Ready?”
“I’m ready.”
Cody put his arm around her waist and half pulled her across the open compound to the back of the children’s barracks. He was breathing hard. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Sliding under the barracks, he made his way to the opening in the floor he’d made when he was an inmate. He pushed up on it, laid it aside and wriggled through, surprised no one had ever found the hole.
In the dim light he walked down the row of beds to one special cot and sat down. Gently he shook the sleepy-eyed five-year-old girl awake.
“Cody!” She wrapped her arms around him. “Oh, Cody. You said you’d come back for me. It’s been so long I thought you forgot me.”
There was a stir among the other kids. Soon everyone was awake. When they saw Cody they rushed to his side.
He held his finger to his lips. “Everybody listen. We’re getting out of here. I want you to stay together and do what I tell you. No questions.”
Cody took them to the opening and dropped through. One by one they followed him. He edged out from under the barracks and sat next to Trisha. “Keep an eye on these guys, will you? If the shooting starts before I get back, head for the fence. Matt and Nick should have it cut by now.”
The next barracks would be harder. Cody wasn’t sure if any of the adults would remember him. He waited for the light to fade away and then slipped through the door. At the first cot he came to, he put his hand on the sleeping man’s shoulder and shook him.
“What?” The man sat up. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I’m … the White Fox. I’ve come to help you escape. Wake up the rest of the men and hide under the building. Send someone to spread the word to the other barracks. When the shooting starts, everybody head for the east fence as fast as you can. There’ll be someone waiting there to meet you and help get you out.”
“Cody.” An older man who used to peel potatoes when Cody worked in the kitchen sat up on his cot. “It’s good to see you, son. You’re quite a hero around here.”
“Good to see you too, Herman. Now get everybody up and hurry. Time’s running out.”
Cody cracked the door to check the location of the searchlight and then quickly dove underneath the barracks.
What he intended to do next he had deliberately withheld from Jake. Their plan had been for Jake to set the necessary explosives and meet Cody along with the inmates at the east fence, where Nick and Matt would be waiting and watching.
Cody had known all along that it couldn’t end like that. He still had one piece of unfinished business—Sidoron.
The open compound was the most dangerous place to be and Cody had to time his move perfectly. The instant the light moved in a different direction he ran full blast toward the main building and slid to a stop, hiding in the shadows.
Sidoron’s private quarters were next to his office. Cody knew them well because he had delivered the colonel’s meals there every day for more than a year.
He opened the door and silently crept in. The guard was asleep in a chair outside the office. Cody stole up beside him and landed a brutal karate chop on the side of his neck. The guard slumped over and fell to the floor.
The office door was locked. Cody had known it would be. He took his piece of wire, jiggled it inside the keyhole and turned the knob.
It was dark in the office and Cody stumbled over a chair, sending it crashing across the room.
“Behren, is that you?”
Cody leaped to his feet and burst into Sidoron’s bedroom with his laser gun leveled in front of him.
“Surprise, Colonel.”
Sidoron hastily pulled the black sleeping mask off his face. “White Fox! How did you—”
“Keep your voice down, Colonel. We don’t want to wake anybody.”
“You’ll never get away with this.”
“Away with what, Colonel? What do you think I should do with you? Maybe you’d like to try a little of the rubber hose treatment, or we could go get the whip your goons used on me. I know, maybe I’ll take my knife and skin you alive.”
“Don’t be too hasty, White Fox. I’m a powerful man. I have the ability to make you rich.”
“Really? How much is your murdering scumbag life worth these days, Sidoron? A hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand?”
“Whatever you want. Just name it.”
“I want my friend Luther Swift back from the dead and all the others you tortured and killed.” Cody gestured with the laser gun. “Get out of bed.”
Sidoron threw back the covers and stood on the wooden floor in a long white nightshirt, his feet bare.
Cody backed up and set his gun on the floor. “How tough are you when you have to do your own fighting, Sidoron?”
“You will find I am tough enough. You are a fool, White Fox.” Sidoron lunged at him. Cody ducked, brought his right leg up and landed a solid kick to the man’s jaw. The colonel staggered backward, regained his balance and swung, hitting Cody in the shoulder.
Before Sidoron could swing again, Cody hit him twice in the stomach, jumped and smashed his feet into the man’s chest.
The colonel wobbled and gasped for breath.
“You’re nothing, Sidoron. I could easily kill you with my bare hands.” Cody picked up his gun in disgust. “Instead I think I’ll do worse. I’m going to humiliate you to the point that you’ll be lucky if the CCR will allow you to dig ditches for them. Let’s go for a little walk.”
An explosion rocked the building. Cody poked Sidoron in the ribs with his gun. “Don’t worry about a thing, Colonel. That’s just the sound of your kingdom crashing down around you. The guard towers probably aren’t there anymore.”
He pushed the portly man down the hall to the back door. Sidoron turned and pleaded, “You don’t have to do this, White Fox. Think about it. I could set you up in the black market. We could be partners. There is no limit to what we could make together.”
Cody laughed, a low chuckle with no humor in it. “I’d rather be partners with a rattlesnake. Open the door.”
Outside they could hear machine-gun fire and more explosions. Cody ignored them.
“Get in the cage, Colonel. The one on the end. You’ll find it open.”
Sidoron crawled down into the same hole they had found Trisha in earlier. Cody secured the iron grate on top and locked it. “Now hand up your clothes.”
“This is an outrage.”
“Do it or you’re dead.”
The white nightshirt found its way through the iron bars. Just as Cody pulled it out a burst of machine-gun fire came at him from somewhere near the kitchen area. He felt a jolt of something red-hot hit him in the side and he fell to the ground.
Without aiming, he pulled the trigger on the laser gun and destroyed the kitchen.
He forced himself to a sitting position and crawled under a nearby truck. The compound was in chaos. The soldiers who were still alive were running everywhere, trying to escape the intermittent explosions. Jake had set at least one plastic explosive under every building in the camp except for the prisoners’ barracks.
Cody wondered about the prisoners. He hoped Toni had seen the first explosion and flown in to rescue them.
Before he blacked out Cody had one last thought. It was, oddly enough, about Rachel. It would have been nice to see her again. She was a good friend.