“I am telling the truth!”
“It’s just down the mountain from us. I want to refuel the vehicle and grab a bite to eat. Once we start this ball rolling, it’s hard to say when the next opportunity for a meal might come along.”
“How are we going to start the ball rolling?” Sonyea asked.
“Depends on what we find,” Robert replied. “No idea, really.”
Robert and Sonyea climbed out, leaving Jeff cuffed in the vehicle.
“I need to stretch my legs,” he whined.
“You’ll have plenty of opportunity for that later,” Robert assured him. “We’ll probably walk from here.”
“It’s that close?” Sonyea asked.
Robert nodded. “The sound of this machine will echo a pretty good distance in these valleys. I don’t want to put anyone on guard and give them any reason to be expecting something.”
They unpacked a plastic tote with food and bottled water. Sonyea set Jeff up with food and a drink, uncuffing one of his hands so he could reach his mouth. Robert checked weapons and topped off magazines. He double-checked the battery levels in flashlights, optics, and night vision, as well as making sure they each had spare batteries.
They ate foil pouches of tuna, crackers, and string cheese. While they ate, Robert separated out some food, splitting it into two stacks.
“Put that in your pack,” he told Sonyea.
“We’re taking packs?”
“I’m damn sure not leaving my pack behind,” he said. “What if this thing goes sideways and we get separated from each other? What if someone finds our gear while we’re gone? I don’t want to be stuck out here with nothing. It’s like I told Grace, the bag always goes with you, otherwise it’s useless.”
“Don’t get preachy on me, Robert Hardwick. I know what I’m doing. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”
Robert paused his hurried movements. “I’m sorry. I just get focused. I forget to be patient.”
“Clearly,” Sonyea said. “Your wife must be a saint.”
“My entire family is pretty patient with me. I’m a lucky man.”
They fell silent at the talk of family, both of them feeling incredibly distant from where they wanted to be right then, missing their loved ones terribly. If they could just wrap this up, get the congressman to pull off the compound, maybe they could all go home.
“How’s the fuel holding out?” Sonyea asked, hoping to change the subject.
“Probably a good time to fuel up.” Robert unstrapped one of the full jerry cans from the improvised cargo rack and set it off to the side of the vehicle. “I’ll take care of it once I’ve got this gear dealt with.”
“How far do we have to walk?” Sonyea asked. “It’s getting dark fast.”
Robert unfolded the map from his pocket, finding their position and squinting to see it. “It’s hard to estimate with all the switchbacks, but a mile or two, I think.”
“Then we better get on the move.”
“We have night vision devices,” Robert reminded her.
“Yeah, but Jeff doesn’t. It’s hard to do a lot of walking in them if you’re new to it. We’re going to sound like a herd of cattle coming down the mountain, stumbling all over the place. The farther we can get in natural light the better.”
“You’re right,” Robert agreed. “Let’s button this up and get on our way.”
“Where are we going to leave the Razer?”
Robert glanced around. “How about at the edge of the woods over there? I don’t think anyone will come along but you never know.”
While they were strapping on gear, Sonyea asked, “What are we going to do with the key?”
Robert hesitated. “You’re probably right. We shouldn’t leave it in the ignition.”
“I agree, but neither of us should carry it.”
“Why not?”
Sonyea looked at him matter-of-factly. “We don’t know who’s coming back and who isn’t. What if one of us dies down there? We need to leave the key so the survivor isn’t stranded if things go badly.”
It was a sobering thought but a very realistic scenario. If he got killed, she shouldn’t have to retrieve his body to be able to make her escape. “Let’s move it now and we’ll hide the key together.”
They securely stowed the food and gear totes, then climbed back in. Their own packs and plate carriers went into the back seat beside Sonyea since they couldn’t sit in the vehicle fully loaded-out. Distracted by the reminder of their own mortality, the fact that one of them could possibly die out here, neither noticed that Robert forgot to fuel the Razer, leaving one of the spare fuel cans sitting in the tall grass.
When they had the vehicle repositioned, Robert placed the key behind the rear driver side tire. He forced Jeff out of the vehicle to reduce the weight, then he and Sonyea rolled the vehicle back far enough that the key was sitting immediately beneath the tire.
“If I go down, put it in neutral and roll it forward,” Robert said. “Just tell my family…you know.”
Sonyea nodded. “I know. Same here. Tell Tom I love him.”
The fading evening light had been sufficient in the high clearing but lost most of its effectiveness as they entered the forest. The thick pines and hemlocks kept the forest cool and dark on the sunniest days. Now it shielded out nearly every bit of ambient light. They were on a national forest road, red dirt that was sporadically-maintained. Once every few years, depending on the budget, a dozer and one extremely bored equipment operator would pass through, scraping out the worst of the ruts.
They travelled at the fastest walk they could manage, taking long strides to maximize the distance covered with each step. Occasionally their momentum led to slips as small stones rolled beneath their feet. Jeff stewed and fumed behind them, towed along on a length of chain like a dog refusing to take that last pee before bedtime on a cold night. He cursed and complained, unable to use his hands to maintain his balance.
“Just drag me, will you.”
“Quit your bellyaching,” Robert said. “This could be over soon.”
“Seeing as how I don’t know what that means yet, excuse me for not feeling comforted,” Jeff shot back. “Over could mean dead.”
“He has a point,” Sonyea remarked.
Robert stopped for a moment, using the red bulb of his headlamp to examine the map. He traced a line with his finger. “There’s a hiking trail that connects straight to the campground where Jeff says they’re staying.”
“Where they are staying,” Jeff corrected.
“Where they better be staying,” Sonyea clarified.
Jeff scowled and backed away from the circle of red light, mumbling angrily. When he reached the full length of the chain it tugged against Robert, who yanked it back hard.
“Stand still,” he grumbled. “I’m trying to read this map.”
Jeff complained but did as he was told.
“Those little hiking trails are hard to catch in the dark,” Sonyea warned. “We’ll have to watch carefully.”
“I can use GPS if we have to. It’s more precise but the brightness of the display screws up your night sight.”
“Last resort,” Sonyea said.
Not long after checking the map, they had to go to night vision. They were beginning to stumble in the fading light and had lost the ability to see the road in front of them. Robert’s device was attached to a mount on a bump helmet, allowing the optic to fold down into place. Sonyea had what was referred to as a “skull crusher”, plastic headgear that ratcheted tight and held the optic in front of one eye. Regardless of which setup you had, it could be awkward and there was an adjustment period during which you could expect to make a few missteps.
Despite the awkwardness of their headgear, the optics always worked like a miracle. They turned their switches and a green glow swelled to life, bringing a clarity to the darkness that was both unnatural and amazing. It also allowed them to find the trail to the campground in short order, clear
ly marked with a primitive wooden sign that read “Cozy Creek Campground.”
Sonyea and Robert, noticing the sign around the same time, turned to the left and started down the trail. Ten feet behind them, at the end of the chain, Jeff was now stumbling along totally blind. He could see nothing and failed to sense the change in direction until the chain caught on the sign, yanking both he and Robert to a stop.
“What the…?” Jeff growled.
“We turned!” Robert hissed. “We found the trail. What are you doing?”
“How am I supposed to know that?” Jeff shot back. “I can’t see anything.”
Robert realized it was true but there was nothing he could do about it. They didn’t have another device and flashlights were out of the question. “You’re just going to have to stay closer to us until we get there. I’m going to shorten your leash. We’ll try to warn you if we come on hazards.”
“Please do,” Jeff moaned. “I don’t want to be blinded by a branch or sprain my ankle on a root.”
“I’m not concerned about your injuries,” Robert said.
“Oh, you want to carry me?” Jeff asked. “I’m no use to you if you don’t get me down this mountain in one piece so I’d advise you to take good care of me.”
Robert sighed loudly, the only sound in the vast darkness. “We’re wasting time.”
From that point, Robert took the lead, pulling Jeff along. Sonyea stayed behind Jeff, where she could see if he started to go astray. They moved along this way nearly an hour before Robert stopped. He failed to signal this change in pace and Jeff ran into him before Sonyea could stop it.
Robert mumbled and cursed.
“He can’t see you,” Sonyea reminded him. “You have to say something.”
“Shhhhh!” Robert hissed. “Listen.”
They fell silent. They heard night insects and the occasional bird. In the distance, a dog barked. Then, beneath it all, singing. Two voices singing in stark harmony over the percussive strumming of an acoustic guitar.
“Sounds like a party,” Sonyea whispered.
“Sound like your people?” Robert asked Jeff, watching his reaction in the green glow of his night vision.
“I don’t know,” Jeff said. “I only know my family. I don’t know any of the others. It might be them, it might not.”
“What’s the plan?” Sonyea asked.
“We get as close as we safely can and find a place to stop. I’ll chain Rover here to a tree with you. I’ll leave you my AR pistol and I’ll take your shotgun. I’ll try to get closer and confirm that these people are who we think they are. You provide cover in case anything goes sideways.”
“Sounds good,” Sonyea said.
“Rover?” Jeff asked. “You’re an asshole.”
Keeping his voice low, Robert said, “I hope I don’t have to remind you of our little talk earlier, Jeff. You compromise us in any way and people down there will get killed. Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“So you keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told. You don’t make any noise. In fact, you don’t say a word unless Sonyea asks you a question. Got it?”
“I got it,” Jeff said with the tone of someone resigned to an unpleasant but inescapable fate.
“Then let’s find our overwatch position. Sound carries so move slowly and use caution.”
26
Carlos regained consciousness face down in the grimy cargo bed of a side-by-side ATV. Mulch and rotting bark were embedded in his throbbing face. Some had worked its way into his mouth, creating a muddy, foul-tasting grit that he was too parched to spit out. He tried to move his arms beneath him to push over onto his back but found his arms restrained. The cutting sensation in his wrists told him it was flex-cuffs. He was screwed.
He tried to wriggle around, to use momentum to roll himself into a more comfortable position, but that attempt was quickly shut down by a boot pressing down on the small of his back. He twisted his head around and saw Brandon standing above him, clinging to the roll cage with both hands while the vehicle tore down a gravel path.
“Don’t move, traitor,” Brandon growled, his face a mask of contempt.
It wasn’t like he could move a lot anyway. Defeated, Carlos rested his head back down on the dirty cargo bed and relaxed his muscles. It was all be could do, other than dwell on how much trouble he was in. It was probably a considerable amount. This was serious. His failure to read the situation properly, his failure to escape, would likely have fatal consequences.
The driver slammed on the brakes and momentum compressed Carlos face-first against the front rail of the cargo bed. If he had a hand free he could have arrested some of that momentum but he didn’t. His face pressed hard into the plastic ridges of the bed liner. There was a ratcheting sound as the parking brake was set. The foot lifted off his back and Carlos heard Brandon hop to the ground. Levers were released and the short tailgate dropped, allowing Carlos to straighten out his legs.
The relief was short-lived. Two sets of strong hands latched onto his ankles. Before he could say anything, they yanked hard, pulling him backwards. His face scrubbed across the cargo bed and then he was momentarily floating before he dropped to the ground face-first.
He emitted an oof sound as he hit, the wind knocked out of him. His face impacted sharp gravel and at least one tooth chipped. He could feel the fragment at the tip of his tongue like an ice chip. All this felt less critical than his inability to breathe. Before he could recover, hands latched onto his ankles again, dragging him face-down into the hay barn. He tried to arch his back to keep his face from abrading against the ground but he couldn’t do it. He felt a deep burning on his chin, cheek, and forehead as the skin ground away.
Once he was inside the barn they released his legs, clouds of dust rising when his heavy limbs hit the ground. Someone grabbed him and rolled him over onto his back. His eyes watered and it was hard to open them with dirt caked on his face. When he finally blinked enough to clear them he made out the cloudy visage of Arthur standing astride him, his face a mask of fury. He knelt over Carlos and leaned close, his breath warm against Carlos’s injured face.
“I need to know everything,” Arthur hissed. “Everything.”
Carlos tried to talk but dirt clung to his tongue. He sucked some into his airway and choked, launching into a coughing fit.
“Get me some water!” Arthur demanded.
Kevin stuck a five-gallon bucket under a barn hydrant and raised the handle. A thumb-sized stream of gravity-fed water poured into the bucket.
“That’s enough,” Arthur said after a moment.
Kevin lifted the bucket and delivered it to Arthur, who dumped it on Carlos’s face. When he was done, he flipped the bucket over and took a seat on it.
“I need everything. I need to know how far this goes. I need to know what you’ve told them. I need to know why you did this, and I need to know if there are any more of you people inside my walls. You’ve been here long enough to know how serious I am about this. I will get my answers no matter what I have to do to you.”
Carlos knew he was telling the truth. This compound was all that Arthur and the other men here had or cared about. They would stop at nothing to keep it safe. He had violated their trust in a way they would find totally unacceptable. He had no doubt that he was going to die. The only question was the manner in which he died. He knew those would be Arthur’s next words.
“I can’t tolerate what you’ve done here, Carlos,” Arthur said. “It’s not just me. Your betrayal is a crime against every man in this compound. You have to pay for that. The only thing you can control is how it happens. There’s easy dying and hard dying. You get to pick.”
Carlos didn’t immediately respond. He thought about the congressman and his group. By the time Arthur was done interrogating him, those men would be gone. They would have left without him. He was disposable. He was their garbage, left behind on the side of the road. How could anyone remain loyal under those circumstanc
es?
“I’ll talk,” Carlos croaked.
Arthur nodded at Brandon. “Help me set him up.”
The two men sat Carlos up, leaning him back against a nearby round bale. His face was a mess. There were raw abrasions still caked with dirt despite the bucket of water. There were bruises and a pronounced knot on his forehead. His dirty face was streaked by the tears pouring from his irritated eyes. No one made an effort to clean him up. It didn’t matter. He probably wouldn’t be alive much longer.
“From the beginning,” Arthur said. “Start talking.”
“Can I rinse my mouth out?” Carlos asked, screwing his face up as if tasting something bitter. “It’s hard to talk.”
Arthur pulled a bottle of water from his belt, opened it, and held it for Carlos to rinse his mouth out. Carlos swished the water around, spit it out, and repeated the process. When he was done, he sagged back against the bale and sighed with the resolve of a man who had lost everything.
“I’m waiting,” Arthur said, retaking his seat on the bucket.
“When I came back from Iraq, I got a job with the Capitol Police. The congressman’s buddy Bradshaw was my boss. I ran into the congressman a lot. He always liked to think he was a regular guy, a man of the people, so he would talk to everyone. Didn’t matter who you were — cook, doorman, bathroom attendant, cop — he would stop and BS with you. One day he asked what was going on in my life and I told him I was up for a promotion. He took it upon himself to speak to Bradshaw and got me that promotion. He liked to have people in a position where they owed him, but I didn’t understand that at the time.”
Arthur nodded. He was familiar with that aspect of the congressman’s personality. It was the same way the congressman had played up the roots he and Arthur shared as country boys both living in Washington, D.C. Arthur knew now, just as Carlos did, that it was all part of an elaborate manipulation. It was part of a con the congressman used to disarm and relax those around him — those he might need one day.
Compound Fracture Page 15