The Devil's Colony

by Bill Schweigart

  “Ma’am,” said Anson, nodding. He offered a half smile that sent one end of his manicured mustache pointing to the sky.

  The man in charge twirled his stick toward the man with the tentacled tattoo. He sat in one of the other rocking chairs on the porch, in the shaded part. He had a mound of shaggy hair and his eyes glinted from the shadows. Lindsay fought to stifle a chill. “This is Hendrix.”

  “Ahoy,” said the man. The man’s cheer sounded unhinged. Threatening.

  Lindsay did not know if any of Drexler’s son’s other lieutenants would have rated an introduction, because the front door swung open and Henry Drexler himself appeared, bounding out with a slight limp. His hands found Lindsay’s again, but he turned to his son. “Felix, did you invite them in?”

  “Just making conversation. Giving them the lay of the land.”

  “You’ll have to excuse my son,” said Henry, releasing Lindsay’s hands to snatch the walking stick from Felix. “Manners were never his strong suit. Please come inside.”

  They all filed inside behind Drexler, who had threaded his arm around Lindsay’s. “I’m so glad you both came. I wanted to apologize again for the commotion when you arrived. Sadly, not everyone visits with the best of intentions. If Mr. Breaux had his druthers, he would build a fence. But as the saying goes, when you have plenty, instead of a higher fence, you should build a longer table.”

  A warm, hearty smell greeted them from the hallway. Drexler led them into a large dining room that had already been set. Ben, Felix, and Felix’s men trailed them. A beautiful blond woman was lighting candles on the long table, giving the room a pleasant glow. Drexler steered Lindsay toward the head of the table and sat her to his immediate left. The blond woman took a seat to his right. More women filed into the room from an unseen kitchen, bearing serving trays heaped with steaming food. There were traditional German dishes that she recognized, like schnitzel and bratwurst, but there were dishes that she didn’t, like a bowl of noodles that resembled macaroni and cheese but not quite, savory pan-fried pancakes, and a colorful German stew. It was a massive spread and despite her lunch and the nerves that had plagued her all day, the sights and smells and the warm comfort of the room resurrected her appetite.

  Drexler introduced the beautiful blond woman as Eva, the wife of Felix, who held court at the other end of the table with his toadies and Ben. Lindsay tried not to do a double take between the woman across from her and Felix, who was winding up his men about Muslims, race riots, building a wall along the southern border, and preparing for invasions from everyone from the federal government to aliens as Ben nodded along eagerly. Lindsay just didn’t see the match, but nothing about the camp made sense to her yet. While an air of hostility or suspicion greeted them from the moment the highwaymen on the road appeared, Drexler legitimately seemed welcoming.

  He filled a wineglass for Lindsay. It was all so warm, so welcoming, but she had a vision of tainted wine, of being drugged, of running through the woods with the world spinning. One thing she did not want in this place was to lose control. Not for a second.

  “No, thank you. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.”

  “How is that rude?” he said with a smile, putting two fingers on the base of the glass and sliding it back to him. “More for me.” He laughed and she laughed with him. He held up his wineglass at the top of the table.

  “To our new guests. I’m grateful their journey has led them to our land.”

  Most of the men eschewed the wine for beer, but all held up their glasses. In the quiet moment, Lindsay caught mumbled words from the other end of the table.

  “…and kill ’em all.”

  Despite herself she swung her head around. No one noticed because, from the head of the table, Drexler hissed, “Anson.”

  It took Lindsay a moment to realize what he had said. She surmised that the man had made some sort of wicked addendum to the toast, slipping it in under his breath. Ben and Lindsay locked eyes for a moment, then Lindsay looked toward the man who had the saber at his hip on the porch, and who now looked sheepishly down at his plate. Not so genteel after all, thought Lindsay.

  “What have I told you about that kind of language at my table?”

  “I apologize, sir.”

  “God forbid we make a joke,” said Felix.

  “You’re entitled to your ignorant thoughts, but you will not be rude at my table.”

  “Opa’s table,” murmured Felix.

  “Felix, please…” said Eva.

  “Opa is no longer here,” said Drexler. “But I am. If you’ve a problem with the way I’m running our home, rather than boast under your breath, you can take your chances out there.”

  Felix’s face turned crimson, but he made no move to leave and said nothing further. He picked up his fork and resumed eating.

  “Good then,” said Henry and he patted Eva’s hand. “Because the ladies have outdone themselves yet again and I’d hate for anyone to miss this meal.” Gradually, conversations at the table rekindled. First among the women. Then at the end of the table, there were more whispers and giggles and conspiratorial tones, but it was no longer silent, which had seemed unbearable. Finally, Drexler looked at Lindsay sympathetically.

  “You must be terribly confused.”

  Lindsay shook her head. “Family stuff. We all have one.”

  He placed his hand on hers gently and leaned in. His eyes looked kind, but urgent. It gave him a sorrowful expression. “Can you keep a secret, Lindsay?”

  Chapter 14

  Ben and Lindsay had walked into the house holding hands, but they walked back to their tent in silence and four feet apart, each lost in their own thoughts. People in conversation who blurted out their political beliefs, assuming that everyone within earshot automatically shared their ideology, had always astounded him. It was a joke with Lindsay—even with his ex-fiancée, Rachel—that he was a bit of a dick, but he maintained he was a private dick. Politics, religion, sex? Keep that shit to yourself. So it was jarring enough to hear blisteringly hateful talk at a dinner table—a level of enmity for other races and religions he had scarcely heard before—but the casual way it was lobbed into the conversation? It was like he had fallen into a parallel universe. They should dig Dr. Martin Luther King up just to shoot him again. Pass the salt. Bad enough to listen to, worse still to smile and nod along. He felt a powerful shame for breaking bread with such a crew but tried to remind himself that he was there on a mission. He was behind enemy lines.

  Get through this, he told himself. And pull this whole place down.

  It wasn’t until they were alone in their tents, zipped up to their necks in their sleeping bags, lying nose to nose like twin caterpillars, that they finally spoke. Ben found it difficult to look her in the eye.

  “So,” said Lindsay, sotto voce.

  “So,” said Ben.

  “You did great.”

  “You too. So…how was your meal?”

  They both laughed uneasily, then their smiles faded and they looked at each other again.

  “What’s up with Drexler?” asked Ben.

  “I honestly have no idea. He told me Välkommen is not what it seems. He stressed the place literally means ‘welcome.’ In Swedish, not German, but he said his son’s crew was too dense to know the difference. He said he doesn’t subscribe to hate, that he’s trying to stamp it out in fact.”

  “And a lot of racists don’t believe they’re racist. They’re just super into being white. No crazy person thinks they’re crazy.”

  “It’s not like that, at least, it didn’t feel like it. He said he believed all men are created equal. Then I looked at your crew at the other end of the table and told him he must love a good challenge. ‘Anyone can preach to the converted,’ he said. He seems…sincere.”

  “All cult leaders do at first.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, we have two more days and he likes you. Can you stay close to him?”

  “His daughter-in-law, Eva,
runs the kitchen. She’s already invited me to work there during the day with the other women, help prepare meals for the camp.”

  Ben snorted. “Lindsay Clark, short-order cook,” he whispered.

  “It’s Lindsay Claiborne. No slips. What about you? How was your end of the table?”

  “Downton Abbey it wasn’t.” Ben’s smile faded. “I’ll ingratiate myself with Felix and his crew. Not having the respect of your neo-Nazi son is actually a pretty decent endorsement, so maybe you’re right, maybe Drexler isn’t the camp’s resident piece of shit. Felix kept going on about an ‘Opa.’ Drexler the elder, I presume.”

  “The Nazi,” said Lindsay. “Some sons like to rebel against their fathers. Maybe Drexler struck out on his own, pursued education. And Felix rebelled too, going back into the family business, so to speak.”

  “Let’s not rule Drexler out just yet. The man has an agenda; we just don’t know what it is. He finds it necessary to have a head of security and a personal guard force. Someone here is sending monsters out into the world. Might be him, might be the Bigot Brigade. We have two more days to figure it out.”

  “Can you handle it? Cozying up to them, I mean? Without losing your mind?”

  Ben shooed the question away. “We’ve fought honest-to-God monsters before and kicked their asses. Piece of cake.”

  “The biggest monsters are men, Ben. Be careful.”

  “And you be careful with the sister-wives. And if Drexler puts his hands on you or asks if you know how to make Kool-Aid, get the fuck out of that house.”

  Chapter 15

  Galahad slithered on his belly as slowly and imperceptibly as an inchworm. The pace was excruciatingly slow, but he had no other choice. The game cameras were manufactured to catch a deer—or in this case spot a human—not a snail. So he crawled along, clinging to the earth, making micro-movements, swallowed by the underbrush, trying not to think how behind he was.

  Galahad had waited until nightfall on Day 1 to get past the camera perimeter. Not being able to have Ben and Lindsay in his eye line made him agitated; he had promised them he would always be seconds away, and even though he was only fifty yards from camp, he was hours away. His drag bag, rigged to his belt and dragging behind him, felt like an anchor.

  By the early morning hours, he was finally in the thin lip of wilderness between the cameras and the camp itself. Still, he crawled along until there was enough daylight to see if there were more cameras. He also had to contend with the notion of booby traps. His adversary had spared no expense on the cameras, so he had the means. In the sandbox, there were always improvised explosive devices to worry about, vehicle-borne IEDs in the urban areas. Galahad would be surprised if his adversary had rigged the woods with bombs—any idiots who went into the treeline for a piss or a poke would get blown to pieces—but he didn’t know for sure. The guards and cameras clearly belied the “all are welcome” messaging circulating on the Web, but no, his adversary seemed smarter than bombs. Galahad wagered his adversary would tell the denizens of Välkommen the woods were lined with bombs to keep folks from wandering, a fear tactic to maintain order in a potentially unruly population, but he ultimately wouldn’t want to draw attention from outside the camp with an explosion. Still, Galahad kept his senses open. He had been surprised before, and in this line of work, surprises were deadly.

  Once he was between the camera line and the camp, a ribbon of fifty yards that encircled the entire outpost, he slowly got to one knee. He unclipped the drag bag from his belt and hooked it over his shoulders. He pulled out his primary, the MR556, and affixed it to his chest harness. It was the civilian variant of his old Delta Force rifle, with some additional mods. The barrel was shortened to 9.5 inches, giving him an effective range of three hundred yards. The camp was large, but from the right vantage in the treeline, all of Välkommen was in his sights. With his barrel threaded for a suppressor for sound and flash, and his particular camouflage using real foliage from the Barrens, no one would know where the bullets were coming from. He was invisible, a ninja.

  Fuck that, he thought. I’m the thing ninjas are afraid of.

  Even so, there were concerns. The ribbon of forest encircled the camp and was therefore a lot of ground, but it was not very wide. He couldn’t spend three days within the ribbon. He could, but he doubted the adversary would let him. The gapless perimeter of game cameras had communicated to Davis: That’s far enough. Everything inside belongs to me. Galahad knew the old maxim: If you don’t patrol it, you don’t own it. And he knew his adversary knew it too. So that meant patrols, but probably only within the ribbon. There hadn’t been any serious patrolling during his first recon weeks ago, before the diner with Severance and Erica, but the cameras told him to expect sweeps now. He doubted anyone, save the adversary, would spot him—he trusted in his abilities—but there could be hounds somewhere in that camp. And even though they wouldn’t have his scent, hounds would be another game changer.

  You only have yourself to blame, he thought.

  Any way he sliced it, it was not the situation he wanted and he had to reevaluate the whole op on the fly. He wished he had pressed more for Ben or Lindsay to carry a listening device, but Ben had flatly refused.

  “I’m not wearing a wire.”

  Davis protested that it wasn’t like that anymore. There were tiny devices, tech you couldn’t even dream of, and with Severance’s bankroll, nothing was off-limits. Devices the size of pebbles that Ben could drop from his pocket randomly throughout camp, each with its own ID like a mobile phone and a unique identifier. They already had a general layout of camp, but once dropped they could begin transmitting, and if several were scattered through camp, it could give Davis some great real-time atmospherics without putting eyes on it. And if they needed help or an early extraction, all they had to do was shout close to one of the devices.

  Ben wouldn’t budge.

  “Hey, have you ever seen that movie where the guy wears a wire and everything goes perfectly okay? That’s because that movie doesn’t exist.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You don’t wear it. There’s no wire. It’s fucking wireless!”

  “Not wearing a wire.”

  Davis threw his hands in the air, but he let the matter drop. He understood. It would make him nervous and that would not be good for his cover. Someone might be able to sense his nerves and Davis already had his doubts about Ben’s improvisational abilities, so he didn’t push any further. Lindsay had balked too, for the same reasons. Knowing what he knew now, it had been a smart play. They were surely going to be thoroughly searched upon entry.

  That left Davis to get atmospherics the old-fashioned way: up close and personal. The routine of the camp, how everyone behaved, how they walked, how they talked, how they dressed, what they ate, what they carried. All of it. But he wouldn’t be able to do it consistently or for very long. The adversary had set the conditions.

  He arrived at the treeline at the far end of the field, behind the stage. He knew it was where he was least likely to be seen. He was surprised. By the looks of it, the trickle of people into Välkommen had become a stream. A quarter of the large field was now colonized by tents. He was astounded at the growth of the camp since his recon. He knew the outbuildings were full up, Quonset huts had sprung up, and there also appeared to be progress made on a row of cabins.

  He had seen the camp in daylight. To someone watching without context, he imagined everyone working in harmony, the sound of hammers echoing in the clearing, people laughing under a blue sky in a field dotted with tents, the different colors of their canopies making a rainbow. But this wasn’t Woodstock, no matter what Drexler was selling. He retrieved his big eyes, his binoculars, and tried to spot Ben and Lindsay’s tent.

  He couldn’t find it from this vantage, so he receded a few feet deeper into the ribbon and circumnavigated, moving closer to the tents. He didn’t have to go far when he popped out to take a bearing and spotted it at the end of a row. He breathed a si
lent sigh of relief. The fact that they had been permitted to put it up at all and were not denied access or expelled was a good sign. As good a sign as he was likely to get at this hour.

  They were in.

  He decided to continue in the direction he was going, rotating around the perimeter of the camp. As he stalked clockwise, he drew closer to the concentration of the tents and structures. Beyond them, he could see the barn and the main house, most of the lights off. He receded into the ribbon a few feet, giving himself extra cover the closer he got to people, even if they were all sleeping.

  He moved past the tent city, drawing closer to the outbuildings and Quonset huts. As he did so, the ribbon hugged the buildings tighter, drawing him closer to the archway with its wooden sign reading VÄLKOMMEN. The archway was pushed beyond the camp, and Davis was actually looking at it from behind, from inside. He dared not venture any closer, as there might be cameras pointed at the approach. But from here he could see two guards smoking and chatting. As far as sentries went, they were awful, facing each other, rifles slung off their shoulders, essentially useless. Had he wanted to, he could have gotten to within feet of them without their knowledge, sprang from the woods, and taken them out with his bare hands before they would have even been able to touch the stocks of their rifles, let alone their triggers. What caused his heart to slam in his chest were the bushes.

  Rosebushes had been planted in a line in the gaps between the archway and the woods on either side of the road. Like the game cameras, they had not been there during his recon. They were freshly planted. And though not yet in bloom, they were aesthetic security, a natural barrier, and another message to those who could see. Rosebushes were planted at the Command Action Group compound at Fort Bragg. This meant his adversary was CAG, a Delta just like him.