Measure of Danger

by Jay Klages

  He twisted his head to look behind him. They’d exited on the northwest side of the two-story rectangular headquarters building. A colorful stone veneer arched over the entrances, and the building’s natural wood siding was peppered with windows, all of them barred on the first floor. It looked like AgriteX had found an adequate piece of flat land amidst the hilly terrain and cleared the surrounding trees to make room for the headquarters. But all of that timber was used in the construction of the building, and trees were planted to offset the loss.

  He shook his head. The particular reference information crossing his mind had to be from another Chapter download. His brain had been invaded with unwanted knowledge! How much more of this crap would he allow the Chapter to pump into his head?

  The whole plug about the plantings around the building seemed to go with AgriteX’s promotion of itself as an environmental steward. But AgriteX wanted it both ways. An “environmental steward” producing genetically modified crops? Die-hard environmentalists would never support that.

  No, AgriteX was advocating a more populist, opportunistic brand of environmentalism. It was all about protecting the revenue streams.

  He now imagined shoving Carol off the cart, knocking her out cold with a hard punch, and running for his life. When he looked over at her, she glanced back.

  “It’s wonderful to be outside,” he said. “What’s this Forest Camp anyway?”

  “LLFC, or L-FAC, as we call it, is a private minimum-security prison, and AgriteX has a partnership with it,” she said. “We employ many of the inmates, who work in a number of our business lines.”

  “Like what?”

  “AgriteX manages some state-funded reforestation projects, and the inmates serve on the crews. Other crews maintain hiking trails or campgrounds, and assist in cleanup following floods and storms. Plenty of state funds support this work. Inmates are also contracted to do ground maintenance at the AgriteX headquarters.”

  “Nice.”

  Carol’s every sentence sounded mechanical and perfectly articulated, as if she was transcribing a download. He’d have to keep initiating the conversation or there wouldn’t be any.

  “Sounds like a good deal for the inmates,” he added, “especially on days like today. But maybe not when it’s raining like crazy, huh?”

  “Oh, they still take advantage of any chance to be outdoors, except during the really bad storms. They also get paid fairly and leave with some solid, transferable skills. The state likes the very low rate of recidivism from the camp. There’s an optional agreement the inmates sign, allowing L-FAC to monitor their health and wellness, so they establish a healthy lifestyle.”

  “Seems like there should be more programs like it.”

  “There are—L-FAC is one of about two hundred similar private facilities across the U.S. Inmates can be moved around between them to help stop overcrowding.”

  “Wow.”

  The path turned southeast and snaked its way through the forest, up and down hills. Wooden plank bridges spanned the low areas prone to water runoff. Then the path opened up to a wide view of the Lost Lake area as it joined a trail tracing the lake’s perimeter. The lake was almost black in color with the soaring evergreens encircling it.

  “Hey,” Kade said, “this was the lake I was trying to get to for camping. Wow, it looks awesome. But that doesn’t seem to make sense if this is private land. It was listed as a park.”

  “You’re half right,” she said. “The L-FAC land is the northern side of the lake, while the public area is on the southern side. You can’t access this trail from the public side, and there are some floats and signs designating the private property of L-FAC. There’s a nice little beach on the public side.”

  “Ah.”

  The main LLFC building was a single-story structure with an exterior similar to AgriteX headquarters’, as though the same contractor had built both. If it wasn’t for the tall chain-link fencing topped with barbed wire and the full guard station behind the main gate, it would have looked like the kind of tranquil lakeside rehab center where you might find celebrities.

  “How many Forest Camp counselors are there guarding this place?” he asked.

  “About forty,” she said. “And they’re called inmate mentors, or IMs.”

  “I see. So are you my IM?”

  Carol didn’t answer but shot him a quick look that said shut up. When they stopped at the guard station, she smiled and showed her badge to the guard, who unlocked the gate. They approached the LLFC entry pavilion and its sizable cage-like door before she slowed the ATV to a halt and they both got out. A small rustic cabin sat next to the entry point.

  Kade bent down to retie his boot while removing the digital camera/recorder from the tongue of it. He palmed the device and pocketed it when he stood back up. Before following Carol though the cage door, he paused and looked in the window of the cabin. Four IMs were lounging on couches next to a gas fireplace, watching a Seattle Mariners game on a large wall TV. He noticed the IMs had the same black shirts and pants as the AgriteX Sentries, but with a different insignia—a LLFC patch on the shoulder and breast pocket. With removable Velcro so they could be swapped out, he presumed.

  Once inside the entry point, they passed through a mudroom containing four large sinks, a shower, boot cleaners, lockers, and storage space. Another secure door opened to a thirty-by-thirty room manned by four more IMs, where over a dozen computers blinked with various graphical status readouts. A windowed door gave a view into an adjacent room filled with rows of racked computer servers, and Kade spotted an additional IM in there.

  “This is the operations room and information systems monitoring area,” Carol said. “Per Mr. Pierce’s instructions, Associate Sims has been granted temporary accompanied access,” she announced to the IMs.

  “Hello, Carol. Sure, we were notified,” said the short, mustached man who stood up. He then looked at Kade. “I’m Wayne Parsons, team leader for the IMD. Nice to meet you, Sims.”

  Kade turned to Carol and mumbled, “IMD?”

  “Inmate mentor detachment,” Carol said, ensuring every “t” was pronounced clearly.

  Parsons paused as if there might be further introductions or discussion, but Carol resumed walking. One of the seated IMs gave Carol an unnecessary salute.

  The door chimed to signal it had been unlocked, and Kade followed Carol through. The interior didn’t seem as cushy as the building’s exterior had suggested, but it still seemed comfortable for a prison. At least compared to various army accommodations, dorm rooms, or budget hotels he’d slept in.

  A long cement-and-cinder-block hallway, painted in yellow and lit with white fluorescent tubes, stretched in front of them. Wall placards indicated room numbers, and the rooms each had a small, square hall window reinforced with wire. The doors looked like they were made of steel. He saw an inmate approach, pushing a large cart filled with mail he was delivering to each room. At least two inmates occupied every ten-by-ten room, each with a sink, stainless-steel toilet, and bunk bed. A desk area was built into each side of the room.

  “Is this an all-male facility?” Kade asked.

  “No,” Carol said. “Females have their own wing, but there aren’t very many.”

  The next section contained a pair of doors marking showers, followed by a rec and fitness room and a large cafeteria. A few inmates were in each area. Next, they passed doors to the kitchen, laundry, and inmate health clinic areas.

  Carol walked ahead too damn fast, as if she was trying to speed through to get back to her more important business. He kept looking at her somewhat-muscular butt, trying to decide whether it was attractive or not.

  “Hey, Carol, can you hold up a sec?”

  She slowed down and came to a stop in the hallway next to a door labeled “RANGE,” where he could hear the popping sound of the discharges. There was a long polycarbonate window providing a view to a state-of-the-art indoor rifle range. He was taken aback by what he could see as he looked downran
ge at the targets lined up in the fifty-meter concrete tunnel.

  “This place has the inmates firing rifles?”

  “Yes,” Carol said, as though it were no big deal. “The IMs train here, mostly, but Marshall wants every inmate to appreciate the safe use of firearms. So the inmates get some weapons training at least every ninety days. It’s closely supervised, with all precautions taken. They’re only using green-colored, non-lethal bullets.”

  “Amazing. Besides shooting guns and forest cleanup, do the inmates do anything else productive?”

  “Yes, there’s a telemarketing group and a data-entry group.”

  Kade couldn’t restrain a laugh.

  “That’s classic. Cheap labor and good profit margin, huh?”

  Carol resumed walking. “The inmates are very well taken care of.”

  Kade took a picture of the firing range from the camera hidden at his hip. His gut told him the whole setup wasn’t kosher, but maybe it was legal. He thought again about his mission to collect evidence. It was time to get a little more aggressive. He caught up to Carol until they were walking almost shoulder to shoulder.

  “So is there a reason you don’t like me, Carol?”

  She stopped walking and turned toward him, looking surprised.

  “What?”

  “I asked why you don’t like me. I’m tryin’ really hard here, and I get that you don’t like joking around, but still . . .”

  She sighed and half rolled her eyes while formulating her response.

  “It’s not you, Sims. It’s all of this. It’s everything.”

  Kade nodded as if he was satisfied with the answer. “Okay,” he said. “So when do I get to see it? You know, the weed?” He took a drag on an imaginary joint.

  Carol didn’t speak and stared at him for five seconds, and Kade just started laughing.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, looking at her watch and starting to walk again.

  “The nurseries and shit. I’ve heard the rumors,” he said. “Come on, Carol—Oregon’s a pot bonanza. When I flew into Portland, I went to a pizza joint downtown and it was literally that. Everyone there was smokin’ pot right out in the open.”

  She continued walking. “Kade, I’m going to need you to focus on what you’re doing and nothing else. Remember the guys in the front room and all of the monitors?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We track all of the inmate interactions, progress, and overall productivity through computer monitoring. But the homegrown software isn’t very effective, and the E-team wants better reports on everything. So you’re going to get involved with, and hopefully lead, a software revamp and enhancement. You’re going to need to know how everything works.”

  “Cool. I can do homegrown software. I was just curious about what else is homegrown around here.”

  “Yeah, well, curiosity killed the cat.”

  “And cats have nine lives.”

  “Drop it, Sims.”

  Okay, you’ve pushed it enough for now.

  They exited via another guard station into a monitored outdoor recreational area of about five acres. There were all-weather picnic tables and benches, a pair of tennis courts, a basketball court, two small fields, and what looked like a corral or small dog run.

  “What’s your background in?” Kade asked.

  “Chemistry.”

  “Cool.”

  Groups of inmates were out doing strenuous calisthenics in one of the fields, led by an IMD leader. It reminded him of army PT—physical training. He snuck a picture of that also.

  “Damn, those poor guys look like they’re suckin’ wind,” he said.

  “It’s voluntary, as is the whole program,” she said. “It’s not part of standard mandatory wellness, but the enhanced wellness program.”

  “Yeah, well, the enhanced wellness is making me tired just watching it.”

  In an adjacent area of about two acres were two gray buses parked in a column on a gravel driveway. The buses were painted with “LLFC” in white lettering on the sides and back. The wheels looked like an oversize off-road variety. Groups of IMs or Sentries, Kade couldn’t tell which, were doing drills getting on and off the bus with weapons. He thought he could see two Guardians in gray standing nearby. Holding notebooks or clipboards. Hard to see, but it looked like they were evaluating the drills.

  “Looks like you could go four-wheeling in those buses,” he said and pointed to them. When Carol turned to look, he took another picture.

  “Those are the inmate transport buses. They need some good traction to get work crews out to remote jobs. The roads can get pretty nasty around here.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Farther away, and somewhat difficult to see from his vantage point, was a mockup of a small building. It looked like IMs or Sentries were conducting assault drills.

  “What’s going on back there?” Kade asked.

  “I think they’re playing paintball.”

  Bullshit.

  “Huh. Why all of the military drill shenanigans?”

  “I believe they’re training for various incidents, like escaping prisoners and stuff.”

  “No kidding. Do they use dogs at all?”

  “No, no dogs.”

  Kade continued to watch, but the entire scene just didn’t add up. If they were really worried about inmates escaping at LLFC, they wouldn’t be training inmates on weapons, even minimum-security inmates. He observed how the Guardians were interacting with the IMs or Sentries in these drills. He’d seen this style of training before.

  They’re training their own. These are train-the-trainer drills.

  “It looks like fun,” Kade said. “Think I could get involved? I love paintball. Followed by drinking beer, when possible.”

  “I doubt it,” Carol said, yawning. “Let’s go, I’ve got to get you back.”

  Kade stood for a moment watching the exercises and drills. He needed to find out more about the training.

  So this is Marshall’s militia.

  They’re training for something, but what?

  Defending their “sacred land”?

  CHAPTER 22

  Monday, June 24

  12:15 p.m. (PDT)

  Manzanita, Oregon

  Alex was back at the beachside pub, his jeans, T-shirt, and light nylon windbreaker covered with dried mud. He didn’t like being this dirty in public, but the two elderly men drinking on the deck next to him didn’t look at him twice. It was overcast, and the salt-perfumed breeze caressed his body in gentle gusts. When the waitress appeared outside, he ordered up a Reuben sandwich and a stout.

  The knapsack next to his feet contained Kade’s Glock and the ammo clips from the Jeep. Mission complete, as Kade would say. But Alex had an uneasy feeling much more was to come given what had happened earlier in the morning.

  He had asked the RV park manager where he could go to rent a motorcycle, saying that he just wanted to have some fun riding off-road. The manager told him there was a rental outfit farther up the coast in Seaside, but also referred him to a guy in town who was a motorcycle enthusiast and could rent him one for less money and less fuss.

  Two years ago, Alex sold the Harley Road King he’d been taking out for the occasional ride, so he wasn’t used to the Honda CRF450X off-road competition bike he ended up renting. The recommended rental owner lived in a rustic A-frame house and looked like Santa Claus wearing shorts and a sweatshirt. Apparently, Santa Claus liked motocross in the off-season.

  Before leaving his hotel in Manzanita on the Honda, he had plugged his route into the Garmin GPS. The waypoints loaded in the device guided him from Route 101 and kept him on paved roads until he was about ten miles away from his target. He then transitioned to a dirt road that wasn’t listed on his map for another few miles. The road was still a bit moist, with some deep ruts, but it was child’s play for the bike. He would’ve considered it “fun” if he hadn’t been so nervous. As he got closer to his target, small orange signs
alerted him to the fact that he was entering private land. He encountered several closed pole gates along the way, but just rode around the outside of them and through the forest.

  When he found a good stopping point about a mile from the target, he dismounted and walked the bike about twenty yards off the road into the edge of the forest. He pulled off his backpack, slid a bottle of water out of its mesh holder, and sipped from it while he checked his current location on the GPS. The smell of the forest seemed to have an additional evergreen punch compared to those he’d hiked through back east in summer. He shimmied on his backpack and hiked on toward the target location.

  The up-and-down terrain would have worn out most people, but Alex ran a marathon each year, so he was usually in half-decent running shape. He planned to approach the target road where Kade’s car was parked on foot from the east. He thought Kade must have left the car in one of those small parking lots you find at a trailhead, or at some kind of road pull-off.

  But he was shocked when he approached a giant hill and walked right into a view of Kade’s destroyed Jeep at the bottom of it. Alex looked up the rugged slope, imagined the road at the top, and visualized the car rolling all the way down to this spot.

  Oh my God.

  Even though Kade’s recent voice mail had sounded normal and upbeat, Alex couldn’t help dashing to the front and looking through the battered windshield, expecting to see Kade inside. The cabin was empty, but the bloodstains weren’t a good sign. It looked like his buddy had sustained serious injuries.

  It took him another few minutes to even remember why he was there and to calm down. With some strenuous effort, he was still able to open the tailgate in a left-to-right direction, as the Jeep lay on its side. Everything smelled like gasoline fumes and rotten bait, and flies swarmed around him everywhere.

  While he pulled out the mix of camping gear and broken glass granules from the interior, he saw Kade’s phone and put it in his pocket. After all of the gear was laid out on the ground, it took him another five minutes to find the Glock and clips inside the cargo tray cover where Kade said they might be. He stuffed them inside his backpack. God, he was nervous. He didn’t like the situation and he didn’t like guns. He started putting the camping gear back inside.