He wasn’t the type of man who stayed down. If there was anything Max was good at it, it was pressing on, and picking himself up.
There’d always be setbacks. There’d always be problems with the plan. If you didn’t understand that, Max knew, small problems were liable to completely derail you.
It wasn’t as if Max was in the best of spirits, though.
The trick was to not let himself get too down. Not let himself sink into the spiral of doubt and despair.
And to do that, all he needed to do was find the next step. And do it.
He’d been cocky, maybe. He’d gotten himself picked up at that Jeep in the road. He should have hung back farther.
And then he’d made another crucial error, which was demanding too much too soon. After all, he hadn’t even tried to prove himself.
No wonder they’d thrown him in the pen.
Maybe that’s what he deserved.
Or maybe not.
He didn’t know where he was going to end up, but he knew that he wasn’t going to stay locked up for long. One way or another, he’d get out.
Max was back on his feet.
Looking around, he surveyed the area.
The stockade was an outdoor area bordered by a tall fence made of wire. The fence was at least twenty-five feet tall. At the top of the fence, there was a thick spiral of barbed wire.
There was a single door to the stockade, made of metal and thick wire. It appeared as if there were various key-only padlocks, as well as a built-in deadbolt.
Max was impressed by the fence and the door. Impressed with the level of infrastructure that this camp had managed to attain in a relatively short time.
Obviously there were people at the camp who understood construction well enough to build this. And they’d had to get the materials too. Not just any materials, because this stockade obviously wasn’t just tossed together haphazardly. Instead, it was a building based on a plan and rigorous specifications.
But that didn’t mean Max couldn’t escape from it if he decided that’s what the situation required.
He’d take it all in first. Then decide what to do.
His wrists were hurting from the plastic binders, which were cinched on too tight. But he ignored it.
His stomach was rumbling with hunger. It’d been a long time since he’d eaten.
But he was used to going hungry. Hell, most everyone was at this point.
His leg hurt. It always hurt. He could deal with that. A little pain never killed anyone.
His pack was gone. Confiscated. Same with his Glock and his knives. It was a blow. Hopefully it was temporary.
Outside the fence, there was all manner of activity. There were men pushing wheelbarrows full of supplies that looked like they’d been pilfered from various big box stores.
The men with the wheelbarrows were dressed in decent clothes. Not a lot of rips and tears. They looked fairly well fed, too.
Other men and women were walking here and there. Some carried clipboards that they studied. Others seemed to be surveying everything, standing there with their arms behind their backs, watching.
It seemed to be a well-organized militia. Plenty of work going on. Plenty of food available.
Everyone was armed with at least a handgun. Many had long guns.
Some men wore pieces of police or military uniforms. No one had a complete uniform. Max knew that the clothes didn’t mean anything. The men might or might not have been members of the police force or military.
Max turned his attention to the inside of the stockade.
There wasn’t much there.
On the other end of it, about a hundred yards away, there were a couple figures curled up, leaning against the fence.
The stockade was made to house a lot of men. That might mean something about what plans the leaders of the militia had. What tricks they had up their sleeves.
Max made his way across the dirt. He moved slowly, not wanting to draw much attention to himself.
Outside the fence, there seemed to be just one guard who paced back and forth. His eyes stayed trained on Max.
To Max’s surprise, one of the figures huddled up against the fence was a woman. He only noticed it as he got closer to her. She didn’t look up at him, and neither did the man next to her.
Both of them were thinner than everyone else on the other side of the fence. Max supposed that meant they’d been locked up for a while. Or maybe not.
Max nodded vaguely at them, and sat himself down against the fence, next to the woman.
He wanted information. But he didn’t want to appear too eager. He needed to play it cool.
Max sat there for about an hour without a single thing happening. He didn’t know the exact time because his trusty Vostok watch had been confiscated by the lackey who’d thrown him into the stockade.
It wasn’t a good feeling, not having his gear. After all, the gear had gotten him through tough times. It had always been there. Sort of like a friend.
But he knew he’d get it back somehow. And he still had his most important tool of all. His mind.
A watch, a gun, or a knife were only good so far as one knew how to use them. Without a plan, without a mind behind the tools, they were just objects. Objects that looked nice but did nothing.
As Max sat there, he tried not to let his thoughts wander back to his camp, back to Mandy and to his unborn child. He knew that if he let his mind drift too far in that direction, he’d get lost in worries and doubts.
Max tried to remind himself that if he didn’t return to Mandy, she and the child would still be taken care of. Max trusted Georgia with his and Mandy’s lives. Not to mention his brother. And the others.
And Mandy could take care of herself as well. It wasn’t as if she was a weakling. Max had watched her do horrible things to bad people. He’d watched her defend herself in the most dangerous of situations. He’d watched her go on and on and never let herself stop, no matter what.
Max had trusted Mandy with his own life countless times. She was competent. She was intelligent. And strong. And she’d be the mother of his child, whether or not he returned.
Still, Max wanted to live. He wanted to return to Mandy.
He needed to return.
And to do that, he needed to forget, temporarily, about Mandy.
He also couldn’t let his attention focus on his disappointment. He’d spent a long time getting to this camp. He’d had high hopes. Hopes of restoring order to the country. Hopes that he himself could play an important role, that he could help start to squash the chaos that had overtaken the land.
Max needed to remember that just because he’d been imprisoned it didn’t mean that the militia wasn’t good, that Grant wasn’t a good man.
Max hadn’t yet met Grant or seen any sign of him. And nothing else about the camp made him think that anything bad was going on.
Max had simply been overzealous, overconfident, and too cocky for his own good. What had he been thinking, demanding a position and audience like that?
If he’d approached the whole thing in a humble way, maybe the outcome would have been completely different.
But Max had that pride deep inside him. It was the pride that he’d earned from surviving countless situations in which he knew he should have died. He’d earned it by going and going, no matter what.
Max kept his attention focused on his immediate surroundings, on the men and women who were at work outside the stockade, and on the guard.
When Max had been thrown in the stockade, no one had read him any rights. No one had told him about due process. No one had told him what would happen to him, or whether he could expect a trial or not.
The militia camp here was its own government. It answered to no one. It was all powerful. It didn’t have any obligation to read Max any rights.