"I hate to sound like a conspiracy nut," the young nurse said,
"but this couldn't have happened without some sort of cooperation from elements in the army."
What she'd said was a reflection of his own thoughts. "If you were a conspiracy nut, you'd have just said 'the army,'" Reese pointed out.
Some of the tension visibly left her body. "It's good that you caught the difference. Because, much as I'd like to think that what just happened was a nightmare…"
"Same here," he agreed.
"So, is Yanik involved, or is he just following orders?" Mary asked.
Reese frowned. "I don't know him well," he said. "But I got the impression that he's an all right guy. He's not enthusiastic about running herd on a bunch of civilians, but then, none of us are. As for following orders, if they come from the right place, bearing the right names and codes, why wouldn't he obey them? We did."
"So the army's been infiltrated."
He spread his hands. "By what? Trailer trash?"
Mary tightened her lips. She'd been about to call him on his assumption that people who lived in trailers were automatically trash, when she realized she was just looking for a distraction.
"We've got to warn them," she said.
"And how will we get them to believe us?" he asked.
"Well, we've got neither trucks, nor patients, and we can take them… back there," she pointed out. "What do you think we should do? Hide out in the boonies and hope someone else takes care of the problem?"
He gave her a look. "How about we talk a little less and think a little more," he suggested.
They were silent after that. Then Mary raised her head excitedly.
"Do you hear that?" she whispered.
The lieutenant strained his ears, and after a minute he heard a rushing sound.
"Water!" Mary exclaimed happily. "Let's go find it." She leapt to her feet and started off in the direction of the sound.
"Hey!" Reese said, but quietly and started off in pursuit. He'd just grabbed her arm when he heard the sound of a rifle being cocked.
"Who goes there?" a young voice barked.
Reese froze and Mary looked at him with eyes like saucers.
"Lieutenant Dennis Reese," he said, carefully holding his hands away from his body, "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." He nodded meaningfully at his companion.
"Uh, Mary Shea, nurse."
From out of the greenery came a slight figure in fatigues and camouflage paint carrying an M-16 pointed unwaveringly in their direction.
"You got ID?"
"Yes." Reese reached for his orders.
" Slowly," the youngster barked. "Using two fingers, take it out of your pocket and toss it to me."
The lieutenant did as he was told; then he nodded at Mary, who slid a laminated badge from her pants pocket and tossed it over as well.
Not looking away for even an instant, the youngster stepped forward, scooped up the two IDs, and stepped back. Then, constantly flicking eyes from page to prisoners, he read them.
"I'll hold on to these for now," the kid said. "I better take you in."
Gesturing with the rifle for them to turn around and start walking, the youngster followed, barking out terse directions now and then. It seemed to Reese that occasionally he'd glimpse a human form disguised with brush and paint, but he honestly couldn't be sure. Having a cocked automatic weapon behind his back, in the hands of someone barely old enough to shave, was nervous making enough.
Finally they came upon a cabin on the edge of a small clearing, overshadowed by a group of oaks sprouting from a rocky cleft; their massive writhing limbs formed a virtual platform over it. The cabin itself was notched logs chinked with mortar, the door and shutters weathered and splintered; it looked like thousands of others in varying stages of decay up here in the hollows of the Ozarks.
Hmm. Reese decided that appearances could be deceptive: despite the cabin's rustic appearance there was a keypad under a wooden catch by the door. The kid gestured them to one side, then entered a code—carefully keeping his body between the pad and the prisoners, Reese noted. There was the sound of a lock being tripped and Mary and Reese were silently ordered to enter the cabin.
A man was seated at a rough-hewn table sipping from a tin cup.
"Daddy?" the kid said.
"Good job, honey," the man said. "Just give me their papers and I'll take it from here. Y'all get back to your post."
Uh-oh, Reese thought. Good thing I didn't make that joke about being too young to shave.
The girl, which they now saw her to be, grinned and pulled the two prisoners' IDs out of her breast pocket. "Betcha they thought I was too young to shave," she said, glancing aside at Reese. "Or at least this guy did."
"Maybe you shave your legs," Mary replied with a slight snort.
The girl handed the IDs over, saluted, and left, pulling the door closed behind her.
"Lieutenant Reese," the man said, pursing his lips. "Army Corps of Engineers; always a useful occupation. And Nurse Shea." He smiled a welcome at Mary. "We can always use someone trained in the medical profession," he said sincerely.
"Welcome to our little hideaway."
"You survivalists?" Reese asked. He had a sinking feeling about this. He'd known a few survivalist nutcases in his time; some who were the kind who would decide to keep him and Mary as slaves on the grounds that they would help him survive.
He'd known a few who weren't crazy, but the way today was going, what were the odds he'd meet a sane one?
"I'm Jack Brock," the man said. "That was my daughter, Susie. Sit down, take a load off," he invited. "Have some mint tea."
Reese and Mary looked at each other, then sat down.
"Yeah," Brock said, pouring them each a cup. "We're survivalists." Grimly: "At least, we're surviving, which most people on this continent haven't, the past couple of months. And more." He looked up at them, smiling. "But before we get into my story, why don't we hear yours?"
The two prisoners glanced at each other again. If he'd been the perfect soldier facing an undoubted enemy, the lieutenant knew what he would do. But… Why not? Reese thought. Might as well see how it sounds when we say it out loud to a third party.
"We're from the Black River Relocation Camp," he began.
"Black River is one of the good camps," Brock interrupted.
"You wouldn't believe some of the stories we've heard about some of the others."
Once again Dennis and Mary gave each other worried looks.
This is getting monotonous, Reese thought. Either we develop telepathy, or we should invent a couple of signals… like, one finger means "what should we do?" and two means "should we trust him?" So we can just hold them up as necessary.
"We've been having a cholera epidemic," Mary explained.
"Suddenly we got orders to send the sickest of our patients to a central hospital. Where that would be they didn't say."
"Meanwhile I got orders to report to central command for reassignment and was told to accompany the trucks they sent for the patients."
"I had overheard some men talking in a way that implied they were deliberately spreading the contagion, so I was requested to go along, too… so that I could be questioned."
"We set out this morning," Reese said. "But instead of being taken to any central command, we were dumped in the middle of nowhere."
"The trucks stopped and these people literally threw my patients out of the trucks. Then they drove off and left us there."
Mary looked at Reese.
Do I tell him what happened next? the lieutenant wondered.
So far everything made sense. But the killing machine was another, and much harder-to-believe, story.