London Wild (31 page)

He climbed out of the car to see just how much wider he needed the space to be. There was one bush on either side of the entrance to the bridle path
, and they would go under his wheels if he tried to drive beyond them.

He sighed and then realization came to him
: the plants weren’t real. ‘
They won’t advertise a road leading to it,’
the Patriarch had said. Well if fake plants weren’t as good as an advert, Myajes didn’t know what was. Then again, they had fooled him until he had actually gotten out of the car to take a closer look. Had he not known roughly where the prison camp was, he would probably have driven straight past without a second look at a bridle path too narrow to take a car down.

Back in the car again
, he moved slowly forward, unsure what would happen when he hit the plants. Would they move aside or just collapse under his wheels, only to spring up again once he had passed? Well, whichever it was, the car seemed to pass them with not even a bump, and when the entrance to the bridle path came into view again behind his car, both plants were back where he had originally seen them, looking none the worse.

‘I’ll bet that’s set off some sort of an alarm,’ he muttered resignedly to himself. There was no going back now.

He drove through the narrow path between the trees. It was so narrow that there were moments when he thought he was going to hit one of the trees that seemed to pass with no more than an inch to spare on either side of him. When a mass of trees loomed up suddenly in front of him, he hit the brakes.  The bridle path continued to the left in a bend that was so narrow Myajes wasn’t sure his car could fit through. He reversed the car a few feet for a better angle on the turning, and as he turned the wheel, the automatic collision sensors stopped him again and again, forcing him to reverse a little each time. It was no good; to traverse this bend he would need to get closer to the trees than the collision sensors would allow. He had to turn them off. The Elite Guard drivers must have been extremely skilled to navigate this turn safely in their trucks that were usually wider than the car that Myajes was driving. Had the collision sensors still been on, they would have stopped him again; as it was, he scratched the paintwork of his car getting past the turning. And he even felt happy that he had actually suffered so little damage to his vehicle.

Once beyond the corner
, though, the trees no longer seemed so close. The road got comfortably wide, wide enough for two vehicles to pass if they needed to. They were out of sight of the country road now, and this road no longer had to pretend to be a bridle path.

Before going any further, he pulled the car over to the side of the road. The Elite were good, very good; if there was anything wrong with the disguise he was wearing
, then he wouldn’t be leaving the prison camp alive. He wanted to check his uniform in the mirror, check that he had the orders the Patriarch had had forged for him ready to hand and check those over for any obvious mistakes. The slightest slip would be spotted in an instant. He had done this a dozen times since leaving home this morning and never once had he seen anything that might give him away. He knew he was really just trying to delay his arrival at the prison camp, but it didn’t hurt to be sure. The little nametag on his lapel named him as Captain J. Monroe. James, if anyone asked. At least he hadn’t had to pick himself a name.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
Again the Patriarch’s words echoed through his head.
‘We won’t think any worse of you if you decide it’s too dangerous.’

Well, Myajes could never resist a challenge, especially not one set by the
Patriarch himself. Rumor had it that the Patriarch had once entered the prison camp disguised as a Captain just to show that the Elite Guard weren’t so high and mighty after all. But that was just a rumor, and if the Patriarch had tried anything like that while Myajes was his bodyguard, then they would have had words.

Myajes had wanted to go as a Colonel, so no one would argue with him, but the
Patriarch had
suggested otherwise,
‘If you’re too high a rank, then the soldiers would be suspicious because they don’t know you. The Elite are a relatively small force and they pretty much all know their highest ranking officers. Go at too low a rank though, and you’ll have no leeway to get what you’re there for. Major might be too high, Captain might be too low. Captain would be safer, though.’

The rest of the journey to the prison camp seemed
to be over far too soon for Myajes’ liking. He had expected a few more obstacles to block the route should anyone happen to stumble past the fake plants, but there was nothing. Anyone who had gotten past those plants must’ve been expected to know where they were going. Even the metal fence he had encountered on his scouting trip yesterday seemed to be absent from this part of the surrounding forest.

The car park was just to the far side of a small group of trees through which he could have
driven, had he felt it was the sort of thing a Captain would do. He didn’t want to rock the boat more than he had to, though. He didn’t want them to realize what had happened until both he and Lara were safely in his car and on their way home.

He had a small spot of trouble searching the car park for a free space. Actually
, there seemed to be plenty of empty spaces, but every one of them was reserved for some officer or another and not one of them for a Captain James Monroe. If Myajes should park in someone’s reserved spot and that officer should call by too, it might cause more hassle than he wanted to face.

He began to grow despondent. They wouldn’t have guests here to view the inmates, so they wouldn’t need any guest spaces
. And if he kept driving around the car park in circles, he was likely to draw unwanted attention.

Then he saw what he was looking for
; it was labeled
Reserved For Visiting Officers.
The fact that it said reserved was probably what had distracted Myajes from it the first time he had passed by, but now finally he had somewhere to park.

He parked and climbed out of the car. It was too late to check everything again now. It was too late to check that he looked like a herd officer of the
Elite. It was too late to recheck that his orders looked authentic. He had to stride towards the main door of the prison camp and enter as if he had been born to the clothes he wore.

The main doors to the prison camp were large enough to allow through the biggest vehicle the army had in its possession. They appeared to be made of wood, or a very good wood imitation. There was also a small door for pedestrians cut into the right hand side gate.

Above the door, following every step of his approach was a pair of very small cameras. Oh, they knew he was there all right, and if he changed his mind about his mission now, they would get very suspicious. He lowered his head a little and repeated a small prayer to the Goddess in his mind, effectively asking her to help him through this.

The small door within a door opened
, and a man dressed in the purple uniform of a Guardsman of the Cattery Elite
stepped towards him and saluted him. He was quite a muscular looking man, but he moved as if ready for anything. If Myajes was really hostile in some way, the man would be ready. As well as the standard Cattery uniform of an Elite Guardsman, complete with insignia and laser rifle, there was a small white plug poking out of one of his ears. It might have been some sort of communication device, but there didn’t seem to be any microphone to go with it.

Myajes returned the salute. The Guardsman seemed to be blocking the way into the prison camp without actually looking as if he was trying to block the way.  Myajes felt he’d better introduce himself. Now to see just how well his makeup job had been that morning. ‘I am Captain Monroe. I’m here to question one of your prisoners taken in the last few days.’

‘I see, sir,’ the Guardsman replied, and he continued to stand there for a moment, causing Myajes to wonder if maybe he needed a password of some sort. If he did, he had no idea what it might be. The Patriarch hadn’t said anything about needing a password, but it was unlikely even the Patriarch knew everything. The lack of a needed password could get him killed.

A few seconds passed
before Myajes noticed that the Guardsman was listening to the plug in his ear, no doubt receiving further orders on what to do about their visitor. It ended when the Guardsman nodded reflexively at the instructions he had just received. He then stepped to one side of the door and said, ‘Please follow me,’ before leading the way through.

Myajes obeyed and followed the man through the door into the courtyard of the prison camp. The door he passed through caught his interest for a moment
. It was about eight inches thick, but that wouldn’t have done much good against a cutting laser. However, the thickness of the door seemed to be in three sections, the two outermost parts being each about four inches thick. But in the middle (and this was probably true of the large gates as well as the small door) there was a thin layer of something else, something definitely not wood that was most likely laser resistant and quite possibly missile resistant. Myajes was impressed, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the entire camp was like that.

Everything actually inside the camp seemed to be made of wood
. Wood was very expensive these days; the forests in this area had been part of a major reforestation policy brought in several hundred years earlier. It was only legal to use the trees in the forest if you planted three new ones for each you removed, and of course the licenses to do so were so expensive that it was rarely cost effective to bother. Of course there were always loopholes. If doing something seemed to be in the government’s best interest, a way could be found to circumvent any inconvenient law. The prison camp had probably been built from the timber cut from the trees that had grown in the location that the prison camp and the road leading to it now occupied.

It was a large place, big enough for the twenty prison blocks
, all of which looked to be wood on the outside but were probably made of something more secure on the inside. There were also a large number of auxiliary buildings, canteens, arsenals, administration blocks, relaxation areas for the off-duty Guardsmen and so on, again all apparently made of wood. There were even ramparts around the top of the wall, making the prison camp feel a little more like a fortress. Of course there were the two towers he had seen previously, but there were also a number of searchlights scattered along the ramparts, all of them aiming inwards.

The Guardsman waited until Myajes was in the courtyard and then closed the small door behind them. There were two buildings just inside the gates, positioned so they were just clear of anything that might drive through them. Each had a large reflective glass window looking out onto the gates. He couldn’t see anyone in the buildings, but he had no illusions that they couldn’t see him.

‘This way,’ the Guardsman told him, and he led Myajes into the rightmost of the two buildings.

The first thing Myajes noticed as he walked into the small building
(in fact, it took up so much of the little building it would have been impossible not to notice) was that the wall farthest from the door was lined with monitors, watched by three Guardsmen. Every inch of the route from the fake plants to the prison camp’s doors was covered by hidden cameras. They must have seen him hesitate to drive over the fake plants at the entrance to the bridle path. They must have seen him scratch the paintwork of his car trying to take that narrow corner and how many attempts it had taken him to make it. Worst of all, they must have seen him stop the car to check that his disguise, uniform and orders were all authentic looking. He had to be careful. They couldn’t know why he had stopped to admire himself, but they must know he had.

Besides the door, just below the window was a long table on which were three stacks of paper. There a communication link was being used as a paperweight on the stack nearest the door. A Sergeant sat in a chair next to the table but facing the door
. He had a piece of paper in his hand which he had apparently just stopped reading as Myajes had entered the room.

The Sergeant was on his feet in an instant and saluting the entering officer, but to the three soldiers on the monitors he might as well not have existed.

Myajes returned the salute instantly and said, ‘My name is Captain Monroe, and I’m here to interrogate one of your prisoners.’

The Sergeant, whose name happened to be Fry, nodded to the Guardsman
who had brought Myajes into the building, and the man saluted before leaving. His post was evidently in the other small hut just on the other side of the large gates.

‘Do you have orders?’ Sergeant Fry asked him
. He seemed to be analyzing every movement the newcomer was making.

Myajes reached into his pocket and pulled out the papers the
Patriarch had forged for him. The seal looked authentic and was signed in the name of one Lieutenant Colonel Norton, known to be fairly high in the ranks of the Elite Guard
and believed to be the officer in charge at the Cattery itself. He must have the clout needed to get Myajes what he required. He moved very carefully, aware that everything he did was being studied, even if the Sergeant wasn’t aware that he was doing it.

Sergeant Fry took the paper and checked it over
. ‘Hmm…Well, it looks in order to me, sir.’ He handed the orders back. ‘Do you have the name of the cat you’d like to question?’