Threat Warning (14 page)
Shit. I have to climb the fence in the open
.
.
At the very edge of the tree line, which at this point was more scrub growth than real trees, Ryan leaned out into the cleared space. He pivoted his head first to the left, and then to the right, and there they both were, each about thirty yards away from him, but on opposite sides. They appeared to be moving away, but how could he know without being able to see faces for a reference point?
Time to find out.
Pressing himself flat against the ground, he lizard-crawled across the open space to the base of the fence. He thought to look both ways again, just to be sure, then talked himself out of it. What was it that Dad always said?
In for a penny, in for a pound
.
In for a penny, in for a pound
.
It wasn’t till he actually rose to his knees and touched the fence that he thought about the possibility that it might be electrified. It wasn’t.
Ryan slipped his fingers through the chain links and started to climb, telling himself that this was no different than climbing the fence to the athletic field on the days when he beat Coach Jackson to practice. He’d done that half a dozen times, and each time, he’d earned one of those scoldings that was really an expression of veiled admiration.
He didn’t expect one of those this time.
The hardest part was to not make any noise. Chain-link fences make a unique tinkling, clattering sound when you climb them. If the guards heard that, it would be over. Good God, there were so many ways for this to be over, and none of them were good.
He refused to look at the guards, fearing that the energy of his glance might somehow make them turn, the way that your eyes are drawn to the girl across the classroom who happens to be staring at you, or the way the teacher knows to call on you the one day out of thirty when you don’t have your homework done. Maybe if he didn’t summon their glances, things would continue to break his way.
The frigid air registered almost as hot against the exposed skin of his hands and face, and as he scaled higher, the metal chain links felt like they were somehow turning his finger bones brittle.
It took less time than he thought it would to reach the top of the fence, where a Y-shaped frame of barbed wire awaited him, daring to thwart his escape.
Not a chance. He’d already been beaten, and people were already planning his execution. Spiky wire was nothing.
At the top now, he reached up and behind with his right hand to wrap his fist around the wire, taking care to place his palm in a spot between the spikes. That done, he let go of the fence with his other hand and allowed his feet to dangle as he hand-walked upwards and backwards, hand-over-hand until he’d reached the fourth level of wire, which left him dangling free over the cleared aisleway.
A pull-up brought him chin-high to the wire, and then he faced the hard part. Squinting against what he knew was coming, he raised his left leg and hooked the wire with his ankle, where one of the spikes bit deeply into the soft meat in front of his Achilles tendon. Ignoring the pain, he gritted his teeth and hoisted his left leg parallel to the wire. Spikes found his calf and knee and thighs, and he prayed to all things holy that his junk would be spared as he heaved himself with agonizing slowness into the trough formed by the torturous Y. While his scrotum got poked, the point missed the boys, so he called that a victory.
As he lay on his back on this elevated bed of nails, staring at the sky, he paused to collect himself. The dark, negative part of him waited for the sound of gunshots to rip the night, but the rest of him pushed those thoughts away. What was going to happen was going to happen. All he could do was his best; and if his best wasn’t good enough, he’d never know it because he’d be dead.
It was time to finish the job.
He rolled to his right, this time clutching his crotch as his belt buckle and parts south passed again through the danger zone. Still in the Y, he was able to get his feet under him enough to duck into a low crouch. He wasn’t good with distances, but to his eye, he was ten or twelve feet off the ground—too far just to launch himself into the night.
He turned his hands so they were fingers down, thumbs in, and he carefully nestled his palms into another dead space between the spikes. From there, he pressed his belly against the wire and doubled over, allowing the momentum of his head and upper body to propel him into a somersault that left him dangling by his hands, his shoes maybe five feet off the ground. From there, he let go and dropped to freedom on the far side. He tried to remain limp as he hit the ground, allowing his knees to fold at the impact, and he forced a shoulder roll that left him on his stomach, flat against the ground.
Jesus, he’d made a lot of noise.
Without even thinking, he scrambled for traction with his hands and feet and he darted for the cover of the bushes on his side of the fence. He was still half a stride away when someone yelled, “Who’s there?” The voice came from the direction of Brother Samuel, but Ryan couldn’t tell for sure that it was his voice.
Powerful flashlights clicked on, and he heard the sound of running feet as the lights bounced in the air and converged at roughly the spot where Ryan had climbed the fence.
He pressed himself flat against the ground, and tried to control his breath, conscious of the telltale cloud he made with every exhalation. His heart pounded hard enough behind his breastbone to actually hurt.
“What’s wrong?” Brother James yelled. Ryan recognized that voice.
“Didn’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“The fence moved.”
“It
moved
? How would it do that?”
moved
? How would it do that?”
“I mean it moved.” The night filled with the sound of rattling chain link. “Like that.”
The darkness around him lightened as flashlight beams scoured the ground.
“I didn’t hear a thing,” Brother James said. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure I heard something.”
“Did you see anything?”
“ No.”
The flashlight beams scoured the ground some more. “I don’t see anything out there, either, do you?”
Brother Samuel didn’t answer as the lights played on and on.
Ryan didn’t know how much longer he could control his breathing. He lungs were screaming. He opened his eyes long enough to see that the lights were near him but not on him, and dared to cover his mouth with his hand and exhale, oh so slowly.
“There’s nothing there, Brother Samuel. Maybe it was a deer.”
“Maybe we should check with Brother Stephen and have him look in on the prisoners.”
Ryan’s heart nearly stopped.
“Right,” Brother James mocked. “They overpowered him though a locked door.”
“I’m just saying that I heard something.”
“And I’m just saying that there’s nothing out there.”
A light swung away from Ryan’s woods, and played into the woods on the other side—the area he’d just left.
“What’s wrong with you?” Brother James said.
“Maybe it was someone climbing
in
. We’re at war now, after all.”
in
. We’re at war now, after all.”
“And who would do that?”
“The cops? The FBI? The army? How would I know? But if they found out—”
“Nobody’s finding out,” Brother James said. Ryan could hear the frustration in his voice. “This is just more of that same problem as before. You have no faith.”
“Not true.”
“It
is
true. I’m not going to report you—at least not yet—but you’re getting paranoid, and the paranoia is making you question all the unquestionables.”
is
true. I’m not going to report you—at least not yet—but you’re getting paranoid, and the paranoia is making you question all the unquestionables.”
“I am not! Maybe I’m a little jumpy—”
“You’re a
lot
jumpy,” Brother James accused. “Do you or don’t you have faith in Brother Michael and his plan?”
lot
jumpy,” Brother James accused. “Do you or don’t you have faith in Brother Michael and his plan?”
“Of course I do. But—”
“No, stop. No buts. If you have faith, there’s no room for buts.”
The lights returned to Ryan’s side of the fence. “I know what I heard,” Brother Samuel said.
“I’m not saying you didn’t hear anything. Just that you didn’t hear an invader. Or an escapee. You heard a deer. Or the wind.” One of the lights went out. “Now, turn that thing off before your night vision is ruined for hours.”
The light stayed right where it was. Ryan wondered if Brother Samuel was just making a point by defying the order to turn it off. Finally, darkness returned. The boys—Ryan had come to think of them as teenagers, though he didn’t know why—said some parting words, and then the night became quiet again.
Ryan lay frozen on the ground—in every sense of the word. Were they really gone, or were they sandbagging, pretending to be gone, and just waiting for him to show himself by moving? If he were them—particularly if he were Brother Samuel, who not only felt sure that he’d heard something, but had something to prove to Brother James—he’d stand there and set a trap for a while. He’d read somewhere, or maybe seen on television, that that was how snipers and countersnipers used to wait each other out during World War I and World War II. The one who lost patience first died.
With his hand cupped to his nose and mouth to disperse the clouds of breath, he forced himself to lie completely still, hoping that the hammering of his heart wasn’t audible ten or fifteen yards away.
But how long was long enough? He decided to count to five hundred, metering the rhythm in his head as one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, and on to the end. That would keep him from going too fast.
As he got to a hundred twenty-three one-thousand, he heard Brother James say, “So, can we just say that I was right?”
The sound of his voice made Ryan gasp and his skin nearly stripped itself from his skeleton. Jesus, they
had
been waiting.
had
been waiting.
“I guess,” Brother Samuel said. “I was just so sure.”
“Happens sometimes. In ninety minutes, we get relieved, and you can get some sleep.”
“Right,” Brother Samuel said. “Sorry for the alarm.”
This time, Ryan actually heard the footsteps as they walked away. He sent up another prayer of thanks that God had made him so paranoid.
When he could no longer hear the footsteps of the guards, he did a push-up on his frozen hands and brought himself to his knees, his back bent low. They were gone.
But they were also nervous. Brother Samuel in particular would be on a hair trigger, waiting to detect things in the night and shoot them. And Ryan was upwind now, so he needed to be that much more careful about making noise.
He needed to get the hell out of here. Distance was his only weapon.
As Ryan stood and turned his back to the compound, the starlight revealed a lighter strip along the black ground that he presumed to be the extension of the road that he’d been following all along—the road that he hoped was the same one that had brought them here.
It was time to run. It was, after all, the only thing in school that he was any good at. He needed to find the houses he saw on the way in that had electricity burning in the windows. Where there was electricity, there had to be a phone, right? And where there was a phone, help was only a police-car ride away.
Ryan took off at a jog, a thousand-meter pace, as if he were back on the track team—fast enough to outrun just about anyone if they were going for the distance, but about half the speed of the sprint he was capable of for a short spurt. The cold air filled his lungs and dried him out, making him want to cough, but he knew better than that. No sudden noises.
At least the road was paved. If he’d been on gravel, there’d be way more noise, and if he’d been on dirt, he’d have had to worry about the irregularities of surface, and of an ankle twist or a knee jam. As it was, he could run like this for hours.
It turned out that he only had to go about ten minutes. At first, he thought the specks in the distance were headlights, triggering another flash of panic; but as he slowed and got closer, he realized that he was seeing the glow of light from inside a building. Closer still, and he saw that the building was a house. A big one, atop a long hill.
Hope bloomed. His mind conjured an image of a family gathered around the television, watching one of the late-night comedy shows. Wouldn’t they be surprised as all get out when he showed up at their door and told them his story? He wondered if they had any idea of all that was going on at the compound down the road. It would have been like the Germans who lived down the street from the concentration camps. Surprises like that were the ones that no one wanted.
Except the Germans knew. Most of them, anyway, and the rest were in denial. Isn’t that what he saw on
Band of Brothers
? Absolutely. The American commanders made the townspeople go down to the camp and bury the dead.
Band of Brothers
? Absolutely. The American commanders made the townspeople go down to the camp and bury the dead.
Suppose these people knew? They’d have to know, wouldn’t they?
He stopped dead in the middle of the road. All those terrorists had to live somewhere, didn’t they? True, Ryan had barely seen the compound within the fence, but not everyone could live inside there, could they? He couldn’t risk it.
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