Rolled razor wire topped the fence. About ten yards deep, the open area was littered with dry clods of dirt. It was unplanted, unwatered, untrampled — a sterile no-man’s-land.
“I’m going to the fence,” Asgar whispered. “I’ll take?” “You’ll take me,” Jon said. “I want to let Chiavelli and Thayer know I’m here, and I can’t communicate with your men anyway. They can stay back and cover us.”
“All right then. Come along.”
Crouched, they tore toward the fence. Jon sweated from the strain on his sore muscles. Just as they reached it, a searchlight blazed on from the guard tower to their left. They dove to the dirt, their bodies pressed tight against the fence. Dust from the dry earth filled Jon’s nostrils.
He fought a sneeze, at last swallowing it.
Asgar’s whisper was little more than a vibration as the searchlight beam probed, passed over, and passed over again. “What the devil’s going on?
I’ve never seen them this alert.”
“Something’s spooked them.”
“Right. When that light gives up, we crawl west.”
In the darkened barrack room, David Thayer was seated at his plank table, packing a few keepsakes and papers into a waistpack.
Dennis Chiavelli held a small flashlight so Thayer could see what he was doing. The light illuminated Thayer’s thatch of white hair from beneath, making it glow like fresh snow.
“You okay to do this?” Chiavelli asked. “This could turn out to be a lot harder than we expect. You could be hurt or die. It’s not too late to change your mind.”
Thayer looked up. His faded eyes danced. “Are you insane? I’ve been waiting a lifetime. Literally. I’m going to see America again. I’m going to see my son again. Impossible! I feel like an old fool, but I can hardly believe this is happening.” Unembarrassed joy radiated from his wrinkled face.
Chiavelli jerked around toward the window. “What’s that?”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
But the old man’s hearing was bad. Chiavelli crossed to the window.
“Damn!” He peered out and cursed softly again.
“What is it?”
“The governor. He’s got a squad with him. They’re doing a barrack check.
Now they’re heading for the Uighers. My guess is our barrack is next.”
Thayer’s parchment skin paled. “What do we do?”
“Return everything to where it was.” Chiavelli sprinted back from the window. “Undress again and pretend to sleep. Hurry.”
Moving with amazing speed for a man of his years, David Thayer put the few keepsakes and papers back where they belonged, stripped off his outer clothes, and pulled his nightshirt down over his head. At the same time, Chiavelli yanked off his clothes and, wearing his underwear, slid into his pallet.
The noise of a door banging open into the barrack silenced them. Moments later, two guards entered the room, ordering, “On your feet.”
Both feigned sleepiness, and the guards pulled them roughly up from their pallets.
As the governor entered, he glared at Chiavelli and chided the guards, “Don’t be so rough on the old one.” He studied Thayer for a sign he had not been in his pallet. “You were asleep, prisoner Thayer?” “I was having good dreams,” he said irritably, his eyes half-closed.
“We need to search.”
“Of course.”
The guards investigated the cupboard, moved the pallets, and looked out the windows to see whether anyone was hiding. There was nowhere else to look in the bare room. The governor walked slowly around.
At last, he told Thayer, “You may return to sleep.”
As he left, the guards close behind, they heard him order, “Post a guard at each barrack. Conduct a pallet check every hour. The prison is locked down. There’ll be no work tomorrow, and no one enters or leaves. No one, until further notice.”
The governor marched out of sight. As the guards followed, someone closed the door.
Chiavelli hurried to the window. He stood there for some time. “He’s going back to his office, but he’s short a guard. He must’ve left one at the barrack door.”
“That won’t matter.”
“The bed check and lock-down will. We can’t leave tonight. Even if we managed to escape the farm, they’d be on us before we got five miles.”
David Thayer collapsed on a chair. “No.” His bony shoulders slumped. His face was a mask of despair. “Of course, you’re right.”
“The only good thing is they don’t seem to have connected it to us, and you won’t be transferred tomorrow. The lock-down’s saved you from that.”
Thayer looked up. “Now we wait. And hope. I’m used to that. Still … this time, it all seems much harder.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Between occasional, seemingly random sweeps by the searchlight beam, Jon and Asgar worked their way around the fence, sometimes crawling, sometimes trotting, always hunched over. Asgar knew where they were going, when to crawl, and when to chance moving faster. Suddenly, he dropped to his heels.
Jon pulled in beside him, squatting, too, and followed his line of sight through the fence to a low, square building set ten yards inside the chainlink enclosure. There was a double door in its rear wall, but no windows. From the big door, an unpaved drive ran to the fence and out to a road. Asgar said, “This is where they’ll come out.”
“What’s the building?”
“The kitchen and mess. We’ll stay here and hope like bloody hell we don’t have to cut our way inside. Those rear doors are for loading and unloading supplies. The important aspect of this piece of real estate is that there’s a blind spot between the doors and the fence — about ten feet wide— out of sight of the guard towers.”
“That’s a damn useful discovery.” They settled in to wait, again lying close to the fence. Jon focused on the double doors. Time seemed to stand still, and the night closed in. The noise of booted feet marching across wood walkways broke the silence. It was a heavy sound, threatening.
Jon frowned at Asgar. “What does that mean?”
“They’re marching away from the barracks toward the governor’s building and the guardhouse.” Asgar’s voice was barely audible. “There must’ve been an alarm, or perhaps the governor made a snap inspection. It doesn’t look good, Jon.”
“A lockdown?” “We’ll know soon,” Asgar said grimly. He found a loose pebble and lobbed it over the fence. It struck the ground with a tiny, nearly inaudible thikkk.
Jon still saw nothing move inside the prison, not even a shadow. Then he felt a sharp sting on his cheek. He had been hit by a return pebble. He picked it up.
Asgar nodded. “That’s the signal. They’re locked down. We’ll have to wait. With luck, twenty-four hours from now, everything will be normal again. The only good thing is they won’t transfer Thayer in the morning.
Of course, it’s possible the lock-down will last longer, maybe even a week.”
“I hope not, for all our sakes. Especially for Thayer’s.”
Charles Ouray entered the Oval Office quietly. “Mr. President? Sorry to disturb you.”
Late afternoon sunlight warmed the room and the back of the president’s neck. Castilla glanced up from the President’s Daily Brief. “Yes?”
“The DCI would like a word.”
The president took off his reading glasses. “By all means, bring her in, Charlie.”
