taken.'
Linda looked past him into the cell. The occupant wasn't anywhere near as awe-inspiring as she seemed to the runt. She was a petrified Native American girl, half starved and in her late teens. The chains on her wrists and ankles ran through a ring in the ceiling and around a winch; most probably to allow the client to control what position she was in.
The girl shrank from the two men the minute she saw them. Greaves knelt down and tried his skeleton key in one of her ankle shackles but the girl kicked out in fear and knocked him on his back. 'Shit,' he said when he got up and looked at the key. 'She snapped it.'
'You want me to get her out of these?' the big guy said, holding up the chains. The runt nodded.
The girl tried to pull away from them while the runt tried to calm her. 'Listen, Anna,' he said. 'It's okay. We're not here to hurt you. My name's Greaves and this is Cortez. We've come to get you out.'
Cortez reached out to Linda's belt, and without thinking she pulled the bowie knife on him. 'Getting a little fresh aren't we?'
Cortez stopped but he didn't pull back his hand. 'You have my gun,' he said pointing at the Colt. 45. 'I need it to break these chains.'
Linda took it from her belt and handed it to him. 'You know men usually have to pay to get their pistol in my trousers,' she said playfully. Cortez met her flirting with a cold stare and turned away. Obviously plays for the other team, she thought.
Cortez caught hold of Anna's wrist. She cried out but her attempts to break free had no effect. He shot each of her chains off then picked her up like a child and flung her over his shoulder. She'd stopped fighting, but Linda could see that Anna's eyes were full of fear and mistrust.
'Hello… hello?' said a voice from another cell. 'Is… is someone out there?' It was a woman with her face pressed against the grill. 'Oh God you've got to take me with you. Please, I've got young children. There's no one to look after them. Please get me out of here.'
Linda looked to Greaves who shook his head. 'We haven't got time. She'll slow us down.'
'And this one won't?' Linda said.
The door to the basement began to shake as something thudded into it from the other side.
'Quickly, show us this grill,' said Greaves.
'Please,' the woman in the cell called out. 'Please don't leave me here. You don't know what they do to me… please…'
Linda tried not to listen as she showed them the potential exit. Cortez heaved at it but it remained stubbornly in place. The wood of the basement door splintered and gunfire raked the floor, inches from them. Greaves and Linda franticly joined the effort, and the grill gave as they heard the door give way and the first set of feet start to descend.
They scrambled through the tight opening. Anna first, then Greaves and Linda. A hand caught hold of Cortez's leg as he was leaving. He shot it away, shattering the knuckles.
They came out into a parking lot surrounded by a wooded copse. Greaves and Cortez, with Anna over his shoulder, raced to their vehicle then stopped in dismay. The tyres had been slashed.
'Quick, into the trees,' said Linda. They followed her as armed women raced around the building and into the lot. The gun-toting prose tried to follow but weren't dressed for the rough terrain and soon lost their prey.
The copse continued in a steep ascent for a while and then gave out onto a highway. Greaves turned to Linda as they reached it. 'We need a vehicle to get us out of the State. Can you help?'
'I may be able to but why would I want to? You boys look like you've got yourselves into a lot of trouble.'
'Three reasons,' Greaves said. 'Firstly, Edwards had a lot of powerful friends who will want to get even with you for shooting him. Secondly I can pay you really well.' He rooted through his greatcoat and came out with two gold coins. 'These are Krugerrands from South Africa, they're pure gold,' he said handing them to her. 'This is just a down payment. And thirdly you'll be helping to save the world.'
Linda nearly laughed out loud at that last statement but she could see from Greaves' eyes that he was deadly earnest.
'Follow me,' she said.
Three hours and a lot of walking later they stood outside a lock-up on the north bank of the Susquehanna River. Linda unlocked the door and led them inside.
There, under a tarpaulin, was her baby. She tugged at the cover to reveal Bertha: A Fleetwood, 40E motor home, covered with customised bullet-proof armour plating. She came complete with onboard arsenal. There wasn't another vehicle like her on the road.
'Very nice,' said Greaves inspecting the custom bodywork. 'Where did you get it?'
'A grateful client. He didn't like his next of kin so he left Bertha and her contents to me.'
She opened the vehicle up and Greaves and Cortez climbed in. Cortez put Anna down on a couch. She pulled her knees up under her chin and sat rocking, staring straight ahead.
'We've got enough gas in the tank to get us out the state,' said Linda. 'Where we headed?'
'Montana.' Greaves said.
'That's on the other side of the country. We'll have to cross at least seven States to get there.'
'I can make it very worth your while.'
'Okay it's your money. So Anna, is she your relative, your lover or what?'
'We've never seen her before,' said Greaves.
'So why'd you go to such trouble to rescue her?'
Greaves looked over at the traumatised sex slave. She was crying and shaking and snot ran down her top lip.
'Because,' he said. 'She is the future saviour of humankind.'
CHAPTER TWO
At dusk the braves lit the meeting fire. Hiamovi held the talking stick above his head and everyone sitting on the rough scrub ground nodded their assent. He looked to the First Official of the Crow Council, Pauline Willowtree. She gave him leave to address the whole population of Crow Agency, the largest community on the Crow reservation.
He noted that, as was normal these days, at least a quarter of the faces looking up at him were white men and women. They were refugees from the cities. Survivors of The Cull, taken in and cultured by many of his people after their world was destroyed.
Hiamovi's heart beat faster, and that same cold feeling of anticipation and nerves, that public speaking always brought, spread outwards from his stomach. Before he spoke he let his spirit pour forth from his body to touch the spirit of the whole Crow tribe. His spirit went farther with each breath and there, at the boundaries of the tribe's collective spirit, he met the Great Spirit.
'Brothers and Sisters,' he said, feeling the presence all around him. 'In the days before the white man came – when the buffalo roamed these plains and there were hunting grounds for us all – in those days, when our Chiefs sought an answer to a problem that faced the whole tribe, our people would journey into the wilderness to find a revelation in dreams and prophetic vision.'
The older members of the Crow nodded their agreement. The others leaned forward as Hiamovi paused, pulled in by the commanding tone of his voice.
'I too left my people and found myself lost in the wilderness. Not the wilderness of old, but the steel and concrete wilderness that the white man called his 'civilisation'. And I too received a revelation. One that was intended not just for my tribe, but for every one of my people and every one of our tribes.
'I wasn't searching for an answer. At that time I didn't care about the problems of my people. As far as I was concerned my people were my problem. They were the reason I had no self respect, no education and no identity. The reason I was left to rot on some reservation, living out my days in what I saw as a pointless existence. The truth is I hated myself. But I hated being a Cheyenne more.'
