“How’d he escape?” Mercy asked.
“He broke out of a work detail and ran into a marshy area. The militia wouldn’t follow him on horseback. They sent a few men in with dogs but he was able to evade them, they tried to burn him out but that didn’t work out for them, the ground was too wet. He stayed low and waited them out, they gave up after three days, then he came out and took to the road—”
“Resourceful guy,” Mercy said. “Did he tell you about the compound itself?”
Nate shrugged, “Not much, except the prisoners are kept in a separate block and locked in overnight. The militia use leg irons on the prisoners at night to prevent escape attempts—”
Mercy shuddered, “Yeah, I’m familiar with that shit—”
Brody checked his watch again, “OK everyone, saddle up, let’s move out. I want scouts on our tail and flanks. I’ll take us in—”
Fifty minutes later they were moving through the trees along the northern shore of Lake Monticello. Brody stopped after a further ten minutes and dismounted his horse. He picked a handful of men and pointed at Mercy.
“Dawes, come with us. We’re on foot from here. The others will stay put and watch the horses,” Brody said.
Mercy slid off her horse, her back and legs stiff and aching. “Sure, lead on.”
Brody took them along the lake, using the trees as cover. He took his time, stopping frequently to listen and wait. Birds called out in the canopy above, crickets chirped and the water lapped against the rocky shore a few feet away. Five minutes later he crouched down and pulled out a pair of binoculars. He beckoned Mercy forwards and handed her the binoculars.
“Over there, that’s the north tip of the island. You can just make out the footbridge across the water. We’ll move closer for a better look but get your bearings first—” Brody whispered, his face expressionless.
Mercy peered through the binoculars and adjusted the focus.
Yes, there’s the bridge, there’ll be defences on the island side. Shit… it’s exposed. The defenders have a good field of view across the water. Maybe climbing under the bridge at night might work—?
Mercy sighed and handed the binoculars back to Brody, “Yeah, I see what Nate means. It looks like a tough nut to crack. A defender’s paradise—”
“Water’s deep enough too; twenty, thirty feet in places. They’ve got dogs on the island and they patrol the shore at night, in case you were thinking we could just all just swim across—” Brody said.
“Good to know, the thought had crossed my mind,” Mercy replied.
They crept forwards through the undergrowth until they were twenty yards from the bridge. Brody hunkered down and pressed the binoculars to his eyes again, concentrating on the bridge. Mercy scanned the island and its shoreline.
From the map it was about a quarter of a mile long and a couple of hundred yards across. The compound lies at the southern end… hey, what the hell—?
Mercy tapped Brody on the arm, “Give me those for a moment—”
Brody handed over the binoculars and Mercy pressed them to her eyes. The water sparkled in the low sunlight making it difficult for her to discern the shapes floating in the lake.
Wait, what—?
She gripped the binoculars, her knuckles white.
“Fuck,” Mercy whispered.
“What?” Brody said.
Mercy lowered the binoculars and blinked, “There’s tropes, loads of them, just floating in the water around the footbridge—”
Brody looked through the binoculars and swore, “Clever bastards, they’ve made it like a minefield. There’s at least sixty tropes floating there. Probably more laced under the water, they’ll have used chains and cargo nets to keep them in place—”
For fuck’s sake—
“Well, we’re not going to get your men across under the bridge… even at night,” Mercy said, sighing.
“A full frontal assault is out too, any charge across that narrow bridge would be suicide. They’ll have a machine gun position no doubt, on the other side,” Brody replied.
Goddammit—
“It’s like a moat and a minefield put together,” Mercy said.
Think, think, think—
Mercy rested her forehead on her arms and closed her eyes.
Brody is right, the bridge is too well defended. What if they’ve got random tropes in the water around the whole island? They patrol at night, they’ve got dogs. Wait, what about the south of the island? The compound end—
Mercy lifted her head and looked at Brody, “I’ve got an idea—”
Chapter 34
Incursion
“I’ll swim across at night. Not here, not at the bridge. This is where they’d expect an attack. No, I’ll swim over to the island at the southern end, the compound end. Just me. Not you or your guys. I’ll bring a radio, so I can keep in touch. You and your men stay up here at the bridge, wait for my call. Think of it as a recon mission. I won’t engage them… I’ll just find out information. If there’s any tropes floating in the water I’ve got the biotech so they shouldn’t attack me—”
So long as there’s not any alphas in there, but Annalise said there were no alphas in Charlottesville… so hopefully none out here—
Brody nodded, “Well, yes, the more intel we have about their set up the better. Even if you could create a diversion on the other side of the bridge that would help us get across. We’ll need to think it through. We’ve got a few hours of daylight left, we’ll pull back from here and go and check out the southern part of the island—”
“Let’s do it,” Mercy replied.
They withdrew and returned to their horses. Brody ordered his men to keep a discrete eye on the bridge. He then brought Mercy and three others inland and approached the island from the south. They left their horses with a guard and walked the last fifty yards to the lakeshore. Brody took out his binoculars and lay down in the long grass. He watched the island for a
