“What are you doing?” cried Chase.
“Hold still. Everything’s fine. However, in situations like this one—multiple-captive situations—I find it prudent to periodically remind everyone of two very important points.” He maintained a cool, almost charming demeanor. “First, while I am sympathetic to your situation and your disappointment at being captured, I will use deadly force if I have to. Second, although it’s not exactly something to be proud of, I am very skilled at the use of deadly force, and I have a reputation for successful multiple-captive work. I don’t mean to boast—if you’d had to work as long as I have in this occupation, you’d be just as good as I am. It’s not bragging. It’s a warning.”
Steele holstered the pistol almost as quickly as he had drawn it, then put his hands on his hips. We stayed still. He calmly picked up a few branches of firewood and set them against the burning log. The fire gave off a pleasant warmth. I felt exhausted.
“I like you three,” said Steele after he’d stoked the fire. “I can tell that under other circumstances, we might be friends. I’d like to have this mission over with as quickly as possible, without you coming to any harm. And me, too, of course. I don’t want anything to happen to me. Once you’re out of my custody, you can work on saving your skins or escaping or whatever else you want to do. Just—please, let me do my job. Okay?”
I nodded.
Then I felt myself getting very drowsy. Not just sleepy, but deeply tired. It had been a long day, but a profound need to lie down suddenly overtook me.
Through a mild stupor, I listened as Steele instructed us to retrieve our coats and tarps and make ourselves comfortable on the ground near a few large trees that stood close together a few paces from the fire. It would provide a little cover in case of rain, he said, and was still close enough to the fire to feel its warmth. Low grass and moss covered the flat area beneath the trees. We stood and shuffled in that direction. I felt as though I might fall asleep in mid-step.
“Hey,” said Arie woozily, holding his bound hands up and pointing an accusing finger at Steele, “you drugged us.”
“The oat bars,” said Chase, nodding.
“Merely a sedative,” Steele returned with a smile. “It’s for your own good. But mainly for mine.” He chuckled.
We went to the flat place among the trees and lowered ourselves groggily to the ground, spreading our tarps and wrapping ourselves in coats and blankets.
Steele collected our packs and set them near his own things. Then he returned and kneeled on one knee at our feet, where he began to tie something to my ankle. I blinked at him sleepily. My eyelids seemed to close and open again at a half-speed. It was the length of cord he used to keep us stitched together on the trail. I began to doze off, my eyes closing now and refusing to open again, but I fought it, trying to see what Steele was doing. He tied the cord around our ankles and then looped it over a tree branch and back to where he’d been sitting at the fire—it was a tripwire.
When he finished, he crouched by the fire and laid on another large log.
“I appreciated our chance to talk this evening,” he said arranging the wood and banking the coals. “As you can imagine, this kind of work involves long periods of solitude. Even a short conversation is sometimes welcome, if it’s pleasant.”
I looked at Arie and Chase. Arie was lying still, apparently asleep already. Chase was scooting around, trying to get comfortable on the mossy ground.
As my eyelids dropped for the last time, I heard Steele say, “Sleep well.”
CHAPTER 23
I dreamed of a Ferris wheel. A man at the turnstile of an amusement park put a colorful band of plastic around my wrist and I clunked through the gate and into the park. There were games and food and rides, and there was laughter all around. It was nighttime and the lights of the rides shone festively as they strobed and flashed. I walked through the crowd. There were families and couples and groups of young people. I came to the place where people waited in line for the Ferris wheel. When it was my turn, I sat in a gondola and a young lady in a sun visor secured the restraining bar over my lap, and then she worked a control on an instrument panel and the gondola went backward and up, backward and up. Other people got on the ride in the other gondolas, and then it was turning. I looked out over the amusement park, at the trees and the flashing rows of lights and the bars of neon on the other rides. Then I noticed that Chase was on the ride with me. He looked over at me and put his arm around me. He smiled and laughed. Then Arie was with me. Arie as a boy, Arie as a man. Then it was the three of us together. Soon the Ferris wheel turned very fast, like a bike wheel. I rocked and swayed as it moved faster and faster.
Then I realized it wasn’t the movement of the ride I felt. Someone was nudging me. I felt the chill of the damp ground, heard the crackle of my tarp wrapped around me. Nudge, nudge, nudge. Someone’s foot was nudging me, gently but rhythmically. Nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, in the small of my back. Something hard, like an elbow or the toe of a boot. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids were heavy, and I felt as though I were emerging from some dark and deep cocoon. I’d been drugged, I recalled. The tarp crackled like a gigantic newspaper. My arms and hands ached from being bound so long. And I was cold.
I opened my eyes and lifted my head.
The sun was shining but, as far as I could tell, it had not risen. Everything lay in a cool purple glow. My breath smoked in the chilly air. I looked around, and as my surroundings came into sharper focus, I saw Chase’s face. We were lying on our sides, four or five feet apart and facing each other. Chase had his bound hands up to his chin, and he held a finger to his lips. I blinked at him and nodded.
By way of reply, he parted his hands to show me they were in fact not bound. One of the zip-ties was broken but remained looped around his wrist. It looked like it had been mangled or chewed. He pressed his finger to his lips.
I nodded again and mouthed the word, “How?”
Chase bared his teeth and mimed chewing on the plastic.
How long had that taken? I wondered. I looked around for Steele. At first I couldn’t see him, but then I spotted him thirty yards off, squatting in the undergrowth. He was looking idly around the small copse of trees where we were camped. I saw his bare knees, legs, and part of his bottom and I reflexively averted my glance when I realized he was relieving himself.
I turned my head and saw Arie—he was lying farther away, but he was on his back and I saw that his eyes were closed, mouth still gaping open, and he breathed deeply and steadily. My eyes returned to Chase. He was showing me two ends of the cords that Steele had used to make his tripwire. They were shockingly frayed and severed and soggy-looking. Apparently, he’d chewed through these, too.
I heard sounds coming from Steele’s direction. He was standing now, pulling up his pants and fastening his belt. Next, he leaned down and picked up an armful of branches he’d evidently collected before his bathroom break. I turned back to Chase with a questioning look.
With small, minimal motions, Chase pointed at himself and then he pointed in Steele’s direction. Then he clenched his fists and made an angry face.
I shook my head and mouthed, “No!” but Chase closed his eyes and nodded steadfastly. I could hear Steele returning. Chase pointed at me, put his hands alongside of his cheek, and feigned sleep.
“Lie down,” he mouthed.
I shook my head again.
Then Steele was at the campfire again. “Time to wake up,” he said.
He dropped his bundle of branches near the campfire. I heard him poking at the fire. He laid some branches on the coals, and they began to crackle and smoke.
“I hope you all slept well,” said Steele. “We’ll have a hot breakfast this morning, and it’s on me. It’ll be ready in, oh, say twenty minutes. Just gotta get this fire—”
Chase sprang up and was sailing over the fire and across the space between us and Steele before I could draw another breath. I knew Chase could move fast, but I’d never se
en him move like this before. I lifted myself from the brush to see.
Chase collided with Steele like a charging bull. He was larger than Steele, and I thought Steele would crumple under Chase’s bulk like a kicked-over lawn chair.
But Steele was quicker.
He absorbed Chase’s lunge, twisted, and hurled Chase to one side, flinging him headlong into a clump of scrub-oak as though he were a clumsy child.
With blinding speed, Steele produced a long, savage-looking knife. Again, I didn’t see him draw the knife—it was almost as if it materialized in his hand.
Chase was getting to his feet, but Steele was on him in an instant.
I cried Chase’s name and fumbled to my feet and ran in their direction but stopped short when I realized that Steele held the point of the knife at Chase’s throat. Chase lay tangled in the brushy growth of scrub-oak. Steele was coiled on top of him like a python. He’d pinned one of Chase’s arms with his boot, and he’d pinned the other with his free hand. The point of the knife made a small divot in the skin of Chase’s neck. As best he could, Chase showed his palms, capitulating.
“Alison,” said Steele, coolly, without taking his eyes from Chase. “Go back over to the trees by the fire and sit down, please. I don’t know what you’re thinking of doing, but the best thing to do right now is to sit down and stay out of this. I’m in control.”
I did as he said, quickly. Then I said, “Chase?” I couldn’t see him clearly from where I sat. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” said Chase from his place in the brush, his voice full of disdain.
“That’s right,” purred Steele. “I’m going to stand up now. Chase, I’d like you to stay on your back, please. Now that we know who’s the better fighter, the choice should be clear.”
Chase must have signaled his agreement, because Steele stood up. He drew his pistol and pointed it down at Chase.
“You had a busy night,” said Steele. “Gnawed through a zip-tie and my best para-cord. That’s a new one. What’d ya do? Spit the oat bar out when I wasn’t looking?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you faked sleepiness and stayed up all night chewing on my zip-ties. Yes, sir. That’s a new one.” Steele nodded; the gun still pointed down at Chase.
I watched without moving or even breathing.
“Well, it wasn’t a bad effort,” said Steele. He shrugged one shoulder and smiled grimly. He hadn’t raised his voice throughout the entire incident. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
He calmly cocked the pistol.
“You know,” he continued, “in the service, we were taught that escaping captivity wasn’t just something we ought to try to do if we got a chance. We were obliged to attempt it. It was a standing order. So, I understand that you had to make the attempt.”
Chase said nothing. I saw the steam of his breath rising from the scrub-oak.
“And we all knew you would go for it,” said Steele. “I knew it, she knew it. Shucks, even the kid knew it, and he’s still asleep. Unfortunately, I find it’s best to kill captives who attempt escape. It’s just a sound policy decision, one that’s kept me alive for a long time. Because the prisoner who attempts escape will often try again. Right? That itch to try again is always there.”
Chase remained quiet on the ground.
Steele released a heavy sigh. Then he thumbed the hammer of the pistol and let it down gently. “Lucky for you, it’s obvious to me that if I kill you, I’ll have to kill your friends, and I’m not fond of killing anyone, least of all friends, a family, I guess, is what you are. And, without easy access to conveniences like photography and DNA analysis, the methods of verifying the identity of a deceased captive have become limited and, well, very—” here he paused and sighed “—distasteful.” He holstered the pistol.
I exhaled.
“However,” added Steele, “if you try it again, you’ll force my hand.” Steele then looked at me. “You all right?”
“Yeah.”
Steele bent and offered his hand to Chase. Chase reached up and Steele pulled him to his feet.
Steele looked up at Chase’s bearded face. “How about you, big guy? You all right?”
Chase clapped the dirt and leaves from his clothes. “Yeah,” he said, almost too quietly for me to hear.
“Nothing broken?”
“Just my spirit.”
“Don’t take it too hard,” said Steele, giving Chase a friendly slap on the arm. His voice was genuine, kindly. Not arrogant. “You’re reasonably quick. And you’re definitely a big ’ole boy. But this is what I do. Truthfully, unless I’m confronted by a force of exceptionally overwhelming strength, I’m confident I’ll consign the three of you without further incident. Now, could you have a seat over there, please, while I fetch another zip-tie?”
Chase rubbed his wrists and joined me by the trees where we’d slept. He collapsed disgustedly into a seated position.
Arie raised his head. Twigs and leaves were suspended in his long, tousled hair.
“What’s up?” he croaked. “S’morning already? When did I even fall asleep?”
CHAPTER 24
I didn’t get any tea that morning.
“In light of what happened,” said Steele, “I hope you’ll understand that we’ll skip the hot breakfast this morning.” But there was no anger in his voice.
“We were gonna have a hot breakfast?” said Arie as he stretched and brushed the duff from his hair.
“Feel free to snack on whatever rations you have,” Steele added, tossing our backpacks to us.
As the sun came up, Steele marched us farther down the valley, and I knew from the ridgelines and mountain peaks which came into view that we were not too far from our camp, and that Steele was heading for the main highway. There was an eroded, crumbling remnant of a jeep trail in the vicinity that had run between our camp and the highway, but my guess was that Steele had sneaked into our valley on foot from the highway and probably had a vehicle stashed there to take us to Rachel. Or perhaps the highway was where he’d deliver us to the Agency and to the oblivion of their memory-erasing treatment.
I heard branches snapping far off to our right, up the hillside. It was a very faint noise, and could have been anything from a dead branch falling from a tree to a deer nibbling fresh shoots of grass from under the deadfall, but my eyes went there almost involuntarily, searching, trying to penetrate the thick undergrowth and trees. Was no one else hearing this? The impression of being watched had never really left me. At first I told myself that it was because we were near our old camp and I was expecting to see some of our old camp mates or perhaps Agency thugs, but the feeling grew as we walked. I began to imagine movement in the spaces between the trunks of the trees.
“Colonel,” I said, “do you know anything about the raid on our old camp?”
“Only that it happened,” Steele replied.
“You weren’t there?”
“No.”
“Do you have any partners? Team members?”
“Can’t say,” he said.
“Where were you?” asked Chase. “When they attacked, I mean.”
“Close by,” he said. “Close enough to hear all the racket.”
“All that ‘racket’,” I said, “was the sound of our friends being chased down, captured, and probably shot.”
“You’re right,” Steele admitted. “Forgive me for my insensitivity.”
Chase said, “There were probably twenty of us that could be called soldiers, combatants. The rest were just regular civilians. A couple hundred. Old people. Kids.”
“I had nothing to do with that attack,” said Steele, “but it is unfortunate. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“But you’re still taking us in,” said Arie.
“Yes, young man, I am. We’ve been over this.”
“You know,” said Chase, “I think you’d fit in with us. I think we’d get along well. Ruby would love you. You’d be her new favorite.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,
” said Steele.
We walked along. I could have sworn I saw movement in my peripheral vision. It wasn’t just once. It wasn’t just a trick of the light. I was going to try to somehow bring this up with Chase, but he wasn’t through goading Steele.
“How long do you think you can keep this up, Colonel Steele?” he said. “I mean, if you think about it, you’re really living on the edge here. This job of yours. It’s hazardous. You know? You could give it up and have a good life with us.”
“I have a good life now,” Steele replied, and I thought I heard something slightly defensive in his tone.
“Do you?” asked Chase, turning and walking backward to address Steele. “What? Sneaking around and ‘apprehending’ people? Constantly risking your neck to deliver prisoners to an organization like the Agency? And you say there are worse organizations? More murderous? How long until one of your prisoners gets lucky and gets the drop on you? How long till one of your employers turn on you?”
“Turn back around,” said Steele.
Chase did, but he talked louder. “You don’t know anything about any of us—what if we’re innocent? What if we’re the good guys? I mean—I got a feeling you know we’re good guys.”
“We’re all good guys,” Steele said. “Just depends on who’s telling the story. Besides, we’ve been over this.”
He was definitely getting defensive. This was new. I took a quick glance back at him.
He said, “We definitely differ in how we view the various forces and influences of the world as it is today. You fight your battles and I’ll fight mine.”
“Yeah, I think that’s the point,” said Arie. “We’re fighting for a cause. You have no cause, no purpose, and every time you turn someone over to these ‘employers’ of yours, you’re basically committing murder. You’re not doing anyone any good but yourself.”
Among These Bones (Book 3): Maybe We'll Remember Page 12
