***
Four hours later they were let out at a rest stop under the close eye of a busload of SS. The troops had blocked off the entrances so only the detainees could access the restrooms and drinking fountains. Long lines formed immediately, exacerbated by the unwillingness of a couple of frightened people to leave their toilet stalls. Nonsensical, perhaps, but Jill could feel the fear coming from her fellow prisoners like waves of heat.
Once she’d had her turn, she sidled over to the scarred man. Now she could see blue monotone tattoos up and down his arms and peeking from under his collar. Prison ink, using the oily color from ballpoint pens, laboriously hand-drawn with sewing needles.
He didn’t look at her, but he was certainly aware. “What?” he asked, lighting a cigarette.
Interesting, that they let him keep those. “You don’t have the Plague,” she stated.
“Nope. Why would I want it?”
“Make you stronger, younger, heal faster.”
“Make me a pussy.” He took a deep drag.
“I’m infected,” Jill said casually, and then turned to him. Without telegraphing, she shot a straight right to his jaw. It hurt like hell; she thought she might have broken her hand. She’d certainly broken the first rule of street fighting: never hit your target’s head with your naked fist. It tended to do more damage to the hand than to the opponent.
In this case it put the thin man down, but not out. From his hands and knees he shook his head like a dog, then roared as he came to his feet, but Jill was already fifty feet away. She had turned and speed-walked as soon as she’d struck him, and the SS guards were already converging on the troublesome man with truncheons. As expected, they’d marked him as a felon and been ready.
Instead of fighting back, he covered up and curled into a ball, just protecting his head, belly and groin. After a short beating, they left him alone, as Jill thought they might. They had no mandate to respect their prisoners’ rights, so they just punished anyone who got out of line and then backed off.
Jill walked warily over to the bruised and battered man, now lying on his back with his knees up. She squatted down near his head, just out of easy reach. “I bet that hurt,” she said conversationally.
“What do you want?” he coughed.
Not, ‘Why did you do that?’ Definitely an experienced inmate.
“Do I seem like a pussy?” Jill asked, glancing around. A couple of the guards watched from a distance, and one licked his lips.
“Guess not,” he replied.
“You’re a hard case, probably a lifer,” Jill stated. “Somebody got sick of you causing trouble and transferred you to the Plague detainee system, right?”
“Guess so. So?”
“So I’m a cop. How’s that for funny?” She smiled without humor. “That means I know guys like you, inside and out. I also know law enforcement inside and out. You obviously know prisons inside and out. Together, we could get the hell out of this trap we’re in.”
He turned on his side and coughed again. Blood spat onto the concrete. “How’s that gonna work? I’m all messed up. Think they broke some ribs. Might have nicked a lung.”
Jill grinned. “Oh, I think we can fix that. What do they call you?”
He held up a forearm with a picture of a coiled snake. “They call me Python, ‘cause I’m long and skinny, but once I got ahold of you, you’re dead.”
“Excellent. You can call me Reaper, because I’ve sent so many sons of bitches like you to hell.” Melodramatic for sure, but she knew bravado backed up by violence was the only thing that impressed men like him.
“You don’t sound like any lady cop I ever knew.” Python rolled to his knees, and Jill stood up, offering him the hand she’d hit him with. It had stopped throbbing, and if she had to hit him again, she wanted to use a fresh one.
“Let me show you my ink,” she said as she helped him to his feet. She unzipped her windbreaker and bared her left shoulder, where the fouled anchor of the Marine Corps blazed in red and gold. “I’ve probably killed more people than you have.”
“Kill for your country and you’re a hero. Kill for yourself and you’re a criminal.” Python spat more blood and coughed, putting his palms on his knees.
“Just the way it is. Come on, thin man, let’s load up.” The guards blew whistles and herded the people back into the truck. She let him lean on her, but remained alert to treachery. By the informal felon’s code, as far as she understood it, he should have accepted her as someone to respect…or at least, he’d fake it for as long as it took to recover and stab her in the back.
Inside, she muscled them into her same corner, suppressing her feelings of guilt at shoving these sheep around. But she was a sheepdog, and always had been. Sometimes the herd needed some nips on their asses to keep them in line. She also felt it important to keep looking tough in her new partner’s eyes.
Once they sat down shoulder to shoulder, Jill turned to Python. “Now I’m going to do something you’re gonna like, but don’t let it go to your head. Either of them.”
“What?”
Jill put both hands behind the man’s grizzled neck and pressed his mouth to hers for the deepest kiss she could manage. After a moment of surprise, he responded, bringing his palms up to her breasts, but she broke the lip-lock and then grabbed his thumbs, pulling his hands away. “Like I said, chill out, big boy. Plenty of time for that later.”
I don’t like playing with a man’s urges, she thought, but right now, I’d stretch my principles quite a lot to get out of here.
“You’ll be feeling a lot better soon, because I just gave you the Plague,” Jill continued. “Unfortunately you’re also going to get hungry, but I can’t do much about that.” Talking about it reminded her of the gnawing pangs in her own belly. She wondered whether the SS would feed them or just let them waste away. From what she understood, the internment facilities were not death camps, but then again, that kind of thing could be covered up for quite a while.
“Guess I got no choice now.”
“Nope. Deal with it.” Jill sighed, blowing air out of her cheeks. “Let me tell you a story.” She noticed heads turning her way, watching, listening, so she raised her voice. “Let me tell everyone here a story, since we don’t have much to keep us entertained. I hope you remember it, and keep telling it, because in it, our government murdered three thousand innocent people, and maybe a lot more. It’s about a Marine in the military police, who was helping to train Iraqi security forces…”
Reaper's Run - Plague Wars Series Book 1 Page 18
