CHAPTER 45

Ed Moore found that he wasn’t alone with his feelings of unease. A few others had noticed that something was wrong with life in the Grasslands, and they came to him with their concerns.

It is funny, he thought, how like-minded people tend to find each other.

Now it was late, dark outside, and cold, and Ed stood before a group of six young men and two women. Among the group were Billy Kline and Jeff Stavers. Ed looked at Jeff now and thought of the beating the young man had witnessed, and how he’d been forced to hide to avoid a confrontation with Jasper’s most loyal followers. Ed figured they would be watching Jeff closely, just as they were no doubt watching anybody he associated with, and that meant they were all going to have to be extremely careful.

“I have no idea what they will do if they find us out,” he told the group. “Maybe nothing. Maybe kick us out.”

“Yeah, or maybe worse,” said Jeff.

The room echoed with mutters of agreement.

“Yes,” Ed said. “Maybe worse.”

He shivered. Unlike the others, he wasn’t wearing a coat. He was dressed in a black flannel shirt and jeans. He’d been issued a heavy winter coat, but it was as white as a show pony, and they were going to have to maintain a low profile if this was going to work. That meant dark clothes worn under the cover of darkness.

He said, “That’s why I can’t ask any of you to go along with us if you’re not serious about this. If we get caught, you can bet they’ll try to find out who else is with us. So please, if you’re not committed to this, back out now. I only ask for your silence.”

He looked around the room. Nobody stirred. He saw eight stalwart faces staring back at him.

“Okay,” he said. Outside, the wind howled, and Ed stopped to listen. The constant roar of the wind made it hard to hear the guards who patrolled the camp at night. “Tonight,” he said, “what I want to do is get inside that supply shed and see if there are any radios. After that, we’ll distribute what we find and see what happens. Just remember. Keep a low profile, okay? I don’t want anybody getting discovered.”

Ed took a small, dark beanie cap from his back pocket and slipped it over his white hair.

He looked to Billy and Jeff and said, “You guys ready?”

Both men nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s roll.”

The three of them knelt under the eaves of dormitory number two and glanced across the common area of the village. A narrow sliver of a moon cast a faint bluish tinge over the grass. Buttery yellow sodium vapor lamps lit the road at even intervals from the pavilion all the way down to the cottages. An armed patrol walked along the road. They looked bored, but still attentive. Ed, Billy, and Jeff waited for the patrol to crest the small hill that led down to the cottages, and when the guards were out of sight, they ran for the education tents.

Once there, they had to wait for another patrol to cross the space between the radio room and the office. The two armed men wandered slowly toward the pavilion, where they stopped and talked for a few moments before continuing their way down to the dormitories.

“How many of them are there?” Jeff asked, indicating the patrols with a nod of his chin.

“No telling,” Ed said.

He looked across the grassy courtyard to the supply shed. The door was padlocked, but they knew that already, and Billy had said it wouldn’t be a problem. The problem was the door itself. It was facing the main courtyard, and there was absolutely nothing around it in the way of cover.

“I don’t like it,” Ed said.

Billy shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I got it.” He took a screwdriver out of his pocket and smiled.

“You can use that to open the lock?” Ed said.

“Not exactly,” Billy said. “I looked at the thing the other day. It’s a heavy-duty Yale. There’s no way in hell you’re popping one of those things open unless you have a bump key, which we ain’t got.”

“So how are we getting in?” Jeff said.

“People don’t think when they put locks on doors,” Billy said. “They buy nice shit—sorry, Ed—they buy nice stuff, but they don’t think about installation. The plate that holds the lock on the door is secured to the jamb with four regular screws. All you got to do is screw the plate off the doorjamb and you’re in.”

“Nice,” Ed said.

“Yeah, I thought you’d appreciate that.”

They sprinted across the field to the door. Ed and Jeff took up lookout positions while Billy went to work on the door.

From where he stood, Ed could see Jasper’s private quarters through a gap between the supply shed and the vehicle garage. There was a light on, and two figures stood talking in the faint moonlight. Off to his left, he could see the cottages. They were all dark except for the occasional sodium vapor lamp. He could see one patrol moving between the cottages and another coming up the dirt path that led to the communal areas.

“How much longer?” he said to Billy.

“Ten seconds.”

Ed turned and watched the patrol coming up the path. They were still a long way away, but getting closer.

“Billy?”

“We’re in,” Billy said. “Come on.”

A few minutes later, Ed leaned against the inside of the shed’s door and called out to Jeff, who was supposed to be standing lookout outside.

“Jeff, we clear?”

No answer.

Ed got low to the ground and tried to look out onto the courtyard from beneath the door. He couldn’t see much, but what he could see was clear.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said.

“Hope you know what you’re doing,” Billy said.

“Yeah, me too.”

Ed pushed the door open and they slipped outside.

“How long will it take you to replace the screws?” Ed asked.

“Just a second,” Billy answered. He took the screwdriver from his pocket and started working.

Meanwhile, Ed scanned the darkened buildings for any sign of Jeff. He couldn’t see a thing, and that worried him. Where was he?

A sound from the right side of the building brought him back into the moment.

He looked at Billy, who redoubled his efforts on the screws.

“Hurry it up,” Ed said.

“I am hurrying,” Billy hissed back.

Ed listened carefully. He had four radios in his hands, and there was no way he was going to be able to lie his way out of this if they got caught. He watched Billy twist the screws back into the faceplate. Come on. Come on. They had three in now, and Billy was starting on the forth and final one.

The tip of the screwdriver slid off the screw and struck the faceplate with an audible crack.

“Shit,” Billy muttered.

Ed and Billy looked at each other, listening. From somewhere behind the shed, they could hear the sound of footsteps getting closer, as though a pair of men were suddenly picking up their pace to a trot.

“Oh, no,” Ed whispered. “Billy, hurry up.”

“Almost done.”

Ed watched him put the last screw in and quickly work it into place.

“Done,” he said.

“Good. Sounds like they’re coming up behind us.”

Ed could hear footsteps in the grass just around the corner. The nearest building was sixty feet away at least, and there was no way they could reach it without being seen.

But he didn’t see any other way. “You ready to run?”

Billy nodded.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

But before they could break into a sprint, they heard glass breaking off to their right. The footsteps stopped. He heard frantic whispers from the patrols.

“The warehouse!”

“There he is!” a second guard said.

Ed scanned the darkness over by the warehouse. The patrols were sprinting into the clearing, chasing after a dark figure that looked like Jeff Stavers.

Ed let out a long sigh of relief.

“That’s one brave dude,” Billy said.

“You’re right about that,” Ed said, and together they slipped off into the night.