The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,322

guards had been the easy part. It was Sara who had come up with a plan. Let’s see Lish do this, she had said, and marched straight out the door across the square to where the two men, Hap and Leon, were standing by a fire barrel, watching her approach. She stepped up to them, positioning herself between them and the door of the hut. A brief negotiation ensued; one of the men, Hap, the smaller of the two, turned and walked away. Sara ran one hand through her hair, the signal. Hollis slipped outside, ducking into the shadow of the building, then Peter. They circled around to the north side of the square and took positions in the alleyway. A moment later, Sara appeared, leading the remaining guard, whose quick step told them what she’d promised. As she walked past them, Hollis rose from his hiding place behind an empty barrel, wielding the leg of a chair.

“Hey,” said Hollis, and hit the one named Leon so hard he simply melted.

They dragged his limp body deeper into the alley. Hollis patted him down; strapped to the man’s leg in a leather sheath, hidden under the jumpsuit, was a short-barreled revolver. Caleb appeared with a length of laundry line; they bound the man’s hands and feet and stuffed a wadded rag into his mouth.

“Is it loaded?” Peter asked.

Hollis had opened the cylinder. “Three rounds.” He snapped it closed with a flick of his wrist and passed the weapon to Alicia.

“Peter, I think these buildings are empty,” she said.

It was true; there were no lights anywhere.

“We better hurry.”

They approached the prison from the south, across an empty field. Hollis believed the entrance to the building was located on the far side, facing the main gate to the compound. There was, he said, a kind of tunnel there, the entrance arched in stone and set into the wall. They would attempt this if they had to, but it stood in full view of the observation towers; the plan was to look for a less risky way in. The vans and pickups were kept in a garage on the south side of the building. It would make sense for Olson and his men to keep their hard assets together, and, in any event, they had to look somewhere first.

The garage was sealed, the doors drawn down and secured with a heavy padlock. Peter looked through a window but could see nothing. Behind the garage was a long concrete ramp leading to a platform with an overhang and a pair of bay doors set in the prison wall. A dark stain ran up the middle of the ramp. Peter knelt and touched it; his fingers came away wet. He brought his fingers to his nose. Engine oil.

The doors had no handles, no obvious mechanism by which they could be opened. The five of them formed a line and pressed their hands against the smooth surface, attempting to draw it upward. They felt no sharp resistance, only the weight of the doors themselves, too heavy to lift without something to grip. Caleb scampered back down the ramp to the garage; a crash of glass and he returned a moment later, holding a tire iron.

They formed a line again, managing to lift the door far enough for Caleb to wedge the iron under it. A blade of light had appeared on the concrete. They drew the door upward and ducked through one by one and let it fall closed behind them.

They found themselves in some kind of loading area. There were coils of chain on the floor, old engine parts. Somewhere nearby water was dripping; the air smelled like oil and stone. The source of the light lay up ahead, a flickering glow. As they moved forward, a familiar shape emerged from the gloom.

A Humvee.

Caleb opened the tailgate. “Everything’s gone, except for the fifty-cal. There are three boxes of rounds for that.”

“So where are the rest of the guns?” Alicia said. “And who moved this in here?”

“We did.”

They swiveled to see a single figure step from the shadows: Olson Hand. More figures began to emerge, surrounding them. Six of the orange-suited men, all of them armed with rifles.

Alicia had drawn the revolver from her belt and was pointing it at Olson. “Tell them to back off.”

“Do as she says,” Olson said, holding up a hand. “I mean it. Guns down, now.”

One by one the men dropped the barrels of their weapons. Alicia was the last—though Peter noted