a pipe and two soldiers to watch him—and as he stepped onto the stairs leading down to the tarmac, the cold hit his lungs like a slap. Carter had been cold before, you couldn’t sleep under a Houston freeway in January and not know what cold was, but the cold here was different, so dry he could feel his lips puckering. His ears had clogged up, too. It was late, who knew how late exactly, but the airfield was lit like a jailyard; from the top of the stairs, Carter counted a dozen aircraft, big fat ones with huge doors dropped open at the back like a kid’s pajamas, and forklifts moving to and fro along the tarmac, loading pallets draped with camo. He wondered if maybe they were going to make some kind of soldier out of him, if that’s what he’d traded his life for.
Wolgast: he remembered the name. It was funny how he’d found himself trusting the man. Carter hadn’t trusted anyone in a long, long time. But there was something about Wolgast that made him think the man knew the place he was in.
Carter’s wrists and feet were shackled, and he made his way gingerly down the stairs, minding his balance, one soldier ahead of him, one behind. Neither had spoken a word to him or even to each other that Carter could tell. He was wearing a parka over his jumpsuit, but it was unzipped for the chains, and the wind cut through him easily. They led him across the field toward a brightly lit hangar where a van was idling. The door slid open as they approached.
The first soldier poked him with his rifle. “In you go.”
Carter did as he said, then heard a small motor whir and the door closed behind him. At least the seats were comfortable, not like the hard bench on the plane. The only light was from a little bulb in the ceiling. He heard two thumps on the door and the van pulled away.
He’d dozed on the plane and wasn’t tired enough to sleep more. With no windows and no way to tell the time, he had no sense of distance or direction. But he’d sat still for whole months of his life; a few hours more wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. He let his mind go blank for a while. Time passed, and then he felt the van slowing. From the other side of the wall that sealed him from the driver’s compartment came the muffled sound of voices, but Carter didn’t know what it was all about. The van lurched forward and stopped again.
The door slid open to show two soldiers stamping their feet in the cold, white boys wearing parkas over their fatigues. Behind the soldiers, the brightly lit oasis of a McDonald’s throbbed in the gloom. Carter heard the rush of traffic and figured they were by a highway somewhere. Though it was still dark, something about the sky felt like morning. His legs and arms were stiff from sitting.
“Here,” one of the guards said and tossed him a bag. He noticed then that the other guard was biting into the last of a sandwich. “Breakfast.”
Carter opened the bag, which contained an Egg McMuffin and a disk of hash browns wrapped in paper and a plastic cup of juice. His throat was bone dry from the cold, and he wished there was more of the juice, or even just water to drink. He drained it quickly. It was so sugary it made his teeth tingle.
“Thank you.”
The soldier yawned into his hand. Carter wondered why they were being so nice. They didn’t seem at all like Pincher and the rest of them. They were wearing sidearms but didn’t act like this was anything.
“We’ve got a couple of hours yet,” the soldier said as Carter finished eating. “You need to make a pit stop?”
Carter hadn’t peed since the plane, but he was so dried out he didn’t figure there was much in him to go with. He’d always been like that, could hold it for hours and hours. But he thought about the McDonald’s, the people inside, the smell of food and the bright lights, and knew he wanted to see it.
“I reckon so.”
The soldier climbed into the van, his heavy boots clanging on the metal floor. Crouching in the tiny space, he removed a shiny key from a pouch on his belt and unlocked the shackles. Anthony could see his face up close. He had