Justin Cronin - The Twelve

By the time the patrol found them, sitting in the roadway, they were laughing till the tears streamed down their faces. He knew that he’d never feel closer to anyone than the two men who’d walked with him down the dark hallway of that night.

Roswell, Laredo, Texarkana; Lubbock, Shreveport, Kearney, Colorado. Whole years passed without Lucius’s coming in sight of Kerrville, its haven of walls and lights. His home was elsewhere now. His home was the Expeditionary.

Until he met Amy, the Girl from Nowhere, and everything changed.

He was to receive three visitors.

The first came early on a morning in September. Greer had already finished his breakfast of watery porridge and completed his morning calisthenics: five hundred push-ups and sit-ups, followed by an equivalent number of squats and thrusts. Suspended from the pipe that ran along the ceiling of his cell, he did a hundred chin-ups in sets of twenty, front and back, as God ordained. When this was done, he sat on the edge of his cot, stilling his mind to commence his invisible journey.

He always began with a rote prayer, learned from the sisters. It was not the words that mattered, rather their rhythm; they were the equivalent of stretching before exercise, preparing the mind for the leap to come.

He had just begun when his thoughts were halted by a thunk of tumblers; the door to his cell swung open.

“Somebody to see you, Sixty-two.”

Lucius rose as a woman stepped through—slight of build, with black hair threaded with gray and small dark eyes that radiated an undeniable authority. A woman you could not help but reveal yourself to, to whom all your secrets were an open book. She was carrying a small portfolio under her arm.

“Major Greer.”

“Madam President.”

She turned to the guard, a heavyset man in his fifties. “Thank you, Sergeant. You may leave us.”

The guard was named Coolidge. One got to know one’s jailors, and he and Lucius were well acquainted, even as Coolidge seemed to possess no idea of what to make of Lucius’s devotions. A practical, ordinary man, his mind earnest but slow, with two grown sons, both DS, as he was.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, thank you. That will be all.”

The man departed, sealing the door behind him. Stepping farther inside, the president glanced around the boxy room.

“Extraordinary.” She directed her eyes at Lucius. “They say you never leave.”

“I don’t see a reason to.”

“But what can you possibly do all day?”

Lucius offered a smile. “What I was doing when you arrived. Thinking.”

“Thinking,” the president repeated. “About what?”

“Just thinking. Having my thoughts.”

The president lowered herself into the chair. Lucius followed her lead, sitting on the edge of the cot, so that the two were face-to-face.

“The first thing to say is that I’m not here. That’s official . Unofficially, I will tell you that I am here to seek your help on a matter of crucial importance. You have been the subject of much discussion, and I am relying on your discretion. No one is to know about our conversation. Is that clear?”

“All right.”

She opened the portfolio, withdrew a yellowed sheet of paper, and handed it to Lucius.

“Do you recognize this?”

A map, drawn in charcoal: the line of a river, and a hastily sketched road, and dotted lines marking the fringes of a compound. Not just a compound: an entire city.

“Where did you find it?” asked Lucius.

“That’s not important. Do you know it?”

“I should.”

“Why?”

“Because I drew it.”

His answer had been expected; Lucius discerned it in the woman’s face.

“To answer your question, it was in General Vorhees’s personal files at Command. It took a little digging to figure out who else had been with him. You, Crukshank, and a young recruit named Tifty Lamont.”

Tifty. How many years since Lucius had heard the name spoken? Though, of course, everybody in Kerrville knew of Tifty Lamont. And Crukshank: Lucius felt a twinge of sadness for his lost friend, killed when the Roswell Garrison had been overrun, five years ago.

“This place on the map, do you think you could find it again?”

“I don’t know. It was a long time ago.”

“Have you ever told anyone about this?”

“When we reported it to Command, we were told in no uncertain terms not to speak about it.”

“Do you remember where the order originated?”

Lucius shook his head. “I never knew. Crukshank was the officer in charge of the detail, and Vorhees was second. Tifty was the S2.”

“Why Tifty?”

“In my experience, nobody could track like Tifty Lamont.”

The president frowned again at the mention of this name: the great gangster Tifty Lamont, head of the trade, the most wanted criminal in the city.

“How many people do you think were there?”

“Hard to say. A lot. The place was at least twice the size of Kerrville. From what we could see, they were well armed, too.”

“Did they have power?”

“Yes, but I don’t think they were running on oil. More likely hydroelectric and biodiesel for the vehicles. The agricultural and manufacturing complexes were immense. Barracks housing. Three large structures, one at the center, a kind of dome, and a second to the south that looked like an old football stadium. The third was on the west side of the river—we weren’t sure what it was. It looked like it was under construction. They were working on the thing day and night.”

“And you made no contact?”

“No.”

The president directed Lucius’s attention to the perimeter. “This here …”

“Fortifications. A fence line. Nothing insubstantial, but not enough to keep the dracs out.”

“Then what do you think it was for?”

“I couldn’t say. But Crukshank had a theory.”

“And what was that?”

“To keep people in.”

The president glanced at the map, then back at Lucius. “And you’ve never spoken about this? Not to anyone.”

“No, ma’am. Not until now.”

A silence fell. Lucius had the impression that no more questions were forthcoming; the president had gotten what she’d come for. She returned the map to her portfolio. As she rose from the chair, Lucius said:

“If I may, Madam President, why are you asking me about this now? After all these years.”

The president stepped to the door and knocked twice. As the tumblers turned, she turned back to Lucius.

“They say you’ve become a prayerful man.”

Lucius nodded.

“Then you might want to pray that I’m wrong.”

Peter was in the medical bay for ten days. Three cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, burns on his legs and feet, his hands scraped raw like slabs of meat; bruises and gashes and cuts all over, too many to count. He’d been knocked cold but had apparently failed, despite his best efforts, to crack his skull. Every movement hurt, even breathing.

“From what I hear, you’re goddamn lucky to be alive,” the doctor said—a man of about sixty with a bulbous nose veined from years on the lick and a voice so coarse it sounded dragged. His bedside manner involved using the same tone, more or less, that a person might take with a hopelessly disobedient dog. “Stay on your back, Lieutenant. You’re mine until I say otherwise.”

Henneman had debriefed Peter the day the team had returned to the garrison. He was still a little out of it, doped up on painkillers; the major’s questions glided over his brain with the disassociated contours of a conversation occurring in another room among people he only vaguely knew. A man, a very old man, with a tattoo of a snake on his neck. Yes, Peter confirmed, nodding his head heavily against the pillow, that was what they saw. Did he tell them who he was? Ignacio, Peter replied. He told us his name was Ignacio. The major obviously had no idea what to make of these answers; neither did Peter. Henneman seemed to be asking the same questions again and again, in only slightly altered forms; at some point, Peter drifted off. When he opened his eyes again—as he would soon discover, a day and a night having passed—he was alone.