State Road 13 climbed uphill through the old downtown, which consisted of two- and three-story businesses fronting on the main street. It almost resembled a small town in a Western movie, with the storefronts coming up to the sidewalks on either side. Lynnville was the county seat. At the top of the hill, there was a brick courthouse on one corner, and a Baptist church on another. The road descended and the businesses began to be set further back from the road and were spread apart on more property. A few miles north, on a flat stretch of ground ahead of them, they could see two large warehouse-like buildings. One was trimmed with blue, and the other, orange.
“What’s that?” asked Doug.
“It used to be Wal-Mart and Home Depot,” said Boone. “13 goes right between them.”
Carson said, “I’m not liking this. It looks like it’s all fenced in.” He studied his GPS screen. “We can turn east and go around it.”
“No,” replied Boone. “I don’t care what that GPS shows, it’s wrong. I know this area. That way just takes you into a maze of back roads, but there’s no way around. Driving back there would just draw attention to us, and we’d wind up in a dead end anyway. We have to go past the Wal-Mart. Lieutenant, what’s going on up there?”
Malverde seemed surprised to be asked a question, and gave a “Who me?” look before responding. “That? It’s a relocation center. Part of the the Recovery and Reconstruction Administration. It’s no problem, we can just drive through. The road in between is open for normal traffic.”
Carson said, “I don’t like this, not one little bit. What if he’s lying? We’ll be driving right into a controlled-access area. Look, it’s all fenced, all the way around.”
“Hey, if he’s lying, he’s dying,” said Boone. “Right, Lieutenant?”
Their driver said nothing, his lips tightly pursed as he stared straight ahead.
The fugitives approached the last public road intersection before the acres of parking lots. The two-lane state road widened to four lanes be-tween the big-box stores. Home Depot was on their left, Wal-Mart on the right. Their corporate signs had been taken down, but there was no mistaking the origins of the giant buildings. The entire perimeters of the Home Depot and Wal-Mart properties were fenced in multiple layers of chain link, with angled razor wire strands on top. The chain link and barbed wire extended right up to the curbs on both sides of State Road 13, leaving just an enclosed corridor in between for the passage of through traffic. A tan humvee bearing the three black stars of the North American Legion was parked on the opposite side of the intersection. Atop its roof was a 7.62mm M-240 medium machine gun on a conventional ring-and-pintle mount, but nobody was visible in or around the vehicle.
In the parking lot of the Wal-Mart, over a hundred big general-purpose Army tents had been set up, similar to the ones Carson had slept in back at Camp Shelton in Mississippi. These GP-Large tents could fit more than twenty cots each. The tents had been arranged with military precision in ranks and files. On the Home Depot side were dozens of gray FEMA house trailers in neatly ordered rows, and more green and tan Army tents.
Their humvee had to stop and wait while a vehicle gate on the Home Depot side to their left was swung open by a pair of soldiers in camouflage uniforms. A convoy of a dozen canvas-covered military trucks exited the Home Depot parking lot, turned north in front of the humvee, and then turned right and passed through another gate on the Wal-Mart side. After the last of the big trucks turned onto State Road 13, the two guards with rifles slung on their shoulders closed the gate behind them. These guards wore black berets, but it was not possible to determine if they were Americans or foreign.
Boone asked Malverde, “What’s that all about?”
The lieutenant answered, “They’re probably picking up a work detail. For reconstruction projects. Roads, bridges, you name it. That’s what this camp is for, housing the workers. FEMA runs the camp for the Recovery and Reconstruction Administration.”
Carson looked out his right side window, beyond the two chain link fences toward the Wal-Mart building. The parallel fences were spaced about ten feet apart, enough room for a vehicle, guards patrolling on foot, or police dogs. A line of hundreds of civilians, all men, queued up on the other side of the second fence. Hands were thrust in coat pockets as they shuffled along. It was cold enough outside to see their breath, even though the sky was mostly clear with just a few high wisps of cloud. Some of the men looked away or at the ground, others chatted, but many stared at the North American Legion humvee with undisguised contempt. A few spat toward them or gave the middle finger. There was no mistaking the two words forming on their lips when they gave the finger gesture.
The humvee pulled forward when the road ahead was clear of the truck convoy. Carson watched the front of the line of civilian men entering an enormous white tent, big enough for a large wedding or a small circus. On the other side of the white tent from the queue, men stood outside in small groups, eating with spoons from silver mess trays.
The main entrance road running from State Road 13 into the Wal-Mart complex was also fenced on both sides. An enormous chain link gate closed this entrance off from 13, and was shut behind the last of the Army trucks. On the other side of the entrance road that bisected the thirty-acre Wal-Mart parking lot, Carson saw another line of civilians and another huge white tent, but all of the people on this side were women, along with children of both sexes. The new line of people waiting to be fed extended for hundreds of yards beyond this second white tent, running parallel to the double row of fences along State Road 13.
Boone said, “This FEMA camp wasn’t here the last time I was on this side of the river. It was just a regular Wal-Mart and a Home Depot. Of course, they were out of business then. They never reopened after the earthquakes. They were looted down to the floors, and abandoned.”
“So that’s what a FEMA relocation camp looks like,” said Doug.
“Doesn’t look like a lot of fun in there,” said Boone. “Not anyplace I’d want to live.”
From behind the wheel, Lieutenant Malverde ventured a quiet com-ment. “It’s better than starving, and freezing in the rain and snow. The old people and the mothers with little children and babies get to stay in the buildings. It’s dry and warm in there. Only the able-bodied adults and big kids stay in the tents.”
Boone said, “You seem to know a lot about the place, LT. What else can you tell us?”
After a hesitation Malverde said, “Who else is going to rebuild Tennessee?”
Carson said, “Did you notice something odd about the people lined up to get into the mess tents?”
“What, you mean it was all men on one side of the camp, and women on the other?” asked Doug.
“Well, yeah, but that’s not what I meant. Look, it’s all whites in there. Caucasians. I didn’t see a single black face.”
“There’s not so many blacks that live around here,” said Boone. “But I’ll admit, that seems strange. Maybe there’s a different camp for blacks.”
“Or maybe they’re only putting whites into these camps,” observed Doug. “Or at least, into this camp.”
“Hey,” said Boone, “I just figured out why the men are all on one side and the women are on the other. Besides making it easier to manage them, I mean. They have to send the men out on work projects, right? Well, they won’t run away if they know their families are still back in the other part of the camp. Those FEMA bastards use the men’s families as hostages, to keep them from escaping.”
“It sounds like slavery,” said Doug. “Or a concentration camp. The British did something like that in the Boer War. The Boers were fighting a guerrilla war. The English invented modern concentration camps to break the Boer resistance. They grabbed all the Boers’ families, their women and children, and stuck them behind barbed wire in concentration camps until their men quit. And it worked.”
Lieutenant Malverde offered no further observation on this topic, nor was he asked again, because they were fast approaching the next guard position.
There was another NAL humvee with a pintle-mounted medium machine gun on its roof, parked where State Road 13 left the far end of the vast FEMA center. This was where the chain link fences and barbed wire marking the perimeter of the complex ended. A pair of oversized stop signs flanked the last stretch. There was another set of tower stands for arc lights, but it was daylight now and the lights were not turned on. Two NAL soldiers in camouflage parkas and blue berets leaned against the front of the humvee, smoking cigarettes and talking, probably waiting for their reliefs to show up. They appeared not even to notice the passage of the “friendly” Legion humvee.
Once they were beyond the final guard post, Lieutenant Malverde said, “Okay, I kept my part of the deal. You’re going to let me out like you said, right?” He turned slightly to address Phil Carson.
“Soon, lieutenant, soon,” said Boone from behind Malverde. “Just have patience. We’re not in a safe place yet. But soon.”
Each of the men in the humvee shared the same unspoken question. Would they really let the Legion officer go, as Carson had promised…or kill him? It was an age-old problem for guerrilla fighters: what to do with prisoners taken on a mission behind enemy lines. Not one man in the vehicle could have said with any degree of certainty what the outcome of Lieutenant Malverde’s request would be. There was much more certainty about their own fates should they be captured while wearing Legion uniforms.
They would be hanged as spies and terrorists. Of that, there was no question at all.