“You want me to go to Gransu with you?” Bract asked, eyeing the large baguette sandwich in my hand from over his campfire.
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but I could really use your help. I need a translator.”
Bract examined my face for a moment and then glanced around. “Where is your partner?” he asked.
“This isn’t exactly…an authorized trip,” I admitted. “Oak’s sitting this one out.”
“Why not authorized?”
I took a sip of the coffee Bract had offered me when I arrived. Damn, that was good stuff. “My superior doesn’t think this lead is worth investigating. But this is the only lead we’ve got, solid or not. I have to do something, I can’t just sit around.”
Bract nodded slowly. He glanced at the sky. Already the sun was starting to dip. “We should go now,” he said, standing up. He headed into his trailer and emerged a few minutes later with a small pack over his shoulder and a bundle of what appeared to be clothes in his arms.
“You need different clothes. You do not look like one of us. If you want to talk to people, you must look like us.”
I examined the proffered clothes skeptically. There was a lot of plaid here. Finally I selected a black plaid shirt, and a pair of what appeared to be woven wool pants. “You’ll need this too,” Bract said, plopping a knit wool cap onto my head.
I changed into the strange clothing, grimacing as I placed the cap on my head. Bract’s beard twitched as he observed my transformation. “Good enough,” he said at last.
We walked out to my truck and loaded in. I set my phone to direct our route and we headed out, Bract tucking into his sandwich. For a while we drove in silence. Finally I said, “have you ever been to Gransu? Is that where you crossed over?”
“No,” Bract said. “I cross in Oretu, further east. But I go to Gransu one time, I look for someone I know there.”
“What’s it like?”
Bract considered for a moment. “A mess,” he said finally. “So many people come but there is no good space for them. Everyone is right next to each other. Unclean. Hard to have enough food and clean water. Not enough firewood, they are burning everything they can find.”
“They don’t move somewhere else?”
“Many are afraid. They want to stay close to the border. They want to go home. They think they will lose their chance if they move south away from the border. Also they are afraid of townie people. Townie people do not treat them well. And many do not speak the language, so it is hard for them to move and find a way to live. They have no money and no jobs.”
“I see.” I thought about this for a time as we flitted along the thickly forested north highway. This land was largely devoid of occupation, except for the occasional ranch or farmstead where a section of prairie was present.
“How do you plan to find this Ulug?” Bract asked after a time.
“I’ve got a plan,” I said grimly. I explained what I was thinking. When I finished, Bract was silent for a long while.
“This is a good plan, I think. It will be dangerous.”
“I’ll be armed. And you?”
“Certainly,” Bract agreed.
When we neared the border, civilization began to spring up again. It was dusk when we pulled into the town of Egnar in Tersol County, a mile from the border. It was a pleasant enough looking township, I thought, until we saw what appeared to be armed guards stationed on the highway leading north to the border. One of them flagged us down. I pulled out my badge and rolled down the window.
“Sir, please state your business-” the guard began but stopped short upon seeing my badge.
“DI Senel of Meslpol county. We’ve come to investigate a lead in a missing person’s case. This is…Inspector Bract.”
Bract, to his credit, inclined his head and then stared straight forwards, unflinching.
The guard hesitated. “Ya’ll know what you’re in for?” he asked uncertainly. He was just a young bloke, and he looked nervous. “It’s a bit of a riot up there at Gransu. Folks as used to live up there all moved out. There’s just too much of them nomads up there to be safe anymore.”
He eyed our garb uncertainly for a moment. “Cognito,” I said tersely by way of explanation.
“Well, ah, good luck up there,” the guard said, waving us through.
“So I’m an inspector now?” Bract asked after we had pulled away.
“It’s a temporary appointment,” I said, smirking.
But the smile was wiped off my face a second later when we drove over a ridge and caught a glimpse of the scene below us. What looked like a massive RV camp arrayed for at least a mile was visible along what was clearly a fenced border.
“Park here,” Bract said quickly as we dipped down behind a smaller rise. “And turn off your lights.”
I did so, jolting us to a halt in a grove of pine trees. We got out and I squared my shoulders. The jacket that Bract had lent me was long enough to conceal my glock on my hip. I pulled on the knit cap and saw Bract observing me.
“Good?” I asked.
He nodded, looking amused, but also serious. “Let’s go.”
“I’m following your lead on this,” I said as we strode forwards. “If you can get us to the right person, I’ll take over from there.”
“You don’t speak like us,” Bract said. “I should do the talking.”
“I’ll keep it simple.”
We neared the encampment. The smell hit me first and I tried not to gag. The odor of human urine was immediate, quickly followed by feces, campfire smoke, food smells, and sweat. The edge of the camp aligned with the edge of a patch of dilapidated pine trees which had been delimbed of branches from about twenty feet up. As we moved into the first rows of campsites, we could see that all the trees in the vicinity had been treated thus in the desperation to find firewood.
The camps were indeed crammed together, with little or no space in between tents, tarps, trucks and trailers. The sheer number of them became apparent as we walked deeper. At each camp, anywhere from two to ten people sat crammed into their little space, around a few flickering flames, or else wrapped in blankets to stave off the growing evening chill. Many families had young children who looked gaunt in the wavering light of flames. Some had brought decrepit looking horses over the border with them, who grazed wherever they pleased, denuding the soil of any plant life.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“How many people are here?” I muttered to Bract. He shrugged. I couldn’t imagine it was less than 5,000 and probably more.
There was a large conglomerate of men around a smoking and stinking bonfire about five minutes deep into the camp. Bract nodded to them and we slouched over, trying to blend in to the scene of rotating people taking turns to stand by the fire and warm themselves for a moment or two. After a period of joining the shuffle, Bract engaged a large bushy bearded man in conversation. A couple of other men joined in. I tried not to draw attention to myself so that none of them would try to speak to me in their language. After a time, Bract motioned me over with a jerk of his chin and the two of us sidled off to the cover of several trees.
“What did you learn?” I asked, standing close to Bract so that we could speak without raising our voices.
“They say there is a townie man who comes to sell cars, trucks, trailers. He ask for them to work in exchange. They say he may be here tonight, or may not.”
“Ok,” I said, feeling encouraged. “Do you know where?”
“They say he is on the other end of the camp. On the other side of the creek.”
We started to head that way. We came upon the creek within a few minutes and crossed it using a makeshift bridge of stepping stones. On the other side of the creek, the scene was much the same, except that some families had built low rock walls in between their shelters out of the more abundant stone on this side. When we saw several families in front of us with trucks and trailers, Bract beelined for them. He spoke to one of the men. They conversed back and forth for a time before the man gestured to the end of the camp, eclipsed in dark heavy trees. We could see a large semi truck parked at the edge of the camp, where many folk milled around. It appeared to be a supply truck of some sort. As we approached, the words “Convocation of Salvation.”
I pulled up short. “What the-?”
Bract paused as well, looking back at me questioningly. “What is it?”
“The Convocation, they’re cultist,” I said blankly. “Believers of God. Extremists. What are they doing here?”
“They bring food,” Bract said, shrugging. “They are the only ones who bring food to the border. Many cannot find other food.”
Indeed, there was a straggling line outside the back of the truck, where figures in in dark navy robes were handing out paper sacks. Nearby there was what appeared to be a mobile clinic out of an ambulance, and beyond that a large white truck. Bract nodded to this and we moved over. There were two men sitting on the tailgate. They were gruff looking and armed, a rifle over one man’s arm, and what looked like a pistol on the hip of another. They looked like security guards at first glance given ther dark uniforms. They were masked as many of the Convocation volunteers were, the surgical white paper pulled over their noses and mouths. But something in the way they held themselves made me feel that they were not here to protect anyone. We approached cautiously and waved to make our presence known.
“Are you Mr. Ulug?” Bract asked as we came to a halt.
Both men eyed him suspiciously.
“We hear Mr. Ulug sell us a truck for cheap,” Bract continued uncertainly. “We need a truck.”
One of the men spat a glob in front of him, only inches away from Bract’s boots. He looked Bract and I up and down. “Y’all got some money?” His voice was cold and sarcastic and had a strange flavor to it, perhaps a norther accent I was unfamiliar with.
We shook our heads. The man jerked his head towards his companion, the one with the pistol, who stood and walked over to us. It was impossible to say if it was Ulug or not with his face covered. His build more or less matched Ulug’s description and photos, but so did the second man just as much.
“Well if you don’t have any money, it looks like you won’t be able to buy a truck then, doesn’t it?” he growled at Bract in a low tone.
“We can work,” I said quickly.
The man carrying the pistol turned to look at me instead. He squinted and I swallowed hard. If he was part of one of the drug rings in the capital, there was a good chance he had seen my face before, even if I didn’t know his. After a moment, he cocked his head. “What are you good at?”
“Ah, we can drive truck,” I managed to stutter out.
“And we can build, and clean and farm,” Bract added.
Pistol Guy snorted. “That’s quite the resume. Unfortunately, we don’t have any use for farmers.”
“We can fight,” I said abruptly. I didn’t know what the men were looking for, but Pistol Guy’s amused smirk dropped at this proclamation.
“Fight, huh,” he said coolly, but something told me I had piqued his interest.
There was a short pause, in which I resisted the urge to look at Bract one step behind me, putting up a calm and confident face.
“Let’s see you fight,” Pistol guy said abruptly. He motioned towards his companion, who slid off the tailgate of the truck after a moment of uncertainty.
“What?”
“You fight,” he said simply, holding out a hand to take the other man’s rifle.
I stared at him for a moment, my body instinctively tensing like a loaded spring. Rifle guy strolled forward as casually as though he meant to shake my hand. Then, without hardly a warning, he launched himself at me. My whole system flooded with adrenaline as he barreled to within an inch of me. At the last possible moment, I managed to spin to the side so that he didn’t take me down flat. But his fist was up and glanced off my shoulder as he came in. I pulled my own fists up and stepped back in time to block the next punch, which came in almost immediately as the guy skidded to a halt behind and to the side of me. Two more strikes in quick succession informed me that this guy was not fucking around. I needed to get a handle on this before Rifle Guy landed a forceful and dangerous blow.
I anticipated the next shot, an extended jab towards my right shoulder area. Instead of stepping back, I stepped in and ducked down, coming in below his defenses. Unfortunately for me, Rifle Guy recovered extremely well, fluidly switching from a boxing stance and pulling me into close combat with an ease that showed he had at least some sort of basic combat training. We grappled, pulling at each other’s clothes and attempting to trip each other off balance. Rifle Guy’s right arm was locked around my back, gripping my opposite side and attempting to rip me to the side and off my feet. His left arm held my right wrist so that I couldn’t get purchase on him. My left arm was free and I pummeled it into his side as often as I could but he was keeping me on my toes so effectively that I was only landing light blows. It was time to change this.
In the next instance as he attempted to throw me to the side, I shrunk below him and spun around so that my back was to his, placing my left foot firmly in his center of gravity and pushing my hips against him. Then I shoved my right foot between his legs, caught his left ankle with my foot, kicked out and pulled him down to the side with his off balanced momentum. He grunted in shock as he hit the ground but I didn’t give him time to think. I moved over him, wrenching his right arm back until he squealed satisfactorily. I glanced up at Pistol Guy, whose eyes were glinting, nodded once, and then released Rifle Guy’s arm.
Rifle Guy scrambled to his feet, raising his fists again, but Pistol Guy let out a chuckle and waved him down, handing the rifle back over. I would have rather he didn’t, as Rifle Guy was looking pissed at what had just gone down.
“Ok, you can fight. I assume your friend is as proficient,” he added, nodding to Bract, who had remained as still as stone the entire time I had been tussling with Rifle Guy.
I shrugged, trying not to breathe too heavily as I refocused on the task at hand. It had been a while since I had been attacked like that and I felt a bit rattled.
“So we work for truck,” I insisted.
Pistol Guy nodded slowly. “You work for truck,” he agreed. I wished I could see his face behind his mask, but his eyes told enough of a story. “What is your name?”
I hesitated for only a moment. “Senny.”
“Senny. You and your friend, you meet us tomorrow night at sunset meet us in this same place. We give you work, you get a truck at the end of it.”
I nodded, but held tight, unwilling to end the conversation. “What kind of work?”
“Nothing too dangerous.”
“Where?”
He hesitated and I cast around quickly for an excuse. “My wife will be afraid if I leave, I must tell her.”
Pistol Guy stared into my eyes with a dead look that clearly displayed his disinterest in the topic. “If you come back, who cares where you were.”
The other end of this was left unsaid. Apart from the chilling implications of this statement, I needed to get something more out of this interaction.
“Is it far?” I asked. “Is it cold? Is there food? How much danger?”
“Look,” Pistol Guy said impatiently, his hand sliding along the holster of his weapon to emphasize this would be the end of the conversation. “Just prepare to be gone for a day or two. Cover your face, like this.” He indicated his mask. “And wear black. We will be working at night. We will have food, don’t worry about that. You're just going to be taking a ride in that truck, ok?”
He gestured towards the white truck they had been sitting in back of and for the first time, I notice a logo on the side of the door. It wasn’t large, and it was difficult to see, but it looked like a shield emblem and there seemed to be writing below it. I shifted my gaze back to Pistol Guy and nodded, motioning to Bract. We retreated, but I headed purposefully along the side of the truck close to the driver’s door. Though there wasn’t much light, I thought I could make several letters, the first one of which might have been an “H” and the pattern of the emblem was some sort of crosshatch.
I glanced back as we left the dim light surrounding the edge of the camp. I thought I could see a single dark figure standing there out on his own, his hand at his hip, his masked face watching us go.