The fence was twelve feet high, topped with barbed wire, and guarded by men with rifles and dogs. Sal and Margaret circled it slowly, staying in the shadows, looking for weaknesses.
They found one near the back, where a tree had fallen against the fence, creating a gap just large enough for a person to squeeze through. The wires were bent, the barbed wire torn away. Someone had been here before.
"Maintenance," Sal whispered. "They haven't fixed it yet."
Margaret nodded. "Let's go."
They squeezed through the gap, tearing clothes and skin, ignoring the pain. On the other side, they crouched in the shadows, listening. Dogs barked in the distance. Guards called to each other. But no one came.
Sal closed his eyes. Reached out. Felt for the familiar presence of the twenty-six.
Nothing.
He tried harder. Concentrated. Pushed past the silence, past the emptiness, past the hollow place where the voices used to be.
And then, faintly, like a whisper from very far away:
...Lombardi...
Miller. It had to be Miller. The only one who knew him well enough to reach through the void.
Where? Sal thought. Where are you?
A pause. Then, not words but a feeling—direction. A building near the center of the camp. A basement. A cell.
Sal opened his eyes. "This way."
They moved through the camp like shadows, avoiding patrols, ducking behind buildings, freezing whenever a dog barked. The building Miller had shown him was low and grey, with no windows and a single door reinforced with steel. A guard stood outside, smoking a cigarette, looking bored.
Sal looked at Margaret. She looked at him.
"Distraction?" she whispered.
"Distraction."
Margaret stood, smoothed her dress, and walked toward the guard.
He saw her coming and stiffened, reaching for his weapon. "Ma'am? You can't be here. This is restricted—"
Margaret burst into tears.
It was the most convincing performance Sal had ever seen. She sobbed, wailed, clutched at the guard's arm, babbled about being lost, about her boyfriend, about not knowing where she was. The guard was flustered, confused, trying to calm her down while keeping one hand on his rifle.
Sal slipped past them both and through the door.
Inside, the building was a maze of corridors and cells. Small rooms, each with a metal door and a tiny window. Sal moved quickly, checking each one, looking for familiar faces.
The first few were empty. Then he found someone.
A young sailor, pale and thin, pressed against the window of his cell. He saw Sal and his eyes went wide.
"Mr. Lombardi?"
"Where are the others?"
"Scattered. Different floors. Different cells. They keep us apart so we can't... can't feel each other."
"How many guards?"
"Not many. They don't think we can fight. They think we're broken."
Sal moved on. Cell after cell, face after face. Some recognized him. Some didn't. Some were too far gone to understand what was happening. The four who'd died—the suicides—he didn't look for them. He couldn't bear to.
At the end of the corridor, he found Miller.
The young sailor was thinner than before, paler, with dark circles under his eyes and a bruise on his cheek. But when he saw Sal, his face lit up like sunrise.
"You came."
"I came." Sal gripped the bars. "We're getting you out. All of you."
Miller shook his head. "You can't. There are too many. And even if you could—where would we go? They'll just find us again. They'll never stop looking."
"Then we'll make them stop." Sal pulled a folded paper from his pocket—a letter from Senator Guffey, demanding answers. "This is going to cause a lot of trouble for Reynolds. A lot of questions he doesn't want to answer. If we can get you out tonight, get you somewhere public, somewhere with witnesses—he can't touch you. Not without exposing everything."
Miller stared at the letter. "You did all this?"
"I had help." Sal grinned. "My wife's a general's daughter. Never underestimate a general's daughter."
A commotion outside. Shouting. Dogs barking. The guard's voice, raised in alarm.
Margaret's distraction had worked a little too well.
"Now or never," Sal said. "Where are the keys?"
The keys were in the guard office, hanging on a hook behind the desk. Sal found them, grabbed them, and ran back through the corridor, unlocking doors as he went. Sailors emerged—confused, terrified, hopeful—and followed him like ducklings following their mother.
Miller was last. When his door swung open, he stepped out and grabbed Sal's arm.
"Margaret. Is she here?"
"She's outside. Causing trouble."
Miller's face went through a dozen emotions in a second. Then he was running, past the other sailors, toward the door, toward the woman who'd crossed half a state to find him.
Sal let him go. He had twenty-five others to worry about.
They emerged from the building in a flood—twenty-six sailors, blinking in the floodlights, blinking at the chaos that surrounded them. Guards shouted. Dogs barked. Alarms blared. And in the middle of it all, Margaret Chen stood with her arms wrapped around Tommy Miller, crying and laughing and crying again.
Lieutenant Pierce appeared from the trees, his face a mask of disbelief. "You actually did it. You actually—"
"We're not done yet." Sal grabbed his arm. "We need to get them out of here. Somewhere public. Somewhere with reporters."
Pierce nodded. "There's a town. Five miles east. Bus station. Newspaper office. Church. Pick one."
"The church," Sal said. "They can't shoot us in a church."
The convoy of escapees moved through the woods like a ragged army—twenty-six sailors, one plumber, one girlfriend, and one very nervous lieutenant. They stumbled through the dark, tripping over roots, helping each other up, pushing forward through exhaustion and fear and the first faint stirrings of hope.
Behind them, the alarms faded. Ahead, lights glimmered—the town of Boyd's Creek, small and sleepy and utterly unprepared for what was about to happen.
They reached the church at dawn.
It was a small white building with a steeple and a cross and a sign out front that said All Are Welcome. Sal pushed open the door and led his flock inside.
The priest was an old man with kind eyes and a face that had seen too much to be surprised by anything. He looked at the thirty people filling his pews—disheveled, exhausted, weeping with relief—and simply nodded.
"The Lord welcomes the weary," he said. "Sit. Rest. Tell me what you need."
"A telephone," Sal said. "And a lot of coffee."
The priest smiled. "Those I can provide."
The telephone calls changed everything.
Sal called Senator Guffey first. Then he called every newspaper he could think of—the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, the New York Times. He told them about thirty sailors who'd been held without charge, without trial, without any legal justification. He told them about a secret facility in the Virginia woods. He told them about a man named Reynolds who made people disappear.
Within hours, reporters descended on Boyd's Creek like locusts.
Within days, the story was front-page news.
Senator Guffey held hearings. The Navy launched investigations. Families who'd been told their sons were fine suddenly discovered the truth—and demanded answers. The Office of Special Projects was exposed, scrutinized, dismantled piece by piece.
And Reynolds?
Reynolds vanished. His office was empty, his files gone, his name erased from every record. He became a ghost—a rumor, a legend, a cautionary tale whispered in the corridors of power.
But Sal knew better.
Men like Reynolds didn't disappear. They just waited. Planned. Prepared.
One day, they'd meet again.
ns216.73.216.253da2
and then Add to home screen.