Chapter 15
"Oomph." His shin banged into something. He stumbled to the side, tripped over something else, and smelled the heavy scent of a lemon based cleaner.
Okay, so they did not keep the room empty when he was not expected. The least they could have done was to leave a light on. Motel Six would have left the light on for him, and they did not even know who he was. Smiling ruefully to himself, Aaron wished he had brought a damn flashlight, and then he voiced a quiet curse as his arm slowly curled up into his chest and his fingers bowed in.
Face contorted in pain, Aaron rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Just this once," he whispered pleadingly. "Couldn't you have let me be normal just this one time? It really would have helped."
He received no answer, but then he really did not expect one.
Time to leave. Where the hell was the door? For that matter, where the hell was the wall?
He only fell over debris three more times before he found the door. It was locked. Fortunately, he was able to unlock it from the inside.
The corridor was dark too. In this case, however, nothing was piled on the floor waiting to trip him. He fumbled along on aching legs for several minutes before his groping hand found the unlocked doorknob to an inner office. Once inside, he found the light switch and flipped it on. The glow tubes flickered to life, relieving his light starved eyes. He looked around cautiously and saw that this was an inner office so there were no windows to let the light out. That was good. He would only have to worry about someone seeing stray light seeping under the door.
Searching around, he sought something on the desks or hanging on the walls that would tell him what office he had entered. His eyes found three desks with computer terminals, but that told him nothing. Desks and computers tended to pair off frequently around here. There! The wall near the furthest desk was covered with newspaper clippings. Moving closer, Aaron saw that every article was a story on the Eastland Vipers.
Which meant this had to be Don Avery's desk. Only he could be such an avid fan of a team that had not finished above two hundred for the last twenty years. The odds were so poor on the Vipers that bookies cried on those rare occasions when the team actually won a game.
If the desk belonged to Don then this room must be the procurement office. The procurement office was only three doors down from his arrival room. In other words, he had taken the long way around the corridor to get here.
Don's desk was locked, but the desk across from his was not. In the compartment above the desk Aaron found a phone directory. In the upper right hand drawer of the desk he found a .32 automatic tucked far to the back. He had a conversation with himself, and the two of him agreed that it would be a good idea if he took the gun, so he did.
The compound directory did not list Hill, but Gore was listed, and he was the only other person Aaron dared contact. He dialed the four number extension and prayed real hard.
Gore answered on the twelfth ring.
"This had better be damned good." Gore did not sound happy. Aaron did not blame him. The clock on the office wall read two- seventeen.
"Gore, this is Turner. I came back early, and I need a favor. I have four coins for you if you can help me."
"Turner? That you? You ain't supposed to be back for three more days. Hang tight for a minute." Aaron heard a click as Gore set down the receiver. Gore's voice came to him faintly. "Quit whining woman and go back to bed. I paid you enough to get woke up at night--Hey--Hello. You still there?"
"Yeah, I'm here," Aaron said. "I'm in the procurement office, and I want a ride out of here. You know how it is. The damn place I've been going to has bored me to death, and the brass never let me really do anything when I'm home. Well, I'm home early, and I'm looking for a little excitement."
"Now how the hell am I supposed to get you out of here?" Gore sounded incredulous. "The gates are shut at night. Nobody gets out. Shit, security's so tight that even during the day you have to have your head stuck halfway up the General's ass before you're allowed to leave. Two privates were shot last week just because they asked for permission to quit the militia, and a recruit was killed a couple days ago when he was found trying to climb a perimeter fence."
"Things never used to be so tight," Aaron said, incredulous.
Gore snorted. "Up until you started taking your little trips, wasn't hardly anybody who knew what was going on, either. Now, everybody knows, and the General's getting paranoid about turncoats and spies. So tell me Turner, how am I supposed to get you out of here without getting us both shot?
"How about the same way you got that whore in?" Aaron suggested while fighting back a grin. "Since women are never allowed in the complex I really have no choice but to think that you have a way to get the young lady out. That was a woman I heard, wasn't it? I mean, personally, I've hardly ever seen a woman inside the compound so I might be wrong about who it is you're sleeping with."
"Aw hell, " Gore said irritably. "You weren't supposed to hear her. Yeah, it's a woman. There's been more than a few of them through my bedroom this last year, though why a crip like you--"
He shut up. Perhaps, Aaron thought, because he was embarrassed by what he was about to say. The more likely reason was because he did not want to antagonize his supplier of gold coins.
"Every fence has a hole," Aaron said encouragingly. "You've been in the militia for a long time. Long enough to know how to work the system."
"Okay," Gore finally said after several moments of silence. "I can do it, but it's not going to happen for a while. Can you hold your wanker for about three hours, or is that asking too much?"
"I can wait."
"Good. Meet me at the back entrance at five-thirty. I'll be in a windowless brown van. And Turner, you better have the coins. Arranging this so we both get to keep breathing isn't going to be cheap. Got it?"
"Five thirty. Brown van. Back door. Have money," Aaron recited. "Instead of holding my wanker I'm going to take a snooze. Call this number before you leave." He gave Gore the extension number and made him repeat it back. After hanging up, he pushed his chair over to Don's desk. Sitting in the chair, he spun it so its back was to the desk and leaned back until his head rested on the Plexiglas covered surface. Grimacing, he carefully raised his twisted legs until he managed to slide them onto the other chair, and then he relaxed. An item caught his attention before he shut his eyes. One of the clippings taped to the wall had a recent date printed on it. Apparently, the Vipers had lost. Again.