Take Back Denver (10 page)

It was a hard thing to watch, not because the inmates were being treated especially cruelly-- he had yet to witness any beatings or torture or executions-- but because the guards and the inmates should have been on the same side. They spoke the same language, listened to the same music, and presumably shared many of the same beliefs. A year ago, some of them had probably worked together, known some of the same people, belonged to the same organizations. Now, they were on opposite sides of a razorwire fence, and for no good reason.

McLean was camped four miles outside of Colorado Springs. His side trip for surveillance had turned very serious when he found the prison camp. He’d been careful to avoid the roads and towns where Correctionist troops marched in clusters or drove one of the twenty or so vehicles they had running. But he had managed to strike up a conversation with a couple of locals, two old men that were trying to dig up potatoes from a small field. He helped them with the work and in return they told him everything he needed to know about the location of the prison, when it had been set up, and who was rumored to be inside.

Everything he’d observed from his position of concealment atop a nearby wooded hill corroborated the old men’s words. The prison was not well built, but the successive layers of razorwire and armed guards were effective enough. McLean only recognized one of the prisoners, a well-known Denver businessman that the old men had mentioned was put away for defying some of the Correctionist rules. McLean had been watching for hours, hoping to catch sight of Darren Bailey, but at the same time hoping not to. If he was here, getting him out would take months of planning and execution and would carry a risk so high that it might not be feasible at all.

As McLean leaned against a tree trunk peering down at the prison below, a movement caught his eye in the brush outside the fence. He realized he’d seen movement there before, but his mind had automatically dismissed it as a breeze rustling the weeds and sage brush that surrounded the razorwire on three sides. Now that he saw it again, though, it attracted his attention and he realized there was no breeze capable of stirring things down there. He briefly wondered if a rabbit was causing the slight motion, but as he looked on the outline of a man emerged from the covering of twigs and thistles that had concealed it.

He was no soldier. The man was wearing brown cargo pants streaked with dark mud and a beige sleeveless shirt broken up by small branches and tufts of grass inserted into holes and pockets and loops. His hair was shaggy and dark, held back with a leather headband. He had worked himself into the brush so well and remained so still that even McLean, from his vantage point, hadn’t noticed him until he moved. The guards that occasionally patrolled this side of the prison would never have seen him.

McLean wondered which route he’d used to crawl into his position so near the wire and how long he’d been there. Probably longer than McLean had been on the hill. But now that the other man was moving stealthily away from the prison, still watching the guards carefully and keeping large clumps of sage in front of him, McLean could see that he was unaware that the watcher was being watched from above.

McLean waited, stock still, until the man had wormed his way back up the hill and into the scrub oak that McLean was hiding in. When the camouflaged man turned and began to walk away through the trees, confident he was out of sight of the prison, McLean raised a hand in greeting.

The other man instantly saw the motion and froze, eyes locked with McLean’s in a death-stare that signaled his willingness to fight at a moment’s notice. McLean couldn’t see any weapons on the man, but got the sense from his stance and facial expression that he didn’t need them in order to be deadly. McLean kept his empty hand raised and his other hand in view on his binoculars, but shifted slightly so the man could see the rifle slung on his shoulder.

“
I’m guessing we have a common purpose,” McLean said, softly enough that it wouldn’t carry down the hill. He nodded toward the prison in the valley below. “Want to talk?”

The man looked him over for another moment, then gave a single, curt nod. He continued on his way into the trees, and McLean put away his binoculars and followed. Thirty yards farther on he came upon the man recovering a cache of equipment. A long, scoped hunting rifle, a canteen, and a small pack. The man turned and held out a hand. “Name’s Bosin,” he said.

McLean shook the offered hand and sensed the wiry, tense strength in the man, who was obviously still on alert despite his nonchalant demeanor. From the man’s eyes, hair, and skin color McLean could tell that he had a lot of Native American blood in him.

“
McLean. I came from the mountains west of here to get some intel on this whole Correctionist prison thing.”

“
I’m from Alamosa. Working for some men in Pueblo that want to know the ins and outs of the prison. How long were you up there?”

“
A couple of hours,” McLean replied. “Didn’t see you until just now when you got up.” Bosin grinned, flashing his teeth. McLean went on. “What do you know of the troop movements around this town? I haven’t seen much here or on my way from the north. Are they scattered, or did a lot of them move out recently?”

Bosin motioned for McLean to follow, and talked as they picked their way down the opposite side of the hill and away from the prison valley. “I just got here yesterday. I’m a free scout, doing a job for some guys I trust, but not tied in to their whole plan. I did see a motorized column move out last night up highway twenty-four. Could be they plan to head into Denver from the east. Or they could just be going to Limon. They seem to want to get a handle on all the little towns before they move on a city. Probably learned the hard way that if you don’t control the outlying areas, it’s hard to close in on the enemy.”

McLean was impressed. “You have some military experience? You talk like a tactician.”

“
I did a tour in the Air Force, counter-sniper security team. We learned a lot of lessons in the Sandbox.”

“
Where are you headed now? Back to Pueblo to report?”

“
I was going to find another position and wait it out tonight. See if I can spot any VIP’s, inside or outside the wire. What are you looking for?”

“
I have a friend that’s rumored to be in here, though I haven’t seen him yet. Not that I could get him out. But I’m also generally interested in these guys’ intentions for the region, and the conflict I’ve been hearing about between them and the resistance fighters they’ve been tangling with.”

“
Well, I was going to try a spot on the northeast, with a view of the gate. See who’s coming and going. You in?”

“
Let’s go.”

The two men bush-whacked through the trees and grass behind the hills until they were northeast of the prison compound, then crawled out through a draw between two rises. There was plenty of cover at a distance from the prison, and they settled down a couple yards from each other for a long watch.

For three hours, not much stirred in the prison. It was late afternoon, and no one seemed eager to be out in the sun. As the shadows grew long, however, a humvee approached on the dirt road that led from the highway to the valley where the prison was contained. When it arrived at the gate, the soldiers let it through without challenging its driver. McLean craned his neck to push the lenses of his binoculars through the sage brush for a good view.

A tall soldier with close-cropped gray hair stepped out of the hummer. He was dressed in digital camo like many of the others, but McLean could tell just by his bearing that he was a commanding officer. He couldn’t make out stars or bars on the man’s jacket and wouldn’t have known exactly what to look for anyway, but he was confident the man was a high-ranking leader over the forces in this area. The prison guards clearly recognized and respected the newcomer.

“
General Garritt Maughan,” Bosin whispered. McLean saw that the free scout had pulled a small booklet of field notes from his pocket and had a few photographs tucked between the pages. Bosin tapped one of the photos. “He’s the C.O. of all the troops between here and Kansas City. I think he’s holed up in Cheyenne Mountain. If he’s not with the contingent that went north last night, it must mean that wasn’t a major offensive.”

The two men watched Maughan as he spoke with the head of the guards. Then he beckoned to someone in the humvee and another man stepped out to join him. He was blonde, greasy, and wore a rumpled gray suit. McLean recognized him instantly.

“
That’s the mayor of Denver!” he whispered to Bosin. “Well, ex-mayor, I imagine. I had a run-in with him just before things went downhill around here. What’s he doing here?”

The general and the mayor went inside the main prison building, a hundred-foot long corrugated steel shack. Some of the guards entered the prison grounds and went over to a small tent city where the inmates had set up makeshift shelters against the sun and wind. They hauled a thin man wearing the tattered remnants of a police uniform toward the main building where General Maughan and the mayor had stepped out onto a covered porch. McLean refocused his binoculars on the porch, wishing he had a parabolic dish to listen in on the conversation.

The general asked the cop something, and the mayor chimed in with more questions, but they didn’t seem to like his answers. The mayor pointed threateningly, and told the prison guards to go get someone else. They returned a moment later with a teenage boy from the same area of the tent city. The cop placed a protective arm around the boy’s shoulders, making it obvious they were father and son. The mayor started verbally abusing the two of them almost loud enough for McLean to hear his words, while the general stood with arms folded under a stony face.

The cop wasn’t telling the general what the mayor wanted him to hear, and the mayor gestured to one of the guards to use his weapon to make the man comply. At a nod from the general, the prison guard nearest the two inmates grabbed the boy and forced him to his knees with the butt of his rifle. The cop began pleading, and the mayor yelled back at him. This time his words echoed unmistakably over the field toward the hiding place of the two watchers. “How… many… are there?”

The guard aimed the barrel of his weapon at the boy, and the cop broke down entirely. He started blubbering out information as fast as he could. It sickened McLean to watch the scene. Finally, after a soldier standing by had taken note of what the cop was saying, the general waved the prisoners away and went back into the building. The mayor followed, ignoring the broken inmate and his son, and went into the building trying to convince the general of something.

“
Well, I don’t know what they said,” Bosin said, “but the gist of the visit was pretty clear.”

“
That mayor is poison,” McLean replied. “He’s selling out Denver. They’re probably preparing to move in and want to know where to expect resistance.”

The general walked back out to his humvee and got in. The mayor hurried after him and had barely shut the door before the vehicle took off. McLean and Bosin waited two more hours without seeing any movement around the prison.

Just as twilight was setting in, a bell rang twice and some of the prisoners got up to approach the porch. One of the guards set a big pot down on a picnic table there and stood back with a truncheon in one hand. The inmates lined up with an assortment of cups and bowls and began helping themselves to the pot, which appeared to contain some kind of soup.

McLean was starting to think about heading out when he saw a prisoner in line that looked familiar. There were at least a couple hundred prisoners in line and he’d almost missed it. But after observing the movements and profile of the man, he was certain that he was looking at Darren Bailey.

Chapter 13  :  Coming to Blows

“
That’s my guy!” he whispered to Bosin. “He’s the one I came here to find. Looks healthy enough.” Darren had a bushy beard now and he had a slight limp, but as McLean recalled he’d always had the limp. It was probably exacerbated by what he’d been through.

They watched until darkness fell completely and the prisoners retired to their tents. The prison building wasn’t lit, but the guards had a fire in a barrel on the back porch and they carried lanterns on their patrols around the perimeter. This made it easy to see where they were and keep track of their patterns.

After observing this for an hour past dark, Bosin got up. “Well, I’ve got what I need for now.”

“
Me too,” McLean answered. “Darren’s family will be glad to hear he’s alive. Let’s bug out.”

Their egress under cover of darkness was simple, and soon they were back in the hills away from the valley and heading south through the scrub forest. They quickly reached a fork in the small deer trail they were following, one branch leading west and one east. McLean’s camp was hidden in a grove just to the west, from where he could quietly head westward on the long trek back to his ranch. Bosin seemed to want to head south down the hillside.

“
Well, I guess this is where we go Lone Ranger,” McLean said. “It was good meeting you. Maybe we’ll see each other again.”

Bosin nodded. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all. Sooner or later. And if you do get involved with these fellows in La Junta and Pueblo, you tell them Micah Bosin vouched for you.”