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"That'll be the Stress Squad. I hope they gas the bastards. I fucking hate structural."
Vickers looked at Bruce with a raised eyebrow. "How can you hate them? It isn't their fault they got the bad breaks."
"I hate them because I got out and I don't like to be reminded how it was. They had camps for structural outside Melbourne. I spent five years being shuffled around those fucking hellholes until I volunteered for New Guinea. Even that was a lottery. Can you imagine that? Hoping that you can win a chance to get your head blown off in some stinking jungle?"
Vickers said nothing. Bruce abruptly turned up the sound of the TV. The subject had clearly been dropped. They drove in silence for another twenty minutes. By that time they were in open country. A bright moon made the scrub desert landscape look like the surface of Mars. On TV, the episode of Rogan's Vengeance had reached its bloody finale. The nurse seemed to treat this as a signal. She took out a small zippered wallet and opened it. Inside was a loaded syringe. She smiled.
"I think it's time for your shot, Mort."
The room contained exactly three pieces of furniture, an iron hospital-style bed, a metal locker and a chair. His luggage had been dumped in a corner. Another cool, leggy nurse was sitting on the chair watching him.
"How long have I been out?"
"Twenty-seven hours."
"Unh?"
"They kept you under while they ran some tests and stuff."
"Oh shit."
"Worried that you might have missed something?"
"Worried what I might have missed."
Vickers had woken on his back. He turned over on his side, wrapping the blankets protectively around him. He stared at the wall. It was painted a drab, duck's egg green. The paint was brand new with a fresh turpentine smell. The effect was someplace between a hospital and a prison. He realized that someone had removed his clothes. He glanced around. They were folded on top of his bags.
"Where am I?"
"Do you know that's the very first time I've ever heard someone use that line in real life?"
Vickers slowly sat up. Whatever drugs they'd used on him had left him dizzy and his stomach kept threatening to heave. He was also profoundly depressed by a rapidly fading dream. It was like the drugs had taken him to some wondrous place where all the secrets of the universe had been revealed to him. As consciousness came back it had melted away like the morning mist, leaving him with a gaping, empty sadness.
"I guess it's just the drugs."
"I'll try and get you something."
"Am I allowed to get up?"
"You can do pretty much whatever you like… except leave, of course."
He wrapped the blanket around himself and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
"What do I call you?"
"You could try 'hey nurse.'"
"You don't give much away."
"I'm not paid to."
"What are you paid for?"
"To sit here and make sure you don't vomit or choke or anything."
"It sounds boring."
"It was." She held up a book, The New Celibacy by Wilma Deering.
He wasn't sure that he could stand but he tried anyway. He swayed dangerously. Hey Nurse was quickly beside him.
"Jesus Christ!"
"I think you'd better sit down.'
He sat. Sweat was ru
"They really did keep you under for a very long time."
"What were they looking for?"
"Ah, come on, you know I can't tell you that."
He waited a few minutes and then tried to stand again. This time he was more successful and Hey Nurse didn't have to help him.
"Can I take a shower?"
There were two doors in the room. Hey Nurse opened one of them; a small hotel-style bathroom was behind it.
"I'll fix the water for you."
"Do I have to leave the door open?"
"Don't do me any favors."
He closed the door behind him, dropped his blanket and stepped into the warm spray. Gradually the water worked on his locked muscles until he no longer felt like he was mummified. His brain also started working again. If he'd been out for twenty-seven hours, he could be just about anywhere in the world. He could assume nothing and he'd be well advised to get past Hey Nurse and on to someone who was a little more informative. So far, it had been a bit too close to brainwashing. Part of his wish had already come true when he came out of the shower. A tall, broad-shouldered man in military fatigues was flirting with Hey Nurse. He turned and extended a hand.
"Mort Vickers, my name's Streicher. I'll be in charge of you while you're here."
Vickers felt a little awkward accepting introductions wrapped in only a towel.
"I'm glad to meet you. Do you mind if I get dressed?"
Hey Nurse made her excuses. "I'll leave you two alone."
After she'd gone, Streicher gri
"Isn't she a peach? Don't you just love nurses? It's all that starched cotton and those white stockings…"
Vickers was pulling on his pants.
"Where, exactly, is here?"
Streicher looked a little disappointed that Vickers didn't want to share his appreciation of nurses.
"Just like you were told, a desert location about sixty clicks outside Vegas."
"I've been out so long I could be anywhere."
"That's true, but you ain't."
Vicker unzipped one of his bags, looking for a clean shirt. He was surprised to see that both his weapons were right there on top. The ammunition he'd bought had, however, vanished. Streicher didn't have to be asked.
"You'll get ammunition when you need it."
"Are you going to tell me what I'm here for?"
"You look like you could use some breakfast."
Vickers had met a lot of men like Streicher. They were the perpetual NCOs. They hung securely in the middle levels of authoritarian violence. Having raised themselves from the drudgery of the common soldier, they somehow lacked the wit, the intelligence, the courage or the contacts to scale the lonely peaks of real command. Instead, they carved out miniature empires based on a capacity for unquestioning loyalty and a talent for keeping things extremely simple and, on occasion, also extremely brutal. Sometimes they were sadists, sometimes they were closet homosexuals. Almost all had problems with relationships that weren't based on regulations and orders. This was the basic Military model. Other variations were Gangster and Law Enforcement. The differences were mainly ones of style. Streicher seemed to have learned his ma
"Breakfast sounds good; is it that time of day?"
"It's around dawn."
"So, an early breakfast."
"You can bring your stuff. You won't be living down here." Vickers picked up one of his bags and nodded down at the other.
"You want to give me a hand with some of it?"
Streicher's gruff-but-genial mask slipped for an instant but he quickly gathered it up along with the bag and ushered Vickers out of the door. The small empty room and four others like it were part of an ultra-utilitarian basement that in no way prepared him for what he would confront when he reached the top of the flight of cast iron steps that seemed to be the only exit. Streicher laughed at his obvious surprise.