Valentine couldn't see much through the trees, just a few salmon-colored building tops, at least a dozen stories tall. The ground leveled out past the hill, flat ground and a straight road to a guarded gate beyond a half mile or so of open ground. Valentine looked through his minibinoculars. Yes, there was a little watch station, about the size of a lifeguard's house at a beach, near the break in the trees.
"Three layers of fencing, with a road between," Duvalier said. "Outer layer is electrified. Innermost layer is just a polite six feet of glorified chicken wire. He dropped me off at the gate. The gatehouse looks normal enough, but ten yards out to either side there's tenting over something. I'm guessing heavy weapons."
Valentine did some mental math. This place was perhaps twenty minutes from the train tracks, in trucks driving forty miles an hour.
"Oh, Thatcher gave it a name."
"He did?"
"He called it 'Zan-ado.' "
"Xanadu?" Valentine asked.
"Yeah. Mean anything to you?"
"I've heard the word. I don't know what it means. A fairyland or some such. You hanging around for your date?"
"I'm meeting him in Ironton."
"Ahn-Kha and I will check this out. Tonight."
* * * *
They said good-bye to Price while Duvalier biked off to keep her appointment. Valentine decided he could trust Price with a message to Southern Command. Someone needed to know about Xanadu.
If Price was willing to act as courier.
Valentine insisted on a farewell drink. Their supply of Bulletproof had been much reduced in trading, but they still had a few stoppered bottles.
They drank it inside the filthy motel room, windows and doors wide open to admit a little air.
"Price, you ever run into any guerillas?"
"I avoid them if I can. I've had my guns commandeered off me. They've threatened to shoot Bee, too."
"If you could get a message through to the Resistance, you'd really help the Cause."
"The Cause. Not that shit again."
"It's the only-"
"No! You don't tell me about the Cause, boy." Price took a drink. "I know your Cause. I know Everready's Cause."
"How did you come to know Everready? What happened with those teeth?"
Price took another long swallow. "Don't suppose you ever heard of a place called Coon County?"
"No."
"Won't find it on your old maps. Nice little spot, up in the mountains near Chattanooga, north of Mount Eagle. Called it Coon County because of Tom Coon, roughest son of a bitch you ever met. I bet he killed near as many Reapers as Everready. Ol' Everready was our liaison officer with Southern Command. Got radio gear and explosives through him."
"We had a bad scrape and lost twenty-six men, captive. Colonel Coon, he had some Quisling prisoners of his own. We kept them around pulling plows or cutting wood, that kind of stuff. He went in, alone, to negotiate. We figured they hung him, since he vanished for a month. But wouldn't you know, he came back with twenty-four. Said two had been killed before he could get there, and he exchanged the survivors for twenty-four of our prisoners.
"A few weeks later this big operation got under way, Rattlesnake I think it was called. Lots of guerillas involved. I missed it because I had Lyme disease. Tick bite. Put me on antibiotics and finally got a transfusion from old Everready.
"Then Colonel Coon came back. He looked tired, but he took the time."
He stared out the window, looking at his mule grazing in the field across the road. Valentine wondered what visions he really saw.