“Me, too,” Payne interjected. He led Blount to the metal bleachers and asked him to sit down. “I’ve got a number of questions that I’d like to ask you, Bennie, and some of them might seem a little bit strange. But trust me, each of them is really important to me and my friends.”
“Okay,” he mumbled, slightly confused.
“First of all, what can you tell me about your friend with the tattoo? How do you know him?”
“Ya mean the
P
tattoo? I met him at work, Mr. Payne. Most of the people have it.”
“And where do you work, Bennie?”
Blount paused for a second, not sure if he should answer the question.
“Come on, Bennie,” Greene urged. “You promised you’d help us.”
“That’s true, I did. But it’s not as easy as that, sir. Ya see, I promised other peoples that I wouldn’t talk about this none.”
Greene moved forward on the bleachers, flexing his massive arms as he did. “But those other people can’t hurt you right now, can they?”
Blount gulped. “I guess you’s right. The place is called the Plantation.”
The word piqued the interest of all three men, yet Greene was the first to speak. “The Plantation? What exactly is the Plantation?”
Blount gazed at Greene. It was obvious that the Plantation was one of the things he wasn’t supposed to talk about, but all it took was one glare from Greene and he started to speak. “The Plantation is the name of the place that I be working. It’s a special jail that the state put in less than a year ago.”
“A jail? What kind of jail?” Payne demanded.
“The
secret
kind.”
“What the hell is a
secret
jail?”
Blount exhaled. “You know, the kind that people is sent to for special crimes.”
Payne grimaced. This was getting nowhere. “Special crimes? What the hell are they?”
“You know,” he whispered, “the kind that people ain’t suppose to talk about.”
Payne glanced at Jones, looking for an explanation, but it was obvious that he was just as confused. “Bennie? Can you please tell me what type of people commit special crimes?”
“Not really, Mr. Payne. There’ve been too many people for me to keep track of over the past months.”
“Men? Women? Old? Young?”
“Yes, sir. All of them.”
“Is there anything else that you can tell us about this place?”
Blount considered the question for a moment, then brushed the hair from his face. “Yes, Mr. Payne, there be one more thing I could tell you about the people at the Plantation.”
“And what’s that, Bennie?”
Blount pointed a long, bony finger at Payne. “All the people look like you.”
It took a moment for Blount’s comment to sink in, but once it did, none of the men knew how to respond. After a moment of silence, Jones spoke. “All of the people look like him? You mean everybody at the Plantation is ugly?”
The joke brought a smile to Blount’s face. “That’s not what I meant, sir. What I be tryin’ to say is they white. Everybody at the jail is white.”
“Levon?” Payne said in a soft voice. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”
“I wish I did, but I’m clueless.” Greene turned his attention to Blount. “Bennie? What do you mean everybody’s white? You’re telling me there aren’t any black people at the Plantation?”
“No, I ain’t sayin’ that. There be plenty of black people at the jail. All the workers be black.”
“What?!” Jones demanded. “The prisoners are white and the guards are black? Holy parallel universe, Batman!”
Payne glanced at his friend. Sometimes he wondered if Jones was still a teenager. “Bennie, don’t you think that’s a little bit strange? Why are all of the prisoners white?”
“I don’t know, sir, ’cause I ain’t in charge of no prisoners. I just be in charge of the taters and grits. My bosses don’t allow me to get near the people. They keeps me far away.”
“And why do you think that is, Bennie?”
“My bosses tell me it be for my safety, but sometime I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“Why’s that?” Payne wondered. “Why do you doubt them?”
“ ’Cause some of the prisoners ain’t that scary. I ain’t afraid of no girls, and I sure as heck ain’t afraid of no kids.”
Nausea quickly built in Payne’s belly. “Kids? What kind of kids, Bennie?”
“White ones.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. How old are the kids?”
“Well,” Blount mumbled, suddenly realizing he had probably already revealed too much information, “it be hard to say. I ain’t too good at guessin’ no ages.”
Payne moved closer, trying to intimidate Blount with his proximity. “This isn’t the time to quit talking. How old are the damn kids?”
“I don’t know,” he whined. “I really don’t. I just know that some of them have to be young ’cause I have to make them different chow. I have to cut up their food ’cause they don’t got big teeth yet.”
“Jesus,” Payne groaned. That meant the Posse had kidnapped kids under the age of five. “And you don’t find that strange? Come on, Bennie, you can’t be that dumb! What kind of prison holds toddlers?”
Blount lowered his head in disgrace, too embarrassed to answer the question.
“Levon,” Jones whispered, trying to take the focus off of Bennie, “what do you think? Could a place like this exist?”
Greene chuckled at the thought. “A state-run facility with black guards and white inmates? Hell, no! The government couldn’t get away with a place like that in Louisiana. There are way too many David Dukes down here to oppose it.”
“How about privately?” Payne wondered. “Do you think a black-run facility, one that imprisons and punishes white people, could secretly exist in this state?”
“Now that’s another story.” Greene sighed, closing his eyes as he did. “Racial tension has always been a huge concern in this state. For one reason or another, there are still thousands of people that are upset about the Civil War. I know that sounds ridiculous to a Northerner, but trust me, it’s true. White supremacists run some towns, while black militants control others. Then, to complicate things further, there are places in this state that no one controls. The swamps, the forests, the bayou. Shit, I guarantee you there are entire communities in Louisiana that don’t know what year it is—or even care. Those are the areas where a place like the Plantation could exist. No visitors, no cops, no laws. That’s where a place like that could
thrive
.”
The possibility didn’t make Payne happy. He had secretly hoped that Bennie Blount was a simpleton who mumbled to strangers about fictitious places in order to get attention, but that seemed less likely now. If someone like Greene was willing to believe that the Plantation could exist, then there was a good chance that it actually did.
And if that was the case, then it was up to Payne to find it.
CHAPTER 30
Sunday, July 4th
Independence Day
THE
leaders of the Plantation had waited several years for this day to come, and now that their plan had come to fruition, they could barely contain their enthusiasm. The special ceremony they had planned was originally slated to begin an hour before dawn, the same time they had held the symbolic ritual of the burning cross, but now that their big day was actually here, they realized that their adrenaline wouldn’t let them wait another four hours.
Their big announcement would have to be pushed forward.
Holmes notified Hakeem Ndjai, who told the rest of the guards. Within minutes, the Plantation’s tattooed battalion began assembling the prisoners into formation, forcing the tired captives into a very specific order:
Before Holmes, Jackson, and Webster made their appearance, the guards double-checked the prisoners, making sure everyone was where they were supposed to be.
Then, like a shadow through a sea of black, Master Holmes and his raven-colored steed charged through the night. The only thing announcing their presence was the sound of hooves tearing up the soft turf in rhythmic bursts and the occasional crack of a leather whip against the horse’s dark flesh. The sound brought chills to the recently flogged prisoners.
Once he reached the three groups, Holmes stared through the holes of his black hood and sighed. “Well, well, well! What do we have here? A bunch of frightened white people! The sight warms my heart!” He turned his attention to Ndjai. “Is everyone here, Hakeem?”
“Everyone except Master Jackson and Master Webster.”
Holmes nodded as he thought back to the days when he was the scared victim, when he watched members of the Ku Klux Klan ride in on horseback and terrorize his family with burning crosses and threats of violence. Shit, he could still remember the pounding of his heart and the knot in his gut. The way he trembled while clinging to his mom for safety.
“Will they be joining us?” Ndjai asked.
Holmes nodded, refusing to take his eyes off of the prisoners. He loved the way they quivered in the firelight. “My friends wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
BLOUNT gawked at the interior of Greene’s mansion as he walked down the hallways, glancing into every room he passed. He had never been in such a large house before and wanted a chance to snoop around. Unfortunately, his hosts had other ideas.
“Bennie!” Payne shouted. “Where are you hiding? Levon got off the phone five minutes ago, and we’ve been waiting for you ever since!”
“I sorry, Mr. Payne!” He jogged toward the sound of Payne’s voice. “I guess I gots a little bit lost when I left the toilet. I sorry!”
Payne grinned at Blount’s lanky form and easygoing country manner. “That’s all right. But if we’re gonna finish our preparations, we’ve got to get back to work.” He threw his arm around Blount’s shoulder and squeezed. “And you’re our star!”
The concept made him smile. “Let’s gets to it then! I been waitin’ my whole life to be a star!” Blount and Payne joined Greene and Jones at the massive dining room table. Maps and sketches were scattered all over the wooden surface. “So tells me, what does ya need to know?”
Jones, who possessed the strongest background in military strategy, glanced at the information in front of him. He had graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he had studied computers at the Colorado Springs campus. After receiving the highest score in Air Force history on the MSAE, the Military Strategy Acumen Examination, he earned his entrance into the MANIACs after a short stint in the military police. Once in the MANIACs, he served several years under Payne, planning a variety of successful missions.
“Now that we know about the Plantation itself, we need to talk about points of entry. How are we supposed to get onto the island?”
Blount answered. “The only way to gets onto the island is from the western dock. Cypress swamps is gonna block every other way to this place.”
“Then tell me about the west. What do we have to worry about before the dock?”
“There be a clean path, right down the middle, and you needs to follow it to avoid trouble. If you goes to one side of the path, boom! You hits some stumps. If you goes to the other side, boom! You hits some trees. But, if you stays in the middle—”
“Boom! The guards see us coming and blow our asses out of the water.”
Blount laughed at Jones’s comment. “That’s right! We’s gonna be gator stew!”
“If that’s the case,” Jones continued, “how do you recommend us getting there? If we can’t use the dock without being seen, how can we get there undetected?”
“Why does you want to make this so complicated, Mr. Jones? There ain’t no reason to find no back door when the front door is working just fine.”
“But I thought you said that there’ll be guards at the western dock.”
“Yep,” he chuckled, “but the guards won’t be expectin’ what I has in mind.”
“And what is that?”
Payne and Jones listened to Blount’s idea and liked what they heard. Even though they had won dozens of military awards, had planned intricate missions through several of the world’s most hostile countries, and had been in charge of the most elite fighting force in America’s history, they were forced to admit that Bennie Blount, a dreadlocked, slow-talking buckwheat from the bayou, had bested their military minds by devising the perfect plan all by himself.
And most importantly, it was simple enough that even he couldn’t screw it up.
DANCING
slightly with every hill and crevice, the headlights of the all-terrain vehicles looked like giant fireflies as they skimmed across the landscape of the Plantation. When the motors could finally be heard, the three groups of prisoners turned and watched the arrival of the two men. Wearing black hoods and thick cloaks, Jackson and Webster soared through the darkness, looking like supernatural beings on a mystical quest, their ebony robes flapping in the great rush of air. It was the type of entrance that nightmares were made of.