Code Name: Camelot (Noah Wolf #1)(30)
Roger started toward the door, and chuckled. “It is,” he said, “but it’s okay. By the way, you do know that’s not the only restaurant here, right? We got several on the compound, including some good old burger joints.”
Noah laughed. “Seriously? Where are they, I could stand a nice thick burger and fries.”
They stepped into the parking lot and Roger pointed at a pickup truck. It was a small one, and looked like it had probably seen better days. “Hop in,” he said. “Burger and fries, coming right up.”
Noah climbed into the little truck, as Roger got behind the wheel and put the key in the ignition. He turned it, and Roger realized that the truck’s appearance was deceptive. The engine that started up ran quite smoothly, and when Roger put it in gear, it was obvious that it had quite a lot of power.
“This truck seems to have a bit more motor in it than normal,” Noah said. “You build it yourself?”
“No,” Roger said. “This was assigned to me, because I’ve always been a country boy who loved pickup trucks. Just about everything they give us to drive is pretty well built, you’ll see. I think a lot of them come from what the government confiscates, you know, like from drug dealers and such. Somebody went to a lot of work to shove a big block under the hood of this thing.”
Roger drove the truck toward the urban setting where they had had their workout earlier, and Noah paid attention to the landmarks. “This is kind of ingenious,” he said. “It’s like we’ve got samples of just about every different kind of environment here. Small-town, big-city, countryside—I even saw a stretch that looks like desert. Only thing I haven’t seen so far is water, and I’d be willing to bet there’s a lake here, somewhere.”
“You’d be right,” Roger said. “Southwest edge opens up on a lake that can get pretty treacherous at times. It’s fresh water, but other than that you could swear you were out on the ocean, in spots.”
“So the idea, I gather, is to let us run practice missions in all these different environments?”
“Oh, that’s part of it,” Roger admitted. “There’s a lot more to it than that, though. Part of it is the workouts, to let us get used to running courses of all kinds. Then there’s the fact that a lot of our people have been locked up for years, so they need to get used to being in the world again, and this is how they do it. To be honest, I think that’s pretty much one of the more important reasons for it, but there’s probably other reasons I don’t even know about.”
Noah was surprised to see a typical fast food restaurant appear ahead of them. “That’s wild, I didn’t see that when we were here earlier. I wonder what else there is around here that I didn’t see.”
Roger shrugged his shoulders. “Well, unless you’re starving, let’s take a cruise and see.” He drove past the burger place, and cruised through the urban section, going from street to street, and Noah realized that the section seemed to be made up of about thirty-six city blocks, a six-block by six-block grid. He saw office buildings, banks, apartment buildings, a large hotel, a shopping center with several stores, a couple of theaters and several different restaurants. There was a school complex that seemed to have everything from kindergarten through high school, and an impressive hospital that looked like it was ready for just about anything. Roger took another turn, and then they cruised through a few smaller streets that were lined with houses.
“Good grief,” he said, “I’ve seen towns that weren’t this big, including the one I was born in. I see gas stations, convenience stores—are those real, or just simulations for training?”
“Oh, they’re real, that’s for sure,” Roger said. “And one thing you need to know, right now, is that not everyone here even knows what goes on. This area shows up on maps as an honest-to-goodness town called Kirtland. One thing you never, ever do, is mention our real purpose in front of anyone you aren’t certain is part of it.”
“Well,” Noah said, “in that case, I’m awfully glad you told me. I wish somebody had told me this sooner, in fact.”
Roger laughed. “Chill, dude,” he said. “It’s all good. You ready for that burger?”
Noah managed a grin. “Yeah, I guess so. So, where do you fit in with this organization? Or is that one of those questions you can answer, but then you gotta kill me?”
“It isn’t quite that bad,” Roger said. “I got myself into a mess, where I owed a bunch of people some money, and let’s just say they were pretty serious about trying to collect it. They made a couple of threats against my family, so I decided to make, shall we say, a preemptive strike.”
“You killed them?”
“I did,” Roger said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t nearly as smart as I thought I was, and left a trail of clues behind that just about any amateur cop could’ve followed. I was arrested less than twenty-four hours later, and because there were seven victims, I couldn’t even plead out. The case was too good against me, so the prosecutors wouldn’t deal and said I had to go to trial. A conviction would’ve meant the death penalty, so when I got a visit from a lawyer who offered to give me another chance, here, I took it.”
Noah watched his face as he was talking, and could tell that Roger had regrets about the killings. “So, what’s your job assignment? Are they planning to use you as an assassin?”