WITH THE WIND IN OUR FACE – Chapter 8
She stands off to his right, lines the gun up with the door and on her nod, he spins the wheel before taking a step back and pulling it open. Kate moves forward cautiously and he follows her in.
They're standing in a second chamber, smaller than the one containing the glass room and here the floor is all on one level with only two passageways leading off it. A few wire-encased lights placed evenly around the chamber give sufficient illumination to see, though the upper reaches are bathed in gloom. Turning to look around him, Castle points the flashlight up at the wall, some twelve feet off the ground. Faded lettering appears on the concrete; letters outlined in yellow and after staring hard at it he thinks he can make out DELTA, though the L and the T are too faded to be certain.
Following his gaze Kate makes out the lettering and says, "Looks pretty military to me …"
He shrugs, continues turning slowly, keeping the flashlight pointed into the upper reaches of the chamber ... there's not much more to be made out, just more time-worn concrete. Turning to his left, he switches the flashlight off and nods at the passageway, "How about starting with this one?"
She nods, holds the gun at her side ready for action and they head into the passageway, following the slight curvature which within thirty paces becomes a sudden right-hand turn. They peer round the corner buttress and then take a few steps forward. It's a large room, about thirty feet long by twenty wide, a further opening at the far end. Making the room look bigger that it probably is, are four beds, sturdier that the trestle ones set up in the glass room he notes, the green painted steel angle iron structure making them look very spartan. Two are made up, no creases in the stretched green blankets, the other two are unmade. Next to each bed stands a head-high locker also painted in the ubiquitous green paint, everything looking pretty new.
Castle can picture another twenty or so beds lining each wall, soldiers standing at attention as the sergeant walks betwee … then Kate's moving towards the far opening and he has to trot to catch up with her. The layout here is very similar to the washrooms in the main chamber, though here he can see a couple of wash bags by the sinks, shaving gear set out by one of them, some not-too-clean towels hanging over the edge of another. Kate 'clears' the room … not that they'd expected to find anyone, the silence is almost oppressive.
He moves back into the sleeping quarters and tries the lockers, the doors open to his touch, and he peers inside each one, pulling items out and throwing them onto one of the made-up beds. Kate follows suit with the lockers on the opposite side of the room and soon they're staring at the collection of items scattered across the two beds.
Kate picks up a pair of fatigue pants and holds them up against herself, they're a bit long and the waist a bit wide, but she reckons she can deal easily enough with those issues. The neatly folded t-shirts and camouflage field shirt on its wire hanger look like the real deal, but she's no expert and knows that anyone can purchase army surplus equipment, not to mention all the reproduction stuff out there. There are no id tags, names or insignias on the clothes, not that she'd expected any, but …
"What do you make of all this, Rick?" she asks waving her hand around
He shrugs, "Looks like two on duty, two off, but we don't know when they'll change shifts … if at all".
"What do you mean?"
"Someone took the second guard out … and that was before I took Shorty down. So who killed the first guard? Shorty, or someone else? Maybe we'll find the other two bodies somewhere in this place, or they might just walk in at any time; the whole setup feels crazy to me. You found anything you can use?"
She nods and watches as Rick pulls the blanket from under his haul and shows surprise when he hands it to her.
"Towel …" he says, "… don't fancy using those" nodding in the direction of the towels lying in the sink. He repeats the process with the other blanket and Kate turns to look around the room again before setting the gun down on the top shelf of the locker next to her.
He's pulled some trainers and several pair of boots out of the bottom shelves and checked them for size. One pair is about right. "Best we make use of the facilities then, there are some things I need to show you before we try getting out of here".
Rick turns on the hot water tap at one of the sinks and hisses as the ice-cold water sputters out. However, unlike in the other washroom, here the water is not murky nor is there any trapped air in the pipes. He's surprised when after a few minutes, the water begins to turn warm ... not hot, but certainly better than the first icy touch.
Nodding to Kate, they strip, dropping their rags on the floor outside the shower cubicles and with their haul of soap and shampoo they each step into a stall, both aware of how gaunt the other looks, both wanting to wrap the other in caring arms … first though, they need to get clean.
Rick's the first to emerge, and uses one of the blankets to wipe himself dry as best he can, then he heads to one of the sinks and stares at himself in the mirror. He looks like a stand-in for Game of Thrones he thinks, grinning at his reflection. His hair's long, spiking out in all directions after his attempt to dry it with the blanket. His beard is pretty lush, streaked with grey and giving him a definite patriarchal look. He needs to get rid of it before Kate books him into an old people's home. Hunting through the wash bags he finds a couple of new razor heads and is swapping one for the used one on the razor by the sink when he pauses.
Looking back in the mirror he stares at himself again. His eyes are sunken, dark shadows under them, his cheeks are thin, cheekbones more pronounced, the grey-streaked beard and shaggy hair … only his eyes remind him of himself. He looks down at the razor in his hands and then pauses as he catches sight of her from the corner of his eye. He turns his head, sees her standing wrapped in the blanket, hair looking clean again, eyes too large for her face … in fact it reminds him of her appearance when she returned after her shooting; the too thin, too pale Beckett ….
She's watching him, part amusement, part concern and he grins at her, drops the razor and points at himself, "Reckon anyone would believe I'm Richard Castle?"
She comes up to him, runs her free hand through his hair in a vain attempt to smooth it down. He slips his arm round her and pulls her in against him, looking down inquiringly. She shakes her head, "They'd need to know you pretty well … why?"
"I'm thinking it might be better I keep this look for the moment"
She stares up consideringly, then nods. "At least until we know what we're facing, then this …" pulling at his beard, "… is coming off!"
Turning from him, she bends down near their dropped clothes and nose wrinkling in distaste now that she's clean and can smell them, she roots around.
"What are you looking for?" he asks
She turns to him, "You might fancy going commando Rick, but I think I'd rather try to rescue my pants at least!"
He pulls a face "You going to wear those?"
With an eye roll she points at the sinks behind him, "Sink, water, soap … ever heard of washing clothes?"
Only the fact that he's lost so much weight allows him to fit into a mishmash of clothes from the lockers. The camouflage t-shirt is tight across his shoulder, but otherwise not too bad. One of the field shirts is sufficiently loose to fit over that and apart from having to use a webbing belt to keep the fatigue pants up, they're ok for length. A pair of boots completes the getup and as he stands after tying the laces he feels a new rush of confidence …. crazy what clothes can do for your self-esteem he thinks.
Kate's feeling more like a potato sack, most of the clothes too loose on her, her now clean panties still damp around her hips, but she's not complaining. Like Castle, just the fact of clean clothes makes her feel a hundred times better.
She retrieves the gun from the shelf in the locker, automatically checks the magazine and resets the safety catch. "What now?"
He points to the sinks. "Let me just see if there's anything of use there …" and he empties both wash bags into a sink, scrimmaging through the contents and slipping selected items into the sturdier of the two bags.
He returns to where Kate's waiting for him, sitting on one of the beds and looking almost asleep. He looks at the bed a moment, his own body yearning for the soft comfort even these army cots would offer, then he squeezes her shoulder and handing her the wash bag, gathers up the couple of t-shirts and fatigues left on the bed.
Watching him she asks "What are those for?"
He turns his head and says, "Not a clue, but right now anything that might be handy is coming with us … I don't want to have to keep coming back"
She looks at the lockers and grins, "Want me to grab a couple of those whilst we're at it?"
He leans over and gives her a quick kiss, "Smarty-pants". Then he's straightening up and they head back out to the chamber.
He hesitates a moment as they enter the chamber and he looks at the unexplored door, but the glass room he feels is the core to this mystery and they need to have a good look at it first.
He bends down and grabs the bucket from where he'd left it and leads the way round to the steps leading up to the glass room. The door slides open as they reach the small platform and he leads the way in, turning just in time to catch the look of surprise on her face when she steps into the room.
He dumps everything onto one of the trestle cots and after hesitating a moment she drops the bag alongside. Slowly she turns on her feet taking in the contents of the room, coming to a stop as she spots the monitors.
"Want something to eat?" he asks, moving over to the table and rummaging amongst the boxes he's opened earlier on.
"Shouldn't we be getting out of here?" she answers pointing to the screens, "what if someone's watching us?"
"That was my first thought …" he says, "… but it must be at least two, three hours since I escaped. I've been expecting alarms and troops storming the place … but nothing so far. Either we're supposed to try to escape or re-enforcements are too far away … or alternatively, no one is watching us".
"Have you tried the computer?" she asks pointing to the monitor on the desk. He shakes his head, pulling out a couple of tins and studying them closely.
Waving a hand over to the right he adds, "Those are all locked, I'm thinking there might be something of interest in there also … aha!" he exclaims and Kate steps up beside him looking at the tin he's holding in his hand. The label shows a bowl of rice noodles with Asian characters curved over it. Then she's looking at where his thumb is placed. Leaning forward she can make out BEST BEFORE: 21/03/15
"What's so great about that?" she asks
"How many Asian countries have best before in English on their tins? And look at the date format, not too many countries apart from the States use the day, month and year format."
"Did you think we might not be in the states?" she asks.
"I'm not sure, at first I thought it was some crazy kidnap thing … but who kidnaps someone and then doesn't use them for their demands? Not to mention that finding you here makes it even more improbable" turning to face to room and sliding his arm around her shoulders he settles back against the table.
"Someone trying to keep us out of the way?"
"Why bother, we'd have been on our honeymoon and well out of the way within a few hours" he shakes his head, "No this is something else … but I just can't think what, its why we need to search this …" pointing with his chin to the room, "… and see if we can find any clues, but before that, I'm starving and I think it's time we ate something", turning back to the opened boxes and pulling out a selection of tins and jars.
Most are normal tins, no easy opening ones, then remembering what he'd pulled from Shorty's pockets he grabs the bucket and roots around for the Swiss Army knife and lighter he'd been carrying.