I gawp when he brings out a small device that looks like another torch. But I recognise the design.
“Coleman. What the fuck are you doing with a mini Taser?”
“Self-defence. You can never be too careful. I call her Honey, ’cause she stings like a bee. Beautiful, eh? Brought this baby back from the States.”
“You do know they’re illegal over here, don’t you?” I say, and wait until he pushes the device beneath his shirt, into the waistband of his trousers. “Better still, why don’t you wait by the car for me to return. Or call it in, in case I don’t. I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
“Hell, no. I’ve come this far. Besides, I’m supposed to be taking photos of the grounds for your scrapbook. Or whatever.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure,” he says, strapping on the backpack. “You’re not having all the fun.”
“Follow me, then.”
I search a few hundred yards to our right, skirting clumps of thick gorse bushes hugging the fence, until I reach a post that has a barely visible white rim around the base. The sight is distantly familiar, another gentle nudge telling me that I am on the right track. I stop to check my bearings and notice Coleman has followed me, looking understandably bemused but snapping photos. Using the post as my guide, I back up five steps from the fence until I feel a metal plate beneath my trainers.
“Give me a hand,” I say, kneeling to the ground. Although weeds have grown over the cover, there are two weathered rings attached and, with Coleman’s help, we lift the heavy plate. A square cavity of industrial concrete is revealed. Earthen odours rise from within and a metal ladder leads down into darkness.
“There may be residual rainwater at the bottom, but it shouldn’t be deep,” I tell Coleman.
I lead the way, climbing carefully down the cold, damp metal rungs, using daylight to guide me, until my foot lands in shallow water. Only then, once I’ve taken a few steps into the tunnel, do I turn on the torch. I hear Coleman behind me, muttering an expletive as his foot splashes into the water. The tunnel is straight and narrow, built from precast concrete slabs. I shine the light ahead and tread forward carefully. After around five minutes, the ground begins to slope gently upwards. The tunnel ends with another set of metal rungs leading up to a metal hatch. I pass the torch to Coleman and climb to the top.
“Keep the beam on me. If my memory serves me correctly, we’ll come out into an old storehouse with no windows. We’ll need the light to find our way out.
When I reach the top and push, I’m relieved when the covering opens after a couple of shoves. Up until that point, everything has felt familiar, everything but emerging into daylight.
“This hatch used to be housed in the floor of a storeroom,” I say, partly to myself and partly to Coleman, whose footsteps I hear on the rungs.
Once I’ve climbed out, I see what’s happened. The ground is still tiled in nondescript grey industrial square ceramics, with weeds growing through the cracks, but a few random bricks are all that remain of the walls. Everything else has been knocked down and cleaned away. As I move forward to where the door would have been, I see further evidence of dwellings that have been demolished. I sense Coleman come to stand next to me.
“Are you telling me you could have escaped this place at any time?”
“Escaped to where?” I answer. “This was the only home I would have known. According to Leblanc, whenever we went on assignment, we were conditioned to return here.”
“Fair point.”
“Only the Knights were told about the tunnel. If we needed to slip in late at night, rather than disturb security guards at the front gate, that’s what we used.”
Coleman walks over to a corner of the building where a section of the wall is still shin-high. After checking the bricks for stability, he jumps up and starts inspecting the area, snapping more photos. From my vantage point, all I can see are similar tiled areas stretching over the length of seven or eight football pitches upon which now-demolished buildings used to stand. The only structures still standing are a large water tower painted sage green to blend into the landscape and a similarly camouflaged single-storey arrangement of modular buildings used by command.
“I see it now,” called Coleman, shading his eyes with a hand. “Laid out like an architect’s blueprint. Over there is a regimented row of concrete flooring that probably housed buildings. And there’s the outline of a small road leading through the centre. There’s even a sunken site over there. Did they have a swimming pool?”
“A gymnasium. That’s where the executions took place.”
“Holy crap.”
I scan the grounds briefly until my gaze settles on the last spot he indicated, to the place I used to train ruthlessly and where my fellow Knights were allegedly pitted against one another to the death.
“Are those office buildings over there?” asks Coleman. “The modular units still standing? Do you remember?”
Memories are flooding back. I have to close my eyes, to take a few steadying breaths to staunch them and centre myself. I focus on Romano’s words. ‘Stay alert and pay attention.’Once I get my thoughts under control, I refocus on the command block.
“Those were off limits. Lodgings and offices used by our instructors.”
“Might be a good place to start a search,” he says, jumping down.
On the way over to the building, I stop to view and absorb other sections, to help reinforce my recall, while Coleman snaps pictures. My mind begins to form a true picture of the camp from the remains—the dormitory where I slept, the dreary ablutions hut with its cold-water showers, the mess hall with its long communal bench tables, and, of course, the gymnasium. The concrete steps that lead down into the sunken hall are now speckled with weeds, and the expansive exercise floor is covered with rough grass and small bushes.