“Is it?” said Diller.
Muroe sighed. “Yes. He’s right. We don’t even know for sure whether we are still in the United States.”
“Oh,” said Diller.
“That’s not the biggest problem,” added Smithy. “The biggest problem is that, seeing as they took our phones back in New York, nobody knows where we are or that we’re even missing.”
“How is that …?”
“Because if someone here has an evil little mind like mine,” said Smithy, “they’d realise that if we disappear, our phones will be traced. What are the odds that right now they are in Hawaii, where I bet you told people you were going?”
Muroe said nothing.
“Course you did,” said Smithy. “So, let’s say someone takes out a boat, sinks it, and we are never seen again. Tragic accident.”
Nobody said anything to this. Smithy was already regretting having said it out loud. A silence fell inside the Humvee, save for the grunts and groans as they got thrown around.
“Jeez,” said Smithy, growing uncomfortable in the quiet he had created, “aren’t these things supposed to have suspension?”
“It is spooky, though,” said Diller.
“Oh, c’mon, Dill, now isn’t the time.”
“What?” asked Muroe.
“I’m just saying,” said Diller. “This whole thing started with Smithy’s plan—”
“Alleged.”
“Alleged plan to teach Mr Reed a lesson, and it was inspired by a scene from a Mel Gibson movie. Braveheart.”
“Allegedly.”
“No,” said Muroe, “I’ve seen that movie. Mel Gibson is definitely in it.”
Diller smiled. “And now this whole thing has a real Mad Max vibe.”
“Right,” said Muroe. “What’s your point?”
“It’s just interesting, is all. Smithy’s life seems to be a compendium of Mel Gibson movies.”
Muroe shook her head. “Interesting? Christ, what is wrong with you?”
Smithy’s voice came out louder than he intended. “Hey. Don’t you dare take a shot at Dill. It’s thanks to you he is in this mess. I’m an idiot, but he is just collateral damage, due to your Machiavellian bullshit.”
Muroe looked at Diller, and then looked away.
Always the one looking to break any tension, Diller went to say something, but he never got the chance. The Humvee went into a handbrake turn that threw them all violently across the back seat, before it came to a stop.
Diller tried to remove himself as courteously as possible from his resting position on top of Muroe, or at least without making contact with any body part that would mean they were married in certain cultures.
“I guess we’re here.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Smithy, Diller and Muroe were roughly assisted out of the back seat of the Humvee. They stood looking around them.
“Holy shit,” said Smithy eventually.
“This is insane,” said Diller, so at least Smithy knew he wasn’t imagining it.
They had arrived at a compound in the middle of the desert. On one side, there were a few actual buildings – a couple of hangars, some sheds and what looked like a cabana. In the centre stood a sprawling one-storey house with big windows and angled walls. It would’ve been the height of modernity in about 1986, but now it was starting to look shabby, as time and the desert ate away at it. In front of it sat a swimming pool complete with a diving board. Outside of its location, all of that could be said to be fairly ordinary, certainly compared to what else surrounded it.
Around them loomed mountains of scrap metal, cars, trucks, and vehicles of all kinds piled up to form makeshift walls. There was half of what looked like a 747. Dotted about in the shade of those cliffs of metal were tents and makeshift crude structures formed from sheets of corrugated iron or whatever else was lying around.
Men sat in deckchairs and on loungers, drinking beer and enjoying the sun. The smell of barbecue drifted from upwind of where Smithy and Diller were standing. The men were all dressed similarly to the guys who’d met them at the airplane, as if the end of the world had interrupted their bondage night.
To Smithy’s left, a couple of drunk guys were trying to shoot a beer can off a guy’s head with a crossbow. The beer-can proper-upper didn’t look too pleased about this, but another man was holding a sword to his nuts to encourage his compliance. The whole thing was a health and safety nightmare. Other men were working on vehicles – buggies, cars – mongrels reclaimed from the scrap. Two other guys were fighting in an improvised boxing ring while a few more looked on without a great deal of interest. They seemed to be paying scant attention to the Marquess of Queensbury’s rules. Women were noticeable by their absence.
Muroe’s voice came out in a strained whisper. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” said Smithy. “This is one hell of a mid-life crisis.”
“There’s got to be a couple of hundred of them,” said Diller.
From somewhere behind them they heard a wolf-whistle.
Smithy didn’t look for the source. “Stay close to me.”
“Thanks,” said Muroe.
“I was talking to Diller.”
Chaz, wearing a grin to which it was increasingly difficult not to attach the word “demented”, appeared from around the jeep. “Welcome to Nowhere!” He threw out his hands again.
Smithy realised who the guy reminded him of – he was like Willy Wonka, if the man replaced his love of chocolate with post-apocalyptic homoerotic violence.
“I’m sorry – what?” said Muroe.
“Nowhere,” repeated Chaz. “This is Camp Nowhere. Isn’t it incredible? Some old lunatic had the house and the scrapyard out here already. Perfect for our needs.”
“Yeah,” said Smithy, “there’s a lot of lunatics about.” He winced as Muroe jabbed a heel into his foot. “What?”
“Rule one,” said Muroe in a hissed whisper, “don’t poke the crazy.”
Smithy considered responding but didn’t. She had a point. Luckily, Mad Max Willy Wonka hadn’t noticed. He had turned away and was yammering a mile-a-minute at Reed, who was standing there awkwardly, gawping at everything while shuffling his feet. He looked like a man whose entire world was spinning out of control. Smithy could empathise.
Behind him, a man in a football helmet and nothing else did a cannonball off the diving board into the swimming pool. A guy in a tattered, pink bunny-rabbit outfit, with an assault rifle strapped to his back, applauded.
“Dill?”
“Yeah, Smithy.”
“Remember when you asked me to describe what a bad trip was like?”
They stood there, drinking it all in. Smithy closed his eyes and opened them again. “Dill?”
“Yeah, Smithy.”
“I was drinking, then I was drugged, then I hit my head a couple of times, so I feel I should check. You see that large wall of wrecked cars over on the right there?”
“I do.”
“Good. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but can you see an orangutan standing on the top of it?”