Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista Read Online Free PDF Page A

islands surrounded by sudsy foam.
    Now she couldn’t go back.  There was absolutely no going back to D-camp.  There was no explaining away the death of Deputy Warden Starr Linssen, in her own house.
    But now she also had a new idea tugging at her, at last she had a real reason to try to escape, regardless of the odds.  Assuming that Linssen had been telling the truth, Ranya finally knew where her son was.  She had a name to search for, and she knew his “father” was an FBI agent in Albuquerque, and that was enough.  If she could escape from D-Camp, and make it to New Mexico…if she could do that, she could find her son, and rescue him from his kidnappers!
    Ranya knew that Starr Linssen had planned to spend several intimate hours with her, which meant she probably had these hours to make her escape. It was Friday afternoon, and if Linssen had signed out for the day, then perhaps her presence wouldn’t even be missed before Monday morning.  She had the advantage of time, a few hours at least.
    Starr Linssen was roughly her size, it occurred to her…  She pushed down the lever under the silver faucet, and the tub began to drain. Gradually Linssen’s face came back into view as the bubbles disappeared. Ranya studied the dead woman’s slick black hair, just a bit gray at the roots. She opened the medicine cabinet, then looked under the sink, and found an unopened package of black L’oreal hair dye.  It could be done, maybe. It was possible!  Anyway, what else could she do? What choice did she have?  She knew where her son was living, she knew his new name, and she knew who had stolen him from her life!  
    ***
    In less than two hours, Ranya was driving the dead warden’s black pickup back toward the double-box of high chain link and razor wire, which surrounded the back gate leading away from the base.  On their way to her house, the warden’s ISA identification card had gotten them through the inner gate leading out of the D-Camp area into the rest of the old Army base.  Ranya could only guess if that same ID card would be sufficient to allow her to pass entirely out of the base, and into the civilian world. 
    Her hair was dyed black and scissors-cut to resemble the warden’s, as closely as Ranya had been able to manage in the bathroom mirror.  A sun and moon, approximating the warden’s tattoos, were inked in ballpoint on the sides of her neck.  She wore the white blouse and black pants of the dead woman.  To defeat the RFID implants in the back of her left shoulder, she had stripped the circular magnet from the speaker of a portable radio, and secured it in place with generous strips of duct tape.  Another detainee had explained this trick to Ranya, but she had no way of knowing for sure if the big magnet would override the RFID microcircuits or not.  Well, she would find out soon enough… 
    Ranya wore Linssen’s gold-framed aviator’s sunglasses and a black ball cap with the ISA patch on the front, to obscure her face.  She hoped that the gate guards would not study her too closely, but would be basing their judgment on Linssen’s familiar black vehicle with its ISA bumper and windshield decals, and her ISA uniform and ID card.  If the warden’s vehicle had any special RFIDs placed in it, Ranya could only hope that they would indicate that it was authorized to depart the base via this back gate.  The vehicle gate was already outside of D-Camp, in another part of the old military base, and she hoped that it had less stringent requirements for permitting outward passage.  In any event, Ranya had no way of knowing the overall scheme of the security protocols that were in effect.
    In case it didn’t work, if the guards became suspicious and stopped her for a close inspection, Ranya had the warden’s Glock 19 pistol, loaded with sixteen 9mm hollow points.  She had found it in the locked drawer of the warden’s bedside night table, hidden in a hollowed-out Bible.  Now the ugly black