Refugee Prison Break

Chapter 27

The journey from Chicago to the detention facility in Florida where Bas was being held took twenty hours. While I was in the driver seat, whenever I thought of something to add to our shopping list, I called it out, and Aunt V. noted it down.

"Headlamps!"

"Check!"

"Protein bars!"

"I don't like protein bars."

"You will after ten hours of labor. Oh, put down fuel canisters too..."

With the boring machine aboard, the van was noticeably heavier. The gas pedal required literal flooring to get it to accelerate at a rate to keep up with traffic. Our fuel efficiency, dismal to start with, suffered, as did the brakes on the hills around Nashville.

On one occasion, going through Chattanooga, a patrol car came alongside us and the officer in the passenger seat gave a stern look. I gritted my teeth and waved; the officer didn't wave back, just sped off.

In order to avoid raising suspicion, we stopped in at numerous hardware stores for the things we needed. Store clerks remember when a fake brunette buys ten jerry cans. This slowed things down, but the stops were welcome breaks during our odyssey across the United States.

Then, on a muggy afternoon, we rolled into a car park twenty minutes from the sewer entry point. This was to be our staging ground.