The White Fox Chronicles Read online

  By day they slept to avoid patrols and at night they went into the burned-out city and searched for food. In the early-morning hours when it was light enough, Cody practiced his newfound vocation. Before long he knew how to make a lockpick out of almost anything and there wasn’t a locked room or building anywhere that could keep him out.

  But that was before. Before he and Franklin had had a run-in with a CCR foot soldier looking for military holdouts. The soldier shot first and asked questions later.

  Franklin was left in a pool of blood and Cody was put on a transport plane heading for a prison camp in the southwest.

  The memories made Cody set his jaw. Those things had happened more than a year ago. Since that time, he’d learned a lot, learned how to play their game. The guards trusted him now and had practically given him the run of the camp—which was exactly what Cody wanted.

  ALSO BY GARY PAULSEN

  Alida’s Song

  The Beet Fields:

  Memories of a Sixteenth Summer

  The Boy Who Owned the School

  The Brian Books: The River,

  Brian’s Winter and Brian’s Return

  Canyons

  The Car

  Caught by the Sea

  The Cookcamp

  The Crossing

  Father Water, Mother Woods:

  Essays on Fishing and Hunting in the North Woods

  Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet

  and the Brian Books

  Harris and Me

  Hatchet

  The Haymeadow

  The Island

  The Monument

  My Life in Dog Years

  Nightjohn

  The Night the White Deer Died

  Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers

  The Rifle

  Sarny: A Life Remembered

  The Schernoff Discoveries

  Soldier’s Heart

  The Transall Saga

  The Tucket Adventures, Books One through Five

  The Voyage of the Frog

  The Winter Room

  Picture books, illustrated by Ruth Wright Paulsen:

  Canoe Days and Dogteam

  Published by

  Dell Laurel-Leaf

  an imprint of

  Random House Children’s Books

  a division of

  Random House, Inc.

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  Copyright © 2000 by Gary Paulsen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  The trademarks Laurel-leaf Library® and Dell® are registered in the

  U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

  www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  eISBN: 978-0-307-80421-1

  RL: 4.1

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Book One: ESCAPE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Book Two: RETURN

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Book Three: BREAKOUT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Fourteen-year-old Cody Pierce stopped hoeing the rectangular patch of dirt the camp guards called a vegetable garden. Nothing really edible grew in it anyway and the weeds could wait.

  Something was up. He could feel it. The tower guards were standing at full attention and those on the ground were edging toward the main buildings.

  The camp commander, Colonel Sidoron, burst through the door of his office, buttoning the shirt of his green army fatigues. An aide ran along beside him holding up a mirror. Sidoron looked in it quickly, ran his hand through his short black beard and then brushed the aide aside.

  The lanky white-blond boy in the vegetable garden leaned on his hoe, watching the bustle through gray eyes.

  A U.S. Army utility vehicle with a CCR flag painted over the white star on the door boiled down the dirt road toward the prison camp. It was followed by a transport truck and another utility vehicle.

  Two guards ran to open the wooden gates. The three vehicles sped into the compound and stopped in a cloud of dust near the porch, where the commander stood waiting.

  Sidoron threw out his chest and tried to act the part of a dignified leader as he made his way to the back of the transport truck, but his hurried step gave him away. He barked an order and the tailgate was immediately lowered. A soldier grabbed a small, compact woman by the hair and dragged her out of the back of the truck.

  Cody could see that she was young and that she was badly wounded. Her long brown hair was matted with dried blood. There was caked blood on her face. One arm hung limply by her side.

  The commander asked her a question that Cody couldn’t make out. Apparently he didn’t like her answer. He backhanded the prisoner so hard she fell against the truck.

  The woman didn’t cry out. Instead she slowly rose and faced her attacker in silence. The commander barked another order and the soldiers pushed the prisoner up the steps to the interrogation room.

  Cody untied the dirty red bandanna from around his forehead, shook his unkempt shoulder-length hair and wiped his grimy face with the back of his hand.

  He thought about the woman. While he admired her spirit, he knew that it was only a matter of time until they broke her. He’d been in this camp for eighteen months, ever since Los Angeles had fallen in 2056, and he’d seen plenty of hard cases reduced to quivering idiots before the CCR—the Confederation of Consolidated Republics—was through.

  Still, he’d made it his business to stay on top of things and he wondered what it was about this particular woman that had them all so excited.

  “Don’t get too curious, kid. These guys don’t play around.”

  Cody shifted his gaze. Luther Swift was carrying a b
ucket filled with human excrement in each hand. It was his job to dump the makeshift toilets used in the barracks every morning and evening. In between he dug temporary latrines and covered them up again when they were full.

  Luther was a nuclear scientist. He had been a fairly handsome man until the CCR gouged out his right eye because he refused to reveal the location of a nuclear research laboratory. In the end they got their information.

  “You know me, Luther,” Cody said, trying not to move his lips too much. “I mind my own business.”

  It was against the rules for prisoners to talk to each other, so Luther walked on. Quietly he muttered, “See to it that you keep it that way. I don’t much feel like picking up your pieces today.”

  Cody started hoeing again. He thought about his life in the old days before the takeover and wondered if there was anyone he knew still alive on the outside.

  The CCR had control of more than three-fourths of the United States and its members considered themselves intellectually and physically superior to all Americans. After all, it was their stockpile of nuclear and chemical weapons that made all this possible. By concentrating their efforts into misleading the people of the United States into believing that their motives were harmless, the CCR had been able to buy property and plant spies in strategic places until everything was ready for the takeover.

  The first missile took out Washington, D.C., and most of Virginia. The President, Congress and the Pentagon simply ceased to exist. Without leadership, the states began to panic and one by one to fall.

  The United States government had made it easy for them. Years before, the military had been cut back to a mere skeleton of what it had been during the cold war and the CIA had practically been disbanded. Never in their wildest dreams had the country’s leaders considered the newly formed nation of the CCR a threat.

  Bombings and mass murder had wiped out whole cities. Except for small rebel holdouts, the CCR had succeeded in reducing the citizens of what used to be the most powerful nation in the world to little more than slaves of the new republic.

  Sidoron’s prison camp was not unlike hundreds of others across the nation. There were twenty barracks inside the compound. One housed the commander’s office and special quarters. The cooks, medical personnel and laundry were behind the office. Two buildings were for the guards, and the rest held prisoners.

  Most of the inmates were civilians like Luther whom the CCR had left alive because they might have something valuable to contribute to the new world order. Others had been allowed to live to serve as laborers for the cause, but they never seemed to last long. The soldiers were permitted to shoot and torture them at their own discretion.

  Then there were the children. One whole barracks was devoted to American children of all races. Not that they didn’t shoot children too. But a few of the lucky ones were involved in a cleansing experiment much like the one Hitler had tried with the youth of Germany. They had been taken from their parents and forced to attend daily classes designed to brainwash them into the correct attitude about the new government.

  Cody was the oldest member of this last group. The enemy considered him one of their finest pupils. He could speak their language and spout their doctrine as well as anyone. And he went out of his way to convince them that he was completely loyal. No one knew what he was really up to, except Luther.

  Cody’s father had been a pilot in the third Gulf War—the conflict that had kicked off the endless string of wars. The Nighthawk F-119 he had flown had been shot down over what once had been called Iraq, and Cody had never heard from him again.

  Cody’s mother had been killed during the initial bombing attack on California, and until Cody had been captured he’d lived alone. Well, not entirely alone. There was Franklin Stubbs.

  Franklin Stubbs had walked away from a maximum-security prison when it was hit by one of the bombs. At the time he had been serving five years for burglary. Since it was a well-known fact that the CCR exterminated all civil prisoners, he thought it best to leave when he had the chance.

  A master safecracker and locksmith, Franklin spent his free time, when they weren’t scavenging for food, teaching Cody the tricks of his trade. Cody returned the favor by allowing him to share his home, an out-of-the-way spot under a small bridge.

  By day they slept to avoid patrols and at night they went into the burned-out city and searched for food. In the early-morning hours when it was light enough, Cody practiced his newfound vocation. Before long he knew how to make a lockpick out of almost anything and there wasn’t a locked room or building anywhere that could keep him out.

  But that was before. Before he and Franklin had had a run-in with a CCR foot soldier looking for military holdouts. The soldier shot first and asked questions later.

  Franklin was left in a pool of blood and Cody was put on a transport plane heading for a prison camp in the southwest.

  The memories made Cody set his jaw. Those things had happened more than a year ago. Since that time, he’d learned a lot, learned how to play their game. The guards trusted him now and had practically given him the run of the camp—which was exactly what Cody wanted.

  CHAPTER 2

  Deftly balancing a stack of clean white towels on one hand, Cody opened the front door with the other. He whistled as he passed the two guards stationed in front of Sidoron’s private office. They paid no attention to him. He always seemed to be hanging around. It was his job to clean the office, deliver the laundry and bring the commander his evening meal.

  Colonel Sidoron was sitting behind his desk puffing on an expensive cigar. When he noticed Cody, his face broke into a relaxed grin. “And how is our little White Fox today?” he asked in accented English.

  The teacher in Cody’s new world order history class had first given him that nickname because of his ability to learn quickly and because of his white-blond hair. The camp guards had picked it up and now it was the only name they used for him.

  Cody bowed the way he had been taught to do when addressed by a superior. Then, in the commander’s own language, Cody assured him that things couldn’t be better. He lowered his eyes and asked if there was anything His Excellency the colonel desired.

  The colonel stood up and stretched. “No. You may clean my office now. I have something important to attend to.”

  And I bet I know who she is, Cody thought. He bowed again and waited for the colonel to leave the room. Pretending to put the towels away, Cody moved to a window and looked out through the half-open blinds.

  “Just what I thought,” he said under his breath. He watched the colonel and two guards walk straight to the isolation cells behind the office. These were metal boxes buried in the ground with only an iron grate for a roof. The sun, rain, dust and rats had easy access to them. Prisoners were sent there for punishment and most never left alive.

  The colonel yelled down into one of the boxes, then spat on the prisoner below. The guards opened the padlock, pulled the grate off and lifted the woman out.

  Cody drew a sharp breath. The woman’s face was a mass of bruises, swollen to twice its normal size. Her broken arm had been twisted so that it now hung behind her at a crooked angle.

  One of the guards pushed her with the barrel of his rifle and ordered her to walk ahead of him to the interrogation room. She took one step and fell. Instead of helping her up, the guards began kicking her in the stomach and ribs.

  Cody clenched his fists and turned from the window. It wouldn’t do either one of them any good for him to watch this. He would just do what he’d come here for and leave.

  Quickly he put his towels on the shelf and moved to the colonel’s desk. What he was looking for wasn’t on it. He stepped to the file cabinet. From his pocket he took his latest pick wire, put it in the tiny lock and easily opened it.

  He had already searched this cabinet several times, so it was a snap for him to recognize the new folder. The tab had the name McLaughlin printed on it in large block letters.

  Cody
thumbed through it. The woman was a pilot. Major Toni McLaughlin, formerly of the United States Air Force and lately of the U.S. Army Rebels. She had been shot down in a Blackhawk III chopper not far from the camp.

  Cody rubbed his chin. Now, this was something. He had been told that the American holdouts were few in number and that they had no military capability. Apparently he’d been lied to. If the rebels had planes, they must have a base. And if McLaughlin knew where the base was located …

  A door opened down the hall. Cody slipped the file back into the cabinet and pushed the drawer shut. He picked up a feather duster and moved to the windowsill.

  A young guard stuck his head in the office door. “Oh, it’s only you, White Fox. You may carry on.”

  Cody bowed and managed a fake smile. Don’t worry, sucker, he thought. I’ll carry on, with or without your permission.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was dark but it didn’t matter because the perimeter of the compound was well lit and a searchlight swept the area at regular intervals. The guards in the towers paced back and forth with their submachine guns watching for anyone who was careless enough to get caught in the firing zone.

  Cody was squatting on the soles of his feet outside the commander’s office waiting for Sidoron to finish his meal. One of the labor inmates had taught him a magic trick and he was showing it to the guards. First he tossed a shiny button in the air. Then he let them examine it. When they returned it he rubbed his hands together and … poof, it disappeared. The guards clapped and asked him to do it again.

  He was about to make it vanish a second time when Sidoron called for him. Cody jumped to his feet and went into the office to retrieve the evening dishes.

  The commander lit one of his smelly cigars and put his feet up on the desk. He watched Cody as he cleaned up what was left of the meal. “It is so hard to understand you Americans.”

  Cody didn’t answer because the man seemed to be talking more to himself than anyone else.

  Sidoron continued. “In the old days, it was easy to make people talk. Take away the food and water, maybe a few beatings. If necessary, shoot one of the relatives. My grandfather was an interrogator,” he added proudly. “There was never a prisoner he could not make confess.” He dropped his feet to the floor and sat up. “What is this foolish patriotism you Americans possess? Why would you be willing to be tortured?”