Labor camp

He stood outside the tent, hands tied in front of him in such a way that his leg movements were actually restricted. Not good.

The voice inside the tent reminded me of someone. But they hadn't spoken in a long time.

It couldn't be Sam. Sam was dead and even before that he'd been too old to evoke the way the voice was..

There was another voice: shrill and insistent yet still compelling.

Friedman wished he'd been able to hear the actual words but the tone was obvious enough.

Sam -- he called him Sam in his mind -- was silenced by a violent slap.

Footsteps. The man he knew he'd seen before pulled him in. Literally. By the arm.

It was Ben, sitting there tied.

"Tom, you need to know something." Apparently Ben was allowed to say this much. "We're in a labor camp."

The man who pulled him in suddenly smiled. Friedman knew the face, knew the rhetoric. He hoped.

John Sweeney grinned. Suddenly, Friedman knew he was outmatched. "How's that liver?"

Friedman could only grunt out: "Kidney. And it's actually alright. What are you doing in a labor camp?"

"Isn't it obvious?"