by Jack Mars
To their right, the kid was ready. He was staring at them.
“Laurel and Hardy, am I right? That was the old American comedy team.”
Luke looked at Ari. “You know where this place is?”
Ari nodded. “I know exactly where it is.”
“You know the deal? Come in off the city streets pretty high—twenty-five hundred feet. When you get over the roof, unclip from your rig, ditch, wait a beat, then throw your parachute. You will come down hard. Twenty seconds max, if my calculations are right, probably less than that. These chutes aren’t for jumping—they’re for saving your neck when all systems fail. With any luck, when you hit the roof, you won’t go right through it.”
“Where are you going to be?” Ari said.
“Right behind you. When we see you jump, we’re going to do the same thing five seconds later. We’ll try not to land on your head.”
Ari smiled. He looked at the two of them, sharing a glider. “What if you crash into the side of a building?”
“Keep going. Infiltrate the prison, do the interview, and when you get back out, come peel us off the bricks.”
“With pleasure. I will use a pressure washer.”
Abruptly, Ari lifted his rig and ran full-tilt for the cliff. Even before he reached the edge, just as the hill began to slope downward, he jumped, using his core strength to lift and extend his legs backward. He hooked in, and was gone in flight.
“Went right up like a bird,” Ed said.
“That’s what we’re about to do,” Luke said. “Probably with less grace, though.”
“We gonna run together?”
Luke nodded. “Yes. How’s your chute?”
Ed patted his chest. “It’s in there. Doesn’t look like much, I can say that.”
“It’ll hold you,” Luke said.
“How do you know?”
Luke stared at him. “Honestly? I don’t. I just said that.” He shook his head. “That store was like…”
“1973,” Ed offered.
“Yeah. And not in a good way.”
Ed gestured with his head. “The kid is far ahead.”
“I know. It’s a bad habit. He’s like a dog I used to have. Just a little bit too enthusiastic. I hope I don’t have to put him down after this.” He looked at Ed again. “You ready?”
“Yes.”
“Go!”
They ran, side by side, on either end of the bar. The cliff approached, then came closer and closer. The snow drove down hard. For a second, Luke thought they would reach the cliff before the glider gained lift. Then he felt it pull away from the earth.
“Jump!” he shouted. “Jump!”
Then they were up, out over nothing. The cliff fell away behind them. Luke kicked his legs back and clipped in. Ed held himself up with arm and shoulder strength alone, his thick legs dangling. The glider listed badly to the right, pulling toward Ed’s side. There was too much weight on that side. Luke steered hard left, to no avail.
“Ed! Move toward the center.”
Ed bounced toward the center, the glider turning and tilting like a dying quail.
“Kick your legs back, man.”
Luke had rigged a second hook for Ed’s legs. Ed swung back, feeling with his feet, finding the hook.
With the weight more evenly distributed, Luke had better control. He turned a sharp left toward the east, following Ari, who was like a Batman shadow far ahead. Ari was tilted upward, gaining altitude despite the heavy snow. Luke did the same, pushing the glider higher. The city sprawled outward to their right, the high mountains climbing to their left.
“This is a quick trip, so don’t get comfortable.”
Ed shook his head. “Believe me, I am not comfortable.”
The snow spit down, icy, sharp. It was good, Luke decided. Low visibility was good. Who would scan the skies for hang gliders on a night like this? Who could even spot them?
Up ahead, Ari veered left toward the mountains. Suddenly, he dropped away from his glider. He fell straight down like a bomb. A second passed, two, three…
“Oh, man. Don’t tell me his chute…”
The chute opened, white against the dark of the sky. It didn’t seem to fill. An instant later, it disappeared into the falling snow.
“Did he make it?” Ed said.
Luke shook his head. “His chute opened. It looked like maybe… I don’t know. That looked terrible. Whose idea was this?”
The empty glider was still in flight, headed straight into the mountains. Perfect. Certainly, it would crash to the ground a minute or less from now. But if it flew far enough, it might be days before anyone found it.
“You just reach inside your suit and throw that chute out,” Luke said. “Just like I showed you. Got it?”
Ed didn’t seem sure. “Yeah, man. I don’t know. I gotta think about—”
Luke shook his head. “There’s no time for thinking. You just gotta trust me and go.”
Ed stared at him.
“Go!” Luke shouted.
In one fluid movement, Ed unhooked his legs and swung forward like a gymnast. The glider wrenched crazily. Then Ed was gone.
Luke looked down. It seemed that Ed was just below him for a second, then he wasn’t. Had his chute opened? Luke wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see much in all the snow. He couldn’t see the building down there at all.
Should he circle back around? No. The more time he spent up here, the better the chance somebody would see him. He had no idea what awaited him down there. He had no idea what had happened to Ed.
“He who hesitates,” he said.
He unhooked his legs, swung forward, and let go.
Instantly, he was dropping very fast. The glider was gone.
One second. Two.
Three.
He reached inside the chest of his flight suit with his right hand, fumbled for the emergency chute. It wouldn’t come out! There was no time for this. He used both hands.
Come on! Come on!
He looked between his feet. There was the roof, or the ground. He had no idea. Coming fast.
The chute was stuck. He pulled. It wouldn’t…
He was just gonna…
He wrenched it out. It went up.
Open! Please!
The chute opened above him. It was small. The pull was not hard, not like a real parachute. There was a sense of slowing down, decelerating, maybe not enough. He looked down again—the surface was coming…
Super fast.
Fast.
But not that fast.
Please don’t rip.
There was no time to look at anything. Here it came. He hit.
It was jarring. Bone-rattling. He bent his legs and fell backward, rolling onto his butt and then his back. The snow was soft. The surface of the building was hard. The chute came down on top of him, not drifting, but falling. It covered his body like a shroud. Fifteen seconds, the drop took. Definitely not twenty. Barely more than ten from the time the chute opened.
That was loud. Did anyone hear that?
He lay in the snow in the dark. For what seemed like a long time, he didn’t move. As his heartbeat slowed and the adrenaline coursing through him subsided, he did a mental scan of his body, looking for any pain, any sense of something broken, a puncture wound, anything bad. There was nothing. He wiggled his fingers and toes. They moved easily. No major nerves were severed. He was okay.
He pushed the parachute away and looked up. Ed and Ari stood there, staring down at him. They were not smiling.
“You alive?” Ed said.
Luke nodded. “I think so. Yeah.”
“Good, because I’m about to kill your ass. That was the dumbest, most suicidal thing you ever had me do.”
“Are we on top of the prison?”
Ari nodded. “Yes.”
“See? It worked.”
* * *
“I can’t see anything,” Swann’s tinny robot voice said. “Too much cloud cover.”
Swann was trying
to pull up real-time footage of their location from a spy satellite.
“It’s snowing here,” Luke said. He was standing at the edge of a low parapet and looking down. Three stories below him, there was a narrow street. Actually, more like a road. It ran between the prison and the mountains—the foothills climbed steeply away from the prison right across that street. There was no one around. If they made it back out of the prison, he would hook the fold-up fire ladder on the wall here and throw it over the side. With a little luck, then they would climb down and be gone.
“Snowing?” Swann said. “That’s nice. Christmas is coming.”
Luke shook his head. “So how do we do this, Swann?”
“Okay. The building goes lengthwise roughly in an east-west direction. According to earlier imagery I have, there are ten stairwell doors on the roof. The stairwell to Section 209 is the third one from the eastern end of the building. Get that door open, then take the stairs down to the level just below the roof, C-level. Trudy thinks you are looking for cell C31 in Section 209. Bahman, if he’s still alive, should be in that cell.”
“Any idea about the security situation?” Luke said.
“Guards, I would guess,” Swann said. “Armed guards.”
“Yeah. Good point.”
Luke hung up the phone. Ari and Ed were already standing by the door to the stairwell. The doorway protruded from the roof. Above it was a small fiberglass canopy. It was a steel door, gunmetal gray in color, with a rounded handle and what looked like a heavy duty lock embedded below the handle.
“If we blow the lock,” Ed said, “this is gonna be a party very fast.”
“If we shoot it, same thing,” Ari said.
Luke had a funny feeling about that door, however. Beneath the canopy, very little snow had accumulated. The ends of discarded cigarettes littered the ground here. The guards, other workers, maybe even the prisoners, came up here for smoke breaks. Would they risk locking themselves outside? Especially when there was no way any outsiders could come from this direction?
Who in their right mind would break into a prison, anyway?
Luke grabbed the handle and pulled. The door opened easily and without a sound. Inside, an iron slatted stairwell led down to the next level.
“After you guys,” Luke said. “No guns, all right?”
Ari pulled a six-inch serrated knife from a sheath on his belt.
Luke nodded. “Nice one.”
Ed cracked his knuckles.
Luke reached to his calf and unstrapped the hunting knife he kept there. They were going in quiet. Any shooting of guards would just bring more guards. Now that they were in, the next goal was to get back out.
Ed moved down the stairwell first. His feet made no noise on the iron rung. For a big man, he moved like a cat.
They went fast. At the bottom of the stairs was a landing. They were in a small foyer area, with a door to the cellblock.
Be open, Luke thought.
Ed touched the handle, pulled it the slightest bit. It moved an inch—it was unlocked. The security in this building was atrocious, not like an American prison at all, where every twenty feet you came to another locked door.
There was a man on the other side of the door. They had all seen him. He wore a drab green uniform. Could be more than one guard there.
Ed, Ari, and Luke all looked at each other. They didn’t say a word. Luke indicated the door, then tapped his own chest. He pointed at Ed and put his hand over his mouth. He pointed at Ari and indicated the knife. They both nodded.
Luke held up one finger. Two. Three.
He opened the door.
Ed surged through the opening. The guard was there, a big guy. He turned, just in time to get hit by a human tidal wave. Ed grabbed him, spun him around, and covered his mouth with his huge hand. The man’s eyes were WIDE.
Ari was there half a second later. He plunged his knife into the man’s chest. He did it fast, like a piston, like a prison fighter with a shiv, the knife plunging in, coming out, plunging in, coming out, plunging in, hitting everything, severing everything. Ten times he stabbed the man. Then he did ten more, moving down to his intestines, just in case his heart and lungs weren’t dead already. Thorough.
Ed continued to hold him as he died, continued to cover his mouth. He eased him slowly to the floor. The man never made a sound.
Luke moved past them into the hallway. This was the cellblock. The hall was narrow, dim, painted a dingy shade of white. He scanned the walls and ceilings for cameras. He didn’t see any. Up ahead, the hall turned a corner. At the top, embedded in the angle of the turn, there was a rounded security mirror—in the fish-eye mirror, a man rushed up the hall toward him, pulling his gun.
They met right at the turn.
Luke flicked his knife out, drawing a quick smile straight across the man’s throat, right to left.
The guard stared at Luke. Their eyes locked. The man had a full second to contemplate the horror of what had just happened to him. Then the bleeding started.
“Gluck,” the man said. “Guh!”
Luke had nicked the carotid artery and the jugular. Blood sprayed out in dual jets. He stepped back from it as the man sank to the floor, a hand clamped to the side of his neck, to no avail. There was already a lot of blood, and there was going to be a whole lot more. The guy was a one-man abattoir, a slaughterhouse.
“Whew,” Luke said quietly. It would have been nice to take the man’s uniform, but that was out of the question now. That thing was soaked.
A hand landed on Luke’s shoulder and he jumped.
“Impressive,” Ari said. “Quite a little dance.”
“Yeah. And I barely even know the guy. We really just met.”
Ari stepped over the corpse, reached on his tiptoes to the security mirror, and yanked it down. There was nothing behind it. He dropped the mirror onto the body.
“So much for security.”
Ed came up behind them, carrying the other guard’s key ring.
“C31,” he said. “Right? Let’s do this, man. This place gives me the willies. I feel like I’m on a submarine.”
They moved through the corridor in single file, passing heavy steel doors on either side, each painted white. The building was old—the doors were on big rollers, like barn doors from an earlier time. Each cell’s number was in both Persian and English. Why was that? Luke glanced at a small engraved plaque visible on one of the doors—the edges were gooped in white paint, but the center had never been painted over.
Cuyahoga Steel Door, Incorporated—Cleveland Ohio, 1901.
Nice. American made, and built to last. Still working fine, more than a century later. There were no windows in the doors, and there was no sound coming from any of the cells. It smelled in here, like an open sewer.
“Is this place even open for business?” Ed whispered.
They came to the door. C31.
He jangled through his keys, looking for the one that matched the Persian script above the doorway. He kept glancing at the keys, then back up at the door.
“Man, this alphabet is gibberish.”
After a moment, Ari’s hand snaked out and a grabbed a key.
“This one.”
Ed shrugged. He slipped it into the lock and opened it. Then he slid back the door.
A man lay on the cement floor. He was thin, bordering on emaciated, shivering and curled into a ball. His striped prison uniform was ragged and threadbare, and it was cold in here. His feet were bare and the color of eggplant. His hair was long and matted, and his beard was thick and unruly. The cell was narrow, with no furniture. In one corner was a green bucket, nearly full with human excrement. The man barely looked up as Luke stepped inside.
“Ed, watch those hallways. Anybody comes, they die. Quietly if possible.”
“Naturally. Quiet as a church mouse.”
Luke kneeled to one side of the man. Ari stood over them.
“Hamid Bahman?” Luke said.
The man stared at him
, his deep-set eyes nearly blank. His head was like a skull, the skin cracked like old paper. His mouth opened. Most of his teeth were gone. There were small round scars everywhere on his exposed skin, like little craters. Luke had seen it before. Burn scars, and lots of them. People had been burning this man with cigarettes, on a regular basis, and for a long time. Luke suspected that was probably the least of it.
This was the guy, the prominent nuclear physicist who was going to lead them to the missile sites?
The man spoke, his trembling voice barely above a whisper. Luke knew enough Farsi to understand what he said.
“Who wants to know?”
Luke glanced up at Ari. Ari said something in rapid-fire Farsi. The man nodded.
“It’s him,” Ari said.
“What happened to him?”
Ari spoke again, and the man responded. The man spoke slowly and simply, as though he were a child. It was easy enough for Luke to follow.
“I am a traitor,” he said. “I must be punished.”
“What did you do?” Luke said.
The man shook his head and closed his eyes.
Luke repeated the question. “What did you do?”
Tears began to spill out from behind the man’s closed eyelids. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “They won’t tell me.”
He body shook with silent sobs. The guy had been broken, then broken again. He had been broken so badly, and so many times, there was barely anything left of him. The Iranians were doing a Joseph Stalin experiment in human rights violations. Luke knew that before coming here, intellectually, but it was still a bit of a shock to see it up close.
He thought of all those silent cells they had passed, all filled with broken men just like this one. Then he thought of this whole sprawling building, blocks and blocks long, three stories high, thousands of cells. No wonder internal security was lax. None of these prisoners were a threat to anyone. They couldn’t even get up off the floor.
Luke stood. “Ask him if he knows anything.”
Ari squatted and began speaking to the man. The man responded with simple answers. They spoke for several moments. Luke poked his head out into the hall.
“How we looking?”
Ed was down the corridor several feet, at a corner where it made another turn. His head turned back and forth, watching the next hallway, and also watching back the way they came.
