The Prisoner

by Carlos J. Cortes

  An avid reader since the age of two, according to his long-deceased mother, Nikola had never understood the habit of hoarding books, except dictionaries and perhaps an encyclopedia. Books were made to be read and stored in the vast repository of a mind, to be revisited at leisure when attending a boring lecture, waiting, or traveling through uninteresting scenery. The few visitors he’d ever entertained in any of his sundry homes through the years must have assumed he didn’t read, judging by the lack of books on display. Only one person ever remarked, “Your books gather no dust in the library of your mind”: the late Eve Morse, a Supreme Court judge who could accurately quote Cicero, Wittgenstein, and the three books of the major religions.

  “Well, hello, Mr. Masek! It must have been … what, two, three years?”

  William Stearns, the branch director, rolled from behind his desk and maneuvered his vast anatomy toward Nikola, propelled by short legs. With a shiny dome capping a rotund face, he suffered more than a passing resemblance to Humpty Dumpty.

  Nikola faked a smile, shook the blubbery hand once, and nodded, fighting the urge to reach for a handkerchief to mop his palm after.

  “Please, make yourself comfortable.” Stearns nodded to a leather sofa. “Can I offer you coffee? Something stronger?”

  “No, thank you.” Nikola detoured to occupy an easy chair.

  Stearns turned to his secretary, who stood by the door. “That will be all, Mrs. Chapman.” With that, he turned, edged to the sofa, and collapsed on the leather, the cushions groaning as air sighed through the seams. “Well.” He opened his hands as if to part the waters, cradled them over his distended belly, and composed a beatific smile. “What can the bank do for you?”

  Nikola considered how to play the forthcoming scene. He had met Stearns a few times over the years, always on issues of little relevance but complex enough to preclude using the Internet. Although he had mentally rehearsed several approaches, Nikola didn’t know if Stearns would be accompanied by other bank officials. The man could have been sick or chosen to conduct their business in one of the open offices outside. Now that his choice had been settled, Nikola decided to lose no time with niceties.

  “Mr. Stea—”

  “Please, call me William. We’ve known each other … what, twenty years?”

  Like most people marshaling their thoughts, Stearns repeated formulas to keep a section of his brain on automatic pilot while the analytic part did its bit. Now he must be debating the reason behind the visit. His porcine eyes darted, trying to evaluate Nikola’s body language. Regardless of his ludicrous physique, Mr. Stearns owned a first-class brain—one that was, according to Nikola’s file, in perfect working order.

  “I need a small service.”

  Stearns jiggled his triple chins. “That’s what the bank is for.”

  “I didn’t mean the bank. I need a personal service from you.”

  whatever doubt Nikola harbored about Stearns’s intellect evaporated before his neutral reaction. He didn’t move a muscle, and his cupid smile didn’t falter.

  “If it’s within my power, consider it done.”

  More formulas. Nikola reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew two dulled brass keys that he deposited neatly side by side on the polished surface of the low table. Then he fished out a slim device the size of a pocket calculator, punched a few buttons, and rested it by the keys.

  “Your audio-and video-recording equipment has suffered a glitch. Nothing permanent, I assure you.”

  The beam in Stearns’s eye dulled.

  “I have two safe-deposit boxes in your vault—large boxes, the ones to store quarto files.” Nikola adjusted one of the keys a fraction of an inch to align them. “Inside each of them are four smaller containers the size of a shoe box—locked, naturally. I call them my armless boxes.”

  “Harmless?”

  “I had a lisp when I was a little boy; luckily, it’s long gone. No. I meant armless, no h.”

  Silence.

  “You see, Will—I can call you Will, can’t I?”

  More chin jiggling.

  “The locks on my boxes are sophisticated and wired to capsules holding an ounce of high explosive—not much, but sufficient to blow the arms off whoever attempts to open them without the correct key and combination. I could have nicknamed them Faceless, since one would probably lose his head also, but I didn’t like the sound of it.”

  “That’s illegal,” Stearns blurted.

  “Perhaps, but let it be our little secret.” Nikola slid back on the leather and closed his eyes for a few seconds to bask in the definite alteration of the tempo of Stearns’s breathing.

  “This bank has offices dotted all over, including one in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. I need my boxes removed from this branch and transported there, intact. I happen to have an account in the Avenida Las Americas office, including two safe-deposit boxes exactly like the ones you have here.”

  Stearns was shifting his bulk to stand erect when Nikola halted him with a wave of his hand. “Like a magician’s trick. Here are the keys. You only have to make my boxes disappear from here and materialize in the Caribbean.”

  “That’s illegal.”

  He was repeating himself, although now it wasn’t a formula but a feeble attempt to win time in which to stand, return to his desk, and summon help.

  “Will … tsk, tsk, you’re concerned?” Nikola chuckled. “Our souls brim with illegal thoughts from unspeakable deeds. Isn’t that so?”

  Stearns’s brain must have been particularly honed, because he froze and lifted his face a fraction, his nose twitching as if sampling remote pheromones.

  “We keep our thoughts safe, in the shadiest corner of our dark minds. Deeds are another matter. They happen, perhaps in a flash, but time is a fickle subject—once gone, there’s nothing you can do to recover it.”

  And still Stearns didn’t move.

  “Unless you can freeze it.” Nikola reached once more into the inner pocket of his jacket and retrieved a small folded envelope. Shunning theatrics that could afford him no advantage, he flicked it onto Stearns’s belly, where it rested.

  One hand with stubby fingers reached for the envelope, Stearns’s tiny eyes never leaving Nikola’s. His other hand joined the first to maneuver the flap and withdraw a few glossy photographs. Stearns lowered his eyes, then his color changed to ashen, as if the sun had suddenly disappeared beyond a cloud.

  Nikola held the theory that the human brain stored certain events in a section dealing with dreams. It was a survival mechanism. In time, its owner could pretend the sickest debauchery had never happened—unless an image asserted reality. Like an image of a corpse in a roadside motel. Rubber and leather games sometimes got out of hand. With a sleight of hand while he checked the crime scene, Nikola had palmed the bag containing three hairs that could have sent Stearns to a tank. One of the things Nikola hoarded for a rainy day. “As I said, William, a magician’s trick. Don’t let these disturb your sleep. They don’t tie you to the crime, and the bits of biological stuff that do are still safe with me. Cross my heart. Shall we say a week from now?”

  Stearns’s chin jiggled once.

  “Dear me … You don’t look too chirpy. Tummy upset? You should have someone look at it.” Nikola leaned back in his chair, getting into a more comfortable posture. “I’m an incorrigible romantic, you know? I take a liking to people, and that will be my undoing. Still, it can’t be helped; one is what one is. I’ll tell you what: You have expensive tastes, haven’t you? Yes, I’m aware of the cost of meat nowadays. And your health is iffy. … Your bank is a member of SWIFT? You know what I mean? Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication?”

  Stearns nodded his head a fraction.

  “Wonderful! I happen to know of a little nest egg, a trifle over three hundred million, nicely tucked away in a sunny island’s private bank that also happens to be a member of SWIFT.” Nikola reached to his other inside pocket and drew out a fresh envelope. “Here are t
he codes and all the details you could possibly need. Twenty-five percent is yours.”

  A little color returned to Stearns’s cheeks.

  Nikola smiled. “See? That’s what friends are for. You look better already.” He pushed the envelope across the low table and stood. “Here you’ll find precise instructions for what to do with the rest of the money. You have offices in Antigua?” It was an unnecessary question, because Nikola already knew, but some questions helped to maintain a fluid conversation.

  Stearns nodded again, his cheeks definitely rosier, as Nikola stood.

  One hand on the door handle, Nikola turned. “It just occurred to me that a cretin might entertain keeping the lot and taking a powder, but you’re not one of those.” He inspected the tips of his loafers as if pondering a thorny issue. “No, you want to live a long and quiet life.” Then he stared for an instant into Stearns’s porcine eyes before his face broke into a wide smile. “You’re too intelligent.”

  chapter 45

  16:22

  “Where do we stand?” Odelle Marino drummed her fingernails on the polished wood of the boardroom table.

  “Where? I’ll tell you. In shit up to our eyeballs.”

  She glanced at Vinson Duran, Hypnos’s president, and Nikola, at the opposite side of the table. Vinson might be one of the wealthiest men in the world, but no one ever forgot he was raised on the streets. “Go on,” she said.

  “The situation at the Washington facility is untenable. The place has been sealed for several days—”

  “Three.”

  Vinson turned toward Nikola, jaw clenched. Odelle waited for a retort that never materialized and was pleasantly surprised at Vinson’s wisdom. Although they both were men, mature and probably attractive, the similarities stopped there. Vinson’s patrician countenance and Savile Row suit contrasted with Nikola’s comfortable tweed jacket trimmed in leather at the cuffs and elbows—a throwback to British fashion a century old. The real difference between the men ran deeper and had to do with intellect. Regardless of Vinson’s scientific brilliance, he was outclassed before Nikola’s awesome brain. Patrician, yes—the tag brought to mind an image of Vinson in toga addressing a senate—but Nikola was a centurion.

  “Three days,” Nikola insisted.

  “Fine. You’ve had the place clamped down for three days. Today is the fourth, and the people are edgy. There are too many people involved.”

  Odelle skewered Nikola with a silent plea.

  “You should have thought of that,” Nikola offered.

  “Look, mister …” Vinson’s face darkened.

  “Yes?” When Vinson clamped his mouth shut, a vein throbbing merrily on his temple, Nikola continued. “The probability of a system failure is directly proportional to the number of its components. In this instance, yes, there have always been too many people involved. I don’t think it was ever a question of if but when.”

  “The facilities were designed with a concept of total security,” Vinson argued. “This was an inside job, the result of one facility’s sloppy design. I warned about the risks of the sewage line.”

  A wry smile stretched Nikola’s lips. His gaze wandered over the paneled walls and came to rest on his empty cup of tea. “Total security has always been a myth, used by governments and corporations like yours to demand extortionate rates from their citizens or customers or to ensure the sacrifice of rights and personal freedoms in pursuit of even more illusory security. Absolute security is no more attainable or desirable than is absolute freedom. The point is never to sacrifice the reality of freedom or security for the ideal absolute of either.”

  Odelle blinked once. Bravo!

  Nikola continued. “To pretend that, out of hundreds of men and women with knowledge of the shenanigans going on at the stations, no one would ever blab to his or her drinking buddy is unreasonable. It had to happen, and now it has.”

  “Let’s pull the plug.”

  Odelle turned, livid, toward Vinson, aghast at his slip. Nikola knew nothing about any plug. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Nikola’s expression didn’t waver.

  “Pull the plug?” Nikola asked.

  “A figure of speech. I meant getting rid of anyone who’s not supposed to be there.” Vinson reached to adjust his cuff, his eyes alive.

  “That would take time, weeks perhaps, and the involvement of more people,” Nikola said, and Odelle breathed a sigh of relief. “I don’t think that’s an option.”

  She waited. Nikola was an introverted intellectual, a social maladroit, and detached from the outside world. But she didn’t underestimate him. Nikola had a plan; he must have had one when he suggested a meeting.

  “Lukas Hurley, the station’s controller, is alive. At least, he was with them after they left the sewers. I have reason to believe he will get in touch soon.”

  “How do you know this?” Vinson said.

  Silence.

  Odelle checked Nikola’s lips. “Don’t waste your time. He won’t reveal his sources or methods.”

  “I hear Congress has rushed an ad hoc committee to look into the station’s security and, in particular, the series of events resulting in the escape of three prisoners,” Nikola said.

  Vinson frowned. “Three? They don’t know about Russo?” His voice wavered. “You mean the woman, Russo, and the other lawyer? The black man didn’t escape.”

  “Congress doesn’t know about Russo,” Nikola pointed out. “What they know is the stations are not as secure as promised, and they will want answers.”

  “What kind of answers?”

  “I should have said reassurances. An undertaking to prevent breakouts from ever happening again.”

  “But you said total security was a myth.”

  “That’s correct, but some of your facilities are more secure than others—in particular the few you have in remote places. Deserts and the like.”

  Vinson frowned, as if he didn’t like Nikola’s voice. “Are you suggesting …?”

  “I am. Inmates come in two categories: common criminals, and those with the clout or the association with institutions capable of breaking them out. Those are your security risks; the others are just meat. And of course there are the illegals—in my opinion, the most dangerous of the lot.”

  “But shifting people around would cost millions!”

  “So? A radical change in the way people are held will please Congress. Let’s face it, in the old system, high-security prisons served exactly that role: pens as impregnable as possible to hold the inmates most likely to attempt escape.”

  “The breakout from Washington was made possible by a faulty design of the sewer system,” Vinson said.

  “I don’t agree.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. The Washington breakout was the result of someone wanting to have an illegal prisoner close by.”

  Odelle felt the blood rush to her face. “How dare you?” She moved to stand, but Nikola continued in the same sedate tone.

  “Had this inmate been elsewhere—in the Nevada facility, for example—the escape attempt would have failed. Russo was in Washington so you could look him up from time to time. I checked the log. Sloppy.”

  “What about Hurley?” Vinson asked.

  Odelle breathed deeply and slid back on her seat, inwardly cursing her outburst and thankful for Vinson’s attempt to defuse the situation.

  “I expect contact within the next twenty-four hours.”

  “And then?” Odelle asked.

  Nikola shrugged. “Then you can offer Congress your plan to beef up security by sorting prisoners into categories and presenting them with the runaways safely back in custody.”

  “What about Hurley and the doctor? What do you suggest we do with them?”

  Nikola arched the fingers of one hand and inspected his fingernails before turning toward Vinson.

  “You really want to know?”

  chapter 46

  18:04

  “My name is Lukas Hurley …”
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br />   Enrique Castillo jerked upright and blinked repeatedly at his screen laser tracker to shift input onto the keyboard, then routed the call to the speaker system and slammed a pad to his left. Overhead, a small mirror dropped to reflect the intense light of a powerful xenon projector, highlighting his booth like a beacon.

  Bill Anderson was in charge of the scores of people fielding the telephones. Having commandeered a full floor of SINTA, a corporation providing telephone support for government services, the operators sifted, around the clock, through thousands of calls reporting sightings of suspicious-looking people or vehicles. So far, and however well-intentioned the calls, none amounted to anything beyond wishful thinking.

  Enrique craned his neck and spotted Bill barreling down the corridor to crash-stop before his booth, the side panels rattling with the impact.

  “… shift supervisor of the Washington, D.C., hibernation facility.” A short pause. “ID number 17395878 XCJ.”

  Bill made a rolling motion with one hand, the other busy with a cellular pad. “Could you repeat, please?”

  “No.”

  “Pardon?”

  “If you missed something, listen to the recording. Testimony is slated for day after tomorrow at ten-thirty A.M. at the ABC TV studios down Rhode Island Avenue Northeast. We’ll be there an hour before.”

  The line went dead.

  “Twenty-two seconds,” Enrique announced. Not enough.

  “Prepaid SIM,” someone yelled.

  “Radio mast at Meridian Hill Park,” another voice shouted. “Sander transmitter.”

  “Switched off,” a third voice rattled.

  Enrique exchanged glances with Bill. The caller knew the system. Had he kept his cell phone switched on, the direction finder could have zeroed in on it, given another minute or so.

  Text started scrolling against his screen. The SIM had been bought three days before in a pack of five from a machine dispenser at Union Station.