Dead Man's Switch

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “Sure,” King said. His mind was more on this cavern than Mack’s conversation. Especially because Mack had been using the flashlight to spot various items that were stacked against the side. A couple of EIDs. Two rifles. Rope. Flares.

  “After they find Patches and realize what we did to distract them, they’ll go to thermal sensors from the chopper. Any luck and tonight would have had drizzle. Water droplets deflect the infrared and make it hard to spot anything more than a quarter mile away. But it’s a clear night, so the range goes up to about two miles. But that can work for us too. They’ll make a couple of passes with sensors, and once they don’t find our thermals, they’ll move on. We’ll use that window of time to get to the wildlife refuge. Those trees are old growth. Thick canopies. Next to impossible to get any thermals from the choppers.”

  “That’s the forbidden zone,” King said. “They’ve got sensors everywhere at ground level.”

  “Got it covered,” Mack said. His flashlight beam picked up a cell phone near the stack of equipment. Mack grabbed it and turned it on. “Once I send a text, we’ve got one hour with the system down. Someone owes me a huge favor, and I’m calling it in. And that’s all we need. One hour.”

  “Plus this stuff that will put down anyone who chases us,” King said, motioning at the electric pistols and the rifles.

  “That’s the part I wish I didn’t have to explain,” Mack answered.

  He sat and leaned back against the dirt wall. King did the same.

  “It started about a year ago,” Mack said. “When they closed down the old prison and brought in a bunch of new guards for the SCC. Remember when I was permanently put on day shift? That’s because it always happens at night.”

  CHAPTER 29

  “I’d come in some mornings,” Mack continued, “and something would be wrong with one of the prisoners in solitary. He’d have bruises or cuts. I’d ask Murdoch about it, and he’d tell me that the prisoner had acted up the night before and that one of the night guards had to settle him down.”

  Mack paused. “Thing is, when I’d ask the prisoner what had happened, he couldn’t tell me. Not wouldn’t tell me, but couldn’t. Like his mind was a blank.”

  King could feel sweat trickling down his chest. His body was cooling down after the jog.

  “Then one morning, I noticed spruce needles in one of the cells. Spruce. And what looked like spruce sap in his hair. Crazy, I told myself, but I decided not to say anything about it. The night crew guards, they were a different breed. Kept to themselves. Almost like they looked down on the day guards. I wasn’t going to ask them, and I knew Murdoch didn’t like my questions either. So I decided to find out without asking questions.”

  Mack flashed his beam of light back at the equipment. It settled on what looked like a pair of binoculars.

  “Night vision goggles. Best you can buy. I found a good spot outside the forbidden zone, away from the thermal sensors. I settled in one night and watched through the goggles. I was ready for a lot of nights of watching. If—and that was a big if to me—if a prisoner was getting outside at night, I had no way of knowing where he’d leave the building. I got lucky with my first guess. The loading docks.”

  King imagined Mack tucked away on a hillside, patient for hours.

  “First a chopper comes in. Some guy I’ve never seen before steps out. Civilian. Pulls out a rifle bag. Has two dogs with him. Murdoch is there to meet him. Ten minutes later, two of the night guards escort out Lassiter—one of the prisoners. You got to understand, Lassiter is a monster. Physical monster. Inhuman monster. Shaved head, neck as thick as an elephant’s leg, tattoos across his face…he looks like Spiderman. Things he did to get put here…you wouldn’t sleep for a week if I told you. Guards point Lassiter at the trees and let him go. Just like that. Then the warden, the guy with the dogs and the rifle, the guards, all of them, they just stand around. Half hour goes by. The warden shakes the guy’s hand, and the guy heads into the trees with his two dogs.”

  Mack went silent for a bit, as if right back on the hillside, watching. King had a guess but didn’t want to say it.

  Mack picked up the story again. “I stay. I mean, there’s nowhere to go anyhow. I don’t dare draw attention to myself. Four hours later, one of the night guards heads out in an ATV. Half hour after that, he gets back. The civilian on the passenger side, broken arm, only one dog with him. Lassiter’s body is on the back of the ATV. I think Lassiter’s dead.”

  Mack’s voice went cold. “It was a game. Hunt down the prisoner. Next morning, I’m at Lassiter’s cell. He’s cut up a bit, got some stitches on his right hand. Looks like a dog bit him. But he’s groggy. I ask him how it’s going, did he get a good night’s sleep, and nothing registers in his eyes. It’s like he doesn’t know anything about what happened the night before.”

  “They catch you catching them?” King asked. He didn’t know whether to believe Mack. The part about hunting down prisoners, yeah, that was probably true. Blake Watt had been leading King up to this through cyberspace. But Mack was talking as if he were an outsider. King had seen the video surveillance footage and seen the money in Mack’s bank account.

  “I was careful,” Mack said in answer to King’s question. “They didn’t know I knew. I start keeping track. As far as I can tell, one prisoner a week gets outside. Every once in a while, a whole group. Six or seven. I keep careful notes, and then when I think I’ve almost got enough to go to the FBI in Seattle, I get caught. I’m expecting Murdoch to do something crazy to protect his secret, but instead, he calls me into his office and calmly explains that if I breathe a word, I’ll be in jail for ten years. Next thing I know, Ella’s in a coma, and Murdoch tells me you’re next if I don’t do everything I’m told. That’s when I had to start keeping secrets from you.”

  “And keep me on the island.”

  “They made it clear it wouldn’t be good for your health.” Mack’s voice broke. “I mean, look what happened to Blake. He found something, didn’t he. And passed it on to you.”

  “The computer in the old prison,” King said. “He had stuff on there.”

  “Yeah, Murdoch was ready to make you disappear.” Mack shifted his body. “Where’s the computer?”

  “Safe,” King said, realizing he didn’t fully trust Mack.

  “We’ll need it,” Mack said. “Just not now. First thing we need to do is get to the cliffs.”

  “Then what?” King asked.

  Mack explained.

  And that’s when King realized exactly how much planning Mack had done.

  CHAPTER 30

  Mack handed King one of the rifles. It weighed less than King expected.

  “No bullets,” Mack said. “Darts. Let me show you how to use it.” Mack took King through the bolt action and showed him how to load the darts.

  “No bullets?” King asked. “Darts don’t have much range.”

  “For starts, too much noise,” Mack answered. “Noise of a gunshot will bring a full force in on us. Besides, we don’t want to kill anyone. We’re not hunting, so we don’t need a long-range shot. You don’t need blood on your hands for the rest of your life. Or a murder-one felony.”

  Something clicked for King. “The prisoner hunt. This is what they use, isn’t it. Dart guns. Otherwise, we’d hear gunshots on the island at night when they turn the prisoner loose. Darts won’t kill them either.”

  It made sense. On this island, 103 of the most dangerous felons in North America. For a big-game hunter who was willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to hunt a grizzly, how much more of a thrill to hunt a human, the deadliest predator of all.

  “Yes, it’s what they use,” Mack confirmed. His voice was flat. “Some of the hunters ask for a prisoner to be given a weapon. A knife maybe. Or a dart gun. Gives the hunters an even bigger thrill, hunting someone who is hunting them.”

  King thought of the money hidden in his father’s bank account. “They pay a lot, won’t they.”

  “Yeah.”
/>   King thought of something else. “You said we’re not hunting. That means then we have these weapons for defense.”

  Mack’s silence was enough of a confirmation.

  “Who is going to hunt us?” King asked.

  “Guards don’t know the terrain as well as the prisoners,” Mack replied.

  Some of the most dangerous men in America. “So this will be life or death,” King said.

  “Has been for a lot longer than you’ve known,” Mack answered.

  Long, long silence.

  “Dying scare you?” King asked.

  “Not as much as it makes me sad. Too much in life to hold on to. You, mainly. Your mother and I...” Mack’s voice grew quieter. “We had no idea what love really was until you were born. Didn’t have any idea of what fear was either. And let me tell you, when you’re scared of losing something, there are so many things to worry about. Dryer lint, for one.”

  “Dryer lint?”

  “You were maybe a year old. I’d be up two or three or four times a night, and I’d go into your room just to listen to you breathe when you were sleeping. Sweetest sound I can remember. I was watching you, and it hit me. What if there was a buildup of lint in the dryer and it caught on fire? What are the chances? A billion to one? But I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It’s three in the morning, and I’m in the laundry room, checking all the vents to make sure they were clear of lint. Ella woke up and asked what I was doing. When I told her, she didn’t laugh. She started helping me check the vents.”

  King smiled in the dark, but at the same time, it made him sad. Ella. Alone. And that thought terrified him now. Murdoch had threatened to do something to Ella. King and Mack had to find a way to stop it. They had to get past the thermal sensors and through the forbidden zone. They had to escape the island, find a way to make Ella safe.

  “Kids don’t know how much parents love them,” Mack continued, obviously unaware of the lurch of fear inside King. “Good thing, or you’d be paralyzed. What am I going to do, stop you at the door on your way to kindergarten and tell you that if anything happened to you and you didn’t come back from school, I’d be a broken man for the rest of my life? And believe me, a parent can come up with a thousand things to worry about, from earthquake to fire to a bus driver not paying attention. So then, what? Kneel down and look in your little five-year-old face and put my hands on your shoulders and tell you to be very, very careful because you’ve got my heart in your hands, and if you don’t make it home, I’ll be dead inside for the rest of my life, and I’ll spend three hours a day sobbing in uncontrollable tears? Not a chance. You’d look at me and offer to sit on the couch and wrap yourself with pillows and never leave home, just so Daddy doesn’t have to cry. And if you offered to sit on the couch and be safe, the biggest part of my heart would want to accept the offer. King, parents lay awake at night when their teenagers are at a party. We worry about a phone call from the police or a knock at the door that starts with ‘Sir, I’m sorry to tell you...’ ”

  This was more than his dad had spoken in one time to him than King could remember. And here King was, unable to escape another thought. About the money in his father’s bank account and the surveillance video that showed Mack releasing a prisoner.

  “I can’t make you have faith in God,” Mack said. “And even if you said it was there, that’s still something between you and God. But I want you to know why I believe. It began the moment I held you. Your tiny head was in my palm, and the rest of your body stretched along my forearm with your toes touching the inside of my elbow. I busted out bawling. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. I’m holding you and bawling my eyes out and so full of this insane love…I decided that love was bigger than my pitiful little life and that it gave meaning to everything I did.

  “To me, it’s about starting with a search for how and why life has meaning. There I was, holding you, and I finally understood the phrase I’d heard again and again so often it had become hollow up to that moment: God loves you like a father loves a son. Like a parent loves a child. And I figured if you couldn’t ever realize how much I loved you, then that’s how it must be for God and how He loves me. I’m not saying you need to be the kind who shakes his fist at anyone who doesn’t agree. I’m just saying I hope you’ll give a long hard look at whether there’s more to this life than what you see in the physical world. Here’s my biggest and sometimes my only prayer. That whatever happens in this lifetime, we’ll be a family beyond.”

  “You’re scaring me,” King said.

  “I know. We don’t talk like this very much. Okay, never. But you got to admit, a place and time like this leads you toward it.”

  “It’s not that,” King said. “It’s what I’m reading between the lines. You’re worried about the dryer lint again. Except this time, it’s not a chance in a billion. We’re armed with dart rifles and EIDs, and we’ve got about five miles of wilderness and deranged killers between us and the cliffs. And we’re having this talk because you don’t like our chances of making it.”

  Mack hesitated and then gave a half smile. “Yep. What I’d give to be back in that moment when I thought things were in my control and that cleaning the dryer vents would be enough to protect you. But I learned that control is just an illusion. All we can do is our best.”

  “Probably a good time for a hug,” King said.

  “Yeah, but that would be awkward. So let’s check our weapons instead. That favor I called in…the sensors won’t be down very long.”

  CHAPTER 31

  “Snorkeling gear?” King asked Mack as he looked inside the backpack. “Wet suit?”

  Mack had set out a battery-powered lantern, and the light seemed soft in their bunker as King looked through the contents. It was a full-size camping backpack made of nylon fabric—black, of course—with a lightweight aluminum frame.

  Mack had taken the backpack from where it leaned against the wall, handed it to King, and invited King to open it and peer inside. A second backpack—from all appearances, identical—was still along the wall. This one belonged to Mack.

  “I’ve got a matching suit in my backpack,” Mack said. “The only way to survive the water is to keep from getting too cold. The wet suits will also keep us buoyant. Flippers and mask and snorkel will make it easier for us to swim.”

  “And stay underwater with just a snorkel showing if a chopper has searchlights? The black wet suit doesn’t hurt either.”

  Mack grunted in agreement. Then he motioned at the backpack. “Front pocket. Put the GPS watch on your left wrist.”

  King did as instructed. It had a rubber wristband, clear plastic face, and rubber coating around the face. Black, naturally.

  Mack reached over to the lantern and shut it off. The bunker went black.

  “Learn to read it in the dark,” Mack said. “Feel for the three buttons on the side. In home position, top button brings up the compass. Middle button shows a couple of GPS waypoints that I’ve set. Bottom button gives a little arrow. Click the middle button.”

  King’s eyes had begun to adjust to the dark. He saw the numbers in glowing green, showing the time. When he clicked the middle button, the numbers transitioned to A, B, C.

  “Top button brings up A,” Mack said. “Middle button brings up B. Bottom button gives you C. We want to get to A first, so press the top button.”

  When King did, the green glowing numbers changed again. He understood the top number. It was the GPS waypoint. Below it was a small arrow. And under that another number: 1575.

  “Five minutes,” Mack said. “That’s when we leave this bunker. The chopper will have cleared the area, and we won’t have to worry about heat sensors from above. That gives us 20 minutes to go about one and a half kilometers to reach position A while the thermal sensors are down.”

  “That’s what I’m reading?” King asked. “Fifteen hundred seventy-five meters to the destination?”

  “Meters,” Mack confirmed. “Kilometer and a half is about a
mile. I’ve set the GPS to metric. See that arrow? It points to the target. No way to get lost. Just follow the arrow and check once in a while to see how the gap is closing.”

  “Sounds easy.”

  “It is easy. I have my own. In case we get separated, we meet at position B. That’s by the cliff, in a gap between sensors.”

  “Are ropes there so we can climb down?”

  “No, I’ve got flares, duct tape, and a bunch of other stuff in my backpack. We’re going to fly. It’s like MacGyver.”

  “Fly? MacGyver?”

  King was rewarded by a sigh from Mack.

  “MacGyver. A guy in a television series who engineered escape plans.”

  “And position C?” King asked.

  “Mainland. Hiding spot on the shore. When we hit the water, we use the watches to make it across to where I buried a garbage bag with clothes and money. I made sure it’s where the current will take us as we swim across. In the water, all we need to do is check the arrows on the GPS occasionally to make sure we’re in position as we swim.”

  King thought of the dark, cold water and shuddered. Not likely that sharks would be cruising. But he’d have to trust what he’d heard about killer whales. That there were no recorded attacks on humans. Of course, if people didn’t survive a killer whale attack, they wouldn’t be around to report it.

  King had a question, but Mack didn’t give him a chance to ask.

  “Side pocket,” Mack said. “Night vision goggles. I don’t want to turn the lantern back on and ruin your night vision. The longer we’re in here like this, the easier on our eyes when we go back outside. Put the goggles on and find the switch at the left side.”

  King found the goggles. Hit the switch.

  “Cool,” King said. The total dark had gone to a greenish glow as it picked up the tiny bit of light shed by the GPS.

  “Drop them around your neck for now, okay? If you’re not used to them, it makes it tougher to walk, and we should have enough moonlight to get to position A. My goggles are thermal sensors. When our targets are close enough, that’s when we’ll put on the goggles, and between thermal and visual, we should have the advantage.”