by M. Z. Kelly
My driver stopped on the airport tarmac and I made my way to the small jet that the FBI leased. I was surprised when I entered the cabin and saw Joe Dawson sitting there, since I knew he lived in Arizona.
The big FBI agent waved a hand and said, “Nice to see you, Buttercup.”
I smiled as I took a seat across from him. Dawson was in his forties, about six feet tall, with broad shoulders. His sandy hair was fading to gray, something that had probably been brought on by the cases we’d worked together. But it wasn’t his height or his build or even his square jaw that always struck me about Joe Dawson. It was his blue eyes. They were pale, a powder blue color, that reminded me of the actor Paul Newman.
I buckled in, noticing that he had a crossword puzzle in front of him. “What brings you to my neck of the woods, Joe?”
“Caught a ride out of Phoenix and convinced the pilot to make a stopover here.”
I accepted a bottle of water from the steward, then asked Dawson, “How have you been?”
He didn’t answer right away, regarding me for a moment. Finally, he said, “As good as anyone could be given my age and background.”
My lips turned up. “That covers a lot of territory.”
He returned my smile. “And you?”
I took a breath and folded my arms. “I’m…” I released the air in my lungs. “…still trying to prepare myself for what lies ahead.”
“Maybe Taylor just wants to chat, catch up on old times.”
I forced myself to smile. “I’m sure.” I decided to change the subject as our plane taxied down the runway. “What have you been up to since I last saw you?”
His pale eyes looked off and lost focus for a moment. When he looked back at me he said, “Funerals. My brother passed.”
I reached over and touched his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “All things considered, it was probably for the best.”
Joe Dawson’s half-brother, Lucas Caufield, had been an FBI agent at one time before being diagnosed with ALS. He’d investigated some cases on the east coast that we’d eventually realized had been connected to Janice Taylor and the group called The Swarm. Caufield had fallen in love with Taylor and she’d used him as an apprentice to facilitate her murderous crime spree. Dawson’s brother had offered clues to the killings, just enough information to help us eventually find Taylor. The last I’d heard, the DA was considering filing conspiracy charges against him, but, as someone once said, God sometimes beats the people’s attorney in prosecuting a case.
“How have you really been, Kate?”
His words made my thoughts surface. I knew he was asking about how I was coping with the losses in my life. “A day at a time, that sort of thing.”
His eyes were fixed on me. “I heard about your partner.”
I sighed, turning away from him for an instant. “I won’t lie, it’s been a difficult few months.”
“Ted was a good man.”
I let what he’d said settle in for a moment before I remembered something from when we last worked together. “Your daughter…did you ever get ahold of her?”
He nodded. “We went out to dinner. I think it cleared the air.” He smiled. “She still has some issues with her old man not being around much when she was younger.”
“I’m glad you patched things up.”
He brushed a hand over his wide jaw and glanced down at his crossword puzzle. “It’s a work in progress, just like me.”
“I see you’re still working the puzzles.”
He scribbled something and then looked up at me. “How’s the family?”
Joe Dawson knew all about my family situation, except for the fact that my love-dad, as I called him, wasn’t my biological father. We were close enough that I thought he deserved to hear the latest, so I updated him on the DNA testing I’d done, proving that the man who raised me wasn’t my biological father. I then told him about Collin Russell and my mother’s letter.
After I mentioned that I still didn’t know who my biological father was, he said, “And you still haven’t read the letter?”
I glanced at the briefcase beside me. “I brought it with me. Maybe I’ll read it on the way home. We’ll see.”
We spent the remainder of our flight catching up on mutual friends and acquaintances. Just before we landed Dawson mentioned the group that called themselves The Swarm. “I don’t know how many of them are out there, but I’m making it my personal mission to put every last one in the ground.”
I feigned surprise. “You don’t seem to think they can be rehabilitated.”
“They’re radicalized killers. There’s only one thing you can do to rehabilitate a terrorist: send them straight to hell.”
After arriving at Denver International Airport, we rented a car and drove south through Colorado Springs. It was then a short drive to Florence and the federal Administrative Maximum Facility located just outside of town.
The moment Joe Dawson and I left the car, it felt like we’d entered another world. I knew from what I’d read about the prison that it had been made expressly to cut inmates off from the real world. ADX, as it was called, was known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies. I noticed there were heavily armed patrols throughout the sprawling complex of buildings that were topped with razor wire. Several gun towers rose above the surrounding complex.
I’d been to a lot of prisons before, but the forbidding nature of the facility seemed to take the term incarceration to a whole other level. I scanned the horizon, seeing the beauty of the snow-capped mountains in the distance, contrasting with the harsh reality of the prison.
“Not a pleasant place,” I said to Dawson as we walked to the administrative offices.
He brushed a hand through his sandy hair. “I heard they deliver some of their prisoners by Black Hawk helicopter and that’s their last glimpse of the outside world.”
After checking in with administrative staff, we were met by the facility’s warden, Arnold Dean. As we followed Dean to the unit where Janice Taylor was housed, he told us about her incarceration and the prison.
“As soon as the inmates arrive, you can see the change in them as the reality of prison life begins to set in.” Dean stopped on the walkway and glanced at the mountains. He was a big man, with broad shoulders. His bearing and short haircut made me think he must have a military background. “They see the mountains and then the prison, and it suddenly hits them. That’s the last time they will ever see the natural world.” He locked eyes with us for a moment. “You want my opinion, life at ADX is worse than the death penalty.”
“How did our prisoner end up here?” Dawson asked. “Last I heard, you only housed male inmates.”
Dean’s dark eyes held on Dawson. “An exception was made, based on your prisoner’s crimes and her ties to the others in her group. She’s in what we call Unit H, One Seg. It’s our highest level of incarceration and segregation. And since she’s our only female prisoner, she’s been completely isolated from the other inmates in her own housing unit—not that any of them ever see one another anyway.”
“But isn’t she still pending trial?” I asked.
He nodded. “Everything’s been set up by the DOJ. She’s taken by helicopter to the federal courthouse in Denver for proceedings there and then flown back here.”
DOJ stood for Department of Justice. The fact that they’d taken a personal interest in Janice Taylor told me she was about as high on the fed’s radar as someone could get.
We moved on as Dean continued with his commentary about his prison. He seemed to take a perverse pride in the harrowing nature of his institution. “Life at ADX is what I call the living death. The prison takes away everything in the outside world, but that loss of freedom has been well earned. Our inmates are terrorists, gang members, people who have committed multiple homicides. They’re the worst of the worst.”
In a moment we entered one of the inmate housing units. Somewhere in the distance, we heard someone screaming.
&nb
sp; Dean apparently noticed our concern and explained. “Some of our inmates become delusional. You put a person in a box twenty-three hours a day and some of them create their own world inside their heads. We see it a lot, especially with the younger inmates. They have no way to cope and eventually break down.”
Dawson, never one to show a lot of sympathy when it came to criminals, said, “The crazies get crazier. What a shame.”
Dean waved us on and we followed him down a corridor as he continued. “We have over four hundred inmates. They spend twenty-three hours alone in a seven by twelve foot concrete cell. Meals are delivered through a small hole in the door. Each cell has a window that allows some light into the room but our inmates can’t see beyond the buildings or even the sky. There’s no direct contact with other inmates, and as little contact with the guards as possible.”
As we moved through the unit, we heard the hiss and whir of electronic doors locking and unlocking. “The buildings are designed with one purpose: control. Inmates wear leg irons and chains when they’re taken to recreation. They get one hour a day outside, but it’s in a wire cage.”
The forbidding feeling that I’d had earlier only intensified as we walked down the gray corridor. I noticed there were cameras everywhere. A chemical smell, probably from cleaning solvents, permeated the air.
We turned a corner and my anxiety level spiked as Dean continued, “These cells are set aside for inmates with special administrative measures imposed by the government. Only law enforcement, lawyers, and immediate family are permitted to visit. As you’ll see, your prisoner will be on the other side of a glass window and can only speak to you by phone.”
The warden stopped outside a room identified as Visitation. He walked over to a control booth and spoke to one of the guards. He then came back over to us and motioned to the visitation room. “Your inmate is inside. She’s waived her right to counsel. You’re going to find that her appearance has changed since the last time you saw her.” Dean looked at me. “And she only wants to talk to you.”
“I’m going in with her,” Dawson barked. “If she’s got something to say, she says it to both of us.”
Dean took a breath, nodded. “Just be sure you check out with the admin staff when you leave.” We shook hands and he left us.
Dawson walked over to the door to the visitation area, turned the knob, and said, “Time to go through the looking glass, Alice.”
FIFTEEN
The glass booth where Janice Taylor sat waiting for us was across an otherwise empty visitation area. In the shadows of the room, and from a distance, the prisoner looked small, almost childlike and vulnerable. As we got closer to her, I drew in a sharp breath. Taylor lifted her head, her gaze coming up to me. I had to force myself not to visibly react.
I glanced at Dawson and whispered, “What the hell?”
The big FBI agent was never one to mince words or lower his voice. “She looks like the fucking devil got ahold of her.”
We stopped a few feet from the glass booth. The creature in front of us looked nothing like the woman I’d once known. Janice Taylor was in her mid-thirties and at one time had been attractive, with high cheek bones and soft brown hair. Now, most of her hair looked like it had been pulled out, leaving uneven strands dangling from her nearly bald head. It reminded me of a doll I’d once had as a child with patchy clumps of hair remaining after most the hair had fallen out.
I knew that make-up wasn’t allowed in the prison, but noticed that Taylor’s brows had been shaped, maybe by tattoo ink, into twin mountain peaks above eyes that seemed even darker than I’d remembered. A large red and black tattoo, with images of ghostly figures covered half her face and left eye. When she smiled at me. and then made what was probably meant to be a seductive gesture with her tongue, I was revolted. The appendage had been split in the middle, each side moving independently and giving her the appearance of a strange reptilian-like creature.
I glanced at Dawson again before drawing in a breath as I sat down at the glass booth. I picked up the receiver and then locked eyes with Taylor, who already had the phone in her hand.
When she spoke, Taylor’s once polished, confident tone seemed even deeper, more ominous than I remembered. “Nice of you to drop in, Detective.” I was about to respond when I saw her dark eyes shift in the direction of Dawson who had remained standing. “I made it clear that you were to come alone.”
Before I could respond my FBI partner took the receiver and said, “Guess what? It’s BOGO day here at supermax. You get two of us for the price of one.”
Taylor brushed back a strand of shredded hair that was dangling above her forehead. “You need to leave.”
Dawson shook his big head. “Go to hell. You got something to say, you talk to both of us.”
The prisoner shot darts at my partner. “I’m going to hang up the phone now and not say another word. If you leave, I’ll talk to her.” She glanced at me, smiling. “If he stays here, you won’t see it coming.”
Dawson still had the phone in his hand. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Taylor didn’t respond, instead hanging up her phone and then folding her arms, she sat there staring at us.
I stood up and asked Dawson to follow me to a corner of the room. When we were alone, I said, “I think she means what she says.”
“I’m not going to let her dictate the rules of the game. I’m staying.”
I shook my head. “It’s her game, Joe.” I glanced over and saw that she still had her arms crossed and was smiling at us. I found Dawson’s pale eyes again. “I’m a big girl. Let me give it a shot. She’s behind glass. If I need anything, I’ll come get you.”
Dawson huffed out a breath and glanced over at the prisoner. “She’s fucking crazy.”
“I know, but I’ve done crazy before.” I touched his arm. “I’ll be fine.”
Dawson looked at me for a long moment, finally nodding.
When he was gone I walked back over to the glass booth. Despite my assurances to Dawson, my feelings of trepidation spiked as I got closer to Taylor. I saw that she still had an odd smile on her face as I picked up the receiver.
“Let’s talk, Ms. Taylor. What’s on your mind?”
The prisoner lifted the receiver and said, “Murder.”
Her seductively perverse smile was still there as I said, “I think you’ve already accomplished that.”
She cocked her head slightly. “How does that old saying go? You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
I took a breath and made an attempt to engage her in a rational conversation. “Tell me why you wanted to see me, what you want.”
“You’re here because you’re a murderer…” I started to respond but she went on. “You killed my lover. Azazel was the chosen one, the first of seven. His death must be avenged.”
Azazel was the monster who had worked with the woman named Myra. Together, they’d orchestrated the killing of several people. Before he’d died, Azazel had told me he was the first of seven disciples, chosen to seek vengeance in the world. Taylor had previously said she was Azazel’s soul mate and the second of the seven disciples.
“The others, the five remaining disciples, who are they?”
The mad creature laughed and leaned closer to the glass window. Her tongue flicked at me like a snake in a cage. “They’re closer than you can imagine.”
My eyes shifted, noticing her arm. I saw the Latin phrase Sorores Sanguinis, Sisters of the Blood. It was the same tattoo worn by a group of women who had gone on a killing spree in the name of Azazel.
My thoughts drifted to Janice Taylor’s background. During our last encounter, she’d told me that she had been gang raped when she was ten, by boys in her school. A few years later, she began taking revenge on her attackers, torturing and killing them one by one. Taylor had told me those killings had unleashed her power and that killing had become a sexual act for her.
I decided to again try to get some answers. “You still haven’t answer
ed my question. Why are you doing this?”
The smile still played on her lips. “Do you remember when we talked previously?”
“Of course.”
“I told you that a change is coming to the world. It will signal my personal metamorphosis and the end of civilization.”
“This change that you’re talking about, what exactly does that mean?”
“I’m talking about The Swarm, Detective. Those who understand the true nature of our world have joined us. They are all out there, waiting for my signal to begin.”
“This group, The Swarm, where exactly are they?”
Her gaze moved away, taking in her surroundings. “Some of them are right here in this prison. Those who have been most disenfranchised by society are ready to change it.”
What she’d said made me again think about her followers being a group of radicalized killers. “How many…how many people make up The Swarm?”
This time her laughter was more intense. When it stopped, she said, “I will tell you about the game, Detective, but I won’t give you all the rules. Your job is to learn them.”
“The game?”
She nodded. “This is a game of life and death.”
I released a breath, thinking it was impossible to have a rational conversation with her. I was about to ask her more about the game when she went on. “Every game must have a beginning, a signal that it’s time to start.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The beginning, Detective. The game has just begun. All you have to do is look for the signal.”
With that, Janice Taylor hung up her phone and stood up. She began walking away, even as I called out to her over the receiver to come back. She stopped, turned back to me and smiled, but then left the room. I saw through the glass widows that a guard was using chains to shackle her and return her to her cell.
