by Jack Mars
“Can I help you, Officer?”
Figdor laughed. “Honey, you can help me by getting down on your knees in front of me and showing me how you lick a sweet, yummy ice cream cone. If you know what I’m saying.”
The other guard laughed now. He hadn’t said a word. People, including other guards, tended to be silent around Figdor.
The sick feeling in Trudy’s belly deepened. If they tried anything, she was just going to vomit all over Figdor’s lap.
“No, I’m sorry to say, I’m just here to tell you to get yourself ready. New orders have come through, and you’re being transferred. You’re leaving our happy little home and heading down to the municipal lockup in DC.”
Trudy’s heart skipped a beat in her chest. Suddenly, the bully Figdor was the least of her worries. “What? When?”
“Forty-five minutes. You’re out of here.”
“Why? It’s the middle of the night.”
Figdor shrugged. “I don’t make the orders, girlfriend. I just enforce them. They tell me to get you ready, so that’s what I’m doing. I would guess you have a court appearance coming up.”
Figdor smiled, a grin bordering on evil.
“Confidentially, just between you and me, you’re going to hell on Earth. No more individual cell for you. You’ll have to learn to share. And the girls down there? Not exactly the refined, educated types we have up here. They’re a little more… physical, shall we say? I don’t think you’ll be getting a lot of nap time. Personally, I’d like to see what happens when a weakling like you gets dropped in there. Maybe I’ll hear about it through the grapevine.”
Trudy stared at her. Just when things didn’t seem like they could get any worse… they were getting worse.
“You heard me, Wellington. Get yourself together. We’ll be back for you in twenty minutes.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
10:47 p.m.
Prime Auto Mall –McLaren, Maryland
Luke and Ed wore black.
They cruised slowly around the perimeter of the giant car dealership. They rode in a black Saab 9000 turbo, Luke at the wheel. It was an old car. They had taken it off the lot of a Saab mechanic two towns over. The mechanic apparently fixed these things up, then turned around and sold them. When he and Ed found this one, it had a sign in the windshield, listing it at $8,999.
Free was better.
In his younger days, Luke used to drag race along Route 1 down near the King’s Dominion amusement park in southern Virginia late at night. It wasn’t anything organized. It was just a long empty road, where a restless adrenaline junkie might happen upon other sleepless vampires just like him.
In those days, he drove a Saab 900 turbo, a convertible, an earlier model than the one he was driving right now. It was a very fast car. Even with the wind drag when the top was down, he blew almost anything else off the line. New Corvettes, Porsches, Mustang GTs, even a Lotus one time. That Saab had an analog speedometer that topped out at 155 miles per hour. Luke could pin that needle to the floor. This car was newer, and had a digital readout, so it was harder to tell where it would top out. But Luke figured it was just about as fast.
Now they were cruising the edges of a giant car dealership. The place was lit up like a Christmas display. In fact, they were advertising Christmas in August. Ed’s eyes scanned the car lot, looking for the one he wanted. They were rolling toward the Hummer section now.
“Swann?” Luke said into his telephone. “How’s it coming?”
Swann had set himself up in the parking lot of a Little League field twenty miles away. When Luke and Ed left him, he had three laptops going on the hood of his car, all with satellite links. He was busy concealing his identity and whereabouts, routing his communications traffic down to Brazil, across the Atlantic Ocean to Bulgaria, then back through Western Europe to the United States.
“It’s coming good. Looks like you’ve got about ten seconds.”
“Ten seconds,” Luke said to Ed.
Ed just nodded.
“You see one you like?”
“Yeah.”
A few more seconds passed. Suddenly, the lights went out. The lights at the dealership went dark, certainly. But the long industrial road they were on went dark as well. Security lights and yellow sodium arcs above parking lots all went out at the same time. Somewhere, perhaps three miles away, a glow against the night sky showed Luke where the blackout ended.
“Go!” he said.
Ed’s door was already open. A second later he was out on the tarmac, moving fast and low with a blue canvas bag in one hand. A second after that, he had disappeared. Black skin, black clothes, against a black night. Ed was gone.
Luke cut off his headlights and rolled on. The car was hotwired. There was no key. Luke wouldn’t turn this car off again until he was ready to dump it.
“Swann, what’s the prisoner status?” he said.
“Uh… it looks pretty smooth. The transfer went through. Prisoner is being prepared for departure. A van has been assigned from the Department of Corrections motor pool and is en route to the Randal facility.”
“Staffing?”
“Two officers. Both men. The driver is forty-three-year-old Robert Lynn. Riding shotgun is twenty-eight-year-old David William Fortgang. Both are armed with service pistols, Glock 9 millimeters in this case. Also, they have tasers, and the van is equipped with a shotgun bolted to the dash on the passenger side.”
“What else?” Luke said.
“Ah, let me see here. Fortgang, the younger guy, is an ex-Marine, did eight years, and has combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Luke pictured a gung-ho kid with a flat-top haircut, who still worked hard to keep his military physique. When trouble came down, the driver would probably just raise his hands and surrender, but that kid was going to tumble at it head-first.
“Terrific,” he said. “Couldn’t you have gotten me a couple of old-timers watching the clock until retirement?”
“I got you the prisoner transfer, Luke. I couldn’t control the officer assignment. It has a lot to do with who’s on duty.”
Nearby, an engine roared into life. Headlights came on. A moment later, a giant black Hummer H3 rolled up next to Luke. Ed pulled up driver’s side to driver’s side. His window powered down.
“How is it?” Luke said.
Ed smiled. He patted the steering wheel. “Real nice. Better than yours.”
“There’s an ex-Marine riding shotgun in the prison van. Young guy, just got recycled back to the real world.”
Ed’s face was hard already. It grew harder instantly. “Okay.”
“Let’s try not to hurt him.”
Ed looked at Luke. His eyes were serious. There was very little compromise in Ed.
“Luke, you got me out here doing some very raw shit. I could lose my job. I could lose my life. I could go to jail. You got me firing dum-dum bullets, which ain’t gonna hurt anybody anyway. It’s for Trudy, otherwise I would never consider it. But now you want me to take it easy on an ex-Marine? Sorry. That’ll be up to him. He takes it easy, he lays down, he’ll be all right. He takes it hard… Well, I’m not going in the casket for him. And I can’t imagine that’s what you’re asking me to do. Right?”
Briefly, it occurred to Luke how many times he asked people to put everything on the line, to do the nearly impossible, to possibly sacrifice themselves. He thought back to the kid, Sommelier, the Army Ranger who had died on that yacht in Cuba. Luke had thought up the operation, and had put it together on the fly. He was trying to extract an Arab terrorist from Cuban waters. They had given him three grizzled Navy SEALs who had seen and done everything, and four green Rangers, the whole lot of them practically right out of high school. Luke was so focused on the goal, he hadn’t given much thought to the dangers, or the disparities in experience on his team. The operation was a total bust. The kid came back dead, and Luke came back empty-handed. Ed had been furious with Luke after that.
“Luke?” Ed said.
>
As far as anyone knew, Luke was working directly for the President of the United States. Ed Newsam and Mark Swann were high-level operatives, on loan to Luke from the agencies where they worked. He had convinced them to help him break an inmate out of federal prison, a person implicated in the assassination of the previous President.
Luke nodded without hesitation. “Of course you’re right. If he plays it that way, we have to stop him.”
And now, he had just given Ed the green light to murder an ex-Marine and current Department of Corrections officer, an American citizen. Luke was all the way out there, outside the law, outside of any boundaries that made sense.
Ed nodded in kind. “Good. Then let’s go do this thing.”
* * *
The inmate transfer area was inside the gates of the prison.
They brought Trudy out into the warm night. The parking area was a concrete canyon, surrounded by the prison building on three sides, and a guard gate topped with razor wire on the fourth. Harsh lights shone down from all sides. A black van waited, its headlights on, its engine running.
Trudy wore her orange prison jumpsuit. Her hair was pulled into a tight braid, and her wrists were shackled behind her back. She wore slippers with no shoelaces. She was so limp, she nearly had to be supported by the guards who moved her along. They were moving her to the DC Municipal lockup? She would never survive in there.
At first, Trudy thought the transfer had to be a mistake. Why would they transfer her from a federal detention facility to a poorly run and dangerous city one? In the past twenty minutes, she had gradually become aware of an idea. At first, she rejected it, but now she recognized it as the truth. They weren’t moving her because of a court appearance. They were moving her to punish her, to break her once and for all. But they didn’t have to break her. She was already broken.
She felt feverish, delirious. Goose bumps popped up on her skin.
She wasn’t cut out for this! She wasn’t a prisoner! She was an intelligence analyst. She worked for a secret arm of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She had gone to MIT, for God’s sake.
Figdor was one of the guards bringing her out. Figdor had been in on the contraband search as Trudy passed out of the prison. Figdor was enjoying this, on the one hand. On the other hand, maybe Figdor was sorry to see Trudy go.
Trudy had an idea, one last-ditch chance to save herself. She addressed the guard by her first name.
“Emma,” she said, her voice shaking.
Figdor’s eyebrows raised. “What did you just call me?”
“Emma,” Trudy said again. “They want me to talk. That’s why they’re doing this. They’re trying to break me. I’ll talk. I’ll tell them everything. But I only want to talk to you. They can videotape it.”
Figdor’s head shook. “Well, that’s flattering, but I’m afraid it’s too late. Orders are orders. You’re going to go to hell for a little while, and then maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll come on back here. Then we’ll talk all you want. You’ll be a changed woman by then, maybe not quite so stuck up.”
A guard came around from the front of the van. He was tall and broad. He wore a different uniform from the prison guards. He looked more like a police officer or a US marshal than a guard. Also unlike the guards, he stood ramrod straight, with military bearing, the way Don Morris used to stand every moment of his life.
A brief image of Don flitted across Trudy’s mind. Why was she protecting him? He had brought her to this, with no concern for her welfare, and besides, he was already a dead man. A dead man walking.
“I’ll talk!” Trudy shouted. “I’ll talk!”
The van guard took her from the prison guards. He guided her to the back steps of the van.
“Duck your head,” he said.
“I’ll talk!” she screamed.
Behind her, she heard Figdor laughing. “The girl’s gone insane, I guess.”
The guard sat her down on a bench along one wall of the van. He quickly looped a chain around her wrist shackles and secured her to the bench. Then he bent and shackled her ankles to the bottom. He pulled a shoulder strap from the wall and pulled it tight around her, just like the seatbelt in a car. Unlike Figdor, he was all business.
When he stood, she saw the name on his breast. FORTGANG.
“We’ve got a thirty-minute ride,” he said. “Maybe forty minutes. We’re going to go real gentle, and if you relax, you should be comfortable back here. We’ve got a listening device in here and speaker up front, so if you have any trouble, give us a shout and we’ll do what we can. In most cases, the best thing we can do is get you to the next facility as quickly as possible. Do you understand?”
“Am I going to be alone back here?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want to be alone in the back of this van, shackled to this bench, in the dark.
“Fortgang, I’m willing to talk.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that. I’m not authorized to accept any information from you. I’m just here to get you safely to your destination.”
Trudy watched as the man exited the van, then slammed the door behind him, leaving her in near total darkness. As she sat, she heard the lock slide home on the outside of the door. She began to cry silently, tears streaming down her face.
A moment later, the van started moving.
* * *
“Where are they?” Luke said.
Swann’s voice came over the three-way network he had set up for them. Luke had him in the Bluetooth device tucked behind his ear. It was funny. When it was just Luke and Swann, the sound was perfect. Now that it was a three-way, it sounded like Swann was speaking from the bottom of a tin can.
“They just left the prison. I have them on satellite. I’m getting a lag between the video and the GPS. The camera is four or five seconds behind.”
“Can you fix it?” Luke said.
“I can improve it, but I’d have to simplify my location. Right now this signal is bouncing all over the world before it gets to me. But I’m not going to reveal myself on this satellite. No, thank you.”
“Okay, okay. Where are they now?”
“They’re moving southwest toward the highway, parallel to you and three blocks to your left. Ed?”
“I’m here.”
“They’re coming your way. They’re about to enter the feeder road that goes to the highway. If they get past you, then they’re up the ramp and headed toward the city. Everything becomes a whole lot harder then.”
Luke could almost feel Ed’s smirk over the cell network. “They won’t get past me, Swann. I wouldn’t worry yourself about that.”
Swann ignored him. “Luke, if you’re planning to join this party, you want to cut east at the next intersection. That’s a left, if you’re wondering.”
“I know where east is,” Luke said.
“You want to do it in a hurry. Go three long blocks and fall in behind them. Fast. They’re already past you.”
“Past me?” Luke got a sinking feeling. How did they get past him?
“It’s the delay. It’s hard to reconcile. Uh… go fast. Now!”
Luke was driving down a long industrial road with warehouses, junkyards, and parking lots of various kinds. There was no one out here with him. He pressed the accelerator, slowly but firmly. The car took off down the straightaway.
He screamed left at the next red light, tires shrieking across the pavement. He floored the pedal now, the car feeling right for the first time. He checked the speedometer. 100… 110… 125.
This was a car that wanted to go.
A black police cruiser was parked behind a billboard, crouched quietly like a spider waiting for its prey. It was the kind of fast car police forces confiscated in drug busts, then kept for their own use. It had a smoked windshield. Smoked side windows. It had speed trap written all over it.
Luke blew past it, saw it there out of the corner of his eye.
He waited
a beat, hoping against hope that what he knew was about to happen, wasn’t about to happen.
Luke took another turn, a screaming right.
Behind him, the police interceptor lurched into the roadway, turned left, hit its sirens and its flashers, and accelerated into pursuit.
“Damn it!”
“What is it, Luke?”
“Swann, I’ve got a police car behind me. What can you do about that?”
“What can I do about it?”
“Yes.”
“Like what, you want me to launch a missile at it?”
Luke shook his head. The cop was his problem, not Swann’s. “How far is the van?”
“You are eight blocks behind them. They’re moving about forty-five miles per hour. At your speed, you’ll be on them in about one minute. Which is about when they’re going to cross paths with Ed.”
“Ed?” Luke said.
“I’m here, man.”
“All systems go. Let me worry about the cop.”
“I wasn’t planning to worry.”
“Good.”
Luke had the accelerator floored. There was nowhere else to go with it. The Saab zoomed along like a rocket—140… 145 now. The double yellow line was a blur. Buildings zipped by. He could see the van up ahead. Its taillights shone bright as it stopped briefly for a blinking red light.
Luke glanced in his mirror. This car was fast. The cop was faster. Even at these speeds, the cop was gaining on him.
What to do, what to do?
* * *
Robert Lynn was tired. He was just concentrating, trying to keep his eyes open at this point.
Working the overnight shift didn’t agree with him. All these weird little last-minute inmate transfers—they happened every night. It found him driving long distances on dark highways, often with dangerous felons in the back. He always had someone riding shotgun with him, but still… a lot of these bad guys had friends out in the world. What if those friends somehow got the news that their buddy was out of jail and lightly guarded?
