The Cost of Commitment - KJ2

by Lynn Ames

  She held up a hand for quiet, taking a moment to scan the crowd surreptitiously. Two national news reporters from ABC and CBS were present, along with Wanda Nelson from America’s Heartbeat and an anchor from CNN. By the red light on one of the cameras and the nearby satellite truck, she knew her press conference was being covered live.

  Wendy Ashton was in the second row of reporters, along with print journalists from the New York Times, the Post, the Daily News, the

  Buffalo News, and Newsday. Radio stations like WBEN and WBUF in Buffalo were also represented.

  The Cost of Commitment

  “First of all, let me say that our main concern is for the safety of all individuals involved, both civilian and inmates.” She added the last knowing that television sets on the tiers were no doubt tuned to CNN and interested prisoners were watching.

  “There are no reports of any casualties at the moment, and we’d like to keep it that way. Nor are there any hostages that we are aware of. Our count of correction officers, administrative personnel, and others is still underway, but so far there is no reason to believe that there are any hostages in this situation.”

  “Who’s unaccounted for?”

  “No one is unaccounted for, per se,” she answered, “but you have to recognize that there are folks who leave once their shift is over, and we are running a thorough check to make sure that all third-shift personnel have been accounted for.

  “Here’s the situation as it exists right now: There are a number of inmates in each of the four recreation yards who are congregating, burning materials in the centers of the yards, destroying guard stations.

  All officers have been safely evacuated from the yards. There are also several small, containable fires burning on several of the galleries—the hallways on some of the tiers inside the blocks.”

  “Not to ask a stupid question, Kate, but what’s a tier?”

  “Trust me, I’ve heard worse.” She smiled at the young reporter with a microphone flag she recognized as belonging to one of the Buffalo radio stations. “A tier is a unit within a block. There are five blocks in the prison, lettered A through E. Each inmate is assigned to a block, a tier, and a cell on that tier.” She looked at the reporter kindly. “Does that help?”

  He nodded gratefully.

  “Will you be calling in the national guard? Is this going to be a repeat of 1971?”

  “I want to emphasize that the facility is under control. What happened in 1971 was tragic both for those directly involved and the nation as a whole. But this is not 1971, and any comparisons to what transpired on that sad occasion would be completely erroneous and irresponsible.”

  “Are there talks going on with the inmates? What do they want?”

  There would be no negotiations, Kate knew, only the discussions with the Inmate Liaison Committee, or ILC, to try to bring an end to the situation. Actual negotiations, which could include giving in to inmate demands, were tantamount to sending the message that negative behavior would garner positive results. It was against agency policy.

  The inmates, of course, were unaware of the policy. If they became aware of it, the situation might escalate. So, mindful of that portion of her audience behind bars, Kate answered carefully, “The Hyland Lynn Ames

  administration intends for there to be a peaceful resolution to this situation, and, to that end, all viewpoints are being heard. It would be premature at this time to release any more information than that.” She looked at her watch purposefully. “I will be back out to update you at the top and bottom of every hour for as long as it is necessary. It is,” she looked at her watch one more time, “5:34 a.m. I’ll see you at 6:00.”

  Jay stretched and rolled over. As tired as she was, she was having difficulty sleeping, even though it was still full dark outside. She looked at her luminescent watch. 4:47 a.m. That meant that it was 6:47 at home.

  She would give Kate another half hour or so to sleep and then call her.

  She rolled over herself and fell back into a fitful sleep.

  At 5:35 a.m., Jay was awakened by the medicine woman. She was drenched in sweat, and it took her a moment to focus.

  “Are you all right, my child?”

  Jay felt as though she’d been in a prize fight—her body ached and she felt remnants of an inexplicable fear. She tried to shake off the feeling.

  “I’m fine—just a nightmare, that’s all.” She thought with a pang of Kate, who was always there to soothe her after a bad dream. Perhaps she could call her now.

  “If you want to watch the process of refining the materials for the sacred paintings, you need to come.”

  “Now?” Jay looked longingly at the phone by the side of the bed.

  “Yes, right now. Nature waits for no one.”

  Reluctantly, Jay stumbled out the door, pulling her jacket on as she went.

  Kate checked her watch. 7:17 a.m. She had only been on-site for a little over two hours, but it felt as though she’d been there for days. As she prepared to go provide the media with a fifth update, Randy Garston strode into the office.

  “How’s it going?”

  “As crises with wide press coverage go, not too badly, I guess. I’ve been monitoring the coverage on CNN and it looks fairly balanced, not too hysterical.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen some snippets here and there. You’re doing a nice job. Not bad for a rookie.”

  “Gee, better be careful—glowing praise like that could give a girl a swelled head.”

  “I’ll try to tone it down more next time.”

  “Anything new?”

  The Cost of Commitment

  “Nah, it seems like we’re at a stalemate. Don’t worry, they’ll get hungry and tired eventually and give in.”

  “Glad to see your confidence.”

  “Happens every time.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for that.” She glanced at her watch again.

  “I’ve got to go feed the piranhas. Wish me luck.”

  “You don’t need any luck, Kate. You’re a pro. And if I haven’t said it before, it’s a pleasure working with you.”

  “Thanks, Randy, I appreciate that. I feel the same way.”

  At roughly the same time Kate was conversing with the deputy commissioner for operations, a large group of inmates was congregating near Times Square in the D block recreation yard. The smallest of the inmates addressed the crowd. “Okay, it’s 7:12. We’ve got exactly six minutes to accomplish this, so let’s get it done quickly and done right.

  Everybody clear on their instructions?”

  “Got it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s get to it.”

  “Go!”

  Within seconds, six of the inmates had formed a human stepladder, enabling eight more to climb onto the flat roof of Times Square. A CERT

  team member in the corner tower of D yard, realizing what was happening, fired a warning shot just as the inmates reached the five men guarding the roof. He aimed to take a second shot, but was forced to hold his fire or risk hitting his own men.

  The sergeant, two officers, and two CERT team members were outmanned, overpowered, and knocked unconscious in less than the time it took the tower guards to sound the alarm. One of the inmates relieved the sergeant of a set of keys. The others collected the officers’ weapons.

  The eight inmates, staying low and using the officers as shields, reached one of the stairwells leading from the roof down into Times Square. Using the pilfered keys, they unlocked the door and disappeared inside the building.

  The next-to-last man in line dragged the sergeant with him toward the stairwell.

  “Leave him, Zack. He ain’t the target. We don’t have time.”

  As Zack opened his mouth to protest, the inmate in charge called,

  “Let it be, Zack. We’ve got to move.”

  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, the inmates used a separate key from the sergeant’s ring to unlock the door, giving them access to the main part of Times Sq
uare.

  Lynn Ames

  “Wait,” one of them hissed, just before they opened the door from the stairwell. Through the narrow glass, they could see the officer on duty unlock the B block corridor door and admit Kate to Times Square.

  As she began to make her way over the broken glass, the inmates burst out of the stairwell. Three of them headed directly for the officer, neutralizing him and taking his keys. The other five inmates went directly for their main target.

  Before she was even aware what was happening, two of the inmates lunged for her, twisting her arms painfully behind her back and putting her in a headlock. Instinctively, Kate kicked out, nailing a third inmate in the shins with her high-heeled shoe.

  “Bitch,” he shouted, punching her as hard as he could in the stomach.

  The air rushed out of Kate’s lungs, leaving her gasping for breath.

  Still, she bit down fiercely on the arm against her windpipe, prompting a howl from behind her and a momentary loosening of the grip. Desperate to break free, she struggled against the arms that still held hers roughly.

  A fist swam into her field of vision, making contact with her face before she had a chance to raise an arm in self-defense. Her eyes watered as bolts of fire lanced through her jaw and cheekbone. Her legs began to buckle, but, stubbornly, she refused to go down.

  A second fist, this one as large as a ham, caught her in the temple.

  Her head felt as if it would explode. Another landed a blow to her other cheek, and her vision blurred. Still, she stayed on her feet, unwilling to give up. One of her assailants used a baton on her midsection, and she felt her ribs crack. Before long, she lost count of how many times she’d been hit, finally surrendering to the pain and going limp.

  “I say we finish the bitch right here,” said Zack, who was nursing the bite marks in his arm.

  “Yeah, right here,” echoed Antoine, a strapping mountain of a man who was rubbing his shin.

  “No,” barked Ahmed Kumar, the leader of the group. “We are to take her back to the tier. Now!”

  With a considerable amount of grumbling, one of the inmates used the officer’s key to unlock the door to D block.

  “Wait!” One of the other inmates stepped forward. “Why don’t we just get out of here altogether? We’ve got the keys to all the blocks—let’s use the one for A block. It leads to the admin building. We could get out that way.”

  “This is probably why you wound up here in the first place, you moron. You can only get as far as the end of the corridor in A block. The entrance to the administration building is controlled by a guard on the other side of the door. You couldn’t get through.”

  “Oh.”

  The Cost of Commitment

  “Now let’s get moving. We don’t have time to waste.”

  The group proceeded through the entranceway to D block, two of them dragging the semiconscious woman by the arms behind them.

  Although Kate could hear their voices, she could not concentrate long enough to make out the words. She tried to summon the energy to pull away, but her battered limbs would not cooperate.

  “When we reach the tier,” Kumar instructed, “you three will take the lead in neutralizing the guards before we bring her onto the gallery.” He pointed at the three largest inmates. “I want the keys to the lock box, and I don’t want any screwups. Understand? This has to be timed right. By now they know something’s going on, so they’ll be scrambling to get extra guards into position. We have to hurry.”

  The plan went like clockwork. Within three minutes of their exit from Times Square, the inmates had managed to disable the three officers on their tier and use their keys to access the lock box that controlled the locks on all forty-two cells on the floor.

  “Put the guards in the cell farthest from the go-round. I don’t want them anywhere near a way out. We’ll throw her in my cell, right in the center of the floor.”

  “I thought we were supposed to kill her,” Antoine said.

  “We will do this my way. Got it?” Kumar shouted, wiping sweat from his eyes.

  Antoine seemed as though he might argue the point, but instead he threw Kate’s limp body over his shoulder and carried her halfway down the tier before throwing her down on the thin mattress in Kumar’s cell.

  When he stepped outside the small space, the door to the cell closed and locked behind him electronically.

  The three unconscious officers were unceremoniously tossed in a cell at the end farthest from the one point of entry on the tier.

  Randy Garston’s walkie-talkie crackled to life less than two minutes after Kate had left the office.

  “Attempted breach on Times Square roof. Warning shot fired, can’t risk taking a second.”

  “Officers down, officers down!”

  “Subjects are headed for Times Square. Access to stairwells achieved.

  Building insecure.”

  Garston whipped the communication device off his belt. “Potential hostage situation. Alert CERT teams to stand by with CS gas to take out Times Square on my order. Is there any answer from the officer in Times Square?”

  “No, sir.”

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  On a separate channel he paged the assistant commissioner for operations. “Monroe, I need to know if Kate Kyle is out front briefing the reporters. I want a visual confirmation right away.”

  He ran his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair, sitting down heavily in a chair at the small conference table. He tried to calculate exactly how much time had passed since Kate had left the room. Perhaps she had made it out front before the inmates arrived.

  “Mr. Garston, sir? The PIO has not been seen outside the gate.”

  “Are you positive?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay.”

  He thought for a second, flicked to yet another channel, and keyed the mic. “CERT team leaders, report to the sergeant’s office, B block. Stat!”

  Before he had even finished giving the order, he could hear the sound of footsteps pounding in the hallway outside the small office. The steps stopped abruptly and there was a knock on the door.

  “Come.”

  “Mr. Garston, sir.”

  Five fully armed, battle-dressed CERT team leaders poured into the room.

  “Sit down, everybody, and let’s see where we are.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tense energy and the smell of sweat permeated the close space.

  “First, is there anything definitive on Ms. Kyle? Has anyone seen or heard from her?”

  “No, sir. We’re checking to see who might have seen her last.”

  Garston suspected he knew the answer to that question: he had.

  “What’s the status of the officers from the Times Square roof?”

  “They are being evaluated presently, sir. Possible concussions and some broken bones. Maybe a dislocated kneecap. Everybody accounted for there.”

  “What about their weapons?”

  “Sir, the eight inmates involved took the keys to the stairwells, two shotguns, two batons, a set of handcuffs, and three sets of flexicuffs.”

  “Was anybody able to identify the inmates?”

  “The CERT guys in the tower were from Elmira, sir. They were unfamiliar with the inmates and thus unable to make an ID.”

  “Okay. I want a tier-by-tier report from each of the blocks. I want to know where those inmates are, and I want to know it yesterday. Are there any stations that haven’t reported in? Do we have anybody other than the PIO and the officer inside Times Square unaccounted for?”

  “We’re checking now, sir.”

  The Cost of Commitment

  Garston bit his lower lip. Every second that went by reduced Kate’s and the officer’s chances of being safely out of harm’s way. He needed answers quickly. Nodding to himself, he said, “I want two teams in position around Times Square. Send the gas in, extricate anyone if there’s anyone in there. I also want the videotape from the control room.”

 
“But sir, don’t you want to send in the Technical Services Unit first to do reconnaissance?”

  Garston was irked at being second-guessed, especially since every moment he spent explaining reduced the hostage’s chances of survival.

  “First of all, Technical Services is en route and not yet on-site. Second, we don’t have time to wait. Third, your job is to follow orders, not to question them. Got me?”

  “Yes, sir,” all five men answered in unison, snapping to attention, pivoting on their heels, and hustling out of the room.

  Commissioner Redfield, who had been on his way in to the room, had to flatten himself against the doorway in order to save himself from being run over. “What have you got?”

  “Kate’s missing. I’m next to positive that she’s a hostage, or worse, but I don’t know where. The inmates gained access to Times Square as she was passing through, and no one has seen her since. The Times Square duty officer is also unaccounted for.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Has anyone told the press anything?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Okay. If she didn’t show up for her regular briefing, they’re going to start making up all kinds of stuff. I better go out there and say something.”

  “Bill, you might want to wait until we get the all clear from Times Square. I’ve got the boys dropping gas in there now.”

  “Jesus.”

  “If neither she, the officer, nor the inmates are in there, we need the videotape to figure out where they went. It’s the fastest way. You and I both know that if we don’t find Kate and the officer soon, their odds of survival are greatly diminished. I can only get the video from the control room on the other side of Times Square.”

  “Is Tech Services on the way?”

  “Yes, but they’re at least forty minutes out yet.”

  “Okay. Who do we have out with the media?”

  “I’ve got Monroe in the vicinity. He’s in the admin building. There are two state troopers out with the journalists making sure they behave.”

  “Can Monroe handle public speaking?”

  “Christ, I don’t know. He sure wouldn’t be my first choice.”

  Lynn Ames

  “Let’s just have him say that an update will be forthcoming in the very near future and ask the jerks to be patient.”