“It’ll be fine,” he said. “It would be damned near impossible to stage an attack on the road to Mueller, especially with such short notice.”
“You really believe it’s all going to be as simple as what we’ve been told?” Ryan asked. “And that the military just happened to send a plane to collect us afterward?”
Pete couldn’t meet Ryan’s eyes, mostly because he’d wondered the same thing. Were they being set up here? Walking right into a trap, the fall guys if Clyde’s followers did manage to help him escape? Did the government assume that there was going to be a rescue attempt?
If they did, why hadn’t they sent a crew with better weapons and training? National Guard shouldn’t have been entrusted with this sort of mission—unless they were expected to fail.
“The trip from here to Muerte will be the last chance to free Clyde from his date with a needle full of poison,” Ryan said grimly.
The vehicle hit another pothell, followed by more curses, but Pete kept his mouth shut. Lead by example. It was something his father had taught him. The idea that there were two plans in place—the legitimate one, and an illegitimate one aimed at helping Clyde escape—was not something he wanted to think about. They just needed to get Clyde to Mueller and then get back to Anchorage in time for their flight. That was the mission.
That was the only thing he should have his attention on.
Ryan jerked and then brought out his cell phone. “Whoa, brother. Look at this.”
He held the phone in front of Pete to show him footage of several of the flooded areas in New York, and then the camera panned the sky. The sky looked weird. Ominous. Like aliens might come boiling down into the atmosphere at any second. Pete’s phone had died hours ago and there were no charging stations available when they were clearing debris. Since he wasn’t expecting anyone to try to get a hold of him, it hadn’t been a problem. It did mean he hadn’t seen the footage yet.
The footage didn’t look good.
They hit yet another pothell—a big one, this time—and Ryan said, “Fuck me,” and pulled out a food bar. “It might be time to sneak into Canada, find myself a nice little patch of wilderness, and settle down.”
Pete laughed. “Shelia would love that.”
“So long as I’m prepared to snowshoe in her forty pairs of shoes, she’ll be good to go.”
“I’m sure.”
Ryan took a bite of the food bar, chewed it a few times, then tucked it into his cheek. “You know what gets me?”
“What?”
“I swear thirty of those pairs are black. How many black shoes does a person need?”
“Well…” Pete used his fingers to count off as he said, “There are casual, dressy, evening, cocktail, glamor, sports.”
Ryan snorted. They’d had this same discussion many times, and there was comfort to be found in repetition. “Have you heard from Theresa?” he asked.
“No.” And thank God for that. Having his heart torn out of his chest and shoved into a trash compactor once was more than enough for Pete. No one could accuse him of not learning from his mistakes.
He twisted on the bench to stare out the window to avoid any further questions in that direction, and—despite his earlier decision—allowed his mind to touch on the mission again. He felt sick with nerves, and that didn’t happen to him very often.
Alaska. There were small patches where man had staked a claim, surrounded by beautiful, wild, and unforgiving wilderness. And there were areas where man had no foothold whatsoever. Areas that were still completely, dangerously wild. Pete’s imagination supplied the aroma of fresh pine on sharp, cold air over the less appealing reality of men in need of a shower. The drive to Mueller was one of those roads where man barely had a foothold.
Mueller Max was an almost poetic choice on the president’s part. Clyde had been captured in New York, an iconic American city and pillar of achievement and civilization—the same civilization Clyde sought to destroy. It was fitting that he would die in the isolated wild, in a place far from where he’d committed his crimes.
In a place where the audience he craved would be smaller. Nearly minuscule.
Chapter 2
Anchorage Correctional Facility looked like every other prison Pete had ever seen—plain, functional architecture; guard towers at regular intervals; and the requisite razor-wire-topped fencing. Pete checked his watch, pleased to note that the trip had only taken twenty minutes. They were ahead of schedule, even if it was only by a little.
They pulled up to the gate, waited while their bona fides were verified, and entered. The quake hadn’t done much damage out here, which was good. Removing Clyde from a crumbling facility would only make for extra complications.
Before they went inside, Pete took one last look at the clouds over the mountains. He could only hope that whatever storm was forming would hold off until they made it to Mueller, or they’d be hopelessly delayed. And the last thing he wanted was to be on the road to Mueller when some atmospheric disaster struck.
One thing at a time. First, they had to get in and out of ACF without incident. He was edgy as hell, nearly jumping at any movement he caught in the corner of his eye. Forget the road to Mueller, he thought. Clyde’s followers could stage an attack here at ACF, too. They needed to be on their toes, starting now.
A guard escorted them inside, and Pete started to feel marginally more relaxed, but only marginally. They passed through a corridor and into a central open area in a move Pete found stupid. But since no one had asked his opinion, he kept his pie hole shut. It felt like showmanship, like the superintendent needed to prove to them he ran a tight ship. Pete would have preferred that none of the prisoners know his unit was there. Ideally, they would have collected Clyde behind the scenes.
Being so out in the open meant that too many people knew they were here. And that was just asking for a problem.
Scoping the layout, he saw that the inmates were all in their cells, many of them peering through the narrow windows in their blue doors. It was silent at first, but then suddenly, the men began slapping their hands against the windows. And maybe it was his imagination, but it felt like there was malice beaming through the narrow apertures, becoming focused into something dangerous.
Get your act together, man, he scolded himself. The prisoners were locked behind steel doors. What harm could they possibly do to him or his unit?
One of the guards bellowed at the prisoners to knock it off, and they stopped, the sounds becoming more of what Pete had expected—the murmur of conversation taking place behind closed doors.
Beyond those doors, everything was gray. Always gray. As a senior in high school, his shop teacher had taken their class on a tour of a prison, supposedly to show them possible career choices. Looking back, Pete thought it was probably meant as a deterrent to certain kids in the class. Those who’d already begun dabbling in crime. Everything had been gray in that facility, too. What was that, some sort of prison code? Thou must paint things gray, to keep the place as depressing as possible.
A tall, black-haired man in a fine blue suit entered the courtyard and headed straight for Pete, who was now standing several feet behind Captain Sadler. Sadler hated it when Pete, who was six-two to his five-five, stood beside him—which was why Pete strode right up and stuck out his hand, thereby beating Sadler to the punch.
There was too much at stake for petty grievances right now, he thought. Latoa, he remembered. That was the superintendent’s name.
“Excuse me, I’m captain here.” Sadler did his best to shoulder Pete out of the way and extended his hand toward the superintendent.
Pete was gratified to see that his neck had turned red. Sure sign that the guy was pissed.
“Welcome,” Latoa said. “Tragic, what’s happening on the East Coast. I’ll never understand the whole looting thing. The power goes out around here, and my first thought is to light a couple of candles and get some romance going with the wife, not run out and steal a TV. Not tear apart the
city where I live.”
“You and me both,” Sadler said. “Bunch of people destined for a place like this. What’s that old saying? Don’t shit where you eat?”
The superintendent looked sad, but brightened right away. “I took the liberty of arranging a meal for you and your men. After I learned you’d been pulled away from cleaning up our fair city, I thought it was the least I could do. They’ve been working you boys hard, from what I understand.”
Pete started to say something along the lines of “Thanks but no thanks, we’re on a tight timeline,” but Sadler talked over him. “That is mighty hospitable. You can’t imagine how a man tires of military rations.”
“Sir, may I talk to you for a moment?” Pete muttered.
“If you have something to say, Lieutenant, you can say it to me here.” Sadler gave Latoa a smarmy smile. “We’re all government servants, after all.”
Pete clenched his teeth. “Staying here a minute longer than necessary is a bad idea. Did you see the clouds over the mountains? We’re already on a tight timeline. If we have to drive to Mueller and back in a snowstorm, we won’t make our flight.”
“He’s always such a mother hen,” Sadler said to Latoa. He turned to Pete, his smile turning icy. “And since when did you become an expert on the weather, Lieutenant?”
Pete felt like he was caught in one of those weird, repetitive dreams he sometimes had. The ones where he was late but couldn’t remember where he was supposed to be. Sadler had always been mildly incompetent, but it seemed like he’d chosen this mission to ramp it up to complete incompetence.
“I grew up in Anchorage, sir. I know the weather around here.”
“Welcome home,” Latoa said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had a plane to catch. I’d heard they grounded air traffic at ANC.”
“They have,” Pete said. “Command is sending a military transport back for us, but with everything going on, they’re on a tight timeframe.”
“I’m assuming Command won’t let the plane leave without us,” Sadler said. “Otherwise, it would be a wasted trip. Those guys always like to have everyone jumping to their tune.”
Pete wanted to roar with frustration, or at least quote one of his father’s favorite sayings—When you assume, it makes an ass out of you and me—but settled for, “Yes, sir.”
Clearly, it hadn’t occurred to Sadler that Command had bigger pieces of meat on the grill, and despite the president’s involvement in the David Clyde situation, Sadler had decided not to give two shits about whether one unit of National Guards got stuck in Anchorage, experienced or not.
To make matters worse, he could see that Latoa, who’d been thinking he would let them go more quickly, was swayed by Sadler’s logic.
“I thought I’d have you and your second dine with me in my office,” Latoa said, confirming Pete’s thought. “There’s a table set up in the dining hall for your men.”
“Sounds good to me,” Sadler answered, glaring at Pete as though daring him to comment further.
“And don’t worry about the prisoners.” Latoa directed this statement at Pete. “They’ll stay in their cells until you leave with your cargo.”
Pete grimaced. Had his worry been that obvious?
And beyond that…. Wouldn’t staying in their cells mean they were locked up for longer than they were supposed to be? Was that strictly kosher? Weren’t their rules governing the treatment of prisoners?
Then he decided he couldn’t worry about every damned thing. Besides, the men housed in Anchorage Correctional hadn’t ended up in there for performing good deeds.
Walking beside Captain Sadler, Pete followed Superintendent Latoa out of the open central area.
Latoa led them down another corridor, looked over his shoulder, and said, “We’ll make a brief stop on the way. I’ve got him separated from Gen Pop for obvious reasons, but I thought you’d like to take a boo at the notorious David Clyde.”
Take a boo? The sense that Pete was caught up in a dream grew, but he continued to follow Latoa, though he did pinch himself just to make sure he was, indeed, awake. It was possible he’d fallen asleep on the transport. Ryan would bust his balls and tell him he’d been snoring and farting, and they’d have a laugh.
But the pinch stung, and no matter what BS he told himself to the contrary, he knew he wasn’t dreaming.
They moseyed along like Clyde wasn’t the most dangerous man in America, or like another aftershock wouldn’t hit, or like there wasn’t a storm forming over the only road to their destination, or like they didn’t have a plane to catch in just over five hours. They moseyed until they came to a hallway where the cells were the old-fashioned kind, with bars on the front. Latoa led them past one, two, three empty cells until, finally, they came to one that was occupied.
David Clyde. Sandy brown hair, square jaw, average height, and slim build. Pete’s father would have called him a celery stick of a man. But there was nothing average about Clyde. His light brown eyes radiated intelligence, even while they exhibited the same flatness Pete had seen in a great white’s eyes as it swam around in a tank at the San Francisco Aquarium. There was danger there, yes. And an absolute lack of humanity that told him exactly what sort of man this was.
Well, Pete wasn’t going to engage with him. There was no point. His IQ had Pete’s beat by more than he cared to think about.
Clyde, who’d been standing when they showed up, smirked and crossed his arms. “Showing off your prized possession, Superintendent?”
Somehow, he managed to make the word “superintendent” sound more like “shit eater.”
“Hard to believe you still think you have the upper hand, Mr. Clyde, considering where you’re standing,” Latoa said, though he looked deflated and a little shocked to have been called out so blatantly.
“We’ll see how long that lasts,” Clyde said. “I’m thinking it won’t be too long before our roles are reversed.”
Sadler stepped close to the bars. “Watch yourself, boy. Respect your betters.”
“When I meet them, I’ll be sure to do that,” Clyde countered.
Pete wanted to haul Sadler back and give him a good shake for handing over what little authority they possessed before the journey had even begun.
Before he could, Clyde sprang forward and shouted, “Boo!”
Sadler scrambled back, nearly tripping over his own feet.
If smirking were an Olympic event, Clyde would certainly have won the gold medal. Pete wished he could set his features to contain so much disdain. It would have come in handy when he and Theresa were parting ways. Clyde was staring Sadler down like it was nothing, and Sadler’s neck was going pink, then red, then a flaming scarlet.
He would have been embarrassed for Sadler. If he’d cared about the man at all.
“Okay. That’s enough. We should get to our meal,” Latoa said.
“You’re going to be the first one,” Clyde said to Sadler.
Pete knew Sadler would ask, and wanted to clap his hand over his captain’s mouth, wanted to save the man from himself, but stayed in place, watching the scene unfold exactly as he knew it would.
“First what?” Sadler said.
“First one I kill.”
“Big words for a man behind bars,” Sadler said.
Clyde smiled, and it was diabolic. There was no other word for it. Then he turned his eyes on Pete. “We’ll see about you. I can’t decide if you’ll be slow or quick.”
Latoa finally started walking, continuing along a corridor that had a cement wall on the left and barred cells on the right. Only when they’d passed through the door between that cellblock and the next, and only when Pete had heard the door latch close, did he release the breath from his lungs. Latoa led them to an elevator and held his thumb against the fingerprint scanner, and the doors slid open. They got on, the doors closed, and the elevator moved slowly upward.
At that point, Pete decided to stop caring whether he pissed Sadler off or not.
“T
his is why we need to put Clyde on the transport and get moving, sir,” he said. “He’s dangerous. The whole situation is dangerous. Men with bellies full of hot food get sleepy and sloppy.”
“Jesus Christ, Marshall,” Sadler said. “I have never known you to be such a chickenshit.”
Latoa looked like he finally realized he’d made a mistake and was trying to figure out how to undo it while still saving face. He started to speak, changed his mind, and turned it into a cough.
“There is no way in hell the Army boys would have stayed for dinner,” Pete said. He almost added “sir,” but thought, Fuck that. He was through giving this man that sort of respect. “First and foremost, they would have completed their mission.”
Sadler stepped into Pete’s space and glared up into his face. “This is insubordination, pure and simple. If you’re not careful, I’ll report you.”
“I think you should, but know that while you’re doing that, I’ll be reporting you to someone else,” Pete said, too furious to stop himself. “For dereliction of duty. When the inquiry board starts interviewing the men, whose side do you think they’ll be on?”
That knocked Sadler down a peg or two. He was an asshat, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. He knew the men disliked him.
The elevator opened and they stepped off.
“If you don’t mind, Superintendent Latoa,” Pete said, “I’m going to go eat with my men.”
“I’ll call a guard to take you to them,” Latoa said.
“Thank you, sir,” Pete said.
When they arrived, Pete saw that Latoa’s office was utilitarian, though an effort had been made to set a fancy table. Like we’re in some five-star restaurant, he thought, and stopped himself from shaking his head with disgust.
A huge Asian dude who looked like he could tear Pete in half without breaking a sweat showed up and told Pete he’d take him to the dining hall.
Pete thanked him, barely stifling a snort. For a huge guy, he had an unexpectedly high voice.
When Pete arrived at the dining hall, Ryan gave him a knowing look. Most of the men looked antsy, but a few seemed to have embraced the idea that this whole thing was a cocked-up joyride. Osborn, especially. He was just a kid, really, and he already looked like he was having too much fun.
Stone Cold Fear | Book 1 | Powerless Page 2
