by Dylan Rust
“I don’t care what you did,” Worley said. “I’ve got a gift for you.”
“Gift?”
Worley opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a brown envelope that had a red stain. He opened it. “Courtesy of Igor,” he said. He grabbed what was inside.
He help it up.
It was a toe.
Jack screamed. He swelled with rage.
He knew who the tow belonged to.
Worley laughed. “He’s going to be sending you a piece every week. I could get him to slow the process down if you tell me how you cheated.”
Jack didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His could only think about one thing; grabbing Worley by the head and jamming his thumbs straight into the fat fuck’s head.
Worley pulled out a combat knife. He admired the blade.
The prison guards grabbed by his arms. They held him down.
“Igor ordered me to keep you alive,” he said. “Most people in this city want you dead. Isn’t that funny? The only man keeping you alive is perhaps the most evil man in the city. You’re lucky.” Worley walked toward Jack. “But there are all different kinds of alive. And you’re a dangerous motherfucker. I want to nueter you.”
One of the guards grabbed something from his pocket. Jack focused on the sound. It sounded like the guard had grabbed some sort of needle.
“You’re a killer Jack Spade,” Worley said. “I’m going to make you less effective. I’m going to cut off your trigger fingers.”
Jack’s jaw clenched. Enough was enough.
The guard reaching for the needle made his move. He pulled back the hand holding the needle and swung it at Jack’s neck.
It was time to end this.
Jack twisted out of the way of the needle. It grazed along his neck. While his wrists and ankles were still cuffed, restricting his ability to move, he was still quick and mobile enough to grab the guard’s hand holding the needle and twist it with enough force that the needle flung from the guard’s hand and shot across the small office into Worley’s fat neck.
The other guard reacted, hitting Jack with his electric baton. Jack took two hits. He ignored the pain.
Worley was shocked, he remained motionless. He fell back into chair. His eyes were fixated on the needle sticking out of his neck. Nothing had been injected, of course. Jack was about to fix that.
Jack used the momentum of the guard who was going to stab him with the needle and threw him into a filing cabinet. The guard’s body hit the cabinet causing it to knock over. Papers, documents, inmate files flew into the air. Jack took one more hit from the electric baton from the other officer. He then lept into the air, his ankles still joined by the cuffs, and kicked the guard in the chest with both of his feet, knocking the guard into the wall.
Worley’s shock faded. He pulled out his gun.
From the corner of his eye, Jack saw Worley’s actions. He couldn’t let Worley fire. If somehow Worley got a shot off, every guard on the floor would be rushing to the warden’s aid, alarms would go off, and the NYPD would be on their way.
The knife Worley was going to use to cut off Jack’s trigger fingers was on his desk. Jack picked it up while Worley aimed. He flicked the knife toward Worley.
The combat knife lodged itself in Worley’s chest. A stream of blood crept down his shirt.
Jack hobbled over to Worley and injected the needle into the fat warden’s neck. He then pulled out the combat knife and jabbed it into Worley’s skull.
The gun in Worley’s hand didn’t go off. Jack grabbed it and placed it on the desk.
He exhaled.
The guards had both collected themselves. They came at Jack in unison. One of the swung his fist, the other kicked.
Neither landed. Jack was too quick. He elbowed the officer who tried to punch him in the face, and wrapped his arm around the one who kicked’s neck. He counted to three. The guard passed out. Jack dropped him. The guard he’d elbowed was also passed out, too. Knocked unconscious from the force Jack’s bone.
Jack grabbed the keys to his cuffs and freed himself.
It was time to do what he should have done years ago.
It was time to break out of Rikers.
59
Rikers didn’t have much of a yard. Since the island only had a circumference of one hundred and sixty seven hectares, there wasn’t a lot of room. The yard it did have was small and designed only to give the inmates the state required minimum.
One of the guard’s on duty blew his whistle.
The inmates huddled in and formed one long, one hundred and twenty person line.
Roll call.
Their time out in the sun was over. Their morning reprieve from the dank, shadowy confines of the prison was complete.
The factions and gangs that segregated themselves upon entrance re-mingled into single file and waited for the two guards out in the yard with them to count them and haul them back inside.
Gunner spit on the ground. He’d heard the rumours. He didn’t believe them. But out on the yard, he heard the Russians talk.
Jack Spade was somewhere within Rikers.
Just thinking his name made Gunner’s blood boil. He’d stop at nothing to see Jack spit roasted like a pig. He fantasized about turning Jack into a pile of mush.
One of the guards performed roll call.
He looked at Gunner. The inmate wasn’t paying attention. “You got a problem, son?”
Gunner stared back at the guard. “No,” he said. He spit again. This time on the guard’s shoes.
The rest of the inmates leered over at Gunner. He’d told them he would do this. He’d told them to be ready.
“Now you’ve done it, son,” the guard said. He pulled his baton back and whacked Gunner across the temple. Gunner’s body twisted and fell onto the ground. The pain would be worth it, though.
As if on cue, one of the other inmates in the roll call line muttered, “Cut ‘em, cut ‘em, cut ‘em. Dice ‘em, dice ‘em, dice ‘em.”
Gunner rubbed his head and smiled. The two convicts ahead of him whispered to each other. Every now and then they would look at the guard who’d knocked Gunner over and smile. Other inmates were rolling up the sleeves of their orange jumpsuits.
“There’s a price for his head,” one of them said. He had a neck tattoo.
“When we find him, he’s mine,” a tall inmate yelled. He had a 666 carved into his forehead.
The riot was about to begin.
Gunner stood up, grabbed the guard by the collar and head butted the son of a bitch.
Almost immediately, whistles sounded and sirens blew. The guards in the watch towers aimed their weapons at the crowd of inmates who were scattering and fired. All hell had broken loose.
The guard Gunner had hit retaliated by whacking Gunner several more times with his baton. He was enraged. This piece of shit was going to die. He’d talk to Worley about this. Once he got the warden’s approval, he’d take this little shit down to the infirmary and break every bone in his body.
Gunner took the beating. The guard should’ve stopped while he was ahead. He didn’t see the group of inmats that had surrounded him. He didn’t see that the tables had quickly turned. He was too caught up in the moment, in making Gunner bleed.
One of the inmates grabbed hold of the guard by the arm. Another grabbed his throat. The two inmates pulled him onto his back and held him down on the snowy, muddy ground.
The guard realized the severity of the moment.
“Please,” he said. “Oh god, please! I have a wife. I have a kid. Please.”
It was too late. A big inmate, he was known as Ol’ Big Lady, stuck his fingers into the guard’s eye sockets and gouged both of them out.
Shots rang.
The inmates ran inside their detention center: Building Three.
The ones who remained outside, ran toward the towers, where the gunshots were coming from. They’d need the weapons.
Gunner got up, wiped the blood off his face. He made his w
ay into Building Three.
Six guards inside the building were running up the long hall toward the yard. When they saw the army of over one hundred crazed inmates running back inside, they turned around. The inmates were faster, though. They quickly caught up to the guards and beat them all to death.
Once they had their weapons, they made their way to the control room. That was where they’d be able to disable the lockdown system. That was where they’d be able to take this riot to the next level.
Gunner ran to the head of the pack. The emergency lights in the building had turned on. The hallways were a kaleidoscope of red and yellow. The sounds of gunfire echoed through the hall.
He opened the door to the control room entrance. They’d need a keycard to get in. He looked up at the security camera. The guards inside would be watching.
A few other inmates dragged a screaming guard from the yard over to the security camera. Gunner looked at the young woman, screaming, and then back up at the camera.
“Open or we kill her,” he said. If they couldn’t hear him, he made sure they would understand. He made a motion across his throat with his hand.
The woman cried.
The door opened.
The inmates stormed inside. Grabbed the two guards from the control room and dragged them out.
‘Take them to the lobby and gather as many keycards as you can,” Gunner said. “I’m going to disable what I can. Building Three is ours.”
The inmates cheered. The guards looked at each other and cried.
60
The CRKT M16 Law Enforcement Folding Knife was used by law enforcement around the globe. It could cut through seatbelt. It was built with a glass breaker tip and a rigid AutoLAWKS safety that made it a fixed blade when deployed. It was a very good knife.
Jack pulled the blade from Worley’s skull. He was all in now. He’d just murdered a prison warden. The asshole didn’t really give much of a choice, though.
He felt the teeth of the blade scape against Worley’s skull bone. A stream of blood burst out of the thin opening. Jack wiped the knife on Worley’s warden outfit. The bastard treated it more like a costume anyway.
He would need to get out of Rikers without anyone noticing. He figured he had less than an hour. From Jack’s past last stay on the island, he remembered that the Rikers warden regularly checked in with the assistant warden of management services, the deputy warden and the assistant wardon of correctional programs. Due to Jack’s meeting with Worley, he’d figure that the two assistants and deputy would be chomping at the bit to find out from the warden how their big catch was doing. They’d be expecting an update. If they didn’t receive one, they’d get suspicious.
Making matters worse, the warden’s office was in a building on the west side of the island. Building 2B stood atop the two solitary confinement detention centers. To get out he would have to go through the center of the island and go undetected by the over three thousand on-duty correctional staff. If he managed to do that, he’d have to convince the control building to let him onto Rikers Island Bridge. He’d need a vehicle, a permit, and a fucking good reason to be leaving. That was the most direct route off the island.
It was risky, but Jack didn’t have a lot of time.
The hallways in 2B were narrow and mostly empty, save for the odd administrative or custodial staff.
Jack couldn’t walk out in the halls dressed like a convict. He needed to go undercover. He undressed from his orange jumpsuit and put on the knocked out correctional officer’s uniform that was closest to his size. The uniform was too big in the waste and short in the leg, but it did the job.
Before leaving the warden’s office, he cuffed the two officers and stuffed them inside a closet and locked it. He stuffed a sock into each of their mouths and taped their mouths shut. He also grabbed Worley’s gun and his keychain. Worley’s gun was a Smith and Wesson 5946 DAO. Worley’s sweat still glistened on its grip. Like the blood from the combat knife, Jack wiped it off on Worley’s shirt. He put the gun in the inside pocket of his jacket.
He was ready.
He opened the door of warden’s office.
The hallway was empty, save for a janitor’s bucket and mop. The janitor was going from room to room. He’d have to hope that the janitor hated his job enough that he wouldn’t think twice if the warden’s office door was locked. He’d have to hope that the janitor would just move on to the next room and not ask any questions.
Jack left the office and locked it shut with the warden’s keys and walked down the freshly mopped hall. His correctional officer boots squeaked with each step. He was making too much noise.
The janitor poked his head out of the room he was cleaning.
He saw Jack.
Instead of panicking, Jack nodded and winked at the janitor.
The janitor was an old guy with a moustache and a big belly. His uniform was stained with black grit and there was an orange crust embedded within its fibers of yarn. When he saw Jack, herolled his eyes. Just another corrupt correctional officer, he thought. Working for the corrupt warden of this corrupt prison. He went back to mopping. He didn’t want to get caught up in Worley’s affairs. He just wanted to be back home in time for the Knicks.
Jack walked down the stairwell and opened the door to the ground floor.
Rikers office administrators were everywhere. They were scrambling.
An emergency?
Where?
Did they already know?
Jack grabbed the handle of the combat knife in his pocket. He watched everyone carefully. He tracked their eye movements. He needed to be ready. A short man with a bad comb over looked at him and rolled his eyes as he walked passed. Jack was clear. If they weren’t looking for him, they wouldn’t notice him.
“Hey you,” one of the clerks said. “You!”
Jack stopped.
A portly woman in an big yellow dress called him over to her desk. Her hair was curled and she had a big mole on her nose. She pushed her glasses up. “You the new guy?”
Jack walked over to her and nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Time to get your feet wet, son. There is riot.”
Administrators ran back and forth. Some were on the phone, some looking at their computer screens. The rest of them looked like they didn’t know what the hell to do. They looked scared.
“Hey, are you paying attention!?”
Jack looked at her name tag. Susan. He nodded.
“Talkative type, huh. Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “Worley knows how to pick ‘em. Look here.” She pointed at her monitor. “Like I was saying. There is a riot. A big one. Haven’t seen one like this years. Maybe ever.”
She had live feeds of a series of security cameras that were in detention building three, which was located in the center of the island. On one of the monitors a correctional officer’s body was lying on the ground, a shiv was sticking out of the poor bastard’s head. On another camera, the inmates had kicked down the door leading out of their cell block. They shouldn’t have been able to kick down that door. It should have been bolted shut, locked with a two-foot thick steel brick firmly implanted in the prison walls. But the door gave way. The steel bolt hadn’t been engaged.
“Why aren’t the doors in lockdown?” Jack said. “Were the steel bolts engaged?”
Susan looked at Jack with her big, buggy eyes. She pushed up her glasses, which were sliding down her greasy face. She smiled. “A smart one, huh? Maybe Worley is changing his hiring practices. Yeah, the cell blocks are in lock down. Or, at least, they’re supposed to be. The system says they are, but they’re not, as you can see. We don’t know what the heck is up!”
“Why are they rioting?”
“We don’t know,” Susan said. “Eduardo over here thinks it has something to do with that cop we brought in. What was his name? The one that was on the TV a few days ago.“
“Jack Spade,” Eduardo said. He was the bald man with the bad comb over. He gave Jack a funny look, but th
en turned away. There was no way it was him, he thought. The cop killer was in solitary.
“Right,” she said. “Anyway, we have four cell blocks rioting. That’s over one hundred killers, gangbangers, and scum about to break free from building three. If they get out, who know’s what they’ll do.”
Jack leaned over Susan. He looked at the live feeds. The rioting inmates had taken over sections of the D-Yard, and the two hallways leading out of cell block C. Three cameras had gone dark. Jack pointed them out.
“You’ve lost the control room,” Jack said.
“How do you know?” Susan looked at her live feeds. “Ah shoot,” she said. She picked up her phone and dialed the extension for the control room in building three.
It rang once.
“Hi, Burnsley… Wait… Who is this?” she said. She stammered. She was scared.
Jack grabbed the phone from her. The voice on the other end spoke: “This is your worst nightmare, lady. We’re coming for him. We won’t stop until we get him. We knew he’s in solitary. We’re coming.”
Jack hung up.
He expected the inmates to be upset at his presence on the island. He knew it was only a matter of time before they tried to attack him.
He could use the riot to his advantage, though. Rikers staff would need help putting out the fire. They’d need back up. They’d need the NYPDs help. They’d need on-call prison staff to come to the island. The control room would not have the time to scrutinize every person coming in and leaving the island. If he could somehow get on the trucks leaving the island after the riot was quelled, he’d be able to get out. They wouldn’t even notice he was missing until they started the clean up.
“Call the NYPD,” he said to Susan. “Let them know what’s going on. Make sure you get every correctional officer and guard you can spare to building three. The more the better.”
He walked away from Susan’s desk. It took her a second to realize the rookie officer had left her side. “Where are you going?” she called out to him.
