The Final Mile: A SAM POPE NOVEL

by Enright, Robert

  The rest would be on Sam.

  Etheridge had one screen trained on the corridor outside the cell, the clear CCTV footage showing him the steel door and the surrounding area. After a few moments of anxious nail biting, he saw a guard approach. And then another.

  Soon, there were seventeen guards, all of them stood in a semi-circle as their boss slammed his fist on the door. There was no audio, but from the clear agitation of the man, he assumed Sam had done exactly as intended.

  The phone on his desk buzzed, and Etheridge scooped it up immediately. He opened the text message.

  NOW.

  Laughing at Sam’s precise messages, he turned back to the screens. He couldn’t imagine what his friend had been through, nor the brutality with which he finished it. But they were far from out of it just yet and Etheridge brought up the schematics of the Grid and frantically hammered his keyboard.

  His override code was immaculate, and he took control of the entire facility.

  Etheridge glanced up at the screen, sent Sam a silent good luck, and then pressed the button.

  He watched as the guards startled in disbelief as throughout the entire building, the mechanical locks of the cell doors flew open.

  Etheridge sat back in his chair and watched as the inmates began to emerge from their cells like rats from the sewer.

  ‘Time to move, Sam,’ he said out loud, and with the guards beginning to fend off a wave of furious and violent prisoners, Etheridge unlocked Chapman’s cell door, and Sam stepped out into the mayhem.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  As soon as Harris was informed of the drug bust, he shuffled to his wardrobe to retrieve his uniform. To the dismay of his wife, Anna, he was heading into work on one of his mandated rest days and as he struggled to pull his shirt sleeve over his arm, she began to cry.

  ‘You need to give this up, Geoff.’ She wept. ‘It’s not doing you any good.’

  Harris sighed.

  ‘Something major has happened that needs my attention.’

  ‘Your health needs your attention,’ Anna responded, shaking her head. ‘I hate seeing you like this.’

  Harris grunted and yanked at the sleeve with frustration. His declining mobility was a sickening slap in the face from the cruel hands of fate. After twenty revered years of service in the armed forces, and an immaculate reputation as a police Warden, Harris had never been one to take his foot off the gas. But life had a funny way of revealing your mortality and it pained him to be a burden on his wife.

  Anna took a breath, stood, and marched from the doorway to his side. Tentatively, she pulled the sleeve over his arm and then went about buttoning the shirt. Towering over her, Harris leant forward, and gently kissed her forehead.

  ‘I love you.’

  She smiled warmly.

  ‘Then stay here. With me.’

  Anna finished buttoning his shirt and turned to the wardrobe, lifting his immaculately polished shoes from the rack that sat beneath a rail of identical, crisply ironed shirts. Harris tucked in his shirt and despite his protests, allowed Anna to tie his laces. Feeling so helpless was the biggest struggle of his multiple sclerosis, as his immune system was mistakenly attacking his brain and nervous system. His balance had been deteriorating for a while and he could barely make it through the day without feeling exhausted.

  Anna was right.

  He needed to give it up.

  But not today.

  Anna helped him to the car which had pulled up outside their plush cottage, thirteen miles away from Ashcroft and she held him closely. They kissed once more, and he eased himself into the back seat and the car sped towards the prison. On the journey, he called Sharp countless times, his rage increasing with each call that didn’t connect. As they approached the first gate, Harris cursed the numerous safety measures designed to keep people out.

  He needed to get in and restore order.

  As they cleared the final door, he was shocked to be met by Spencer Watkins, his face pale with fear.

  ‘Jesus, Spencer. What’s wrong?’ Harris’s voice was laced with concern and as he struggled from the backseat, Watkins gave him a guiding arm.

  ‘I don’t know what happened, sir…’

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘No matter what I did, I lost control. Like someone else was controlling the panel and…’

  ‘Breathe, Watkins,’ Harris said calmly, resting a comforting arm on the young man’s shoulder. It was also a useful support.

  ‘I tried, sir. I really tried.’

  ‘Take a moment and tell me what happened?’

  Harris felt a flutter of irritation in his gut. After the news of Chapman’s empire falling, he needed to get inside the prison and ensure that the notorious inmate was still behaving as expected. Sure, the veteran gangster rode his luck at times, but for the most part, he was respectful of Harris. While the warden expected some sort of retaliation against his staff, he was confident he could talk some sense into the man. Watkin’s was clearly afraid, but Harris had no time for his dithering.

  ‘Jesus Christ, son. Spit it out.’

  Watkins looked up at the wiry Warden, his eyes watering.

  ‘The doors, sir. All the doors opened.’

  Harris’s jaw dropped. Not once in the years that he’d run the prison had he been faced with a riot. The prisoners mostly stayed within the rules, understanding the finality of their situation and many opting for an easy existence. A few inmates had died, others had lashed out at guards. But for the most part, the prison was a peaceful place.

  But given the freedom of the prison, they would revert back to what they were.

  The most dangerous criminals in the country.

  Harris quickly moved to the boot of the car, the driver flicking the switch so it automatically opened. With his left leg dragging across the gravel, Harris steadied himself and then reached into the compartment. He pulled out a bulletproof vest, slid it over his head, and pushed his arms through.

  Then, for the first time since he was put in control of Ashcroft, he picked up his handgun.

  The Glock 19 felt heavy in his hand, a long-lost friend from a life he used to have. He slid it into the holster attached to his belt and turned to Watkins.

  ‘Get in the car and ask the driver to take you to the nearest police station.’

  ‘But, sir…’

  ‘Go,’ Harris demanded, and Watkins obliged, ducking into the car which lifted a cloud of dust as it sped back through the open gates.

  Harris watched the cloud begin to settle and then turned and faced the entrance to Ashcroft and took a deep breath. With one hand on his handgun, he shuffled towards the door, fearful of what was on the other side.

  * * *

  As soon as the first inmates emerged from their cells, Sam could see the fear spread among the guards like a disease. With the shackles of their cells relinquished, the inmates ventured into the corridor and it took only a matter of seconds for a panicked guard to pull the trigger in their direction.

  An inmate yelled out in pain from the gunshot and like a tidal wave crashing over them, the guards soon found themselves set upon by the inmates. The vicious criminals, subjected to the violent and oppressive rule of Sharp’s men, launched at them with reckless abandon, dragging the guards to the ground and brutally beating them with fists and feet.

  Gunshots echoed around the corridor, with the remaining guards throwing caution to the wind, abandoning protocol, and doing whatever they could to survive.

  Sharp was screaming at a group of inmates to stay back, as three of them approached. Leon, the prisoner who had been assaulted for talking to Sam stepped forward and Sharp whipped out his weapon, pulled the trigger, and sent the top of the man’s head exploding backwards. The body collapsed into a pool of blood and brain and Sharp waved the gun at the other two.

  Sam took his moment.

  Launching forward from his cell, he shoulder tackled Sharp in the ribs, knocking the hefty deputy warden off balance. As he sp
rawled across the floor of the war zone, the two prisoners set upon Sharp and Sam began to veer his way through the mayhem, with Sharp’s anguished cries echoing behind him. To his left, he saw three inmates stomping on a guard, who was motionless, his face covered in blood. In front of him, two of the inmates were settling a blood feud and as one pinned the other to the ground, he began slamming his head against the solid, concrete floor.

  Sam intervened, wrenching the inmate off his motionless opponent, and slammed him into the door frame, knocking him unconscious.

  Halfway towards the door to the stairwell, Sam was confronted by a guard, clearly in his element, who pointed his blood-soaked baton at Sam. With his right eye swollen and blood dripping from his lips, he charged at Sam, swinging wildly. Sam weaved underneath, the metal missing the top of his skull by millimetres, and Sam drove an elbow into the back of the man’s skull. The guard was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  Sam’s eyes focused on the door to the stairs once more. Etheridge had explained that the upper two floors operated on a looser security system, meaning once Sam had navigated his way to them, he could lock the prison down. Sam had been worried about the safety of the guards, but having spent two weeks in their hospitality, he felt little remorse for their fate.

  They were as bad as the inmates.

  A few steps away from the door, Sam felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder blade, followed by the burning sensation of a blade searing through his back muscles. The blade slashed down, slicing his skin open and as he stumbled forward, he turned, just as a blood-soaked Ravi launched at him, the box cutter tightly grasped in his only working hand.

  Sam managed to get a hand up to stop the attack, the blade slicing across his hand and sending a spray of blood across the floor. His hand burnt and the pain caused his vision to blur, but Sam adjusted his feet and steadied himself. In a blind rage, the hulking man charged at Sam, demanding blood for his betrayal.

  Sam managed to push the blade to the side, but Ravi’s superior bulk collided with him and they both fell backwards, with the tattooed henchman landing on top of him. Despite the shattered bone in his arm, Ravi fought through the pain, raining down on Sam with thunderous blows, splitting his eyebrow open. As Ravi’s colossal hands clamped over Sam’s face, Sam could feel the man’s thumbs pressing against his eye sockets. Reaching out his hands in hope, Sam’s fingers found the box cutter and he drove the blade into Ravi’s stomach and twisted it. Ravi released his grip and Sam drove his knee into the man’s spine, pushing him to the side and stumbled to his feet. As he did, he felt the hard metal of a baton crash against the base of his spine and Sam dropped to his knees, just as the attacking guard drove it down again towards his skull.

  Sam leant back and the guard lost his balance, driving the baton against the concrete, the impact sending a shock up his arm and he lost his grip. Sam stood, caught the man with a hard left hook, before hurling him back into the baiting crowd, the inmates wrenching the guard to the ground for a potentially fatal pummelling.

  Sam turned back to Ravi, who was holding his stomach together with his unbroken arm. Sam took two steps forward and then drove the box cutter into the soft patch of skin underneath Ravi’s chin, before slicing downwards, cutting open the man’s throat vertically. With his eyes wide with shock, Ravi collapsed onto the floor, the blood gushing from the wound and his life left him immediately.

  Sam tossed the box cutter into one of the empty cells and clenched his fist, trying his best to stem the flow of blood that was pumping through the deep gash that ran across his palm. Ignoring the pain, he slammed open the door to the stairwell with his shoulder. A bullet ricocheted off the door, missing Sam by inches and as he glanced in the direction of the shooter, he saw a blood soaked Sharp holding the gun.

  The deputy warden was missing some teeth and one of his eyelids was stuck shut with blood, the eyeball torn out by a violent inmate looking for retribution.

  Sam barged the door open again and once again, evaded a bullet that shattered the glass window in the middle of the door. Making his way up the stairs two at a time, Sam stopped as he approached the door to the main floor and leant against the wall.

  His hand was thick with blood, and he could feel another trail trickling down his back. With his vision still blurred from Ravi’s attempted blinding, Sam breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the echo of the lock clicking into place at the bottom of the stairs. Moments later, a chorus of painful shrieks burst out through the prison as Etheridge sent a shock through every tag besides Sam’s, ending the riot. There had been a number of casualties, but Sam found it hard to sympathise.

  The guards and the inmates had been performing a dangerous dance that would eventually end in bloodshed.

  Sam had just sped up the process.

  With considerable pain, he pulled open the door, only to be met by the barrel of a gun.

  ‘Stop,’ Harris commanded, both hands expertly gripping the gun, his eye carefully looking down the sight. ‘Don’t move.’

  Sam held up his hands, keeping the left one closed to stop the blood from pouring out. Harris took a step to the side and motioned for Sam to move. Sam obliged, taking careful steps into the corridor. Harris regarded Sam with a look of bewilderment.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ Harris demanded.

  ‘I took down Chapman and his entire operation,’ Sam said truthfully, finding no reason to lie to the Warden.

  ‘You’ve undone everything I’ve worked to achieve here.’ The warden’s words were fraught with pain.

  ‘No, sir.’ Sam shook his head, the blood flicking from the gash on his eyebrow. ‘Sharp has been running the place with Chapman like his personal torture chamber. He’s been paid to let Chapman run free.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him, sir.’

  Sharp stepped through the doors to the corridor, his gun gripped by blood-soaked fingers and pointed directly at Sam’s temple. Stood between both men, Sam had nowhere to go.

  ‘Sharp. Jesus, what the hell happened to you?’ Harris couldn’t believe the state of his deputy, whose uniform was tattered and coated in the blood of numerous inmates. His one good eye venomously trained on Sam.

  ‘This man killed Chapman and several other inmates,’ Sharp spat, blood spilling to the ground with every word. ‘I don’t know how he did it, but he set everyone free and now most of my men are dead.’

  ‘Your men were as bad as those you were paid to police,’ Sam responded, his eyes still looking at Harris. ‘You might be on this side of the cell, Sharp, but you belong in there with rest of us.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Sharp spat, his finger twitching on the trigger.

  ‘Sharp, put the gun down,’ Harris demanded; his own gun still trained on Sam.

  ‘This piece of shit needs to be put in the ground.’

  ‘Sir, check Sharp’s bank account. Chapman has been paying him for years.’

  ‘Shut your goddamn mouth!’ Sharp spat.

  ‘Sharp, lower your weapon. That is an order.’

  ‘I’m sick of your fucking orders…’ Sharp turned the gun on Harris, and a gunshot echoed in the corridor. Sam shut his eyes, expecting the feel the metal bullet lodge in his body before everything ended.

  After a second, with no damage to his body, he slowly opened them.

  Harris stood before him, slowly lowering his gun, his face a picture of composure. Sam spun around, looking down at the ground where Sharp lay, breathing heavily as the air escaped from the bullet hole in his chest. Sam looked back to the Warden in shock.

  ‘You need to leave,’ Harris said calmly, his eyes fixed on his deputy whose eye had rolled back into his skull.

  Sharp was dead.

  ‘Sir?’ Sam said, taking a step towards him.

  ‘You don’t belong here, Sam. Whatever you are, you are not like these men.’ He gestured to Sharp. ‘This place isn’t long for this world and wherever you end up, you’re not a criminal. You’re a soldier.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Sa
m said, his words stammering slightly. ‘Will you be okay?’

  ‘I’m overdue my retirement. I just need to clean up this mess.’

  Sam extended his hand to the Warden, who took it firmly. Sam turned and marched towards the exit of the building, which Etheridge ensured was open. With every step, he craved the freedom of the outside world and as he barged open the door with his shoulder, the fresh air hit him like a bucket of cold water.

  Sam took a deep breath and hunched forward, resting his hands on his knees.

  He had made it through.

  Had survived.

  With the guards that manned the gates and watch towers summoned inside by the riot, Sam took a second to breath in the quiet.

  The freedom.

  Overwhelmed by the moment, Sam had failed to notice the car parked a few feet away. The familiar voice drew a smile from his beaten face.

  ‘You look like hell.’

  Sam stood and opened his arms as Singh took a few steps forward and embraced him. Moments later, she helped him to the back of the car, fired up the engine, and sped back through the gates Etheridge had disabled and within minutes, Sam was asleep, his head pressed against the door, the blood from his eyebrow smearing the plush interior as they headed back to London.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Mac had sat in the car for over an hour.

  On the drive over to Maidenhead he’d thought it would be easy. For so long, he’d dreamt of the day when he would get even with Sam. When he was rotting in that cage, he prayed not for his own survival, but for Sam’s. The chances were, Sam had been obliterated by the missile that had rocked Mac, as he knew Sam was chasing behind him. The blast had smashed into the ground behind Mac as he ran for his life, so logic had dictated to him that Sam had perished.

  His captors never found his body.

  Mac had been left alone.

  But every day he wished for Sam’s survival instead of his own death, the notion of finally looking the man in the eyes had kept him alive.