James spotted John Jones standing behind the desk.
Curtis pointed at James. ‘I came to show him the way and see if my books were in.’
‘Yeah … Umm, sorry,’ Scott stuttered. ‘What’s your name, son?’
‘Curtis Oxford.’
‘Curtis … It’s probably best if you wait until the education officer is back … Tomorrow. I’m not familiar with the procedure for handing out books.’
Curtis backed out of the office, looking at James. ‘Do you know the way back on your own?’
James nodded. ‘I’ll see you out there.’
He stepped into the office and shut the door behind Curtis. John and Scott were both in a state of shock. They stared at a black and white CCTV monitor, until it showed Curtis reaching the end of the corridor and starting down the stairs.
‘Sheesh!’ Scott said, putting both hands over his heart. ‘That gave me a fright … I never expected our target to come wandering into the room with you.’
‘You might have guessed what was going on,’ John said tersely.
‘You only said we might have to meet in the visitors’ room,’
James snapped back.
‘Well, whatever …’ John huffed.
James felt his temper rise up as he ran his hand through his sweaty hair. ‘You know what?’ he said angrily. ‘I’m boiling hot, I’ve not slept or had a decent shower, I’ve eaten nothing but crap food, I’ve seen people get beaten up, pepper-sprayed and have their skin burned off … I’ve even had some psycho come at me with a knife and try to kill me. If you don’t like the job I’m doing here, you can take this mission and shove it right up your arse.’
John looked startled by the outburst.
‘We appreciate that you’re working under a lot of stress,’ Scott said gently, trying to calm James down.
‘James,’ John said, sounding extra sincere. ‘I apologise. I didn’t mean to have a go at you. It was just a shock when Curtis came in here and saw all of us together … We called this emergency meeting because there’s a serious situation with Dave.’
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Scott said, as he reached over to a water dispenser. ‘How about a cold drink?’
James sat down, as Scott filled a paper cup from the water cooler.
‘They pulled Dave out of the hole for a doctor’s examination earlier this morning,’ John explained. ‘The baton round fractured three of his ribs. One of them broke badly. A bone fragment has snapped off and punctured the surrounding tissue, causing internal bleeding.’
‘How serious is that?’ James asked.
‘If Dave had been x-rayed and treated immediately, it wouldn’t have been bad,’ John said. ‘But by the time they dragged him out of the hole this morning, a blood clot had formed on his chest wall. He’s having difficulty breathing and he’ll be hospitalised for at least two weeks. After that, he’ll be on medication to break up the clot. He won’t be back to full fitness for a couple of months, at least.’
‘So that’s it,’ James sighed. ‘You’re gonna pull me out of here?’
‘As soon as practicable,’ John nodded. ‘We’re as sorry as you are that this didn’t work out, James. I’ve been in the intelligence game for twenty years and I’m afraid complicated plans like this have a habit of going awry.’
James drained his paper cup and nodded when Scott offered a refill. Part of James was relieved at the prospect of getting back to campus unscathed, but a much bigger part was bitter at having gone through so much stress for nothing.
‘Is there no way I could carry on without Dave?’ James asked.
‘I can’t see how,’ John said. ‘You need protection.’
‘Not any more I don’t. You saw me come in with Curtis, and Elwood spent half the morning telling me his life story. Nobody’s gonna give me hassle when we’re best buds.’
This was news to Scott and John, who exchanged a long glance.
‘Hmm,’ Scott said, drumming his finger thoughtfully against his cheek. ‘Sounds like you’ve put in some valuable work there. It might put a different complexion on things …’
‘But how would James handle the escape without Dave?’ John asked. ‘Dave was the advanced driver and the only one big enough to wear your uniform during the escape.’
‘I’m a good driver,’ James said. ‘Lauren can navigate and the roads over here are nice and straight.’
‘Your driving didn’t seem so great to me the other afternoon,’ Scott said bluntly.
‘I’ve been able to drive for nearly a year and that’s the only accident I’ve ever had. Well … Except, right at the beginning when I nearly killed some woman’s dog.’
‘Actually,’ John nodded, ‘despite James’ idiotic little adventure the other afternoon, he did score top marks on his intermediate driving course. But there’s still no way he can get out of here disguised as a hack.’
Scott rested an elbow on the desk and waggled his finger at James. ‘Stand up a minute, James. How tall are you?’
‘A hundred and sixty-two centimetres,’ James said, as he climbed out of his chair.
Scott looked baffled. ‘What’s that in American money?’
John smiled. ‘About five feet two inches. Have you got any men that small?’
‘Not men, I haven’t. But we’re an equal opportunity employer and there’s a young lady on our cellblock who’s about James’ size.’
John broke into a smile. ‘Could you alter the staff rota so that she’s on duty the night of the escape?’
Scott nodded. ‘That shouldn’t be too tough. We might have to make a few adjustments to the plan, but this is definitely doable.’
‘So we’re back in business?’ John asked.
‘I can’t see why not,’ Scott said. ‘As long as James is sure he’s up to it.’
20. TIME
Of course I’m up to it. The words glided out easily enough. The mission was saved, and James felt like a hero as Scott grasped his hand and shook it robustly.
Reality dawned as James passed down the stairs and out of the education block. The sun was brutal and the mountains of barbed wire lining the prison compound shimmered in the heat. The same light caught the powerful torsos of the predators scouring the yard and the guns cradled by the hacks on the cellblock roof.
James felt smaller than one of the grains of sand under his canvas shoe, as he looked around and realised what he’d got himself into: a thirteen-year-old boy, alone against a black-hearted machine built to contain the nastiest people on the planet. For an instant, he considered running back to the office and telling John he’d changed his mind. He stopped walking, took a deep breath and ran his tongue around his dry mouth.
James thought about the moment he’d pulled the trigger on the guy in Miami, scared out of his mind. It had been a terrible experience, but he could draw strength from it now.
He thought back to his training, all the seemingly impossible things he’d achieved when the instructors pushed him through the pain barrier. Whenever a trainee was on the point of giving up, Mr Speaks used to scream in their ear: This is tough, but cherubs are tougher. James had got so sick of the phrase he thought he’d never want to hear it again, but now the words felt like a comfort.
He whispered it under his breath as he started walking again. ‘This is tough, but cherubs are tougher.’
*
The exercise yard was at its most comfortable in the hour before the inmates were locked down for the night. The sun was low and a gentle breeze made the heat almost tolerable. James sat with Curtis near the chin-up bars, while Elwood and the others prowled for some unfortunate who’d failed to deliver his commissary package to Kirch’s bunk earlier in the day.
The two boys had been talking for an hour, sitting in the sand, trading stories and getting friendly with each other.
‘So, you shot three people dead and tried to blow your own brains out,’ James said, giving Curtis a shocked look, as if this was news to him. ‘If I’d met you in the stre
et, I’d never have booked you for anything other than a totally straight kid.’
Curtis smiled, clearly pleased to have somebody brighter than Elwood and Kirch to talk to. ‘We were always moving around when I was growing up. Canada, Mexico, even South Africa for a while. It was cool, just me and my mom together, but we had some close scrapes with the law. I started getting stressed out, worrying about what would happen if Mom got busted. Sometimes I got so depressed. The blackest feeling, like the whole world was closing in on me.’
‘Did you see a doctor, or anything?’ James asked.
Curtis nodded. ‘I’ve had every kind of pill going. In a lot of the places we lived, my mom would take me to see a psychiatrist. Every one of them acted like they knew what they were talking about, but they all came up with different answers. If you ask me, psychiatrists are a bunch of phoneys.
‘Two years ago, it started getting real bad. I’d go to bed and stay under the covers all day. My mom took me to this shrink in Philadelphia – some hotshot she’d read about in a magazine article. He reckoned my problems were down to a lack of structure in my life: moving from place to place and not having proper schooling or relationships with other kids my own age. So he puts this bright idea in my mom’s head to send me to a military school. I begged her not to send me, but I was a mess and Mom had tried everything else, so she went along with it.
‘The place was a toilet. They had me up every morning running laps. Making beds, polishing boots and that whole playing at being soldiers gig. One night, the commandant ripped into me for not knotting my tie properly. He gives me this little nailbrush and tells me to start scrubbing out this whole massive shower room. I did it for about ten minutes, then I ran off, busted into the weapons locker and stole the commandant’s car keys. Two hours later, there’s three dead bodies and I’ve got half the Arizona police department pointing guns at me.’
‘That’s what you call chucking a wobbler,’ James grinned, making a mental note to mention Curtis’ visit to the famous child psychiatrist in Philadelphia to John or Scott as soon as he saw them. ‘Do you still get depressed?’
‘Not so much,’ Curtis said. ‘Though it gets really boring in here sometimes.’
*
James spent the evening watching Curtis’ miniature TV and eating Stanley Duff’s snacks. Stanley’s battered brother was back from the hospital. Raymond looked like he was going to cry when he saw that Kirch had stripped everything he owned from his locker. He didn’t even have a change of underwear or a pillow.
When James woke up, with his neck clamped to his bed and a cut-throat razor glinting in front of his eyes, he guessed it was Raymond Duff, but he was wrong.
‘You one of us?’
James got a whiff of BO, a flash of grinning teeth and the rush of sheer terror that you get when you think you’re about to feel serious pain.
‘Are you one of us?’ Elwood growled again.
Curtis and the other skinheads were standing around James’ bed, laughing.
‘I am,’ James said, though the hand crushing his windpipe made it come out as a croak.
Kirch’s arm reached over from the next bed and dabbed James’ cheek with a wet brush.
‘You look too hairy to me, Rose.’
Elwood pressed the razor against James’ skin, close to the point of making a cut.
‘What is this?’ James gasped. ‘Come on guys …’
‘If you’re one of us,’ Elwood grinned, ‘you gotta get rid of that faggot haircut.’
Kirch waggled a wet shaving brush in his face.
‘Cut my hair,’ James nodded, as Elwood let go and allowed him to sit up. ‘But can’t you use the battery razor I gave to Abe?’
Kirch, Curtis and the three others who’d got out of bed for the occasion laughed.
‘Where’s the fun in an electric razor?’ Elwood giggled. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’
‘Why would I be scared of you?’ James asked, trying to act as though being woken at 3 a.m. with a psycho waving a razor under his nose was the kind of thing that didn’t bother him in the slightest.
Kirch moved in with the shaving brush and sploshed warm, soapy water into James’ hair. After a couple of strokes, he got fed up and drained the whole mug of sloppy mixture over James’ head. James screwed up his face in pain as it streamed into his eyes.
‘Better keep still,’ Elwood giggled.
He placed the razor against James’ forehead and swept it upwards. A soapy blond clump dropped into James’ lap. Elwood hacked off hair from here and there, until James’ head was a shocking mixture of bald spots, crazy tufts and the occasional bloody nick from the blade.
‘Perfecto,’ Elwood said, backing away like an artist admiring a painting.
The skinheads were cracking up as they sauntered back to their beds. When the others were lying down, Curtis came back with a set of battery-powered clippers.
‘You want me to sort that mess out?’
James and Curtis walked to the bathroom. After James had wetted a towel and mopped the soap and blood off his head, he knelt on the tiled floor, while Curtis leaned over and finished shaving him bald.
‘So your brother’s definitely not coming back?’ Curtis asked, as he rinsed the clipper attachment under a tap.
‘With his escape record and Stanley getting his neck broken, that hack Warren told me he’s put in a request for Dave to be re-categorised as a high-risk inmate. He’ll be put in a single cell over on the supermax block.’
‘So the escape is off?’
‘It’s hard without Dave,’ James whispered, ‘but my uncle beats the shit out of my little sister and I really want to get her out of there. The thing is, Dave could have got a job or something, but I don’t see how someone our age can survive on the outside without help.’
‘You know what I said about my mom? Hiding out, living under false names and stuff?’
James nodded.
‘I don’t know where she is right now,’ Curtis said. ‘But I know people who can contact her. If we busted out together, she’d be able to set you up with a new life.’
‘So now you want to escape,’ James said, trying to sound cynical, while containing the ten-metre-wide smile that wanted to break out across his face.
‘I got nothing to lose,’ Curtis said. ‘They can’t add one day to life without parole. And so what if they shoot my ass? What’s worth living for in Arizona Max?’
‘If I did let you break out with me, it’s just you, me and my kid sister,’ James said firmly. ‘It’s my show and I don’t want Elwood, or any of those other lunatics muscling in.’
Curtis nodded. ‘But if I can keep my mouth shut, you’ll take me?’
‘You can’t get out of here without me and I can’t make it on the outside without you,’ James smiled. ‘Funny how life works. It must be fate … or something.’
21. WEDNESDAY
FIVE DAYS LATER
James got hold of a spare bed sheet. When everyone at his end of the cell seemed to be asleep, he began cutting it into metre-long strips, using the sharpened end of his toothbrush. He ripped the cloth quietly, stopping now and then to make sure there wasn’t a hack spying down from the metal gantry above his head. After he’d turned the sheet into strips, he took three pieces at a time and plaited them together for strength.
When James had finished, he put the lengths of rope in his locker and noticed that sunlight was flickering behind the blades of the ventilation fans in the cell wall. He was dreading another sweat-soaked day inside Arizona Max. But if things went to plan, this would be the last one.
*
James asked Curtis to hang back when the rest of the skinheads went on to the yard. The cell never emptied out entirely, but no one was paying attention as James pulled a strip of cardboard out of his shorts.
‘It’s my visit today,’ James explained. ‘If I can get Lauren on her own for a few seconds, without my uncle, I’ll tell her to pack a bag and expect us at the house at three tomorrow
morning.’
Curtis nodded. ‘What’s with the cardboard?’
‘That’s how we’re getting out of here.’
‘Cardboard,’ Curtis said, looking at James like he was insane.
James stepped across to the emergency door in the middle of the cell. There were two of these sliding doors along the cell wall in between beds. They were designed to allow the PERT team to enter if the prisoners rioted and barricaded the main door, or as emergency exits in a fire.
‘How exactly do you plan to get a solid steel door open with a piece from a Kleenex box?’
James grinned confidently. ‘Watch and learn.’
He checked the gantry to make sure there wasn’t a hack around, then walked to the door and went up on tiptoes. He slotted the card through the gap between the top of the door and its frame and jiggled it in and out, before tucking it back into his pocket.
‘Now we wait,’ James said, as he moved away and sat on the end of a bed.
‘This is your great plan?’ Curtis asked indignantly.
Thirty seconds later, a hack walked purposefully on to the rail. He disappeared down a flight of spiral stairs behind the door. The door slid open thirty centimetres and the hack pushed his head through the gap. He inspected the inside for signs of tampering before shutting it again.
‘What … ?’ Curtis gasped, as the guard walked back up the steps. ‘What happened?’
‘Remember I told you about that big-mouthed hack in Omaha?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He always moaned about the faulty doors. Every door inside Omaha State had an anti-tamper device. If someone starts fiddling, an alarm goes off on the console in the cellblock control room. They have to send a hack out to check both sides of the door and reset the alarm, but they’re very sensitive. All it takes is a gust of wind, or someone hitting the door to set it off. The hack said he spent half his life wandering around cancelling false alarms.’