Alan Jacobson: Inmate 1577

Carondolet pointed as he spoke. “We’re near the north tip of the island. Industries building and the Golden Gate are to our right.” Their heads swung in that direction. “Trust me, behind that wall of fog, they’re both there. Cellhouse and rec yard’s in front of us, which you can kind of make out. Powerhouse is to our left, down the hill.”

“There’s the smokestack,” Vail said. “Or, part of it.” Looks a bit different without a dead body tied to it.

“How do you want to handle this?” Yeung asked.

“First question to ask is why Scheer brought us here,” Burden said. “We figure that out, we’ll have a course of action.”

“Another body?” Dixon asked.

Vail shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe. Maybe more than one. I think everything he’s been doing, it’s all been leading up to this. He chose today, and this place, for a reason. He wanted all the ex-officers and inmates on the island. And this Alumni Day gives him what he wants.”

“Why?” Burden asked.

“I can guess, but I’m sure we’ll find out.” Vail’s BlackBerry buzzed. “Apparently sooner rather than later.”

welcome

“He knows we’re here,” Dixon said.

Vail frowned. “We flew in on a goddamn helicopter, Roxx. Fog or not, everyone knows we’re here.”

They jumped out of the Bell and pivoted, taking in what they could see of the structures Carondolet had mentioned.

Dixon put her hands on her hips. “He could be anywhere. We should get everyone off the island until we get things under control.”

“The ferry’s back at Pier 33,” Carondolet said. “It’s loading up. They’d have to get everyone off, then it’d take at least twelve minutes to get here, and then another ten to fifteen to load it.”

Yeung, who was peering into the thick soup, swung around and said, “We should leave everyone where they are, in the hospital. Soon as backup gets here, we put an agent at each entrance. Right now keeping things simple will keep everyone safe.”

“Fine. We need to focus on finding Scheer,” Vail said. “You were him, where would you be?” Just then, her phone vibrated. “Here we go.”

i would give you a clue but

ur time is running out

go to the diesel tank

Vail turned to Carondolet. “What diesel tank?”

“There are several tanks on the island, some of them hold fuel and others water, so it’s har-” He stopped and swung around, then peered into the fog in the direction of the smokestack. “Wait a minute. There is a diesel tank.” He walked to the furthest edge of the landing pad, then held out an index finger and settled on a location. “There.”

Carondolet took off along the left side of the helicopter, leading them toward the water tower. Just before they hit its stanchion, he hung a left down a series of cement stairs. The steps ended at a lengthy, deeply sloping sidewalk that paralleled the cistern where the chopper had set down.

As they ran along the path, to their right, the Powerhouse and Quartermaster warehouse rose from below the adjacent East Road.

Carondolet led them up East Road and through a cyclone fence sally port, just past the end of the Powerhouse building. A chain-link gate, its lock forced open, blocked the entrance to a steeply sloped steel gangplank that spanned a gully below. The metal footway led down to a sizable cement slab that contained pipes of varying sizes and stainless steel hatches. A white, black and red warning sign stood sentry where the bridge ended:

DANGER

COMBUSTIBLE LIQUIDS

DIESEL FUEL

A large cylindrical tank the color of a fire engine and marked Diesel Fuel stood on wide rails at the far edge of the concrete base, seemingly at the edge of the island. Barely visible beyond the red tank was…nothingness. Regardless of the fog, Vail still heard it: crashing waves of the ocean.

“There,” Carondolet said.

Vail pulled open the gate and grabbed the railings of the narrow gangway, then headed down, followed by Burden and Dixon.

She stood in front of the massive tank, hands on her hips. “Now what?” She pulled her phone to make sure she had not missed a text from the offender. Nothing-but with the crappy cell reception on the island, she wondered what he would do if his messages weren’t getting through. How would he react? Not well.

“Anything?” Yeung called out, standing watch with Carondolet at the gate, handguns at the ready.

Dixon jumped down to the ground about five feet below the concrete support base, which stood beside the Powerhouse’s exterior wall. A moment later, she called up to Vail from the other side of the tank. “You wanted to find Scheer, right?”

Vail looked down in Dixon’s direction, though she couldn’t see her. “Uh, that’d be affirmative.”

“Well, we found him.”

Vail and Burden jumped off the foundation, then climbed over a series of yellow pipes that protruded from the cement base. Dixon was standing on the other side of the tank…where Stephen Scheer was seated.

“Is he-”

“No,” Dixon said. “He’s alive. Unconscious, but breathing. Drugged, maybe.”

Burden craned his neck and reached across the top of the base. “He’s chained to the tank.” He leaned in closer, then said, “And not to dampen the spirit, but we’ve got another problem.” He leaned against the edge of the foundation and pointed at a box to Scheer’s left.

“Yeung,” Vail yelled. “We’ve got an IED!” A bomb. A goddamn bomb-

Yeung, standing behind the cyclone fencing thirty feet away, pulled his phone and began dialing.

Vail climbed atop the cement base and knelt next to the device. “Timer-set for…holy Jesus-three minutes.”

“Active?”

“Two minutes fifty-eight seconds. Yeah, it’s active.”

Carondolet ran halfway down the gangplank. “Get out, we need to get away from here!”

“Can you raise EOD-maybe they can talk us through deactiv-”

“Karen, that’s a bomb attached to a diesel tank. And the slab you’re standing on? It’s a storage receptacle filled with fuel. Not only that, see that yellow piping?” Carondolet gestured at the tubes that snaked up the side of the Powerhouse building. “It runs the entire length of the island. All the way to the dock. This bomb goes off, it’ll take half the island with it.”

And that’s the offender’s plan. Kill all the former guards and cons. Vail rose and, among the many valves protruding from the back of the tank, chose one that was perched above a coupling pipe.

“What are you doing?” Dixon asked. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

Vail began turning the burled knob. “Burden-try to reach someone on the dock, have ’em find a valve on the yellow pipe and open it full bore.”

Burden pulled his phone and ran up the metal bridge with Carondolet.

“Karen,” Dixon said. “We’ve gotta go.”

“We leave, Scheer dies-”

“If we don’t leave, we all die.” Dixon grabbed Vail’s arm, but she shrugged it off.

“See if you can get him free,” Vail said as she continued cranking the knobbed wheel atop the valve. “We’ve still got time.”

Dixon moved to Scheer’s body and began inspecting the bindings. “I can’t-chain’s tight. We need a hacksaw or bolt cutter-”