Douglas Preston - The Book of the Dead

Benjy stared. “Bringing him back? You’re shittin’ me.”

Gerry shook his head.

“It’s murder. And they’re doing it on our watch.”

“Tell me about it.”

“On whose orders?”

“Straight from the horse’s ass: Imhof.”

A silence gathered in the long empty hall of Herkmoor’s building C.

“Well, two o’clock is in fifteen minutes,” Benjy said at last. “We’d better get our butts in gear.”

He led the way as they exited the cellblock into the weak sunlight of yard 4. A smell of springlike decay and dampness drifted on the air. The sodden grass of the outer yards was still matted and brown, and a few bare branches could be seen rising beyond the perimeter walls. They took up positions, not on the catwalk above this time, but in the actual yard.

“I’m not going to see my corrections career get flushed down the toilet,” said Gerry darkly. “I swear, if any of Pocho’s gang makes a move toward the guy, I’ll use the Taser. I wish to hell they gave us guns.”

They took up positions on either side of the yard, waiting for the prisoners in isolation to be escorted out for their lone hour of exercise. Gerry checked his Taser, his pepper spray, adjusted his side-handle baton. He wouldn’t wait to see what happened, like he’d done last time.

A few minutes later, the doors opened and the escort guards filed out with their prisoners, who sidled out into the yard, blinking in the bright light, looking as shit-stupid as they were.

The last prisoner to come out was the special one. He was as pale as a maggot and looked a mess: face bruised and bandaged, one eye nearly swollen shut. Despite being numbed by years of working in pens, Gerry felt a creeping sense of outrage that the man had been put back in the yard. Pocho was dead, true enough; but that had been an open-and-shut case of self-defense. This was different. This was cold-blooded murder. And if it didn’t happen today, it would happen tomorrow or the next day, on their watch or someone else’s. It was one thing to stick the guy in a cell next to the drummer, or put him in solitary, or take away his books, but this was out of line. Way out of line.

He braced himself. Pocho’s boys were spreading out, doing their slow pimp-roll, hands in their pockets. The tall one, Rafael Borges, was bouncing the usual basketball, moving in a slow arc toward the hoop. Gerry glanced at Benjy and saw his partner was equally on edge. The escort guards made a gesture toward him and he gestured back, signifying the handoff was complete: they would take over the prisoners. The escort guards filed out, closing the double metal doors behind them.

Gerry kept his eye on the special prisoner. The man was strolling along the brick wall toward the chain-link fence, moving alertly but without undue alarm. Gerry wondered if he was all right in the head. If it were him out there, he’d have stained his shorts by now.

He watched as the special prisoner sidled over behind the basketball backboard and placed a casual hand on the chain-link fence, leaning against it. He looked up, then peered from side to side, almost as if waiting for something. The other prisoners slowly circled, none even looking in his direction, acting as if he didn’t exist.

When a call came over his radio with a burst of static, Gerry jumped. “Fecteau here.”

“This is Special Agent Spencer Coffey, FBI.”

“Who?”

“Wake up, Fecteau, I don’t have all day. As I understand it, you and the other one, Doyle, are in yard 4 on exercise duty.”

“Yes, yes, sir,” Gerry stammered. Why the hell was Agent Coffey talking directly to him? It must be true what they were whispering, that the special prisoner was a fed-although he sure didn’t look like one.

“I want both of you up here in Main Security, on the double.”

“Yes, sir, as soon as we hand over yard duty-”

“I said, on the double. That means right now.”

“But, sir, there’s just the two of us guarding the yard-”

“I gave you a direct order, Fecteau. If I don’t see you in ninety seconds, I swear to God you’ll be in North Dakota tomorrow, on the midnight shift at Black Rock.”

“But you’re not-”

His reply was drowned out by a short blast of static as the FBI agent signed off. He looked over at Benjy, who had, of course, heard everything over his own radio. Benjy walked over, shrugging his shoulders faintly.

“We don’t report to that bastard,” Gerry said. “Do you think we have to do what he says?”

“You want to take that kind of chance? Let’s get going.”

Gerry replaced the radio, feeling sick to his stomach. It was murder, pure and simple. But at least they wouldn’t be there when it happened-and they couldn’t be blamed for that, now, could they?

Ninety seconds… He moved swiftly across the yard and opened the metal doors. Then he turned and threw one last glance back at the special prisoner. The man was still leaning against the chain-link fence behind the backboard. Pocho’s gang was already starting to close in, packlike.

“God help him,” he murmured to Benjy as the doors swung shut behind them with a deep metallic boom.

Juggy” Ochoa sauntered across the asphalt of the yard, glancing at the sky, the fence, the basketball backboard, his brothers scattered about. His eye turned back to the metal doors that had just clanged shut. The two guards had split. Just like that. He could hardly believe they’d put “Albino” back in the yard-and left him there.

There the sucker was, leaning against the fence, coolly returning his gaze.

Ochoa glanced around again through slitted eyes. His prison instincts told him something was going on. It was some kind of setup. Ochoa knew the others felt the same way. They didn’t need to talk; everyone knew already what everyone else was thinking. The guards hated Albino as much as they did. Somebody in high places wanted him dead.

Ochoa was only too eager to oblige.

He spit on the asphalt and scuffed it in with his shoe while he watched Borges pound the basketball on the ground with his fist, once, twice, as he made a slow round toward the hoop. Borges was going to reach Albino first, and Ochoa knew Borges could be relied on to be cool and sit tight. There would be plenty of time to take care of the problem, nice and quiet, in a way that nobody got singled out. Sure, it would mean a few months in solitary, loss of privileges-but they were all lifers, anyway. And this was sanctioned. Whatever the consequences, they’d be mild.

He glanced up at the distant tower. Nobody was looking their way: the tower guards mostly looked to the side and out, toward the perimeter fences. Their view of the interior of yard 4 was limited.

He turned his gaze back to Albino, disconcerted to see the man was still staring at him. Let him stare. In five minutes, he’d be dead, ready to be rinsed off and shipped out.

Juggy glanced around at the hermanos. They, too, were taking it slow. Albino was a fighter, a motherfucking dirty fighter, but this time they’d be more careful. And he was banged up; he’d be slower. They’d take him down as a pack.

They continued to slide in, tightening the ring.

Borges had reached the three-point line. With a smoothly practiced motion, he tossed the ball up and it swished through the hoop, dropping down-into the waiting hands of the Albino, who had stepped forward with a sudden deft movement to catch it.

They all stood and stared at him, hard. He held the ball, returning their looks, his stitched-up face utterly neutral. Juggy felt a surge of rage at the raw challenge in his look.

He glanced over his shoulder. Still no guards.

Borges stepped forward and the Albino said something to him, talking in a rapid undertone, so low Juggy couldn’t hear what he said. As he approached, Juggy reached down and pulled the little shank out of the crotch seam of his underwear. The time was now: shank the bastard and have it done.