Part 26 (1/2)

My instinct was to resist any command, but my eye was drawn over to the console deck. One of the screens had come to life. They must have taken off the blanket, I thought, and then I felt a cold hand on my throat.

A hostage knelt on the floor of the range, back straight, blindfolded. At first I thought he was an inmate, because he wore inmate clothes, but I recognized the jawline, the uptightness of his posture, the slope of his shoulders. Ruddik.

Three inmates stood around him. They wore sacks with eyeholes over their heads.

One of them pulled Ruddik's blindfold away.

”What are you doing?” I said.

A second hooded figure held the radio to Ruddik's lips. He stumbled over the script, trying to remember.

”For the last eighteen months,” Ruddik began, ”I've been a federal investigator in this prison, posing as a corrections officer.”

It was impossible not to listen. I felt sucked in by his confession.

”I have propagated a network of in formants. I have entrapped inmates with drug buys. I've traced a large-size payment to the Keeper. I've shown that the warden and the a.s.sistant warden profit from companies that provide the inst.i.tution with supplies and facility maintenance. All of these business dealings must be investigated further. I have... . The contraband problem in this prison-the root-the real criminals are the corrections officers.”

A hard kick to the back and a flinch of pain as he hesitated or forgot his lines. My stomach flipped over at the way his body jerked forward and reset itself.

”I have entrapped inmates unjustly. I have relied on false evidence. I have built up a dossier of false information about the criminal activities of innocent inmates. Because of this, I am directly responsible for the violence that has happened today.”

A change came over Ruddik's demeanor. For the first time, I saw fear smear across his face, and his voice began to warble. The last sentences he spoke were unintelligible. ”I have-” he said, and tried again, and again.

”What's going on?” Stone called out.

”Good enough,” a voice on the radio said.

One of the hooded inmates stood directly behind Ruddik and held his shoulders tight. A second grabbed his head and tilted it back by the hair. Ruddik began to twist and buck. I saw a metal sword in the third inmate's hand rise up to Ruddik's throat.

”Oh, Jesus, no,” I said, and then yelled into the microphone, ”Don't!”

My limbs had gone all tingly. I pleaded for it to stop, for the event to reverse itself. Ruddik thrashed harder at the touch of the long curved blade, thrusting his body violently to the sides, but the man behind him held him upright with a knee pressed into his back, and the third man grabbed his hair and tilted his head back, exposing his throat.

I looked. I watched. It was all I could give him. I wanted him to know that my eyes were on him and that he was not alone with those animals. Stone screamed that I was next, sounding like a hyena shackled to the floor, a rabid, frothing beast. When the sword moved, I flinched, but it was just a graceful slide across Ruddik's throat. The relief drained through me as I realized they'd spared him. They'd made the cutting gesture but faked the awful act. Then, most horribly, his neck opened up, the skin peeled away like a sudden manic smile, and a soft gray spray shot forth, gentle as a dolphin aspirating a puff of water into the air. The blood seemed to activate the hooded man's fury. He began to saw across Ruddik's throat with vigor, back and forth, while Ruddik's torso twitched and fought for balance. The cut wedged its way beyond a balance point so that a great yawn suddenly opened and the weight of Ruddik's head tipped backward. Then something soft happened, and the body fell forward, gracefully, like a tumbled tree, Ruddik's head held up by the inmate's fist.

”If you don't let us in,” a voice said into the radio, breathing hard, ”we do it again.”

One of the hooded men stepped on Ruddik's back and forced the blood to roll out in a last great gush.

I threw up. I couldn't stop the shaking, and I couldn't stop myself from glancing up to Ruddik's body on the ground, alone now, his head resting on his own back like a balanced stone.

I couldn't ask G.o.d. I couldn't ask Ruddik. I couldn't ask Brother Mike. I had only one source for answers, and I paced the room, screaming at him, walking circles. Every time my revolution brought me close to him, I got into his face. ”Why are they doing this!”

Stone's lungs, full of fluid, sputtered as he laughed.

So I smashed the b.u.t.t of the Remington down on his knee.

”Who are you?” I asked. ”Who the f.u.c.k are you?”

”f.u.c.k you!” he said through snot and pain.

So I smashed the other kneecap like I was breaking rock.

He howled and moaned and twisted and tried to bring his knees up to his hands and roll around to grip them, but the zip cuffs just tightened. I found the CA bottle on the floor and shook it.

”Why is this happening?”

”I don't know!” he said.

I sprayed it straight into my hand, cupping the liquid in my palm, and reached down for his face. He squirmed and twisted away. I held my hand next to his mouth and nose.

”Money,” he answered. ”Hammond's money.”

The liquid dripped through my fingers, little acid splotches. Hammond's money?

”What do you mean?” I yelled. ”Tell me everything.”

”You're going to die,” he told me.

So I drove my finger into his eye slit and rubbed the eyeball hard.

I heard the banging outside and stood up, my breath heaving in my throat. I'd forgotten they were coming, as if days had pa.s.sed since they'd spoken. I was more animal than human, some wild thing found in the forest who couldn't understand language or even gestures.

A dozen men outside, four of them hooded, visitors calling, waiting for me.

When I didn't move or answer, one of the inmates lurched a hooded man forward and twisted him down to his knees. The hood came off, and I saw that it was Brother Mike, dignified, tousle-haired. The blade rose and settled in on his neck.

I thought for one second about lifting the Remington up and roaring out, firing away, killing a few. Instead, I flung the shotgun against the wall and pulled back the iron slide and gave them entry. They tore the door away from my hands and poured in.

47.

The sack was putrid, and Josh could barely breathe. Nothing but darkness. He stumbled at a step, not knowing it was there, and got shoved forward. He fell, expecting stairs and landing on floor. A minute later someone ripped the hood from his head and he looked up and around. Jacko stepped away and ripped the hood off Roy. It was a ruse, Fenton had a.s.sured them, a way of increasing the number of apparent hostages and holding off any violent attack. A jack slumped against the wall, his chin on his chest, the side of his head cracked like rotten fruit. A man in civilian clothes sat on the floor, his hands behind his back, his face a melted mess, like candle wax. Officer Williams lay on the ground propped on one elbow, one knee up, staring, wild with hate. Cooper Lewis aimed a shotgun at her, paused in that fierce moment before firing, the aim of the barrels pinning her in place.

”It's about f.u.c.king time,” the man on the floor said. ”Cut me loose.”

”What happened to you, Boyd?” Fenton asked. ”Where are all those guns you were supposed to get?”

”Ask this b.i.t.c.h before I choke her to death.”

Fenton smiled. ”You're the b.i.t.c.h.” He pulled the machete from Cooper Lewis's belt, stepped toward the man, and drew the blade along his throat. Once again Josh wished he could have squeezed his eyes faster and kept them shut. The man fell back, coughing a pink spray, and his neck opened up to show the meat inside. Then his feet and knees started jumping and bobbing while his shoulders made twitchy shrugs and the blood that spurted out of his neck alternated between a fanning stream and abrupt, pulsing splashes. It took a long minute, all of them watching, before the dancing stuttered to a few final twitches.

Her face had been sprayed by the pink mist. Her mouth was twisted up with puckered disgust.

Fenton dropped the machete to the ground. ”Let's get on with it,” he said, and he hauled Officer Williams up, then led her by the scruff of the neck, like a child or an errant dog.

”That's the way down, Fenton,” Roy said, nodding toward the back of the room.