by Tom Barber
‘So Lupinetti told someone he was gonna be on the bus heading this way tonight?’ the assisting Marshal said. ‘And whoever that was, they found a way to relay it to the Loughlins?’
Archer nodded. ‘The two agents who were on board told me these buses follow the same route most of the time. Big Sandy, to FCI Gilmer, going up I-77, taking the 64-exit and going over this bridge near the State capital. Prisoners know the journey well enough from back and forth transfers.’
‘How you think they timed it so well? What did you see?’
Archer nodded back at where Craig was lying. ‘Youngest brother came at us from the south side. Think they picked us up on the interstate in a car they’d stolen, and rode ahead to look for an ambush point. Traffic was backed up down the highway from an accident. Gave them the perfect opportunity to kill the troopers they came across whose car they stole to block the road. Then Craig must’ve doubled back and been waiting for us on the highway, pulled off to the side with his hazards on like he’d broken down. They knew we were coming. Drew us into a chokepoint on the bridge then cut off both ways out.’
‘So you took one prisoner down, but he’s been replaced by four more.’
‘Way today’s been going, I’m afraid.’ The Marshals headed back down the bridge to talk with a Charleston PD lieutenant who’d just arrived along with some more State troopers waiting for directions on the manhunts, the men and women visibly shaken by the deaths of their colleagues. Archer knew what that felt like, remembering what Lupinetti and his friends had done to Lucero.
Up above, a police chopper had started to hover over some woodland half a mile away, searching with its spotlight. He was sure that like near Gatlin, K9 tracking dogs would be out there as well. ‘APB went out to all units for the brothers and your man in the stolen trooper Impala,’ a city cop who’d loaned Archer the blanket said, joining him. ‘But the other prisoners most likely are still on foot. Should be easier to find.’
‘Not if they make it into the city,’ Archer said, looking at the lights of Charleston beyond the bridge. It wasn’t a big metropolis by any means, but it had plenty of places to hide, people to take hostage and vehicles to steal.
The assisting deputy Marshal returned. ‘We’re warning local counties and putting out alerts, but the chief asked if you’d stick around for a few hours,’ he told Archer. ‘Our people in Virginia are gonna want to know exactly what happened here in detail. You’re the only one who can tell us.’
‘Whatever you need. But I’m going back on Lupinetti’s trail as soon as it’s picked up again.’
‘We’ll find him along with those two brothers.’
‘Maybe, but he was my responsibility. This doesn’t end until I’ve got him back in a prison cell.’ Archer remembered Spencer and Harrington getting hit with rifle and shotgun fire from the Loughlins, his two companions on the journey who now wouldn’t be going home to their families tomorrow morning. And I’d like to run into Brooks and Billy again too while I’m at it, he thought.
The Marshal nodded before walking off as Archer checked the time. Just past 10pm. ‘Dispatch wants us back in town and patrolling in case some of these boys show up looking for cars, weapons or supplies,’ the local female cop told him. ‘I’d better get rolling.’
Archer’s wet clothes were clinging to him and he felt chilled to the bone. ‘Mind if I hitch a ride?’
He was going to leave his cell number with the US Marshals, but after discovering his phone was out of action after its dunking in the river, they gave Archer a card instead with a number to call in an hour or so when he could find a phone to check for an update. The female cop gave him a lift into the city, but despite a quick drive around, couldn’t find any clothing outlets still open at that time of night; with his bag of spare clothes torched on the prison bus, it meant the sodden NYPD detective was just going to have to wait until morning.
His shivering was burning up energy and had left him starving. He hadn’t eaten anything apart from some Pringles since he and Marquez had left the motel earlier that morning, so the Charleston cop dropped him at a diner in the city that closed late. Draped in the blanket, he attracted the curious attention of the server and few other customers as he took a seat at the counter, but they soon turned back to their meals. Archer’s own attention went to the TV as he ordered the first things he saw on the menu, a grilled cheese sandwich, fries, chicken soup and hot tea.
Spencer and Harrington were still on his mind; he’d learned a bit about their lives during the journey and had liked both of them. He remembered the taunts aimed at Spencer about his wife. Both agents had been doing an important job and by requesting the transport, Archer had involved them in this situation; now they were dead, their families due to receive the knock tonight. Archer also recalled Frank’s smug expression, reflected in that dark window.
He’d known something was going to happen.
The two agents’ deaths, the Loughlins’ actions, Lupinetti’s escape and his plunge into the Kanawha had left the cold, damp NYPD detective tired and thoroughly pissed off. Once his meal arrived he ate quietly, watching the TV screen as Statewide news reported live from the scene on the bridge, the crew as close as they could get to make their report. The Gatlin Four, the Loughlins and Lupinetti were now being called, considered a separate group and being covered independently from the other bus escapees. Archer ran his eyes from left to right across the mugshots on the screen. The three Loughlin brothers, all rotten to the core, the remaining two sure to want to get revenge for taking down their youngest.
Lupinetti will tell them who you are. Where to find you.
Bring it on, he thought. He continued to watch the TV while finishing his meal which was warming him up and helping to improve his mood very slightly. Getting a report of the incident out there so fast was also good; millions of eyes were more effective than just those of the police. ‘Want another bowl, man?’ the server asked, seeing the soup was gone. ‘It’s on the house. We got half a pot left. Looks like you could use it.’
Archer raised a smile, wrapped in his blanket. ‘What gave you that idea?’
As the young man took the bowl and refilled it, the local news report linked to one from WJHL back in Lee County, giving updates on the situation there; Archer started to think about the others killed by the Loughlins today. The firearms the brothers had been using on the bridge might’ve come from the troopers whose car they’d stolen, but they had to have been armed before that; the windshield on the Impala had been shot up. Someone could’ve delivered guns to the fugitives, but he hadn’t seen anyone else helping them out on the bridge. The most likely scenario was they’d broken into someone’s home and stolen them. Southern Virginia was hunting country. And meant there was possibly another innocent victim missing some weapons and ammo.
So, in half a day, they’d murdered four inmates in their respective escapes and caused another three to die on the bus, shot three cops, two extradition agents, and there was that laundry truck driver who most likely had died too by now, the man having been left clinging to life by a thread and only because the brothers had made a mistake by not cutting his throat deep enough. Archer also then remembered the elderly woman who’d called 911 to alert them about the truck, killed by Brooks and Billy for her trouble and more importantly to them, her car.
The server brought back the bowl of soup and a fresh refill of tea as the elderly woman’s fate stayed with Archer. He thought about that particular scenario some more. A Virginia State trooper had just said on the TV that blood had been found on the highway, but Marquez had mentioned earlier that the truck driver had been discovered by first-responders with padding wrapped around his neck.
So the old woman got out, found the injured driver, strapped his wound, called 911 then went back to her car and was stabbed? Archer envisaged Brooks and Billy Loughlin lying in wait in the cornfield for an approaching car they could hijack, before stepping out and flagging her down. They wouldn’t have let her help the driver an
d definitely wouldn’t have given her time to call the cops.
He took out his cell and tried to turn it on, but the device still wasn’t working. As he started looking at ways to take it apart to give it a chance to dry out, the Charleston PD cop who’d dropped him at the diner walked in and approached his seat, a folded pair of jeans, a shirt and sweater in her hands. ‘These are my husband’s,’ she said, passing Archer the clothes. ‘He’s got a couple pounds on you, but they’ll be better than what you’re wearing until morning. Don’t want you getting sick.’
Archer was surprised by the gesture. ‘He’s OK if I borrow them?’
‘Says they’re old, so you can throw ‘em out when you’re done.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve been looking for an excuse to get them out of the dresser for a while.’
Archer looked at the sweater, which had the Virginia Tech University logo on it. ‘Thank you.’
The cop nodded then turned to the server and passed over a thermos. ‘You do me a favor and fill that up, sir?’
‘You got it.’
Archer’s thoughts were still with whoever had made that call about the laundry truck driver, and he caught the server before he headed to the coffee pot. ‘There a phone here I could use?’
‘911, what’s your emergency?’ the recorded call said. The female cop had become curious when Archer had told her what was on his mind, interested to hear the outcome, so had decided to wait while the server brought over a cordless landline.
Having quickly changed in the men’s room into the officer’s husband’s jeans, t-shirt and old gray college sweater, Archer had the call on low speakerphone setting so she could hear too. He’d dialed the CT Bureau back in New York, who at his request had contacted Jonesville PD in Virginia near Gatlin prison, asking if they could hear a cut of the 911 call from earlier that day when the laundry truck had been found. Jonesville had called Archer back and were playing him the recording he’d asked to hear.
‘I’m on a track off Route 58. There’s a laundry truck here. The driver’s been stabbed,’ a voice said. ‘He needs medical attention immediately. Get here fast.’
‘So it wasn’t the old woman who made the call,’ Archer said quietly, hearing the operator asking more questions but the caller not answering. ‘No-one thought to check the recording, but you just heard. A guy called the 911 operator. Not her.’
‘A passing driver, maybe?’
‘Who stopped, found the driver choking on his own blood, wrapped his neck up as best he could, phoned the local police then left before they showed up?’
‘Might’ve been scared whoever did that to the driver could reappear and cut him up too,’ she suggested, echoing what Marquez had said back at the hospital in Virginia before Archer left. ‘Or he didn’t wanna hang around to answer questions.’ She paused, thinking. ‘Maybe he’s got a record or something.’
‘The call came from the truck driver’s cell phone,’ the Jonesville dispatcher said, hearing the two cops exchanging ideas.
‘Could you connect me to USP Gatlin if possible, Miss?’ Archer asked, the Charleston PD cop’s last comment moments ago sticking with him.
‘Sure, but they might be too busy to talk.’
‘They won’t be if they hear what I have to say. But I need to speak to them right now.’
THIRTEEN
‘C Block’s under lockdown right now,’ the corrections officer called Williams told Archer impatiently, still on duty after a brutal day and one of three COs currently in the control center at USP Gatlin. ‘We haven’t even had time to wipe the blood off the floor and walls yet.’
‘I’m just asking for another headcount. It’s important.’
‘That was done already, after the riot team took back control.’
‘With cells closed?’
‘This isn’t Escape from Alcatraz, guy. We make sure we see more than just the top of a head. Protocol is forty eight hours locked in their cells after a riot; no meals, no yard time, no contact with the outside world. These sons of bitches don’t deserve anything less after what they did today. They killed two of our guys. We go easy, they’ll start thinking we’re slipping, then they’ll pull this shit again. I’m not gonna be the next one ending up in a box.’
‘I get it. I’m not suggesting you go light or even talk to them. Just tick off each man in his cell. There’s a good reason I’m asking.’
‘Apart from Brooks and Billy, everyone who wasn’t killed today is accounted for. We don’t screw up count. There’s too much at stake if we do.’
‘Who’s on the line?’ the captain of the corrections team asked, walking back into the control center holding his cell phone. He’d been in close discussion with the Marshals Office and various police agencies across southern Virginia for most of the last hour, the groups not sure whether to halt their searches after confirmed sightings of the Loughlins had been made on the bridge over in West Virginia a state away.
‘One of the cops from New York who was here earlier.’
‘The Marshals just told me he was on the prison transport when it got hit outside Charleston,’ the captain answered.
‘It got ambushed?’ one of the other guards, Anderson, asked in surprise.
‘Yeah and your man there capped off Craig Loughlin,’ the captain said, taking the phone from Williams. ‘Cap here. I hear it right that you took down the youngest brother?’
‘Yeah, but not the other two unfortunately. Brooks and Billy broke Frank Lupinetti free and four other prisoners who were on the bus made it out too. I’m gonna be after Lupinetti again as soon as I get a lead but right now, I think I can help you.’
‘How so?’
‘I strongly suggest you run another count in C Block. I think you could be another man down.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Williams muttered, able to hear what Archer was saying. ‘I told him, we already did a check earlier.’
‘A quick recount with inmates looked in the eye and accounted for,’ Archer said to the captain. ‘I wouldn’t waste your time if I didn’t think it was necessary.’
It had been almost eleven hours since the riot had been brought under control. Most of the inmates locked back inside C Block had quietened, resigned to the punishment of being stuck in their cells without food for forty eight hours, when the doors below opened and three COs walked into the block with the captain, riot officers behind them carrying shields and batons.
This happening after a disturbance or a riot was very unusual. On the upper tier, Prez raised his head off his pillow, then climbed out of his bunk and went to the door.
‘One drop of bullshit from anyone, you go to the SHU for a month,’ the captain warned loudly, his voice echoing off the walls, and the noise which had started to come from some of the cells subsided. Beside him, Williams and Anderson both glanced at the dried blood on the floor and then at the Loughlins’, Hoffmeier’s and Kattar’s empty cells as they passed.
Two escaped, and two dead.
‘Open up ground tier north,’ the captain ordered into a radio. As the cell doors were unlocked and the old-school grilled bars slid back, Anderson and Williams each brought up a shotgun to cover the line, the riot officers standing alongside them ready to crush any attempt at another uprising. ‘Step out! All of you.’
The inmates did as they were ordered, some with minor injuries, some of them glancing around warily wondering if an unsanctioned revenge beatdown was about to take place. Most of their attention was focused on the two armed COs behind the captain holding the shotguns; firearms were rarely brought into the block, so the fact they were now was a clear demonstration the staff weren’t taking any chances.
The third CO who’d been in the control center with Anderson, Williams and the captain went down the line with a checkboard, ticking off the prisoners one by one. As he passed each man and checked them off, he ordered them back into their cells. ‘Lower tier set, Cap,’ the guard said when he reached the last inmate. ‘All accounted for.’
‘Told you this
was a waste of time,’ Williams muttered, holding his twelve gauge.
‘Close the cells,’ the captain ordered over his radio, the doors sliding back into place. The team checked the other lower side, all the prisoners ticked off there too, then once their doors were relocked the group moved to the upper tier. The cells on the south side were opened first and the inmates stepped out.
Once again, the guard went down the line with his clipboard, ticking each man off his list. ‘Cap, we’re a man down,’ the CO said, stopping. ‘Where’s Pugh?’ he asked the cell’s remaining inmate, as his captain joined him.
‘Got shanked.’
‘Did Pugh get hurt in the riot?’ the captain asked his COs below.
‘Yeah, taken to Jonesville,’ Anderson confirmed. ‘They’re housing him at County until lockdown’s-’
Then he stopped talking.
His eyes had locked onto a couple of inmates towards the end of the upper southside tier, who he could just see from his position a level down. The captain turned to see what had caught his attention, and after following his gaze walked down the line quickly, stopping near the end of the tier.
He reached the two prisoners in question who were standing nonchalantly outside their cells, looking the CO and captain in the eye.
The prison staff were focusing on the smaller of the two men, who was grinning back at them.
At that moment, with USP Gatlin staff realizing they’d all made a very serious mistake, a young couple driving a country road north of Charleston in West Virginia had just been flagged down to help a guy standing beside a State Police Impala with its hood up, the car blocking the road.