Jack Frost

by Diane Capri

  She stacked the two bins together and carried them across the room to a window. A uniformed woman took the bins from her and gave her a claim ticket to collect them after they’d been hand-inspected.

  “Running late today.” the officer said. “How long are you planning to be?”

  “Couple of hours, probably,” Olson replied.

  The officer nodded. “Warden has extended hours in the exercise yard since daylight saving time kicked in. Gives the inmates more fresh air. We won’t be locking down until eight o’clock tonight. All interviews end by seven-thirty.”

  “Okay,” Olson replied. “I’ve got three clients scheduled. One hour each. I’ll do my best to hurry them up.”

  “Unless you’d like to stay overnight, we’ll be escorting you from the building before seven-thirty.” The woman frowned. “Whether you’re done or not.”

  “Understood.”

  This was a federal government facility. She had no idea how many employees were on the site at any given time. The staff was mostly veterans from all branches of the military. Regardless of their backgrounds, they were all trained in law enforcement.

  Bottom line was that Bolton personnel operated pursuant to thick stacks of rules and regulations and manuals and plans and backups and contingency plans, too. They’d no doubt trained to deploy such practices in a regimented way, precisely as and when needed.

  Olson returned to the metal detector and stood waiting for the go light overhead. One of the guards pushed a button and the light turned green. She walked through slowly. She’d learned long ago to leave her jewelry and her underwire bra and anything else metallic at home.

  Nothing beeped.

  On the other side, one guards watched and another wanded her. The third, a female officer, patted her down.

  Olson showed her photo ID and another card identifying her as a member of the South Dakota Bar Association. After she’d passed all of the screening tests, she exchanged her claim check for the return of her briefcase and her jacket. Then she collected her briefcase and jacket and followed the guard who escorted her to the meeting rooms.

  Olson didn’t need the escort. She could have found her way in the dark. The building was clean and tidy but depressing just the same.

  All prisons ran on protocol and this one had as many rules as any other.

  No unescorted visitors. Period.

  Which was a precaution against something. Olson wasn’t sure exactly what the warden was worried about. She had never heard of mobs trying to get inside the place. As far as she knew, they’d never had a single inmate escape, either.

  Olson’s escort walked her deeper into the complex. Through heavy doors, around tight corners, and past thick green glass windows with watchful faces behind, until they reached her destination.

  Four interview rooms, each divided exactly in half by a wall-to-wall counter with impenetrable safety glass above it, like a bank teller’s cage in an old movie. Each side of the room had a separate entrance door. The prisoners entered from the other side.

  Olson had never been on that side of the wall. She had no firsthand experience over there. Nor did she want any.

  Her escort opened her door and then locked her inside and took a few steps away to offer the appearance of privacy.

  In theory, lawyers and clients were allowed confidential communications inside these rooms. Savvy lawyers like Olson never relied on those promises.

  Smarter to assume nothing was private inside any prison. Every inch of the place, even the parking lots, was under constant surveillance. Maybe the cameras should be off at certain times. But mistakes were made. Olson had read about them in the law books.

  She glanced at the clock. She had plenty of time before lockdown. Three clients. The first and last were okay, but the second guy was flat out terrifying.

  Olson put her briefcase on the desk, pulled out a yellow legal pad and a cheap plastic pen, which was all for show.

  The first and last clients never told her anything important enough to write down.

  The second client carried a list of demands in his head. Not for himself. For other inmates.

  He passed the demands to her.

  Like her predecessor, she memorized the list and passed it along to someone else.

  They were both being used.

  He knew it.

  She knew it.

  Neither one cared.

  Ryan Denny’s skin was pale and translucent white. He was bulked up and overweight and shackled at the wrists and ankles. He would never leave Bolton Prison alive. His eyes were dull, but he must have been some kind of savant. He memorized orders from other inmates and passed them along to her.

  Olson shook her head. Denny was too frightening to focus on. He’d long ago invaded her sleep, causing nightmares after every visit. She forced his image from her mind and glanced at the clock again.

  Her first client was eight minutes late, which was unusual. Not that she cared. She’d allotted him exactly forty-five minutes. No more, no less. And she was billing every second, whether Liam Walsh showed up or not.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Friday, May 13

  Rapid City, South Dakota

  5:35 p.m.

  Captain Wayne Romone sat alone in the big old bird. Nervous about the operation and satisfied that he’d made it this far, all at the same time.

  When he got the word from air traffic control, he pushed the throttle on the A320 to the max. With fifty tons of metal on board and a full load of fuel, every ounce of thrust he could get from the plane counted.

  Once airborne, he kept the wings level for a couple of minutes, building airspeed before banking to the east.

  The flight plan said Rapid City, South Dakota, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ninety-eight minutes in the air, nonstop. Piece of cake.

  Except he wasn’t flying nonstop today.

  Romone wasn’t worried. He’d had a good run. The love of his life had married him a couple of decades ago and they’d built a strong family. Four kids. Good kids. Three boys already at college and his daughter was going off in the fall.

  He was proud of them all. His wife, especially. Her work as a teacher had given her many happy years.

  When he’d daydreamed about his future, he’d planned savings for the kids’ college, and to care for elderly parents, and funding pensions.

  But he’d never seriously considered how his own death might happen.

  If he’d thought about the matter at all, he’d simply have assumed death would come to him in its own way and its own time and nothing he might want would trump the Grand Plan on that score.

  Romone simply lived his life as if every day might be his last. In his line of work, it was a better strategy than most.

  Romone had started his career with ten years in the military, flying transports into hot spots the world over. When the defense spending cuts came, he’d transitioned into the civilian world as a pilot for a big airline.

  He’d flown lots of international trips. Lots of jet lag. Lots of days away from home.

  When his fourth child had arrived, he’d transitioned to a smaller airline, flying domestic freight. What the job lacked in salary, it made up for in other ways. Most days he could sleep in his own bed and be a part of his family’s lives.

  Which made everything he’d sacrificed to make it happen more than worth it. No regrets. Even as his world began to change.

  Over time, the big air freight operators had gobbled up more and more of the market. There were still opportunities for small businesses like his, but the competition was fierce, and the money wasn’t there.

  He’d accepted pay cuts to stay employed.

  Which was okay.

  His life was better spent with his family than chasing more money, anyway.

  He’d have a lifetime to accumulate wealth. His kids were young only once. So he hadn’t questioned his career choices. No reason to.

  Until that day at the doctor’s office when his whole world changed. Term
inal cancer. “No way out,” the doc said. But Romone couldn’t wrap his head around it. It was damned unfair.

  He’d always exercised and ate more salads than steaks. His mind was a sharp as ever. Passed his annual physicals with flying colors. Hell, he didn’t even need reading glasses. He was a good pilot, too. Knew all the routes, the approaches, even the air traffic controllers by name.

  Sure, he’d been tired sometimes, but he was getting older, after all. He liked to fly later in the day. Less air traffic to worry about. Most of the time he flew on autopilot anyway, so it didn’t matter if he took a nap now and then.

  He had a good copilot. Reliable. Younger. Easy going. Only too happy to babysit the electronics that were getting them from here to there and back again.

  Which explained why Romone had to push hard to convince the young dude to call in sick this afternoon. But he couldn’t take any chances with the copilot’s career.

  In a small outfit like theirs, everyone was essential and had to pull his own weight. Persuading the younger man to take the day off hadn’t been easy, but Romone had finally managed.

  With no first officer available, Romone should have been grounded. His A320 was converted for freight haulage, which fell under the same rules as a commercial aircraft full of passengers.

  But hauling freight isn’t a forgiving business. Given a chance, bigger operators would steal the clients in a hot New York second. Missing a big delivery like the one Romone was scheduled to fly next would give the competition the break they’d been salivating for.

  So after his copilot called in sick, Romone convinced his boss that he could fly solo, just this once. The boss knew the score. He knew the flight would be a challenge. But the freight had to go, and the boss had no one else to fly the A320 today.

  The boss argued with Romone, but in the end, agreed, as Romone had known he would.

  A few false notations in the logbook and he was good to go.

  Both Romone and his boss knew the messed up notes would be construed as minor mistakes. Mere oversights. At most, he’d get a slap on the wrist and be told not to do it again.

  If the authorities found out.

  Which they wouldn’t.

  Nothing out of the ordinary about the cargo. Specialized engines for heavy earthmovers. It was the sort of freight that usually went by rail. But the manufacturer had a rush order and using air transport would get it there sooner.

  If today’s flight went well, there were more contracts promised for the future.

  Which was all well and good.

  But the only thing Romone really cared about was that the cargo didn’t require a supervisor onboard. When the big aircraft started rolling, he’d be the only one on the plane.

  Risking his own life for a big payoff to his family was one thing. Risking the lives of others was not at all okay.

  Several times during the planning stages, he’d thought the operation might go off the rails. But it hadn’t. He’d managed to push through all the problems until, finally, he sat patiently waiting his turn for takeoff on runway one.

  Daylight saving time had kicked in a few weeks ago. But he’d still be flying in daylight for the first leg. Sunset was three hours away. A nighttime return flight from Minneapolis would be fine, too. Easier than flying into the setting sun. Visibility clear all the way.

  Twenty minutes into the flight, he pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and read through it again. It was an informal checklist he’d created after significant research containing the steps and procedures he’d need to hide the planned detour of seventy tons of plane and cargo.

  “Talk about flying a herd of elephants,” he muttered under his breath without cracking so much as a grin at the ridiculously apt mental image.

  Romone had wrestled the situation around in his head for hours at night while the family was asleep, making his checklist. Transporting a herd of elephants was difficult under any circumstances. Maneuvering the A320 in total secrecy was damned impossible.

  Finally, he’d accepted that he couldn’t hide his actions entirely. There were simply too many rules and regulations and eyes watching all the time.

  At the moment, he felt more like an elephant wedged in a shoebox. No wiggle room at all.

  He’d get as close to perfect as possible. He’d handle the inquisition afterward. That was the best he could do.

  The payoff would be worth it. His family would be set for life. He’d never need to worry about them again. He could rest in peace when the time came, knowing he’d done the right thing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Friday, May 13

  Bolton Correctional Facility

  6:15 p.m.

  Duff Keegan’s outdoor exercise period was the last on the schedule today. With late spring’s warmer and longer days, the inmates were allowed more time outside, which was perfect. Sunset was later. Nights were shorter. Which wasn’t perfect, but he could work with those challenges. He’d handled much bigger issues already.

  He’d showered and shaved and dressed in a clean white T-shirt and jeans before he donned a larger than normal orange jumpsuit over his street clothes. He sat on the edge of his cot to tie the new and aptly named running shoes. He smiled before he stood and stretched a bit, lifting on the balls of his feet, trying them out.

  He looked around the cell for the last time.

  A few books rested on a small shelf near his bed. His cellmate had gone outside already, too excited to stay cooped up, he’d said. Denny wasn’t much of a reader. He liked to memorize things and recite them back in perfect order, like replaying a recording.

  Keegan wasn’t sure the scary-looking idiot could read at all. But he’d been useful with the lawyer, and maybe he’d develop the reading habit over the next thirty years. He’d have plenty of time.

  Nothing else noteworthy caught Keegan’s eye. He’d accumulated little since they’d sent him to serve his time at Bolton Correctional and he cared nothing for sentiment anyway. He’d have everything he could possibly want when he reached his destination on Monday.

  When the automatic door lock opened, he rested his hands in his empty pockets and walked straight out of his cell and into the corridor, without a backward glance or an ounce of remorse.

  His mind was on the future.

  There was nothing worth caring about here.

  Two cells down the row, Liam Walsh stood waiting. Keegan nodded, and Walsh joined him. They walked casually side by side toward the yard, as they’d walked everywhere, every day since Keegan was first locked up at Bolton.

  Any crime boss always had a protective presence around him. Keegan’s reputation as the most vicious gangster in Boston was usually protection enough, inside or outside any prison.

  The few times Keegan’s cloak of extreme menace wasn’t enough, Walsh handled things in a more violent way. That’s what protective muscle was for.

  Keegan didn’t keep Walsh around because of his brains and good looks. It was brawn Keegan paid handsomely for, and Walsh had never failed to deliver. Nor would he.

  Not more than once, anyway.

  Keegan had been squirreled away in this stinkin’ place because the feds were stupid. No other way to look at it.

  The feds thought he’d be out of his element here. He was a big man in Boston. He was nobody in Nowheresville, South Dakota. That’s how the feds had figured it. That Keegan would be controllable, away from his organization.

  Keegan shook his head. How stupid could they be?

  Just before his armed escort had uncuffed him during his check-in at the warden’s office, the scrawny bespectacled FBI agent had said maybe, after a couple of winters in South Dakota, Keegan would take the witness protection offer they’d dangled.

  He shook his head again. For smart guys, these feds weren’t at all wise in the ways of Keegan’s world. Not even a little bit.

  “You see your lawyer today?” Keegan asked. The lawyer was part of the plan. She just didn’t know it. Which was as it should be.


  Walsh nodded. “She was late. I was later. She had Denny and Burns after me. She’s still here.”

  Both men grinned and kept walking.

  Up ahead of him in the corridor, the line of men wearing orange jumpsuits waited to exit the cell block to the exercise yard. Keegan applied patience in these sorts of things. His turn would come. He had plenty of time.

  All prisons had rules, and at Bolton, forty-six men at once were allowed in each exercise yard for a one-hour period. The groups of forty rotated through the one-hour schedule like civilian teams renting a sports facility on the outside. The cell blocks rotated the schedule.

  On Fridays, Keegan’s cell block took the last hour of the day. Since daylight saving time had kicked in, the last hour of the day had moved to after dinner instead of before. Which worked better for him. Keegan had terrible indigestion if he went to bed right after dinner.

  No prisoners were allowed out in the yard the other three days of the week. That was when visitors were on the premises.

  Seven days a week, week in and week out. This had been his life. Which was about to change.

  The forty-six men in orange jumpsuits shuffled along until they reached the door and then walked through the exit, one at a time.

  Keenan and Walsh were in the middle of the group, protected from the front and the flank. Just in case.

  Ahead, Keenan saw daylight before he reached the exit. The weather was sunny and clear and not a cloud in the sky, just as the weatherman had predicted. The temperature was still a bit cool, which was perfect for running.

  He pushed himself up on his toes to stretch his calves as he shuffled toward the front of the line. At the exit, he walked deliberately across the threshold, for the last time, savoring the moment.

  As he did, he vowed to himself that he would never take another breath inside Bolton or any other prison. Never.

  It was a promise he meant to keep.

  Keegan walked toward the picnic table in the far corner of the fenced yard. Walsh walked alongside him. They sat on the table, feet planted on the benches, facing west.