The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  Big Baby had stepped behind him, his massive hands gripping him about the head. “No more punishment,” Big Baby said. “No more rules,” he said and snapped Overbay’s head hard to the left.

  Bee Dee sprung, boot raised. Atkins turned, but not quickly enough. Bee Dee’s boot struck the side of Atkins’s left knee, as if breaking a stick propped against a curb, and Atkins’s leg caved inward with a sickening pop. He folded, screaming in agony. Just as quick, Molia knocked the barrel of the rifle into the air, ripped it from Atkins’s hands, and swung the butt up under his chin, snapping back Atkins’s head and drawing blood from the guard’s chin and mouth.

  Bee Dee removed the handgun from inside his uniform and pressed it against Atkins’s temple. “You got him?” Molia asked.

  “I got him.”

  “Which dorm?” Sloane asked.

  “I know.” Henry snatched the key ring from Atkins’s belt and raced across the yard, Molia and Sloane following.

  Atkins grimaced in pain, spitting blood. He looked to have bitten his tongue. He looked up at Bee Dee, eyes enraged, jaw clenched, blood dripping down his neck from the gash in his chin, staining his uniform.

  “Surprise,” Bee Dee said.

  “Give me the gun, Bee Dee, and I’ll say they forced you into this.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re going to jail for the rest of your life. You know that, don’t you?”

  Bee Dee smiled. “Funny, I was just about to say the same thing to you, you sadistic son of a bitch.”

  Atkins chuckled. “You can’t win, Bee Dee. Overbay’s probably already taking them out the back. You’re too late.”

  Bee Dee looked to where Sloane, Molia and Henry had run, realizing his mistake. Jake and T.J. wouldn’t be in their dorm. They’d be in the isolation cells. And Henry had taken Atkins’s keys.

  Atkins laughed. “You can’t beat me,” he said. “I told you, you’re too fucking stupid.”

  Bee Dee smashed the gun against the side of Atkins’s head, knocking him to the ground. “Wrong.” He pulled a zip tie from the pocket of his coveralls and bound Atkin’s hands behind his back, then he bound the guard’s feet. With the way they had positioned the bus, the guard at the front gate could not see what had happened and would not come to Atkins’s aid.

  Bee Dee ran for the Administration Building, hoping he wasn’t too late.

  Sloane followed Henry across the yard to one of the cement block buildings. Mike Tyson, the boxer, had once said everyone had a plan until they got punched in the mouth. Then the plan went out the window. Molia had a plan, and his Trojan horse had worked. It got them into the facility, but Atkins approaching the bus carrying an assault rifle had been the punch in the mouth that destroyed the rest of the plan. Fortunately, Bee Dee had countered.

  Bee Dee had explained on the bus that his real name was Daniel Neuzil. A DEA agent out of Iowa, Neuzil had worked undercover narcotics in local high schools because he could pass for sixteen, though he was actually twenty-eight. The DEA had grossly underestimated the scope of the corruption in Winchester County when it sent Carl Wade undercover to gain information on what it suspected to be a sophisticated marijuana operation. It took more than a year for Wade to work his way into Victor Dillon’s inner circle, but when he did, what he found had appalled and horrified him.

  “He put in an immediate request to get a DEA agent inserted into the facility as a guard,” Neuzil explained, “but with law enforcement jobs scarce in a bankrupt state the list of correctional officer applicants was daunting. It was faster to get an inmate inside.”

  Neuzil explained that it had not been difficult. “They created a fictitious crime, the theft of an automobile, and the Department of Justice had a judge in Sacramento sign an order incarcerating me along with a request for a transfer to Fresh Start. Winchester County was more than willing to take Sacramento’s money.”

  When Neuzil had seen Atkins advancing toward the bus and carrying the gun, he advised Sloane and Molia to stick with the plan, but with two exceptions. First, he told Henry to drop the chain when Molia waved his hand and to hit the ground so he would be out of harm’s way. He said Atkins would believe Henry had dropped the chain by accident, giving away their ruse. Once Atkins’s had disarmed them, he’d believe he was back in control, not realizing the real surprise was not that Sloane and Molia remained alive, or that Bee Dee and Henry were never handcuffed. The real surprise was that Bee Dee had the ability to dislocate Atkins’s knee in under a second.

  When Sloane reached the dorm he slipped back on the reflector sunglasses and followed Henry inside. By the time the unarmed guard figured out what was happening, Sloane and Molia had their guns trained on him. He offered no resistance.

  Sloane looked about the room. T.J. and Jake were not there.

  “Where’s T.J. and Jake?” Henry asked the group.

  “Captain locked them in isolation,” a Hispanic boy said.

  Molia instructed the guard to get on his knees and used zip ties to bind his hands behind his back.

  “Where’s isolation?” Sloane asked Henry.

  “Administration Building. Take the path by the woods.”

  “Stay here,” Molia said to the boys in the room. “And stay away from the windows.”

  Sloane followed Molia along a wooded path, running until they came to unnatural markings in the dirt trail, as if an animal had dragged a carcass across the path. They didn’t have to go far. The man lay on his back, eyes open but vacant, lifeless. His hairpiece had fallen cockeyed on his head, revealing a hideous red scar. Stitched over the breast pocket of the man’s shirt were two words. CAPTAIN OVERBAY.

  Bee Dee stepped through the exterior door into the Administration Building. The civilian who worked in the front office reached for the radio. Bee Dee leveled the gun and aimed through the Plexiglas. He had no idea if it was bulletproof or not. “Don’t.”

  The man put the radio transmitter back on the desk.

  “Open the door.”

  The Plexiglas door buzzed. Bee Dee pulled it open and stepped inside. The man rose from his desk, hands raised, backing away. “I just work here,” he stammered.

  Bee Dee didn’t buy the excuse. In his mind every guard and civilian had been complicit in the mistreatment of the inmates, but he had more pressing concerns. “So there’s no reason for you to do something stupid,” he said. He walked over and killed the switch to the radio.

  “Please. I have a wife and kids.”

  “Put your arms down; I’m not going to shoot you. I’m a federal agent.” He walked the man down the hall, stepping to the men’s room. “Get in and lock the door. Lay on the floor until someone comes and gets you.”

  The man was eager to oblige.

  As Bee Dee continued down the hall he heard a siren and went to the windows, looking out into the yard where the bus remained parked. Beyond it a stream of cars approached the front gates, lights flashing. “Better late than never, fellas.”

  He hurried down the hall to Overbay’s office, finding it empty. He rummaged through the desk but did not find a set of keys. Rushing from the office he turned the corner at the end of the hall to the corridor with the solitary confinement cells. Big Baby stood in the corridor pulling open one of the doors. He had a set of keys.

  Bee Dee raised the hand gun and called out as he moved forward. “Big Baby! Don’t!” But the man-child simply grinned and shook his head, stepping inside the room and shutting the door.

  Jake stood at the sound of the key in the lock, took a step toward the door, then stopped. Big Baby filled the frame, grinning down at him, bandages still wrapped around his head.

  Someone shouted from down the hall, “Big Baby! Don’t!”

  Big Baby’s smile broadened and he let out a thin squeal, as if this were a game. Then he stepped into the room and pulled shut the door.

  Jake retreated but there was no place to go. “I don’t know what happened to you,” he said. “I don’t know what someone di
d to you, but the guards are using you.”

  Big Baby’s smile became a sneer, his lips pulling back to reveal those too small teeth. Jake was no match for him. He knew it, but he also wasn’t going down without a fight. As a junior he’d wrestled the state champ, Isaac Markacus. Markacus had breezed through his season undefeated. He had a reputation for being a psycho and perpetrated it by shaving his head in a nohawk. Most opponents were so intimidated they lost before the referee blew the whistle. The day of the match, Jake received some advice. Markacus, he was told, had a temper and would lose focus when made angry. Jake held his own in the first two periods and sensed the boy tiring, never having had to wrestle past the first period. In the third period Jake taunted him. Markacus got angry and charged, and that was all Jake needed to flip him and pin him.

  “They’re using you,” Jake said again. “Are you that stupid that you don’t realize it or so stupid you realize it and are letting them do it anyway?”

  That did it. Big Baby bull rushed forward.

  Jake dodged to the side, ducked, and rolled. He kicked out with his legs, catching Big Baby in midstride, tripping him. Big Baby stumbled off balance. Unable to stop his momentum his shoulder and head impacted the wall. He fell to a knee. Jake would have no other chance. He leapt onto Big Baby’s back, wrapping his left forearm about his throat, and gripping his left wrist with his right hand, choking him. At the same time he wrapped his legs about his body and locked his ankles. This had ended the match with Isaac Markacus but not Big Baby. He got to his feet, stumbling backward, turning in a circle. He pulled at Jake’s arm and reached overhead, trying to grab and claw Jake’s face. Jake buried his head against the base of Big Baby’s neck and squeezed with every ounce of strength, holding on like a rider on a raging bull released from its chute. Big Baby propelled himself backward and slammed Jake into the door with tremendous force. Pain exploded up his spine.

  Still he hung on.

  The man-child continued to stumble across the room, pinballing from one wall to another. Jake grimaced with each impact, but fear and adrenaline continued to fuel him. He maintained his grip and sensed Big Baby tiring. He stumbled again. This time he did not reach a wall. He teetered in the center of the room, a drunken man on the deck of a moving ship. Then he fell to a knee and dropped to one hand. His attempts to reach back and grab Jake became less purposeful. Gurgling sounds, like water backing up a pipe, escaped from his throat. Jake tightened his grip.

  The other leg gave out. Big Baby fell to both knees and rolled onto his side.

  Sloane pulled open the door to the Administration Building and came to the locked Plexiglas door. He pulled out the key ring.

  “Stand back,” Molia said. He squeezed the trigger. The assault rifle emitted a thunderous roar. Molia kicked in what remained of the door. They moved quickly through the empty front office. Cars and SUVs sped into the facility, spinning lights reflecting in the windows and lighting up the yard. Sloane and Molia hurried down a hall, running blindly, not knowing the lay of the land. They reached an empty office, scattered papers strewn across the desk and floor. Someone had gone through it in a hurry. A placard, faceup on the floor, read, CAPTAIN OVERBAY.

  They stepped from the office and heard someone shout. “Big Baby! Don’t!”

  Running toward the sound of Bee Dee’s voice, they turned at the end of the hall and saw him standing outside a door, looking through the glass. At the sound of their approach Bee Dee turned his head.

  “Keys!”

  Sloane tossed the keys. Bee Dee snatched them from midair, fumbling with the lock.

  Sloane looked through the glass, seeing the backside of the hulking figure in red, Jake atop him, gripping him about the neck. They crashed from one wall to the next.

  Bee Dee inserted the key, but the lock did not turn. He swore and inserted a second key. Inside the room Big Baby dropped to a knee then fell forward to a hand. The lock turned.

  Big Baby rolled over onto his back, his face turning blue.

  Bee Dee pulled open the door, and Sloane rushed in, kneeling beside Jake, trying to get the boy’s attention. His eyes were black spheres, fully dilated. “Jake! Jake!”

  At first Jake did not react, his face a mask of rage and anger, teeth bared, spittle flying. “Jake! Jake! It’s okay, son. It’s okay.”

  Jake turned his head, eyes finding him. “It’s me, Jake. It’s David.” He lowered his voice. “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay now. Let him go. Let him go, Jake.”

  Jake’s pupils shrank. The blue color returned to his iris. His grip lessened, and he released his wrist, falling backward onto the floor, physically and emotionally spent. Big Baby let out a huge gasp, gagging and wheezing. Sloane pulled Jake out from under the boy’s body and lifted him to his feet, hugging him.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Sloane said, holding him. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  FRESH START YOUTH TRAINING FACILITY

  SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

  The sun had faded. Shadows crept across the yard. The lights atop the bevy of SUVs and other government-issued vehicles continued to pulse against a spectacular purple-and-orange-colored sky.

  The bells at Fresh Start continued to ring at their programmed intervals, but the inmates were not in the mess hall, or showering, or waiting in their dorms to be released for one of their scheduled activities. They weren’t following any schedule at all. They milled freely about the yard, their newfound freedom etched on their smiling faces as they watched the flurry of activity with both interest and trepidation. In the center of the yard, seated atop one of the wood tables, Jake and Bee Dee held court, Bee Dee explaining to the others as best he could what had happened, and what was likely to transpire now.

  Carl Wade, federal agent Don Wicks, stood with Sloane and Molia in front of the Administration Building, filling them in on what he could only briefly allude to atop the rock beside the waterfall.

  “When we started this operation three years ago we thought we were investigating a significant grow operation with ties to a Mexican drug cartel. The deeper I got the more I began to realize we had something far more than that.”

  Wicks explained that the DEA would eventually be working in tandem with thirty-six federal and state law enforcement agencies throughout the United States and thirteen foreign countries.

  “My job was to infiltrate and learn as much as I could,” he said. “We had no idea the size of the hornets’ nest we’d dug up, the extent of the corruption. Then the county opened Fresh Start.” He shook his head. “By that time I was too deep, and we’d uncovered too much about the extent of Dillon’s operation for me to blow it up. That was the hardest part, standing by and watching Judge Earl abuse those kids. But we’d invested too much in the operation. They tried to get a guard in. When that failed they got Neuzil inside as an inmate. It was a compromise. It was by no means perfect. We agreed to move this harvest season.”

  Wicks’s phone rang, and he excused himself to take the call. Word continued to filter in from various police agencies around the world that the operation had gone off like clockwork at more than seventy-five of Dillon’s distributorships, including the team that descended upon Dillon’s brewery and home.

  When he wasn’t taking phone calls and explaining things to Sloane and Molia, Wicks directed the army of federal agents and attorneys from the Department of Justice who descended upon Fresh Start with subpoenas signed by a federal judge authorizing them to seize computer records and files and take immediate control of the facility. Sloane thought Wicks looked like a man who had just finished a good meal in a fine restaurant. There remained much to be done, but that would predominantly be the work of the attorneys.

  “He did his job,” Molia said, explaining that he knew exactly how Wicks felt. “He found the evidence. Now it’s the lawyers’ job to make it stick.”

  Wicks returned to explain that reports indicated thousands of pounds of marijuana had been sei
zed along with caches of weapons, and that hundreds of millions of dollars had been frozen in bank accounts around the world. Wicks said that by seven o’clock Pacific standard time more than 1,500 people had been taken into custody worldwide and that the number was expected to increase.

  “What about Barnes and his men?” Molia asked.

  “We picked them up driving down the mountain,” he said. “He won’t be living out his golden years on any beaches, that’s for sure.”

  “Well, I can’t say I feel sorry for him,” Molia said. “But I can empathize. Doesn’t seem right the State can unilaterally take away what’s been earned.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Wicks agreed. “No, it doesn’t.” He explained that the Fresh Start guards, who had been handcuffed and loaded onto the bus, would be transported to the Sacramento County Jail, where they would be booked and processed. It would take time to sort out each man’s crimes. Atkins had been handcuffed and placed in the back of an ambulance. “He’ll go to county general to get his knee repaired and chin stitched before joining the party at the county jail,” Wicks said. The two Mexican guards in the car with Barnes would be processed through INS, their fate less certain. Captain Overbay wouldn’t be processed anywhere. His remains were on their way to the coroner’s office, having been killed by what he had created, his own Frankenstein.

  The door to the Administration Building opened and Sloane watched multiple federal officers lead a lumbering and shackled Big Baby across the yard. The boy towered above them, looking confused and disoriented, feet shuffling. Sloane felt sorry for the kid, in many ways as much a victim as the others. “What will happen to him?”

  “They’ll book him, charge him with Overbay’s murder. I imagine that will be the first of a litany of charges they’ll eventually file,” Wicks said.

  “He needs help. He needs a psychological evaluation,” Sloane said.

  “He’ll get one.” Wicks sighed. “Like I said, it’s going to take some time to sort this all out.” Wicks turned his attention to the ambulance and they watched the paramedics slide Atkins, lying on a stretcher, into the back and slam shut the doors. “Won’t be good, wherever he ends up. Word gets around they have a former correctional officer in their midst and it’s usually just a matter of time.”