by Sean Black
At least he knew now why, according to Red and other inmates, escape attempts from the Kelsen County’s penitentiary were all but unheard of. The prisoners were likely too exhausted to plan, never mind execute, a successful escape.
Looking around, Byron saw other men frozen in place, without the energy to move. A stranger passing by might, at first glance, have taken the chain gang for a living-statue performance group. It was only when the guards began to urge them back towards the truck that they moved.
Not completely heartless, a couple of the guards helped one or two of the older convicts up onto the flatbed for the return journey. Byron managed to climb up without assistance but it was a closer run thing than he would have imagined that morning.
He stood as the guards gathered the shovels, pickaxes and hoes from the inmates, one guard keeping his shotgun trained on them in case they found the energy to try to embed the business end of an implement into a guard’s skull. The guard running shotgun needn’t have worried.
The inmates shuffled along the benches and, to an accompanying soundtrack of moans and groans, finally sat down.
The ride back passed in silence. The men stared with vacant eyes as they drove through the lush greenery of Kelsen. Even when they pulled up alongside an attractive blonde soccer mom driving a red convertible at one of the town’s few stop lights, they could barely raise their heads, never mind pucker their lips to wolf-whistle.
They were spent, every last ounce of energy wrung out of them.
Byron thought back to how common this kind of life must have been for the generations that had come before him. A time before air-conditioned spaces, and office jobs in which the most physically demanding part of the day was changing the container on the office water-cooler. His experience today had been unexpected, and largely unwelcome, but also salutary.
Thanks to generations who had come before him, Byron had inherited a life that was free of manual labor. His decision to risk his body had been just that: a decision made of his own free will. A decision made after 9/11 when he had wanted to do something to safeguard the country he loved. None of it changed the fact that many people, most of them poor and brown, lived by hard labor.
The sun began to sink. The air cooled a few degrees. The truck left behind the perfectly manicured golf courses and spotlessly clean sidewalks of Kelsen City and settled back into the barren hinterland beyond. In the back, chins sank onto chests that slowly rose and fell. No one spoke.
Byron looked up as another truck fell in behind them. Then another. In a few minutes the morning convoy had reassembled, complete with front and rear security details.
Through the fog of tiredness clouding his mind, Byron felt a sudden breath of clarity. They had security now. But for the past few miles it had been the inmates on the truck and the guards driving.
They turned down a service road and through the outer gate of the prison. The work day was done. They were home.
The truck came to a stop in the same yard it had left from. The inmates clambered down. The guards removed their cuffs and leg irons. They snaked their way in line through the yards and into the bunkhouse.
They had an hour until dinner. An hour of what, according to Red, the warden termed ‘recreation and leisure’. Most of the men spent it lying on their bunks. A few took a shower. There was little leisure and even less recreation.
Byron lay on his bunk and did his best to run through the day. He conjured the details he had noted. Details that alone signified nothing but put together might allow him the barest skeleton of an escape plan. He didn’t yet have a plan. That would take a little longer. Right now, he had what he needed. He had a start. A start was sufficient to keep a man going, even in the darkest of places.
23
Franco’s two buddies stared at Byron from across the mess hall. When Byron stared back, they put their heads down and got back to their meal. Prison etiquette dictated that staring at another prisoner was an invitation to violence. The only thing worse, apart from trash talk or actual physical engagement, was pointing a finger at someone.
Red tossed his meal tray onto the table and sat diagonally across from Byron. He glanced over his shoulder at Franco’s two enforcers. Ever since Byron had taken the role of unit shot caller, Red had found new confidence.
Byron would have to talk to him about it. Tell him to dial it back. Byron wouldn’t be around much longer to keep the other inmates in check. They would be out for revenge and Red would be walking the yard with a big old target on his back. A few days in and already he was caught up in an unwelcome web of hierarchies.
Byron picked up his plastic spork and began to eat. It was amazing how a full day’s manual labor could so vastly improve the food in the mess hall. He had to slow down his eating to avoid a post-dinner flush of indigestion.
Something else was different. Despite a day spent working in the hot sun, the men’s mood in the mess hall had lightened. He doubted it could all be put down to his deposition of Franco and his taking up the mantle as a more benevolent dictator. For one thing the prisoners who seemed most happy weren’t from his unit. The excitement seemed contained almost exclusively to the Mexicans.
He tried to tune into their conversations, which still took place at a discreet volume. After a few minutes, he began to pick up snatches. His Spanish was good enough for him to pick up the overall idea that change of some kind was coming . . . He heard Romero’s name.
Byron would wait until he was back in the bunkhouse and ask Red. There were too many people to overhear, and too many people prepared to offer an opinion in the mess hall.
He mopped up the last of his gravy with a final hunk of plastic bread. He picked up the green, unripe apple he had been given, took a bite and ate it in record time. Then he sat back, listening to more fragments of conversation about Romero.
Suddenly the entire mess hall fell silent. Byron looked across at the serving area. The cooks had stopped mid-serve. The line of prisoners still waiting to be fed had frozen. Romero must have appeared, he thought.
Glancing over Red’s shoulder, he saw the warden standing at the entrance, flanked on either side by the jail’s meaner-looking guards. They were slapping the business end of their batons into their open palm, like riot cops itching to have an excuse to go to work.
‘Prisoner Davis,’ the warden said, plenty loud. ‘Come with me.’
24
Palms planted on the table, Byron got to his feet. He stepped out of the bench seat. He picked up his meal tray and walked over to the garbage area. Every inmate in the hall tracked his progress, most of them watching his feet.
He laid his tray on top of the stack, turned and walked slowly, hands loose by his sides, towards Warden Castro and the two guards. He was waiting for the two guards to swing their clubs. Or to order him onto the linoleum floor so that he could be safely cuffed and shackled. Perhaps they would dish out a beating in full view of the others. Maybe they would wait until they were clear of witnesses.
As far as Byron could figure it, there could be only two reasons for the warden arriving to escort him personally out of a busy mess hall. Neither was good.
First, someone had arrived from Washington to collect him. He wasn’t on any official lists, such as the FBI’s top ten most wanted. There was no way that the CIA, NSA or State Department would have sanctioned it. It would have invited way too many questions. Questions that all the main government agencies would have been terrified to be asked, never mind to answer.
There was, however, no doubt that he was near the top of any number of private watch lists. He had seen them when he’d been an operator. Those lists immediately triggered an alarm, usually deep within the bowels of the NSA. The person reporting, whether a local, state or federal worker, would never have any idea that what they had fed into the system was significant. Not until the Black Hawk helicopters and blacked out Escalades appeared to investigate further.
The second reason held less of an immediate threat to Byron’s
life but it held a threat nonetheless. For the warden to call him out in public was dangerous in any prison population. Cozy chats between an inmate and a warden were usually kept on the down-low. No inmate wanted to be seen as close to the authorities. You’d be labeled a snitch, and that would get you hurt. Maybe not straight away, but eventually.
Maybe the warden had experienced a change of heart about Byron’s shot-caller suitability. He could deal with that quite simply by getting out as soon as the opportunity presented itself. What really scared him, in as much as he was capable of feeling fear, was the first option. If he walked into the warden’s office to find two men in suits, it was game over. Byron was a loose end, and the government didn’t like loose ends. Especially loose ends who knew where the rest of the bodies were buried.
His heart sinking into his boots, Byron followed the warden and the two guards out of the mess hall. No one said a word. Behind him he heard the chatter resume. This time Romero was not the name on everyone’s lips. Now the name was Davis.
* * *
Byron stepped into the warden’s office. Castro looked at the two guards. They were still clutching their batons.
They looked crestfallen. They weren’t going to reduce Byron to a shredded pulp of blood and bone. Not just yet, anyway.
‘Sit down, Davis,’ Castro said.
Byron sat. At least there didn’t seem to be anyone waiting for him. That didn’t mean they weren’t, of course. But he doubted he would have been left alone in an office with one man if he was being picked up on his way to a grey site.
Warden Castro let out a long sigh. ‘Davis, I put you in charge to keep things even, not to go stirring them up.’
His mind still filled with thoughts of being whisked away, Byron didn’t immediately follow. He looked at Castro. ‘How have I stirred things up exactly, Warden?’
‘The guards here don’t like being questioned. Not by an inmate. Not by any inmate.’
He’d asked the guard if the work party could eat their lunch in the shade of the barn. Mills hadn’t taken it too well. No doubt he’d expressed his displeasure to the warden. Marching Byron out of the hall seemed like an overreaction. He guessed that there was more to it than a disgruntled guard.
In the meantime there was nothing more for Byron to do than apologize. ‘It won’t happen again,’ he said. ‘I guess I didn’t think before I opened my mouth.’
The warden was still irritated. ‘You’re damn right you didn’t. Anyway, I have a few other things to talk over with you.’
Byron waited. He was still taken aback by how quickly his act of violence had earned him a regular place in the warden’s office.
‘Maybe,’ the warden began, ‘a man with your responsibilities might be better off with a job that’s a little less physically taxing.’
Byron didn’t like where this was going.
‘Perhaps I could find you something in the kitchen. Or one of the cleaning crews. Something inside.’
That was the last thing Byron wanted. His chance of escape hinged on being outside. Not that he couldn’t escape from inside, but it would be a hell of a lot more challenging.
While he had lain on his bunk, he had already begun to formulate an escape plan. He had started by examining the resources that the guards who went out with the work details had at their disposal. First, they had firearms, in the form of a handgun on their hip and a pump-action shotgun. They had communication tools in the form of cell phones and a radio. Finally, they had transport.
Byron had concluded that all he needed to do to forge a successful escape was to transfer the second and the last of these resources from one or more of the guards to himself. If he could get their cell phones and radio at the same time, all the better. But for the most part he was sure that a truck and a shotgun would serve his purpose pretty well.
If he was stuck inside the perimeter he would find getting his hands on either or both much more difficult. As was standard practice in every prison, the only guards who had guns were the ones in the watchtower. Guards on the yard or within the units didn’t have them, for the very reason that someone like Byron could easily turn the tables by a fast transfer of possession.
‘I appreciate the offer, Warden. I really do,’ Byron said.
Castro glared at him. First Byron had questioned one of the guards, now he appeared to be questioning him. ‘Maybe this whole thing was a big mistake. I’m trying to help you out here, Davis. Make your time here go easier. But it seems like all you want to do is complain.’
For a man running a jail, Castro seemed as touchy as his staff. Maybe that was where they got it from. ‘You want me to keep things quiet in the unit?’ Byron asked.
The question seemed to ramp Castro’s agitation level up another notch. ‘That was the idea, Davis.’
‘Well, Warden, men tend to be led better from the front. By my setting an example and showing that I can do the same work they do. I take a job in the kitchen and I might lose some of that respect. Lose their respect and I lose my authority to keep them in check.’
Castro eyeballed him. He seemed be searching Byron’s features for some measure of disrespect. He found none. Byron kept his face expressionless. He believed what he’d just said. Leaders who led from the back weren’t really leaders. Not in Byron’s experience.
‘You sound like you have some experience, Davis,’ the warden replied.
Byron had unwittingly opened an avenue of discussion that he’d prefer stayed closed. At least for the time being. ‘Not really, Warden,’ he said. ‘It’s just common sense.’
‘Hmm,’ the warden said, clearly not convinced. ‘I kind of had you tagged as military first time I saw you. You carry yourself a little differently. Men who’ve served usually do.’
Decision time. Did Byron lie and raise further suspicion or did he admit to his background and risk further investigation, even if what he told the warden was partially fabricated? He had no intention of giving the man sitting across from him the details of his actual career. That would be asking for trouble.
‘I was National Guard for a few years when I was younger,’ he told Castro.
Castro slammed a hand on his desk. ‘I knew it. I can always tell. I was ROTC at college myself. Never got the chance to serve.’ He reached up and massaged his left shoulder with his right hand. ‘Football injury. Kind of ruled me out for what I’d have wanted to do. SEALs. Rangers. That kind of stuff.’
Byron had to choke back a laugh at the idea of a man like Castro being a Ranger or a SEAL. The guy had already gone way past his natural level to get to his current job. He nodded.
‘National Guard, huh?’ the warden said. ‘Where were you based? Which state?’
Goddamn. Byron should have lied. Now that he had offered up a detail of his life, and a false detail at that, Castro would pick at it like a fresh scab. It had been a rookie mistake. More than anyone, Byron should have known better.
Warden Castro was staring at him, waiting for an answer.
‘California,’ Byron said.
‘California National Guard,’ the warden repeated. ‘I had a cousin who served with the California National Guard. Eighteenth Cav. What was your unit, Davis?’
Byron had to think fast. ‘I was in the 160th. Infantry. Nothing too exciting.’
‘Huh,’ said the warden. ‘Guess I finally know something about you.’
Byron looked at him. What did he mean? It seemed kind of a loaded statement. Like Castro was hinting at something more.
‘You see,’ the warden continued, ‘when we ran a check on a John Davis with the birth date you gave us, we came up with nothing. ’Cepting of course a couple of guys who weren’t even close to your age. Kind of strange. Don’t you think?’
The warden had been holding a trump card all along. Byron’s blood ran cold. He tried to play it off. ‘Maybe someone wrote it down wrong.’
That earned him a smirk. ‘Maybe, Davis. Maybe. I mean, we’re all country bumpkins this far south. Barely know how
to switch on a computer.’
Where was this leading? ‘I could have given the wrong date.’
‘You could have, huh?’ Castro said. ‘Or maybe you have outstanding warrants somewhere else. Maybe that was it.’
Byron said nothing. Anything he did say could only make his situation worse. Deny it, and he’d come off like he was a guilty man protesting too much. Agree, and that opened another can of worms. The warden might just go looking for where ‘John Davis’ was wanted, which might involve a set of fingerprints being fed into the national system, the last thing Byron could afford to happen.
‘You pleading the fifth, Davis?’ Castro growled. ‘Well, you might just be the luckiest son of a bitch in here because I’m going to need you to help me out with some things. So your secret, whatever it is, is safe with me. At least for now. And as long as you don’t give me any more trouble.’
The warden stood, indicating that the meeting was coming to a close. Byron got to his feet.
‘We understand each other, Davis?’ the warden asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ Byron said.
25
Byron wasn’t sure what he’d expected Victor Romero to look like, but it wasn’t like this. The Mexican inmates, who had spoken about him with such reverence, were crowded around a stooped, elderly man standing by one of the work trucks. Like everyone else, Romero was in the standard-issue shackles and cuffs. He was short, no more than five feet five. At one time he must have been physically powerful. Now there was a curve to his spine and he moved in a slow shuffle that, Byron guessed, had more to do with age than the restriction of the leg irons.
Standing next to Byron, Red nudged him with his elbow. ‘Beaners are gonna be beside themselves with excitement now that the old man is out.’