Chapter 1
This was it, tonight was the night. He had been waiting for this moment for five years, though it felt like all his life. He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead, hundreds of tiny needles permeating his skin making his whole body tingle with anxiety. Jackson Stewart hadn’t felt this nervous since the seconds before the elderly Virginia judge uttered out the one word that forever changed his life, “guilty”. He could still hear the guttural sounds of each syllable echoing through his brain as if it were yesterday. Every morning he woke up convinced it was a bad dream, but then the pain and reality would set in as soon as he opened his eyes and saw the steel bars.Three minutes to go, he glanced at the clock attached to his cot. It was one of those old electric ones with the hands that glow in the dark. The minute hand was fading. It was too late now, everything was in motion. This was his only chance and he wasn’t going to back out. He looked over at his cell mate. He was curled up in a ball on the top bunk; his fists tightly closed together. It was amazing how a man so violent could look so innocent and vulnerable while asleep. It was like looking upon an innocent young child. He never knew the exact numbers, but Carlos the Thomas as they called him had killed over twenty people or so he claimed. However, that’s how it was in prison; everyone was officially innocent and unofficially a menacing serial killer except for Jackson; he spoke to no one and claimed nothing. At first, everyone thought he was different and tried to test him, but after a while they just left him alone which was what he preferred. He could probably count the amount of words, he had spoken to other inmates on one hand. Less than a minute to go. He quickly stripped off his pine colored prison shirt and pants leaving only his drab boxers and matching socks. He could feel the cold chill of the cell battling with his tightly wound nerves making his moist skin feel even pricklier. He took one more look around. It was quiet, almost eerily quiet, but he was used to that lying awake almost every night counting the hours till daylight. He looked at the clock; the second hand was less than ten seconds away from meeting its destination. He counted down the last few seconds in his mind. It was time. He moved in front of the top bunk staring at Carlos, then it was like his body went on autopilot. He rehearsed for this moment so many times. He couldn’t believe it was actually happening. Gone was any fear or trepidation, instead nothing but instinct. He reached up and grabbed a large handful of Carlos’s thick mangy hair, violently lifting him off the bed and onto the floor. Stunned, Carlos lay there for a second not sure what was happening before he rose up and reacted just as Jackson knew he would. He lashed out swinging his arms and striking Jackson once in the shoulder and once in the face. It was as if he could feel the blows but not the pain, nothing was going to stop him tonight. He struck back anticipating Carlos’s strikes. He had seen him fight many times and knew exactly what was coming next. It was like he had a copy of the other team’s playbook. They were cell mates for almost five years and communicated only by glances and territory. They had just developed a kind of understanding after living together for so long. It was almost like a marriage of convenience. Jackson lashed out with a huge right catching a surprised Carlos on the chin and sending blood splattering on the walls and beds. Carlos appeared to still be in shock, trying to fully awaken and realize his cell mate was attacking him. He watched as Carlos continued to twitch his eyes trying to focus. He was a big man, well over six feet and two hundred and fifty pounds. He quickly recovered from the blow, positioning himself upright. He cocked his arm back, but it was too late. Jackson swung a small pipe into the side of his head sending the large man crashing violently against the bunk, and smashing a small table at the other end to pieces. It was exactly as Jackson had planned. The sound was just loud enough to cause the guard to quickly come in their direction. He could hear the heavy footsteps and flashlight beam cutting a tunnel through the darkness. Seconds later, the cell door flew open and a man wearing full riot gear entered. Jackson braced himself as Carlos delivered a painful blow to the side of his temple. He felt everything around him darken, and his legs become wobbly, but he had prepared for this and when his vision came into focus again he watched the officer deliver a 900,000 volt electrical shock from a stun gun into Carlos’s ravaged body. Jackson watched as the guard threw him onto the lower bunk. Despite the intense pain that was pounding his skull, Jackson smiled as he reached under his bunk and pulled out one of the syringes full of Rohypnol, he had acquired from an inmate who had offered it to him. He immediately stuck it into the leg of the surprised officer. A few seconds later, he watched the officer slump down onto the bunk alongside Carlos. Jackson immediately emptied a second full syringe into him as well. He almost jumped when the guard’s radio crackled. He quietly answered speaking into the radio telling the control officer everything was okay and immediately stripped the fallen guard of his clothes. He was a new officer assigned to the night shift with roughly the same build as Jackson. His name was Melvin Hoover, making the transition easier, but he had taken all that into consideration long before. Thirty seconds later, he was dressed as a prison guard in full riot gear locking his cell door and walking across the cell block. He couldn’t believe it; he had done it. He took one last look back at his cell in the dim light and confidently smiled seeing everything in place. The two men lying in the same bottom bunk, but that wasn’t the first time that had occurred in prison. Twenty feet to go to the secure door to the control room. With sweat pouring down his face, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the key. He had studied these movements many times and easily found the key and opened the door squinting his eyes from the bright overhead fluorescent lights. The Sergeant, a small African American man immediately rose to his feet.
“Everything okay in there Hoover?”
Jackson nodded. “All clear. Just a bad dream.”
The sergeant smiled. “We get a lot of those around here. I need you to go to “D” block and check on the new prisoner.”
“No problem. I just need to go outside for a minute for a quick breath of fresh air.” Jackson mumbled looking down.
“It’s not break time yet Hoover.”
“I know. I know. I’m just not feeling too hot.” He felt like he was going to pass out and his knees were going to fall off they were shaking so much.
“No break Hoover. You need to go to “D” block.” The sergeant’s voice beginning to fill with anger.
“I’m going to throw up man. Give me a minute.” Jackson grabbed his throat.
“Take that damn mask off. You’re sweating yourself sick.”
“I don’t want to puke on the floor.”
“You got five minutes and don’t even think about going outside, use the head down the hall.” He looked back at the monitors. “I got no one to cover these blocks so get going Hoover.”
Jackson quickly scrambled out the door leading to a long sterile hallway marked with signs and arrows pointing to the different cell blocks. It wasn’t a large prison by any means but they still housed over a thousand inmates. He kept walking straight. He knew the dimensions in his head; he had viewed it on the computer many times.
“Hoover where are you going?” The voice snarled out of the radio.
Jackson eyeing the cameras above him replied back, “I need some fresh air, just for a minute.”
“Hoover I’m warning you to get back in here right now or this is going in the report.” Jackson listened to him repeat himself until he made a quick right turn down a narrow hallway and came to the first of three secure doors that he easily opened with the keys. A minute later, he was standing in front of a door that had a small window in it. He could see the parking lot on the other side. He made it. He reached to turn the door, but it was locked. It needed a pass code. “Damn it!” He screamed while looking up at the ceiling feeling his pulse go out
of control. He was out of camera range but he had no way out. He could hear the sergeant’s irritated voice calling him through the radio. It was only a matter of minutes until they figured out he wasn't Hoover. What was he going to do? If he entered the wrong number, they would have him. How could he have missed this detail? He planned everything. He could still hear the sergeant grumbling. He had to do something quick. He couldn't go back. He accounted for everything. He reached into the back pocket of the uniform and pulled out Hoover's wallet hoping for some kind of inspiration. He was happy to see the cash, but that wasn’t going to help him now if he couldn’t even get out. He fumbled through all the pockets hoping and praying for a miracle but found nothing except a picture of a young girl who couldn’t be more than eight reminding him of his own. He felt a tear well up. He picked up the small photo and stared into her eyes hoping she would give him an answer. Quickly stunned back into reality by the sergeant's rising voice barking through the radio, he flipped it over so he wouldn’t be distracted. He couldn’t believe it, there were numbers scribbled on the back. Maybe Hoover wrote the pass code down being new and everything. Perhaps luck was on his side tonight; he thought. He held his breath and quickly punched in the code and found himself outside. He couldn’t believe it, his first taste of freedom in five years. He took one big breath of the fresh crisp air letting it run through his lungs and ran towards the parking lot. He had Hoover’s car keys in his hand. He knew he carried them on him. He was frantically pushing the panic button until he heard the familiar sound of a car alarm. It was a light-blue Honda Civic. Jackson climbed into the car, turned the ignition and quickly pulled out of the lot heading west on the small North Carolina road. If the car’s engine hadn’t been so loud, he would have heard the piercing sirens that there had been an escape behind him.
Chapter 2
Sergeant Alvin Harris had been around long enough to know he had a problem when his new officer left the building. It was a major violation. He quickly called his commander and had another guard immediately dispatched to him. He could hear strange noises through the microphone coming from the same cell Hoover had been to earlier. He frowned as he watched the assigned guard leave the control station and head down the block towards the cell. He couldn’t believe Hoover had left. “What is it with these new kids? They don’t have any work ethic anymore,” he said out lout to himself. He watched in disbelief on the video screen as a car drove out of the parking lot area, it had to be Hoover, no one came or left at this time of night. He knew it would be immediate grounds for termination; he just wasn’t in the mood to fill out all the reports. He thought he had seen it all, and he probably had in his twenty years here at the North Carolina State Prison better known as “The Conduit”. No one was sure where the name came from but it just stuck so that’s what they all called it. It was a high-security prison; most of the inmates had committed some kind of violent crime, of course you would never know it by asking any of them. They were all one bad attorney away from freedom. He loved it here. He had started out as a new guard working the night shift, just like Hoover, but he had stuck with it and made it to sergeant. The pay wasn’t bad and in five years he would have a full retirement and plenty of time to spend with his wife and six grandchildren. He quickly turned his head towards the radio, he could hear the guard laughing. “What’s so funny?” He asked, thinking it was already going to be a long night. He wasn’t in the mood for joking.
“I think I have found the source of our noise.” Another slight laugh. “It looks like we have two lovebirds in cell 22.”
That was the same cell Hoover had gone too. Harris didn’t smile. He had seen this so many times. It just seemed kind of strange for these two men; they were both long-term inmates with murder charges, and from the best he could tell they didn’t like each other, but what did he know, he got to leave at the end of his shift and they didn’t. “All right. Break it up and get them back to their own bunks.” He instructed the guard. He sat back and listened to the guard give instructions for them to return to their bunks. He kept repeating it over and over again. Probably in the heat of passion, he thought. He tried to look at the camera but it was too dark and grainy. He listened to the guard tell them he was coming into the cell. Then he heard the sound of the steel door open and then nothing for what seemed like minutes. Finally, he heard the soft faint voice of the guard say, “Sergeant, I think we got a problem.”
Sergeant Harris felt the breath quickly exit his airway knowing something was wrong; he had heard these same words uttered before,“what is it?” He asked knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.
“We need EMS down here; I think we might have an OD.They’re both unconscious and there are two syringes lying next to them on the bed.”
Sergeant Harris immediately began typing into the computer knowing that in minutes the place would be flooded with medical personnel, and then the Captain would be down with his investigators to try and place blame somewhere. “Damn drugs.” He said out loud. He knew they were the cause of over half the inmate population at the Conduit. “Any response from them? Pulse?” He yelled into the radio wondering what Hoover had found in there.
“Yeah they both have pulses and are breathing,” came the excited response.
Harris sighed, “at least they were alive.” He knew that no matter how hard they tried to stop the drugs from coming in they kept coming.There was always a weak point in every prison, and it seemed impossible to find it. He had been trying for twenty years.
“Something is not right here.” The guard’s mumbled voice stated.
“Now what?” Grumbled Harris. What else could go wrong tonight?
After a long pause, he heard the guard quietly and slowly say, “this isn’t Stewart.”
Harris’s heart stopped beating just long enough for him to scream into the radio, “what are you telling me?” His brain had already processed what was happening.
“Hoover is wearing Stewart’s clothes.” That was the last thing Harris heard before he pulled the emergency alarm, instantaneously sending the dark prison to life as if it were a giant beast suddenly waking up.The huge overhead lights roared above waking groggy prisoners and nearby neighbors outside with the deafening sirens. He watched as the special task force and EMT’s raced into the control room and headed to cell 22.“How could this happen? Why didn’t he pay more attention?” He knew he had screwed up. There would go the pension and the easy life. It was all going to come to a screeching halt, all twenty hard years of his time. He knew his phone was going to ring any second and when it did he still jumped. He quickly picked it up informing the warden exactly what had happened. He wasn’t surprised when he heard the sudden click on the other end of the line without another word. It was all happening too fast.There had been a few escape attempts in his twenty years, none successful, but this was the first time it had happened to him. He immediately felt the shame and remorse that came to the officer who they determined was responsible. In the prison, someone always has to take the blame, and he knew this time it would be him. All he had to do was make the guy take his helmet off or not allow him to leave the control room. He had complete authority to prevent anyone from leaving. He turned to the video again, rewound and watched as Jackson walked down the hallway under the camera. He could see the differences now; it was so obvious it wasn’t Hoover. Look at the way he is walking,way too confident, plus Jackson is much more fit. How could he miss that? He watched the car leave the parking lot; it looked like a late model Toyota or Honda, but they would have that in Hoover’s records. He began typing in all the information he had and hit the send button hoping that it would help. He knew ninety-nine percent of all prisoners were caught within twenty-four hours and usually near the facility they had escaped from. They just weren’t equipped to handle the outside. There were too many factors, the media attention being the main one. Especially from The Conduit, this was where they housed the most dangerous ones. He didn’t know Stewart that well, no one did. He kept to hims
elf all the time. He did perform maintenance on the computers in the prison, something about him being a computer expert, but he wasn’t sure. He had never read through his file that closely. He knew the guy had to be intelligent, but no one seemed to know anything about him. He was serving twenty years for murder, though he claimed he didn't pull the trigger. He said he had been set up, same story different inmate. He never understood all that computer stuff anyway. “He’ll be caught soon enough,” he thought. “And they’ll drag him back in here to a loud applause from the other inmates who will look at him as some kind of hero, but what they won’t realize is that he’ll get at least another five years tacked on to his sentence.” He took a long look at the outside monitor watching the stream of police cars line up and prepare to head down Alban Street in pursuit of Jackson Stewart.
Chapter 3
Warden John Dever was flying down Route 85 in his candy-colored blue Corvette. It was normally a twenty-minute commute, but tonight he would do it in less than ten. He passed several police cars headed west with their sirens and lights flashing turning the dark night into a blazing firestorm. He had already called the Governor, alerting him to what had happened and what was about to happen. He was in his tenth year as warden and had never had any successful escapes.Two inmates had attempted to climb over the wall, but they were both caught before they made it over. This was the first case an inmate had gotten out, and he was in a car and not on foot so they didn’t need to get the dogs out at least yet. He was always amazed at how much effort the escapees put into their escape plan, but for some reason, they always forgot to figure out how they were going to get far enough away from the prison once they got outside, but maybe this one was different. He stole a car from the prison’s lot. He had already been briefed that they were looking for a light blue-colored Honda Civic with a man dressed as one of his guards. He would deal with the guard issue later. He hated to admit it, but the escapee; Jackson Stewart had been clever getting out of the prison especially outsmarting a twenty-year veteran sergeant. It was almost the perfect escape plan.The guard was almost identical in size, and he knew he would be wearing riot gear and he had access to his car keys and car.What he didn’t understand was how Stewart had been able to get out of the prison’s secure doors. He would be looking into that as well as every other procedure for the overnight shifts after this matter was over. He felt his heart began to rev up as he pulled onto Alban Road, police cars were still speeding down the road and the last thing he needed was an accident tonight. He immediately slowed down, shifting the large clutch into third gear. He loved the Corvette; he awarded himself earlier in the year with it after reaching the ten year mark as a warden. He still loved the job. He lived for high-stress moments. He had spent twenty years as a Marine Corp Infantry officer before joining the correction’s field so he was used to dealing with any kind of situation. He was ready for a search; he always was…it was part of the job. His men said he had a sixth sense for this kind of thing. He knew if it went on longer than a few hours, the Marshalls would be called in, so he knew he had to get started right away. He didn’t like dealing with outsiders; it was his prison, his prisoners. He pulled into the crowded parking lot. There were law enforcement cars everywhere, mostly awaiting assignments from their superiors. He was happy to see the system he had put in place for just this kind of thing was working. He frowned knowing it was only a matter of minutes, before the damn press would show up and he would have to give a conference and answer questions about a man he knew nothing about, except that he was serving a twenty-year sentence for committing murder. He had been briefed by the night commander whom informed him Jackson Stewart was a quiet unassuming guy who had been a computer specialist in his previous life. He had hacked into a system and gained access to a building, shooting a security guard when things went bad. He quickly walked to the makeshift command center that had been set up from his contingency plans. They figured Stewart had about a seven-minute jump on them, not a lot of time, but enough to keep this going for a little longer than he wanted. He had three choppers on the way from the State Police that should be here in the next ten minutes. He grabbed Stewart’s file from one of his officers and jumped in an unmarked police cruiser pulling onto Alban Road.
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