No Man's Land

by G. M. Ford

  “You’re one crazy bastard, you know that?” Corso made a resigned face and nodded, but Arnie kept talking anyway. “First some lunatic says he’s gonna keep shooting people until you show your ass up at the worst goddamn prison in the country and you just haul off and agree to come on down, then . . .” Arnie sputtered a bit. “. . . and then you want me to put us down directly in the line of fire.” He waved his free hand Corso’s way. “You’re one sick puppy. You know that? One goddamned sick puppy.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first to think so, Arnie,” Corso allowed. Arnie looked his way. “What?” Corso raised an eyebrow. “You want to live forever? I thought only women wanted to live forever.”

  Other than the slapping of the rotors, the cockpit was silent. Corso had to smile. The question of his apparent lack of concern for his own safety had been a major bone of contention in his relationship with Meg Dougherty and had, in a roundabout way, been at least partially responsible for her decision to end their often tumultuous affair. In the months since her departure, he’d had occasion to consider the possibility that she might have been correct in her assessment.

  What he’d concluded was that he had as much regard for survival as anybody else. It was just that there were a number of other factors which, in his mind, held equal sway. He wanted to endure, just like everybody else, but it had to be on his own terms . . . something he could live with when the smoke cleared.

  “Aw goddammit,” Arnie shouted above the noise. The helicopter started down with a lurch, spinning slowly as it descended, swooping low over a vast strung-out collection of television trucks, lifting every loose piece of dust and gravel from every nook and cranny as it made its way to the center of the prison yard, where Arnie swung the tail back toward the prison, offering as little target as possible to the shooters.

  “Pop that belt, buddy,” Arnie yelled as they approached the ground. “I want your ass out of here in a heartbeat.”

  Corso popped the harness and grabbed the door handle. In front of the copter, the guard stumbled forward, out of the radius of the rotor blades, shielding his face from the whirling collection of desert debris filling the air.

  “Watch your head,” Arnie yelled.

  Corso gave Arnie the two-fingered salute, shouldered open the door and dropped the three feet to the ground. Corso used his jacket to shield his face as he bent low under the whirling rotors. Inside the cockpit, Arnie reached over and latched the door, then began to ease the helicopter back into the night sky. “Crazy bastard,” he muttered under his breath.

  On the ground, the fading sound of the engine was accompanied by the insistent hiss of debris falling to the pavement. After another moment, both Corso and the guard straightened up and looked around through squinty eyes.

  He was young. Not yet thirty. Skinny with an unruly shock of red hair, and at some point he must have been crying. He had a runny nose and a pair of telltale tracks running from his eyes to which the fine desert dirt had clung, lending a clownlike quality to his otherwise terrified face.

  Corso wondered why a man with so much life in front of him would choose to spend his days locked up with the scum of the earth. Whether he was a sadist or a do-gooder or something in between, or maybe just a guy who really needed a job. The air was cold and crisp. As the sound of the chopper faded from the sky, Corso heard shouts coming from over by the outer fence. He scanned the area until his eyes came to rest on the area just north of the main gate, where a camera crew waved their arms as they aimed their unblinking electronic eye his way. He turned his head.

  What had to be the administration building stood forty yards away. An imposing three-story brick structure bisected by a round arch in the center of the building. In the blackness of the yawning arch, a flame flickered for long enough for somebody to light a cigarette.

  The scrape of shoes pulled Corso’s attention around. The guard had mustered a teaspoon of courage and was thinking about making a run for it. Corso shook his head.

  “I wouldn’t,” he said. “You’ll never even make it to the fence.”

  The guard opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  “I . . . ,” he stammered.

  “Stay behind me,” Corso said as he turned and started toward the administration building. A third of the way there, Corso stopped. The guard ran into the back of him. “Not quite that close, kid,” Corso said before turning and walking away. At twenty yards, Corso could make out the shapes of three figures standing within the dark shadow of the arch. Corso adjusted course and aimed at the center of the shadow. A dozen strides and he could make out Tim Driver standing at the right, hands at his sides, watching in silence as Corso and the guard approached.

  On Driver’s right, a long-haired con pointed an assault rifle directly at Corso’s chest. He dropped one eye to the sight and closed the other. Corso lengthened his stride. Below the gaping barrel, a thin smile worked its way across the guy’s lips. Corso watched the finger tighten on the trigger. His throat began to close; breathing became a chore in the final seconds before Driver pushed the gun barrel aside, sending a three-shot burst of fire rocketing off into the night. Still holding the barrel, Driver said, “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  The shooter snarled and jerked the barrel from Driver’s hand. He was maybe six feet tall, with a full head of shoulder-length hair surrounding a narrow, angular face. Looked like the kind of guy you’d see panhandling on the beach. Except for the eyes. Corso had seen eyes like that before. Secret policemen in Haiti, Kurdish insurgents in Afghanistan and once in a while on the Nature Channel during Shark Week. The kind of eyes you crossed the street to avoid, the kind you hoped never to see staring out of a darkened doorway late at night. Especially not holding an automatic weapon.

  “You knew damn well I’d come,” Corso snapped. “What in hell was I supposed to do? Keep fishing while you shot people?”

  Driver nearly smiled. “Tight ethical squeeze wasn’t it? Sorry I couldn’t leave you more wiggle room, Frank, but”—he aimed a palm straight up—“time constraints . . . you know.”

  The shooter moved the barrel and pointed the M16 at the guard, who began to wring his hands and pray out loud. The sudden sound of running water was soon explained by an expanding dark spot on the front of the guard’s pants.

  “Now look at what you made him do,” Corso said to the shooter.

  “Make you do worse, pretty boy,” the man said with an air of self-assurance. “Wanna try me out?”

  A snappy rejoinder caught in Corso’s throat. Some deep-seated survival sense told him it was not the time. This was not the guy.

  “No,” he said in a soft voice. “Don’t believe I do.”

  The guy’s voice dripped with disdain. “There’s always later,”

  he teased.

  “Believe I’ll pass on that honor too.”

  The air seemed suddenly still and wet.

  “Honor eh? You think it’s an honor, do you?”

  “Poor word choice,” Corso offered quickly.

  “Maybe,” the guy said finally. “We’ll see.”

  Driver nodded at the guard. “Bronko,” he called to the third man, who now stepped sufficiently into the light to reveal a barnsized specimen with what looked like a nine-millimeter handgun jammed in his belt. “Take him back where you got him from,”

  Driver said.

  Bronko made eye contact with Kehoe, as if to ask if it was okay to do as he was told. All he got in return was an insolent shrug, which he somehow interpreted as a yes.

  “What about this faggot?” he wanted to know, nodding at Corso.

  “He’s part of the convergence,” Driver said.

  Another series of puzzled looks were passed. Finally, Bronko reached out a massive paw, grabbed the guard by the elbow and propelled him back toward the cellblocks with such force that the officer stumbled and nearly lost his footing.

  Corso, Kehoe and Driver watched in silence as Bronko stiffarmed the officer across the yard, through
a propped-open gate and into the darkness of an open doorway.

  One floor above, the first level of the cellblock was alive with activity. At least a dozen gun barrels protruded from broken windows. With his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Corso could make out a nearly constant promenade of bodies inside the building.

  “Boys are getting restless,” Kehoe said.

  Driver ignored him. “They get that semi full of groceries unloaded?”

  “Unloaded and damn near swallowed.”

  “Who’d you leave in charge of the truck drivers?”

  “Forger namea Haynes.”

  “Have him let the semi driver go.”

  “Like the others?”

  “Yes. Just give him his keys and tell him he can go. Call me when he’s ready to roll and I’ll open the front gate for him.”

  “Boys wanna grease the rest of them pigs we got rounded up downstairs.”

  “How many trucks we got left?” Driver asked.

  “Nothin’ but that tandem tanker rig.”

  Driver nodded. “You get done with that, you meet us back at the command pod.”

  Kehoe rocked on the balls of his feet. “You listen to me, Captainman. I ain’t onea your fucking crew.” He waved a hand toward the cellblocks. “Ain’t none of these neither. Sometime tomorrow we gonna run outta food and things gonna get outright nasty around here. That happens you and your girlfriend here gonna sure as hell wish you was someplace else. Not me or anybody else gonna be able to keep ’em offa you.”

  “We’ll be gone by then,” Driver said. Kehoe opened his mouth to speak, but Driver cut him off. “The soldiers’ll be coming in here after us just before dawn. They can’t let this go on for another day.”

  “The boys are ready for them,” Kehoe said. “Motherfuckers gonna find themselves in a hell of a fight.”

  Driver’s face was carved from stone. “We’ll see,” was all he offered. “Let’s get that driver on his way.”

  9

  Governor James Blaine ran a hand halfway through his “presidential hair,” then stopped. With his other index finger he pointed toward . . . toward . . . toward . . . he couldn’t for the life of him remember the damn guy’s name . . . so he freed his fingers from his hair and used both hands to fumble in his pants pocket until he came out with the guy’s business card. The Randall Corporation. Dallin Asuega. Deputy Director of Security Operations.

  “Mr. Asuega,” the governor called.

  Asuega raised his heavy eyebrows. “Yes sir,” he said. He looked too young to be a deputy director of anything more complicated than mowing lawns. Blaine had reached that stage in life where everyone looked too young and nothing was quite as good as he remembered it to be. Asuega couldn’t be much past thirty. Dark-complected with a thick head of wavy black hair, far too “ethnic” to ever be considered “presidential.” Some kind of South Sea Islander. A Samoan or maybe a Tongan. Something like that. Either way, he was a smooth unit in a good suit. Kept his answers to a minimum and his face as bland and unreadable as a cabochon.

  “Have you seen the videotape? The one of this Driver fellow taking over the control pod?”

  “No sir.”

  The governor turned to Elias Romero, who was at that moment trying to extrude himself through the wallpaper into the next room. “Can you cue that up again for us?” Blaine wanted to know.

  Romero said he didn’t think it would be a problem and reached for the phone.

  “Iris. Could you please run the DVD again? We’d like to show it to Mr. Asuega.” As Romero calculated the situation, Asuega’s presence redistributed the blame somewhat, lightening his personal load and spreading the enmity to the Randall Corporation, where it rightly belonged. Meza Azul was, after all, their baby.

  On the other end of the phone line, Iris mumbled a mouthful of unintelligible syllables before dropping the receiver with a clank.

  “Iris?” Romero frowned and looked at the phone receiver.

  “Coming right up, Mr. Romero,” came the strained voice. They stood for a long moment staring at the blank screen. And then another long twitchy moment passed. Romero’s hand was creeping its way to the phone when the screen came alive with the sight of a solitary figure taking the last half dozen steps down the mezzanine before the central elevator. “Can you stop it there?” the governor asked.

  Romero annexed the receiver and relayed the request.

  “Tell me again,” the governor began. “Tell me what it takes for a prisoner to be taken out of his cell.”

  Asuega deferred to Romero. “No prisoner ever leaves his cell without being shackled hand and foot and without an escort. In the case of most prisoners the escort consists of a supervisor and a correctional officer. In Driver’s case, with his history of causing injury to prison personnel, he never leaves his cell without a three-guard escort. Two officers and a supervisor.”

  “And you’re going to tell me this guy, shackled hand and foot, somehow managed to subdue three correctional officers.” The governor looked from Romero to Asuega and back. “What are we talking about here? Houdini?”

  “We don’t know,” Asuega said quickly. “All we know for sure is his cell door would never have been unlocked unless the officers felt certain he had successfully been shackled hand and foot.”

  “Sooo . . . explain it to me.” The governor showed the ceiling his palms. “How could something like this happen in what is supposed to be the securest of the maximum security prisons?”

  Romero cleared his throat. Asuega bailed him out. “We have to assume Driver somehow managed to slip his handcuffs. Nothing else makes any sense.” A pair of nods indicated that all concerned were willing to admit the impossibility of a manacled man subduing three trained guards using only his feet. Before Blaine could ask another question, Asuega went on. “We also have to assume that through one ruse or another, Driver managed to lure all three of his jailers into the cell with him. Otherwise, the pod operator would surely have seen the commotion and taken emergency measures.”

  “We won’t know until we get back inside and see the tape,”

  Romero said.

  “Inside the cell?” the governor looked confused.

  “Mr. Driver was under video surveillance twenty-four hours a day.”

  Blaine paused and thought it over. “The lights never went out?”

  “No,” said Romero. “Never.”

  The governor stifled a shudder. “Really?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “What do you call that sort of thing?”

  “Extreme Punishment.” Asuega said. “It’s reserved for those who kill or injure prison personnel.” Asuega read the revulsion on Blaine’s face. “I assure you, Governor, the policy works as a serious deterrent. Compared to government-administered facilities, ours have an overall thirty percent lower rate of injuries to staff.”

  “How long has this Driver character been living under these conditions?”

  “Four and a half years,” Asuega said.

  Again, the look of disgust on the governor’s face gave his feelings away.

  “Run it up to the elevator part,” he said.

  Romero relayed the request into the phone; on the screen Driver looked like a Keystone Kop moving up the cellblock at triple speed.

  “There,” said the governor. Driver’s image had just inserted the electronic card into the elevator control panel and punched in that day’s code. “Wait a minute now,” Blaine prompted.

  “Stop,” he said as Driver turned his back to the camera and hunched over.

  “What’s he doing there?” Blaine wanted to know.

  “He’s circumventing the fingerprint recognition system,”

  Romero said.

  “Not possible,” Asuega said quickly. “Disabling it . . . maybe. Getting around the system . . . not a chance.” Before Blaine could bombard him with more questions, Asuega went on. “Any damage to the hardware simply shuts the system down. Nobody goes up or down until the pod operator rearms the sof
tware.”

  “Then what in hell is he doing?”

  “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say he’s probably using the system in the manner in which it was intended.”

  “I thought you said—” The governor stopped. A mixture of confusion and horror plowed furrows in his forehead. “Are you suggesting . . . you mean like . . .”

  Asuega jumped in. “The only explanation that makes any sense is that Mr. Driver is in possession of the security foreman’s right index finger.” He pointed at the screen. “Could we go on here?”

  Romero said, “Let it run, Iris,” and the picture once again began to move.

  “Can you slow it down and back it up a little?” Asuega asked.

  “Stop,” he said after a moment. “Notice how carefully he’s moving. As if he’s folding something up, then putting it in his pocket.” They watched in silence as the elevator arrived and Driver stepped inside. They watched the last forty seconds. Romero and Blaine looked away for the last fifteen seconds or so. Asuega kept his dark eyes locked on the screen until the picture lapsed to static.

  “For ease of training, the control pod was designed to be as intuitive as possible,” Asuega said. “To someone like Driver . . . trained in state-of-the-art electronics and control mechanisms, figuring out how to operate the prison’s systems was no great problem. I’d be willing to bet he’s already reprogrammed the software to recognize his own fingerprint.”

  As if he had the answer to an unasked question, a U.S. Army colonel threw back the door and strode inside. “My people will be ready in an hour.”

  “They’ve taken over the armory,” said the governor. The colonel sneered at him. “They got armor-piercing shells?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. “Any depleted uranium? Artillery? Air support?”

  “Of course not,” Romero answered nervously.

  “Then they’re in deep shit,” announced the colonel. “I’ve got four hundred men who just spent the past nineteen months in Baghdad. They’ve been back with their families for less than a week, so it’s safe to assume they don’t appreciate this little exercise they’re getting thrown into this evening.” He stopped for effect. “I don’t care what kind of peashooters those convicts have. We go through those gates”—he cut the air with the side of his hand—“they damn well better be ready for hellfire and damnation, ’cause that’s what they’re gonna get.”