The Cure

by Freddie Villacci Jr

  Then a creepy smile swept across his face, flashing teeth like Chiclets. His shark eyes narrowed to slits.

  “Daddy’s home,” he said, giggling.

  Gracie hopped to her feet as quick as a cat, spitting out the remainder of the Alka Seltzer. She was going to fight to the death before she was going to let that man do whatever he was thinking.

  “You come closer and it’ll be the last thing you do,” she said, her voice twittery.

  “Good,” said the slimeball, “I love fighters.” He took a step forward. “It’s more fun if we both bleed.”

  Gracie clenched her fist.

  A sudden flash of black, then a quick snap of the man’s neck with a wicked crack. He dropped, and there was McNally behind him, dressed in full riot gear, including a helmet and face shield.

  He took out his radio. “Have assaulted female prisoner, unconscious and attacked by another inmate, need assistance to get her out.” He put the radio to his side. “You okay?”

  “I spit out the Alka Seltzer. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it's my fault. Took longer than I’d expected. I’ll need you unconscious. Can you do that?”

  Gracie nodded.

  McNally wrapped his right arm around her back and his left underneath her knees and picked her up. “Just go completely limp."

  She did so, and her neck ached terribly at the awkward angle. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  They were still unmoving when she heard McNally talking to someone, or was it two?

  "What happened?” said a voice.

  “She’s unconscious,” said McNally. “We need to get her to the medical unit quick!”

  Another voice. “Is that Garrison? What happened to him?”

  “Callum here,” said McNally, probably referencing to the slimeball on the floor. "Must have hit him on the head with something.”

  She poked an eye open and was horrified by the sight.

  The cell block was in complete anarchy. About twenty violent prisoners were in an all-out brawl with at least a dozen guards. The guards had batons and shields, no guns. The hardened prisoners seemed more than happy to take a shot from a baton in order to get at a piece of the guards. Eyes were clawed.

  She’d never felt so helpless in her life.

  “Let me down,” she said to McNally. “I can run with you. It’ll be easier. There’s too much chaos for anyone to notice.”

  "Can’t take the chance. Do me a favor. At least keep your eyes closed. Try to stay limp.”

  She ignored the direction.

  At least McNally was going in the opposite direction of all the fighting, which was somewhat comforting. He ran haphazardly down a series of hallways, jolting her at every turn, until finally he came to the steel door that led out of cell block D.

  He paused at the door, entered a five-digit code, and the massive reinforced steel door opened.

  “Home stretch,” he said to her.

  40

  Dressed in full prison ADX swat gear, Bic slowly rolled his dirt bike down the steep mountain terrain. He had another hundred and fifty yards before he reached the flat land that led to the razor-wire-wrapped fence of the outer perimeter. This was taking longer than planned. The rock slope had a slickness to it he hadn’t counted on, and even with the gear on he was a bit cold.

  Completely focused on the task at hand—getting down this rock—he wondered what Gracie’s reaction would be. In order to get her out, he was going to have to hurt a lot of people. Innocent guards who probably had families to feed. Would she even go with him, or would she shun him again like she had at the farmhouse, even running out on him again? If only she’d trusted him, she wouldn’t be in jail right now, and he wouldn’t have to attempt this crazy break out. If she decided to cut and run, she ran the risk of being gunned down by a tower guard.

  The old rage began to surge within him, he lost his footing and ended up in a sideways slide that took him to the foot of the mountain. He cursed softly and stood. Here was a new glimpse of ADX, lit up bright by its perimeter lights. It had a simple compound shape, a single isosceles triangle with a rectangle for a base. The ninety-degree peak, the top of the triangle, pointed towards Bic and the mountains. Even though inside it was hell on earth, from out here, as he breathed in the fresh cool mountain air, it had an awkward calming effect.

  Bic looked into the sky. Stars like glitter on black.

  The air was cut by the distant whirring of a helicopter. The unmistakable noise increased in volume until the machine buzzed right over him.

  What the hell?

  This thing was way too low.

  It hovered over him for a moment, then erupted in machine gun fire that spewed from its sides, the blinding white flashes lighting up the first guard tower like a tiki torch.

  Bic pulled out his cell and called Hawk.

  Before Hawk could answer, the second tower was consumed in a destructive fire. “Hawk, get here now, and be ready for a firefight. There’s a chopper here laying waste to the place.”

  Bic jumped onto his dirt bike and kick started it. Within seconds, he opened the throttle up. As he closed the distance to the fence, the chopper made its way down the right side of the perimeter, going right down the line of guard towers and feeding each a steady diet of .50-cal gunfire—easily destroying the only two guard towers on the right side.

  Twenty yards from the fence at the top of the triangle, Bic hit the perimeter gravel road, cut sharp to his left, and dropped the dirt bike. If only he had a sniper rifle instead of his MP5. Better than nothing, he thought, as he dropped to one knee and took aim.

  He took aim at the window of the chopper just as it finished off the second-to-last guard tower in the lower corner of the perimeter. He did some quick calculations. The MP5 weapon system was zeroed in at 25 yards—really designed for close combat. The shot he was about to take was at least 200 yards. Then there was the upward trajectory making the compensation for gravity on the 9mm bullet even more difficult. Plus, there was the probability the bullet would start to tumble around the 200-yard marker.

  The chopper swung around the angle of the perimeter where the triangle and rectangle met, and Bic took aim through his EOTECH sight.

  The man holding the twin handles of the .50-cal came into focus. Bic aimed a foot high and six inches to the left. From there, his strategy was simple: if the first cluster of bullets didn’t hit the target, he would walk the bullets toward it.

  The .50-cal destroyed the final tower as Bic opened fire. Seeing sparks over the target, he walked the stream of fire down towards the gunner.

  Before he hit the gunner, the chopper ascended back over the prison yard and lowered itself within the perimeter just opposite from Bic’s location. It was landing.

  He sprinted down the perimeter road towards the corner, but his view was blocked by the prison cell block structures, not to mention the clouds of billowing black smoke that were rapidly obscuring everything. He pushed himself to sprint harder and came around the base corner of the rectangle. There he was blinded by the bright lights of a security pickup truck in his path.

  He dove toward the fence to avoid getting shot, trying to clear his vision of the bright lights.

  From the rumbling in his stomach, he knew the pickup truck was running, but did not sense any movement. A closer look revealed that the truck had bullet holes running up the hood and windshield.

  Bic kept an appropriate angle with his weapon as he approached the vehicle. Inside was a dead driver, riddled with bullet holes. He pulled the dead driver out and onto the road and jumped into the driver’s seat.

  Speeding down the perimeter road, he spotted the chopper on the ground on the other side of the fence. Two men from the chopper were on one knee, aiming M-16s at the cell block structure. Rage and fear blotted out all other vision as he saw a guard carrying Gracie from one of the exterior cell block doors towards the chopper.

  With the prison sirens blaring, two
attack dogs sprinted towards the guard and Gracie, but the men with the M-16s opened fire and dropped the two canines before they got within ten feet of her.

  Bic cut the wheel in the opposite direction of the fence and sped thirty yards away from the perimeter, then locked up the brakes and spun the truck back in the direction he’d just come from.

  The guard had Gracie halfway to the chopper when Bic floored it back toward the twelve-foot-high chain-link fence, then smashed into it at 50 miles per hour.

  He jolted to a stop about ten yards into the compound. With a sinking feeling he realized that while he was able to burst through the chain-link part of the fence, several strands of barbed wire were stretched like a net around him.

  The truck was met with M-16 fire.

  Bic ducked and then sprung up at the slightest pause to return fire with his Glock, then realized they’d retreated, and with Gracie in tow.

  With the car wrapped in barbed wire, the door would not open. Bic leaned back, brought up his foot, and blasted the windshield off the pickup. He crawled out onto the hood and jumped to the ground, making a beeline for the chopper as the rotors picked up speed as the landing skids lifted from the ground. He grabbed onto the skid from the inside as it continued to rise. At about ten feet off the ground, M-16 fire erupted. Bic did a pull-up to keep his body underneath the chopper and stay out of the line of fire.

  The barrel of the M-16 jetted down around the underbelly of the chopper. Bic grabbed the barrel with his right hand as shots were fired and yanked hard. The man holding the rifle fell headfirst out of the chopper.

  The chopper did a slight swerve, changing course, headed toward one of the flaming towers. Bic pulled his chest up onto the skid as the underbelly of the chopper flew over the orange swirling flames reaching hungrily in the air.

  Working to get a leg up to enter the cabin, Bic caught sight of something in his peripheral vision. A man had dropped out on the other side.

  41

  The guy, either a guard or someone dressed like a guard, had latched onto the skid opposite Bic like an Olympic gymnast grabbing onto a high bar. Using his momentum, he swung his feet toward Bic’s back. He then launched himself forward, quickly closing the eight feet that separated them.

  Bic spotted his assailant coming at him, and he tried to turn his upper body—leading with his Glock—but before he fully swung his arm around, the guard blasted Bic with both feet, knocking him off the skid.

  Bic let go of his Glock to grab onto the skid, barely getting his fingertips wrapped around the metal rod.

  Both men hung facing one another as the guard used his free hand to draw a shiny silver .357 from the front his pants.

  Bic jabbed his left hand and caught the guard’s wrist before he could fully draw the weapon. The other man’s strength was unbelievable.

  The guard kneed him in the ribs, then struggled like a crazy man to get a bead on Bic. Bic fought back with all of his might, the two bodies trembling with murderous effort.

  Slowly, the guard managed to get his gun into the position to shoot.

  The gun barrel was nearly at his temple.

  The man’s face…

  …like a mask…

  The strange notion threw some kind of switch inside Bic. It was a problem to be solved. There was a clarity born of detachment now. He was devoid of emotion, merely coldly calculating the physics of their struggle. Bic stopped resisting the guard and pulled his wrist as hard and fast as he could.

  He propelled the guard’s right arm through the kill zone, then with its continued upward trajectory, slammed his knuckles into the metal rod. The gun fell to the earth.

  Both men quickly latched on to the bar with their second hands. The chopper was twenty feet off the ground and had cleared the prison by about two hundred yards on its way into the mountain range.

  In a surreal moment, with the backdrop of the majestic mountain range, both men faced each other, silently glaring, each silently calculating the best way to kill the other.

  Bic landed a right-handed haymaker across the man’s masked face. A gash in the molded latex tore wide open.

  The man swung his whole body at Bic, latching onto him, then let go of the bar.

  Bic now held the weight of both men on the rail, defenseless as the guard wrapped his legs around his torso and volleyed short, vicious jabs.

  With strength ebbing by the second, Bic struggled to pull himself up.

  The man grabbed the skid with one hand, loosened his legs from around Bic’s midsection, then pulled himself up, drawing back his right fist for the final blow.

  At the high point of Bic’s pull-up, he released his left hand and grabbed onto the back of the guard’s neck and pinned his chin and throat on top of the bar, then did the same with his other hand clenching his fingers together behind his neck. He hung from the man, trapping him in an inescapable chokehold against the skid.

  Bic watched the man’s eyes bulge as he strangled. An unexpected life sprung into the man as the mask peeled and blew back, the face behind it a twisted caricature of animal fury and bloodlust. It was grainy, scarred and wooden. The face of his father in the guise of a Dan mask stared at him, through him.

  The guard’s face, a horrible, peeling mask, distorted even further as it went crimson, the eyes wide, the mouth agape with protruding tongue.

  Bic’s eyes suddenly went blurry, accompanied by a deep stabbing pain. Refusing to let go, he doubled down on his efforts as he tried to crush this man’s windpipe. “Clarence Green, I’m coming for you,” he yelled.

  The pain felt like someone had just cut his chest wide open and dumped a shovel of burning coals into it.

  He fought with all his might to stay conscious, but his body had reached its limit. His eyes rolled in the back of his head, his grip slackened, and he dropped into a dense canopy of evergreen trees.

  42

  The Farmer sucked in as much oxygen as he could before pulling himself up onto the skid. Then he stood and climbed back into the chopper, dropping himself into his seat like a drunken man.

  Everything ached. What didn’t ache, throbbed. What didn’t throb was bleeding.

  But none of that mattered, the first round of this fight felt amazing mentally and he wanted more. This was the sweet vengeance he’d been wishing for his brother for years. If his opponent was not worthy somehow, it would taint what he thought about his brother.

  Gracie’s mouth was moving. No words.

  He put the headset on.

  “Are you alright?” she said.

  Still high on adrenaline. “Fine.”

  “What happened?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Hey, Swanson,” he said addressing the pilot, “turn this bird around.”

  “No can do,” he replied.

  The Farmer popped out of his seat, walked up to the pilot, grabbed the M16 next to him, and pointed it at his head.

  “Turn this bird around.” He looked across the landscape, then pointed at the thick patch of tall evergreens, “Over there.”

  The Farmer went over to the opening and grabbed the handles to the .50-cal gun as he scanned the ground for Bic.

  “Chief,” said Swanson, the pilot, “we have a situation.”

  The Farmer looked up to see another helicopter approaching, and could barely react before .50-cal fire began streaming from it.

  Swanson banked swiftly to avoid the stream, throwing the Farmer off his feet.

  “Turn back!” he screamed.

  “Shoot me if you want, chief. I’m getting us outta here.”

  The Farmer got to his feet and scrambled to the gun. The two birds were doing an air dance as the distance between them widened. Fire continued to spew from the unknown chopper’s gun.

  He took aim and fired for five seconds. Then ran out of ammo.

  43

  “Should we go after that bird?” the pilot asked.

  “Let’s go get Bic” Hawk replied. “P
ut us down where you can.”

  The chopper landed in an open area, and before the skids hit the ground, Hawk was out, running toward the thick area of Douglas fir trees. At least his buddy had only fallen about 10 feet. Chances were, he wasn’t too messed up.

  Leading with his MP5, he poked in and out of the maze of hundreds of Christmas trees.

  After cutting through the middle, he ran diagonals, trying to cover as much ground as possible. Unsuccessful on his second and third diagonal crisscross, he stopped to catch his breath. He had a bead on where he thought Bic had fallen, but with dense trees in all directions, everything looked the same and his eye couldn’t pierce the canopy.

  Hawk took a deep, calming breath as he refocused his strategy. A pile of large boulders gave him an answer. He made his way to the top and was now a good fifteen feet above ground level. He looked in all directions. Nothing but a sea of green, the trees too thick to see down to the ground.

  This ain’t good, he thought.

  Then, thirty yards away, he saw the top of a fir tree snapped.

  “There you are,” he muttered.

  He dashed in the direction of the broken tree. A big black military boot poked out from behind it.

  “Aw, brother,” he said.

  Bic lay motionless on his back.

  Hawk checked him for a pulse. “Thank God,” he said.

  He then scanned Bic for serious wounds—gunshot wounds, stabbing, or swelling on his head. Seemed he had only scrapes and bruises.

  “I’m gonna get you to a hospital, brother.” Hawk grabbed Bic from behind under both arms and began the laborious task of dragging him back to the chopper.

  44

  Gracie looked at the beaten and bruised McNally, the latex mask half-torn from his face.

  “Who the hell are you, anyway?” she said.

  McNally continued to pull off chunks of mask and beard from his face.

  “Are you working with Agent Quinn?”

  The name didn’t even register a response. He continued to pull the rubber material from under his chin.