Mad, Mad World

by J. D. Sloane

  “I don’t know. I think I have a video camera from when my daughter was born…”

  “Can you work it?”

  “Is that a joke? I majored in broadcasting, Alicia. I can shoot anything you point at.”

  “Good,” she said, crouching down in front of her bag again. “I need you to bring that camera and be at the address I give you in ten minutes.”

  “For what?”

  “You got the interview, right?” Alicia said unzipping one of the side pockets of her bag with a crisp flick of her fingers. “Just like I promised. Well how would you like some exclusive footage of one of the biggest stories this year to bargain with across the offer table?”

  She heard Emilio pause on the other end and pulled a long box out of the top of her bag, flipping it open as she glanced at the ceiling.

  “I’m waiting, Emilio. And this is the job. You either get the story or you let someone else take it from you. What’s it going to be?”

  “Where are you at?” He said, his voice suddenly sharp and business like as Alicia pulled her shotgun out of her bag, holding the phone against her shoulder as she cracked it open with both hands.

  “I’ll send it to you. Get here as quick as you can. Oh, and Emilio?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Bring a gun,” Alicia said, her gold eyes blazing as she let the phone drop into her palm and hung up before he could respond.

  Ronan held up his hand as Morlan tossed him a roll of surgical tape and grabbed the rolling desk chair with one hand, dragging it into the middle of the room as Piper curled away from him. He leaned over her and Dula, looking between them casually for a moment and then grabbed Dula by the back of his hands as he yanked him up off the floor, the taut plastic zip-tie binding his wrists together giving him a decent amount of leverage as he swung him up into the chair.

  He raised his brows as Dula gritted his teeth and pulled out a long piece of surgical tape as Piper began to cry quietly, coiling it in a long lasso around one palm before ripping it off the roll with his teeth.

  “Now, now,” Ronan said twirling Dula’s chair around to face the crowd as he began to loop the tape around his chest in a smooth steady arc. “That’s not very professional, is it? Try to think of this as a learning exercise, Miss Webb. Some reporters would do just about anything for this kind of gritty hands on experience.”

  Piper brought her zip-tied hands up to her mouth as Matt slumped in his restraints, and Ronan kicked his chair with the heel of his foot, laughing as it went sailing into the crowd.

  “Just ask your boyfriend there. Or any one of his former Triple-A hopefuls.”

  “I told you, you won’t make it past the yard,” Dula said, his boyish face striving hard for bravery as he turned his head towards two of the crewmen who passed in front of the crowd. “They’ll kill you on sight. You’ll die here. All of you will. Is that what you men want? Do you think this animal actually cares what happens to you?”

  Ronan rolled his jaw, his temper slipping past the careful network of pits and valleys he had constructed to restrain it during his incarceration and felt a sudden rush of bloodlust as he lowered his head to meet Dula’s eyes, letting his rage fill up the space between them like an electric charge.

  “Not like you, Dula,” Ronan said, his dark eyes dancing with violent good humor as the hostages closest to him dropped into a sudden breathless silence. “Isn’t that right? No, you only put them in harm’s way when absolutely necessary. Every man’s life for a better tomorrow.”

  Ronan watched Dula wither under his gaze and then turned his chair back to face him as he crouched down in front of it, reaching into his front pocket. He whistled under his breath as he pulled out a loaded syringe and tapped it against Dula’s neck.

  “So what do you say Dula?” Ronan said, his face lighting up in a brilliant smile as Dula went pale, his eyes running towards the hallway almost of their own volition. “Ready to get to the bottom of all those dark fantasies of yours? I know I’m curious. After all, you did try to turn an entire cell block into your own personal kill floor.”

  Ronan jammed the syringe into his neck and then depressed it slowly, whistling under his breath as Dula gasped. He tilted his head to one side as he yanked the needle out and then dropped it to the floor, catching him by the collar as he gave him a smirk.

  “Too bad good old Leo isn’t around to ease you through this part of it. His insights on the human condition are really eye-opening. Oh well. That’s the thing about Wonderland. You just never know where the day will take you.”

  Ronan grabbed hold of the back of Dula’s chair and dragged him towards the end of the room, stepping out into the hallway as Morlan swung the door back on its hinges.

  “Don’t…” Dula said, his eyes beginning to dilate as Ronan glanced up and down the hallway.

  “I know, I know,” Ronan said, his low voice pulsing with a malicious sort of amusement as he swung Dula around to face him. “No good deed, right? But don’t worry, Dula. Your legacy is safe with us. In this city even a lowlife never-was like Connor got a prison named after him. Imagine what they’ll break ground on in your honor.”

  Ronan shoved his chair down the hallway with the back of his heel, watching it twirl into the shadows as Dula screamed and then walked back into the treatment room, his eyes spinning in the direction of the news crew like a prowling animal. He shifted his eyes from one face to another as if ticking them off some kind of mental list and then cocked his head towards one of the handheld cameras as Jaxson cleared his throat.

  “Ronan we’re cutting it close as it is,” Jaxson said, shaking his head as Ronan picked up the camera against the wall and looked it over carefully for a moment. “I know this guy. He won’t wait long.”

  “Don’t worry, Jaxson,” Ronan said, his dark eyes spinning with wild good humor. “We’re just about finished here.”

  Ronan walked over to the doorway and then snapped his fingers in Jake’s direction, holding his hands out in front of him like an umpire as Jake sent the chair Matt was bound to sailing in his direction. Ronan caught the chair with one hand as it went careening towards the wall and patted Matt on the shoulder as he wheeled him out into the hallway. He leaned over his shoulder as Matt tried to talk around his gag of surgical tape and jerked his head backwards, glancing behind him as a group of prisoners barreled from one end of the hallway to the other.

  “Not you though, Matt,” Ronan said, his dark eyes spinning like flaming pinwheels above the flat cheerful malice of his expression. “I’m afraid this is where we part professional ways. See what I mean about the little people? Take it from me. You just never know how quickly the tables can turn on something. Like. That.”

  Ronan planted his boot against the back of his chair and then shoved him down the hall with a sharp kick, rolling his jaw slightly as he headed back into the room. He motioned to the cameraman with a quick curl of his hand as the lights flickered overhead and paced towards the wall phone as it began to ring, yanking the cord out of the wall with one short, violent tug.

  “Twelve minutes, Ronan,” Jaxson said glancing at his watch as Daniel joined him at the back of the room like a man heading to his own execution. “And’s that’s the outside edge.”

  Ronan swung his gun off of his shoulders and set it down on the counter behind him, rolling his hand forward as he leaned against the desk.

  “This won’t take long,” he said, his low voice almost cheerful as he shifted his hand towards a spot about six inches to the right of where Daniel was standing. “Just one last thing to do before we take this party on the road.”

  Alicia held her breath as she turned down the drive to the prison and tapped the brakes as she saw an officer wave at her from a roadside barricade, two police cars blocking the turn to the main gate.

  “Slide it beneath the seat,” Alicia said, throwing the car into park as the officer approached the driver’s side quickly, his face grim and set. “And let me do th
e talking. We’re just here getting the story. That’s all.”

  Emilio’s face tightened as two police cruisers sped past them on both sides and slid the gun beneath his seat, glancing in the rearview mirror as he reached for his small handheld video recorder.

  “You say that like it’s a lie,” Emilio said, turning his camera towards the windshield as they both ducked to watch another cop car tear down the drive. “You know that riding shotgun is really more of an expression nowadays, right?”

  Alicia held up her hand to him as the officer knocked at her window and tried to muster up a professional expression, every inner rhythm of her mind pivoting on Ronan as neatly as gravity.

  He must have a way out, she thought rolling down her window as Emilio turned the camera in her direction. No one starts a riot like this unless they’re absolutely sure they aren’t going to be on the worst end of it.

  “Channel Six,” she said, holding up her news badge as her gold eyes narrowed. “You need to let me through.”

  “Absolutely not, ma’am,” the officer said, barely glancing at her badge as another officer came up to side door and glanced around the front seat. “There’s no access beyond this point. No press.”

  Alicia let out a low sigh and tried to look around him, nodding towards the barbed-wire gate that blocked her passage.

  “Those are my crew mates in there, Officer,” she said. “Can you at least tell me whether or not anyone’s been hurt?”

  The officer’s face softened slightly, and he looked at her badge again as he let out a low harassed sigh.

  “Sorry, but I don’t have that information. As far as I know there’s been no contact with anyone inside.”

  “Can you confirm that it was Ronan White who provoked the riot?” Emilio said, craning his camera towards Alicia’s window.

  Alicia jumped slightly as the officer next to Emilio’s door rapped on his window, making an impatient twirling motion with one hand before pointing back towards the road.

  “You need to head back to the road, ma’am,” he said, his hard face becoming smooth and impassive. “Like I said. No access.”

  “Can you at least confirm how many hostages White took?” Emilio said. “Where he’s holding them?”

  Alicia cringed as the officer reached the end of his patience and leaned over to get a look at Emilio’s face, his eyes narrowing with disbelief.

  “Can I confirm what? Get this vehicle out of here! Now!”

  Alicia rolled up her window as Emilio kept his camera on the cop cars flying up and down the drive and flashed her a look of outrage as she spun the wheel with one hand, pulling back out onto the road as the second officer watched her from the curb.

  “Can you believe that prick?” Emilio said sitting up in his seat as the drive gave way to a long winding road that encircled the entire prison. “He couldn’t give us any information? Really? What a load of bullshit.”

  “He might not know,” Alicia said as she turned at the fork in the road. “But this could be a problem. If we can’t get any closer that footage isn’t going to be worth shit.”

  “Yeah,” Emilio said, dropping his camera into his lap. “I know. No footage, no story. What you should’ve done is let me handle it. No offense, Alicia, but you let that guy off way too easy. Trust me, cops always know what’s going on in a situation like this. And they always know more that they tell you, too.”

  She eased her foot off the gas as she came to the exit leading back to the main road and turned the SUV onto the shoulder, letting out a quick sigh as she looked out the passenger window, the barricade of police cars blocking the entrance a long, uninterrupted line in her sideview mirror.

  “So what now?”

  Alicia glanced out the back window, her mind snapping to Ronan in a sudden, vivid flash of clarity and then snapped her fingers at the glove compartment, reaching over Emilio before he had time to react.

  “What?” he asked as she pulled out a folded handful of notes, flipping through them briskly as her eyes widened. “What is it?”

  Alicia pulled out the page she was looking for, brushing her fingers over the old plans for Connor’s Wonderland project and then looked towards the prison, muttering under her breath as glanced towards the road in front of them.

  “May be another way in,” she said, jerking the wheel hard as she smoothed the page out on the console between them and hit the gas as Emilio picked it up, turning slightly as he glanced out the window.

  “Where? I don’t see it.”

  “That wing Ronan’s in was originally supposed to be the park’s new aquarium. They just repurposed it. Do you see the red outline over it?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s the outer gate. It extends out at least a quarter mile.”

  She took a sharp right onto what looked like a narrow, paved service drive and snapped the page out of Emilio’s hand, looking at it swiftly before handing it back.

  “But there’s another courtyard,” she said, her voice becoming rushed and animated as she floored the gas pedal, watching the prison grounds wax and wane in the passenger window. “It’s separated from the rest of the yard. It’s- I think it’s closed in on two sides by the rest of the yard but there…do you see it? By where the palladium was going to be…”

  “A parking lot,” Emilio said as Alicia took another hard left, the narrow road leading them away from the prison in a long, curving arc. “Yeah. I see it. You sure it’s still there? Wouldn’t they just block it off?”

  “I don’t know,” Alicia said. “But keep shooting. If we’re going to get decent footage anywhere it’ll be there.”

  Alicia accelerated sharply as the SUV lurched over a hill as tall as a bike ramp and bit back a smile as Emilio knocked his head against the ceiling, shooting her a look as he pulled his camera inside.

  “Jesus,” Emilio said. “Take it easy, would you? This car is a lease. I still owe like eighteen months on it.”

  “They’ll give you a company vehicle,” Alicia said as she saw the far outer gate of the prison rising quickly on their right side. “You just have to ask for it.”

  “That isn’t the fucking point…”

  Alicia whipped her head around as she heard the crack of gunfire and slowed down as the fence dropped away from the incline, following the slope of the grounds.

  “Holy shit,” Emilio said under his breath as he leaned farther out the window. “Do you see that?”

  Her jaw dropped as the road wound closer to the edge of the hill and saw that the entire yard was filled with at least a hundred inmates, standing about six feet away from the fence as they shouted beneath the guard towers. She looked over the area briskly, her eyes narrowing and then pointed to a long, paved stretch of blacktop running behind one solitary barbed wire fence.

  “There.”

  “I see it,” Emilio said, his voice clipped and serious.

  Alicia shook her head as she saw an inmate go running for the guard tower and flinched as he dropped like a sack of wet cement, the whole group yawning back in a one massive, screaming wave.

  “Are you getting this?” she said, her voice low.

  “All of it,” Emilio said, turning his camera slightly to the left. “That entire yard is about to go nuts. If they don’t move in soon, those guard towers might get overrun. It wouldn’t take long. Not if they all decided to move on them at once.”

  Alicia ran her tongue over her lips as Emilio glanced at her and shook her head slightly as she noticed what looked like an industrial drop off, her hands tightening on the wheel as she followed the drive around to the courtyard.

  Here goes your last decent shot at plausible deniability, she thought, glancing in her rearview mirror as she looked for the telltale flash of police lights. What do they give attractive female accomplices these days? Something like twenty years without parole?

  “Down there. You can shoot from there.”

  Emilio’s brow furrowed as he watc
hed her reach for her bag and then raised his brows as he glanced out the window.

  “Umm…yeah,” Emilio said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eyes as she pulled into the vacant lot, the blacktop cracked and unpainted. He rolled his camera towards the main yard and flinched as the barbed wire enclosure that separated one yard from the other swayed outward, two dozen bodies charging it at once.

  “Alicia,” he said, dropping his camera as she reached for her duffel bag. “I’m not sure we should be back here. This shit looks serious. If all of those guys ran at it at once…”

  “They’re not going to do that,” Alicia said, cracking the chamber of her shotgun open and checking it quickly for shells. “And even if they did, they’d have to get through two fences. Not one.”

  Emilio pressed his knuckle against his lips and then watched her with an expression that was almost kind as she held out her gun towards him.

  “Trade you,” she said playfully, her lips curling up into a slight smile as he let out a deep sigh.

  “Miss Gale, don’t take this the wrong way. But are you even with Channel Six anymore?”

  And that’s when she heard it.

  Alicia rolled her eyes skyward as she heard the sudden rapid-fire drone of helicopter blades pass overhead and ducked her head automatically as its shadow pass across the grounds, her head whipping towards the gated inner courtyard. She shaded her eyes as a gust of dust rolled back to her across the pavement and watched the shiny black body of a helicopter bob in the middle of the lawn, the grass flattening around it in a wide, round ring.

  The courtyard, she thought, looking around wildly at the neatly trimmed back grounds enclosed by two different barbed wire fences. It’s separated from the others. That’s why he wanted to be moved into Dula’s wing. They needed the courtyard to land.

  She whipped her hair away from her eyes as she saw the inmates in the main courtyard rush towards the noise in a wide swath of gray and turned as Emilio said something, the roar of the propellers stealing the words away from her completely. She saw him lift his camera, pointing it towards the helicopter and kicked open her door as she scrambled to the ground, shaking her hand sharply as she felt Emilio graze her wrist.