Afterward, I had some serious second thoughts about that. It’s never a good idea to make enemies in the joint, especially when you’re an ex-cop. I only hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite me on the ass.
* * * *
My third week inside, I watched an odd newscast in the mess hall. The blonde anchor reported that a new development had “cast a shadow over the Donatello Sunrise case.”
That immediately caught my attention. I nearly came to blows with the idiot who was about to change channels.
The anchor continued: “Police revealed that seventeen young women over the past three weeks have reported waking up in public places with no memory of what had happened to them during the several hours they were unconscious. Each awoke in the place they last remembered being, but witnesses say the victims hadn’t been there earlier. This would seem to indicate that they were taken somewhere and then returned.
“There are no indications of sexual assault in any of the cases. Blood tests, however, revealed that each victim’s hemoglobin count was lower than normal. Citizens are now questioning whether these attacks might be related to the kidnappings of the past two months, and if so, whether the latest attacks indicate that police arrested the wrong man. Police say there are no indications at this time that the attacks are related.”
Very strange. It didn’t seem likely there was a copycat. Who would have the expertise to extract hemoglobin? It sounded more like the work of Karsh’s people, but they’d left for parts unknown weeks ago—hadn’t they?
The following day brought another twist to the story.
“Police are unsure what to make of the latest development in the Donatello Sunrise case. Yesterday, we reported that seventeen young women had apparently been taken and then returned with no memory of the intervening several hours before they awoke in public places. Now, police report that forty-two other young women have come forward and declared they experienced the same thing over the last two months. At the time, they say, they thought they had simply passed out from fatigue or alcohol. Now they are questioning whether they might have been victims of the same sort of attacks as the latest ones.
“Police say that it’s possible some of the latest claims may simply be from attention-seekers; however, Police Chief Jason Ourif says they will investigate all claims thoroughly.
“These latest reports cast further doubt on the guilt of Donatello Sunrise. Could there really be two different serial kidnappers operating in our city, or is the real culprit still at large? Stay tuned for continuing coverage of this story.”
A bunch of speculation wasn’t going to get the cops to let me walk—certainly not in the absence of another culprit to arrest. Still, maybe a death sentence wasn’t a certainty anymore.
* * * *
That was the high point of my incarceration. The low point came three days later in the exercise yard. I had just finished a two-mile run—sixty laps—around the small yard. I sat on one of the benches, catching my breath and cooling off, when I felt a pinprick against my ribs. Instinctively, my back arched away from the pain and a burly arm snaked its way around my throat and pulled me upright. The shiv worked its way back to my side.
A deep, gravelly voice hissed in my ear. “Mr. Scarpacci sends his greetings.” The man’s breath smelled of anchovies and bad teeth.
I looked around for a guard who might be able to get to me in time to prevent what I knew was coming. Not a chance. They were all otherwise occupied. I tried to elbow my attacker in the ribs, but the way he had my head bent back, I didn’t have enough leverage to hurt him. Worse, because the bench was between us, I couldn’t use my feet against him. His arm tightened against my throat, cutting off my air supply. I knew I couldn’t last much longer.
“Say goodbye, Sunrise.” The shiv dug in fractionally deeper. He was giving me a second to appreciate what was about to happen to me before he drove the shiv home.
“I suggest you say goodbye, Hammer, right after you drop the shiv.”
The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it at first. The important thing was that the shiv left my ribs. I heard a “ting” as it hit the pavement. Then the arm left my throat. I sucked in a double lungful of air and turned toward the two voices.
I was shocked to discover that the second voice was Buford’s. The pipsqueak had gotten the drop on the nearly one-foot-taller and fifty-pounds-heavier Hammer. Buford’s shiv disappeared up his sleeve as the other man stalked off to the other side of the yard.
He called back to me softly. “You’d better have eyes in the back of your head, Sunrise. Your girlfriend there can’t protect you every second of the day and night.”
He was right. If he didn’t get me, someone else who owed Scar a favor, or who wanted to get in Scar’s good graces, would get to me. It was only a matter of time. Whether it happened here or in prison, it didn’t look like I had to worry about the state inflicting the death penalty on me.
Buford kicked Hammer’s shiv toward me. “I suggest you hang onto that. You’re prob’ly gonna need it.”
I nodded and picked it up. It was nothing more than a sixteen-penny nail filed to a needle point at one end and wrapped in an old piece of shirt at the other. But it was plenty good enough to puncture a heart or kidney or rip out an artery. It didn’t take much to kill a man.
I slipped the shiv into my pants pocket and pulled my denim work shirt on over my now clammy T-shirt.
I now looked at Buford with a newfound respect. Better him as a cellmate than Hammer.
* * * *
After that, I spent as much time as possible in my cell. It meant I could find myself cornered with nowhere to run, but at least no one could sneak up behind me. Being in fear for your life every second of the day is no way to live. I don’t recommend it.
My stomach was always in an uproar; I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything. That was probably for the best, anyway, as the mess hall was a bit too public for my taste. Too many people passing behind and beside me to keep track of.
Perhaps I went overboard in my paranoia. Lack of food and sleep had me suspecting everyone—even Buford. For all I knew, he stopped Hammer from offing me so he could do it himself. Maybe Scar had put up a big bounty on my head and Buford was looking to collect.
Eventually, I resorted to starting a small anonymous fire in the exercise yard, using a stolen pack of matches, a bit of shirt lint, and some dry, dead grass that had tried to eke out a living in the pavement cracks. It was a pitiful excuse for a fire, but it produced the desired effect: all prisoners were in lock-down for the next week. That meant we were restricted to our cells for twenty-three hours a day. Meals were served in the cells, and showers and exercise periods were staggered so that no more than six prisoners were out at a time. That greatly reduced the opportunities for an ambush.
The gray paint of the cell matched my mood. I couldn’t think of any way my life could suck any more right then. All I could do was try to get through each day, one by stinking one. Was I throwing myself a pity party? You bet. But I figured I was entitled.
My funk wore off right about the time the lock-down was lifted. I went from depression back to terror. I could bob and weave all I wanted, but sooner or later Hammer, or someone like him, would land a knockout blow.
It didn’t take long for someone to try.
I was in the restroom after lunch when the stall door flew open, smashing into my right knee. Pain shot up my leg, blotting out everything else. I cried out. Before I could recover, two men—skinheads—grabbed me by the arms and yanked me off the pot. I sensed anger coming from one, but something else from the other. Greed? I’m not sure why I thought that, but that was the sense I got from him.
“Remember us, asshole? Your faggot girlfriend already got his. Now it’s your turn. When we’re done wit’ you, we pick up a nice fat paycheck. Who says crime don’t pay?” He giggled.
They rammed my head into the side of the stall, knocking me senseless. I only half-remember having my head shoved down i
nto the toilet. Once again I was under water, but this time without the threl.
Scar had won after all. There was no hope of rescue. Even if they were lying about already icing Buford, I couldn’t expect him to take them both on.
They held me there for at least a minute, and then I realized that the downward pressure had ceased. They were no longer holding me under. I pushed myself up and sucked in a deep breath, then another. I shook the filthy water out of my hair and wiped my eyes on my sleeve. What the hell happened?
I climbed to my feet and turned back toward the stall door. The two men who’d attacked me stood there staring off into space with vacant eyes. I passed my hands in front of their faces, but neither man blinked or moved. I quickly pulled up my pants and pushed between them and out of the stall. They stood rooted in place.
I had no idea what was going on, but I wasn’t about to check out this gift horse’s tonsils. I exited the restroom and returned to the mess hall. Although there were more than two dozen men in line or seated at the long tables, no one moved. It could have been a scene from a Twilight Zone episode where the people all turn out to be mannequins, now rendered inert.
It made my skin crawl.
I had thoughts of making a run for it, but I knew this freakish paralysis couldn’t affect everyone at the jail. Even if it did, there was no way to release the electronically controlled doors from inside.
I had just about convinced myself that I actually had drowned in the toilet and was now in some sort of purgatory or limbo, needing to atone for my sins before I could move on. In an instant, such thoughts disappeared.
[Sunrise! I could not sense your thoughts. I thought I had lost you.]
“Karsh! Where are you? What are you still doing on Earth.”
[I will explain later. For the moment, we must free you from your captivity.]
“Free me? But how?”
[We will take care of that. You must work your way toward the exit.]
“It won’t do any good. There are locked doors and guards everywhere.”
[As I said, we will take care of that. Head for the exit and we will do the rest.]
Hot damn, a jailbreak! It certainly wouldn’t make me look any less guilty in the eyes of the law, but at this point it didn’t look like I’d live to see the inside of a courtroom again if I stayed. The appearance of guilt was the last thing on my mind.
Then a worrisome thought hit me. “Wait, Karsh. I can’t leave. Lola’s in the women’s wing of the jail. I can’t leave her here.”
[Do not worry, Sunrise. We will free her as well. But you must go...now. We cannot maintain the illusion indefinitely.]
Illusion? I had no idea what he was talking about, but I did as he said. I headed for the first locked door, not expecting to get any farther. You could have knocked me over with a feather when the door lock clacked loudly just before I reached it. I swung the door open and stepped through, closing it behind me. It locked. The same thing happened at the other two doors. Before I knew it, I was standing at the outer gate as it opened remotely. Karsh, Allara, and four other Azarti stood on the other side. Lola arrived only seconds behind me.
As soon as the gate clicked shut behind her, we all took off at a brisk walk across the street and around the corner. Then we broke into a run. Almost immediately, my implant came back to life as we left the jail's dampening field. I turned off my GPS feature so the cops couldn't track us.
We hadn’t gone a block when the alarms went off at the jail. Within seconds, the sirens of several patrol cars raced in our direction.
Chapter Ten
“In here!”
We were in my element now. I might be nearly useless in a spaceship, but the streets—those I knew. We turned into an alley between rows of shops and apartments. This wasn’t the most upscale part of town and the alley reflected that. There was trash piled behind the apartments and the deep shadows cast by the tall buildings nearly camouflaged the graffiti on the walls.
“Quick, back here!”
We dove behind the dumpster just as the black-and-whites sped past the alley. The sirens dopplered and echoed off the walls. The dumpster belonged to a seafood restaurant and the stench of shellfish and squid rotting in the late summer sun was not to be believed.
We waited a moment longer to be sure there weren’t any stragglers. I started to rise when a flash of movement overhead made me freeze. I shot a look upward, then relaxed. In this age of sonic clothes dryers, someone had strung up a solitary clothesline and linens flapped in the gusting breeze.
“All right. The cops are gone for the moment, but they know we can’t have gone far. Once they’ve established a perimeter and gotten reinforcements, they’ll close in on us. We have to find a hiding place.”
[There is a vacant dwelling across the way. Perhaps that will suffice.]
“Thanks, Karsh. That’ll do. How do you know it’s vacant?”
[There are no thoughts emanating from that dwelling, as there are from the surrounding ones.] He pointed to a second-floor apartment just left of the back entrance.
“It might just mean they’re out running errands, but it’ll have to do for now. Let’s go.”
We dashed across the alley to the rear entrance of the building. There was an electronic lock on the door but, as I’d expected, it was broken. You could generally depend on the combination of vandals and cheap landlords to enable easy access.
The apartment was another story. The electronic lock on the door wasn’t the latest model, but it was in good working order. I was certain I could get us in, but it might take a while. Unfortunately, time wasn’t on our side—not with half the cops in the city looking for us. And not when a tenant of this building could pass by at any moment and wonder what all these people were doing hanging around a vacant apartment—if it was even vacant.
“How’re we gonna get in?” Lola asked.
“Just give me a minute,” I replied.
I’m sure she must have been puzzled as I stood still, staring at the lock, but I didn’t have time to explain.
It took Lola all of three minutes to get nervous. “Sunrise?”
“Shh!”
“Whatever you’re doin’, hurry it up.”
Once again, my implant proved its worth. I used another not-quite-legal feature to decode the lock’s encryption key. It took several long, nerve-wracking minutes, but finally the access light blinked green and the deadbolt slid back with a loud snick. We ducked inside and eased the door closed behind us. For the first time since we left the jail, I felt like I could breathe again.
I took a quick look around the apartment. Karsh had been correct about it being vacant. The upside was that we didn’t have to worry about an irate tenant returning from shopping at any moment. The downside, as I discovered while scoping out the place, was the lack of electricity, running water and, naturally, food. I was sure Lola and I could stand a few dry, hungry hours, but I was less sure about Karsh and his people.
For the first time since the jailbreak, Lola spoke. “Would someone please tell me what the hell’s goin’ on?”
“I’m sorry, Lola. It’s all my fault.”
“As usual. Now what’d you do?” Despite the harsh-sounding words, Lola wore a wry grin.
“Not a thing, except almost get drowned in a toilet. If Karsh hadn’t broken us out, I’d be dead right now and you’d be spending the best years of your life in prison. Come to think of it,” I turned toward Karsh, “how did you know I was in danger, and where have you been all this time?”
Karsh positively radiated embarrassment.
[I am sorry we did not come for you two sooner. While Galla healed, I continued to monitor the news reports and was shocked to hear that you had been captured. I wanted to help, but I could think of no way we could do so. As you know, we have no weapons. We could not break into the jail compound using force. I was at a loss.
[When Galla was restored to health, we had a dilemma. We could not help you, but we would not abandon you.
I did not know how to proceed. So we waited. In the meantime, we had run out of hemoglobin. We were forced to resume the kidnapping of women. However, this time we knew to draw less hemoglobin from their bodies. Keldor realized that if we could mentally cause unconsciousness, we should be able to affect other aspects of the human mind, including memory. We returned the females to where we had taken them and we fogged their memories of the intervening hours.
[Then I heard you cry out that day in the exercise yard. I knew then that you were not safe in captivity. I knew that we had to help. The question was how. Finally, Keldor, Allara, and I devised a plan. We were already on our way to you when we heard your cry of pain. It was at extreme long range, but we tried anyway.]
“Tried? Tried what?” Karsh’s explanation hadn’t cleared up much in my mind so far.
[The six of us, by concentrating our thoughts, are able to...confuse the minds of groups of others. We began with the two who attacked you. As we neared the jail, we were able to affect the minds of more and more people. By the time we reached the gate, we had affected everyone inside. We had the guards unlock the doors as you approached and then relock them. Unfortunately, once we crossed the street, we lost control over them.]
“You did great, Karsh. Don’t worry about it. We’re all safe and sound—for the moment, anyway. Speaking of which, I wonder how the search is progressing.”
There was no holoscreen or radio in the apartment, so I used my implant. I located a webcast of the local news. Not surprisingly, there was a breaking story about the “daring escape.”
The male anchor spoke in deep, soulful tones: “Police are at a loss to explain today’s escape from jail by Donatello Sunrise, arrested last month on twenty-five counts of kidnapping. As this security camera footage shows, Sunrise and his female accomplice—a prostitute identified as Sharinda Brown—apparently just walked out of the jail, uncontested. Oddly, they were met by what looks like six children in wetsuits. The eight have not yet been located, although in this exclusive interview, Chief of Police Jason Ourif says it’s only a matter of time.”
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