Undersea Prison s-4

by Duncan Falconer

  ‘Copy Charon entering two one two,’ a voice echoed and a second later there was a loud hiss, followed by a heavy clunk. As the seals shrank the door was free to move inwards.

  ‘Comin’ in,Tusker,’ the guard called out as he pushed open the door and remained in the opening. The man at the desk was typing on a laptop and acted as if he was not aware of the intrusion. ‘I got some bad news for you, Tusker.’

  The man continued to ignore the guard who grinned as if he was about to enjoy what he had to say next. ‘We got you a room-mate.’ He chewed his gum noisily as his grin broadened.

  The man stopped typing and slowly looked around at the guard.Then he shifted his gaze to Stratton.Tusker was in his sixties and nothing like what one might expect a special-category prisoner to look like.

  ‘We got no space, for a few days at least,’ the guard explained. ‘Charlie section’s got a serious mildew problem.We had to shut it down for the prison inspector. Soon as the inspector babe’s gone we’ll open it back up and you’ll have your room back to yourself. That sound OK?’

  The older man frowned and went back to his typing.

  ‘Step inside,’ the guard said to Stratton, who obeyed. ‘Turn your back to me. Release the bag.’

  Stratton let go of the end of the bag and it hit the floor. The guard unshackled him, pushed him into the cell and stood back as Stratton felt his wrists. ‘You two get along, now. And don’t be teaching him any of your bad habits, Tusker, ya hear?‘ He chuckled as he put his mike to his mouth. ‘Close down two one two,’ he said as he pulled the door shut with a clang. A second later there was a loud hiss as the seals inflated. Stratton felt the pressure-change in his ears. It was severe enough for him to have to hold his nose and blow, equalising his tubes.

  Tusker winced as his hands shot to cover his ears. He was clearly in pain. ‘Assholes,’ he growled. ‘Sons of bitches always slam it up - they know my ears can’t adjust that quickly.’

  Stratton looked around at the windowless damp walls, the beds and the toilet behind the curtain. He picked up his bag and paused, unsure which bed he was to use. Both were made up although one had several items of clothing neatly folded on it.

  Tusker read Stratton’s quandary, got to his feet, walked over to the bed that was covered in clothing, removed the items and placed them on the edge of the desk.

  Stratton put his bundle down on the bed as Tusker went back to his desk.The pasty walls covered in mildew patches had been recently scrubbed and Stratton wondered how people could spend years of their lives in such confinement without going crazy.

  He wondered what the older man was in this hole for. It must have been a serious crime for someone his age to wind up in Styx.

  ‘Hi,’ Stratton said, deciding to break the ice. ‘Name’s Nathan.’

  ‘One second,’ Tusker said, as if he needed to finish a train of thought.

  Stratton sat on the edge of the bed and wondered what these people did to pass the time. There was no TV, no entertainment that he could see other than books and the laptop. Perhaps the old guy was writing a book himself. The ones stacked on the desk appeared to be on the subject of engineering, except the one on the end.That was a copy of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Apt, Stratton thought.

  A vent in the ceiling came to life as a blast of air blew into the room. It lasted about ten seconds and ended in a low growling noise.

  Tusker appeared to finish what he was doing and sat back for a moment as if it had been somewhat tiring. He closed the top of his computer and turned in his seat to look at Stratton. After studying him for a few seconds he held out a hand. ‘Tusker Hamlin,’ he said in a cordial if neutral tone.

  Stratton knew the name immediately. He was in the presence of America’s most infamous domestic terrorist. This guy was into everything from deadly toxins and chemical agents to home-made explosives. It must have been ten years ago that the media had been filled with the news of his capture. Stratton remembered the footage of a solitary dilapidated caravan in the midst of some vast forest miles from anywhere in one of the northern US states. He took Hamlin’s hand and they shook. The older man’s grip was firm and his palm calloused as if he’d been doing hard labour.

  ‘You’re lucky to be alive,’ Hamlin said, sitting back in his chair.

  Stratton could not disagree.

  ‘Zack said if you hadn’t floated out of the milk when you did he wouldn’t have seen you.’

  ‘Zack?’

  ‘Diver who pulled you out and got your ticker goin’ again.’

  Stratton had wondered who he had to thank for saving his life.

  ‘You believe in God?’ Hamlin asked.

  ‘More than I did last week.’

  ‘Where you from?’

  ‘Vermont. I spent a long time in the UK if you’re wondering about the accent.’

  ‘Never been there,’ Hamlin said in a way that suggested he didn’t care either. ‘What you in for?

  Stratton shrugged. ‘Can’t keep outta jail. I guess they think this place’ll change my mind.’

  ‘Let ’em think what they damn well want to,’ Hamlin said, his mind suddenly elsewhere.

  ‘Aren’t you a bit old to be down here?’ Stratton asked, genuinely curious. ‘I didn’t mean that to sound rude,’ he added, intent on being respectful.This was the kind of place where a person needed to make friends, especially when he had enough enemies already.

  Hamlin took a packet of tobacco from a pocket and proceeded to make a roll-up. ‘They think they’ve finally found a prison that’ll hold me . . . I’ve escaped from three so far.’

  ‘I remember you.You made a lot of news . . . I guess they think you’re still dangerous?’

  ‘Assholes,’ Hamlin muttered, licking the paper and completing the roll-up. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by what I could make in my garage that would scare the bejeezus out of anyone. Made my first atomic bomb when I was twenty. That was without the plutonium, of course. Science department got into more trouble’n I did,’ he said, lighting up and blowing the smoke at the ceiling. He held the tobacco out to Stratton who shook his head.

  ‘Didn’t you make some anthrax?’

  ‘That was the one that shot me to infamy. Easiest thing I ever made,’ Hamlin said, amused at the memory. ‘All I did was go to the old testing grounds in Oklahoma and pluck me up some samples right out of an open field that wasn’t even fenced. I grew the stuff in culture dishes - had enough to fill a biscuit tin within months.’

  Stratton was fascinated by home-made devices himself, particularly explosives. Hearing such details first-hand from a grandmaster was entertaining. ‘I remember you mostly for your mail bombs. I saw a diagram of one of your circuits. Very innovative.’

  ‘You technical?’

  ‘I’m not in your league.’

  ‘My mistake was in getting too political,’ Hamlin sighed, taking a long drag and clearly enjoying it. ‘I should say, in going for the wrong political targets . . . Up until then I was just some anti-abortion, animal-rights, pro-environment nut who on occasion plucked a member or two of the general public to make a point. There was just one detective lookin’ for me in those days. Then I sent a coupla letter bombs to a selection of high-ranking Republicans and the entire FBI was set loose on my ass.’ The reminiscing amused him.

  Stratton couldn’t decide what to make of Hamlin. He didn’t appear to be crazy. Had he not known the man’s history he would have guessed him to be a normal harmless old codger. ‘How do you rate this place - compared to other prisons you’ve been in?’

  ‘This place? I’m havin’ a great time!’ Hamlin said. ‘It’s gonna be a little harder than the others to get out of, though.’ He held the last quarter-inch of the roll-up between tobacco-stained fingertips and took a final drag. ‘I’m busier than I’ve ever been,’ he said as the vent kicked in again and the cell was filled with a current of air that did not smell particularly fresh. ‘I keep those suckers runnin’, for one,’ he said, poin
ting to the vent.

  Stratton looked up at the small air duct, its orifice coated in black dust. ‘You help maintain the scrubbers?’

  ‘Help? Since they put me in engineering the engineers don’t come down here so much. I kinda made myself a little niche. They love it, I love it. They get to spend more time topside. I get to spend less time in here. I should get a piece o’ their pay cheque.’

  Stratton suddenly thought about his task. It was as if it had been waiting in his head for some attention, had lost patience and jumped out at him. He didn’t have a plan yet but before he could begin to devise one he was going to have to get his hands on some information. It was too early to get frustrated although it already felt as if he’d been on this mission for an age. He needed to see the lie of the land, experience the routine and gather details about his target.

  Stratton got to his feet, walked to the end of the little cell and turned around.

  ‘You pacin’ the room already?’ Hamlin asked. He took one of the books off his desk and held it out to Stratton. ‘Here.’

  Stratton took it and looked at the front cover. It was a history of deep-sea diving, stretching back to ancient Greece and Aristotle.

  ‘Hey. You never know when it’ll come in handy,’ Hamlin said, winking.

  Stratton saw the funny side, decided to shelve his problems for the moment and sat back on his bed. Exercising some patience was sound advice. He opened the book and read the introduction. It made him think of his emergency diving equipment sitting at the base of the Styx umbilical just beyond the prison walls. Stratton shuddered at the thought of being out there once again with only a lungful of air to fuel a one-way journey to an objective he could not see. But there were the standby diving sets in the dock that he could utilise if he could get to them. The problem with that was getting inside the dock itself. But then, before he could escape he had to get the tablet.

  Stratton told himself once more to be patient and to put the mission to one side for the moment.

  A klaxon sounded somewhere outside and Stratton looked over at Hamlin who had gone back to his laptop.

  ‘The dinner bell,’ the older man said. ‘Highlight of the afternoon for most. In the early days they fed us in the cells. That got to be too much work for the guards and so they opened up a mess hall.’

  The door hissed loudly and the seal around it shrank. ‘You been to the mess hall yet?’ Hamlin asked as he got to his feet.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Watch yourself. It’s a place where things can go wrong.’

  The door moved in on its hinges and Hamlin helped it open. There was no one outside and Stratton leaned out to take a look.

  Hamlin put a hand out to stop him. ‘Steady, son,’ he said in a low voice. ‘From here on you don’t move without being told.There’re some guards ain’t as kindly as others - one in particular.’

  Stratton could guess who he was referring to.

  ‘STEP OUTSIDE YOUR CELL INTO THE CORRIDOR!’ boomed a voice from tinny speakers.

  Hamlin obeyed and Stratton followed.

  All the other doors along the corridor were open. A prisoner walked out of each one.

  ‘TURN TO YOUR LEFT AND FACE THE RED LIGHT,’ the voice demanded.

  A red light shone above a door at the end of the corridor. Every prisoner obeyed lethargically.There was a loud hiss and a clunk and the door below the red light opened. Stratton could feel the pressure change and looked up at a CCTV camera that was pointing directly at him.

  ‘KEEP THE SAME DISTANCE FROM THE MAN IN FRONT OF YOU. HE STOPS, YOU STOP. DO NOT BUNCH . . . FORWARD MARCH!’

  Stratton trooped off behind Hamlin.

  Gann stood in the operations control room looking at the monitors, in particular the one that showed Stratton heading through a door. He switched to another monitor showing Stratton stepping through the other side and followed his progress along a rocky, brightly lit corridor. When Stratton went out of sight Gann ignored the other monitors and concentrated on his thoughts.

  Stratton, in a line of prisoners, shuffled forward behind Hamlin towards an open airlock door. Before he reached it he got a once-over from a chemical scanner and a metal detector. None of the prisoners were wearing wrist or ankle shackles, which suggested a high level of confidence among the guards that there would be no disorder. On the other hand, since leaving his cell Stratton had not seen a guard other than behind a heavy glass porthole. The inmates’ movements between their cells and the galley were controlled by airlock doors and loudspeakers. Stratton wondered what riot-control methods the facility employed in the event of a serious disturbance.

  ‘NEXT,’ a metallic voice boomed and Stratton stepped through the doorway. He glanced back at the faces lining up behind him, estimating the number of inmates at around two dozen. None of them appeared to be Afghan or Middle Eastern.‘MOVE ON,’ the voice commanded and he continued along a short corridor to a door that led into the mess hall.

  The room was large enough to comfortably seat fifty inmates. It was two storeys high, with a narrow balcony running around the four walls midway up. A handful of guards stood around the balcony at intervals, looking down on the prisoners as they filed inside. At each corner was a narrow airlock door with a thick glass porthole at head height. A dozen tables were arranged around the clean stone galley floor, with plastic chairs tucked underneath them. The line of inmates snaked from the entrance along one of the walls to a long countertop that began with a pile of plastic food trays and cutlery. There were no servers. The pre-heated meals, similar to military rations, were in sealed plastic bags and were arranged in labelled trays. A selection of biscuits and plastic drink cartons were stacked at the end. Stratton chose a couple of food sachets without taking much notice of the contents. He was more interested in his surroundings.

  He followed Hamlin to a table where they set their trays down opposite each other. Two thuggish-looking inmates joined them. One of them appeared to have more than a mild interest in Stratton. Stratton ignored him and opened one of his food sachets. It contained a meaty sludge of some kind and he checked the sachet’s label that described the contents as beef and vegetables in gravy. He was used to military field-ration packs and expected it to taste better than it looked, which was usually the case. He dipped a flimsy plastic fork into the dark brown pool, scooped up a chunk and put it in his mouth. It was as expected and, suddenly feeling hungry, he opened a packet of hard-tack biscuits to dip into the gravy.

  One of the thugs at the end of the table was trying, with difficulty it seemed, to read the contents label on a packet. He emptied the sachet onto his tray and frowned at the sight of peaches in syrup. He opened another packet and poured what appeared to be a risotto of some kind into the indentation beside the peaches. He then emptied the contents of a third, which, like Stratton’s main course, was beef and vegetables in gravy, into the space between the others where it trickled into both. Unperturbed, he dipped a fork into the mess and began to eat it. His stare wandered back to Stratton as he chomped noisily. Stratton glanced at him. The cold malice in the man’s unintelligent eyes was raw. Stratton looked away, fully expecting to see more of that Neanderthal machismo in a place like this.

  An airlock door on the balcony opened and Gann stepped out. He leaned on the rail as he looked down at the tables and found Stratton. His gaze moved to the thugs at the same table. One of them surreptitiously nudged his colleague and indicated Gann with an upward movement of his eyes.The second thug glanced up at Gann, looked over at Stratton and then back down at his food. An airlock door on the other side of the galley floor opened.

  Hamlin heard the hiss above the general din and looked in that direction, stopping the movement of a forkful of food heading towards his open mouth. ‘Now that ain’t usual,’ he said, putting the fork down.

  Stratton followed Hamlin’s gaze across the room. Afghan prisoners, all wearing Muslim skullcaps and sporting untrimmed beards, were filing into the room.

  ‘The Talibuttfucks
don’t normally eat the same time as us,’ Hamlin said, looking around the room for reactions from the other tables. ‘This ain’t good.’

  The sounds of chewing and talking died down as practically every Westerner stopped eating to look at the late arrivals. Angry expressions formed on faces, low, conspiratorial comments were exchanged and the tension in the mess hall rose perceptibly.

  ‘What the fuck are these assholes doin’ in here?’ the thug across from Stratton said, loud enough for those at the tables around him to hear.

  Stratton looked up at the guards around the balcony who were watching with the curiosity of those conducting a potentially entertaining experiment. He saw Gann, who’d been looking at the Afghans, shift his gaze to the thugs at Stratton’s table. Stratton watched the one thug exchange glances with Gann and look directly at him. A warning bell went off in his head. Something was about to happen and it would appear that Stratton had a part to play in it.

  The Afghans picked up their trays and eating utensils and for the most part kept their dark eyes fixed ahead, though one or two glanced uncomfortably at the Westerners.

  Stratton had lost interest in the thugs for the moment as he searched for the focus of his mission. He had studied photographs of Durrani, courtesy of the CIA after the British SIS had requested copies, but he knew from long experience how difficult it was to identify a person from a photograph. The good news in this instance was that the photo was a recent one. Durrani’s hair was bushy, his beard uncropped. The problem was that nearly all the Afghans were sporting similar styles.

  Stratton scanned each man down the line, stopping at the second-to-last one coming through the door. Stratton was positive that it was Durrani. Because of the prison uniform the man was wearing he could not see any of the listed VDMs (Visual Distinguishing Marks) since they were all on Durrani’s torso. The small incision in his lower abdomen would be the ultimate proof. Stratton went back along the line of faces just to make sure and by the time he reached the end he was certain his original man was Durrani.