HL 04-The Final Hour

by Andrew Klavan

  “Merry Christmas, Mike,” I said. Slowly, my hand lifted to set the telephone back in its cradle. Mike was still talking through his handset. I could see him shaking his head. I could see his lips forming the word no over and over again.

  The guard came up behind him and said something I couldn’t hear. Mike hung up the phone—hard. He stood up. We stared at each other through the glass.

  Mike shook his head one more time. No.

  Then the guard led me away.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Merry Christmas

  I got the knife on Christmas Day—the shiv I was supposed to kill Dunbar with. Blade slipped it into my hand during the service in the chapel.

  The chapel was just another faceless, windowless cinder-block room in the prison. The cinder blocks were painted yellow here instead of green. And during Christian services, there was a cross hung on the wall. Today, for Christmas, there was also a wreath and a small wooden crèche set up on the table that the chaplain used for his lectern. For Abingdon, the place was almost cheery.

  The chaplain—Chaplain Adams—was an old black guy. I don’t know how old, but old. He had long, sad features that looked like he was mourning for the world. I’d only had a chance to talk to him once, but I got the impression he was the only semidecent human being in the whole prison. Maybe that’s why he always looked so sad.

  He had his big leather Bible open on the table next to the crèche. He was reading the Christmas passages in Luke. His voice was as sad as his face. Even the joyful words of the Scripture sounded mournful when he said them:

  “And the Angel said to them, ‘Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people . . .’”

  Hard to make that sound mournful, but somehow Chaplain Adams managed to do it.

  There were a lot of folding chairs packed into the room. They were full, a prisoner in each, guys of every color who’d committed all kinds of crimes. Praying. Most of them sincere, I’d guess. Looking for a way out of a bad past, and a path to a better life.

  I know I was sincere. I was sitting in a chair about halfway to the back of the room, off to the right of center. I had my head bowed, my eyes closed. And I was praying just about as hard as I could. I was praying for help, praying that Mike would get word to Rose, and that Rose would get word to his bosses in Washington, and that his bosses in Washington would turn out full force to find Prince—and that everything would be taken care of by somebody else so that I wouldn’t have to break out of here with a bunch of Nazi maniacs.

  Your will be done, I added at the end of my prayer— but I’ve got to admit, I didn’t really mean it. I really wanted my will to be done: Namely, I wanted God to get me out of this mess, and fast!

  Anyway, I was hard at it, my head bowed, my eyes closed, so I didn’t really notice when the prisoner next to me got up and moved away. The first time I did notice was when I felt the smooth plastic tube slip into my hand.

  My head came up fast; my eyes opened fast. There was Blade, suddenly sitting next to me. His dreamy, murderous eyes were fixed on mine.

  I looked down and saw what he had given me. A homemade knife. I don’t know what it had been originally. Part of a bed or a chair maybe. I don’t know. It was a tubular piece of thick plastic with string wound tight around one end to make a handle grip. The other end was sharpened to a long, deadly point.

  When I looked up at Blade again, he smiled his toothy smile. He slowly pressed his index finger under his chin to show me how to drive the knife into Dunbar’s throat. But of course, I had already pretty much figured that’s what he wanted me to do.

  Then, with a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching us, Blade reached over and gently pushed the shiv up into my sleeve.

  “Just call me Santa Claus,” he whispered.

  Then he bowed his head and closed his eyes and pretended that he was praying too. And I bowed my head and closed my eyes. Only I wasn’t pretending.

  “And the shepherds returned,” read Chaplain Adams mournfully, “glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Dunbar Again

  “Yard time!”

  There was a flurry of snow falling as I stepped out into the yard. The sky was dark gray again and hung low over the heads of the gray prisoners moving over the grass and asphalt. The watchtowers seemed almost black against the sky. The riflemen inside were just slowly pacing silhouettes.

  I felt the plastic knife against the flesh of my wrist. It was pushed up my sleeve and secured there tightly by a couple of loops of cloth I’d attached the night before.

  As I moved through the cold air to the weight area where Blade and his fellow thugs were working out, I glanced over in the direction of the Outbuilding. There was Dunbar, surrounded by his guards, watching me pass.

  I reached Blade. Blade smiled. His eyes were far away. He seemed lost in his dreams, whatever sick and murderous dreams they were.

  “All right,” I said. “When do you want to—”

  Blade punched me.

  It was a short, sharp shot that took me totally by surprise. It wasn’t faked. It wasn’t pulled. It connected with my jaw full strength.

  Before I even felt the pain of it, I was sprawled on my back with dust flying up around me. Sparks seemed to be dancing in front of my eyes.

  Through the dust and the sparks, I saw Blade coming at me.

  Before I could clear my head, he kicked me in the ribs. Hard. There was nothing fake about that either. Blade was having too much fun to hold back. He cocked his foot to kick again.

  I swiveled on my backside, fast. Swung my legs around and kicked his standing leg out from under him.

  Blade went down. I leapt on top of him, driving my fist hard into his face as I did. Instantly, the other cons were circling us, cheering. Blade and I rolled over and over in the dust, clawing at each other’s eyes, pounding at each other’s ribs. He wasn’t pretending so I didn’t pretend either: I had to defend myself or, escape plan or not, I think he would’ve just knocked me flat out for the fun of it. Fortunately, locked together like that, neither of us could put much force into our blows. There was a lot of action, but not much damage being done.

  What did hurt was the walkie-talkie the guard hit me with.

  He used the heavy butt of the thing and drove it down into the back of my head as Blade and I rolled over in the dirt. Instantly, the pain shot through my entire body. My thoughts went foggy. My limbs went weak.

  Guards grabbed me by the arms. They hauled Blade off me. Blade sent a final kick into my ribs for good measure as they dragged me away.

  Now there were three guards holding me, one guard gripping either arm and a third one grabbing me by the collar. They frog-marched me across the yard, my chin on my chest, my head lolling back and forth. As my mind began to clear, I lifted my eyes and saw the Outbuilding coming toward me, getting larger and larger. Larger and larger, too, was the grinning, eager fist-face of Dunbar. His eyes were alight with the anticipation of beating up on me again. I knew if he had his way, the beating was going to be much, much worse this time.

  The guards manhandled me into the Outbuilding, tossing me through the door so that I stumbled across the room. I hit the far wall and sank to my knees.

  I was now in a dark bunker of a place, an open space with its gray cinder-block walls lit by dangling bulbs. There was a small office in one corner, created with metal dividers. There were crates of I-don’t-know-what stacked here and there. This was where the Yard King did whatever it was he did when no one was looking.

  The guards followed me to where I lay on the hard-packed dirt floor. One of them kicked me in the stomach so that I curled up, clutching myself. Another kicked me in the back so that I straightened, letting out a cry of pain. My cry disappeared underneath a hollow roaring sound that seemed to fill every corner of the Outbuilding. That was the heating system blowing warm air t
hrough the place.

  Then, smirking, the guards withdrew, leaving the Outbuilding and closing the door behind them.

  Now I was alone with Dunbar.

  When I was able to look, I saw the Yard King standing over me. Slowly, painfully, I raised my eyes from his shoe tips and blinked up at him. For a long moment, he was just a foggy figure seen dimly through a haze of pain. Bit by bit, the haze passed and he came into focus. It wasn’t a pleasant sight.

  The thick, squat man stood with his legs akimbo. His knuckly face looked down at me. Nastiness seemed to come off him in waves. His cheeks were flushed with it and his eyes almost seemed to glow. When he spoke, it was with the voice of a volcano: It sounded as if it came from some hot, bubbling place deep down inside him. It was as if he could hardly contain the thrill he felt at the idea of pounding me half to death

  “What did you think, garbage boy?” he said. The sound of that voice burned right through me. “When you were talking tough in the infirmary. Huh? What did you think?” He nudged me with his shoe tip. “I’m asking you a question.”

  I groaned in answer. It was all I could manage.

  “When you put your hands on me like I was just one of your fellow garbage cons,” Dunbar went on. “What exactly were you thinking? Really. I’m curious to know.” He nudged me again. “Did you think you’d never be back here? Did you think I’d never get another chance at you?” He let out a brief laugh. He shook his head. “You cons are so dumb. Don’t you understand? In here, behind these walls, time is always on my side. Always. Eventually, I always get my chance.”

  I flinched as he crouched down over me. He grinned at that. He liked to see my fear. He chuckled.

  Carefully I slipped the knife out of my sleeve into my palm. I wrapped my fingers around the rope-grip handle.

  “Oh, you con, you garbage,” Dunbar said, shaking his head again. “Let me tell you something: This is gonna hurt you way, way more than it hurts me.” He reached down to grab me.

  And then I was on him.

  I don’t think I’d ever moved so fast in my life. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next—when the escape would begin or how or when—but I knew it was going to be soon, any minute, and there was no time to lose.

  Before Dunbar could react, before he could even get that sadistic grin off his face, I sprang off the floor and grabbed him by the hair. At the same time, I threw a body block into him. Crouched down the way he was, he was completely off-balance. I drove him to the floor and got on top of him, my knees pinning his arms, my knife-blade set against the soft flesh under his chin.

  I pressed my face close to his. I spoke in a low whisper, the words tumbling out quickly.

  “Listen to me, Dunbar. Listen to me good. Any second now, some of Blade’s thug pals are gonna come through that wall. You read me, chucklehead?”

  Dunbar couldn’t believe what was happening. He couldn’t understand what I was saying. “What?”

  I banged his head against the floor. “Listen! I’m supposed to kill you now, do you understand me?”

  “I . . .”

  I banged his head again. “Do you?”

  He nodded quickly. “Yes! Yes! Don’t kill me! Please!”

  “It doesn’t matter whether I do or not. If I don’t kill you, you can bet Blade or one of his crazies will, okay?”

  “Please,” he said again, terrified.

  “You got one chance, one choice. Which is to do what I tell you to do, you read me?”

  “Yes, yes, anything, what?”

  “Act dead. Play dead. Understand? Play dead or you will be dead. That’s a guarantee.”

  Before he could answer, I let him go. His head fell back against the floor. Before he could think, I took the knife away from his throat and held it to my arm. Taking a quick breath against the pain, I cut myself—a nice long slash.

  Man, it hurt. It hurt like you wouldn’t believe. A long second of pure, stinging pain. Then the thick blood began to flow. Dunbar tried to lift his head, but I jammed my arm under his throat, knocking him back, making him gag. I rubbed the arm back and forth against him so that my blood was smeared all over him. It wasn’t going to look convincing, but I hoped it would do the trick in the rush and confusion that was sure to come.

  I jumped off the Yard King. It wasn’t easy to move, let me tell you. I had to ignore the pain all over my body from all the punishment I’d taken. But I did ignore it. What had to be done had to be done.

  I grabbed Dunbar by the shirtfront and hauled him up to his knees. I dragged him to a dark corner of the Outbuilding as he struggled to get his feet under him. All the while I was dragging him, I was talking to him under my breath.

  “There’s a mall near here,” I told him. “An unfinished mall about two miles away. You know it?”

  “Yeah. Yeah,” Dunbar said weakly.

  “That’s where Blade and his boys are headed. Tell the cops. You got it? Tell the cops to cut them off. Stop them. Don’t let these clowns escape. They’re killers, every one of them.”

  I threw him against the wall. He sat down hard, his back pressed to the cinder blocks.

  “Lie down and play dead, Dunbar,” I said. “They’ll be here any second and if you don’t look dead, you will be.”

  I heard a noise behind me. I turned—but there was no one else in the Outbuilding. Not yet anyway.

  Suddenly, while I was turned like that, Dunbar grabbed my arm.

  I spun around on him, drawing back the knife to threaten him.

  But he wasn’t on the attack. He was too stunned and scared for that. He was just gaping up at me, his eyes wide, his mouth open.

  “Why . . . ?” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “Why didn’t you do it?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t understand him.

  “You were supposed to kill me,” said Dunbar. “Why didn’t you?”

  For another second, I still couldn’t figure out what he was saying. But then I got it: He really didn’t know. He really didn’t understand.

  “I beat you,” he said. “I’d’ve beat you again, worse this time, much worse. I might have killed you and you know it. Now you had your big chance. Why didn’t you kill me?”

  Angrily, I yanked my arm free of his grasp. He fell back against the wall.

  “I haven’t got time to explain it to you, Dunbar,” I said. “Try to figure it out for yourself.”

  The Yard King seemed about to speak again—but then he tensed, afraid. All at once, he slumped over, lay on the floor, his eyes shut, his mouth open. At first, I thought he’d fainted. But then I realized: He was pretending to be dead.

  That’s when I looked over my shoulder and saw the hole in the dirt floor.

  Blade’s people had arrived.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Breakout

  The entrance to the tunnel seemed to have appeared silently. At first, it was just a small break in the base of the cinder blocks. I could see the edge of a pickax working at it, prying off chunks of dirt, making the hole larger. How they had broken through so quietly, I don’t know, but I guess at least some of the noise had been covered up by the roar of the heating system. In any case, now I could see a pair of bright eyes peering up at me from the darkness beneath.

  What happened next happened quickly but in the same weird dreamlike quiet. With any noise covered by the blasting air, it seemed like a silent movie. Blade and three of his fellow musclemen suddenly stepped through the Outbuilding door.

  I was stunned by how easy it was. “Where are the guards outside?”

  “Some of our boys have them distracted,” Blade said. “Come on.”

  Then I was moving with them, surrounded by them. We were at the wall, at the break in the floor. Quickly, one by one, we were kneeling down. I watched two men wriggle through the break and disappear into the darkness.

  I saw Blade cast a look across the long room at Dunbar. I followed his gaze. The Yard King was lying sprawled in the shadows at the far end
of the room. You could just make out the dark stain of blood—my blood—on his throat and on the front of his shirt. I had been right. Moving as quickly as we were, he looked plenty dead enough to pass.

  Blade nodded at me. “Good work,” he said. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  Then he went down to the ground and lowered himself through the hole.

  I watched the top of his head sink down into nothingness. Then I lowered myself after him.

  The moment I went over the side, I felt the ground open beneath my feet. My fingers touched a rope. I took hold of it, my hand sticky with drying blood. Wrapping my feet around it, I started sliding down. Blade was directly under my feet. Another man—the last man— was sliding down directly above my head.

  Then we were on the ground somewhere below the earth. We were moving quickly in a tightly packed group through the darkness. There were flashlight beams lancing the black air, but they didn’t illuminate much. A wall. The shoulder of a gray uniform. A face, taut and eager, moving forward. All of us moving fast.

  There were noises. Rapid breaths. Grunts of effort. Curses. Quick, padding footsteps. Now and then, a voice:

  “This way.”

  “Quick.”

  “Out of my way.”

  “Come on.”

  I kept stumbling forward through the blackness.

  After a while, I had the sense I was descending. It was hard to tell in the dark. I heard a splash up ahead. Then the smell—what a stink!—washed up over me. Seconds later, I splashed into it too. The smell rose around me like smoke, wrapped itself around me, choking me, like smoky fingers on my throat.

  I understood we were moving through the sewers now.

  After that, there were turns and drops and climbs. Dancing flashlight beams. Glimpses of faces. A confusion of motion. There were moments when we were on some dry surface and moments when we were plunged thigh-deep in awful stinking mess. Soon, it all seemed to run together, a long, dark nightmare of panting motion through a nauseating stench. On and on we went, traveling through the connecting tunnels and tubes.