Of far more concern was the Lancaster County telephone book with a square-headed metal-shaping hammer on top.
“Cooper, I would like you to meet Officers Johnson and Stewart. We call them the wrecking crew around here, and they are about to make a wreck out of you.”
For one moment, Bolan considered rising.
Schoenaur and Zavala hadn’t reloaded their stun guns and didn’t have guns. If he was willing to maim and kill, the soldier knew he could take Zavala, and was pretty sure he could take Schoenaur. Other than the fact that they were very large men and trained corrections officers, Johnson and Stewart were unknown quantities, but they turned the odds to the tune of four to one, and Bolan had just been electrocuted three times. The rubber hoses and the phone book told him they weren’t allowed to kill him.
He steeled himself.
What happened next was just going to have to be endured.
“RayRay, Stu? Take his legs. He went all jungle-boy and stripped down last time against Tavo, so no bruises up top and no head shots, but hurt him bad.” Schoenaur turned to leave.
RayRay frowned. “You don’t wanna watch?”
“Naw, I gotta go clean up.” Schoenaur smiled at Bolan past bloody teeth and the flattened squid that had once been his nose. “I’ll watch him fight Love.”
Schoenaur left with Zavala in tow, and they closed the steel door behind them. There was no preamble or conversation. RayRay and Stu went to work.
The rubber hoses began falling like rain.
* * *
“UP AND AT ’em!” Fatty Barnes called. “And you have a visitor in half an hour, Coop!”
The bars in Cell Block C rattled on their tracks and clanged open. Inmates bitched, moaned and groaned and roused themselves for the morning count. Bolan gritted his teeth as he sat up and put his bare feet on the cold concrete. He hadn’t slept more than five minutes at a stretch through the night. He’d spent the time trying to find any position that was comfortable. There had been none. When he shifted, burning fire shot through his body. Rudy had taken one look at Bolan after the beating and let him have the bottom bunk again. The soldier arose feeling as if the sky had opened and poured forth bowling balls. The rubber hoses had turned the muscles of his legs to rubber. His joints felt like hot sand. He limped toward the urinal like a fourteen-year-old dog with hip dysplasia and put a hand on the wall to steady himself.
The internal damage was worse.
The telephone book was to prevent overt surface blunt trauma bruising. RayRay had held it in place while Stu had used Bolan like an anvil, strategically striking over the soldier’s right kidney and left lower abdomen.
Bolan kept his moan of agony behind his teeth as he painted the bowl red.
“Jesus.” Rudy’s face told Bolan all he needed to know about his condition. “You’re all fucked up.”
A number of responses came to mind. “Yeah...” was all Bolan managed.
“You’re fighting Love Monday night. It’s all over the blocks.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to be even worse off tomorrow.”
Bolan grunted in agreement.
Rudy’s face twisted. Bolan duly noted the hacker’s concern and put it in the man’s plus column. Rudy shook his head. “What the hell are you going to do?”
“Win.”
“You’re going to beat Love? In your condition?”
“Do I have a choice?” Bolan asked.
“Not so much.”
Bolan hobbled back to the bunk and sat down gingerly. “So how was your day, honey?”
“You know, you really shouldn’t talk like that in here,” Rudy warned.
“Sorry. What’s happening on your end?”
“Oh, Link is being a pain, as usual.”
“How so?”
“Well, I like him. Hell, everybody likes him. He’s a genuinely nice guy, who has a kind word for everyone. He’s taught a bunch of inmates to read over the years and doesn’t ask anything in return. Everyone knows he’s a junkie. He has some kind of stipend that comes in, and he mostly spends it on junk. Sometimes you can see him shaking, but he’s never borrowed money or stolen from anyone.”
“So what’s the problem?” Bolan asked.
“The Big U wants all of D-Town’s computers modernized, and with Link it’s like pulling teeth. I swear the guy still uses floppy disks. I mean, I get it, the library and the computers are his place of power in here, and some part of him must resent that I’m here disassembling a system he spent years building up out of nothing. But Christ, every single file I need is a battle, and he insists on giving them to me one at a time, and only after he’s cleaned them up himself. I’ve seen his hard drive—it’s not like he has some secret stash of porn in there—but I swear, every single file is in the weirdest, trippiest code you ever saw. It’s like he wrote it himself.”
Bolan’s kept his voice neutral as he rose. “Well, that sucks.”
Rudy followed him out. “What?”
“Can you break it?”
The hacker blinked. “What?”
“Given that you know Link, you’ve seen his code and seen it translated, can you break his code?”
“Uh, that’s not normally what I do. I usually Trojan horse my way into people’s files rather than actively break code.”
“Can you?”
“I can try,” Rudy said.
“Do it.”
Officer Barnes came back from his taking his count. “You ready, Cooper? The warden and your visitor are waiting. Word is that it’s your blond lady friend.”
Bolan steeled himself not to limp. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
BARBARA PRICE READ Bolan’s body language and didn’t like what she saw.
OK? she blinked.
Bolan blinked back.
HURT.
“So what the hell do you want now?” Bolan snarled.
“Same thing I wanted last time, and I’m running out of patience,” Price said.
OUT? She asked with her eyes.
“Shove it,” Bolan said.
NO, he blinked.
“Now that’s just not polite.”
This meeting had come completely out of the blue. The only reason Bolan could see for it was that something bad had happened, and Price was here to warn him. Bolan got his answer a second later.
TUCKER, Price blinked.
Bolan kept his feelings off his face. He had expected Tucker and Dale to get picked up, just not processed and dumped back into D-Town this fast. Bolan suspected priors and not being able to post bail had gotten the wannabe Regulators posthasted back into population while awaiting arraignment.
“Shove polite.”
WHEN? Bolan asked.
TOMORROW, Price confirmed.
Bolan rubbed his temples and blinked rapidly.
FIGHT TOMORROW NIGHT.
WE KNOW.
Bolan sighed. “So what do you want?”
“Next week, you are going to have a visitor who really wants to talk to you. My advice is that you sing like a bird.”
“And if I don’t?” Bolan asked.
“Cooper, you’ve put me in an awkward spot. You won’t be reasoned with, and it seems you can’t be intimidated. This is your last shot, Cooper. You either start using the brains your momma gave you or someone is going to have to pound them out of your head.”
Warden Linder smirked slightly at his desk.
“I’ll sleep on it.”
“You do that.” Price gave Bolan a cold look and made a phone out of her hand with her thumb and little finger. “You have a change of heart, call me.”
Barnes escorted Price out.
The warden heaved a sigh. “You know, Captain S
choenaur isn’t pleased with you. He wants to be your opponent tomorrow, except I won’t let him.”
“He only says that because he knows you won’t let him.” Bolan’s smile was like a wolf skinning its teeth. “Let him.”
Linder’s face went blank for a moment, and then he threw back his head and laughed. “Well, now, that might be true, Cooper. But you have humiliated the man twice, and I hear you made Zavala scream in fear like a little girl.”
Zavala bristled.
“You’re right, Cooper. Schoenaur doesn’t want a piece of you in a fight, fair or otherwise. He wants your ass, and it’s gnawing at him, and sooner or later he may just forget my orders, jump the reservation and have his way with you, the hard way, with you in restraints, while he paints his picture of revenge, mostly in red.”
“Didn’t know you were a poet, Warden.”
“And do you think I’ll be able to do anything about it? Do you know what the correctional unions are like in this state? They’re pit bulls, Cooper. I’ll be lucky if I can give him a written reprimand.”
“Is there something I can do for you, Warden?”
“Yes. Sing, anything and everything you are or are not going to tell your DOJ visitor Wednesday.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Cooper, we both know you’re going to get hurt very badly tomorrow. But if you satisfy me that you’ve told me everything of possible interest, I’ll have Love take it as easy on you as he can.”
“Some choice.”
“We’re talking the difference of a hope of you limping into that meeting, or driving a wheelchair to it with your tongue. I’m getting the idea your lady friend won’t care which.”
Bolan was silent.
“I bet your wife will.”
The soldier put some rage into his face.
“You know, I hate to say this, but Mr. Love has been informed of your date with the wrecking crew.” Bolan had suspected that. Linder leaned his elbows on his desk and his smile was sickening. “Tell me, Cooper. How do you feel?”
Bolan smiled back. “Right as rain.”
Linder’s face went flat and he leaned back. “You can have as much food as you want, if you can hold it down.” The warden shook his head at Bolan as if the soldier was an idiot who couldn’t be reached. “Get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”
Chapter 11
TUCKER ENTERED THE cell block sweating with fear as he did the walk. The cons smelled it instantly, and their cacophony of intimidation rose to thunder. Toilet paper rolls sailed down like streamers at a very unpleasant parade. Word had gone out that the newbie was a Lancaster County Regulator, but Tucker wasn’t making a good first impression. Even his erstwhile Aryan allies frowned. Barnes escorted the new prisoner into the population, whispering furiously for him to buck up.
Bolan stepped out from behind a column. “Hey.”
Barnes blinked. “Cooper?”
Tucker started to turn his head to look Bolan’s way.
The soldier swung. In kung fu it was known as an ox-hand blow. It was really a karate chop, but using just the pisiform carpal bone in the bottom of the heel of the hand. It was interesting how that knob of bone fit like a key into the hollow of the temples or the solar plexus. That knob of bone also dovetailed perfectly against the mandible where it met the skull. Bolan slammed his pisiform into the left side of Tucker’s face an inch before his ear.
Tucker’s eyes rolled as his mandible unhinged and he dropped broken-jawed and unconscious to the floor.
Barnes’s baton rasped from its retaining ring as he took a step back. “Jesus Christ, Cooper! What the fuck!”
Bolan stood over his prey, but lowered his hands. “Regulators? That’s just more Nazi fucking effluvium as far as I’m concerned.”
Barnes pointed his baton at Bolan in warning. “Cooper! Stand down!”
“Do me a favor, would you, Officer Barnes?”
Barnes’s left hand went to his belt and the sheathed canister there. “Would that be before or after I pepper spray you and beat you into oblivion?”
Bolan stood with his hands at his sides. “Either will do.”
Barnes couldn’t help his curiosity. “What?”
The entirety of C Block held its breath to hear the answer.
The soldier smiled. “Tell Love I’m fit as a fucking fiddle, and when the Hunger Games are done I’m going to shit biscuits and gravy on his grave.”
C Block exploded into cheers.
Bolan watched Barnes do the math. Everyone knew Schoenaur and Zavala had escorted Bolan away from the library. Everyone had seen or heard about the state of Schoenaur’s face. Everyone knew about the wrecking crew. The current state of health of the inmate named Cooper was a constant source of speculation, and had sent the betting on the Hunger Games in wild directions.
Bolan had dropped a punk card named Tucker on the ground for Scott and Love.
He had also put Tucker in the infirmary for a week, eating through a straw and incommunicado, and Bolan was a good ninety percent sure Tucker hadn’t had time to process and recognize him before he had been knocked unconscious.
Barnes slowly lowered his club. “I’ll tell him you said that.”
“Thank you, Officer Barnes.”
“Now, I want you to go to your cell, send out Rudy and Patrick, and sit on your bunk until I or any other guard say otherwise.”
Bolan nodded. “Will do, Officer.”
He received a standing ovation. It took every ounce of will to not show what the act of walking downstairs and taking out Tucker had done to him.
* * *
“WELL THAT WAS interesting,” the warden commented. He sat in a small council of war with Schoenaur, Scott and Officer Johnson. “What’s the story on this Tucker?”
Scott sighed. “He’s Lancaster Regulators, and a probie. We’re affiliated with the Regulators. From what little I know, Tucker seems to be about as baffled as Adam on Mother’s Day, real yes-and-no kind of guy.”
“And so Cooper took him out because?”
“Well, I suspect that was a message to me, Warden,” Scott replied. “And you.”
Linder looked to his guard captain. “Anything of interest on this Tucker?”
Schoenaur spoke nasally through the bandages taped to his face. “Only thing of note is he was picked up near the Lancaster fire.”
Both Linder and Scott stared for long moments. “And?” Linder prompted.
“He was smoky and sooty, with nothing much to say for himself. He was on probation and had a previous warrant out. His return ticket to D-Town while awaiting arraignment is a no-brainer.”
Scott turned to the warden. “I think maybe Cooper shouldn’t leave that ring alive.”
“I don’t like coincidences any more than you, Force, but I’m having a hard time putting Guantanamo Bay and Lancaster on the same page. On top of that the DOJ is riding Cooper like a government mule.”
Scott shrugged. “So what are they going to do? I mean, really, what are they going to do about it? Raid D-Town? Close it down?”
“Scrutinize,” the warden replied.
“There is that.”
“Probably not enough or in time to do anything, but we just don’t need the hassle right now. We can take out Cooper at any time.”
Linder turned a cold eye on Officer Johnson. “Speaking of Cooper, I’m curious about the fact that he even had the gumption to go downstairs and take Tucker out in the first place. RayRay, I thought you and Stu had put some hurt on the man.”
Johnson shifted uncomfortably. “Warden, we pounded him like a nail, and the captain gave strict orders to handicap Cooper for Love, not put him in the infirmary.”
Schoenaur grunted. “Those were my orders, and in RayRay’s defense, Fatty seems t
o have a good relationship with Cooper. He never saw it coming, and Cooper blindsided Tucker ugly, another one of those nasty-ass shots he seems to specialize in.”
Linder kept his eye on his wrecker. “RayRay, tell me Cooper is not ready for Love.”
“He’ll be able to walk to the ring, put his hands up, maybe do some of that nasty-ass Special Forces shit if Love is dumb. But he won’t be able to stick and move. When it goes to the ground, which it always does with Love, Cooper’ll only have two limbs of any use. If Love gets in any kind of trouble, one leg sweep and Cooper goes down and doesn’t get back up. One body shot, front or back, Cooper shits out his liver on live TV.”
“Force,” Linder asked, “you still want it?”
“Yeah, and Love definitely wants it. He knows everything Officer Johnson just said. He’ll take his time, break Cooper down, and then administer some real pain, blues and agony.”
“We want him alive, walking out alive or carried out, but alive.”
“Nothing is certain in life, but I predict Cooper will remember what Love does to him for the rest of his days, when it rains. That is, if he lives long enough to see rain again.” Scott looked around the room at Warden Linder, Schoenaur and Johnson. “And somehow I have the feeling that is just not happening.”
* * *
KAL STRODE INTO the cell flanked by Marilyn and Black Widow. Rudy and Patrick looked up in shock. Bolan was in too much pain to care. Kal gazed down at Bolan critically. “How bad is it?”
“I’m awesome.”
“Strip,” Kal ordered. Bolan laboriously levered himself up on the edge of the bed and struggled to get his pants off. Kal shook his head. “Help him.”
Prison Code Page 11