“Good.”
“RayRay and Stu have the Price woman in the lounge and are awaiting orders.”
“Tell them I want them to get everything—and I mean everything—out of that woman, and I don’t care how they do it, but make if fast. We’re on a tight timetable.”
“And when they’re done?” Schoenaur asked.
Warden Linder spent a vain moment yearning to be in the lounge. “Leave her there, but with the door unlocked. When we lose control of the prison, let the cons have some fun.”
Schoenaur laughed. At the same time his radio crackled, and he clicked it on. “Yo!” The captain’s face fell at what he heard over his earpiece.
Linder didn’t care at all for the change in Captain Schoenaur. “What?”
Schoenaur reached down and unsnapped the retaining strap on his revolver. “It’s C Block. Zavala and Barnes are down. Cooper is out of his cell. So are the Rudolphos.”
“What is the status on Z-man and Fatty?”
“Zavala has a foot wound. Apparently Cooper had some sort of zip gun that looked like a pen. Zav broke his elbow when Cooper threw him down the stairs. Barnes has a concussion.”
“And?”
“And Cooper has Barnes’s Glock.”
Linder went to his office safe and unlocked it. He took out a Model 1928 Thompson submachine gun and clicked in a 50-round drum. When he had first taken over Duivelstad, the armory still had several of the ancient weapons racked. Like most prison-issue weapons, they had hardly ever been fired, and the Prohibition Era submachine gun was in nearly mint condition. Linder practiced with the weapon once a month and kept it lovingly oiled and maintained. He knew that if he ever actually lost control of the prison the inmates wouldn’t keep him for ransom, they would visit unto him the indignities he had inflicted on them, upped a thousandfold. He racked a round.
“What is the status in C Block?”
“Everyone else appears to be in lockdown.”
“Where are the escapees?”
“Whereabouts unknown.”
“I see. Inform Force of the situation. Tell him Cooper is on the loose and has the computer Mafia with him. Then tell RayRay and Stu.”
“Where the hell does Cooper think he’s going to go?” Schoenaur asked.
Linder took out a military surplus shoulder bag that contained four more loaded drums. “I’d say Cooper is coming for you and me, going for the Force, going for Link, and plans to rescue Price. Or all of the above, probably in reverse order.”
“How the hell would he know we have Price?”
“How the hell did Cooper get into C Block’s gate room, Rog? Fatty sure as shit didn’t put out the welcome mat and open the door for him.”
Schoenaur saw it. “He’s in our system somehow.”
“Somehow, hell. I want Rudolpho fucking crucified and his son raped by dozens before we blow this joint, unless someone shoots them first. Speaking of which, you got Renzo up in the tower?”
“Her and that rifle of hers are watching A Block.”
Renzo was hands down the best rifle shot in Duivelstad and was one of two of D-Town’s designated marksmen. “Radio her. Tell her Cooper and the Rudolphos have broken out of C Block. Tell her Cooper shot Zavala.” Warden Linder smiled ugly as he played on Renzo’s sympathies. “Tell her Cooper nearly beat Barnes’s brains out of his head.”
Schoenaur got on the horn.
Linder began removing banded stacks of U.S. currency and stuffing them into his briefcase. “Tell Renzo her orders are to shoot the escapees on sight.”
* * *
BOLAN STRODE DOWN the corridor, shield and Glock in hand. He didn’t need the Farm to give him a blueprint. He remembered being dragged down the sweating, turn-of-the-last-century underground passageway to Duivelstad’s house of pain. Rudy and Patrick trailed behind him, until Bolan held up his pistol for them to halt. He could hear the sound of Price talking. Then she yelped. “Shut up, bitch,” Officer Stewart snarled.
Bolan rounded the corner.
“Here’s your boyfriend now.” Johnson laughed. “Goddamned Captain America himself.”
Stewart joined in the hilarity. “You looking for this, Cooper?”
“RayRay,” Bolan acknowledged. “Stu.”
Price was a bloody mess. If there was any good news, it was that her bra and panties were still on. Stewart had his left arm under her chin and he held a shank to her right ear, ready to pith Price like a lab animal. Johnson took a two-handed hold on his Glock. “That’s Officer Johnson and Officer Stewart to you, convict.”
“I’m not a convict. I came here of my own free will, and I’m walking out the same way.”
Officers Johnson and Stewart processed that information and didn’t like it at all. Price bit her lip as Stewart pushed his shank against her inner ear. Johnson jerked the muzzle of his gun toward the floor. “Drop the gun, Cooper, and the shield.”
Price blinked desperately in Morse code. DON’T!
Bolan blinked back HEEL, and hoped she got it.
The soldier’s ballistic shield thudded as it hit the floor.
“And the gun. Toss it.”
Price’s face went grimly determined as she blinked. ON YOU.
Bolan’s Glock clattered to the concrete, out of reach.
“On your knees, Cooper,” Johnson ordered. “Hands behind your head.”
Bolan dropped to his knees and raised his hands. His palm slid around the pen weapon he had clipped to the back of his collar, and he pressed his thumb to cock it. Johnson pointed his pistol at Bolan while he clicked on his radio with his free hand. “Warden, it’s RayRay. We have Cooper, disarmed and on his knees. No sign of Rudy or his kid.”
Johnson waved his pistol. “Hey, Cooper. Where are the Rudolphos?”
“In the library, taking over the entire Duivelstad computer system, and I told Patrick to kill Link. That young man is going to have to get himself a body if he’s going to survive in here without me.”
Officer Johnson’s eyes bugged. “Oh Jesus...” He started shouting into his radio. Bolan jerked his right hand from behind his head and aimed over his knuckles as he fired the pen. He missed his opponent’s heart, but Johnson faltered as a hole appeared just below his left collarbone. The soldier snapped his hand back to deploy the spike. Price stomped her heel into Stewart’s instep with all her might, and he gasped as something cracked. Bolan flipped the pen in his fingers and threw. It was a weak throw and didn’t penetrate into the brain, but Stewart screamed as about an inch of surgical needle sank into his eyeball.
“Fuck you, Cooper!” Johnson roared. “Fuck you!”
Bolan managed to scoop up his shield just as Johnson’s Glock began thundering. The shield shuddered and bucked as the officer emptied his gun in rapid fire. Johnson didn’t bother reloading. He stepped forward and slammed his size seventeen shoe into Bolan’s shield. The soldier’s legs hadn’t recovered from his own visit to the lounge. Johnson outweighed him by a hundred pounds and the blow sent him sprawling. The rock and the hard place Bolan found himself between was his shield above him and the concrete below. Johnson put his entire weight behind each blow as he tried to stomp Bolan into oblivion. The soldier’s arms failed and his shield fell to his chest.
“You think you’re tough, Cooper? You’re going back in the lounge!”
“Hey, fuckface!” Patrick shouted.
Johnson spun and put up his hands as the Rudolphos charged with Zavala’s and Barnes’s batons in hand. Johnson still had his right foot on top of Bolan. Patrick dropped low and slammed the expandable steel across Johnson’s right kneecap. The guard’s weight fell away. Bolan heaved up against the shield and Johnson tottered. Rudy took Barnes’s side-handle baton in both fists and swung up for the bleachers. Teeth flew and Johnson’s eyes rolled as he took the b
low on the chin.
Patrick shouted in triumph. “Tim-ber!”
The ebony giant fell like a tree.
Bolan rose. Pain shot through his legs. His insides were definitely not happy, but nothing felt torn or was inflating with blood. He put a hand on the wall to steady himself.
“Rudy, take their guns, batons and cuffs.” The soldier straightened himself and turned to Price. “Barb, are you all right?”
Unshed tears glittered in her eyes. “They killed Roy.”
“I know. Patrick, go into the lounge and get her clothes.”
Stewart kept shrieking. He clawed at his face, but couldn’t stand touching the embedded steel. “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” Stewart’s voice rose to an inhuman shriek as Bolan leaned down and yanked the shaft free. He retracted the needle and handed the weapon to Price.
“Hook this behind your back. Snap it to deploy it.”
Patrick came out of the lounge with Price’s torn skirt. She donned the garment, slipping the weapon inside the waistband at the small of her back. Bolan nodded at Stewart. “Take his shirt.”
Patrick and Rudy stripped the mewling, half-blind guard. Price put on Stewart’s uniform blouse. She also picked up the shank he had threatened her with. Patrick reloaded Johnson’s pistol and Rudy checked the loads from Stewart’s. “Where to next, boss?”
Bolan took up his Glock and shield. He stood over Stewart. “You both deserve to die. You want to live, Cyclops?”
“God! Yes!”
“What is the current status of D-Town?”
Stewart cupped his hand over his destroyed eye. “D-Town is in lockdown! The Aryans have A Block!”
“Under Linder’s orders?”
“Yes!”
“Linder, Schoenaur, Link, they’re getting out undercover of the explosion?”
Stewart coiled in on himself in fear. “How do you know about—”
“Yes or no!”
“Yes! The story is they’re killed in the explosion!”
Bolan made an educated guess. “There are three weapons. One to blow down the wall and start the jailbreak. The Force had one in A Block and he’s going to use it to hold what’s left of the prison hostage. Linder and Force are taking the third one out of D-Town through the old tunnels.”
“How do you—”
“Who’s holding down A Block?”
“Rollin and Love! They got moved out of the infirmary!”
“The guards?”
“They have A Block in a cross fire up on the walls! Renzo is in the tower on marksman duty. She and all the guards have orders to shoot you guys on sight!”
Bolan nodded. “Patrick, cuff them. Put them in the lounge and lock the door.”
Patrick was incensed. “But they—”
“I made a deal. Stewart’s life for his cooperation. I consider RayRay part of it. Do it.”
“Man...”
“Where to next, boss?” Rudy reiterated.
“I don’t think the Big U has left yet. He’s still cleaning up loose ends. But when he does, he’s going to sacrifice his followers and have Link remotely detonate the weapon in A Block to add to the confusion.”
“He strikes me as just that kind of sick son of a bitch,” Rudy agreed. “But it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of fellows.”
“I think they have dial-a-yield weapons, probably from one to ten kilotons. They set one weapon at a kiloton, to knock down one of the main walls. But they’ll have set the one in A Block at the max, a full ten. That will obliterate the structure, and at the very least drop B and D blocks, on either side, down on the inhabitants’ heads. And we have friends there.”
“Friends?”
“I got Chinese medicine from D, and Billy the C and Tavo are in B.”
“You want to assault A Block and take their nuclear weapon?”
“That’s the plan. You in?”
Patrick turned his new Glock over in his hand. “I am so in!”
“No, you’re going to escort Price to the tower and try to get her to not shoot us when we move to B Block. Barb, do you have your phone?” Price rifled through Johnson’s pockets and found her confiscated cell phone. “Good start having the Bear opening doors between you and the tower, and locking them behind you. Rudy, you in?”
“Blown up in a nuclear fireball or butt-raped by a hundred Nazis and then blown up?” Rudy shrugged. “Well, if that’s the choice I’ll take a little foreplay first.”
Bolan smiled wearily. “You’re a good man, Rudolpho.”
Rudy turned to his son. “Patrick, take the nice lady and run.”
* * *
“LINK? I NEED your best guess,” Linder growled.
Whitmore stared at his screen. “They’re in the system. I can’t detect their program. I swear it’s a ghost. Whoever wrote the virus is a genius. But the proof is that doors are locking and unlocking apparently by themselves. On top of that we’re losing security cameras.”
“Can you override it?”
“I can’t even pin it down or identify it.”
“I’m tempted to break your thumbs, Link. You can’t beat Rudy?”
“Rudy is more up-to-date than I am, and this isn’t Rudy, though I suspect he has been instrumental in helping things along. Your system has been breached by a Pentagon-worthy cyberattack.”
“You have nothing?”
“The security cameras are a double-edged sword. They’re the only way for the enemy to actually look inside Duivelstad, but they are cutting them to cover Cooper’s tracks. They’ve instituted random failures to try to confuse us, but if we surmise Cooper’s mission, we can plot him by the camera failures.”
“Nice.” Scott walked into the library flanked by three of his best men. “Hello, gentlemen. My friends and I require guns.”
Warden Linder nodded toward the computer table. Four more Thompson submachine guns lay loaded and ready with spare drums. Scott walked over and took up one of the weapons. It was shocking, but he actually had a beautiful smile, and it lit up the room as he examined the Tommy gun. “Warden, you are a man of taste.”
“Whatever, we need to move. Your men are set?”
Scott nodded and slung a sack of drums over his shoulder. “My boys are ready to hold A Block to the death, or at least for an assault or two, and they have no clue about our lovely parting gift. What’s this about Cooper being on the loose?”
Schoenaur scowled. “Him and the Rudolphos hacked the doors to C Block and busted out.”
“What’s the police presence at this point?”
“Local units have started to respond. State police are mobilizing.”
Scott looked to Linder. “Should we get the party started?”
Schoenaur answered his radio, and the look Linder didn’t like crossed the captain’s face.
“What now?” Linder rumbled.
“RayRay and Stu aren’t responding.”
Scott sighed. “Our boy Cooper is moving fast.”
Schoenaur’s radio clicked again on cue.
“Tell me there’s some good news,” the warden suggested.
The captain shook his head. “I had Fleeger do a head count on C Block after they were sure it was locked down.”
“And?”
“We missed it because only Cooper’s cell was open, and someone, I assume Cooper, switched the sensor bulbs on the board.”
“What does that mean?”
“Kal’s not in his cell.”
Linder nodded. The die was cast, and it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. “Link, open C and D. Let’s get this riot started for real.”
“What about B Block?”
“The Puerto Ricans? I hate those sons of bitches. Bury them.” Linder nodded at Link. “Light
up the west wall.”
Chapter 17
RENZO GLARED OVER her optical sight as she scanned the yard and the spaces between the cell blocks. The Department of Homeland Security had handed out military weapons and equipment to state and local police for years, and jail administrators that had been clever had applied under the aegis of fighting terrorist cells in the prison system, and had fed at the trough. Renzo’s rifle was a coal-black beauty of a current issue Colt M4 carbine with an ACOG self-illuminating optical sight, laser pointer and tactical light. She had named her carbine “Buddy.” By Renzo’s own estimation she and Buddy could hit an ant in the rear at four hundred meters, and that wasn’t just her ego talking.
Renzo ran her eyes over A Block. The boys on the walls had their rifles and shotguns pointed at fortress Aryan Circle. Outside the walls more and more police cars were arriving, but the warden hadn’t given the order yet to open the gates and let them in. At the moment Renzo couldn’t have cared less about the Nazi pricks, the cops, the Big U or anyone else. She wanted payback for Barnes’s brain. Renzo was hunting for Cooper. She scanned eastward. The son of a bitch had to come up sometime. From the tower she could take him even if he got outside the walls. “C’mon....” Renzo muttered. “C’mon....”
The windows behind Renzo shattered, and she ate linoleum as she was thrown off her feet, while the interior of the tower room shook and filled with white light. Instinct took over, and Renzo grabbed her rifle and leaped to her feet. She yawned at the ringing in her ears and blinked at the afterimages flashing across her vision. Then she turned, and her jaw dropped.
The west wall was gone.
The men who had been manning it were gone, as well. Renzo stared in shock at the huge crater and the tower of smoke rising in the air. Chunks of earth and stone began raining down from the sky. Massive chunks of wall had blown outward and crushed several police cars and the officers who had been watching from behind them. Renzo could dully hear the emergency siren howling back to life again. Something pattered the roof of the towers as if it was hailing.
Renzo’s radio squawked. Captain Schoenaur shouted over the line. “Renzo!”
Prison Code Page 16