by John Whitman
“The game’s grown past you,” others implied. Equally unfair and equally true. He’d earned the heavyweight belt back in the days when size, strength, and some college wrestling were enough to make a champion. The game had become tougher, with fighters cross-training and become adept with their hands, their feet, and their groundwork as well. He admitted that, but it didn’t faze him. Those skills weren’t secrets. They were out there for anyone to possess, if he put in the work. And Mark Kendall was a hard worker.
“Why would anyone so battered and beaten choose to go back into it?” everyone asked.
That one was easy, Mark thought. There was no choice involved. There were the medical bills piling up, the doctors always saying there were more tests to be done, and there was that three-year-old’s face looking up at him asking him to make it all better. There were all those things, but there was no choice.
Mark Kendall hit the pad again.
8:42 P.M. PST Federal Holding Facility, Los Angeles
“Why were you causing trouble, Bauer?” the broken-nosed guard said as they led Jack, handcuffed, back to his cell.
“Bored,” Jack quipped. “So when those three gangbangers walked into the shower with all their clothes on for no reason, I jumped them.”
The broken-nosed guard’s laugh was a wheeze, like a car engine failing to turn over. “They say that shiv’s yours. You pulled it outta your ass, huh?”
“That’s what I do with everything,” Jack replied. The guard wheezed again.
They reached his cell. The guard opened the barred door and he stepped inside. Knowing the routine, Jack waited for the cell door to close, then stuck his cuffed hands backward through the rectangular opening on the bars. The guard freed his hands.
“Serious,” the guard said, glancing around and dropping his voice a little. “You know those boys are—”
“MS–13.”
“You watch yourself.” He nodded and walked away, keys jangling down the hall.
“MS–13? What about them?”
Jack’s cellmate sat up on his bunk, a suddenly worried expression on his face. His skin was light brown under his jumpsuit, and he wore a pencil-thin mustache that he’d managed to keep neatly trimmed even in jail.
“What’s this about MS?” he asked again.
“A couple of their guys jumped me in the shower,” Jack said simply, and sat down on his bunk. With both of them sitting on the edge of their bunks, their knees were scant inches apart, and they could walk the depth of their cell from door to back wall in four short steps.
His cellmate, whose name was Emil Ramirez, blinked. “Three? And you, you’re—”
“I’m good,” Bauer said, lying back on his bunk.
“You gotta watch your back. You mess with them, maybe?”
Jack shrugged. The MS stood for Mara Salvatruchas and the 13 was a number associated with California gangs. The gang was started by immigrant Salvadorans in the streets of Los Angeles, and had grown into one of the most dangerous gangs in the country. Bauer had had one or two run-ins with them, mostly by accident. He’d be surprised if they remembered him, and he certainly hadn’t done enough to trigger some jailhouse vendetta.
He tilted his head to study Ramirez, who was still staring at him with a look of deep concern. But Jack knew it wasn’t empathy. Ramirez was afraid for himself.
“You know about MS–13, too,” he stated. “Have you worked with them? Is that why you’re in here?”
Ramirez hesitated, as though he hadn’t heard Jack at first. Then he shifted his eyes and his trance was broken. “Me? No! I didn’t grow up in the barrio. I wouldn’t mess with those guys. But I know a guy who does. He used to be one of them. Now they work for him sometimes.”
He stopped, clipping off the end of his last sentence and focusing on Jack. He was clearly afraid that he had just said too much, but Jack didn’t show much interest. “What are you in for?” he asked.
Ramirez had been tight-lipped since Jack had moved into the cell a couple of weeks earlier, and Jack hadn’t pushed it. Asking people for information was often the surest way of making them shut up.
“Embezzlement,” Ramirez said. “I’m an accountant.”
“No way,” Jack said. “You wouldn’t be in this place. Not a Federal facility for an embezzlement charge.”
Ramirez grinned boyishly. “Well, embezzlement is how it started,” he admitted. “But the guy caught me. We got into a fight, and then”—he winked—“this big glass trophy I got as an award, it fell off the shelf and landed on his head.”
“I hate when that happens,” Jack said dryly.
“And you? Why here?”
Jack shrugged. “A big glass trophy might have fallen on my guy’s head, too, except I shot him first.”
Ramirez laughed, impressed with Jack’s bravado. “Me, I hope the charges don’t stick, but the DA says the trophy fell on him nine times. They say that’s not possible.”
“I never took physics,” Jack replied, sounding bored with the conversation.
“Still, I gotta say it’s lucky. Even if that charge sticks, it’s lucky. They could get me on worse.”
More boredom. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Ramirez leaned in, determined to impress Jack. “The guys I work for, they got something going. It’s. well, it’s pretty big shit.”
Jack sat up. “If you say so. What is it?”
“Uh-uh,” the other man said, smoothing his already smooth mustache into place. He leaned back coyly, the very picture of a tease who was satisfied now that he’d captured Jack’s interest. “I’m not telling. But you’ll hear about it soon enough. This time tomorrow, you’ll know exactly what it is.”
2. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9 P.M. AND 10 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
9:00 P.M. PST Federal Holding Facility, Los Angeles
The thin gang member was named Oscar Cisneros, and he was annoyed at losing his shiv. It took a long time to grind down the toothbrush to make a good weapon like that, and he hadn’t even stabbed one person with it. He would have liked to stick it in that blondie, partly because he was getting paid to do it, and partly because he just didn’t like white boys. Now, of course, he was determined to get blondie because the pendejo had broken Ricky’s jaw and smashed in Pedro’s teeth with his knee.
These were the thoughts going through Oscar’s mind. He wasn’t concerned at all about the trouble he’d get into for fighting in jail.
“Hey, Petey-boy,” he said, leaning against the bars of his cell. There was no one in the hallway as far as he could see, but after a minute he heard footsteps and a corrections officer appeared, a middle-aged white guy with a face like bread dough and a big lower lip that hung down like he was pouting. “Peteyboy, I need to make a phone call.”
The dough-faced guard frowned and shook his head. “You know that’s not going to happen.”
Oscar smiled. “I know it is going to happen, homeboy, just like last time. ’Cause all I want to do is make a phone call, and all you want to do is keep your little wifey and daughter over in Simi out of trouble.”
Pete’s face turned purple as he replied in a low, angry voice, “You’re going to push me too far, you little shit.”
“But I’m not,” the Mara Salvatrucha said with that same smile pasted on his face. “That’s why we get along, homes. I’m never gonna ask for too much, ’cause if I do it’s bad on me. And you’re always gonna do what I ask, ’cause if you don’t, it’s bad on you.”
Pete stood there silently turning a darker shade of purple. He hated this goddamned job. Most of the jailbirds were easy enough, and even the majority of the troublemakers were easy enough to handle if you were careful. But some of these gang-bangers were better organized than the Mob, and way more ruthless. Pete had worked up in Chino before moving to the Federal side, and he knew a guy there whose sister got raped when he wouldn’t help some Salvatrucha soldier on the inside. Goddamn, he thought, it’s not worth it.
He opened th
e door and let Oscar out.
The gang-banger practically led the way down to
Broadway, the main thoroughfare through the prison. A few inmates in their cells watched them curiously. Oscar felt like waving at them or flipping them off, but that would be rubbing it in Petey’s face and he didn’t want to do that. Extorting the guards was a tricky game, and there was no point in pushing it when he’d already gotten what he wanted.
Pete led him through three levels of security and back to the phone room, then backed away as Oscar picked up the phone and made a call to the number he’d been given.
A voice picked up before the second ring. “Is it done?”
“No, ese,” Oscar said. “That cabron messed up my homeboys. I’m gonna stuff his—”
“I told you he would put up a fight!” the man on the other end of the phone snapped. “Go back and get it done.”
Oscar considered. “Okay, homes, but the price is going up. I want—”
“Shut up and listen,” the man said. “You’ll do it for what we agreed on, or I’ll make sure you and your friends go down in flames, you understand me? You’ll get buried so deep your own fucking mother will forget you.”
Oscar’s smile turned wistful. Yeah, that’s what it was like in the extortion business. Sometimes you just didn’t have the power, and then you had to bluff or back off. Oscar knew when to back off. “Okay, jefe. We’ll do it.”
“Do it now,” the man insisted. “I’ve got a backup plan already, but you do your goddamned job.” The line went dead.
9:13 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Tony Almeida was only a third of the way through his threat assessment when he thought, Jesus, Chappelle’s already bored. The Regional Director was staring off into space, his eyes glazed. At the far end of the table, Nina Myers looked bored, too, but he was accustomed to the sardonic look she sometimes wore. A few other CTU agents sat around the table, dutifully upright and attentive, but more out of respect than interest.
“In any case,” he continued his report, “the Governor’s meeting with the representatives from Southeast Asian countries started tonight with the reception, and the meetings start tomorrow. We’re considering that a primary target for any activity.”
Henderson walked back in, carrying two cups of coffee. He sipped one and put the other down in front of Chappelle. “You wanted more, right?”
“Hmm?” Chappelle said hazily. His eyes focused on the coffe and he said, “Oh, yeah. Thank you. Go on, Agent Almeida.”
Tony pressed a button and a large screen changed from a picture of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to a collection of three candid black-and-white photos, all of Arabic men in their late twenties. “I’m keeping these three on our watch list even though they’re probably not in our region. They still got released in connection with one of our cases, so I figure—”
“It wasn’t our fault,” Nina Myers said. “We were solving the case. We weren’t the ones who caved to terrorist demands.”
Tony nodded. It was an old case that had been wrapped up, but in a related incident, three suspected terrorists had been released. All of CTU was irked that they’d gotten away. He moved on.
“Presidential candidates from both parties are making campaign stops in and around Los Angeles in the upcoming months, ramping up for the primaries. The advance teams know to contact us, and communication is good.” The agents nodded and scribbled notes.
Henderson spoke up. “But we don’t have any likely suspects? I’m asking, not telling. Is that right? We don’t have any hard evidence of any terrorists having infiltrated the country.”
Tony agreed. “Nothing to set off alarm bells, which is a good thing.”
“Then why are we here so late?” Henderson asked.
“I wanted it,” Chapelle said as if no further explanation were necessary.
Tony continued. “Our data analysts”—he gave a nod to Jamey Farrell, who tipped her imaginary hat —“have pulled up some information on locals with possible connections to Jemaah Islamiyah. It’s thin, but I’m going to follow up.”
“Good,” Henderson said. “Well, that wraps it up, ladies and gentlemen, I—”
“Chappelle?” Tony said, looking past Henderson.
The Regional Director’s eyes hadn’t just glazed over. They were rolling back in his head, and his face had gone gray. A bit of drool seeped from the corner of his mouth, and by the time Henderson turned to check on him, Chappelle was falling out of his chair. Henderson caught him and laid him gently on the ground as the others crowded around.
“Chappelle!” Henderson said, tapping him lightly on the cheek. “Ryan! Call security, get medics,” Henderson said with authority, but the team around him was already on the move. “Get them here quick. He’s not breathing!”
9:19 P.M. PST Federal Holding Facility, Los Angeles
The broken-nosed guard was named Adam Cox, and Adam Cox was looking forward to getting the hell off work, slogging his way through traffic, and putting his feet up in front of SportsCenter. Viv would probably ride him for not finishing the weather stripping on the garage door, but hell, it wasn’t going to rain any time soon.
Adam checked his watch as the inmates filed past, joining the chow line. He stood with his back to the wall, near the double doors that led into the mess hall. His eyes scanned the room as they had four days a week, every week, for the last seven years, stopping at each guard position to make sure his guys were okay, then moving on. Lately he’d been halting his gaze on that new inmate, Bauer, watching him for trouble, but tonight Bauer was being fed in the library because of the attack.
Mind off Bauer, Adam told himself. You got plenty of other mad dogs in this yard.
Even as Adam thought that, Big Ferg walked by. Big Ferg had been in the Federal Holding Facility for up on a year now, waiting for his trial on weapons charges. He was a leader of the Aryan Bloc. Truth was, he didn’t seem to cause much trouble himself, and he and Adam had formed a kind of grudging respect for each other. But in a jail full of blacks and Latinos, a white supremacist was a trouble magnet, and Adam had been forced to break up a dozen fights that Big Ferg hadn’t started.
Adam’s eyes were on Big Ferg, so he was the first to see the black inmate move toward him. He didn’t know the guy’s name — he was a new arrival. But he was as wide as a truck and nearly as tall, and he moved through the crowd at the chow line like a semi roaring down the road. He and Big Ferg were on a collision course. Adam was on the move, raising his hand in a signal to the other guards.
Adam got there just as the black man threw his first punch. Ferg, though, was no dummy, and no big black man approached without him knowing it and getting off his heels. He ducked the punch and put an uppercut into the other man’s ribs. He might as well have hit a side of beef for all the effect it had. The black inmate slammed both hands down and Ferg dropped to one knee.
“Break it up!” Adam roared, stepping between the two fighters, facing the truck-sized newcomer to shield Ferg. “Get the hell back!”
He didn’t feel the first stab. He was only aware that he’d been shivved in the back when the blood seeped out, warm and then suddenly cold against his skin. He felt Big Ferg’s bulk against his back, holding him with one arm so he couldn’t spin around as the other arm pumped forward, backward, forward, backward, over and over.
“Sorry, dude,” Ferg whispered. “Just business.”
Goddamn, Adam Cox thought as his legs seemed to disappear beneath him.
9:23 P.M. PST Federal Holding Facility, Los Angeles
Jack sat at a library table closest to a wall. He didn’t like having his back to a room under normal circumstances, so in this place his caution was even more extreme. At the warden’s orders, the guards had brought food to them in the library.
Ramirez had been brought along, too, simply because it was easier for the guards to keep track of both of them. Ramirez lifted a clump of gray, dripping food halfway to his mouth and grimaced. “I kn
ew the food in here would be bad, but Jesus—”
Jack wolfed his food down without tasting it. He didn’t expect to like it, but he knew he needed the nutrients while he was locked up in this place. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be here, and he needed his strength.
“Salt,” Ramirez said. “I gotta have salt. Guard, is there any salt?” He turned around in his chair to look at the spot where the guard had been standing. There was no one there.
“The minute you want one of those guys to do some work, they’re gone,” he muttered. He stood up, but Jack grabbed his sleeve, his face going hard and his eyes narrowing.
“Stay here,” he ordered.
Jack knew what was coming the minute the guards disappeared. This MS–13 gang had some connection with the guards, or some hold over them, otherwise they’d never have been able to clear out the showers the way they had. Now they’d done it in the library, too. Jack cursed himself for allowing the isolation, but then he figured it wouldn’t have mattered. In a crowd, he wouldn’t see it coming. At least here he had some warning. Jack stood up and went to the nearest bookshelf. He scanned the books — not the titles, but the sizes — finally finding a short, thick one that fit his hand nicely. He stepped out of the aisle and back to his table just as they appeared.
The thin Latino — Adam Cox had called him Os-car — was there again, this time with three thugs to back him up. Ramirez squeaked and backed up, bumping against the chair behind him.
“You didn’t think we was finished, did you?” Oscar said, sauntering closer. One of his thugs disappeared down one of the aisles, meaning to flank Jack.
“Your two guys seemed finished to me,” Jack said. “You’d have been finished, too, if the guards hadn’t saved you.”
“You gonna want those guards this time, ese,” Oscar said. “We gonna—”
Jack threw the book at him. It wasn’t heavy enough to do much damage, but it made him flinch, giving Jack time to step forward and kick him in the groin. The kick landed hard, lifting Oscar’s feet off the ground, and the thin man doubled over with a cough. Jack grabbed him by the orange collar and shoved him at the two thugs on his left, then bolted right, down the stack of books. He didn’t like that third man hiding in the stacks, and wanted him neutralized.