BEYOND JUSTICE

by Joshua Graham

  Taking advantage of the pause between quakes, Bishop entered B-Block amidst the crowd. He could just imagine the C.O.'s scrambling helplessly around the control room. There were just too many revolting inmates.

  He watched them overtake a pair of guards by the exit. A couple of sharp pops and one of the C.O.'s from C-block went down. The other one was taken as a hostage, a gun jammed into his skull. The tier door slid open. With a roar, they charged through, straight for the control room.

  Bishop steadied his breath and anticipated the next wave of tremors. Thirty seconds. That's how long it would take for them to break into the control room. Then he'd make his move. Stealth was something he'd perfected back when he was dumping stiffs into the bay for Tony D'Amati. All he needed was the distraction of the rioting inmates.

  Seconds later, every door in the block slid open. Swarms of prisoners poured out into the corridors like smoldering magma. Bishop scoffed. So predictable. Time to fly. After years of planning his escape, he knew exactly which corridor, which door, which staircase he'd take. But first, he'd find Butch Hurley. He owed the bastard for using him to control the gangs in Salton. For running all kinds of sick schemes under the Warden's radar. The warden, whose ass he routinely French kissed. But most of all, for the threats against his sister Karen. Butch threatened to have her tortured, raped and mutilated if Bishop didn't do everything he asked. And Butch certainly had the means to carry it out. There was only one way to eliminate this threat.

  Reap what you sow, Butch.

  Chapter Seventy

  For a guy with short legs, Possum ran quickly. He turned a corner away from the dozen or so inmates that had just broken through. Careful to avoid the brawl, I trailed him. By the time I reached the corner, the wolf pack had already gone through the opposite door. Sergeant Sonja Grace, lay face down in a crimson puddle.

  Oh Lord, no. I considered checking on her but knew it was already too late.

  A loud boom echoed beyond the door. The inmates had just broken into the control room. Soon every cell door in B-Block that had not yet been unlocked, slid open. I raced down the corridor after Possum, who was headed for serious danger. His dream had been a premonition. Something I was meant to discern.

  I tripped over a chunk of concrete. Fell onto a stitched wound on my side. The stitches barely held together. I squeezed my mouth shut, stifled a scream. As if that wasn't painful enough, when I stood up it felt as if a rusty steel rod had impaled me from the foot, up though my leg. I'd twisted my ankle.

  With my hand against the wall, I hobbled towards the door at the end of the hallway. No way I'd catch up to Possum at this rate. Finally, I arrived at an exit door which opened to a staircase. To my surprise, it was unlocked. Just one flight below, on the ground level, Possum lay crumpled and curled up by the door.

  "Poss!"

  "I can't... move!" he cried out. Each agonizing step down the staircase brought chilled the perspiration to my brow. I started to hop on my good foot when the tremors started up again. These tremors were accompanied by a rapid bumping sound from above me.

  Grunting and panting, someone came rushing down the stairs.

  Only five more steps and he'd be upon us.

  Head still down, Possum stretched his hand towards me.

  The thumping grew louder, closer, until it reached me.

  "Bishop," I said. "What are you—?"

  His face contorted in rage, Bishop whipped out a shank and put right up near my face. "Get the hell out of the way!"

  Then a huge shockwave hit. A nauseating sound of crumbling concrete and twisting steel filled the tiny stairwell. The staircase gave out and we both tumbled down. Possum let out a blood-chilling scream.

  "Poss!" I called out.

  White dust engulfed the entire staircase. Amber floodlights tried in vain to cut through. The shock wave dissipated and I struggled to get onto my hands and knees. I felt my leg. Blood. But there wasn't enough pain to indicate just how bad a laceration it was. My twisted ankle upstaged it.

  Bishop cussed, shoved me out of the way and clambered through the ruble.

  I reached out and found Possum's hand.

  Cold. Dry. Unmoving, the rest of him trapped under layers sheet rock, concrete and shards.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Butch Hurley thought he'd prepared for every imaginable contingency in life, especially at Salton. Gang wars, prison riots, loose-lipped cons. Everything. He'd lived in Southern California most of his life and should have expected something like this to happen eventually. Had to be the biggest damned earthquake in his life.

  The radio transmission from Control-B turned to static and his stomach went sour. He was standing out in the parking lot when the first wave hit. It subsided and returned again, each time stronger than the last. With his team, Butch entered B-Block and heard the one sound that for as long as he'd worked in corrections, he'd hope never to hear: the roar of an uprising. He swallowed and motioned for his men to file in, guns ready.

  A frantic Sergeant Kincaid burst out of the security door, trying to decide which way to run. Butch stopped him before he could dash outside, running like a chicken without a head. "Whoa! Steady there, son. What's the situation?"

  "They've taken over the control room!" Kincaid said, breathing hard. "Grace is down, they've got Elison hostage."

  "One lousy earthquake and those punks think they own the place." Butch plucked the walkie-talkie from his hip and radioed the central control room. "Yeah, this is Hurley. We got Ten-Ninety-Eights and a Ten-Ninenty-Nine in B-Block's control room."

  "Warden wants your recommendations."

  "Transfer controls to AUX-B, flush 'em out, then seal 'em in the corridors. Send a tac-team over to get Elison out of there."

  "Ten-Four."

  Within minutes, the room would be disabled, its controls rerouted. Tear gas would be released from nozzles in the baseboards and every slimy sumbitch in there would be fumigated like the vermin they were. The trick would be doing all this without getting Elison killed.

  Or at least making it look like everything had been tried to prevent it.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  It took a couple tugs on Possums arm to realize that one: he was trapped, and two: he wasn't conscious. With scraped hands, split nails and all the strength afforded by the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I dug through the rubble.

  Bishop rubbed his eyes then scanned the area, craned his neck upwards some fifteen feet up to the door in which we'd entered the stairwell. The stairs were gone, all access above blocked off by twisted steel and concrete.

  "Are you just going to stand there and gawk?" I said, heaving a chunk of concrete over to the side. He glared at me and climbed over the wreckage.

  Right past me and Possum.

  "He's down here!" I said, struggling with a very large wooden beam. "Give me a hand!"

  All his attention, all his concern lay beyond the tiny glass window in the steel exit door at the ground level. "Guard tower's unmanned," he said and rattled the door handle. It wouldn't yield. "Dammit!" He kicked the door and thunder filled the staircase.

  Still digging as best I could, I called out to him again. "Forget it, man. You'll never make it past the perimeter." He muttered something and grabbed a pipe. Starting whacking the door handle. I wasn't going to waste another breath on him.

  I could finally feel the right half of Possum's torso. His legs were still under a couple of panels of sheet rock. With my ear to his chest, I could barely make out a heartbeat, thanks to Bishop's relentless assault on the door.

  "Artie!" I called out, patting his crusted face. "Come on, man. Answer me."

  Bishop growled, grunted with each blow.

  Possum stirred. Groaned.

  "Don't move," I said.

  He coughed, grimaced from the ensuing pain and said, "Does it look like I can?"

  "Attaboy, Poss! Stay with me, okay?"

  "What happened?"

  Bishop stopped for a moment and turned to loo
k.

  "Can you feel your legs? Arms?" I said.

  He lifted his exposed hand and wiggled his fingers. "Can't feel the rest." I reached under a concrete support beam that had fallen diagonally over his body. His legs and left arm and shoulder were pinned. I felt just enough space for them not to have been pulverized, but not enough to slide out from.

  Grasping the beam with both hands, I stood expecting, at the very least, a slight budge. But the beam was so heavy I lost my grip and fell on top of it.

  Possum screamed. His eyes rolled back.

  A loud crack. Did I just break some of his bones? No. Bishop had just broken the jammed door handle.

  Possum began to cough. Blood-tainted spittle dotted his face.

  "Oh no," I murmured. I wasn't certain what was happening to him, but it didn't take a doctor to know. It wasn't good. Galvanized, I pulled, pushed, and even wedged a splintered two-by-four underneath the beam for leverage. But to no avail.

  Using his shoulder, Bishop rammed the jammed exit door with the determination of a wolf chewing off its own leg to escape a trap. Each blow forced the door open a bit more.

  Crouched and with my back against the beam, with every ounce of strength in my legs, I strained to push it off of Possum. I shouted in frustration.

  One more slam and Bishop stopped. He sucked in his gut, making himself as thin as possible and proceeded to squeeze through the opening.

  "Bishop, don't!"

  "I'm outta here."

  I kicked the beam repeatedly accomplishing nothing more than hurting my good foot. "I can't do this alone."

  "No one asked you to." More than half of Bishop's right side was out the door now.

  "He's going to die!" Our eyes met. I refused to look away. Bishop didn't say anything. "I don't know you that well," I said. "But something tells me you're not a killer. And I know you're not just going to walk away like that Levite."

  "So what are you? Freakin' good Samaritan?"

  "You know what He said. Go and do likewise!" He opened his mouth but stopped short of words. Pointing a finger at me, like he was going to teach me a lesson, he huffed with vexation. He swore, pummeled the door with his fists.

  And then, to my astonishment, Bishop squeezed back into the stairwell and climbed over towards me and Possum. "I'd kill you if—"

  "But you're not going to. We both know it."

  "Two minutes. That's all you get." He reached around the beam next to me.

  "Fine."

  "After that, I don't care. I'm gone."

  "Whenever you're done blabbing," I said. Bishop cracked a surprised smile. With his eyes, he signaled his readiness. Two minutes might spell life and death for Possum. And for Bishop, the next five would change his life irrevocably.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Butch Hurley watched them on a monitor in the auxiliary control room. Luther, The Furor, and 'Nando, blood-enemies thrown together into the same spittoon.

  Filthy opportunity whores.

  No audio over the monitors, but he could see they were all coughing violently in the long corridor that connected the control room to the security checkpoint. Even Sergeant Elison covered his face and doubled over.

  "Hit it," Butch said, tapping Kincaid's shoulder. Kincaid pressed a button and on one of the monitors, Butch watched a set of steel bars slide over the doors. One shut off the entrance to Control-B. The other cut off the exit down the corridor. Butch then radioed a team of marksmen. "The inmates have been contained."

  "Elison?"

  "They still have him. Your primary objective is to disarm the convicts, is that understood? Don't care what it takes, I want those stinkin' animals back in their cells."

  "Got it."

  "Hold on." Butch was about to return to the central facility when he thought about all that stinking paperwork he'd have to file. It would ruin his weekend if he had to go line by line and explain everything, no matter how much the Warden trusted him. "Who you boys got on point?" he said over the radio.

  "Johnston." The Cubscout?

  Butch clicked his tongue. "I'm coming down there now." Without another word, he stepped out of the auxiliary control room. No time for this crap. The situation was going to be resolved in the next five minutes.

  One way or another.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  "Push!" Bishop snarled, his arms under the cement beam.

  "I am!"

  "Put your back into it!"

  "I'm putting...my whole body...into it!" Despite all our shouting and grunting, we only managed to move it about an inch or two before having to set it back down. Possum was so out, I couldn't tell if setting the beam back down hurt. "He's not looking good," I said, catching my breath.

  Wiping dust-caked sweat from his brow, Bishop said, "One more minute and I'm gone."

  "Don't you hold back out on us!"

  "If I was going to hold out, I wouldn't have come back in the first place."

  "Fine. Let's go." This time, I got myself as far under the beam as possible. Bishop did the same. On the count of three, we extended our legs, backs and arms with all our might.

  It moved.

  "Okay when I say go," Bishop hissed through his teeth and pointed his chin towards the wall, "roll it that way!"

  I gave a Neanderthal reply. For a moment, the beam actually lifted off of Possum's body. The muscles in my entire body burned like gasoline-soaked logs.

  Bishop's eyelids squeezed so tight they could have wrung out blood. "Go!" he shouted. I leaned forward and pushed with him until the beam slipped out of my hands. It landed with a heavy boom that echoed up to the top of the hollowed out stairwell.

  "Damn!" Bishop said.

  "What?" I was afraid to open my eyes. When my vision finally cleared I looked down. Blinking in disbelief, I wanted to ask him if he saw what I was seeing. Before I could, he trudged over to the door and began squeezing through the opening. Did I expect anything else?

  I looked down at Possum's motionless body again. "What the—?" His T-shirt was now stained with black soot in various spots. There were minor cuts on his arms and shoulders, but the only blood came from his chest.

  I knelt.

  Looked closer.

  A blotch of dark red blood stretched across the center of his shirt. The shape, the pattern was so distinct that for a moment, though I was staring straight at it, I couldn't process it. The blood spread and the shape became amorphous.

  Then it was just a spot of blood. Again.

  But its momentary form became permanently etched into my memory.

  I've never forgotten it since.

  The shape of a bird's wing.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Muttering every step of the way down the steps, Butch checked his gun. It'd suck if it jammed at a critical moment. At ground level, he exited and went around the back of B-Block where to his annoyance, he caught a glimpse of an inmate squeezing through a tight crack in a damaged service door. Butch clicked off the safety of his Smith and Wesson .38 and waited until the con got out. "Freeze!"

  It was Bishop. The big ape actually thought he'd just walk out and climb over the fence right under the abandoned sentry towers. Bold. Stupid, but bold.

  Bishop didn't bother raising his hands in the air, the smug bastard. Butch stepped towards his target with caution, never letting him out of his aim. Their relationship was about to change. "Going somewhere, Morgan?"

  Bishop glared.

  "Get 'em up, now!" Butch hollered from a distance of only ten feet away. Bishop slid both hands into his pockets and looked down his nose at him. "I said get them up! In the air, or so help me God—"

  Bishop shot him a corrosive glare. "Of all the places to turn for help."

  Butch took three steps forward, both hands on his gun, trying to keep it from shaking as he pointed it up and pressed it into the ex-priest's ear.

  "I got a feeling if I pull the trigger, this bullet will just come out the other ear—no damage done. Wanna test my theory?"
/>   Without so much as a flinch, Bishop said, "You ain't got the balls."

  "No?" Butch cocked the hammer, hoping the ominous click would at the very least make him blink.

  Nada.

  "See?" Bishop said. "Ball-less."

  He just had to make this difficult, didn't he?

  "All right, Bish. Tell you what. I'm going to hand you a pair of cuffs. You be a good ape and put 'em on and if I decide not to put a bullet in your thick skull, maybe—just maybe—I'll think about telling my guys in National City to let Kathy keep seven of her fingers when we're done here.

  This time Bishop jerked back and grunted.

  Much better. High time he remembered who was really in charge around here.

  "That, Butch, was a mistake."

  "I don't think so." He began weighing his options. Which would bring more paperwork, more hassle? Shooting an escaped inmate in self-defense or bringing him back in?

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Blood notwithstanding, I put my ear to Possum's chest and felt his wrist for a pulse. Weak, but beating. His breath was irregular, he needed medical attention immediately.

  With the staircase collapsed, the only way out was the exit. If I didn't resist capture, maybe they'd listen and go back for Possum. If anyone was out there.

  There was.

  And that person was in some kind of shouting match with Bishop. Whoever it was, however, he had to be able to get some help. A man's life was at stake here.

  With my face halfway through the opening exit, I pressed through and looked back. "Hang on, buddy," I whispered to Possum. "Back soon."

  They didn't notice me standing at the door, just about ten yards behind them. But I saw them clearly. Butch had his gun pressed into Bishop's ear. I couldn't make out what they were saying. Although Possum needed help, the situation was so tense, I dared not move.