‘How long does it take to work?’Todd asked Stratton.
‘Depends on the individual. Disorientation is almost immediate. Full incapacity can take up to ten seconds. Lasts about five minutes. But you can double-dose if need be.’
‘This is madness,’ Paul said. ‘He’s a tech.’
‘Chill, Paul. I’m not going to kill anyone.’
‘This is where it starts, though.’
‘Bollocks,’ Todd scoffed, getting to his feet but remaining in the crouching position.
‘They’ve got the spare on. Let’s go,’ Stratton said.
Todd made his way forward, keeping low through the long grass, as Chuck reached under the truck to release the jack and the new tyre took the vehicle’s weight.
Todd eased his way down an incline and through the foliage to the base of the slope that led up to the edge of the highway. The three prison guards had their backs to him as he moved into what he considered to be the ideal position, placed a finger on the trigger and aimed the device towards them. He suddenly couldn’t remember if the target actually needed to be looking in the direction of the light or not. It seemed logical to him that they should. He decided not to take the chance - he’d wait for the guards to turn around.
Chuck pulled the jack out from under the vehicle, turned his back to the highway and looked directly at Todd who was partly exposed in an effort to get a clear shot. Chuck wondered why someone was in the bushes in the middle of nowhere pointing a flashlight at him.
Todd immediately recognised that his predicament was expecting all three guards to face him at the same time. Realising how unlikely that was, coupled with the fact that one of them had already seen him, he hit the trigger. A penetrating white light flickered from the lens like a powerful strobe.
Chuck immediately started trembling uncontrollably as the intense light penetrated his retinas. It was designed to pulse at the same frequency as brainwaves, upsetting the flow of information between the compartments and causing massive synaptic short-circuits. The other two guards began to feel odd sensations caused by the light bouncing off the side of the truck. They both turned to look at the source. Harry dropped immediately onto his hands and knees, unable to look away, fell onto his chest and remained still, apart from the fluttering of his eyes. Jerry, beginning to shake uncontrollably, had more resistance to the bombardment and reached for his pistol.
Todd kept his finger pressed firmly on the trigger, squeezing it hard as if the added effort might increase the beam’s power. But the guard continued to pull his pistol from its holster.
Jerry raised the barrel of the weapon towards Todd although it began to shake violently in his hand. His knees began to buckle, his face twisting into a grimace as he fought to keep control. He could no longer see the man in the bushes as his brain filled with a white light which suddenly went out as he dropped forward onto his face.
Todd kept hold of the device, transfixed by the fear that he’d almost been shot. A hand gripped his wrist while another moved his finger off the trigger.
Stratton took the device, placed it into his backpack along with his glasses and climbed up the slope. He looked both ways along the highway to ensure there were no vehicles coming and crouched by the guards to check that their vital signs were OK.
Paul arrived, carrying the rifle case and looking flustered. ‘That was lucky.’
‘Be even luckier if you send the signal,’ Stratton said. ‘Put your caps on. Look like prison guards.’
Paul chastised himself for forgetting and grabbed his cellphone as he put his hat on. Todd joined him, fitting his own cap and looking seriously chuffed about the success of his task.
‘This is Paul. Go, go, go,’ Paul said into the phone.
Todd hurried towards the back of the wagon.
‘Keys,’ Stratton called out as he pulled a bunch from Jerry’s pocket.
Todd halted and as he turned the keys were sailing towards him. He caught them and hurried around to the back of the wagon.
Charon and the other prisoner were sitting and staring down at him.
‘How ya doin’?’ Todd asked in an exaggerated American wise-guy accent that he could not help slipping into. He climbed inside the wagon.
A small van with the same prison markings on its sides arrived, pulled up behind the prison truck and two men in the same-style guard uniforms climbed out.
Todd pulled a syringe from a pocket, removed the sterile cap, plunged the needle into the scarred prisoner’s leg and emptied the contents into it.
‘Ouch! What the fuck’s goin’ on?’ the prisoner cried as he struggled in his shackles.
Todd removed another syringe from the pocket, took off the cap and stuck the needle into Charon’s leg. ‘What the hell is this?’ Charon exclaimed as his vision quickly began to blur. Then he lost consciousness.
Stratton climbed into the prison truck as the others unshackled the scarred prisoner and hauled him out, carrying him to the side door of the small van and putting him inside. Stratton pulled off his overalls to reveal his Styx prison uniform and sat beside Charon. One of the newcomers crouched in front of the two lookalikes in order to study them. ‘Hold his head up, please,’ the man said.Todd grabbed the back of Charon’s head and held it upright.
The man opened up a well-stocked make-up artist’s box and set about his work with agile precision. He gave Stratton a super-quick haircut to match Charon’s. The colour match wasn’t perfect enough for him and he sprinkled a little powder onto Stratton’s hair and rubbed it in to lighten it. He compared the two men’s faces back and forth, adding colour to eyebrows and complexion. The make-up man finally shook his head and frowned. ‘His cheekbones aren’t as wide here as his are. I can’t do anything about it.’
‘Is the difference massive?’ Todd asked, moving to where he could make his own comparison. ‘He’s right. It’s noticeable.Your cheeks are slightly thinner than his,’ he said to Stratton.
‘By much?’ Stratton asked.
‘Enough,’ the artist said.
‘A tad, but noticeable, like I said,’ Todd agreed.
‘Mine need to be bigger?’ Stratton asked.
‘Yes,’ Todd said.
‘Hit me,’ Stratton ordered.
‘What?’
‘Hit me. On the cheeks. Mess me up a little.We only have to fool these guards until they drop me off. The picture in the replacement file is me.’
‘He’s right,’ Todd said, standing back. ‘Hit him.’
‘I’m not going to hit him!’ the artist cried.
‘You’re the bloody make-up artist.You know where it needs swelling.’
‘We never did thumping as a technique in make-up class.’
‘Hit me, you little prick,’ Stratton shouted at Todd. ‘Now!’
Todd didn’t hesitate a second longer and belted Stratton across his cheek. ‘Well?’ he asked the artist, nursing his sore knuckles. ‘Bloody check it, then,’ he shouted.
The artist looked at the blow, comparing it to Charon’s cheek. ‘I suppose it confuses the issue. Do the other side.’
Todd lamped Stratton on the other cheek and the artist inspected it. ‘I suppose that’ll do,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘It’ll be better when the bruising sets in.’
‘Get this guy into the van,’ Stratton said nudging Charon and the men moved with urgency to obey.
Meanwhile, Paul climbed into the prison truck’s cab where he found a metal box file. He sorted through the keys, found the one he wanted, opened the box, removed a file, checked that it was Nathan Charon’s, replaced it with another identical file from his backpack and relocked the box.
He climbed out of the cab and put the keys back into the guard’s pocket. The guard moaned and started to move.
Paul hurried to the back of the truck.‘They’re coming round,’ he said.
Everyone speeded the final tidying-up.
Stratton sat in Charon’s seat and Todd shackled him in while the others piled into the van.
‘Get going.’
Todd was about to climb down when he paused. ‘Thanks,’ he said holding out his hand. ‘Please come back in one piece.’
Stratton looked up at the sincerity in Todd’s face. He held out his hand as far as the shackles would allow.
Todd shook it, dropped the keys on the floor, jumped down onto the road, hurried to the smaller van and climbed in. It sped away even before he had closed the door.
Harry pushed himself up into a sitting position and felt his head as he wondered what the hell had happened to him. Jerry rolled onto his back, his eyes flicking open, and stared up at the sky, trying to remember where he was. He suddenly sat up and looked towards the roadside foliage while grabbing for his gun.
Chuck sat up too, blinking his eyes rapidly to help bring them back into focus. ‘What the hell happened?’ he asked as Harry turned over onto his knees.
Jerry looked towards the rear of the truck, staggered to his feet and used the side of the wagon to help him keep his balance as he hurried around to the back. Stratton, unconscious, was slumped forward in his seat, the seat opposite him empty and the shackles lying on the floor. ‘Shit!’ Jerry exclaimed. ‘We got a break!’ he shouted as he moved out into the road to look in all directions.
The other two guards came to take a look. Chuck climbed inside to check on Stratton who moaned as he regained consciousness.
‘What the hell happened?’ Chuck shouted at him. ‘Talk to me!’
Stratton took his time, pretending to gather his senses. The plan was to avoid talking to the current guards because they knew Charon’s voice. He shook his head and acted dazed.
‘What did you see?’ Chuck insisted. ‘Where’d Rivers go?’
Stratton continued to act stunned and shook his head, his eyelids drooping.
Chuck gave up and jumped back down. ‘We gotta call this in,’ he said as he headed for the truck’s cab.
‘Oh, boy,’ Jerry sighed. ‘Are we in the crapper.’
Chapter 7
Congressman Forbes sat in his office, staring at his phone. He was weighing his options, all of which looked grim. He had survived many a tight situation in his career but if there was a way out of this one he could not see it.The Agency had him well and truly by the throat and was tightening its grip.
Throughout his professional life Forbes had been an advocate of moderation when it came to the division of spoils. ‘Always leave enough for others to fatten on’ was one of his sayings. Sharing the profits along with the risks provided allies as well as scapegoats. He had never been greedy - not by his definition, at any rate. Styx was a way of making a tidy income, not without legitimate risk. His mistake had been in allowing the Agency to convince him they could mitigate that risk when all they did was to present him with greater ones. He had not seen the trap coming. The adventure had looked too good to pass on. Now, for his sins, he was faced with the grimmest choice he had ever had to make.
There had been life-and-death decisions to be made in the past but all of these had been in the name of national security. But this was purely to save his own skin. He could, he guessed, call it quits, suffer the consequences, the humiliation, the likely prison sentence and bring down a handful of colleagues with him. Better still, he could throw himself off a tall building. But that would take a type of courage that Forbes did not have. He loved life far too much and it was that same love affair that would make the final decision for him. The truth was that it had been made the instant he’d been faced with the ultimatum. This wrestling with his conscience was only a private show, a pathetic effort to convince himself that he was confronting a moral dilemma and therefore this was proof that he did in fact possess such things as a conscience and a moral sense. He had them, all right, but they were just not up to this level of testing.
Forbes stared at the ornately framed picture of his wife and two grown-up children in front of him, all smiles and confidence. It was more than enough to bolster his decision and compel him to get on with it.
Forbes picked up the phone, flicked through a notebook on his desk and double-checked the number before dialling it. The line buzzed rhythmically for several seconds before a voice came on. ‘Mandrick? . . . Yeah, it’s me. We have a problem . . . a big one. We’ve been offered a deal we can’t refuse from our Agency partners . . . They’ve informed me we’re to have an unwanted visitor . . . an undercover fed . . . Today . . . That’s the point. We don’t know who. That’s why there has to be a terrible accident . . . The ferry, I think. Unless you can come up with something better. But it must be a success . . . This puts us into outer space on the risk chart . . . Can you handle it? . . . What do they say? They don’t mind at all. They’re the ones insisting on it.’
Pieter Mandrick was half American and half South African. Taking a man’s life on the orders of a superior was nothing new to him but he had never received such a request from a civilian employer before and never for a hit that was to be carried out within the USA. And how he’d ended up as warden of the most controversial prison in the world was the story of a fascinating and circuitous journey.
His mother was from Brooklyn and had met his father while on a safari holiday in the Kruger Park. His father, ironically, was a senior prison guard who had spent the last ten years of his life as a shift commander on Robben Island, the notorious prison where Nelson Mandela spent most of his twenty-six-year incarceration. Mandrick had never had the slightest intention of following in his father’s footsteps and as a young man would have laughed at the very notion of one day working in a prison, let alone running one. He grew up in South Africa, rather than the States, after his mother became attracted to the new lifestyle she encountered in her husband’s homeland. She was not a fan of apartheid but neither was she strongly opposed to it.What she did appreciate were the two live-in maids who practically mothered her baby boy; they fed him, changed his nappies and played with him. That was in between doing every bit of housework including gardening, cooking most of the household’s meals - and serving sundowners.
Mandrick was a born adventurer and after leaving university in the mid-1970s he was determined to find more action than the prison service could offer. Before his military conscription papers arrived he volunteered to join the South African army, which was only the first step in his plans. As soon as he could he attended the selection course for the 4th Reconnaissance Commando, a Special Forces unit based in Langebaan, and was accepted after passing with distinction.The unit was set up to perform maritime operations, a subject that interested Mandrick, and after joining the R&D submersible wing he piloted one of the unit’s first swimmer-delivery vehicles.
Military life was for the most part enjoyable but after three years it had failed to deliver the adventure that Mandrick had joined up for. As luck would have it, as he was waiting in the HQ building to talk to his sergeant major about quitting the armed forces one of the clerks told him that his unit had just been placed on standby to go to Angola. They were to join in the fight against the South-West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), a black guerrilla group fighting for Namibia to separate from South Africa. It was going to be a real war, a deadly guerrilla campaign and more of an adventure than Mandrick had ever hoped to experience. He was overjoyed.To make matters even more exciting, his introduction to the conflict was from the air when his section parachuted deep into enemy territory.
By this time Mandrick was a sergeant in charge of his own troop. Having shown his talents early on in the campaign, he was given a lead role in the raid to destroy the SWAPO headquarters in the heart of one of the most hostile jungles on earth.The opening battle for the HQ was the most brutal he had experienced and it would only get worse. In the latter stages, when his section found itself cut off from the rest of the unit, it came down to hand-to-hand fighting where empty guns gave way to knives and machetes that then gave way to clubs, fists and boots. By the end of it the black greasepaint he
had used to disguise himself as a SWAPO guerrilla in order to get close to the compound had been washed away by blood - fortunately only a little of it was his own.
A few months after the war, while attempting to drink a litre of Scotch alone in his barrack room, Mandrick tried to recall how many men he had actually killed in Angola. But his mind was immediately swamped with images of machetes slicing into limbs, boots stomping on throats, fingers gouging eyes: scenes of carnage that assaulted him until he screamed for them to go away. He woke up a day later, lying in his own urine and vomit. The memories were still vivid and it took many years before they eventually grew foggy and their accuracy became uncertain.
In the mid-1990s he quit the military after turning down a full commission and went to America to visit his mother who had by now divorced his father. The trip was intended as a sabbatical that would last long enough for Mandrick to get his head together and figure out a plan for the future. But the weeks turned into months and he still hadn’t discovered a firm direction. To help pay the bills he took employment in a local sports bar. He soon settled into a relaxed routine, although he was plagued by a permanent unease that prevented him from making any kind of long-term commitment to work or relationships. He blamed his disquiet on the political events taking place in his home country. Several options concerning his future that he had considered depended on him returning to South Africa but the growing revolt against apartheid and then the death of his father at the hands of a berserk prisoner influenced his decision to close that door and pursue a life in the USA.
Taking advantage of his mother’s nationality Mandrick applied for American citizenship and the year it was granted, in the absence of anything more inspirational, and perhaps still motivated by a latent need for action, he decided to join the New York Police Department. He was not unduly surprised when he was turned down; he assumed it had a lot to do with his politically incorrect South African military background. But several weeks later something extraordinary happened that he later suspected was a result of his application - he had shown up on someone’s radar. It was a mysterious meeting that would turn his entire life upside down.
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