“Everyone else, turn off your radios. I don’t want anybody to lean against anything and let those assholes hear our plans.”
He had three men: Paul, Tony and Red.
Red was a Hispanic man with a full head of thick jet-black hair.
He was called Red because he wore that color almost exclusively.
Except, of course, when he was on-duty working for Richard. Then he wore cammies like everyone else on the detail.
They were good men all. Three of the best.
Richard was glad of that. He’d need the best he could get for this operation.
-26-
“Okay, let’s look at what we know and what we don’t know.
“We don’t know their strength. The footprints out there are covered with snow. We can’t examine them to see how many different boot prints we can count.
“There had to be at least two people to carry the ladders in. We have to accept that there are at least two of them.
“We don’t know how they gained entry to the cell block. Those doors lock automatically from the inside. The Control Center knew we had no security personnel in the yard. Nobody would have any reason to go outside in a blinding snowstorm.
“Therefore the likely way they gained entry was from someone opening the door for them.”
“You think we have a rat on the inside?”
“Look, Paul. I don’t like it any more than you do. But until we find out for sure how they got in we have to assume they had help.”
“We also don’t know what firepower they brought with them. If what they said was true, if they did shoot my son, they’ve got his keys to the armory.
“That means if they weren’t heavily armed before, they damn sure are now.
“All that adds up to two things: number one, they’ve got us at a severe disadvantage.
“And number two, we’ve got to be extremely careful.
“If they shot Richard Junior down in cold blood, they won’t have any qualms about shooting any of the other hostages.”
“Any suggestions?”
Not a man volunteered anything.
As far as they could tell, they were screwed.
“Okay, let’s look at what we do know.
“We know we’ve got some good people on the inside.
“Smart people… people who will be looking for ways to overpower them or to escape.
“We know we can communicate with our people, if we can get into the yard.”
Tony said, “What? How?”
“Marty brought Frank Woodard by here one day while we were stocking the place.
“Frank told us there were a thousand different ways someone could break into this place if they had their minds set on it.
“He told us the only way to counter them all was to put ourselves in the bad guys’ shoes.
“The three of us walked all over the prison and he kept coming up with scenarios on how we might have problems.”
“Like what, for example?”
“Like for example he’d say what if a bad guy hijacked a truck that was bringing supplies in while we were stocking the prison?
“He created a scenario where he said a guy took our driver by surprise and held him at gunpoint. And he made him drive back to the prison like he always did; only the bad guy was in the sleeper cab, behind the sleeper’s curtain, holding a gun on the driver.
“Once he got inside the prison he was planning to shoot the driver and try to take over the place.
“Then he tasked Marty and me to come up with a solution to solve that problem if it ever happened for real.”
The light came on in Tony’s head.
“Oh, so that’s why you gave all the drivers instructions to use the ‘beer’ duress code.”
“Right. We told all the drivers that if there was ever a bad guy on board they were to tell us they were bringing in a load of beer.
“And that’s why you guys were told that if a driver ever used that phrase they were to be told the Sally port gate was stuck and they’d have to get out of the truck and help push it open.
“And as soon as the driver was out of the truck we’d surround it with weapons drawn and tell the bad guy he could either come out or we were gonna start shooting holes through the sleeper.”
“Pretty good plan,” Tony remarked.
“Anyway, that whole exercise with Frank made Marty and I look around to see how many other ways we might be vulnerable.
“We thought about the possibility of some of us being trapped on the outside when the place was overrun by bad guys.
“Something very similar to what we have now.
“And we looked around trying to find ways we could communicate with our people on the outside so we could coordinate our plans to retake the prison.”
Paul said, “Good thing Mayor Al’s not here. He’d give you a lecture about calling this a prison instead of a shelter.”
“Mayor Al can kiss my ass. You can make this place pretty and put carpet in the cells. It’ll still be a damn prison.”
Richard Sears was still unsure, but the odds were he’d lost his only son.
His wife Ruth was still inside and could be killed or raped at any time.
He wasn’t in the best of moods.
“Anyway, shut up and let me finish.
“When we were in the early stages of renovating the place, Bill Brady came to me with a complaint.
“He said there was a big crack in the south wall of his cell.
“So I went to look at it. It wasn’t a crack. It was where they’d put two concrete panels together and the panels were separated by a rubber expansion joint.
“The expansion joint worked itself free and was missing. So there was a half-inch space between the panels.
“You could look through the space and see the exercise yard on the other side of the wall.
“Anyway, we were gonna replace the expansion joint, but Marty suggested we just cover it up with duct tape. That way we could remove the tape and pass notes if the place was ever overrun.
“So maybe we can get some intel on what we’re going up against.”
“Only two problems,” Paul pointed out.
“Right,” Richard added. “First we have to get into the yard. And then we have to hope Marty remembers.”
-27-
“Before we do anything, though, we need to do the decent thing and get our friend out of the snow.
“Paul, get a couple of blankets out of the storage room to wrap him in. Tony and Red, you come with me.
By the time Paul showed up with the blankets they’d brushed the snow off of Lenny’s body.
Once he was wrapped in blankets it took all four of them to carry him back to the Sally port.
Oh, they could have placed him on a blanket and dragged him the two hundred yards.
But dragging a man they all thought the world of would have been undignified.
And a slap in the face for their friend.
The body was stiff and unyielding.
Richard wasn’t sure whether that was due to rigor mortis or because it had started to freeze.
Probably a combination of both.
In any event, it made the job of carrying him easier. Paul, ever insensitive but always accurate in his assessments, said, “This isn’t much different than carrying a log.”
Tony took offense and said, “Watch what you say. This was once a good friend of mine.”
“Sorry. I meant nothing by it. He was my friend too.”
The Sally port had cover. It was high, at sixteen feet ten inches, to allow the smokestacks of eighteen wheelers to drive through.
And it was open on the ends.
But it still kept most of the snow out of the double-fenced entry.
If they’d brought him into the tiny gatekeeper’s shack he’d have taken up a good portion of the floor space.
Worse than that, he’d start to thaw and decompose.
In Richard’s mind Lenny could no longer f
eel the cold.
In Richard’s mind Lenny would understand.
And being left in the middle of the Sally port was certainly no worse than being buried in cold hard ground.
Still, it sickened him just a bit to look at him, lying there all alone wrapped in a bright yellow blanket.
They warmed up again in the gate shack while going over their next moves.
“They left their ladders in place,” Richard said. “If they were smart they’d have used the second ladder to reclimb the outer fence, and then pulled the first ladder over so it was on the ground between the fences.
“But they didn’t. Now we can use their own ladders to follow them into the yard.”
“Wait a minute,” Tony said. “What if they left them up there knowing we’d follow them? What if they want us to climb over, knowing we’ll be sitting ducks while we’re between the two fences?
“What if they’re waiting in the yard to ambush us?”
It was a logical question.
And for a group of men like Sennett, such a brutal tactic might be a good way of thinning out the opposition.
“You’re right. We might be walking into a trap if we go that way. Any other ideas?”
Paul said, “The main building has steel rungs on the east side leading up to the roof for building maintenance.
“If we can find some rope I can climb those rungs up to the roof and then rappel down to the catwalk on the south side.
“From the catwalk I can make my way to the south watch tower and climb down to the ground.
“I’ll be hidden from view of the ladders and the doors leading into the cell blocks.
“I can use the trailers to hide behind and scout around to see if there’s anybody in the yard.
“If there isn’t I’ll give you the all clear over the radio and you can come over the double fences the same way they did.”
“I don’t like it,” Richard said. “If they see you rappelling down to the catwalk you’re a sitting duck. And they can pick you off when you move along the catwalk to the guard tower.”
“I don’t think so. If they look up into this blinding storm they’re gonna get a face full of ice. Now’s probably the best time to go.”
“We can’t use the radio,” Tony pointed out. “The base unit at the control center has a scanner option. They’ll be able to hear us even if we switch to another channel.”
Richard said, “We need to stay on the primary channel, in case those bastards try to contact us again. We need to stay advised on what’s going on in there, even if we have to get our info from the enemy.”
He turned to Paul and said, “There’s a hundred feet of nylon rope in the supply closet behind you. Will that be enough?”
“Plenty.”
“Very well. If it’s all clear key your microphone twice but don’t say anything.
“They’ll hear it, but they’ll think it’s random static.”
Tony asked, “What if they see him?”
Paul laughed and said, “Then you’ll hear gunshots, dumbass.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“When are you going out, Paul?”
“As soon as my hands thaw out. I need full use of my fingers to go down that rope. If I don’t I might lose my grip. And it’s a long way down.”
“Can you handle a rifle over your shoulder?”
“I could, but it might be hard to handle going down. There’s an AR-15 in the watch tower. I’ll get it when I get there.”
“Extra mags for your pistol?”
“One in the gun and three in my pockets. I reckon if I get off forty rounds I’ll either be dead or we’ll have our prison back. Either way that should be enough.”
“Okay,” Richard said. “The only one who’s authorized to use his radio for this mission is Paul. The rest of us will stay the hell off of it so we don’t miss his signal.
“Any questions?”
He turned back to Paul.
“Good luck to you, my friend. On your go.”
-28-
Inside the cell block John Sennett stood lord and master over his new kingdom.
The control center was an elevated platform on one end of the huge common area.
Back in the days when this was a prison, the inmates called it the “hack shack.” It was where the prison guards controlled the electronic door locks and kept track of everything going on within the block.
The electronic door locks were now gone.
But the intercoms to each cell still worked.
So did the public address system.
And most importantly the radio, which controllers used to keep track of all goings-on.
The control center was now Sennett’s throne.
He stood in the center of it and looked out at all the former cells, now declared “apartments” by Mayor Al.
At his feet was the body of Richard Sears Junior, Richard’s only child.
“Junior” was loved by all. In his twenty short years of life he didn’t make any enemies. He was everybody’s friend.
Sennett’s first impulse was to have some of his hostages drag the body out into the snow to get rid of it.
Then he thought better of it.
“We’ll just leave it here until it starts to rot and stinks up the place.
“It’ll serve as a deterrent for others who want to try me.”
“He didn’t try you, you ass.” Junior’s mother Ruth said. “You shot him dead before he had a chance to go for his gun.”
“Keep it up, you dumb bitch. Keep running that mouth and you’ll be the one to replace him after we drag him out of here.”
Sennett pondered aloud a new idea he had.
“Hey, maybe that’s how we can keep these clowns in line.
“Every time a body starts to stink up the place we’ll drag it outside and shoot somebody else.”
He locked eyes on Ruth and raised his voice loud enough for everyone else to hear.
“We’ll just choose whoever’s been the biggest pain in my ass and they can take their turn as the next body.
“One thing we need to change, though…
“This thing is taking up too much space on my platform.”
As he spoke he used the heel of his boot to roll Junior’s body off the platform and onto the floor below.
He glared at Ruth as he did so, daring her to object.
Ruth very wisely said nothing, though her heart was breaking.
“Now all of you go to your cells and stay there until I decide what to do with you.”
Some of the hostages started to move.
Others stood their ground, looking at one another for any hints on whether anyone was going to charge their captors.
It would have been a bloodbath.
Sennett and his four men were outnumbered.
But the AK-47s and AR-15s they aimed at the hostages evened the odds somewhat.
Early on the group voted and decreed the cell block would be gun-free, except for the men working the control center.
From the time the world started to freeze and they sealed the building there were always two armed men on the platform. Both were armed with 9mm pistols as well as an AR-15.
Sennett didn’t know that.
He also didn’t know that the head of security, who called himself “Security One,” was working the control center that day with his son.
When Lenny went missing it was Security One who went to deal with it.
If he hadn’t been working the platform that day, he’d have responded to the Lenny situation and left two armed guards on the platform.
If he’d directed someone else to arm up in his stead while he was away from the platform there would have been two armed guards.
But neither of those things happened.
Instead, Richard Sr. told his son he’d be back when he could and went to the gate shack to coordinate search efforts.
Richard Jr., having no clue anything was amiss, left his unslung rifle leaning against the s
ecurity control desk and his pistol holstered.
When Sennett and his men gained entry through the ventilation duct of a storage room Sennett walked to the room’s front door, raised his own rifle, and shot Junior in the back.
It was a good shot.
Not for Junior, for it destroyed his heart instantly.
He was dead before he hit the ground and the screams started.
The gunshot echoed against the concrete walls. For several moments no one knew where it came from.
For several minutes pandemonium reigned.
Most of Eden’s residents ran and hid.
Some of them ran toward Junior to try to help, until they were waved off by gunpoint.
“There’s nothing you can do for him now,” Sennett laughed.
Sennett and Suarez stood on the platform and held everyone at gunpoint while Romo, Kelly and Martin performed a cursory search for weapons.
They found none.
Now, almost two hours since Lenny Geibel’s own heart exploded outside the walls and outside the double fence, things were starting to calm down a bit.
Sennett, though, wasn’t the most patient man in the world.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I told you all to return to your cells.”
A frightened woman’s voice arose from the back of the group.
“But… our toilets were taken out when they renovated the place. We have no facilities. How long will we be in there?”
“As long as I say so. You might have to get used to peeing in a can, old woman. But you’ll be the first one I’ll shoot if everyone’s not back in their rooms in one minute. That’ll solve your problem too, won’t it?”
It was just the right bit of motivation everyone needed to start moving.
Sennett cackled like an old witch, thinking himself quite clever.
-29-
Marty returned to his cell, number 225, on the upper tier.
His wife Glenna was already there, consoling her children.
Marty checked his hiding place, beneath his mattress. His knives were still there.
Sennett’s orders to his men, when he dispatched them to search the cells, was to “gather up the guns.”
Rest in Peace Page 9