“Or what?” snapped Tyree.
“You really are tiresome.” Hayes reached slowly in his pocket, lifted out his phone and pushed one button.
A second later there was an explosion in the prison’s front parking lot.
Tyree and his men raced to the window and looked out at the smoldering remains of the car. Smoke was still rising off the chopper’s side cannon muzzle.
“That was my damn Cadillac,” screamed Tyree.
“I know. We checked the registration. I wouldn’t have wasted a cannon round that expensive on a mere guard’s ride. Let me make this as clear as I possibly can. This is a national security issue. Not even the president himself could stand in the way. And you, my little friend, are no president. Take me to see them. Now!” He added in a softer tone, “And Uncle Sam will even buy you a new car.”
Stone and Knox sat shackled at the table. Everyone in the prison had heard the explosion outside, but no one knew what was going on. When the door opened and he saw the man, Knox cried out, “Oh shit!”
“It’s nice to see you too, Knox.” Hayes smiled at them both and sat down.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I had anyone you might contact on a surveillance list. When Marsh got the call I was ready. And don’t waste time wondering if he’ll come to your aid. He’s already been transferred out of the country. You shouldn’t have played me for an idiot, Knox. You really shouldn’t have.”
He gazed at a stunned Knox for a moment longer and then turned to Stone.
“It’s been a long time, John. I can’t say the years have been kind to you.”
“They’ve been better to me than they have been to you, Mack.”
“Tell me, how did it feel to kill our old friends? Did your chest puff with pride when you finished them off?”
“That’s right, you wouldn’t know how it felt to kill somebody. You always got other people to do it for you.”
Hayes opened his briefcase and took out a single piece of paper. He held it up for Knox to see. It was the order signed by Hayes cutting off further discussion of John Carr receiving the Medal of Honor.
“When you called and told me that the ‘country’ folks around this filthy hole in the ground might rally around the persecuted Vietnam vet, I wondered what you might have meant by that. And how you found out about it. I went to the military archives. They were very helpful in showing me what you’d looked at. Unfortunately, the boxes weren’t inventoried, but this page had left a bit of the print on the inside of the box wall. It was enough to have my people search your house. And they found this. I thought it had been destroyed a long time ago. Just goes to show that no one is truly omniscient.”
He glanced over at Stone. “And I’m sure John here has told you all about our little disagreement in the jungle.”
“I’ve told him nothing. He was working for you. You think I’d trust his ass?” Stone snapped.
Hayes sat back and rested his hands on his lap. “John, you’re a much better killer than you are a liar. Prevarication is my bailiwick. And I could always sense it in others.”
“You could never let it go, could you?”
“Why should I? You hurt me a long time ago. Where’s the justice in that?”
“Justice?” bellowed Knox. “You kept him from getting the Medal of Honor!”
“And he kept me from the promotion that was rightfully mine.”
“You’re comparing what this guy did on the battlefield to making you wait a couple extra months to get your crappy pair of oak clusters?”
“He was a grunt. We had millions of them. But there weren’t that many officers of my caliber. I’m certain he hurt the war effort by doing it.”
“You really think we would’ve won the Vietnam War if you’d been made lieutenant colonel sooner?” Knox said in disbelief.
“I admit I have an ego.”
“That’s not an ego. That’s freaking psychotic.”
Hayes pulled out a lighter, clicked it against an edge of the old paper and in a few seconds it crumpled to ash.
“Now let me get this right.” He pointed at Knox. “You’re an armed robber and murderer. Nasty business. If I’d only known.” He turned to Stone. “And you’re Anthony Butcher. At least that idiot warden has a sense of humor if not style. Triple murderer. How perfect, though that tally hardly does you justice.”
He rose and clicked his briefcase shut. “I believe that’s all. I’ll leave you two to serve out your debt to society. I’ve told the warden to be especially attentive to you both. I’m sure you appreciate the significance of that.”
“Hayes!” Knox screamed as he strained against the shackles. “There is no way in hell you can pull this off. Not even you.”
Hayes stopped at the door. “Well, the fact is, I just did. Oh, and one more detail. The guard who contacted Marsh on your behalf? I wouldn’t wait around for his help again. You see, we traced the call to his home phone. I’ve shared that information with the good warden. I’m certain he’ll follow up in an appropriate manner.”
He closed the door softly behind him.
CHAPTER 75
“THE HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH people and Amnesty International, among others, have been trying to get into Blue Spruce for years,” Caleb said after he’d informed them of many particulars of how the prison was run. They were all back at Tyree’s house, which they were now using as a base.
“The list of alleged human rights violations there is very lengthy,” Caleb continued. “But the prison has refused all requests for visits by Amnesty and other organizations. God, even Russia has allowed those folks to visit its prisons. And when several inmates had stun guns used on them at Blue Spruce, lapsed into comas and died, additional requests were made to enter the prison, but they were denied.”
Alex looked at Tyree. “I know he’s your brother, but all that going on right next door and you never did anything about it?”
“That’s another reason Howard and me aren’t close. Who do you think turned Amnesty International on to the place?”
“You?” said Caleb.
“I went up there once on a prisoner transport. Poked around a bit when nobody was watching me. I guess my big brother thought I could be trusted. Stuff I saw, heard. Yeah, I called it in. Howard found out later. That was the official end of our brotherly love and I haven’t been invited back to Blue Spruce since.”
“Let’s just call the place by its real name, okay?” said Annabelle sternly. “Dead Rock!”
“With all that stuff how come the Justice Department or the Civil Rights Division hasn’t opened an investigation then?” said Harry Finn. “Or at least the Virginia Department of Corrections?”
Caleb looked at his notes. “Apparently, the current state and federal administrations don’t have the rights of prisoners as a priority. There was talk of a state inquiry but it went nowhere, and the Justice Department has nothing pending. And for the last two years the prison has been more or less shut down to all visitors.”
“So Howard Tyree has his own personal little fiefdom and can do what he wants. Including selling drugs,” growled Reuben. “And holding innocent men.”
“Looks that way,” said Caleb.
“What about the mineshaft?” asked Annabelle.
“I did find some info on that,” Caleb answered as he pulled out some pages he’d printed off at the library. “It was cut on a parallel course to the shaft the miners were trapped in. I read a couple newspaper articles about it and then compared it to records I was able to access about the prison construction. I can’t be certain, mind you, because it’s not like they publish the blueprints for supermax prisons online. But it seemed to me that that rescue shaft ran all the way up that ridge because that’s where the miners were trapped. When the explosion happened it collapsed the tunnel the trapped miners were in, but the rescue tunnel survived. I know that because the other miners were able to get out okay. It says that the mine was sealed up at the entrance, but it doesn’
t say anything about the rescue shaft entrance.”
Reuben said, “But if you build a supermax on top of a mine and you know there’s a shaft running underneath, you sure as hell are going to plug it up.”
“Plug it up, sure, but maybe in a way that allows you to unplug it,” replied Annabelle as she paced the room in front of them.
“Howard was involved in the construction planning, that I know,” said Tyree. “It would be just like him to allow himself some flexibility.”
“But why would anybody do that?” asked Alex. “Prisoners could escape that way.”
Annabelle turned around to face him. “From what Caleb has been telling us about Blue Spruce, there’s no way that escape is that serious of an issue. Every prisoner is kept segregated, and then shackled and searched when they need to take a leak. There are almost as many guards as cons, and they only get one hour out of their cells a day. The setup is perfect for a drug-dealing operation that requires some of his men to routinely leave the prison in the middle of the night to take care of business.”
“But if some of the guards are involved why wouldn’t they just leave from their houses?” asked Caleb.
“Howard Tyree sounds like a real control freak to me. He’d want every man right under his thumb.”
“You’re right about that,” agreed Tyree.
“If these shipments come in routinely to the courthouse with some of the boxes diverted, where do you think those boxes are going?” asked Alex.
“To the prison,” answered Tyree simply. “It’s easy enough. Prisons get deliveries every day of food, supplies.”
Alex added, “And the courthouse records filings are a great way to ship the drugs. DEA or ICE agents would just let it right on by.”
“So they make the switch somewhere en route,” reasoned Annabelle, “and the diverted boxes go to the prison until they’re ready to be shipped out using addicted miners as couriers. Which brings me back to my point. You’re not going to have a bunch of guards walk out the front door every night with boxes of illegal pills. And you can’t fly the chopper out every night, because people will start wondering.”
Harry said, “So you go out the back door.”
“You go out the back door,” echoed Annabelle. “Which I believe is that mineshaft.”
Alex looked at her incredulously. “So we’re going to find this mineshaft entrance, get in somehow, even though it’s been sealed, and then somehow make it through there alive? And then break into a supermax prison where there are guards armed to the teeth and who also happen to be drug dealers?”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Reuben eagerly.
“It sounds like suicide,” shot back Alex.
“Actually,” said Annabelle, “you’re both wrong.”
CHAPTER 76
“I SWEAR IF IT’S the last thing I ever do, I’m going to kill Macklin Hayes,” Knox muttered to Stone. The two men were back in their cell and many hours had passed since Hayes had come to put the proverbial nail in their coffins.
“But that would be against the law. And people will come and hunt you down and put you away,” said Stone, as he peered out the slit the prison called a window. It overlooked the front parking lot but it was very difficult to see through because of the opaqueness of the window covering attached to the bars.
“Yeah, I realize the irony, trust me, but I’m still going to do it.”
“If we get out of here.”
“Yeah, I also realize the impossibility of that at the moment.”
“I think you might be wrong about that.”
Knox sat up. “Really?”
“Don’t get your hopes up. It’s for a bad reason, not a good one.”
“What are you saying?”
“Have you noticed that ever since Hayes left they haven’t bothered to feed us or let us out of the cell?”
“Yeah, my stomach is reminding me of that pretty much every second. So?”
“So that tells me that our stay here is coming to an end.”
“Don’t waste food on corpses? How unlike our esteemed warden.”
“There’s no reason to keep us here any longer. There’s always a chance that someone might show up and search the place. Why risk it?”
“Where do you think they’ll take us?”
“I know from firsthand experience that there are abandoned mines around here. A drop down an old shaft, seal it back up. Apparently people up here are used to dead men being inside these mountains. That’s how this place got its name, in fact.”
Stone pressed his face against the wall, trying to wedge it between the edges of the slit so he could see out better. He squinted and could see the outline of the mountains in the distance. They might as well have been on Mars. Three feet of concrete, a hundred yards of open space, killer wire and a battalion of snipers with aggressive trigger fingers was all that stood between them and freedom.
No way out.
Knox said, “You get into this business you know any day your number could come up. And you deal with that. But you keep going because it’s your job, a job you swore to do to the best of your ability. Serve your country to the end.”
“Or until your country screws you,” amended Stone.
“When I was assigned to come after you, I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew you were a dangerous guy but figured you’d just gone bad like some do. But the more I found out . . . Well, if anyone ever deserved an apology from his country, you sure as hell do.”
“Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you, Knox.”
“My friends call me Joe, Oliver.”
Stone turned back to look at him. Knox was standing and holding out his hand.
Stone took it and the two condemned men shared a brief but heartfelt handshake.
“When do you think they’ll come for us?”
“Tonight.” Stone looked out the slit again. “And best as I can tell that’s about six hours away—” He stopped talking and then desperately tried to squeeze his head into the slit. He was barely making out a group of people climbing out of a car and heading to the prison entrance. Yet one tall, bushy-haired gent stood out from the others.
It has to be.
“What is it?” Knox said, “what do you see?”
Stone turned to look at him, a smile spreading across his face. “I see hope, Joe. Damn if I don’t see hope.”
CHAPTER 77
“MR. TYREE, I think you better come down here, sir,” the guard said into the phone.
“What is it?” barked Tyree as he sat behind his large desk with a bird’s-eye view of his little kingdom. “I’m busy.”
The guard turned to the group facing him.
“He said he’s busy.”
Alex Ford yanked the phone out of the man’s hand.
“This is Alex Ford, United States Secret Service. I’m here with a joint federal agency task force and we have some questions for you, Warden. And if you don’t get your butt down here, the next person you’ll be talking to is a U.S. attorney as he reads the charges against your ass.”
In his office Tyree nearly dropped the phone. “I have no idea—”
“Get down here, now!”
Sixty seconds passed and then Tyree walked stiffly into the front entrance area.
Alex flashed his creds before motioning to the others. Reuben, Caleb and Harry Finn wore blue FBI windbreakers. Annabelle had on a DEA jacket. “Agents Hunter, Kelso, Wright and Tasker.”
“What the hell is this about?” said Tyree angrily.
Alex looked askance at him. “You really want to do this out in the open? Wouldn’t you prefer some privacy, or is every son of a bitch here in on it?”
“In on what?” Tyree said indignantly.
“Tyree, you can’t be that stupid. In fact, I’ve got a file on you an inch thick that says you’re a pretty smart boy.”
Tyree glanced at the nervous-looking guards and hurriedly motioned Alex and the others into a small room off the main entrance.
Alex shut the door behind them. “Okay, your little drug ring is falling apart.”